MDXPD Magazine 2021

#MDXPD WELCOME “...bringing people and technology together (in meaningful ways) to create useful stuff and things.” Welcome, everyone, to our 7th Annual #MDXPD Magazine. Our 2020-21 academic year was dominated by the ongoing COVID pandemic. It has been a time of sadness and of difficulty, but also of innovation and inspiration. The creativity, compassion and resilience of our students and staff through this period shines through in the stories we feature in this issue of the magazine. We have continued to be lucky, in this period of fear, uncertainty and upheaval, to work and learn within an enlightened institution. The institutional ethos was captured by their statement of principles for staff and students at the beginning of the COVID crisis (see pages 03-04 of #MDXPD 2020 Magazine). This supportive framework continues to enable us to approach design and engineering within our philosophy that leads with insight, understanding and empathy, and values collaborative creativity and human and ecology centred innovation. Everything continued to change. And our students and staff confronted the changes with energy, dignity and support for one another. The staff and student co-design of the Product Design and Product Design Engineering structure, content and approach, highlighted in last year’s magazine remained a huge positive in developing our teaching and learning in the online space, through to hybrid live/online approaches and back towards fully live, digitally supplemented experiences for the approaching academic year. The focus on collaborative practice, studio ‘environments’ and team teaching, rather than traditional lecture-based approaches that was recreated in our 2020-21 ‘virtual studio’ practice, ensured that the hands-on and peer-supported experience was retained and refined in a positive and meaningful way. There were challenges during this period and in the coming return to live activity, but the creative and collaborative mindset of all staff and students surmounted the challenges, and we are optimistic that the new challenges will be equally well resolved. This year’s magazine contains our usual mix of inspirational final year major projects, staff and student stories and projects from across the year, alongside three special features: reflections on Teaching & Learning throughout COVID (see pages 3-16); ‘5 Years On’ reviews and reflections from our 2016 graduates on life in industry & at MDXPD (see pages 29-54); and a comprehensive collection of insights and advices from industry on Design Portfolios (see pages 75-105). Good luck to all our brilliant graduates for the future. Welcome to all our new students. Take care of yourselves & best wishes to all readers of the magazine

The Communication of Service Design – How do Service Designers Communicate Service Design to (Project) Stakeholders?

Service design is a relatively new discipline (when compared to graphic design) that draws on the methods and concepts of various other disciplines, inside and outside of the design realm, to achieve innovative solutions that cater to all stakeholders alike (business, user, staff, customer, delivery, etc.). The discipline’s practitioners are known to be skillful and resourceful in retrieving qualitative data from service and project stakeholders and pushing them towards collaborations by applying methods and tools that support the stakeholders in bridging silo-thinking and language barriers; a cross-disciplinary language is established, and communication is used as a tool. However, service designers were found to continuously make negative or exhausting communication experiences when explaining their jobs and discipline to other people and when trying to acquire jobs or projects by selling the discipline to project stakeholders in decision-making positions. Therefore, this study first aimed to investigate and create an understanding of the currently applied communication by service designers (including processes, hardships, and obstacles), especially at the beginning of projects (Research Questions 1–3), to understand the causes of service designers’ negative communication experiences. In addition, this study aimed to update this communication in a fit-for-purpose manner that enables service designers to better steer the communication of their discipline to project stakeholders and hence achieve more desirable communication experiences and outcomes (Research Question 4). To meet these aims, service designers’ currently applied communication process was reconstructed, pitfalls were uncovered, and an improved communication process in terms of a “how-to” roadmap (that caters to the practical nature of service designers) was established. Furthermore, this research aimed to explore the topic holistically, although the outcomes were directed towards service designers and their enablement. The needed data to create the previously mentioned study outcomes were derived from in-depth interviews with service designers, secondary literature, and communications in which the researcher also acted as a service designer (testing with a managing director, lecturing students of “UART1105” on service design, and journaling about further made communication experiences). The research participants of this study came from diverse geographical, experiential, educational, and professional backgrounds, meaning that the formed understandings and outputs focus on service design and its practitioners worldwide. The collection focus for this research lies with the experiences the research participants, specifically service designers, had made and the applied communication process. Hence, this research is of a qualitative nature and focuses on practicing service design, phenomenography, and action research. Through this study, the understanding was formed that the communication of service design, early on in projects or the setup of projects, is a crucial information sharing and expectation management activity that heavily impacts the trajectory and success of projects and the perception of service design. However, the reconstructed currently applied communication process was found to be an unaligned and vague structure of suggestions, doings, and thoughts-to-look-out-for that does not support service designers in adequately introducing and selling their discipline to project stakeholders, correcting project stakeholders’ misconceptions or assumptions about the discipline, or catering to project stakeholders’ communication expectations. Hence, this dissertation dives deep into the “how” (process and activities) and the “what” (content) of the communication of service design to improve and meet the needs, expectations, and requirements of all communication parties to ultimately enable service designers in strengthening the discipline’s involvement in projects and the commitment from project stakeholders

