Posts tagged design

Aca-articles: The open and participative city - from Cumulus 2012

The papers from the Cumulus conference in Helsinki has now been posted online. The theme this year was “Open, participative city: how design knowledge can support public services in the development of open, participative city environment”.

You find papers on these themes:

• open interactive city
• innovative services
• designing sustainability
• what is the function of art in contemporary society, and what is artistic research?
• dialogue of art and design in education

Access here: http://cumulushelsinki2012.org/academic_papers/

Aca-article: Making things happen - Social innovation and design (by Ezio Manzini)

This paper introduces the notion of social innovation and discusses how design can stimulate and support it. An introduction to a new field of design: design for social innovation.

Author: Ezio Manzini

Open access: http://sigeneration.ca/documents/Makingthingshappen.pdf

ABSTRACT - The paper introduces the notion of social innovation and discusses how design can stimulate and support it. In order to do that, it considers several examples of radical social innovation, proposing three main typologies of innovation processes: top-down, when strong actors take the lead to promote and enhance a social change; bottom-up, when social changes emerge from grassroots activities; and hybrid, when a variety of bottom-up and top-down innovations take place within the framework of a coherent program. The paper indicates how each one of these three typologies implies some design initiatives,(meaning sequences of actions characterized by a clear design approach). Considered as a whole, these design initiatives and capabilities define the area of competence of a new field of design: design for social innovation. This can be defined as a constellation of design initiatives geared to making social innovation more probable, effective, long-lasting and apt to spread.

Aca-article: Rethinking Design Thinking - Part I

The term “design thinking” has gained considerable attention over the past decade in a wide range of organizations and contexts. This paper proposes that attending to the situated, embodied routines of designers and others offers a useful way to rethink design thinking.

By: Lucy Kimbell, researcher working at the intersections of design/management/social sciences. Associate fellow, Said Business School, University of Oxford.

Abstract
The term design thinking has gained considerable attention over the past decade in a wide range of organizations and contexts beyond the traditional preoccupations of designers. The main idea is that the ways professional designers problem solve is of value to firms trying to innovate and to societies trying to make change happen. This paper reviews the origins of the term design thinking in research on designers and its adoption by management educators and consultancies within a dynamic, global mediatized economy.

Three main accounts are identified: design thinking as a cognitive style, as a general theory of design, and as a resource for organizations. The paper then argues there are several issues that undermine the claims made for design thinking. The first is how many of these accounts rely on a dualism between thinking and knowing, and acting in the world. Second, the idea of a generalized design thinking ignores the diversity of designers’ practices and institutions which are historically situated. The third is how design thinking rests on theories of design that privilege the designer as the main agent in designing. Instead the paper proposes that attending to the situated, embodied routines of designers and others offers a useful way to rethink design thinking.

Access full article here: http://www.designstudiesforum.org/journal-articles/rethinking-design-thinking-part-i-2/

Originally published in Design and Culture, Volume 3, Number 3, November 2011

CFP: Special Issue of Journal of Design Strategies - Designing for Billions (Nov 2011)

Emerging markets have grown very rapidly in recent decades, giving rise to both hope and anxiety about this trend’s potential economic, social and environmental consequences. Volume 7 of the Journal of Design Strategies will examine new opportunities for designers, entrepreneurs, activists, policy makers and investors in the context of emerging markets. In particular, the issue will explore several recent initiatives aimed at developing dense, dynamic and open innovation systems through which market and social actors can envision, shape, transform and implement inclusive prosperity and sustainable lifestyles, on an unprecedented scale.

Abstracts due Nov 30, 2011

The Journal invites scholars engaged in original work that addresses aspects of design strategy in global value chains within emerging markets such as India, China, and Brazil. We are particularly interested in studies that investigate the intersection, over the past several years, of

• design and global value chains
• design and entrepreneurship
• design and business innovation
• design and social activism
• design and knowledge capital
• design and biodiversity
• design and impact investment.

We encourage publications that can bring new insights to challenging questions, such as:

• How can social activists adopt design strategies to increase the efficiency of their missions?
• How are entrepreneurs developing open source communities to scale up new forms of social inclusion?
• How is the value chain of multinational corporations responding to market pressures to design fair-trade products and services?
• What type of design training should business leaders in emerging markets receive?
• What new types of investment funds are being created to promote social innovation?
• What role can design strategy play in public-private collaborative initiatives?
• How are foundations re-designing their business models to attract new types of investors, such as angel investors and venture capitalists?
• How might the great biodiversity in developing counties such as India, China and Brazil become a source of more broad-based prosperity through the development of local, small-scale production units?

Read more about this call on designcalls.wordpress.com

Compendium: [Beta] How do you design?

This text describes design processes throughout the 20th century. This was posted in 2005 but it still seems to be a relevant read for design scholars. Access the pdf through this site.

Introduction

Everyone designs. The teacher arranging desks for a discussion. The entrepreneur planning a business. The team building a rocket.

Their results differ. So do their goals. So do the scales of their projects and the media they use. Even their actions appear quite different. What’s similar is that they are designing. What’s similar are the processes they follow.

Our processes determine the quality of our products. If we wish to improve our products, we must improve our processes; we must continually redesign not just our products but also the way we design. That’s why we study the design process. To know what we do and how we do it. To understand it and improve it. To become better designers.

In this book, I have collected over one-hundred descriptions of design and development processes, from architecture, industrial design, mechanical engineering, quality management, and software development. They range from short mnemonic devices, such as the 4Ds (define, design, develop, deploy), to elaborate schemes, such as Archer’s 9-phase, 229-step “systematic method for designers.” Some are synonyms for the same process; others represent differing approaches to design.

By presenting these examples, I hope to foster debate about design and development processes.

How do we design? Why do we do it that way?

How do we describe what we do? Why do we talk about it that way?

How do we do better?

Asking these questions has practical goals:

- reducing risk (increasing the probability of success)

- setting expectations (reducing uncertainty and fear)

- increasing repeatability (enabling improvement)

Examining processes may not benefit everyone. For an individual designer—imagine someone working alone on a poster—focusing on process may hinder more than it helps. But teaching new designers or working with teams on large projects requires us to reflect on our process. Success depends on:

- defining roles and processes in advance

- documenting what we actually did

- identifying and fixing broken processes

Ad hoc development processes are not efficient and not repeatable. They constantly must be reinvented making improvement nearly impossible. At a small scale, the costs may not matter, but large organizations cannot sustain them.

From this discussion, more subtle questions also arise:

How do we minimize risk while also maximizing creativity?

When must we use a heavy-weight process? And when will a light-weight process suffice?

What is the place of interaction design within the larger software development process?

What is the place of the software development process within the larger business formation processes?

What does it mean to conceive of business formation as a design process?

Access the pdf through this site.