Four dimensions in learning design thinking: Capabilities, constraints, collaboration, and the diffusion of ideas

Over the last few years, design thinking has been indicated to be an approach for making sense of complexity by focusing on collaborative work and interdisciplinary approaches. That being said, the concept itself and its applications still remain fluid and emerging today, posing an immediate question for education: How to educate design thinkers and what is the foundation of thought that this learning should be based on? This paper examines four foundational dimensions of design thinking in terms of the needed capabilities, the world of constraints that restricts the application of capabilities, the nature of collaboration, and the diffusion of ideas. The foundational work of Sen in the area of capabilities and constraints is linked to Deleuzian thinking about concepts, collision, and affect in the area of collaboration and the rhizomic diffusion of ideas in order to form a wide framework of thought that serves as a foundational base for design thinking.