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Rethinking self-diagnosis: Bridging doctor and patient perspectives
No full textThe rise of digital health technologies has reshaped the patient’s role in healthcare, enabling greater autonomy in managing health and making medical decisions. Self-diagnosis tools, including AI-driven applications, symptom checkers, and online health platforms, allow individuals to assess symptoms and explore potential conditions before consulting a healthcare professional. While these tools offer increased access to health information, they also raise concerns about misinformation, misinterpretation, and their impact on patient-provider relationships. This study examines how both patients and healthcare professionals perceive self-diagnosis, identifying tension points and shared concerns that shape its role in healthcare interactions. To explore these perspectives, we conducted two online surveys: one with 330 patients and another with 36 doctors. The findings contribute to design research by providing insights into how digital health technologies can be designed to facilitate shared decision-making, strengthen patient-provider relationships, and ensure responsible integration into healthcare practices
Anyone can put a sofa
No full textThis exploratory paper presents a case observed during the author’s participatory action research for the PhD programme. The case consists of reflections on a relationship-building intervention enabled through the placement of a tea dispenser and a sofa in a village’s common space. The paper provides the case to reflect about whether overemphasising on designers’ identity and roles has overshadowed the importance and opportunities of building human relationships when engaging with communities during the immersion phase. The paper argues that designers need to rethink their positioning and move beyond an overemphasis on professional roles when entering communities to better understand how to achieve future design interventions
How to talk of and evaluate relationality in design research and practice?
No full textThe damaged and fragmented world is calling for care, hope, and imaginative ways of nurturing dialogues. We need alternative pathways, reflexivity and collective engagements to meet this need. Designers and other creative practitioners are increasingly applying experimental, relational, experiential and participatory approaches to facilitate collaboration, social change and imaginative world-making. Such approaches build on understandings that go beyond rational thinking and involve emotional and personal aspects. To advance these practices with arguments for their relevance, and to develop collective reflexivity, we need ways to talk of and evaluate the relationalities we seek to enact. In this workshop, we engage with this challenging practice by introducing evaluation dimensions, and reflect on how they address relationality in design research projects and design practices. The workshop activities draw from research findings of the EU-funded CreaTures project that explored how creative practices can stimulate action towards socially and ecologically sustainable futures
Lighting a public thing? Organizing design things in public bureaucracy
No full textThis study takes an interdisciplinary approach to the design of the night city, by exploring how, through complex scripting processes, the relational aesthetics of light is translated in processes of urban planning. This exploration is based on our study of lighting design in the city of Gothenburg and highlights the multiplicities of designing light through dimensions of aesthetics, sustainability, safety, environment, biodiversity, work and more. The question we ask is how the relational materiality of light as a design material is translated in the organizational process of urban planning and how light in this process is made a matter of concern in urban planning. The paper takes theoretical inspiration from the translation process as theorized in Actor-Network Theory, with a particular emphasis on scripting processes, to understand the complex socio-political-material process by which light becomes a matter of concern in the governance of the city
The relationship between maker, machine and material: Creative investigation of geopolymer extrusion 3D printing
No full textThe use of geopolymers in creative practices, encompassing the fields of art, craft, and design, is still relatively unexplored. This paper introduces early explorations focused on geopolymer extrusion 3D printing in a creative studio context. The closer focus is on the context-bound connections of the maker, machine and material during creative practice. As an outcome of experimentation and creative problem-solving, this paper presents original and innovative extrusion printing methods that create a new fabrication aesthetic that acknowledges and emphasises the coiled aesthetic generated by this process. The three perspectives of maker, machine and material are discussed individually and together; opening the relations that influence the creative process within contemporary practices
Balancing children’s play with plastic–materialistic character toys
No full textThis study investigates the impact of the South Korean TV show Catch! Teenieping: Fairies of Emotion and its associated merchandise on children\u27s play and values. A survey of 100 mothers and an analysis of existing literature reveal the excessive time and expenses that children, particularly young girls, spend on Teenieping play, in spite of the play being primarily imitative and potentially limiting developmental benefits. Such commercial success led to an imbalance in children’s play. Additionally, Teenieping merchandise functions as a status symbol, contributing to materialistic attitudes among children. To address these issues, this study proposes a framework of Place, Material, Topic, and Player for parents to evaluate and curate children\u27s play to ensure a balanced play experience and content diversity in both aesthetics and topics. How balance and diversity in play can improve children’s relationships to nature, peers and adults is discussed
The Relational Designer
No full textDespite the growing recognition of relational design, limited attention has been given to the designer as a relational individual. Why is a designer relational (i.e. relationship-oriented)? How can they reflect and make their individual relationality transparent? This exploratory paper sheds light on these questions and stimulates reflection of designers as relational entities. A designer can take on many roles –practitioner, researcher, manager, collaborator, provider, politician, etc.– but always remains an individual with personal feelings and connections. Like every other individual, a designer experiences their being and doing uniquely. This constructivist understanding of the designer likewise suggests that every designer approaches the design process differently based on their individual relations to the world and in completion to their skills and knowledge. Making this positioning transparent will likely contribute to inclusive and socially sustainable design environments
We are all old: Decentralising visions
No full textThis paper seeks to understand how a mixed methodology of speculation, design practices, and artistic practices can help design researchers understand how people of different ages and backgrounds may distribute their visions about being old. Our overall motivation for the research is that countries in the world are struggling to shape good societies while the pace of population aging is accelerating faster than in the past. The world’s problems are often perceived as complex, leading some to lose faith in their ability to effect change. Every person is a piece of the larger puzzle, and we argue that when individuals build relationships with their future selves, they are empowered to make changes in the present to shape a desirable future. By prototyping a meal setting as a vehicle for speculation, we have learnt about the challenges of our approach
Matching the Narrative Fragments and Customer Identity Fragments in Omni-Channel Fashion Retail
No full textOmni-channel fashion retail integrates diverse channels and touchpoints, generating complex overlaps and combinations. In this dynamic environment, fashion brand narratives need to shift from selling products to selling experiences. This transformation challenges brands to maintain narrative coherence while adapting to distinct channel characteristics. Simultaneously, consumers exhibit varied identity expressions across channels, reflecting different consumption needs. However, existing narrative design approaches struggle to accommodate this fluidity. This study introduces a Narrative Design Alignment Framework, examining narrative fragments from the brand’s perspective and identity fragments from the consumer’s perspective. By mapping brand narratives and consumer identities across channels, the framework aligns these fragments to address the challenges of fragmented narrative design, offering a structured approach to integrating brand storytelling within omni-channel retail
Beyond Purchase: Aftercare Services as a Driver of Sustainable Fashion Retail
No full textAs the fashion industry moves toward a circular economy, retail is evolving beyond a simple point of sale to become a hub for sustainability and long-term product care. This study explores how aftercare services, including repair, maintenance, and second-life initiatives, help brands shift from one-time transactions to servicedriven customer relationships. By analyzing a diverse range of fashion brands, the research identifies six different aftercare models, each offering varying levels of digitization, channel integration, service coverage, process transparency, brand control, and customer autonomy. The findings highlight that aftercare is more than just a post-purchase service—it is a key strategy for circularity, strengthening consumer engagement and brand sustainability commitments