Exalt Design Lab

Design

is everywhere

The uncertain, complex and unstable nature of the 21st century allows design to show its value and relevance.

Its systemic approach – refering to great authors like Branzi, Findeli, Koskinen and Vial – and its ability to use the collective imaginary to draw new narratives and fictions create to-belived experiences for the inhabitants of our world. Experiences that make sense and thereby increase the thickness of reality.

In companies and organisations, design seizes its performance and acts as an actor of its own transformation. As a true contributor, design transforms abstract opportunities into concrete challenges. This academic chair will operate on a territory of design mixing experiences and transformations.

Experiences

Through experience, all the dimensions that create value are articulated.

For companies, an experience-based approach brings in the design process new dimensions like emotions - which are nowadays poorly understood and orchestrated.

It also contributes to increasing both the perceived and economic values of companies’ offers, and it amplifies the growth potential of their strategies.

Strategies

From economic value to performance indicators, management and collaboration methods, design strikes the established models of doing and thinking.

Its new forms of value production are particularly suitable for renewal injunctions imposed on companies and the complex context of a changing society with evolving and demanding “clients”.

The chair aims to conduct research projects with a strong economic driving force, anchored in companies and organisations. This will open a new management perspective for stakeholders, but also new ways to teach and practice design.

Production

Methods, tools and processes
Experience-design descriptive framework taking into account the emotional, empathetic and temporal dimensions
Analysis and proposal of productions of social and economic values
Analysis and proposal of productions of social and economic values
Academic writings and publications

Academic areas

Design research as an academic discipline in terms of design practice and design studies
Economy, Design science, Design management, Philosophy of technology

Other implications

Promotional and educational events for the industrial partners
Development of the design sector for public instances and business leaders
Evolution of education in design schools. Promotion of the dissemination of design in engineering and management universities

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1. EXPERIENCE - AN OVERALL QUALITY

Designing for Experience :
ensuring consistency from scenarios to lived experiences.

Today acquiring life experiences makes people happier than purchasing material goods (products and services). How to include and think the concept of experience in a design project, from intention to planning and development? How do the stakeholders of this process represent and evaluate experiences? How to ensure consistency between a powerful idea and high quality results?

Bibliography

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Dewey, J. (1934). Art as Experience
Hassenzahl, M. (2010). Experience Design
Rancière, J. (2000). Le partage du sensible
Varela, F., Thompson, E. & Rosch, E. (1993). L’inscription corporelle de l’esprit, Sciences cognitives et expérience humaine

2. EXPERIENCE AS INTANGIBLE ASSET

Measuring the value of experience as an intangible asset in organizations.

Focusing on customers’ and employees’ experiences is essential for organizations. But there is a lack of objective frameworks to measure the intangible assets produced by this approach. What indicators are relevant to demonstrate the value of experience for brands and organizations? How will these frameworks and indicators transform and influence projects processes, management and evaluation at a company level?

Bibliography

Borja de Mozota, B., Igigabel, M., Picaud, P. & Rebours, C. (2014). Design Impact
Pauly, I. & Rebours, C. (2016). L’expérience. Le nouveau moteur de l’entreprise
Pine, J. & Gilmore, J. (2009). The Experience Economy
Solis, B. (2015). The Experience: When Design Meets Business
Verganti, R. (2017). Overcrowded. Designing Meaningful Products in a World Awash with Ideas

3. DESIGNERS: VALUES & CULTURE

Design values and corporate culture: a marriage of convenience?

This group aims at describing the implicit and explicit elements of a design culture, as well as the values and reasons driving designers’ action. But these assets do not always resonate with companies’ ways of doing. How to create a dialogue between organizational and design cultures and resolve potential contradictions? How to understand and accept differences in order to work in symbiosis?

Bibliography

Cross, N. (2011). Design thinking: Understanding how designers think and work
Lawson, B. & Dorst, K. (2009). Design expertise
Manzini, E. (2015). Design, When Everybody Designs. An introduction to design for social innovation
Mendini, A. (2014). Ecrits d’Alessandro Mendini (architecture, design et projet)
Michlewski, K. (2015). Design Attitude
Papanek, V. (1974). Design for the Real World

4. DESIGN GOVERNANCE

Meaningful forms of design governance: articulating tools & methods at organizational level.

Deploying a design process and ways of doing is more than formalizing methods and applying design tools. Between the interdisciplinary methodological eclecticism of design and the current initiatives and trends to popularize it, how do companies position themselves? Depending on a specific context, how to use design tools and methods in a meaningful way?

Bibliography

Bolland, R. & Collopy, F. (2003). Managing as Designing
Borja de Mozota, B. (2001). Design management
Brown, T. (2009). Change by design: How design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation
Christian, D. (2018). Stratégie et principe de réalité
Schmiedgen J., H. Rhinow, E. Köppen & C. Meinel. (2015). Parts Without a Whole? The current state of design thinking in organizations

5. DESIGNERS’ PROFESSIONAL LADDER

Expanding designers’ career paths: how to value professional expertise and experience.

This group questions designers’ career paths. Are they naturally / inevitably / desirably progressing towards management ? The aim of this SIG is to enrich the spectrum of possible professional careers and making the most of designers’ expertise and experience in organizations.

Bibliography

Galvani, P. (1997). Quête de sens et formation : anthropologie du blason et de l’autoformation
Schön, D.A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action