디자인 씽킹(Design Thinking)을 활용한 배수로 개선에 관한 연구

Nowadays, the era of the fourth industrial revolution, the most popular creative method is design thinking. Since many companies like Apple and IDEO, which applied design thinking to their business, generated successful outcomes, not only nonprofit organizations but also educational organizations have actively tried to adopt it. The main purposes of the study are to understand the concept and process of design thinking and to confirm the usefulness of the new method for a university education by providing a case which it was applied to a class project. The project was conducted in a basic design thinking class as a general course in order to achieve the purposes. The typical process of design thinking consists of empathy, defining problems, ideation, prototyping, and test. This study adopted the process to Improvement in sanitation and safety of a Sewer around Hyeonchon neighborhood park located in Yongi-dong, Pyeongtaek-si, Gyeonggi-do. As a result, a creative and innovated solution that transform the Sewer itself into an amusement place was successfully produced. The students who were participated in the project gained confidence in creative problem solving, and the professor ascertained the boundless potentials of design thinking as a program of a general course. Therefore the study can offer meaningful insights to the universities that want to apply it to their classes and to design proper action plans.