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- Type:
- Article
- Description/Abstract:
- In this paper we report on new challenges when teaching UX students how to sketch and prototype their designs. We argue that UX students sketch and prototype differently than other design students, and we discuss how changes in the field necessitate a response in education. We describe sketching and prototyping as a continuum that students successfully traverse when they follow a process of ‘double loop learning’. We highlight three new challenges: (1) New computational design materials, (2) new maker tools, and (3) changes within the tech industry. We explore these three challenges through examples from our students, and we outline strategies for sketching and prototyping in this new reality. We conclude that this is a starting point for further work on keeping education up to speed with practice.
- Creator/Author:
- Frens, Joep ; Forlizzi, Jodi , and Zimmerman, John
- Submitter:
- Lora Alberto
- Date Uploaded:
- 11/17/2017
- Date Modified:
- 11/17/2017
- Date Created:
- 2017-10-31
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
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- Type:
- Article
- Description/Abstract:
- Over the last two decades, constructive design research (CDR) — also known as Research through Design — has become an accepted mode of scholarly inquiry within the design research community. CDR is a broad term encompassing almost any kind of research that uses design action as a mode of inquiry. It has been described as having three distinct genres: lab, field, and showroom. The lab and field genres typically take a pragmatic stance, making things as a way of investigating what preferred futures might be. In contrast, research done following the showroom approach (more commonly known as critical design (CD), speculative design, or design fictions) offers a polemic and sometimes also a critique of the current state embodied in an artifact. Recently, we have observed a growing conflict within the design research community between pragmatic and critical researchers. To help reduce this conflict, we call for a divorce between CD and pragmatic CDR. We clarify how CDR and CD exist along a continuum. We conclude with suggestions for the design research community, about how each unique research approach can be used singly or in combination, and how they can push the boundaries of academic design research in new collaboration with different disciplines.
- Creator/Author:
- Zimmerman, John; Forlizzi, Jodi; Hekkert, Paul, and Koskinen, Ilpo
- Submitter:
- Lora Alberto
- Date Uploaded:
- 11/17/2017
- Date Modified:
- 02/02/2018
- Date Created:
- 2017-10-31
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
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- Type:
- Article
- Description/Abstract:
- With the enhancement of medical technology and human living standards, the world is showing a trajectory towards an aging society. The elders generally suffer from degeneration, which may cause problems in their daily lives. Aging has since become a major issue of scientific researches. Elders in Taiwan mostly live alone or with a partner. Because eating out is not a habit, cooking often plays an important role in their lives. Due to the degeneration happening to their bodies, the danger during cooking activities increases. Therefore, it is necessary for them to seek help from assistive devices. In this research, we will make assistive design models that help elders use woks. The designs are for the task we have chosen from our investigation. We will also evaluate the effect of the aids objectively using the EMG system, and collect the iEMG value for evaluation. The iEMG values were collected from four muscles (FDC, FCR, Biceps and Deltoids). Eight middle-aged participants who will become elders in the near future were invited to participate in the experiment. Four design solutions were chosen from seven working models. The design solutions were all helpful to the task, and the performances of the stove design solutions are significantly better than the original wok. The degrees of hand trembling while performing tasks were also measured, however the differences were not significant.
- Creator/Author:
- Wu, Fong-Gong ; Lin, Yu-Chi , and Sun, Hsiao-Han
- Submitter:
- Lora Alberto
- Date Uploaded:
- 11/17/2017
- Date Modified:
- 12/06/2017
- Date Created:
- 2017-10-31
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
-
- Type:
- Article
- Description/Abstract:
- The growing speed with which consumers discard artifacts is a significant but regrettable part of the capitalist economy. High consumption rates are accelerated by contemporary society, which is based on a model of values that link the notion of well being to profit generation and consumption of material goods. This exacerbated consumption cycle perpetuates environmental damage. In this context, proposing sustainable solutions involves new ways of thinking and doing that are distant from the practices of the current model of consumer society. This paper reflects on the necessity to implement changes into the design process, production, and consumption modalities. These changes propose a “new” role for designers as professionals, and as individuals in society at large. This research connects the concepts of metadesign and opens design- enabling system awareness. Metadesign can be considered critical and reflexive thinking about the boundaries and scope of design, but also, as the prefix “meta” implies, it can be understood as the design of the design process, in a critical and reflective way. Open design implies the openness of the design project for multiple actors (including consumers), information sharing, and building knowledge between them. As a result, design can lead to consumption modalities situated in slow culture, transforming the relationship between users and artifacts.
