Exalt Lab Design

The first joint laboratory dedicated to the value of design in organizations.

Research

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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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