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At the heart of the conference lie highly-interactive masterclasses and participative lectures. The masterclasses are two to three hour workshops to explore and practice latest methodologies and develop new skills. They are led by well-known practitioners and senior-level leaders in their fields. They provide you with a range of proven concepts and useful service and business design tools. Our masterclass leaders will optimise their masterclasses for online participation.

The lectures are more theoretical and future-oriented sessions, imbued with inspiring cases supported with scientific data and research findings. They are given by engaging lecturers; experienced teachers and tutors at international universities and academies.

Because of a maximum capacity per masterclass, allocation will be based on ticket purchase date.


Masterclasses / Lectures

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Masterclasses

'Using design to drive organisational change'

Masterclass leader
Joyce Yee (Northumbria University)


Description
This masterclass is aimed at senior executives looking to use design to drive and support change in organisations to become more people-centric. Everyone talks about the importance of developing an innovative culture in organisation but not many people know how this is done effectively.

The session will introduce the 7 Design Change Roles framework – developed to identify how design (approaches and methods) is used to help organisations become more innovative, human-centric and resilient. The framework has been derived from in-depth interviews with 13 multinational organisations and 7 experts in organisational change, leadership and digital transformations. By revealing how different types of organisations like Steelcase, Spotify and Itaú Bank use design to support and drive change in their organisations, we can start identifying your change process needs.

The masterclass will take you through a series of reflexive and discursive exercises that will a) help you notice and reveal the effects of organisation culture, b) identify your change needs, and c) help you plan for change.

Who may benefit from this masterclass?

  • Managers of organisational change and transformation

  • Senior executives interested in using design to create a more innovative culture

  • Senior managers leading innovation teams

  • Designers supporting organisational change with external organisations

Key takeaways will include how to:

  • Familiarise with the 7 Design Change Roles Framework

  • Understand how organisational change is enacted in different organisational context

  • Explore how design can support your change effort

Scheduled
Thursday, September 10, 16:30 - 19:30 and Saturday, September 12, 10:00 - 12:30

 

'(Re)designing society's digital transformation'

Masterclass leader
Marco van Hout (Digital Society School)
Olina Terzi (Digital Society School)


Description
The ever growing omni-presence of digitisation in the world has recently been heating up discussions among policy-makers, economists and industry leaders about its societal impact. As digital transformation is disrupting society more profoundly, concerns are growing about its affects on matters such as jobs, inequality, health/ wellbeing, economic prosperity and security/ safety.

However the digital transformation and its accompanying technologies in itself are neutral. Therefore we should not forget that we (as a society) are responsible for the ‘design’ of the digital transformation that we need and want. We have the opportunity to create shared value that can lead to increased benefits for all actors taking part in digital transformation, especially in the light of the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) by the year 2030. The World Economic Forum recently called for a comprehensive set of regulatory standards, physical infrastructure, and digital systems, to capture the benefits of the digital revolution for the SDG’s.

In order to design the digital transformation aimed at a truly sustainable society, we need to organise ourselves differently, change our mindset and train ourselves with the right competencies to become ‘digital transformation designers’, a new bread of leaders in a digital world.

This masterclass will show you what the ingredients are that make up ‘Digital Transformation Design (DTD)’ and introduce you to a comprehensive frame and set of tools and methods that can help you set DTD in motion in your own work or that of your organisation.

Who may benefit from this masterclass?

