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The Impact of Audio-Visual Legends on Information Design: A Research through Design Case Study
No full textWhile the concept and practice of legends in data visualization are well-established, the field of data sonification is still working towards explicit design guidelines. The present paper reports an exploratory study investigating the embodied experience of combining audio and visuals in legends, focusing on its effect on non-expert audiences. Through this integration, the research highlights sound’s unique potential to convey information and expand how data is perceived and understood. We employed the Research Through Design (RtD) methodology across two iterative case studies: focus group and experiment. The focus group study explored participants’ (N = 4) perceptions of the balance between audio and visuals in data communication. Focus group results suggest that storytelling significantly shapes how audiences perceive the balance between sound and visuals in data communication, influencing their overall experience. In the experiment, participants (N = 18) evaluated the effectiveness of integrating audio into legends through two tasks: guesstimating the monetary value or date represented by sound. Participants were given a visual-only legend in the first condition, while in the second condition, they were presented with an audio-visual legend. Participants\u27 performance was assessed based on four criteria: accuracy, time efficiency, comprehension, and satisfaction. Experimental results show that audio-visual legends enhanced accessibility and willingness for active listening. However, they did not substantially improve accuracy in extracting specific information. By engaging multiple senses, this study situates data as a dynamic medium, making it accessible and impactful to the broader public
Towards Distributed Creativity: Understanding Generative AI in the Context of Design Philosophy and the Material Turn
No full textThis study examines the transformative role of generative AI (GenAI) in design through the lens of the material turn, which foregrounds materiality’s agency in shaping human practices. In this context, GenAI is not a mere tool but an active participant in co-creation, challenging subject-object distinctions in design philosophy. Drawing on ontological design, postphenomenology, cognitive science, and material engagement theory, we reinterpret creativity as an emergent phenomenon within sociomaterial networks. Our framework reveals design as a relational process, where creativity unfolds through adaptive interactions, shifting the designer’s role from control to orchestration. We conclude by highlighting the subject- and object-decentered interpretation of design, emphasizing the feedback loops through which human and non-human agents mutually constitute each other over time, creating a new, evolving creative ecosystem
Toying with relations: Speculative toys for children and sustainability
No full textToys as situated within the relational ontologies of children includes how more-than-human relations are imagined and valued through play. Motivated by a concern for a damaged environment, we critique a selection of existing toys intended for outdoor play and fabulate other versions based upon alternative relations. From the detailing of six redesigns through text and collage, we foreground generative pathways for how children, and adults, might relate differently to nature. These pathways are presented as questions prompted by the toys. This exploratory research contributes to the imagining of multispecies worlds and the agency of children in toying with more-than-human relations
Design for Longevity: A Relational and Systemic Perspective
No full textAs Relational Design (RD) grows in popularity, Casual Loop Diagrams (CLD) can complement RD in systemic analysis by visualizing relationships between variables. This study integrates CLD with RD within the context of longevity planning, which considers dimensions of financial, social and physical wellness. While RD maps static relationships, CLDs model dynamic interactions and feedback loops, enhancing innovation through a holistic and adaptive approach. By bridging relational and systemic perspectives, this preliminary study advances discourse in service design, system thinking, and research methodologies, demonstrating how RD and CLD contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of longevity planning. Findings emphasize the importance of relational perspectives in addressing the evolving challenges of longevity economies, shifting from linear problem solving to interconnected and relational strategies. This study highlights the role of design in fostering sustainable, socially engaged, and responsive longevity planning, offering insights for academia and practice in developing resilient, human-centered, longevity service frameworks
An adventure with AI: A Relational Techno-life Design Approach
No full textThe integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into ecosystems necessitates a paradigm shift in design thinking, moving beyond anthropocentric models to embrace relational frameworks. This paper proposes relational techno-life design, an approach to reconceptualize AI as co-constitutive agents within socio material networks and broad ecological system. Through speculative case studies—LOVOT, LO, and AquaGuardian—we analyze how relational techno-life design can foster symbiotic relationships across human, nonhuman, and AI. An eco-cultural-techno framework reveals the potential for AI to mediate ecological resilience, cultural practices, and ethical co-evolution, while critiquing anthropocentric hierarchies and dualisms. The study contributes to relational design theory by advocating for nondualist views that prioritize sensory engagements and adaptive coexistence
Attending to Right Relations in Design: Lessons from Foraging
