Designing the Way Forward: The Role of Design Thinking in the Era of Digital Creativity

Abstract

Information Age as the successor to the Industrial Age highlights the ubiquitous digital era, in which the technology is creatively shifting how companies are connecting with their customers, learning their latent needs, and meeting them with unique offerings. This creative transformation requires different set of processes and mindset known as design thinking. Different from reliability driven thinking, design thinking prescribes a human-centered innovation process that emphasizes insight, observation, collaboration, and a deep understanding of the users. It transforms businesses and influences their innovation strategies. The goal of this article is to discuss how digital technology platforms are creatively utilized to convert fundamental human needs into profitable demand by adopting design thinking process. To illustrate the effective way of implementing design thinking process, we showcase five digital creativity projects where design thinking philosophy is the main driver. Based on this discussion, we propose further research questions to be examined for future research projects.