The Challenges of Corporate Entrepreneurship in the

Disruptive Age
Effectively Leveraging Design for Corporate Innovation
Travis J. Brown,
Article information:
To cite this document: Travis J. Brown, "Effectively Leveraging Design for Corporate
Innovation" In The Challenges of Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Disruptive Age.
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

Published online: 02 Nov 2018; 141-162.

Permanent link to this document:
https://doi.org/10.1108/S1048-473620180000028007
Downloaded on: 12 January 2019, At: 22:17 (PT)
References: this document contains references to 0 other documents.
To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 8 times since 2018*

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by

United Arab Emirates University
For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please
use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which
publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit
www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society.
The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books
and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products
and additional customer resources and services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner
of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the
LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

 Chapter 7
Effectively Leveraging
Design for Corporate
Innovation
Travis J. Brown
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

Abstract
This chapter focuses on practical considerations for organizations when
endeavoring to invest in design, specifically how designers and their organi-
zations should view their profession for the benefit of corporate innovation.
Given the lack of consensus regarding what strategic design entails, the author
interviewed strategic designers from across the United States to solicit their
opinions on design thinking, strategic design, and design strategy, the relation-
ship between those concepts, and how those concepts are, could be, and should
be reflected in practice.
The overarching purpose of this chapter is to explore the relatively nascent pro-
fession of strategic design, from which the author distinguishes design strategy,
as well as to provide guidance regarding how design and designers should be
viewed and supported by the leadership of their organizations in order to fully
empower them to support innovation. In addition, this chapter serves to better
define the concepts of design thinking, strategic design, and design strategy.
While design as a discipline is broad, for the sake of consistency, the author
discusses design in the context of technological development and, in turn, in
terms of human-computer interaction.
Keywords: Design thinking; design strategy; strategic design;
corporate innovation; affect; open interpretation

The Challenges of Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Disruptive Age

Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Growth, Volume 28, 141–162
Copyright © 2019 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 1048-4736/doi:10.1108/S1048-473620180000028007
141
 142 TRAVIS J. BROWN

Effectively Leveraging Design for

Corporate Innovation
Design as a profession has undergone a relatively recent bifurcation, in that it
has effectively been split into design and design thinking (Brown & Martin, 2015).
While the designing of artifacts with a focus on form and aesthetics has been seen
as the primary and, according to some, the sole role of traditional design, design-
ers and design researchers alike have begun to advocate for its broader role in the
world, one not relegated to the creation of things, nor to just the experience of
using those things, but instead to the creation of experience in general as well as
the world around us.
Enter into this conversation the design thinking movement, popularized by Tim
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

Brown (2009) of IDEO in his book Change by Design. Design thinking focuses on
the empathy, problem-framing, ideation, prototyping, and testing, which are core
to the design process, while focusing on less of the aesthetic considerations of
traditional design. Design thinking has become a distinct discipline “[a]s design
has moved further from the world of products” (Brown & Martin, 2015, p. 58),
and “[b]usinesses are embracing design thinking because it helps them be more
innovative, better differentiate their brands, and bring their products and services
to market faster” (Brown & Wyatt, 2015, p. 32).
On the surface, the notion of freeing design from the making of things seems a
logical course for broadening the applicability of design as a profession, revealing
a far greater value and potential for far higher returns for any organization, not
just those in the business of making things. After all,
[t]here is no area of contemporary life where design – the plan, project, or working hypothesis
which constitutes the ‘intention’ in intentional operations – is not a significant factor in shaping
human experience. (Buchanan, 1992, p. 8)

The natural evolution from design doing to design thinking reflects the growing recognition on
the part of today’s business leaders that design has become too important to be left to designers.
(Brown, 2009, p. 8)

Still, I propose that design thinking as a movement for organizations to employ

design for the purpose of fostering corporate innovation is counterproductive at
best and destructive at worst in regard to corporations fully leveraging the power
of design and empowering designers as key decision makers when accelerating
corporate innovation.
While I propose that design thinking is a flawed approach to gaining design-
ers the strategic role they seek is unfortunate, I argue that the tragedy lies in
increased attempts to bolster design thinking by incorporating more and more
of what constitutes design. Given that “[d]esign is the act of problem solving”
(Kolko, 2011, p. 40), this trend has effectively given the problem-solving core of
design to design thinking, confusing the respective roles that they were promised
to play and bifurcating the discipline of design into two distinct fields: design and
design thinking. That bifurcation has relegated designers to the role they were
seeking to avoid through the celebration of design thinking, which is a focus on
the traditional aspects of design such as aesthetics and form-giving. The concern
 Effectively Leveraging Design for Corporate Innovation 143

with this phenomenon is that the proliferation of design thinking training aimed
at non-designers, such as courses, workshops, and boot camps, could easily lead
participants to believe that they are now trained designers, in spite of them being
trained design thinkers. Once the line between design and design thinking has been
blurred, and I argue that it already has been, not only are professionally trained
designers’ ambitions to have a more strategic role not served, their professional
training, in essence the professionalization of design in general, is undermined,
and their ability to enhance innovative thinking in the corporation in which they
serve is compromised.
The nature of design is that it is a fuzzy, non-deterministic, qualitative approach
to problem-solving, one that it is counterintuitive to those trained in disciplines
which traditionally demand a more definitive solution and a more transparent
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

process, such as business and engineering. Design thinking is a “process for essen-
tially taming ambiguity” (Shedroff, n.d., 25:00–25:02). From a designer’s per-
spective, arguing for design thinking serves two purposes: (1) a straightforward
advertisement of their discipline as one that can address a broad range of prob-
lems and (2) an indoctrination of non-believers to the virtues of design and the
value that it can add. While both purposes have been served by the design thinking
movement, an unintended consequence has been the dilution of design as a disci-
pline so that it is seen as a lesser discipline, one that can be easily mastered through
the learning of a rote process, often presented as teachable through a workshop. If
designers adopt the moniker of design thinker in a world minting design thinkers
at an increasing rate, a professionally trained designer’s market value could be sig-
nificantly diminished, and designers’ value to organizations, specifically in respect
to their ability to enhance innovative thinking, will be significantly attenuated.
“[D]esign is about ‘ultimate particulars’ that require the design judgment more
than any prescribed process model” (Stolterman, 2016), and design thinking mini-
mizes the importance of the “design judgment” of professional designers. The gap
between design and business has been discussed for some time, and the consensus
has reduced the two to the feature set which appears in Table 1.
As a result of the success of design-driven companies such as Apple, design as
a critical tool for business success has become an accepted concept, resulting in
designers gaining prominence in organizations and business professionals seek-
ing out training in design thinking. While business thinking connotes thinking
categorically as well as deterministically, design thinking encourages thinking phe-
nomenologically (Hummels & Lévy, 2013) and empathetically, but not necessarily
visually, or at least not tangibly.

Table 1.  The Gap between Design and Business.

