Innovation in classroom – Application of Design Thinking in Visual Communication Design Class at Higher Education

Abstract

This paper focuses on innovation in teaching and learning process with Design Thinking approach. The innovation process starts with a question whether there is a potential in achieving a more beneficial teaching and learning process for students who study Visual Communication Design at higher education. The study case presented in this paper highlights a couple of particular courses delivered at Sampoerna University; which are “Technology, Human and Society” and “The Origin of Design”. The methodology applied in this research is the Design Thinking. The resulted innovation in the case study went through a cycle of phases which passed three aspects that suggest the strength of Design Thinking approach, which are inspiration, ideation and implementation. The result also suggests that the inclusion of users, in this case the students taking the particular courses, provide a great potential as a source of innovation if they have the right tools and do certain methodology in the innovation process.