Course content

This course aims to develop the candidates' knowledge, skills and personal commitment to address societal challenges through design. It explores how design as a tool for change can contribute to positive change within services, technology and interaction. The candidate learns to apply service design methods and tools to create innovative, sustainable change proposals locally, and explores complex issues such as climate change, social inequality and technological upheaval.

The course is the second part of the course series "Design for change". In this section, we focus on how the designer can contribute to changes at the meso- and macro-level, particularly related to service and system design. The subject considers how design can contribute to and be used to understand, analyze and change services and systems, and how design is suitable for working with connections between different elements in a system and relationships between people who use or are affected by services and systems . In the course, students learn about involvement and co-creation in change processes at the meso- and macro-level.

The candidates will first get an introduction to relevant concepts and theories within design for change, and then work on an interdisciplinary project that explores change in practice.

Learning outcome

Knowledge

• Good knowledge of design in services from different perspectives (user, owner, business)
• Good knowledge of design methods with a particular focus on service and system design for change at service and system level (here understood as meso and macro level).
• Have knowledge of principles in service design and how designers can facilitate and design based on these.
• Knowledge of positive and negative consequences of change and disruption at service and system level.
• Understand framework conditions in a given system and the consequences this has for various service deliveries
• Have basic knowledge of various systems that set frameworks and conditions for service development (political, organizational, technical, social and legal systems) and how a designer can both work within the framework and challenge the framework conditions.
• The candidate can explain design methodology and frameworks that can be used in the development of sustainable solutions in complex and intractable/entangled problems

Skills

• Experience in creating different ideas about the future and what it can hold. Furthermore, become familiar with related techniques such as backcasting and foresight methods.
• Experience in using tools within service and system design.
• Be able to make design choices with a background in critical reflection around design methodology and frameworks.
• The candidate has expanded understanding and ability to develop sustainable services that benefit relevant stakeholders and society.

General competence

• Expertise in facilitating design-driven change processes.
• Expertise in interdisciplinary collaboration.
• Competence in taking into account different roles in collaborative processes.
• Competence in theoretical understanding and application in design processes.

Learning methods and activities

• Lectures, exercises, seminars and assignments.
• Three physical gatherings in the semester, the rest are digital lectures, collaboration and e-learning material available in NTNU's learning system (LMS).
• There is a requirement for at least 80% attendance at mandatory gatherings in the programme

Teaching takes place mainly in Norwegian, but students can expect English curriculum literature and English-language teaching contributions.

Compulsory assignments

• Seminar Presentations
• Written Submissions
• 80% Attendance

Specific conditions

Required previous knowledge

To take the course, IDG4110 and IDG4130 must be passed

Course materials

A compendium will be compiled at start-up.