Take a d.school class

“Students take on real-world projects in our classes and labs, giving them practice and confidence in their innovation process.”

Classes 2011-2012

If you are Stanford graduate student, we encourage you to attend the d.school’s Spring classes info session on Thursday November 23, 2011, Noon-1PM, to learn more about the classes listed below.

Fall Quarter 2011

The Designer in Society

Design Thinking Bootcamp: Experiences in Innovation and Design

Winter Quarter 2012

Transformative Design

d.science: Designing for Science

d.leadership: Advanced Coaching

Designing for Sustainable Abundance

d.media: Designing Media that Matters

Creative Gym: A Design Thinking Skills Studio

StoryViz: Storytelling and Visual Communication

Design Garage: A Deep Dive in Design Thinking (2 Qtrs)

Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability (2 Qtrs)

D-Lab: Design for Service Innovation—Financial Services

D-Lab: Design for Service Innovation—Health Care Services

Spring Quarter 2012

Social Brands

Improv & Design

Cross-Cultural Design

From Play to Innovation

Creativity and Innovation

d.compress: Designing Calm

Designing Liberation Technologies

Launch Pad: Design and Launch Your Product or Service

Innovations in Education: Redesigning the Teaching Experience

Collaborating With the Future: Launching Large-Scale Sustainable Transformations

 

Take a d.school class

The Designer in Society

ME 315, 3 Units, S/NC
Wed 3:15-6:05PM ; d.school Studio 1
Enrollment limited to 20
Email: broth@stanford.edu

This class focuses on the individual and their psychological wellbeing. The class delves into how the student perceives themselves and their work, and how they might use design thinking to lead a more creative and committed life. Students read a book a week and then engage in exercises designed to unlock learnings. Apply at the first day of class.

Teaching Team
Bernie Roth, Mechanical Engineering Design and d.school
Perry Klebahn, d.school and Program in Design

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The Designer in Society

Design Thinking Bootcamp: Experiences in Innovation and Design

ME 377
Mon/Wed/Fri 1:15-3:05;  d.school Studio 2
Enrollment limited

Bootcamp is a fast-paced immersive experience in design thinking. You’ll explore the design thinking process in multiple projects, working in diverse teams to solve real world challenges. Tenets of design thinking including being human-centered, prototype-driven, and mindful of process. Topics include design processes, innovation methodologies, need finding, human factors, visualization, rapid prototyping, team dynamics, storytelling, and project leadership. Field work and deep collaboration with teammates are required of all students. Through coaching and guest lectures, you’ll get exposure to the application of design thinking across a broad sample of fields. Students and faculty from areas including business, earth sciences, education, engineering, humanities and sciences, law, and medicine. Limited enrollment.

APPLICATION REQUIRED.
APPLICATION DUE SEPTEMBER 21, 2011 BY 11:59 PM.
(Registration in Axess does not guarantee a spot in the class)

Get the application at this link.

Teaching Team
Thomas Both, d.school
David Janka, d.school
Lia Siebert, d.school
Sarah Stein Greenberg, d.school
Molly Wilson, d.school

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Design Thinking Bootcamp: Experiences in Innovation and Design

Transformative Design

Winter 2012
ENGR 231, ANTHRO 332, 3-5 Units, Letter grade
Mon/Wed 3:15-5:05pm, d.school Studio 1
Enrollment limited to 32
Contact: broth@stanford.edu

Designed products have always had tremendous impact on individual, social and cultural behavior. This project-based course investigates how technologies can be designed to expressly encourage behavioral transformation. Class sessions will be structured around interdisciplinary discussion of topics such as self-efficacy, social support, and mechanisms of cultural change in domain such as weight-loss, energy conservation or safe driving; accompanying lab sessions will familiarize students with basic methodologies and tools for  prototyping. Students will work in teams to create functional prototypes for self-selected problem domains for the final project. Apply at the first day of class.

Teaching Team
Bernie Roth, Mechanical Engineering and d.school
Meghann Dryer, IDEO
Michael Shanks, Archaeology
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Transformative Design

d.science: Design for Science

Winter 2012
ME 391: Section 50 (directed study), 3-5 units, C/NC
Thu 12:00-3:00pm, d.school Studio TBD
Enrollment limited to 24
Website: www.designforscience.org
Contact: d.science2012@gmail.com

How might researchers use design to create innovative means of data collection, to develop new lines of research, and to more effectively communicate their work?  How might designers and artists generate work that opens up scientific discovery to new audiences?

