A new breed of designer

A NEW BREED OF DESIGNERfuelfor Kingston University/MA Design for Social Need

June 2010

“The evolution of Design from an individual working intuitively to shape beautiful things into a collaborative process of discovering what can come next and making it happen is attracting people to Design for new ways to journey through these confusing and uncertain times. The failure of existing modes of delivering services to consumers, students, patients, travelers, etc., is making Design a hugely important system of reframing old problems and

creating new answers.” Nussbaum on Design, April 30 2009

Design is faced with a challenge and an opportunity in these times of transformation.

In the current environment of complex social change, to ‘reframe old problems and create new answers’ will demand a new breed of designer who in turn will create the chance for Design to make a more meaningful contribution to society. Design educators are amongst those reacting on this situation, with design schools rethinking the attitudes, skills and practices that future generations of designers will need to be able to respond to social change.

Kingston University in England, and specifically the School of 3D Design is exploring the idea of creating a new 1-year design masters course on the topic of ‘Design for Need’. fuelfor is an innovation design consultancy based in Barcelona and specialising in health care experience design. They were invited to form a team with Amanda Sleet, Senior Lecturer leading the area of ‘Design for Need’ at Kingston University, to explore this opportunity.

The course would aim to deliver a new breed of designer, capable of strategic thinking, collaboration with diverse disciplines from science to business, able to offer design sensitivity and meaning when responding to complex social problems. Designers who would be motivated and equipped to deliver sustainable innovation to social industries and services such as: health care, education, criminal justice, housing, energy and transportation.

This document provides a brief overview of the project to date, including a description of the Experience Design approach taken over the summer of 2009 to define the new course, and a summary of findings from a series of expert interviews conducted as inspirational input. The latter provides a stimulating and timely snapshot of the changing landscape of design as a professional practice and of design education.

INTRO

3

It seemed suitable to take an experience design process and apply it to the design of the MA ‘Design for Social Need’, somehow testing and putting into practice the very skills and techniques the course seeks to deliver through its curriculum.

Expert InterviewsA number of key thought leaders were invited from industry to academia, from across the private as well as public sectors and from leading institutions and companies around the world to share their insights, opinions and expertise as input and inspiration for the course design. In particular, this helped define a number of key aspects: the territory or footprint of the course, the type of students who might benefit from this educational experience, the ‘real-world’ value of such a course, its market relevance and how differentiating its offer could be compared to similar courses and programs worldwide.

Interviewees were asked to respond to the following set of questions during a 30-minute phone interview. Their responses were captured, analysed and synthesised to identify essential ingredients and considerations for the course as described in the next section of this report:

+ Do you recognise the need to be able to ‘reframe old problems and create new answers’? + To ‘reframe old problems and create new answers’ will demand a new breed of designer but will also create the chance for Design to make a more meaningful contribution to society. Do you agree? Why/why not?+ What kind of role/responsibility should designers have in innovating the social industries? How similar/different is this from other disciplines involved in innovation?+ What are the 3 most essential skills for a designer focusing on the social industries?+ What would you expect from a course called ‘Design for Need’? How should it be positioned or branded? Do you have any ideas for other titles?+ What kind of people should be attracted to join the course? Only designers? With experience?+ What might a ‘Design for Need’ graduate do once qualified?+ Who might hire a ‘Design for Need’ graduate? Why? What would make you hire such a graduate? Might they start their own companies?+ What are the key challenges and risks to be considered in creating such a course?

Please refer to acknowledgements section for a list of experts interviewed.

NEEDS-BASEDDESIGN

4

Fig. 3 Generating ideas for course content, delivery and structure

5

Creative WorkshopA 2-day experience design workshop was led by fuelfor in Barcelona and brought together relevant expertise and insights. Key stakeholders involved in the design masters program - students, staff, external partners such as design practitioners, industry experts or prospective employers - were all identified and their needs and issues were mapped over time.

This approach then enabled the team to identify and prioritise opportunity ‘hotspots’ to innovate the course experience from recruitment to graduation.

Consideration was given to recruitment processes, course content, facilitating partnerships, delivery models and employment opportunities, in order to identify the value for different stakeholders. Ideas were then generated for a framework that could address these opportunities and define the new MA ‘Design for Social Need’.

Finally, the workshop results were translated into a specific template called an AD3 for submission and review by the University.

6

Kingston University / Design Masters Experience flowtimeline

1st Impres-sion of the course

Applica-tion

Reviewing applications, feedback

Interview(validation,intention)

OfferStudent accepts offer

Last min-uterecruit-ment

Start of course

Introduc-tionweek,Enrollment

Settling insocially

Kick off Context

Interim presenta-tion

Context

ProcessX mas holidays

Presenta-tionExhibitionProcess

MarkingFeedback for stu-dents

Kick offFocus

MP prep

interim presenta-tion

MP prep

Focus

Presenta-tionExhibition

MarkingFeedbackto Students

Major projectkick off

TutorialsSelf di-rectedstudy

Fly homeRestAUGUST

Post-graduate Degree Show

Archiving Marking Getting marks

Student dissapear

Track alumni

Stu

den

tsU

nive

rsity

Ext

erna

l p

artn

ers

+ Clarity on infor-mation about the course

+ To see who will I meet with

+To see who will teach me, & their work

+To know this course fits with what I am expect-ing

+To be inspired, from previous year result

+ To see this course will give me employment op-portunities

+ Clarity & guid-ance on how to apply

+ To know what is expected and why

+To feel that stu-dents feel person-ally taken care of.

+ To know when student can expect results & feedback

+ To feel a sense of control

+ To know how stu-dents can prepare for the interview

+ To know who will interview me

+ To know how the interview works

+ To be prepared for expressing themself and to make a personal connection to teachers.

+ To be able to make an informed decission

+ To understand consequences, why me?

+ To know what my role in the team is

+ To know what the detailed course plan, I will go through.

+ To feel supported if I have any ques-tions.

+ To have clarity on how to accept the offer

+ To be sup-ported for the best decission making possible

+ To feel supported with all logistics

+ To know the consequences of joining late

+ To feel ac-comodated and supported.

+ Getting to know the team & tutors

+ To experience the previous year degree show for orientation

+ To build relation-ships

+ To feel like a launch

+ To feel reasured and confident

+ To know what is available for me within the Univerity infrastructure

+ To learn to navi-gate the space

+ Clarity of detailed project plan avail-able personally

+ To feel fully equiped and informed about the objectives, process, timeline, deliver-ables.

+ To understand learning in context

+ To know what it is expected to be presented

+ To recieve personal as well as team based feedback

+ To know the background of invited guest and critics, to put com-ments in context

+ To have a physi-cal space for the team

+ To have reassur-ance students can safely make mis-takes & challenge thinking.

+ To have room for own interpretation of tools, briefs, processes, oppor-tunities.

Context

Process

+ To reflect and consolidate knowl-edge

+ To document towards portfolio

+ To have a clear idea about the sta-tus of their project

+ To rest

+ To recharge

+ To reflect

+ To come back from holiday rechared

+ To rev up for new semester, and exhibition

+ To know the boundary condi-tions

+ To be able to make and keep a good time plan

+ To have clear roles and responsi-bilities

+ To recieve personal and team feedback

+ To recieve feed-back with evidence and guidance

+ To recieve consistent and fair feedback.