Dashboards to increase data-driven decision-making based on player's behaviour

Internship Report presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Data Science and Advanced Analytics, specialization in Business AnalyticsThe gaming industry has seen a massive increase over the last decade, having also seen an important boom during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The growth of the game industry has led to a huge increase in the number of new players and a rise in the popularity of Free to Play (F2P) games. As a result, there has been a shift in the gaming industry from a flash game to an online game that is attracting a lot of players everyday. This new model of gaming has proven to be a successful way to gain revenue. This report will detail a clear roadmap through my journey as a Junior Data Analyst and how BI reporting tools such as Dashboards are the foundation of data literacy which leads to understanding player's behaviour and to data-driven decision around improvement and game innovation

Innovations and Social Media Analytics in a Digital Society

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Innovations and Social Media Analytics in a Digital Society

Recent advances in digitization are transforming healthcare, education, tourism, information technology, and some other sectors. Social media analytics are tools that can be used to measure innovation and the relation of the companies with the citizens. This book comprises state-ofthe-art social media analytics, and advanced innovation policies in the digitization of society. The number of applications that can be used to create and analyze social media analytics generates large amounts of data called big data, including measures of the use of the technologies to develop or to use new services to improve the quality of life of the citizens. Digitization has applications in fields from remote monitoring to smart sensors and other devices. Integration generates data that need to be analyzed and visualized in an easy and clear way, that will be some of the proposals of the researchers present in this book. This volume offers valuable insights to researchers on how to design innovative digital analytics systems and how to improve information delivery remotely.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Compiling in-house & external design capabilities: Design managerial perceptions of enabling trust within in-house design teams

Trust and team dynamics are at the core of successful design teams and collaboration of in-house and external designers. In-house design capabilities are often enhanced with external capabilities in organizations, and therefore the relationships and team dynamics need careful managerial approaches from the design management practitioners. Hence, this Master’s thesis addresses how design management practitioners perceive the in-house design team dynamics when compiling in-house and external design capabilities in their organizations. Furthermore, the study focuses on the interpersonal trust of professional in-house and external designers. The research is conducted in two parts: through a literature review on the topic and gathering primary data from design management practitioners. The empiric research was done as an interview study in two technology corporations. The interview study consisted of two rounds of semi-structured interviews with design management practitioners. Theoretically, the frameworks of structuring design capabilities in organizations and design management of in-house design, external design, and especially the combination, are covered. There are three concrete outcomes from this study. Firstly, the identified elements design management practitioners perceive affect interpersonal trust in design team dynamics. Secondly, the identified means practitioners can have in establishing and enforcing trust between in-house and external designers. Thirdly, a tool that helps in enabling trust in the team by impacting on the onboarding process for a designer. The elements affecting trust between in-house and external designers are related to practicalities,design culture and designers themselves. Within these categories are eight identified elements in total. Moreover, this thesis identifies seven means, which design management practitioners can have in enhancing design team dynamics. As one of the outcomes, a concept for a design management tool is proposed. Team Integration Template is a tool that concretizes the findings and makes it easier to take action in actual design teams. This tool is designed for design management practitioners who are responsible for setting the premises and practices for the collaboration of in-house and external designers. The emphasis in the tool is on the onboarding and integration of a new designer to a particular design team. In the end, this thesis aims to evoke discussion on the notion of trust within design teams of professional in-house and external designers. The study and its results should open eyes in organizations where external designers are used in enhancing in-house capabilities: design management practitioners can see how they are in a key role in defining the culture of trust in their design organization. Practitioners can utilize the key findings in their work and see how their actions affect the design team dynamics.Luottamus ja tiimidynamiikka ovat menestyksekkäiden design-tiimien sekä organisaation sisäisten muotoilijoiden ja konsulttien yhteistyön keskiössä. Organisaatioiden sisäistä muotoilukyvykkyyttä vahvistetaan usein ulkoisilla kyvykkyyksillä, ja siksi kyseinen yhteistyö ja tiimidynamiikka vaativat tarkkaa johtajuutta muotoilujohtamistehtävissä toimivilta. Tässä opinnäytetyössä keskitytään siihen, miten muotoilujohtamistehtävissä toimivat henkilöt kokevat sisäisen design-tiimin dynamiikan organisaation hyödyntäessä sekä sisäisiä että ulkoisia kyvykkyyksiä. Tutkimus keskittyy etenkin sisäisten ja ulkoisten muotoilijoiden väliseen luottamukseen. Tutkimus toteutettiin kahdessa osassa: aiheeseen liittyvällä kirjallisuuskatsauksella sekä keräämällä ensisijaista tietoa muotoilujohtamisen ammattilaisilta. Empiirinen tutkimus toteutettiin haastattelututkimuksena kahdessa teknologiayrityksessä ja se koostui kahdesta puoli-strukturoitujen haastatteluiden kierroksesta. Opinnäytetyön teoriaosuudessa käsitellään eri tavat järjestää organisaatioiden muotoilukyvykkyyksiä. Lisäksi esitellään in-house-, ja ulkoisen muotoilukyvykkyyden, ja etenkin niiden yhdistelmän johtamiseen liittyviä viitekehyksiä. Tutkimuksessa on kolme konkreettista lopputulosta. Ensiksi löydökset tunnistetuista elementeistä, jotka muotoilujohtamistehtävissä toimivien mukaan vaikuttavat henkilöidenväliseen luottamukseen muotoilutiimissä. Toiseksi tutkimuksessa tunnistettiin keinoja, joita muotoilutehtävissä toimivat henkilöt voivat käyttää luodessaan ja vahvistaessaan luottamusta in-house- ja konsulttimuotoilijoiden välillä. Kolmanneksi esitelläänkonsepti työkalusta, joka helpottaa tiiminsisäisen luottamuksen mahdollistamisessa uuden muotoilijan sisäänottoprosessin kautta. In-house- ja konsulttimuotoilijoiden väliseen luottamukseen vaikuttavat elementit liittyvät käytännönasioihin, muotoilukulttuuriin tai itse muotoilijoihin, ja tutkimuksessa niitä tunnistettiin yhteensä kahdeksan. Lisäksi tutkimuksessa esitellään seitsemän keinoa, joilla muotoilujohtamistehtävissä toimivat henkilöt voivat vaikuttaa muotoilutiimin dynamiikan kehittämiseen. Yksi lopputuloksista on konsepti muotoilujohtamistyökalusta. Team Integration Template on työkalu, joka havainnollistaa tutkimuksen löydöksiä ja helpottaa konkreettisia toimia design-tiimeissä. Työkalu on suunniteltu muotoilujohtamisen ammattilaisille, jotka ovat vastuussa in-house- ja konsulttimuotoilijoiden yhteistyöasetelmasta. Työkalu keskittyy uuden muotoilijan sisäänotto- ja tiimiyttämisprosessiin. Opinnäytetyön tavoitteena on herättää keskustelua design-tiimien sisäisestä luottamuksesta in-house ja konsulttimuotoilijoiden välillä. Tutkimus ja sen tulosten merkitys korostuvat varsinkin organisaatioissa, joissa hyödynnetään sekä sisäistä että ulkoista muotoilukyvykkyyttä. Etenkin muotoilujohtamistehtävissä toimivat henkilöt voivat huomata, kuinka oleellisessa asemassa ovat määrittäessään luottamuksen kulttuuria muotoiluorganisaatioissaan. Ammattilaiset voivat hyödyntää tutkimuksen tuloksia ja suunniteltua työkalua työssään ja nähdä miten voivat vaikuttaa muotoilutiimin sisäiseen dynamiikkaan