In Design for Science, we will create projects aimed at publication in scientific journals or exhibition in science museums.  You will form teams, consisting of at least one student in the sciences and one in design or the arts, to focus on a quarter-long project.  We will incorporate design thinking to help guide project development.

This course meets every other week during Winter quarter. It is primarily a studio course with guest speakers who seed ideas and inspiration.  Together, we will share project progress and co-create a digital resource related to course topics.

Applications due by midnight on January 3, 2012.*** We encourage you to apply to the course as part of a team and with initial project concepts.  Other interested and qualified students may come to the first day of class to explore the possibility of finding collaborators or joining an existing project.

***There are a couple of slots still available for students with experience in programming and/or design!  Apply ASAP if you are interested.***


Teaching Team

Maryanna Rogers, School of Education
Noah Zimmerman, Biomedical Informatics
Michael Migurski, Stamen Design
 
 
 
 
Image Credit: Stamen Design, “Pretty Maps”
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d.science: Design for Science

d.leadership: Advanced Coaching

Winter 2012
Directed study, Units & Grading basis TBD
Mon/Wed/Fri 10:00am-12:00pm; d.school Studio 1
Enrollment limited to 24, by application and interview only
Contact: jeremy@dschool.stanford.edu

point of view: (user) Recently inspired d.school course alumni (needs) to further develop his/her d.thinking intuition; to build confidence in his/her ability to lead d.t. teams in the “real world” (insight) because s/he’s a believer, but s/he needs more skills to convert and lead others.

background: The d.school “flips” ~800 students/year to believe in the power of design thinking. Many of these folks encounter cultural roadblocks in the organizations they join after leaving Stanford. We believe there’s an opportunity to equip a few of our best and brightest with the skills they need. Not only to engage the design thinking process themselves, but also to teach and to lead others beyond Stanford. This is the first advanced-level design thinking course the d.school has offered. As such, only prerequisite is ROCKING another d.school course.

Application for Winter 2011-2012 available online: http://bit.ly/sOMbjb (application is due 9am on Friday, November 11th; select applicants will be interviewed for a seat in the course)

Teaching Team
Jeremy Utley, d.school
Perry Klebahn, d.school & Program in Design
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d.leadership: Advanced Coaching

Designing for Sustainable Abundance

Winter 2012
MS&E 289, 3-4 Units, Letter grade
Tu/Thu 3:15-5:05pm, d.school Studio 2
Enrollment limited to 20
Contact: nitzan.waisberg@stanford.edu, ddunn@stanford.edu

In this hands-on, team-based, multidisciplinary class we will tackle real design challenges with a radically human-centered approach, increasing sustainability hand in hand with abundance. Winter quarter will be devoted to food and sustainability. We will apply the design process to two real world food-related challenges, considering environmental and economic sustainability as well as physical and emotional health and wellbeing.

Students will benefit from close interaction with the teaching team, support from project sponsors, and the varied perspectives of a wide range of guest speakers.

What students have said about Sustainable Abundance:

“Fantastic! You challenged us to step WAY outside our comfort zones and really look deeper. This skill is useful not only for school, but for life as well.”

“A mind-opening class and one I often talk about to others about the advantage of coming to Stanford.”

“Absolutely wonderful course. I highly recommend it to others. I learned so much about the design process and about sustainability which I will really take with me. My retention of the material in this class is head and shoulders above any other class I have taken here so far.”

Applications for Winter Quarter are due December 2. Send your resume and a brief statement of why you should be in the class to ddunn@stanford.edu and nitzan.waisberg@stanford.edu. Please note any other d.school classes taken.

Teaching Team
Debra Dunn, d.school
Nitzan Waisberg, d.school

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Designing for Sustainable Abundance

d.media: Designing Media that Matters

Winter 2012
ENGR 281, 2 Units, Letter or CR/NC
Thu 3:15-5:05pm, d.school Studio 1
Enrollment limited to 24
Contact: davebags@stanford.edu
 
APPLICATION IS LIVE:  http://dmedia.stanford.edu/ click on Apply Here

Explore the why & how of designing media…

What motivates our consumption of media, what real needs linger beneath the surface? How do you design a new media experience? Join us and find out…

The world is Changing, What Are You Going to Do About It?