External lecute program

+ To know the background of guest lecturers to listen in context

+ To be able to make contact and realationship with external stakehold-ers to broaden perspective in a safe environment

+ To have a decis-sion making sup-port to choose the topic for the major project

+ To have clear cri-teria for the major project

+ To recieve consis-tent feedback

+ To feel that time is allocated for per-sonal consultation and guidance

+ To create a plan of attack for the degree show. time/resources

+ To feel motivated for the best end result

+ To feel being supported when needed

+ To pace themself untill the end of the show

+ To be prepared, know what to expect and what is expected of them

+ To feel a sense of achievment

+ To invite all rel-evant targetgroups, and companies

+ To build on the network & commu-nity they created, and being exposed while the course.












+ To make a complete record of their work for their portfolio




+ Clear idea of next year program - con-tent area, partners, aims

+ Be able to communicate the course journey in an understandable and clear way

+ To have a sense of team...to recruit, intake, teach, support

+ To provide a clear compelling differ-entiating offer

+ To be able to give a good first impres-sion to students

+ To reach potential students through multiple channels

+ To have a consis-tent KU brand

+ To recieve ap-plications in an easy to process & compare format

+ To have clear agreed targets to hire students

+ To involve key stakeholders from content and process side for the selection

+ To establish clear lines of com-munication to be efficient in time and quality

+ To be able to balance dept with efficiency

+ To be able to collect as much in dept information about the students work, character, values as possible

+ To have tools to be able to collect valuable informa-tion about students in multiple format

+ To capture feed-back comparitavly and sharably

+ To be able to put student at ease

+To be able to best represent the KU course

+ To be able to indicate the couse process clearly

+ To express offer and decission clearly

+ To be able to ac-comodate students to deliver news emphatically

+To provide a clear and detailed journey to students for the duration of the course

+ To indicate the short term next steps and activities

+ To have a flexible and clear protocol to accept both timely and last min-ute acceptances

+ To be able to adapt preparations and course plan to changing intake

+ To be able to rearrange teams based on last minutes intake

+ Build up relation-ships with students

+ To be charged up and energized to recieve students, and to initiate course launch

+ To create a framework to induct students

+ To introduce the course team to the students.

+ To get the first sense of how the team is together

+ To orientate students to KU

+ To facilitate stu-dents settling in

+ To prepare final touches for process / context, to kick off project

+ To present de-tailed journey plan for the first project- inspiratioin, tools, agenda, process, deliverables, part-ners, milestones, expectations, teams, resources, materials, etc...

+ To have a clear and workable project plan to be confident in

+ To communi-cate clearly the consequences of actions - positive/ negative-

+ To create a trusted crit environ-ment

+ to deliver consistent and fair feedback

+ To be able to tune and adapt remain-ing project plan - be flexible-

+ To have a clear assesment criteria

+ To stay steps ahead of students

+ To have time to prepare each contact session

+ To manage teach-ing and research - time and commit-ment

+ To be able to provide access to support students countinously when needed

+ To keep track of progress and issues for action

+ To maintain work life balance




+ To rest

+ To recharge

+ To reflect

+ To be able to adapt course plan if necessery

+ To interim update and archive course and portfolio

+ To provide clear brief and boundary conditions

+ To facilitate the exhibition as a project

+ To show transpar-ency of process

+ To create condi-tions for construc-tive dialogue

+ Engage with though leaders and be inspired and grow professionally

+ To have the con-ditions that allow collaborating with external parties

+ To make regular availability to students

+ To develop strate-gies for outlying students

+To equip students for self study -tips, tools, cases-

+ To be able to monitor students in self-study -remote support-

+ To provide clear objectives, instruc-tions, tepmlates for collecting materials for the final show

+ Profile school, partners, teams to-wards the industry

+ To celebrate achievment

+ To be able to attract future stu-dents - recruiting opportunity-

+ To be able to build on network, knowledge, experi-ence and communi-ty created

+ Collect compa-rable student works for archiving - as part of the gradua-tion process-

+ To have a clear and consistent as-sessment criteria- evidence, grade, guidance














+ Provide case studies for the course descrip-tion, on how industry is benefiting from profes-sional graduated in this course

+ Be involved in setting up the courses agenda

+ To define projects in new business areas R&Drisk areas

+ To be able to be involved in the review of applications and to help in compiling the right teams. - professional HR experiences -

+ To get familiar with the project team that will be working with studentsstaffpartners

+ To provide the project with relevant content - inspiration, struc-ture, knoledge

+ To be profiled as innovation partner within course - sense of com-munity-

+ To foster a “labo-ratory” mindset that allows students, university, and partners to take risk and explore new territories in new ways

+ Provide a safe, but realistic environment for students.

+ To be able to align teaching content with their own interest

+ To explore alternative processes in academia

+ Benefit from working with experts for less money

+ To be able to “try out” students for future recruitment

+ To be open working with design education

+ To use the op-portunity to meet diverse thinkers, peers, experts

+ Sense of return on investment - fi-nancial, intellectual, creative, time

+ To give back to design education

+ To profile compa-ny or organisation’s brand as a though leader

+ To be able to promote themself based on the proj-ect outcome

+ To be able to pick talented students for employment

fuelfor I Amanda J. Sleet I Kingston University

Mabs & Pabs

Course DirectorVL 1 day

Staff TeamModule leader 2 VLs

PG Co-ordinatorCatherine Mc Dermot

PG Administrator

Intern recruitmentLeo Duff

Inter Agent

Leads overall profile

Staff feed material in through projects & archiving

Creates oppor-tunies to show case through own activities

First level enquires

International profile & early contact

Sets up relations

Recruitment and direct enqueries

May field students from International & regional visits?

Internationaloffers

InternationalAid application

Interview bulk of students through University applica-tion process - most telephone

Some applicants discussed

-

Processes applica-tion forms out to CD and results to students

Conditional & unconditional offers made

Directed to Uni-versity

-

-

-

Interview time set up

Independently handled

May make direct offer to home students

-

-



-

-

-

Formal process often left open as students may have several offers and dependent on Visa

-

-

If around durring summer break?

-

-

Handled mostly by

?

-

Introduced through University

Core staff accord-ing to availability

PG Co-ordinatorleads this week,aimed at hosting International Stu-dents

Introduced against staff office & enroll-ment

Part of Intro, wel-comes International students

-

IntroAddress student issues

Outline Module & Year / ExpectationDeal with student questions and issues

May get enquires

Fee questions, late enrollment

next years rcruit-ment

new contacts

Kick off Process First

Kick off Context

Teaching?

Deliver module & arrange inductions, facility workshops & guests

-

-

-

-

Module leader on context, with Simon Hassan

VL staff

-

-

-

-

Handles interim with contextStudents present & given written feedback

Handles In-terim with process Students present & given written feedback

-

-

-

-

Context deliveryAdmin

Process DeliveryResearch staff feed in.

