DES 203: Design Thinking

DES 203
Design Thinking
(3 credits)
Class Size: TBD

Faculty: James WR Fathers, Professor, Syracuse University
Administrative Contact: Melanie Nappa-Carroll, Associate Director, Project Advance

Course Catalog Description

This course will introduce students to the principles and practices of Design Thinking. Focusing on the application of design strategies to problems in businesses, organizations in a creative and systematic manner.

Course Overview

On a surface level, Design Thinking is now a widely used phrase relating to problem solving. However, once you begin to understand the complexities of its application across the wide spectrum of use cases it becomes clear that this is a complex and powerful set of tools that anyone can use to understand, analyze and begin to formulate solutions for challenges as diverse as accessible sustainable transport systems, service design for a healthcare that responds to the needs to the patients and their families, or democratic community engagement as well as the more standard scenarios of designing products, garments spaces or communications.

Students will be taught in to identify and enage in a situation in an empathic immersive manner to understand the challenges that need to be addressed. Data will be gathered via a range of primary and secondary research tools and synthesised into a clear and detailed design brief.

Note the design process is NOT linear but cyclical, each stage is revisited to verify that we are meeting the identified needs of the clients and users and not making up solutions that we like!

We will then embark on the ideation journey which will culminate in design refinement and selection. This often takes the form of a series of prototypes which begin as a sketch model and ends with a detailed functioning facsimile model that will be used to gather detailed feedback. This data will be used to inform the final design.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• Understand and articulate the wide range of principles and practices encompassed under the umbrella term ‘Design Thinking’.

• Demonstrate an understanding of these principles via the identification, comparison and discussion of case studies of ‘Design Thinking’ in areas that interest you.

• Articulate the application of such principles in your reflections on practical examples such as: short projects, exercises, workshops, demonstrations and presentations from guest speakers.

Laboratory

N/A

Required Materials

TBD

Instructor Recommendations

TBD