382 research outputs found
Designerly ways of speaking: investigating how the design tribe of researchers speak on design thinking
This thesis investigates how a community of design researchers speak on ‘Design Thinking’, a key concept in design research. The thesis traces the development of Design Thinking theory over the last 100 years. It identifies errors associated with how influential research (for example, Buchanan; Cross) frames the history of investigation into Design Thinking. For example, influential theorists do not consider a complete history of investigation into the way that designers think when discussing timescales of Design Thinking research. The thesis then summarises existing research into ways of speaking associated with Design Thinking and identifies significant gaps in the knowledge. Gaps include the absence of an agreed definition of ‘Design Thinking’ despite repeated calls. A lack of existing studies which use methods specifically designed to investigate ways of speaking have helped to create the gaps in knowledge. The thesis asks: how do Design Thinking researchers speak on Design Thinking? What purposes do these ways of speaking serve? The original work involves using methods specifically designed to investigate ways of speaking (Corpus Linguistics and Content Analysis). Three studies on ways of speaking are undertaken. The data set consists of peer-reviewed papers which focus on Design Thinking. The papers are published in design journals so are representative of ways of speaking used by the small academic design research community. This thesis terms this community the Design Tribe. Ways of speaking contrast progressive Design Thinking with a range of dominant, established ways of thinking (for example, STEM models). A distinctive lexicon characterises the way that researchers speak on Design thinking. Design Thinking is: agile, complex, fluid, multimodal and collaborative; established alternative ways of thinking conceal, standardize, are rigid, squash and reduce. The study reveals a range of inconsistencies associated with the ways that researchers classify Design Thinking. These issues highlight the part that a distinctive lexicon plays in enabling researchers to claim knowledge on Design Thinking. While there is little evidence to suggest a distinctive Design Thinking, there is certainly a distinctive and coherent form of discourse. This thesis terms this discourse, ‘designerly ways of speaking’. The thesis also uses critical theory developed by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to speculate on aspects which help to sustain designerly ways of speaking
Designing physical-digital artefacts for the public realm
The exploration of new types of everyday interactions enabled by the increasing integration of digital technologies with the physical world is a major research direction for interaction design research (Dourish, 2004), and a focus on materials and materiality is also of growing significance, e.g.: Internet of Things; interactive architecture; the intersection of craft and technology. Increasingly, designer-researchers from a range of material-focused creative design disciplines are starting to address these themes. Previous studies indicate that new approaches, methods and concepts are required to investigate the evolving field of physical-digital synthesis in the built environment. Addressing this, the thesis asks one central question: What resources for design research can help practitioners and researchers from multiple creative design disciplines improve the design of physical-digital artefacts located in the public realm? A detailed Scoping Study explored experimental research methods for this thesis and produced an overview of physical-digital artefacts in outdoor public space. This scoping influenced the subsequent research: an in-depth field study of the design culture and practices of fifty material-focused designer-researchers; four case studies of physical-digital artefacts in outdoor public spaces; a formative creative design workshop with fourteen participants to test the findings from the research. The chief contribution of this thesis to interaction design research is the development of two resources for design research (the Experiential Framework and the Conceptual Materials for Design Research) and the practical application of these new tools as a method for design research in a simulated ‘real-world’ creative workshop setting. Both resources are intended to co-exist and be integrated with established design research methods and emerging approaches. Hence, the outputs from this thesis are intended to support designer-researchers from a range of creative design backgrounds to conceptualise and design physical-digital artefacts for urban outdoor public spaces that provide richer interaction paradigms for future city dwellers
Territorial Violence and Design, 1950-2010: A Human-Computer Study of Personal Space and Chatbot Interaction
Personal space is a human’s imaginary system of precaution and an important concept for exploring territoriality, but between humans and technology because machinic agencies transfer, relocate, enact and reenact territorially. Literatures of territoriality, violence and affect are uniquely brought together, with chatbots as the research object to argue that their ongoing development as artificial agents, and the ambiguity of violence they can engender, have broader ramifications for a socio-technical research programme. These literatures help to understand the interrelation of virtual and actual spatiality relevant to research involving chatrooms and internet forums, automated systems and processes, as well as human and machine agencies; because all of these spaces, methods and agencies involve the personal sphere.
