Design Research in the Digital Era: Opportunities and Implications. Notes on Doctoral Research in Design 2020

We are in a time of deep transformations, led by digital revolutions following one another. Such transformations, that are impacting our daily life, are not just technological, but also social and cultural. As a consequence, trends transversal to different fields are advancing, requiring the design field to be aware, responsive and, above all, predictive. This book proposes an overview of the researches initiated in 2015 in the Design PhD programme of Politecnico di Milano. All of them explore the implications of the ongoing transformations, from the specific perspective of design research. Throughout the book, the cultural, organisational, social, and managerial issues raised by digital technology and its applications, are debated. How and to what extent such issues call for a reframing of design processes, practices and models? This is debated in the first and second part of the book. The third part taps into a growing but still underexplored issue, the ethics and social awareness that comes along in today’s smart and interconnected world.