Design at the service of creativity

Ronan Bariou is a designer and independent consultant specialising in Design Thinking: a method used to develop innovative products, which applies a similar approach to that of a designer designing an object.

Based on the Basque coast, Ronan Bariou graduated from the ISD (Higher Design Institute) and the ESSCA/Design School of Nantes in design management. He has around ten years’ professional experience working with agencies and in industry in Spain and then in France. He has worked mainly in the sports sector and the Internet of Things. As a designer and independent consultant, Ronan Bariou also works at the Higher Education School for Advanced Industrial Technologies in Bidart (ESTIA).

Ronan Bariou is an expert in Design Thinking. This approach to innovation was developed in the 1980s by the American designer, Rolf Faste from the University of Stanford, and the term Design Thinking was popularised in 1999 in an ABC Network Deep Dive televised report on the methods of the Californian design agency IDEO managed by David Kelley, presenting the case study of the creation of a familiar industrial object: the shopping trolley. Design Thinking consists in applying the design methods for an object or a service, used by designers, to the understanding and resolution of other projects.

Adopted by many companies and taught in many schools and universities, Design Thinking methods are inspired by the designer’s tools of empathy, analysis, and representation as a complement to the approach of the economist or engineer. Design Thinking takes into account the cultural, commercial, and technical data of a project and takes inspiration from the user’s experience to design suitable products or services. “The notion of empathy is fundamental for designers, as are their capacities for representation in order to popularise and communicate complex problems,” said Ronan Bariou.

Today, Design Thinking is particularly popular, and its methods have spread to other sectors, such as services and management. “The aim of Design Thinking is to address a company problem via the user/consumer relationship before considering technology. This method is based on three foundations: the economic viability of the project, the technological feasibility consistent with the company’s resources, and the desirability of the science, in human, societal and usage terms. This emotional and functional desirability will be Design Thinking’s line of attack” explained Ronan Bariou.

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/ronbariou

Website: www.ronbariou.com