Teaching Data-Enabled Design: Student-led Data Collection in Design Education

Abstract

[EN] Designers are increasingly engaging with data practices in their day-to-day work as design practice becomes increasingly connected. To facilitate this practice, design education needs to evolve and embrace data design. In this paper we introduce a Master-level elective course around the Data-enabled Design methodology. This challenge-based learning activity aims to teach how to use data as a creative material in addressing a real-life design challenge from selected industrial partners. In this article we demonstrate how our master students learn how to prototype, conduct data-enabled interviews, adapt their prototypes, and introduce design interventions via a multi-step approach, leveraging their growing knowledge and skills around contextual data. We share how we use a strong collaboration with our industrial partners and a predefined data infrastructure to help our students use data for sharing valid research findings and presenting experiential interventions.