Design as freedom

Creating a perfect world is most likely impossible; however, it can be generally agreed that the world we live in can be better. Designers can potentially make an important contribution to this quest, given that design is about imagining and achieving better futures. This thesis is primarily concerned with advancing the moral groundings of design and with assessing good design by prioritising what is right, regarding whether it contributes to making the world better. This book introduces Design as Freedom, an alternative driving principle for design, which is based on philosophical elaboration, and it also proposes the Aalto LAB meta-framework as a method of putting it into practice. This research has constantly looped from theory to practice, so that the alternative driving principle and the method have been fundamental in building each other. As a case of constructive design research, where knowledge is generated through design, four different things have been constructed, providing four different lenses to Design as Freedom: an alternative driving principle for design, a design process, a pedagogic programme, and the researcher’s personal journey (setting up and implementing Aalto LAB Mexico). In my view, design is constrained by the idea of progress as coined during the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, where betterment is expressed through a positive exponential curve. In the course of time, economic growth became the unquestioned primary goal of nations, organisations, and individuals; however, this goal has yet to be reasonably justified. Design as Freedom challenges the traditional assumption that design is an economically and technologically driven activity. In contrast, it embraces the diverse ways of life that different people might have reason to value. Design as Freedom is a reasoned alternative, a highly complex practice in which socially committed designers co-design with people who are acknowledged to be living in clear situations of injustice. Within Design as Freedom, co-design becomes a longitudinal process and a mutually enabling activity for designers and for participant end-users. Additionally, with the aim of keeping environmental sustainability at the forefront, I propose making use of assemblage thinking as a framework that explicitly expresses the intricate relationship between humans and non-humans, and simultaneously enables the imagining of new human–non-human relationships. Therefore, this is a Kantian conception of freedom, which is tightly related to the concepts of reason and morality. In this case, Sustainability sets the moral limits that constrain human freedoms. The assemblage also enables the understanding of freedom as a triad (following Gerald MacCallum, 1967), where an agent has an intention and there are no constraints preventing its achievement. In other words, freedom is envisioning a new assemblage, it means being able to identify which new relationships must be created as a means to overcome the barriers that made them unfree. I argue that this type of design practice can be equated with exercising freedom. Mainly due to the conjunction of circumstances, Design as Freedom was put into practice through a project called Aalto LAB Mexico (ALM). ALM is based on a project that took place in 2010, called Aalto LAB Shanghai. ALM takes place in a Mayan community called 20 de Noviembre (El 20), located in Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico, a highly marginalised area, which is also highly biologically diverse. An interdisciplinary team of students (labbers) from Aalto University, Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Ciudad de México, and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México are mentored by an equally interdisciplinary team of experts who belong to either the public, private, or third sector, or to academia; and all their processes are facilitated by expert designers. The labbers have collaborated with people from El 20, and have generated several Sustainable Product Service System (S.PSS) types of projects, which have reached different phases within the design process (diagnosis, conceptualisation, implementation, evaluation). Each of the projects has the potential to expand people’s freedoms and thus reduce injustice. ALM added a pedagogic dimension to the exploration of Design as Freedom; however, rather than seeing this as a constraint, it is seen as an opportunity. Nearly three decades have passed since the term ‘Sustainability’ was coined, and whilst the world has not changed dramatically, it can be observed that a growing number of young design students, herein called the Children of Brundtland, demand more meaningful professions. When study programmes prepare students to exclusively satisfy the needs of industry and pursue the goal of economic growth, the Children of Brundtland, who do not share the idea that economic growth is the highest end, experience a clear case of injustice. The pedagogic dimension required an extensive focus on the designers’ freedoms, which for its part enabled the observation of what we have called the double-sided mirror perspective. The design team and the people of El 20 learned about a design process that could deliver freedom (the S.PSS). Moreover, they also experienced the design process as a mutually enabling experience. The people of El 20 gain awareness and experience in tackling their own problems. The design team gains the effective opportunity to exercise a type of professional practice that they have reason to value. My own journey constructing ALM is a case of Design as Freedom, which enabled me to experience life in accordance with my own rational plan. The Design as Freedom principle presented in the first part of the book was constructed in response to what was observed in practice throughout the longitudinal journeys of the design team, the people of El 20, and myself. In the second part of the book, throughout these experiences, the Design as Freedom principle is put into practice. If profit-making was left aside, design could possibly do much more; Design as Freedom is just one reasoned alternative. Conceiving an initial situation as an assemblage enables designers to keep environmental considerations at the forefront of the process, and it also inspires desirable and feasible visions of the future. Moreover, by conceiving communities as assemblages, it could be possible to envision a wide array of alternative ways of living, which is probably what is needed before achieving a sustainable world. Many cases developed by designers and design researchers worldwide prove that designers have the skills required to make the world better; which is also the source of a great moral responsibility. Thus, I maintain that designers should not discriminate against any type of potential end-user, and that design should incorporate the most urgent matters of the world into its research agenda, and contribute to global justice