- Creator/Author:
- Boff Ferronato, Priscilla and Ruecker, Stan
- Submitter:
- Lora Alberto
- Date Uploaded:
- 11/17/2017
- Date Modified:
- 11/17/2017
- Date Created:
- 2017-10-31
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
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- Type:
- Article
- Description/Abstract:
- The “Safety Grand Challenge” is a collaborative research project between the Royal College of Art (RCA) School of Design, and the Lloyd's Register Foundation (LRF). The maritime industry is dominated by “grandfathering” leading to a slow-pace of adopting innovations that can reduce risk and save lives at sea. We describe how impact was achieved through collaboration and design innovations that bridged the risk gap between technologies and human behaviours. Starting from the project brief we designed a collaborative platform that supported a constructive dialogue between academia and partner organisations that aimed to foster innovative design approaches to risk and safety. The project generated an engaged community with diverse expertise that influenced the outcomes which included seven prototypes designed by a group of thirty students from across the RCA. Throughout the course of the project the network extended to other partners beyond the initial ones that included the RCA, LRF and Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The “Safety Grand Challenge” demonstrates how research can be an explorative platform that offers opportunities to analyse and design solutions to real life safety problems in mature industries through the prototypes that reflect the sophistication of the project’s collaborations. Our conclusions support how design research helped identify the value of design for safety in tackling complex issues that intertwine human, environmental and commercial views and can shape new forms of collaborative research between academia and industrial partners.
- Creator/Author:
- Ferrarello, Laura; Lee, Chang Hee ; Hall, Ashley, and Kann, Mike
- Submitter:
- Lora Alberto
- Date Uploaded:
- 11/17/2017
- Date Modified:
- 12/06/2017
- Date Created:
- 2017-10-31
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
-
- Type:
- Article
- Description/Abstract:
- Different associations are important for regulating and promoting good practices of sustainable product development. On the case of children products, there are many considerations to take, such as mental and physical development or safety. Knowing this broad challenge, how can associations better aid on the development of Design Guidelines for children? In Japan, the country’s context and challenges have led to the development of the Kids Design Association, or KDA, a Non-Profit organization dedicated on the achievement of three missions: “Contribute to children’s safety”; “Develop children’s capabilities, encouraging creativity and sensitivity”; and “Support caregivers during pregnancy, birth and child raising”. Based on an investigation period, the following paper is a case study of the Kids Design Association, exposing its story, goals, relation with society, growth, and performed activities, especially the “Kids Design Award”, a commendation program for acknowledging design practices that takes children needs and standpoints in consideration. We aimed to observe design trends and challenges regarding both Japanese Society and the association. As results, although some of the procedures are oriented exclusively for Japan, we found that the KDA approach could effectively bridge companies with academic knowledge and social demands.
- Creator/Author:
- Fernandes, Rodrigo ; Yamanaka, Toshimasa ; Tsutatani, Kunio , and Bao, Suomiya
- Submitter:
- Lora Alberto
- Date Uploaded:
- 11/17/2017
- Date Modified:
- 12/01/2017
- Date Created:
- 2017-10-31
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
-
- Type:
- Article
- Description/Abstract:
- This study hypothesized that humans give priority perception to product shapes that possess topological structures. Three experiments confirmed the proposition accordingly. The first experiment selected existing products that grab people’s attention within the prescribed time, with the experimental objects selected according to degree of topological properties and structure complexity. The results showed that visual topological properties in the products had strong visual appeal. The second experiment determined the visual prominence of freely designed and redesigned chairs according to the rating of non-expert users. The results demonstrated that products whose shape adopted topological structures were given priority attention. The third experiment intended to prove the practical value of visual topological features from a direction opposite to that of the second experiment; that is, from topological structures to deconstruction of topological structures. All three experiments showed as well that there are many cognitive limitations in the recognition of topological structures in product shapes. These unexpected problems, such as the contradiction between topological structure and habitual cognition, are discussed. The results of the study and the effects of topological properties on development are also discussed.
