Re-engaging with the intimacy of materials through touch

In today’s retail led world consumers are suffocating through an excess of soulless products. It is time we paused to breathe. "Touch has a memory" - John Keats. [A1] It is often assumed that product designers, especially in the fashion industry, will have a deep understanding of the tactile properties of materials that they use. This tacit knowledge is also assumed to be an essential ingredient for intimate engagement with the materials, for touch is about direct contact, close and personal; it is not sensation at a distance in the way of sound and vision. Through this intimacy, the designer can fully understand the potential sensory impact on their customers and can share their knowledge of this intimacy with the customers. However the rise of fast, offshore manufacture has led to a virtual design approach where cad-cam rules and the first direct contact that the designer has with their material is often when they receive the finished goods. The approach has become embedded in teaching, where virtual-oriented design is cheap and simple as well as effective. This runs in parallel to what Black [A2] describes as "The Fashion Paradox", i.e. the tension between an industry which has become dependent on the overconsumption of the consumer society made possible by low cost design and manufacture processes with emerging imperatives of environmental and ethical issues. It has become easy to make and sell a lot of goods, but perhaps a new approach is needed before we drown in an ocean of stuff. We hypothesise that a business strategy to introduce a new intimacy with materials to consumers through goods and experiences that celebrate "the joy of touch" will a) spawn better, higher value goods with cutting-edge appeal and b) provide a positive piece in the jigsaw necessary to address the Fashion Paradox, taking the line described by Fletcher and Early in "5-Ways" [A3, A4] that touch is relevant to the production of "supersatisfiers...which begin to break the chain of consumption and dissatisfaction". There are always many old voices that decry the lack of materials knowledge in the "designers of today", and we do not wish simply to join them. To avoid this yet to achieve new thinking in the territory we take a tangential approach that does not get stuck into stuff to early. Accordingly, the method will apply a method of research and teaching based on storytelling in multidisciplinary teams developed by Smith and Sams [A5, A6]. This reflects on the role of designer-storytellers described by Seah [A7] and Erikson [A8]. Thus, perhaps counter-intuitively, we seek to stimulate word-based approaches to a physical effect. The resultant project vehicle "Touch Stories" is inspired by the observations of experimental psychologist Charles Spence, e.g. [A9], that people have difficulty in detecting and remembering touch, but can be taught touch skills. This builds on earlier design projects "Touch Gourmet" by Torres and Sams [A10]. We provide below a short summary of the science context as well as the more usual design context for the project. The work described here is our first experiment using this method in the touch context with a fashion student community of young business and design professionals. In recognition, we report in the style of a science experiment - which also reflects the background of the second author. We are at the very start of a journey which we intend to take well beyond fashion (for the challenge of new materials and "too much stuff" spreads well beyond Fashion and its Paradox), thus to stretch and develop the territory, through the processes described in [A5, A6]. It’s a journey the design world needs to ‘touch on’

What on Earth is Responsible Innovation anyway? (And how to make it happen)

The case for Responsible Innovation has been well articulated in the areas of science research and Corporate Social Responsibility in business. This paper presents a case for adopting a design-led approach in order to promote responsibility in innovation. It uses a case-study review of ten years of innovation projects to explore the similarities and differences between approaches to Social Innovation and Commercial Innovation in order to explore the values of design-led Responsible Innovation across these contexts. The research draws upon industry expertise, Masters projects and theoretical models. In particular it relates the attributes of the design-led approach to the four dimensions model proposed by Stilgoe et al. It concludes by proposing a framework that draws upon notions of Deep Empathy as proposed by Michlewski, Dynamic Mapping, Consequence Visioning and Toggling between micro and macro views. The study aims to demonstrate how adopting a design-led approach supports teams in pursuit of Responsible Innovation. It connects what we already understand about Responsible Innovation with what we know about design-led multidisciplinary innovation practices and establishes focus for future studies that will promote this type of practice as the norm. It is based upon the findings of a public debate and a review of Masters projects undertaken over the past decade. The paper concludes by proposing a framework approach in order to promote the identified attributes of design-led innovation and an assertion that we need to move beyond Responsible Innovation to Innovation for GOOD

Framing strategic value through design-led innovation practice

In university/industry collaborative projects, full project value is often overlooked and such projects can be viewed simply as contributing to student employability agendas. Initially, collaborators tend to place value solely on the projects’ created outputs. This paper reveals how strategic value evolves during such projects and identifies frame creation as a means of highlighting additional values in design-led innovation projects. Identifying ‘value-frames’ allows the academic team to be more purposeful in aligning project focus to partner objectives, thereby increasing impact potential