The thesis is an ethical tale of cruel techno-science that is performed through conceptualisations from the creative arts, constituting a PhD by practice. This thesis chronicles four chatbots, taking into account interventions made in fine art, design, fiction and film that are omitted from a history of agent technology. The thesis re-interprets Edward Hall’s work on proxemics, personal space and territoriality, using techniques of the bricoleur and rudiments (an undeveloped and speculative method of practice), to understand chatbot techniques such as the pick-up, their entrapment logics, their repetitions of hateful speech, their nonsense talk (including how they disorientate spatial metaphors), as well as how developers switch on and off their learning functionality. Semi-structured interviews and online forum postings with chatbot developers were used to expand and reflect on the rudimentary method.
To urge that this project is timely is itself a statement of anxiety. Chatbots can manipulate, exceed, and exhaust a human understanding of both space and time. Violence between humans and machines in online and offline spaces is explored as an interweaving of agency and spatiality. A series of rudiments were used to probe empirical experiments such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Tucker, 1950). The spatial metaphors of confinement as a parable of entrapment, are revealed within that logic and that of chatbots. The ‘Obedience to Authority’ experiments (Milgram, 1961) were used to reflect on the roles played by machines which are then reflected into a discussion of chatbots and the experiments done in and around them. The agency of the experimenter was revealed in the machine as evidenced with chatbots which has ethical ramifications. The argument of personal space is widened to include the ways machinic territoriality and its violence impacts on our ways of living together both in the private spheres of our computers and homes, as well as in state-regulated conditions (Directive-3, 2003). The misanthropic aspects of chatbot design are reflected through the methodology of designing out of fear. I argue that personal spaces create misanthropic design imperatives, methods and ways of living. Furthermore, the technological agencies of personal spaces have a confining impact on the transient spaces of the non-places in a wider discussion of the lift, chatroom and car. The violent origins of the chatbot are linked to various imaginings of impending disaster through visualisations, supported by case studies in fiction to look at the resonance of how anxiety transformed into terror when considering the affects of violence
A Social Dimension for Digital Architectural Practice
Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/1296 on 14.03.2017 by CS (TIS)This thesis proceeds from an analysis of practice and critical commentary to claim that the
opportunities presented to some architectural practices by the advent of ubiquitous digital
technology have not been properly exploited. The missed opportunities, it claims, can be
attributed largely to the retention of a model of time and spaces as discrete design
parameters, which is inappropriate in the context of the widening awareness of social
interconnectedness that digital technology has also facilitated. As a remedy, the thesis
shows that some social considerations essential to good architecture - which could have
been more fully integrated in practice and theory more than a decade ago - can now be
usefully revisited through a systematic reflection on an emerging use of web technologies
that support social navigation. The thesis argues through its text and a number of practical
projects that the increasing confidence and sophistication of interdisciplinary studies in
geography, most notably in human geography, combined with the technological
opportunities of social navigation, provide a useful model of time and space as a unified
design parameter. In so doing the thesis suggests new possibilities for architectural
practices involving social interaction.
Through a literature review of the introduction and development of digital technologies to
architectural practice, the thesis identifies the inappropriate persistence of a number of
overarching concepts informing architectural practice. In a review of the emergence and
growth of 'human geography' it elaborates on the concept of the social production of
space, which it relates to an analysis of emerging social navigation technologies. In so
doing the thesis prepares the way for an integration of socially aware architecture with the
opportunities offered by social computing.
