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User and social innovation
At work, at home, in the streets, in their leisure time, people of all ages and with different cultural backgrounds seem willing to be involved and to participate, even through the smallest of actions, thus becoming producers of change. This form of empowerment marks the birth of new types of active interaction, with both final products and design processes, reshaping the borders and boundaries of the design field, and questioning the role not only of designers but also of decision makers. After the phase of product personalization and experimentation, the next challenge in different business sectors is that of the direct interaction of people in the creative process.
Course objectives and teaching overview
The purpose of the course is to study the process behind user’s actions and reactions, that can trigger innovation both for business and for social change, but also approach research methods on how to identify user and social innovation in physical and virtual contexts. The course will propose:
▪ New awareness amongst designers, coming up against people as producers of change
▪ A systematic reading of social change through material culture observation
▪ Tools and methods that offer students the skills necessary for constant/consistent monitoring of people behaviors and expressions, in order to anticipate social change and innovation.
Contents:
Information, tools and methods applied to understand social change, individual and collective behaviours, entrepreneurship and brands in relation user and social innovation.
- Research approaches and alternatives for deciphering society changes, starting from behaviour analysis
- Consum_Authors, individuals and groups of people as producers of change and innovation
- The user as an individual and part of collaborative consumption
- User innovation and the role of design
- The relation between companies and advanced consumers
- Business innovation and social innovation
- Design thinking for social innovation
Format and Procedures
The course is divided among lectures, discussion, group learning projects, reviews and case study analysis and student presentations.
Presentation of videos and talks.
A set of readings accompanies many of the topics.
Guests will be invited and company visits will be organized.
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Inglese