**4.4 Overall approach**

160 Industrial Design – New Frontiers

the solution domain, and the interdependence of individual solutions, the design brief and vision make it impossible to determine beforehand if a decision is the right one. Therefore, we consider design decisions conditional. That is, a designer makes decisions to the best of her experience and knowledge. These decisions are not necessarily correct decisions, it is possible that further insight into the design challenge invalidates a decision, forcing the designer to rethink certain solutions and come up with more appropriate solutions. So decisions can change over time depending on the developments and emerging meaning. In a sense this links to characteristics like openness, uncertainty and being (partly) out-ofcontrol. So instead of using a linear controlled process, the RTD process uses an open,

The RTD process knows two axes: vertically we distinguish drives and horizontally we

We view the design process as a process where insight into design opportunities and the solution domain is achieved by continuous information gathering. Next to the design

The first drive is information gathering to direct the design decisions through the designer's vision (top circle). It focuses obviously on development of disruptive, innovative solutions to transform the behaviour and experience of users and society as a whole. Therefore, the RTD process encourages (novice) designers to create a vision on transformation from our current reality to a 'radical' new reality through an intelligent, open and/or complex system, product or service. This transformation can refer to personal, social and societal transformation. In the beginning of the project this vision might still be small and captured implicitly in the design brief if there is one. During the process, the vision can be developed

The second drive is information gathering to explore and validate design decisions in a real life context with users even beyond launching the system, product and services in the market (bottom circle). Because meaningfulness, value, and transformation are person- and context-related concepts that emerge in interaction, the possibilities and solutions have to be explored and tested extensively through experienceable prototypes and designs in the real life context. The emergence of meaning can preferably take place throughout the entire process, and later on also over a longer period of time, thus supporting co-evolvement and

The drives are incorporated within two strategies that generate information and that reciprocally provide focus for each other. These strategies are indicated as the basic activities

Fig. 8. A linear controlled process (left) versus an open, explorative process (right).

distinguish strategies for information gathering to direct design decisions.

solution itself, we see two drives for information gathering.

explorative approach.

**4.2 Drives (vertical axis)** 

and sharpened.

adaptive behaviour.

**4.3 Strategies (horizontal axis)** 

Dependent on the person, context, or phase within the design process, designers determine where they start, and the order of the activities. This way the process supports flexibility, diversity and individuality, and it can even enhance chaos and going from a disequilibrium to a (re)equilibrium. The designers also determine how often they swap from one activity to another, although a high pace is recommended, especially during the early phases of the design process, but also during the later phases since this enables the designer to get a fast and good insight to what is happening within interaction in a diverse social context and market. As said, the RTD process is also an instrument to learn novice designers to become aware of values like openness, diversity, flexibility and craftsmanship. Moreover, the model actively supports reflection in, on and for action. The RTD process supports them to make their activities explicit and thus have an opportunity to reflect on those actions. When performing an activity within a circle, a student is stimulated to reflect in and on action, and an opportunity for reflection occurs every time the student switches activities. Therefore, we stimulate frequent changes from one activity to another, because this could help novices to

Fig. 9. A visualisation of the RTD design. The five circles were translated to rows and every activity was placed within, showing the relationship between activities.

Designing Disruptive Innovative Systems, Products and Services: RTD Process 163

overall goal to design a family of physical objects that are intertwined and enable people to be connected again in situations they are not connected right now. In order to explore the concept of connectedness, he used an extreme user paradigm to get inspired. Therefore, he started with generating 2D and 4D sketches for re-connecting people with a social phobia,

After finishing several 2D and physical sketches, John reflected upon his sketches and decided to focus on the creation of an object that could capture moments spent with others in the home. Four concepts were explored using computer sketches, evaluated with MSR

Animation sketches were developed for watching the recorded files on an interactive table. Moreover, John started exploring cameras present in the market and research labs that have the option to respond in a dynamical way. This step, analysing existing products and literature, is generally done in an earlier stage when using other design processes. John explicitly decided to

He sharpened his vision further by integrating a level of serendipity within the captured photos, videos and sounds. He predicted that the captured results would be much more

Fig. 13. Animated sketches (left) and a market evaluation of related products (right).

Fig. 12. Ideation and conceptualisation (left) and the evaluation of concepts (right).

first develop his own vision and concepts, before being influenced by others.

Fig. 11. Sketches to explore social phobia (left) and to explore Internet safety (right).

and one concept was selected due to its serendipitous nature.

and re-connecting inexperienced Internet users to experience privacy and security.

train their reflective practice. The activity of reflection is indicated in the model (figure 7) by the lines between the mutual activities, and between the activities and the deliverables. Reflection on and for action can also be related to the entire project, learning activity or overall development. This is represented in the model by the reflection line of the outer circle.

In addition, by making the activities explicit by visualising all the steps, it can also smoothen the conversation to other stakeholders involved in the process. We encourage our design students to document their process in a schematic way (see figure 9). There is not one way for doing this; it is related to the skills of the students and their preference for a certain way of learning.
