Design Thinking Process Model and its Application to Social Innovation

Abstract

Empirically and theoretically, people started using the concept ‘Design Thinking.’ Design thinking is known as an effective way of thinking which leads to innovation, new way of living and new way of managing business. The core elements of design thinking process blend an end-user focus with multidisciplinary collaboration, prototyping, and the diffusion of the solution. This paper reviews theoretical and practical work that is based on design thinking and steps further to analyze evolution and main attributes of design thinking process model. This research stresses that design thinking is a powerful framework for formulating creative and innovative solutions to social problems. By integrating the process models of design thinking into social innovation process, this study provides a preliminary design of the process-based framework for problem solving and social innovation.