Designing Our Futures -
user-centred design from the RSA

Matthew Taylor, the RSA’s Chief Executive, has said: "Understanding what people want and need, putting them at the centre of the process as partners rather than passive recipients, is the key to achieving better outcomes for all. In the same way, putting the user at the heart of the design process not only means that the end result will be more appropriate and desirable but that it will also be sustainable and fit for purpose”

Using winning entries from the RSA’s student award schemes, this exhibition explored how students, not previously familiar with user-centred methodologies, responded to a range of challenges – from medical products to interaction design – and demonstrated how, for most, it was a revelatory experience, often influencing future careers.

Both Matthew Taylor and Roger Coleman, founding director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre, spoke at the opening of the show and commended the ideas, enthusiasm and commitment of the young designers to take account of all citizens in developing their proposals.

The show ran alongside Include 07, an international conference on Inclusive Design that was held at the Royal College of Art, London between 2-4 April 2007.