Making Tactful Objects for Sensitive Settings: A Research through Design Process

This contribution illustrates the Research through Design process of Mr.V the Spaceman, a tactful object meant to support families of children with cancer maintain a healthy domestic life during stressful times. By recounting insights from the field and unfolding changes to the original artifact over a period of two years, the paper illuminates how an understanding of tactfulness has emerged and developed into a key design quality for this work. This complex and entangled process of making is surfaced and illustrated by a rich and scrupulous annotation of the artisanal craft and technological explorations that led from the original Mr.V prototype to what is now Mr.V the Spaceman.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Human Information Communication DesignEmerging Material