No full textDespite recognizing the profound relevance of Indigenous knowledges to the relational turn, few posthuman design researchers elaborate on the considerations and implications of working from these rich sources of insight for material practice. In this paper, I develop an attention to the Indigenous relational framework of Right Relations in design from the perspective of studentship, considering how Indigenous ethical frameworks might be engaged with from the position of a non-Indigenous person. Building on insights from my own research experience in foraging for design materials, I use narratives to exemplify part of what attending to Right Relations in design implies. I articulate these implications through lessons learned in my studentship: prioritizing relationship over skill, reconciling working cycles to Mother Earth’s, and respecting the histories and original peoples of the lands where materials hail from. These practices position a view of relational design that increases dialogue across posthuman design and decolonization, works to uproot systems of colonial industrial capitalism in material practice, and highlights a need for a post-secular paradigm in posthuman design
Designing with relationalities: Interweaving human and more-than-human approaches
No full textThis workshop explores the interweaving of human and non-human relationalities through noticing strategies that decenter the anthropocentric perspective. As a starting point, we propose to examine our position of humans as interconnected and entangled with more-than-humans, problematising how this perspective could reshape human-centred methods and practices. We intend to elaborate on how our being in the world –co-shaped by non-human entities– can be experienced through embodying other (human or non-human) perspectives. We thereby explore noticing as a method and start tackling the following questions: How do designers relate in the design process to other humans and non-humans? How does decentring the human perspective lead to noticing emerging relations? What is a designer’s responsibility when designing with/through/for relations
Journeying with Kala: Exploring Interdependencies of Material, Land, and Maker in Shaping Textile Practices
No full textAccompanied by Kala, an indigenous cotton from Kutch, India, this study examines the interdependencies of land, material, and maker that are fostered in textile practices. It explores materials as companions in practice, shaping the trajectory of making through their processual entanglements with human and more-than-human environments. The research employs a practice-led methodology integrating historical review of cotton in India, ethnographic inquiry into practices related to Kala in Kutch, and hands-on weaving experiments. The weaving explorations with Kala, seen as a process of correspondence, detail the role of materials in making, where environmental conditions, material properties, and practitioner interactions shape the practice and the final outcomes. Through the story and practices with Kala, the article invites a re-evaluation of material perception as mere resources to be manipulated for human purposes, suggesting instead that materials possess an active capacity to influence human engagement, decision-making, and creative outcomes
Transforming Complex Environments: Applying Systems-Oriented Service Design in Complex Built and Digital Environments
No full textThe built environment includes all man-made spaces for activities like living and urban development, organised via zoning and land use planning. To enhance sustainability, Finland\u27s environmental administration launched the Ryhti project to centralise data systems, optimising the accessibility and consistency of land use and construction information. This research investigates how systems-oriented service design, specifically gigamapping, supports the strategic implementation of complex digital built environments. Through literature review and a case study, it showcases gigamapping’s role in the strategic-tactical spectrum of organisational decision making, applying the four levels of design management and the iceberg model of design problems to contextualise decision layers and design problem complexity. A qualitative case study at Sitowise, a Finnish smart city company, demonstrates gigamapping role in facilitating collaboration and strategic planning, bridging strategic goals with operational execution. Findings indicate that systems-oriented service design such as gigamapping fosters effective collaboration, supports the visualisation of complex systems and helps to prioritise actionable steps for strategic outcomes
It splatters! A recipe to codesign the world from our insides, expanding relational practices in participatory design research
No full textThis paper examines the relationship between sustenance labour and Participatory Design (PD), focusing on cooking, eating, and digesting, with the aim of contributing to the significant shift PD is undergoing towards more relational approaches. We discuss how the first author’s design and research practice evolve as she engages with her fieldwork as an \u27eater\u27. By tracing the intimate connections between bodies, materials, stories, and environments in making a recipe — caraotas en coco — we highlight how the recipe expands our ways of relating, becoming response-able from within. The recipe acts as a medium of translation, taking the form of a participatory design workshop where we explore cooking, eating, and digesting as sites for ideation and serious inquiry. As participants engage whole-bodily with sustenance labour, they uncover the relational qualities inherent in these actions. These \u27descriptive revelations\u27 enable careful reassessments—tuning into their insides to work with difference, instantiating interrelations and developing relational sensitivities. And, as these \u27splatter\u27, we trace their potential to inform and reshape designers’ participatory approaches