University of Technology Sydney

89027 Design and Business

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

Subject handbook information prior to 2024 is available in the Archives.

UTS: Design, Architecture and Building: Design
Credit points: 6 cp
Result type: Grade and marks

There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.

Description

Designers create value, yet most designers work in service of project clients or sponsors who ‘own’ that value. As a result, designers can design valuable products and services without fully understanding the business models that they work within. This seminar-based subject aims to equip designers with a comprehensive understanding of value, business, and economies from the perspective of design. Through the subject, designers become much more adept at speaking the language of business and being able to frame design propositions in terms of value propositions and business models. The subject runs as a studio supplemented by instruction in both theories of value and a range of tools for capturing the value constellations that designs aim to establish.

Subject learning objectives (SLOs)

On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:

1. Identify types of value using concepts of needs and satisfiers
2. Map how organisations create, distribute, and capture value
3. Design an alternative model for creating, distributing, and capturing value in a given organisation
4. Outline how value can be measured in terms of economic return and social impact
5. Justify the role of service design in creating shared value

Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)

This subject also contributes to the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes:

  • Co-create shared value propositions that benefit all stakeholders (A.2)
  • Communicate using a wide range of media and techniques (C.1)
  • Design for and with, and enable designing by, diverse stakeholders (I.1)
  • Lead a design team to co-create responsible innovations and sustainable systems of service (P.2)
  • Generate valid insights using qualitative research methods (R.1)
  • Formulate novel yet significant design research questions (R.2)

Contribution to the development of graduate attributes

This subject helps designers better articulate the value of design, enabling them to assume leadership positions on projects and in organisations, so that they can be actively responsible for what gets designed and how. In this way, the subject provides a foundation for the attitudes by which designers can be change agents in their professional practice.

The term CAPRI is used for the five Design, Architecture and Building faculty graduate attributes. The course content, learning strategies and assessment structure is explicitly designed with these in mind.
C = communication and group work
A = attributes and values
P = practical and professional
R = research and critique
I = innovation and creativity

Teaching and learning strategies

This subject is half-way between a seminar and a studio. Students each week learning a new concept from presentations, readings and discussions, and then applying that concept through research and design proposals. Students will be conducting empirical research on businesses they have access to, testing out the ideas from the subject.

This subject is quite intensive in terms of the number of concepts that it explores. It is essential that students maintain a weekly work schedule to both prepare for each week's class, and then follow-up with research that will contribute toward the assignments.

This subject is being taught in a face-to-face, once a week, 3hrs per week over 12 weeks mode. As the learning process of this subject involves weekly practical explorations of the concepts being taught, it is important that students attend every class if possible. It will be possible to attend occasional classes virtually if sickness requires.

An aim of this?subject?is to help you develop academic and professional language and communication skills in order to succeed at university and in the workplace. To determine your current academic language proficiency, you are required to complete an online language screening task, OPELA if you have not already done so in a previous subject at UTS (information available at https://www.uts.edu.au/research-and-teaching/learning-and-teaching/enhancing/language-and-learning/about-opela-students) . If you receive a Basic grade for OPELA, you?must?attend additional Language Development Tutorials each week from week 4 to week 12 in order to pass the?subject.?These tutorials are designed to support you to develop your language and communication skills. Students who do not complete the OPELA and/or do not attend 80% of the Language Development Tutorials will receive a Fail X grade.

Content (topics)

The subject is organized in three parts:

I) Conceptualize Value

II) Co-Create Value

III) Capture Value

Assessment

Assessment task 1: Assessment Task One - Documenting a Business

Intent:

This task involves applying what you have learned from the subject to a practical setting through applied research. Elect an organisation where you work or where you have access to study its people and work. Obtain permission to study it. Map its current value proposition and business model. Without changing its customer(s), propose a new value proposition and new business model that provides an alternative way for the organisation to create, distribute, and capture value.

Objective(s):

This task addresses the following subject learning objectives:

1, 2, 3 and 5

This task also addresses the following course intended learning outcomes that are linked with a code to indicate one of the five CAPRI graduate attribute categories (e.g. C.1, A.3, P.4, etc.):

A.2, C.1, R.1 and R.2

Type: Case study
Groupwork: Individual
Weight: 50%
Criteria:
  • inclusion of appropriately used concepts and models from the subject
  • comprehensiveness yet legibility of modelling
  • appropriateness of the modelling to what the business/organisation being analysed
  • evidence of practical and generative understanding of the concepts from the subject

This assessment will be assessed for English language proficiency. You will be directed to further language support after the completion of this subject if your language is below the required standard.

Criteria linkages:
Criteria Weight (%) SLOs CILOs
inclusion of appropriately used concepts and models from the subject 25 5 A.2
comprehensiveness yet legibility of modelling 25 1 C.1
appropriateness of the modelling to what the business/organisation being analysed 25 2 R.1
evidence of practical and generative understanding of the concepts from the subject 25 3 R.2
SLOs: subject learning objectives
CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Assessment task 2: Assessment Task Two - Giving a Design a Business

Intent:

This task involves extending your learning by applying Design Business concepts to novel contexts. Elect an innovation, that is, a new business configuration, offering, or experience. Ensure it is an innovation that is not yet widely available or well-established. Design a business model around this innovation, one that aims to provide fair value to all relevant stakeholders – those who enact it as well as those who are impacted by it. Identify one of your business model’s high-risk assumptions, translate it into a testable hypothesis, and outline the test you would run to validate or invalidate this hypothesis.

Objective(s):

This task addresses the following subject learning objectives:

1, 3, 4 and 5

This task also addresses the following course intended learning outcomes that are linked with a code to indicate one of the five CAPRI graduate attribute categories (e.g. C.1, A.3, P.4, etc.):

A.2, I.1, P.2 and R.2

Type: Project
Groupwork: Individual
Weight: 50%
Criteria:
  • inclusion of appropriately used concepts and models from the subject
  • comprehensiveness yet legibility of business model
  • appropriateness of the modelling to the design
  • capacity to design appropriate hypotheses and validation processes

This assessment will be assessed for English language proficiency. You will be directed to further language support after the completion of this subject if your language is below the required standard.

Criteria linkages:
Criteria Weight (%) SLOs CILOs
inclusion of appropriately used concepts and models from the subject 25 1 A.2
comprehensiveness yet legibility of business model 25 4 P.2
appropriateness of the modelling to the design 25 5 I.1
capacity to design appropriate hypotheses and validation processes 25 3 R.2
SLOs: subject learning objectives
CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Minimum requirements

The DAB attendance policy requires students to attend no less than 80% of formal teaching sessions (lectures and tutorials) for each class they are enrolled in to remain eligible for assessment.

It is a requirement of this subject that all students complete OPELA. Students who receive a Basic grade in the OPELA are required to attend 80% of the Language Development Tutorials in order to pass the subject. Students who do not complete the OPELA and/or do not attend 80% of the Language Development Tutorials will receive a Fail X grade.

Required texts

All readings will be supplied from the library through the Canvas site for the subject