Design Thinking Books You Must Read

Summary

Can you think that following a design thinking process with five steps turns you into a creative innovator?! Believe me, it isn’t and never has been this way. The spread of the term design thinking is aligned with a significant amount of misleading criticism. The doubts about the effectiveness of design thinking are influenced by the promotional language used by some companies, training places, and public speakers. The truth is that there is no secret recipe to turn someone into a creative designer. Yet, there is a way to use the design expertise inside each of us. Understanding the design thinking core values can help team members improve their design ability and appreciate the creative practice inside the organization to achieve the next competitive advantage. This is why I wanted to share with you those key design thinking books to learn the core principles underpinning the design practice. This is an updated list of design thinking books that I keep adding to their new book suggestions. So, please keep the link or subscribe to the newsletters to receive updates once new books are added. I am also starting to add papers that represent the cornerstone in the design thinking principles that I believe are as important as the book. In this update, two books and one paper added: The Science of Artificial, Wicked Problems in Design Thinking, and How Designers Think. Previously, we explored different challenges that can be faced when applying design thinking inside the organization ( Why Companies Need to Apply Design Thinking and Why Companies Need to Apply Design Thinking). The majority of these factors rely on the lack of understanding of the core value of design thinking, which can be a reason for over-promotion and misuse of a commercialized language (check Why Design Thinking Doesn’t Work). Above all, many design thinking trainers are not designers themselves and never practice the creative practice before teaching it which causes the gap between classrooms and pr...