Empowering Games. Meaning Making by Designing and Playing Location Based Mobile Games.

The article analyses and discusses the use of Location Based Mobile Games to raise awareness on sensitive issues connected to illness and disability. We report on a study grounded on higher education didactic experiences. By means of a multi-methodological approach we analysed the experience of designing and playing games and their fallouts in terms of learning and awareness about the topics addressed. The study is conducted from a design perspective and aims to understand whether designing and playing LBMGs can sensitise designers and players on sensitive topic

Fun by design: The game design activity and its iterative process as (playful) learning practices

THIS CONTRIBUTION PROPOSES A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE RESULTS OF A WORKSHOP HELD AT POLITECNICO DI MILANO PROBLEMATISING HOW PLAYFULNESS AND ‘FUN BY DESIGN’ AFFECT GAME DESIGN ACTIVITIES AND CONTRIBUTE TO GIVING STUDENTS A DIFFERENT AWARENESS OF THE PLAY EXPERIENCE. THE PRESENTED ACTIVITIES ARE PART OF THE AUTHORS’ JOINT RESEARCH IN THE DOMAIN OF SITUATED GAMING AS A FORM OF PLAYFUL LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION, WHICH INVESTIGATES THE PART OF BOTH THE DESIGNERS AND THE PLAYERS (ACKERMANN & MARIANI, 2015). THE ANALYSIS INVESTIGATES HOW THE ITERATIVE DESIGN PROCESS SIMULTANEOUSLY ELICITS FUN AND ACTIVATES REFLECTIONS ON THE GAME DESIGN PRACTICE AND THE PLAYTESTING ACTIVITY AS A NODAL MOMENT FOR PLAYERS AND DESIGNERS, WHERE SERIOUSNESS AND PLAYFULNESS INTERSECT. ALLOWING AND REQUIRING PLAYFUL PARTICIPATION ON MULTIPLE LEVELS, AND AIMING TO EMPHASISE THE PLAYERS’ PERSPECTIVES, WE ASKED 45 STUDENTS TO (1) DESIGN LOCATION BASED MOBILE GAMES, (2) PERFORM THE OBSERVATION/ VERIFICATION PROCESS AND (3) EXPLORE ITS ELUSIVE AND CHALLENGING PHASES. DATA WAS COLLECTED FROM RAPID ETHNOGRAPHIES AND QUESTIONNAIRES COMPILED IN THE PROCESS. THE CONTRIBUTION EXPANDS THE REASONING FROM THE FUNDAMENTAL DISCOURSE OF MEANINGS EMBEDDED AND COMMUNICATED THROUGH GAMES, TO THE IMPORTANCE OF THE GAME DESIGN ACTIVITY AS A RECURSIVE PROCESS OF KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION AND AS A SPECIFIC FORM OF PLAYFUL LEARNING

Do you think what I think? Strategic ways to design product-human conversation

This contribution vets into Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) and objects’ smart attitudes as emerging contemporary practices. We investigate and discuss the process behind the design and implementation of a product conceived following an idea of intuitive, gesture-based interaction, unpacking and critically analyzing how TUIs are perceived by users. We analyze what it means to experience artifacts whose interactions are triggered by an interface embedded in an object apparently static, but actually technologically augmented and interactive. Through a specific case study, we unfold the results from a qualitative inquiry conducted on a community of prosumers revealing how such interfaces can be misleading. Emerged design issues became challenges for designers and researchers, in a strategic, designerly-ways-of-knowing logic, which led to improving the product keeping into consideration users’ expectancies and their actual interactions/behaviors with the product. In conclusion, we reflect on how designers can benefit from extrapolating users’ habits and cognitive processes from data, in order to be strategically instrumental in defining future design implementations, features, products, services, and even systems.Keywords: Tangible User Interfaces, IoT, interaction design, user centered design, user behaviour, design process, gesture-based interaction, embodied interface

Translating data into narratives: Designing semantic interpretations for reflexive policy practices

