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Collaborative translation from and into Practice
No full textThis paper explores how collaborative design methods can facilitate the translation of situated knowledge embodied in expert practice. We draw on a long-term collaborative research project with a major national museum in the UK aimed at catalysing sustained transformation in the practice of staff members. We describe two interdependent generative modalities of our collaborative design research intervention. Firstly, a mode of collaborative translation from staff member’s existing practice into shared language, prototypes and tools. Secondly, a mode of collaborative translation into the situated practice of staff, resulting in new shared behaviours and capabilities. We describe the methods used in this work, the outputs produced and the unfolding impact on practice that resulted from these interventions. We discuss the potential of collaborative design methods to facilitate translational research that treats impact on practice as a means and measure of success
Designing tools for designers: The Data Sonification Canvas
No full textAlthough data sonification i.e., the use of sound to represent data is gaining mo-mentum, its impact is still limited. The lack of shared design methods and tools is seen as an obstacle for the expansion of sonification from a scientific method to a mass-medium for better human-data interaction. The Data Sonification Canvas is a design tool that supports authors during the creative process. Our paper first describes the genesis of the Canvas, grounded in expert interviews and literature from sound design for film, human-computer interaction, and data visualization. We then present an evaluation study with 20 participants that measured the pragmatic and hedonic quality of the Canvas. Results show that users consider it a valuable, self-oriented, and practical tool that meets their needs in a struc-tured, yet straightforward manner. Areas of improvement include uniform the terminology; increase accessibility; include multi-media content and customize the spatial organization of the components
Learning from Circularity Manifestos. Crafting designerly circular approaches for the upholstered furniture sector
No full textProduct innovation progressively embraces a sustainable and systemic approach, known as Design for Sustainability, driven by economic, environmental, socio-cultural, and behavioral insights. Nevertheless, transitioning to circularity within upholstered furniture Product-Service Systems and fostering cultural awareness remains a complex endeavor. The paper focuses on the role of Circularity Manifestos as cultural drivers in creating public awareness and behavioral change. It begins by analyzing existing cases to uncover the manifestos\u27 underlying meaning, logic, and communication strategies for promoting and implementing circular innovation practices. These findings are subsequently compared with established theories and approaches through a comprehensive literature review and case analysis, revealing potential links between conceptual frameworks and practical circular strategies. This investigation targets the upholstered furniture sector, characterized by significant circularity challenges. It demands a comprehensive design approach guided by designers\u27 expertise in balancing proactive behavioral change with a systemic Design for Sustainability approach
Life At The Riverfront: Drawing Histories, Drawing Narratives, Drawing Entanglements
No full textRivers worldwide are increasingly modified due to climate change, urbanization, and shifting land use patterns. This visual paper demonstrates how various drawing modes drive design research to uncover everyday practices along the modified riverfronts of the Citarum and Gombak Rivers in Indonesia and Malaysia, respectively. Three drawing approaches are employed to investigate different timelines, capture residents’ lived experiences, and illustrate riverfronts’ complex, socio-economic, spatial, and environmental attributes. Drawing histories involves using historical mapping and visual ethnographic methods to gain in-depth insights into the localities. Drawing narratives entails gathering and overlaying narratives, stories, and everyday activities within river corridors. Lastly, drawing entanglements involves exploring and revealing multi-layered relationships, connections, and patterns. Drawings have contributed to a spatial investigation and representation of the dynamic and complex status of the modified riverfronts, demonstrating a gap between the lived and planned and aiming to foster a dialogue into how this gap can be narrowed
Three’s company: Situation-problem-solution co-evolution
No full textThis paper reports the results of a study examining the co-evolution of design situations, problems, and solutions. The research method is a longitudinal study tracking the creative problem-solving processes of 4 MSc student design teams on an industrial design project. The data includes observations, interviews, field notes, and documents. Visual mapping and temporal bracketing analysis tech-niques reveal insights into the teams\u27 design processes. The results provide evidence that integrating effectuation enabled some teams to pivot their projects by co-evolving the situation, problem, and solution spaces simultaneously. This finding suggests designers can shape situations through effectuation, rather than just passively respond to environmental cues. These exploratory results indicate the potential value of expanding design theory to consider triadic co-evolution of situation, problem, and solution. The implications highlight opportunities for design education to cultivate designer entrepreneurs skilled in strategic pivoting through situation-problem-solution co-evolution
