interaction innovation: understanding interaction design institute ivrea

12
NextD Journal RERETHINKING DESIGN 9 Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Andrew Davidson Chair of the Education Program Interaction Design Institute Ivrea GK VanPatter Co-Founder, NextDesign Leadership Institute Co-Founder, Humantific Making Sense of Cross-Disciplinary Innovation NextDesign Leadership Institute DEFUZZ THE FUTURE! www.nextd.org Follow NextD Journal on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nextd Copyright © 2004 NextDesign Leadership Institute. All Rights Reserved. NextD Journal may be quoted freely with proper reference credit. If you wish to repost, reproduce or retransmit any of this text for commercial use please send a copyright permission request to [email protected]

Upload: nextdesign-futures-library

Post on 21-Mar-2016

222 views

Category:

Documents


3 download

DESCRIPTION

NextD Journal | ReRethinking Design. GK VanPatter in conversation with Andrew Davidson. Conversation 9, Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea. Originally published by NextDesign Leadership Institute in 2004.

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

NextD Journal RERETHINKING DESIGN 9

Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

Andrew Davidson Chair of the Education Program Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

GK VanPatter Co-Founder, NextDesign Leadership Institute Co-Founder, Humantific Making Sense of Cross-Disciplinary Innovation

NextDesign Leadership Institute DEFUZZ THE FUTURE! www.nextd.org Follow NextD Journal on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nextd

Copyright © 2004 NextDesign Leadership Institute. All Rights Reserved. NextD Journal may be quoted freely with proper reference credit. If you wish to repost, reproduce or retransmit any of this text for commercial use please send a copyright permission request to [email protected]

Page 2: Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

NextD Journal I ReRethinking Design Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Conversation 9

Page 2 of 12

1 GK VanPatter: Welcome, Andrew. As the Chairperson of the Interaction-Ivrea education program, you have a unique vantage point from which to view the massive changes and challenges facing graduate design education today. Our very knowledgeable readers will already know that Interaction-Ivrea launched in 2001 and positioned itself as a new breed of design school, created without being encumbered by traditional notions of design education, vertical disciplines, etc. Not so well known are the specifics behind that positioning. It would be great if you could take us inside, behind the projected persona, and help us better understand Interaction-Ivrea today. Was Interaction-Ivrea’s creation intended to be a solution to a particular set of problems? If so, help us understand what those problems were/are perceived to be. What is the vision there? Andrew Davidson: The vision for Interaction-Ivrea, like the field of interaction design itself, is multi-faceted. We are primarily an educational institution that aims to develop innovators and leaders in the practice through our two-year masters program in interaction design. Our focus is on project-based education that is supported by a strong research and conceptual framework. Being located in Ivrea (in northern Italy, between Turin and Milan), the home city of Olivetti, and founded by them and Telecom Italia, we are part of a long tradition of innovation and excellence at the nexus of design and technology and social values. Interaction-Ivrea has made a clear decision to be a truly international organization, while still being Italian. We have students, faculty, and staff from 24 different countries around the world and this makes for an incredibly rich mixture of cultures, ideas and approaches to design and problem solving. Our goal is to fuse the current international basis of interaction design with the wonderful tradition of Italian design. We recognize that a strong future and growth potential exists with the fusion.

2 GK VanPatter: Was the perception that such leaders were not being developed elsewhere among the numerous schools already offering interaction design at the graduate level? Andrew Davidson: We felt that we could bring a unique approach to the field. While some other programs concentrate primarily on technology, and others on the systems approach, we would like to focus primarily on the needs of the users in crafting interaction designs. Our feeling is that this approach is valuable and under-represented in the marketplace and in the field.

Page 3: Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

NextD Journal I ReRethinking Design Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Conversation 9

