"Fail often so you can succeed sooner." Tom Kelley
The annual PIEp event was held at UID on November 24th. PIEp is a national long-term project sponsored by VINNOVA, of which the goal is to increase the innovation capacity in Sweden through increased cooperation between research, education and industry. The five universities involved are Luleå University of Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, CTMH, Jönköping University and Umeå Institute of Design.
PIEp director Sofia Ritzén opened the event by welcoming everyone and explaining the PIEp project. UID rector Anna Valtonen then talked about the common view on design, and a bit about design history. Next, Dario Buzzini, Design Director at IDEO, and Fabricio Dore, Senior Interaction Designer at IDEO, gave some background on IDEO and Design Thinking. IDEO is a design and innovation consultancy that for instance designed the Apple mouse. Fabricio and Dario work at the IDEO Munich office.
Buzzini let the audience see the outstanding HackFwd film. HackFwd is a company founded by Lars Hinrichs and IDEO helped the founder turn his vision into reality. Dore and Buzzini also shared the BBVA project, the Future of Self-Service Banking. Buzzini explained how important, and also how difficult, it is to be inspired in your daily work, and the importance of the way you approach customers. Buzzini told the audience about a project involving teamwork in hospitals, when IDEO not only made user studies at surgical operations, but also studied Formula 1 pitstops to get inspiration. Through that they learned more about how to increase team efficiency with new roles and dynamics.
Eventually it was time for the much-anticipated workshop on the theme Design Thinking. The workshop participants were divided into teams and each team obtained several photographs. Through these photos, the teams should describe the person whose life the pictures showed. The aim was to understand the importance of observing the user in his/her context, how essential the environment is, and that what the user says often is different from what she/he does. The teams brainstormed, following IDEO&s rules for brainstorming:
- Defer judgement
- Encourage wild ideas
- Build on the ideas of others
- Stay focused on topic
- One conversation at a time
- Be visual
- Go for quantity
In the next phase each team got a design challenge for their defined user. The design challenges handed out by the workshop leaders were to design a new car purchasing experience, a new toaster, a new picnic blanket, a new vacation, and a new snack food.
Finally the teams presented their designs (Changing through Sharing, Buddha Toaster, Picnic Blanket Party, Taste of Wisdom, and Give Time - Get Car. The best design was awarded a book to each of the team members.
After the workshop an Inspiration Seminar was held where several speakers answered the question: Is design a force of innovation? The inspiring speakers were Michael Henriksson, Design Manager at Sony Ericsson, Magnus Eneberg, PIEp doctoral student, Carl Hampf, partner at Shift Design & Strategy, Monica Lindh Karlsson, PIEp Umeå node, Johan Frössén, Industrial Designer at People People, and Linda Björk, CEO at Amore.
