Abstract

Fast growing, the building and architectural industry in Jordan has placed great pressure on the design industry, whether academic or professional. Besides opening student undergraduate acceptance to reach 150–210 each year in most of the 7 old schools, 8 new schools found their way to the Jordanian market. As the number of schools and students grow, shortages in academic resources grow, hence many schools reduced contact design studio hours to two thirds and devised a design students group, 3–4 on one project, which prevailed and in some schools became a normal academic practice. At the same time, schools find no time to develop their curriculums or design systems; they stick more and more to the old classical ways of design. However, change in one part and no change in another part aggravated the reliance on the old design (classical) teaching ways. Both tutors and students thought of and considered design as an exercise in solving problems where programs, solutions, and results are known from the beginning. Breaking through the long stagnant, old design process adopted in most Jordanian schools requires not only change in the ways designers handle the design problem requirements, programs, alternatives and solutions, but also the whole design course of action. Let’s not forget the stakeholder’s way of thinking as well, which includes: designers are to be involved in writing down the problem with the clients from the beginning; new concepts in design refer to architecture as a book which users can read, experience, and conceive; design concepts are devised from the users’ experiences, events, and activities and not from the space requirements, programs, and functions; and finally, designs which depend on designing successful and appropriate events, activities, and experiences are key to any successful interactive design.