Innovative Approaches to the Design of Interactive Urban Systems: Design Practice and Education

Abstract

Interactive design has become a part of digital development programs for the modern post-industrial information society of a metropolis, among which the most capacious is the Smart City program. The saturation of the market with the industry of digital solutions has led to the problem of an abundance of boilerplate, often media products with illiterately designed user experiences. A form of rethinking modern design practice can be an appeal to academic traditions, which retain their potential in modern design methods of vocational education. Experience in educational design of the Department of Environmental Design, Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Design and Applied Arts in the field of interactive design of the urban environment, focused on the actual needs of society and the tasks of design practice, demonstrated examples of preserving cultural identity, competent functional solutions and figurative and emotional saturation in a new media product, taking into account modern artistic and aesthetic trends. Examples of use of innovative AR, VR technologies in mobile applications, media reconstructions, and etc. build an environment with a new user experience adapted to the accelerating pace of urban development, considering the prospects for a more comfortable life. The potential of technological capabilities made it possible to take a fresh look at familiar problems in educational projects, to model new scenarios for the behavior of the target audience, thereby significantly strengthening the component of social orientation. The project theme covers almost the entire range of areas laid down by the "Smart City" program from problems of the transport environment and ecology to education, enlightenment, tourism, and etc. By focusing on the real needs of practice, instructional design has become a certain simulator of future design practice.