Challenges for Design Assessment

Assessment is a thermometer of the state of design. It may be an instrument for correcting the direction of design, for verifying a methodology or for questioning value systems. This contribution seeks to open a debate on the role of assessment today in its numerous forms: from competitions to innovate products, up to the analysis of the impact of a process on an ecosystem, or the formalization of a quality judgment on the performance of a knowledge product. The output of design is becoming more and more complex, processes are governed by phenomena such as crowdsourcing, and sharing takes place at all levels. We are constantly asking ourselves how we can make assessment processes transparent and about how appropriate and meaningful an evaluation based entirely on quantitative analysis may be in the age of democratic design and open source tools. This paper aims to stimulate a discussion about assessment challenges, evidencing some “in progress” experiences, open questions and possible future directions.