Self Constructed Representations: Design Research in Participatory Situations

This paper proposes that the blurred line between designer and researcher can have a positive effect on design processes. The aims of the paper are firstly, to show how design ethnography is an emerging field of design practice in its own right, and secondly, to give some examples of how open ethnographic methods have been used in public-facing field research. Finally, to propose some recommendations related to the design of open design-ethnographic instruments and activities. Design ethnography integrates two distinct understandings of ethnography. The first is observational, designers present people with designed objects and observe how they interact with them (Houde and Hill, 1997). The second is shaping, designers give participants unfinished prototypes or sketches and invite participants to modify them (Baskinger, 2010). Designerly ethnography involves methods more familiar to designers than to ethnographers, and may be directed towards more general categories of inquiry than product development. This idea draws on Ingold’s (2013) concept of correspondence with materials as a way of awakening the senses to experience

De-computation: Programming the world through design

We describe a developing methodology called ‘de- computation’ which combines design making and computational thinking in a two-way exchange aimed at understanding and reacting against increasing computational control of humans’ natural, arti cial and social systems, by using the tools and methods of computation in the design process. The steps of de-computation are detailed, its relation to similar approaches is explained, examples are given, and we explain its relevance for design research, theory construction and practical design work

Making as Pedagogical Practice in HCI: From Artefacts to Theory Building

This paper introduces the notion of making as a pedagog-ical practice in HCI education. Our focus is on generative design teaching in HCI that prioritizes collaborative en-gagements across a wide range of material encounters. We take the view that HCI education without a critical view of the relationship between people and objects results in abstract reasoning that runs the risk of an impoverished ba-sis in praxis. To support this position, we provide a series of examples from our own teaching. Through these exam-ples we locate our work in the field of new materiality and post-human design asking the question: How can HCI edu-cation account for the material turn? We observe that there is important theory-building work to be done in this area and propose some methods and a direction this work could take. HCI education remains dominated by an instrumen-talist, problem-solving, evaluative approach. We suggest meaning making through material exploration can invigorate the discipline with a new design praxis

Design Competencies Futures: How do we REDO Design Education?

Abstract: The REDO biannual Cumulus 2017 conference in Kolding describes “how designers struggle on many levels to gain influence on the decision-making processes” and that we need to “rethink design-doing.” In our professional and didactic experience, designers not always have the language or terminology to convey the depth, value or validity of ‘design-doing’ contributions to these decision-making processes. This raises the question whether design education can do a better job in providing language that can help design students articulate what makes ‘design doing’ so special and relevant. In order to better articulate the value, depth and validity of ‘design doing’ we have developed a framework of design competencies that maybe helpful to other design educators to define, organize and measure the value of ‘design doing’, and help future design practitioners to better understand and communicate the value of what they have learned. After a brief description of the pedagogical context from which the work originated, this paper presents a conference workshop proposal that aims to introduce participants to a framework of ‘design doing’ competencies that allows for diversity and scalability in usage, while appreciating the different cultural, national and regional backgrounds and variations for different design disciplines. In the workshop, we will guide participants through a series of hands-on exercises and ‘visual thinking’ experiences that enable design educators and practitioners to define and detail dynamic, open design competencies in a playful, energizing way. The overarching aim of the workshop is to collaboratively develop a shared language and terminology that helps educators, practitioners and design students to understand, define and communicate the value of ‘design doing’

Representing experiences of digital systems: the design and use of externalising models

This is a PhD by practice that explores how people’s experiences of digital systems can be made physically and visually apparent using models and activities I have designed. The theoretical context for this PhD centres on internal and external models of people’s experiences with digital systems. This is an AHRC funded PhD written as part of the Creative Exchange, which supports collaborative research projects conducted with industry and academic partners. The way people experience digital systems can be dif cult to observe, and is experienced via complex, fragmented interfaces with hidden effects. We often nd that digital systems have a attening effect, and are frustrating and confusing to use, while our actions and behaviours are invisibly tracked and analysed. There is thus a need for people to gain awareness of the ways they experience digital systems. My primary research question focuses on the design characteristics of visual and physical models that externalise individual and group experiences of digital systems. Secondary questions include: What effects do the material properties of externalising models have on how digital systems are represented? and What types of activities externalise representations of digital systems? These questions are explored through case studies that focus on a set of digital systems identi ed through the research including web browsing, digital social networks, and image metadata. The first two case studies are exploratory, the third is applied. I completed these case studies in three collaborative settings, employing qualitative data collection methods including drawing, physical modelling and semi-structured interviews. I draw on theories of representation and cognition, and Dix and Gongora’s theory of externalisation in design, and apply them to new contexts and situations. My units of analysis are the externalising models and participants’ spoken accounts of making them. The ndings include: externalising experiences of digital systems using diverse materials is a way of countering attening effects; deploying new non-linguistic metaphors to represent experiences of digital systems is an important way of understanding and communicating them; and designing situations where people can create self-constructed representations of their experiences of digital systems enables narrative sequences, tangible expressions, and shared descriptions. My research is useful for the insight it provides participants into their own experiences with everyday digital systems, giving them better ways of understanding how digital systems shape their lives. It is also useful for designers working with people to nd out about their experiences of digital systems, and design researchers who are developing novel elicitation methods. My original contributions to knowledge include new contexts for externalising models, applying externalisation to experiences of digital systems, and recommendations for how designers can create objects and activities to externalise the experiences of digital systems of non- designers

