Design Process and Organisational Strategy: A Storytelling Perspective

This paper explores the relationship between design process and organisational strategy through a storytelling perspective by providing a literature review; firstly, in relation to society in general; establishing a contextual background to the research. Secondly, by relating this to a) how designers and design researchers examine storytelling within design process, and b) how organisational strategists theorise storytelling. Then finally, through comparing and contrasting the literature, unearth the relevancies of using a storytelling perspective and uncover opportunities for understanding how design process impacts organisational strategy. It is apparent that certain underlying principles in adopting a storytelling perspective when employing organisational strategy and design process coexist. Foremost are the human centred focuses; in particular building relationships and constructing identities. Concerning the approaches to storytelling, a shared desire to elicit emotional resonance with audiences exists in the use of characterisation. During collaboration between designers and organisations, stories resulting from the design process will incontrovertibly have the potential to impact that company’s peoples. Examining collaborations between designers and organisations from the perspective of storytelling could lead to a deeper understanding of the impact design can have in an organisation, particularly along the themes of a sense of community, constructing meaning and affecting change within organisations

A hermeneutic inquiry into user-created personas in different Namibian locales

Persona is a tool broadly used in technology design to support communicational interactions between designers and users. Different Persona types and methods have evolved mostly in the Global North, and been partially deployed in the Global South every so often in its original User-Centred Design methodology. We postulate persona conceptualizations are expected to differ across cultures. We demonstrate this with an exploratory-case study on user-created persona co-designed with four Namibian ethnic groups: ovaHerero, Ovambo, ovaHimba and Khoisan. We follow a hermeneutic inquiry approach to discern cultural nuances from diverse human conducts. Findings reveal diverse self-representations whereby for each ethnic group results emerge in unalike fashions, viewpoints, recounts and storylines. This paper ultimately argues User-Created Persona as a potentially valid approach for pursuing cross-cultural depictions of personas that communicate cultural features and user experiences paramount to designing acceptable and gratifying technologies in dissimilar locales

Representing older people: towards meaningful images of the user in design scenarios

Designing for older people requires the consideration of a range of difficult and sometimes highly personal design problems. Issues such as fear, loneliness, dependency, and physical decline may be difficult to observe or discuss in interviews. Pastiche scenarios and pastiche personae are techniques that employ characters to create a space for the discussion of new technological developments and as a means to explore user experience. This paper argues that the use of such characters can help to overcome restrictive notions of older people by disrupting designers' prior assumptions. In this paper, we reflect on our experiences using pastiche techniques in two separate technology design projects that sought to address the needs of older people. In the first case pastiche scenarios were developed by the designers of the system and used as discussion documents with users. In the second case, pastiche personae were used by groups of users themselves to generate scenarios which were scribed for later use by the design team. We explore how the use of fictional characters and settings can generate new ideas and undermine rhetorical devices within scenarios that attempt to fit characters to the technology, rather than vice versa. To assist in future development of pastiche techniques in designing for older people, we provide an array of fictional older characters drawn from literary and popular culture.</p

What If? The Art of Scenario Thinking for Nonprofits

Gives an overview of scenario thinking customized for a nonprofit audience. Outlines the basic phases of scenario development, and provides examples and advice for putting the process into practice. Includes an annotated bibliography of select readings

Innovative collaborative design in international interaction design summer schools

[About the book]: Design is changing, and to educate the next generation of designers, these changes need to be addressed. In light of the growing role research and interdisciplinary collaboration play in contemporary design performance, Design Integrations calls for an innovative shake up in design education. Poggenpohl asserts that design research is developed through a typology within academic and business contexts, and follows different research theories and strategies. Such issues in design collaboration are explored in-depth, with essays on an inter-institutional academic project, cross-cultural learning experiences, and a multi-national healthcare project, demonstrating the importance of shared values, interdisciplinary negotiated process and clear communication for tomorrow’s designers

Design Fiction Diegetic Prototyping: A Research Framework for Visualizing Service Innovations