Design practicum; project-based. In the shift from a consumer culture to a creative society has old media institutions collapsing while participatory media frameworks are emerging. Media designers of all types have an opportunity and responsibility to make this change positive. 3 Projects explore: Communication Design, Digital Interaction, User Motivations. Admission by application.

Teaching Team
Dave Baggeroer, Blockboard | d.school
Scott Doorley, d.school
Enrique Allen, The Designer Fund
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d.media: Designing Media that Matters

Creative Gym: A Design Thinking Skills Studio

Winter 2012
ME 366, 1 Unit, S/NC
Tues 1:15pm-3:05pm, d.school Studio 2
Enrollment limited to 24
Email: grace@dschool.stanford.edu

Build your creative confidence and sharpen your design thinking skills. Train your intuition and expand the design context from which you operate every day. This experimental studio will introduce d.school students to fast-paced experiential exercises that lay the mental and physical foundation for a potent bias toward action, and a deeper knowledge of the personal skills that expert design thinkers utilize in all phases of their process. Exercises will be offered by a number of the d.school’s most creatively confident design thinkers. Apply at the first day of class.

Teaching Team
Grace Hawthorne, d.school
Charlotte Burgess-Auburn, d.school

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Creative Gym: A Design Thinking Skills Studio

Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability

Winter and Spring 2012
OIT333/334, ME206A/B, 4 Units, Letter Grade
Mon/Wed 10:00AM-12:00PM, Lab Thu 7:00-9:00PM; dschool Studio 2
Enrollment limited to 40
Students must make a two quarter commitment
Email: extreme@dschool.stanford.edu

Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability is a two-quarter project course in which graduate students design comprehensive solutions to challenges faced by the world’s poor. Students learn design thinking and its specific application to problems in the developing world. Students work in multidisciplinary teams at the intersection of business, technology, and human values. All projects are done in close partnership with a variety of international organizations. These organizations host student fieldwork, facilitate the design development, and implement ideas after the class ends.

The application will be released on Wednesday, November 2 and will be due on Wednesday, November 16 at 11:59pm. The application can be downloaded from the Extreme website: http://extreme.stanford.edu/

Teaching Team
Jim Patell, Graduate School of Business
Dave Beach, Mechanical Engineering Design Group
David Janka, d.school
Stuart Coulson, Industry
Julian Gorodsky, d.school
Joan Dorsey, Graduate School of Business

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Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability

Design Garage: A Deep Dive in Design Thinking

ME 316B/C, 3 Units, Letter grade
Tues 7:00-10:00pm, Design Loft (Building 610) Room 619
Enrollment limited to 40
Students must make a two quarter commitment
Contact: wburnett@stanford.edu

Design Garage is a class for anyone who wants the experience of developing a real product, service, or experience, using design thinking as the method, and utilizing the resources of the Loft, the graduate Design Studio, and the Masters students in the Design program. Projects range from the entrepreneurial to the socially conscious and are selected and driven by student teams. This is a two-quarter long commitment; a deep-dive into design process, radical collaboration, and making things real using a project-based learning format. This class provides a unique learning opportunity that includes a mini boot camp in Design Thinking (first week, Winter), an immersion into design culture (the Loft), and a thorough experience with rapid prototyping, ideation and need finding. Students will have the experience of working with an outside client/affiliate and making their project real, either through a market-based solution or through a socially-focused non-profit enterprise.

The class will meet every evening in the first week of Winter quarter, from Tuesday through Friday at 7:00PM for a mini-Design Bootcamp. Students must attend this boot camp in order to participate in the class.

Students wishing to apply to the class need to submit an application (available by emailing wburnett@stanford.edu) and a current resume. Students must list their first and second project choices on the application. Applications are due by Friday November 18th. Students will be notified of admission during the week of December 5th.

Teaching Team
David Kelley, Graduate Program in Design and d.school
Nicole Kahn, IDEO and Graduate Program in Design
Bill Burnett, Graduate Program in Design
Perry Klebahn, d.school

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StoryViz: Storytelling and Visual Communication Salon

Winter 2012
ME 375A, 1-2 Units, S/NC
Thu 10:00am-12:00pm, d.school Studio 1
Enrollment limited (30-40)
Contact: sdoorley@dschool.stanford.edu

check out http://storyviz.com for class info or
click here for the application!
(Application due 12/7/11 @ 12 noon)

A  class featuring workshops and guest panels on topics that illuminate the connections between design and storytelling & visual communication. StoryViz is as much an opportunity to explore those elements that make stories great, as it is a chance to riff on an emergent trend: stories being as powerful as the products they describe. Talks & activities will prepare students to communicate their ideas in clear, concise, & compelling ways.  We’ll use Kickstarter as a platform to hone and develop your skills, culminating in a pitch for a real project. This year’s topics include, sketching, video, & performance.

