By way of theatre: Design Anthropology and the exploration of human possibilities (original) (raw)

Designing for Participatory Sensemaking

11th EAD Conference Proceedings: The Value Of Design Research, 2016

In this Research-through-Design investigation we explore the value of embodiment for social interaction in collaborative settings, and how to supportrather than suppress or ignore-embodiment with interactive technology. We use Participatory Sensemaking (De Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007), a theory which explains sensemaking as continuous embodied interactions between people in a shared action space. We discuss three prototypes supporting Participatory Sensemaking. We describe how our understanding of participatory sensemaking evolved through (reflections on) design. The first product creates tangible access to moments of reflection in group conversations. We came to understand the tangibles as traces of individual reflection, which become publicly observable and actionable within social interaction. In our second prototype we designed traces as floor-projections dynamically connected to people's body movements. The system mediates the social positioning of session participants. The final system integrates our earlier insights in a dialogue tool for two people. Here participatory sensemaking shows itself as a skill with special emphasis on the sensuality of mutual contact. We end with a more general reflection on how design can contribute to theoretical analysis through iterations of designing and observing what interactive artefacts concretely do within the full complexity of human practices.

Mindtape: A Tool for Reflection in Participatory Design

This paper reports on the explorative use of video recordings in studies of distributed collaboration. The primary goal is for the analyst to acquire a better understanding of the interaction. A concurrent aim is to take the Scandinavian System Development tradition one step further and explore, together with users, what goes on in their minds. For this purpose, a method called Mindtape has been developed, the essence of which is to review a priori selected video sequences in a dialogue with the users.

Design that keeps designing: designing for participation

What role does participation take when engaging the public in communication design projects? What considerations and capacities in the communication design process and practice are required to enable participation? These questions are considered in this paper through critically reflecting on a project entitled Fashion City, which explored engaging the public as co-author of the communication content. The unexpected and confronting outcomes of the project provided valuable insights into designing for participation. The paper summarises three of the key lessons learned during the project that revolved around issues of releasing control and de-centralising the designer and the outcome of design. Following the understandings arising from the project, a ‘scaffold’ model is proposed. This scaffold can act as a framework that respects the individual’s agency and their participation as well as their rights to choose to ignore or interact, engage or disengage in a ‘conversation’ initiated through design. These scaffolds may be risky and unconventional to normative commercial processes, however, it is argued that they can lead to generative situations of uncertainty and indeterminacy to occur, enabling the discovery of new concepts, knowledge and practices in communication design.

Challenges and Opportunities in Contemporary Participatory Design

Design Issues, 2012

The core of Participatory Design is the direct involvement of people in the co-design of tools, products, environments, businesses, and social institutions to ensure these work in ways that are more responsive to human needs. In particular, it has developed a diverse collection of principles and practices all aimed at directly involving people in the co-design of the technologies they use. This process has generated many of the design tools and techniques that have gone on to become best practice in the development of current information and communications technologies and product design. These include: various kinds of design workshops to collaboratively envision future products and practices; scenarios and related tools to include those who will use whatever is being designed; various forms of representations used during the process; and iterative prototyping to enable all participants in the design process to interrogate developing designs and to ground the design conversations 1 . Participatory Design has also pioneered and developed some of the basic research questions, methods and research agendas that have been taken up in the recent focus on design research 2 within more traditional design environments, including the notion of innovation through participation.

Navigating Prototyping Spaces: Translation of knowledge and actors in Participatory Design

2016

One of the biggest challenges when co-designing new and innovative products, services or systems is to handle the different knowledge perspectives of the involved project partners. In design and innovation processes the ability to translate knowledge across knowledge boundaries by enrolling actors and building up stable networks is crucial for success. Transferring knowledge across functions within the same company, has proved to be a problem, however, this might be an even bigger issue when it comes to Public Private Innovation Partnerships (PPIs), where the project participants (both the selected representatives and their organisations) might have very different backgrounds, incentives and motivations for participating in the design project. This article is following the partners involved in a successful PPI, in their efforts to design 2 sensory delivery rooms at a Hospital in Denmark. The research revolves around the efforts of the lead designer from one of the private companies ...

The role of the artefact in participatory design research

nordcode.net

The purpose of this research is to contribute to the innovation of tools and techniques for user centred, participatory design. The focus will be looking at the designer's role in creation of the tools and in the expansion of the design language for users.

Design Space Exploration : co-operative creation of proposals for desired interactions with future artefacts

2009

This thesis critically reflects on cooperative design workshops that I have conducted. The basic method used in these workshops draws on the participants' embodied knowing. In the over twenty workshops that are analysed here a wide range of participants have been involved: family members, employees, persons with disabilities, and other stakeholders like manufacturers, service providers and civil servants. The topics have varied, but they have mostly been related to ICT products and services. Most of the workshops were conducted within various research projects. In order to analyse this diverse range of workshops I use several different theories and concepts. I articulate and analyse the design aspects of the activities by using established design theories and concepts. The conceptual tool design space, meaning all possible design proposals, is used for understanding the design process. I also use theories from other fields in order to analyse three different aspects of the workshops: the participants' activities, the designers' responsibility, and the process. To analyse the way that the participants cooperatively create knowledge, theories of interpersonal actions are used; to analyse the work done by the designer/conductor, theories of frames are used; and to analyse the process, the theory of actualisation and realisation is used. During the workshops the participants cooperatively make scenarios, props and video prototypes in order to create proposals for desired interactions with future artefacts. Contributions include accounts of critical situations during the workshops and suggested strategies for dealing with them. Some implications are relevant to the design field in general, for example the importance of a process where the participants trust each other, learn from each other and work effectively with difficult issues by creating multiple proposals that facilitate understanding of the design space. I also offer arguments about why it is better to see activities, props and prototypes as mainly constitutive rather than as only representative. Video prototypes on DVD and seven publications are included in the thesis.

Playful Collaborative Exploration: New Research Practice in Participatory Design

2005

Within the Participatory Design community as well as the Computer Supported Cooperative Work tradition, a lot of effort has been put into the question of letting field studies inform design. In this paper, we describe how game-like approaches can be used as a way of exploring a practice from a design point of view. Thinking of ethnographic fieldwork as a