Product design education: a kit for building empathy

Challenges around inclusive design and social design consciousness require understanding the thoughts and feelings of the people around us. The role of empathy in the design process is widely recognized in the literature, increasing the attention of researchers and design educators to include empathic design as a research approach in product design education. Developing empathy through experiencing others’ life provides opportunities for students to understand how people with disabilities live, feel and experience their everyday life. Product design students need to gain socially conscious awareness and improve their empathic horizon. According to the literature, through training and experience, the empathic horizon of designers can be extended and changed over time. To acquire more empathy with people, simulation devices or wearable kits can be designed to mimic the weaknesses and limitations of people with disabilities. This paper describes an empathic design process where the students designed and prototyped an empathic wearable kit and perform the task independently. Putting on ‘other shoes’ the students record the experience in video and use the think-aloud technique to communicate the difficulties felt during the task. By learning to empathize, students can improve their abilities to recognize and make interpretations of what people think, feel, and need. Empathy practice during product development can provide empathic collect probes to help in students' design process decisions.publishe

A living book (transposing to the web the children's book histórias de pretos e de brancos)

This investigation is the result of several motivations and interests, namely the interest for illustration, the admiration for the work of Maria Keil, and the desire to preserve the aesthetic material of the book Histórias de pretos e de brancos as a contribution to the resistance against oblivion of this illustrator and this work in particular. Furthermore, there is a great shortage, in Portugal, of e- books that do not mimic the physical book and its way of interacting with the reader. By modelling Histórias de pretos e de brancos for the web, this project acknowledges the fact that children interact with electronic devices, and the artifacts of communication and ludicity conveyed through those devices, on an everyday basis. It also aims at helping reinforce values of inclusion across cultures, ethnicities and languages, as well as promoting media literacy in children through the discovery and exploration of this book. The conceptual framework for this new reading medium is provided by theories of illustration for childrens books, and questions of the materiality and imateriality of the book as an artifact of communication and ludicity, and of design. The relevance of such a project lies in its ability to promote knowledge and to create conditions for new experiences such as familiarity with books, and the awareness of the pleasure, freedom and aesthetic satisfaction to be derived from the reading of both written texts and images. This is to be attempted through the discovery, exploration and interaction with the work of Maria Keil, a major name within the filed of Portuguese illustration for children. This project aims at emphasise the complimentary relationship between the printed book – a material artifact, and the e-book – an imaterial artifact. This project is an essential part of our investigation of the design master and for that reason, as a working development prototype, we cannot present results at this moment

Designing personalized intelligent decision support systems: the impact of risk attitude on using secury selection models

The variety of investment methods and the complexity of investment decisions have increased steadily in the last two decades. This growth has created a need for comprehensive and expandable financial decision support systems that embody major approaches toward investment decisions. The question is whether such systems should take into account the investor's unique requirements and personal characteristics. This paper reports on the first phase of our research. Here, we design such a system, create a prototype, and use it for an exploratory investigation of the impact of investors' individual characteristics on their use of models in making decisions. More specifically, we report on how investors' attitudes towards risk, gender, and age relatetheir choice of investment models.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Um livro vivo: transposição para a web do livro para crianças Histórias de pretos e de brancos

