I used to believe design thinking could change the world.
I taught it to thousands of people for nearly a decade, both in my job at Google and when I went independent back in 2018. I found a lot of purpose, joy, and hope in the practice: leaning into empathy, tapping into our creative potential, and solving problems by really tuning into human experiences. It felt uplifting, and, back in 2012 when I discovered it, it completely reoriented my career.
The flaws of design thinking
But over the years, I started seeing its limits.
Design thinking encourages us to start with listening, with the end goal of landing at that supposedly "perfect" mix of innovation: viability, feasibility, and desirability.
But, among its many flaws, it doesn’t teach us how to interrogate power:
- Who is actually doing the listening (dominant groups)
- Whose insights and ideas are "listened" to (or rather, who they are extracted from)
- How we "objectively" interpret what we "hear" (what's so neutral about implicit bias and stereotypes?)
- How we define problems we solve for (ignoring their structural nature, shifting blame to individuals, and evading accountability)
- What norms we uphold when we design (Western, Eurocentric & colonial ones)
- Who truly benefits from our solutions (dominant groups and powerful institutions)
- The "we" and "our" in all of the above (back to dominant groups, see a pattern?)
I’ve watched design thinking fall short and cause more harm in many spaces where folks intend to do "good."
Mostly because it centers individualism, racial capitalism, and saviorism—repackaged as “creative confidence” or "social innovation." And because it aims to “solve” without acknowledging or fully understanding what's at the root of many "problems": oppressive systems.
That’s why I no longer teach it.
An alternative to design thinking
In the past years, I've been building something that responds to the gaps I witnessed and experienced.
A methodology rooted in justice, systems thinking, and liberatory practice. A design practice and ethos that invites reflection, repair, and co-design, and not just iteration.
I call it design changemaking.
It’s not "the" answer. It’s one of many pathways we can take to design in service of liberation and collective well-being. But it’s the path I’ve committed to—in my own work and for the communities I care about.
If you want to learn more about it, you can discover it in our Design Changemaking Portal.