Dimension Design Business

Philosophy Phenomenological Positivist

Logic Abductive Deductive/inductive
Process Problem-focused Solution-focused
Focus Human-centered Profit-centered
Goal Improved user experience Increased operational efficiency
 144 TRAVIS J. BROWN

In turn, design thinking has become valued as a powerful tool when solving a
broad range of business and social problems, resulting in designers using tradi-
tional design methods to solve problems beyond those traditionally in their pur-
view. Moreover, designers have begun to take on higher level strategic roles, which
has resulted in the manifestation of a new discipline, interchangeably referred to
as strategic design and design strategy.
A design strategist has the ability to combine the innovative, perceptive and holistic insights
of a designer with the pragmatic and systemic skills of a planner to guide strategic direction in
context of business needs, brand intent, design quality and customer values. (Strategist)

While current design strategists have used traditional design methods, such as
ethnography, interviews, focus groups, and customer journey maps, when consult-
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

ing businesses regarding the development of their strategies, design strategists

generally do not engage in design doing, meaning aesthetic considerations, visual
articulation, and artifact creation. Examples of design strategy methods devel-
oped for the express purpose of the analysis and formulation of strategy, such as
the Verbal–Visual Framework (n.d.) and the Strategic Design Matrix (Rasmussen,
Kramp, & Mortensen, 2011), are rare and do not require what would tradition-
ally be considered design (i.e., aesthetic considerations, visual articulation, and
artifact creation) in order to be effectively used.
The discipline of design strategy, as presented herein, is distinct from stra-
tegic design and design thinking. My hope is that by encouraging and facili-
tating professional designers to utilize design doing through design strategy, I
will inspire deeper thinking about design and the important role it can play in
strategic analysis and formulation using a heterophenomenological, embodied
perspective.
When inspired by phenomenology, designing brings an alternative way of engaging with the
world. We see a tomorrow in which we can face our societal challenges by using technology to
embrace embodiment, exploring a possible paradigm shift through innovation, and creating an
alternative by starting from a different set of values based on embodiment, all of which will (re-)
open the world. (Hummels & Lévy, 2013, p. 44)

Arguably, by facilitating designers utilizing their entire cache of tools, mean-

ing not only design thinking but also design doing, an organization stands to
realize far greater return from the investment in design, especially for corporate
innovation.
My theoretical approach to design strategy also clearly distinguishes it from
business strategy. Hereafter, I will use the term strategic design for the process
of design thinking when including business considerations such as competitive
positioning, pricing strategy, distribution strategy, and advertising strategy; I will
reserve the term design strategy for the process of designing for the purpose of
strategic analysis and formulation. Even though strategic design programs and
professionals often refer to themselves as design strategy programs and design
strategists, respectively, they are strategic design programs and strategic design-
ers according to my theoretical approach to design strategy. Hence, I will refer to
them accordingly henceforth.
 Effectively Leveraging Design for Corporate Innovation 145

The Role of Design in Business

“Good design is good business.” When Thomas Watson, Jr uttered this now
famous quote back in 1973, he was speaking to the importance of design within
a business for the purpose of product development, in his case, within IBM.
Although the concept was radical at the time, the last few decades have demon-
strated the impact of design on businesses, so much so that the design process,
methods, and thinking have been taken out of the studio, decoupled from prod-
uct and service development, and applied more broadly to strategic planning.
Good design, it seems, is not always good business if it is not pursued as an integral part of a
wider set of activities that together enable the most successful innovations to happen. (Weiss,
2002, p. 80)
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

The following excerpt from The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
(2013) captures the essence of a strategic design perspective:
Design is successful only if the final product is successful – if people buy it, use it, and enjoy it,
thus spreading the word. A design that people do not purchase is a failed design, no matter how
great the design team might consider it. (p. 293)

While I argue that Norman is describing strategic design rather than design
strategy, both concepts continue to resist definition given that the terms are
currently used interchangeably to refer to a marriage of traditional business
and traditional design concepts and methods, allowing for a broad spectrum
of interpretations by practitioners, educators, and the organizations hiring
designers. Herein, I argue for a refined, more focused, and transdisciplinary
approach to supporting and promoting design strategy in an effort to better
position designers to aid organizations in their efforts to be more innovative.
In essence, design strategy affords designers the opportunity to analyze and
formulate strategy through design for the purpose of generating insights which
can be used to fuel innovation.
To further draw a distinction between strategic design and design strategy, it
is important to distinguish a disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary
approach. For this purpose, I have adopted the distinction presented by Blevis
and Stolterman (2009) through their work on transdisciplinarity:

• Disciplinarily is an approach to a particular problem space using a single,

identifiable collection of methods informed by or in the service of a single
body of knowledge. (p. 48)
• Interdisciplinary is an approach to a particular problem space using integrated
outputs from combined collections of methods informed by or in the service
of combined bodies of knowledge. (p. 48)
• Transdisciplinary is an approach that focuses neither on particular collections
of methods nor on particular bodies of knowledge, but rather focuses on a
broader goal: transcending disciplinarily and using collections of methods and
their associated bodies of knowledge on an as needed basis as required by the
pursuit of this target broader goal. (p. 49)
 146 TRAVIS J. BROWN

Based on these definitions, strategic design is interdisciplinary given that it entails

applying design methods and processes, typically referred to as design thinking, for
the purpose of business strategy development as well as applying business processes
and methods for the purpose of producing commercially viable designs. An example
of a strategic design theory is design-centered entrepreneurship, which “applies the
principles and methodologies utilized in design fields to entrepreneurship” (Goldsby,
Kuratko, & Nelson, 2014). In contrast, my theoretical approach to design strategy
necessitates that it initially be treated as a transdiscipline given that practitioners
and researchers will need to transcend both design and business methods in order
to imagine novel applications of design to strategy and corporate innovation, which
will, if successful, generate tools, methods, and theories specifically for the discipline
of design strategy, positioning it as a subdiscipline of design. As such, design strat-
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

egy requires design doing, meaning being concerned with aesthetic considerations,
visual articulation, and artifact creation, in order to analyze and formulate strategy.
In this sense, design strategy is closely related to the Strategizing mindset presented
by Vijay Kumar (2012) in 101 Design Methods, which “involves using design con-
cepts as the basis for imaging possible directions for the organization” (p. 289).
Design doing, also referred to as design-as-practice, “cannot conceive of design-
ing (the verb) without the artefacts that are created and used by the bodies and
minds of people doing design” (Kimbell & Street, 2009, p. 10). While the defini-
tion of a designed artifact can include things such as “an emotional value proposi-
tion, a concept map, and a product road map” (Kolko 2014), I use the term artifact
to mean any product, service, or system designed for the purpose of user interac-
tion. “Design can be served by the analytic and digital, but it must finish out as an
analog composition, in order to fit back into the human experience” (Nelson &
Stolterman, 2003, p. 760). Designers have the ability to apply this same designerly
sentiment to strategic analysis and formulation for the purpose of corporate inno-
vation, but only if the tools, methods, and theories constructed for the practice
of design strategy have at their core design doing, which includes artifact creation.