Discussion on Postgraduate show & site

-

-

-

Prep next stage

Prep next stage

-

-

-

-

VisitsApplications

co-ordinates exhi-bitionExtends invites

-

-

-

-

Marketing and liasonApplications

Should feed into action plan. Discussed through course meetings

-

-

-

-

mark & written feedback for studentsApplications

Mark & written feedback(no time allowed and slotted in against intro for next module)-

Marks processed

-

-

Intro to Master proj-ect developmentApplications

Industry focused delivery, intro, speakers, visits, professional part-ners

Discussions through PG meting re pstgraduate show

Applications

recruitment/visits

links

Interim for Masters project presentationWritten feedbackApplications

Interim Focus pre-sentations, written feedback

-

Applications

recruitment / visits

recruitment

Major project focus, postgraduate show & external visit at end of module

Delivery, tie in with guest speakers, follow up opportu-nities.


Applications


Recruitment

MP prep presenta-tions to External

Presentation to industry panelMarks & written feedback

PG show discus-sions

Applications


Recruitment

Marking & Written FeedbackApplications

Marking & Written FeedbackProfile work

PG Show

Applications

recruitment

Recruitment


Written FeedbackProfile workNext year planning

PG Show

ApplicationsProcess Marks

recruitment

Recruitment

Oversee students with Simon Hassan

Oversee students resubmitting FocusShowcase Focus work, planning

PG Show

Applications

recruitment

Recruitment

Once a week con-tact for tutorials

Show publicity

University very quiet, reduced staff, no undergraduate students.

University site still in aftermath of Un-dergraduate show

Resources open but reduced staff, annual leave and servicing equip-ment, changs being made.

Many students return durring 4 weeks to home country, not making full use of facility re-sources that remain open.

Production time Sept, university gearing itself up for new intake of students. No under-grad around.

Resources updat-ing and servicing equipment and preparing for induc-tions. Staff taking annual leave

Production time.SEPT

Oversee student work going up

External visitAssessment

Overseeing show

Prep SITS

See outcomes

* no industry night, show closes at 6pm, no main intro to show. Aimed at friends and family

Students submitt copies of work

No formal docu-mentation of show

No formal archiving

Leads Assessment

Assessment on siteExternal visits reviews marks & meets range of students

Process marks prep for MABS & Pabs

Attend internal & external exam board. With Exter-nal who feeds back.

Marks formally given to students via Student office and Administrator durring the Post-graduate show.

Failed students told early so work taken down from show before opens.

Students disap-pear of own accord against visa requirements and plans made.Some return in first 2 following weeks to discuss plans.

Limited number are tracked, gener-ally good relations through practice is kept with a few students. Some make contact the following year once established and time to reflect.

7

Kingston University / Design Masters Experience flowtimeline

1st Impres-sion of the course

Applica-tion

Reviewing applications, feedback

Interview(validation,intention)

OfferStudent accepts offer

Last min-uterecruit-ment

Start of course

Introduc-tionweek,Enrollment

Settling insocially

Kick off Context

Interim presenta-tion

Context

ProcessX mas holidays

Presenta-tionExhibitionProcess

MarkingFeedback for stu-dents

Kick offFocus

MP prep

interim presenta-tion

MP prep

Focus

Presenta-tionExhibition

MarkingFeedbackto Students

Major projectkick off

TutorialsSelf di-rectedstudy

Fly homeRestAUGUST

Post-graduate Degree Show

Archiving Marking Getting marks

Student dissapear

Track alumni

Stu

den

tsU

nive

rsity

Ext

erna

l p

artn

ers

+ Clarity on infor-mation about the course

+ To see who will I meet with

+To see who will teach me, & their work

+To know this course fits with what I am expect-ing

+To be inspired, from previous year result

+ To see this course will give me employment op-portunities

+ Clarity & guid-ance on how to apply

+ To know what is expected and why

+To feel that stu-dents feel person-ally taken care of.

+ To know when student can expect results & feedback

+ To feel a sense of control

+ To know how stu-dents can prepare for the interview

+ To know who will interview me

+ To know how the interview works

+ To be prepared for expressing themself and to make a personal connection to teachers.

+ To be able to make an informed decission

+ To understand consequences, why me?

+ To know what my role in the team is

+ To know what the detailed course plan, I will go through.

+ To feel supported if I have any ques-tions.

+ To have clarity on how to accept the offer

+ To be sup-ported for the best decission making possible

+ To feel supported with all logistics

+ To know the consequences of joining late

+ To feel ac-comodated and supported.

+ Getting to know the team & tutors

+ To experience the previous year degree show for orientation

+ To build relation-ships

+ To feel like a launch

+ To feel reasured and confident

+ To know what is available for me within the Univerity infrastructure

+ To learn to navi-gate the space







+ To have a physi-cal space for the team

+ To have reassur-ance students can safely make mis-takes & challenge thinking.

+ To have room for own interpretation of tools, briefs, processes, oppor-tunities.

Context

Process




+ To rest

+ To recharge

+ To reflect









External lecute program

+ To know the background of guest lecturers to listen in context

+ To be able to make contact and realationship with external stakehold-ers to broaden perspective in a safe environment

+ To have a decis-sion making sup-port to choose the topic for the major project

+ To have clear cri-teria for the major project

+ To recieve consis-tent feedback

+ To feel that time is allocated for per-sonal consultation and guidance

+ To create a plan of attack for the degree show. time/resources

+ To feel motivated for the best end result

+ To feel being supported when needed

+ To pace themself untill the end of the show

+ To be prepared, know what to expect and what is expected of them

+ To feel a sense of achievment

+ To invite all rel-evant targetgroups, and companies

+ To build on the network & commu-nity they created, and being exposed while the course.












+ To make a complete record of their work for their portfolio




+ Clear idea of next year program - con-tent area, partners, aims

+ Be able to communicate the course journey in an understandable and clear way

+ To have a sense of team...to recruit, intake, teach, support

+ To provide a clear compelling differ-entiating offer

+ To be able to give a good first impres-sion to students

+ To reach potential students through multiple channels

+ To have a consis-tent KU brand

+ To recieve ap-plications in an easy to process & compare format

+ To have clear agreed targets to hire students

+ To involve key stakeholders from content and process side for the selection

+ To establish clear lines of com-munication to be efficient in time and quality

+ To be able to balance dept with efficiency

+ To be able to collect as much in dept information about the students work, character, values as possible

+ To have tools to be able to collect valuable informa-tion about students in multiple format

+ To capture feed-back comparitavly and sharably

+ To be able to put student at ease

+To be able to best represent the KU course

+ To be able to indicate the couse process clearly

+ To express offer and decission clearly

+ To be able to ac-comodate students to deliver news emphatically

+To provide a clear and detailed journey to students for the duration of the course

+ To indicate the short term next steps and activities

+ To have a flexible and clear protocol to accept both timely and last min-ute acceptances

+ To be able to adapt preparations and course plan to changing intake

+ To be able to rearrange teams based on last minutes intake

+ Build up relation-ships with students

+ To be charged up and energized to recieve students, and to initiate course launch

+ To create a framework to induct students

+ To introduce the course team to the students.

