Designer Gets Used: Explorations into Collaborative and Participant Driven Design
What happens when a designer invites an end user to be a participant in the design process? Can design thinking and production become stronger through collaboration? This thesis examines the user/designer relationship from product development to final object, where each step is informed by users, whom I am renaming participants. Built on a backbone of participatory art practices and research into traditional methods of observation, this experimental process investigates the importance of finding personal identification in an object, as well as the value of listening to and learning with others.
Sara Dierck has always enjoyed working and making with others. Born and raised in Washington State, Sara Dierck received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, where she learned that collaboration and participatory art was fun and rewarding. After moving to Brooklyn in 2003, Sara discovered the possibilities of industrial design by seeing hints within her own interactive sculpture. Her time at Pratt has given Sara a belief in design's potential to initiate positive change, and create meaningful relationships between the objects, environments and people in our lives.
sara@saradierck.com
now.saradierck.com
Advisor: Fred Blumlein
