MSc Design Innovation degree

This module focuses on developing skilled communication strategies and principles for working in cross-cultural contexts. Key theoretical concepts of 'identity', 'otherisation' and 'representation' will be introduced through lectures and seminars in order to explore the complex interrelationships between identity, culture and communication. You will bee expected to collect and analyse data from the Interdisciplinary Project module to be used for the case study assignment.

The module aims to answer the following important questions: What is culture? How are cultural identities constructed? How do cultural stereotypes impact on communication? How are meanings negotiated? And how are these questions related to working as a contemporary designer?

Topics studied as part of this module may include:

• The interplay between identity and culture 
• How culture and power relations work to produce particular meanings 
• The concepts of identity and culture 
• How to use concepts from the module to inform professional practice

This module will enable you to start planning for your major project by focusing first on generating a suitable topic to be explored. The goal is for you to arrive at a feasible, agreed major project plan. You will consolidate your prior learning and use it to develop a learning plan to complete their chosen study pathway.

The aim of the Reflection and Action module is to facilitate your reflection on your individual practices and values, and the shifts impacting on design discipline. You will gain a broad understanding of design theories and research in order to inform and shape their dissertation proposal to be developed in the dissertation module.

Topics studied as part of this module may include:

• How to focus your research ideas
• Understanding reflective practice and its role in design research
• Developing a feasible research direction
• Planning and piloting a research method 
• Understanding participatory and action research methodologies
• How to reflect, identify and agree on a dissertation direction
• Engagement in a sustained piece of individual, academic research on a chosen research method
• How to articulate, carry out and reflect on a feasible pilot project
• Pilot study planning

This module aims to locate design within broader issues, practices and cultural production in globalised societies, focusing on the understanding of design and designers as cultural intermediaries. We will use the Circuit of Culture and its five interrelated categories (i.e. Identity, Representation, Regulation, Production and Consumption) as a framework to analyse design as socio-material artefacts and explore processes of meaning making as means for symbolic value creation, cultural legitimisation and normative institutionalisation by design.

On completion of this module you will understand how designers' practices are interwoven with cultural production and consumption in globalised societies. You will also be able to identify key concepts and theories of 'culture, cultural formation and production' in relation design and navigate the complex interplay of design and the elements within the Circuit of Culture framework in construction of meaning.

Topics studied as part of this module may include:

• The Circuit of Culture
• Designers as Cultural Intermediaries
• Framing Practices in Design
• Identity
• Representation
• Consumption
• Production
• Regulation
• Design and Social Change

With a multi-talented group of students you will work on a brief from a real company looking to solve a real social or business problem.

Together with your student team, you will research and build solutions to a business problem, supported by our project tutors, clients and staff. Previous project partners include Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Mobike, Foster + Partners, and the West Ham United Foundation as well as many other companies, start-ups and charities.

The Collaborative Project aims to provide you with an opportunity to be exposed to project-based teamwork in diverse settings. By undertaking this module, you will strengthen your cooperative and collaborative working skills and competencies, whilst raising your awareness and appreciation of cultural and disciplinary diversity and differences. The project will support the development of your ability to engage in critical enquiry and individual reflection, as well as to apply your individual strengths and skills and build on your educational background.

The Collaborative Project aims to provide you with a hands-on experience of identifying, framing and resolving practice-oriented and real-world based challenges and problems, using creativity and appropriate tools to achieve valuable and relevant solutions. Alongside the collaborative elements of the module, you will be provided with opportunities to network with stakeholders, organisations and corporations, which will give you the experience and skills needed to connect to relevant parties and potentially develop future employment opportunities.

The aim of this module is to enhance your ability to use design approaches and tools for identifying and implementing human centred innovation opportunities.

The module will include teaching on the following topics:

• visualization, using imagery to envision possible future conditions
• journey mapping, assessing the existing experience through the customer's eyes using customer oriented data collection techniques
• mind mapping, generating insights from exploration activities and using those to create
• design criteria
• brainstorming, generating ideas
• rapid concept development, assembling innovative elements into a coherent proposition that can be explored and evaluated
• Low fidelity 'prototyping', expressing a new concept in a tangible form for exploration, consumer testing, and refinement; consumer testing
• and storytelling. 

As part of the introduction to Foresight and Forecasting module, you will research methods for trends in forecasting, create scenarios and personas, create speculative designs, explore science fiction in film and literature, and understand making films to 'sell' concepts.

The aim of this module is to broaden your experience and skills as a designer to include knowledge of, and competence with, the deployment of foresight, forecasting and scenario writing to inform future design and business strategy.

Topics studied as part of this module may include:

• Engaging in research and analysis to gather key insights appropriate to the future strategy of a business
• Proposing design solutions which complement, inform and challenge the future strategy of a business
• Researching techniques for future forecasting
• Persona and scenario development as techniques for generating insights
• Persona and scenario development as techniques for generating stakeholder buy-in
• Creating speculative and/or conceptual design solutions
• The role(s) of speculative design concepts with a business
• Techniques for generating key insights;
• Applying key insights to speculative and/or conceptual design solutions
• Presentation techniques such as storyboarding, video, UX simulation, rendering and animation, as appropriate to the design concept
• How to present and document insights gained from research in a credible and convincing manner
• How to present 'hard-to-grasp' concepts in a compelling and convincing manner
• How to critique the work of others
• Presenting concepts in a manner which is understandable to non-designer stakeholders

The Service Design and Strategy module aims to provide you with skills for working in service design innovation teams. It aims to allow you to gain experience in managing complex service innovation processes and work successfully within the area of Service Design and Strategy.

The module will cover:

• Using digital communication platforms
• Information/knowledge transfer
• Service design and strategy development and communication (e.g. analysing service cases, visualizing maps using design tools, describing analysed content, exploring strategic innovation opportunities, presenting an innovation process through the use of effective service design methodologies)
• Awareness of social innovation and co-creation of value within larger societal contexts.

The Dissertation module will equip you with the relevant skills, knowledge and understanding to embark on your own research project.

Dissertation pathways may include:

1. A desk-based research project that could be set by an organisation or a subject of your choice
2. A project that involves collection of primary data from within an organisation or based on lab and/or field experiments
3. A professional placement within an organisation during which time you will complete a project as part of your role, in agreement with the organisation (subject to a suitable placement position being obtained)

By undertaking a dissertation at master's level, you should achieve a high level of understanding in your chosen subject area and produce a written thesis or project report which will discuss your research in depth and with rigour.

This module will introduce to the latest digital technologies used in personal and professional domains.

Topics covered may include:

1. Image, video and audio capturing, processing, and delivery techniques, and their specific needs and challenges
2. Digital media applications, transmission methods, quality of service and quality of experience
3. Cloud technologies and applications and their benefits and challenges
4. Internet of Things system and applications

The module aims to provide students with an overview of the digital technologies and their associated challenges. Students will be introduced to the digital media processing concepts (image, video, audio), media applications, networks and quality measurement, cloud technologies and Internet of Things (IoT). As such, it is suitable for students to study this module to broaden their general knowledge of the latest technological advances in various segments of digital technologies.