  • C-suite execs and heads of organisations that can pave the way in their organisations for a responsible Digital Transformation

  • Design leaders who are able to train and inspire their teams towards new mindsets for (digital) transformation

  • Anyone who is involved in or feels responsible for the (digital) transformation of their organisation

  • Anyone who cares about the planet or society and understands design, tech and social innovation need to go hand in hand

Key takeaways will include how to:

  • Understand and convey to others, the importance and impact of digital transformation in society

  • Respond most effectively (and responsibly) to the digital transformation of society

  • Find and use the best methods to train (your) professionals to integrate digital technology in society and organisations

  • Link and organise your agenda to the UN’s SDG 2030 agenda and have impact on it

  • Design the Digital Transformation the world needs

Scheduled
Friday, September 11, 16:30 - 19:30

 

'Game jam - learning from serious game design to co-create service solutions'

Masterclass leader
Oscar García Pañella (Cookie Box)


Description
Currently, methods like focus groups and co-creation workshops are being used for design research. But what about jams?  The videogame industry is quite fond of using game jams as co-creation processes that emerge as the most suitable and efficient workshops to find the best user-centric solutions. These jams have grown in size and importance over the last 10 years while being applied to other sectors as well. Game jams allow mixing roles and profiles, activating the creative potential to co-create games, products, and services other than games.

This unique jam is specially designed for the audience of the Service Design Days using gamified methodologies and a new set of tools. The jam protocol emerges from the field of Serious (Applied) Games.

During this jam, you will activate your creative potential while actively participating in a learning process where different soft skills are used simultaneously: attention to diversity, teamwork, holistic view, stress and frustration management, efficiency orientation, openness to new situations, interpersonal communication and information management. This jam is not only about understanding and learning, but also about training, practicing and experiencing while participating.

In this jam, you will learn how to work with gamified methodologies that help multidisciplinary groups to confront a specific challenge and develop a prototype for the solution in a very intense manner. In fact, you will experience the methodology that Cookie Box uses within its 'Shape Up' business jams. New material in the form of a tool kit will be introduced.

Who may benefit from this masterclass?

  • Leaders working on product or service innovation

  • Managers of organizational change and transformation

  • Workshop facilitators who want to grow their behavioral toolbox

  • Senior design researchers

  • Innovation managers

  • Game, videogame, Serious (Applied) Game and Gamification designers

  • Anyone wanting to learn methodologies to drive behavioral change through Serious (Applied) Games and Gamification schemes

Key takeaways will include how to:

  • Learn how to use gamification dynamics-based workshops with co-creation techniques and open innovation to accelerate shared knowledge and learning

  • Get to know a set of gamified methodologies and protocols to find and prototype innovative solutions

  • Understand what applied and serious games are

  • Practice a complete set of soft skills that will arise while co-creating

  • Balance the efforts between the different disciplines implied in any service, such as psychology, art, storytelling, and technology

  • Integrate a methodology that puts people at the center in any of their roles: patients, students, customers, workers, etc., to produce innovative designs that drive behavioral change

Scheduled
Friday, September 11, 14:00 - 16:30

 

'Design, AI and the changing nature of services'

Masterclass leaders
Cat Drew (Design Council)
Phillippa Rose (Current Works)
Makayla Lewis (Kingston University London)


Description
The nature of our work and the way we provide services is changing, and AI has a huge impact in those. Within retail, healthcare and planning, AI has the opportunity to provide more quicker, more personalised and smarter services. And for staff providing services, AI has the power to intelligently automate certain tasks, freeing people up to take on more creative or human roles, or in fact to replace them altogether. Design has a big role to play here. Firstly to ensure that AI is being used within these services in a way that people feel comfortable with. Secondly, to support staff to use their additional time to be purposefully creative. And thirdly, to support retraining in those who jobs are made redundant.

This masterclass explores different futures for these types of services, using case study examples and futures scenario techniques. It then considers how service and experience designers might need to work alongside AI – both to create AI driven products and services which people are comfortable with, but also to train frontline professionals to work alongside AI, and use design techniques to put their ‘human’ time and characteristics to maximum use.

Who may benefit from this masterclass?
Senior design experts, service and experience designers, business designers and design researchers, decision makers and commissioners wanting to use AI in their work.


