INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGINEERING AND PRODUCT DESIGN EDUCATION

4 & 5 SEPTEMBER 2008, UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA, BARCELONA, SPAIN

REFLECTING ON BEING A DESIGNER

Marieke H SONNEVELD and Paul HEKKERT
Department of Industrial Design, Delft University of Technology

ABSTRACT
By designing products and services for people and putting them in the world, designers
have a big impact on our environment, behaviour and well-being. Designing products is
not only a matter of finding the right solution for a specific design challenge, but also
about formulating a personal stance about ‘what is right’ in the context of this future
impact. Design Education should offer students a platform to be able to discuss and
develop this personal vision and design attitude [1]. This paper presents the results of
the course “Reflecting on designing”, developed at the Delft University of Technology,
to support and stimulate the students critical reflection on their societal role as designers
and on their own vision in designing.

Keywords: authenticity, personal development, reflection in design

1 DEVELOPING AUTHENTICITY IN DESIGNING

The education of a design student follows different stages of design expertise, from the
naïve, to the novice, the advanced beginner, the competent, the expert, the master, to
result in the visionary [2]. These stages fundamentally differ in their way of looking at
design situations, varying from following strict rules to redefining the rules of the game,
thereby inspiring the domain of design practice as a whole. Although these stages seem
to present a clear development in the one following the other, Dorst emphasises that in
design projects, these stages may actually co-exist. Yet, he argues that each stage
comprises its own kind of reflection.
The design exercises in our design curriculum offer a multitude of moments to reflect
on the rules of the design practice, but lack the reflection on the visionary level, thereby
neglecting the development of the visionary aspects of designers. This paper presents an
initiative to support the development of a student’s personal and authentic design vision.

2 THE COURSE REFLECTION ON DESIGNING

In Delft, we developed the course Reflecting on Designing for the students of the master
Design for Interaction, to stimulate the students critical reflection on their societal role
as designers and on their own vision in designing. The main objective of this course is
to contribute to the development of a critical, conscious and authentic design philosophy
and design attitude. The course consists of a series of inspiring guest lectures and
concludes with an assignment to write an essay.
It is our conviction that what designers create and how they do it is rooted in who they
are and where they come from. By inviting ‘designers’ from various disciplines to talk
about their vision/starting points, to indicate what they are based on, and to show how
these are translated to the forms determined by the discipline they work in, we want to
make our students aware of these underlying processes. The students are presented with

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ethical, philosophical and societal ideas about design, through several guest lectures by
designers and design researchers from different design fields, such as architects, graphic
designers, photographers and film directors. These lectures are presented from a
personal perspective: what were the designers’ personal motivations and beliefs while
designing? The assumption is that the development of such a personal design vision is
embedded in the personal development of the design student as a social being. It is
therefore best stimulated in contact with professional designers form different
disciplines, who show an authentic and personal vision on their design projects, based
on their personal beliefs and motivations.
To develop their reflections, students write an essay in which they explicate their
personal vision on themselves as designers. The purpose of the essay is to go beyond the
obvious clichés. To transform superficial statements such as “I want to make this world
a better place” and “I want to design products that fulfil people’s real needs” into
meaningful statements about what is a better world, and about what are real needs.
Possible questions that are addressed during the essays are:
- What are your values, your goals, your dreams?
- What is your role in society, what are your responsibilities towards people?
- Do you have a method, do you need one?
- What inspires you, how do you keep inspired?
- How are these ideas reflected in your design projects?
This essay can take any form deemed appropriate, such as a movie, a written essay
(with images), or a computer presentation, as long as the form relates to the content or
message.

3 REFLECTIONS ON THE ESSAYS

After the assessment of the essays, the course ends with a plenary session consisting of
feedback of the teachers on the reoccurring themes, and of a personal presentation of the
essays that were considered most authentic and inspiring.
The essays show a wide variety of form and content. Design students seem to differ
strongly from each other on this personal, motivational level, and show to be curious
about each others reflections. During the final session, the presented personal reflections
and statements exceed the urge to argue about their truth, rather, they tap into the desire
to know each other and thereby inspire each other.

3.1 The effect of the guest lectures

The essays are written after a series of lectures by designers from different disciplines,
presenting their personal motivations and aspirations through their design practice.
These lectures proved to be valuable as starting points for the formulation of one’s own
reflections. Moreover, the bolder the statements in the lectures, the more students
commented on them. For example, one of the architects stated that he never listens to
users, because they are no experts, and a successful product designer stated that he does
not use a design method because they proved to be useless. These statements may be
shocking to our students, but offer food for thought when presented by successful
designers and thereby provoke strong reactions. Therefore, we ask our guest lecturers to
clearly make their personal statements, and to already start the discussion with the
students during their lectures.

