The IDEA Design Scaffold: Empowering Novice Designers with Systemic and Sustainable Design Education
Abstract
Designing for complex sociotechnical systems challenges novice designers, requiring them to align abstract systemic priorities with actionable functional goals. The IDEA Design Scaffold (IDEAS) addresses this by integrating hierarchical goal-setting, systemic affordances (SysAf), and iterative feedback loops into a structured framework. At its core, the Iterative Innovation Cycle (IIC) guides designers through iterative exploration and refinement, enabling the evolution of foundational affordances into innovative solutions that balance operational clarity with systemic priorities. IDEAS organizes design goals across Systemic Levels (SL), helping students deconstruct high-level objectives into actionable subgoals while maintaining systemic alignment. SysAf emerges dynamically, linking functional feasibility with broader societal and ecological goals. Designed to support the transition from isolated problem-solving to dynamic systems thinking, this structured approach aims to prepare novice designers to engage with complex challenges such as urban mobility, healthcare ecosystems, and sustainability-driven policies. Its conceptual flexibility makes it suitable for both tangible product design and intangible service systems. This paper presents the theoretical and methodological foundations of IDEAS, positioning it as a tool for structuring creative ideation in systemic design. While examples from educational settings are included to illustrate the framework’s potential application, the focus remains on articulating its conceptual architecture and developmental rationale. IDEAS offers methodological support for navigating abstraction, balancing multi-level design goals, and addressing the challenges of sustainability, equity, and complexity in contemporary design contexts.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2025.019
Citation
Xenakis, I.,and Grigoreli, D.(2025) The IDEA Design Scaffold: Empowering Novice Designers with Systemic and Sustainable Design Education, in Clemente, V., Gomes, G., Reis, M., Félix, S., Ala, S., Jones, D. (eds.), Learn X Design 2025, 22-24 September 2025, Aveiro, Portugal. https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2025.019
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
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Full Paper
The IDEA Design Scaffold: Empowering Novice Designers with Systemic and Sustainable Design Education
Designing for complex sociotechnical systems challenges novice designers, requiring them to align abstract systemic priorities with actionable functional goals. The IDEA Design Scaffold (IDEAS) addresses this by integrating hierarchical goal-setting, systemic affordances (SysAf), and iterative feedback loops into a structured framework. At its core, the Iterative Innovation Cycle (IIC) guides designers through iterative exploration and refinement, enabling the evolution of foundational affordances into innovative solutions that balance operational clarity with systemic priorities. IDEAS organizes design goals across Systemic Levels (SL), helping students deconstruct high-level objectives into actionable subgoals while maintaining systemic alignment. SysAf emerges dynamically, linking functional feasibility with broader societal and ecological goals. Designed to support the transition from isolated problem-solving to dynamic systems thinking, this structured approach aims to prepare novice designers to engage with complex challenges such as urban mobility, healthcare ecosystems, and sustainability-driven policies. Its conceptual flexibility makes it suitable for both tangible product design and intangible service systems. This paper presents the theoretical and methodological foundations of IDEAS, positioning it as a tool for structuring creative ideation in systemic design. While examples from educational settings are included to illustrate the framework’s potential application, the focus remains on articulating its conceptual architecture and developmental rationale. IDEAS offers methodological support for navigating abstraction, balancing multi-level design goals, and addressing the challenges of sustainability, equity, and complexity in contemporary design contexts.