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Biography
Dr Paul Gault works at the intersection of design and social change by helping communities shape the systems and services that affect their lives. A lecturer in Design and Making at DJCAD and V&A Dundee Design Champion, he brings more than 20 years of experience across academia, industry, and the third sector. He holds a PhD in Design Ethnography and a BSc (Hons) in Interactive Media Design.
Paul previously worked as a co-design manager at Young Scot, the national youth information and citizenship charity for 11–26-year-olds in Scotland. There, he empowered young people, particularly those whose voices who are seldom heard, to affect meaningful change to the policies, systems and services that shaped their lives.
As a postdoctoral research fellow at the dot.rural Digital Economy hub at the University of Aberdeen, Paul developed design-based approaches for using digital technology to support people living in rural communities. This included collaborating with transport operator First Group to investigate how social media data can be integrated with real-time passenger information to better serve rural travellers.
During his PhD, Paul was embedded with industry sponsor NCR within the consumer experience design team at their R&D centre in Dundee. His thesis developed a design research method for gathering consumer-focused insights into how people interact with technologies in public spaces.
Research
Paul’s research spans the DJCAD Centre for Design Exploration, across three main groupings (Studio Ordinary, Health Futures and Strategic Design) alongside independent activity.
In Studio Ordinary, where design meets disability studies, Paul is currently co-supervising PhD student Jinyu (Eevee) Han on the ‘Making Sense’ project. This uses sensory design to enhance visitor and participation experiences in museums and galleries for people who are sight impaired by working toward more equitable cultural access and richer engagement for all visitors. Partners include North East Sensory Services, Dundee Sight Support and Social Hub, Dundee Contemporary Arts and UoD Museum Services.
In the Health Futures grouping, Paul has collaborated with Balbirnie CIC on the ‘Tell Me a Story’ project, prototyping and testing a digital app to support communication between parents/carers, pre-term infants and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit staff with the goal of reducing stress and strengthening bonds during one of the most vulnerable periods a family can face. He was also recently co-investigator on ‘Developing young people’s emotional resilience through grief education’, supported by the British Academy ECR Seed Fund, in partnership with The Firefly Project.
Through the Strategic Design group, Paul collaborated with the Centre for Civic Innovation (CCI) at Glasgow City Council on their Thriving Cities Initiative. He evaluated the design methods CCI use when engaging communities to co-design their own solutions to the climate crisis which generated insights now informing how the city approaches climate engagement at scale.
Paul’s other work involves using game-orientated platforms and playful activity to help foster conversations. He has worked with colleagues in the Division of Education, Community & Social Work to explore digital games-based learning design for enhancing resilience in HE students. He has also collaborated with the Abertay Games Lab through ‘Games Designer’ which engages people in an immediate, responsive and tactile design process by creating their own mini-golf course layout and exploring different game dynamics. This has been exhibited at Dundee Design Festival, Now Play This, National Museum of Scotland and V&A Dundee.
Teaching
Paul is Programme Director for Experience Design BDes at DJCAD. He leads studio-based teaching in modules including Designing Social Networks and Social Mobile Apps. He has supervised final year students through their Personal Honours Projects and also contributes to General Foundation Art & Design.