The Importance of a Design Mindset in the Context of Innovation

The design mindset is a concept in the designing thinking domain that helps businesses apply creativity to innovative solutions. It involves understanding the problem, defining the innovative aspect, ideating amidst various options, prototyping and testing for the best solution, and refining and applying the idea. A design mindset helps to believe and inculcate creativity, have a wide judgment, embrace curiosity, and remove ambiguity. It is based on persistence, which gives rise to a competitive edge. In the context of innovation, a design mindset uses tools, techniques, methodology, imagination, and intuition to understand a problem from a unique perspective and find an innovative solution as an answer. Without a design mindset, solutions would be monotonous, and no innovative ideas can be fostered and encouraged in the organizational context.

DESIGN MINDSET &
INNOVATION
References:
Curedale, R. (2018). Design Thinking: Process & Methods Guide. Design Community College Incorporated.
Gray, C. M. (2016, May). It's more of a mindset than a method: UX practitioners' conception of design
methods. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 4044-
4055). ACM.
Johansson Sköldberg, U., Woodilla, J., & Çetinkaya, M. (2013). Design thinking: past, present and possible‐
futures. Creativity and innovation management, 22(2), 121-146.
Kolko, J. (2015). Design thinking comes of age.
Leinonen, T., & Durall-Gazulla, E. (2014). Design thinking and collaborative learning. Comunicar, 21(42).
O'Keefe, A., & Rottenberg, S. (2017). Integrated Design Innovation: A Mindset for Designers of
Tomorrow. Design Management Review, 28(3), 10-16.
The design mindset can be described
as a concept in the deigning thinking
domain which assists a business in
applying creativity into the innovative
solutions (Curedale, 2018). It helps the
business to achieve a competitive
advantage.
The importance of a
design mindset in the
context of innovation:
• It helps to believe
and inculcate
creativity (Leinonen &
Durall-Gazulla, (2014).
• It helps to have a
wide judgement
• It helps to embrace
curiosity
• It removes
ambiguity (Johansson‐
Sköldberg, Woodilla &
Çetinkaya ,2013)
• It is based on
persistence which
gives rise to a
competitive edge
MINDSET IS EVERYTHING
The Design mindset procedure
comprises of :
• Understanding the problem
• Defining the innovative aspect
• Ideating amidst various options
(Gray, 2016).
• Prototype and testing for the best
solution
• Refining and application of the
idea.
In the context of innovation, the
design mindset has a key role to
play (Kolko, 2015). A design mindset
uses tolls , techniques,
methodology, imagination and
intuition to understand a
problem from a unique
perspective and to find an
innovative solution as an answer.
Without a design mindset,
solution would be monotonous
and no innovative ideas can be
fostered and encouraged in the
organizational context (O'Keefe &
Rottenberg, 2017).