Last week I attended the Learning And Technology World Forum – LATWF, a major world Education Ministers conference hosted by the UK government in London. Throughout the week I was part of the Learner’s Voice team composed of 7 students from all over the world. Our duty in this forum was to attend conferences and workshops, maintain a blog about the event and, on the last day, present a plenary in front of 400 delegates including 60+ Ministers of Education.

The most important part of the forum was the closed conference that brought together 60+ Ministers of Education representing countries from all around the world. This conference was about the next steps that countries need to take in order to include technology in their education systems. This was a disappointing session, as we witnessed ministers playing a game of ‘Show and Tell’ instead of trying to figure out answers to their problems. We have heard a lot of aims and ambitions and everybody was talking about ‘what we should do’, but no strategies or promises have been made.

The main issues on everyone’s agenda was changing the curriculum in order to fit the student’s needs and training teachers in order to understand technology better and adapt easier to the student’s needs. My question here was: have anyone asked the students what their needs are?

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This past Thursday, November 13th, I had the opportunity to address the audience at the World Usability Day event in Leuven, Belgium. The Challenge of Happy Users was sponsored and organised by u-sentric, a self-described user experience engineering & (re)design firm. “We all want happy users.” And how.

I’m always happy to talk about smaller companies that are applying design to innovate and grow, and it was great to be able to highlight the six Irish organisations that took part in the Innovation by Design programme.

The event took place at Living Tomorrow. Director, Joachim De Vos spoke about the science of innovation. We got a chance to tour the House of the Future and I was surprised to learn that 80% of the innovations were already commercially available, from simple improvements like doors that can’t pinch your fingers to smart surfaces with embedded technology. It’s not a house I’d move into (honestly, it lacks a soul), but it does provide a place to explore living innovations in context.

Phillips presented a case study on remote control redesign. Only 55 percent of users achieve universal remote set-up without help! They are currently working with u-sentric to change that and have already achieved a 95% success rate. I wish Phillips had attached a figure to how much money that would save the company in support costs.

Marc Michils of Saatchi & Saatchi presented their thinking around lovemarks, which he defined as loyalty beyond reason. We talk about lovemarks in our brand workshop, but make it clear that everyone doesn’t need to aspire to be one. If you have a brand that gets the job done, that’s fine as well. It is true that lovemarks might deliver more value, but may be out of reach, or impractical for a small business. What you don’t want to be is a question mark, where your users don’t know what you stand for.

“Emotion leads to action. Reason leads to conclusions.”

Tuesday 2 September 2008 (6.00pm)
Lecture Theatre 212, Peter Froggatt Centre, Queen’s University Belfast

Design Thinking has its roots in the creative suites of industrial design, product usability, and the right-brained branch of engineering. It’s a fundamentally human-centred way to match products to markets. But it turns out that design thinking is useful in many other arenas besides the creation of exceptional physical products.

Professor Michael Dearing will present an Innovation Lecture on ‘Design Thinking for Innovation: Treat Your Company, Your Team, Your Products as Prototypes’. His lecture will consider what works and what doesn’t when you integrate design thinking into all aspects of your company’s strategy, organisation design, and product / service to customers.

Michael Dearing joined the d.school faculty at Stanford in Spring 2006. Since that time, he has co-developed and co-taught courses including Creating Infectious Action and Creating Mass Market Experiences. He also teaches graduate seminars including Innovation in Complex Organizations, and Creative Product Marketing. Michael’s current interests include process design for new product development, “productising” emerging technologies, web-based businesses, product marketing, and pricing.

Download the entire document [MSWord, 48k], which includes how to RSVP.

The 10th Annual IDI Design Awards 2008 is now open for submissions, Deadline 29th of August.

The Awards is an occasion to celebrate the excellent standard of design achieved by designers on the island of Ireland for 2007/2008.

It is also an opportunity for the IDI to promote this standard to a commercial audience.

Visit the Design Awards Website

I look forward to reading the transcript from Bill Buxton‘s lecture tomorrow (11 June) at the Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon (CHIFOO). The Oregonian caught up with Microsoft’s principal researcher prior to the lecture for an interview and an explanation.

The pervasive notion was that thinking and knowledge were somehow something that happened inside the head … more recently, our notion of cognition has broadened considerably, and in particular, it embraces the notion that thought and knowledge may well occur as much in our physical and social environment as in the cortex itself.

Can design thinking be institutionalized, or does it happen to cities and businesses serendipitously?

This is one of the most important questions to ask. My answer is decidedly yes, it can be institutionalized. But at the same time, I have to qualify this by saying that the most creative challenge of any management is to figure out how.

Additional reading:

A New Mantra for Creativity

Brendan Gleeson made a presentation at the Institute of Technology Sligo yesterday on Designing Child-Friendly Cities. Not to be confused with the Irish actor, this Brendan is Director of the Urban Research Program at Griffith University in Austraila. At Crayola we never addressed the concept of the child-friendly city, though we certainly agreed with the necessity of “places for wild, unstructured play” in child development.