Page 3 of 12

3 GK VanPatter: What is the average age of Interaction-Ivrea students and how many years of professional industry experience would they typically have? Andrew Davidson: Along with our multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural goals for our student population, we also look for a mixture of professional and educational experience in students. Most of them come to Interaction-Ivrea with 3 to 5 years of work experience, although some have just finished an undergraduate degree and others have quite a bit more experience. The average age is about 29, so this is probably not a typical graduate design program. In our recruiting, we are highly selective — not only in the sense that we seek the most talented and creative people, of course, but also in trying to create great diversity within each group. We look to balance background, experience, culture, gender, outlook, approach, etc. It is a complex process and we put a lot of energy and time into it. After an initial screening of a potential student’s portfolio, CV, and application, we interview selected candidates by telephone before making our final admissions offers. Our decisions are based as much on what we think a student can contribute to our community as what we think they can gain from it. The richness of our collective culture is one of the strongest aspects of our community, I would say. Personally, I have certainly learned a tremendous amount about the interactions of people from different cultures in my time here in Interaction-Ivrea. This level of understanding, that comes from working, collaborating, talking, and socializing together, is something that you can never achieve as a visitor or traveler. It can only come from an extended time together. I am sure that that this kind of knowledge and depth of connection is a fantastically attractive overlay to the design education that we provide.

4 GK VanPatter: Our research across numerous graduate design schools indicates that the average age of students is 28-29 years old with 3-5 years of “industry” experience. There is a lot to think about there as we look out into the marketplace and see the huge and complex challenges facing the design community. I recall that in Interaction-Ivrea’s considerable pre-launch publicity there was reference made to your advisory committee and their feelings that your school should concentrate on teaching HOW rather than WHAT. Can you help us understand what exactly that means in the context of interaction design? How does that notion manifest itself in actuality at Interaction-Ivrea? Andrew Davidson: It is true that we are heavily process-oriented, but we also strongly emphasize prototyping of designs in order to evaluate their effectiveness. Our design methodology, which we apply to a variety of educational activities, encourages explorations that begin with understanding the users’ experience to imagine new opportunities, continue with “just-enough” prototyping to evaluate a design solution, and then crafting and testing the experience. Finally, we emphasize developing a clear communication of the idea. In order to support the HOW with WHAT, we do a lot of work

Page 4: Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

NextD Journal I ReRethinking Design Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Conversation 9

Page 4 of 12

in prototyping. This can take two forms depending on the design area. For objects and spaces, the designs tend to be physical manifestations and the prototyping involves electronics, programming, and model making. For systems and services, the designs are more in the area of service design and then experience prototypes are generated, often using video scenarios to demonstrate the concepts.

5 GK VanPatter: OK, I am trying to understand what it means to be process-oriented at Interaction-Ivrea. Are you teaching process? What process would that be? Are you teaching cross-disciplinary innovation/problem solving process skills, cross-disciplinary collaboration dynamics or anything related? Andrew Davidson: Yes, we emphasize a design process that we believe leads to innovative ideas for interaction design solutions — ones that are culturally desirable, technologically feasible, and economically sustainable. Generally speaking, the process involves six phases:

1. Understand the users’ experience 2. Imagine new opportunities 3. “Just-enough” prototyping 4. Design solutions 5. Craft the interactive experience 6. Present and test the outcome

In applying this process to various domains, we ask students to engage with many aspects of the field. They (as do our faculty, of course) come from many different backgrounds (interaction design, graphic design, industrial design, architecture, computer science, psychology, cognitive science, etc.). And we think that having a mixture of disciplines in a project team in our educational activities echoes the process of collaboration in the professional world. So we construct faculty and student teams that allow and encourage people of different disciplines (and cultures, of course) to work together. As you can imagine, collaborating with people from different continents and educational and professional training is both an incredible challenge and an incredible opportunity.

6 GK VanPatter: Since our practice is based on helping cross-disciplinary teams accelerate innovation, this is not a realm that we have to imagine. I do think it would be helpful to readers if we tried to do a little more unpacking around the art and science of the Interaction-Ivrea process for a few moments if we can. In the minds of Interaction-Ivrea leaders, is what you teach a process specific to interaction design? Andrew Davidson: Perhaps it is a matter of emphasis. I suppose you could say our process could be, and is, applied in its basic shape to many other design disciplines. I would not argue that. I believe our emphasis on “just-enough” prototyping, and how we apply it, is specific to interaction design. Our students get hands-on experience with tools of prototyping (as I mentioned earlier), while still retaining a strong user-centered approach.

Page 5: Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

NextD Journal I ReRethinking Design Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Conversation 9

Page 5 of 12

7 GK VanPatter: It sounds like Interaction-Ivrea teaches a process specifically created for interaction interventions not for innovation interventions in general. In other words, you can engage once the challenge has been defined/framed as an interaction problem. You offer interaction solutions. The HOW of Interaction-Ivrea is the HOW of interaction, not the HOW of innovation. Is that correct? Andrew Davidson: Are we trying to come to the ancient question of “what is interaction design?” ?!?! Perhaps I could say that interaction design is the development of products and services that bridge the gap between people and technology. And we try to do that in innovative ways in order to create effective solutions to the problems that surface in that gap.

