Design Thinking in Digital Innovation Projects—Exploring the Effects of Intangibility

The locus of innovation has shifted from mechanical advances to digital solutions. By emphasizing the importance of user needs, Design Thinking is apt to develop human-centered innovation, including digital solutions. Using two representative examples from 21 Design Thinking projects spanning the gamut of mechatronic to fully digital solutions, we report on critical incidents as opportunities and challenges of applying Design Thinking in a digital context. In the case of mechatronic solutions, we identified opportunities related to improved collaboration and higher quality prototyping as well as in innovative business models, which in turn created challenges in managing stakeholders. In the fully digital context, we observed opportunities in improved needfinding and the ability to offer individualized products. Conversely, we uncover difficulties in imagining digital features, estimating their feasibility, and correctly setting the fidelity of prototypes. Based on these observations, we discuss the intangibility of digital artifacts as enabler and inhibitor of Design Thinking in a digital context.