+ To get the first sense of how the team is together

+ To orientate students to KU

+ To facilitate stu-dents settling in

+ To prepare final touches for process / context, to kick off project








+ To stay steps ahead of students

+ To have time to prepare each contact session

+ To manage teach-ing and research - time and commit-ment

+ To be able to provide access to support students countinously when needed

+ To keep track of progress and issues for action

+ To maintain work life balance




+ To rest

+ To recharge

+ To reflect

+ To be able to adapt course plan if necessery

+ To interim update and archive course and portfolio





+ Engage with though leaders and be inspired and grow professionally

+ To have the con-ditions that allow collaborating with external parties

+ To make regular availability to students

+ To develop strate-gies for outlying students

+To equip students for self study -tips, tools, cases-

+ To be able to monitor students in self-study -remote support-

+ To provide clear objectives, instruc-tions, tepmlates for collecting materials for the final show

+ Profile school, partners, teams to-wards the industry

+ To celebrate achievment

+ To be able to attract future stu-dents - recruiting opportunity-

+ To be able to build on network, knowledge, experi-ence and communi-ty created

+ Collect compa-rable student works for archiving - as part of the gradua-tion process-















+ Provide case studies for the course descrip-tion, on how industry is benefiting from profes-sional graduated in this course

+ Be involved in setting up the courses agenda

+ To define projects in new business areas R&Drisk areas

+ To be able to be involved in the review of applications and to help in compiling the right teams. - professional HR experiences -

+ To get familiar with the project team that will be working with studentsstaffpartners

+ To provide the project with relevant content - inspiration, struc-ture, knoledge

+ To be profiled as innovation partner within course - sense of com-munity-

+ To foster a “labo-ratory” mindset that allows students, university, and partners to take risk and explore new territories in new ways

+ Provide a safe, but realistic environment for students.

+ To be able to align teaching content with their own interest

+ To explore alternative processes in academia

+ Benefit from working with experts for less money

+ To be able to “try out” students for future recruitment

+ To be open working with design education

+ To use the op-portunity to meet diverse thinkers, peers, experts

+ Sense of return on investment - fi-nancial, intellectual, creative, time

+ To give back to design education

+ To profile compa-ny or organisation’s brand as a though leader

+ To be able to promote themself based on the proj-ect outcome

+ To be able to pick talented students for employment

fuelfor I Amanda J. Sleet I Kingston University

Mabs & Pabs

Course DirectorVL 1 day

Staff TeamModule leader 2 VLs


PG Administrator

Intern recruitmentLeo Duff

Inter Agent

Leads overall profile

Staff feed material in through projects & archiving

Creates oppor-tunies to show case through own activities

First level enquires

International profile & early contact

Sets up relations

Recruitment and direct enqueries

May field students from International & regional visits?

Internationaloffers

InternationalAid application

Interview bulk of students through University applica-tion process - most telephone

Some applicants discussed

-

Processes applica-tion forms out to CD and results to students



-

-

-

Interview time set up

Independently handled

May make direct offer to home students

-

-



-

-

-

Formal process often left open as students may have several offers and dependent on Visa

-

-

If around durring summer break?

-

-

Handled mostly by

?

-

Introduced through University

Core staff accord-ing to availability

PG Co-ordinatorleads this week,aimed at hosting International Stu-dents

Introduced against staff office & enroll-ment

Part of Intro, wel-comes International students

-

IntroAddress student issues

Outline Module & Year / ExpectationDeal with student questions and issues

May get enquires

Fee questions, late enrollment

next years rcruit-ment

new contacts

Kick off Process First

Kick off Context

Teaching?

Deliver module & arrange inductions, facility workshops & guests

-

-

-

-

Module leader on context, with Simon Hassan

VL staff

-

-

-

-

Handles interim with contextStudents present & given written feedback

Handles In-terim with process Students present & given written feedback

-

-

-

-

Context deliveryAdmin

Process DeliveryResearch staff feed in.

Discussion on Postgraduate show & site

-

-

-

Prep next stage

Prep next stage

-

-

-

-

VisitsApplications

co-ordinates exhi-bitionExtends invites

-

-

-

-

Marketing and liasonApplications

Should feed into action plan. Discussed through course meetings

-

-

-

-

mark & written feedback for studentsApplications

Mark & written feedback(no time allowed and slotted in against intro for next module)-

Marks processed

-

-

Intro to Master proj-ect developmentApplications

Industry focused delivery, intro, speakers, visits, professional part-ners

Discussions through PG meting re pstgraduate show

Applications

recruitment/visits

links

Interim for Masters project presentationWritten feedbackApplications

Interim Focus pre-sentations, written feedback

-

Applications


recruitment

Major project focus, postgraduate show & external visit at end of module

Delivery, tie in with guest speakers, follow up opportu-nities.


Applications


Recruitment

MP prep presenta-tions to External

Presentation to industry panelMarks & written feedback

PG show discus-sions

Applications


Recruitment


Marking & Written FeedbackProfile work

PG Show

Applications

recruitment

Recruitment


Written FeedbackProfile workNext year planning

PG Show

ApplicationsProcess Marks

recruitment

Recruitment

Oversee students with Simon Hassan

Oversee students resubmitting FocusShowcase Focus work, planning

PG Show

Applications

recruitment

Recruitment

Once a week con-tact for tutorials

Show publicity

University very quiet, reduced staff, no undergraduate students.

University site still in aftermath of Un-dergraduate show

Resources open but reduced staff, annual leave and servicing equip-ment, changs being made.

Many students return durring 4 weeks to home country, not making full use of facility re-sources that remain open.

Production time Sept, university gearing itself up for new intake of students. No under-grad around.

Resources updat-ing and servicing equipment and preparing for induc-tions. Staff taking annual leave

Production time.SEPT

Oversee student work going up

External visitAssessment

Overseeing show

Prep SITS

See outcomes

* no industry night, show closes at 6pm, no main intro to show. Aimed at friends and family

Students submitt copies of work

No formal docu-mentation of show

No formal archiving

Leads Assessment

Assessment on siteExternal visits reviews marks & meets range of students

Process marks prep for MABS & Pabs

Attend internal & external exam board. With Exter-nal who feeds back.

Marks formally given to students via Student office and Administrator durring the Post-graduate show.

Failed students told early so work taken down from show before opens.

Students disap-pear of own accord against visa requirements and plans made.Some return in first 2 following weeks to discuss plans.

Limited number are tracked, gener-ally good relations through practice is kept with a few students. Some make contact the following year once established and time to reflect.

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EXPERT IN-SIGHTS

The timing of this investigation into the designer’s role and Design’s role in social innovation appeared to be timely for many of our experts in industry and academia. This was indicated by a speedy and positive response to participate in the study. However, it became clear over the course of the interviews that there were few concrete answers out there to many of the questions that we posed. Instead we discovered a rich set of thoughts and practical feedback that opened up new and more pertinent questions, and that could point us in a constructive direction when designing the new course.

We were able to conclude a set of essential issues relating to the changing nature of the design profession and Design’s role in tackling social issues, the personality and skills required for a designer to be able to work in this emerging field, as well as the implications of both these issues for the design of a specialist masters design degree.

Is Design facing an identity crisis?

The design discipline is changing and being changed by socio-economic forces, but this acts as an opportunity to both expand as well as sharpen the definition of Design. As other disciplines from business administration to finance, market research to engineering become interested in design thinking and creativity techniques to serve their own innovation processes, Design is being forced to reassess where it adds most value and to identify distinctly what it does best. As a consequence it needs to identify where to focus its contribution within increasingly multidisciplinary innovation teams.