8 GK VanPatter: Well that is not exactly where I was going with the question, but your view of what interaction is will be useful momentarily. I was actually trying to reach a different shore. The early publicity around the creation of Interaction-Ivrea, your advisory council, references to HOW rather than WHAT, references to innovation, etc. made it appear that Interaction-Ivrea was going to be involved in educating/training innovation-enabling leaders, that you were going to be teaching adaptable innovation process skills, organizational-enabling skills. This conversation suggests something quite different. A focus specifically on interaction design/innovation is very different. I am not suggesting one or the other is better but they are very different focuses. OK, with that understood, let me ask you about the nature and role of interaction from the Interaction-Ivrea perspective. I noticed that in your definition of what interaction is, there was no reference to human-to-human interaction, the kind that we would see on cross-disciplinary teams for example. Is this part of interaction outside the focus of your program there? Andrew Davidson: l would say that the things which we produce, the end results of our work, the goals of our creativity — the products and services we design — are aimed at improving the quality of people's lives in a world in which we are increasingly dependent on technology. Our solutions focus on using interaction design to achieve that improvement. That is the WHAT. In order to accomplish that, we are developing methodologies and practices in interaction design, and in our pedagogical model, to enable the creation of innovative solutions. Our premise for these methodologies is that you need multi-disciplinary teams to creative effective solutions that are user-centered. And that these teams should be cross-cultural as well as cross-disciplinary. This is the HOW. And of course these teams involve human-to-human interactions. This takes a lot of work, as you well know! It is definitely a fundamental part of our mission. Now, in our teaching and our practice, as our field is young and our institution is new, I cannot claim that we have all the answers to either the WHAT or the HOW. But I can say that we are definitely experimenting vigorously and learning a lot as we go about the

Page 6: Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

NextD Journal I ReRethinking Design Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Conversation 9

Page 6 of 12

human side of the design equation — both in WHAT we produce and HOW we produce it. There are many challenges. I would say that, next to our concentrated focus on innovation in interaction design (and our location, of course), the richness and diversity of our international culture is probably the most-cited feature and attraction of our program.

9 GK VanPatter: While the idea of working in cross-disciplinary teams is finally taking hold in design education, we are actually interested in the territory that lies beyond the simple adoptions of teams. We seek to better understand how or if advanced process skills and interaction dynamics are being taught at the table-top level. Here we are trying to surface some visibility into, not the philosophical abstractions around such issues, but rather the actual skill-building. I am sure you are aware that in many design schools, cross-disciplinary problem solving and teamwork skills are still being “taught” simply by placing students in an environment and handing out a team assignment. That is often the extent of the knowledge transfer. It’s the old “let the students work it out” model of human-to-human interaction education. Is anything different going on at Interaction-Ivrea? It would seem like you folks have an opportunity to be doing much more, to become a leader in this area that is critical to the future of design leadership. Andrew Davidson: Well, I cannot claim that we have an advanced methodology for the problem you describe. However, we are acutely aware of this issue because of the added dimension at Interaction-Ivrea of multi-cultural (besides multi-disciplinary) collaboration. One of the problems I have seen with collaboration in design education is that it can be quite artificial. If you assemble a team of people all from the same background (say a group of graphic designers) and ask them to work together on a project, the results can be disastrous! Each designer is attempting to express his or her individual vision and, especially in an educational setting, is expected to do just that. So wanting this kind of group to come to a collaborative agreement on a design solution is exceptionally unreasonable. (Although in certain magical occurrences, I have seen it work.) It is more feasible, and more realistic, to achieve a successful meeting of the minds when you put, for instance, a software engineer, graphic designer, and cognitive psychologist together in a group and ask them to find a common direction. They actually complement each other's expertise and, in theory, should be able to look at a problem from different points of view. Still, in our case, all of them are learning to become interaction designers and probably all have equally strong ideas about the problem and solution direction. In our case again, the fact that almost everyone on a team is from a different country, has a different mother tongue, different political beliefs, different working process, and simply looks at the world differently, is a further complication. Sometimes it works beautifully and other times things falls apart dramatically. Finally and obviously, there is also simply a matter of personal chemistry that affects collaboration. I would like to say that we have found and developed a magical recipe to this problem, but I cannot honestly claim such a thing. I can only cite a few aspects