- Creator/Author:
- Nagai, Yukari and Fei, Fei
- Submitter:
- Lora Alberto
- Date Uploaded:
- 11/17/2017
- Date Modified:
- 12/01/2017
- Date Created:
- 2017-10-31
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
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- Type:
- Article
- Description/Abstract:
- This project is being built on the site of a thousand-year-old mosque, one of five sacred places in Iraq. People visit the place to pray, not simply because it is an old mosque, but rather because they think that the last descendant of the Prophet Mohammed will eventually be resurrected with Jesus Christ and will pray there. In 2006, an architect was hired to design the building. The premises were: 1) the design should promote the concept of sacredness, 2) this project should show belonging to the society, and 3) it should last for centuries. The results were controversial, however, by the time it was revealed to the public, the foundations had already been casted, in the hopes that people would eventually accept it. On the contrary, visitors and pilgrims became upset and began to protest the design. The construction process was thus halted in 2008, and we were hired to utilize the same foundations for a new design, one that fitted with the pilgrims' notions of “sacredness”. We began the project by surveying people’s ideas about what mosques on “holy” sites might look like, determining what a “sacred” place meant to them, and why some places are “sacred.” We discovered that most people think that “sacred” places should seem old. They also singled out some “sacred” examples for us. All these examples have one characteristic: the all hide “a certain kind of mystery”. We studied those examples and then developed our proposal, it was approved in 2011 and will be opened for public in 2018.
- Creator/Author:
- Falah, Shubber
- Submitter:
- Lora Alberto
- Date Uploaded:
- 11/17/2017
- Date Modified:
- 10/04/2018
- Date Created:
- 2017-10-31
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
-
- Type:
- Article
- Description/Abstract:
- The profession of industrial/product design has the capacity to support wealth generation through a product-driven supply chain that extends across services that include manufacturing, distribution, sales and maintenance. Moving away from the more typical manufacturing approaches of developed countries, where the resources available to support designers employ advanced technologies and materials, this paper discusses an on-going UK Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project to explore ways in which industrial/product design can provide opportunities for entrepreneurship and employment in countries on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) List and receive Overseas Development Assistance (ODA). Through practice-lad research with participants from Uganda, Kenya, Indonesia and Turkey; industrial/product design educators/researchers/practitioners shared knowledge and expertise and engaged in creative activity to translate propositions into proposals with the potential for manufacture in each of the four countries. The findings, articulated product visualisations, indicate significant potential to support manufacturing in countries in a variety of levels of economic development by adding value to the packaging of traditional foods; integrating low-cost imported components to add value to indigenous crafts and materials; producing contemporary furniture designs using materials that can be considered as traditional materials; and employing unorthodox and unexpected materials.
- Creator/Author:
- Evans, Mark and Whitehead, Timothy
- Submitter:
- Lora Alberto
- Date Uploaded:
- 11/17/2017
- Date Modified:
- 10/08/2018
- Date Created:
- 2017-10-31
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
-
- Type:
- Article
- Description/Abstract:
- Today’s design pedagogies lack the characteristics for redressing the nature of the ‘wicked problems’ they attempt to solve, such as sustainability. We argue it is not fair for future generations to suffer the systemic effects of our unsustainable consumer culture, partly resulting from today’s design professionals’ decisions, which ensue because design is an amoral discipline lacking a systemic perspective. To rectify design’s characteristic failings, as part of a PhD study, we report a new pedagogical architecture founded as the synthesis of the practices of design and civics, forming the relationship design-as-civics (DaC): a practical philosophy. We position DaC as a reflexive, systemic radical political praxis for every citizen, possessing the explicit teleological goal to achieve the ‘good life’ for all. DaC takes a transdisciplinary approach. It integrates the discoveries of cognitive science and linguistics to expose how we construct our understanding of the world interpreting metaphors and frames, which we utilise to ‘aim’ DaC. Alongside shared social practice theory (SSP) and insights from developmental psychology that reveal the distinctly human capacity of “shared intentionality” engendering humankind’s willingness for cooperation and empathy for fairness. That living in a fairer society is desired by people from rival political perspectives, with egalitarian societies reporting lower environmental impact lifestyles and more willingness for transitioning towards sustainment. Thus, it is humankind’s cooperative behaviour and aligning values that provides the foundational rationale of DaC’s SSP goal to achieve the ‘good life’ through the ongoing critical examination of its ‘aim’ of resolving ‘fairness between citizens.’
- Creator/Author:
- Young, Robert and Emmerson, Paul
- Submitter:
- Lora Alberto
- Date Uploaded:
- 11/17/2017
- Date Modified:
- 12/01/2017
- Date Created:
- 2017-10-31
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International