Why Design Thinking is hurting User-Centered Design

Published in

UX Collective

6 min readSep 18, 2020

An graphic visualisation of a man shooting another man — *Illustration by Dmitry Nikulnikov from* *Icons8*

The very first time I attended a Design Thinking workshop was way back at the start of my career, almost 8–9 years back. When I completed the workshop, I wondered if this was what design is all about? It felt too simplified, my colleagues swore by it, something did not feel right. In my heart I knew UCD/UXD is much more than what the one day workshop taught me. But I never revolted, I went with the flow. In fact, I also endorsed it for a few years. Later, as my work deepened the concept of design thinking grew frail, I knew Design Thinking did not truly reflect what we as designers do. Yet I was not able to support my argument with valid points, until I encountered Debbie Levitt — CEO of Delta CX and Author of the book Delta CX, who pointed out the flaws in the Design Thinking Framework and my mind was truly blown. Why haven’t I seen it all this while?

Here are my two cents as to why we as UCD/UXD practitioners shouldn’t call ourselves as Design thinkers or evangelise design thinking as our primary framework.

Design Thinking : A certified shortcut to solutions

A graphic representation of design thinking process- Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test — The Design Thinking framework

This is the Design Thinking framework illustrated, here it is presented as a simple 5 step process to quickly get to a solution. The problem? It is simply too demystified. And somehow this has become a certified shortcut to quickly get to solutions. And what is wrong with that, you ask me? It’s certainly not how UXD/UCD practitioners work.

Graphic representation of elements of user centered design — Elements of User Centered Design process

Design thinking is a superficial process that undermines design practitioners’ work. The UCD/UXD process entails a more focussed approach to problems via deep research, before arriving at a solution.

To represent design as a simple 5 step framework is unfair to the nature of our work. This is also why people think that anyone can do it and that is probably why design processes are taken for granted. This calls for a lot of subjective feedback, designers struggle with changing business requirements and sometimes to the whims and fancies of the top management. This is exactly why we need a UCD process in place, UCD processes are backed with a lot of research and data, that makes feedback more objective, people in the room will talk facts and figures. UCD processes are not quick and dirty, it comes with a lot of research and understanding of users’ pain points. We don’t do design thinking, in fact we do much more than that.

Expert vs Novice

Photo comparision of a professional and a rookie cake — Bake-off challenge by rookie bakers trying to recreate professional cakes

I came across this article in Sun magazine, where users were submitting images of amateur bakers trying to recreate professional cakes. It was hilarious, but I paused for a moment and thought. Consider the image on the left, imagine the amount of work that has gone into making this and what had taken for the creator to create this beauty? Knowledge, techniques, consistent practice. Now the one on the right, I’m not implying that it is bad, I’m simply telling it takes practice and consistency to attain mastery.

This is how UCD/UXD and design thinking processes compare, by calling yourself a design thinker and evangelising design thinking you are reducing yourself to a novice.

Let me give you another example, I play chess as a hobby, it is my daily dose of brain gym. I play at least 6–5 games in a day and have a pretty good rating as a chess player, however that doesn’t make me a professional. I say this because a pro chess player has a strong ability to remember patterns, openings, endgames, tactics & guidelines, an ability to visualize moves ahead and combinations, logical analysis and deduction skills and most importantly keeps thinking and analysing their work everyday even when they are not playing. And that my friends, is the difference between a design thinker and UCD/UX Designer.

Retrofitting UCD to Design Thinking

Debbie in her article in CMS wire, explains why you cannot retrofit UCD processes to Design thinking framework, here’s an excerpt -

We could say that getting an x-ray is just standing behind an x-ray machine, taking an x-ray, diagnosing the problem, and creating the treatment or solution. Any layperson without medical education or knowledge could do those steps and check them off a list. Who do you want taking and interpreting your x-ray and then coming up with your course of treatment?
The same is true for design thinking. You can check your steps off a list, but what was your approach, and what was the quality and depth of your work?
— Debbie Levitt, CEO of Delta CX and Author of the book Delta CX

That is an excellent analogy. Design thinking aims for simplification, and that is why it is thought as single day workshops, if it were to really represent UCD processes it would take weeks for them to complete the courseware. Design thinking was invented to help non-designers understand how design works not represent what designers do. However design thinking got so popular, that in the wake of marketing design thinking to their peers designers started to draw their own processes around design thinking. This has led to multiple versions of design thinking methodology doing rounds on the internet.

Dumbing down of an entire profession

When was the last time you heard a simple framework approach to learn coding? Or testing? No? Because none exists. Then don’t you find it unfair to reduce an entire profession to a simple framework? UCD/UXD is not a craft project that you can experiment and dabble with and it should not be considered as one. It is up to us as professionals to set ourselves apart by proving the real value of design is just more than ticking off this 5 point checklist.

Don’t let design thinking fool you, We can use design thinking as a tool to bring everyone to the table and get the conversation started but never pretend we do design thinking

“As design professionals, we shouldn’t let ourselves think there’s any magic in Design Thinking. Our teams, stakeholders, and executives can believe in it, but we shouldn’t. To do so would be to depend on Design Thinking having magic and such magic doesn’t really exist”
— Jared Spool, Co founder and CEO, UIE

Design thinking has sadly become a marketing gimmick, which has led people to believe UX/UCD can be done by anyone. No other profession has become so diluted such as us and we need to stand up for the true value UX holds. Here’s what we can do- Stop calling ourselves design thinkers, stop throwing around the word carelessly, stop propagating that we do design thinking and promote real UX processes.