Papers
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Nordes07
How can we understand the impact of design for people, companies and society? How can we provide design practice with appropriate and inspiring knowledge and ideas? How can we use critical and constructive design thinking to create new possibilities for the future? Design is here understood as a family of practices creating new products, systems and environments. The family resemblance is based on the skilful handling of complex demands, restrictions and technologies to fit different cultural contexts by use of intuitive and heuristic methods as stepping-stones to innovative solutions.
- Young Ae Hahn, JUDITH GREGORY: " ABSTRACTNESS OF MEDIATING ARTIFACTS AS PROBES"
This research investigates mediating artifacts as probes that have been used to explore current and future user needs in knowledge exchange between design researchers and the users of future products and services. Four types of mediating artifacts as probes are reviewed: Design Games, Cultural Probes, Generative Techniques, and Behavioral Prototyping. Design researchers have found the following methodological advantages of such various mediating artifacts: (a) eliciting situated user needs, (b) eliciting divergent perspectives and needs, (c) supporting participants’ idea generation that leads to design solution ideas, (d) documenting elicited concrete and abstract types of knowledge, (e) revealing propositional, practical and sensuous knowledge, and (f) facilitating communication between participants and design researchers. The abstract qualities of mediating artifacts as probes are relevant to both in their design and their effects in user research. Abstractness in this research is characterized as either a representative quality which illuminates designated aspects of things, events or concepts, or a general shared quality by a set of things, events or concepts. Abstractness can shape the physicality and interactivity of mediating artifacts to allow for (1) offering clear structures of problem spaces, (2) enhancing the communicative qualities of probes to explore problem spaces and design solution ideas, (3) enhancing adaptability of probes, models, and prototypes to multiple contexts, and (4) eliciting various perspectives and diverse design ideas afforded by degrees of ambiguity. - Ylva Gislén, Jonas Löwgren, Ulf Myrestam: "Participatory design of a cross-media community for societal action: Lessons from Avatopia"
A cross-media platform was designed for a community of young teenagers oriented towards societal change, a task which motivated a deeply sociotechnical participatory design process. The final outcome involved an interactive web forum featuring creative and communicative collaborative tools in a 3D avatar environment, combined with a weekly show in national public-service television. An assessment of our work indicates that a participatory design process, where participants transition into the role of mentors and norm carriers upon deployment, can be a feasible way to support subcultural community building towards »difficult« topics, even though it entails considerable resource demands. This result is potentially relevant to other practitioners of participatory design outside the traditional settings of workplaces and well-defined user groups. Moreover, we argue that an integrated spiral of production and consumption across the two media channels involved is a viable design concept to support community building. That claim, unlike our methodological finding, is rather limited in scope to interaction design, and specifically to the genre of cross-media products and services. - Ulla Johansson: "AN ANALYSIS OF THE SWEDISH GOVERNMENT’S DESIGN PROGRAMME IN 2003-2005 FROM A PROFITABILITY PERSPECTIVE"
Many people talk about the positive connection between design and profitability, but there are surprisingly few scientific investigations into the relation. None have until now been made with Swedish empirical material. The government’s and SVID’s design investment programme during 2003-2005 has, however, been the object of a scientific investigation on the basis of a profitability perspective. The result shown is that profitability has been good enough for the government to get its money back solely on the increase in VAT (as the result of the increase in turnover to which the design projects led in several of the companies)! In addition, there are other important results such as a large number of new workplaces and “new ways of thinking” among company management. In the long term, the latter may be just as important as the increase in turnover and VAT. - Thomas Binder: "Why Design:Labs"
For some years I have together with my colleagues used the design lab as a shorthand description of open collaborations between many stakeholders sharing a mutual interest in design research in a particular field. We see the design:lab as a suitable and coherent format for design research organized as a participatory inquiry. Initially we did not put too much thought into calling this format a laboratory, and many colleagues have reacted to the label as foreign and awkward to design. In this paper I will develop what I see as useful in this label, namely the emphasis on a transparent, delimited process that is potentially scaleable. - Stefan Holmlid: "INTERACTION DESIGN AND SERVICE DESIGN: EXPANDING A COMPARISON OF DESIGN DISCIPLINES."
