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Future in Place: Participatory Future Scenario Planning for Place-based Local Policymaking
No full textAn increasing body of evidence suggests that the global emergence of Policy Innovation Labs over the last twenty years has marked a significant milestone in promoting-facilitating design-driven innovation in policymaking. However, the challenges associated with confining design expertise to the periphery of labs, and the focus of Policy Innovation Labs on national government, leaves regional and local policymaking in the trenches of legacy systems, processes, and skills. This limitation is problematic as it hinders the adaptation of local policies to address the unique challenges they face. Learning from, and moving beyond Policy Innovation Labs (considering their low cost-effectiveness), this paper explores how design can be integrated into place-based, local policymaking to support innovation. We address this by analysing a case study where participatory future scenario planning methods are deployed/adopted/adapted in informing local policy on sustainable transport in the context of the Eden Morecambe project in the North-West of England
Transitional object as empowerment tool: Workshops for Latina women to persevere in higher education
No full textThackara’s efforts to create spaces focused on wellbeing, and less on products, were invoked in this research. However, rather than simply abandoning the object, this work reassigns meaning to these objects—using them as empowerment tools—designed to become extensions of the body, thoughts, and experiences. This case study details the development and implementation of workshops designed to empower young Latina women persevere in higher education. The workshops brought awareness to structural barriers, coaching in self-reflective techniques, and the co-creation of transitional totemic (symbolic) objects that serve as aides-mémoires of the event. This paper highlights the workshops in three points: a) a brief history of barriers to Latinos’ educational success; b) description and analysis of the IRB-approved survey and qualitative interviews; and c) the outcome of the participatory workshops designed to empower young Latina women
Contextualizing Comedy Techniques for Speculative Design: Unraveling Futures Cone from Sketch Comedy Series, ‘2032/2033 Futures\u27
No full textSpeculative design stretches the boundaries of future plausibility, enabling creators to engage audiences by evoking empathy and provoking debate. Designers often use satire and humor, techniques that comedians have employed for centuries, to engage the public. We examined the popular YouTube comedy series \u272032/2033 Futures\u27, which depicts near futures, to understand how comedy can broaden future plausibility and challenge viewers to think critically about preferred futures. To this end, we conducted semi-structured interviews with the creators to contextualize their comedic techniques, such as humor, satire, irony, and wit, within future-oriented narratives and prototypes. Our findings illustrate how comedy can revitalize speculation as an experimental approach: a) to the notion that boundaries of future plausibility are shaped by collective empathy and can expand through speculation, b) to the unearthed significance of notions once considered preposterous, and c) to crafting scenarios that break from linear time, showcasing a polyphonic temporal and spatial narrative
W3C web accessibility initiative under the microscope: Identifying assumptions of users and their involvement in digital accessibility design
No full textIn addition to the well-known Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Web Accessibility Initiatives (WAI) also provide additional information and best practices for web practitioners on involving users with disabilities in their projects. Given the central role that the WAI possesses in the case of web accessibility, how they perceive and what they say about user involvement is regarded as significant. This paper examines how users with disabilities are represented, and more importantly, how they are treated in the recommendations. Critical close reading was performed on text produced by WAI regarding user involvement of people with disabilities. We found a reduction in the nature of how people with disabilities are established as human equals in the design process. Based on our analysis we identified nine themes underlying the view of users with disabilities and their involvement. The themes illuminate ethical issues and hidden assumptions that need close attention in the future
A study of student’s learning experience impacted by using AIGC tools in design subjects in China
No full textThis paper presents a qualitative study that investigates the impact of using AI-generated content (AIGC) tools on the learning experiences of design students in China. Nine bachelor students who were encouraged to use AIGC tools in their design projects participated in the study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and observation and analyzed by thematic analysis. The findings highlight the impact of AIGC tools on the efficiency and effectiveness of the students’ design process and their acquisition of domain and transferable knowledge. The result shows the impacts of AIGC are perceived as either conveniences or problems. Students\u27 attitudes towards these conveniences, their strategies for handling problems, and their motivation for using AIGC also influence their learning experiences. This study provides design educators with insights on how students\u27 learning experience is impacted by using AIGC tools and as a reference for future studies
Making in the Digital Era
