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Master’s Program Ethically Responsible Innovation: the Main Lines
Ben Walker - Course leader of the topic-oriented program in "Ethically Responsible Innovation" - shares his views on life and on design education...
Training open-minded designers with a sense of responsibility
"A designer doesn’t profess to know, rather is capable of finding out, approaching a problem with objectivity."
16 Master’s level students on the cusp of launching their design careers. 16 trained curious active minds ready to go and contribute to the strategic development of companies through their skills as designers. The intention of this topic-oriented program is to open perspectives on their capacities as designers and to demonstrate that their valuable training can be applied to a broad spectrum of problems of which the response is not necessarily a new product. Design is a synthetic enterprise – a good designer must be able to enquire, question, listen, experiment, ideate, project and communicate. A designer doesn’t profess to know, rather is capable of finding out, approaching a problem with objectivity.
A designer develops scenarios and is able to assemble the key actors in order to project.
Our aim as course leaders is to encourage students to take a more proactive role as designers and to give them the confidence to address bigger problems than they may have been exposed to previously, and thereby to ask themselves not just what could be done, but what should be done.
Dealing with mutating consumer habits
"Any good, well-designed innovative products should succeed. But is this real innovation?"
There is an inherent assumption that the work of designers and the process of design naturally lead to some sort of improvement in the quality of life, that innovation carries society forward, and that economies are driven by the manufacturing, marketing and consumption of these innovations.
We are led to believe that “new is better,” innovation is used to shape and stimulate consumer habits in the crowded market place. Any good, well-designed innovative products should succeed. But is this real innovation?
We have become aware that our consumption habits result in resource depletion and environmental degradation. Sustainability is talked about absolutely everywhere and there would be very few who did not make the connection between the products they use and their environmental impact.
We are starting to make purchasing choices based on the environmental credentials of products (and increasingly services). We no longer celebrate new cars for how fast they can speed up from 0 to 100km/h, but for their fuel economy and CO2 emissions. When purchasing wood-based products like garden furniture we look for the FSC (Forrest Stewardship Council) certification - an assurance that the product comes from responsibly managed forests.
Innovation to improve life
"Why not use design methodology to tackle social and economic problems?"
The new generation of designers are increasingly conscious that their design decisions have im-portant consequences in terms of resource use and environmental impact. These designers are conscious of their responsibility with respect to the environment.
What about the social and economic implications of their design decisions? And, even more challenging, why not use design methodology to tackle social and economic problems?
Fortunately, many recognized design institutions are doing exactly this.
Indeed the recent Index design awards recognized projects that ad-dressed specific social problems – from the health issues of homeless people sleeping rough to a childbirthing aide in rural Africa.
Design for the other 90% – an exhibition curated by the Cooper Hewitt museum – showcased the work of designers thinking beyond their everyday experience. Often very basic problems, this collection of projects demonstrated that solutions can be very simple, and the difference made, very significant. The British Design Council too has been using designers and design methodologies to examine and propose new ways of delivering health services... hardly the traditional domain of industrial designers.
The topic-oriented program “Ethically Responsible Innovation” aims to train young design minds to think broadly about what they do. Using the variety of tools available to designers, the strong design methodology taught at L’École de design and extensive in-situ research, we will develop a series of projects that demonstrate that design need not simply be about making beauti-ful products, but also about making beautiful sense.
More information about the Ethically Responsible Innovation program.
Further reading :
Ethically Responsible Innovation : C. Bécu presents NUNA
