Project Design Thinking

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Design thinking is often seen as a key literacy and a form of problem- based-learning as it requires active participation in meaning-making and knowledge-creation. In this project students will engage with ‘wicked’ societal problems by using Design thinking to find a solution to an issue associated with one of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (Figure 1). Figure 1: The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals This approach is particularly apt for such difficult or intractable problems, having been developed to challenge existing assumptions, redefine problems, and ultimately develop meaningful products and services. As such, Design thinking is a process for creative problem solving that is used across industries, governments, not-for-profits, the cultural sector and in research. There are many instances of this approach, take for example, the development of a lamp that uses solar energy developed for those who don’t have (reliable) access to electricity, or a location-based game to engage visitors of cultural heritage sites. The starting point for Design Thinking is that analysing and discussing problems is not always the best way to solve them. This is especially true when we are facing new or particularly complex issues. In such cases, taking a design approach can be a better method to help to design solutions through an iterative design cycle (see Figure 2). This cycle includes identifying and understanding (empathising) with the people that you are trying to design a solution for, only then do you define the problem, followed by iterating through ideas and possible solutions, before developing a prototype, testing it, and coming up with a final solution. Figure 2: A typical design thinking lifecycle approach to problem solving In this course students will take a Design Thinking approach from Empathising through Prototyping. Students will learn about theories and principles behind design thinking by actually doing design thinking through a project (of the student’s choice) of social relevance.