While product design and interaction design are establishing themselves as ordinary practices, service design is still largely not well understood. Moreover, interactive artefacts are being introduced into service settings in a larger degree than before. We tend to rely on these artefacts as one, or sometimes the sole, possibility to do banking, to declare our taxes, etc. In this paper we seek to identify common ground and differentiation in order to create supportive structures between interaction design and service design. The analysis relies on two frameworks, one provided by Buchanan, defining orders of design, and one provided by Edeholt and Löwgren, providing a comparative framework between design disciplines. The framework of Edeholt & Löwgren is amended through the comparison, to include service design. Comparative dimensions added pertains to all areas of Edeholt & Löwgren’s framework; Design process, design material and deliverable. - Sonja Iltanen, Päivi Topo: "ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF DESIGN PRACTICES. THE CASE OF INDUSTRIALLY MANUFACTURED PATIENT CLOTHING IN FINLAND"
In the following paper, we describe the actors and practices influencing design of patient clothing in Finland. We also discuss the ethical dimensions and issues that can be identified in this process and in decisions concerning patient clothing. In our data, designing patient clothing is represented as a highly complex net of conflicting needs. According to our findings ethical issues in patient design were associated with ethical principles of efficiency, beneficence, privacy and autonomy. - Sara Routarinne, Johan Redström: "Domestication as Design Intervention"
The paper reports a study in which design prototypes where domesticated in different households in order to collect responses to them. These responses were then compared to the intentions that were articulated by the designers in a previous study, and embedded in the design of the design prototypes. The results indicate that some of the intentions were found whereas others were not. For example, the scenarios for use presented by the designers were not realized in actual use. Nevertheless, the more abstract intentions articulated for these prototypes were found. On the one hand, the results suggest that design prototypes act as domestication probes that provoke users and help them reflect upon their values, experiences and attitudes in a way not easily accessed by other means. On the other hand, the study illuminates the practices and procedures that people use in order to tame, i.e. make understandable, a material newcomer in a material environment. The results point out some of these folk methods. For example, 1) they understand a newcomer through creating links to historical and existing artifacts, 2) a newcomer may succeed because it makes sense socially, and 3) it may succeed because it finds a slot in the (eco)system of the household. On a more general level the paper discusses the ways in which domestication may be used as a design intervention. - Salu Ylirisku, Kirsikka Vaajakallio, Jacob Buur: "Framing innovation in co-design sessions with everyday people"
This paper presents how the framing of co-design events in the emerging field of User-Driven Innovation can be facilitated to deliver relevant design results. The new challenges stemming from the open design briefs are discussed in the light of a concept design project with ageing workers. - Piia Rytilahti, Minna Uotila, Maxim Narbrough: "Understanding the essence of environmentally sound products: some insights into ecoluxury design"
The study presents a conceptual framework for sustainable goods relative to their environmental aspects. The fundamental theoretical perspective chosen for the present project views the phenomenon of sustainable development and environmentally sound design in the light of Karl Popper’s thinking. The thinking has led us to distinguish two paradigms of environmentally sound design, which define the phenomenon of sustainability on the level of form and content. In between the two main approaches of Finnish hunting pursuits there is now emerging a new form of outdoor-culture. In the new culture, the traditions of trekking in the wilderness are melding with the modern and post-modern conceptions of technological thinking. From the perspective of sustainable design this fusion will create new sensible contexts for health-promoting activities such as skiing and Nordic walking. The data indicates that sustainable design is a far more multilayered phenomenon than products made of re-usable materials and decisions not to consume conspicuously. - Petra Falin: "THE SOCIAL DIMENSION IN CONSTRUCTION OF DESIGNERLY KNOWING"
The reflection based on literature presented in this exploratory paper aims at understanding the special characteristics of knowing involved in design practice and particularly the yet somewhat undefined social dimension in its construction. Interpretation of the nature of design practice suggests that although designerly knowing is often the kind of knowing inseparable from the knower, it is not developed in individual isolation but as a result from social actions and active processes expanding and transcending personal and organizational limits. The understanding gained through varied social practices is seen as the basis for growth of designerly knowing. - Peter Dalsgaard: "DESIGNING FOR INQUISITIVE USERS: A PRAGMATIST PERSPECTIVE ON USERS IN EXPERIENCE-ORIENTED INTERACTION DESIGN."
