DRS2018 Conversations

ISBN 978-1-912294-36-7
25–28 June 2018 Limerick, Ireland.
Book of DRS2018
Conversations
Edited by:
Sharon Prendeville
Keelin Leahy
Abigail Durrant
Nora O' Murchú
This page is intentionally left blank.
Book of DRS2018
Conversations
Catalyst
Editors
Sharon Prendeville, Abigail Durrant, Nora O’ Murchú and
Keelin Leahy
Book of DRS 2018 Conversations
2018 International Conference
25–28 June 2018, Limerick, Ireland
www.drs2018limerick.org
Cover and conference identity design by Piquant

Conference identity design initial concept: Tamara Stone & Selina Kindt, Limerick Institution of
Technology.
Book compiled by Laura Santamaria, Sharon Prendeville and Erik Bohemia
Editors: Sharon Prendeville, Abigail Durrant, Nora O’ Murchú and Keelin Leahy
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial

4.0 International License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Book of DRS 2018 Conversations: Catalyst
ISBN 978-1-912294-36-7 (ebook)
Published by the Design Research Society

Loughborough University, London
3 Lesney Avenue, The Broadcast Centre, Here East
London, E15 2GZ
United Kingdom
Design Research Society Secretariat

email: admin@designresearchsociety.org
website: www.designresearchsociety.org
Founded in 1966 the Design Research Society (DRS) is a learned society committed to promoting and developing design
research. It is the longest established, multi-disciplinary worldwide society for the design research community and aims to
promote the study of and research into the process of designing in all its many fields.
DRS Special Interest Groups

Design for Behaviour Change
Design for Health, Wellbeing and Happiness
Design Management
Design Pedagogy
Design for Sustainability
Design for Tangible, Embedded and Networked Technologies
Experiential Knowledge
Inclusive Design
Objects, Practices, Experiences, Networks
DRS International Conference Series

DRS 2002 London; DRS 2004 Melbourne; DRS 2006 Lisbon; DRS 2008 Sheffield; DRS 2010 Montreal; DRS 2012 Bangkok;
DRS 2014 Umeå; 2016 Brighton
DRS 2018 Programme Committee
Conference Chairs
Keelin Leahy, University of Limerick, Ireland
Muireann McMahon, University of Limerick, Ireland
Conference Co-Chairs
Eamon Spelman, Limerick Institute of Technology, Ireland
Adam de Eyto, University of Limerick
Programme Committee
Cristiano Storni, University of Limerick, Ireland (Committee Co-Chair)
Peter Lloyd, Professor of Design, University of Brighton, UK (Committee Co-Chair)
Simon O' Rafferty, University of Limerick, Ireland
Rebecca Cain, Loughborough University, UK
Stella Boess, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Erik Bohemia, Loughborough University, UK
Conversations Committee
Sharon Prendeville, Loughborough University London (Committee Chair)
Nora O' Murchú, University of Limerick, Ireland
Abigail Durrant, School of Design, Northumbria University
Laura Forlano, Columbia University, USA
Dan Lockton, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Carlos Acevez-Gonzalez, University of Guadalajara, Mexico
Workshops Committee
Louise Kiernan, University of Limerick, Ireland (Committee Chair)
Eamon Spelman, Limerick School of Art and Design, Ireland
Dermot McInerney, University of Limerick, Ireland
Denise McEvoy, IADT, Ireland
Trevor Hogan, CIT, Ireland
Publicity and Public Relations Committee

Gabriela Avram, University of Limerick, Ireland (Committee Chair)
Conference Experience Committee

Deborah Tudge, University of Limerick, Ireland
Diarmaid Lane, Ireland (Committee Chair)
Beinean Conway, University of Limerick, Ireland
Eoin White, University of Limerick, Ireland
Bernard Hartigan, University of Limerick, Ireland
Joe Lane, Limerick School of Art and Design, Ireland
PhD by Design Committee
Trevor Hogan, Crawford College of Art & Design, CIT, Ireland (Committee Co-Chair)
Yekta Barkirlioglu, University of Limerick, Ireland
Denise McEvoy, IADT, Ireland (Committee Co-Chair)
Alison Thomson, Goldsmiths University, UK
Maria Portugal, Goldsmiths University, UK
Søren Rosenbak, Umeå Institute of Design, Sweden
DRS Special Interest Group Chairs

Erik Bohemia, Loughborough University, UK
Rebecca Cain, Loughborough University, UK
Hua Dong, Tongji University, China
Tom Fisher, Nottingham Trent University, UK
Sarah Kettley, Nottingham Trent University, UK
Kristina Niedderer, University of Wolverhampton, UK
Nithikul Nimkulrat, Estonian Academy of Arts, Talinn
Michael Tovey, Coventry University, UK
Rhoda Trimmingham, Loughborough University, UK
Conference International Review College
Sille Julie J. Abildgaard, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Tom Ainsworth, University of Brighton, United Kingdom
Yoko Akama, RMIT University, Australia
Canan Akoglu, Design School Kolding, Denmark
Katerina Alexiou, The Open University, United Kingdom
Mariana Victoria Amatullo, Parsons School of Design, United States
Andrea Isabells Anderson, SAP, United States
Rina Arya, Wolverhampton, United Kingdom
Andrea Augsten, University of Wuppertal, Germany
Stephen Awoniyi, Texas State University, United States
Camilo Ayala Garcia, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Joon Sang Baek, UNIST, South Korea
Yekta Bakırlıoğlu, University of Limerick, Ireland
Bahareh Barati, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Carolyn Barnes, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Betsy Barnhart, Iowa State University, United States
Nigan Bayazit, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
Taslima Begum, Cardiff Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
Cilla Thadeen Benjamin, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago
Arild Berg, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
Eeva Berglund, Aalto University, Finland
Guillermo Bernal, MIT Media Lab, United States
Tracy Bhamra, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Richard Bibb, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Michael Mose Biskjaer, Aarhus University, Denmark
Noemi Bitterman, Technion, Israel
Alethea Blackler, QUT, Australia
Joanna Boehnert, University of Surrey, United Kingdom
Stella Boess, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Erik Bohemia, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Casper Boks, NTNU, Norway
Elizabeth Boling, Indiana University, United States
Boudewijn Boon, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Andrea Botero, Oulu University, Finland
Simon Bowen, Newcastle University, United Kingdom
Stephen Boyd Davis, Royal College of Art, United Kingdom
Philip Breedon, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom
Charlie Breindahl, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Sarah Brooke Brooks, IBM, United States
Andres Burbano, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
William Burnett, Stanford, United States
Deepa Butoliya, Carnegie Mellon University, United States
Jacob Buur, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Rebecca Cain, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Serena Camere, TU Delft, Netherlands
Elena Caratti, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Daniel Cardoso Llach, Carnegie Mellon University, United States
Tom Cassidy, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Julia Cassim, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan
Chien-Hsiung Chen, Taiwan Tech, Taiwan
Chun-Chih Chen, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan
Chun-Di Chen, National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan
Peter Childs, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Bo Christensen, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Henri Christiaans, UNIST, South Korea
Abdusselam Selami Cifter, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Turkey
Nazli Cila, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands
Luigina Ciolfi, Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom
Rachel Clarke, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Violeta Clemente, University of Aveiro, Portugal
Grazia Concilio, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Rachel Cooper, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Ana Correia de Barros, Fraunhofer AICOS, Portugal
Paul Coulton, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Alma Leora Culén, University of Oslo, Norway
Sarah Davies, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom
Cees de Bont, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Adam de Eyto, University of Limerick, Ireland
Amalia de Götzen, Aalborg Unversity Copenhagen, Denmark
Jotte De Koning, TU Delft, Netherlands
Christine De Lille, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
João de Souza Leite, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Federico Del Giorgio Solfa, National University of La Plata, Argentina
Claudio Dell'Era, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Halime Demirkan, Bilkent University, Turkey
Andrew D. DeRosa, City University of New York, United States
Emma Louise Dewberry, The Open University, United Kingdom
Ingvild Digranes, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway
Orsalia Dimitriou, Central Saint Martins, United Kingdom
Judith Marlen Dobler, University Potsdam, Germany
Hua Dong, Tongji University, China
Steven Dorrestijn, Saxion, Netherlands
Kees Dorst, UTS, Australia
Michelle D. Douglas, Griffith University, Australia
Emilia Duarte, Universidade Europeia, Portugal
Alex Duffy, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom
Delia Dumitrescu, University of Borås, Sweden
Abigail Durrant, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Thomas Dykes, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Elizabeth Edwards, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Wouter Eggink, University of Twente, Netherlands
Pirjo Elovaara, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden
Bianca Elzenbaumer, Leeds College of Art, United Kingdom
Stuart Gerald English, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Alpay Er, Ozyegin University, Turkey
Ozlem Er, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
Carolina Escobar-Tello, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Juhyun Eune, Seoul National University, South Korea
Mark Evans, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Ignacio Farias, HU Berlin, Germany
Luke Feast, Design Researcher, New Zealand
Jonathan Joseph Felix, School of Business and Computer Science, Trinidad and Tobago
Tom Fisher, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom
Karen Fleming, Ulster University, United Kingdom
Kate Tanya Fletcher, University of the Arts London, United Kingdom
Laura Forlano, Illinois Institute of Technology, United States
Lois Frankel, Carleton University, Canada
Biljana C. Fredriksen, University College of Southeast Norway, Norway
Aija Freimane, Art Academy of Latvia, Latvia
Jonas Fritsch, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Daniel G. Cabrero, University of West London, United Kingdom
Edward Gardiner, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Philippe Gauthier, Université de Montréal, Canada
Ayse Idil Gaziulusoy, Aalto University, Finland
Koray Gelmez, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
Georgi V. Georgiev, University of Oulu, Finland
Elisa Giaccardi, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Ylva Gislén, Lund University, Sweden
Colin Gray, Purdue University, United States
Camilla Groth, University of Southeast Norway, Finland
Marte Sørebø Gulliksen, Telemark University College, Norway
Ian Gwilt, University of South Australia, Australia
Penny Hagen, Auckland Council, New Zealand
Chris Hammond, IBM, United States
David Hands, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Nicolai Brodersen Hansen, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands
Preben Hansen, Stockholm University, Sweden
Robert Harland, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Dew Harrison, University of Wolverhampton, United Kingdom
Juha Hartvik, University in Vaasa, Finland
Anders Haug, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Tero Heikkinen, independent / University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland
Tincuta Heinzel, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Paul Hekkert, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Ricardo Hernandez, University of the Andes, Colombia
Ann Heylighen, KU Leuven, Belgium
Sue Hignett, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Clive Hilton, Coventry University, United Kingdom
Trevor Hogan, Cork Institute of Technology, Ireland
Michael Hohl, Anhalt University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Lara Houston, NYUAD, United Kingdom
Chung-Ching Huang, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Karl Hurn, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Salvatore Iaconesi, La Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy
Elaine Marie Igoe, University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom
Nanna Inie, Aarhus University, Denmark
Lilly C. Irani, UC San Diego, United States
Terry Irwin, Carnegie Mellon University, United States
Deepa Iyer, SAP, United States
Jennifer Jacobs, Stanford University, United States
Robert Jerrard, Birmingham City Univ./Manchester Metropolitan Univ., United Kingdom
Wolfgang Jonas, Braunschweig University of Art, Germany
Derek Jones, The Open University, United Kingdom
Peter Jones, OCAD University, Canada
Rachel Jones, Instrata, United Kingdom
Li Jönsson, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark
Sabine Junginger, Hertie School of Governance, Germany
Faith Kane, Massey University, New Zealand
Alen Keirnan, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Tobie Kerridge, Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom
Mahmoud Keshavarz, Uppsala University, Sweden
Sarah Kettley, The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Guy Keulemans, UNSW Art & Design, Australia
Louise Brigid Kiernan, University Limerick, Ireland
Jinsook Kim, Georgian Court University, United States
Holger Klapperich, University Siegen, Germany
Maaike Kleinsmann, TU Delft, Netherlands
Gideon Kossoff, Carnegie Mellon University, United States
Ksenija Kuzmina, Loughborough University London, United Kingdom
Tarja-Kaarina Laamanen, University of Tampere, Finland
Sotiris Lalaounis, University of Exeter Business School, United Kingdom
John Z. Langrish, Salford University, United Kingdom
Ji-Hyun Lee, KAIST, South Korea
Renata Marques Leitão, OCAD University, Canada
Pierre Levy, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands
Rungtai Lin, National Taiwan University of Arts, Taiwan
Stephen Little, Asia Pacific Technology Network, United Kingdom
Sylvia Liu, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Peter Lloyd, University of Brighton, United Kingdom
Dan Lockton, Carnegie Mellon University, United States
Vicky Lofthouse, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Wei Leong Leon, LOH, Kyushu University, Japan
Daria A. Loi, Intel Corporation, United States
Nicole Lotz, The Open University, United Kingdom
Geke Ludden, University of Twente, Netherlands
Rohan Lulham, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Ole Lund, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Eva Lutnæs, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
Alastair S. Macdonald, Glasgow School of Art, United Kingdom
Jeremy Micheal Madden, GMIT, Ireland
Anja Maier, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
Maarit Mäkelä, Aalto University, Finland
Laura Ann Maye, Aalto University, Finland
Ramia Maze, Aalto University, Finland
Mike Mcauley, Griffith University, Australia
Chris McGinley, Royal College of Art, United Kingdom
Seda McKilligan, Iowa State University, United States
Wellington Gomes de Medeiros, Federal University of Campina Grande, Brazil
Marijke Melles, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Massimo Menichinelli, Aalto University, Finland
Kamil Michlewski, Human Innovation, United Kingdom
Paul Micklethwaite, Kingston University, United Kingdom
Richie Moalosi, University of Botswana, Botswana
Michael Moore, Ulster University, United Kingdom
Sarah Morehead, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Nicola Morelli, Aalborg University, Denmark
Mariale Moreno, Cranfield University, United Kingdom
Andrew Morris, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Jeanne-Louise Moys, Reading University, United Kingdom
Ingrid Mulder, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Tara Mullaney, Veryday, Sweden
Yukari Nagai, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
Marco Neves, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Kristina Niedderer, Wolverhampton University, United Kingdom
Nithikul Nimkulrat, Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonia
Natalie Nixon, Figure 8 Thinking, LLC, United States
Lesley-Ann Noel, University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago
Conall O. Cathain, Past Chairman DRS, Ireland
Nora O Murchu, University of Limerick, Ireland
Simon O'Rafferty, Environmental Protection Agency, Ireland
Maya Oppenheimer, Royal College of Art, Canada
Anastasia Katharine Ostrowski, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness, Iowa State University, United States
Aditya Pawar, Umeå Institute of Design, Sweden
Carlos Peralta, University of brighton, United Kingdom
Oscar Person, Aalto University, Finland
Ann Petermans, Hasselt University, Belgium
Bruna Beatriz Petreca, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Mike Phillips, Plymouth University, United Kingdom
Silvia Pizzocaro, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Philip Plowright, Lawrence Technological University, United States
Anna Pohlmeyer, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Tiiu R. Poldma, University of Montreal, Canada
Vesna Popovic, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Mia Porko-Hudd, Åbo Akademi university, Finland
Emmi Pouta, Aalto University, Finland
Douglas Powell, IBM, United States
Wilson Silva, Prata, Sidia, Brazil
William Prindle, Iowa State University, United States
Sebastien Proulx, The Ohio State University, United States
Charlie Ranscombe, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Muralidhar Krishna, Reddy, CMR University, India
Janne Beate Reitan, Oslo and Akershus University College, Norway
Dina Riccò, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Kirstine Riis, USN, Norway
Paul Rodgers, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Iyubanit Rodriguez, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile
Maria Isabel Rodrigues Ferradas, Universidad de Navarra, Spain
Valentina Rognoli, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Robin Roy, The Open University, United Kingdom
Daniel Saakes, Kaist, South Korea
Noemi Maria Sadowska, University of the Arts London, United Kingdom
Fatina Saikaly, Co-Creando, Italy
Mira Sanders, KU Leuven, Belgium
Joni Elaine Saylor, IBM, United States
Laura Scherling, Columbia University Teachers College, United States
Jane Scott, The University of Leeds, United Kingdom
James Self, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea
Nick Senske, Iowa State University, United States
Anna Seravalli, Malmö University, Sweden
Birger Sevaldson, Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway
Sharon Prendeville, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Matt Sinclair, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Andrea Mae Siodmok, Cabinet Office, United Kingdom
Kin Wai Michael Siu, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Froukje Sleeswijk Visser, TU Delft, Netherlands
Anne Solberg, University College of Southeast Norway, Norway
Ricardo Sosa, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Omar Sosa-Tzec, University of Michigan, United States
Chris Speed, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Jak Spencer, The Sound HQ, United Kingdom
Nicholas Spencer, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Gabriella Spinelli, Brunel University London, United Kingdom
Kay Stables, Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom
Åsa Ståhl, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Liesbeth Stam, KU Leuven, Netherlands
Pieter Jan Stappers, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Molly Steenson, Carnegie Mellon University, United States
Shanti Sumartojo, RMIT University, Australia
Kärt Summatavet, Aalto University, Estonia
Qian Sun, Royal College of Art, United Kingdom
Gunnar Swanson, East Carolina Unviersity, United States
Richard Ben, Sweeting, University of Brighton, United Kingdom
Hsien-Hui Tang, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan
Sarah Teasley, Royal College of Art, United Kingdom
Andris Teikmanis, Art Academy of Latvia, Latvia
Ida Telalbasic, Loughborough University London, United Kingdom
Martijn ten Bhomer, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China
Mathilda Tham, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Alison Thomson, Goldsmiths, United Kingdom
Clementine Thurgood, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Sebnem Timur Ogut, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
Mike Tovey, Coventry University, United Kingdom
Katherine Sarah Townsend, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom
Rhoda Trimingham, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Nynke Tromp, TU Delft, Netherlands
Emmanuel Tsekleves, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Helen Day Fraser, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Canada
Louise Valentine, University of Dundee, United Kingdom
Mieke van der Bijl-Brouwer, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Johann van der Merwe, Independent Researcher (Retired Academic), South Africa
Mascha Cecile van der Voort, University of Twente, Netherlands
Karel van der Waarde, Graphic Design Research, Belgium
Nicholas Vanderschantz, University of Waikato, New Zealand
Theodora Vardouli, McGill University, Canada
Luis Arthur Vasconcelos, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil
Arno Verhoeven, The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Stéphane Vial, University of Nîmes, France
Susann Vihma, Aalto University, Finland
Bettina von Stamm, Innovation LeadershipForum, United Kingdom
Sue Walker, Reading University, United Kingdom
Matthew Watkins, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom
Penelope Eugenia, Webb, Midnight Commercial, United States
Renee Wever, Linköping University, Sweden
Mikael Wiberg, Umea University, Sweden
Denielle Wilde, SDU, Denmark
Alex Wilkie, Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom
Alex Williams, Kingston University, United Kingdom
Heather Wiltse, Umeå University, Sweden
Christian Woelfel, TU Dresden, Germany
Martin Woolley, Coventry University, United Kingdom
Artemis Yagou, Deutsches Museum Munich, Germany
Joyce S.R. Yee, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Salu Ylirisku, Aalto University, Finland
Robert Anthony Young, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Amit Zoran, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Table of Contents
Editorial: Conversations ................................................................................................................ i