Key takeaways will include the understanding that:

  • AI can create quicker, more personalised and smarter services

  • It’s essential to use user-centred design to use AI-led services which people feel comfortable with

  • Service staff freed up through greater use of design can provide more empathetic, intuitive and relational elements to services

  • AI can learn from relational services

Scheduled
Thursday, September 10, 14:00 - 16:30

 

'The art of frame creation'

Masterclass leader
Kees Dorst (University of Technology Sydney)


Description
When organisations apply old methods of problem-solving to new kinds of problems, they may accomplish only short-term solutions, temporary fixes and superficial service solutions. Today's problems are a new breed - open, complex, dynamic and networked - and require a radically different response.

How do designers manage to approach problem situations in new ways, time and time again? We need to start with the acknowledgement that a problem has its roots in a specific context. To create a new frame that context needs to be critically looked at, and changed. This is how we move beyond the simplifications that underlie conventional views of the problem.

The creation of new frames in design can be modelled as a process of nine steps. In this masterclass, Kees Dorst will introduce a new, innovation-centered approach to problem-solving in organisations: the frame creation. He will use a case study to take you through some of the key steps of the Frame Creation process in a hands-on manner. Frame creation is a core design practice that can be used by many other disciplines as well.

Who may benefit from this masterclass?
This masterclass is for innovation leaders, design and user experience researchers, product owners, and all professional designers who work on a strategic level and want to understand and use practices developed by expert designers to solve today's open, complex, dynamic, and networked problems.


Key takeaways will include:

  • Understanding of the role of framing and reframing in innovation for the 21st Century

  • Insights and some first experience in the key steps of frame creation

  • Applying design thinking, but going far beyond the borrowed tricks and techniques that usually characterise design thinking

  • Focusing on the ability to create new approaches to the problem situation instead of the generation of solutions

  • Learning how to apply the frame creation methodology

Scheduled
Friday, September 11, 14:00 - 16:30 and Saturday, September 12, 10:00 - 12:30

 

'Reimagining our bodies as data'

Masterclass leaders
Babitha George (Quicksand)
Jon Rogers (University of Dundee)


Description
People used to be the users of the algorithms that drove the services we use. Now through complex often hidden, biometrics we are part of the algorithm that drives services. On our borders. In our banks. In our private homes. We are all being listened to, watched, scanned and observed in direct and indirect ways. Consent is opaque. Notions of trust are often used only as a marketing tool. The consequences are spoilt goods. If we want services to be tools for people, then we need to change the way we engage our bodies as data.

In this workshop, we will unpack the complexities of this human laced algorithm. We will work together to propose new ways we can surface the depths of hidden mechanisms. Together we will propose new designed futures of how we can hold algorithms to account and put trust back in a place of respect.

Who may benefit from this masterclass?

  • Anyone interested in and working on the ethics of algorithms

  • Anyone interested in privacy and consent within the realm of data

  • Anyone curious about the larger service ecosystems around data regimes

  • Anyone wanting to engage with issues of surveillance, under the premise of convenience and service delivery

  • Anyone who wants to find more hopeful ways to engage with biometrics that puts peoples’ privacy firsts

Key takeaways will include how to:

  • Unpack ways in which our bodies are being used as data harvesting mechanisms

  • Engage with new scenarios for the future where algorithms are built around people

  • Co-create new possibilities for the future where privacy and consent are actively considered in the design of products and services

  • Co-design principles for more robust and trustworthy products and services

Scheduled
Thursday, September 10, 14:00 - 16:30

 

'Jobs to be done in practice: creating value strategically'

Masterclass leader
Jim Kalbach (Mural)


Description
The concept of jobs to be done (JTBD) provides a lens through which we can understand value creation. The term was made popular by business leader Clayton Christensen in 'The Innovator’s Solution', the follow-up to his landmark book 'The Innovator’s Dilemma', and underlies his theory of disruption. Since then, companies have been using the JTBD as a strategic framework for innovation.

You’re probably familiar with the basic principle of JTBD: people ‘hire' products and services to accomplish an objective. By providing a language for observing and discussing problems independent of solutions, JTBD helps organisations identify new opportunities for market growth, get aligned on direction, and make better decisions. More than that, JTBD provides a lingua franca for shifting your collective mindset and fostering a culture of innovation across your company.

