The interaction between intuitive (practice-based) and logical (theory-based) ways of thinking about creatively solving design problems is the focus of this project. Thirty-nine industrial design students were exposed to both intuitive and logical design approaches to resolving briefs during a 1-day workshop. The intuitive approach encouraged an open and informal take on idea development grounded in past-experience, whereas the logical approach emphasized structured and sequential problem analysis. In a within-subjects design, half the students adopted an intuitive approach in the morning and a logical one in the afternoon to solve design briefs, whereas the reverse applied to the other half. Students rated their experiences on five 7-point scales after 30 min into the session and on a different set of 10 scales at the end of the 2-hr session, and their design proposals were assessed by experts. Results showed that the intuitive approach energized participants and stimulated idea generation after 30 min, but teamwork was challenging. The logical approach lent confidence to the students and was easier to adopt, but only after applying an intuitive approach in the morning session. Students found it more challenging to complete their proposals after 120 min in the logical condition. Proposals by students in the intuitive condition comprised mostly images, while those created in the logical condition were highly verbal. Critical self-evaluation by students was reflected in higher ratings of proposals by the judges.

In our densely-populated cities, living together in harmony between different groups of people becomes an increasingly difficult art, and one in which design can provide positive contributions. This paper describes a design project which aimed to decrease tensions between youth and residents in a city neighbourhood through an empathy-building process. Individuals from both groups were guided through the process of stepping into each others’ worlds through Virtual Reality and developing solutions together to address points of tension. Their individual transformative processes were researched through a content analysis procedure in order to make the implicit outcomes of such design processes explicit. Throughout this process new dynamics and connections emerged, revealing grounds for structurally decreasing tensions and promoting participatory approaches for social innovation. This paper describes the project and presents our learnings regarding (1) the transformative impact on the involved individuals from the neighbourhood and (2) reflections on the contributing roles of the designers in social innovation projects.

In co-design, solutions are generated to serve people’s needs, short term and/or long term, through their involvement in parts of the design process. Methods like contextmapping and explorative prototyping serve these participatory processes. They help designers to step into the users’ shoes, to explore design solutions from and with their perspectives. In circumstances where contact with users is restricted, such as the recent lockdowns, user involvement is hindered and we need to find alternative ways to proceed with involving users in design processes. Instead of focussing on what is impossible because of the restrictions, we focussed on the opportunities it can bring. This paper shows that co-design is possible in times of a lockdown by deploying users in the role of co-explorer, creating ownership among users, using digital means, and obtaining an opportunity-oriented mindset.