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An exploration on relationality and decoloniality in participatory design based on care
No full textHow is positionality brought into participatory practices? How are moments for self-reflection created in participatory design? How do design researchers challenge colonial perspectives in design? The workshop aims to create a space for a collective reflection on the need to undo the narratives of modernity and the cult of futurity that brings to the ubiquitous discourse on innovation as the only possible path for a better future. The workshop experiments with materiality as a channel to collectively explore how designing – as a transformative action embracing relationality – could adopt a pluriversal mindset. It furthers the discussion on relationality, elucidating elements that help nourish a caring and decolonial standpoint. Through the lenses of interdependency and pluriversal temporalities, it conveys a conversation on rearticulating relationality and pluriversality in co-design that should ultimately end in collective action and mutual commitment
Exploring the human norm in design: Integrating more-than-human and norm-critical design approaches
No full textAs designers, we design from a human perspective—a position we cannot change but must critically reflect upon. This workshop addresses this fundamental challenge: the invisible human norm in design. While norm-critical approaches have explored norms, the most profound invisible norm is simply our existence as humans. This is particularly significant as we confront environmental crises demanding design beyond human needs. We integrate two complementary approaches: more-than-human design, which challenges the assumption that human-centeredness represents a neutral viewpoint, and norm-critical design, which makes invisible norms visible. Our 3-hour workshop engages participants in interactive activities analyzing human norms, shifting perspectives, creating norm-critical prototypes, and sharing reflections. We contribute to design research by offering a novel methodological framework combining these previously separate approaches and providing the crucial first step toward addressing needs beyond humans: making human norms in design visible and subject to critical examination
How Digital Transformation Drives Sustainability in Fashion Retail: The “Moda 4.0” Research Project
No full textThis paper presents the outcomes of the Moda 4.0 research project—carried out by the Design_Kind Lab at Politecnico di Bari in collaboration with Emme Evolution S.r.l.—showing how digital transformation drives sustainability in the fashion retail sector. By developing and integrating digital systems and tools for multimedia content creation, distribution, and consumption, the study illustrates how emerging technologies inform new skill sets in product and service design while fostering novel cultural values. The research guides the partner fashion company\u27s digital transition through a structured, multidisciplinary design approach, emphasizing sustainability across products and processes. The project delineates three digital strategies related to technologies: (I) metaverse and virtual worlds, (II) Virtual and Augmented Reality, and (III) Non-Fungible Tokens. Ultimately, the findings highlight that holistic, future-oriented digital strategies enhance creative expression and customer experiences and reinforce environmentally responsible and agile innovation in the fashion industry
Mitigating Barriers in Novice Designers’ Prototyping with AI: A Comprehensive Approach
No full textPrototyping plays a crucial role in design thinking, yet many novice designers fail to adopt it due to insufficient value recognition, limited technical skills, and psychological barriers. This study proposes a new approach by integrating a generative AI-based chat system to simultaneously address these three obstacles. In a two-month exploration with four participants focusing on circular economy themes, we developed two interactive tools—“Jibungoto Design Navigator” and “Try-It-Out Navigator.” Our findings indicate that AI-driven dialogues help clarify project goals, boost self-efficacy, and reduce the fear of failure through rapid prototyping support. The participants created both low- and high-fidelity prototypes with fewer hurdles. These results suggest that incorporating generative AI can empower novice designers, promoting more frequent and confident prototyping endeavors while broadening access to design innovation
Playing with Failure: A Queer Framework for Making Service Systems Otherwise
No full textDespite its claims of driving transformation in service systems, service design often ends up reproducing the status quo and normalizing others into dominant social expectations. If we want to move away from the circulation of hegemonic structures within the practice, the service design discipline needs to be challenged. This paper explores how service design can be undisciplined to create a grammar of possibility for making service systems otherwise. Drawing on experiences from an experimental 7-week service design research and education collaboration with hospital-based mental health services in Norway, this research presents a queer framework that reveals the entanglement of normative and counter-normative pressures as well as contradictory desires when attempting at designing otherwise. The framework highlights the failings that ensue when we play with, or dis/order, traditional service design. This research offers an opening for anti-disciplinary service design knowledge and expansive ways of untraining, undoing and forgetting that attempt to resist mastery in service design education
Air Traffic Management as a Service for Urban Air Mobility in Indian Cities: A Study for Scalable and Adaptive Design Framework for Optimizing Airspace Over Rail, Metro, and Roads
