Marc Rettig and Hannah offer insight into an edge of design practice: helping teams and groups work in a way that affects the larger systems in which they participate. Their talk at IxDA’s Interaction 17 draws from their teaching and organizational practice, the “Morning Reflection” activities they hosted each day at the conference, and from the themes and conversations of our week together. They bring their point of view — both deeply systemic and deeply human — to our theme of “design in context,” expanding it to consider three contexts: the operational context (where we focus most of our attention), the “great context” of systemic and societal shifts, and the inner context on which the quality of our participation depends.
“Design as Participation” at IxDA Interaction 17
Marc Rettig and Hannah DuPlessis: Design as Participation from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.
About Marc Rettig
Marc’s career spans more than 30 years in business, design, education and technology. His work as designer, researcher, and educator has put him on the frontier of applying design methods to social and strategic questions. He is a founding faculty member of the Masters in Design for Social Innovation program at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Practice at the Carnegie Mellon University Graduate School of Design. Marc’s interests include cultural immersion, language, cooking and photography.
About Hannah DuPlessis
Hannah’s work blends business, design, community and the arts. This blend developed through eight years experience in community leadership in South Africa, ten years of design leadership (including partnership in a firm), and consulting experience in the U.S., Europe and Africa. She is a founding faculty member of the Masters in Design for Social Innovation program at the School of Visual Arts in New, and a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Practice at the Carnegie Mellon University Graduate School of Design. Hannah has also taught at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, the University of Pretoria, and Cedim in Mexico. She holds degrees in Fine Arts and Interior Design, and a Master of Design Methods from the Institute of Design at IIT. Hannah’s desire to see groups of people working from a deep sense of purpose and belonging and equipped to better the world was born as she grew up in apartheid South Africa.