Page 7: Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

NextD Journal I ReRethinking Design Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Conversation 9

Page 7 of 12

of our pedagogical model that are attempts to do more than just put people together and see what happens. In our courses and projects, the faculties are working together collaboratively. Our intention is to model the practices we seek to develop in our students in our own activities. Since we have a diverse group of practitioners in our faculty, we can teach courses and develop projects in internal collaborations and with our students. For instance, in a course this autumn, we had a computer scientist, electronics engineer, architect, and interaction designer teaching together. Our community (students, faculty, and staff) is quite small and exceptionally close. There are a total of about 70 people who work together in one building and most live together in a common residence facility. And since the great majority of us have come to a small town in northern Italy from other countries, we all share a lot more than the average member of a graduate school and research program, I suspect. We have all had the incredibly difficult challenge of overcoming extreme culture shock — moving to a place where you do not speak the language, where the environment is welcoming but decidedly foreign, and into a situation where a certain amount of self-discovery is part of the experience. I believe this has contributed to a very strong sense of community and has given us a shared experience in our differences. And knowing that we are in a tight, close-knit situation has made us all more sensitive to the viewpoints of others and accepting of our differences. It is by no means easy. I suspect I speak for many of us when I say that it is probably the most difficult thing I have done in my career. But it is supremely enlightening and broadening, and perhaps that is something unique that we bring to the teaching of collaboration.

10 GK VanPatter: You may be interested to know that the human-to-human interaction conditions which you describe, are not so much different than those found in multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural global companies today. Although you make reference to what appear to be very special Interaction-Ivrea circumstances — individuals from 24 different countries, several disciplines working in a small community within a “foreign” external environment — there are many recognizable similarities. It is a model that we are familiar with. We can share a few lessons learned from the front lines of practice if you are interested? Andrew Davidson: Sure, but remember that the goals of design education and the pedagogical techniques one employs are not the same as the methods one uses in professional practice, even though the aim is to educate future practitioners. I have been involved in both, and I can say from experience that, despite the shared discipline, the methodologies used are quite different. Our approach to this kind of education means stimulating creativity and engendering new ways of thinking about design. We can be a little more speculative and provocative sometimes, while still exploring the medium.

Page 8: Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

NextD Journal I ReRethinking Design Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Conversation 9

Page 8 of 12

11 GK VanPatter: You seem to be throwing me a bit of a curve ball here Andrew. I would have no argument with the notion that we are approaching this conversation from different directions but I have no problem seeing numerous things to connect with here. I am guessing that common to both of us is a desire to help our community move itself into a leadership position in the 21st century. We can build a lot on that commonality. It might help if we clarify what we mean by the word “practice” as traditional visions seem to come to mind for some when that term is used. We are finding that it is not particularly well understood among many design education leaders today that there is an entire industry growing in the marketplace dedicated to teaching skills to highly educated, adult professionals in organizational settings. This certainly applies to cross-disciplinary innovation skills. With that in mind, it would be a mistake to assume that all “learning by doing” pedagogical knowledge resides in our traditional educational institutions today. For us, “practice” includes not only designing and executing “learning by doing” innovation skill-building programs but helping organizations build their own capacity to do this kind of skill-building. We think about such activity as part of designing and creating the conditions for cross-disciplinary innovation. This is obviously not the realm of traditional “design practice”, but it is certainly not unique to us. Part of the revolution that is underway in the marketplace involves many client organizations building a teaching or “university” component to their businesses. In this age of learning organizations, this makes perfect sense. In the case of cross-disciplinary innovation skill-building, the reality is that the need for such programs in the marketplace is there, in large part due to lack of “coverage” by our traditional, vertically-organized educational institutions. This applies to our graduate business and technology schools as well as our design schools. There is a lot to think about there. At this point in time, a case can certainly be made to suggest that the newest, most advanced knowledge around the subject of how to build cross-disciplinary innovation skills does not reside in our traditional educational institutions. How could it, when many of those institutions have been focused vertically for decades? It is the new developments around innovation skill-building occurring in the marketplace that have already fundamentally changed expectations in all kinds of cross-disciplinary organizational settings. That is part of the revolution now underway at the leading edge of the market. Part of our mission here at NextD, is to raise awareness in our own community regarding how those expectations have changed. Today, expectations are already high. Knowledge held by others outside of design regarding complex, cross-disciplinary problem is significant and growing rapidly. What is emerging is the realization that the realm of working across disciplines involves much more than simply extending or reshuffling the old vertically-organized disciplines.

