Visual Communication as Knowledge Management in Design Thinking

The aim of the design thinking is to use a set of developmental, iterative steps through which the unmet needs and desires of users are understood, such that new, usable, and useful solutions can be created for challenges or problems that exist in the world. This chapter describes the design thinking focusing on two critical aspects of the process: knowledge management (KM) and knowledge visualization, to leverage knowledge to user’s betterment. Throughout the needfinding phase, brainstorming phase, prototyping steps and feedback steps, designers and design teams are positioned to gather a great deal of knowledge about a challenge of an organization or user faces and ramifications of that challenge for those most impacted by it. In consideration of the form and type of knowledge created through such interchanges, a case could be made for framing this exchange of knowledge as not so much KM but as a branch of KM known as intellectual capital management.