Educating for Appropriate Design Practice: Insights from Design Innovation

Abstract

With design disciplines and territories expanding rapidly and design being positioned as a potential means of responding to grand global challenges, graduates of today are increasingly expected to work in dynamic and fluid ways, able to approach any wicked problem creatively. We contend that a design innovation approach is about developing agility and flexibility to be able to respond to any complex scenario where design could be employed or required. Using an action research approach within a single case study, which draws upon a current PGT program in design innovation, we propose that there is value in training students in four key areas: (1) understanding a context before responding, (2) engendering empathy, (3) crafting appropriate research methods, and (4) bringing form to the intangible complex. To illustrate how this is operationalized, we draw on the experiences of a residential student trip, where design innovation master's students worked with cohorts from two international schools. We fully acknowledge that one learning experience, despite being shared by three institutions, does not mean that solid and scalable conclusions can be drawn, but we offer our insights to date for discussion and to inform future learning activities and curriculum designs.

Deep Diving into Service Design Problems: Visualizing the Iceberg Model of Design Problems through a Literature Review on the Relation and Role of Service Design with Wicked Problems

“…Service design also regards 'social' and this correlates much with the earlier chart from the wicked problems field, since service design works with public services, sustainability, stakeholder management, organizational design and systems. Moreover, service design tools came up because they seem to bring valid insights to the process of tackling wicked problems, especially from the user's perspective; as pointed out by Dixon and Murphy (2016), the skills of visualization are a way of making intangible things tangible. Interestingly, design education from a service design perspective was raised several times.…”

Competent Designers: Inculcating Design Competencies Through Courses

“…However, the traditional view of knowledge as discipline-based has evolved to include an integrated understanding of education where the primary goal is not limited to knowledge acquisition but also knowledge application [3] and generation [4]. As the complexity of global challenges increases [5], students recognize the need to have a broad range of knowledge and skills to offer value to future employers [6]. The discipline of design challenges current thinking, adopting creative methodologies and practices to frame problems and offer solutions [4].…”

Project-Based Learning in Disaster Response: Designing Solutions with Sociotechnical Complexity

“…Innovation is widely accepted to be a global priority, with design playing a key role in its realization (National Academy of Engineering, 2004). Design pedagogy is considered critical training, as ''graduates of today are increasingly expected to work in dynamic and fluid ways, able to approach any wicked problem creatively'' (Dixon and Murphy, 2016). Design offers powerful strategies for unlocking creativity and creating solutions for real-world, complex sociotechnical problems (Buchanan, 1992).…”