PRENDEVILLE Sharon; DURRANT Abigail; O’MURCHÚ Nora and LEAHY Keelin
Women-Centred Design ............................................................................................................... 1
ALMEIDA Teresa; SØNDERGAARD Marie Louise Juulb; HOMEWOOD Sarah; MORRISEY Kellie and BALAAM Madeline
Design and sexism: assembling a community of care ..................................................................... 9
AHMED Tanveer; PENNINGTON Sarah and THAM Mathilda
THE SNUG: A Conversation about Design Research. Imagining, embodying, assembling ............... 15
VERHOEVEN Eva; BAILEY Paul; FASS Johna*; ROWAN Jaronb and CAMPS BANQUE Marta
‘Conversing WITH Materials’ - How do we converse with materials and other beings to co-design
equitably? ................................................................................................................................. 21
NORRIS Jane; KARANA Elvin and NIMKULRAT Nithikul
A Feminine Approach to Design .................................................................................................. 29
McENTEE Kate; GÜNTHER ANDERSEN Jon and BRANDALISE Isabella
Adventure: expedition to Pragmatism and Inventivism in the design situation ............................ 36
MULDER Sander; BOESS Stella and FRITSCH Jonas
Transforming Design: Indigeneity and Mestizaje in Latin America................................................ 44
HERNÁNDEZ Gabriela; ROGAL Maria and SÁNCHEZ Raúl
Shifting Perspectives of Aesthetics ............................................................................................. 54

LINDH KARLSSON Monica; PAWAR Aditya and ROSENBAK Søren
Imagining critical practises in practise based design research: What is your ‘critical’ approach? ... 63
AGID Shana; OLANDER Sissel ; AKAMA Yoko and LENSKJOLD Tau
Smuggling ideologies? Inquiring into the underlying ideas embedded in design for public
governance and policy-making ................................................................................................... 69
FERREIRA Maria and VAZ Federico
Divergence and convergence in graphic design and communication design ................................. 78
HARLAND Robert KELLY Veronica ; VAN DER WAARDE Kareland and SPELMAN Eamon
HAVE WE REACHED PEAK DESIGN THINKING? Are we entering a new paradigm for how it is used
within practice and business? ..................................................................................................... 88
DOUGLAS Michelle; KIERNAN Louise; SPRUCE John and RYAN Annmarie
Lexicon Live: Performing the discursive space around keywords................................................ 101
FIT Liesbeth; DROOGLEEVER Fortuyn Irene; PATELLI Paolo; AKAM Yoko and RICCI Donato
Design Education as a Catalyst for Change ................................................................................ 111
HOLLAND Donál; MAZÉ Ramia; MILTON Alex; MULDER Ingrid and STORNI Cristiano
How Complexity Science Can Support Design for Societal Change.............................................. 118
JAMSIN Ella; BAKKER Conny and HEKKERT Paul
Beyond black boxes: tackling artificial intelligence as a design material ..................................... 123
KELLIHER Aisling; BARRY Barbara; BERZOWSKA Joanna; O’MURCHU Nora and SMEATON Alan
“Is Universal Design Dead?”: Creating inclusive user experience design methods....................... 129
ARMSTRONG Helen; GUFFEY Elizabeth; NICKPOUR Farnaz and WILLIAMSON Bess
Editorial: Conversations
PRENDEVILLE Sharona; DURRANT Abigailb; O’ MURCHÚ Norac, LEAHY Keelinc
a Loughborough University, London, UK
b Northumbria University, UK
c
University of Limerick, Ireland
doi:10.21606/dma.2018.984
The DRS2018 Conversations track is an evolving platform to cultivate experimental formats and open
up alternative outlets for research to extend and challenge our understanding of design research. The
DRS2018 conference hosted 21 Conversations on a range of topics including design pedagogy, ethics,
feminism, inclusivity, design policy, and decoloniality. The sessions explored such topics through a
range of media including postcards, radio, audio recordings, microsites, provocations, orchestrated
calls for submissions, and co-conceived booklets. This volume presents a set of reflections on the
Conversations hosted during DRS2018 in Limerick.
Questions of ‘care’ arise in the first two Conversations. Teresa Almeida and colleagues use physical
artefacts and the creation of an online archive to explore what it means to design and care for
women, by challenging preconceptions of gendered products such as tampons and sanitary towels
and mammogram devices. Tanveer Ahmed and colleagues aim to assemble a ‘community of care’
through artefacts probing how design plays into embedded social structures that perpetuate sexist
practices, particularly in education.
The next four Conversations use the media of sound and visuals to critique design’s heritage in
modernity, to open up new critical avenues in design research through questions of ontology. Eva
Verhoeven and colleagues situate their Conversation in two pub snugs, an institution of Irish social
life, to explore concepts of embodiment and how dualisms of subject/object or human/non-human
worlds may be dissolved through audio-visual media, to explore new pathways for a field of critical
and imaginative design research. Similarly, Jane Norris and Elvin Karana make connections with the
object world to build understanding on how we might ‘codesign equitably’? Theirs is an endeavour
into ‘decolonising design through sound’. Kate McEntee and colleagues use listening and storytelling
to develop an expansive inquiry into a feminine approach to design, building on critiques of
universalism. This leads us to the prescient question of tensions between the political and the
productive in design research. Finally, Sander Mulder and colleagues consider the possibilities and
effects of two different philosophical positions on design outcomes; the more familiar philosophy of
Pragmatism and a counterpoint in Inventivism.
The next set of Conversations build on these critiques of hegemonic worldviews, epistemology and
ontology. Gabriella Hernández and colleagues invite new perspectives to decolonise design through
education and perspectives from practice with Indigenous and mestizo communities in Latin America.
Monica Lindh-Karlsson and colleagues centre their Conversation on the potentiality of aesthetics to
catalyse disruptions in capitalism, Anthropocentrism, and Technocentrism, through novel questions
on the opportunities of design and aesthetics to support democratic design practices. Shana Agid and
colleagues cultivate discussion on a range of conceptions of critical approaches in design (speculative,
participatory, post-critical, feminist) through an open-ended creative process of booklet-making.
Finally, Maria Ferreira and Federico Vaz explore the politics of design through the values and
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0

International License.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
ideologies that are represented and reproduced through examples of design methods used in policy-
making.
Next, we turn to questions of disciplinary developments. Robert Harland and colleagues sketch out
the historical evolution of and distinctions between graphic and communication design and the
significance of this for research and pedagogy. Michelle Douglas and colleagues critique the
faddishness of design thinking, querying its value and meaning through a selection of provocative
posters inquiring into what the term implies for the roles and practices of designers in different
contexts.
The next three Conversations are concerned with design and change. Liesbeth Fit and colleagues use
dialogue as a medium of inquiry and focus their Conversation on the conference themes of ‘catalyst’
and ’change’ to unravel discourses of change. Donal Holland and colleagues query how co-evolution
of design education, design practice and design theory coalesce to inform social change. Ella Jamsin
and colleagues explore how sustainability engages issues of social change, using theories of
complexity and tipping points to develop understanding on how and why change happens in society.
Aisling Kelliher and colleagues name Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a design material, to elaborate
questions on how humans and AI can productively coevolve, leading to questions of whose interests
are of concern in AI systems, how trust, privacy and power are addressed and problematic dualistic
shaping of public narratives. In related work, Helen Armstrong and colleagues focus on the need to
update and modernise the concept of Universal Design / Inclusive Design by integrating new critical
perspectives and new approaches offered through advances in technology and in machine learning.
The Conversations at DRS2018 have offered valuable and insightful directions for new avenues in
design research. They particularly surface questions around the systems of knowledge that inform
design research and practice, the politics of design, and how the contemporary concern with design's
political orientation may be engaged through practice-based inquiry. Finally, many convenors of
Conversations have indicated how their outcomes sparked new relationships, potential future
collaborations, and new ways to develop and sustain design dialogues.
Woman-Centred Design
ALMEIDA Teresaa; SØNDERGAARD Marie Louise Juulb; HOMEWOOD Sarahc; MORRISSEY Kellied and BALAAM
Madelinea*
a KTH Royal Institute of Technology
b Aarhus University
c IT University of Copenhagen
d Newcastle University
* Corresponding author e-mail: talmeida@kth.se

doi: 10.21606/dma.2018.795
Figure 1 Design Toolkit (eTextiles & Pelvic Health); photo credits: Ko-Le Chen (currently: Women-centred design)
This Conversation seeks to examine woman-centred design as a novel form of

inquiry in design research practice. Drawing on the ‘woman-centred approach’ put
forward in (Almeida 2017), this Conversation contributes to discussions on the
intersection of feminism(s), gender and design research. In the Conversation we will
explore how design of technologies and interactions can act critically in the ways
that they serve, refigure and redefine women’s bodies in light of what woman is.
Through analysing design artefacts, we will discuss what impact the understandings
of woman have in the design of technology and interventions. Through making as a
catalyst for discussion, we will explore how these understandings can contribute to
inform the design of technologies for women. As suggested by Judith Butler, “what’s

a woman is a question that should remain open” (Kotz and Bankowsky 1992), and
we aim to facilitate an open Conversation about the challenges and opportunities of
designing for and with women, which will support the development of a conceptual
framework for a woman-centred design methodology.
keywords; Women; gender; feminisms; technology design
1 Organising question(s) or provocation(s)

In the Conversation, we discussed how a woman-centred approach can support and enable bodily
practices in women; as well as how it impacts other gender(s). To better understand this, we ask(ed):
what impact does understandings of woman have in the design of technology and interventions?
How can these understandings contribute to inform the design of technologies for women? What
are the challenges and opportunities of designing for and with woman?
2 The DRS2018 Conversation session