The Origin of Design Thinking

Design, once considered to be a discipline primarily focused on aesthetic consid-
erations, visual articulation, and artifact creation, has recently bifurcated into two
distinct disciplines: design and design thinking (Brown & Martin, 2015). Design
as a process entails stating your predispositions, conducting research to test those
predispositions, drawing out insights, developing concepts based on those insights,
prototyping those concepts, and developing strategies to increase the likelihood
that you will achieve your design goals through the design (Blevis, 2013); design
thinking entails much of the same with less emphasis on aesthetic considerations,
visual articulation, and artifact creation. While popularized by Tim Brown (2009)
in his book Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations
and Inspires Innovation, the roots of design being thought of as a process primar-
ily focused on problem-solving rather than aesthetics can be traced back to Simon
(1969) in his book The Sciences of the Artificial. The following passage captures
the essence of his view that problem-solving is at the core of design:
 Effectively Leveraging Design for Corporate Innovation 147

This view can be extended to all of problem solving – solving a problem simply means rep-
resenting it so as to make the solution transparent. If the problem solving could actually be
organized in these terms, the issue of representation would indeed become central. But even if
it cannot – if this is too exaggerated a view – a deeper understanding of how representations are
created and how they contribute to the solution of problems will become an essential compo-
nent in the future theory of design. (Simon, 1969, p. 132)

“In Simon’s account of design, objects do not feature” (Kimbell & Street,
2009, p. 3). This definition of design as a problem-solving activity was later pre-
sented by Buchanan (1992) in his paper Wicked Problems in Design Thinking in
which he discussed design thinking as an effective approach to solving wicked
problems (Rittel & Webber, 1973). The following excerpt from the paper presents
Buchanan’s (1992) definition of design, which is consistent with contemporary
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

definitions of design thinking:

The plan is an argument, reflecting the deliberations of designers and their efforts to integrate
knowledge in new ways, suited to specific circumstances and needs. In this sense, design is
emerging as a new discipline of practical reasoning and argumentation, directed by individ-
ual designers toward one or another of its major thematic variations in the twentieth century:
design as communication, construction, strategic planning, or systemic integration. (pp. 19–20)

According to Thomas Lockwood (2010), former president of the Design

Management Institute,
Design thinking is essentially a human-centered innovation process that emphasizes observa-
tion, collaboration, fast learning, visualization of ideas, rapid concept prototyping, and con-
current business analysis, which ultimately influences innovation and business strategy. The
objective is to involve consumers, designers, and businesspeople in an integrative process, which
can be applied to product, service or even business design. It is a tool to imagine future states
and to bring products, services, and experiences to market. The term design thinking is generally
referred to as applying a designer’s sensibility and methods to problem solving, no matter what
the problem is. It is not a substitute for professional design or the art and craft of designing, but
rather a methodology for innovation and enablement. (p. xi)

Roger Martin (2009) suggests that “[t]he most successful businesses in the years
to come will balance analytical mastery and intuitive originality in a dynamic
interplay that [he calls] design thinking” (p. 6). The basis for his argument is that
[m]ost firms are dominated by declarative logic, or deductive and inductive reasoning (the logic
of what should be or is operative). But new knowledge comes about by way of abductive rea-
soning, the logic of what might be. (Martin, 2009, p. 27)

Firms such as IBM have adopted design thinking methods and approaches and
publicly promote the importance of design thinking to their business strategy, even
going so far as branding it as IBM Design Thinking, which they refer to as their
approach to applying design thinking at the speed and scale the modern enterprise demands.
It’s a framework for teaming and action. It helps our teams not only form intent, but deliver
outcomes – outcomes that advance the state of the art and improve the lives of the people
they serve.

Yet, others are less enamored with the potential of design thinking as a busi-
ness resource. Bruce Nussbaum (2011) famously stated that design thinking was
a “failed experiment.” Whether design thinking has been a success or a failure is
beyond the scope of this chapter; however, I do contend that design thinking is
 148 TRAVIS J. BROWN

merely one approach for organizations to effectively leverage design, and design
strategy is another, perhaps more sustainable, option, as well as one far more use-
ful for corporate innovation.

The Distinction Between Strategic Design and

Design Strategy
While design thinking emphasizes the process of design sans the doing of design,
strategic design, also known as design strategy, is design conducted while being
mindful of the inherent constraints of the constituents being served, specifically
the organizations in respect to their ability to successfully operate. According to
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

the Helsinki Design Lab website,

Strategic design applies some of the principles of traditional design to “big picture” systemic
challenges like health care, education, and climate change. It redefines how problems are
approached, identifies opportunities for action, and helps deliver more complete and resilient
solutions. Strategic design is about crafting decision-making.

According to the Adaptive Path website, “Design Strategy is the initial fram-
ing of a project that clarifies what to design and why before approaching how to
design it”. There is significant overlap between the two definitions, which does
not necessarily indicate that they are synonymous terms, but it does suggest that
the terms are not clearly delineated in respect to their meanings, which suggests
potential confusion in practice.
According to Nelson and Stolterman (2003), the core of design activity is
“coming up with an idea and to give form, structure and function to that idea”
(1). I propose that is exactly what is necessary in order to establish clearer defini-
tions for the concepts of strategic design and design strategy and more effectively
empower designers to meaningfully engage in corporate innovation. Designers
approach each new problem as a unique case without endeavoring to generate an
optimal solution (Cross, 2001, 2007), and I do not intend to develop an optimal
solution through this chapter. Still, similarly to how Jakob Nielsen (1994) and
Nielsen and Molich (1990) developed heuristic evaluation to allow design experts,
guided by a set of heuristics, which are predefined usability principles, to evaluate
how well user-interface elements (e.g., navigation structure) comply with the prin-
ciples defined by those heuristics, I seek to develop tools which will enable design
strategists to design for the purpose of corporate innovation.
In addition, just as Nielsen did not intend for the set of heuristics, which he
and his team developed for his heuristic evaluation technique to be exhaustive,
the requirement of the application of design through the use of design strategy
tools, methods, and theories should allow for maximum flexibility and open
interpretation by the professional design strategists using them. As an exam-
ple, Preece (2001) defined heuristics unique to the evaluation of the design of
web-based online communities, specifically a “framework for sociability (i.e.,
purposes, people, policies) and usability (i.e., dialogue and social interaction sup-
port, information design, navigation, access)” (p. 350) to develop “a basis for
identifying characteristics and measures that help to describe success of online
 Effectively Leveraging Design for Corporate Innovation 149

communities” (p. 350). Adding those metrics expanded and enhanced the general
heuristics developed by Nielsen and his colleagues, enriching the heuristic evalu-
ation tool and extending its utility. Professional design strategists will hopefully
see fit to modify the tools, methods, and theories developed for them in a similar
fashion to ensure that they remain relevant to practice and do not become an
impediment to the innovation process.
While strategic design focuses on how to strategically integrate design across
an organization, I define and distinguish design strategy as strategic analysis and
formulation through design doing, meaning aesthetic considerations, visual artic-
ulation, and artifact creation in addition to the empathizing, problem-framing,
ideating, iterating, and testing required in design thinking. While there is currently
no distinction made between strategic design and design strategy in practice or
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

scholarship, there are subtly different variations of strategic design which have
been promoted, such as design thinking for business professionals (Martin, 2009)
and design-driven strategy (Esslinger, 2009). It is the latter which bears the most
resemblance to my own definition of strategic design. With strategic design, the
focus is on training designers to consider strategically balancing their designs for
the purpose of not only considering the “goodness” of their designs but also the
“success” of their designs in respect to established success metrics. While some
treat strategic design as a function of design (Kim, Lockwood, & Chung, 2012),
others refer to it as being a “fourth” wave, transdisciplinary paradigm of human–
computer interaction (HCI)/interaction design, which “may include skills training
in design frameworks, values, and ethics, and design for important themes such as
sustainability, equity, adaptation, justice, and social responsibility” (Blevis, Chow,
Koskinen, Poggenpohl, & Tsin, 2014, p. 37).

