How to explore new possibilities on delivering the best design solution?

The iconic phrase “Mind the Gap” has been registered in our memory. The automated warning is heard thousands of times each day at every stop of the subway system, as people get on and off the train cars. What it means is that, you need to be mindful that there is a gap between the train car and the station platform so you don’t accidentally mis step and your foot will get caught in the gap which could lead to an injury and danger.

In Design, we need to mind the gap throughout the design working process on our daily basis too. The way to be mindful of this gap is to conduct a “gap analysis” on the problem to find the best solution, followed with the evaluation after the real usages by the users. The designers need to re-think, re-question and re-examine the gap once again. To improve the service design, the business design and the product design for higher quality, lower cost, and better sustainability, customer satisfaction survey could be used to identify the gap between the desired satisfaction level and the actual one, in all aspects, for example.

When the designer minds the gap in one’s design, one can quickly diagnose and solve the problems so that the service, the business and the product designed, do not continuously missing the steps. Designers need to make important decisions on how one design can change or improve in order to close the gap and reach the design goals. Sustainability, universal and environmental design have long become part of the design arena. Inclusive and adaptive fashion,¹ for instance, extends the fashion design space to close the gap between the abled and the differently abled, the slim and the plus size, the healthy and the special needs group.²

In 2020, we witness the flourishing applications of design far beyond aesthetics, in the widely cross discipline manner. It has become one of the prominent methods in the entrepreneur, business and start up sphere where Design thinking has been one of the major tools to derive social change, social innovation, social system and public policy design to narrow the gaps. Stanford D school of Stanford University, USA offers Designing for Social Systems program.³ Where Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand offers Bachelor and Master of Design Innovation in Social Innovation, Culture and Context Design⁴ while Swinburne University Swinburne University of Technology, Australia offers Master of Design Strategy and Innovation aiming to integrate design-led strategies into existing practice in business, government agencies, social enterprise and communities⁵, for example.

2020 in Thailand, College of Design, Rangsit University is proud to offer its newly crafted “Bachelor of Design” with the interdisciplinary approach, and to be the first to offer new general education courses; Happy life and Society Design and Lifestyle Entrepreneur with the attention to the GAPS in one’s life and society.

“Design is a process.” Charles Eames once said, when he was asked on how to design a ‘chair’.Did it come out in a flash? “32 years flash” he said. Design is a starting point, it is not a finish line, you need to work in a long process… 2020 Design – Mind the Gap.