{"id":217,"date":"2013-10-03T16:27:44","date_gmt":"2013-10-03T15:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/innovate\/?p=217"},"modified":"2013-10-03T16:32:55","modified_gmt":"2013-10-03T15:32:55","slug":"so-who-designs-and-what-are-we-designing-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/innovate\/2013\/10\/03\/so-who-designs-and-what-are-we-designing-for\/","title":{"rendered":"So who designs and what are we designing for?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Before you read this post you may find it useful to read – What do we mean by design?<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cEveryone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.\u201d Simon (1996).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Design and social work and care professionals, to a certain extent, approach the design of situations in a similar manner. Donald Schon (1994) explained that many professionals work using spontaneous and largely unthinking actions that go hand in hand with a more conscious approach. This spontaneity Schon describes as \u2018knowing in our action\u2019 and a conscious approach \u2018reflection-in-action\u2019, or \u2018knowledge in action\u2019 – depending upon whether a person applies their sensemaking or theoretical knowledge (or both) to a situation.<\/p>\n Schon found that professionals tend to reflect-in-action when dealing with \u2018situations of uncertainty, instability, uniqueness and value conflict\u2019 and use their training and experiences of similar situations to respond. He also points out that reflective practice, whilst widespread, suffers from a lack of acceptance in many professional circles due to the perception that professionalism is identified with technical expertise (in whichever guise), and that reflection-in-action is not considered a form of \u2018professional knowing\u2019. And the negative aspect of this practice can be that professionals can think in rather specialised, narrow view, and can become selectively inattentive to particular phenomenon that do not fit with their categories of practice.<\/p>\n Philips Design believes Western societies are moving from industrial economies to experience, knowledge and transformation economies. An overview of these categories and an explanation are provided in the image below (Brand and Rocchi 2011).<\/p>\nSo who designs? Everyone of course!<\/h1>\n
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And what are we designing for?<\/h1>\n