Thesis Introduction

“I realized that my engineering activities would not allow me to get as close to the product, to the human and customer processes, as I needed to be…I found I could not be taken seriously…without a design background.” — said by Eloi Bauboux, France, 1998.

Design has long been regarded as a technical craft that is primarily learned through working apprenticeships or in studio classes of undergraduate design programs. However design is about more than just hand and computer skills, it also involves solving real-word communication problems through a process of creative thinking. It is this overlooked aspect of design that is in great demand due to the rapid outsourcing of traditional design skills to India and China and the growing need for private companies to find new and innovative ways to connect with consumers. For these reasons and more, Design Thinking should and must be an essential part of all undergraduate design curriculums. Without it design students are merely a pair of hands and are not inspired and taught to be thinkers who can help develop strategy, find new applications for client’s products and compete effectively in the marketplace.

So Design Thinking is a process of research, analysis, planning and experimentation which is imperative to the creative development of students. They must learn that design is no longer only about choosing the right typeface or knowing the latest photoshop trick, but rather an impassioned curiosity about the world and an investigative empathy for how it works. That’s why business and design programs at Ivy-league colleges and universities like Stanford University and Rotman School of Manangement at Toronto University have latched onto design thinking as a new multidisciplinary approach to solving problems—a catalyst for innovation. This is exactly what all undergraduate design schools should be teaching and what will be defined, compared, contrasted, and proposed in the following pages.