2.1 Context
The approach of this Conversation is akin to those suggested in the Design, Research and
Feminism(s) track new to DRS2018, inquired in past conversations (Forlano et al. 2016) and latest
contributions to the DRS community (Homewood 2018). It is inspired by humanistic HCI as
pioneered by Bardzell & Bardzell (2015) and draws on the ‘woman-centred approach’ put forward in
(Almeida 2017).
We understand woman as an individual with specific attributes and requirements, which vary more
between individuals than they do between genders (Ehrnberger 2012), and our starting point is that
women are not a homogeneous group but have different needs and desires. Gender is not a given
on the basis of a given anatomy rather it is culturally situated, and concepts of gender may be
unstable but are entangled with notions of identity (Butler 2011). Historically, technology has long
been defined in terms of male activities (Wajcman 2010, Prado de O. Martins 2014). Culturally, it has
a profound effect on how we understand and relate to our body, and in turn how our relationship to
our body shapes our place in society (Peer et al. 2013).
Our goal was to lead an engaging and fruitful hands-on Conversation that supports and expands on
the existing conceptualisation of a woman-centred approach to create design-led interventions that
can contribute to the design of interactions and practices for and with women. The Conversation
draws on approaches that implicate women, their bodies and experiences, and technology design
that may include a wide range of digital systems through materials and biotech experiments.
Methods of a woman-centred approach could include critical and speculative design as seen in
(Dunne and Raby 2013, Sputniko 2010), biohacking practices and critical storytelling as explored in
(Tomasello 2016, Tsang 2017), or technology probes (Almeida et al. 2016, Homewood 2017,
Søndergaard & Hansen 2018). Collectively, we explore i) the potential of novel and creative ways for
design research to improve women’s experiences in bodily transactions, choices, and rights, and ii)
the wider applicability of a woman-centred design methodological approach in, e.g. health,
education, public policy, and, importantly, in practices of everyday life.
2.2 Physical set-up
The Conversation took place in a conference/classroom with the participants sitting in small groups
of four to five people in designated tables placed around the room. During the session, participants
had a variety of craft materials available to them if and when prototyping their ideas, and a series of
designs (projects, products) as prompts for conversation.
2.3 Structure
The session was structured as follows:
2.3.1 Context introduction
We started by briefly introducing ourselves and inviting for participant presentation within the
respective groups. Our introduction continued with an overall framing of the topic based on the
context outlined above which included addressing concepts of woman within different disciplines,
feminist theories of technology, and institutional policy that have informed ongoing research on
woman-centred approaches to design. We continued by opening up the Conversation to actively
include the participants, for which we asked and invited discussion around the theme “What’s a
Woman?” and the potential challenges and opportunities of designing within this space.
Figure 2 What’s a Woman? Group conversations around the challenges and opportunities of designing for and with Woman
This was organised as follows. Conversations: i) Group Conversation and ii) Joint Conversation
i) Group Conversation
In previously established groups of four to five (per table) and a total of four groups, participants
were asked to discuss among them and write down, on assorted post-it notes available to them,
what these challenges and opportunities - associated with their own conceptualization of Woman -
might be (figure 2). This was a 10 minute exercise that led to generating questions and reflect on the
status quo regarding women (in rights and justice) and consequently ignite the Conversation. The
purpose of writing down or sketch on post-it notes was to map out themes and identify shared
topics to be presented in ii) as a collaborative thinking exercise and piece of documentation that
would be possible to revisit throughout the session.
ii) Joint Conversation
During this part of the Conversation, participants shared the topics that surfaced during i) and within
their specific groups.
Based on a ‘blank canvas’ and expanding on the ongoing question “What’s a Woman” (challenges
and opportunities), the different groups pursued the joint Conversation by having a representative
to pin their co-written post-its and describe their produced outcomes to all participants and
convenors in the session. This collection of posts resulted in a tangible, visual depiction of a series of
concerns and thoughts on and around woman, bodies, and various technical and socio-political
issues regarding health, care, gender, finance, and (invisible) labour that are real and ongoing
challenges experienced by women. On the other hand, ‘pushing back’, role models, and empathy
were added as potentially contributing to creating opportunities for positive change.
The collection of Post-it notes was kept on the wall/canvas throughout the session (figure 3) so
participants and convenors could continue referring to these different topics that permeated the
Conversation. Overall, the topics were pursued and continually discussed in parallel during the
design exercise that would follow.
Figure 3 What’s a Woman? Exploring the challenges and opportunities of designing for and with Woman in a joint
Conversation
2.3.2 Design exercise
We next expanded on this conceptually-driven context to introduce a range of designs that are
concerned with women and care (while highlighting the fact that this is the stream of research
within which the convenors focus their current work on). Here we also introduced the ongoing
online design repository on woman-centred design that we had started in support of this
Conversation: http://banhomaria.net/woman-centered-design/index.html. Participants were invited
to contribute with an entry at a later date (detailed instructions were to follow by email).
Following the group and joint conversations, plus a variety of examples on/off line, participants were
asked to sketch and/or prototype concept designs that would contribute to the redesigning of a
variety of possible experiences, systems, policy, etcetera that are centred on women. This activity
brought them back to their original group of four or five people and had a duration of 40 minutes in
total.
Figure 4 Sketching and illustrating ideas during the design exercise

2.3.3 Presentations
Participants presented what they had been discussing and prototyping in their groups. There were
four project concepts total, and these included: 1) a woman-centred sensitivity training programme
focused on industries that are male-led, through which training programmes would provide
knowledge and promote empathy that men may require to support their (thoughtful) decision-
making in relation to products that impact women’s lives. The idea for a first product was inspired by
the mammogram, in which a similar diagnostic system would apply for testicular exams (figure 5;
left); 2) Power Positions (figure 5; right) is a play on invisible power and public space. It looks at the
phenomenon of ‘manspreading’ to question power relations and speculate on visual displays that
could highlight such practice as possibly inconvenient for some. The power at play (putting ‘under
the spot light’ as a strategy to promote awareness) led to arguments within the group as they were
both pro and con, but nonetheless were questioning gender-power dynamics.
Figure 5 Woman-centred sensitivity training (left); Power-Positions (right)
3) the project explored different concepts for redesigning existing biotechnologies that focus on
extracting hormones from urine for women with fertility problems (figure 6; left). The group
conceptualised a series of designs that could easily be integrated in daily life and intimate clothing
e.g. an adjustment to the toilet at home or a textile patch embedded in the underwear that gathers
and crystalises the urine, making it easier to collect and analyse. Lastly, 4) inquired how menstrual
blood could be used as a material and resource, and challenged traditional products such as
tampons and pads to explore sustainable approaches that would involve collecting blood in e.g.
devices similar to menstrual cups that could be perceived as ‘jewellery like objects’; blood contained
could be used as iron fertiliser for plants (figure 6; right). The project reconceptualises collecting
blood within hygiene products as messy, dirty, and waste into a renewed body of beauty and pride.
Figure 6 Everyday devices for extracting urine hormones (left); Iron grown (right)
3 Sum-up
We convenors aim to continue this Conversation and have invited all participants to doing so with
us. While this Conversation has taken place within the DRS2018 programme, we aim to extend the
invitation for future discussions to others whose research and/or practice may be intertwined with
our quest(ions) to produce knowledge that enables a myriad of design approaches that serve as
positive paradigms towards all women. We will continue adding to our website
(http://banhomaria.net/woman-centered-design/index.html), which is intended to contribute to this
ongoing Conversation while representing an archive of design and concepts that both challenge and
promote knowledge and inquire women’s advancements and restraints in (technology) design.
4 References
Almeida, T. (2017). “Designing Technologies for Intimate Care in Women”. Newcastle University, Newcastle
upon Tyne, UK.
Almeida, T., Comber, R., Wood, G., Saraf, D. and Balaam, M. (2016). “On Looking at the Vagina through
Labella”. In ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’16), 1810–21.
Bardzell, J., and Bardzell, S. (2015). “Humanistic HCI”. Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics.
Morgan & Claypool Publishers.
Butler, J. (2011). “The Question of Gender”. Edited by Judith Butler and Elizabeth Weed. Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Ehrnberger, K., Räsänen, M. and Ilstedt, S. (2012). “Visualising gender norms in design: Meet the Mega
Hurricane Mixer and the drill Dolphia”, International Journal of Design, 6(3), pp. 85–94.
Forlano, L., Ståhl, Å., Lindström, K., Jönsson, L. and Mazé, R. (2016). “Making, Mending and Growing in
Feminist Speculative Fabulations: Design’s Unfaithful Daughters”. In Proceedings of the Design Research
Society Conference, DRS 2016.
Homewood, S. and Heyer, C. (2017) “Turned On/Turned Off: Speculating on the Microchip-based
Contraceptive Implant”. In Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (pp. 339-
343). ACM.
Homewood, S. (2018). “Reframing Design Problems Within Women’s Health”. In Proceedings of the Design
Research Society Conference, DRS 2018. Limerick, Ireland.
Kotz, L., and Bankowsky, J. (1992). “The Body You Want: Liz Kotz Interviews Judith Butler”. Artforum,
November.
Peer, A. et al., 2013. Exploring the Representation of Women Perspectives in Technologies.
In ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '13).
Prado de O. Martins, L. “Privilege and Oppression: Towards a Feminist Speculative Design”. In Proceedings of
the Design Research Society Conference, DRS 2014.
Raby, F., Evidence Dolls. Available at: http://www.dunneandraby.co.uk/content/projects/69/0.
Sputniko, Menstruation Machine - Takashi’s Take (2010). Available at:
http://www.sputniko.com/?p=91600.
Søndergaard, M. L., and Hansen, L. K. (2018). “Intimate Futures: Staying with the Trouble of Digital Personal
Assistants through Design Fiction”. In Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Designing Interactive
Systems. ACM.
Tomasello, G. (2016). “Future Flora.” http://gitomasello.com/Future-Flora.
Tsang, M. (2017). “Open Source Estrogen: From Biomolecules to Biopolitics... Hormones with Institutional
Biopower!” Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cambridge, MA, USA.
Wajcman, J., 2010. Feminist theories of technology. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 34,
pp.143–152.
About the Authors:
Teresa Almeida is a postdoc in Interaction Design at KTH Royal Institute of

Technology, Sweden. Her work explores design-oriented human-computer
interaction (HCI) and design research practices with a focus on women’s health.
Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard is a PhD candidate in Digital Design at Aarhus

University, Denmark. Her research is focused on critical-feminist design practices
and issues of gender and sexuality in intimate technologies.
Sarah Homewood is a PhD student at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

She uses design based research to probe the effects of self-tracking on embodied
experience, particularly within the field of women’s health.
Kellie Morrissey is a Research Fellow at Open Lab, Newcastle University where she
leads the Digital Social Care theme. Her work focuses on the experience-centred
design of technologies for older people and women’s health.
Madeline Balaam is an Associate Professor in Interaction Design at KTH Royal

Institute of Technology, Sweden. Her current research includes ‘Digital Women’s
Health’, which is focused on improving women's access and experiences in health,
and rethinking interactions with digital for intimate care.
Design and sexism: assembling a community of care
AHMED Tanveera; PENNINGTON Sarahb and THAM Mathildac*
a The Open University, UK
b Goldsmiths, University of London
c Linnaeus University, Sweden
* Corresponding author e-mail: s.pennington@gold.ac.uk

doi:10.21606/dma.2018.745
Figure 1 Design and sexism: assembling a community of care
This Conversation takes as its starting point the need to further interrogate and
expose practical manifestations of sexism, and the epistemological biases and
structural hierarchies that interplay in perpetuating gender inequality. Our

motivating research questions for the DRS2018 Conversation are: how does
‘everyday sexism’ manifest in design in the University? What are the situations,
products, processes, resources, procedures, practices and languages that we can
point to as examples of these deeply rooted gender scripts that can serve to
highlight sexism in design? And then, how can we use design criticality, creativity and
care to make change? What are the sensitivities required for treating an ‘issue of
concern’ like sexism as a 'matter of care’? Through assembling this Conversation on
the topic of sexism, we hope to gather a ‘community of care’ around this
contentious issue of concern.
Keywords: design, sexism, care, intersectional feminism
1 Organising Provocations
Despite an ever-growing body of feminist design practitioners, researchers, educators and digital
platforms (Schalk, Kristiansson & Mazé 2017), gender inequalities persist in design education
(Morley 2016) and the design industries (Maher 2017). This Conversation takes as its starting point
the need to further interrogate and expose practical manifestations of sexism, and the
epistemological biases and structural hierarchies that interplay in perpetuating gender inequality.
We ask: how can we use design criticality, creativity and care to make change?
Our motivating research questions are: how does ‘everyday sexism’ manifest in design in the
University? What are the situations, products, processes, resources, procedures, practices,
languages that we can point to as examples of these deeply rooted gender scripts that can serve to
highlight sexism in design? How can we use design criticality, creativity and care to make change?
We are asking how do we care for an ‘issue of concern’ like sexism, both within the frame of a
conference Conversation and beyond? Here, we are motivating the theory of Maria Puig de la
Bellacasa (2017) of care in feminist technoscience towards design. This is an act of asking what
happens when we think of the issue of sexism as a ‘matter of care’? What are the ethics and
sensitivities required? Then, whilst we begin with Conversations around sexism, the ambition of the
activity is to pay attention to further marginalised things of design research; and here we will employ
an intersectional feminist approach towards identifying further issues for care, such as gender, race,
ethnicity and class. We therefore use ‘care’ in the sense of in need for our urgent attention and also
‘care’ in the sense of steering the Conversation beyond a blame culture to instead reach deeply
rooted structures, which include heteronormativity, a Western hegemony and the modernist
project.
2 A Conversation about Design and Sexism

This section outlines how the 90 minute-long session was set-up over four stages, and the ethical
implications of this format; a summary of the discussion that took place and insights gathered.
2.1 Set-up of the session and roles

A discussion on everyday sexism has ethical implications for a conversational format, and we wanted
to create an inclusive and supportive space. Consequently, we foregrounded a discussion on ethics,
sensitivities and consent in relation to the topic, and together, participants developed a set of
guidelines and rules of engagements on how to care for the session. We revisited this ethical
framework at the end of the session, to ask whether ethical issues had emerged. In relation to the
sensitivities at play here, we wanted to ‘grow’ a Conversation in order to gradually introduce
participants to each other; beginning with intimate Conversations in pairs, moving to small groups
and then larger groups.
Furthermore, this set-up had a focus on inclusion, to challenge hierarchies in participation and to
facilitate pluralist perspectives to co-create new insights and knowledge about gender inequalities in
design. Therefore the Conversation convenors were also participants of the Conversation, and all
participants were acknowledged as experts.
2.2 Discussions and activities that took place
The Conversation had four stages over 90 minutes. First, conveyors briefly shared the research
motivations for the session; including an understanding of sexism as instances where a person’s
gender has worked to their advantage or disadvantage, and at the same time acknowledging that
sexism is not necessarily just experienced by people who self-identify as women. Then participants
developed a set of guidelines for ‘how to care for the session’.
Second, we began the Conversation with short, intimate discussion in pairs, offering and listening to
experiences of everyday sexism. After a few minutes, this discussion was extended and replayed to
another pair of participants, thus gradually growing the Conversation from intimate to public.
This was further extended through a third phase, where participants self-assembled into small
groups around tables and were given a set of materials, including a reading list (‘Women Write
Architecture’ reading list, 2017), a time-table, data around the gender pay gap in universities and the
design industry, images of studio practice in fashion design and architecture, the list of trustees at a
well-known design institution, and course material for Design and Technology in UK state education.
These acted as a provocation to elicit concrete experiences and observations in the context of
sexism and design in relation to these materials for situated and nuanced narratives. A ‘cataloguing
of sexism’ (Ahmed, 2015), participants generate discursive and written responses to these materials,
using them to talk through issues.
Fourth, and in the large group, participants were asked to pinpoint and describe points for further
exploration, such as a problematic material to further investigate. This was a moment of collective
decision making on what and how to care for the issue of everyday sexism; and it was captured
through written means. To end the session, participants revisited the ethical guidelines and rules of
engagement.
2.3 Insights made
During each of the four stages of the Conversation listed above, participants shared insights on the
issue of sexism and generated proposals for strategies for greater gender equality. Discussions
focused within the frame of this specific Conversation at DRS2018; and beyond, in our day-to-day
practices; and also, more widely on the impact within the DRS community itself. As strategies for the
things we might offer through this Conversation, we highlight three areas of insights: how to care
for a difficult conversation; strategies for practices in design education; and institutional change
and etiquettes.
Participants collectively established rules on how to care for a conversation on sexism. Initially, this
included not naming or blaming, that all participants care for the documentation of the session, and
to observe ‘Chatham House Rules’ for an inward conversation, where information disclosed during
the Conversation may be reported but the source of that information may not be identified.
Revisiting these rules at the end of the session, two additional rules were suggested: firstly, on the
requirement for a wider range of gender represented in the Conversation; and, secondly for
participants to initiate a self-reflexive question at the start, to ask “are you sexist?”
Sensitivities were raised around practices in design education and learning environments, including:
1. Unequal treatment of students: The design workshop: students were made to feel overly
cautious around using machinery or equipment, and consequently lost confidence in an
ability to experiment in this setting;
2. Unequal treatment of tutors: Female identifying tutors were questioned around the
legitimacy of their work and the extent to which they had gained help from others, rather
than their work being accepted as their own work.
3. Teaching content and methods: Life drawing – the objectification of the female form and to
what extent this is embedded in art school education, such as in portfolio interview
requirement; Design project briefs – gendered subject understanding resulting in projects
focused on ‘female’ products (hair-dressing products example was cited) perceived as
inferior to others product areas.
Proposals for gender equality included:

(i) Female-only space and time: a dedicated time in workshops for female identifying students
to gain and practice skills without ‘protective’ tutors jumping in to help. Whilst the ‘all-
nighter’ in design and architecture education is arguably a rite of passage bonding some
students, it also excludes others, including those who care for others (such as those with
children or ageing parents) and those bodies who cannot work long or late hours.
(ii) Visual semantic training of designers: an image of a vagina-like purse used as an illustration
on website about the gender-pay gap promoted discussion on the suggested for the need
for greater understanding of the reproduction of gender scripts in designed artefacts or
interactions through curricula.
(iii) Reading Lists: The ‘Women Who Write Architecture reading list’ promoted discussion on
citation practices, and what this approach of prioritising female architecture writers to the
exclusion of male writers does or enacts. Questioning whether this example could be built
upon, participants asked if there is a ‘Women Who Write Design Research’ reading list?
(iv) Gender quotas for staff: discussions about the inequality of gender in HE departments led to
discussions about how quotas could help improve gender equality and career progression
for female identifying staff.
(v) Epistemologies in art/ design cultures: the epistemological foundations of much of art and
design is rooted in classical modernity thinking, as exemplified in mandatory life drawing of
nude models, often female forms and visits to art galleries to see nude female forms.
Proposals to expose this gendered thinking and deconstruct the canon.
(vi) Human rights and social justice issues as inextricably linked to design practice: an example
of a t-shirt exposed the chain of cheap labour production, and probable abuse of women’s
rights resulting in the need to expose human rights and social justice issues as inextricably
linked to design practice.
Then, to address institutional change, there were calls from participants for gender training –
forums where students and staff could be allowed to learn and make mistakes around their
understanding of gender and diversity; an initiative of a ‘gender provisional license’; and, an
‘incubator’ for learning how to talk about these issues.
These practices could be further built upon to engage with rules and responsibilities around sexism
that design institutions could adopt. Additionally, if there is a voice that is under-represented, such
as in a meeting, amplification tactics can be used to highlight voices in conversation through
repetition and credit, by stating “this person said”, or referring back to someone’s point. If someone
has not been heard in a meeting, it should be acknowledged (there is an app that tracks gender
balance of a meeting https://gendereq.com/). Certain ‘rules’ around gender balance need to be
readily available to design tutors and practitioners to become standard practice, for example, a
worded etiquette for conference panels such as “we won’t speak unless the panel is representative”;
and this could also extend to PhD or degree examiners with “we refuse to participate unless a panel
is balanced”.
These issues contribute to the need to reference where and how change has taken place; and, to
learn from and to show management that it is possible. Such proposals can therefore raise ideas for
more specific ways to forge new agendas in gender equality in design practice and education.
3 Critical reflections
A core issue in both the planning and the experience of this Conversation was how to engage a
group discussion focused on sexism outside of a binary conception. Although an introductory
reminder was given to participants to recognise a broader notion of gender outside of a binary
construct, it was clear how deeply embedded the heteronormative conception on male/ female is in
society. This impacted on discussions as many participants struggled to move beyond this binary,
reinforcing and reproducing societal norms.
Initial reflections were shared in pairs and small groups; then, three larger group discussions took
place comprising of between six-eight participants. The common theme running through each larger
group was the issue of discrimination based on gender; how these instances resulted in a range of
emotions from isolation to humiliation and anger; discomfort, and frustration at the lack of support
in these situations. For example, the student who described inequality in the workshop; another
student who was frustrated with a lack of options for who could examine her PhD; the researcher
who described how she already used amplification tactics in meetings; the senior member of staff
who was questioned about whether her lecture had been written by her male partner. There were
also conversations about potentially misleading information, such as the pay gap data comment
above. Discussions also showed how some participants did not recognise the examples of
discrimination raised by others; and, so discussions also focused on how to gain recognition from
colleagues in ‘sexist’ situations as a first step to gaining support.
Whilst these examples were dominantly located in a heteronormative paradigm of sexism, they
nonetheless highlighted the myriad ways in which systems and structures in design practices and
teaching contribute to sexism; and, how such inequalities were widespread from student to senior
staff.
Given the relatively short time to discuss this complex topic, an abundance of ideas were proposed
for how to achieve greater gender equality in future.
A future iteration of this Conversation should ask participants to complicate the sexism question by
adopting a critical intersectional approach. Here, we are inspired by Kathy Davis’ strategies for
Intersectionality as Critical Methodology [2014] to complicate what may be perceived as sexism
through asking ‘the other’ question of it, and to search for additional differences that the example
highlights (such as ethnicity, gender, class).
4 References
Ahmed, S. (2015). Introduction: Sexism - A Problem with a Name. New Formations: A Journal of
Culture/theory/politics, 86(1), 5-13.
Davis, Kathy ‘Interactionality as Critical Methodology’ in Nina Lykke Writing Academic Texts Differently
(Routledge, 2014), 17 – 29.
Maher, M. (2017) Women are studying design – so where are all the female directors? Design Week [online].
Available at: https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/17-23-april- 2017/women-studying-design-female-
creative-directors/. [Accessed 12 Feb. 2018]
Morley, M. (2016) Groundbreaking ways women changing graphic design. Available at:
https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/5-groundbreaking-ways-women-changed-graphicdesign/. [Accessed 12 Feb.
2018]
Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2017) Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds. US: University
of Minnestoa Press.
Schalk, M., Kristiansson, T. & Mazé, R. (2017) (Eds) Feminist Futures of Spatial Practice: Materialism, Activism,
Dialogues, Pedagogies, Projection. AADR (Spurbuchverlag).
‘Women Write Architecture’ (2017) Harriet Harriss, School of Architecture, Royal College of Art. Available at:
https://womenwritearchitecture.wordpress.com/.[Accessed 30 July 2018]
About the Authors:
Sarah Pennington is an AHRC PhD candidate at Goldsmiths, University of London,

and a lecturer in design at Goldsmiths and The Royal College of Art. Her current
research seeks to align a feminist ethos of care in relation to design research
practices.
Tanveer Ahmed is an AHRC PhD candidate at The Open University and a visiting
lecturer at The Royal College of Art. Tanveer’s research aims are to devise anti-
racist, anti-capitalist and culturally progressive fashion design agendas.
Mathilda Tham is a feminist, activist and metadesigner and her work is focused on
paradigmatic change through facilitating transdisciplinary processes of co-creation.
She is Professor of Design, Linnaeus University, Sweden, and metadesign researcher,
Goldsmiths, University of London
THE SNUG: A Conversation about Design Research.
Imagining, embodying, assembling
VERHOEVEN Evaa; BAILEY Paula; FASS Johna*; ROWAN Jaronb and CAMPS BANQUE Martab *
a London College of Communication
b BAU Design College of Barcelona
* Corresponding author e-mail: marta.camps@baued.es
doi:10.21606/dma.2018.708
Figure 1 Conversation in a snug. Picture by John Fass
This set of Conversations centered around two different subjects. On the one hand
we explored the radical imaginary, an idea which positions design research as a field
of critical and imaginative thinking. On the other, we discussed how the idea of
embodiment affects and alters notions of design research. These two Conversations
took place in two different pub snugs, accessible through a micro-site that allowed
listeners to choose and tune into one of them, or interact with them simultaneously,
given place to an experience-conversation-mix-interference-assembly.

According to convention the snug is traditionally a safe space for women, a place for
reflection and measured opinion, part of the general tumult of social life, but
separate from it – somewhere people can talk freely without fear of judgement or
sanction. The Conversation will explore experimental formats and ways to engage in
debates beyond traditional academic spaces.
Keywords: Design research; imagining; assembling; embodying
1 Organising questions
Can the radical imaginary open new spaces for struggle, contestation and creation of different
politics? Can design avoid the pitfalls and morality that define thinking about the possible, the
probable and the preferable and explore radical ways of thinking and doing in common?
Where does the radical imaginary live? Only in art and design schools or elsewhere? Radical politics,
radical positions, radical actions, radical atoms, free radicals. The experimental, the provocative and
challenging, the pre-conscious surreal, the activist, the provocateur.
The radical imaginary and the enclosure of imagination: increasingly design has considered
imagination to be an individual trait. Something to be developed by the designer which will become
a private asset. How can we design strategies to commonize imagination?
How to prevent imagination to become an individual escapist / utopian project and ground it in real
and possible practices? How to avoid imagination as a moralizing tale about alternative futures and
transform it into a collective tool to build better presents?
How can we institute radical imaginaries? Without materializing our ideas these become attractive
but feeble dreams. Institutions organize and project shared values into the future. How can we
design and build radical institutions capable of sustaining the radical imaginary over time?
1.1 Embodiment
What kind of bodies are privileged by design research? Which embodied experiences are we
currently excluding? What are the cultural myths and metaphors that construct our lived and
embodied experiences and how is that story perpetuated in design research? How does the plurality
of lived experience manifest itself in design research?
We are placing human bodies, non-human bodies and their potentials at the centre of the
Conversation and we suggest that design research should make room for more performative and
symbiotic relationships between subjects and objects.
This necessarily involves going beyond dualities such as brain/body, thought/action, inside/outside
of the body. We need to identify interfaces between bodies, systems, networks and corporeal
processes: full hearted participation.
Embodied Design Research involves the inside and outside of the body. It requires interfaces
between bodies, systems, networks and corporeal processes – but also an understanding of a great
diversity of bodies: the insect world, the microbiome, the connectome; and truly designing for
plurality in which nature becomes an active agent with which we need to enter into conversation.
Figure 2 Embodiment Conversation seen from outside of the snug
Figure 3 Embodiment Conversation

Figure 4 Embodiment Conversation, full house
Figure 5 Radical imaginary Conversation

The aim of this Conversation was to explore alternative and experimental ways of engaging in
debates and discussions on topics relevant to design research. In this case we discussed the
importance of embodiment and the space and limits for developing a radical imaginary in design
research. Two simultaneous Conversations were carried out in two different pub snugs in which a
very limited number of people, due to special reasons, could attend. The Conversations were
streamed through a micro-site designed for the event: http://radicalimaginary.com; this site allowed
users to plug into one or the other Conversation or mix them and listen them simultaneously. The
Conversations could be “assembled” or listened to separately. The site, also functions as an archive
of the Conversation, allowing people to come back, listen to parts of it, or mixing it as they please.
The Conversation on the radical imaginary started with a provocation, suggesting the need for a
more energetic and imaginative vigour in design research. Can the radical imaginary open new
spaces for struggle, contestation and creation of different politics? To do so design must avoid the
pitfalls and morality that define thinking about the possible, the probable and the preferable and
explore radical ways of thinking and doing in common. We fear that imagination has become an
individual escapist / utopian project, still, we consider that design can be an interesting space where
to ground imagination in real and possible practices. That is why we discussed the need to explore
strategies to commonize imagination, to think of it as a collective tool for building better presents.
The second Conversation, on embodiment, placed human and non-human bodies at the centre of
the Conversation and suggested that design research should make room for more performative and
symbiotic relationships between subjects and objects. We discussed about what kind of bodies are
privileged by design research and what embodied experiences we are currently excluding. What are
the cultural myths and metaphors that construct our lived and embodied experiences and how is
that story perpetuated in design research? Opening up this debate involves going beyond dualities
such as brain/body, thought/action, inside/outside of the body, identifying interfaces between
bodies, systems, networks and corporeal processes, full hearted participation.
The Conversations were carried out in two local pub snugs: The Tom Collins Bar on Cecil Street and
the Jerry Flannery’s on Catherine Street. Debating in such specific enclaves, had a dramatic influence
on how the Conversations were developed. The first pub could almost fit eight people (some sitting
on the floor), the second about 13. It was hot, we were cramped up, the air became stuffy, we faced
constant interruptions and noise pollution. We also invited local storyteller and myth keeper Eddie
Lenihan to contribute and disrupt the Conversation on embodiment.
The format defined the time of the Conversation, as after an hour it was too uncomfortable to
continue, but also obliged attendants to listen closely as they were physically very engaged in what
was being said. We were, literally, too close to avoid interacting with the rest of people in the room.
The format also allowed attendants to explore spaces alien to the main congress, interacting with
the city and learning about the function of pub snugs, a new type of spaces for international
researchers.
In the near future we are planning to work on the recordings of the session, now on the microsite,
signalling items and themes discussed, introducing references and links to specific projects and
allowing listeners to interact visually with the Conversation. In this sense the site will be transformed
into an interactive and visual archive of the Conversation.
3 References
BOSERMAN, C.; RICART, D. (2016). «Metodologías de investigación materializadas. Entremaquetas, tostadoras,
diagramas, rampas y cabinas». INMATERIAL. Diseño, Arte y
Sociedad. Vol. 1, n.º 1 (1).
FARÍAS, I.; WILKIE. A. (eds.) (2015). Studio Studies: Operations, Topologies & Displacements. London:
Routledge.
FRAYLING, C. (1994). «Research in Art and Design». Royal College of Art Research Papers. N.º 1-01.
GUTIÉRREZ, K. D., CORTES, K., CORTEZ, A., DIGIACOMO, D., HIGGS, J., JOHNSON, P., ... & VAKIL, S. (2017).
Replacing Representation With Imagination: Finding Ingenuity in
Everyday Practices. Review of Research in Education, 41(1), 30-60.
LEYSHON, M. (2008). The village pub and young people's drinking practices in the countryside. Annals of
Leisure Research, 11(3-4), 289-310.
LURY, C.; WAKEFORD, N. (ed.). (2014). Inventive Methods. London: Routledge
MARKUSSEN, T.; STEINO (2012). «Design Research between Design and Research».Designskolen Kolding.
OPAZO, D., WOLFF, M., & ARAYA, M. J. (2017). Imagination and the Political in Design Participation. Design
Issues.
ROWAN, J.; CAMPS, M. (2017). «Investigación en diseño: suturando cuerpos, cacharros, epistemologías y
lunas». En: Irma VILÀ y Pau ALSINA (coords.). «Arte e investigación».
Artnodes. N.º 20, págs. 1-9. UOC
SHARE, P. (2003, April). A genuine third place? Towards an understanding of the pub in contemporary Irish
society. In Proc. of the SAI Annual Conference.
WEIR, D., & WEIR, D. (2017). Singing the critical life: folk, place, and the palimpsest of rhythms in the beat of
the city. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 6(1), 46-59.
About the Authors:
Eva Verhoeven is an artist, designer, researcher and the Programme Director for
Interaction Design & Visual Communication at London College of Communication.
Eva is interested in the consequences of technological developments and its relays
into society and culture and the question of the role of the designer within it.
Paul Bailey is a designer, educator and researcher, and is the Course Leader for MA
Graphic Media Design at London College of Communication. Paul's current research
surveys the acts of reading and watching within various constructs, particular the
forms of delivery and reception.
John Fass is a designer, researcher and teacher, and is the Course Leader for BA
(Hons) Information and Interface Design at LCC. John’s research interests include
how digital experiences are externalised in physical forms, interface ethics, and data
activism.
Jaron Rowan is the Academic Coordinator of the Doctoral and Research Unit UDR-
BAU, at Bau, Design College of Barcelona. He has a PhD in Cultural Studies from
Goldsmiths. Jaron’s research interests include cultural policy, weird epistemologies
and design based research practices.
Marta Camps Banque is the is the Course Leader for BA (Hons) Design at Bau,
Design College of Barcelona. She has a Degree in Fine Arts and an MA in Art Theory.
Marta is researcher and teacher. Her current research project explores, from a
pedagogical perspective, the tensions between regulated forms of knowledge and
wilder forms of wisdom and learning that take place in the context of the art
workshop or studio based practices.
‘Conversing WITH Materials’ - How do we converse with
materials and other beings to co-design equitably?
NORRIS Janea*; KARANA Elvinb and NIMKULRAT Nithikulc
a
Richmond University, the American University in London
b
Industrial Design Engineering Delft University of Technology
c
Design Estonian Academy of Arts
* Corresponding author e-mail: Jane.norris@richmond.ac.uk
doi: 10.21606/dma.2018.711
Figure 1 Stainless steel, Mycelium on coffee beans, Mycelium with wood chips, Tissue paper, worked paper. Images: Jane
Norris, Elvin Karan, Nithikul Nimkulrat
How do we converse with materials and other beings to co-design equitably? In this
Conversation, we aimed to host an event that acted as a catalyst to reanimate our
mutual relationships with materials. It sought to identify fresh tactics for designing
and ‘con-structing’ objects. We offered for consideration two ‘materials-as-co-
performers’ of design practice that operate as team members together with
humans. Through activities such as sonic fictional design and performative design,
this Conversation explored a more-than-human approach to making. During this
event, emphasis was placed on listening to materials and considering their intimate
performative relationship to us. Questions for discussion were: In what ways can we
listen to materials? How do materials inform the hand and mind? How can we co-
perform with materials? With this Conversation, we sought to start a debate where
we begin to map out a nascent material vocabulary relevant to co-making in the
anthropocene. The format of a Conversation (rather than an address or lecture) was
particularly appropriate for co-producing new understanding and for formulating
equitable relationships amongst human and non-human beings.
Keywords: More-than-human; anthropocene; new materiality; co-making; outside-

