Design learning and practice applied in functional diversity contexts: An open-method based approach

Abstract

Design methods with open-type approaches are better adapted to changing and highly complex situations. Furthermore, a multitude of methodologies based on flexibility and user involvement coexist in learning this type of design approach. Here we present an experience that combines the practice of design from an open approach, with a learning methodology that adapts the design of products and services to the needs of the groups involved in their development. As a theoretical approach, connections between Amartya Sen’s theory of capabilities and methods based on the human factor are analysed, proposing a conception of design understood as practice that expands the capacity for action of users. Based on this framework, four projects carried out by industrial design and furniture students, who carried out their practices with people with functional diversity, are described. Each project developed a different solution according to the element that focused the intervention: object, process, service/system, and cognitive process. The results show the potential of open methods to strengthen the agency of the groups and individuals involved in the development of design projects, especially when the interventions are applied in social contexts that pose significant limitations and requirements for the design of products and services.