Fundamental Principles of Design

Dr. Ricardo Sosaricardo_sosa@sutd.edu.sg

Singapore University of Technology and Design

Hi Ricardo, We have been invited by NJC to give the talk on Design Thinking during the Singapore International Science Challenge. The session will be

on 4 July 2013 from 10am to 11am. I am wondering if you will do the honour of giving this talk to the students?

buzz·word (ˈbʌzˌwɜrd) n. “a word or phrase, often sounding authoritative or technical, that has come into vogue in popular culture or a particular

profession”

Patterns and trends on what millions of people searchsometimes tell us something…

Some keywords show us what people value or want to know more about

Big data can reveal priorities, interests and perceptions

Big data can confirm our intuitions and observations

It’s not easy or trivial to interpret these aggregate numbers…

Back to the main topic of this talk:Why should we search for, discuss and engage in design?

http://www.designsingapore.org/Files/Dsg_II_Strategic_Blueprint.pdf

“… this rate of change will need to be matched with mindsetand paradigm changes in order for us to maintain our ability to innovate, and to create new value.

It is no longer business as usual. We are already facing increasing global competition in the new ideas-driven creative economy…

Design must become the critical strategic tool for futureproofing Singapore from the uncertainties of the future.”

http://www.designsingapore.org/Files/Dsg_II_Strategic_Blueprint.pdf

Ok, it is important, but what is design?

Bruce Archer (1960s)

“The practice of design is a very

complicated business, involving

contrasting skills and a wide field of

disciplines. It has always required

an odd kind of hybrid to carry it

successfully”

Engineer, Professor of Design Research atthe Royal College of Art

Bruce Nussbaum (2010s)

“Design Thinking is beginning to ossify and actually do harm, in order to appeal to the business

culture of process, it was denuded of the mess, the conflict, failure, emotions, and looping circularity

that is part and parcel of the creative process”

Economist, Professor of Innovation and Design at Parsons The New School for Design

How to understand and excel in something that experts refer to:

“complicated, odd, mess, conflict, failure, emotions, looping circularity”?

My goal here today is simple:

To get you (more) interested in design, creativity and innovation

(And I will attempt to do this without eye-candy)

The opportunity is huge

534M

328M

89M

12M

You can compare with other countries/cities/keywords

Or define more specific targets…

Ok, what about more concrete evidence, such as an analysis of the contents of one million books published in the last one-hundred years?

Google Books Ngram Viewer displays a graph showing how phrases have occurred in a corpus of books over the selected yearshttp://books.google.com/ngrams/info

Google Books Ngram Viewer displays a graph showing how phrases have occurred in a corpus of books over the selected yearshttp://books.google.com/ngrams/info

Let’s talk about design

(thinking, doing and feeling)

Reason abductively

• D: “Aristotle is mortal”

• I: “All swans are white”

• A: “Our new product will be a success”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/goingslo/4981211649/sizes/l/in/photostream/

If facing uncertainty and ambiguity is not enough…

Think critically

http://www.cihm.leeds.ac.uk/document_downloads/Art_of_Powerful_Questions.pdf

How to make decisions in such conditions?

Make reflectively

http://kristen-soley.blogspot.sg/2012/03/in-sculptors-hands.html

http://www.gladwinlibrary.org/joomla/index.php/june-25th-knitting-club

To succeed in this area, you need to fail

Cultivate failure

http://kingdomentrepreneur.blogspot.sg/

ricardo_sosa@sutd.edu.sg

“Babe” Ruth hit 714 home runs in his career (1914-1935)

He also struck out 1,330 times in his career

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cliffbaise/4479440032

“Alfred Nobel was full of ideas; he said ‘If I have a thousand ideas a year, and only one turns out to be good, I am

satisfied’.

I, too, am full of ideas, and I would be satisfied with one

good idea per year”

Dr. Linus Paulinghttp://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1962/pauling-acceptance_en.html

Un-learn a few things

Avoid myths

http://www.wall321.com/

The Ten Year ‘Miracle’ of the poster child for design and innovationNASDAQ AAPL: Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. iMac was introduced in 1998, iPod in 2001, iPhone in 2007

NASDAQ AAPL vs AMZN / KRX5930

“a bestselling book on creativity for people who

do not like books on creativity”

Select the best ideas

A

B

C

F

K

N

R

SFord Model T

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7213http://www.goldcoastmodela.com/Early_Ford.pdf

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/331880/347933.html?1363551928http://25.media.tumblr.com/935fa0bd19cd7f4edfcb7528cffd21ad/tumblr_mga6unWcNt1rgmlf9o1_1280.jpg

http://wordlock.com/

http://140.116.71.92/lock/english/char.htmhttp://restraintsblog.blogspot.sg/2010/12/1876-clarke-10-letter-combination.html

http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/march32012/index.html

Old and new ideas

3 Lenses

http://savic.cc/tag/feasibility/ http://www.wixomdesigns.com/architecture.php

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/3012011ec026.pdf

Water

http://www.flickr.com/photos/haniamir/2630466183/sizes/l/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/3732230674/sizes/l/in/photostream/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/03/22/world-water-day-a-forceful-reminder-that-the-u-s-is-running-out-of-fresh-water/

http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-bottled-water/

http://awesome.good.is.s3.amazonaws.com/transparency/web/1204/your-daily-dose-of-water/flash.html

http://www.waterfootprint.org/downloads/TheWaterFootprintAssessmentManual.pdf

Fundamental Principles of Design

Dr. Ricardo Sosaricardo_sosa@sutd.edu.sg

Singapore University of Technology and Design