There was an implicit agreement amongst experts that social industries have problems to solve that are too complex to be tackled by one discipline alone. A multidisciplinary approach is essential to instigate, achieve and sustain innovation and change. Although the appropriation of design by different disciplines could be seen as polluting the profession and diluting the identity of the designer, more radical thinkers might see this as a ‘Luddite’ view and prefer to describe the shift as a natural and essential evolution of the design profession. And one that could create exciting breakthroughs and overall progress for the profession in terms of new ideas, approaches and role models from alternative fields. This is a critical but healthy situation of self-reflection for the Design profession.

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Design for Need - what other type of design is

there?Designing was seen by many interviewees as almost synonymous with socially-sensitive practice. Being a designer or a design-led organisation means to be socially-led, to gain insight and inspiration from people and their context. However, a glimpse inside many design schools today indicates that the lure of the design profession amongst younger generations may still lie with a desire to design beautiful objects and forms. Of course there is nothing wrong with this, but a research-based or needs-based approach is certainly not yet widely nor consistently embedded in the academic curriculum or mindset. In fact, as one interviewee pointed out, many of the Asian schools that are producing young designers en masse are not necessarily yet training their graduates in socially-sensitive approaches; this omission could potentially

“Ray and Charles Eames were doing this type of design all along, and a long time ago, but without the name or vocabulary we have today to describe it.”

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have a considerable impact on the nature of global design practice, given the volume of designers graduating form Asian schools.

What’s in a name?‘Design for Need’ was proposed as a working title for this new course. Collecting feedback on the perception of such a name and the consequent expectations from such a course we found two clear reactions; either the name was thought to offer clarity and simplicity of purpose, or it felt as if there was something missing. ‘Design for Social Need’ was suggested might fill this subtle gap. And design for social value rather than need was also recommended as a means to bring a more positive tone to the notion of designing for those somehow ‘in need’.

Evidence of demandOur interviews gathered evidence that there is a latent market demand for socially-sensitive design, it is growing steadily but surely and perhaps faster in the UK, Scandinavia and USA. Creating a new course at this moment in time was therefore thought to be relatively ahead-of-the-curve and expected to forge new and exciting territory.

A number of direct and indirect key indicators of this growing demand were identified through expert interviews and additional desk research: + The UK, following the government-commissioned ‘Cox Report on Creativity in Business’ in November 2005, has become a global reference point for how to create the enabling conditions for Design to play a strategic role in business and public service innovation across various sectors. The Design Council, NESTA and Design London are some of the organisations proactively driving this change through programs such as Designing Demand. They are providing fertile ground for socially-sensitive design practice and agencies to flourish. A number of service and experience design agencies have sprung up in the last few years in the UK and Europe, offering needs-based designservices for the social industries: livework, Think Public, uscreates, STBY, participle are just a few.

+ Public services are taking lessons from commercial business to embed entrepreneurial spirit, skills and values into organisations to leverage creativity and lead change. A social innovation enterprise called SODA, founded by social entrepreneur and ex-NHS director Ann Porter, is delivering specialist professional

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training workshops to senior executives within the NHS to facilitate this change of culture and mindset. (www.sodainnovation.com)

+ Designers are showing that they can offer value in health care service delivery. Both NHS Scotland and the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement in England are working with experience and service designers as well as change management consultants. They are applying design and organizational change methodology to identify and implement people-focused service improvements. In England, an experience-based design handbook was developed to assist frontline teams to use design research, thinking and prototyping techniques to design services that could improve the patient experience. NHS Scotland is one of the first health systems in the world to establish a Patient Experience Program in 2008, and invite designers from fuelfor to organize a Patient Experience Masterclass introducing experience design approaches to their service improvement leadership teams. + Needs-based design approaches can deliver sustainable regional innovation strategies that improve the quality of life of citizens. Design of The Times (DOTT) 2007 and 2009 are programs that have demonstrated the role and value of design in facilitating regional transformation programs in Newcastle and Cornwall respectively. + RSA Design Directions offers an innovative program of awards that allows students to apply their skills to social need and adopt new mindsets, focusing on the role of a designer in private and public service innovation. With projects in the Prison Services (The Visit), Health of People in the Workplace, Design Against Crime and Action Against Age, in partnership with Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Glaxo Smith Kline, Help the Aged and Kalyx.(www.rsadesigndirections.org)

+ Multidisciplinary team-based training is considered a valuable asset. Carnegie Mellon School of Design offer a specialized collaborative course called ‘Designing and Leading a Business’ that integrates design, business and teamwork perspectives when considering leadership in entrepreneurial companies. Characteristically, the course itself is delivered by a team of tutors from business entrepreneurship, design and organizational behaviour at the Tepper School of Business and Institute of Design in Chicago. + Design thinking is seen as having increasing relevance for addressing large-scale, complex social problems. D Schools that promote and train diverse disciplines in design thinking & its application to business innovation are equipping people with capabilities for multidisciplinary, insights-

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“Reframing is not new! It’s actually not glamorous or novel, but rather a very practical and basic skill with its roots strongly placed in industrial tradition,

craft and art.”

“Reframing is about considering the social aspects of a problem... it can lead to a discussion with a client where design is actually not part of the solution, instead a business innovation

is what needed.”

driven innovation. The first class to graduate in 2008 from the Hasso Plattner Institute’s School of Design Thinking in Potsdam, Germany have been successful in finding employment. Either with industry partners with whom they collaborated during their degree projects, starting their own firms, entering design education to help train other disciplines in design thinking or joining research labs to further the development of professional design practice.

Beyond reframing, to making

Our initial exploration was provoked by the idea that a new breed of designer would be capable of ‘reframing old problems and defining new solutions’.

When NHS England first began to explore the application of design science to large-scale organisational change and service innovation, they drew parallels between a medical professional diagnosing a patient and a designer reframing the problem space through in-depth contextual research enquiry and insights synthesis. Reframing is the result of being able to take alternative perspectives on a problem, and being able to think laterally and freely - skills which of course can be found in individuals from a wide range of problem-solving professions.

This statement seems to imply that reframing can sometimes end up putting designers out of a job! Which if we believe in truly multidisciplinary teams and structures should not be a problem, as this would simply create a job for another team member.

Reframing and design thinking typically occur in the initial stages of a design process that will be completed with some degree of ‘design doing’ or ‘design action’ - prototyping, design development, implementation. However according to one design strategist, “the making part of design has been marginalised in the discourse [around the value of design towards business innovation].” Is it precisely because a solution that results from reframing may not necessarily be built using designers’ skills, but may instead require policy-making, engineering or financial skills to be brought to reality, that the ‘making’ aspect of design has become sidelined in discourse and academic curricula?

We also learnt about terms that are being coined by Professor Ezio Manzini at the Politecnico di Milano in Italy, to differentiate the type of designer whose strength lies in design thinking, ‘Designer A’, versus those for whom making is an essential aspect of practising design, ‘Designer B’. For the purposes of this study we needed to explore both types of

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designer, since our interest lies in design strategy as well as implementation. We need therefore to understand whether through considerate education we might be able to foster both strengths, to perhaps support a hybrid breed of ‘designer AB’?

