Design As A Way of Knowing
The path toward design as a craft is already well explored. The future of the craft of a craft has many new areas to be explored and developed
Risks of Ideas and Sciences
Scientists, engineers, designers and artists are entrepreneurs build on engineering culture, bearing most of the risks and enjoying rewards
Working In Creative Teams
The better the data, the better the inferences. The better the knowledge representations. The trouble is, this grounds people in the already articulated needs that the data reflects. They see the data through the lens of their own biases. And they don’t recognize needs people have not expressed. Design Sciences takes a different approach: Identify hidden needs by having the innovator live the customer’s experience.
We have had many technologies introduced in classrooms all over the world, but these innovations have provided remarkably little systematic knowledge or accumulated wisdom to guide the development of future capabilities for innovations. What is different today is that some of the great minds in the world are addressing themselves to entrepreneur as experimentalists: their goal is to compare different designs to see what affects what. Technology provides us with powerful tools to try out different designs, so that instead of theories of education, we may begin to develop sciences of knowledge. But it cannot be an analytic science like solid-state physics or psychology; rather it must be design sciences more like aeronautics or artificial intelligence. For example, in aeronautics the goal is to elucidate how different designs contribute to lift, drag, manoeuvrability, etc.. Similarly, design sciences of knowledge must determine how different designs of learning cue to human intellect, cooperation, motivation, etc.

Our Methods

A typical week for a participant taking three courses in each of the first two terms may be as follows:
Lectures – eight hours
Tutorial classes – six hours
Practical – four hours
Self-directed study, including research, problem sheets, preparations – 20 hours
Total – 38 hours
The split of work may differ depending on whether a course has practical associated. This should be taken as a guide only.
Time Frame:
We expect participants to complete the full-time “Fellow” program in four terms (16-20 months), which includes three study terms, one four-month work term and a final study term. However, participants may apply for an eight-month work term with the same employer that would lengthen their program to five terms (20 months).
Final dates are communicated only to selected participants.
Design Areas for Digital Products, Services and Functions