This event, held jointly by the Human Interface Society and Hitachi, Ltd., gathered people not only from the design and research areas but from various fields with a stake in such matters. Based on the question, “What is service design for achieving a sustainable future?” they shared their interpretations of theory, practical case studies, and know-how through research presentations, an organized session, and a guest lecture, awakening in each other diverse perspectives and new questions.
Thinking about the question, “What is design in the broad sense?” based on practical cases
An organized session, “Roundtable Discussion by Practitioners Involved in Design in the Broad Sense” featured Minoru Wakabayashi, Expert, Co-Creation Promotion Group, Design Development Department, CPS x Design Division, Toshiba Corporation; Naoki Hashimoto, CEO, KUMANOMICS, Inc.; and Kosuke Matoba, Strategic Designer, Design Center, Hitachi Research and Development Group. With Hitachi’s Aiko Monoi, a member of SIG-UXSD (Special Interest Group of User Experience and Service Design), serving as organizer, they talked based on their respective practical experience, centering on the question, “What is design in the broad sense?”
Hitachi’s Aiko Monoi, session organizer
Making use of prototypes for dialog with local communities
Hitachi’s Matoba began his career in vehicle exterior design and is today involved in research on vision scenarios concerning future home appliances, robots, and reliability. He talked about Hitachi’s vision design activities, including the “Catch Kizashi (future signs)”research project started in 2010.
“Discussing the signs of change seen in people’s values in the future, we drew up a vision scenario, Beyond Smart, of how to make technology that goes beyond simple convenience, becoming more closely attuned to people’s needs,” he explained.
He described how insights into the future led to exploring medium- to long-term business opportunities with research divisions in other companies, and how material summarizing the Beyond Smart concept was used in discussions with conference attendees at a Davos forum.
He also introduced a “slow payment” prototype used in the “Hi Miura Project,” carried out with farmers on the Miura Peninsula in Kanagawa Prefecture, in which products carrying the aspirations of the farmers are delivered. Talking about the significance of putting ideas into tangible form by designing concrete things and making these the foundation for discussions with various stakeholders, he said, “Even as the design field expands, I don’t want to lose sight of why I got into this career in the first place, but would like to pour ingenuity into tools and vision scenarios that will energize discussions.”
Matoba explaining how he seeks to catch signs by gaining insight from diverse viewpoints
Real “trash of the future” as the occasion for discussions
Minoru Wakabayashi of Toshiba Corporation became a designer after initially working as a software engineer. Gaining experience at Toshiba in UI/UX design and in developing new business and design methods, he is currently involved chiefly in future vision-related work.
He introduced Toshiba’s “ Think a new day ” initiative, prototyping everyday life in the future. He spoke about the importance, in the face of complex and intractable problems, of envisioning in concrete terms the possibilities for an alternative future, and of continuing to think about a desirable future in dialog with many different people.
Among specific practical cases, he introduced a future scenario depicting the emergence of “digital nomads,” whose values about domicile change due to environmental issues and who travel around without owning a house while achieving energy self-sufficiency. Another case featured a “future trash exhibit” showing real creations of trash that might exist in the future. He further talked about spending a year drawing up future scenarios and the process of discussing with company executives, describing how, for the sake of energizing discussions, he learned to approach them not as a businessman would but as a consumer with a personal wish for the future.
Wakabayashi spoke about his desire to work toward giving substance to Toshiba’s commitment, “Always consider the impact”
Opening up intellectual property to solve societal issues
KUMANOMICS CEO Naoki Hashimoto, after entering the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), studied in a graduate program at the Parsons School of Design in New York, where he conducted research on the relationship between design and societal issues. He then worked in the Japan Patent Office and in the Digital Agency before going independent. Today, having started his own company, he is aiming for co-creation between governments and private businesses in designing an economy in harmony with nature and society.
Hashimoto introduced his involvement in redefining the mission of the Japan Patent Office while he worked there, as part of design management. He further talked about the I-OPEN PROJECT as a practical case study.
