Design Thinking: A Historical Perspective and The Intelligent Leap Forward

Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success. The origins of design thinking can be traced back to the mid-20th century, although the concept and its applicability have evolved over the years.

The beginnings of design thinking lie in the field of architecture and industrial design. In the 1950s and 60s, theorists like John Chris Jones and Christopher Alexander started articulating design as a method or process. They recognized that it wasn’t a purely aesthetic pursuit, but rather a problem-solving tool that could be applied across disciplines.

The term “Design Thinking” was first coined in the late 1960s by Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon in his book “The Sciences of the Artificial”. Simon proposed the idea of ‘Design Science’, where design was presented as a process or way of thinking, constituting analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Buchanan argued that design could be used to address “wicked problems” — complex problems with no clear solution — across various fields.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Design Thinking as we know it today started to take shape, with design theorists…