The talk was introduced as less about “how” and more about “why.” The imperative is pretty clear when you begin to consider how the built environment affects child well-being, particularly within urban areas, where devoid of enlightened planning, gobble up green spaces, as well as market-driven compaction of housing plots. The cult of materialism and individualism has produced wealthier, yet fatter, sicker and less happy kids.

The conversation was dense with the forces that conspire against our most dependent and vulnerable citizens, yet there was enlightened commentary around how child-friendly societies are designed to be more caring and civil to all, and have longer-term outlooks around solutions. We also need to consider the benefits of getting older people together with younger people, as opposed to segregating them into specific spaces.

Design Delivers is a one-day workshop run by the Centre for Design Innovation. In this highly interactive session, you will learn practical tools for identifying your key customers and applying design research tools to extract meaningful insights that can be developed into product and service offerings.

The first half of the day focuses on user-centred design; what it is, why it is important to your business and how to do it. You’ll be taken through a straight-forward process of applying user-centred design (Identify, Look, Involve, Try, Plan). Each step will be illustrated using tools that can be applied after the workshop. Why would you want to invest resources to develop ideas or services your customers don’t want or need?

The second half of the day will focus on branding. Branding adds value to your business, helps you differentiate your offering from the competition and helps you connect with your customers. A brand is not a logo or an identity, it is much more. You will learn why branding is important to your business, as well as the components that make up successful brands. Convey your message more effectively and consistently. Sell your products and services at a premium. Attract better customers, distributors, partners, suppliers and staff.

What have past participants said about the day?
“Practical tools to bring back to the workplace.”
“This kind of seminar should be available as soon as you enter into business. Day one.”
“Informative and essential for any discerning SME who wants to drive value in their business.”
“Like the interaction exercises … I hate sitting and listening for hours solid. Thanks.”
“It has taken the blinkers off to what design can be and do for the business.”

Why should I care?
Research conducted by the Centre has proven that Irish businesses who use design innovate more often, more effectively and compete less on price. Companies that integrate design at the highest strategic levels are 2.5 times more successful than those that do not yet only 15% of organisations use design at this level. Why? One of the reasons may be they just don’t know how. Begin to learn how during this one-day workshop.

How much does it cost?
The event is fully subsidised by the BMW Assembly and is free of charge to organisations in the BMW region of Ireland.

Is one day enough time to learn this?
Our goal at the Centre is to help demystify the design process and provide tools that allow you to use design thinking for yourselves. When it is time to undertake more detailed work you will feel more confident and empowered to brief the appropriate expert to provide you with further support. You’ll get a lot of value from the day.

Where and when will it take place?
The workshop will be run three times, with the second session taking place Tuesday, April 29th, from 10-4PM at the offices of the Centre Design Innovation, Room G1003, Business Innovation Centre, Institute of Technology Sligo campus. Please RSVP to Justin Knecht, Programme Manager, justin@designinnovation.ie.

Victoria & Albert Museum, London

It was only a matter of time. China is making the transition from low-cost producer of goods at break neck speed. China Design Now just opened at London’s Victoria & Albert museum, tracing the trajectory of this emerging design economy.

‘Made in China’ has become a familiar tag, but the spectacular creative energy in modern China is barely known. During the last twenty years, the Chinese have rediscovered their pre-socialist past and begun to combine their own traditions with global influences to produce a cultural rebirth. At the heart of this lies a new culture of design.

Should we view China’s transition as an opportunity or a threat?

Read on:
Exploring China’s new long march- from manufacturer to designer
Top 10 Myths & Truths about Design in China
China Design

Nina Hale. Some rights reserved.

My memories of summer camps mainly include lakes, barbeques and tents, but the folks from the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID) and INDEX are running a camp with 40 student representatives from around the world to foster intercultural dialogue and use user-centred design techniques as a mechanism to “solve the global challenges of mankind.”

That is a far cry from learning how to properly roast a marshmallow. But seriously, there is much more information on the camp website. Hopefully the blog will help us follow along with the students and their journey.

The gap I am referring to is the three week lapse in posting to the blog. We have good reason to be concentrating on the real vs. virtual world as we launch the Innovation by Design programme. On May the 17th we ran the first of two user centred design workshops, the first being with the Registrar’s Office from the Institute of Technology Sligo and other invited guests. On the 12th of June, all six Northwest companies will be participating.

The workshop is the cornerstone of a user-led approach to innovation and is the result of six months of content development, including the input of experts from Ireland, mainland Europe and the US. They day itself is facilitated by Colin Burns, a user centred design expert, formerly the MD of IDEO London.

Our intent is to share the approach and tools via the website in the coming weeks.