Exploring The Effect of Design Thinking Concept Through Organizations’ Expectations From Designers

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore the role of designers in today's organizations. It was investigated if designers' working environments and expectancies from designers can be linked with design thinking concept. Through this investigation, literature on designer abilities and design competence was also reviewed. Recent studies hint that designers are getting more involved with decision making and designers' skills are adapted to managerial decision making processes. This tendency can be linked with design thinking, which also suggests that both managerial problems and design problems are "wicked" by nature, and the intellectual skills required for problem solving are alike. It may be expected that design thinking concept may lead organizations to require more leadership skills from designers. Design thinking concept also supports the idea of designerly problem solving combined with user oriented competition strategies. So, it can be inferred that organizations' may prefer to employ designers with good interpersonal and client communication skills to increase the efficiency of design researches done with customers. In the scope of this study, job opportunities that were announced in Coroflot web site through a four-month period were examined to see capabilities that are expected from design and designers. The purpose was to identify abilities that are not directly required for product design practices, but hint managerial or behavioural capabilities. It will investigated if the most frequently required qualifications can be linked with the abilities of designers that are linked with design thinking concept