Teaching Team
Scott Witthoft, d.school
Scott Doorley, d.school


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StoryViz: Storytelling and Visual Communication Salon

D-Lab: Design for Service Innovation—Financial Services

Winter 2012
Course Number OIT343/02, 4 Units, Letter grade
Mon/Wed 1:15-3:00pm, GSB Design CoLAB
Enrollment limited to 32
Contact: designforservice@gsb.stanford.edu

This will be an interdisciplinary, project-based course offered at the new GSB campus. All teams will design new solutions to address real problems that affect actual consumers of financial services and the organizations that serve them. We will focus on designing economically viable services to address the needs of low and middle-class customers who are typically underserved in the financial services sector. The “solution space” may involve new process protocols, organization structures, software, websites, or public policy recommendations. However, we will not rule out the possibility of a team working on a great new product offering that may improve the delivery of financial services.

We are in the process of defining the specific projects that teams will tackle in winter 2012. The following are the domain areas from which the final projects will be selected: a) Improving the experience of finding, comparing and applying for college loans; c) Improving financial literacy of young adults or other underserved populations; d) Improving the experience of finding, comparing and applying for mortgage loans; e) Using social technologies to personalize the lender-borrower transaction in order to reduce defaults; f) Designing a gas purchasing product that protects consumers from volatile gas prices; g) Creating marketplaces to monetize illiquid assets (such as human capital, jewelry).  Students will select a project, assemble a user group, and work with that group to gain deep empathy about the users’ need. Then they will craft a point of view statement, ideate, prototype, test, iterate  and finally develop a six-month implementation plan.

The course is open to graduate students from all schools and departments: business (MBA1, MBA2, PhD, Sloan), engineering (MS, PhD), humanities, sociology, psychology, education, law, and Medicine. Admission by application, which can be found on the course website. Applications are due November 16.

Teaching Team
Stefanos Zenios, GSB, Bioengineering
Jenna Tregarthen, GSB
Ioulia Kachirskaia, GSB
Lauren Chaparro, GSB
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D-Lab: Design for Service Innovation—Health Care Services

Winter 2012
Course Number OIT343/01, MED274, 4 Units, Letter grade
Mon/Wed 4:15-6:05PM; GSB Design CoLAB
Enrollment limited to 32
Contact email: designforservice@gsb.stanford.edu

This interdisciplinary, project-based course will be taught at the new GSB campus. Our project teams will work on real problems affecting actual healthcare providers and the individuals they serve. Students will interact with patients, nurses, doctors, and support personnel in creating economically viable solutions to their design challenges. Possible solutions may include new organizational units, process protocols, software, websites, and public policy recommendations, as well as new devices to implement these services.

For winter 2012, most of our projects will be conducted with three Bay Area “safety net” hospitals and clinics that serve a high percentage of Medi-Cal (low income) and uninsured patients.  These healthcare providers operate at high capacity with severe resource constraints. Within these partner organizations, students will explore projects that deal with workflow optimization, patient experience, and/or the design of a new clinic.  We also will continue to work with one of our 2011 partners, The Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, in improving the experience of pediatric patients with chronic conditions as they transition to adult care.

The course is open to graduate students from all schools and departments: business (MBA1, MBA2, PhD, Sloan), Medicine (medical students, residents, fellows, postdocs), engineering (MS, PhD), humanities, sociology, psychology, education, and law. Admission is done by application, which can be found at the course website:http://designforservice.stanford.edu. Applications are due November 16.

Teaching Team
Jim Patell, Graduate School of Business, d.school
Stefanos Zenios, Graduate School of Business, Bioengineering
Ioulia Kachirskaia, Graduate School of Business
Julian Gorodsky, d.school
Joan Dorsey, Graduate School of Business
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D-Lab: Design for Service Innovation—Health Care Services

Social Brands

Spring 2012
MKTG 353, 4 Units, Letter grade
2 Sections: Tu 1:15-4:15pm or Tu 4:30-7:30pm, d.school Studio 1
Enrollment limited to 44 per section
Contact: socialbrands2012@gmail.com
Applications and more information
at http://www.stanford.edu/class/mktg353/

SOCIAL BRANDS

Social Brands is a class where students will get a chance to craft and implement a social experience around a brand and get tips from world-class experts in the field.

