Towards a New Science of Design?

This project- and discussion-based seminar offers a deep, critical inspection of contemporary design practices, research methods, and discourses informed by Neuroscience, Behavioral Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction, and Philosophy of the Mind. In recent years, theories about extended cognition, embodied interaction, and affective computing, combined with physiological data collection techniques such as eye-tracking, electroencephalography, and electrodermal activity, among others, have given rise to new questions about the foundations of design. Crucially, these methods and frameworks have allowed design practitioners and scholars to ask disciplinary questions with a new degree of rigor, supported by empirical evidence. How are cities and landscapes perceived by their users? How do materials impact the affective states of building inhabitants? How do digital user interfaces affect user behavior? How do designers think when they design? These and other puzzles have begun to be scrutinized under a new light.

While acknowledging the role that contributions from these fields play today in our understanding of the built environment (as an experience) and design (as a practice), this course argues that a rigorous and systematic assessment of their applicability, value, and potential in design research is needed. What aspects of the built environment can these fields’ methods and theories help us understand better? How relevant is their potential to change the ways we conceptualize and operationalize design practice? What methods are available to understand the degree to which there might be a scientific basis for design?

In this course, students will work in groups of two on a design-related topic of their choice –design will be understood in the broadest sense, including digital and physical designs across all scales– and will empirically explore it through the semester using one or more methods of their choice, including eye-tracking, electroencephalography (EEG), electrodermal activity (EDA), and questionnaires. Students interested in the course are encouraged to reach out to the instructor with questions about the class.