The Designer as Strategist

“Design is about service on behalf of the other” (Nelson & Stolterman, 2003),
meaning that “the designer practices the design process on behalf of the user in
order to bring about purposeful change and meaning” (Wolf, Rode, Sussman, &
Kellogg, 2006, p. 525), so in order to solve the “wicked” design problem of effec-
tively fostering corporate innovation, designers should continue to promote and
create designs, which support open interpretation and flexible appropriation by
the users of their designs. “Post-Cartesian philosophies importantly tell design-
ers to approach the world with sensitivity by trying to understand it rather than
by imposing theoretical order on it” (Koskinen, Zimmerman, Binder, Redstrom,
& Wensveen, 2011, p. 167). In turn, the key to harnessing the power of design is
to support designers in this endeavor by providing the environment required for
them to effectively frame problems through the time-consuming, yet invaluable,
user research prior to endeavoring to develop solutions, while also inviting them
into the executive-level strategic conversations regarding corporate innovation.
This requires an acceptance of designers as being capable of strategic thinking,
meaning designing while being mindful of the considerations and constraints
inherent in any enterprise.
 150 TRAVIS J. BROWN

“Design strategy is an emerging discipline created to help firms determine what

to make and do, both immediately and over the long term” (Canada, Mortensen, &
Patnaik, 2007, p. 33). Herein, I present the unique value proposition of design
strategists relative to business strategists when developing strategy. This will, ide-
ally, provide a clearer path for organizations seeking to leverage design for the
benefit of greater innovation, which requires designers accepting a “seat at the
table” in the executive suite when offered it.
If designers and artists truly understand why they are working on a particular project or direc-
tion, they can best embrace the strategic decision and hurl themselves at it. This understanding
of business value and strategy requires equal representation at the heart of the business: A
designer needs to be present in the boardroom where these decisions are made. (Kolko, 2010, p. 78)
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

“[T]he design discipline itself has to work at the heart of a business in order
to make an impact – both on its customers and on its bottom line” (Gardien &
Gilsing, 2013, p. 54). The challenge when transitioning design to a business envi-
ronment is that the design process tends to be deconstructed, reduced, and moved
back toward inductive/deductive reasoning, losing its holistic, systems-oriented,
and abductive reasoning orientation. Therefore, it is imperative that organiza-
tions retain the essence of design by design strategists when developing strategy
rather than simply an adoption and application of design thinking.
Through my analytical study of professional design strategists and their per-
spectives regarding design thinking, strategic design, and design strategy, I revealed
professional design strategists’ ambivalence toward the concept of design thinking
as well as how they deem the concepts of strategic design and design strategy to
be synonymous.

The Relationship Between Research and

Practice in Design
When we attempt to generalize our ideas to broaden our concepts and intro-
duce theories, we risk preventing the practical application of those concepts by
practitioners. “[E]ven though practitioners are familiar with many of the recent
theoretical approaches, they do not use them in their work because they are too
difficult to apply” (Rogers, 2004, p. 125). To address this disconnect between aca-
demia and professional practice, I advocate for the provision of the tools required
by designers on their journey so they arrive at their intended destination, which
is a “seat at the executive, strategic decision-making table” of their respective
organization. When we conduct research without any consideration for practi-
cal concerns, we become insular in our thinking, focusing on the work of other
researchers and their opinion of our contribution while risking becoming dis-
missive of its real-world impact. “The stark differences between a controlled labo-
ratory setting and the messy real world means that many of the theories derived
from the former are not applicable to the latter” (Rogers, 2004, p. 92).
HCI and design are not uniquely burdened by the conflict between theory and
practice. In The Connection between Research and Practice, Kennedy (1997) dis-
cusses the “phases of optimism and pessimism” which educational researchers
 Effectively Leveraging Design for Corporate Innovation 151

have passed through when studying “the potential for research to improve prac-
tice” (p. 4). Kennedy (1997) reviews the hypothesized reasons for why research
has failed to influence teaching, which include the lack of persuasiveness and
authority of the research, lack of relevance of the researchers to practitioners,
and lack of practitioners’ access to the research. In addition, the work produced
by Bero et al. (1998) in Closing the Gap between Research and Practice highlights
the fact that
[d]espite the considerable amount of money spent on clinical research, relatively little atten-
tion has been paid to ensure that the findings of research are implemented in routine clinical
practice [,]

and, in an effort to rectify that, the authors review “different strategies for the
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

dissemination and implementation of research findings” (p. 465). Regardless of

the field, “serious study of practice is a source of invaluable richness for any area
that tries to support a specific practice” (Stolterman, 2008, p. 62); hence, in order
to generate the insights presented in this chapter, I engaged professional strategic
designers to ensure that my research was grounded in practice.
“Discontent with the results of current design history suggests that new repo-
sitionings are called for if the discipline is to retain vitality and relevance to con-
temporary problems” (Buchanan, 1992, p. 13). Developing design theory is far
simpler than encouraging designers to use that theory in practice. This situation
poses a dilemma for design researchers. Despite the fact that there is general
agreement that “[s]ince the field of interaction design currently is growing rapidly
in scope as well as importance, both within academia and industry, there is an
increasing need to also expand, further develop, and professionalize interaction
design research” (Fallman, 2008, 4), design researchers run the risk of developing
theories, which are loosely tied to existing design practice, resulting in the theories
being ignored by practitioners. “HCI research undertaken with the purpose of
supporting design practice has to be based on a deep understanding of design
as a unique human activity of inquiry and action” (Stolterman, 2008, p. 56). As
explained by Stolterman (2008) in The Nature of Design Practice and Implications
for Interaction Design Research,
This relationship between suggested practice and existing practice has been labeled rationality
resonance. Any attempt to introduce a new rationality into practice has to resonate with the
already existing rationality. Without such resonance the introduction will be extremely difficult.
(p. 62)

“The ability to theorize design enables the designer to move from an endless
succession of unique cases to broad explanatory principles that can help to
solve many kinds of problems” (Friedman, 2003, p. 515); yet, there is inherent
danger in encouraging designers to genericize design problems in an attempt to
streamline the design process. In spite of the way theory has been used in new
design approaches “to show the importance of considering aspects other than
the internal cognitive processing of a single user – notably, the social context,
the external environment, the artifacts, and the interaction and coordination
between these during human–computer interactions” (Rogers, 2004, p. 27),
there is a risk of allowing the pendulum to swing too far in the direction of
 152 TRAVIS J. BROWN

design theory development mirroring scientific theory development, where the

metric of universality rather than practical application is used to assess theory
strength.
Most of the interesting problems in practice stem from the use context and
arriving at the ultimate particular, which is “the actual manifested outcome
and as such an intentional design process” (Stolterman, 2008, p. 59). Science,
on the contrary, is focused on universal knowledge, which is, by definition,
applicable to a broad set of problems. “It might seem counterintuitive, but
designing for a single user is the most effective way to satisfy a broad popula-
tion” (Cooper, 1999, p. 126). As researchers, we tend to focus on the minutiae
of a problem space given our intellectual curiosity and professional responsi-
bility to exhaust a research area in hope of discovering an interesting anom-
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

aly, which had until then remained undiscovered or intentionally dismissed.