As savvy consumers are increasingly participating in brands rather than merely receiving their messages, how do leading organizations stoke conversations, co-create experiences and stories, and build engaging relationships with consumers? Moreover, how do they harness social media to build a brand, and empower employees and consumers to share these brand stories with others?

Social Brands is a hands-on, project-based course that will draw brain power from the GSB, School of Engineering, and other Stanford graduate programs to collaboratively and creatively explore these questions. While we examine various inspiring examples of social brands, we will find that the rules are yet to be written. This emerging genre of social commerce and marketing is the “Wild West” and students working in mixed teams will be challenged to design and launch their own social experiments to form their own hypotheses.

Assignments will push student teams to audit a brand, focus on a strategic goal, and design a social interaction that invites people on campus to participate in an extraordinary personal experience with that brand. Teams will then capture this experience in short videos and compile them into a story — one that highlights the brand experience they orchestrated, its impact, and their key learnings.  This course will integrate approaches from the d.school and marketing curriculum — including brand strategy, storytelling fundamentals, human-centered methods, rapid prototyping, and a bias toward action.  This is a class for those that want to learn by doing and creating.

Teaching Team
Jennifer Aaker, Graduate School of Business
Chris Flink, IDEO and d.school
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Social Brands

Cross-Cultural Design

Spring 2012
MS&E 485, 3 units, letter or credit/no credit
Wed 3:15-5:05PM, d.school Studio 1
Enrollment limited to 40
Contact: fletchae@gmail.com
Application due Feb 17

Cross-Cultural Design focuses on using design ethnography and cutting edge collaboration methods to understand users in different national cultures (U.S. and Chile) and to design appropriate solutions for these groups. The course is project-based with teams composed of Stanford University and Universidad Católica (UC) students working concurrently at both locations around a real design opportunity sponsored by an affiliate.

As Marcel Proust said, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Cross-cultural design this spring will focus on how to develop and share these “new eyes” in ways that can help coastal conservation in both Chile and California.  Chile, very similar to California in geography and climate, has spectacular, pristine wilderness, but Chileans often don’t know it, and are behind the curve in most environmental measures and green product offerings.  Californians know that we’ve lost some of our wilderness, and are considered pioneers of environmental action, but we’ve never experienced what our state might have been like totally unspoiled, and don’t know what true environmental success might look like.

Working together, students from Stanford and Universidad Católica will help each other see with new eyes, and discover economic opportunities to help conserve the coast in both places.

The application is now open and is due February 17th.

Teaching Team
Anne Fletcher, Fletcher Research, Stanford Program in Design
Michael Barry, Point Forward and Stanford Program in Design
Pam Hinds, (Guest Lecturer) Management Sciences and Engineering, Center for Work, Technology and Organization
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Cross-Cultural Design

Innovations in Education: Redesigning the Teaching Experience

Spring 2012
EDUC 338X, 3-4 Units, Letter grade
Tues 10:00-11:50am, d.school Studio 2 / Thurs 6:00-8:00pm, d.school Studio 1
Enrollment limited to 30
Contact: innoved@dschool.stanford.edu

This class is centered on one of the most powerful movements in education right now: the growth of learning and teaching decoupled from the classroom. The idea that education can take place outside of school is far from new, but a constellation of movements has thrust informal and non-traditional education front and center on stage in the last few years. (Ask anyone who’s earned a degree at their kitchen table, looked up an unusual plant on a smartphone, or helped a group of neighborhood kids enter a building contest.) Technological tools dramatically widen the scope of available materials and interactions. More entrepreneurial capital is entering the educational space. Legions of content experts outside the classroom are ready to share their knowledge, and the means to reach others are easily accessible. The result is an unprecedented opportunity to design for teaching interactions outside of schools. How do we intentionally use the design process and leverage educational know-how to enable and support these would-be teachers?

We welcome graduate students from all departments. To give each design team individual coaching, enrollment is capped at 30 students and admission is by application. Apply at http://bit.ly/338xapp2012. Applications are due March 21, and decisions will be sent out on March 28.