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3.2 Structure of the essays
The essays show a variety of form and structure. Next to plain text, we saw jigsaw
puzzles, gift wraps, memory games, computer animations and essays structured along
Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Philosophicus. But it is rare to encounter essays presented in a
form matching their content. A big pitfall of creative forms derives from the
inconsistency of the essay because of the inconsistency of form. Students tend to
generate statements on different themes that cover their personal vision (often structured
along the questions we proposed as starting points for the essays), without integrating
them into an overall coherent vision. At the start of this course, we encouraged students
to create mind-maps of their personal reflections, but these mind maps seem to
encourage fragmentation rather than providing building blocks for a coherent vision.
Throughout the years we therefore show the pitfall of a loose structure and emphasize
on the importance of coherence between form and content, to allow for the development
of more in-depth insights.

3.3 Tools for reflection

To most students, having to write an essay about oneself as a designer comes as a
surprise and one does not know where or how to start. The most successful essays are
written by students who developed tools and techniques to create their own vision. For
example, one student created two collections of products: products she really would
have loved to design and on the other hand products that she would be ashamed of it
they were her design. Next, she analysed these collections on emerging themes and on
the visions underlying these designs. This analysis allowed her to create her vision on
product design, and to get insight into her personal motivations and aspirations.
Another group of students decided to sit together and to discuss each others statements,
having to speak up, to explain and to try to inspire the other proved to be a good tool to
deepen one’s thoughts and to make them consistent.
Another type of tools to start a personal reflection is offered by the wide variety of
personality tests that are available through the Internet. Several students used such tests
to give insight in themselves as a person, and used the results to reflect on their design
practice.
Finally, creating a portrait of oneself as a child seems a good starting point as well.
Most students who start their essays with reflections on their early childhood discover
that their development as a designer started at birth, and never actually stopped.
Reflecting on one’s motivations and aspirations as a child seems a fruitful source of
inspiration to get insights in one’s actual situation.

3.4 Defining ‘designing’

Many essays struggle with the question about what designing actually is. As one of the
students comments: ‘I am in my fifth year and I still don’t know how to explain to my
family what I am actually learning, or what I will be once I am a designer’. Students
reflecting on the core of their experience of design, tend to describe designing through
metaphors. They see themselves as chefs, putting the right ingredients together to create
a delicious meal, as movie directors, telling a moving story through the right images, as
composers, trying to get different musicians to work together into a symphony, and so
on. These metaphors focus on designing as a productive process, and try to describe the
experience of designing. On the other hand, some metaphors are more oriented towards
the outcome of the process: ‘being a designer is like being a politician: we try to change
the world according to our insights and to convince others to allow us to do so’.

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In any case, the use of a metaphor seems a strong mean to deepen one’s insights in
designing, and should be considered as a fruitful starting point.
Other students try to describe design through the emotional aspects of the design
experience: ‘to me, designing is the beauty of seeing all the possibilities, it is a way of
looking at the world: not only seeing it as it is, but seeing everything that could be
possible’ Or as one of the students simply stated ‘when I design I smile…’.
The pitfall of this uncertainty about what designing actually is, lays in the fact that
students tend to try to describe what designing is in general, trying to come up with a
definition covering the whole design discipline. This attempt drifts them away from the
development of their personal view on what designing means to them. We therefore try
to discourage attempts to define design in general in this exercise.

3.5 About ‘Me’

One of the challenges of this assignment is to bridge the gap between one’s personal
world and one’s design practice. This is achieved by writing the essay from a personal
stance: writing about ‘me designing’. But for some students this seems difficult to
accomplish. Although the assignment is explicitly about ‘me’, students still tend to
write about design in general, its benefits and obstacles, thereby missing the point of
working on what makes one authentic. The question is why do these students beat
around the bush? It is a challenge to tempt students to dive into their own world of
experience, and to discover its potential as source of inspiration for their design
personality.
The question about one’s sources of inspiration seems to offer a starting point to
develop a more personal point of view. Students report being inspired by nature, by
their passions such as dance or computer gaming, and from there on find a way to come
to an authentic design personality. Yet, to some even design inspiration is still a domain
to be discovered, as reflected in the statement ‘to me, inspiration is everywhere…’.

3.6 Who needs a vision?

Not all students are enthusiastic about the assignment as presented to them. ‘Why do we
need a vision?’, and ‘Can’t we just be designers and make things, without the fuss of all
this personal reflection stuff? Are some of the comments some students start their
essays with. Our answer to this is clear cut: whatever you design is, it is always
designed from a vision. If students think they do not have one, they are just not aware of
their own assumptions and motivations. Discussions about these resistances to make
these assumptions explicit lead to the insights that to some, such attempts might seem
pretentious. This turns out to be a valuable insight: once students are convinced that a
vision does not need to be something big, but that they are allowed to be humble, they
find their own track.

3.7 Deepening one’s thoughts

Although the students are asked to go beyond the clichés of ‘making people happy’ and
‘making this world a better place’, many essays offer a personal view that does deepen
these thoughts. The students who did develop this statement into a personal stance seem
to be students who are already in the process of developing personal thoughts on these
topics. These students have travelled, participated in social initiatives, are politically
active, are strongly religious, or have strong passions such as making music, dancing
or practicing a particular sports. The essays show that this cultural baggage is needed to
be able to formulate deeper thoughts on one’s design personality.

