Creative Systems Analysis of Design Thinking Process

In this paper, we study design thinking using concepts of Creative Systems Theory. Design thinking is a methodology of solving problems and is aimed at achieving innovation based on the idea of human centred design. The five stages of the design thinking process, as defined by Stanford d.school, are widely known: Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test. Since each stage has different functions that should occur in the whole process, we consider each of the functionalities with the use of the concepts of Creative Systems Theory, which looks at creativity based on the autopoietic systems theory where the creative process is described as a chain of discoveries. Our consideration implies that design thinking could be grasped as a meaning process, where each stage facilitates different types of chains of discoveries in the creative system. This paper makes a first step towards understanding the design thinking process via the application of the Creative Systems Theory.