Thinking About Design Thinking: A Comparative Study of Design and Business Texts

Abstract

In the past 10 years design thinking has become a popular buzzword in the design and business communities alike. While much has been written on the subject in both academic and popular literature no consensus has been reached as to its actual definition and nature. The following study employs a semiotic analysis in order to identify lexical patterns that can provide us with insight into many underlying principles of design thinking.