DESIGNING FOR ONE; HOW ADJUSTING VARIABLES INFLUENCED DESIGN STUDENT CREATIVITY
Year: 2018
Editor: Elies Dekoninck, Andrew Wodehouse, Chris Snider, Georgi Georgiev, Gaetano Cascini
Author: Andrea Wilkinson, Niels Hendriks, Catherine Stones
Series: ICDC
Section: POSTER 2: SHORT PRESENTATIONS
Page(s): 256-263
ISBN: 9781912254071
Abstract
Since 2011, my colleague and I have been teaching Master’s students about designing together with people with dementia. It is a simple, open-ended assignment brief: to make a person with dementia’s life ‘more pleasant’. Including students from various design disciplines, they often create ‘unexpected’ designs, which are not necessarily linked to their discipline. Each project is driven by a need for the design to suit the individual person they are working with, their preferences, abilities and context. Looking into what might foster these unexpected qualities, this paper reflects on the module, shares its processes, example outcomes, and tries to map the variables within the course that are extending the design space as proposed by Gero and Kumar. Finally, the paper suggests that other design educators can use these to initiate creativity within their own teaching practice.
Keywords: Design Education, Designing for One, Creativity, Participatory Design, Dementia