We had a great time in London getting to know the brilliant people from the Helen Hamlyn Centre. Marco already introduced you to the ideas they showed us. The low-cost surgical tools are pretty groundbreaking, so I encourage you to take a look!
For me personally the most interesting discussion on this trip was about the obstacles designers face when working with experts from other fields. The general impression of design still seems to be limited to “object-related” issues. The connection between well designed things (objects) and a working society, are rarely thought of (at least this is my own conception…). So the problem using these methods is not about the difficulty of finding good solutions, it is the difficulty of finding the people who are open to include design and designers in solving these real issues. One goal of HDL 2010 will be to use it as a means to provide government and private sector representatives positive experiences when working in close collaboration with designers. Once they see, they will believe.