Reimagining sustainable mobility Futures: exploring design imaginariums for city-wide challenges
No full textThis exploratory paper presents an approach known as \u27Design Imaginariums,\u27 pop-up spaces based on speculative design principles and community driven cre-ative problem-solving to address systemic city-wide challenges. Drawing inspira-tion and insights from a one-day design sprint and a real-world prototype that fo-cused on mobility urban futures, these pop-up spaces serve as platforms to ac-tively involve citizens in the design process, prompting responsive ideas and rec-ommendations from city stakeholders. The paper begins by discussing the back-ground and motivations to initiate the research, elaborating on the City of Dun-dee’s aspirations for creating ecologically vibrant and socially inclusive urban spaces. It then outlines the research protocol and explores how Design Imaginar-iums can harness speculative thinking and community engagement to reimagine sustainable mobility. Finally, it discusses the capacity of imaginative scenarios to inform and influence policymaking and transformative change, emphasizing how Design Imaginariums might have something useful to offer the wider design re-search community
Designing through ecological soundscape to foster human-nature interaction
No full textSense of hearing provides an effective, immersive and empathetic way to observe, map and explore places with a more-than-human approach. In our contemporary mediascape inundated by visual stimuli, the rediscovery of sound offers a different understanding of the world. By discussing two research-based sound design projects, this study discusses 1) the potential of using soundscape as an empathetic research tool in multispecies ethnography and 2) how soundscape as a communication media could stimulate more-than-human exploration and empathy. Such design outcomes develop an empathic and conscious understanding of human-nature interaction, even in an urban context. Intersecting science, research and creative practices, the projects use soundscape for ecological exploration and narratives. The projects contribute to how ecological soundscape plays a significant role in the sound-driven design process to re-establish kinship between humans and more-than-humans, thereby nurturing urban-nature re-discovery and coexistence
Using space and knowledge to confront power in design
No full textThis paper considers the disputes and questions arising from a systematic review of the social design literature and establishes three prominent contestations relating to the ideas of ‘power’, ‘systems thinking’ and ‘criticality’. These ideas are tightly connected, with systems thinking and criticality emerging in response to the omnipresence of power relations in social design. With the acceptance that social design is inherently political, and the provision that both ‘space’ and the ‘uncovering of knowledge’ can work to confront such power and enable social innovation, we see the need for both an expansion and nuance of future social design efforts. Our analysis suggests this is possible through the enacting of mechanisms that work to unveil and confront notions of power directly in design. We see these opportunities through acts including employing systematic design practices; practicing reflexive and situated design; and pursuing prototyping and infrastructuring in design
Reflections on the Usefulness and Limitations of Tools for Life-Centred Design
No full textLife-centred design decenters humans and considers all life and the far-reaching impacts of design decisions. However, little is known about the application of life-centred design tools in practice and their usefulness and limitations for considering more-than-human perspectives. To address this gap, we carried out a series of workshops, reporting on findings from a first-person study involving one design academic and three design practitioners. Using a popular flat-pack chair as a case study, we generatively identified and applied four tools: systems maps, actant maps, product lifecycle maps and behavioural impact canvas. We found that the tools provided a structured approach for practising systems thinking, identifying human and non-human actors, understanding their interconnectedness, and surfacing gaps in the team’s knowledge. Based on the findings, the paper proposes a process for implementing life-centred design tools in design projects
Healing our Designing: Practices of Care for Human and More-than-Human Relations
No full textOngoing socio-ecological damages stem from dominant design practices rooted in modernist, capitalist ideologies that exploit nature. If we, designers, aim to contribute to healing the web of life, our practices also need healing. Seeking an alternative paradigm to problem-driven design, this article narrates my journey to embrace a paradigm of relation-caring that encompasses humans and more-than-humans. Drawing upon experiences with fellow embroiderers in Hermosillo, Mexico, I present two everyday design practices that explore women-plant relations in the desert: 1) cultivating relationships by embroidery of memories, presents, and futures with plants; and 2) infusing diálogo de saberes (wisdom dialogues) with embodied and affective encounters with plants. These practices advocate for a profound shift in design tendencies, urging designers to attend to relations as much, if not more, than our intent to make worlds