Matt Malpass is a Senior lecturer on MA Industrial Design and a Research Fellow in Critical Design at Central Saint Martin's College of Arts and Design, University of the Arts London. His research interests and practice focus on critical and socially responsive forms of design and design-led social innovation.

Critical Design is a rapidly-developing field with a growing number of postgraduate programs

Chapter 1: Introducing critical designChallenging orthodoxy
Challenging colloquialism: the problem with critical design
What's so critical about critical design practice
Why study critical design?
Researching critical design practice
'Critical' in critical design practice
Industrial design as a discipline
The structure and approach to writing

Chapter 2: HistoryA forgotten history of critical design practice
An emerging critical design practice
Challenging hegemony
Anti-design
Participatory design
Unikat Design: adding nothing but the concept
Representative design
Design Interactions
Critical Design at the Royal College of Art
Synergies between precedents and contemporary examples of critical design

Chapter 3: Theories, methods and tacticsDesign as a medium for inquiry
Post-optimal design and Para-functionality
Rhetorical use
Discursive design
The aesthetics of use and meaningful presence
Exploratory potential
Design fiction
Speculation and proposition
Constructing publics
Ambiguity

Chapter 4: Criticism, function and disciplineDesign Art
Design art and society
Function in critical design practice
The paradox of critical design in commercial use
Modelling the field
Design at users
Directing critique through design practice

Chapter 5: PracticeAssociative design
Speculative design
Critical design
Design practice as satire
The uses of narrative
Rationality and ambiguity
Towards a taxonomy of critical practices in design
The taxonomy as an analytical tool
Applications of the taxonomy

Chapter 6: Critical design practice and its disciplinary contributionSummary
Challenging disciplinary orthodoxy
An extended role for industrial design: discipline, science and society

Bibliography