MISSION AND HISTORY
About the conference
Design Research Conference is a collaborative forum hosted by the Institute of Design to explore emerging topics, methods and issues in design research across a wide spectrum of design disciplines. This year, a variegated and accomplished lineup of speakers promises to leave attendees with a new perspective on the design research space, complemented with practical take-aways. A platform that fosters cross pollination of new ideas and concepts of human-centered research methods, Design Research Conference is imperative when facing today’s demanding market challenges.
Born in 2002 as About, With and For, the conference has continued to evolve and engage audiences every year. In 2007 the conference—newly renamed Design Research Conference—hosted a fantastic lineup of speakers at a smart venue. The streamlined program provided the audience with stimulating content and networking opportunities. In 2008, the conference builds on a tradition of successful student-run conferences, bringing speakers with international perspectives, new methods, and forward-thinking views, while at the same time facilitating even more discussion through workshops and discussion roundtables.
For an in-depth history of the conference, see the excellent article by Jordan Fischer in the New Idiom, ID's student newsletter.
Who should attend?
Design Research Conference will be an ideal venue for designers, consultants, planners, design and consumer researchers, educators, and managers and executives concerned with learning the latest advanced methods and approaches to human-centered design.
About the IIT Institute of Design
This conference is organized by students at the IIT Institute of Design, a graduate school of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Since its founding as the New Bauhaus in 1937, the Institute of Design has grown into the largest full-time graduate-only design program in the U.S., with over 150 students from around the world. The school offers professional Master of Design with areas of study in communication design, interaction design, product design and development, strategic design, systems thinking, and user research; a dual Master of Design / MBA degree program with the IIT Stuart School of Business; and the Master of Design Methods, a nine-month executive program. The Institute of Design created the country's first Ph.D. design program in 1991.