Page 9: Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

NextD Journal I ReRethinking Design Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Conversation 9

Page 9 of 12

NextD is particularly interested in these issues, as underneath all of that change there is a lot at stake around the question of leadership. The harsh reality of the marketplace is that old ways of team working are now subject to intervention by those who have more advanced and precise knowledge. Part of the humble mission of NextD is to help design move itself to a position where designers are capable of being the interveners around such issues rather than being among the intervened. Suffice it to say, however, that design will not be able to reach that leadership ground if designers remain wrapped in person-to-person team interaction models that are already subject to intervention by others in the marketplace. It is a new cross-disciplinary world and there are many new players in addition to designers in the mix. Designers now have to compete for leadership roles that have, for a long time, been taken for granted in the design industries and in design education circles. There are huge implications here for graduate design education in that changed landscape. For example there are new, more precise ways to think about diversity rather than the traditional model of disciplines, roles, titles and countries. Those with the expertise are now navigating by thinking/problem solving preferences, as that dimension of diversity cuts across all boundaries and is more precisely connected to what the project teams are doing. There are also new ways to think about where skills should be embedded. Organizations today no longer want to be dependent on their employees being in specialized settings, in India, Italy, America, etc., in order to be innovative. They want the explicit skill of innovation to be embedded in their people, rather than the environmental attributes of special circumstances. Those two dimensions of change alone have significant implications for designers and design educators. There are likely hundreds of lessons and practices emerging from the revolution in the marketplace around cross-disciplinary innovation leadership that could be transferred into our graduate design educational institutions. Unfortunately, there seem to be several bridge mechanisms missing between the two worlds. At NextD, we remain optimistic that a few of those bridges can be constructed through the kind of real conversation that we are having here. Let’s you and I talk more about this offline. In the limited time that we have left, let’s switch gears and talk a little about the role of the future at Interaction-Ivrea. I understand that you have several future-related projects in the works there. Can you tell us something about what that means exactly? Andrew Davidson: There are two different types of “future-related” projects led by our faculty and researchers besides those done in our education program (within courses, theses, workshops). The first type is short innovation workshops we call “Applied Dreams,” where we collaborate closely with a corporate partner. Typically two weeks long, they often use existing or near-future technology, but in new ways, to suggest innovative products and services. So far we’ve worked with companies like Sony, Hitachi, Orange, and Telecom Italia. One of the stipulations of these projects is that the corporate partners send members of their teams to participate, so this is also a way of checking our modes of doing things with those of our various partners. The feedback we are getting is very positive, which we feel is a good indication that we’re on the right track.

Page 10: Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

NextD Journal I ReRethinking Design Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Conversation 9

Page 10 of 12

The second type is longer investigations, lasting from a few months to multiple years. They are driven by the research interests of the faculty and, in some cases, done in collaboration with external partners from industry or academia. The goal of these innovation projects is to investigate the discipline of interaction design and demonstrate how it works and how it can improve everyday life. (Details about these projects can be found on our web site www.interaction-ivrea.it, in the “Projects” section.) Some of them examine the materials and tools of interaction design, such as networks, electronics, software, etc. Others delve into applications of design and technology such as ambient intelligence and service ecologies. All of them are an attempt to advance the field by contributing knowledge and practices and to develop an on-going discourse in it.

12 GK VanPatter: Since we are most interested in design leadership-related issues I guess what I am still having trouble understanding is how what appears to be Interaction-Ivrea’s very specialized view of interaction design fits with the often referred to tradition of Italian design. As far as I know that tradition is most often cited as a rationale for not being specialized. Am I missing something here? How do you rationalize those two seemingly contradictory models? Andrew Davidson: You have hit on one of the most important issues for us as a design institution, really. Interaction design is a hybrid discipline that sits somewhere between industrial design (especially product design, as practiced in companies like IDEO) and computer science and software design. The older engineering-based model of Human Computer Interface design was concerned with the computer as a box, the human in front of a screen. Now that the behaviors and “intelligence” of computer processing can be embedded in anything, anywhere, anytime, this opens up a world of possibilities for design. Obviously, the Italian design tradition is very rich in product design, furniture design, lighting design, and fashion; Italy also is doing a lot of work in creating new kinds of fabrics. One example of where interaction design and the Italian design world come together is in the area of physical computing, which is extremely popular with our students. As soon as you start to design “wearable” computing, you realize you have bumped up against fashion, or at least against design worn on the body; you start to use different kinds of materials, fabrics instead of metals, etc. If we are to succeed, it will be due to a successful blending of these traditions and approaches, just as we must blend disciplines and cultures in our teams.

