We are now in the 21st century, but design curricula seem stuck in the mid 20th century, except for the addition of computer tools. The 20th century developed craftspeople capable of magnificent products. But these were relatively simple products, with simple mechanical or electrical components. In the 21st century, design has broadened to include interaction and experience, services and strategies. The technologies are more sophisticated, involving advanced materials, computation, communication, sensors, and actuators. The products and services have complex interactions that have to be self-explanatory, sometimes involving other people separated by time or distance. Traditional design activities have to be supplemented with an understanding of technology, business, and human psychology.
With all these changes, one would expect major changes in design education. Nope. Design education is led by craftspeople who are proud of their skills and they see no reason to change. Design education is mired in the past. A quick definition. I focus upon the areas called industrial and product design, broadly defined to include interaction, experience and service design. Actually, I believe the problems I discuss apply pretty widely across the multiple design fields, but I haven’t examined the curricula of these other areas with the same care as I have for the industrial and product design areas. Designing a new design curriculum is fraught with difficulties. I’ve written about this (see my core77.com column “ Why design education must change.”) (Also available on this website, jnd.org.)
I have helped organize conferences on design education and have attended others. I’ve literally traveled around the world to discuss design education at major universities in Asia, North America and Europe. The critiques I present are commonly voiced. I have to report that I see many positive examples of curriculum change, for example, the curriculum reforms being put in place at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft, in the Netherlands). Other schools are exploring similar changes. The responses to my core77.com article have, on the whole, been positive, and some schools have asked for my opinion and help. Still, I find the vast majority of schools incredibly resistant, unable to change. Yes, a few faculty members may wish to join the 21st century, but the departments as a whole strongly resist.
Designers are proud of their creative thinking, of how they break out of traditional solutions to problems, examining new potential directions without prejudice. “Do not criticize” is a frequently cited mantra during the ideation phase of a project, because criticisms, even if valid, kill creativity. Let the criticisms come later.
But try to think creatively about the design curriculum and fierce defensiveness comes into play. My experience is that designers believe the mantra of no criticism during ideation, but they are unable to apply it to themselves, especially when it comes to changes in the curriculum. The world has changed, I explain (over and over again). In the past we trained wonderful craft skills of sketching and exploration. The tools were drawing and model building, shop skills and even the computer revolution in drawing and fabrication tools. But today design is more than appearance, design is about interaction, about strategy and about services. Designers change social behavior. So shouldn’t designers understand the fundamental principles of human and social interaction, of how to assess the validity of a claim? The designer’s role is not easy; in addition to their traditional design skills, they must now be expert at human behavior as well as understand how to deploy new technologies emerging from the rapid advances in computers and communication, materials and sensors, actuators and displays.
“Yes, yes,” say my design friends, “but there is no room in the curriculum.” “Every field says this,” I explain, for I have heard the same objection in departments of engineering and social sciences, engineering and science, literature and art. But in other fields, the curriculum is divided into specialties. All students must take some core courses, but then, depending upon their area of specialization, the curriculum changes. Moreover, the university itself requires students to take courses outside their department and even outside their school so that they have some balance of knowledge.
Much of design training takes place in specialized schools of art, architecture or design, where there appears to be no understanding of the need to broaden the education. In fact, many of these schools do not even offer courses outside of their major area. Moreover, within design, there seldom is specialization: everyone gets a heavy dosage of the core elements. The few electives that are permitted tend to be within design. Given that lengthening the duration of study is impractical, the only way to make room in a curriculum is by dropping existing requirements. Why not? Does every designer have to have the same depth of skill in drawing, model building, CAD tools and prototyping? Product design is still a fundamental part of modern design, but so too is communication, interaction, experience. So too is service design and design for the environment. Almost all products now have microprocessors, communication links, sophisticated sensors and actuators, and display. Sure, designers are whizzes at packaging these, but where do they pick up the skills to make the interaction smooth, understandable, functional and pleasurable? Do they know how to validate the designs? And what of systems, where the design is only a small component of the entire system, whether it be one for transportation, health, education or the environment? Why should every student have to go through so much training in drawing 2D and 3D? In fabrication? Not all designers need this stuff.
Where is the content matter in design? Nowhere. It is all technique. All craft. As a result, in many new, important arenas with heavy technological and social components, the design requirements, parameters and constraints—and often even the first draft designs—are being done by non-designers. Interaction design is being done by computer scientists and psychologists. Other areas use engineers and professionals in the fields of operations, city planning, transportation, and health. Designers are called in afterward to make it all look good—the very attitude we have been fighting. Yes, the design community complains, but I place the blame squarely on the limited reach of design education. It is our own fault.