Interaction10, Feb 4-7 – Savannah, Georgia

Session Title

Design in the wild; the practitioners new playground

Presenter

Penny Hagen

Session Type: Discussion

Design is moving into the wild, propelled in part by the participatory nature of social technologies. Trends such as ‘open design’ which supports mass participation in the design process, ‘crowdsourcing’ of design ideas and skills from the public, ‘design after design’ or ‘design in use’ where design is iterated post-release and ‘emergent design’ where seed prototypes are shaped through use, challenge some of our traditional models of design.

In this shifting design landscape boundaries between design and use, and designer and user begin to blur. Not for the first time, but for the first time on this scale, design is moving out of the studio and taking place in more public forums. These shifts in design practice and process are generating questions about roles, responsibilities and appropriate frameworks for participation and decision-making.

In this session we’ll sketch out some of the challenges and opportunities currently facing us as practitioners. The discussion will be framed around the following topics:

- The suitability of existing methods to cater to this emerging design space
- The directions of emerging methods
- Potential frameworks for supporting participation and decision-making
- The impact these changes are having to our roles, responsibilities and skill-sets as design practitioners.

This session will be an opportunity for practitioners to share their ideas, concerns and thoughts, as well as explore what shifts are already happening, or may be necessary, to support these emerging forms of participation and collaboration in design.

Biography

Penny is a Design Strategist with over 10 years experience designing and producing community focused projects in Australia and New Zealand. Penny is currently completing a PhD in participatory design methods for social technologies at UTS in Sydney. Previously Penny worked as the Projects Director/Strategist at Digital Eskimo, driving their experimental design research program. Penny assists project teams in identifying a shared vision, providing creative and strategic insight. She combines hands on design experience with a knowledge of design research methods to develop stakeholder engagement programs for social change projects.