Dramatistic User Experience Design: The Usability Testing of an e-Government System in A Non-Western Setting

This dissertation investigates rhetorical situatedness as a factor that culturally designates users’ motives in adopting a new technology. The application of Kenneth Burke’s dramatism extends the discussion about the situation where an interaction takes place to include acting and meaning-making in Non-Western settings as contextual and situated. This expansion is essential to reinforce the understanding of how cultural contexts impact users’ motives, specifically users from Non-Western settings, to adopt a technology. The traditional Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research stresses mechanical and technical aspects between a user (agent) and a technology device (agency) in order to reduce user errors. This approach isolates the rhetorical situation of interaction in a computer interface, thus eliding the cultural situatedness by regarding the situation as something fixed, such as in a laboratory. Adding a cultural context provides a fuller picture of this interaction. Using a civic records online system called e-Lampid, which is administered by Surabaya City Government in Indonesia as a case study, I discover five elements of situatedness that contribute significantly to weave acting and meaning-making into a culturally informed interaction. User motives are shaped by internal and external situations that are collective, local, and both onsite and off. Dramatism is a tool for analysis and production that prioritizes cultural awareness. Dramatistic User Experience (UX) design offers analytical, comprehensive, and systematic perspectives on the design process. Dramatistic UX integrates three different approaches: usability testing, rhetorical awareness of situations, and needs analysis. The synergy of dramatism, user experience, and design thinking provides a holistic approach to construct a rhetorically grounded and culturally contingent user experience design

Resilience in Social Design Activities: Understanding the Rebounding Process of Craft and Design Practice in Indonesia

13301甲第4918号博士（学術）金沢大学博士論文本文Ful

Towards Sustainable Rural Development : An Ethnographic Approach to Crafts Development Projects in West Java, Indonesia

13301甲第5493号博士(社会環境学)金沢大学博士論文本文Ful

Challenging hierarchies, enhancing capabilities: innovations in design and business education for handloom weavers in India.

This research critically analyses the recent development of design education for traditional artisans in rural India. It focuses specifically on handloom weaving, which, across rural India is the second largest source of employment after agriculture. Handloom, however, continues to be afflicted by low wages and viewed as skilled labour rather than as a creative profession. The ‘informal’ embodied knowledge of weavers is widely de-valued against ‘formal’ knowledge gained through school and university education as well as government skill development schemes. A lively discourse currently exists around the problematic divides between urban-educated designers and the artisans who simply execute the work of designers and are excluded from, or unable to access urban design institutes. In this discourse, weavers continue to be perceived as ‘artisans’ and never as designers, leaving little room to bridge this gap. In the last decade, two educational institutes have been established that challenge this dualism as well as the hierarchies that have formed between the ‘artisan’ and ‘designer’: Somaiya Kala Vidya (SKV) in Kachchh district, Gujarat, and the Handloom School (THS) in Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh; each forms a focused case study for this research. Both institutes aim to nurture innovation and entrepreneurship, to enable artisans to connect directly with growing luxury markets for authentic, ethical and high-quality craft. Using multi-sited, ethnographic case study methodology, I captured the lived experiences of student and graduate weavers, faculty, staff, founder-directors and other stakeholders of the institutes, to measure the successes and challenges of the two institutes against their stated aims, as well as those of the handloom community and the state. By specifically inter-referencing craft development and education, previously treated as distinct areas, I have aimed to understand the relevance, sustainability and value of handloom in India for the weavers and for contemporary markets. Findings show that design and business education enhances the creative and aspirational capabilities of artisans, as well as their cultural, social and economic capital, as they mobilise within the now globalised spaces of the village and market network. Uncertainties remain over the hierarchies that can develop within the weavers’ communities, as well as a potential decline of embodied skills in younger generations. However, design and business education supports the activation of the artisans’ agency to influence social change in their own craft, creative and village economy and even the education itself. Considering the findings, the thesis proposes an urgent need to change the broadly held perceptions of the handloom industry as skilled labour and realise its full creative potential with a view to the upliftment, desirability and sustainability of craft livelihoods

IS-enabled creativity and survival of co-located artist/craftspeople communities: supporter experiences

This research investigates artist/craftspeople community supporters’ experiences appropriating information systems (IS). It proposes a framework combining theories of practice, social construction of technology and social capital for conceptualising supporters’ IS appropriation issues relating to government funding reductions, artist/craftspeople rejection of modern-day business, religious/tribal beliefs and art/craft community and sectoral tensions

A Comparative Study of Culture and Cultural Heritage in Humanitarian Aid Efforts: Post-Earthquake Haiti and Post-Tsunami Aceh

This thesis explores how cultural knowledge, beliefs, and practices affected the humanitarian aid response to disasters in Haiti and Aceh Province, Indonesia. It examines the importance of local knowledge in post-disaster response situations and how aid workers\u27 expertise interplays with local knowledge, decision-making structures, and leadership. I questioned how knowledge of cultural practices could contribute to a more effective humanitarian aid approach and identified housing, social institutions and local leadership, economic systems, religious belief and practice as primary focuses. Examples detail how cultural beliefs and practices - as well as cultural heritage - may be vehicles for social stability and advance recovery in the social and economic spheres

ICS Materials. Towards a re-Interpretation of material qualities through interactive, connected, and smart materials.

The domain of materials for design is changing under the influence of an increased technological advancement, miniaturization and democratization. Materials are becoming connected, augmented, computational, interactive, active, responsive, and dynamic. These are ICS Materials, an acronym that stands for Interactive, Connected and Smart. While labs around the world are experimenting with these new materials, there is the need to reflect on their potentials and impact on design. This paper is a first step in this direction: to interpret and describe the qualities of ICS materials, considering their experiential pattern, their expressive sensorial dimension, and their aesthetic of interaction. Through case studies, we analyse and classify these emerging ICS Materials and identified common characteristics, and challenges, e.g. the ability to change over time or their programmability by the designers and users. On that basis, we argue there is the need to reframe and redesign existing models to describe ICS materials, making their qualities emerge