Critical design as approach to next thinking

Abstract

Critical design offers opportunities to benefit considerably the future design thinking. This practice is based on premises that are meaningful for the whole design discipline if adopted as an integral part of design process. There are two valuable aspects, identified and discussed in this paper, that are underestimated or even omitted as quality criteria of the traditional industrial design practice, but are at the core of the critical design practice: it is critically concerned with future and aware of design's potential in shaping it towards the preferable; and it is aimed at challenging the ideological constraints that limit the designers and the society, and impede the true progress of the humanity. Critical design thinking can be studied and applied as approach to favour the development of personal understanding and promote professional growth of all designers. It is proposed as a resource for expanding the meaning of design thinking.