Conference Agenda

We picture design researchers’ engagement with the task of capturing the value of Research through Design during a week-long event. The images are selected to document set and setting, hands-on activities, human and more-than-human encounters, and material engagements with the theories, methods, and practices of design research. The text is deliberately minimal, offering contextualization from the photographer and the organizer of the event, as well as commentary from attendees on material outcomes and bodily presences; context and environment, disciplinary esthetics; and social commentary from two non-attendees. We offer this record of process to inspire design researchers to further engage with practical, hands-on, personal, bodily reflective engagements of what it means to do design research. We also aim to advance further the form of primarily photographic pictorials in design research.

This paper shares the results of a series of speculative co-design workshops that employed sketches and visual metaphors to facilitate collective discussions about a hypothetical Design Research database. The primary objective of these workshops was to explore the challenges related to documenting, sharing, searching, and discovering Design Research examples while simultaneously addressing underlying questions surrounding knowledge-making in the field. Following this approach, we identify six distinctive qualities that characterize Design Research, shedding light on what is referred to as the defining-finding dilemma. The paper finally suggests potential pathways for interaction design to navigate this issue through alternative modes of interaction.

In this research human relationships with objects were traced through 25 participant documentations in 7 different cities. 25 different participant documentation portray the variety of the experiences emerging around objects in public space. The textual part of participants’ documentation was analyzed with thematic analysis. With thematic analysis, new themes were identified. This new themes illustrate a landscape of the agency of objects in public space. I asked participants to report a personal account of an everyday object in public space with text and photography. The collected material consisting of texts and photographs were analysed with thematic analysis inspired by grounded theory (GT). Here based on evidence from participant reflections, I convey a landscape of agency of industrial objects in public space, besides a priori agency of these objects which are their function and efficiency in the modernist design literature. From participants’ documentation, a landscape of agency in public space was formed.

Empathic design methods support designers in developing an empathic understanding of the people they design for. While researchers and designers use many of these methods, the literature falls short in providing an overview of these methods and what they contribute to the innovation process. We conducted two iterative workshops with 5 researchers in empathic design to define and map the properties of 10 selected empathic methods. By providing an overview, a mapping of empathic methods can support the deployment of empathic interventions. This mapping acts as a guiding tool to support designers in choosing the empathic methods that are the most relevant to their industrial context and audience needs. This work paves the way for further empirical research, inviting the design community to challenge these empathic properties and document how empathic design methods work in a variety of contexts for different audiences.

The Anthropocene is a concept that has been stimulating several initiatives among theorists and practitioners in Design. This paper explores how Design has been coping with this concept. It builds from a literature review to elaborate three challenges with themes related to the Anthropocene. They are: unsettling Modernity; noticing neglected multiplicity and creating new imaginaries. We share 12 projects related to these challenges were selected. The projects were analyzed considering how they address the theme they were attached to, and how they elaborate tactics and mechanisms to cope with the challenges. Based on such analyzes, the paper presents a matrix on how the relation between the themes, tactics, and mechanism can be considered. Finally, it attempts to suggest a means for mapping the situation regarding the relation between design and Anthropocene. The paper aimed at contributing to the discussion on design's role in these turbulent times.

This paper explores the concept of polyphonic representational space as technological imaginaries of multiple individuals regarding public space. The context of this research relates to implementing digital technologies, such as the Internet of Things and AI, in the public realm and their impact and challenges on policymaking, everyday practices and spatial experiences. Speculative design offers a way of creating multiple scenarios for the future and provoking conversations regarding technological futures. This research adopts a participatory speculative design (PSD) approach to engage with people, not necessarily designers or technology experts, in the future prototyping process. We introduce a study conducted in three stages: two speculative prototyping workshops, two public exhibitions and a workshop with policymakers. The paper concludes by reflecting on how PSD can gather polyphonic views about technological futures in places, including opportunities and challenges and potential applications in policymaking processes.