Mestrado em DesignA dissertação que se apresenta nasce da convergência de diversas motivações e interesses, nomeadamente o gosto pela ilustração, a admiração e o reconhecimento pelo trabalho da artista Maria Keil, bem como da vontade de preservar museologicamente o material estético da obra Histórias de pretos e de brancos como contributo de resistência ao esquecimento desta ilustradora e desta obra em concreto. Mais, ainda, decorre da situação, em Portugal, da quase inexistência de livros em suporte electrónico que não pretendam copiar a interacção e a forma do livro material. E, reconhecendo que as crianças, no seu quotidiano, acedem aos dispositivos informáticos e aos artefactos de comunicação e ludicidade que neles circulam, pretendemos contribuir com o projecto que se apresenta — de maquetização, para a Web, da história referida —, para a potenciação da divulgação de valores de inclusão, de convivialidade inter-seres, de culturas, etnias e linguisticidades diversas e, através da descoberta, da exploração e do brincar com o livro, promover a literacia mediática. Abordando a ilustração do livro para crianças, a materialidade e a imaterialidade do livro como comunicação, ludicidade e artefacto lúdico e de design, constrói-se a sustentação conceptual que dará lugar e pertinência à criação de um novo suporte de leitura que, defendemos, pode acrescentar conhecimento, criar novas condições para novas experiências, promovendo a convivialidade com o livro e, fruto disso, a aprendizagem do prazer, da liberdade e do gosto estético que a leitura tanto textual como imagética favorece. E, tudo isso, através da descoberta, exploração e brincadeira das crianças com a obra de uma autora de referência no património da ilustração para as crianças portuguesas, como é o caso de Maria Keil. Com o projecto que apresentamos afirmamos, assim, uma relação de complementaridade entre o livro impresso, artefacto material, e o livro electrónico, artefacto imaterial. ABSTRACT: This dissertation is the result of several motivations and interests, namely the interest for illustration, the admiration for the work of Maria Keil, and the desire to preserve the aesthetic material of the book Histórias de pretos e de brancos as a contribution to the resistance against oblivion of this illustrator and this work in particular. Furthermore, there is a great shortage, in Portugal, of ebooks that do not mimic the physical book and its way of interacting with the reader. By modelling Histórias de pretos e de brancos for the web, this project acknowledges the fact that children interact with electronic devices, and the artifacts of communication and ludicity conveyed through those devices, on an everyday basis. It also aims at helping reinforce values of inclusion across cultures, ethnicities and languages, as well as promoting media literacy in children through the discovery and exploration of this book. The conceptual framework for this new reading medium is provided by theories of illustration for childrenʼs books, and questions of the materiality and imateriality of the book as an artifact of communication and ludicity, and of design. The relevance of such a project lies in its ability to promote knowledge and to create conditions for new experiences such as familiarity with books, and the awareness of the pleasure, freedom and aesthetic satisfaction to be derived from the reading of both written texts and images. This is to be attempted through the discovery, exploration and interaction with the work of Maria Keil, a major name within the filed of Portuguese illustration for children. This project aims at emphasise the complimentary relationship between the printed book – a material artifact, and the e-book – an imaterial artifact

(Re)designing a tradicional product - Design strategies for the development of yellow codfish products and its positioning in gourmet markets

This study is aimed to establish knowledge about the relationship of the strategic issues of design, focusing on the value of the product as a market strategy and the importance given by a national industry with wide experience in cod fishing in the area of Aveiro. We tried to study and analyze the codfish industry to use a new marketing strategy based on recovery of yellow codfish - distinct product and with portuguese origin, undervalued and deserving outstanding in internationalization. This work was done under a survey of theoretical studies that gave us the historical background since the artesanal fishing until the industry of codfish; we identified a small company in Gafanha da Nazarét, Aveiro (central sector), the Silvercod, who tried to develop a strategy to recovery yellow codfish already marketed by this company but little explored and published, trying to place it in a new market through a strategy of communication and encouraging new forms of consumption. This strategy demand to spread awareness of the consumer and for the tasting of this product, we can consider gourmet, unique and great tradition in Portugal. The result of this research can not yet be measured and in the moment, the project is still under development and testing. Because of this, and also due to the product not yet being marketed, it is difficult to present results and conclusions, particularly with regard to sales and the impact of this intervention through design

Collective self-understanding: A linguistic style analysis of naturally occurring text data

Understanding what groups stand for is integral to a diverse array of social processes, ranging from understanding political conflicts to organisational behaviour to promoting public health behaviours. Traditionally, researchers rely on self-report methods such as interviews and surveys to assess groups’ collective self-understandings. Here, we demonstrate the value of using naturally occurring online textual data to map the similarities and differences between real-world groups’ collective self-understandings. We use machine learning algorithms to assess similarities between 15 diverse online groups’ linguistic style, and then use multidimensional scaling to map the groups in two-dimensonal space (N=1,779,098 Reddit comments). We then use agglomerative and k-means clustering techniques to assess how the 15 groups cluster, finding there are four behaviourally distinct group types – vocational, collective action (comprising political and ethnic/religious identities), relational and stigmatised groups, with stigmatised groups having a less distinctive behavioural profile than the other group types. Study 2 is a secondary data analysis where we find strong relationships between the coordinates of each group in multidimensional space and the groups’ values. In Study 3, we demonstrate how this approach can be used to track the development of groups’ collective self-understandings over time. Using transgender Reddit data (N= 1,095,620 comments) as a proof-of-concept, we track the gradual politicisation of the transgender group over the past decade. The automaticity of this methodology renders it advantageous for monitoring multiple online groups simultaneously. This approach has implications for both governmental agencies and social researchers more generally. Future research avenues and applications are discussed.</p

