Design thinking mindset: a user-centred approach toward innovation in the Welsh creative industries

The Design Thinking (DT) mindset, a fundamental aspect of User-Centred Design (UCD), is often presented as a powerful and accessible trigger for innovation. There is much discussion in the extant literature on the communication of the DT concept to non-design practitioners to encourage broader use of design-led innovation. The present study expands this discussion by exploring which DT mindset attributes are considered meaningful for non-design professionals in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It presents a UCD intervention that embeds the DT mindset attributes to introduce design-led innovation to SMEs of the Welsh creative industries. Semi-structured interviews, non-participatory observation, and reflective open-ended questioning are utilised to analyse the impact of the intervention in supporting creative industry practitioners’ understanding of the DT mindset and design-led innovation approaches. Our findings demonstrate that the intervention has prompted participants to (i) challenge the idea of ‘ideas,’ (ii) frame failure as an option, (iii) learn to trust the process, (iv) acquire innovation self-efficacy, (v) view collaboration = learning, and (vi) change their perception of innovation. We discuss how these identified ‘mindset shifts’ are valuable toward building individual innovation capacities in non-design industries.