This masterclass is designed to give you concrete skills on how to apply JTBD and use its approach to make better innovative decisions and create high(er)-value products and services. You’ll work in groups to practice techniques from JTBD. Find out how to create solutions customers want and use JTBD to structure user research and find opportunities. And, learn how to apply specific techniques of JTBD that guide strategic decisions.

Who may benefit from this masterclass?
This session is geared for designers and strategists looking to further understand the concept of JTBD and to work with the approach in a strategic way.


Key takeaways will include:

  • Get to know extended uses of JTBD

  • Identify strategic opportunities from the customer’s perspective

  • Apply JTBD to get direction and make better decisions

Scheduled
Friday, September 11, 14:00 - 16:30

 

'Customer-centric transformation, the game'

Masterclass leaders
Jules Prick (Koos Service Design)

Nynke Schrakamp (Koos Service Design)

Description
More and more companies want to work with service design. Enthusiastically everyone starts creating journeys, comes up with great ideas and experiences the energy. But how do you make sure your beautiful journeys and fantastic ideas are actually implemented outside of the workshop rooms? In order to do so, we need to look further than just designing services. How can we build an organization that has the right capabilities, resources, metrics, culture, and organizational structure?

In this masterclass, you are going to build the organisation of the future. An organisation that thrives, that is capable of designing and delivering meaningful services, that truly understands its customers, that is able to overcome barriers and has a clear growth strategy. And it won’t be a long lecture, it will be a fun, interactive game, where you’ll work in teams.

This masterclass and game is based on the ‘Service design maturity model’, developed to increase the impact of our work as service designers. It reflects the learnings of working with organizations like ING, the Dutch Railways and Liander, an energy utility company. And did we already tell you that the team will do its utmost best to make it fun?

Who may benefit from this masterclass?

  • Design leaders in large organisations hungry for change

  • Executives of large organisations that feel the urge of customer-centricity

  • Design practitioners that run into walls in their own organisation

Key takeaways will include how to:

  • Assess your current situation as an organisation regarding customer-centricity

  • Understand why your current projects don’t always have the right impacts

  • Create an overview with concrete steps on how to improve your organisation

  • Overcome barriers and other setbacks

Scheduled
Friday, September 11, 16:30 - 19:30 and Saturday, September 12, 13:00 - 15:30

 

'How to design services that work'

Masterclass leader
Lou Downe (UK Government)


Description
What exactly makes a service ‘good’? Ask most people this question and you will very often get the response of ‘it depends’. But the belief that all services are completely unique, and need to be designed from scratch each time means we spend a lot of our time solving problems that have already been solved.

From hotel booking to healthcare, there are basic elements that almost all of us need from nearly every service we use, regardless of what it helps us to do. Things like being able to find that service and use it unaided, regardless of your knowledge or abilities. Or being able to do the thing you set out to do, without having to navigate the bureaucracies created by multiple organisations, or the strange effects of bad staff incentivisation.

Using the 15 principles of good service design, this masterclass will teach you how to quickly identify major problems and pitfalls in your service and find ways to fix those issues. Demystifying what we mean by a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ service and understanding the common elements within all services that mean they either work for users or don’t. This masterclass will teach you how to design a service that your users can find, understand and use without having to ask for help. It will teach you how to not disappoint your users, and make sure they can do the thing they set out to do. In short, it will help you to make services that work.

Who may benefit from this masterclass?
For practitioners and non-practitioners alike interested in better service delivery.


Key takeaways:

  • Understand what makes a good service

  • Get to know the essential principles for building services that work well for users

  • Learn how to distinguish a ‘good service from a ‘bad service

  • Practice how to fix a ‘bad’ service and let the service work

Scheduled
Friday, September 11, 16:30 - 19:30 and Saturday, September 12, 13:00 - 15:30

 

'Services of the future. Do we want them all?'