This exhaustive search by researchers is arguably the cause of the disconnect
between research and practice, given that practitioners are rarely required to
apply the academic rigor applied by researchers, instead opting for a more
nuanced approach by satisficing, which is more akin to art than science. As
noted by Simon (1969),
We cannot within practicable computational limits generate all the admissible alternatives and
compare their respective merits. Nor can we recognize the best alternative, even if we are for-
tunate enough to generate it early, until we have seen all of them. We satisfice by looking for
alternatives in such a way that we can generally find an acceptable one after only moderate
search. (p. 125)

As suggested by Stolterman (2008), practitioners are more apt to use “pre-

cise and simple tools or techniques,” “frameworks that do not prescribe but that
support reflection and decision-making,” “individual concepts that are intrigu-
ing and open for interpretation and reflection on how they can be used,” and
“high-level theoretical and/or philosophical ideas and approaches that expand
design thinking but do not prescribe design action” (p. 63). As stated by Gray,
Stolterman and Siegel (2014),
Even though the bubble-up and trickle-down phenomena indicate an exchange of expertise and
knowledge between research and practice, it is often not a well-functioning relationship where
both sides strongly benefit from the other side, or even share core values about what consti-
tutes practical knowledge. This mismatch in the relationship between research and practice is
problematic for several reasons: it means that researchers in many cases spend time and energy
devoted to research aimed at supporting practice that is largely ignored by practitioners; at the
same time, professional practice is often shaped by institutional and traditional norms and
values that have the potential for improvement through research and practitioner partnerships.
This mismatch can be understood as a general devaluing of the “other side,” that is, researchers
view practice as uninformed while practitioners view research as not being in touch with the
reality of real world design. (p. 725)

My goal through this chapter and through my research in general is to remain

true and relevant to practice while drawing from research and classroom experi-
ence emanating from academia to develop tools, methods, and theories, which
will be embraced by corporations due to their relevance to real-world problem-
solving and innovative thinking.
 Effectively Leveraging Design for Corporate Innovation 153

Employing Emotional Intelligence for

Corporate Innovation
Emotion reflects the fluidity of human experience, and the nuance and subtlety
of emotion makes professional designers ability to empathize and draw out the
unexpressed emotions and latent needs of those they are endeavoring to serve
critical. Moreover, the connection between emotion and innovative thinking is
increasingly being recognized, even to the extent that emotion has been referred
to as the “secret sauce of innovation” (Hess, 2017). Design has evolved from the
designing of things to the designing of experience, and inherent in how an indi-
vidual experiences the world is how they react to it and interact with it emo-
tionally. As an example, “[p]eople buy and use products largely for emotional
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

reasons” (Cagan, 2008, p. 186). Although user experience is a broad term that
encompasses usability dimensions such as efficiency and effectiveness, the field
of design has evolved in recent years beyond simple usability to include hedonic
qualities such as affect, enjoyment, and aesthetics. While these three dimensions
do not represent a comprehensive list of those dimensions which distinguish user
experience from usability, they do comprise what are often referred to as the core
dimensions of user experience (Bargas-Avila & Hornbæk, 2011), and they do
reflect an emotional reaction to the world around us, which is exhibited in the
fact that “[a] frequent argument for affect-inclusion in autonomous agents is the
critical role of emotion in goal management necessary for homeostasis, adapta-
tion and autonomy” (Hudlicka, 2003, p. 28).
Turner and Stets (2005) emphasize that the argument for emotions being
largely driven by culture is insufficient in that we are biologically hard-wired to
process emotions in ways not constrained by social constructs. The interplay of
social and biological processes is the most important point provided, arguing that
the dismissal of any one driver overlooks the intricacy of emotions. In respect
to the social construction of emotions, the authors emphasize that “one of the
unique features of humans is their reliance on emotions to form social bonds and
build complex sociocultural structures” (Turner & Stets, 2005, p. 1).
Boehner, DePaula, Dourish, and Sengers (2005) build on the notion that emo-
tions are socially constructed and present a discussion of how best to design inter-
actional systems as opposed to informational ones, which are the more traditional
of the two. “[The interactional] approach sees emotions as culturally grounded,
dynamically experienced, and to some degree constructed in action and interac-
tion” (Boehner et al., 2005, p. 59). The paper serves to compare and contrast the
two approaches.
[A]s an interface paradigm, an interactional approach moves the focus from helping comput-
ers to better understand human emotion to helping people to understand and experience their
own emotions – the raw elements and perceptions of emotions, the constructed conceptions
of these emotions, and the resulting effects such as behavioral or cognitive changes. (Boehner
et al., 2005, p. 59)

The concept of human emotion being defined by social constructs is interesting

and reminiscent of the discussion of nurture versus nature. Emotions are often
discussed in absolute biological terms, but the authors of both papers suggest
 154 TRAVIS J. BROWN

that our environment conditions us to experience emotions, which calls into ques-
tion whether there are universal emotions without universal eliciting conditions
and to what degree organizations can evoke emotions for the benefit of corporate
innovation. The authors present that “[a]lthough there are cultural differences in
how emotions are expressed and interpreted, it is now clear that some emotions
are universal” (Turner & Stets, 2005, p. 11). If eliciting conditions are encoded
by the individual and cognitive processes of the individual are therefore encapsu-
lated in the construals, the universality of the resulting emotional experience must
also be compromised, meaning that eliciting an emotional response will never be
operationally efficient and will require constant guidance, presumably by a pro-
fessional designer.
Beyond a discussion of the universality of emotions across individuals, the
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

question of the emotional experience among individuals or group affect is also

important to consider, specifically in respect to how the expression of emotions
by individuals influence the emotions experienced by other individuals in their
group.
From a sociological perspective, the foregoing discussion reveals that emotions involve certain
elements: (1) the biological activation of key body systems; (2) socially constructed cultural def-
initions and constraints on what emotions should be experienced and expressed in a situation;
(3) the application of linguistic labels provided by culture to internal sensations; (4) the overt
expression of emotions through facial, voice, and paralinguistic moves; and (5) perceptions and
appraisals of situational objects or events. (Turner & Stets, 2005, p. 9)

In respect to this last point, considering members of a community as mere

situational objects oversimplifies the impact of shared group experience on the
experiences of those individuals within the group. Readily dismissing group
dynamics as individuals juxtaposed with their roles alternating between observer
and object is an oversimplification of a far more nuanced phenomenon, and trivi-
alizing such group dynamics risks compromising even the most thoughtfully con-
structed corporate culture.
“People occupy positions in social structures and play roles guided by cul-
tural scripts” (Turner & Stets, 2005, p. 10), and these scripts act as a framework,
which enhances or constrains our emotions in order to exhibit those emotions in
culturally acceptable ways. “Thus, emotions are a motivating force because they
not only order people’s subjective experiences, they also energize their responses
and give these responses direction” (Turner & Stets, 2005, p. 10). There is no
discussion of the impact of this emotional energy on the emotional energy of
other individuals. This point is what defines group affect: the interplay of emo-
tions as group members express them, allow those expressions to reverberate, and
tailor them according to the group members’ reactions. “Thus, emotions emerge
from situations that are intimately social, with individuals learning the appropri-
ate emotions and how to use them in different types of relationships” (Turner &
Stets, 2005, p. 2).
Although little guidance was provided by the authors regarding how to best
create group affect, the following passage from the reading captures the essence
of the concept:
 Effectively Leveraging Design for Corporate Innovation 155

