Yearly archives of “2013

Report: Most people just trying to get by

Report: Most people just trying to get by

Most people, for most of their day, are trying to get by. Every day is essentially a series of problems, some minor, some major, some requiring more thought than others. Some we care a lot about; some we wish we didn’t have to. Some are […]

Code as control

Code as control

In the earlier days of this blog, many of the posts were about code, in the Lawrence Lessig sense: the idea that the structure of software and the internet and the rules designed into these systems don’t just parallel the law (in a legal sense) […]

How do actual designers use academic literature?

How do actual designers use academic literature?

The whole point of doing research is to extract reliable knowledge from either the natural or artificial world, and to make that knowledge available to others in re-usable form. Nigel Cross, ‘Design Research: A Disciplined Conversation’, Design Issues 15(2), 1999, p.9 [PDF link] >>>Link to […]

Designers, literature, abstracts and Concretes

Designers, literature, abstracts and Concretes

Last week, I put a quick survey online asking how actual designers make use of academic literature. It provoked some interesting discussion on Twitter as well as two great blog posts from Dr Nicola Combe and Clearleft’s Andy Budd exploring different aspects of the question: […]

Making it easy

Making it easy

I have a blog post up at Guardian Sustainable Business, looking essentially at what’s been referred to here previously as ‘enabling‘ behaviour change, specifically in the context of sustainability.

Some news, mostly around writing

Some news, mostly around writing

• My PhD, which was inspired and indeed sired by this blog, back in 2007, has finally been approved by the examiners. I’ve put the thesis online with a few comments. I’ll have a proper post reflecting on it all in due course – just […]

Welcome: Introduction to SusLab

Welcome: Introduction to SusLab

SusLab aims to reduce household energy use through the design and trialling of new people-centred products, services and interfaces, developed collaboratively with householders Reducing energy use is a major challenge for society and the need to change our behaviour is receiving increasing attention. However there is a need to integrate the ‘what’ of quantitative data […]

Our ethnographic approach

Our ethnographic approach

This is a guest blog post we were invited to write by Gabrielle Ackroyd, one of the organisers of EPIC 2013, the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, taking place in London from 15-18 September. Our paper, ‘People and energy: A design-led approach to understanding everyday energy use behaviour’ [PDF] will be presented by Dan on […]

Introducing AcrossRCA: Seeing Things

Introducing AcrossRCA: Seeing Things

Please see the updated schedule for the week AcrossRCA is a week-long programme of cross-disciplinary working at the RCA, bringing together students and staff with different expertise, interests and perspectives to collaborate on a wide range of briefs set both internally and by external partner organisations. This year, from 28 October to 1 November, the […]

Life Examined: SusLab at the London Design Festival

Life Examined: SusLab at the London Design Festival

From 15–23 September, our work on SusLab will be featured in Life Examined, the 2013 Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design exhibition, taking place at the RCA’s Dyson building in Battersea as part of the London Design Festival. Life Examined is the annual presentation of design projects by the Helen Hamlyn Research Associates, exploring design to […]

Co-creation workshop

Co-creation workshop

At the end of September, five householders from London and beyond worked together with five designers from the RCA’s Service Design department and Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, participating in a SusLab co-creation workshop at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre in Kensington. Our aim with the workshop was to connect a talented set of designers […]