3132 research outputs found
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An Empirical Study of Understanding in Order to Act and Acting in Order to Understand in Digital Design Practice
Get PDFWe present an ongoing empirical study into a distinction between two kinds of purposeful action: understanding in order to act and acting in order to understand. This distinction is referred to in several design theories and has received limited empirical attention. One such effort investigates Tetri’s play and labels the two kinds as pragmatic and epistemic actions. With Tetris being characterized by simple rules and a well-defined goal, the question arises whether it offers a suitable context to account for human action in the context of design, given its ill-defined goals and often-conflicting requirements. To address this question, we are conducting a lab study of individual designers concurrently thinking-aloud during digital design processes. We analyze data acquired in this setting using the lithography method. Our preliminary analysis shows that pragmatic design objectives frequently lead to epistemic fulfilments (or dead-ends) and vice versa. In total, we identify six design episode categories. Numerous design episodes we observed fall into different categories when analyzed across different observational time frames
Could Systemic Design Methods Support Sustainable Design of Interactive Systems?
Get PDFThe power of artefacts to reflect our culture and influence us as individuals, as highlighted by Understanding Material Culture (Woodward, 2007) shows the importance of design in the ecological transition, a major issue in our society. Although sustainability cannot be based on technological solutions (Bremer et al., 2022), it should be a central concern of human-computer interactive systems design (Blevis, 2007).
In Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Systems Engineering (SE), current efforts for a more sustainable world focus on the energy efficiency of a system, optimising its lifecycle and encouraging users to save energy. Some voices in the HCI community recognise that the current approach, which focuses on the material impact of artefacts, is reductive and insufficient in the face of this systemic problem (Knowles et al., 2018). It misses the opportunity to facilitate a necessary change in societal practices. In fact, Sustainable HCI projects attempt to respond to problems that have not been clearly formulated (Rivière, 2021), and the community struggles to develop tools and methods for this purpose.
Systemic design, an emerging practice resulting from the combination of design and systems thinking, has developed methods for addressing complex problems. This paper proposes to draw inspiration from these methods to apprehend the systemic dimension of the ecological transition in the design of interactive systems, particularly in the formulation of the problem and the objectives.
However, these methods and tools are designed by and for ‘systemic designers’. These, unlike interactive system designers, operate primarily at the scale of organizations and social systems (through policy, strategic decisions, etc.) within the framework of design 3.0 and 4.0 as described by Jones & van Patter (2009). This paper argues that the unit of analysis can be decorrelated from the unit of intervention, i.e. one can study and target a problem at the scale of a socio-technical system (such as the agriculture sector) and only intervene at the scale of an interactive system (e.g. agricultural robot). It is a question of understanding the contexts in which the designed system will be placed and its possible impacts at scale so as to avoid simplistic solutions that could be counterproductive (e.g. rebound effect).
This difference in the scale of the unit of intervention implies that the tools of systemic designers must be adapted to the needs of interactive system designers. The authors suggest the use of ‘quali-quantitative’ modelling
Curating Spatio-Temporal Connection: Geological multi-proxies and becoming-with deep time
Get PDFIn a transdisciplinary combination of geology and curatorship, long timespans are strung together. We describe a multi-proxy methodology based on actual geological fieldwork conducted in the Barents Sea, and we link this with emerging tidalectic streams in curatorial practice and research. The paper uses geological activity to design what we tentatively, existentially, and metaphorically call curatorial proxies for spatiotemporal connection. Human life is embedded in cosmological and geological systems and forces. Climate change presses for systems understanding and new curatorial practices that are conscious of the culture-making potential of exhibitions and other cultural and spatial designs
Exploring Bateson’s Syllogism in Grass in Systemic Design
Get PDFGregory Bateson’s syllogism in grass expresses a form of abductive reasoning which can be used to generate and discuss metaphors, particularly in living systems and humans’ interrelations with them. This paper tentatively explores the possibilities of the syllogism in grass in a systemic design context as a creative method of provocation and reframing
Exploring Synergies in Different Spatial Design Disciplines: A multi-scale approach to adaptive cycles in public-private interfaces
Get PDFThe physical construction and modification of space in cities are often associated with the disciplines of urban or landscape design, which entail a wide-scale overview and long-term interventions. Nonetheless, complex city theories show how vibrant streets and neighborhoods, to a large extent, organically evolve, adapt, and self-regenerate over time, thanks to a series of incremental temporary and tiny spatial adjustments emerging from the spontaneous initiatives of multiple individuals. These interventions are linked to the knowledge developed in other spatial design disciplines related to micro-scale short-term transformations, such as architecture, interior, and product design. They rarely address, however, problems related to urban adaptive cycles – of streets and neighbourhoods–which unfold beyond the scale of their usual activities. In this respect, the present paper highlights how: (1) spatial designers who aim to foster processes of self-regeneration need to observe and understand the multiple rhythms and scales of social-spatial adaptation, (2) such systemic understanding enhances the potential for unexpected synergies between different approaches, techniques and scales of intervention that belong to the various spatial design disciplines, and (3) these synergies could improve the capability of spatial designers to trigger/accelerate processes of self-regeneration in cities. The specific topic of the spontaneous evolution of public-private interfaces over time is here used to illustrate the argument
Greener Small Cities: Deploy Environmental Action Faster and Smarter
Get PDFHow might we support small Canadian cities (1k-100k) to become greener and smarter in a way that prioritizes deliberate and proportional action whilst accounting for their unique composition?