Personalised assistive products : managing stigma and expressing the self

In the design of assistive products, the focus is on the products’ assistive utility functions. Less attention is paid to functions which could allow users to identify with the products, or to express their identities. Associations that assistive products create are seldom addressed. More research has been carried out on the stigma of disability than on the possible stigma caused by assistive products. Yet, it appears that rather than experiencing disability as stigmatising, particularly young people associate stigma with using assistive products and attempt to influence that. Personalisation of assistive products is a phenomenon that has not yet been studied, at least not from the viewpoint of managing stigma. In this doctoral research, the stigma of using assistive products is explored from the viewpoint of design. Answers are sought for how young adults with physical disability experience the design of assistive products (including accessible space) in use, what the assumed stigma associated with the products is like, and how young adults manage the stigma. A perspective is adopted, which considers people with disability as active and inventive in relation to their assistive products. The personalization of assistive products is explored as a means of managing the assumed stigma. The phenomenon of personalising assistive products is approached as a case. Understanding the phenomenon is gained by exploring literature on products’ role in identification, a questionnaire on assistive device satisfaction, an Internet database about users’ inventive product modifications, interviews with professionals who work with users, and interviews with users who have personalised their assistive products. A theoretical framework, which has also guided the analysis of the data, considers the role of products in identification. The social and material construction of the self, similarity and difference between people, and the emergence of roles, types and stereotypes are unfolded. The meaning of products in constructing and expressing the self is explored. Perceiving and interpreting products, various product functions and managing impression with products are discussed. Particularly products that stigmatise and stereotype are in the focus and light is shed on the nature and emergence of stigma, the assumed stigma of using assistive products, and people’s techniques in managing stigma. Diverse angles help understand the multifaceted consequences of using assistive products. The findings are organised into a typology where users’ experiences of both ready-made and personalised assistive products are categorised into types and subtypes, which describe the various functions assistive products can have. The negative types, Instruments, Misrepresentations and Uniforms, reveal the complexity of the stigma associated with current ready-made assistive products. The neutral types, Shields and Mainstream Products, show how users managed the stigma by personalising the products. The positive types, Accessories, Handicrafts and Prestige Items, introduce how personalisation can be extended to expressing the self. The research reveals how personalisation adds aesthetic, social and identity functions to products that have previously been considered as having primarily assistive ones. Assistiveness is proposed as a shared semantic quality of assistive products, which could be adjusted through personalisation. The research is positioned in the field of design research in industrial and strategic design. In studying assistive products’ role in expressing and constructing their users’ identities, the research interconnects conceptions of user experience, inclusive design and design semantics. The research contributes to earlier research by discussing the problematics of assistive products also from the viewpoint of design. It shows that design can have a significant role in diminishing the stigma of assistive products, and how users view themselves and are viewed by other people. The research proposes that more expertise is needed in managing what is involved in the use of assistive products and presents benefits that engaging users and designers in the process can have. By introducing personalised assistive products and their functions