Designing Human-Centric Information Systems: Towards an Understanding of Challenges in Specifying Requirements within Design Thinking Projects

Design-inspired approaches to problem-solving, like design thinking, have been gaining rising recognition as a way to create human-centric solutions. A design thinking project provides a guiding, yet not rigid framework to explore and specify requirements for the development of a new product or service. We investigate the challenges concerned with specifying requirements in design thinking projects with the purpose of laying the groundwork for creating solutions to these challenges. We find that design thinking supports the process of discovering requirements but leads to challenges stemming from the design thinking process. We identify conclusions for practice and suggestions for further research to create better human-centric information systems in the future.