VALS - Visiting Artist and Lecture Series

Marie Doucet

Re-Designing the geo-crowdsourcing experience

21.05.2020 / 6pm

Our guest for Thursday 21 May VALS was Marie Doucet, a French designer based in Prague currently undertaking her PhD. Marie works across many mediums including installations, sculpture, research, graphics and digital design.

For our VALs lecture she presented findings from her on-going research on service design and co-creation. As part of this research, she discussed “CityPlan”, an app project that she has collaborated on with FEL ČVUT. She discussed user research, inclusive design, smart city and new roles for designers.

The CityPlan app aims to empower all citizens to survey the pedestrian network and report in on hazards and street changes (geo-crowdsourcing). As a result, this makes their city more accessible for the vulnerable public.

Marie talked on issues that arise when co-designing, the complex hierarchy between the project owner, designer, other collaborators and users and how these power dynamics can shift the designer role. She also discussed the motivation behind the users who agree to participate in the project.

Marie is currently studying for her PhD at the Faculty of Art and Design in Ústí nad Labem, CZ. She graduated from the Royal College of Arts in Design Products (London) and is based in Prague. As a multi-interest creative she has been working on projects as diverse as architecture (interiors and exteriors), kinetic installations, paper folding & app design.

The lecture took place on Thursday, 21 May at 6pm. It was presented as a digital lecture on Zoom.