Systems inspired by the interactional approach to emotion emphasize the expression of emo-
tion in a co-constructed, co-interpreted fashion. Measures of success for such systems are
therefore not whether the systems themselves deduce the “right” emotion but whether the sys-
tems encourage awareness of and reflection on emotions in users individually and collectively.
(Boehner et al., 2005, pp. 59–60)

Boehner et al. (2005) and Turner and Stets (2005) argue that emotions are cul-
turally constructed, with Boehner et al. (2005) also emphasizing the importance
of emotion in cognition. The emphasis on the rationality of emotions and their
importance in social interaction makes a strong case for the potential impact of
findings stemming from research on emotional experience; still, I have concluded
that there is risk underlying the pursuit of a definitive prediction of people’s emo-
tional states and, in relation, experiences. I find that researchers have a tendency
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

to become mired in the process, losing sight of what I consider to be the primary
objective: interventions which allow people to overcome the emotional paradigms
defined by societal constructs, which is especially important when facilitating
innovative thinking.
[P]eople’s contextual knowledge of one another’s emotional states and situations is brought into
the process of interpreting system behavior to develop a more subtle, rich, and situated under-
standing of emotion than the system alone can have. (Boehner et al., 2005, p. 65)

In the parlance of complexity, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Focusing on facilitating rather than enhancing emotional experience allows
for the development of more organic interventions to nudge the organization’s
collective innovation prowess to grow organically through a shared emotional
experience.
Another paper that I consider to be essential to a review of literature on affect
is How emotion is made and measured by Boehner, DePaula, Dourish, and Sengers
(2007). Boehner et al. (2007) capture the essence of the issue with the statement “we
take emotion as a social and cultural product experienced through our interactions”
(p. 276). I agree with their argument for the “awareness and reflection on emotions”
(Boehner et al., 2007, p. 276); however, the following excerpt gave me pause:
We work out what we feel through expressing it and through seeing how others react. We negoti-
ate our feelings with ourselves and with others, over time crystallizing meanings for us of what
may initially be vague, confusing, and ambiguous sensations. (Boehner et al., 2007, p. 280)

The authors seem to be arguing that this is the process through which we
mature emotionally. To be aware of the emotional context of a situation is impor-
tant for understanding the basis for the emotions being experienced as well as the
subjects’ accounts of those emotional states; however, there is danger in assum-
ing that emotions become fixed due to the social norms in place. I do not refute
that such a process is in play when people experience emotions; yet, designing in
anticipation that people are limited by the groups of which they are a member
prematurely limits the full potential of user engagement, which speaks to why
designers are important in an organization for facilitating innovative thinking.
To seek out a real-world example of a culturally constructed emotion, as was
attempted by Boehner et al. (2007) with their reference to “song,” misses the point
 156 TRAVIS J. BROWN

that all emotions are culturally constructed. I agree that there is a universal aspect
of emotions and their expression, although I do not take that universality to mean
that all individuals experience emotions in exactly the same manner. Arguing that
people generally smile when happy is different than arguing that the emotional
experience, the associated emotional energy, the antecedent emotions, the correlate
emotions, the consequent emotions, and the associated physiological reaction are
consistent across all individuals. The “response patterning” between individuals
can be quite different. If we take for granted that the emotional capacities of indi-
viduals of a group homogenize so as to reduce their capacity for emotional expres-
sion, we perpetuate this construct rather than designing interventions to free people
from the shackles of societal norms and empowering them to freely innovate.
As Boehner et al. (2007) present,
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

[t]he notion of emotion as physiologically measurable and mathematically documentable in

turn led to the idea that emotion is fundamentally a natural, biological fact, something objec-
tively observable, definable, and containable. (p. 277)

Moreover,
emotion is not thought of as biological, measurable, and objectively present because scientists
found it to exist in the world that way, but because 19th-century scientists could not imagine
studying it scientifically any other way. (Boehner et al., 2007, p. 277)

Bearing in mind that emotions are not discrete variables which are easily quan-
tifiable is only one step toward capturing the true essence of emotions and speaks
to the importance of having designers engaged throughout the innovation process.
By studying group dynamics as they exist, rather than as they could be,
restricts our research to a mere replication of human emotion or to the crea-
tion of a lens through which subjects may gain a better perspective of their own
emotional makeup. Both approaches rely on a commitment to the status quo, fail-
ing to explore the extent to which humans might express emotions if not for the
limitations presented by society. Boehner et al. (2007) discuss that “rather than
affect further developing our re-understanding of cognition, affective comput-
ing is often following older models that prioritize individual, internal cognition”
(p. 277). They preface their research by promising that they
will move from an idea of emotion as biological, objectively measurable, private and infor-
mation-based to one of emotion as partially mediated through physiological signals but also
substantially constructed through social interaction and cultural interpretation. (Boehner et al.,
2007, p. 278)

I agree that an understanding of the manner in which emotions are con-

structed is important if designers hope to effectively emotionally engage subjects;
yet, such learnings should be used as the base level for human emotions from
which we facilitate designers developing interactions, which enhance individuals’
felt experiences, and, in organizations, ability to think innovatively.
What evaluation methods grounded in the assumption of delineability foreclose is the potential
ambiguity of emotional experience: the possibilities, for example, that subjects may be feel-
ing multiple emotions at once, or that the nature of the emotions felt may simply be unclear.
(Boehner et al., 2007, p. 285)
 Effectively Leveraging Design for Corporate Innovation 157

In spite of my agreement with this statement, I believe that there is a need

to move beyond the focus on the understanding of emotions. I argue that emo-
tional valences are sufficient for design research. Little, if anything, is gained
by absolute prediction of emotions, especially in respect to the strategic con-
siderations for business. With respect to group affect, approximating the emo-
tional reaction of individuals to one another is sufficient. If, for instance, I can
predict with reasonable certainty that the members of a group will experience
positive emotions based on a given intervention, the specificity of their emo-
tional response is less relevant. There are diminishing returns as the granular-
ity of emotional prediction increases, suggesting that more attention should be
applied to leveraging our existing knowledge of intimacy rather than attempt-
ing to further define it, which is certainly the case when strategic formulation is
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

