A Framework Proposal to Evaluate Conceptual Models Framing Wicked Managerial Concepts

Visual and collaborative canvases named visual inquiry tools have emerged as a powerful design science research (DSR) artefact to address wicked managerial problems. According to the design theory for visual inquiry tools, designing such a tool entails the development of a particular type of conceptual model, namely a parsimonious and simple conceptual model. Although the theory lists design principles that the conceptual model must abide by, it unfortunately remains silent regarding how one evaluates it in regard to them. Given that, coupled with the fundamental position evaluation holds in DSR, this research paper builds on existing prescriptive knowledge to develop a framework that supports designers in the evaluation of their conceptual model. The framework is composed of four evaluands, evaluation criteria, and guiding questions which depict, at a high-level, the questions to ask to evaluate the conceptual model. The framework is then applied to evaluate an existing conceptual model

SUPPORTING THE CHALLENGES OF CROSS- BOUNDARY TEAMWORK THROUGH DESIGN SCIENCE RESEARCH

In this doctoral dissertation, I relate six studies I have performed to address three challenges that cross-boundary teams (teams with great knowledge diversity) face: the challenge of coordinating knowledge and contributions, the challenge of forming cooperative attitudes, and the challenge of solving wicked management problems. These studies are inscribed in design science research, which is a paradigm of research aiming to develop prescriptive knowledge through artificial and theoretical contributions for practical problems. The artificial contributions in this research project are (1) the Coopilot App which addresses the coordination challenges by allowing individuals to evaluate how much shared understanding there is between them on the four requirements for coordination (joint objectives, joint commitments, joint resources, and joint risks), and (2) the Team Alignment Map which addresses the cooperation challenges by supporting the emergence of shared leadership through a process of cooperative joint inquiry into the four requirements. Design principles for managing coordination and supporting cooperation (the two first cross-boundary challenges) are drawn from the two artifacts. This manuscript also provides a design theory for managing the third cross-boundary challenge, i.e. wicked problem solving. By comparing the Team Alignment Map with two other similar design science research projects (the Business Model Canvas and the Data Excellence Model), I develop a design theory for visual inquiry tools that help practitioners inquire into specific wicked problems. The theoretical contributions of my research project consist in prescriptions on how team members should interact between them to collaborate effectively and overcome the three cross-boundary challenges. I propose a new conceptualization of cross-boundary teamwork as a process of joint inquiry. The view I propose is different from traditional accounts, in that I stress the importance of language. I highlight the cognitive conditions that should be met through communication to done down the boundaries between cross-boundary team members

Fostering designers' visual practices through a sociocultural approach

This thesis puts forward a sociocultural approach to the learning of visual practices for designers and suggests communication tools to help educators and students to engage with practice. It is concerned with the question of how designers’ visual practices are developed and fostered. From prior research in this area it was assumed that designers learn through a linguistic visual literacy approach or, at best, through a critique-based process. However, this study found that learning happens through social interactions and dialogues, which enables reflection on visual practices, informing future visual inquiry. It was found, through the provision of communication tools that externalise visual practices, that students develop into active learners, who can take greater control over their learning. Therefore, the presentation of a sociocultural approach explicitly develops knowledge of visual development, but also offers a more effective learning theory upon which to ground visual pedagogy in design. The study employed a qualitative approach and a strategy of design-based research to externalise the underlying attributes and processes of developing and fostering visual practices through the designing, and testing, of teaching-learning artefacts. This strategy led to the employment of two research phases: design experiments with design students and user testing with design educators. A review of the literature relating to a sociocultural approach led to a design framework (a sociocultural approach, shared understanding, reflective articulation, and critical questioning of visual practices) that informed both the designing and testing during both phases of the research. The design framework was adopted to analyse and code the data gained in two stages: descriptive and pattern coding. Through the discourse of the identified patterns, theoretical descriptions of developmental learning attributes and processes of fostering designers’ visual practices were formed. These descriptions were then interpreted and contextualised in design education, to present a sociocultural approach and characteristics (a shared understanding of, constructive reflection on, and critical evaluation of, visual practices), in the process outlining theoretical and practical knowledge of developing and fostering designers’ visual practices. Through the presentation of this knowledge, this study outlines opportunities to develop new directions in design education; moving from a critique-based process guided by design educators fostering individual development, to a general dialogue facilitated in collaboration with the learning community