Collective self-understanding: A linguistic style analysis of naturally occurring text data

Understanding what groups stand for is integral to a diverse array of social processes, ranging from understanding political conflicts to organisational behaviour to promoting public health behaviours. Traditionally, researchers rely on self-report methods such as interviews and surveys to assess groups' collective self-understandings. Here, we demonstrate the value of using naturally occurring online textual data to map the similarities and differences between real-world groups' collective self-understandings. We use machine learning algorithms to assess similarities between 15 diverse online groups' linguistic style, and then use multidimensional scaling to map the groups in two-dimensonal space (N=1,779,098 Reddit comments). We then use agglomerative and k-means clustering techniques to assess how the 15 groups cluster, finding there are four behaviourally distinct group types - vocational, collective action (comprising political and ethnic/religious identities), relational and stigmatised groups, with stigmatised groups having a less distinctive behavioural profile than the other group types. Study 2 is a secondary data analysis where we find strong relationships between the coordinates of each group in multidimensional space and the groups' values. In Study 3, we demonstrate how this approach can be used to track the development of groups' collective self-understandings over time. Using transgender Reddit data (N= 1,095,620 comments) as a proof-of-concept, we track the gradual politicisation of the transgender group over the past decade. The automaticity of this methodology renders it advantageous for monitoring multiple online groups simultaneously. This approach has implications for both governmental agencies and social researchers more generally. Future research avenues and applications are discussed

“Os novos imigrantes”: construções discursivas sobre haitianos e senegaleses em um jornal do Sul do Brasil

The present article seeks to understand how a newspaper of regional circulation – the Zero Hora newspaper –, discursively constructs the image of the Haitian and Senegalese immigrants, who started to arrive in the Rio Grande do Sul state in 2014 and 2015. Based on the analysis of three ZH Specials, it was verified that the newspaper establishes diverse discursive constructions concerning these individuals, calling attention to speeches permeated by an ethnic-racial grammar and regarding its relations on the labor market.O presente artigo busca compreender como um jornal de circulação regional, o jornal Zero Hora (ZH), constrói discursivamente a figura dos imigrantes haitianos e senegaleses que passaram a ingressar no Rio Grande do Sul entre os anos de 2014 e 2015. Com base em três Especiais ZH, verificou-se que o jornal estabelece construções discursivas variadas em relação a esses indivíduos, trazendo à tona discursos permeados por uma gramática étnico-racial e pelo ingresso no mercado de trabalho.

Percursos de conhecimento que se desenham brincando . enciclopédia interactiva para crianças surdas, dos 3 aos 6 anos

Esta investigação pretende conduzir à criação de um projecto de design de um livro digital interactivo (aplicação), baseado no conceito de enciclopédia, para crianças surdas entre os 3 e os 6 anos. Sendo que a comunicação é o principal desafio destas crianças e a ausência de mediação da linguagem oral constrange a compreensão de conceitos, a aquisição, a assimilação e, consequentemente, a consolidação de conhecimento, pretende-se que esta aplicação opere na construção do próprio percurso de conhecimento e de brincar de cada uma destas crianças. A narrativa assume a dimensão de uma “enciclopédia viva” na medida em que, sendo os conceitos que as palavras transportam desconhecidos das crianças surdas todos lhes têm que ser apresentados/explicados para serem apreendidos. Para uma criança surda conhecer algo implica ver em acção e é nesse sentido que encontramos o potencial num produto interactivo lúdico e a pertinência da nossa investigação. Primeiramente, foram analisados projectos especificamente desenhados para crianças surdas com a finalidade de encontrar parâmetros comuns. Em termos metodológicos aplicaremos investigação-acção e etnográfica, numa atitude participativa com as crianças e as educadoras, de forma a recolher opiniões para o desenho iterativo do protótipo da aplicação. A aplicação, acreditamos, funcionará, neste contexto, como um meio potenciador da ludicidade e da comunicação da criança surda, e por esta razão, integrador e facilitador da formação global da criança- pessoa como um todo. Pretendemos, igualmente, fomentar e actuar na construção da literacia visual e mediática da criança surda recorrendo à ilustração, enquanto recurso expressivo e facilitador de comunicação com este público. Todavia, a especificidade destas crianças leva-nos a pensar que o design inclusivo é aqui um design exclusivo, ou seja, um design que assume as idiossincrasias destas crianças, esperando que, com os resultados alcançados com esta interacção resulte numa maior facilidade na compreensão, aquisição de conceitos, construção de conhecimento e de aproximação destas crianças a um mundo audível.publishe