No full textExperiential Knowledge Special Interest Group (EKSIG) focusses on the understanding of ‘knowledge’ and ‘contribution to knowledge’ in design research, especially in the areas where designing forms part of the research process. The EKSIG strand at DRS2024 takes a closer look at the new and changing materiality of design practice that we, designers, face, due to digitalization and its challenges and benefits. Several areas of design practice and research involve processes of making things. More often such processes unfold in a hybrid form combining both making by hand and with tools, both analogue and digital. This year’s EKSIG strand focusses on discussing the theme ‘Making in the Digital Era’ that illuminates designers’ insider perspectives on making and embodied experience in hybrid analogue and digital material processes. The blurry border between the two modalities enables the designers to delve themselves into the hybrid environment of making in which they can move seamlessly between the analogue and the digital – but what happens with the experiential knowledge of materials in this process? Being insiders in such processes, designers can provide insights into their direct embodied experience in hybrid processes and contribute to the theoretical discussion of ways of knowing and how they use their experiential knowledge in this transition from the analogue to the digital realm – and back. The EKSIG strand provides a forum for discussing the concept of ‘thinking in making’ in design research that entails action and perception coupling, which results in artifacts as extensions of the designer-researcher’s experience
A Review of the Integration of Additive Manufacturing in Design Education
No full textThe modern world of design is one of constant change and technological progress. One emerging technology that has the potential to revolutionize the design is additive manufacturing. This innovative technology challenges existing manufacturing processes to reflect and enable the efficient production of complex and customized objects through reimagination. Design education for additive manufacturing plays a crucial role in educating future designers to resist the adherence to conventional processes and to promote the recovery of innovative thinking. Therefore, it is significant to explore the integration of this emerging technology in academic education and identify the associated chances and challenges to ensure effective knowledge transfer to students. This paper explores how the integration of additive manufacturing into design education is being implemented in the fields of design and architecture worldwide. Thus, the courses offered in academic curricula in universities and by libraries are analyzed and the expected benefits are determined
The Power Of The Pen/Pencil: Developing A Design Sketching Syllabus To Help 1st Year Product Design Students Communicate Effectively
No full textDigital, immersive, and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have propelled technology-focused design to the fore. Due to our technology-driven society and growing demand for technology literacy, the perceived need for traditional/analogue skills is being overlooked/underappreciated. Within product design (PD) education, students are increasingly embracing digital design tools to communicate, overlooking traditional/analogue tools. Subsequently, students are increasingly designing within the remits/restrictions of digital tools. This presents numerous challenges, including overreliance on computer aided design tools, perfectionism through corrective tools available with digital sketching platforms, and the complete disregard of quick concept generation in favor of AI. The power of the pen/pencil is being lost affecting the learning/appreciation of fundamental principles of design sketching/communication, a core skill required of every product designer. This paper presents our philosophical standpoint on design sketching and the development of a 24-week design sketching syllabus for product design 1st-year students focused on fundamental/traditional skills
Enacting sustainability-centered design curricula: The role of ethos in translating educational goals into pedagogy.
No full textThe concept of sustainability ethos can be defined as a context enabling an articulated set of educational aims and values to translate into curricula and promote capabilities that empower graduates to create change towards sustainable futures. While emerging as an important factor in developing sustainability-centered design curricula, further research is required to fully comprehend its educational significance, and how it intersects with the prevailing outcome-based approach to higher education curriculum development. This paper draws from interviews with academics and graduate students from three sustainability-centered design programs internationally to explore what enabled sustainability to be integrated in the programs. The findings reveal that a common vision, shared values, and articulated goals and pedagogies are considered essential. Although these factors were clearly conveyed by the interviewees, they were not formalized, pointing to the limitations of the outcome-based approach and the significance of a sustainability ethos in translating sustainability-focused educational goals into pedagogy
Step-by-step: Using low-fidelity, physical prototypes of enabling technologies to gain feedback from clinicians, prior to older patients
No full textDesigners of enabling technologies need a deep understanding of what patients want and need. But prototypes with working sensors and actuators may be far outside the experience of the vulnerable populations (e.g., older patients) targeted and may prove harmful to them, requiring a more cautious, “step-by-step” design approach. We report on how designers gain feedback from, before older patients, clinicians, using low-fidelity, full-scale prototypes without electronics to anticipate how such patients will interact with full-functioning technologies. Three hypothetical patient-personas with varying degrees of injuries were developed with clinicians. Clinicians then offered feedback on the assistance needed from our assistive robotic furniture by their patients to complete tasks at home to maintain independence. This design step was quick and effective in gaining meaningful feedback from clinicians who can speak for a wide range of patients in anticipation of studying interactions with older patients in a step-by-step process of design