The I-OPEN PROJECT is an initiative based on the mission of “To achieve a society in which ideas are respected and each individual is encouraged to ignite creativity.” To this end, it is devising means for making use of intellectual property to build a sustainable society. Among the initiatives providing side-by-side support for corporations and individuals trying to solve issues for society, he introduced the “Magical Candy Store Tyrol-do” movement, whereby licenses are granted bundling a trademark with know-how at operating children’s cafeterias, noting that “To solve society’s problems, mechanisms are seen as necessary for opening up intellectual property, which has been closed to maximize profits, and increasing partners who will solve these issues.”
Hashimoto, who also introduced projects currently under way
What is design in the narrow sense? What is design in the broad sense?
――What kind of design are you carrying out? What is the difference between design in the narrow sense, for products, UI and the like, and design in the broad sense, for services, transition and so on?
Wakabayashi: When there is no expert available for a necessary activity in a company, I sometimes get requests in the expectation that a solution might come from the design angle. I suspect this area is what is meant by “design in the broad sense.”
Matoba: It’s true that many projects start out from this expectation that a problem can be solved by design. Expanding from design in the narrow sense to a broad sense involves a certain process, so I think design in the broad sense, like vision design or service design, also encompasses design of the output, such as a product, graphics, or UI.
――All three of you call yourselves “designers” even though your fields differ. As the design field expands, what kind of designer do each of you call yourself, and what is your intention in doing so?
Hashimoto: I originally called myself a “policy designer,” but since that was hard to understand, I dropped the “policy” and use simply “designer.” In that way, I also intend to express my commitment to all kinds of areas, without limiting the design area.
Matoba: I sometimes use “service designer” and at other times call myself a “vision designer,” depending on the project. Perhaps like Hashimoto-san, I should just use “designer” to highlight the breadth of my commitment.
Wakabayashi: I, too, often feel uneasy about the title itself. For example, when I am doing work that asks people inside the company about changes in the world, there are times when I am not sure whether this is really “design.”
When starting something new for which there is no expert, what is needed is a designer. I think it can perhaps be said that a designer is someone who is asked, when something is not clearly understood, to go forward in that state of ignorance through repeated trial and error in an attempt to discover the goal.
Hashimoto: At METI there were essentially no designers; but once the Digital Agency was launched, the awareness spread that a designer’s mindset was needed in projects that involve delivering things to the public and connecting directly to the activities of citizens; so designers are now participating in such projects.
――Do you have any cases specific to Japan of giving substance to design in the broad sense?
Hashimoto: In the TYROLDO project, I tried to design the children’s cafeterias as places anyone would go to, bucking the tendency to see them as only for children in poverty. In this sense, I believe design based on empathy is something Japanese are good at.
Matoba: The importance of being attuned to people’s needs is something I felt also in the Miura activities. I believe a designer needs to be skillful at thinking from the viewpoint of others. A good implementation is a design for which the technology is closely attuned to people’s needs and due attention has been given to dialog with users regarding their wishes.
Wakabayashi: While this differs from a case study, lately when thinking about the future, I have been making a point of learning from history. I have come to feel that for discerning human values and fundamental needs, a knowledge of disciplines like anthropology and sociology is needed.
From the question, “What is design in the broad sense?” all participants deepened their thinking
Based on the session by the three experts, the audience both in the hall and participating online asked them questions.
――How do you build relationships between stakeholders, such as practitioners in a company and policy-makers in the government?
Matoba: My encounter with producers in Miura began when I found a good direct sales outlet and approached them. At first I sensed their hesitation (“Why Hitachi?”), but from there we grew closer little by little, closing the gap.
Wakabayashi: When a corporation tries moving into a region, the first hurdle is figuring out how to overcome people’s initial wariness. In my case, I succeeded by spending a long time talking about personal aspirations and vision.
Hashimoto: While the government tends to have a macro view of the citizenry, it is also vital to go out and see and experience for yourself to gain a more micro understanding, as to who is troubled about what, and who will be made happy by a policy in what way. I believe that this ends up leading to a macro policy.
“This relationship-building is a necessary but often unglamorous process,” observed Matoba. The three shared part of relationship-building through trial and error in their respective work fronts.
Taking up the challenge of systemic design
A guest lecture by Tomohide Mizuuchi, Associate Professor at the Kyoto Institute of Technology, “How design confronts complexity - the challenges of systemic design,” gave an overview of systemic design as a key to addressing the so-called “wicked problem” for society, based on the premise that “design intervenes physically and politically in everyday life.”