13 GK VanPatter: I can think of ten follow up questions but unfortunately our time is running out. As we begin landing this plane let me squeeze one last question in here. In the six-part process logic that you described earlier, I noticed a couple of things that I wanted to ask you about. The logic that I see there seems to map closely to what is often referred to as innovation process logic or strategic problem solving process logic.

Page 11: Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

NextD Journal I ReRethinking Design Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Conversation 9

Page 11 of 12

The words are somewhat different but underneath much the same logic and activities seem to be occurring. In our research we see this often when looking at the process logic found in various design schools and design practices. One notable difference is that in design processes the initial fuzzy situation or “brief” is often not reframed after discovery/fact finding/understanding. In design educational settings, that model often translates into students being “encouraged” to carry out the brief as given rather than engage in a process to reframe challenges and opportunities. The Interaction-Ivrea process logic seems to have no reframing of the initial fuzzy situation. Am I missing something there? In the case of Interaction-Ivrea, we seem to be looking at a process customized for the creation of interactive solution outcomes. I wonder if you would comment of what appear to be many similarities between the Interaction-Ivrea process logic and the Innovation process logic as described in brief below: Interaction-Ivrea Process Logic:

1. Understand the users’ experience 2. Imagine new opportunities 3. “Just-enough” prototyping 4. Design solutions 5. Craft the interactive experience 6. Present and test the outcome

Innovation Process Logic:

1. Finding/Understanding/Formulating Challenges & Opportunities: Problem/opportunity finding, gathering/understanding facts (context, users, technology, business, organization, strategy, etc.) reframing challenge/opportunity definitions, mapping challenge patterns

2. Formulating New Solutions:

Generating innovative solution ideas, mapping & modeling those ideas, connecting dots across diverse ideas, creating criteria for evaluation, evaluating and selecting best options

3. Implementing New Solutions:

Action planning, communicating/selling solution ideas, action/producing solutions Andrew Davidson: I think that to go “beyond the brief” is always the challenge for a good designer, don’t you? Innovation comes from creative people being able to make the leap between the user or client saying one thing (“my problem is that X is to hard to use — please make it clearer”) and realizing that he really should be asking for something completely different (“perhaps you need a Y instead of a repaired X”). Example: Getting digital music onto a portable player is too complicated. Instead of a faster or bigger or streamlined MP3 player, we should design a complete digital music system that includes software as well as hardware (iTunes, iPod, iTunes Music Store).

Page 12: Interaction Innovation: Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

NextD Journal I ReRethinking Design Understanding Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Conversation 9

Page 12 of 12

In design education, we always hope to encourage these kinds of solutions by students challenging, and possibly ignoring, the brief. (“Imagine new opportunities.”) Our real goal is to encourage and stimulate creative thinking in design, not just problem solving. Of course one needs the tools and skills of the latter in order to accomplish the former. It is not surprising that the two processes are very similar. Nor do we claim that our process is revolutionary; only that it codifies a way of working that we embrace and hope is valuable for our students.

14 GK VanPatter: I wish we had more time to dialogue, as there are so many interesting issues that connect into interaction design. In closing let me ask you one last difficult question. From your perspective as a design education leader, what is the single most pressing issue facing graduate design education today? Andrew Davidson: Well, I would say that the big challenge is to figure out how to provide a meaningful education for people who want to excel at the practice of design and still be able to assume leadership roles in the field. In a world that increasingly requires broad knowledge and multi-disciplinary abilities as well as the creative skills and expertise of the field, it is difficult to do everything well in a single two-year program. One has to make choices — have a strong point of view and a clear pedagogical philosophy. NextD Journal RERETHINKING DESIGN NextDesign Leadership Institute DEFUZZ THE FUTURE! www.nextd.org Questions: Please direct all questions to [email protected] Follow NextD Journal on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nextd