Greener Small Cities: Deploy Environmental Action Faster and Smarter, was built to support those in charge of climate action at the municipal level of small Canadian cities with strategy, systemic, and foresight tools. The first half of this report explores the theory surrounding environmental action and smart technologies within a Canadian context. Action is the focus of the second section. We’ll walk readers through the steps of building a comprehensive, measurable, equitable, and effective environmental action plan of their own, or revamp the one they currently have in place by learning how to include and manage stakeholders, decide on a vision, set strategic pillars, strategies, and strategic actions, envision future states, leverage data, secure funding, and much more
Wonder Vision-A Hybrid Way-finding System to assist people with Visual Impairment
Get PDFWe use multi-sensory information to find our ways around environments. Among these, vision plays a crucial part in way-finding tasks, such as perceiving landmarks and layouts. People with impaired vision may find it difficult to move around in unfamiliar environments because they are unable to use their eyesight to capture critical information. Limiting vision can affect how people interact with their environment, especially for navigation. Individuals with varying degrees of vision will require a different level of way-finding aids. Blind people rely heavily on white canes, whereas low-vision patients could choose from magnifiers for amplifying signs, or even GPS mobile applications to acquire knowledge before their arrival. The purpose of this study is to investigate the in-situ challenges of way-finding for persons with visual impairments. With the methodologies of Research through Design (RTD) and User-centered Design (UCD), I conducted online user research and created a series of iterative prototypes towards a final one: Wonder Vision. It is a hybrid way-finding system that combines Augmented Reality (AR) and Voice User Interface (VUI) to assist people with visual impairments. The descriptive evaluation method suggests Wonder Vision as a possible solution for helping people with visual impairments to find their way toward their goals
InEx: A Show About Inclusive Design
Get PDFWhat does the term “inclusive design” mean to you?
Broadly speaking, the colloquial definition of “inclusive design” is the intersection between “something that looks inclusive” and “something that looks like it was designed.” This stands in contrast to the more holistic approach which makes up the Inclusive Design program at OCAD University, whose program is focused from the start on seeking out and empowering marginalized, minoritized and historically underinvested communities through all phases of product design.
The effect of this more superficial interpretation above taking hold is in shaping public perception. Embracing that superficiality by aligning the term to often fundamentally wrong-headed “design for” projects acts not only to further marginalize the purported users of these products, but to devalue the work of people trained in equity design, participatory action research and co-design, among other techniques and methodologies. Attention (and resources) flow to simple feel-good stories, at the expense of the more complex reality of inclusion and equity work in design roles: that they take time and effort, and don’t fit neatly in PR-friendly boxes.
To address this gap in understanding, as well as the range of constituencies involved in defining, or at least narrowing down, the term “inclusive design,” I conducted a series of interviews with six professionals in fields exploring inclusion and equity in design. The resulting conversations showed an expansive set of lived experiences, personal insights into academia and industry, critique into the theory of its inclusive design and how it is claimed, and a look at where we go from here
Wefting the Warp
Get PDFThis research-creation is about difference-becoming-movement, the potentia of difference, and the generative and productive quality of becoming. Drawing from material feminism, relational movement and research-creation, difference-becoming-movement is explored through a simple weaving technique on a modified frame loom that created relational movements. Referencing the work of cultural theorists and material feminists Rosi Braidotti and philosophers of affect Erin Manning, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Wefting the Warp aims to materialize the rejection of binary oppositions in favour of movements that create new and unpredictable shapes and forms. The multi-directional loom I use moves past the rectilinear frame as one way to relate to the loom and the woven work. The woven textiles express multiple relations that I come to sense as movements that are akin to an improvised dance with the loom. This “dance” is materialized between me and the loom and between the warp and weft yarns. Inspired by material feminist perspectives of sexual difference, irreducible difference in this thesis is not something to be neutralized but rather acknowledged and activated. Difference is recognized through movements that produce woven textiles “off the grid,” thus, seeking new corporeal forms with no starting point, no endpoint, and certainly no definitive centre