This paper presents a perspective on users of experience-oriented interactive systems based on a pragmatist foundation. The perspective is characterized by the interrelated aspects of experience, inquiry, and conflict. The consequences of this perspective for understanding users in the design of experienceoriented interactive systems are discussed on the basis of case-studies of two Nordic experienceoriented installations. The contribution of this paper is a critical reconceptualization of users as inquisitive co-creators of interactive experiences, and reflections on consequential design implications. - Nicola Morelli, Christian Tollestrup: "NEW REPRESENTATION TECHNIQUES FOR DESIGNING IN A SYSTEMIC PERSPECTIVE"
Global production is challenging industrial production to generate solutions that adequate global production to a local systemic conditions. In some case the challenge consists in producing highly individualised and localised solutions, which require new forms of cooperation with local actors, including local service providers and final users. In some case the level of involvement requested to the new actors is high, they can therefore be considered as co-workers in the production of the final solution and the overall view of the production system should be extended to include them as co-producers. This represents a paradigm shift both for industrial organization and for designers, who will need new tools to analyse and design the system, but find adequate forms of representation to codify knowledge within the new production system. This paper will emphasise the relevance of those issues in the design activity and outline the main methodological problems to be addressed. The authors will then offer a contribution in this area by providing an overview of different methods and tools used in previous research projects and teaching activities. - Magnus Mörck, magdalena Petersson: "Femalegaze meets undressman"
While Dressmann is a large Norwegian-owned men’s wears chain store, highly visible in Swedish malls, Undressmann only exists in the imagination of the creators of the Hunks of Hisingen Island– a calender of male pin-ups published in Sweden for 2006. Three women recruited the men, took the photographs, designed the calendar discussed in our paper, they arranged its printing and distribution, including a catwalk event, where the men were put on live display. Hunks of Hisingen is an example of women designing a commodity and marketing the product, which is the spectacle of young attractive men posing for a female gaze. The study of this calendar is part of a larger project dealing with consumer products that could have a potential for challenging conventional understandings of gender, thus offering both progressive politics and a marketable product. Cars, DIY-tools, furniture and ads are included in the study. We use an ethnographic approach that combines interviews and visual studies. - Lisa Nugent, Sean Donahue, Ilpo Koskinen: "SUPER STUDIO: CLARITY AND AMBIGUITY IN PROBES"
This paper describes how Super Studio, an annual design class given at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, has used cultural probes not only to bring clarity to the research object, but also to shape a pre-design research space through leveraging several types of ambiguity. The research model strengthens the analysis and interpretation of data from probes, while fostering design projects that reflect the daily realities (and the desires) of the population studied. Further, it provides a specific means for reconfiguring data as design interventions through the exhibition format. As the paper\'s case study illustrates, the fluidity of the Super Studio research model is useful to the practice of designers as they assimilate the research into the design language and then apply it concretely. - Leif E Östman: "CONCEPTUALISATIONS IN DESIGN RESEARCH"
This is a design theoretical paper and a mapping and explanations of different types of conceptualisations within the field of design. The aim Is to clarify the aim and position of design theory, In relation to design and design research. The paper distinguishes six different types of conceptualisations and ends with some questions regarding how design theory and research quality can be promoted. - Larisa Sitorus, Jacob Buur: "Configuration Practices of Service Technicians"
The increasing need for interactive and configurable technologies in the field of industrial refrigeration seems to push the direction of research towards gaining a better understanding about both the practice of and tools for configuring. In this paper, we present three vignettes of configuration practices based on ethnographic studies of service technicians in the field of industrial refrigeration. To further expand our understanding about the complexity of technician’s work and configuration practice, we incorporate both design and participatory approaches to involve users in elaborating about the ways in which their practice is influenced by their colleagues, work organization and technology. In this way, we have gained new ways of looking and talking about the practice of configuration. - Kyle Kilbourn, Jacob Buur: "The patient as skilled practitioner"
We challenge the limiting view imposed on interaction design by the concept of usability because we hope to bring more awareness of and sensitivity toward skilled practitioners to the forefront of the design process. This paper draws upon empirical research examples of patients who ‘do’ home hemodialysis and asks what happens when patients are considered skilled practitioners rather than as victims? In this paper we argue for a change of perspective, from users to skilled practitioners in the design of technological devices. We advocate to design tools for enskilment, allowing for a sense of empowerment. - Kristina Niedderer: "Mapping the Meaning of Knowledge in Design Research"
