Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a human-oriented approach to develop innovative products and services. The course provides a research and practice-oriented view towards design thinking, and introduces students to the basics of design research, designing and reflection, as well as to a wide variety of design related topics. Thematically, the course focusses on service-oriented design thinking, where students will be exposed to strategic and human-centered methods and processes, as well as challenged to solve societal, technological, economical, environmental and political issues. Students will be trained to apply the basic design thinking process in problem solving.

Knowledge:

The candidate

• has basic understanding of the designers´ mindsets, and inherently their proceses and methods
• is able to understand relationships between service innovation, and how social, technological, economical, environmental and political developments influence or are being influenced by design.
• is well-versed in addressing large scale "world issues" through a design thinking lens.

Skills:

The candidate

• is capable to address debate on, and solve specific design issues, anticipate future needs, solve these needs in a creative and designerly manner by introducing value at different levels: human, organisation, business ecosystem, social
• can apply design thinking in an interdisciplinary team

General qualifications:

The candidate knows

• basic user centered and participatory design methods
• how to solve complex socio-technical problems
• basic visualization, representation and communication techniques.

The course is fully project based. Students will be working in groups of 3 - 4 on a strategic, product, system, interaction or service design project. The nature of the project can be research or practice inclined or share ingredients of both. Each student group is required to define and scope their project in consultation with the course co-ordinator according to a topic / theme of their choice. The project should be human-centered by providing design solutions with the end-user in mind. A series of lectures, discussing a wide variety of design thinking topics, pertaining content, process, methods and tools complement the project work. The aim of these lectures is to challenge students to think and reflect about social, economic, technological, environmental and political topics, which will have an impact on human behaviour and well-being.

Moreover, 4 compulsory tutoring sessions will be organised focussed on a typical stages of the Design Thinking process. The purpose of these tutoring sessions is to equip students with research and design methods and tools to address ill-defined and / or contextual problems. For example, these sessions aim to train students to work with research methods, such as observations, interviews, personas, user journeys, scenarios, storytelling, etc. Moreover, students will also learn how to consolidate data and findings into a "Point of View", where they are expected not only to define the problem and requirements, but also to adopt political, social and economic stands on how they want to angle their design solution. During the third and fourth tutoring sessions, students will be exposed to the "Prototyping"-"Testing" phases of the of the Design Thinking Process. Methods and tools, such as "Sketching", "Service Blueprinting", "Paper Prototyping", "Participatory Design", "Future Stakeholder Mapping" etc. will be discussed.

To expose Design Thinking Students to the design profession, visits to local design consultancies may be organised upon availability of the recipient and if time allows. The candidate must be enrolled in a group within 3 weeks after the commencement date to participate further in the course.