of-enlightenment; decolonizing.

1 Organising Questions
How do we converse with materials and other beings to co-design equitably?
● In what ways can we listen to materials?
● How do materials inform the hand and mind?
● How can we co-perform with materials?
Pre-Conversation provocations: included posting Material Sonic Fiction experiments on Soundcloud

and Tweeting these tracks to see how much engagement could be stimulated.
Figure 2 Screenshots of Tweets aimed at stimulating a pre-Conversation discussion
Figure 3 A very packed room spilling out into the corridor during the discussion – Elvin Karana leading the closing
Conversation
2.1 ‘The Materials opening address’

The session started with an opening address by the materials (stainless steel and wooden spoons
and tissue and cartridge paper) that had been placed on the seats in the room. It was felt to be
important that the materials ‘spoke’ first, and that a physical co-performance with the materials
outside of human academic language would enable the Conversation to start in a different and more
open and equitable space. The materials-combined-with-delegates did respond to this unannounced
activity and the room became quite an electrified ecology of sound. This opening co-performance
was a significant contributor to setting the tone of the small and large group conversations.
Figure 4 https://soundcloud.com/janenorris/the-materials-opening-address-at-drs-2018
2.2 Co-presenter ‘Professor Stainless Steel’

Jane Norris introduced ‘Professor Stainless Steel’ (Prof SS) as a material anomaly, an example of our
dysfunctional relationship with materials, referring to anthropologist Edwardo Kohn’s observation in
How Forests Think that not naming something is pre-meditated violence that we make things killable
by calling them a thing not a person, but by ‘naming’ materials we view them as ‘selves’ with us in a
connected ecology of selves. (Kohn 2013:78). In addition, Biologist Hugh Raffles writes that general
nouns – insects, trees, leaves and especially ‘nature’ destroy our sensitivity to detail, they make us
conceptually as well as physically violent; “these little deaths of everyday life – pull us out of
relation…” (Raffles 2010: 345). A relationship that is driven by western Modernist dreams of a shiny
technological future that is contradicted by the unhygienic physical nature of the actual Stainless
Steel material. Norris referenced the paper presented by Renata M. Leitao earlier in the conference,
on ‘Recognizing and Overcoming the Myths of Modernity’.
Norris drew attention to the research of Professor Bill Keevil, Head of the Microbiology Group and
Director of the Environmental Healthcare Unit at the University of Southampton on antibacterial
material properties: “Although stainless steel looks like a mirror surface to the naked eye, under the
microscope it’s full of scratch marks, and bacteria are able to hide in the grooves”;. “(t)he reason it’s
used is that it’s deemed to be easy to clean and disinfect, but if you look at a magnified image of the
surface, you can see that this is just not the case” (Keevil 2016). But we persist in using Prof SS in the
Kitchen for sinks, cooker hobs, splash backs, in Hospitals – equipment, trollies etcetera, to the extent
that we are killing ourselves in hospitals with MRSA. (Wood contains anti–microbial properties,
copper door plates would replace the need for hand washes etcetera) and of course Cutlery – which
we put in our mouths.
Norris suggested that a new relationship with materials was needed, quoting Stephen Shaviro in The
Universe of Things who discusses Panpsychism – a theory that all matter has consciousness (Shaviro
2014) – and Whitehead’s (2018) writing in Process and Reality which discusses Process Philosophy:
“Things are never passive or inert, they have the power to affect things other than themselves”.
Whitehead writes of inanimate objects ‘pre-hending’ how can listening be a form of pre-hending?
(Whitehead 2018: 57-59).
It is in this context that Sonic Fiction becomes a useful tool for reviewing our relationships with
materials. Kodwo Eshun, who established Sonic Fiction as a genre in ‘More Brilliant Than the Sun’,
suggests sonic fictions are a means by which the ‘other’ speak, sound, and unfold their knowledge as
theory and culture. More specifically in relation to design practice, Pedro J. S. Vieira de Oliveira
author of ‘Design at the ear view’ suggests that Sonic Fictional Design is the proposal for a radical
divorce from so-called universal (metropolitan and/or Eurocentric) theories of musicology and social
and cultural studies, to make room for other systems to claim their space. Sonic fictions disrupt the
rationale of othering and provide novel approaches and perspectives— ones that he suggests
current Speculative Critical Design discourses lack (Vieira de Oliveira 2016).
Figure 5 Small group conversations on ‘What does it mean to listen to Materials?’

Figure 6 Maps of the different group conversations responding to the first question
The smaller conversation groups feedback into the larger Conversation that cross-fertilised across
the whole room.
Figure 7 Group conversations skilfully pulled together and mapped by Shruthi Chivukula Sai
Elvin Karana led the final part of the Conversation on ‘How do materials inform the hand and mind?’,
in which comments from the ranging conversations across whole room were added to the map of
thoughts, observations and comments. Specifically, comments on materials as experiential tools for
inclusive design emerged. In addition, Karana drew out the theme of the agency of materials to
make us act in certain ways, which was discussed, as was the embodiment of materials and humans
that led to the transformation of both parties. The discussion evolved around the ‘ecologies of
materials’, their tangible and intangible qualities which makes us think and act in certain ways, which
inform hand and body in an intertwined manner. The importance of ‘narratives’, past experiences,
cultural differences were emphasized by the audience and Karana supported this argument referring
to the past studies she conducted.
It was particularly noticeable in the final session, that despite the room being packed with delegates,
some of whom were notable such as the anthropologist Arturo Escobar, engaged contributions from
many delegates were possible across the room. There was a strong community sense and many
were keen to speak to the theme. This cohesion appeared to be as a result of a heightened
awareness of listening at the beginning of the session. A number of the delegates requested an
image of the Conversation that had been skillfully mapped out on the whiteboard by Shruthi
Chivukula Sai.
2.3 Materials conclude with final summing up…

As time was running out, Norris suggested that it might be appropriate to end with the Materials
Summing Up. So, the materials and the delegates in the room re-combined to produce a final audio
piece.
Figure 8 https://soundcloud.com/janenorris/material-summing-up-of-drs-conversation-with-materials
2.4 What outcomes / insights and Critical reflections on the session

It was notable that the ‘Conversation with Materials’ session attracted a large number of delegates.
Whilst ‘new materialism’ has been an active area of debate in Philosophy, Anthropology and other
strands of cultural theory for some time, and within the design community the current concern to
re-design new materials has become a growing trend, it was perhaps the triangulation of these
approaches with theories around decolonising design through sound that offered a new perspective
to delegates. Sonic fictional design as proposed by Pedro Vieira de Oliveira in ‘Design from the ear
view’ is a relatively new design field and is inspirational as a voice from the ‘global south’ in offering
fresh, decolonialised ways of relating to materials, and rethinking product design. This reframing of
our material use is particularly important at a time when many ‘new materials’ are being designed.
One comment from a delegate leaving the session was that this could be the topic of a whole
conference! Whilst that may be a little optimistic, the volume of interest and success of the session,
certainly points to the potential for combining applied philosophy, materials research and sonic
performance in future DRS conferences to construct decolonised spaces where other voices – both
human and other-than-human are heard.
3 Future directions for disseminating and developing the Conversation
One future development for the ideas raised in this Conversation may be an evening Salon of
Material Fiction on the theme of ‘Material Consequences…’ organised by Jane Norris for the London
Design Festival in September 2018. A number of the delegates present at the Conversation session
have expressed interest in contributing short fictional works to this event, and it would seem to be
an ideal platform to continue the Conversation started in Limerick. If the salon does go ahead, then
the audio recordings of the readings and any other sonic submissions may be collated and published
as a Podcast, allowing members from countries such as Turkey to still contribute.
Both the Conversation with Materials, and the Salon of Material fiction, work to open up academic
research to new forms of writing and media, addressing an issue that was raised in the final Keynote
panel by Sadie Red Wing about the need for new forms of academic writing that allowed the wisdom
of elders to be quoted and acknowledged. In this case they allow for an even wider remit – the
inclusion of the other-than-human voice. What is exciting is the possibility of taking these forms of
communication further.
Figure 9 Session image Tweeted by Dr Elaine Igoe
4 References
Giaccardi, E., Karana, E. (2015). Foundations of Materials Experience: An Approach for HCI. In Proceedings of
CHI 2015. Seoul, South Korea. ACM Press: 2447-2456
Goodman, Steve. 2010 Sonic Warfare Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Haraway, Donna. 2015 ‘Anthroprocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chuhulucene: Making Kin.’
Environmental Humanities 6: 159 – 65
Karana, E., Giaccardi, E., Stamhuis, N., Goossensen, J., (2016), The Tuning Of Materials: A Designer’s Journey. In
the Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS), Pages 619-631, Brisbane,
Australia.
Kohn Eduardo (2013) How Forests Think towards an anthropology beyond the human University of California
Press. USA. P78
Kuijer, L., Giaccardi, E. 2015. Considering Artifacts as Co-performers, in Animals, automated devices and
ecosystems: A symposium on the agencies of dynamic non-humans in theories of practice, 9-10 October,
Barcelona.  
Mauss, Marcel. 1972 ‘A General Theory of Magic’ (first published in Sociologie et anthropogie 1950) English
Translation by Robert Brain Oxon Routledge and Kegan Paul
Moore, Jason. 2015 Capitalism and the Web of Life: ecology and the accumulation of capital London: Verso.
Nimkulrat, N. (2012). Hands-on Intellect: Integrating Craft Practice into Design Research. International Journal
of Design, 6(3), 114. http://www.ijdesign.org/index.php/IJDesign/article/view/1228/520
Nimkulrat, N. (2012). Voice of Material in Transforming Meaning of Artefacts. In Proceedings of Design
Research Society Conference (DRS2012) (pp. 1367-1380). Bangkok, Thailand: Chulalongkorn University
Norris, Jane. 2017 RE-PAIRING – collaborating with objects and materials available on https://richmond-
uk.academia.edu/JaneNorris/Drafts
Steffen, W., P.J Crutzen and J. R. McNeill 2007 ‘The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great
Forces of Nature?’ Ambio 36.8: 614-21.
Raffles Hugh (2011) Insectopedia pub Random House Inc; Reprint edition. p345
Stengers, Isabelle. ‘Reclaiming Animism’ - e-flux Journal #36 July 2012
Vieira de Oliveira, Pedro J. S. ‘Design at the Earview: Decolonizing Speculative Design through Sonic Fiction’
DesignIssues: Volume 32, Number 2 Spring 2016
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 1992. From the enemy’s point of view: Humanity and divinity in an Amazonian
society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Whitehead AN (1929) Process and Reality republished 2018 The Best Books Publishing p57 -59
About the Authors:
Jane Norris is currently writing: Polychronic Objects on how outside-enlightenment

understandings of time repositions our relationship and engagement with materials.
Elvin Karana is exploring unique ways of understanding and designing (with)

materials to radically change and enhance the relationship people have with
materials of artefacts. She is the founder of Materials Experience Lab.
Dr Nithikul Nimkulrat is interested in how new knowledge and understanding of

materials can be generated through the practitioner’s hands-on experience.
A Feminine Approach to Design
McENTEE Katea*; GÜNTHER ANDERSEN Jonb and BRANDALISE Isabellac
a Monash University, Australia
b MindLab, Denmark
c GNova, Brazil & MindLab, Denmark
* Corresponding author e-mail: kate.mcentee@monash.edu

doi: 10.21606/dma.2018.721
Figure 1 What is the feminine in design? (Photo by Isabella Brandalise)
This is a Conversation about trying to recognize and understand the feminine in

design through practices of listening, storytelling and letter writing. Feminine design
is an invitation to explore qualities, or moments, that infiltrate uniform structures
and discourses in the design field. These moments often fall into conflict with
modern values such as purpose, determination, universalism, Fordism,
concentration and permanence (Harvey, 1996). Designers working in spaces of social

innovation, civic laboratories, political discourse and academia are passively and
overtly forced to shape their work processes and outputs to fit into structured, and
often detrimental, requirements for outputs and measurement (Abdulla et. al. 2016;
Akama and Yee, 2016; Willis, 2017).
Rather than using the term feminine design to create a dualistic paradigm between
masculine and feminine, we are interested in using feminine design to explore and
celebrate alternative practices for contemporary design. These evolving qualities of
feminine design include: nuanced; performative; not solution-oriented; invisible;
uncertain; slippery; temporary; embodied; situated; incomplete; and reflexive.
The Conversation revealed the challenges of allowing ‘feminine’ to exist beyond
‘woman’, the political implications of using gender-based terminology and a
reluctance to apply categorisation that feels divisive. Ultimately the Conversation
empowered us to reclaim the word ‘feminine’ and associated qualities as they apply
to design practice in order to demonstrate their strength and value and develop
stronger evidence to recognize and support alternative design practice.
Keywords: design practices; engagement; storytelling; sensory; feminine
1 Organising Questions
What is the feminine in design? How does a conception of feminine design expand and open up
possibilities for contemporary design practice?
● In what ways do these feminine qualities capitalise on opportunities presented by dominant
structure and discourse?
● What is the value and accessibility of identifying using the term feminine design?
● Can we use alternative forms of knowing and doing (knowledge production and practice)
relying on our senses outside of dominant discourses to advance research?
2 The DRS2018 Conversation Session