Material shifts in praxis: Projections of digital humanities embodied within space and place

The essential problem of man in a computerized age remains the same as it has always been. That problem is not to solely how to be more productive, more comfortable, more content, but how to be more sensitive, more proportionate, more alive (Cousins,1966). Through communication in physical proximity; the researchers’ experienced human connexions exploring the interplay between the real and the virtual. And these connexions became the potentiality of co-creative spaces, opening us to see, reflect and make new opportunities for exploring and developing innovative approaches. Therefore we experienced a deeper inquiry into encountering the relationships between theory and practice led research methodologies and pedagogic praxis in and across art, design & architecture. “For art practices to be considered research, artists-theorists need to engage directly with theoretical concerns that can be investigated in studio contexts as well as through other mediated forms and methods” (Sullivan, 2005) As a playful testament to the rapidly changing digital landscape, as practitioners, we observed a nascent desire to visualise our ever-evolving digital society. In this Transitional setting for Re-thinking Textiles and Surfaces; Taylor, Unver and Benincasa-Sharman, share evolving specular projections of praxis through re-transitions of megalithic materials, pre-historic digital surfaces, historical contexts, space and place theories, archive point cloud data, human population tools and 3D fabrication. “The question persists and indeed grows whether the computer will make it easier or harder for human beings to know who they really are, to identify their real problems, to respond more fully to beauty, to place adequate value on life, and to make their world safer than it now is.” (Cousins, 1966) References: Cousins, N.(1966).The Poet and the Computer. In Pylyshyn, Z.W., & Bannon, L. (Eds.) Perspectives on the Computer Revolution. Intellect Books, 1989. Sullivan, G.(2005). Art Practice as Research. Inquiry in the Visual Arts. Sage, 2005

The effect of Visual Design Quality on Player Experience Components in Tablet Games

Research in the field of Human Computer Interaction Design indicates that there is a need to develop further methods, tools, and frameworks for the design and evaluation of digital game interfaces. This thesis aims to design, develop, and evaluate two different types of tablet games with varying visual design quality interfaces to examine users’ perceptions of hedonic quality, visual design, emotions, and game enjoyment in different channels of experience. The design-oriented approach was adopted to combine both creative practice and scientific inquiry in the game design process and empirical evaluation. Hypotheses were formulated to explore the significance of visual design quality in relation to the components of player experience. The study entailed two phases. In the first phase, participatory design methods were employed to design and develop the tablet games encompassing mind-mapping techniques, focus groups, iterative prototyping with multiple cycles of usability testing of user interfaces. In the second phase, survey instruments were applied to collect and analyze data from 111 participants using tablet games as stimuli in a controlled experimental condition. The main contribution of this research is creation of a player experience model, validated in the domain of tablet gaming, to serve as a new theory. This research will allow for game researchers and practitioners to obtain a deeper understanding of the significance of the player experience framework components to create optimal player experience in tablet games. The finding shows that highly attractive game user interfaces were perceived to have higher utility and ease of use. Participants exhibited higher levels of arousal and valence in the high visual design quality interfaces mediated by hedonic quality. Participants who were highly sensitive to visual design did not necessarily derive the highest level of game enjoyment. Participants derived a heightened level of engagement in the arousal channel of experience and the highest level of enjoyment in the flow state. The use of 2.5D graphics and analogous color schemes created a spatial illusion that captivated users' attention. Practitioners are encouraged to design game artifacts with feature sets and mechanics capable of transporting players into the state of flow, as this is the stage where they experience game control, excitement and relaxation in addition to game immersion in the state of arousal

Methodological Innovation in Practice-Based Design Doctorates

This article presents a selective review of recent design PhDs that identify and analyse the methodological innovation that is occurring in the field, in order to inform future provision of research training. Six recently completed design PhDs are used to highlight possible philosophical and practical models that can be adopted by future PhD students in design. Four characteristics were found in design PhD methodology: innovations in the format and structure of the thesis, a pick-and-mix approach to research design, situating practice in the inquiry, and the validation of visual analysis. The article concludes by offering suggestions on how research training can be improved. By being aware of recent methodological innovations in the field, design educators will be better informed when developing resources for future design doctoral candidates and assisting supervision teams in developing a more informed and flexible approach to practice-based research

