Evaluating for Design and Design Thinking
What does it mean to assess the fruits of our labour (and the tree, too?)
Design and Design Thinking are foundational pathways to change-making and innovation. However, evaluating whether what we create is doing what we intend and making a positive difference is essential.
Design is the intentional creation of things to serve a purpose. Like anything we do, it can be done well or poorly. Design Thinking represents approaching the art and science of making things for a purpose, including tools, techniques, perspectives, and a stance.
When we innovate, we're designing something. Therefore, if we want to innovate well, we must design well. To evaluate whether our design is effective, we need to explore how it fits in. Evaluation systematically examines the processes, procedures, outputs, outcomes, and impact of products, services, and policies on people and systems. In the design context, evaluation tells the story of the making of things and the influence of those things on the world.
When working on social issues, complex policies or systems matters, or those involving many stakeholders, there are much more at stake and more nuanced, complicated means to assess design's role and influence.
The Benefits of Design Thinking
Design Thinking is what we use to conceive our products and guide our design process. The benefits of engaging with design thinking go beyond the outcomes and include a variety of outputs. For evaluation, we can ask the following 7 questions:
What do people learn in the process of engaging in design thinking?
What new skills do people acquire, develop, or refine through design thinking?
How are the lessons from engaging in design thinking applied to other subsequent products?
What is the effect of design thinking on the mindset of those involved in a design-oriented project?
How does the (co-)design process influence team development, cohesion, creativity, and innovation performance?
What role does design thinking play in shaping the innovation culture (e.g., creation, execution, delivery, and evaluation) within an organization?
How does design thinking contribute to the implementation of innovations?
We can also ask questions about the approach that is used. Design Thinking is not singular but follows a process articulated through many different models. Adherence to (and noted deviations from) the model is another evaluative metric. The degree of fidelity to the model (which is not required but can be instructive) can be important if implementing design thinking across an organization or context. It can allow us to compare how and whether things are implemented, to what degree, and to what effect.
Evaluation looks at the process (the journey), outputs (what comes from the journey), outcomes (what is affected by the journey), and influence (what the implications are from our design, including and beyond the product itself, including its contribution to a larger change).
Without a form of standardized measurement or agreed-upon process, there are no clear metrics for evaluation that are widely regarded as standard. However, there are several ways to evaluate the results of a design thinking process, combining both quantitative and qualitative methods.
The choice of measurements will depend on the goals of your design thinking process and the nature of your project. Defining success at the beginning of your project is crucial so you know what to measure along the way.
The return on investment for design can be tremendous if we evaluate what we do and how we do it. It can also be a source of innovation and support a learning culture by focusing our curiosity and providing a feedback mechanism to channel what we ask into what we do. When we take a design-driven approach to evaluation, we can make these benefits even more pronounced.
The best designers will soon be those that evaluate, too.
Connect design thinking with solid evaluation, and you have the foundation for a culture of innovation. If you want to create that within your team or organization, let's grab a coffee and chat about how I can help you.
If you would like more on the specific methods and tools, you can visit Censemaking. If you want to learn how to evaluate a design-driven way, let’s grab a coffee.
Image credits: Rachael Gorjestani on Unsplash and Fleur on Unsplash