To learn to design is to learn to learn about possible futures: A learning perspective on design and its implications

Abstract

Design requires thoughtful application of methods to broaden one’s understanding of the task and to generate alternative solutions. These activities imply learning. In an interaction design course for undergraduate engineering students, it was apparent that they put little effort into the usage of the design methodologies taught; nor did their choice of methods always appear to be thoughtful. To tackle this, we redesigned the course by applying a strategy based on sociocultural and experiential theories of learning and Marton’s variation theory. The guiding hypothesis was that engineering students are essentially rational. The aim was not to steer them away from rationality, but to give them the means to develop the foundation of their rationality towards a design thinking approach. The major components of the course redesign were; changing individual project group supervision in short sessions to parallel supervision of several project groups in longer sessions, adding peer review of other students’ work, and increasing the number of workshops and workshop-like exercises during supervision sessions. Since the redesign, student grades have improved, and the course evaluations indicate that they have gained more generic skills associated with design thinking. This highlights a crucial issue when teaching design to engineers: that of making design thinking appear rational. In essence, this implies teaching them how to learn about ill-defined problems rather than to learn specific methodologies. However, the experience of methodological variation in the right educational context can challenge and expand students’ ways of thinking and thus constitute an essential base for their learning.