Design PhD Conference 2009

Individual Work and Information Technologies

Roger Whitham

This project investigates the needs of knowledge workers in a time of transition from physical work environments to virtual ones. Paperless workplaces promise to reduce the use of physical resources and make the physical location of workers less important. This presentation will consider how these changes might alter the activities of knowledge workers and the emergence of new methodologies and tools necessitated by this transition.

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(MP3, 15 MB)

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(PDF, 5 MB)

Design for Sustainability and Responsible Consumption

Anne Marchand

The adoption of “lighter” patterns of consumption is critical if we are to move towards a more viable future.  In order to explore the implications of sustainable consumption for product design, a study has been conducted among people who consider themselves responsible consumers.  Results from this research that examines the notion of sustainable, alternative material cultures in relationship to consumer preferences and expectations will be discussed.

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(MP3, 13 MB)

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(PPS, 9 MB)

Service design for the poor?

Priti Suresh Rao

How service design thinking can help to understand and design better services for the poor.

Close to half the world’s population of 3 billion people live in poverty and are deprived of essential services. Explanations for this persistent condition in the social sciences have chiefly centred on political and institutional causes. On the other hand designers and design discipline whose mainstay is to ‘change existing situations into preferred ones’ have focused very little on this problem. The research argues that the ‘wicked’ problem of designing and delivering services to the poor calls for an interdisciplinary thinking. It aims to assess to what extent current concepts and methods in the field of ‘service design’ used largely in private sector and for profit contexts are transferrable to new contexts, and can help in creating a better understanding of services for the poor.

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(MP3, 12 MB)

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(PPTX, 12 MB)

A comparative study of national design policy in the UK and South Korea

Youngok Choi

Since design has been recognised as a strategic tool which makes a critical contribution to competitiveness and economic growth, national design policies have become increasingly important, especially those offering design support to businesses. This study discusses about the relationship between national design policies and industrial development, and the drivers for and barriers to implementing national business support programmes in design.

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(MP3, 14 MB)

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(PPTX, 2 MB)