Teaching Team
Molly Wilson, d.school
Adam Royalty, d.school
Karin Forssell, School of Education
Jennifer Carolan, NewSchools Venture Fund (adjunct teaching team)

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Innovations in Education: Redesigning the Teaching Experience

From Play to Innovation

Spring 2012
E280, 2-4 Units
Tu/Thu 1:15-3:05pm, Studio2
Enrollment limited to 24-32 students, graduate students only
Contact: bboyle@stanford.edu

From Play to Innovation is a class focused on enhancing the innovation process with playfulness. We will investigate the human “state of play” to reach an understanding of its principle attributes and how important it is to creative thinking. We will explore play behavior, its development, and its biological basis. We will then apply those principles through design thinking to promote innovation in the corporate world. Students will work with real-world partners on design projects with widespread application.

Teaching Team
Brendan Boyle, IDEO
Elysa Fenenbock, IDEO
John Cassidy, Founder of Klutz
Stuart Brown,  National Institute for Play
Stuart Thompson, Neuroscience
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From Play to Innovation

Creativity and Innovation

Spring 2012
MS&E 277, 4 Units, Letter grade
Tu/Thu 10:00-11:50am, d.school Studio 1
Enrollment limited to 32
Contact: tseelig@stanford.edu, britos@stanford.edu

This ambitious course focuses on stimulating creativity in individuals and teams within organizations. We use experiential methods including case studies, workshops, field trips, and team design projects, supported by guest speakers and readings. The philosophy of the course is that every problem is an opportunity for a creative solution; and its goal is to help students identify individual and organizational factors that promote and inhibit creativity. Interested students must sign up in Axess to receive info about the application process; details will be sent two weeks before the quarter begins.

Teaching Team
Tina Seelig, Stanford Technology Ventures Program
Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, d.school

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Creativity and Innovation

d.compress: Designing Calm

Spring 2012
EDUC328A, 2-4 Units, Letter or CR/NC
MW 1:15-3:05, d.school Studio 2
Course Application due March 2
Enrollment limited to 24
Contact: neema@stanford.edu, emgollie@stanford.edu
http://calmingtech.stanford.edu

The application for d.compress: Designing Calming Technologies is now live at http://bit.ly/dcompressapply (due on March 2). The EDUC328X course will take place in the d.school in the spring and will be co-taught by Roy Pea, Gus Tai from Trinity Ventures, and the Calming Technology Lab leaders.

Can we design technology that enables calm states of cognition, emotion, and physiology for better human health and productivity? That’s our challenge in this new Stanford course, and we’re excited to have curious and hands-on creators involved. This course will be highly experiential and project-oriented. We’re interested in bringing on team members who want to explore physiology, cognition, and emotion as they relate to human-centered product and service innovations.

Teaching Team
Neema Moraveji, Stanford Calming Technology Lab
Roy Pea, Stanford School of Education
Gus Tai, Trinity Ventures
Stephanie Habif, Stanford Calming Technology Lab
Emily Goligoski, Stanford Calming Technology Lab, Course TA 
 
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d.compress: Designing Calm

Designing Liberation Technologies

Spring 2012
CS 379L, POLISCI 337T, LAW 498, 3-4 Units, Letter Grade
Mon/Wed 3:15-5:15pm, d.school Studio 1
Enrollment limited to 24
Contact: winograd@cs.stanford.edu

Small interdisciplinary project teams will work with selected enterprises and NGOs in Kenya to design new technologies for promoting development and democracy. The focus for the students will be a quarter-long design project, taking advantage of the design process structures and methods that have been developed in the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (d.school). Promising projects will be encouraged and supported to develop beyond the end of the academic course to turn the ideas into viable products and applications.

For the 2012 class we will be developing mobile applications in areas such as health, education and economic development, in conjunction with the University of Nairobi and corporate and NGO partners in Kenya. Collaboration with these groups will provide students with access to the settings for design and their needs and values will be the touchstone for measuring the success of the projects. Class sessions will include background and

discussions on issues that contribute to and/or hinder social change through technology. Students will analyze case studies of interventions that have been attempted in a variety of social contexts—both success stories and striking failures.

Readings, speakers, and discussions will provide a technical grounding and will address political and cultural concerns, including the complexity of technology adoption in contexts outside of Western technology-advanced groups and cultures, the development of infrastructure, both technical and social, that is required as a basis for the successful adoption of new technologies, and the challenges of assessing the value of interventions in real social and political contexts.

We will send selected students from the course to do initial needfinding and collaboration development in Kenya during Spring Break before the course begins.