Associate Professor Mizuuchi talking about the merits and demerits of user-centered design
Systemic design is a methodology dependent on systems thinking and design thinking, which takes a comprehensive view of systems and carries out interdisciplinary design aimed at shifting toward alternative systems. While it began drawing attention with the availability of frameworks and tools by such organizations as the Systemic Design Association (Europe) and the Design Council (UK), systemic design is not a completely new approach but combines existing design methods with methodology for understanding systems.
The Trees As Infrastructure project being carried out by international NGO Dark Matter Labs is an attempt to transform urban areas, making them greener, by reenvisioning urban forests as shared infrastructure. From a civil engineering standpoint, urban trees are considered only as costs; but when seen in terms of their benefits for the natural environment, as disaster measures, and for the physical and mental well-being of residents, they have many kinds of value. Including these benefits in their assessment enables budget allocation in support of urban trees and promotes the formation of participatory communities as citizens become involved in their management. In ways like this, I believe that when one thing becomes connected to various other things, and effective use is made of the multifaceted aspects that are born, a shift toward a more systemic and ideal situation becomes possible.
Going beyond the limits to systems thinking
Conventional systems thinking is good at analysis of social systems but cannot be considered an adequate methodology at the practical implementation stage. The key to getting beyond this limitation is likely to be the experimental design/search and learning-oriented intervention being attempted in the design world. At the same time, it cannot be denied that systemic design is tinged with the illusion of control. What is needed now is a kind of “build the ship while sailing” approach, putting yourself in the context of real-life situations and designing while directly engaged in the world. This is the method that has been developed over many years of design work. A good example of this is the Showroom framework suggested by Ilpo Koskinen in Design Research Through Practice, which enables users to experience ideas concretely. The expansion of this Showroom to the role of monitoring system behavior will surely become necessary in the context of systemic design.
Looking at the trends in systemic design, which developed to deal with complexity, including “identification of and consideration for long-term, secondary influence relationships,” “creating a platform for participation by stakeholders of various levels and attributes, and cooperating with non-humans (organisms, machines),” “influencing paradigms and world views,” and “rethinking the role of experimentation,” these show a meta aspect of design for the purpose of supporting the design situation itself.
As awareness of this metadesign aspect grows, systemic design may become something that contributes to society in the true sense.
Associate Professor Mizuuchi giving an overview of the history of design on the way to systemic design
In addition to the above, the following presentations were given at the meeting.
As research presentations on the theme of “learning and design,” Ryotaro Nakajima (The Graduate School of Social Design), Kazutoshi Sakaguchi (Yamaguchi University), and Takayuki Araki (The Graduate School of Social Design) presented “Proposal for a creative learning model with both novelty and usefulness, through card game product creation”; while Ayumu Nishimura (MIMIGURI Inc./The University of Tokyo) and Kenta Tsukatsune (Okayama University of Science) presented “Learning behavior by modern design practitioners: Classification by Quantification Method Type III and basic consideration of the relation to career.”
As research presentations on the theme, “The future and design,” Emi Fuse, Yuki Taoka, and Momoko Nakatani (Tokyo Institute of Technology) presented “Creating a means for future social design using a living laboratory: Concepts for making people aware of their own stake in issues”; while Shoichi Kanzaki, Shuji Soga, Takashi Fujimoto (Hitachi, Ltd.), and Hironori Iwasaki (Musashino Art University) presented, “Proposals toward realizing a repair society: Focusing on society, products, and mindset.”
These presentations provided an opportunity to gain awareness of issues on the front lines of design research, which continues to expand.
Diverse practical cases were shared, in line with the aim of discussing “theory and practice at the same roundtable”
About the event sponsor
Specified Nonprofit Corporation, Human Interface Society
Special Interest Group of User Experience and Service Design (SIG-UXSD)
This SIG meets to discuss UX (User Experience) and service design mainly from a sociological and cognitive psychological approach from various standpoints, including that of the user and between users, as well as such factors as the user environment. The steering committee is made up almost entirely of corporate members. Besides research meetings twice a year, other opportunities for vigorous discussion are provided.
