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Backwards Incidentality
No full text‘Backwards incidentality’ is a notion developed to trace the different pasts that have led each of us here; this place and moment that foregrounds relationality in design. This exhibit, which materializes backward incidentality, is concerned with critical differences within relationality that might get lost in an overconfidence that rushes to outline the implications it might have for design. It is in a way a challenge to any separation we might otherwise imagine between logical inquiry into relationality and all those things that have incidentally become—and continue to become—our relational inquiry
Activating aesthetics - explorations for shifting design practices
No full textAesthetics is essential in design practice, yet simultaneously taken for granted and under researched. In light of the expanding design space designers find themselves in due to digital technology’s pervasiveness in everyday things and environments, designers need new ways of grappling with the issue of aesthetics. There is recognition that design ideals and practices honed in different times and contexts, lead to reproducing ideas of how things are made, and how things could or should be presented for use. This paper examines notions and practices of aesthetics in digital design through conversations with practicing designers, design literature, and design experiments. We suggest that an attentiveness to aesthetic qualities in digital design sheds light on deeply embedded ideas in design which need to be addressed in emerging practices. Activating aesthetics is here proposed through shifts from stability to multistability, from visual to transient, and from extraordinariness to mundane and intimate bodily entanglements
Generative AI in Service Design: An Explorative Diary Study in Discovery Process
No full textAs AI technologies advance, service design practitioners should consider their role in the field, including how to integrate generative AI (GenAI) into their workflows. This study explored how service design practitioners engage with GenAI tools in the discovery phase; it was intended to enhance service design research with regard to GenAI and highlight its potential and future applications. Through a diary study, 26 service design practitioners participated in three design activities using a variety of GenAI tools and recorded their experiences and perceptions in diaries. The findings indicate that participants perceived the GenAI tools as effective for data collection, processing, task guidance and content generation, while also revealing certain limitations and risks in their use. This study provides empirical insights into the role of GenAI in early-stage service design and offers a foundation for future research, particularly efforts to generate quantitative support for these useful perceptions of GenAI users
Startup strategy creation service through the business model canvas and double-diamond process
No full textThis project examines the application of the Double Diamond design process within the Business Model Canvas (BMC) framework to enhance strategy development in early-stage startups. The BMC, originally developed by Alexander Osterwalder (Osterwalder, 2010), can be daunting for startups, often resulting in fragmented focus and missed potential in critical elements. By proposing an elemental-focused approach, this study explores how aligning each of the nine elements of the BMC (Osterwalder, 2010) with the Double Diamond model (The Double Diamond, 2003) can improve clarity and strategic direction. This method emphasizes a structured, iterative process for each BMC component, facilitating informed decision-making. Such focused iterations reduce initial confusion, enhance resource utilization, and enable startups to develop strategic, stakeholder-centred business models while aligning logistics. This practice exploration of the framework prototype revealed that this hybrid approach, when presented through a text-based generative AI mode, demystifies the BMC and offers the foundations for a designed service for strategic design management in startups. It offers a replicable service design framework that supports early-stage startups in co-creating their business strategies through structured guidance, behavioral triggers, and iterative service journey flows
How Can Public Service Design Adapt to Supply-Demand Coupling ? A Case Study of Elderly Health Service in Shanghai
No full textAs the contradiction between people\u27s demand for multi-level, refined public services and the limited-service supply becomes increasingly prominent, how to achieve precise matching between service supply and demand, namely supply-demand coupling , has become a key problem in enhancing the quality of public services. This paper combines coupling theory with classic service design tools to innovate a supply-demand coupling toolkit. To verify the effectiveness of this toolkit in public service design, a design practice of elderly health service in Shanghai was conducted. The research proves that this toolkit, by identifying and explicating the supply-demand relationship in the service system, helps designers identify and solve coupling problems in the public service system, thereby better enhancing the quality of public services
Exploring service rituals for at-work recovery toward healthcare worker wellbeing
No full textService design has increased its attention on healthcare services in both research and practice. Despite the promise of considering the wellbeing of all actors involved in these services, it is very much the patient that is ‘focal actor’, with healthcare workers (HCWs) often being marginalised in these processes. Concurrently, diminished wellbeing of HCWs is leading to burnout and in turn medical errors that seriously impact patients and the healthcare service system. This paper reports on explorative, transdisciplinary design research that makes the HCWs the focal actor of the process and looks to design service rituals as an approach to at-work recovery. It contributes by offering insight into the development process of a replicable and transferable approach for service ritual in critical service systems. It offers reflection on this process whilst introducing the concept of ‘design for coping’ for those tasked with delivering our vital service systems
Beyond the Paper Trail: Challenging Traditional Outputs in Design Research
No full textWe live in a world bloated with data yet starved for wisdom (Kapuʻuwailani Lindsey 2012). As sustainability challenges grow increasingly complex, the limitations of traditional, data-centric research approaches become apparent. This paper argues that the transition towards sustainability necessitates not just technological innovations, but a fundamental ontological shift in how we structure knowledge claims. Modernist systems of values in research, characterised by control, reductionism, and quantification, often marginalised tacit knowledge, indigenous ways of knowing, and intuition. Specifically, this paper advocates for the adoption of Research through Design (RtD) as a methodological paradigm that bridges the gap between quantifiable data and the lived, context-sensitive realities that are vital for sustainable futures. Finally, we discuss the types of research outputs needed to support this shift, moving beyond traditional peer-reviewed papers and bibliometric quantification towards a more holistic and impactful approach to knowledge production
Embodied Data: Gleaning Narratives of Living with Chronic Gut Diseases to Guide the Design Process
No full textDesigning for individuals with chronic diseases requires a deep understanding of their lived experiences, as these provide valuable insights into the complexities of living with such conditions. This paper highlights the importance of leveraging the experiential knowledge of those impacted, which emerges from their bodily experiences. Such knowledge constitutes lived narratives that are considered embodied data in this paper. These embodied narratives serve as a rich source of inspiration, enabling designers to develop meaningful processes and solutions that better support people. In this paper, I specifically discuss how embracing ambiguity in the research direction allows designers to co-create a research agenda by learning from the embodied data of the people they aim to design for. To illustrate this approach, I introduce a workshop titled “Eliciting Lived Narratives of Living with Chronic Gut Diseases,” which marks the initial phase of a larger research project focused on enhancing the well-being of individuals with Chronic Gut Diseases (CGD). Rather than pursuing a predefined research path, this project welcomes uncertainty, using the workshop to identify struggles and themes central to living with CGD. These insights help shape the direction of the research agenda. By demonstrating methods for eliciting lived narratives and integrating embodied data into the design process, the workshop exemplifies how participatory approaches can drive the co-creation of meaningful research directions and design outcomes