Today more than ever, it is evident the role that data can play when designing policies. Not only can understandable data orient better strategies, but they can also enable reflexive practices within Public Administrations, giving directions for knowledge management and smarter governance. However, multiple gaps concur to affect data understanding and interpretation, hindering their subsequent translation into policy-valuable information. To tackle challenges related to data interpretation and usage, the article (i) illustrates a narrative approach for building profiles of cities as narrative feedback from sets of data and (ii) investigates their potential as a (self-)evaluation and a decision-making support device. The feedback structure relies on the conceptual model built for the DIGISER Project, which investigated multidimensional digital transition processes across European cities. Dynamic feedback retrieves data from the project dataset, translating them into discursive form. The effectiveness of the approach and its device is validated through a qualitative enquiry on a textual excerpt provided to three different departments of one of the cities that participated in the survey. The study corroborates that designing narrative feedback as semantic interpretations can trigger understanding, (self-)reflection and support policy change, informing policy formulation and facilitating cross-silo interactions across administrative units engaged in digital transformation processes

Designing Interactive Narratives for the Fashion System. MOOC and blended learning in a transdisciplinary design module

[EN] From distributed interactive narratives to games and playful systems, complex interactive projects challenge the fashion ecosystem introducing new possibilities that require innovative and transdisciplinary competencies to be adequately tackled. However, to properly deal with digital media, designers need to master their logic, potentialities, and implications. Therefore the urgency to include such knowledge in building, reframing, and implementing the curricula and design education of today's and tomorrow's fashion designers. This considers the complexity of getting acquainted and implementing vocabulary, design methodologies and practices from other fields of studies. This paper presents the lessons learnt from the first application of the MOOC “Data Science, Visualization and Interactive Narratives for CCIs” to an intensive design module in the Design for the Fashion System. Attention is posed on how it was included in a Blended Learning context to meet the scope and answer previously identified criticalities as providing knowledge from neighbouring fields, and to what extent it succeeded.Mariani, I.; Vandi, A. (2021). Designing Interactive Narratives for the Fashion System. MOOC and blended learning in a transdisciplinary design module. En 7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 933-940. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd21.2021.12958OCS93394

Conceptualising Digital Transformation in Cities: A Multi-Dimensional Framework for the Analysis of Public Sector Innovation

Digital transformation within local public administration is often conceived as the result of technological advancements, with scarce attention being paid to framing these processes within multi-level organisational settings. Against this background, this article introduces a framework for exploring the different dimensions of digital innovation in the public sector at the urban scale. It proposes conceptual categories that capture digital transformation drivers and mechanisms, encouraging reflections about their capacity to resonate in specific (urban) contexts. After examining frameworks seeking to deconstruct digital transformation in its multiple dimensions, the study proposes a conceptual model and validates it against the result of the literature review. By identifying conceptual categories and their interactions, the study seeks to support a more comprehensive understanding of transformation processes, specifically focusing on public service provision and delivery and their relationship with endogenous and exogenous innovation drivers. At the same time, the study aims to support local public authorities in gaining awareness of their transformative potential and helping them “steer” local digital transformation dynamics

Advancements in Design Research

"In October 1998, on the occasion of the first conference on design education, Richard Buchanan, then Director of The School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University, envisioned doctoral education in Design as a ""neoteric enterprise"", aimed at finding novel ways of addressing the new problems, ""thereby creating a new body of learning and knowledge"". Twenty years after, these words can still be shared: the new problems affecting our globalised, bewildered and worried society are growing in numbers and in complexity, and novel ways of sorting them out are more sought-after than ever. The present book is part of a series that, since 2017, documents the production of the Politecnico di Milano Design Programme, presenting a summary of the doctoral theses defended each year. Eleven essays are here gathered into four sections: Design Education; Collaborative Processes; Cultural and Creative Companies; Technology for Social Change. In the variety of the researched topics, a common trait can be found in the continuous need of updated ways of addressing complex problems. It is such need that drives the evolving boundaries of design research forward, not just within our Doctoral Programme, but within all the national and international Doctoral Programmes in Design we are acquainted with.

