DRS2012 Bangkok Proceedings Vol 4 - Design Research Society

Anna Valtonen
importantly, would it be possible to remove anything from the current offering as
obsolete?
The new intellectual streams of design
At the same time as many designers are talking about new skills, many are also
questioning the way we think and developing new trains of thought.
Increasingly design is seen as not only serving the needs of our businesses, but also
determining and working towards the greater good for society and government, education
and the environment. This larger approach to design is not new, and touches on the
current discussions on sustainability. However, the approach is a lot more concrete than
before, taking this larger philosophical approach into practice, defining exactly what the
different sub-areas are about, how they show themselves in design and how they could
be practiced.
Many see design as a visual artistic profession about shapes. But it is an artistic view of
multidisciplinary approach to problem solving process. These problems are generally
from the industry or marketing areas. But these are always connected to the overall big
picture, which is human & politics. So this workshop gave me basic outlines of, how I can
use my profession on solving problems of society and earth. (15/4)
Design Thinking
Traditionally, the ability to approach larger complex issues has been viewed through the
concept of wicked problems, originally put forward by Rittel and Webber in the 1960s
(Rittel & Webber 1984,136; see also Buchannan 1995b). The notion is that there is an
entire class of social system problems, which are ill-formulated, where the information is
confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with conflicting values and
where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly confusing. Designers are
encouraged to ask the right questions to start tackling these issues.
Margolin (2002, 28) further exemplified what these questions could be: What role can a
designer play in a collaborative process of social intervention? How might the public’s
perception of designers be changed in order to present an image of a socially responsible
designer? How can agencies that fund social welfare projects and research gain a
stronger perception of design as a socially responsible activity? What kinds of products
meet the needs of vulnerable populations?”
Lately, much of this has been grouped under Design Thinking (Cross 2011, Lockwood
2009), and many have asked designers to move towards more concrete action. Nicola
Morelli (2007,6) is asking if designers can "Industrialize" Socially responsible Solutions
and is proposing a shift of designers' activities from products to systemic solutions and
Fry (2009, viii-3) wants design to make a standpoint in the field of political action. He sees
the modelling of design problems, design solutions, design experience and creativity all
becoming applications of "intelligent systems" for creating and delivering "design tools".
(2009,14), just to mention a few examples.
Conference Proceedings 1927