Delft Design Guide -Revised edition. Annemiek van Boeijen
Design promotes the idea that to explore the futures we might face, we need to inquire what happens when we step out of an anthropocentric view of the world. Such an inquiry is necessary not because humans matter less but that society has largely become a sphere that threatens inclusion, diversity, and well-being due to the design ideal that humans are users of products to be consumed.
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References & Further Reading: Clarke, R., Heitlinger, S., Light, A., Forlano, L., Foth, M., & DiSalvo, C., 2019. More-Than-Human Participation: Design for Sustainable Smart City Futures . Interactions26 (3), 60-63. / DiSalvo C., & Lukens, J., 2011. Nonanthropocentrism and the Nonhuman in Design: Possibilities for Designing New Forms of Engagement with and through Technology. In M. Foth, L. Forlano, C. Satchell, & M. Gibbs (Eds.). From Social Butterfly to Engaged Citizen. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. / Giaccardi, E. & Redström, J., Technology and More-than-Human Design. Design Issues.
Tips & Concerns
The development of a design sensitivity to non-human scales and types of knowledge is a major challenge for designers using a More-Than-Human perspective.
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For example, what does it mean to access the knowledge of a river that has existed and has played a role in a specific context for hundreds of years? What are the boundaries of the investigation? How can we map insights in a way that they can be discussed in multidisciplinary teams?
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Develop skills for recognising, understanding, and making palpable the potential discom- fort, tension, and compromise that is required to forge new alliances with non-human entities in design. How can animals be enlisted as participants without being harmed? What data can be collected and used with respect to people’s privacy?
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Limitations
Our understanding is inherently limited by what we humans know regarding the actions and behaviour of living and computational organisms. We can gather a lot from a More-Than- Human perspective, but this kind of consideration concerning the impact of design on the interplay between human and non-human systems is far from trivial.
More-Than-Human Design considers the knowledge and behaviour of non-human entities – from plants to animals to intelligent things – and it aims to craft new capacities for meaning and action at the intersection of humans and non-humans.
perspectives
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33
Balinese pedagogy named ‘maguru panggul’ or ‘teaching through the mallet’ implies a strong kinaesthetic feeling of being led by one’s hands. As the name implies, maguru panggul refers to almost entirely practice-based learning. The teacher plays, often at or near performance tempo, the students try. The teaching and learning process feed into creativity for which both teacher and pupil are essential as the pupil also gives knowledge to the teacher. The clever pupil asks the teacher ‘what is a good way of playing?’ So the teacher finds out what’s even better so that he is not outdone by them. (Fotocollection Dienst voor Legercontacten Indonesia)
Stakeholder
interviews
Stakeholder
workshops
co-design
prototype
user
interviews
testing
34. Skilful Co-design
How? Design skills do not need to be present yet; they can be developed consciously by embedding the following three educational principles:
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Goal 1 – Sharing learning goals: When you as a designer can clarify the learning goals and can share concrete success criteria with participating users, the users are able to monitor and evaluate the quality of their own design processes and products. Learning goals are shared in parallel to the design goals, and this usually takes place before the actual design activity starts.
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Goal 2 – Scaffolding: Scaffolding gives people support to perform tasks that they are not able to do without help. Providing examples and demonstrations are a way to apply scaffolds. For
instance, a facilitator may demonstrate creative Brainstorming out loud. It was found that managers who received such a demonstration can generate roughly twice as many ideas and that their ideas were much more varied compared to managers receiving a normal instruction.
Templates can be used as a scaffolding strategy as well. In primary schools, using a template that helps to formulate design critique in constructive and inspiring phrases can avoid defensive reactions and improve the reception of such critique.
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Goal 3 – Feedback to skill development
Learning by doing requires moments of reflection on what has happened. It is crucial that the participants involved in a Co-design process receive timely feed- back, as feedback is necessary for them
in the process. Mid-term pauses during design activities enable participants to evaluate their own learning. Try focusing on a specific design skill and on related success criteria. For example, after shar- ing on how to think divergently, allow the participants to check after taking their break whether they think divergently and can understand how they can improve their thinking in the next brainstorm round.
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The principles described here can be applied throughout the Skilful Co-design process and can be used with differ- ent user groups, such as primary and secondary schools that have prioritised creativity and design thinking on the ed- ucational agenda. They can also be used in organisations that promote design skills among their non-design staff.
Skilful Co-design
What & Why? When users are involved in the design process they can enrich these processes with their context-specific and personal experiences. However, they may not have developed creative thinking and other design skills; this in turn impedes their contribution.
Key principles in Skilful Co-design include sharing learning goals, scaffolding, and providing intermediate feedback on the developed design skills. These allow for reflection on the design processes. The permanent growth in design skills brings value to the participants in exchange for their contribution, meaning that participants may be able to deploy these skills elsewhere. Due to the rapid changes in contemporary society, there is a need for people and organisations to tackle problems using approaches and methods from the design realm.
When designers embed learning activities in the