Project 2: General Product 15 credits

About the course

The overall aim is to provide students with practical experience in designing a product or system that caters to a broad user group, addressing products and services such as within healthcare facilities, public transportation or public services. The course provides a platform to explore approaches and methods in the context of design ethnography and participatory design within a service design perspective. Students work in groups throughout the course. The final results can include software-hardware products, services, or organisational frameworks. The course comprises three modules.
 
Module 1: Foundations (3 credits)  
This module reviews the theoretical foundations of ethnographic design research and participatory design, and it provides exercises in practical ethnographic and participatory methodologies for service design contexts. The goal of this phase is to develop knowledge about users and the user context for future design solutions and to establish relationships with users, so they can be involved in the next stages of the design project. This entails engaging people interacting with equipment, environments, services and other people rather than individuals interacting with a single isolated product or product group.

Module 2: Project (9 credits)  
In this module a design project is performed via identifying opportunities to delivering proposals, using ethnographic and participatory methodologies and with a service design orientation. During this module, students arrange periodic participatory design sessions with their respective user groups to explore concepts using various ways and materials to engage people in the design process. Students will further refine and evaluate their designs within a service design perspective, exploring service design tools and methods. Project results are presented in the form of visual synthesis of fieldwork and participatory design and may include sketch models, representations of service elements, and screen-based digital presentations. 

Module 3: Sensemaking (3 credits) 
This module is about understanding the project in relation to interaction design for a general, broad target group and includes training in academic writing.