Spotlight on: Design thinking for fun and profit (workshop)

UX Australia 2018 Workshop

Design thinking for fun and profit

Andy Budd, Co-founder, Clearleft

More than two decades in the field has given Andy Budd a rare understanding of the role and impact of Design. 

An early advocate of Web Standards, co-author of the book CSS Mastery, co-founder of highly respected UK design agency Clearleft, curator of the UX London conference and globally in demand speaker, writer and workshop leader, Andy is bringing a workshop to UX Australia 2018 that draws on his vast experience in UX design to work through the concepts of Design Thinking.

Design Thinking has been around for decades but it was probably Tim Brown's 2009 TED talk that crystallised (and named it) as the principle of applying design tools and techniques to solving problems not usually associated with design. In this landmark talk, Tim gave the example of using Design Thinking to consider how to provide "access to safe drinking water for the world's poorest people, and at the same time stimulate innovation amongst local water providers". 

While acknowledging that Design Thinking is not without some controversy ("with some designers feeling there is an element of 'emperor's new clothes' about the whole conversation"), Andy's workshop takes participants through using design principles they probably already know - like user centricity, modelling, abductive reasoning and the double diamond - to solve complex problems outside the design studio.

Andy's workshop approach is to dive into the concepts to get everyone grounded, explore some of the tools and techniques available, and then split into groups to hands-on work through a tricky business problem.

And that will make for a very full day workshop, indeed. 

Find out more and register.