Knowledge plays a vital role in our life in that it reflects how we understand the world around us and thus determines how we act upon it. In this sense, knowledge is of particular importance for designers because they act to shape our world. Conventionally, knowledge creation has been assumed by (design) research. However developments of using practice within research have pointed to knowledge creation within and through practice. This has raised the question about the meaning, role and format of knowledge in both research and practice, and about the compatibility between both. In due course, the research presented in this paper has set out to investigate the concept of knowledge with regard to this question. The paper begins by considering some of the main problems with knowledge in research in design, and more generally in the creative and practice-led disciplines. It then examines the meaning of knowledge in relation to its philosophical foundations. On this basis, the discussion reconsiders the meaning, role and format of knowledge, and the impact of this for the conduct of research. - Kjen Wilkens, Clara Blasco López, Yekta Gurel, Victoria Perez: "A COLLABORATIVELY PRODUCED DO-IT-YOURSELF NEWSPAPER"
In this paper we explore the possibilities of producing, sharing and consuming self-produced media in cafés. We developed a concept for a newspaper which is produced with very simple and intuitive tools such as pen, paper and scissors. The Newspaper is entirely produced and printed in a café by its visitors. We connect the concept to the punk fanzine movement of the late 70s and 80s when the upcoming photocopier and the simplicity of the tools lead to a large amount of DIY (do it yourself) fan magazines so called \"fanzines\". - Kjen Wilkens, Clara Blasco López, Yekta Gurel, Victoria Perez: "A COLLABORATIVELY PRODUCED DO-IT-YOURSELF NEWSPAPER"
In this paper we explore the possibilities of producing, sharing and consuming self-produced media in cafés. We developed a concept for a newspaper which is produced with very simple and intuitive tools such as pen, paper and scissors. The Newspaper is entirely produced and printed in a café by its visitors. We connect the concept to the punk fanzine movement of the late 70s and 80s when the upcoming photocopier and the simplicity of the tools lead to a large amount of DIY (do it yourself) fan magazines so called \"fanzines\". - Katrine Lotz: "Architectural Gaits"
Attempts to describe and define ‘the role of the architect’ or the notion of architecture ‘itself’, often inherit a displacement between the interests in processes and the interests in interpretations of, or preceptions for either the results as ‘good quality’ or for the practise as ‘good conduct’. They tend to produce rigid models of the design-process, sociologically reducing explanations or mere ethical judgements. (Lawson, Cuff, Lundequist, Effekt:42) With this blurred and blurring difference as a point of departure, the interest in the competencies and strategies performed in the processes gets difficult conditions. The quests for the essences of either ‘Architecture’ or ‘The Architect’ will inevitable show, that both architects and architectures are multiple and heterogeneous, and that the processes that stabilize them are messy an unpredictable. The attempt in this paper is to offer a suggestion for analytical practices that focus on the discursive manifold of ‘strategies, manoeuvres, tactics and technologies’ performed to produce, or obtain spaces and buildings with special or cultural relevant qualities. (Foucault:41) By acknowledging the discursive differences between practises, it becomes possible to ask questions like: in which ways do architects imagine, see and define distant objects that are meant to become buildings, and in which ways are the processes open for intervention? How do the building-to-become gets knowable, real? Are digital and parametric generations offering more designpossibilities or better participation than their analogue competitors? - Jonas Fritsch, Andrea Judice, Katja Soini, Phillip Tretten: "Storytelling and Repetitive Narratives for Design Empathy: Case Suomenlinna"
Today it is widely established in design research that empathy is an important part of creating a true understanding of user experience as a resource for design. A typical challenge is how to transmit the feeling of empathy acquired by user studies to designers who have not participated in the user study. In this paper, we show how we attained an empathic understanding through storytelling and aroused empathy to others using repetitive narratives in an experimental presentation bringing forth factual, reflective and experiential aspects of the user information. Taking as a starting point our experiences with the design project Suomenlinna Seclusive, we conclude with the potential of using narratives for invoking design empathy. - John Heintz, Flemming Overgaard: "From Program to design, How architects’ use briefing documents"
