Theory and Method

Masters of Design in Integrated Design (opens in new tab)

In focused theory-based seminars, students build a solid foundation in design strategy, leadership, and research methods, engaging with critical frameworks and emerging topics to tackle real-world challenges.

Semester 1	Semester 2
Emerging Topics in Design	Design Strategies and Leadership
Design Research Methods	Design Management & Strategic Innovation

Guest Lectures and Workshops

Design Research × AI

This session explores how Prasanth uses AI in design research, including automating repetitive work, creating and testing prototypes faster, and working through research results. It also covers the parts that still need a designer’s judgement: choosing what to study, working with participant information, and making sense of the results.

The session uses a research project at Open Government Products as a case study. The study examined how members of the public distinguish genuine government calls from spoofed calls. It shows how Prasanth used AI to build custom research tools that simulated calls, create more realistic prototypes for testing, and turn unstructured research data into structured data for analysis.

Speaker :

Prasanth Kumaar Kunasilan is a Senior Product Designer at Open Government Products. He works on secure government communications, including how citizens can recognise legitimate government calls and messages. His practice combines design research, prototyping and product delivery, using evidence to shape products and public-sector decisions.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/prasanthkk/

Inclusive Prototyping (or when we make things together)

by Chan Liping, UCL DDI & SG Enable

This session explores what happens when disabled people are involved as experts and collaborators in the design process, rather than designing solutions for them. Liping will share experiences from her Open Style Lab fellowship, her charity work with Remap, and the Vietnam Co-Design Sprint, working alongside disabled clients, experts, and communities in different contexts.

The session looks at how these experiences have shaped Liping’s approach to co-design, including who gets a seat at the table, how lived experience can inform the design process, and what changes when solutions are developed together with the people who will use them.

Designing for the 100%: how inclusive design scaled across Singapore's digital government

by Gloria Chua, Product Design Manager at Ministry of Education, Singapore (MOE)

Products that work for most people still fail the people who need them most, and in public services those failures carry real cost. This lecture makes the case for why inclusivity and accessibility belong at the center of design practice. Drawing on her work leading the initiative in 2020 and 2021, Gloria traces how inclusive design took root in Singpass, how it spread across government digital services, and which tools and standards carry the work forward today. Students leave with a working view of how to build inclusive practice inside an organization.

Masters of Design in Integrated Design (opens in new tab)