Category: Design comment
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Learning to live with artificial intelligences and autonomous technologies
Society is rarely ready for new technologies and AI is no exception. Suddenly AIs seem to be ‘everywhere’, in our work and home lives, in universities, health care systems and even on border patrols. Yet we haven’t deliberated and decided what circumstances AI may be useful; how to govern and regulate them for public benefit; […]
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Six Months of Growth: My Journey as an OU Design Intern
Six Months of Growth: My Journey as an Open University Design Intern As I approach the end of my six-month internship as a Design & Communications intern, I reflect on my journey that has been anything but ordinary. Coming into this as a neurodivergent student, I knew there would be challenges, but I never expected […]
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Campus Life_1: our green spaces
Walton Hall Campus As a 4 nation university we may sometimes forget that we have a central campus in Milton Keynes. Academics, technicians and administrators – the wearers of muddy boots on a building site in the early 1970s – today have the benefit of working in a green and diverse landscape covering 111 acres […]
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Linley Sambourne and his visualisation techniques
In one of our Level One design modules, U101, students are shown how to create an abstraction from a photograph to communicate a story. It’s a good technique to use, and great for building confidence in visualising ideas. I saw this process played out when visiting the fascinating home of Edward Linley Sambourne (1844-1910) last […]
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Design at the Sharps End
The smell of oil and grease evokes happy memories of hours teaching in a secondary school engineering work shop, the clatter of tools and low rumble of machinery, familiar and almost homely – but there is another odour, a whiff of ozone, and this is not year seven last period on a wet Wednesday afternoon.
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Designing for Futures
Designing for Futures: Building a Blueprint for Human Potential by Rachel A.Wood. In a world where every moment counts, our early experiences and continuous support shape not only individual destinies but the fabric of our communities. This blog is a tribute to David Farrington’s life course approach and builds upon the ground breaking insights of […]
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Energy Performance Certificate Reform: Mighty Metrics!
Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) are required whenever homes are sold or let in the UK. The initial aim of EPCs was to provide a simple method for prospective occupants to compare and benchmark the energy and environment impact of homes, and to provide advice on potential improvements. EPCs rank a home’s performance from A (highest) […]
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Navigating Learning at the OU: Neurodivergence
This blog post documents my experience of being a neurodivergent student at The Open University. Navigating Learning at the OU: Neurodivergence Studying at The Open University has been a pretty big deal for me, especially since I’m neurodivergent with ADHD and Autism. When I decided to take this step to join U101 and become a […]
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Desire-based Design as a Transformative Practice in Humanitarian Design Projects
In the last few years, I have been working on several action-based research projects in the Global South focused on designing with marginalised communities in low-resource settings. In these contexts, designing frugal innovations is crucial to alleviating big and small problems that affect individuals and groups. However, questions about people’s agency and how to foster […]
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Reflections on our face to face design meet-ups this year
We have been delighted to be able to run a number of informal face to face meet ups at various venues across the country this autumn. It has been wonderful to meet with students as well as their partners, children and grandchildren! It has been a joy to meet such enthusiastic students and to see […]