Lyn Garrett
Major coordinator industrial design, Ngā Pae Māhutonga Wellington School of Design
Lyn Garrett is an industrial designer applying his experience in product design and ergonomics theory and practice to the discipline’s contemporary focus on interface design, interaction design, and design for desirability and experience. Garrett has overlapping expertise in forecasting, designing science fiction, design for ageing and service design, and teaches in the School of Design at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
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Expertise
Design studio practice, design research, forecasting, ergonomics, interface and interaction design, commercial and public furniture, service design.
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Research Highlights
Design for Ageing
Much existing research into product design for elders addresses the physical manifestations of ageing. Instead, Garrett explores the conceptual frameworks that many product interfaces are predicated on, and proposes that elders find contemporary products frustrating as they are typically ‘analogue thinkers’ while interfaces are typically developed by ‘digital thinkers’. The concept has been presented in academic papers and public symposiums.
Design for Desirability
The Affect Research Centres’ ‘Industrial Competitiveness through Design for Desirability’ project, funded through a TEC Growth and Innovation Pilot Initiative (GIPI) project, focused on developing advanced design knowledge alongside industry partners. The project has been presented through a number of papers that report on the establishment of the project and how it used collaborative industry/postgraduate student assignments to explore advanced design methods, concepts and tools.
Designing Science Fiction
This study hypothesised a cause-and-effect relationship between industrial design and the genre of science fiction, and identified science fiction cinema as a key locus where the two arenas merge. With no existing literature on this topic, the emphasis was on synthesising qualitative data from a range of sources, using a number of case studies to explore the hypothesis. The project connects strongly with industrial designers’ interests in forecasting and design of speculative, conceptual products and systems.
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Qualifications
Diploma in Industrial Design (Wellington Polytechnic)
MDes (Massey University)
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Professional Affiliations
Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of New Zealand (patron member)
Designers Institute New Zealand (DINZ) (associate member)
