Abstract
With the normalization of Wicked problems in daily contexts, multidisciplinary collaboration is replacing traditional single-discipline approaches as the new pathway for addressing complex societal issues. Design disciplines, through design thinking and methodological toolkits, serve as cognitive binding agents within multidisciplinary teams, emerging as critical mechanisms for tackling such Wicked problem challenges. Through a three-phase interdisciplinary workshop in healthcare contexts, this study investigates the mediating role of design thinking in breaking disciplinary barriers and activating collaborative innovation under wicked problem contexts. Adopting a mixed-methods approach with controlled experiments comparing free exploration and design intervention phases, we tracked collaboration dynamics among 23 cross-disciplinary participants across four teams addressing healthcare complexities. Findings reveal that design thinking restructures collaboration pathways through demand-oriented mechanisms and visual toolkits, effectively mitigating initial issues of ambiguous problem framing and demand-side voids caused by technology-driven biases. Iterative reflective practices dismantle cognitive inertia and communication barriers, ensuring solution applicability through reflective praxis. The research validates design thinking's transformative value as a "cognitive adhesive" in three dimensions: establishing isomorphic communication frameworks for multidisciplinary communication, catalyzing reflective practice beyond disciplinary constraints, and resetting problem contexts to activate collaborative innovation, providing empirical support for transforming design education from skill-building to cultural mediators for complex systems adaptation.
Keywords
Design Thinking; Multidisciplinary Teams; Wicked Problem; Collaborative Innovation
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.66
Citation
Wang, K., Engineering, M., Zhao, C.,and Shen, Y.(2025) Conceptual Bridging & Collaborative Reconfiguration: Exploring Design Thinking-Driven Multidisciplinary Synergy for Wicked Problem Negotiation, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.66
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 12 - Design Education
Conceptual Bridging & Collaborative Reconfiguration: Exploring Design Thinking-Driven Multidisciplinary Synergy for Wicked Problem Negotiation
With the normalization of Wicked problems in daily contexts, multidisciplinary collaboration is replacing traditional single-discipline approaches as the new pathway for addressing complex societal issues. Design disciplines, through design thinking and methodological toolkits, serve as cognitive binding agents within multidisciplinary teams, emerging as critical mechanisms for tackling such Wicked problem challenges. Through a three-phase interdisciplinary workshop in healthcare contexts, this study investigates the mediating role of design thinking in breaking disciplinary barriers and activating collaborative innovation under wicked problem contexts. Adopting a mixed-methods approach with controlled experiments comparing free exploration and design intervention phases, we tracked collaboration dynamics among 23 cross-disciplinary participants across four teams addressing healthcare complexities. Findings reveal that design thinking restructures collaboration pathways through demand-oriented mechanisms and visual toolkits, effectively mitigating initial issues of ambiguous problem framing and demand-side voids caused by technology-driven biases. Iterative reflective practices dismantle cognitive inertia and communication barriers, ensuring solution applicability through reflective praxis. The research validates design thinking's transformative value as a "cognitive adhesive" in three dimensions: establishing isomorphic communication frameworks for multidisciplinary communication, catalyzing reflective practice beyond disciplinary constraints, and resetting problem contexts to activate collaborative innovation, providing empirical support for transforming design education from skill-building to cultural mediators for complex systems adaptation.