(2007-03-26) Saffer Vs Design Thinking Schools

Dan Saffer thinks that Design School-s are teaching too much Design Thinking and not enough Design. I was taught that design has three components: thinking, making, and doing. (Doing is the synthesis, presentation, and evaluation of a design; the bridge between thinking and making.) If all design schools are teaching is the thinking, well, they are missing the other two thirds of the equation... What we're going to end up with is a generation of "innovators" who are MBA-s in MFA-s' clothing, who can neither create or run businesses like entrepreneurs can, nor design products and services like designers can... I don't equate "design thinking" with design theory. Design theory is thinking about design in a critical manner. Design thinking is something else: applying some of the tools of design to what have traditionally not been design problems, such as business problems.