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Purpose: This paper presents a design fiction diegetic prototyping methodology and research framework for investigating service innovations that reflect future uses of new and emerging technologies. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on speculative fiction, we propose a methodology that positions service innovations within a six-stage research development framework. We begin by reviewing and critiquing designerly approaches that have traditionally been associated with service innovations and futures literature. In presenting our framework, we provide an example of its application to the Internet of Things (IoT), illustrating the central tenets proposed and key issues identified. Findings: The research framework advances a methodology for visualizing future experiential service innovations, considering how realism may be integrated into a designerly approach. Research limitations/implications: Design fiction diegetic prototyping enables researchers to express a range of ‘what if’ or ‘what can it be’ research questions within service innovation contexts. However, the process encompasses degrees of subjectivity and relies on knowledge, judgment and projection. Practical implications: The paper presents an approach to devising future service scenarios incorporating new and emergent technologies in service contexts. The proposed framework may be used as part of a range of research designs, including qualitative, quantitative and mixed method investigations. Originality: Operationalizing an approach that generates and visualizes service futures from an experiential perspective contributes to the advancement of techniques that enables the exploration of new possibilities for service innovation research

MAZI Deliverable Report D2.5: – Design, progress and evaluation of the Deptford CreekNet pilot (version 2)

In this deliverable, the second in a series of three, we report on progress in the Creeknet pilot. We describe progress towards tasks identified in the Description of Work (DoW) for Task 2.2, focusing on activities in Year 2 (2017: months 13-24) and look forward to Year 3. The Creeknet pilot consists of four phases. This year, our focus has been on consolidating initial contacts made in Year 1 (Phase 1), and continuing community engagement activities alongside carrying out an initial deployment of the MAZI toolkit with a number of engaged community groups and individuals (Phase 2). In the second half of the year, as the toolkit was developed and an integrated set of tool established these groups and others were invited to engage in further trials, and feedback was gathered to further inform onward development (Phase 3). We have continued with our efforts to build upon existing relationships in Deptford Creek and further afield to help us explore the different ways in which DIY networking in the broadest sense and the use of the MAZI toolkit in particular might help address local challenges. We have reassessed some of our foci through seeking out new opportunities for engagement and trialling the MAZI toolkit. A major activity was planning and running the two day MAZI London Cross-fertilisation symposium. This created the opportunity for Creeknet participants to share their experiences and engage with the other MAZI pilots, bringing together existing community contacts in Deptford Creek, and MAZI partners, and attracted new contributors. Through our activities, working with the emerging MAZI toolkit that evolved through several iterations during the year, we have better understood local circumstances and the complexity involved in the conceptualisation of ‘DIY networking’ - it cannot be assumed to be a single notion. We have identified that both social and technological concerns can restrict its uptake, and consider routes to overcoming these challenges. We provide analysis of work carried out so far, and look towards the future activities

Include 2011 : The role of inclusive design in making social innovation happen.

Include is the biennial conference held at the RCA and hosted by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. The event is directed by Jo-Anne Bichard and attracts an international delegation

Exploring approaches to the generation and representation of heritage artefacts in video game contexts

© 2016, © 2016 University of Wollongong. Video games can allow players to explore environments, which are representative of, or contain elements of physical world cultures, for example, allowing a player to explore ancient Egypt in Pharaoh (Impressions Games, 1999, Pharaoh [PC Game]. Sierra Entertainment) or present day Chicago in Watchdogs (Ubisoft Montreal, 2014, [PlayStation 4 game] . Guildford), etc. Game designers need to make design decisions regarding how these environments are going to be represented, including which items are going to be utilized, how they are going to be used in the game, and the level of detail to which they are going to be presented. These decisions can lead to concerns regarding how particular cultures are represented. This article describes research undertaken to investigate the design process with respect to the inclusion of physical world cultures in virtual game environments. Within the study approaches used (including processes and methods) by game designers in the stages of conceptualization, design and delivery are explored. In addition, these are contextualized through an understanding of designer attitudes towards the inclusion of items with cultural meaning and their perspectives on the importance of cultural representation within video games. This involved interviewing eight video game designers from global contexts within the industry, all with the experience of generating cultural items for inclusion in video game contexts. These interviews were structured with a focus on exploring views, experiences, beliefs and motivations of the individuals and of their working teams. Analysis was carried out through the use of a methodological process of analytical induction with the coding of particular variables within each interview transcript, and the transformation of the complete set of codings into a set of conceptual statements. This article relates these conceptual statements to earlier work regarding close readings of particular video games and discusses the relationship between design processes (facilitated through the interviews) and realized game worlds (facilitated through the close readings)