End-to-End Differentiable Molecular Mechanics Force Field Construction

Molecular mechanics (MM) potentials have long been a workhorse of computational chemistry. Leveraging accuracy and speed, these functional forms find use in a wide variety of applications from rapid virtual screening to detailed free energy calculations. Traditionally, MM potentials have relied on human-curated, inflexible, and poorly extensible discrete chemical perception rules (atom types) for applying parameters to molecules or biopolymers, making them difficult to optimize to fit quantum chemical or physical property data. Here, we propose an alternative approach that uses graph nets to perceive chemical environments, producing continuous atom embeddings from which valence and nonbonded parameters can be predicted using a feed-forward neural network. Since all stages are built using smooth functions, the entire process of chemical perception and parameter assignment is differentiable end-to-end with respect to model parameters, allowing new force fields to be easily constructed, extended, and applied to arbitrary molecules. We show that this approach has the capacity to reproduce legacy atom types and can be fit to MM and QM energies and forces, among other targets

Thinking with Things: Landscapes, Connections and Performances as Modes of Building Shared Understanding

This article explores the relatively underexplored potential for physicalisations to materialise qualitative data related to human experiences and knowledge domains. Our reading of ‘data’ in this context extends from imperceptible systems and infrastructures to mental models and the phenomenological dimensions of experiences themselves. Physical objects can be regarded as a form of knowledge with which to inquire about human life, bring about improved conditions, and imagine alternative realities. Objects are made of materials, which are manipulated materials into various configurations. The materials used in the process of externalisation have a profound influence on the resulting forms, and through them on how knowledge is constructed and internalised. We pay detailed attention to the characteristics of materials and how they are combined, in the context of interdisciplinary exchange. We are motivated by the need for a shared understanding of what work materials can do in the making of physicalisations. We suggest this work is useful in the analysis of physicalisations, specifically where they seek to articulate the phenomena of lived experience

Making Machine Learning Tangible for UX Designers

There is considerable current research interest in the relationship between machine learning (ML) and user experience design (UX). This comes both from design researchers within the human- computer interaction (HCI) community, who have sought ways for UX designers to work with ML, and data scientists in new types of collaborative practice. The need for a shared language between designers and data scientists has emerged as a key factor, with the creation of boundary objects in the form of sensitising concepts seen as a useful approach. This paper presents original research that responds to the call for such concepts by working directly with UX designers to model aspects of ML technologies in physical form. Our intention is to position designerly abstractions as examples of the type of boundary object able to bridge the domains of UX design and data science and open up new possibilities for the design of ML-driven digital products

Digital tools that support students to reflect on their design competency growth paths

This paper reports on the design and testing of two digital learning systems. The first, STUDIO, supports individual and collective reflection on the design process. It allows design students who have completed a work placement in industry to capture the skills they have acquired and to share their progress. The tool is intended to be used post facto, that is retrospectively, to aid development and inform future design work. The second system, Trajectories, supports student journeys through a course of study. It is intended to be used live. As students proceed through their studies, acquire new skills, and deepen their existing knowledge they assess their own level of mastery of a specific competency on a continuous basis by connecting it to specific design outcomes

Of Machines Learning to See Lemon

This book chapter explores the connections between human perception and machine perception trough the medium of physical objects that all refer in some way to the visual and physical qualities of lemon. We draw a parallel between still life paintings of lemons and how value is signified in them and computer vision systems that tend to have hidden or invisible value systems inherent in the data that they depend on