Visions, Values, and Videos: Revisiting Envisionings in Service of UbiComp Design for the Home

UbiComp has been envisioned to bring about a future dominated by calm computing technologies making our everyday lives ever more convenient. Yet the same vision has also attracted criticism for encouraging a solitary and passive lifestyle. The aim of this paper is to explore and elaborate these tensions further by examining the human values surrounding future domestic UbiComp solutions. Drawing on envisioning and contravisioning, we probe members of the public (N=28) through the presentation and focus group discussion of two contrasting animated video scenarios, where one is inspired by "calm" and the other by "engaging" visions of future UbiComp technology. By analysing the reasoning of our participants, we identify and elaborate a number of relevant values involved in balancing the two perspectives. In conclusion, we articulate practically applicable takeaways in the form of a set of key design questions and challenges.Comment: DIS'20, July 6-10, 2020, Eindhoven, Netherland

Imaginative Value Sensitive Design: How Moral Imagination Exceeds Moral Law Theories in Informing Responsible Innovation

Safe-by-Design (SBD) frameworks for the development of emerging technologies have become an ever more popular means by which scholars argue that transformative emerging technologies can safely incorporate human values. One such popular SBD methodology is called Value Sensitive Design (VSD). A central tenet of this design methodology is to investigate stakeholder values and design those values into technologies during early stage research and development (R&D). To accomplish this, the VSD framework mandates that designers consult the philosophical and ethical literature to best determine how to weigh moral trade-offs. However, the VSD framework also concedes the universalism of moral values, particularly the values of freedom, autonomy, equality trust and privacy justice. This paper argues that the VSD methodology, particularly applied to nano-bio-info-cogno (NBIC) technologies, has an insufficient grounding for the determination of moral values. As such, an exploration of the value-investigations of VSD are deconstructed to illustrate both its strengths and weaknesses. This paper also provides possible modalities for the strengthening of the VSD methodology, particularly through the application of moral imagination and how moral imagination exceed the boundaries of moral intuitions in the development of novel technologies

From Science to Design: the Design4Materials virtuous cycle

Despite the large number of innovative materials developed in laboratories worldwide, their application in new mass-produced products is complicated. Design can reduce the risk that the research developed in scientific laboratories could fail to be properly exploited and triggering a beneficial cycle linking Science to Design. This paper present the Design4Materials, an italian network founded by the laboratories of leading schools of design: MaterialdesignLab|Sapienza Rome, Madec|Politecnico di Milano, HybridesignLab|SUN Naples, Soft Surfaces and Polisensoriality|Poliba Bari. After presenting the different skills of the network members, the authors describe the capabilities and the goals of the network and the main results developed like the project that define characteristics and identities for an open material, starting from a research of the IIT of Genoa. The Design4Materials aim is to play a leading role on design-driven innovation process, responding to society’s changing needs and developing a ‘circular’ methodology of innovation from a design standpoint

Designing a consulting services architecture model

textDuring my years of experience in the technology industry, it has become obvious that standard processes and methodologies within the engineering discipline are at a mature state. The realization though is that software engineering specifically lags behind. Most software engineering methodologies that I have studied focus on the mission of software development. It is this realization and the need for structure that led me to review existing methodologies used within my company's software services organization. The definition of what a successful software services methodology entails is rather limited. This report will provide a history of existing software engineering methodologies that I have studied, describe an initial services method that was being developed within my organization, develop a new model that addresses previous shortcomings and identify additional components required to further define a strong software services-oriented delivery methodology.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Sense of Place in the Anthropocene: A students-teaching-students course

Contemporary environmental education is tasked with the acknowledgement of the Anthropocene - an informal but ubiquitous term for the current geological epoch which arose from anthropogenic changes to the Earth system - and its accompanying socio-ecological implications. Sense of Place can be a hybridized tool of personal agency and global awareness for this task. Through the creation, execution and reflection of a 14-student students-teaching-students (STS) course at the University of Vermont in the Spring of 2019, Giannina Gaspero-Beckstrom and Ella Mighell aimed to facilitate a peer-to-peer learning environment that addressed sense of place, social justice and community engagement. The students-teaching-students framework is an alternative educational approach that supports the values and practices of the University of Vermont’s Environmental Program, as well as an intentional breakdown of the hierarchical knowledge paradigm. Using alternative pedagogies (predominately critical and place-based), we attempted to facilitate meaningful learning through creative expression, experiential education, community dialogue and personal reflection. Our intention with this was to encourage awareness and action

Tracing the Scenarios in Scenario-Based Product Design: a study to support scenario generation

Scenario-based design originates from the human-computer interaction and\ud software engineering disciplines, and continues to be adapted for product development. Product development differs from software development in the former’s more varied context of use, broader characteristics of users and more tangible solutions. The possible use of scenarios in product design is therefore broader and more challenging. Existing design methods that involve scenarios can be employed in many different stages of the product design process. However, there is no proficient overview that discusses a\ud scenario-based product design process in its full extent. The purposes of creating scenarios and the evolution of scenarios from their original design data are often not obvious, although the results from using scenarios are clearly visible. Therefore, this paper proposes to classify possible scenario uses with their purpose, characteristics and supporting design methods. The classification makes explicit different types of scenarios and their relation to one another. Furthermore, novel scenario uses can be referred or added to the classification to develop it in parallel with the scenario-based design\ud practice. Eventually, a scenario-based product design process could take inspiration for creating scenarios from the classification because it provides detailed characteristics of the scenario

Using the Internet to Envision Neighborhoods with Transit Oriented Development Potential, MTI Report 01-24

The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) at San José State University conducted this study to review the issues and implications involved in Using the Internet to Envision Neighborhoods with Transit-Oriented Development Potential. SUMMARY OF PROBLEM: The Using the Internet to Envision Neighborhoods with Transit-Oriented Development Potential project seeks to provide guidelines and examples to facilitate use of the Internet to envision places with TOD potential, building on the envisioning techniques developed and presented in MTI Report 01-15, Envisioning Neighborhoods with Transit-Oriented Development Potential. RECOMMENDATIONS: These recommendations are made in terms of general style and approach, because the Internet is evolving so rapidly that currently available program are likely to change soon. The envisioning neighborhoods principles presented in MTI Report 01-15 are useful for Internet applications. These principles are: Use small replicate maps, charts, images, and tables to facilitate comparisons across space, time, and scale, because data are best understood in a comparative context. The suggested solution for analyzing the transit-oriented development potential of neighborhoods is twofold: First, use the evolving digital information tools (especially the Internet) and information design principles to find, filter, transform, model, and synthesize neighborhood data. Second, use small replicate maps, charts, digital images, and tables to facilitate comparisons across space, time, and scale, presenting the resulting information in a form useful for understanding conditions, making decisions, and taking action