To substantiate its claim the thesis includes a number of practical public projects that have
been specifically designed to extend and amplify certain concepts, along with a large-scale
design project and systematic analysis which is intended to illustrate the theoretical claim
and provide a model for further practical exploitation
Governing Privacy in Knowledge Commons
Scholars from various disciplines explore privacy governance using the Governing Knowledge Commons framework. Case studies drawn from contexts such as academia, social media, mental health, and IoT provide insights into how privacy shapes community knowledge production. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core
Eco-visualisation: Combining art and technology to reduce energy consumption
Artworks that display the real time usage of key resources such as electricity
offer new strategies to conserve energy. These eco-visualisations-or artworks that
creatively visualise ecologically significant data in real time-represent a substantial
contribution to new knowledge about dynamic feedback as a tool to promote energy
conservation and environmental site-based learning in this interdisciplinary project that
expands and builds on prior findings from the fields of art, design, environmental
psychology, and human computer interaction (HCI).
The aims of this research endeavor were to locate answers to the following
questions related to energy conservation in various public contexts. Might dynamic
feedback from data-driven artwork create a better understanding of resource
consumption patterns? Which environments are best for promoting eco-visualisation:
borne, workplace, or alternative spaces? What kinds of visualisation tactics are most
effective in communicating energy consumption data? These initial questions
generated a four-year research project that involved an extensive literature review in
both environmental psychology and art history that culminated in three different case
studies, which targeted the effectiveness of eco-visualisation as an innovative
conservation strategy. The three primary claims to be proven with supporting evidence
from the literature reviews and case studies are: (1) eco-visualisation offers novel visual
ways of making invisible energy data comprehensible, and encourages site-based
learning; (2) eco-visualisation that provides real time visual feedback can increase
environmental awareness and possibly increase the conservation behaviour in the
viewing population; (3) eco-visualisation encourages new perceptions of linkages
between the single individual and a larger community via site-based dialogue and
conversation.
Although the results of the three case studies are generally positive and prove
the claims, there are larger social and environmental questions that will be addressed.
How can eco-visualisation be productively integrated into the home or workplace
without becoming a disposable gadget that represents a passing fad or fancy? Most
importantly, how can energy conservation interventions be conceived to be as
sustainable as possible, and non-threatening from a privacy perspective? These
questions and more contribute to the discussion and analysis of the results of the three
case studies that constitute the primary source of new knowledge asserted here in this
dissertation
DEVELOPMENT OF A QUALITY MANAGEMENT ASSESSMENT TOOL TO EVALUATE SOFTWARE USING SOFTWARE QUALITY MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICES
Organizations are constantly in search of competitive advantages in today’s complex global marketplace through improvement of quality, better affordability, and quicker delivery of products and services. This is significantly true for software as a product and service. With other things being equal, the quality of software will impact consumers, organizations, and nations. The quality and efficiency of the process utilized to create and deploy software can result in cost and schedule overruns, cancelled projects, loss of revenue, loss of market share, and loss of consumer confidence. Hence, it behooves us to constantly explore quality management strategies to deliver high quality software quickly at an affordable price.
This research identifies software quality management best practices derived from scholarly literature using bibliometric techniques in conjunction with literature review, synthesizes these best practices into an assessment tool for industrial practitioners, refines the assessment tool based on academic expert review, further refines the assessment tool based on a pilot test with industry experts, and undertakes industry expert validation. Key elements of this software quality assessment tool include issues dealing with people, organizational environment, process, and technology best practices. Additionally, weights were assigned to issues of people, organizational environment, process, and technology best practices based on their relative importance, to calculate an overall weighted score for organizations to evaluate where they stand with respect to their peers in pursuing the business of producing quality software. This research study indicates that people best practices carry 40% of overall weight, organizational best
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practices carry 30% of overall weight, process best practices carry 15% of overall weight, and technology best practices carry 15% of overall weight. The assessment tool that is developed will be valuable to organizations that seek to take advantage of rapid innovations in pursuing higher software quality. These organizations can use the assessment tool for implementing best practices based on the latest cutting edge management strategies that can lead to improved software quality and other competitive advantages in the global marketplace.
This research contributed to the current academic literature in software quality by presenting a quality assessment tool based on software quality management best practices, contributed to the body of knowledge on software quality management, and expanded the knowledgebase on quality management practices. This research also contributed to current professional practice by incorporating software quality management best practices into a quality management assessment tool to evaluate software
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