Friendly: Helping design and science to help each other

This paper looks at the progress of a project, which we believe has created a rich narrative between science and design. The paper describes an Industry Based Student Project titled 'Friendly', commissioned by a fast moving consumer goods company. One of the key aims was to explore whether product design, which is generally not associated with the scientific development of materials, could shed a 'new' perspective on how R&D scientific staff could use design tools within their work. The project, undertaken by 3rd and 4th year Design for Industry (DfI) students from the Design School at Northumbria University, was divided into three discrete phases. The first phase was highly conceptual and context-free, the second had a social context and the third was more focused on product. The project has raised a number of interesting issues that are to be further investigated. For example, in what way is a design brief closing and/or opening potential spaces for design exploration and ultimately affecting the design outcomes; or, in what ways does knowledge and techniques already developed and used in other disciplines such as cultural studies and social research, inform design in this important area of research

Touch Stories: Engaging with the intimacy of materials through touch

The authors argue that TOUCH is an essential ingredient for intimate engagement with the materials. Touch is about direct contact, close and personal. Through this intimacy, the designer can fully understand the potential sensory impact on their customers and can share their knowledge of this intimacy with the customers. This is a way to better, more sustainable products. How to ensure that entrepreneurs use the full potential of Touch? The paper describes first experiments with a multidisciplinary, multinational fashion student community - the designers and business professionals of the future. In general, this community embraced touch as a vehicle to inspire and stimulate our senses that could in principle lead to the creation of touch concepts and new products. This is the start of a journey that is using sequential projects and storytelling as tools, a research journey we intend to take well beyond fashion

Framing Strategic Value por meio de Design-led Innovation Practice

Em projetos colaborativos universidade/ indústria o valor agregado é muitas vezes negligenciado e tais projetos podem ser vistos simplesmente como contribuição para as agendas de empregabilidade dos estudantes. Inicialmente os colaboradores tendem a valorizar apenas os resultados entregues pelos projetos. Este artigo revela como o valor estratégico evolui durante esses projetos e identifica a geração de ideias como meio de adicionar valor e evidenciar que design leva a projetos de inovação. A identificação de “valueframes” permite que a equipe acadêmica tenha mais interesse em alinhar o foco do projeto aos objetivos do parceiro industrial, aumentando assim seu potencial de impacto do projeto

Storytelling Stimulates Science

Multi-disciplinary working is claimed as an essential ingredient for innovation. However, the barriers to multi-disciplinary cooperation that lead to meaningful contributions for an organisation are significant. The authors describe how a series of collaborations between an industrial R&D science community ("the scientists") and Northumbria University’s School of Design has helped to develop a new approach to research and teaching based on the communication device of storytelling. We find that this approach can create a common platform in to which different disciplines can embed their specialist knowledge to the benefit of multi-disciplinary working. This paper builds on previous work of Smith and Sams 2007; ‘Friendly’ [1]. This paper also describes observations on how the level of engagement of the scientists with the design-led projects has developed, charting a shift from sceptical suspicion to engaged enthusiasm. This paper focuses upon recent projects that have involved both undergraduate Design for Industry (DFI) and postgraduate Multidisciplinary Design Innovation (MDI) groups, disclosing the academic structures and investigative methods that allowed design, business and engineering students to collaborate with the scientists and help inform their strategy team, e.g. how new patented science could be better communicated

What on earth is responsible innovation anyway? (And how to teach it)

Our ability to rapidly develop and deploy new thinking continues to accelerate. Responsible Innovation is essential because connected systems and economic imperatives mean that the impacts of innovation, which always have positive and negative consequences, are prolific. A design-led approach can be effective for Responsible Innovation when located at the front-end of research and innovation processes and governance. This study puts forward the principles, practices and learning outcomes for a Masters that is located on a teaching-research-engagement nexus as a component of design-led Responsible Innovation Practice

A multidisciplinary approach to innovation

Over 7 years and 7 graduating classes, 154 students, from 15 different disciplines and 20 different nations, and 17 academics have innovated with 62 companies (regional national and global), across all sectors. 7 spin-out companies have been started, 6 PhDs registered, 12 research projects published, new systems, services and products have been developed and 3 new oganisational functions have been created all by students of ONE Multidisciplinary Innovation Masters degree. Creating positive change in the world is the goal of the Responsible Innovation Research Group at Northumbria University. Through generative practice-based research we work with organisations who have challenges, great big meaty challenges. Creating one team our clients work directly with the energy and creativity our students and the analytical expertise of academics to use design and multidisciplinary thinking. We examine their stance and strategic objectives by considering their possible and plausible future offers and the impact these might have on society and the important issues we all face. Through authentic learning our students are embedded in a fast-paced team-based design-led learning environment. This environment is founded on expertise in design innovation methods, strategic organisational development, network value creation, technology exploitation, innovation leadership, and high performance teams. We build and exploit substantial, long-term industry partnerships each with a significant portfolio of projects. We engage in a programme of social innovation and community interest projects each with unique challenges and social benefits. All these practice-based projects generate both a significant research resource and teaching resource. Through this approach our students become multidisciplinary professionals who understand the importance of consequences and can achieve innovation to bring about holistic positive change. This case history presents a suite of project examples describing the approach, methods, outcomes and impact of the work. It also provides our understanding of the developing multidisciplinary professional self through student exemplars and describes some of the current research being leveraged by the group