This doesn’t come from a hate towards design, nor that I dont value empathy, solving problems, or a strategic approach. However, design thinking has gone from being used as a human-centred approach to understanding issues and coming up with solutions to an overhyped and corporate buzzword that only promises innovation and delivers one-fourth of it.
Ive seen many meetings where somebody stands up saying “let us appy design thinking to this” and then we are all standing in front of two big white boards, drawing sad sticky figures of the users and figuring out their emotions, like we are making a Pizar movie. Then spend hours brainstorming wild creative ideas and giving ourselves a cheer on the back for putting “if we can or how we might” infront of every sentence.
It feels good. It feels collaborative. It feels like we’re solving world hunger.
But 90% of the time, nothing actually gets built.
Design thinking pretends to be a process; in reality, it’s about performance. It’s simply a justified way to look busy, sound more creative, and avoid doing anything risky. But authentic designs are messier, uncomfortable, and challenging. Nobody actually seems to be thinking about the users; just to look busy, we are willing to pretend to think about designs. It puts creativity in a box with five stages and assumes that brilliance is bound to emerge if you follow the proper steps. Sorry to break it to you, but it won’t.
Empathising? That is great, unless, like most teams today, they are printing out some random fake personas and guessing what they want and like, rather than talking to them.
Define? It usually becomes a mission statement with just buzzwords rather than clearly articulated problem statements.
Ideate? Reduced to a one-and-a-half-hour session filled with post-its that dont solve anyone’s problems.
Prototype? A Figma file that no one ever opens to have a second look at.
Test?? At what time? By the end of Friday, we’re all ready to order pizzas and check Netflix shows to binge-watch.
What gets on my nerves the most is how design thinking gives people the illusion of progress. It’s so comfortable, controlled which is why it feels so easy to do and often neglected. But its so completely divorced form the realit of product building, the risk taking parts, making mistakes and stumbling into ideas by learning from mistakes, not just diagramming the hell out of a prototype.
Give me a scrappy builder who talks to users and iterates fast over a “Design Thinker” with a
Sharpie and a Post-it any day.
Designs aren’t just a five-step process; it’s a craft. It’s about your intuition, failures, feedback, and relentless interaction. The sooner we build, test, and learn, the better for us, rather than hiding behind design thinking sessions that aren’t taking us anywhere.
Rant over.