Design Thinking Research

An increasing number of individuals and institutions have come to recognize the innovative power of design thinking. However, its success story has also meant that the term has evolved into something of an overused, or even misused, buzzword. The demand for an in-depth, evidence-based understanding of the way design thinking works has grown accordingly. This challenge is addressed by the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program. Summarizing the outcomes of the research program's 13th year, this book presents a broad range of scientific insights gained by researchers at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany and Stanford University in California, in the course of their investigations, experiments and studies. Special focus is placed on the impact, accessibility and measurability of design thinking. The contributing authors seek to establish common ground, conduct modelling, and develop essential toolkits. The expanding field of neurodesign is also addressed in contributions that explore the neural basis for creativity and nonverbal actions. The results of this rigorous academic research are not meant to be discussed exclusively within the scientific community: they will hopefully find their way to those who seek to promote innovation through collaboration, be it at businesses or in society.

Autorentext

Professor Dr. Christoph Meinel is Director and CEO of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering gGmbH (HPI), Potsdam, Germany and a full professor for computer science and serves as department chair of Internet Technologies and Systems at HPI. He teaches at the HPI School of Design Thinking and is Vice Dean of the Digital Engineering Faculty of the University of Potsdam. In addition he is an honorary professor at the Department of Computer Sciences at Beijing University of Technology, guest professor at Shanghai University and concurrent professor at Nanjing University. Meinel is a member of acatech, the German "National Academy of Science and Engineering", and numerous scientific committees and supervisory boards. Together with Larry Leifer from Stanford University he is program director of the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program.

Larry Leifer is professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, CA, USA. Dr. Leifer's engineering design thinking research is focused on instrumenting design teams to understand, support, and improve design practice and theory. Specific issues include: design-team research methodology, global team dynamics, innovation leadership, interaction design, design-for-wellbeing, and adaptive mechatronic systems. He has started many design initiatives at Stanford including the Smart-Product Design Program, Stanford-VA Rehabilitation Engineering Center, Stanford Learning Laboratory, and most recently the Center for Design Research (CDR).