Beginning in 2021, I have been thinking about a new way to think about the practice of design. Professionally, the market is saturated with variations on the IDEO/dSchool "Design Thinking" process, which has spawned countless iterations that all orbit around the common themes of "Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test."
I have seen a great impact from this kind of systematization in design, but I also think there are some significant problems with the process. In my experience, teams in their most innovative periods seldom follow a rigid process like Design Thinking, with its "methods, not muses" mentality, can bring a group of non-designers together and help them reach an actionable outcome. But how do we level set for higher outcomes?
In the ATLAS Institute, we are aiming to create a new generation of designers who have innovation in their daily habits, and who understand design thinking as more of a practice than a process. (there is an ATLAS Manifesto for Deep Design in the Age of Generative AI) In support of that, I'm developing a new fifteen-week course that teaches students to become true innovators, not just process followers. Here are the lectures from that class, in active development.
In the ATLAS Institute, we are aiming to create a new generation of designers who have innovation in their daily habits, and who understand design thinking as more of a practice than a process. (there is an ATLAS Manifesto for Deep Design in the Age of Generative AI) In support of that, I'm developing a new fifteen-week course that teaches students to become true innovators, not just process followers. Here are the lectures from that class, in active development.