Architects often express dissatisfaction with the briefing documents consisting of long and detailed lists of technical requirements for each space within a perspective building. While this information is essential, it fails to transmit the feel for the project essential to the architect as the starting point for design. Architects therefore repeat much of the effort of preparing the brief – interviews with client and users, precedent studies, excursions to recent projects – in their preparation for design. This suggests the question: how much of this effort can be saved through better selection and presentation of briefing information. This study will use a comparison of the briefing process in several countries, Denmark, The Netherlands, and The United Kingdom, to attempt to improve our understanding of the relationship between briefing and design. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations for improving briefing documents and the briefing process. The most important of these are that programs must convey not only the technical requirements of the spaces listed, but also the feel – both of individual spaces and the project as a whole. Programs should also convey the actions, culture and attitudes of the users of the facility. However, even with these inclusions, architects still need time and work to get the program (both as document and as idea) ‘in their fingers’. The program cannot be presented as a literal text, instead it will always be analyzed by the architect, and this analysis seems to be an essential part of the design process. - Ilse van Kesteren, Sjef de Bruijn, Pieter Jan Stappers: "Defining user-interaction aspects for materials selection: three tools"
Three tools were recently developed for assisting product designers and clients in discussing user interaction aspects of materials for new products. After using the tools, product designers are expected to start a more effective materials search than without using the tools. The first tool defines the user-interaction via pictures of product examples and the materials these products are made of (pictures tool). The second tool focuses on the sensorial aspects of materials via tangible materials (samples tool) and the third tool focuses on the sensorial aspects of materials during several phases of the user-product interaction (questions tool). In this paper we study the usability and the achievements of these tools. The main question answered is whether or not the tools lead to consensus between product designer and client about the desired user-interaction aspects of materials. Furthermore, we evaluated how easy the tools were to use and whether creativity is stimulated or restricted by the tools. The tools were used by product designers and clients in two fictive design brief meetings to answer the questions. - Helen Sanematsu: "Team Directed, Project Based Education: A Case Study of an Entrepreneurial, Trans-Disciplinary, Design Studio Abroad"
This is a report from the trenches. This paper offers a critique of a pilot project undertaken by Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena, California. In the summer of 2005, I (along with 1 other Art Center instructor) accompanied 14 Art Center students to participate in a unique, trans-disciplinary, design and project based “start-up” studio in Copenhagen, Denmark. The 14 design students came from various fields (the trans-disciplinary part), who were challenged to produce a professional project (the design and project based part), with no pre-existing working structure (the start-up studio part). How did this project work? What was its outcome? How did its structure emerge? How did we deal with decision-making, establish common goals, insure progress, and satisfy our client, our school, our students, and ourselves as instructors? And what lessons were learned? This is our story, told in 3 parts, with 15 key points for those attempting similar projects. - Hanna Landin: "To reflect on interaction form, in practice"
How to teach reflective skills within form in interaction design to students with a background mainly in computer science and only to a small degree in design? As part of ongoing work on answering that question one example of an exercise is presented and concluding remarks made. - Grete Refsum: "Personal Theory. Towards a Model of Knowledge Development for Design Practitioners"
What does theory mean for design practitioners? In January 2007, The Danish School of Design got the headlines in the Danish newspaper Weekendavisen. The news reported concerns a conflict of power: who is to define what kind of theory that is needed in the design fields? This question has been heavily discussed for two decades. Still, no consensus is reached. In order to please political authorities who demand research outcomes in higher educational institutions, The Danish School of Design have employed researchers from academic fields, while teachers of practical subjects are pushed aside. However, research results with little relevance for the professional practices that they ought to serve, have nurtured the criticism of theory skeptics: research and theory building make students able to cite famous theoreticians but useless as professional designers.1 This paper aims at contributing to solve this unhappy antagonism between theory and practice. According to the Norwegian philosopher Olav Eikeland, who works on Aristotle (384-322 BC), a closer reading of his texts may contribute to heal the split between academic and practical working traditions. By taking point of departure in the Greek origins of the terms theory and knowledge, the paper outlines a simple model that allows for a development of two basically different types of knowledge and thereby theory within design: 1) personal theory and 2) theory in the academic sense of the term. Personal theory is the theory that practitioners acquire through their work experience and which is proven in practice. It may be regarded a sub theory. Theory in its established form aspires at generalized explanations and understanding that goes beyond personal practice. - Fredrik Nilsson: "Design, rhetoric, knowledge - some notes on grasping, influencing, and constructing the world"
