Shh! Don't Tell Them There's No Magic In Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a shortcut for a new way for non-designers to approach design. It says:

In essence, Design Thinking is the integration of techniques, like Lean UX, customer journey mapping, and prototyping directly into the way the organization does business every day. It’s using the basic, proven tools of design to the maximum effect.

The customer-focused problem-solving approach to developing products and services feels magical to anyone who hasn’t been doing design for a long time. People get excited about it. And they talk about it as if it’s magical.

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.