dependent on “good enough” protocol, meaning close but not perfect analysis
and predictive power.
Moreover, the problem with surveys when assessing emotional experience,
beyond the ability of the respondent to recall their past emotional states in
respect to the associated stimuli, is that the researcher assumes that the interpre-
tation of the semantics is consistent across respondents. As outlined in What are
emotions? And how can they be measured?, Scherer (2005) presents the approach
of using a semantic web, which does allow for greater freedom when attempting
to conduct empirical research on emotions; however, even the semantic web is
dependent on the consistent interpretation of the emotional states as articulated
by the researcher. I found the use of “verbal reports” in order to chart a seman-
tic map of emotional states to be heavily biased toward those subjects with a
solid grasp of the English language, which does not necessarily include native
speakers. People often misuse terms due to a misunderstanding of the associated
definitions as well as a proclivity to view multisyllabic or foreign words as being
more expressive or intelligent. The fact that people do not share the same reading
comprehension is reason enough to question the validity of the data collected via
surveys in respect to the respondents’ emotional experiences, again speaking to
the importance of having someone within the organization closely observing and
guiding a group’s interactions to maximize innovative thinking.
I argue that an effective approach to facilitating users’ articulation of their
experiences is by allowing them to reflect on their interactions with artifacts
designed for the purpose of evoking self-reflection. Of course, when it comes to
users’ appropriation of technology, the designs, which are most open to interpre-
tation are arguably those which are most easily appropriated, providing for an
enhanced user experience. A concept integral to this notion is that presented by
Sengers and Gaver (2006) in Staying Open to Interpretation: Engaging Multiple
Meanings in Design and Evaluation, which had a profound impact on the work
presented herein, so following is a deep analysis of the work.
Sengers and Gaver (2006) lay out an argument for interpretation being a
central issue for HCI and, more generally, design. The authors present that the
disagreement over what is the interpretation is traditionally considered to be a
problem, and the solution is to contextualize systems so this “correct” interpreta-
tion is agreed upon by all parties. They propose that HCI researchers can and
 158 TRAVIS J. BROWN

should systematically recognize, design for, and evaluate with a more nuanced
view of interpretation in which multiple, perhaps competing, interpretations can
co-exist. They argue that it is not necessarily a problem when users and design-
ers have divergent interpretations of a system, and even when it is a problem, the
solution does not necessarily need to be to establish and promote a single “cor-
rect” interpretation. Therefore, the assumption that user interpretation can and
should be controlled by designers may need to be rethought, because allowing
multiple interpretations to co-exist offers advantages beyond the initial “settling-
in” stages of technological development.
When assessing the openness of an application for multiple interpretations,
Sengers and Gaver (2006) suggest that ethnography is useful in capturing rich
and multilayered accounts of people’s experiences with new designs. In addition,
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

analyzing users’ evaluation of those designs and presenting that information back
to them not only gives additional insight for evaluation, it also can stimulate new
reflection and interpretation among users and gives them a license to participate
in the evaluation of a system as well as its interpretation. Also, longitudinal stud-
ies may be invaluable in understanding changes in users’ interpretations while
systems might best be evaluated by gathering and presenting a variety of assess-
ments from a diverse population of interpreters.
Sengers and Gaver (2006) argue that designers should employ methods of
evaluation which are aimed, not at finding a final answer of what worked and
did not work, but at supplying data in a form which expert readers can inter-
pret for themselves. In general, more emphasis should be placed on interpretation
in design. According to the authors, interpretation is objective enough to allow
for its analysis, prediction, and control, and mental models research is deficient
given its emphasis on a single interpretation. The authors suggest that any design
approach, which assumes a single, preferred interpretation is insufficient and that
controlling interpretation limits the utility of a system. Therefore, the more open
a system is to interpretation, the greater the likelihood that users will take owner-
ship of that system, leading to deeper engagement and more innovative think-
ing. Granted, such openness requires more active management, and professional
designers are well-suited to play this role.
The larger argument made by Sengers and Gaver (2006) is that the role of HCI
as a discipline should be to facilitate the commingling of multiple interpretations
of a system since systems can be designed which will not only allow but encour-
age multiple interpretations, and designs that encourage multiple interpretations
are preferred to those designs that do not. Since interpretations are subjective, the
ways in which a system can be interpreted are limitless. In response, technology
design should simultaneously be social science research, which implies that HCI
suffers from an oversimplification of user interpretation. Also, users prefer to
form their own interpretations of systems rather than have them assigned by the
designer since interpretations formed by users are more personally meaningful
than interpretations assigned by designers.
The argument made by Sengers and Gaver (2006) was based on the underlying
premise that users are willing to make a commitment to a system which would be
 Effectively Leveraging Design for Corporate Innovation 159

required for them to work through the designed ambiguity incorporated in order
to empower them to develop and refine their interpretations of that system.
If we take supporting multiple interpretations as a central goal, design shifts from deciding on
and communicating an interpretation to supporting and intervening in the processes of designer,
system, user, and community meaning-making. (Sengers & Gaver, 2006, p. 102)

By empowering designers to formulate strategy for the purpose of corporate

innovation through the oft times messy and time-consuming process of design,
corporations can more effectively uncover the insights they seek which hide on
the fuzzy edges of the status quo, and designers are perfectly suited to introduce
the malleable interpretation required for those involved to abduce their own inter-
pretation and innovate through the process.
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

Conclusion
“There is a symbiotic relationship between artifact and user, given that the user
depends on the functionality provided by the artifact and the artifact depends on
the user to assign it purpose” (Brown, 2010, p. 277). In addition, “[g]ood design
solutions are always based on and embedded in specific problems” (Friedman,
2003, p. 511). In this case, how best to empower designers to facilitate corpo-
rate innovation serves as the problem as well as how to best enable designers to
play a strategic role within their respective organizations. The solution is to enlist
designers, not merely as design thinkers, but as design strategists, to apply design
for the purpose of engaging organizations and those within on an emotional level,
which will empower those designers to foster more innovative thinking within the
organization. When design thinking is celebrated in an organization, designers
are relegated to the role of facilitator, rather than architect, the latter of which is
the role in which designers are best positioned to construct meaningful connec-
tions between emotions and novel insights.
As I have presented throughout this chapter, design strategy should be treated
by organizations as a distinct subdiscipline of design, one which is correlative
with but not duplicative of strategic design. By adhering to a definitional deline-
ation between design thinking, strategic design, and design strategy, organizations
can ensure that they are employing professional designers for roles, which will
empower them to engage the organization in a manner which will accelerate the
innovative thinking within. My hope is that the work I have presented will posi-
tively contribute to designers’ quest for a “seat at the strategic leadership table”
alongside business strategists, given that they both have a unique yet complemen-
tary perspective to contribute. Empowering designers to design do rather than
simply design think is crucial for them to be effectively engaged in the corporate
innovation process. I am confident that design strategy will be adopted by corpo-
rations to accelerate innovation, which makes the ability to distinguish between
design thinking, strategic design, and design strategy imperative in order for all
constituents to ensure they are speaking the same language, as well as to facilitate
executive teams employing design effectively.
 160 TRAVIS J. BROWN

References
Adaptive Path. (n.d.). (2016). Design strategy. Retrieved from http://adaptivepath.org/guides/design-strategy/.
Bargas-Avila, J. A., & Hornbæk, K. (2011). Old wine in new bottles or novel challenges: A critical
analysis of empirical studies of user experience. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on
human factors in computing systems (pp. 2689–2698). Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Bero, L., Grilli, R., Grimshaw, J. M., Harvey, E., Oxman, A. D., & Thomson, M. A. (1998). Closing
the gap between research and practice: An overview of systematic reviews of interventions to
promote the implementation of research findings. British Medical Journal, 317, 465–468.
Blevis, E. (2013). The PRInCiPleS design framework. In Creativity and rationale (pp. 143–169).
London: Springer.
Blevis, E., Chow, K., Koskinen, I., Poggenpohl, S., & Tsin, C. (2014). Billions of interaction designers.
Interactions, 21(6), 34–41.
Blevis, E., & Stolterman, E. (2009). Transcending disciplinary boundaries in interaction design.
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

Interactions, 16(5), 48–51.