More info at http://hci.stanford.edu/courses/cs379l/

Teaching Team
Terry Winograd, Computer Science
Joshua Cohen, Political Science, Philosophy and Law
Zia Yusuf, Streetline Inc.
Jofish Kaye, Nokia Research

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Designing Liberation Technologies

LaunchPad: Design and Launch your Product or Service

Spring 2012
ME 301, 4 Units, Letter grade
Tu/Thu 4:15-6:05pm, d.school Studio 2
Enrollment limited to 24
Contact: mdearing@stanford.edu, perryk@stanford.edu

This is an intense course in product design and development offered to graduate students only (no exceptions). In just ten weeks, we will apply principles of design thinking to the real-life challenge of imagining, prototyping, testing and iterating, building, pricing, marketing, distributing and selling your product or service. You will work hard on both sides of your brain. You will experience the joy of success and the (passing) pain of failure along the way. This course is an excellent chance to practice design thinking in a demanding, fast-paced, results-oriented group with support from faculty and industry leaders.

You will be working in a team (you apply as an intact team), or alone on your product or service idea. You must submit a proposal here and have the concept and your team approved to join the class. Your product can be a physical good or service, or an online or software-based product. Students are encouraged to select a product on their own, and there will be office hours session with the teaching team in winter (Wed’s 4-6pm at the d.school) to offer help if you need ideas or help to focus your proposal (applicants required to come to at least one office hours session to meet the teaching team and discuss their start up.

This course may change your life. We will treat each team and idea as a real start-up, so the work will be intense. If you do not have a passionate and overwhelming urge to start a business or launch a product or service, this class will not be a fit.

Apply by Feb 15, 2012 at 5:00PM. Seats will be assigned by March 1, 2012 for Spring quarter.

Teaching Team
Perry Klebahn, d.school
Michael Dearing, d.school
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LaunchPad: Design and Launch your Product or Service

Collaborating with the future: designing large-scale sustainable transformations

Spring 2012
ME 380, ENVRES 380, 3-4 Units, Letter Grade
Mon/Wed 10:00-11:50am, d.school Studio 1
Enrollment limited to 24
Contact: banny@stanford.edu
https://dschool.stanford.edu/groups/largetransformations/

We are entering an era marked by issues such as the environmental crisis, unstable economies, and questions regarding continued resource availability.  As leaders you will learn an entirely new kind of thinking in working within the context of challenges that are complex, massive and critically urgent. We believe that solutions in the future will need to simultaneously create value on economic, societal and environmental fronts, and the class will introduce a methodology to innovate using powerful frameworks and integrated paradigms.

This is an project-based innovation class and incorporates processes that combine four elements: (a) Design Thinking Methodology (b) Behavioral Sciences techniques (c) Tools for large scale transformations including elements of marketing and diffusion theory (d) Methodology for integrated strategies.  The class will introduce a powerful methodology, the theoretical underpinnings, and the techniques for hands-on generation of transformative initiatives.

Students will use the tools and theories introduced in class to launch initiatives that are designed to work at a very large scale in short time frames.  We encourage students to use this class as a launching pad for real initiatives and we expect that some initiatives will continue beyond the class with the support of external stakeholders. The application, which is due Feb 15, can be found here.

Teaching Team
Banny Banerjee, Design, Mechanical Engineering
Baba Shiv, Stanford Graduate School of Business

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Collaborating with the future: designing large-scale sustainable transformations

Improv & Design

Course Number Drama 105V, 2 Units, Grading Basis C/NC
Thur 1:15-3:05; d.school Studio 1
Enrollment limited to 24
Email: kleinimp@gmail.com

To apply: fill out the application, and attend the first class.

Improv & Design is a wildly practical class exploring the intersection of Improvisational Theater & Design Thinking. It is co-taught by Dan Klein, improvisor and Stanford Teacher of the Year 2008/9 & Scott Doorley, media & environments designer d.school creative director.

The class is for: Improvisers who want to practice using their skills in other domains. Improvisers who want to learn about design thinking. Designers who want to deepen their core skills in collaboration, creativity, empathy, acting and rich scenario prototyping. Undergraduates who want to check out the d.school. Graduates who want to practice with a diverse group. You are guaranteed to learn 10 useful things! (We do not guarantee everyone will learn the same 10 things!)

Teaching Team
Dan Klein, Drama
Scott Doorley, d.school

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Improv & Design