How visual stories can help interdisciplinary design teams to step into the shoes of the future users of their designs and develop relationships with them.
To achieve social innovation, simple consultations of the people who will use the spaces and services we design is no longer enough. In stead, it is necessary to build relationships with some of these future users and involve them deeply into the design and innovation process. 'Empathic Conversations' need to be set up from the early stages of the design process and ideally even before. The nature of these conversations allows us interdisciplinary teams to step into the shoes of the people we design for and see the context we design from the perspectives of the people that will use the spaces and services we design in the future. Design Documentaries are an approach to design research that helps to tell these stories of the future users in a visual way that will 'stick' during the design process from beginning to end. They build on a long tradition of documentary filmmaking in and about cities around the world. Bas Raijmakers will show examples from how this approach is used by STBY in projects in the UK and Germany.
PhD (RCA) - creative director STBY
Bas Raijmakers graduated in 2007 with a PhD in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art and currently runs his own design research company STBY (Standby) in London and Amsterdam with dr. Geke van Dijk. STBY focuses on social research for design and innovation. Bas has a background in cultural studies and the internet industry, and his main passion is to bring people we design for into design and innovation processes, using visual storytelling. He also advises the Design Academy Eindhoven regarding design research.
