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The Power of doing less: the Concept of Exnovation in Transition Design through a Multi-lens Perspective
No full textDesigning for systemic change: Weaving a web of approaches to accelerate transitions and transformation
No full textCommunity empowerment and identity assimilation: Social innovation design practice through food resources
No full textFood possesses inherent cultural attributes and serves as a natural medium of connection. This paper introduces a design project for social innovation using food resources: From Tree to Table (FTTT). The project is the product of a social innovation course at an art school and lasted for three months. The focus of the project is on the relationship between soft food sovereignty and community transformative change. The Peach Lake Community (PLC) is rich in ecological resources, and a government-level change resulted in differentiation within the community between indigenous residents and recent migrants. FTTT explores the possibility of using the seasonal food, sour jujubes, from the PLC for social innovation. The study found that food, as a medium, can facilitate community transformative change in the non-violent assimilation guided by soft food sovereignty. We propose an implementation model for food co-creation workshops in community educational spaces (5W1H+OE)
“Another Eye For the Visually Impaired”: A Study Exploring the Experience of Using Camera-based Mobile Assistive Applications
No full textMore and more visually impaired people rely on assistive technology to live independently, and camera-based applications are a typical technology used to capture and recognize objects. While the researchers have provided ample information on this technology, more studies are needed on user experience. To explore how visually impaired people perceive and resolve the issues in daily use and what factors may affect their usage intention, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 visually impaired participants based in London, and all the data was transcribed through thematic analysis. We identified three main themes in the study: i) recognition, ii) encouragement, and iii) adjustment and change. These interviewees expect to improve their social attributes (identity, interpersonal communication, learning ability) through specific mobile applications. We suggest that the user acceptance of the camera-based app is determined by intrinsic factors (self-ability, emotional needs) and external factors (learning behaviour, attitude)
Adopting a hospitality lens for designing mental healthcare at home
No full textIncreasingly, there is a shift toward bringing services that were originally provided in hospitals into the home. Healthcare designers have been supporting this movement by designing medical devices and home care services. However, there is a risk that such shifts simply medicalize the home and erode the valuable informal practices of care that already occur there. Using a research through design approach, we adopted a hospitality lens to understand the rituals of hosting at home and identify potential areas of hostility as mental health consultations enter the home in Norway. This research demonstrates the value of adopting a hospitality lens when designing healthcare at home and how mapping rituals can contribute to a reflexive practice for both healthcare designers and clinicians
Unleashing collective imagination through controversies: lessons from a smart city project
No full textWe explore the role of futures-oriented design interventions in leveraging socio-technical controversies to foster collective imagination. We elaborate on a practical application of a speculative and scenario-based design tool called Future Frictions. Our study focuses on the use of Future Frictions to engage citizens in the development of an assessment framework for implementing sensors in Amsterdam. By employing the controversing framework to operationalize controversies through design, we explore how Future Frictions provides an interface that bridges speculative and real-life urban contexts. This interface facilitates recontextualizing controversies in daily life, fostering sensemaking, and making space for collective agency. This, we argue, nurtures collective imagination to generate counter-narratives that open alternative smart city futures. In addition to contributing to responsible smart city developments, we offer inspiration for utilizing design to reimagine and deploy creative forms of engagement to inform decision-making and policy-making addressing societal challenges in different domains
Tapestries of trust: using interdisciplinary design research to weave in multi-stakeholder perspectives in the public sector
No full textIn complex contexts involving stakeholders including public sector actors and vulnerable groups, design can help in untangling disciplinary perspectives and translating research to create shared knowledge. This paper explores the role of design research in understanding trust between civil servants and migrants in Espoo. Employing a multi-method qualitative approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews, ethnographic studies and participatory workshops to investigate the diverse dimensions of trust. Through this paper, we aim to demonstrate the value of methodological diversity in translating research findings into actionable outcomes and influencing collaborative, interdisciplinary knowledge creation. We examine the suitability of the used methods in terms of 1) facilitation of interdisciplinary research, 2) participation of stakeholders, and 3) accessibility and adaptation of process and findings. By reflecting on our disciplinary configurations and their engagement with external stakeholders, we hope to reduce the gap between research and societal impact
Leveraging play and Rube Goldberg machines to teach 21st century + design skills
No full textIn an AI-dominated landscape, creative, collaborative, and open-ended problem solving are increasingly critical skills. Traditional science and design toys pair stepwise instructions with single-configuration forms, while pixel-based building systems become an extension of the user’s existing capacity. By requiring creative re-imagination of everyday objects, chain reaction (rube goldberg) machines are a promising concept for practicing and expanding creative design skills through play. We calibrated formal and instructional constraints across two major design iterations, utilizing ethnographic interviewing, behavioral observation, and documentation of creative output to understand, quantify, and react to the impact of design changes. Paired with appropriate creative restraints, a chain reaction-based play experience led children to intuitively, independently, and successfully engage with the design process from problem identification to functional solution, expanding and enhancing their design abilities. This product and the play experience it creates are significant in proving play as a vehicle to develop 21st century skills
Data as Design Research: Mediating Processes, Protocols, and Precedent in Practice
No full textThe theme aims to consider the evolution of design methods, processes, and outputs in relationship to the imperatives of data in design practice, and the ways in which data-integrated practices are changing the nature of design itself. The increasing availability of data and related processes due to networked artifacts, artificial intelligence, and cultural digitalization pose a significant paradigm shift for design methods, collaboration, and the scalable impact of design in the world. Discourse may consider the fact that the systematic nature of data structures pushes related design pursuits into a realm of scalable systems that exceeds the replicability of industrial production. As such, the values and ethical protocols below data-driven design activities become an increasingly important infrastructure to attend to and daylight within the design process. Papers for this track may include, but are not limited to, the following topics: Ethics of data collection and use for values-sensitive design outcomes Encountering gaps in data and the dark matter of data sets in a design setting Use of empirical and cultural data, and the ways in which design negotiates intuition and observation through the use of data Data set construction and the assembly of non-text-based data for cultural analysis and production The bridge or feedback loop between data-driven analytic and generative design processes Design methods and the integration of small data (precedent, qualitative data, etc.) vs. big data (databases, AIs, etc.) Methods and approaches to the design of digital-physical hybrids and continuously-becoming design in an era of AI and networked artifact