About DIY design and innovation

Discussion about DIY design and innovation by Eric von Hippel and Sampsa Hyysalo.

Date: 23 October 2018 14:00–15:15

Venue: Class Q201, Aalto University (Väre Building), Otaniemi (Espoo)

Democratizing design with end user-friendly design too
by Eric von Hippel, a world leading academic on user innovation and democratizing design

Tens of millions of consumers and producer development teams innovate each year. Vanishingly few afford the help of a professional designer, and their projects suffer as a result. To bring better design to the presently unserved 99%, the design profession could consider research and development programs aimed at creating software design toolkits. The goal would be to make these toolkits useable by ordinary end users - who in this way could incorporate at least some of the life-enhancing design expertise that academic and professional designers have developed so richly.

DIY, peer support and the challenge of improved collaboration tools
by Sampsa Hyysalo, Professor of Co-Design at the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture

DIY design and innovation are widespread activities, often supported by peers at local sites such as hobbyist groups, clubs and networks. Internet connectivity has brought DIY designers together across geographical separation as well. Whilst this is a no brainer regarding digital products and tools, peer support is formidable also regarding physical products that lack digital representation. Internet forums exist for most hobby and equipment areas ranging from extreme sports to Hi-Fi equipment to self-built off-road vehicles to energy technologies. These forums and dedicated sites such as instructables, however, to date support shared design work only partially, resulting imperfect pooling of contributions. There thus exists a design challenge how to create adequate peer support for the physical product designers.

About the speakers

Eric von Hippel is an American economist and a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, specializing in the nature and economics of distributed and open innovation. He is best known for his work in developing the concept of user innovation – that end-users, rather than manufacturers, are responsible for a large amount of innovation. In order to describe this phenomenon, in 1986 he introduced the term lead user. Hippel’s work has applications in business strategy and free/open source software (FOSS), and he is one of the most highly cited social scientists writing on FOSS.

Read more https://evhippel.mit.edu/

Sampsa Hyysalo is Professor of Co-Design at the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Helsinki, Finland. His research focus is on longitudinal studies of designer-user relations in technology projects. His research orientation is multidisciplinary, science & technology studies, innovation studies and collaborative design being his main fields of reference. He received his PhD in behavioral sciences in University of Helsinki, working with activity theory. His docenture in is user-centered design of information systems in University of Turku. 
 

Read more: https://inuse.fi/people/sampsa-hyysalo/