Design Bits

Overview

This is a proposal of a digital self-study design course aimed for non-design students. All Aalto students will have the possibility to acquire up-to-date information about design from the start of their career.

By completing the course each student will have basic knowledge about why design matters so much today, how it can be applied to the different areas, and the main design methods and tools that are being employed in business nowadays to generate value. The content will include topics such as design thinking, user centered approach, co-design, design inside companies, among others. Cases and examples (preferably from Aalto and from Finland) will illustrate the theory. This course will also encourage and indicate other existing courses in Aalto University for students to deepen their knowledge in design.

The main innovation is to communicate clear and relevant design content in a digital format to an audience composed by people who are completely new to the subject. The identity and content of the course will be tailored having our final users, their interests and their abilities in the center of the project development. Learning will be made easy by online sessions with the right timing to keep student engagement, and a user-friendly format that can be conveniently accessed.

In the future, we would like the material to be of open access. The implementation of this course claims the leading position of Aalto University in the field of Design by offering exciting, inspiring content about the current design world, which helps a broad audience to have a realistic and consistent overview of the area. The growth of interest in design and design thinking will open up possibilities for transdisciplinary collaboration that will benefit Aalto and the society as a whole.