Design Education for the General Public

Track Chair​

Liv Merete Nielsen
Oslo and Akershus University College, Norway

Track Subchairs

Ingvild Digranes

Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway

Janne Beate Reitan
Oslo and Akershus University College, Norway

Designed artefacts and services influence our lives and values, both from personal and societal perspectives. Designers, decision makers, investors, and consumers hold different positions in the design process, but they all make choices that will influence our future. In order to solve crucial global challenges, designers and lay people must cooperate; for this purpose, we argue that the design literacy is necessary for all. We argue that the design literacies can underpin practices associated with democratic participation in design processes, developing and using ethical responsibility, and understanding and supporting sustainable aspects of production and consumption.

Therefore, the track aims to explore the following points:

  • How development of the design literacy can be supported in general education from primary to higher education.
  • How a design education for  the general public can represent both a foundation for professional design education and a prequalification for lay persons’ competence for decision-making?
  • How might design literacy influence sustainability issues in society?
  • What connections exists between the different levels of design education from primary to the university level?
  • How design education contributes to perceived and experienced curricula?
  • What is relationship between design education and ideological curriculum?
  • related questions

Research addressing above points will be useful to inform changes in policy and educational implementation. The importance lies in the needs to better inform design education itself, to improve the quality of design educators, and to educate reflective consumers.

DRS2018