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  • Design Research in Professional Practice: Contextual Empathy, The Indian Train Network

Phillips, Robert and Roberto, Fraquelli, 2018, Conference or Workshop, Design Research in Professional Practice: Contextual Empathy, The Indian Train Network at Insight 2018, Ahmedabad, India, 1 - 2 November 2018.

Abstract or Description:

This paper reports on a series of design activities run on the rail network with the general public in the development of empathetic and meaning-centred approaches within ethnographic and co-design processes.
The Indian railway network is the 4th largest in the world, spanning 80,000 miles and supplies trade, tourism and travel to a wide variety of audiences and users. Authors approached the challenge sensitively, stewarding participants to engage and develop their own local understanding and design strategies. The research engaged with live on-the-spot public audiences, increasing the unpredictability and serendipitous nature of the inquiry. This added an extra edge to conventionally planned empathic processes, often unexplored within user centred design. Passengers engaged and responded to real-time ‘live’ design challenges whilst journeying across the Gujarat region of India.
The work yielded insights for ‘open user centred design’ and repeatable lessons for ‘live-working’ emphasising the importance of ensuring direct contextual experiences within creative empathic methodologies.

Subjects: Creative Arts and Design > W200 Design studies > W240 Industrial/Product Design
School or Centre: School of Design
Copyright Holders: Robert Phillips, Roberto Fraquelli
Funders: RCA internal finance
Date Deposited: 07 Aug 2018 08:38
Last Modified: 09 Nov 2018 14:32
URI: https://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/id/eprint/3596
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