Masterclass leaders
Simona Maschi (Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design)
Filippo Cuttica (BBC)
Maja Grakalic (BBC)


Description
This masterclass will be divided into two parts. The first part will be about imagining future services based on emerging technologies and social needs. The fact that technology creates many new opportunities for the future, does not necessarily mean that those opportunities are all equally desired and wanted by people across society. We will design services for both the best and the worst case scenarios, provoking the shift from the known ‘How might we …?’ question to the ‘Why should we…?’ one.

The second part of the workshop will focus on building prototypes and blueprints for one chosen future service. All the work and activities will be run in an analogue fashion and really activate every single participant to enact and role play a new service of the future flow.

Who may benefit from this masterclass?
Anyone who is interested in discussing future services, including their ethical implications in society. Anyone who wants to experience enacting a possible future service, role playing the different functions and touchpoints of that new bread of service, between the front- and the back-end of the service experience.


Key takeaways:

  • A provocation to think about the impact that every single service we design has on people, society and the planet

  • A toolkit to support the prototyping of future services, including enacting techniques and role play

Scheduled
Saturday, September 12, 13:00 - 15:30

 

'Designing for inclusive experiences'

Masterclass leaders
Hunter Sunrise (Modernist Studio)
Jen Ng (Jen Ng, Design)


Description
At a time when ROI, KPIs, datasets, and programmatic analytics drive design outcomes and marketing budgets, it can feel impossible to consider tossing demographics out the window. Never more than now, successful design is being in service to authentic human needs - and designing for journeys and experiences that connect with people in ways that help them feel seen, nurtured, and understood. Sure, our goal is to help them complete the journey at hand - but can we help users complete that journey feeling empowered at the endpoint? Absolutely.

In this masterclass, we’ll explore bias - and inclusion - in design, including mindsets, empathy, and how to pressure test concepts to ensure we’re solving for what our users and audiences genuinely need. The format of this class will be part workshop, and part open conversation with a goal of evolving our thinking, uncovering our own biases, and creating an open source environment in which we can all learn from each other. The future is inclusion - let’s start now.

Who may benefit from this masterclass?
This masterclass is for designers and non-designers, researchers and strategists, team leads and principals who are interested in a new way of unbiased thinking and working, and designing inclusive services.


Key takeaways:

  • Uncover your own biases

  • Create more inclusive and multi-dimensional audience descriptions

  • Get to know alternate persona-building methodology

  • Learn how to create an open, inclusive working environment

Scheduled
Thursday, September 10, 19:30 - 21:30

 

'Co-designing sustainable cities'

Masterclass leader
Erik Roscam Abbing (Livework)
Sanne Pelgröm (Livework)


Description
21st century cities are hubs of innovation. Urban areas are melting pots of great design, ranging from solutions in mobility, housing, energy, and waste to education, participation and inclusivity. But through Covid, climate change and social inequality, 2020 has made it more evident than ever, that cities also face tremendous challenges. For cities to become and remain socially and environmentally sustainable, a lot of (design) work must be done.

In this participatory masterclass, Erik Roscam Abbing and Sanne Pelgröm will explore with you a number of key questions around the urban design agenda for the years to come:

  • What will be the key issues we must tackle to keep cities socially and environmentally sustainable?

  • What is the nature of the design work that lies ahead of us?

  • How is that work different from what we were used to?

  • What is the role of technology in tackling these challenges?

  • What will be the role of citizens as silent designers in creating the city of the future?

  • And what will be the role of governments, public bodies and businesses?

While discussing these questions with you, Sanne and Erik will take you through a number of inspiring examples from cities around the world. We will work towards a 'sustainable cities' manifesto, in which we will lay out the key principles to guide us in co-creating the 21st century cities in which we would love to see our children grow up.

Who may benefit from this masterclass?
Practitioners and non-practitioners alike interested in co-desiging future-proof, socially and environmentally sustainable cities. We encourage representatives from governments, public bodies, businesses as well as independent agents to participate and join the discussion.