Advancements in Design Research

"In October 1998, on the occasion of the first conference on design education, Richard Buchanan, then Director of The School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University, envisioned doctoral education in Design as a ""neoteric enterprise"", aimed at finding novel ways of addressing the new problems, ""thereby creating a new body of learning and knowledge"". Twenty years after, these words can still be shared: the new problems affecting our globalised, bewildered and worried society are growing in numbers and in complexity, and novel ways of sorting them out are more sought-after than ever. The present book is part of a series that, since 2017, documents the production of the Politecnico di Milano Design Programme, presenting a summary of the doctoral theses defended each year. Eleven essays are here gathered into four sections: Design Education; Collaborative Processes; Cultural and Creative Companies; Technology for Social Change. In the variety of the researched topics, a common trait can be found in the continuous need of updated ways of addressing complex problems. It is such need that drives the evolving boundaries of design research forward, not just within our Doctoral Programme, but within all the national and international Doctoral Programmes in Design we are acquainted with.

IN MIGRANTS’ SHOES. A GAME TO RAISE AWARENESS AND SUPPORT LONG-LASTING LEARNING

Questo contributo guarda al gioco come tecnologia per la comunicazione e l’apprendimento, analizzandolo in particolare come volto all’integrazione di migranti, tramite l’analisi del gioco urbano persuasivo A Hostile World e dei risultati di ricerca conseguiti in occasione della sua applicazione su due gruppi di adolescenti individuati per i loro comportamenti ostili nei confronti degli immigrati. Lo scopo del gioco è far immergere i partecipanti in situazioni inconsuete, per problematizzare e modi care attitudini mentali e preconcetti esistenti, promuovendo acquisizioni di saperi capaci di modi care comportamenti e aumentare l’empatia. Lo studio è una ricerca-azione condotta tramite questionari qualitativi somministrati pre- e post-esperienza, brevi interviste e focus group. L’analisi dei risultati rivela che i giocatori sono stati coinvolti in toccanti, scomodi processi di identi cazione che hanno ridotto pregiudizi esistenti, incrementando la comprensione delle fatiche e fragilità altrui, con risultati rilevanti in termini di apprendimento trasformativo, che ancora persiste.This contribution looks at the game as a technology for communicating, sharing and learning. It poses a specific focus on the play activity as a means to address cultural integration, presenting the analysis and research outcomes gleaned enquiring the persuasive urban game AHW (full name removed for blind peer review) and its application to a group of adolescents who manifested hostile feelings towards foreigners. The game intends to immerse players into awkward situations to problematise and modify their former mindset, prejudices and biases towards migrants, fostering effective learning outcomes able to affect behaviours and increase empathy. The enquiry is an action research conducted via pre- and post-experience qualitative questionnaires, short interviews and focus groups. The analysis reveals that players were involved in processes of moving, uncomfortable identification that lessened existing prejudices, increasing the comprehension of certain immigrants’ conditions and fragility, with relevant outcomes in terms of persisting transformative learning

Strengthening e-Participation through Design Thinking. Relevance for Better Digital Public Services

In response to a lack of public participation, public administrations have been looking to e-participation as one strategy to overcome current barriers, such as lack of legitimacy and capacity, issues of representativeness, inclusiveness, equity and power balance, difficulties in effective implementation, and appropriate inclusion of citizens in decision-making processes. To tackle these challenges, literature has recognised the importance of including design thinking methodologies to reinforce public engagement and translate citizens’ suggestions for digital public service implementation. Acknowledging that research in this area is still limited, this paper proposes a rationale for the relevance of design thinking in implementing effective e-participation. Reviewing the relevant literature, the study proposes four different areas in which design thinking can support more effective citizen engagement in e-participation: (i) Meaning creation and sense-making, (ii) Publics formation, (iii) Co-production, and (iv) Experimentation and prototyping