Towards a new breed of designer

We had started with the premise that a new breed of designer is required in these times of social change. There are small but growing numbers of practising designers who seem to have evolved professionally to operate in the social innovation territory. They have ended up working in pockets of expertise, through a combination of their own passion and intuition, and being at the right place at the right time with the right people to influence them in developing their design skills towards social issues. They are developing their own vocabulary, tools and methods organically as their work evolves, learning from both failures and triumphs, working in environments that are simultaneously inspiring and challenging, impossible and hopeful. Their very experience and presence provides a valuable opportunity to learn what it takes to work as a designer in the social industries and serves as validation that indeed there is a clear role therein for Design.

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“There [already] is a new breed of designers who are solving problems from a social point of view and no longer just

a commercial one.”

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TRAITS AND SKILLS

What are the design tools and skills for social change? And to what extent can those skills be taught? Can anyone from any discipline be trained to do this kind of work? And how important is personality and mindset? This ‘nature versus nurture’ debate arose in several interviews when we spoke about the essential skills a designer might need to be able to address social issues. We eventually framed various elements into two clear categories; those relating to individual character traits or soft skills that were independent of a particular discipline, and those relating to design-specific skills. This helped us to better understand the profiles of prospective students for the new course, as well as highlighted essential teaching objectives around which to build the course framework.

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Fig. 5 Essential characteristics of a designer for social change, inherent traits and developed skills.

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“Designers need an appreciation that others have a huge experience to

contribute to problem solving.”

“[Designers] need to feel a sense of respect for other people’s work,

motivations and goals.”

“It’s very important to be able to listen well to people.”

Character traits

Humility

This was a subtle but important personality trait that was identified. Particularly in the context of multidisciplinary collaboration in complex domains such as health care, a designer must be able to acknowledge and provide room for other people’s specialist capabilities and knowledge. They need to be able to identify where Design cannot contribute, as well as where it can. This ability to act with humility can result in designers taking on facilitation roles in collaborative projects, something that we heard happens quite frequently in practice. This then leads to a need for strong information synthesis skills, to be able to deal constructively with a range of sometimes conflicting and disparate opinions and ideas within an expert team

Empathy

The ability to put people at ease and encourage them to express their needs authentically is an obvious but essential skill for a designer working with a needs-based approach. Empathy was seen as a personality trait that manifested strongly in people who listen well, and who are open to a variety of opinions, cultures and languages, withholding judgement. A designer must have the ability to detect and be sensitive to people’s emotions, motivations, their expressed as well as unexpressed needs. At the same time, they should be able to ‘feel’ the fine line between empathy and objectivity, in much the same way as a documentary film maker or social worker might work with a subject. A high degree of emotional intelligence was mentioned as a related trait that can also bring unique benefits. It was considered valuable particularly in projects where change management is required; knowing when to push teams to meet tough challenges, as well as realising when to give the group slack. An ability to recognise and build on strengths and weaknesses, in themselves and in the teams they work within, can give designers the skills to drive social change.

The X factor

Experts identified a crucial ingredient for the profile of a successful, socially-sensitive designer, but it was one that they found tricky to describe and even harder to identify in recruitment processes. To some degree they were talking about optimism and altruism, a desire to help people and a personal ambition to change the world, to make it a better place. Designers on the whole tend to be a relatively optimistic bunch,

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able to see potential and possibilities, to think beyond the constraints of today and envision a more promising future. It is this ‘x-factor’ that often supplies the much needed extra fuel to achieve social impact; to challenge outdated institutions and systems, transform ineffective and entrenched processes and convince resisting naysayers. This focus and drive, or ‘x-factor’, can be both a source of hidden strength as well as inspiration to an innovation team.

Resilience

The will to perform, as well as the energy and enthusiasm to perform through adversity, were all mentioned as valuable traits. Resilience seemed an appropriate term to sum up these characteristics. Design education, and specifically the mechanism of the design crit as professional review, may train students to deal constructively with criticism and will certainly stand them in good stead when faced with challenges or obstacles within a project or team. However, the design practitioners we interviewed had also developed their resilience through practical experience and learning-on-the-job. It had been built up over time, by working in a variety of different roles and teams and facing different levels of resistance and challenge. They had become somehow ‘hardened’ to this work and had the scars and stories to prove it! Interestingly, and this may be a question of design generation, several spoke about an ad-hoc and uphill journey into the positions they currently hold in the industry. Throughout the course of their careers they had been involved in creating their own roles, and writing their own job descriptions within organisations that were not at the time structured to support designers let alone the type of designer they were becoming. They naturally built up defenses to cope with ‘swimming against the tide’. For some this experience also involved personal sacrifices, such as having to move away from the well-known urban centres of design, to less glamorous, more isolated locations where they could pursue their professional passion.

“It’s not about ideas alone, there are many ideas out in the world, but it is about bringing something into the world

successfully.”

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Design-specific skillsCreative energy & play

Designers tend to be naturally curious and explorative, able to bring alternative perspectives and ideas to a team as inspiration. Their energy can act as a catalyst for change and innovation. Encouraging and fostering this in design education is perhaps one of the more obvious and yet important aspects of any new course. As is the awareness that non-design disciplines bring their own forms of creativity, for example in economics, engineering or science. Successfully harnessing and generating this creativity can be seen as a vital resource for designers working in multidisciplinary teams and in challenging contexts.

Visualising complexity

Designers need to be able to deal with ambiguity and mess, to be able to communicate complexity without losing the subtlety and nuance present in critical details. Designers process and make sense of information in visual ways, this is clearly seen in the way they process and synthesise research findings. But this is a design skill can be an extremely valuable contribution in a multidisciplinary innovation team, since visualisation can also be key to removing room for misinterpretation by different audiences involved in a project. Visual mappings can enable team members and collaborators, who may speak different professional as well as cultural languages, to find themselves on the same page, grasping the same mental model of a complex issue. This is an essential starting point for being able to collaboratively find new solutions and strategies.Patient experience and service delivery is typically thought of as a linear process, for example from diagnosis to therapy. This has historically led to the use of linear process improvement tools for service innovation, as taken from process engineering such as LEAN. However designers are developing new ways of visualising patient experience that more accurately reflect the human experience of care; care paths emerge that are perhaps elliptical or orbital, containing linear as well as repetitive sections that better represent the experience of interaction between patients and physicians throughout a service, and not just the stages andtasks in a process. Together with LEAN these methods combine qualitative and quantitative insights to build even richer pictures of the status quo. The impact of these visualisations on organisations and teams responsible for delivering and managing healthcare services can be significant. They are suddenly able to see their professional practice in a new light, identifying bottlenecks and issues and opening up the opportunity to address long-standing problems.

“Designers are not the only creative thinkers in a team, but they should bring creative energy into the group.”

“Designers help clinical teams visualise their own situation. It can be liberating and provide [us with] a new

perspective.”

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Storytelling

People remember stories, whether they be service providers, patients or managers; the story can transcend professional perspective and level the playing field for access to more holistic solutions. Designers’ storytelling skills help them to create narratives that take people on a journey to understand an issue, situation or opportunity with greater clarity and empathy. With this they are able to reach and communicate to wide audiences, to engage people and create all important buy-in for ideas, processes and solutions.

