Engage with design research and methods following a practical approach. We will go from „Design for Me.“ designing to fulfill personal needs and ego desires, gradually advancing to „Design for You,“ designing for close friends, significant others, and family, people you know and feel for deeply. Next, we will move to „Design for We,“ focusing on the social context outside your door, the people with whom you share similar values and face similar problems. The ones whose faces you know and whose worldview, experiences, and emotions you can relate to. Ultimately, we move into the most critical and challenging segment: „Design for Them,“ designing for people and populations you don't know about, those with different values, needs, beliefs, social status, or financial circumstances than yours.

We will use various reflective and methodology-driven approaches during the semester while conducting research-based practical projects, learning to pose relevant questions, re-framing problems, inferring meaning, building and testing hypotheses, and moving forward in explorative and experimental ways.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Ability to use design as a flexible and fast-paced method for understanding problems, people, society, and cultures in context.

• Ability to work using design research tools.

• Ability to follow a process towards purposeful design.

• Ability to research and analyse design problems from different perspectives.

• Ability to infer meaning, discover valuable insights, and act from the point of view.

• Ability to quickly prototype, test, and iterate design ideas

• Ability to select the right design research tools for supporting your design process.

• Ability to take design decisions based on evidence, and critical thinking.

• Ability to extract knowledge from both, primary and secondary research perspectives.

• Ability to navigate and move forward while facing uncertainty

• Ability to re-framing problems and build design hypotheses.

• Ability to confront and learn from mistakes.

• Ability to approach design challenges with the design mindset.

• Ability to work in modern design teams

COURSE METHODOLOGY

The course will follow the principles of active learning pedagogy. Design-driven activities, dynamic group discussions, and getting things done will be central to the class. Students will learn about, try out and experience various design tools for user-centered design and critical thinking. The students will work on four project-based design challenges, focusing on providing creative solutions to problems.

The class will begin every week with a quick check-in to address questions, followed by a short theory input (30 mins). These fast-paced segments will briefly cover the theory of design development methods and specific design research tools. After the theory input, the students will work on design challenges where they will have the chance to try out specific design tools. The students receive group and individual design feedback (design crit) in a reflective conversation focusing on logical argumentation, critical thinking, theory-building, and design as a process. Students will also learn to give and receive design feedback following specific models. The class will end with a guided group reflection on the relevance of the tools covered, comparing practical results to theory, and highlighting the central insights of the day.

EVALUATION

Most of the work will take place during class. Therefore, the students must constantly participate, complete and present sketches their design process during class. This „on-the-moment“ presentations must show the methods they used, the insights they extracted, the design hypothesis they developed and the results of their testing sessions. This on-the-moment presentations account for 20% of the grade.

At the end of the semester, the students present their favorite project to the class (20% of the grade) and submit a documentation (incom space) containing their full process (60% of the grade). The exact date for the presentation and documentation submission will be communicated during the first session.

EVALUATION CRITERIA

On-the-moment presentations during class, end-of-semester presentations, and design documentation will be assessed by looking at the design development process, theoretical understanding of design method tools, critical thinking skills, and the relation between design hypothesis and proposed intervention. The students must show they understand and can use different design method tools and specific mindsets to command the design process.

FLIGHT PLAN

WEEK 1-2. Design „for me“

WEEK 3-4. Design „for you“

WEEK 5-6. Design „for we“

WEEK 7-8. Design „for them“

WEEK 9-12. Test, iterate and develop your favorite design solution (Me, You, We or Them) using specific design methods and tools. Work will take place during class.