Key takeaways will include how to:

  • Find the answers on key questions around the urban design agenda

  • Discuss about new design capabilities we must develop

  • Define new kinds of partnerships

  • Uncover ’smart’ when we talk about social and environmental sustainability

  • Work towards a 'sustainable cities' manifesto

  • Lay out the key principles that can guide us in co-creating the 21st century cities

Scheduled
Thursday, September 10, 16:30 - 19:30

 

'Collaboration in the age of reinvention'

Masterclass leader
Adam Lawrence (WorkPlayExperience)
Kate Okrasinski (MAKE Studios)


Description
What lies beyond 2020 will largely be defined by the way we can reinvent the systems we inhabit, the value we create and the way we work and collaborate with one another. This will be the age of reinvention. It will bring about many opportunities, challenges and disruptions that will demand us to operate as adaptive and resilient teams, to build with what we have, and navigate and solve complex issues that are impacting us all.

As individuals, what are the behaviours and habits for collaboration we should strive to cultivate for the age of reinvention?

Join Adam Lawrence and Kate Okrasinski in this playful and fast-paced workshop. We will set out to spotlight topics such as communication, agency, leadership, and the hidden forces at play within teams and organisations. We will explore the dynamics of control, trust, and action, and consider strategies to navigate shared goals and distributed leadership needed for a future of reinvention.

Who may benefit from this masterclass?
Managers, design and non-design lead(er)s, and change-makers who seek to get the best from themselves, their (project) teams and those around them, by practicing self-empathy and reflecting on team dynamics and their own behaviour.


Key takeaways will include how to:

  • Gain a better understanding of your own collaborative preferences and habits

  • Develop personal strategies for cooperative reinvention and leadership challenges

  • Reflect on what makes an effective reinvention culture, and what can be done to facilitate and nurture it

Scheduled
Thursday, September 10, 14:00 - 16:30

 

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Lectures

'Future forecasting for an uncertain future: how to prepare for a new decade'

Lecturer
Helen Job (TCOLab)


Description
Future forecasting as an industry has changed - we previously could predict 24-48 months ahead. Thanks to instant and global access to information online, consumers are more exposed to changes in culture and a more diverse range of influences.

We live in the era of ecological collapse and technological disruption. Climate crisis is a ticking time bomb, and artificial intelligence is at once threatening and liberating our species. Technology has had an irrevocable impact on our mental and physical wellbeing. Anxiety is dominating our day-to-day. Furthermore, we have divisive politics and rising inequality and discrimination based on gender, class, and race. Humans are facing unprecedented revolutions, and change is now the only constant.

There are no clear solutions or definite futures and we must accept that we live with uncertainty. We must develop coping methods for the future/or futures and learn the skill of reinvention. Brands and organisations must understand the need for agility, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication and this is where forecasting as a practice can help.

This lecture will help you gain strategic insights into future consumer behaviours and what they mean for businesses and organisations. You will gain the methods to understand what the future or futures may look like, and how to explore the 'how and why’ culture is changing across the world. You will understand ‘how' by examining changing societies and emergent cultural shifts. You can refresh your thinking about audiences and categories, and ultimately open up new spaces of opportunity.

By the end of the lecture you will be able to

  • Understand the difference between drivers, values, macro trends and manifestations and why they matter
  • Gain confidence in spotting cultural changes and applying them to your business needs
  • Gain confidence in your ability to be more prepared for an uncertain future

Scheduled
Thursday, September 10, 14:00 - 14:50

 

'Forecasting for the other billions'

Lecturer
Lydia Caldana (www.lydiacaldana.com)


Description
Born in Europe and popularized in the West, trend forecasting and strategic foresight focus on the issues and solutions of the developed economies. However, as the hegemony of Western power decreases, new light shines on the other billions of peoples that have been overlooked in terms of culture and market relevance: the Global South. With projections signaling the size and importance of these diverse populations, the time to start shifting attention and investments is now. Leading this lecture is Lydia Caldana, a global futurologist born in Brazil, who will share key drivers of change and opportunity areas for those interested in the sources of innovation of the next decade.

