Gadi Amit, the founder of NewDealDesign known for his work on the Fitbit, has long been a critic of “design thinking.” On Thursday, the technology designer told Fortune’s Brainstorm Design conference in Macau that he was “proud” of being one of design thinking’s first critics—and that the rest of the industry was now coming around.
Design thinking is an approach that breaks down design into a step-by-step process to solve problems and create new products and services. For example, someone using design thinking to create a new backpack would follow a step-by-step process to first determine what people need, perhaps via brainstorming and user interviews, then generate ideas that might meet those needs, followed by prototyping and iteration.
