This is a peculiar book. Although the title clearly says the book is about research into design approaches, it is easy to imagine that the reader of the book would come away with some new thoughts on doing design. That would be naive. The book is actually a collection of research project reports, all done nicely enough and with consideration of conclusions and future research directions, but with no thought overall about how these findings might translate into actual design work.

The book consists of individual chapters, each with its own collection of authors, and each an apparent discussion of a particular research project’s findings. Although the book lists three editors, there is no apparent attempt to meld the book into a cohesive whole; the individual study findings are the most part interesting and relevant, but there is no overall message except for the thought that “design thinking is a good thing” (and that, of course, should be a surprise to no one!).

The work underlying the book was done at Stanford University and the Hasso Plattner Institute for Software Systems Engineering in Germany, and was entirely funded by the latter organization. Most of the authors are from those two institutions. The focus of the book is on “user-centric innovation methods.” It is part of a Springer series on “Understanding Innovation.”

A fundamental part of the book is its “Rules of Design Thinking”: The human rule states that “all innovator activity is ultimately social in nature. Never go hunting alone.” The ambiguity rule states: “Innovations must preserve ambiguity. Never go home with a lone idea.” The re-design rule says that “all innovation is re-innovation. Who is the innovator that preceded you?” The tangible rule demands: “Make your innovation tangible. Make your innovation story tangible. Show me, don’t tell me.”

The approach of the researchers is via field studies in real business environments. The book as a whole is a summary of its fifth-year findings.

The lack of cohesion in the book’s individual chapters is best illustrated by some examples. The first chapter is focused on the emerging but controversial notion of the importance of empathy in design work, that is, understanding the emotional feelings of the users that lie behind their functional requirements. Another chapter identifies the “personal trait myth” and explores the notion that creativity is based on personal traits rather than the factors that make up the problem situation (its findings are predicted by the chapter title, identifying the belief in the importance of personal traits as a “myth”). Yet another explores the role of creativity in 1960s American counterculture, seeing LSD (among other things) as “providing extraordinary individual freedom and personal satisfaction,” and applauding the San Francisco Bay Area’s “longstanding pursuit of social change” and its “new communalist societies.” There is also a study of the use of peer assessments in the context of massive online classes (it is not easy to see the relevance of this study to the remainder of the book).

At its outset, the book says, “We need a fundamental shift in the way we address problems and approach challenges.” Perhaps the open-endedness of that statement allows the book to proceed in its many and apparently unfocused directions. Still, one could have hoped for more relevance.

One other thing: a couple of decades ago, I was deeply immersed in the findings of Bill Curtis and Elliot Soloway and their teams of researchers, who were exploring the nature of design and thus the same general topic area as this book. I looked in vain for any references to that prior work in this book. That would seem, to me at least, to be a violation of the book’s own rule number 3: “All innovation is re-innovation. Who is the innovator that preceded you?”