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Design for Innovation (LAWS90193)

Graduate courseworkPoints: 6.25Not available in 2020

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Overview

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In Design for Innovation students have the opportunity to rethink and redesign how the law operates and engages with clients and the community by placing the user at the centre of the design process.

Design is the process of creatively and strategically solving problems. Human‐centred design maps out the user’s journey to find the most challenging problems, placing the people with the problems at the centre of the solution. It has become a powerful tool to deploy in the pursuit of making better services and products. Its role in the legal sector is emerging and it is already making breakthroughs in the delivery of government services and private practice.

This subject explores the principles of human‐centred design, including the collaborative process – empathising with users, ideation, prototyping and user‐testing. It is both theoretical and practical, providing students with ongoing tools and techniques to deploy in pursuit of solving problems and delivering better services. Challenging the traditional notion of ‘lawyer as expert’, it asks students to adopt a different, human‐centred and collaborative perspective on problem solving through design. Students will have the opportunity to work on real world issues relevant to their work place or practice interests.

The lecturers in this subject combine years of experience in this area, sharing a commitment to solving complex legal problems using human‐centred design.

Intended learning outcomes

A student who has successfully completed this subject will:

  • communicate effectively as an engaged participant and practitioner in complex discussions around existing and emerging human‐centred design in the legal landscape.
  • have an advanced and integrated understanding of the principles and application of human‐centred design and its importance to legal problem solving the delivery of private practice and government services.
  • have an advanced understanding of the collaborative process of human‐centred design, including empathising with the user, focusing on the user's problem, drawing on user insights, examining and responding to feedback from users to create new iterations of prototypes.
  • have the cognitive and technical skills to generate critical and creative ideas relating to legal problem solving through human‐centred design and create prototypes to test solutions.

Generic skills

Expected skills developed through successful completion of the subject:

  • Strategic skills in considering a range of options in response to a legal problem and in identifying those which best meet the needs of the client;
  • Interpersonal skills in relating to a client (actual or hypothetical) and providing advice attuned to that client's needs and interests;
  • Skills of logical analysis and reasoning;
  • Oral skills in legal and problem analysis and argument;
  • Skills in the application of legal knowledge to contemporary social problems.

Last updated: 3 November 2022