In order to understand, grasp and gain knowledge about the often chaotic world around us the strategies that we today know as the disciplines science, art, philosophy etc. have been developed. In contemporary discussions on the relations between research, design, science and art one can be surprised of how deep the chasms has become between different fields of knowledge. The big and urgent question is how we more consciously can elucidate, raise the status for and systematically make use of all the knowledge that is produced outside of the borders of what is considered “scientific”. A territory in where architecture and design mostly work. This paper is an attempt to discuss and bring in some different perspectives on this question – drawing some lines to notions in philosophy, rhetoric, and theory of knowledge. The philosopher Mats Rosengren argues that all knowledge is doxical and he tries to sketch another kind of theory of knowledge – a doxology. Since no truth, evidence or knowledge exists outside its human context, the rhetoric is with its relativistic view of knowledge central to all knowledge, according to Rosengren. Rhetoric can become a tool for scientific inquiries into our human knowledge. In the same way as rhetoric can say something about certain situations, the paper argues that the architectural project can be able to do so as well Rhetoric is of special interest for the discipline of design – and maybe foremost for the development of design as a discipline – which has been argued by Richard Buchanan. Buchanan underlines the interplay between the rhetoric and poetics of products as a significant issue in studies of design. - Eva Hornecker: "Learning about Interactivity from Physical Toys"
Interaction Design is about designing interactions. We thus need to understand what makes up (good) ‘interactivity’. This paper discusses experiences with an exercise that aims to sensitize students for interaction qualities and to make them familiar with central concepts on the nature of interactivity through analysis of physical toys. Reflecting on students’ insights and observations provides us with a deeper understanding of abstract notions and their complex interrelation, and with vivid examples, giving evidence of the exercise’s value. - Eva Eriksson, Andreas Lykke-Olesen, Peter Gall Krogh: "INQUIRY INTO LIBRARIES"
This paper reports on a design process of pervasive computing installations for a children’s interactive library. The design process involved a wide range of decisive parties of the domain and the process was designed so that the collectively developed design concepts could suit the needs and interests of the many parties. Narratives and sketches were used for inquiries and communication, and the concepts and their iterations illustrate the process of design and how the physical qualities of the environment and the artefacts played a central role in the development of the concepts. - Eva Brandt: "Design Education: Student and Market Expectations"
In resent years the two main design schools in Denmark (Danmarks Designskole1 and Designskolen Kolding2) undergo many changes. The overall goal for both is to obtain status as a university, and they will be evaluated in this regard in 2010. Transforming a handicraft school with long traditions and ways of doing things into a research based institution for higher education is demanding. Danmarks Designskole is in the middle of this process, many activities are initiated, both employees and students are involved, and from outside representatives from various design professions. It is a design process with many stakeholders having various interests and opinions. It is not about designing a computer system, a service or product but about re-designing curriculum, work procedures, self images etc. which support educating designers of the future. As interaction designer conducting mainly action research the ‘object’ to be designed is different but the approach is similar. This paper reports on two investigations that have been carried through as part of the change processes at Danmarks Designskole. The first is an investigation of the present students, their reasons for wanting to become design student and their expectations to the design education. The second involve representatives from various design professions in discussions about what skills and competencies that are expected from future graduates. - Anne Louise Bang: "Fabrics in Function - emotional utility values"
In recent years the challenges for the textile industry has changed because of technological development and outsourcing. The consequence is an increased focus on innovation in the textile trade. This paper describes the objectives in a three year research project. In order to contribute to the establishment of an initial framework for the project it has a focus on how to explore costumers and users emotional experiences with fabrics. The three year research project is based on experimental design research and the textile designer’s competences and knowledge. During the research project exploring approaches will be developed and carried out with the intention to involve specific stakeholders within an industrial value chain in the design process. More specifically this paper report on an pilot experiment initiated to explore if repertory grid models could be a way to investigate tactile and visual sensing of fabrics in function. It is proposed that tactile and visual sensing of fabrics is a way to investigate and express emotional utility values. The further purpose is to use experiments with repertory grid models as part of the mapping of the entire research project and also as a basis for developing further experiments and approaches based on experimental design research and participatory design. - Anna Valtonen, Toni Ryynänen: "FROM CRAFTS TO COMMERCIALISM - THE MEDIASURFACES AND SPOKEN REALITIES OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN"
