Postgraduate Course: Design Thinking (DESI11094)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 15 |
ECTS Credits | 7.5 |
| Summary | As a postgraduate student in the Business School, this course will introduce you to fundamental approaches to designing and design thinking. The course will review the history and development of design thinking through 4 paradigms, leading to an understanding of designing for experience through 4 orders - visual, material, service and system (Buchanan, 1992; Golsby-Smith, 1996). This approach is applied and tested in practical work, understanding business models as designable constructions. |
| Course description |
The first half of the course introduces you to the theoretical backgrounds underlying applied approaches to design thinking in a lecture and seminar format. A history of research regarding design activity is outlined, through two fundamental paradigms of thinking about design-as-method in the 1960s through to the design-as-knowledge application and expertise through the 1980s (Dorst 2006; Dorst & Dijkhuis 1995). The lectures will then introduce concepts of design-for-experience and interaction design, leading to the fundamental approach to the basic understanding of Design Thinking (Martin, 2009). The lectures conclude with the introduction of designing for complexity, going beyond interactions between users and artefacts towards experience and introduces the 4 orders of design: text/image; objects; services; and systems (Buchanan 1992) and, going forward, pursue the notion that designing is a form of practice involving placement. Throughout, special emphasis is placed upon understanding designing as both an iterative and generative activity, focusing on the fundamental practice of prototyping.
The second half of the course provides the opportunity to engage practical, team-based exercises that will engage you to design and develop, through a project of intervention, an alternative model to an existing product, service, process or business model, prototype your developments and your their findings, leading to an individual case study as a final submission interrogating the value of design methods and design thinking in an entrepreneurship and innovation context.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | This course is only available to students in the Business School. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2021/22, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
150
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 4,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 6,
Formative Assessment Hours 2,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 3,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
125 )
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| Additional Information (Learning and Teaching) |
Supervised Practicals will be taught in groups.
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
This course has two components of assessment:
Component 1 - Individual essay (40%, 1,500 words) - Week 6
Students will be asked to apply and discuss the concept of placement with regards to the 4 orders of design through an independent piece of written work with supported imagery.
Component 2- Individual case study (60%, up to 3,000 words) - Week 12
Individual case study report based on the team work that students will engage in during the second part of the course, detailing and reflecting on the work involved in the design group project, ascertaining the value of design thinking approaches when applied to business modelling.
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| Feedback |
Formative feedback is regularly communicated through the course. This takes a number forms, including verbally through group and individual meetings where work and ideas are discussed with both peers and tutor.
Students will submit a relevant selection of work relating to summative Assessment Component 1 for written formative feedback regarding their work during the midpoint of the course; full details for dates and submission requirements for feedback are outlined in the course handbook. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Describe and critically discuss the range of design thinking approaches and frameworks
- Analyse problems from a design thinking perspective
- Critically apply the principles of design thinking to address innovation problems
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Reading List
Required Reading
Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked problems in design thinking. Design Issues, 8(2), 5-21.
Dorst, CH (2006) Design problems and design paradoxes. Design Issues, 22(3) pp4-17
Dorst, CH and Dijkhuis, J (1995) Comparing paradigms for describing design activity. Design Studies, 16, 261-274
Golsby-Smith, T (1996) Fourth Order Design: A practical perspective. Design Issues, 12(1) pp5-25.
Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (2011). The experience economy (Updated ed.). Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Review Press.
Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155-169.
Schon, D (1994) The Reflective Practitioner. Surrey: Ashgate.
Simon, H (1969) Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
RECOMMENDED READING
Cross, N. (2007). Designerly ways of knowing (B. o. I. R. i. Design Ed.). Basel: Birkhauser.
Jones, J. H. C. (1970). Design methods : seeds of human futures. London ; New York: Wiley-Interscience.
Martin, R (2009) The design of business, Harvard Business School Press.
Moggridge, B. (2007). Designing interactions. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Woodhouse, E and Patton, JW (2004) Design by Society: Science and Technology Studies and the Social Shaping of Design. Design Issues, 20(3) pp1-12.
Practical
Martin, B., & Hanington, B. M. (2012). Universal methods of design : 100 ways to research complex problems, develop innovative ideas, and design effective solutions. Osceola: Rockport Publishers.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Cognitive and subject specific skills:
-Integrate the design thinking concepts and relate them to real-world innovation problems.
Transferable skills:
-Engage with stakeholders to elicit requirements;
-Design and deliver innovative proposals to wicked problems using iterative and exploratory design-led techniques. |
| Keywords | design thinking,design process,design for business models,systems thinking |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Mr Arno Verhoeven
Tel: (0131 6)51 5808
Email: a.verhoeven@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Jane Thomson
Tel: (0131 6)51 5713
Email: jane.thomson@ed.ac.uk |
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