Semantic Software Design

Chapter 4. Design Thinking

There exists a designerly way of thinking and communicating that is both different from scientific and scholarly ways of thinking and communicating, and as powerful...

L. Bruce Archer, Whatever Became of Design Methodology?, 1979

Design Thinking is a method to help incite innovation, creativity, and purpose when you design solutions for customers. In this chapter, we transition to outline a repeatable process for applying Design Thinking within your organization as a semantic software designer (perhaps “creative director in technology”).

Why Design Thinking?

When a customer approaches you for a technical solution, you need to start somewhere. Having a method for problem solving will help you map the territory in a repeatable way that gives customers and other stakeholders confidence and comfort as you guide them through a process. Using the tenets of Design Thinking specifically will help to improve your chances of coming up with the a creative, customer-focused solution.

We start with Design Thinking because we who have been called enterprise architects and have purview over the entire enterprise will see many problems as design problems. It helps encourage you to be focused on the customer, the solution, and a meaningful outcome, rather than focused on your own internal activities, classifications, and documents. This is the hallmark of the creative, effective semantic designer.

Further, we begin with Design Thinking because so many problems can ...