that extend beyond assistive ones, the research proposes that assistive products need to, and also can be, viewed as any products.Apuvälineiden muotoilussa keskitytään tuotteiden avustaviin toimintoihin. Vähemmän huomiota kiinnitetään sellaisiin käyttötarkoituksiin, joiden avulla käyttäjät voisivat samaistua tuotteisiin tai ilmaista identiteettejään. Apuvälineiden herättämiin mielikuviin kohdistetaan huomiota vain harvoin. Apuvälineiden käyttöön mahdollisesti liittyvää leimaa on tutkittu vähemmän kuin vammaisuuden leimaavuutta. Silti vaikuttaisi, että erityisesti nuoret kokevat apuvälineen käytön, ennemmin kuin vammaisuuden, leimaavaksi ja yrittävät vaikuttaa siihen. Apuvälineiden personalisointia ei vielä ole tutkittu ainakaan leiman hallinnan näkökulmasta. Tässä väitöskirjatutkimuksessa on selvitetty, miten nuoret aikuiset, joilla on liikuntavamma, kokevat apuvälineiden (mukaan lukien esteettömän tilan) muotoilun käytössä, millainen apuvälineisiin liittyvä leima on ja miten nuoret aikuiset ovat hallinneet leimaa. Käyttäjät, joilla on liikuntavamma, nähdään aktiivisina ja kekseliäinä suhteessa apuvälineisiinsä. Apuvälineiden personalisointia tarkastellaan keinona hallita apuvälineiden käytön oletettua leimaa. Apuvälineiden personalisointia lähestytään tapauksena. Ilmiötä pyritään ymmärtämään tarkastelemalla kirjallisuutta, joka käsittelee tuotteiden merkitystä käyttäjän identiteetille, ja empiiristä aineistoa, joka koostuu apuvälinetyytyväisyyttä mittaavasta kyselystä, käyttäjien apuvälineideoita sisältävästä internet-tietokannasta sekä käyttäjärajapinnassa työskentelevien asiantuntijoiden ja apuvälineitä personalisoivien käyttäjien haastatteluista. Tutkimuksen teoreettinen viitekehys, joka on myös ohjannut aineiston analyysiä, keskittyy tuotteiden merkitykseen identiteetin ilmaisussa ja rakentumisessa. Siinä perehdytään identiteetin sosiaaliseen ja materiaaliseen rakentumiseen, yksilöiden väliseen samankaltaisuuteen ja erilaisuuteen, roolien, tyyppien ja stereotyyppien ilmaantumiseen, tuotteiden havaitsemiseen ja tulkitsemiseen sekä tuotteiden erilaisiin käyttötarkoituksiin ja tehtäviin vaikutelman hallinnassa. Erityisesti tarkastellaan tuotteita, jotka leimaavat ja stereotyypittävät. Lisäksi selvitetään leiman olemusta ja ilmaantumista, apuvälineiden käytön oletettua leimaa ja yksilöiden keinoja hallita leimaa. Erilaiset näkökulmat tuottavat kattavan ymmärryksen apuvälineiden käytön monitahoisista seurauksista. Tutkimuksen tuloksena käyttäjien kokemukset valmisapuvälineistä ja personalisoiduista apuvälineistä on jaettu tyyppeihin, jotka kuvaavat apuvälineiden erilaisia mahdollisia käyttötarkoituksia. Negatiiviset tyypit, Instrumentit, Vääristelmät ja Univormut, paljastavat nykyisten valmisapuvälineiden käyttöön liitetyn leiman monitahoisuuden. Neutraalit tyypit, Kilvet ja Valtavirtatuotteet, osoittavat miten käyttäjät ovat pyrkineet hallitsemaan leimaa apuvälineitä personalisoimalla. Positiiviset tyypit, Asusteet, Käsityöt ja Statusesineet, esittävät miten personalisointi voidaan ulottaa myös osaksi identiteetin ilmaisua. Tutkimus paljastaa, miten personalisointi lisää esteettisiä, sosiaalisia ja identiteettiin liittyviä käyttötarkoituksia tuotteille, jotka on perinteisesti nähty vain avustavina. Avustavuutta ehdotetaan apuvälineitä yhdistäväksi semanttiseksi ominaisuudeksi, jota voidaan säädellä personalisoinnilla. Tutkimus sijoittuu muotoilun tutkimukseen ja edustaa teollisen muotoilun alaa. Se yhdistää käyttökokemuksen, inklusiivisen suunnittelun ja muotoilun semantiikan käsityksiä pohtiessaan apuvälineiden tehtävää käyttäjän identiteetin ilmaisussa ja rakentumisessa. Tutkimus tuo muotoilun näkökulman apuvälineiden ongelmallisuutta käsittelevään aiempaan tutkimukseen. Se osoittaa, että muotoilulla voi olla merkittävä rooli apuvälineisiin liitetyn leiman vähentämisessä ja siinä, miten käyttäjät näkevät itsensä ja tulevat nähdyiksi. Tutkimuksessa esitetään, että apuvälineiden käyttöön liittyvän kokonaisuuden hallinnassa tarvitaan lisää asiantuntijuuksia. Siinä ehdotetaan, mitä hyötyä on siitä, että myös käyttäjät ja muotoilijat otetaan osaksi apuvälineisiin liittyvää prosessia. Esittelemällä personalisoituja apuvälineitä ja niiden muitakin kuin avustavia käyttötarkoituksia tutkimus ehdottaa, että apuvälineet pitää ja ne myös voidaan nähdä kuten mitkä tahansa tuotteet

