Design is not only about products anymore. Designers are solving all kinds of problems from all disciplines including services and even complex social problems. Design is human-centered activity and this new role of design is promoting user needs as a starting point for problem solving.

Design thinking and designers’ way of working has to be explained convincingly if designers aim to solve problems from other disciplines. It is important to understand what is required for great design. Based on Habermas’s theory of communicative action, consensus can be achieved on the power of well-founded argument. Design is studied more specifically through creativity research which shows that a process or a way of thinking is too narrow idea of design. Also the roles of strategy and organization structure in creative work are analysed further.

Apple’s design, and creativity’s role in it, is studied in the empirical part of this research. By following reflexive methodology, empirical material can be used more freely also in critical research and this allows creative interpretations. Critical theory as an approach shows that even ideologies, assumptions and constructions that are held as self-evident, can be questioned and changed.

Creativity research shows a lot of similarities to designers’ way of thinking and working. It can be concluded that design is indeed creative work. Emphasis on user needs as a starting point is on the other hand defined by company strategy. Research on Apple’s design work supports this conclusion