“Fiction here is likely to contain more truth than fact.” (Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own.
New York: Harvest, 1929.)
“As the Inuit asks the visitor coming in out of the cold: speak so that I may see you. Add a
voice, even a whisper, so that the other is really there.” (David Rothenberg, as quoted in
Lindstrom, Martin, BRAND sense: Sensory Secrets Behind the Stuff We Buy, New York:
Free Press, 2010. p. 73)
2.1 Set-up and activities

The set-up of the room was intimate, inviting people to come in and quietly listen to recorded audio
of a series of letters, written at unknown point in time (http://tinyurl.com/feminineindesign). In
response to Ana Cristina Cesar’s attempt to describe qualities of a feminine literature, a fictional
design research group in Rio promotes a parallel approach in design practices, and opens a call for
design projects that celebrate feminine qualities. The letters are a response to the call, presenting
examples and reflections about the idea. Once the recording was over, listeners were invited to
discuss the ideas presented within the audio with a partner. Eventually these pairs joined into
groups of four and received an envelope with concrete prompts to encourage discussion about their
personal experiences as designers. Participants then joined in a round-table discussion with the
entire room and reflected on the Conversation experience and the conception of feminine design as
an approach to contemporary design studies and practices. In the end, each person was asked to
write a postcard with an insight, question or critical thought to a specific person, place or artefact.
Figure 2 Participants listening to audio letters in the beginning of the session (Photo by Isabella Brandalise)
Figure 3 We used a fictional call for projects to make our provocations more concrete (Poster by Isabella Brandalise)
Figure 4 Participants were given prompts and asked to discuss examples of practice from their personal experiences (Photo
by Kate McEntee)
Figure 5 At the end of the session, participants were invited to write postcards with some of their thoughts about feminine
design, creating a series of fragmented outcomes (Photo by Kate McEntee)
2.2 Reflections on set-up and activities
The Conversation was designed to reflect the descriptive qualities of feminine design. We selected
three specific tactics to invite people into, and facilitate, the Conversation: Audio, Fiction and
Correspondence. Each of the conveners have particular backgrounds related to the chosen tactics.
We have found that using recorded audio of letters and stories brings participants into a different
relationship with the information being presented. With sound, we are not observing the object
from a distance, but we are immersed into it. Audio works with sensory and affective modes of
knowledge. Feelings and sensations work side-by-side with the semantics of language and sound.
Listening to audio, like affects, is productive and emergent in the sense that it not only represents
lived processes, it also participates in actively shaping processes to help constitute them as facts
(Groth & Samson, 2016).
Fiction is used here as a narrative technique to explore “plausible unrealities” that challenge
expectations of the audience (Franke, 2015). By creating an odd yet coherent thought experiment —
engaging fiction with moments in real life — the unthinkable suddenly becomes possible, not in
terms of the real, but of the imaginable.
The use of correspondence to both frame and capture insights from the Conversation emphasises
the value of information and knowledge exchange in multi-modal formats. Women’s writing
historically began with journals and letter writing. Published forms of writing such as newspapers,
academic papers and books were reserved for men. Today we continue to value certain forms of
publication as ‘valid’ forms of knowledge exchange. Letter writing promotes an intimate sharing of
information, an explicit recognition of the audience (even if writing to a person unknown), and
immediately invites receivers into conversation, creating a more expansive and less linear exchange.
The tangibility of using handwriting and designed objects for analogue correspondence creates a
more visceral, bodily experience of the exchange. The final product, a series of postcards, provides
us with an incomplete output. There is not a cohesive form that provides answers, but rather
multitude of reactions, ideas and doubts split into small pieces.
In this way, the fictional, the auditory and the correspondence create a Conversation that in itself
reflects elements of the feminine in design, and in turn put adrift the questions posed by Ana
Cristina César.
2.3 Reflections on outcomes and insights
When participants joined in the round-table discussion, we encouraged the group to reflect critically
on the content of the session, using our research questions as initial prompts: How does a
conception of feminine design expand and open up possibilities for contemporary design practice?;
What is the value and accessibility of identifying using the term feminine design?; Can we use
alternative forms of knowing and doing relying on our senses outside of dominant discourses to
advance research?; In what ways do these feminine qualities capitalise on opportunities presented
by dominant structure and discourse?
One of the critical insights was how difficult it is to separate the word ‘feminine’ from the word
‘woman’. Despite framing the Conversation around qualities and stories from practice, regardless of
the gender of the practitioner, participants were focused on gender dynamics and how they
experience gender in contemporary societies. There is a common imaginary about what feminine
means and its use is associated with the stigmatisation and control of women. One participant
argued against the provocation citing, ‘women were not allowed to read in the past, because they
were seen as wandering’. Thus using a quote that included that term— “Feminine means here:
wandering, discontinuous, uneven, intensely exposing a lot of raw feeling” (César 2016) —felt like it
gave credit to prejudiced beliefs about women’s capabilities. The idea that we would be assigning
‘labels’ to describe feminine felt discriminatory to some, with one participant commenting, ‘I must
confess I’ve always felt uncomfortable with tags and labels on the qualities of what is feminine or
masculine regardless of gender. I just feel that the definition itself—whatever it might be—is
discriminating in a way.’ Two of the men who participated in the Conversation expressed that they
felt their design practice aligned with the described practices, and that using the word feminine
meant they could not own these qualities as part of their work. The discomfort and conflict
associated with defining feminine as an act of defining ‘woman’ was significant for participants.
It is important to emphasise, as one participant made clear and advocated, that this discussion is not
about men or women. It is about qualities that could be manifested by all genders that have
developed out of what was once considered traditional gender roles. Before hosting the session at
DRS2018, we did not expect the Conversation to be overtly political. However, the session made it
clear how relevant it is to embrace the political nature of this provocation. Certain participants felt
the ‘political’ nature of the Conversation was distracting from a more ‘productive’ Conversation
about design practice, while others argued for the importance of its political nature. Embracing the
political nature earlier on would have helped create a more fruitful discussion. A participant
commented in their postcard, “The tension-political debate that was interesting (expected) but
didn’t help me move away from my state of being.” As the discourse around the feminine in design
progresses, the political nature of the Conversation is critical and must be embraced. We were
emboldened by this Conversation to use our proposal to directly confront and address the fear
around design practice being political and reluctance to name out what is happening in practice
using political terms.
Categories can never provide complete unanimity. They are not able to contain the messiness and
uncertainty of reality. We acknowledge this limitation, but nevertheless maintain it is important to
name, and celebrate, these qualities as feminine. Though commonly believed to be demeaning or
ineffectual we aim to illustrate how qualities such as invisibility, performativity, uncertainty and
incompleteness are powerful and valuable ways of practicing design and important reference points
for discussion and reflection. In a postcard to his daughter one participant wrote, “hopefully the
world will have changed so you don’t have to understand [the debate between feminine and
masculine qualities].” This demonstrates a lack of willingness for people to engage in what appears
to be a conversation around inequality, rather than a conversation about reclaiming certain ways of
being and acting as worthy of noticing, naming, labelling and making political.
We look back to this session as a first opportunity to begin a fruitful and exciting discussion, and feel
encouraged to host more sessions, advancing the research. We are putting together a podcast with
participants’ reflections on the Conversation, which will be shared to the public in the near future.
3 References
Abdulla, D, Canli, E, Keshavarz, M, Martins, LPdO & Oliveira, PJSVd. (2016). “A Statement on the Design
Research Society Conference 2016.” 30 June 2016.
<http://www.decolonisingdesign.com/general/2016/drs2016statement/>.
Akama, Yoko and Yee, Joyce. (2016). “Seeking stronger plurality: Intimacy and integrity in designing for social
innovation.” in: Cumulus Hong Kong 2016, 21st–24th November 2016, Hong Kong.
Brandalise, Isabella. (2017). “eventual everydays: Infiltrating and Opening Systems through Design.” in: Nordes
2017 Design+Power. 15–17 June, 2017, Oslo, Norway.
César, Ana Cristina. (2016). Crítica e Tradução. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras.
DiSalvo, Carl. (2012). Adversarial Design. (2012). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
DiSalvo, Carl. (2016). “Making the Social.” 13 January 2016.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnU6ZknI7rM>
DiSalvo, Carl. (2016). “Design and Prefigurative Politics.” The Journal of Design Strategies, Vol 8. pp 29–35.
September, 2016.
Franke, Björn. (2015). “Design as Inquiry: Prospects for a Material Philosophy.” PhD thesis, London, England:
Royal College of Art.
Groth, Sanne Krogh & Samson, Kristine. (2016). “Audio Papers – A Manifesto.” In Seismograf.
<http://seismograf.org/fokus/fluid-sounds/audio_paper_manifesto>.
Harvey, David. (1996). Condição pós-moderna: Uma pesquisa sobre as Origens da Mudança Cultural. São
Paulo: Edições Loyola.
Light, Ann and Akama, Y. (2012). “The human touch: participatory practice and the role of facilitation in
designing with communities.” in: Proceedings of the 12th Participatory Design Conference: Research
Papers, Vol 1. pp 61–70. 12–16 August, 2012, Roskilde, Denmark.
Lindstrom, Martin. (2010). BRAND sense: Sensory Secrets Behind the Stuff We Buy. New York: Free Press.
McEntee, Kate. (2017). “Becoming Woke: Design Research and Embodied Practice.” in: Nordes 2017
Design+Power. 15–17 June, 2017, Oslo, Norway.
Mills, David. (2014). “Rhizomes, Why Artists and Activists Should Care about Crabgrass.” Blue Stool Lecture
Series: Champlain College, Burlington, Vermont. 23 October, 2014.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou_yikwW15o>
Willis, Anne-Marie. (2017). “Editorial.” Design Philosophy Papers, 15:2. pp 95–97.
Woolf, Virginia. (1929.) A Room of One's Own. New York: Harvest.
About the Authors:
Kate McEntee is a lecturer and research fellow at Monash University in Melbourne,

Australia. Her research investigates designers working in emerging learning contexts
and understanding the embodied practice of the designer as a critical output of
design.
Jon Günther Andersen is an audio designer and Project Manager at MindLab in

Copenhagen, Denmark. His work is centered on turning strategy into culture and
focus on how sensuous knowledge can create small ruptures in everyday rituals and
expand our idea of legitimate knowledge forms.
Isabella Brandalise is a postcard designer and MindLab consultant at GNova, a

Government Innovation Lab in Brasília, Brazil. She is interested in creating moments
of opening in complex, emergent and collaborative systems, such as urban space,
collective narratives, and public imagination
Adventure: expedition to Pragmatism and Inventivism in
the design situation
MULDER Sandera; BOESS Stellaa and FRITSCH Jonasb*
a DelftUniversity of Technology
b ITUniversity of Copenhagen
* Corresponding author e-mail: s.s.mulder@tudelft.nl
doi: 10.21606/dma.2018.796
Figure 1 Two wildlife cameras and a clearing (image courtesy: Sander Mulder)
In this Conversation session we explored the two contrasting philosophical

perspectives of Pragmatism and Inventivism. Pragmatism tends to focus on technical
objects as fulfilling a purpose for mankind in a concrete situational context. In
contrast, the French philosopher Gilbert Simondon introduces an Inventivist
philosophical position in which technical objects a) have their own mode of being
called technicity, b) are becoming more open, and c) should not be reduced to a
purpose, as that hinders their co-emergence with mankind - a problematic position
with regards to design. The Conversation took the form of exploring an imaginary
design case revolving around using the technology of a wildlife camera to design for

a dinner table setting. Two imaginary design teams were formed, each operating in a
philosophical 'clearing' representing one of the perspectives. Moderators supported
each team. Each team had a wildlife camera at their disposal to work with, which at
the same time captured each session at selected points. Four participants joined the
Conversation session, two per clearing. Halfway through the session the participants
reflected intermediately and then one each swapped clearings. The last 10 minutes
were spent on a joint reflection. This exploration indicates how the differences in
philosophical positions play out when entering concrete design consideration.
Keywords: Pragmatism, Inventivism, Design Philosophy, Design Situations

Designers work in a local and temporal context while at the same time contributing to a larger
ongoing human project: our evolving relation with machines that become more open, indeterminate
and sensitive to outside information – sophisticated machines. During this Conversation we wanted
to draw attention to sophisticated machines that enter design situations in practice. How can
designers engage with two contrasting perspectives on such machines: 1) Pragmatists aiming for
adaptation of the machine towards purpose in a concrete situational context and 2) Inventivists
exploring a machine to foster co-emergence, in which there is equality of mankind and machine?
2 The Conversation
2.1 Theoretical background