From Minimum Viable to Maximum Lovable: Developing a User Experience Strategy Model for Software Startups

Software startups have gained attention by disrupting traditional businesses. As startups operate with scarce resources and under time pressure, efficient business value creation needs to be of the highest priority. Creating superior user experience (UX) is a means for startups to gain competitive edge that is difficult to copy. However, early product development in startups is filled with uncertainty – considering both the characteristics of the product under development and defining its target market. This is a challenge for designing UX, as both product qualities and user groups may drastically change together with the target market. However, scientific literature has not provided knowledge on ways to integrate UX creation as part of new business development (NBD) in software startups.This thesis contributes primarily to the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). Secondly, it contributes to software engineering, more specifically to human-centered software development. The goal of this doctoral research is to advance the knowledge and practices of software startups and user experience (UX) work. This is done by empirical research of the practices and needs for UX creation of the startups, and based on the gained understanding, by formulating a strategy model for including UX creation as a supporting part in establishing new software business. This compound thesis is based on six publications that result from four empirical studies with software startups. The studies were conducted over a period of two years between 2014 and 2016. The nature of the studies was qualitative and involved data collection from altogether 40 startups, mostly based in Finland but also in eight other countries.The results suggest that UX work creates value in two ways: both for users and for business development of startups. This research recognized beneficial approaches and practices for UX creation in software startups, such as light-weight UX work methods, adoption of good design solutions from successful products, and an iterative approach to product development. Studying the role of UX in early product design showed how poor UX hinders startups from gaining trustworthy feedback on their product idea, as users concentrate on deficiencies in UX. To ensure sufficient quality of UX, the Minimum Viable UX (MVUX) framework was developed to guide early design decisions in startups.The main contribution of this thesis is a UX strategy model that proposes UX strategy actions for two stages of startups lifecycle, namely validation of the product idea, and scaling for business growth. Moreover, the UX strategy model consists of UX strategy actions for UX goal setting, user involvement, and design decisions during the two phases. The UX strategy actions aim to ensure reaching minimum viable quality of UX to enable trustworthy validation of a product idea. However, for sustainable business growth and scaling, the model further aims to creating lovable UX that provides competitive advantage. The UX strategy model presents means for focusing UX creation to bringing value both to users and to the startup business