The professional practice of design: a qualitative study of design processes and their suitability for teaching academic design

Abstract

Product design education often needs to update its pedagogical practice to include new strategies that facilitate the acquisition of scientific and technical skills valued by the job market. Polytechnic higher education, which is oriented towards practice and guided by the application and development of knowledge, is constantly challenged to create or optimize learning contexts that allow students to experience the demands of professional practice in a guided way. In order to verify the current state of academic practice in product design education, compared to professional practice, the authors aim to gather evidence that will help guide the optimization or implementation of new methodologies. In a first phase, a survey was conducted with product/ equipment/industrial designers working in the Portuguese job market. The data obtained through this instrument is complemented with interviews and non-participant observations of their professional practices. In the last phase, the results of this research will be academically tested, converted into one or more academic design project. In this article, the first results of the research will be presented. These results point to the multiplicity of approaches. The conclusion justifies that a review of the teaching and learning process in product design and the experimentation with new pedagogical strategies.