The purposes of this study are 1) to explore the concept of design thinking/human-centred design as expressed across the literature, using a systematic content analysis methodology, and 2) to arrive at empirically-based implications and recommendations for the instructional design field drawn from this search and analysis. Since 2000, design thinking has been highly sought after and is increasingly applied to novel challenges. Since then, it has become a force of innovation in business, and a point of contention in design-having created a reductionist perspective of design which has simultaneously become a buzzword for innovation. In the instructional design field, practitioners incorporate the methods used into new design models, and scholars frame new theories within its bounds. Through this process, the meaning and nature of the concept have become complex and clouded. This paper reports results of a systematic content analysis involving examination of 12 databases, analysing 1075 abstracts for fit and identifying 11 core articles. An extended literature review, including more than 70 non-core articles selected from the study data pool, provides a foundation for analysis of the 11 core articles. Results include analysis of the core articles for themes, industry and common citations; recommendations and implications for the instructional design field are drawn from the literature, as well as recommendations for future research. Structured Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic:• Design thinking, also known as human-centred design, has seen a steady increase in use in the last twenty years.• Design thinking is a method that has become popular in business for seeking innovation, in education for teaching creative problem-solving, and in design as a valuable tool for analysing how designers think while designing.• The meaning of design thinking has become somewhat clouded, and it is often misconstrued and misapplied.

In the last 20 years, design thinking has exploded from its confines within the design field to become suddenly embedded within numerous innovation and problem-solving efforts in science, business, education, and other fields. It is often touted as an important new method for addressing and finding empathetic solutions for once-insurmountable challenges. It is also becoming more prevalent within the education realm, especially within another design field which is largely embedded within educa-tion̶ instructional design. Instructional design practitioners are assimilating aspects of design thinking processes into current models, thus creating new processes and models of working in order to design instructional solutions. Design thinking seems to be effective for addressing a wide variety of challenges, but what is it, really? What are its assumptions? Challenges? How should it be used in practice? Unfortunately, at the same time that design thinking is becoming more ubiquitous within education circles, there seems to be a lack of clear answers to these questions to accompany its use. This paper seeks to address these questions by systematically identifying a core set of papers related to design thinking, analysing them with support from a large related body of literature review, and then drawing from them implications and recommendations for the practice of instructional design.