Boehner, K., DePaula, R., Dourish, P., & Sengers, P. (2005). Affect: From information to interaction.
In Proceedings of the 4th decennial conference on critical computing: Between sense and sensibil-
ity (pp. 59–68). Århus, Denmark.
Boehner, K., DePaula, R., Dourish, P., & Sengers, P. (2007). How emotion is made and measured.
International Journal of Human–Computer Studies, 65(4), 275–291.
Brown, T. (2009). Change by design: How design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innova-
tion. New York, NY: Harper Business.
Brown, T., & Martin, R. (2015). Design for action. Harvard Business Review (September), 55–64.
Brown, T., & Wyatt, J. (2015). Design thinking for social innovation. Annual Review of Policy Design,
3(1), 1–10.
Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked problems in design thinking. Design Issues, 8(2), 5–21.
Cagan, M. (2008). Inspired: How to create products customers love. San Francisco, CA: SVPG Press.
Canada, A., Mortensen, P., & Patnaik, D. (2007). Design strategies for technology adoption. Design
Management Review, 18(4), 32–41.
Cooper, A. (1999). The inmates are running the asylum: Why high-tech products drive us crazy and how
to restore the sanity. Indianapolis, IN: Sams.
Cross, N. (2001). Designerly ways of knowing: Design discipline versus design science. Design Issues,
17(3), 49–55.
Cross, N. (2007). From a design science to a design discipline: Understanding designerly ways of know-
ing and thinking. In Design research now (pp. 41–54). Basel: Birkhäuser Publishing.
Esslinger, H. (2009). A fine line: How design strategies are shaping the future of business. London: John
Wiley & Sons.
Fallman, D. (2008). The interaction design research triangle of design practice, design studies, and
design exploration. Design Issues, 24(3), 4–18.
Friedman, K. (2003). Theory construction in design research: Criteria, approaches, and methods.
Design Studies, 24(2003), 507–522.
Gardien, P., & Gilsing, F. (2013). Walking the walk: Putting design at the heart of business. Design
Management Review, 24(2), 54–66.
Goldsby, M. G., Kuratko, D. F., & Nelson, T. (2014). Design-centered entrepreneurship: A process for
designing opportunities. Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, 2014, 200–217.
Gray, C. M., Stolterman, E., & Siegel, M. A. (2014). Reprioritizing the relationship between HCI
research and practice: Bubble-up and trickle-down effects. In Proceedings of the 2014 Conference
on Designing Interactive Systems (pp. 725–734). Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Helsinki Design Lab. (n.d.). About. Retrieved from http://www.helsinkidesignlab.org/pages/what-is-
strategic-design.
Hess, T. (2017, January 17). Here’s why emotions are the secret sauce of innovation. Forbes. Retrieved
from https://www.forbes.com/sites/darden/2017/01/17/the-secret-sauce-of-innovation-emotions/.
Hudlicka, E. (2003). To feel or not to feel: The role of affect in human–computer interaction.
International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 59(2003), 1–32.
Hummels, C., & Lévy, P. (2013). Matter of transformation: Designing an alternative tomorrow inspired
by phenomenology. Interactions, 20(6), 42–49.
 Effectively Leveraging Design for Corporate Innovation 161

IBM. (n.d.). Design thinking. Retrieved from http://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/. Accessed on April

07, 2016.
Kennedy, M. M. (1997). The connection between research and practice. Educational Researcher, 26(7),
4–12.
Kim, Y. J., Lockwood, T., & Chung, K. W. (2012). Characterizing the functional roles within US-based
digital design agencies. Leading Through Design (p. 635).
Kimbell, L., & Street, P. E. (2009, September). Beyond design thinking: Design-as-practice and designs-
in-practice. In CRESC conference, Manchester, September.
Kolko, J. (2010). Thoughts on interaction design. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.
Kolko, J. (2011). Exposing the magic of design: A practitioner’s guide to the methods and theory of syn-
thesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kolko, J. (2014). Well-designed: How to use empathy to create products people love. Boston, MA:
Harvard Business Press.
Koskinen, I., Zimmerman, J., Binder, T., Redstrom, J., & Wensveen, S. (2011). Design research through
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)

practice: From the lab, field, and showroom. Cambridge, MA: Elsevier.
Kumar, V. (2012). 101 design methods: A structured approach for driving innovation in your organization.
London: John Wiley & Sons.
Lockwood, T. (2010). Design thinking: Integrating innovation, customer experience, and brand value.
New York City, NY: Skyhorse Publishing.
Martin, R. L. (2009). The design of business: Why design thinking is the next competitive advantage.
Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.
Nelson, H. G., & Stolterman, E. (2003). The design way: Intentional change in an unpredictable world.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.
Nielsen, J., & Molich, R. (1990). Heuristic evaluation of user interfaces. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI confer-
ence on human factors in computing systems: Empowering people (pp. 249–256). Seattle, Washington,
USA.
Nielsen, J. (1994). Guerrilla HCI: Using discount usability engineering to penetrate the intimidation
barrier. In Cost-justifying usability (pp. 245–272). Academic Press.
Norman, D. A. (2013). The design of everyday things. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Nussbaum, B. (2011). Design thinking is a failed experiment. So what’s next. Co. Design, April 06,
2011. Accessed on June 03, 2014.
Preece, J. (2001). Sociability and usability in online communities: Determining and measuring success.
Behaviour & Information Technology, 20(5), 347–356.
Rasmussen, J., Kramp, G., & Mortensen, B. S. (2011, June). Prototyping design and business. In Proceedings
of the 2011 conference on designing pleasurable products and interfaces, (p. 52). Milano, Italy.
Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences,
4(2), 155–169.
Rogers, Y. (2004). New theoretical approaches for HCI. Annual Review of Information Science and
Technology, 38(1), 87–143.
Scherer, K. R. (2005). What are emotions? And how can they be measured? Social Science Information,
44(4), 695–729.
Sengers, P., & Gaver, B. (2006, June). Staying open to interpretation: Engaging multiple meanings in design
and evaluation. In Proceedings of the 6th conference on designing interactive systems (pp. 99–108).
University Park, PA, USA.
Shedroff, N. (n.d.). Nathan Shedroff on design strategy and the merging of business and design.
Design Foundations [Lynda.com online course]. Retrieved from http://www.lynda.
com/Documentaries-tutorials/Nathan-Shedroff-design-strategy-merging-business-
design/436470/456624-4.html.
Simon, H. A. (1969). The sciences of the artificial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Stolterman, E. (2008). The nature of design practice and implications for interaction design research.
International Journal of Design, 2(1), 55–65.
Stolterman, E. (2016, June 27). Design crash courses and why a deeper understanding of designerly think-
ing is needed [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://transground.blogspot.com/.
Strategist. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategist. Accessed on May
14, 2018.
Turner, J. H., & Stets, J. E. (2005). The sociology of emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 162 TRAVIS J. BROWN

Verbal-Visual Framework. (n.d.). Method. Retrieved from http://verbal-visual.com/method.htm.

Accessed on March 30, 2016.
Weiss, L. (2002). Developing tangible strategies. Design Management Journal (Former Series), 13(1), 33–38.
Wolf, T. V., Rode, J. A., Sussman, J., & Kellogg, W. A. (2006). Dispelling design as the black art of CHI.
In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 521–530).
Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Downloaded by United Arab Emirates University At 22:17 12 January 2019 (PT)