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This website is about unlocking the potential of dilemmas to inspire conceptual activities at the early stages of the design process (such as user/consumer research and idea generation).

Dilemma-driven design (DDD) introduces an understanding of personal dilemmas to design processes through new tools and methods. DDD not only generates genuine empathy for people’s deeply-held aspirations and values,but it also stimulates perspective taking and creativity. DDD was implemented in several large-scale innovation projects in the food industry. In addition, it contributed to over thirty (and counting!) master theses in which students systematically searched for user dilemmas and used them as starting points to generate ideas for new products and services. The topics of these theses projects range from designing for the social inclusion of disabled children in play to promoting employee wellbeing. The variety of these topics illustrate the versatility of DDD.

About the author

Değer Özkaramanlı is an assistant professor in human-centered design at the University of Twente. She developed Dilemma-Driven Design as part of her doctoral studies at Delft University of Technology. If you want to know more about how to use dilemmas in a design or innovation project, feel free to get in touch via LinkedIn or d.ozkaramanli[a]utwente.nl

Design with Dilemmas
Değer Özkaramanlı
University of Twente
Enschede

Contact
d.ozkaramanli[a]utwente.nl
ResearchGate
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