Industrial design is conducted in the realm of the economic world, as well as in the context of local prevailing cultural environments. This paper shows how the designers present themselves, how the economical press represents industrial designers, and how these two worlds - the mediasurfaces and the spoken realities - differ from each other. These two spheres, the private and public, are compared using two extensive sets of data, about 600 articles from the Finnish economical press and in-depth interviews with 25 industrial designers. This paper suggests that although these two realities might differ from each other, they are also interconnected and in constant interplay with each other. The public image influences the way industrial designers present themselves, and the presentations of the designers influence the way the press writes about them. - Andrew Morrison, Synne Skjulstad, Birger Sevaldson: "Waterfront development with web mediation"
The term ‘unreal estate’ is coined to refer to online mediations of projected and planned urban developments, especially luxury domestic residency. A related website is studied as a mediation of co-ordinated artifacts and assembled persuasion. The site is also examined as a mediating artifact through which multiple representations are co-articulated. Taking the form of a visual essay, we argue that at tention is needed to mediation in design research. - ANDREA JÚDICE, MARCELO JÚDICE: "DESIGNING CULTURAL PROBES TO"
The objectives of this paper are to describe how and for what reasons probes can be applied for working with marginalised communities and to discuss the complexities involved in create probes for people with poor skills in reading and writing. People in these communities have a low level of education and a high level of health problems, live below the poverty line in slums, and are considered “invisible” by other, professedly “developed” communities. The applied Probe Packages were developed on the basis of information received from health area specialists and ethnographic data. We conclude that, despite the time consumed, the reflection needed, the negotiations, and the complexity of the situation, the final result was really provocateur and enjoyable. - Ulrik Martin Larsen, Leena Lundgaard: " APPLYING PROBES AS AN INSPIRATIONAL RESEARCH TOOL FOR FASHION DESIG"
In general fashion design is a design field where users are seldom directly involved in the design process. It is only when developing very specific types of garments like uniforms or high performance athletic wear, fashion designers will consult end users to gain knowledge about specific demands or specifications. In this paper we will report from a project where we have developed and used probes as an integrated part of the design process. - Timo Rissanen: " Types of fashion design and patternmaking practice"
This paper originates from a PhD research project investigating the elimination of fabric waste from the production of clothing. Most efforts to reduce the waste have centred on types of software that place the garment pieces on a length of fabric as closely together as possible. Despite these efforts, the industry wastes on average 15 % of the fabric it uses. The primary obstacle to waste elimination is that the software is always limited by what has already been designed and patternmade. This paper proposes that to eliminate fabric waste, the garment must be designed, and a pattern made for it, with fabric waste elimination as a design consideration. One of the aims of the project is to provide practical, accessible information for fashion designers and patternmakers about how they may modify their practices so that fabric waste is eliminated or drastically reduced. Therefore fashion design and patternmaking practices, to be undertaken by the researcher, are included in the research methodology of the project. The practical part of the research is in two phases; the first is a series of fashion design experiments, and the second the development of a menswear collection. The design briefs for the experiments draw from available literature on fabric waste reduction or elimination through design. Many examples of such designing, historical and contemporary, have been uncovered, but the literature does not explain how practitioners may create fashion without creating fabric waste. The findings from the experiments will influence the design brief for the menswear collection. During the research, and particularly during developing the design briefs for the design experiments, it has emerged that different fashion designers and patternmakers may use different approaches to reach the final design, the sample garment. Therefore it was necessary to begin categorising fashion design and patternmaking practices, to ensure an appropriate focus for the research practice, and thus accessibility of the research to practitioners with different types, or ways of practising. This paper is an introduction to these two categorisations and discusses how they have informed the design briefs. The paper notes that to date both practices have not been researched thoroughly. ‘How-to’ manuals exist on both, and monographs on fashion designers sometimes discuss designers’ practice to varying degrees, but the kinds of studies on the practice of designing available in other design disciplines (for example, architecture, industrial/product design) are still lacking in fashion design and patternmaking. - Tavs Jørgensen: "Conducting Form"
This paper describes a practice based research project undertaken at the Autonomatic Digital Research Cluster at University College Falmouth. The project explores how new design interfaces can be developed by investigating the possibility of using gestural hand movements in combinations with digital design and development tools. This concept is inspired by some of the core elements from traditional creative practices. These elements include the direct intuitive interaction the maker have with form during the creating process and the use of the hand as the primary creative tool. The paper centres on the investigation of two different types of equipment. The Microscribe® G2L – a digitizing arm, and the ShapeHandPlus™ motion capture data glove. The investigations established several possible applications which resulted in range of finished products. The findings of both investigations are compared and critically reviewed by the author - MARTIN AVILA: " MAN BITES DOG"
