Seventeenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Nowadays, the design education system is faced with the challenge of redefining the scopes, possibilities and methods of educating future designers (Meyer & Norman 2020a). The complexity of the world around us, both in the technological and geopolitical dimensions, as well as goals connected with climate protection and public health, creates completely new challenges for the practice of design. The current discussion of the design community on re-designing design education seems to be of key importance, although we feel that it is closed towards an external perspective - interdisciplinarity, which is emphasized at every step in a theoretical sense, but not widely used in this ongoing discussion. In the framework of a joint project of Volda University College and SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, we are initiating a project aimed at changing the way designers are taught, which could translate into a new, reflective design paradigm based on so-called lean development approach (Wszołek & Płuchowska 2021). What is needed is a study program that takes into account the issue of interdisciplinarity, based on the synthesis of scientifically grounded design doctrines - human-centred design, participatory design, universal design, sustainable design or environment-oriented design. Design schools have an unprecedented opportunity to distinguish a completely new area of teaching, focused on educating moderators and animators of design processes.