Design thinking and design doing: Describing a process of people-centred innovation

The research forms part of the author’s long-term enquiry into the challenges of implementing Design Thinking (DT) and its relationship to Inclusive Design (ID), something that has been understudied and under-researched. Both fields advocate research with users and have a history spanning decades, but they have remained largely separate in terms of academic research and practical application. The author was approached by the series editor for his expertise at the intersection of ID and DT. “State of the art” DT ideas and approaches were evaluated through study of circa 50 recent academic publications, papers and journal articles. Field research was based on personal leadership of over 70 ID projects with government, business, and the voluntary sector leading to frontline discoveries and insights. Peer-reviewed academic publication, conference presentation, and keynote delivery helped test ideas before making the link between ID and DT and delivering the publication. This 13,000 word, sole-authored chapter outlines gaps in the long-term effectiveness of DT, outlining five principles that aim to engender a more sustainable approach by aligning it to ID. These five ideas give an overview of newly-articulated frameworks, tools and methods for academic and industry application. The chapter sets a context for 16 other chapters within the publication and establishes the need for more empirical research to link between DT and ID. The ideas in the chapter have been used to direct practice-based research projects and education programmes at the RCA as well as organisations in its network. 700 Hong Kong civil servants have been trained using these ideas, alongside numerous industry organisations including Tata Consulting Services and Panasonic

Functional diversity and traits assembly patterns of benthic macrofaunal communities in the southern North Sea

The study of ecosystem functioning – the fluxes of energy and material through biotic and abiotic components of an ecosystem – is becoming increasingly important in benthic ecological research. We investigated the functional structure of macrozoobenthic communities at four long-term sampling sites in the southern North Sea using biological traits assigned to life history, morphological and behavioural characteristics. The “typical” species of the macrofaunal assemblages at the sampling sites was characterized by small to medium body size, infaunal burrowing life style, deposit feeding habit, omnivory diet type, short to medium life span, gonochoristic sexual differentiation, 330 macrofaunal taxa have been compiled in a comprehensive database