Before presenting the set-up of the Conversation, we need to clarify briefly the two contrasting
theoretical perspectives with which we asked the participants to engage. For the sake of the
Conversation the organising question is quite bold, especially with regards to the Pragmatist
perspective. We lay aside for instance contemporary accounts such as speculative pragmatism
explored by Debaise and Stengers (Debaise, 2005; Debaise & Stengers, 2017).
In Pragmatism a design situation boils down to the great Pragmatists’ question: ‘does it, with our
additions, rise or fall in value? Are the additions worthy or unworthy?’ (James, 1907, original
emphasis). Such an evaluation towards decision-making is done from an individual and experiential
perspective (cf. Melles, 2008, p. 89). ‘Pragmatism holds to an instrumental account of ideas as plans
of action that borrow their meanings from their practical real-world consequences.’ (Melles, 2008, p.
88). The implications for humans' relation with technical objects is to accommodate the technical
object’s mode of existence towards human existence, making us either master/slave and reducing it
to utility mainly.
The Inventivist perspective is speculative towards a design situation, boiling down to the question:
How can humans and machines co-emerge in ways that neither could alone? The implication for the
relation is that the technical object’s own mode of existence and human existence have equality.
Inventivism is a philosophical position inspired by the French philosopher Gilbert Simondon (1924-
1989) and could be seen as incommensurable with Pragmatism. Simondon argued that technical
objects have their own mode of being. This mode of being evolves as the Canadian philosopher Brian
Massumi puts it ‘through the network into a postindustrial “open object”’ (De Boever et al., 2009, p.
38). A sophisticated machine ‘harbors a certain margin of indeterminacy [and] this margin [...] allows
the machine to be sensitive to outside information’ (De Boever et al., 2009, p. 17). Simondon calls
this margin of indeterminacy "openness" or "technicity", an "ontological force" of technological
apparatuses (Hoel & Van der Tuin, 2012).1
2.2 Set-up of the session
2.2.1 Overview of the session

On this last, hot day of the conference, four delegates took part in a session to explore the effect of
two (seemingly) incommensurable philosophical positions and how one can engage with them in a
design situation. First the theory as described above was briefly explained, as shown in Table 1 (next
page). The same information was also available to participants on instruction cards during their
subsequent hands-on explorations, as shown in Table 2 (next page). Second, the imaginary design
challenge was introduced:
● You are part of a household equipment design team for a manufacturer

● The challenge is to add to a dining table [domestic setting]
● To what extent can we use (parts of) a wildlife camera?
With this, we invited the participants to join one of two versions of an imaginary design team within
a larger company. Both teams were assigned to improve an existing situation by exploring what the
wildlife camera, a contemporary technical object, could add to a dinner table setting. No other
boundaries were given.
The two versions of the teams were a 'Pragmatist' and an 'Inventivist' team. Each convened in their
own 'clearing' to explore the design challenge for 20 minutes.2 Professor Cees de Bont and Stella
Boess moderated the ‘Pragmatists clearing’, while ‘Simondonian’ co-convenors Jonas Fritsch and
Sander Mulder moderated the ‘Inventivists Clearing’. After 35 minutes, the teams reflected briefly
and from each team the two delegates swapped teams in order to engage with the other
perspective. The teams explored and reflected for another 20 minutes. To wrap up we asked
delegates to articulate how they engaged in each position. Did the changing of position provoke new
and more distinct notions how to relate to design? The explorations and reflections were
automatically captured on digital video by the wildlife cameras that were simultaneously the
technology being used in the exploration (see point 2.2.3, below). The contributions were later
transcribed. Extracts are presented and interpreted in section 2.3 Outcome of the session. An
overview of the Conversation is shown in Table 1.
1
This third ingredient was the account of both Ernst Cassirer (1974-1945) and Gilbert Simondon (De Boever et al., 2009).
2
Clearing is used here as ‘open space’, a vantage point from which to consider the design situation
Table 1: Overview of the Conversation
Opening Round 1 Round 2 Closure
0 Welcome 15 Explore 45 Explore 75 Plenary
contrast reflection and
5 Intro 35 Capture wrap-up
65 Capture
# people swap
2.2.2 Introduction of the theory

At the start of the session, the theory from section 2.1 was introduced as shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Two contrasting perspectives in a design situation

Clearing
Pragmatists Inventivists
Aiming for utility: How can my actions and Working with indeterminacy: How can
experience guide me in decision-making humans and machines co- emerge in
about the machine? ways that neither could alone?
Emphasis in
presentation Implications for relation [with the machine]: Implications for relation [with the
accommodation of the technical object’s machine]: equalling the technical
mode of existence towards human existence object’s own mode of existence with
making us either master/slave human existence
Instruction cards were handed out to support each team's exploration. Table 3 shows the content.
Table 3: Content of instruction cards with suggestions for moderators

Clearing
Pragmatists Inventivists
The camera’s role is to The camera’s role is not to capture but to complete
capture for humans. humans.
Camera’s role How could the camera How could we, camera and human(s), capture what
capture for us what we, neither could alone in the given context?
humans, cannot in the given
context.
Explore generative Explore verbs to imagine what we, camera and
metaphors to discuss what human(s), can do together Generate both transitive
the camera could add to the verbs (able to take sense or use a direct object, e.g.
situation. we see a donkey) and intransitive verbs (able to take
no direct object e.g. look at the sky)
Explore analogies to imagine what we, camera and
Suggested Think of the camera in the
human(s), can do together.
approaches context like ‘watch dog’ or
‘Cupido’s arrow’. Generate both structural analogies resembling
physical spatiality (e.g. camera resembles an eye)
and operatory analogies that express processes (e.g.
filtering). The latter ‘cease[s] to objectify the real so
as to set free the processes of genesis’ (Barthélémy,
2012)
2.2.3 The 'sophisticated machines' that were both input for the design situation and
recording the sessions
Two sophisticated wildlife cameras were brought to the situation. Each team explored what this
state-of-the art technology could do for the project. Figure 2 gives an impression of one such camera
and a ‘clearing’: the vantage point of Pragmatism, from which to explore what the camera does and
could do. The clearing is a table around which participants were seated, with an instruction card
about the perspective. After informed consent of the participants, the moderators used the wildlife
cameras to record the design situation parts of the Conversation.
Figure 2 The Pragmatist clearing with a camera (face down, so not filming at that moment) and an instruction card about
the perspective [still from a normal video camera] (image courtesy: Stella Boess)
2.3 Outcome of the session

2.3.1 How moderators steered the exploration in each perspective
The Conversation resulted in some indications of how the differences in philosophical positions play
out when entering concrete design consideration.
To make each perspective practically usable in the exploration, the moderators of each clearing
started by reformulating the theory towards more spoken-word, practical questions. The moderator
in the Pragmatist clearing asks how the device is going to help a specific user in a particular situation.
The moderator in the Inventivist clearing conveyed the theory as an appreciation or invitation
towards exploring new relations and experimentations. In line with their theoretical positions the
moderators tried to foster or steer towards purpose or experimentation respectively. This also
meant that the moderators tried to steer participants away from certain things: in the Pragmatist
clearing, this was any closer inspection of the camera's capabilities that was not linked to a scenario
of use, to a useful purpose:
Participant 3: “It was blinking. It only blinks for a bit and then yeah it is recording." (...)
"(to see the result you have to) take out the card and play it. It is not supposed to play
back to dears and bears.”
(...) Moderator 1: "So coming back to the family situation. We already have a few
things”...
In the Inventist clearing, moderators sought to steer away from anthropomorphism (no quotes
recorded) or exploring mere utility functions of the camera:
Moderator 3: “I really do like the idea of using technologies to develop new relations
and new forms of experimentation and creativity at home also because […] all smart
home apps or applications are about convenience, so the house has to heat up 30
minutes before we come home, […] and I think there is really much more to explore.”
2.3.2 Idea explorations in each perspective

The ideas developed in the Pragmatist perspective were that the camera could support to deliver
evidence in a lawsuit (e.g. a divorce), could be used as a teaching tool to train socially preferred
habits (e.g. not turning your plate to cut) or as a means to change behaviour (e.g. to invoke healthy
eating within a dispersed family by sharing footage of prepared dishes).
The ideas developed in the Inventivist perspective were that the camera could register
choreographies at the table (e.g. alternate settings like eating alone, with friends, partying or being
sad)
It turned out to be difficult to always determine how a 'subordinate' or an 'equal' relation could be
defined. This played out particularly in the Inventivist clearing: the ideas ranged from purely
experiential, revealing emotions, to very practical. Conversely, the Pragmatist clearing had less
problems with variations in what they discussed: it always came back to a scenario and what the
value in it was. In this, the Pragmatist clearing got quite enthusiastic about all the solutions they
were developing, which almost made it seem as if these conflict and behaviour change problems
were already solved.
2.3.3 The role of technology in each perspective
The relation with the camera is hardly reflected upon in the Pragmatist clearing and if it occurs the
machine should help you in a particular situation. The Inventivist clearing showed multiple
reflections on the relation with the camera a.o. how the camera could be helped.
2.3.4 The role of humans in each perspective
The scenarios that were explored seemed more normative in the Pragmatist clearing e.g. persuading
towards learning, behaviour change or flourishing of a community. In contrast, the Inventivist
clearing seemed to show two extremes: very practical or very experiential, very emotive. Put
differently the Inventivist clearing seemed to give rise to more processual situations where you find
your way through as you go along. Figure 3 (next page) shows a video still of a more experiential
scenario performed during the Conversation reflection where a choreography of the hands at a
dinner table is captured.
Figure 3 Inventivist clearing participant performing dinner table experience [video still] (image courtesy: Sander Mulder)
2.3.5 Insights from the role swap

The role swap further brought each perspective into relief. This came halfway through the
exploration when both participants from each clearing switched sides.3 Each clearing briefly
exchanged accounts with the new participants on what had been explored in the new and previous
clearing so far.
The participant who switched from the Inventivist to the Pragmatist clearing noted later in reflection
that coming to the Pragmatist clearing was an experience that felt less free, less creative, while the
participant also acknowledged that it was valuable to explore usefulness in context.
The participant who switched from the Pragmatist to the Inventivist clearing noted later that coming
to the Inventivist clearing was initially disorienting because it was more difficult to understand the
focus of the discussion, and then came to acknowledge that, with some help from the moderators,
that interesting experiences were being explored.
2.4 Discussion
Some concluding reflections pulled both perspectives together again indicating that it was possible
to engage with both positions in a design situation each bringing different possibilities of a
sophisticated machine to the fore.
It appeared that both pairs of participants could engage with both perspectives within a fictive
design case. As co-convenor Jonas Fritsch reflected: ‘[…] it is just different ways of thinking about
and exploring different kinds of design spaces and one can easily be transformed into the other so
accentuating a space of possibilities in a sense.’ This first exploration also gives some indications that
there are differences. As a delegate said after switching from the Pragmatist to the Inventivist
clearing: ‘I felt like I was trying to appropriate a new kind of ethical view on the world’ and another
delegate reflected ‘I felt that the first group [Inventivist] that I was in was more emotionally led’.
If one attempts to relate the outcomes to the design process and how the perspectives could inform
real design teams, one could say that a constant focus on value and usefulness is likely to preclude
3
At this point in the session one delegate had to leave, so the Pragmatist clearing was continued with just one participant
just coming from the Inventivist clearing.
many potential creative and sensitive ways that technology and humans could interact. It is a clearer
and simpler perspective that is easier to articulate: the debate always comes back to value and
usefulness, which also seem quite amenable to being transferred into business propositions.
The perspective of Inventivism, conversely, showed a deeper and more sensitive engagement with
both technological possibility and human experience. Interestingly, the ideas in this clearing did not
lead to any attempts at persuasion, rather engaging with complex human experience. When the
participant joining the Pragmatist clearing was quizzed about the benefit of their previous Inventivist
perspective, they said they thought of it as a 'performative art project'. Soon, however, this
participant also started to see the potential of the Pragmatists' previous ideas for promoting
behaviour change, for example in helping children learn to eat.
In conclusion, this initial and small exploration of perspectives through the Conversation format has
brought these insights: the Pragmatist perspective makes goal finding and translation to notions of
usefulness easier. But it potentially misses deeper layers that could lead to new ideas - in fact it
seemed somewhat to suppress interest in these deeper layers. The Inventivist perspective, in turn,
seems more difficult to integrate in the goal-setting and value perspective of many company
contexts, yet ultimately yields new, unexpected and sensitive directions for design.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank Prof. Dr. Cees de Bont, Dean of the Loughborough University School
of Design, who kindly agreed on the day to join and host the 'Pragmatist clearing’ in the session.
3 References
Barthélémy, J.-H. (2012). Fifty key terms in the work of Gilbert Simondon. In A. De Boever, A. Murray, J. Roffe,
& A. Woodward (Eds.), Gilbert Simondon: Being and Technology: Edinburgh University Press.
De Boever, A., Murray, A., & Roffe, J. (2009). "Technical mentality" revisited: Brian Massumi on Gilbert
Simondon. Parrhesia, 7, 36-45.
Debaise, D. (2005). Un pragmatisme des puissances. Multitudes, 22(3).
Debaise, D., & Stengers, I. (2017). L’insistance des possibles. Pour un pragmatisme spéculatif. [The Insistence
of the Possible. For a Speculative Pragmatism]. Multitudes, 65(1).
Hoel, A. S., & Van der Tuin, I. (2012). The Ontological Force of Technicity: Reading Cassirer and Simondon
Diffractively. Philosophy & Technology, 1-16.
James, W. (1907). Pragmatism. A new name for some old ways of thinking. (1931 ed.). New York, USA. London,
UK.: Longmans, Green and Co.
Melles, G. (2008). New Pragmatism and the Vocabulary and Metaphors of Scholarly Design Research. Design
Issues, 24(4), 88-101.
About the Authors:
Sander Mulder works in design education (Delft University of Technology), works in

practice (co-design and co-creation projects for mostly non-profit clients) and is an
external PhD candidate researching responsibility in design.
Stella Boess is assistant professor at Delft University of Technology and researches

design thinking and doing tools for (non-)designers. She has worked in consultancy
practice both employed and independently.
Jonas Fritsch, PhD, is associate professor in interaction design at the IT-University of

Copenhagen. His work centers on a creative thinking of interaction design,
experience philosophy and affect theory through practical design experiments with
interactive sound and physical interfaces.
Transforming Design: Indigeneity and Mestizaje in Latin
America
HERNÁNDEZ Gabriela*; ROGAL Maria and SÁNCHEZ Raúl
Affiliation Organisation, University of Florida
*Corresponding author e-mail: ghernandez@arts.ufl.edu
doi:10.21606/dma.2018.746
Figure 1 Visual composition, Gaby Hernández; Photograph: Maria Rogal
This Conversation explored how the discipline and profession of design might be
epistemologically decentred and, in effect, decolonized. Focusing on their

experiences working with Indigenous and mestizo communities in Latin America, the
convenors discussed the need to reconceive design theory, research, practice, and
education. Their goal was to begin a process of levelling the playing field on which
Indigenous and non-Western perspectives encounter the discipline’s legacy
epistemologies, which are rooted in Western modernity and its attendant
coloniality. During the session, they fostered a Conversation that laid out the
conceptual and practical difficulties that lie ahead but that must be addressed in
order for the field to expand its historically narrow borders and adopt broader,
deeper, and sustainable perspectives.
Keywords: Decoloniality; futures; cultural perspectives; global design; design

discourse
1 Organizing questions
The following questions were laid out as starting Conversation points:
1. How may design be considered a colonialist enterprise?
2. What can we learn from past engagements with Indigenous and mestizo groups that will
help us break out of the epistemologies that have informed design’s theory, research,
practice and education?
1.1 Sub Questions

1. How do design’s inherited epistemologies influence our ability to co-design in teams that
include Indigenous, mestizo, or non-Western participants?
2. How might we recognize the implicit biases and hierarchies in our design systems and
replace them with egalitarian and “horizontal” modes?
3. How should we conduct cultural exchange in contexts of unequal power dynamics?
4. What is the difference between exchange and appropriation?
5. How might we teach design students and researchers to work outside of their own cultural
contexts in non-appropriative ways?
6. How can we avoid the phenomenon of “parachuting?”