Systems thinking

‘Big picture thinking’ was seen as an important skill for designers in this field of work. The ability to think in wide and thoughtful ways, to zoom out of a specific problem or incident and realise the broader context and territory of the opportunity space. This action enables designers to frame a problem in a realistic and holistic way. The use of ethnography and socio-cultural trends research is an example of approaches that are used by designers to widen as well as deepen their frame of reference and understanding. It is true, such approaches can reveal additional constraints and limitations in a project, but lead to a solution with greater focus and relevance. Many social issues and problems are systemic by nature, therefore the ability to think in terms of system dynamics and multiple interactions becomes invaluable for designers tackling such problems. A standalone or point solution, be it product, service or space, can rarely tackle a systems issue on its own. A design solution that addresses a complex and systemic social problem is usually a combination of product, service, interior architecture and communication strategy. This connecting of solutions and designing of systems does increase the challenge of implementation, but also creates the opportunity to tackle problems in more sustainableand pragmatic terms.

“The world would be a better place if people were design thinkers!”

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Translating

Designers need to be multilingual, to be able to communicate effectively and clearly within a multidisciplinary team. Understanding the terminology and vocabulary of a specialist field, such as health care, is important but it is something that health care experts felt could be learnt by designers thru working closely with practitioners in a given domain. Of course with experience in the field, this knowledge only serves to improve communication and develop a common understanding amongst the various disciplines. We heard how designers are seen as almost having a duty to be the ones bringing alternative and fresh perspectives to a group. For this reason it is also important that they learn to keep a certain distance from specialist teams when working in a system or organisation. In order to stay objective whilst still retaining relevance and relationship. This is a fine line to draw, similar to the tuning or rationing of empathy we mentioned earlier that can help designers to remain objective.

Creative Prototyping

Our interviewees spoke about what they felt was the instinct of a designer, and what perhaps sets designers apart from other disciplines - their compulsion to make things. A designer feels the need to take a step beyond talking about an idea, to build it and put it out into the real world. Is this where our ‘Designer A’ distinguishes themselves from ‘Designer B’, a ‘design thinker’ from a ‘design doer’?

Creative prototyping is one area of skills that is fast evolving in Design, through the accessibility and availability of digital technology and new tools such as stereolithography or Arduino. But simple paper prototypes are also being successfully used to test services and spatial concepts with people at an early stage of the design process. Many creative prototyping activities tend to sit closely alongside co-design and participatory design techniques. Prototypes, irrespective of their nature, try to embody selected design qualities, that have been inspired and translated from the original human insight to simulate a meaningful experience. In creating such experiential deliverables designers make the abstract, tangible. Bringing with this the advantage of being able to test and co-create ideas very early and quickly in an iterative design process, potentially reducing business risk and generating learnings that help to improve and develop a stronger concept.

“The ability to learn different languages across all the people and disciplines that need to be involved [in innovation

is essential].”

“Design translates and synthesises information towards making or creating

something tangible as an outcome.”

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Entrepreneurial spirit

It was discussed whether entrepreneurship was an essential skill in itself for designers working towards social change. Some argued that since the market demand for this type of designer is growing but not yet significant, it may be necessary for graduates to develop the skills to be able to start up their own specialist companies. Even though it may be useful to introduce basic business administration and social entrepreneurship skills into the design curriculum, we heard that there are specialist degrees being developed to address this subject directly and distinctly.

We concluded that rather than teaching designers in-depth business skills, it was more important to find ways to encourage the development of certain skills that are typically found in entrepreneurs: networking skills, the ability to take calculated risks, learning by doing and applying skepticism and optimism in balanced measures. These types of skills would enable them to work with an entrepreneurial spirit, without necessarily having to learn how to run a business. In general, rather than try to incorporate a complete set of innovation skills from ethnography to business within the design education of a single individual, it was believed to be more important to instill skills that would help designers foster synergies with these various disciplines. Therefore the language of business is important to understand, but only in order to communicate with experts in that discipline who would be able to carry out business-related tasks in the team; being able to collaborate and design new business models and business cases being considered essential to moving ideas from concept to reality.

“It is important [for a designer] to have networking rather than entrepreneurial

skills”

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Facilitating

We heard how designing for social need is as much about the journey as the destination. Desigers trained in an insights-driven design process, understand the value of taking time to define needs and values at a deep level, before jumping to the problem-solving stage. This takes practice and experience as well as discipline and confidence, however when this skill is learnt they are well positioned to act as credible facilitators to the innovation process. Combined with many of the other traits and skills mentioned in this section, designers are then capable of acting like the ‘glue’ in an innovation team, helping people build on each other’s ideas and capabilities whilst ensuring they bring their own distinct skills to the table as and when required.

“Designers should hold people to a process and stop them jumping immediately to an answer or solution.”

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“Design has an instinct and momentum to make things, to take things out into the

world.”

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COURSE DESIGN

Applying the insights generated from the expert interviews, secondary desk research, as well as the experience and knowledge of the project team, a number of opportunity areas were identified for the new course.

For example:

+ To design the recruitment experience to be able to hand-select students with the necessary character traits and the potential to learn specific design skills.

+ To develop a model of team-based delivery, with staff, external design experts and industry partners working in collaboration.

+ To capture positive feedback from graduating students to enrich recruitment and retention.

+ To create opportunities for industry partnership projects and internships to develop mutual knowledge and professional practice.

+ To combine theoretical training with ‘safe’ in-school practice, through projects that build skills and confidence prior to industry exposure.

+ To create effective and flexible ways to assess individual, as well as the team-based performance of students.

+ To build a working environment and culture of learning that supports cross-disciplinary thinking and doing.

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Recruitment is keyThe design discipline is of course not homogenous, and there are designers out there who are naturally drawn to work in social innovation, and others for whom this type of work is unappealing for a variety of reasons - it’s perceived as too dense and dry, or requiring excessive compromises or perhaps is just not glamorous enough! Finding those with both passion and potential for this work, but also attracting those who may have hidden potential but are scared away by the apparent discomfort of such a career path, takes careful consideration towards the design of the recruitment experience itself.

At the moment Kingston University receives a large number of international students applying for its MA Design degrees. Foreign students cannot usually afford to attend an interview in person and therefore remote assessment is necessary and can prove quite challenging. Local recruitment officers around the world are able to support, and do meet students face-to-face at recruitment fairs and events. They often perform an initial screening and selection of likely candidates. However, the follow up is often in the form of an emailed portfolio or a phone interview with the UK-based team, that often provides just one facet of understanding of any candidate’s potential to perform well in such a challenging course.

A specific idea mentioned in our interviews was to recruit people with similar character traits, but coming from a diverse set of professional and cultural backgrounds. In this way there would be a natural synergy amongst personalities, but a richness of skills and experience that would add depth to the educational experience. Given the importance of collaboration and team working, another strategy could be to recruit teams rather than individuals; as you might compile a design studio for a business or organisation, bringing together people from diverse backgrounds, cultures and disciplines can create an inspiring and powerful team. We learnt how the Royal College of Art in London as well as the Institute without Boundaries in Toronto take this type of approach.