MILITARIZAÇÃO DA EDUCAÇÃO EM GOIÁS E OPINIÃO PÚBLICA: REFLEXÕES SOCIOLÓGICAS EM ENUNCIADOS DO JORNAL O POPULAR

From the problematization of statements about the endorsement of the Goiás population to the militarization of public schools in the state network, the study selects and categorizes texts published between 2015 and 2018 in the Goiás newspaper "O Popular" on the theme "military school." From theoretical keys presented by Bourdieu (2008; 1987), it describes and analyzes the positions that emerge there about the militarization process of the schools of the state public network of Goiás. For this, we use the utterance concept in Bakhtin (1997) as an element that makes up the discourse of public opinion, whose characteristics touch on common sense about education and militarization policy. Next, we seek to understand how these positions are engendered and articulated as foundations of a supposed "public opinion." Thus, besides the "sociological vision" prescribed by Bourdieu, the study uses theoretical keys formulated by Marx and Engels. It uses Carvalho (2013) and Aquino (2014) to discuss the dynamics of the school environment. Throughout the text, we present possibilities for understanding the sociocultural bases that energize the positions that "public opinion" manifests. Moreover, the study made it possible to describe the social place in which the discourses that defend the militarization of education in Goiás operate.Partiendo de la problematización de enunciados que versan sobre la aprobación de la población goiana a la militarización de escuelas públicas de la red estatal, el estudio selecciona y categoriza textos publicados entre 2015 y 2018 en el periódico goiano O Popular sobre la temática "escuela militar". A partir de claves teóricas presentadas por Bourdieu (2008; 1987), describe y analiza los posicionamientos que emergen acerca del proceso de militarización de las escuelas de la red pública estatal de Goiás. Para ello, se utiliza el concepto de enunciados, en Bakhtin (1997), como elemento que compone el discurso de la opinión pública, cuyas características se refieren al sentido común sobre la educación y la política de militarización. A continuación, se busca comprender cómo tales posicionamientos son engendrados y articulados como fundamentos de una supuesta "opinión pública". Así, además del "mirada sociológica" prescrita por Bourdieu, el estudio utiliza claves teóricas formuladas por Marx y Engels. Para hablar sobre dinámicas propias del ambiente escolar, se recurre a Carvalho (2013) y Aquino (2014). A lo largo del texto se presentan posibilidades de comprensión de las bases socioculturales que dinamizan los posicionamientos que la "opinión pública" manifiesta. Además, el estudio permitió describir el lugar social en que operan los discursos que defienden la militarización de la educación en Goiás.Partindo da problematização de enunciados que versam sobre a chancela da população goiana à militarização de escolas públicas da rede estadual, o estudo seleciona e categoriza textos publicados entre 2015 e 2018 no periódico goiano O Popular sobre a temática “escola militar”. A partir de chaves teóricas apresentadas por Bourdieu (2008; 1987), ele descreve e analisa os posicionamentos que ali emergem acerca do processo de militarização das escolas da rede pública estadual de Goiás. Para isso, utiliza-se o conceito de enunciados, em Bakhtin (1997), como elemento que compõe o discurso da opinião pública, cujas características tangem o senso comum sobre a educação e a política de militarização. Em seguida, busca-se compreender como tais posicionamentos são engendrados e articulados enquanto alicerces de uma suposta “opinião pública”. Assim, além do “olhar sociológico” prescrito por Bourdieu, o estudo utiliza chaves teóricas formuladas por Marx e Engels. Para discorrer sobre dinâmicas próprias do ambiente escolar, ele lança mão de Carvalho (2013) e Aquino (2014). Ao longo do texto apresentam-se possibilidades de compreensão das bases socioculturais que dinamizam os posicionamentos que a “opinião pública” manifesta. Ademais, o estudo possibilitou descrever o lugar social em que se operam os discursos que defendem a militarização da educação em Goiás