Diving in: What will it take for consumers to transition to a circular economy ready-to-cook fish product? Insights from the UK

To balance production needs with the need to sustain or regenerate the health of ocean ecosystems, stakeholders in the European fish and seafood sector are calling for transition to a circular economy. New industry methods will produce fish-based foods that consumers are not accustomed to eating so we ask, what will it take for consumers to adopt these industrial circular economy foods? Taking the Seafood Age consortium product prototype as a basis, we have created a design method for would-be consumers to reflect on their fish consumption practices and possible adoption of the fish product prototype prompted by a de-sign speculation. This paper reports on insights emerging from the research and recommendations for product adoption amongst consumers in the UK. Our findings have implications for food designers, design researchers and fish and sea-food, plus more broadly food industry stakeholders concerned with circular economy product and method adoption in industry

Mapping unchartered waters:Towards a Design methodology for researching the feasibility of circular economy practice adoption in the Ready-To-Cook fish product value chain

For stakeholders across the Ready-to-cook fish product value chain to adopt novel circular economy methods, new shared knowledge infrastructures must support changes in practices. Existing literature indicates that these cannot be imposed in a generalised manner. As an alternative, we propose that Participatory Design-informed infrastructuring could provide a means of developing them with stakeholders through exploring existing practices and feasibility for adopting prototypical methods, practices and products. Using the Seafood AGE consortia as a case study, we have developed two facilitative methods using accessible digital platforms in a remote and distributed manner, for collaborating with stakeholders to map and analyse practices and responses to speculative products. This paper reports on method development. It has implications for design research academics interfacing across industries to support transition to circular economies

This is not a paper:Applying a Design Research lens to video conferencing, publication formats, eggs… and other things

This is like an abstract to a paper, but it is more abstract. In fact, it is the introduction to something which is a not paper. The global Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 represented an inflection point for our post-post-modern world, a moment where our old normal was dramatically arrested. We are now in a state of comprehensive flux as ‘new normals’ emerge, begin to solidify, and may evolve into an—as yet undetermined—futures. This not paper is a facet and exploration of that flux as it relates to publication and conference culture, video conferencing systems, and how we both conduct, and share, research. You should read the whole of this abstract, but then you should take a step inside the not paper, it lives on the web over here https://designresearch.works/thisisnotapaper

Thinking Outside the Bag:Worker-led Speculation and the Future of Gig Economy Delivery Platforms

Gig economy is presented as disruptive, technologically driven, and forward thinking. Design is explicit in this framing, through use of slick apps to reduce friction and simplify experience for customer and worker. However, this framing is often driven by the platforms, and does not fully recognize the actual experience of work. In this paper we report on a collaborative design process on developing concepts for the future of gig work from a worker-centric perspective. This explicitly does not involve the platforms as stakeholders and uses design fiction as a tool for workers to express fears, joys, and the aspects of their work that are nuanced, reflective and surprising. We reflect on the designs created through this process, the tensions, and opportuni- ties with working with gig working couriers, and issues around power and representa- tion when designing with and for this community

Networking with Ghosts in the Machine:Speaking to the Internet of Things

Our increasingly technologically-mediated world continues to pose challenges for design. Considering these we suggest that the digital products and services that surround us are haunted by ‘ghosts in the machine’. These spectres bridge the physical with the digital, they broker competing relationships, and live among streams of data which cohere as algorithmic oceans causing precipitation of physical agency. Cast in this light, the ghosts in the machines of modern networked technologies represent aspects of designers’ challenging relationships with the products and services they create. An emerging body of Post Anthropocentric theory offers conceptual ‘jumping-off’ points to engage with these challenges. In this paper we describe experiments that reflect and build on these theories. Through these we explore the possible foundations of accessible heuristics to aid in purposeful designerly apprehension of the difficult socio-technical complexities that are common among 21st century technological assemblages

Lessons from one future of work: opportunities to flip the gig economy

Pervasive technologies are already transforming "The Future of Work". Mobile technologies, IoT, and data promise efficient and convenient work `on-demand'. They are convenient too for for platform providers whose clean and efficient interfaces for consumers disrupt marketplaces, offering digitally mediated access to services at a click. These same technologies provide access to work and labour markets whilst undermining promising flexible work and access to sufficient work. The global gig economy is expanding. Increasing numbers of workers see gig economy work as their main form of employment, yet have little voice in the construction of systems on which they depend. We argue that technologists must work with gig workers, policy makers and other stakeholders to address the adverse effects of technologies on gig workers. To better understand relationships between workers and the technologies they use, we describe insights from research carried out with UK cycle couriers. We reflect on technology's role in giving these workers' agency, rights and equity by design

A New Sustainability Model for Measuring Changes in Power and Access in Global Commodity Chains

High-value agricultural commodities face substantial economic, environmental and social sustainability challenges. As a result, commodity industries are adopting sustainable supply- and value-chain models to make production more efficient, traceable and risk-averse. These top-down models often focus on giving higher prices to smallholder producers. While an important component of sustainability, this focus on farm-gate prices has shown mixed results in part because they are less effective in highlighting the asymmetrical power relationships and the socio-economic and ecological complexity in high-value commodity production. Here, we use a novel method to measure and visualise changes in smallholder power in Madagascar’s northeast ‘vanilla triangle’—home to about 80% of the world’s high quality vanilla. Our results reveal the paradox that during the recent price surge an overall increase in smallholders’ multi-dimensional power to access economic benefits was accompanied by a decrease in many other equally important measures of sustainability. This illustrates how effective models for understanding global sustainable commodity chains should incorporate smallholders' perspectives that often emphasise complexity and uncertainty, and which aims to increase power and access for producers across both high and low price points

Understanding public health communication design globally during the Covid-19 pandemic : the good, the bad and the ugly

The aim of the study reported in this paper is to develop an understanding of official public health communication design on Covid-19 globally. As a new disease, the rapid rise in the sheer volume of new scientific information about Covid-19 surpasses human processing capabilities, impacting the public and policy makers, creating an 'infodemic crisis'. Following a two-stage message/language framing and visual design analysis of crowdsourced officialCovid-19 Public Health material we present findings from 46 countries, across five continents, and more in-depth analysis of 32 material from 17 countries. This is the first of its kind paper offering an analysis of the global situation on Covid-19 public health communication design;and six draft recommendations on how to effectively plan communication and frame messages that are compelling and actionable to the local audiences considering their social, cultural and economic circumstances

Understanding public health communication design globally during the Covid-19 pandemic:The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The aim of the study reported in this paper is to develop an understanding of official public health communication design on Covid-19 globally. As a new disease, the rapid rise in the sheer volume of new scientific information about Covid-19 surpasses human processing capabilities, impacting the public and policy makers, creating an ‘infodemic crisis’. Following a two-stage message/language framing and visual design analysis of crowdsourced official Covid-19 Public Health material we present findings from 46 countries, across five continents, and more in-depth analysis of 32 material from 17 countries. This is the first of its kind paper offering an analysis of the global situation on Covid-19 public health communication design; and six draft recommendations on how to effectively plan communication and frame messages that are compelling and actionable to the local audiences considering their social, cultural and economic circumstances