Systemic approach to architectural performance: The media mix in the creative design process

First-hand experiences in several design projects that were based on media richness and collaboration are described in this article. Although complex design processes are merely considered as socio-technical systems, they are deeply involved with natural systems. My collaborative research in the field of performance-oriented design combines digital and physical conceptual sketches, simulations and prototyping. GIGA-mapping - is applied to organise the data. The design process uses the most suitable tools, for the subtasks at hand, and the use of media is mixed according to particular requirements. These tools include digital and physical GIGA-mapping, parametric computer aided design (CAD), digital simulation of analyses, as well as sampling and 1:1 prototyping. Also discussed in this article are the methodologies used in several design projects to strategize these tools and the developments and trends in the tools employed. The paper argues that the digital tools tend to produce similar results through given pre-sets that often do not correspond to real needs. Thus, there is a significant need for mixed methods including prototyping in the creative design process. Media mixing and cooperation across disciplines is unavoidable in the holistic approach to contemporary design. This includes the consideration of diverse biotic and abiotic agents. I argue that physical and digital GIGA-mapping is a crucial tool to use in coping with this complexity. Furthermore, I propose the integration of physical and digital outputs in one GIGA-map and the participation and co-design of biotic and abiotic agents into one rich design research space, which is resulting in an ever-evolving research-design process-result time-based design

Improving User Involvement Through Live Collaborative Creation

Creating an artifact - such as writing a book, developing software, or performing a piece of music - is often limited to those with domain-specific experience or training. As a consequence, effectively involving non-expert end users in such creative processes is challenging. This work explores how computational systems can facilitate collaboration, communication, and participation in the context of involving users in the process of creating artifacts while mitigating the challenges inherent to such processes. In particular, the interactive systems presented in this work support live collaborative creation, in which artifact users collaboratively participate in the artifact creation process with creators in real time. In the systems that I have created, I explored liveness, the extent to which the process of creating artifacts and the state of the artifacts are immediately and continuously perceptible, for applications such as programming, writing, music performance, and UI design. Liveness helps preserve natural expressivity, supports real-time communication, and facilitates participation in the creative process. Live collaboration is beneficial for users and creators alike: making the process of creation visible encourages users to engage in the process and better understand the final artifact. Additionally, creators can receive immediate feedback in a continuous, closed loop with users. Through these interactive systems, non-expert participants help create such artifacts as GUI prototypes, software, and musical performances. This dissertation explores three topics: (1) the challenges inherent to collaborative creation in live settings, and computational tools that address them; (2) methods for reducing the barriers of entry to live collaboration; and (3) approaches to preserving liveness in the creative process, affording creators more expressivity in making artifacts and affording users access to information traditionally only available in real-time processes. In this work, I showed that enabling collaborative, expressive, and live interactions in computational systems allow the broader population to take part in various creative practices.PHDComputer Science & EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145810/1/snaglee_1.pd

Complementing backyard-bedroom recording studios with a mobile app

Research on township hip-hop musicians in South Africa suggests that media producers in developing countries may increasingly be combining use of mobile phones with other digital technology. This demonstrates the need for M4D designers to conceptualise apps which fit such cross-device digital media ecologies. We describe the co-design methods used to support such hybrid township hip-hop digital media ecologies. These designs emerged from an interdisciplinary collaboration, where the ethnographic work of a media studies student and her access to participants were used as a basis for a computer science student in setting up a participatory design project. Such collaboration has been fostered for some time at the ICT4D lab at our university and may provide a model for postgraduate mobile app design collaboration. The mobile application developed supports hip-hop production. We argue for the importance of such creative digital tools in M4D, as they may facilitate voice and capability in marginalised communitie

How do interactive tabletop systems influence collaboration?

This paper examines some aspects of the usefulness of interactive tabletop systems, if and how these impact collaboration. We chose creative problem solving such as brainstorming as an application framework to test several collaborative media: the use of pen-and-paper tools, the ‘‘around-the-table’’ form factor, the digital tabletop interface, the attractiveness of interaction styles. Eighty subjects in total (20 groups of four members) participated in the experiments. The evaluation criteria were task performance, collaboration patterns (especially equity of contributions), and users’ subjective experience. The ‘‘aroundthe-table’’ form factor, which is hypothesized to promote social comparison, increased performance and improved collaboration through an increase of equity. Moreover, the attractiveness of the tabletop device improved subjective experience and increased motivation to engage in the task. However, designing attractiveness seems a highly challenging issue, since overly attractive interfaces may distract users from the task

Design for empathy within participatory design approaches

The role of the designer is changing from the ‘top-down’ creative to the humble designer (Slavin, 2016), fostering collaboration with a range of stakeholders and partnering with other disciplines as the ‘integrative discipline’ (Teal and French, 2016). As such, a new consideration of empathy is required to creatively engage people in co-creation using participatory design approaches. This paper discusses empathy within a participatory design approach, sharing methods and reflections of designing ‘with’ and ‘for’ empathy. The paper considers the role of the designer in engendering empathy in collaborative creativity, and illustrates approaches from applied projects in the health and care context. Experience Labs are a participatory design approach providing a space for collaboration where a diverse range of participants (academics, business, civic, end users) can collaborate in a creative process to explore and iterate concepts for health and care. The Lab methods, tools and artefacts are designed to move participants through a series of designed spaces to provide them with the experience, skills and language required to critically reflect and evaluate emerging ideas. Collaborations are carefully curated to bring together the ‘right’ mix of expertise in relation to the project. The challenge is to ensure that relationships move quickly from ‘them and us’ to a collective ‘we’, as we explore ideas and build trust. The methods and approaches used to foster empathy will be shared, alongside previous literature on empathic design within user-centred approaches, highlighting the need to consider the ways in which we design ‘for’ empathy in participatory design