Design Studies最新文献

Debate about participatory design (PD) has focussed considerably upon process. Factors such as facilitation skills and commitment to a participatory ethos have been highlighted as factors mediating stakeholder engagement. Discussion has been driven overwhelmingly by experience of PD in the global North with citizens who enjoy full rights. This article considers engagement with encamped refugees in the global South. Here context has a significant impact upon engagement. Drawing on a four-year research project concerning shelter design we discuss dimensions of context that bear particularly upon PD efforts. As we illustrate, despite contextual constraint, it is possible to produce valuable knowledge about design together with residents. Moreover, attention to context can help achieve a more nuanced approach to the evaluation of PD initiatives.

Numerous methods have been designed to aid practitioners in identifying ethical concerns, imagining potential futures, defining values, and evaluating existing systems. However, there is little scholarship that addresses the design of these methods, including how ethical concerns are operationalized in these methods. In this paper, we report results of an interview study with twelve ethics-focused method designers, investigating their process of instigating, creating, and disseminating their method. We conducted a top-down thematic analysis using the Biskjaer and Halskov framework of decisive constraints, identifying intrinsic, extrinsic, and self-imposed constraints alongside iterative and evaluative resonance-seeking activities. This analysis provides a rich conceptual vocabulary to better describe the design of methods for ethical impact from the perspective of researchers and practitioners.

Past research in design typically postulates a relationship between divergent thinking and ideation, but little or no empirical evidence is available to critically assess the connection between the two. Using protocol analysis of 35 design experiments, this paper constructs a detailed investigation of the ways divergent thinking and ideation occur in the design process. Two measures are extracted from the protocol data – a divergency index (D) and an ideation index (I) – and quantitative comparisons are constructed between the two. Thereafter four types of individual design processes are identified and discussed. The paper concludes that, within the limits of the method used, there is clear evidence connecting divergent thinking and production of ideas.

Renewable energy infrastructures are becoming increasingly present in our environments, inevitably shaping the urban experiences of the everyday person as they move through the city. The profound impact these infrastructures have on social worlds has yet to be explored, with contemporary renewable energy discourse primarily focussing on the techno-economic. We argue for the everyday aestheticisation of renewable energy infrastructures, and how design thinking might offer a way forward in co-creating future meaningful experiences with renewable energy. We offer a collaborative design thinking workshop on the speculative experimentation of energy futures as a case study. The findings provide multi-scalar insights on exploring urban energy futures with citizen-designers – with aesthetics and lived experiences as central.

Trade-offs between design goals have traditionally been studied using optimization approaches, which assume a fixed formulation and framing of the design problem. We propose a novel set-theory framework of design spaces to model the role of problem reformulation and reframing in resolving design trade-offs. The framework predicts mechanisms by which the designer can alter the boundaries and structure of that space to alter or avoid Pareto frontiers in the original space. Empirical evidence from interviews with designers identifies eight distinct trade-off response mechanisms aligned with the framework's predictions. The framework and interview results provide a foundation for developing methodologies that encourage design space restructuring to avoid unnecessary design compromises and sacrifices.

Simon and Schön are commonly seen to represent two conflicting views on design method, but this interpretation has been challenged in recent years. In this paper we discuss their differences and agreements in more depth. Both of them agree on a rationality which is distinct from science and its reliance on universal truth. They depend on a practical reason, and what Aristotle calls the calculative part of the soul, which deals with the contingencies of real world problems, and still let us know, and share, truth. One discrepancy remains between Simon and Schön. Simon does not tell us how we identify the changing goals of man. Schön addresses this by invoking the distinctly human power to see-as.

Although necessary for complex problem solving, such as engineering design, team agility is often difficult to achieve in practice. The evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) affords unique opportunities for supporting team problem solving. While integrating assistive AI agents into human teams has at times improved team performance, it is still unclear if, how, and why AI affects team agility. A large-scale human experiment answers these questions, revealing that, with appropriately interfaced AIs, AI-assisted human teams enjoy improved coordination and communications, leading to better performance and adaptations to team disruptions, while devoting more effort to information handling and exploring the solution space more broadly. In sum, working with AI enables human team members to think more and act less.

In this research note, we bring clarity to the concept of empathy in design research by discussing issues in its conceptualization and operationalization. We review literature to identify and clarify the core concepts of empathy and to showcase its potential operationalizations, borrowing from closely related fields of social psychology and neuroscience. We identify five core concepts: empathic understanding, empathic design research, empathic design action, empathic orientation, and empathic mental processes. We also identify six potential operationalizations: empathic tendencies, beliefs about empathy, emotion recognition, understanding mental contents, shared feelings, and prosocial responding. By combining the core concepts and operationalizations, we provide a frame of operation for future empathy research in design.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) enables identification of the brain regions and networks underpinning cognitive tasks. It has the potential to significantly advance cognitive design science, but is challenging to apply in design studies and methodological guidance for design researchers is lacking. In this Research Note, we reflect on our experiences and other work to outline the activities involved in developing and executing fMRI design studies. The implications for research quality at each stage are highlighted. We then consider the challenges for fMRI research on design and make recommendations for addressing them. Four critical areas are identified: establishing experimental protocols; establishing a cognitive design ontology; generating foundational knowledge about brain activation; and balancing fMRI constraints against ecological validity.