Remember that Design Thinking can be thought of as the big brother of Service Design. The theories and methods of Design Thinking are also used in Service Design. In 1982, in his “Designerly ways of Knowing”, Nigel Cross adds a few building blocks to the ideas of Design Thinking even if the term and its usage was not as widespread back then as it is today.

Nigel explores how designers thinks and how their decision-making process is different from people who work in other professions.

Here is a short extract: “Everyone can — and does — design. We all design when we plan for something new to happen, whether that might be a new version of a recipe, a new arrangement of the living room furniture, or a new lay tour of a personal web page. […] So design thinking is something inherent within human cognition; it is a key part of what makes us human.”

Here, we see again the idea that design is not limited to a profession but is an activity that can be performed by any human — an idea that Service Designers try to practice even today. Here, allow me to express to add a note on this subject. I believe that the more our field advances, the more we have a tendency to forget Nigel’s idea that has been presented above. The more we become experts, the more we might believe that others just don’t understand how to design.

But design is an act of every man and woman out there. It isn’t limited to people who have a training, a degree, or a fancy job title like Senior Innovation Consultant that nobody understands. So, let’s not forget Nigel’s wise words: “design thinking is something inherent within human cognition; it is a key part of what makes us human”.

This article is part of the book "A Tiny History of Service Design, " a tiny two-hour read that goes through the historical events that created what Service Design is today.