From Theory to Practice: Creating a Toolkit for Engaged Design

Researchers and designers alike have called for more inclusive and participatory approaches to be used within design. By first exploring the work of researchers designing with older adults living with dementia and expanding to a more robust literature review surrounding inclusion in design, I found that the literature not only suggests that design could benefit from an integration of interdisciplinary knowledge, critical reflection of methods and intentional interaction with users, but also presents theories for doing so. This project condenses four of those theories into key principles, and uses them to present a framework of Engaged Design, a mindset intended to helps designers prioritize critical reflection of their processes in order to interact more meaningfully with their users.Master of ScienceInformation, School ofUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162557/1/Broderick_Brianna_Final_MTOP_Thesis_20200501.pd

The Right to participate:Beyond the instrumental use of stakeholders in imagining the lived experience of the city

By taking a closer look at the assumptions and methods driving the current citizen participation paradigm, this paper addresses the risk of tokenistic involvement of citizens and other stakeholders in approaches such as co-design and citizen science. These participatory processes are highly demanding to plan, difficult to manage, and can lead to serious misinterpretations of the citizens’ intentions and behaviour: reimagining participatory processes would be thus in order (Bannon & al. 2018). Encouraged by this, in this paper we look into 1) what type of alternative forms of participation might there be and 2) in which ways they restore ownership. We then proceed to ask further 3) how design can contribute to creating such alternative forms of citizen participation. As a case we refer to the sharp distinction distinguishable between the digital representation of urban existence and the lived experience of urban dwellers. The critical theoretical impetus can be traced back to (at least) the critical engagement with digital media in works such as “On the Internet” (Dreyfus 2001), which highlighted the absence of bodies and embodiment in digital environments. While we do agree that we need to remain critical about what aspects of human existence can be represented in digital media and which cannot, we also recognise that we are not merely the dot on a map, yet, “being a dot on a map” is part of our lived experience as urban subjects (Kingwell, 2008). In our paper, we will explore the role that digital representations of oneselves get in the participatory approaches to the experience of the city. We will address the everyday use of such services as digital maps as well as the potential use of such self-representations in artistic and educational practices to re-materialize our digital doubles and data traces. The proposed paper contributes to bridging recent developments in design ethics and participatory methods in a way which further underlines the importance of understanding the citizens’ perspective in urban design processes. This means also further emphasis on interpersonal and relational aspects of citizen participation as well as probing into more experimental forms of research design in the urban studies context. References: Bannon, Liam, Jeffrey Bardzell, and Susanne Bødker 2018. “Reimagining participatory design”, Interactions 26, 1 (Jan/Feb 2019), pp. 26–32. https://doi.org/10.1145/3292015 Dreyfus, Hubert L. 2001. On the internet / Hubert Dreyfus. London & New York: Routledge. Kingwell, M. 2008. Concrete reveries: Consciousness and the city. London: Penguin

Information Systems Development Process: a Living Lab Perspective

This article explores information systems development (ISD) process, when ISD follows a living lab approach. Living lab is an innovation development approach in which stakeholders are involved in co-create, implement, test and adopt innovations in a real-life setting. Several aspects in living lab setting such as voluntary nature of user engagement, a real-life context of innovation development and consequently difficulty to observe, and immaturity of innovation in living lab activities will influence ISD process in the living lab setting. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to understand how ISD process is shaped, when ISD follows a living lab approach. The aim will be achieved by conducting four participatory knowledge generation workshops as the primary sources of empirical data, in the context of three European projects (namely, AdaptUrbanRail, UNaLab, and LiLaCC) as well as an international conference (DLLD20). A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of ISD process following living lab approach will also be presented

Rethinking the Human Centred Approach to Animal-Computer Interaction

While the field of Animal-Computer Interaction is an emerging one, the main focus has still been on humans. ACI research often examines ways that giving animals technology can improve some aspect of a human’s life without considering the needs of the animals. A strikingly parallel problem has arisen in HCI as well - what does participatory design look like when working with the voiceless. In my research, using a dog’s connection to its owner as a starting point, I plan to utilise the findings from past HCI work while working with the dogs to design a technology that they actually would want to use

User Participation in Information System Development for Emerging Public Sector Initiatives

This study is a-posteriori analysis of information systems (IS) development in a cross-sector collaboration case to identify and address user participation challenges in emerging public sector initiatives. The major challenges in the studied case was to develop IS for future cross-sector collaboration in a setting that does not yet exist, i.e. where the tasks, stakeholders and end-users are undefined. To address identified challenges, we suggest a combination of activities based on multiple design groups, scenario-based Future Workshops, focus groups, context-specific frameworks, and practical exercises with after-action-review. We argue that while similar challenges have been discussed in relation to large-scale projects and, sometimes, cross-sector collaboration, IS development for emerging public sector initiatives pose specific issues that need to be addressed

Engager les personnes âgées dans les équipes intergénérationnels et processus de design participatif: une revue systématique de la recherche actuelle

This paper presents the results of a systematic review of the literature (SRL) in the field of Participatory Design (PD), undertaken under the scope of LOCUS – Playful Connected Rural Territories. The project employs an ethnographically, participatory and agile approach to the process of co-designing, developing and evaluating an IoT system to support playful intergenerational engagement in exploring cultural heritage of Portuguese rural territories, by engaging inhabitants, stakeholders and visitors. The SRL aimed to understand how older adults have been integrated and engaged into technology PD teams and processes. This paper focus on the most used methodological approaches and participation methods, along with the challenges in integrating older adults and the strategies to overcome them, which are discussed in the light of project aims. / Cet article présente les résultats d'une revue systématique de la littérature dans le domaine du design participatif, effectuée dans le cadre du Projet LOCUS - Territoires ruraux connectés et ludiques. Le projet utilise une approche ethnographique, participative et agile du processus de co-design, développement et évaluation d'un système d’Internet des objets pour soutenir un engagement intergénérationnel ludique dans l'exploration du patrimoine culturel des territoires ruraux portugais, en impliquant les habitants, les parties prenantes et les visiteurs. La revue systématique de la littérature vise à comprendre comment les personnes âgées ont été intégrées et engagées dans des équipes et des processus de design participatif des technologiques. Cet article se concentre sur les approches méthodologiques et les méthodes de participation les plus utilisées, ainsi que sur les défis de l'intégration des personnes âgées et les stratégies pour les surmonter, qui sont discutés à la lumière des objectifs du projet

Designing Trans Technology: Defining Challenges and Envisioning Community-Centered Solutions

Transgender and non-binary people face substantial challenges in the world, ranging from social inequities and discrimination to lack of access to resources. Though technology cannot fully solve these problems, technological solutions may help to address some of the challenges trans people and communities face. We conducted a series of participatory design sessions (total N = 21 participants) to understand trans people’s most pressing challenges and to involve this population in the design process. We detail four types of technologies trans people envision: technologies for changing bodies, technologies for changing appearances / gender expressions, technologies for safety, and technologies for finding resources. We found that centering trans people in the design process enabled inclusive technology design that primarily focused on sharing community resources and prioritized connection between community members.Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG)Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153781/1/designing_trans_technologies_paper___camera_ready v2.pdfDescription of designing_trans_technologies_paper___camera_ready v2.pdf : Main articl