The HPI D-School in Potsdam explicitly described for us their annual, team-based recruitment process where they initially screen individual applicants through a T-tool illustrated in Fig. 6. They also observe candidates performance through a series of intensive workshops where they asked to complete tasks in carefully configured teams. These workshops or D-Camps are an essential part of the recruitment process for the team of educators themselves, to experience the teams and students first hand. For the students this acts as a ‘taster’ to the course itself, and helps to manage their expectations. Being able to observe

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Fig. 6 The HPI D-School uses a simple but effective recruitment tool, called a T-tool, to initially screen individual candidates.

and assess the team dynamics, from competitiveness to collective learning, leadership skills to mediation techniques, individuals are assessed on their personal as well as group contribution to fulfill an increasing complexity of tasks over the course of a few days.

Any new recruitment process needs to identify a mixture of innate character traits and learnt design skills in order to effectively assess the potential of a candidate to succeed in this specialism. Additionally, it must be able to assess an individual candidate’s ability, as well as their team-based performance, in order to understand the potential dynamics in a year group that will have to work closely together in project teams. New recruitment tools could be developed that use internet platforms, such as Skype or youtube, as well as face-to-face interaction through workshop events and summer schools. These can be organised around task-based activities and thus offer deeper insights into a candidate’s mindset, characteristics, motivation and skill set, better assessing their potential and reducing the risk of a mismatch between course and student.

A specialist training

Design practitioners we spoke to that are currently working in the social domain, have developed the necessary mix of skills through completing one or two different degrees, and perhaps working in a variety of jobs and organisations. At the time of their education there were no degree courses that combined this training in a specialist area. Had a course such

“There are few advanced design degrees [right now] that are

meaningful.”

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as ‘Design for Social Need’ existed earlier, many would have welcomed the chance to study in a more specialised way and fast track their learning. And according to our interviewees, there appears to be a lack of meaningful advanced design courses available for mid-career design professionals seeking to redirect their careers towards the social sectors. A need that apparently arises when people become frustrated with working extensively and exclusively on purely commercial projects. The opportunity for this new course was therefore seen as a specialist degree, that could be open for both design graduates with a social interest to apply after their BA degree, or for experienced designers and professionals from diverse disciplines who want to orientate their career in a social direction, after having gained experience in other areas.

Given the growing interest amongst non-designers in particular aspects of a design education, the rising popularity of executive training programs at Design Schools as well as experimental modules to introduce design thinking and strategy in Business Schools, it was considered important to ensure that non-designers not be misled entering the new design course. To manage their expectations that they would received a specialist design training, and not an introduction to design history and art.

But since this explortation confirmed that creative thinkers do not only come from design, we discussed how the focus could be to recruit creative thinkers rather than only designers. One idea could be to open the course up to include professional staff from industry, such as nurses or undergraduate medical students who might be interested to supplement their education with innovation skills learnt through design practices - a form of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) that is actually already being offered to social industry partners within the Product Design program at Glasgow School of Art in the UK.

Another debate with interviewees had been about the extent to which applicants needed to have industry experience; of course this would enrich the course and allow students as well as staff to learn from and share collective experiences, but it would also create a valuable opportunity to extend their own professional networks into different disciplines and domains. We learnt how this type of mechanism was fruitful for the interaction and service design masters students at Carnegie Mellon School of Design in the US. However, it is not necessarily about having a fixed number of years of industry work experience, or reaching a certain age, but rather having a level of maturity in thinking about social issues in a broad and deep sense.

“The course could offer disciplines close to design, such as marketing and engineering, the skills to differentiate themselves and increase their market attractiveness to employers and the market when they return to their core

discipline.”

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“[I imagine that] ‘Design for Need’ would be a more hands-on education than typically available at business

school.”

“More companies are building designers into their teams.”

“Designers can be champions for change, but you need time and relationships to achieve real change.”

Instead of competing with the likes of D-Schools and B-Schools that primarily teach Design Thinking, but instead building upon its own heritage and experience in its multidisciplinary design faculty, Kingston University could respond to the market demand for Design Thinking training, and design a course that additionally offers ‘Design Action’ or ‘Design Doing’ as a differentiating factor.

Employment opportunities

Design practices will certainly need to continue bringing together teams of diverse disciplines to tackle social issues. From the well established, large scale firms such as Design Continuum and IDEO to newer, bespoke start ups in the social innovation space such as SODA, uscreates and participle. However, embedded teams might be one of the most effectiveways to conduct this type of complex service and system innovation design work. Having the time and the opportunity to build collaborative relationships appear to be essential to move big ideas forward andchampion change through a system. The Center for Innovation at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota is a great example of this embedded model. It has created a unique program called SPARC. It brings together an in-house team of designers who are able to step out from the limitations of the consultancy model that applies to the majority of today’s designpractices, and operate as an integral part of the health service innovation team. This gives them a uniquely intimate level of access to understand health service experiences, as well the chance to work alongside and empower the key stakeholders responsible for the daily delivery of care.

The course would need to find a way to deliver value in terms of real skills and connections, even though it will be difficult to simulate real world conditions in academia. Students will need to receive a relatively accurate representation of what it feels like and how it is to actually do this type of design work in practice, in order to best equip themselves for professional practice. It will be important that students are encouraged to access expertise across disciplines within the academic system, as well in industry through client-based projects. Crossover modules and agreements across faculties or with industry partners can all help to build a open culture of learning and foster cross-fertilisation of ideas and thinking.

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Learning by doing

And since the course will likely have to take some calculated risks, we heard advice that the University should be prepared to fail some students if necessary, but to learn from this experience to refine the course. This points to the need for the course leadership team to be given ample room for failures and mistakes in the first years, just as a start-up company might be allowed to make a financial loss within its first years of seed funding, but in doing so expected to learn important lessons for future success.

At the time of publication, the course proposal for the new MA ‘Design for Social Need’ has been positively reviewed by Kingston University. Consideration is being given to suitable mechanisms for developing the idea of this course and delivering it within the current curriculum.

Meanwhile, feedback is invited from the wider communities of design, innovation and business to develop the thoughts and ideas contained in this booklet. Feel free to contact us and share your point of view.

“[Course leadership] will need machetes to blaze a trail!”

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“The greatest risk faced in designing such a course, would be to decide not to create

it!”

32

AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank the following people for taking part in this project, making time in busy schedules, sharing invaluable insight, experiences as well as personal passion and enthusiasm.

Head of Improvement & Innovation, NHS Scotland (UK) Principal, Design Continuum (USA)

Founder, in/stum (Brazil)

Director Social Innovation, Philips Design (Netherlands)

Design researcher, Mayo Clinic SPARC Innovation Lab (USA)

Instructor in Medicine,Mayo Clinic SPARC Innovation Lab (USA)

Research Associate, HPI School of Design Thinking (Germany)

Design Strategist, PitneyBowes Concept Studio (USA)

Product design student, Faculty of Architecture, Technical University Lisbon (Portugal)

Product Designer and ex-Kingston MA design student (Spain)

Harriet Hunter

Monica Bueno

Luis Arnal

Josephine Green

Christine Janae

Maggie Breslin

Simon Blake

Matt Maleska

Miguel Vaz

Ferran Lajara

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A new breed of designer

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