This lecture will help you decolonize your mind by changing perspectives on cultures and countries; inspire you to re-educate your thoughts on the future of developing economies; and challenge you to co-design fairer futures for all by applying trend forecasting methodologies to real-world problems for whole-system solutions.

By the end of the lecture you will be able to

  • Rebuild your vocabulary through a non-colonizer perspective
  • Identify global macro trends and see how they're applied at a local level
  • See the Global South as an innovation hub and take part in the revolution

Scheduled
Thursday, September 10, 14:50 - 15:40

 

'Designing technologies for people's empowerment'

Lecturer
Peter Gall Krogh (Aarhus University)

Description
The important moments in our lives happen in physical spaces. Physical environments and interactive technologies configure people spatially through constraints, invitations and restrictions. And thus they influence our options for social relations – our socio-spatial opportunities. This is a generally neglected impact of interactive technologies. Like architects, doctors and engineers we as designers have wide arrays of tools and methods for optimising the subject of work: mapping interactions, usability testing, cognitive walk-throughs etc. However, when designing situations, services and technologies for people’s empowerment and self-management how our design solutions are designed and used is what really matters.

Let’s look at healthcare, for example. Most healthcare technologies are designed from the perspective of healthcare professionals and designers with (too) little concern for the lifeworld of the patient including his or her illness. With a fast increasing number of chronic patients (diabetes, forms of cancer, CRD, arthritis, allergy etc.) healthcare systems globally needs to find new ways of offering healthcare services; popularly speaking, they need to move from cure to care.

This challenge is not only a practical and economical imperative. When technologies are designed to help encourage forms of well-being several ethical concerns of power and freedom arise. Peter will present you a set of research award-winning design and IT prototypes enabling patients to constructively participate in treatment and master their chronic illness. Peter will use these examples to let you think beyond designing interactions and designing for people’s empowerment. Furthermore, you will get to know the concept of proxemics - the study of human use of space and the effects that population density has on behaviour, communication, and social interaction - to help you unpack and discuss our subject of design.

Scheduled
Friday, September 11, 14:00 - 14:50

 

'The goods of design: towards professional ethics for designers'

Lecturer
Ariel Guersenzvaig (ELISAVA)


Description
Designers occupy a prominent role in how products, services or environments get from abstract idea to concretion. Despite its impact on society and on the world, and unlike medicine, journalism or law, the design profession lacks widespread ethical principles and frameworks for addressing ethical issues, let alone a robust professional ethics.

That ethical reflection must be a part of the design process is an uncontroversial conclusion that is widely shared by both designers and scholars. The question remains, however, how can ethics be integrated into professional practice. A frequent way of integrating it into a profession is by developing a code of ethics. Codes of ethics, however useful to prompt discussions, rarely go beyond generalities as preventing harms or respecting human rights. In the present state of design professional ethics, focusing our energy in formulating codes is a deeply misguided endeavour: starting with a code of ethics in the hope that ethics will follow, goes the wrong way round.

Ariel will argue that the cultivation of ethics has to come from within the practice. Ethics, as philosopher Carl Mitcham asserts, ‘cannot come from on high, as it were, to articulate guidelines for action’. Every practice produces goods that can only be obtained by excelling at the very practice that produces them. These are called 'internal goods', and form the real purpose of that practice, and, at the same time, offer a justification for its existence.

This lecture will explore the urgent need for a broad design professional ethics and will offer a plausible ‘regulative ideal’ for the design profession based on these internal goods. This 'regulative ideal', naturally, is not a representation of what the profession of design currently is, but of what design can be at its best. Asking what goods are achieved when professional design is performed at its best is another way of asking what goods does professional design ought to pursue. A clear sense of the 'for the sake of which' they act can guide practitioners towards the good.

Scheduled
Friday, September 11, 14:50 - 15:40