Category: Design education
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OU Design Club – don’t wait, join now.
by Lily, an OU Design student Distance learning is great. It opens up so many opportunities. It allows you to study on your own terms and time. But at the same time distance learning can be strange. You log in. You study. You log out. Days blur together. You might be surrounded by people online…
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Are you ready to study design?
We have a new Are you Ready to Study Design? site. This brings together some of the most frequently asked questions about design at the OU and it tries to give students a bit more of a feel for what it’s like to study design at a distance at the OU. I think this is…
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Design education in its teenage years: reflections from DRS2026 Edinburgh
In June 2026, Edinburgh hosted the largest ever Design Research Society (DRS) Conference. I was struck by both the scale and the energy of the conversations taking place. As one of the track chairs for the Design Education research stream, alongside Ricardo Sosa (New Zealand) and Violeta Clemente (Portugal), I had the opportunity to engage…
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Mahsa Bagheri: my journey in design
I am a new PhD student in the Design Group at the Open University. Every design research student has a unique journey, and I want to share mine in this blog. My life has four main sides that all influence one another, leading me to where I am today. Art Let’s start with art, which…
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Keeping the Wunder in the Kammer
I have always enjoyed visiting museums. I’m not alone.1 They were, and still are, special ‘grounding’ places where I could return to favourite exhibits, like a much-loved storybook. At my childhood local museum, the exhibits were more domestic; a large dolls house that you could press a switch to light up and then climb little…
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Adventures in Copilot whispering
AnnMarie McKenna and Catherine Scott The AI Design Ed (AIDED) project began in 2024 with a survey of concurrent Open University design students, providing baseline data to support the main research aim of exploring the practical applications AI image generation tools within design education. Survey findings showed student attitudes and understanding of generative AI image…
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Neurodiversity and design: This world is not designed by, with or for me
Mel Green writes poignantly on OpenLearn that neurodiversity refers to the natural diversity of human minds. Brains and patterns of neurocognition vary among all individuals. These variations are normal and valuable, and they should be recognised and respected in the same way as any other human variation. Current estimates suggest that between fifteen and twenty…
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To Design or to DesAIgn ? The Generative AI Question for Design Students
Introduction to AIDED Generative AI (GenAI) is widely seen as a disruptive force across the creative industries – one that today’s design students will need to navigate in their professional life. But how do they view the use of the technology in design practice? And what role should GenAI play in shaping design education? A…
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Making the Design Wishes Tarot
The Design Wishes Tarot builds on a long tradition within the U101: Design Thinking module. For over a decade, students have been provided postcards so that they could post them back to the Open University, addressed to LOLA—’the spirit’ of the module. On these cards, they were invited to express their wishes and hopes for…
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From traffic to teaching: Lessons on informal designs from Nigeria
On my way to Nigeria, I read an article in Wallpaper* magazine (October 2025) about ‘informal designs’ in Nigeria. This felt like a coincidence because I was travelling to Lagos to give a keynote address at the 4th International Colloquium of the Distance Learning Institute at the University of Lagos. The audience included more than…