Today, I attended Barcelona Design Week’s session Facing New Challenges Through Design. There, I learned about the work of Rama Gheerawo, Deputy Director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre, at the Royal College of Art .
Rama has been presenting user-centered design projects, specially in relation to elderly. In that respect, I’d like to recommend to download the publication Design for Dementia: improving dining and bedroom environments in care homes [PDF].
[The guide] explores how better product and environment design can improve quality of life for care home residents with dementia. The design ideas developed are a practical response to the challenge of congnitive decline and can be retrofitted to existing care homes as well as applied to new developments.
DOWNLOAD Design for Dementia
Stanford’s d.school just released this year’s Bootcamp Bootleg; a working document that captures some of the teaching that d.school imparts in their “Design Thinking Bootcamp,” course.
The guide outlines each mode of a human-centered design process, and describes a number of methods which may support your design thinking throughout the process.
Download the guide here (PDF)
Via Design Thinking Barcelona
A lot has been said and written about the wisdom of the crowds. For some it represents a new way to develop innovative solutions, for others it is only a buzzword. For Enviu, it is a way of working and a mindset. Since 2004, Enviu involves young entrepreneurial people, senior executives, corporate partners and universities to co-create innovative businesses solutions for sustainability issues. Examples include the Sustainable Dance Club, Three Wheels United, Yunno Foods, Open-Source House, or Our Mobile Generation.
Enviu has used a learning by doing approach to co-creation. It’s experiences are now shared on a booklet named Co-Creation for Positive Impact. The booklet is available to download as PDF, or as printed version. Enviu wants to co-create this guide with you, so they made the guide available on a wiki that will be the basis of upcoming editions of the guide.
More at Cocreationguide.com
Ethnography is a research method based on observing people in their natural environment rather than in a formal research setting.
6 Steps to ethnographic research:
- Define the problem
- Find people
- Plan an approach
- Collect data
- Analyze data & interpret opportunities
- Share insights
Find out more about ethnography research at An Ethnography Primer, an introduction to the subject by Aiga, the association of design professionals.
Originally posted at Design Thinking Barcelona.
The book In Studio: Recipes for Systematic Change, explores the Helsinki Design Lab Studio Model, a unique way of bringing together the right people, a carefully framed problem, a supportive place, and an open-ended process to craft an integrated vision and sketch the pathway towards strategic improvement. It’s particularly geared towards problems that have no single owner. Currently HDL is working on the themes: aging, extended well-being, and sustainability.
The book is available as free download, and also for purchase at selected bookstores.
Also from HDL: Ethnography Fieldguide
