Dual Nature of Designer’s Attitudes Toward Design-Led Innovation
These Design has become important to corporate competitiveness. Studies on design have paid much attention to innovation (Von Stamm, 2003; Utterback et al., 2006). A growing number of scholars see the design as the driver of the innovation, and two key ideas has gathering attention. One is the concept of “HCD (Human-Centered-Design)” and “Design Thinking” (Brown, 2008, Martin, 2009), and the other is the concept of “DDI (Design-Driven Innovation)” (Verganti, 2009). However, there is tension between two deterministic views of design-led innovation. On one hand, design is seen as a creative problem-solving activity that works towards a desired state of affairs that can be determined in advance. On the other hand, design is seen as exploratory research through which an understanding of an issue or problem emerges. This paper investigates the contribution of the designer’s attitude relating to problem-solving/exploratory research, and provides conceptual framework that explain relations between dual nature of designer’s attitude and design-led innovation.