“Design Thinking isn’t Bad — It’s Just Often Used Incorrectly”

One of the central weaknesses of Design Thinking does not lie in the method itself, but in how it is positioned. Design Thinking is often applied when organizations are already searching for solutions – rather than at a point when they are still uncertain about the actual problem.
This is deeply paradoxical. And it is precisely here that the first false assumption emerges: Design Thinking is not a process that necessarily leads to acceleration – at least not immediately. Instead, it is about truly understanding the problem and developing sustainable solutions.
Donald A. Norman, one of the early pioneers of Human-Centered Design, points to exactly this issue when he writes that “even when designers start focusing upon the problem, they do not seem to make progress” (Norman 2013: 221, emphasis J.K.). This apparent stagnation often leads to the perception that workshops merely generate activity without necessarily producing insight. From a business perspective, the focus placed on Design Thinking is therefore too often geared toward quick ideas rather than systemic problem understanding (cf. ibid.: 219 ff.).
Design Thinking is thus misunderstood as an answer to a question that has not yet been clearly formulated.

Another point of criticism concerns the depth of user understanding. Design Thinking suggests that a small number of interviews, empathy maps, and personas are sufficient to grasp complex contexts of use. In practice, this often results in a simplified, harmonized picture of users—one that largely ignores contradictions, power relations, and structural constraints.
Lucy Kimbell therefore describes Design Thinking less as a robust method, noting that “the history of design thinking is […] complex” (Kimbell 2011: 289). The individual elements that make up the Design Thinking complex are loosely connected, highly context-dependent, and always prone to misinterpretation (cf. ibid.).
When Design Thinking is practiced without rigorous empirical research, the outcome is little more than well-intentioned assumptions rather than systematic insight. Traditional market research is not automatically better—but it at least makes its limitations transparent. Design Thinking often does not. As Kimbell observes, “Concern with design’s place in the world and thus with larger social or political questions is lost when design is mobilized within a managerialist framework” (ibid.: 293). Reducing Design Thinking to the role of an economic enabler can therefore be seen as a kind of short circuit—one that brackets out its other dimensions entirely.

A frequently underestimated warning sign in the use of Design Thinking is that it is particularly often applied when different stakeholders each regard their own perspective as the truth. Product, IT, management, regulation, and users—all hold valid viewpoints, yet there is neither a shared problem definition nor any claim to an absolute truth.
While Design Thinking promises mediation, reality often looks quite different. The result is all too frequently a deliberately consensus-oriented middle ground—one that is broadly acceptable, but rarely radically honest or truly transformative. Conflicts are moderated rather than sustainably resolved; contradictions are visualized rather than translated into decisions.
Bruce Nussbaum, who for a long time appeared as an advocate of Design Thinking, later explicitly distanced himself from it. He argued that Design Thinking had devolved into a process that simulates creativity while consistently avoiding real transformation (cf. Nussbaum 2011). The application of what we have come to describe as Design Thinking failed to produce meaningful results that could be reflected in measurable outcomes: “the process of Design Thinking was a scaffolding for the real deliverable: creativity. But […] [a]s practitioners of design thinking in consultancies now acknowledge, the success rate for the process was low, very low” (ibid.).

A central mistake lies in (mis)understanding Design Thinking as a comprehensive, end-to-end innovation method. It is not designed for that.
Design Thinking is strong in early, ambiguous phases:

It must be considered highly deficient as soon as:

Design Thinking produces hypotheses rather than certainties. Those who use it as a substitute for strategy, engineering, or rigorous research overburden the method and ultimately render it absurd. The result is, inevitably, profound disappointment.

Despite all these shortcomings, we do not consider Design Thinking to be outdated—quite the opposite. When used correctly, Design Thinking serves an important function: it makes uncertainty visible. It forces organizations to surface assumptions, question implicit truths, and stop treating use as something self-evident, instead recognizing it as something that follows rational rules.
Design Thinking becomes valuable when it is understood not as a miraculous solution generator, but as a diagnostic instrument—an invitation to sharpen problems rather than rush to answers. More a starting point than a destination.
The right time to apply Design Thinking is not when solutions are needed, but when there is still no shared certainty about the problem itself and the users being anticipated.

Design Thinking is neither a perfect savior nor an absolute dead end. It is a method with clear strengths and equally well-defined limitations. The disappointment experienced by many organizations stems less from methodological failure than from false, overly ambitious expectations.
Those who choose to use Design Thinking should be prepared to:

When the conditions are right, Design Thinking is still not the core of innovation – but it marks a valuable starting point. And that is precisely one of its key strengths.

This article is an explicit response to an earlier, significantly more affirmative piece on Design Thinking.

Kimbell, Lucy (2011): „Rethinking Design Thinking: Part I“ In: Design and Culture, 3:3, S. 285-306.

Norman, Donald A. (2013): The Design of Everyday Things. Basic Books, New York.

Nussbaum, Bruce (2011): „Design Thinking Is A Failed Experiment. So What’s Next?“ In: Fast Company.