DESIGNING A VISUAL INQUIRY TOOL FOR IDENTITY COMMUNICATION

In this doctoral dissertation, I relate three studies performed to address the challenge of a visual inquiry tool for identity communication in the context of startups and SMEs. The challenge being: how to develop a visual inquiry tool (a tool on which a team of stakeholders with different backgrounds could try and solve their challenge in a designerly way) especially tailored to help them tackle the issue of communicating a coherent brand identity to all their different stakeholders. These three chapters (or studies) have been developed within a design science paradigm of research, which allows to develop knowledge through both theoretical and in the form of artefacts to tackle a practical problem. The main contributions of this dissertation are: 1) a brand identity ontology based on an extensive literature review, which addresses the semantic issues found in the brand identity literature and gives us the opportunity to explore and redefine the concept in terms of a conceptual model and 2) an identity communication map, this is derived from the ontology but is this time directly aimed at practitioners. It addresses the challenge of creating a coherent and structured identity communication especially in the context of startup and SMEs. And lastly, 3) by analyzing existing visual inquiry tools, we derived a design theory for managing any business challenge in a designerly way. This last contribution aims at supporting future designers and researchers when developing such artefacts. The view proposed in this thesis is highly interdisciplinary, but focuses mainly on design and proposes to adopt a new approach when solving management problems

Unfolding a vision embedded in a garment: Three tools from a toolbox for generating performance from costume design

Reflection and discussion on ‘how’ costume performs seems to be at the centre of inquiry of the research within the field of costume design, as presented at the Critical Costume conferences and the journal Studies in Costume and Performance. In various ways, costumes play an important role in most performances, a costume ‘does’ things, it performs and has agency. In recent years, we have experienced an increasing number of performances where costume acts as the starting element for a performance and, more often, we hear of costume designers instigating and leading creative processes in making performances. Costumegenerated performances are about to be considered an established genre. This research report aims to share some ‘tools’ that form a methodological framework – a toolbox – for generating performance with costume design as a starting point. The examples are drawn from my professional practice, informed by work undertaken in workshops held in the frame of the artistic research project ‘Costume Agency’ (2018–21), which I have been leading in collaboration with dramaturg and curator Sodja Lotker. I have found useful concepts in new materialism, as a critical framework that has opened up a new understanding of how humans and nonhuman actors interact and have adapted them for my use as a costume designer, director and researcher. The tools I focus on here are the following three: notions of ‘agency’ in the context of costume design; the concept of ‘situated knowledges’; and ‘visual dramaturgy' from the performing arts theory. These tools have proven to be useful in the processes of generating performance from the costume in my own practice and are offered in this research report to the wider community of costume researchers for further debate and development.Unfolding a vision embedded in a garment: Three tools from a toolbox for generating performance from costume designpublishedVersio

A Post-culturalist Aesthetics? A Commentary on Davis's 'Visuality and Vision'

A commentary on Whitney Davis's essay 'Visuality and Vision: Questions for a Post-culturalist Art History' published in the same issue of Estetika

Sensitivity analysis in a scoping review on police accountability : assessing the feasibility of reporting criteria in mixed studies reviews

In this paper, we report on the findings of a sensitivity analysis that was carried out within a previously conducted scoping review, hoping to contribute to the ongoing debate about how to assess the quality of research in mixed methods reviews. Previous sensitivity analyses mainly concluded that the exclusion of inadequately reported or lower quality studies did not have a significant effect on the results of the synthesis. In this study, we conducted a sensitivity analysis on the basis of reporting criteria with the aims of analysing its impact on the synthesis results and assessing its feasibility. Contrary to some previous studies, our analysis showed that the exclusion of inadequately reported studies had an impact on the results of the thematic synthesis. Initially, we also sought to propose a refinement of reporting criteria based on the literature and our own experiences. In this way, we aimed to facilitate the assessment of reporting criteria and enhance its consistency. However, based on the results of our sensitivity analysis, we opted not to make such a refinement since many publications included in this analysis did not sufficiently report on the methodology. As such, a refinement would not be useful considering that researchers would be unable to assess these (sub-)criteria