PhD thesis - Design methods

Founded 70 years ago, ENAC, École Nationale de l'Aviation Civile, is Europe's largest aeronautical Grandes Écoles or university. It provides initial and advanced training for managers and key players in the civil aviation industry: engineering, air navigation, piloting, airport management, research, expertise and international development.

 
ENAC is a public scientific, cultural and professional establishment, under the supervision of the DGAC (Direction Générale de l'Aviation Civile ), the French civil aviation authority. ENAC has a main campus in Toulouse and 8 sites in France.


 
This thesis proposes a research project in design methods. Designing a product or service today must take into account the problems of transition towards a more sustainable and fairer world and society. To grasp the multiple dimensions of these transitions, at the level of design methods, we propose in this thesis a systemic and multidisciplinary approach.
The aim is to explore a new combination of :
1) participatory design methods, to contextualize design
2) systemic design methods, to take into account the complexity of the problems to be addressed.
We propose that this exploration takes shape around an important case study for sustainable mobility, that of multimodal transport, with a particular focus on air and rail transport for medium- and long-distance travel. This case study is particularly relevant to the subject of this thesis (participative systemic design), as it involves taking a passenger-centric problem and considering the problem of multimodal mobility in a multidimensional way. The aim of this thesis is thus to develop an innovative approach to multimodal transport that is both systemic and participatory.
 
Expected contributions
 The thesis will provide the following deliverables:
1) for transport multimodality:
 - a systemic analysis focusing on multimodal needs and issues
 - design principles for multimodal systems
 - prototype tools for multimodal users and stakeholders

2) for systemic participatory design :
- a global methodology describing the activities, methods and tools to be implemented in a participatory systemic design process
- prototype design tools adapted to support the participatory workshops associated with this methodology
 
Provisional working schedule
 Year 1:
- state of the art :
         o methodological: participatory design, systemic design
         o technical: mixed reality tools
         o case study: multimodal transportation
- field surveys on practices with a systemic effect
         o collaborative workshops on systemic analysis of situations (cf SDT: systemic design toolkit)
         o start of workshops focused on the case study
         o study of the need for projection elements based on the analyses carried out previously, and initial ideation workshops on projection elements.
 
Year 2:
- design and finalization of case studies
- publication of surveys and case studies with implications for the design of projection elements
- participatory design of mixed-reality projection elements
- development of these tools
- use in participatory prototyping workshops on case studies
 
Year 3:
- evaluation and reiteration of the design, development of a global methodology
- publication of tools
- proposal of a toolkit for systemic participatory prototyping
- dissertation writing
 
* Designer/Engineer with knowledge and experience in systems design.
* Knowledge of IT development with a desire to discover new languages