Design deals with the making of the artificial, and produces new knowledge by introducing new artefacts –that may or may not be physical three-dimensional products. Further understanding of these man-made creations would provide us with insight into what is accessible (hospitable) to decipherment, that is, to the sharing of knowledge. Awareness of the paradoxical relations artefact-accident and hospitality-hostility can increase our insight into the articulations between artefacts, people’s individual representations and cultural laws. This would enable the further development of theoretical models for understanding complex situations for the refinement of design practices; a privileged dimension where much knowledge production remains unformulated. - Manuela Lackus, Mario Kolar: " Investigation into company-specific design structures to raise design awareness"
This paper focuses on design processes and the constituting structures within medium-sized and large scale companies. Intensive literature review, several cooperation projects and expert interviews revealed that there is a strong need for organisations to better understand the role of design for the success of development and production processes. Mentality differences as well as a missing knowledge in the field of design management competency could be identified as key factors for sustainable improvement. - Karin Ehrnberger: " Materializing gender"
This article presents a study on how design reproduces gender. Gender theory and gender studies from subject areas related to design has been adopted and applied on the design process. How we talk about and how we value a product have been analysed against the background of how we talk about and value men’s and women’s characteristics and activities. The project resulted in several physical prototypes that contributed to visualising the theories explored: a hand mixer designed using the aesthetics of a drill; a drill designed using the aesthetics of a hand mixer; and two types of seating which use shape and material to play with masculine and feminine opposites, and thus challenge the gender code of body language. - Jenny Bergström: " Fear of Global Warming; A case study in the investigation on how design can raise questions about fear."
This ongoing design project investigates how design can work with or against fear, raise questions about fear and how rules about fear can be used in the design process. The approach in this work is to raise questions rather than finding solutions or making products adjusted to commercial needs. This paper presents four outcomes that are results of a case study on the topic Fear of Global Warming, a topic of current interest. The four results can also be seen as different approaches when high lighting this topic through design. The aim is to through images, patterns and form communicate and create awareness and to highlight the topic in a subtle, poetic and complex way rather than using the apocalyptic tone found in media for example. The aim is also to give a holistic picture and embrace the complexity of the issue rather than presenting straight answers. - Henric Benesch: " BUILDINGS, CHANGE, FUTURITY - READING SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY AND SENDAI MEDIATHEQUE"
Seattle Public Library designed by OMA/LMN and Sendai Mediatheque designed by Toyo Ito are two recent projects which herald a new generation of libraries which aims to better can accomodate the diverse and complex needs of public libraries. In doing so different design strategies and solutions have been applied, implying new relations not only to media, staff and patrons but also to built space. Strategies and solutions which informs not only the operational mode of the accomodated institutions and their organisation, but also dictates the way change and ultimately the future is cared for. These questions are also the concern of this paper where Seattle Public Library and Sendai Mediatheque undergoes a reading inspired by Elisabeth Grosz understanding of futurity and notion of the new. - Connie Svabo: " A Language of Objects and Artifacts"
This is an inquiry about material objects. It gives an introductory overview to the vocabulary of ‘materiality’ in a chosen selection of theories. The paper shows a language of artifacts and objects as it is used within practice-based approaches to organizational knowing. These approaches offer a rich understanding of the processes which material objects participate in. Key words: artifacts, objects, materiality, organization theory, practice-based approach, knowledge, learning - Gerrit Kaiser, Gustav Ekblad, Linnéa Broling: " Audience Participation in a Dance-Club Context: Design of a System For Collaborative Creation of Visuals"
We investigated possibilities of improved interaction between artist and audience in the context of the dance club culture. Music club events are already highly interactive and collaborative experiences, so we focused on the role of media and amateur content creation. We identified a number of design challenges and constraints and developed a design concept accordingly. Our system allows for audience members to collaborate with a professional VJ (“video-” or “visual jockey”) in the selection and creation of live visuals that will be displayed alongside and fitting to the music on a screen at the dance-floor. The audience members interact with the system through a physical “station” that allows input and creation of visual material. The VJ then selects from that material and arranges a engaging live presentation.