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Some students are aware of this interplay between the development of cultural interests
and design personality, and see their personal development as a design responsibility:
‘As a design student I want to develop myself as a broad oriented person. I made a list
of movies I consider important to see, and I try to watch at least one movie every two
days. Besides, I try visit art exhibitions as often as possible’. Obviously, this pursuit for
cultural development reaches beyond the responsibility of the course Reflecting on
designing, and should be an overall mentality in Design Education.

3.8 Me, the user and the environment: responsibilities and ethical issues
User-centred design is one of the design directions our students are often confronted
with during their design education. It is often considered and promoted as a matter of
good practice in design. The underlying assumption is that design should address
people’s real needs and latent dreams. Therefore, not surprisingly, this motivation to
address real needs is one of the most reoccurring themes in the essays. ‘I don’t want to
develop the next superfluous product nobody is waiting for, but something people really
need, like products that contribute to the comfort of the world of disabled people’. But
most students fail to describe how they define what real needs are, and how they think
they could contribute to a better world. Within the domain of user centred design, one
still needs to take a personal stance in relation to the user: does the designer see himself
as the one who knows best (the paternalistic point of view), or does he take a servile
role in relation to the user? Who is responsible for the user’s well being, and what how
is does this well being defined? Some students are general about it: ‘I want to see
people smile’, and some have well defined aspirations: ‘ I want to make people
conscious of the fact that they are living, to contribute to a conscious life’.
The topic of ecological responsibilities in design is treated likewise. Most students do
not reflect beyond the statement that they want their designs to be environmentally
sound, but fail to give content to it.
Finally, some students are very clear about not having any other motivation or
aspirations in design than ‘to become rich and famous, as quick as possible’. And some
students provide us with a solid overview of how they plan to achieve this goal.
Although these statements may be valued for their honesty and soundness, they are
experienced as provocative and irresponsible by most students.

4 REFLECTION AS AN ONGOING PROCESS

Writing an essay about who you are as a designer turns out to be an impossible task if
being a designer is considered as a fixed state that one has already acquired and could
reflect on in retrospective. Most of the students conclude their essays with the comment
that they were pleasantly surprised by what they discovered about themselves during the
writing of the essay, but that the essay feels more like the start of a reflection process
rather than its result. This leads to the insight that, because personal development is a
continuous process, reflecting on it should be as well. As some of the students
commented: “this is how I think about myself as a designer right now, but it might well
be that when reading it again next year, I might completely disagree with myself. And
that’s OK too”. Moreover, we believe that considering reflection as an ongoing process
throughout the designer’s development is crucial to its value, and should show changes
of insights. Because personal development is embedded in the occurrence of these
changes.
Considering reflection as an ongoing process caused many students to comment on the
timing of this course: although they appreciate the course during their masters, it is

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considered as a valuable process that should start right from the beginning of the design
education curriculum. And we couldn’t agree more.

5 CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS

In Design Education, reflecting at the end of a design exercise on the design process and
its outcome proved to be valuable for the of the design students’ development. These
practical reflections form an integrated part of our bachelors and masters design
exercises. But so far, in our curriculum the reflections required from the students mainly
concern the first stages of development described by Dorst. Students reflect on the
development of personal competences, such as creative thinking and mastering design
tools and methods, and formulate what they will do next to improve these competences.
But these practical reflections on the design process itself are not sufficient to support
the development of the design student into an authentic designer. Moreover, to limit the
reflections to these practical aspects of design might strengthen the assumption that
design is a matter of ‘problem solving’, thereby of ‘finding the right solution’. The
present paper proposes that in addition to these practical evaluations and reflections, the
design curriculum should offer the student tools and methods to reflect on the students’
personal motivations and aspirations as a designer right from the start of the curriculum.
To support the integration of these reflections on authenticity and personality, new tools
and methods need to be developed. Because reflecting on oneself as a designer is not
just a matter of looking back on what was achieved and formulating next steps about
what should be done. Reflecting on authenticity and personality is a creative process,
contributing to the construction of a consistent self-image. The development of a design
personality becomes a source of inspiration. Therefore, the building of such a design
personality should become visible throughout the design education process. The
development of a students design portfolio offers a possible platform for the
development of these tools, provided the content of these portfolios is extended from
design results to the presentation of oneself as an authentic designer, and one’s vision
on one’s role in society. Therefore, future courses will try to look for an integration of
essay writing into the building of the designer’s portfolio.

REFERENCES
[1] Hekkert, P. and van Dijk, M. Designing from context: Foundations and Applications of the
ViP approach. In Lloyd P. and Cristiaans H., Eds. Designing in Context: Proceedings of
Design Thinking Research Symposium 5. (DUP Science, Delft, 2001).
[2] Dorst, K. Design research: a revolution-waiting-to-happen. Design Studies, 2008, 29, 4-11.

Dr Ir Marieke H SONNEVELD Dr Paul HEKKERT

Delft University of Technology Delft University of Technology
Department of Industrial Design Department of Industrial Design
Landbergstraat 15, 2628 CE Delft Landbergstraat 15, 2628 CE Delft
The Netherlands The Netherlands
[email protected] [email protected]
0031-15-2781714 0031-15-2781346

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