Information Services Design
In 2023, after five years of legal design practice, I decided to enroll into a part-time bachelor degree in Information Services Design.
I have grown into this decision organically through years of designing and leading legal services and teaching. I knew it was time to pursue a more structured degree once I reached the point where this practical experience called for more grounding in design theory. Commercial practice allowed only for a certain kind of design activities, and I wanted to expand my knowledge and push myself to try new approaches, as well as become a member of the design community.
It took me three years of intense practice to reach this point, mostly through self-initiated projects well beyond my comfort zone.
| Goal | Outcomes | Reflection |
| DESIGN THEORY | Develop a working theoretical foundation in design, with sustained engagement with foundational and contemporary texts across service design, speculative and futures practice, participatory and inclusive design, pedagogy, and research methods. | I have been consistently engaging with the foundational texts and design theory, developing my vocabulary and understanding of the domain, and read more than forty books and countless papers on the topic. The most notable is my engagement with futures studies and futures through design. |
| DESIGN RANGE | Extend my design practice beyond its initial domain (legal design) into new formats and modes. | My practice has evolved across a broad range of formats and contexts, including interaction design, futures and speculative methods, learning design, and material and analog production. |
| DESIGN CITIZENRY | Establish a sustained presence in the design community as participant, organizer, and contributor, through events, talks, courses, and collaborative formats across Czech and international contexts. In short: make design friends. | I have given talks, organised, or participated on more than twenty design themed events. Within the studies, I have on multiple occasions produced events for and with my classmates. Those that I am most proud about are the TWENTY MINUTE FUTURES mini workshop (2026), KISK Community Design workshop (2025), and Three Futures Frames intensive for our informal Futures Bookclub (2026). |
| SELF-INITIATED DESIGN PROJECTS | Conduct independent design projects from inception to delivery, including problem framing, methodology selection, process planning, execution, and reflective evaluation. | I conducted multiple self-initiated projects from start to finish, including the following projects listed in this portfolio. |
Technological Developments
The past three years of my work and learning have been dominated by the breakneck speed of Generative AI development. This has shaped what kind of outputs can be produced and how quickly, turning my practice from Figma and manual programming into vibecoding. It has not, however, changed how intentionally I scope my use of technology and the rigor that I intend to apply to anything that I do.
This is most visible in my design of the class Modern Lawyers, which I have been teaching for four years at the time of this portfolio. Contrasting Modern Lawyers: Three semesters of participatory co-design with the current eighth iteration, I can see how deeply the technological development impacted what we do in class. Nonetheless, the fundamental principles, such as participation, intentional wayfinding, and working with feedback stayed the same.
Futures Studies
The major, and completely unanticipated, addition to my practice is design futures and futures studies.
This journey was serendipitously sparked by an Interview with Dan Lockton: Imagine now, imagine later. To be able to lead this conversation, I studied his work as well as the major publications from this area. Dan then put everything into context and grounded it in real practice, producing, without any exaggeration, a pivotal point in my career.
In the two and a half years that followed, this has completely redefined the way I approach both law and design Futures-as-a-Practice. It led me to a summer intensive at the Royal College of Art, moderating the futures-themed Social Innovation Forum by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, dozens of books and publications on the subject, and new friendships, including my mentor, Roman Sellner Novotný.
Paper Artefacts
While I have always leaned into tactile artefacts and good stationery, my studies have transformed this into a fully-fledged design practice.
In the course of the studies, I produced a futures methodology zine TWENTY MINUTE FUTURES, vibecoding cards, a course map, and countless dedicated paper artefacts for my workshops and teaching.
This has produced a delicate balance between being AI-native and heavy use of analogue tools. It feels like the more complex the system, the more I lean into tactile and participatory ways of thinking through change.
Projects
The below is a selection of projects that I did between September 2023 and June 2026 that were motivated, required, or inspired by my studies.
The projects are organised in three parts: Learning Design, Interaction Design, and Futures
Looking at the diagram of the projects, the studies have clearly fulfilled the objective of expanding my range. The projects from the first semester sit in the applied legal quadrant but then disperse into the more speculative methods and non-legal contexts with each consecutive year.
Learning Design
Interaction Design
Futures
Classes, study goals, and reflections
- Studio I: Modern Lawyers: Making of the Course Map
- Classes: Introduction to Design Thinking, Role of Designer in Organisations, Sensitivity to Key Contemporary Issues, Psychology for Designers, Introduction to Information Science, Virtual Reality: Theory and Practice
- Self-initiated study goal: Do a podcast for students of Modern Lawyers to diversify learning channels. Read my reflection of this goal
- Studio II: Integrated Prototyping Videos
- Classes: Introduction to User Research, Qualitative research for Service Design, Data for Service Design, Inclusive Design, Social Interactions in VR, Introduction to Prompt Engineering, Academic German
- Self-initiated study goal: Learn to cut videos to produce high quality learning and communication materials. Read my reflection of this goal
- Studio III: Futures of Legal Education in the Age of AI
- Classes: Interaction Design, Service Design: Mapping Experiences, Digital Accessibility, Team Communication, Learning Design: Theory and Practice
- Self-initiated study goal: Research speculative approaches to facilitate futures-oriented workshops. Read my reflection of this goal as a zine
- Studio IV: Legal GenAI Chatbots: A design review
- Classes: Design Management & Leadership MasterClass, Theory and Experiments in Information Behaviors and Behavioral Desgin, Project Management, Methods of Creativity in Information Literacy, Design Summer School, Philosophy
- Self-initiated study goal: Systematically experiment with different methodological approaches to my GenAI practice. Read my reflection of this goal
- Studio V: Contracting Futures
- Classes: Social Innovations, DigiCompEdu: Technologies in Education, Learning Design, Business as Unusual, Digital Marketing and Communication Strategy, Leadership, Figma
- Self-initiated study goal: Deepen futures studies focus and conduct a thought experiment fo design an interface that facilitates futures literacy to lawyers. Read my reflection of this goal.
- Classes: Design in Complex Systems, AI in Practice, Service Design Project, Expert Bloc
- Self-initiated study goal: Further deepen focus on futures studies and design futures and throw multiple futures workshops. Read my reflection of this goal
Baru Obračajová 