No full textUrban Air Mobility offers an innovative solution to traffic congestion in Indian cities by introducing aerial transport to ease pressure on road networks. To ensure safe and efficient UAM operations, Air Traffic Management (ATM) as a Service is crucial. This framework facilitates real-time coordination between aerial and ground transportation, leveraging existing airspace over metro, rail, and highways to create an integrated urban mobility system. This study explores a service design approach to ATM, focusing on AI-powered air traffic management, real-time communication, and user-friendly systems. AI-driven predictive models optimize UAM routes, reduce congestion, and enhance safety. Additionally, the study examines policy frameworks and infrastructure requirements to support UAM integration while ensuring regulatory compliance. Using a multi-method research approach, including literature reviews, AI-based and stakeholder analysis, the study evaluates ATM implementation. Findings suggest AI driven air traffic control enhances efficiency, while policy interventions and multimodal transport integration are key to ensuring sustainable and scalable UAM adoption in India
From projects to programs: An alternative approach to service design practice
No full textService design (SD) practice has been shifting its aims from new service development toward service system transformation. Despite the complexity, uncertainty and non-linearity of such an ambition, SD continues to employ project based structures to organise its processes. Recognising that such organising frameworks often limit service design’s transformative potential, this paper explores how a programmatic approach can be applied to SD practice aimed at service system transformation. Drawing from three SD programs conducted in Norway and Sweden, we outline four core contributions of a programmatic approach to service system transformation: 1) supporting open-ended inquiry; 2) encouraging situated experimentation; 3) promoting adaptation through oscillation; and 4) cultivating collective reflexive action. This paper unpacks the struggles that adopting a programmatic approach in practice entails and offers considerations for SD practitioners in how to strategically navigate related challenges
Exploring Experiential Insighting.
No full textService design is increasingly recognized as a valuable contributor to user-centred innovation in the public sector. However, a lack of focus on public servants’ emotional experiences may limit its impact. This paper introduces “experiential insighting” as a human-centred approach to fostering empathy and understanding of bureaucrats’ lived experiences within the Norwegian public sector. In 2024, service design master’s students transposed these experiences into interactive installations, which were later presented at a conference. Feedback from policymakers and bureaucrats suggests that the experiential insighting installations effectively communicated key experiences, fostering empathy, stimulating dialogue, and enrichening communication. The study highlights the role of making as a critical skill in service design education, demonstrating its potential to connect policy development with lived experience. We advocate for an experiential re-turn in service design, where embodied and emotional experiences complement systemic approaches to drive deeper engagement and transformative change
Lessons Learned in Inclusive Game Design: Bridging the Gaps for Visually Diverse Players
No full textThis paper presents a comprehensive study on the design, development, and evaluation of a multi-sensory board game, named Ezam, to bridge the participation gap between visually impaired and abled players. Using a user-centered, participatory design approach, the project integrates tactile, auditory, and spatial cues within a service-design framework to ensure a holistic, equitable gaming experience. The design process was informed by a market analysis of existing accessible board games and co-design sessions with over 50 visually impaired and sighted stakeholders across educational and community settings in India, and refined through iterative prototyping and rigorous user testing. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations indicate significant improvements in usability and engagement, while pinpointing areas for further refinement. This study advances inclusive design by (1) positioning physical games as service experiences, (2) illustrating how multi-sensory mechanics foster equity among visually diverse players, and (3) offering participatory strategies and design guidelines for accessible, multi-sensory board games
Lessons from a Community Facility: Enacting a Philosophy of Practice in Local Diverse Communities.
No full textThis paper examines a community visioning process conducted by design researchers from 3x3, a community-centered design practice, in collaboration with a local government in Eastern Pennsylvania. The municipal government sought to create a new community facility to address the needs of a town shaped by cultural, social, and economic differences, while celebrating the diversity within the community. We discuss the design research methods used to engage residents in defining the facility’s purpose, programming, and spatial features. Additionally, we reflect on building trust, facilitating cross-community dialogue, and balancing equity and impact in public investments. The paper highlights the evolving role of the community-centered practitioner, shifting from experts to active learners and connectors who bridge community knowledge. By creating tools that embrace ambiguity, designers can foster more equitable participation and collective imagination. The paper aims to provide practical insights for designers, researchers, planners, and policymakers on how design can lead to power sharing and place-based belonging