Dr Simon Bowen

Dr Simon Bowen PhD, BEng

Design Research Associate
Art & Design Research Centre
E-mail s.bowen@shu.ac.uk
Phone: 0114 225 6748
Fax: 0114 225 6931

I develop and apply methods for designing with people rather than designing for them. In the User-Centred Healthcare Design project, this means involving the users and providers of health services in their design. Involving people in the design of what affects them means that we can make better ‘stuff’ (more usable, desirable, profitable), but crucially it also ensures that these people’s skills and values are reflected in what is designed. Such participatory design then creates products compatible with how people live their lives, and by doing so ensures people are more valued, enabled and fulfilled.

A particular research interest is innovation. Since 2003 I have been developing participatory methods for producing designs that are both innovative and human-centred. In 2009 I was awarded a PhD for the methodology I developed to support these methods, which has been applied in diverse projects with colleagues from Sheffield Hallam University, the University of Sheffield and the University of Leeds. I have subsequently been invited to lead seminars on this work in the UK and across Europe.

What motivates and inspires me?
Prior to becoming involved in design research, I worked with media technology for eight years, latterly as a technical manager in the Internet industry.  In this field I often came across an assumption that success comes from using the latest and most advanced technology: “if we built it, they will come”*. Such technology-push explanations of innovation never sat easily with me. Human beings have a tendency to adapt technology to their own ends, which could differ wildly from what the engineer or designer intended. If you built it they will not (necessarily) come and, if they do, they might not play baseball.

Designing is then about coming to an understanding with people of how they live their lives and how they incorporate technology into it. But that isn’t the end of the story. A quote, often attributed to Henry Ford, characterises another challenge:

“If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse.”

People can have difficulty expressing what they want if they have a limited understanding of what is technologically possible (such as, in Ford’s case, the possibility of motorcars). This is where making comes in. People can explore how technology could fit into their lives using the artefacts that designers create, and begin to understand that technology via its application. Designing can offer ways of understanding people’s lives with them as well as developing new products suited to them.

When I’m not busy designing with people (or writing about it) I’m often walking in the wild spaces of the UK, exploring foreign countries and taking numerous photographs of both. My wife thinks I’m a pretty good cook too.

*Referring to a line from the movie Field of Dreams where the protagonist builds a baseball pitch in his field to attract some otherworldly players: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097351/