User-Centered Design of a Context-Aware Nurse Assistant (CANA) at Finnish elderly Houses

In this age of mobile and ubiquitous computing, many nurses working in the healthcare sector still utilize traditional tools (e.g., paper calendars and clipboards) and pre-installed mobile applications (e.g., web browser, calendar) in their work activities. There exists a variety of mHealth applications, but none of them combines essential professional tools for nursing. We tackled this problem in the Finnish elderly house context through the User Centered Design (UCD) method whereby the target users actively participate in the design process. Together with 12 nurses, we first identified their profiles and their expectations on work-related mHealth application functionalities. The results were utilized in conceptual design of Context-Aware Nurse Assistant (CANA), which combines the identified functionalities and provides context-sensitive services to consolidate nurses’ work activities. This paper contributes to the field of ubiquitous healthcare as follows: 1) initial user survey that shows the need for the proposed CANA system; 2) UCD design process of CANA and its suitability for designing ubiquitous healthcare systems, 3) technical architecture based on modular web services and 4) evaluation results of a low-fidelity CANA prototype. These results are of interest to software designers, healthcare professionals and context-aware application developers

Warm Solutions: Medical Making & Collaborative Infrastructure for Care

Making, as an activity and culture, enables people to participate in technological innovation at non-traditional sites. In healthcare settings, medical makers undertake activities as a part of routine, professional care practice. Their collaborative process occurs at the intersection of centralized healthcare systems and decentralized maker technologies with reflexive opportunities for human-centered design. In my research, I propose a critical view of medical making as an opportunity to reposition the power to participate in design within traditional healthcare practice. I develop my thesis from multiple efforts in a wide ecosystem of medical makers across private and public practice, STEM institutions, academic research labs, and non-profit groups. I apply Science and Technology Studies (STS) and HCI theories to analyze stakeholder efforts in relation to long-term patient-centered care infrastructure. Embedded in practice, infrastructure becomes visible in relation to its use. In my dissertation, I develop an understanding of how stakeholders in healthcare settings and networks influence care infrastructure with maker technologies. I do this by foregrounding the norms, values, and expertise related to stakeholder participation across three sections. First, I re-locate the site where physician-led making begins from labs to the bedside – as safe, reliable, small-scale prototypes. Second, I re-frame the importance of medical making, with lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, when grassroot- and institutional makers repaired temporary manufacturing breakdowns by creating reliable medical supplies. Third, I re-center the role of point-of-care medical makers, highlighting present-day nurse contributions as makers and contrasting their historically undocumented contributions in routine care. My research work culminates in a discussion of the human infrastructure, in addition to information systems, required to design environments for innovation based on the case study of medical making. For HCI researchers, this work first diversifies design values of novelty to include healthcare values of safety, reliability, and verifiability in collaborative systems, and second, extrapolates lessons from medical making to build fair, equitable, and sustainable infrastructure for collaboration between experts and non-experts. From these value-driven insights, I hope my work further contributes practical, methodological, and ethical implications for multiple stakeholders including policymakers and researchers.Ph.D

Material Cultures of Psychiatry

In the past, our ideas of psychiatric hospitals and their history have been shaped by objects like straitjackets, cribs, and binding belts. These powerful objects were often used as a synonym for psychiatry and the way psychiatric patients were treated, yet very little is known about the agency of these objects and their appropriation by staff and patients. By focusing on material cultures, this book offers a new perspective on the history of psychiatry: it enables a narrative in which practicing psychiatry is part of a complex entanglement in which power is constantly negotiated. Scholars from different academic disciplines show how this material-based approach opens up new perspectives on the agency and imagination of men and women inside psychiatry