Design Thinking

Design thinking is an approach used throughout the design process.

In Systems Engineering, designing a solution-oriented system requires critical, creative, and speculative thinking.

Design Thinking encompasses ethical design, as well as accessible and intuitive design.

Creative Thinking

Creative thinking (Divergent thinking) is where your ideas come to life. It broadens the potential of your ideas and allows for imaginative thinking.

This approach allows you to think outside the box, and imagine systems that have not been invented yet.

Within creative thinking, you do not need to focus on quality, you need to focus on quantity. You will conceptualise possibilities and generate ideas to address a problem, need, or opportunity. You can invent and design never-before seen systems, and create prototypes, models and simuluations.

You can formulate ideas that explore new approaches, features, or systems. Through this process, you imagine alternatives beyond existing solutions and develop innovative concepts that can later be refined and tested.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking (Convergent thinking) involves analytically considering components, materials, tools and processes that you use, as well as the functionalities required to design and produce a system.

Here, you think realistically, analysing and examining the components, materials, tools, and processes used to design and produce a system, and investigating how the required functions can be achieved. You interpret information, compare different options, and assess their feasibility within real-world constraints. Through evaluation and critique, you justify design decisions using evidence such as timeframes, personal skills, access to materials, budget, and other limiting factors, and synthesise these considerations to refine ideas into realistic, workable solutions.

Speculative thinking

Speculative thinking is assessing the viability and relevance of a system from a future-oriented perspective. It is asking you to use both critical and creative thinking.

Speculative thinking involves hypothesising about future possibilities, emerging needs, or potential impacts of a system. You propose ideas or directions based on informed assumptions and explore what might occur under different conditions. From this exploration and research, you recommend possible solutions, improvements, or actions that could be pursued, even when outcomes are uncertain.

Speculative thinking may focus on ethical consequences of designing and making, including environmental, social and economic considerations. It makes you consider the impact of systems now on the potential future.