LAST CHRISTMAS I bought myself an activity tracker. The wearable
represented not a reward for the exercise I was already doing butin
preparation for what I was about to start doing. I realize this reads
like a setup for failure—but not so—I set out to do10,000 steps

a day and I did. 1am not sure what helped the most: the utility of
the wearable or the notifications that primed my motivation. The
thing is, even though my research is about behavior change 1am
not interested in tech-driven behavior design. This essay is about
research projects that explore the role of design for engaging the

person whois not even contemplating changing their behavior... yet.

For decades my education and practice was in communication
design. I believed my capacity to negotiate Donald Schon’s reflec-
tive conversation with the materials of a design situation defined
my expertise [10]. My world was making things. This changed
five years ago when I began to teach ina graduate design program
that frames the large-scale, systemic challenges society faces as
transcending disciplinary boundaries. Today my students and
colleagues see themselves as designers (usually), researchers
(sometimes) and doers (always). In a transdisciplinary context the
capacity to facilitate generative conversations with diverse stake-
holders defines the expertise of the designer. In Schon’s day the
architectural model was at the heart of negotiating the materials
of the situation. Nowadays navigating the social context is what
drives future action. This new world may be less about things, but
I would argue it is still about making.

At the heart of the thesis in the Parsons School of Design MFA
in Transdisciplinary Design is an attempt to improve the human
condition one humble project at a time. Whether it be a civic inno-
vation pilot, a response to a humanitarian crisis, or a K12 learning
initiative all projects are attempting to shepherd people through
some kind of change. However we soon concluded that positing
plausible theories of change is easier than interrogating how real
behavior change is enacted. As designers we master the ability to
sell: to promote, inform, and seduce customers to want a product,
to be brand loyal. But what do we know about getting pre-diabetic
kids to change diets or to persuade busy households to compost
food waste? How might we lead people through substantive,
sticky change without resorting to calls to action that read like
PSA campaigns?

The recent increase in design research methods publications
show how design methodology is adapting and evolving. In addi-
tion we need new ways to evaluate the traction and impact of

the interventions we design. Once, I believed that the material-
ity of artifacts embodied the critical contribution of design. But
today, the imperative to make things happen trumps the making
of things. The role of making no longer focuses on the artifact but
instead everything is considered in relation to the future scenario
afforded by the artifact. Every-thing is designed yet no-thing can
be designed in isolation. Critical making in this world comes with
a liberating definition. Design is not reduced to the thing that is
made but in the spaces the making-of-things opens up. Think
about how prototyping and piloting are methods we use to make
believe so that we can make real. Disruption and provocation are
tactics we use to make waves, troubling the status quo in a quest to
make right. At the heart of a designer’s iterative process is recogni-
tion that we make shifts so we can make possible. This is how we use

critical making to craft new habits, new futures, new ways of being.

TRANSFORMING MINDSETS: 3 CASE STUDIES

Teaching in a social design context reoriented my experience

of design. My research into 21st century learning tilted my alle-
giance from design to the learning sciences. The theoretical and
methodological exchange that came from working with cognitive
psychologists, neuroscientists and education researchers required
me to be humble about the limitations of design and clear about
the value of collaborating with designers. The projects introduced
here are recent research or teaching projects into the challenge of
transforming learning mindsets. The snapshots illustrate how my
collaborators and I positioned the role of making by negotiating
the reflective and generative conversations with the materials and
stakeholders of the learning situation.

The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) integrates insights from
multiple disciplines to propose a staged behavior change process
that takes someone from not recognizing a need for change right
through to establishing an ongoing practice of the new behavior
[8]. In TTM the purchase of the activity tracker would be seen as
starting in the middle of the 5-stage process at the “preparation”
phase, the stage before “action” and “maintenance.” Many social
design interventions operate at these latter stages since mobilizing
action lends itself to the persuasive rhetoric and functional utility
of products and communication.

However, an underlying question for my research is what can
design bring to the earlier precontemplation and contemplation
phases of behavior design? In the learning sciences, John Hattie’s

SOCIABILITY & COMMUNITY