Lesson plan
Diffuse design
Diffuse design refers to the designing capability of individuals who are not formally trained as designers. Drawing on the natural human ability to adopt a design approach, nonexpert designers bring diffuse design into the world via a combination of critical sense, creativity, and practical sense. Diffuse design was coined by Italian design scholar Ezio Manzini and was a central theme of his 2015 book Design, When Everybody Designs. Manzini asserts that everybody is endowed with the ability to design, though not everyone is a competent designer and fewer still become professional designers. He also suggests it is the role of expert designers in social innovation contexts to improve the conditions by which different social actors can take part in co-design processes in a more expert fashion.
Article summary
Diffuse design refers to the designing capability of individuals who are not formally trained as designers. Drawing on the natural human ability to adopt a design approach, nonexpert designers bring diffuse design into the world via a combination of critical sense, creativity, and practical sense. Diffuse design was coined by Italian design scholar Ezio Manzini and was a central theme of his 2015 book Design, When Everybody Designs. Manzini asserts that everybody is endowed with the ability to design, though not everyone is a competent designer and fewer still become professional designers. He also suggests it is the role of expert designers in social innovation contexts to improve the conditions by which different social actors can take part in co-design processes in a more expert fashion.
Key claims
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.