My research interests are social interactions and innovations, as well as design methods and tools for changing collective behavior. I am interested in meaningful design and constructive sides of social interactions to transform society or organizations, which can often be realised in a playful way. I worked recently within a program Rotterdam Open Data with the aim to bring the data of the local government open to everyone. One of the projects was to create new apps based on the data, in order to show the potential benefits. As a result, an app called Rotterdam Onbeperkt was developed and its function is helping handicapped people navigate easily in the city. The government data allowed to predict all kinds of obstacles they may have encountered and the app proposes a problem-free route. This one project has already an impact on social innovation and was used as an example to discuss and convince the local government about the importance of opening the data to the public. A lot can be done with public sector information, it only depends on the mindset and good communication. Design is very useful to open such discussions and to introduce the bottom-up approach in creating social policy.

I’m the project leader of PSS 101 (CRISP) which investigates how the user experience guides the whole network around the product service system. Designers understand user experience and are able to implement it in a design, but it is often an issue to translate it into the strategy at all levels of organization. Our research covers this whole life cycle, with a focus on using design thinking to facilitate the communication between stakeholders.

With others, I also work on future strategy for the faculty – designing for transforming society – which is related to the Horizon 2020 (the European vision for coming years).

text by Malgorzata Pawlak