2.1 Background
The convenors have worked with underrepresented, Indigenous, and mestizo communities in
México, Costa Rica, and the United States. In addition, they have observed the absence of
Indigenous, mestizo, Latin American, and decolonial knowledges, practices, and perspectives at
international design and design research conferences.
The convenors acknowledge that throughout its professional history, communication design has
been a thoroughly Western enterprise. Its approaches to theory, research, practice, and education
have reflected modernist, Euro-American epistemologies presented as universal values. This has
been the case even in the so-called “developing world” or global south, much of which is comprised
of former colonies and other areas of ongoing Western economic, political, and cultural influence. In
order to create a discipline that respects and incorporates local knowledges from specific locations,
designers must reach beyond their traditionally liberal values of inclusivity, multivocality, and equal
access. We must also dismantle and rebuild design’s epistemological foundations, identifying their
Euro-American biases and establishing a multivocal perspective—or, better yet, multivocal
perspectives—in order to place all approaches to knowledge and practice—Indigenous, non-
Western, and Western—on equal footing.
The convenors aimed to discuss how design’s inherited assumptions about phenomena such as
power, knowledge, and time might be productively upended. Ultimately, they wanted to enrich
design discourse by beginning to loosen Western modernity’s grip on the profession’s basic
assumptions and ideologies. Along these lines, they wanted to identify differences between how
design actually operates and how it might operate differently, not only in the Indigenous and
mestizo contexts with which they were familiar, but in every context. For example, designers might
address the cultural legacies, symbologies, and languages of form as a concept.
Figure 2 Sli.do #DRS2018 (screenshot: Maria Rogal, June 26, 2018)
2.2 The Big Question: Why is #designsowhite?

The DRS2018 general sessions underscored the convenors’ concerns. One of the first and most
consistently posed Slido questions, “Why is #designsowhite?” was repeatedly ignored until the third
and final event (Figure 2). The question’s prevalence throughout the keynote sessions and on social
media reflected many attendees’ desire to address diversity, equity, and indigeneity across the
conference and the discipline. The question’s constant presence reaffirmed urgent need for this
particular Conversation.
2.3 Starting the Conversation

The convenors briefly introduced themselves, the purpose of the panel, and the format.
Conversation participants were seated in three groups gathered around three tables. The convenors
asked each participant to introduce themselves and their reasons for attending. Altogether, and
excluding the convenors, there were 18 participants. They came from diverse backgrounds and
interests, many working interculturally and internationally. They represented Australia, Barbados,
Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Finland, Italy, México, Portugal, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago,
United Kingdom, and the United States as well as diverse interests in design research.
Figure 3 María Rogal introduces the Conversation participants to her research with indigenous entrepreneurs in México.
Photograph: Gaby Hernández
2.3.1 The Convenors’ Contributions

Each speaker began by establishing a framework. All reflected on the popularity and recurrence of
the #designsowhite question, which by that point had been circulating through the conference for
almost two days. The question—particularly its urgency—provided an unexpected but timely
context for the Conversation.
Convenor 1: Theoretical Considerations

Raúl Sánchez defined coloniality and pointed to its contemporary manifestation in (or as) the
discipline of design. He asserted that efforts to design with Indigenous communities necessarily take
place in ongoing contexts of coloniality. Sánchez suggested that design is a Western discipline with a
specific epistemology, ideology, and history. Therefore, when Westerners bring design to Indigenous
people, they necessarily impose it, despite any intentions to the contrary. He also argued that
because of ongoing coloniality, Indigenous communities are imposed upon from many directions,
not just from designers. Across a range of activities, including design, Indigenous people and settlers
meet in structurally uneven conditions.
But, Sánchez claimed, decoloniality cannot only mean disengagement between Indigenous people
and settlers (including designers). As decolonial theorists such as Walter Mignolo and others have
argued, there can be no return to “pre-contact” epistemologies for either side. However,
decoloniality can mean fostering conditions in which the knowledges, practices, and desires of
Indigenous communities take epistemological precedence. It can mean using a re-imagined and
decentered notion of design through which Indigenous communities can interact on their own terms
with settler forces.
Convenor 2: Issues in Research and Practice

María Rogal reviewed her decade-long research collaborations with Indigenous entrepreneurs and
artisans in México. She explained that these collaborations originated within communities in which
people had recognized design’s potential to improve their products’ marketability and to enhance
their ability to tell their stories directly, with less interference from the dominant tropes and
narratives of the tourist industry and other Western-dominated industries. Rogal identified features
that were critical to fostering productive interactions between these entrepreneurs and her
designers; in particular, she identified the need for the designers to see the entrepreneurs not as
clients but as collaborators. She described the value of horizontal design research methods and the
need to be open to multivocality. She explained how working “in the field” rather than in the studio
let her designers see the gaps between their formal knowledge and that of the Indigenous
communities with whom they worked. Finally, Rogal advocated for rethinking the design canon, for
re-evaluating the very concept of a canon, and for creating a multivocal approach to design (Figure
3).
Convenor 3: Implications for Design Education

Gaby Hernández offered an overview of her teaching practices with undergraduate and graduate
design students. She explained that one can introduce new design perspectives in the classroom by
reframing contents and facilitating new kinds of projects. She identified some pressing questions in
contemporary design teaching.
● How should we talk about colonialist design practices and culture?
● Why do we teach design principles as we currently do?
● What are we leaving out?
● How do we reframe design education and practice for the youngest students?
Hernández proposed moving from the current, largely homogenous teaching model—which orients
around European schools and approaches, such as the Bauhaus—to a heterogeneous one that
considers cultures (rather than culture), that is inherently and consistently multivocal, and that
always seeks to fully represent the underrepresented. She also argued that students’ voices and
backgrounds must be allowed to fundamentally inform their design process, especially when these
students come from underrepresented groups. Addressing the needs of students from dominant as
well as underrepresented groups, Hernández asked how we might use image-making and visual
practice to create spaces in which they can develop critical thinking habits related to questions of
diversity, culture, colonization, and stereotyping. Finally, she encouraged attendees to reconsider
course contents and projects in order to introduce diverse design perspectives, cultural criticism,
colonial design tradition, and design practices that reflect students’ background and identity.
2.4 Conversation
After their opening remarks, the convenors introduced the following questions in the form of a
Conversation prompt card deck, with eleven questions (Figure 4).
Figure 4 Conversation Prompt Card Deck, designed by Gaby Hernández. Photograph: Denielle Emans
1. How “western” is the discipline of design?

2. What are the inherited epistemologies of the design discipline?
3. How does design’s “western-ness implicate it in colonialism?
4. How does appropriation masquerade as exchange in current design practice?
5. How can we reimagine design away from its western-ness and therefore away from
colonialism?
6. What would a global discipline of design look like?
7. What would be the key concepts of a global and inclusive discipline of design?
8. What would be the foundational research and teaching practices of a global discipline of
design?
9. What are current examples of global design research and teaching practices?
10. What other questions should we be asking about decolonial design and global practices in
order to further this Conversation?
11. Are there any resources to further this Conversation?
Figure 5 Conversation participants used prompt cards to discuss issues in small groups. Photographs: Denielle Emans and
Gaby Hernández
Each individual received one or two cards to use as discussion prompts for their small group (Figure
5). These small groups were asked to focus, for approximately 30 minutes, on one or two of the
questions. During these discussions, Hernández observed a palpable energy in the room. Participants
actively engaged the issues raised mentioned in the cards and connected them to other equally
important issues that the cards had not addressed. Reporting back to the larger group, each small
group summarised key points of their conversation, including thoughts on the future of design.
Hernández facilitated this “debrief” while Rogal took notes (Figure 6).
Figure 6 Conversation debrief. Photograph: Gaby Hernández

3.1 Outcomes
The following are key issues that emerged from the session.
2.4.1 Language is crucial

Attendees challenged terms such as global, universal, and decolonial, noting that these too can carry
the often-silencing force of Western modernity. They argued for the importance of terms such as
anti-racist and anti-capitalist to describe a design theory and practice that could work against the
silencing, erasure, and violence in which the modern discipline of design has been implicated. They
urged the recognition of neoliberalism as the name for a set of destructive economic, philosophical,
and cultural practices in which design has played a role.
This focus on language and terminology reflected a larger understanding of the key role that
discourse plays in reproducing ideology and, as a result, perpetuating inequality. In order to act upon
this understanding, the discourses of design must become locally oriented, intensely contextual, and
always attuned to issues of history and epistemology.
2.4.2 Design research, practice, and education must be rigorously contextual

Attendees noted that contemporary design education reinforces an epistemological hierarchy in
which western knowledge dominates. They noted that this hierarchy exists not only in the
institutions of the global north—in Europe and the U.S.—but also in those of former colonies in the
global south.
In order to create a design education that recognizes, studies, and dismantles the modern
discipline’s colonialist epistemologies and practices, we must create integrative design curricula that
emerge from local traditions, histories, and processes. Doing so will require new practices, such as
the validation of oral traditions and the acceptance of language differences.
3 Reflection and Further Steps

One attendee noted that, for her, our session felt like “the safest place in the conference.” This
makes us feel nice, but it is also a sad and damning commentary on the discipline and its institutions.
We must make the discipline a safe space for people to rigorously and productively discuss issues of
coloniality and indigeneity. The attendees and the convenors feel acutely the urgency of these
issues, and they are dismayed that their field is, at the moment, ill-equipped to address them. But
they are eager to help it along, and to help transform it.
In the near term, DRS in particular can take some concrete steps. We encourage officials to choose
conference locations in non-western countries. Doing so will expand participation, increase access,
and promote equity. We urge officials to set a sliding scale of conference fees to account for
different economies and incomes to encourage broader participation.
More broadly, and in the longer term, the discipline must abandon the notion that “design” can be
meaningfully defined or understood outside of specific locations and their historical,
epistemological, ideological, and economic contexts. When we retain this falsely universal notion,
we take part in an ongoing process of silencing and erasure, a process in which a set of culturally and
historically specific set of values is presumed to apply anywhere and everywhere.
In short, we must guard against any tendency to universalize any aspect of design theory, history,
practice, and education. Instead, we should think of “design” as theories and practices that emerge
in specific locations, rather than as generalized theory and practice that can be brought to bear on
specific locations.
Within such a framework, the work of the design theorist should be to identify and articulate local
design concepts, especially where they have been historically suppressed or erased under conditions
of coloniality. The work of the design researcher should be to study local design practices, also under
historical conditions of suppression or erasure, identify and validate horizontal methods where
knowledge is produced with populations and not for them. And the work of the design educator
should be to help students develop ways of making and thinking based on the understanding and
validation of a multiplicity of design theories and practices.
4 References
The following references informed the convenors as they formulated their proposal and their
framing of the Conversation, even if not cited in this document. We are including them here because
we consider useful to this Conversation.
Decoloniality
Butoliya, D. (2016). “Critical Jugaad. Ethnographic Praxis” in Industry Conference
Proceedings, 2016: 544. doi:10.1111/1559-8918.2016.01118
Ramos, J.G. (2018). Sensing Decolonial Aesthetics in Latin American Art. Gainesville, University of Florida Press.
Sheehan, N. (2011). “Indigenous Knowledge and Respectful Design: An Evidence-Based Approach” in Design
Issues: Volume 27, Number 4. Cambridge, MIT Press.
Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2012). Decolonizing Methodologies, 2nd Edition, London, Zed Books.
Wilson, S. (2009). Research Is Ceremony. Halifax, Fernwood Publishing.
Horizontal Methods
Corona Berkin, S. (2018) “Flujos metodológicos desde el Sur latinoamericano.La zona de la comunicación y las
Metodologías Horizontales, Methodology flows from the LatinAmerican South. The zone of Communication
and Horizontal Methodologies.” Comunicación y Sociedad, Volumen 15, No. 32, May–August 2018,
http://www.comunicacionysociedad.cucsh.udg.mx/index.php/comsoc/issue/view/651, accessed July 30,
2018
Corona Berkin, S. and Kaltmeier, O. eds. (2012). En Diálogo: Metodologías Horizontales en Ciencias Sociales y
Culturales. Barcelona, Editorial Gedisa.
Design Concepts
de Certeau, M. (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Evans, C. & Garner, S.W., eds. (2012) Design and Designing: A Critical Introduction. London, Berg Publishers.
Highmore, B. (2009). The Design Culture Reader. London, Routledge.
Terzidis, K. (2007). “The Etymology of Design: Pre-Socratic Perspective” in Design Issues: Volume 23, Number
4. Cambridge, MIT Press.
Designing with people

Manzini, E. (2015). Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation.
Cambridge, MIT Press.
Margolin, V. & S. Margolin (2002). “A ‘Social Model’ of Design: Issues of Practice and Research” in Design
Issues, Volume 18, Number 4, Pages 24–30. Cambridge, MIT Press.
Plattner, H., Meinel, C., & Leifer, L. (2012). Design thinking research: Studying co-creation in practice. Berlin,
Springer.
About the Authors:
Gabriela Hernández is assistant professor of design at the University of Florida. Her

expertise includes design for development, visual storytelling, and ethnographic
research, and has significant international experience working with disadvantaged
communities and indigenous groups in México and Costa Rica.
Maria Rogal is professor of design at the University of Florida. She explores the
potential of design to positively shape the human experience. She founded Design
for Development to work with indigenous entrepreneurs in Mexico on development
projects. Her research has been disseminated internationally.
Raúl Sánchez is associate professor of English at the University of Florida. He

specializes in decolonial theory, and cultural studies. Sánchez is author of Inside the
Subject: A Theory of Identity for the Study of Writing and co-editor of Decolonizing
Rhetoric and Composition Studies: New Latinx Keywords for Theory and Pedagogy.
Shifting Perspectives of Aesthetics
LINDH KARLSSON Monica; PAWAR Aditya and ROSENBAK Søren*
Umeå University
* Corresponding author e-mail: monica.lindh@umu.se
doi:10.21606/dma.2018.760
Figure 1 The Braun and Tin Can radio offer two different aesthetics, grounded on diverse aesthetical logic
The aim of this Conversation is to inquire taken-for-granted foundations for design

aesthetics, often informed by semantics and the social order established around the
privileged designer. Hence, the Conversation is set up to disrupt former social orders
and support a shared Conversation about the nature of questions we need to ask in
order to respond to the shift in design aesthetics. The session is structured around
group work, with each group’s discussion revolving around a given disruption:
capitalism, the anthropocene, and technocentrism. Key to the Conversation will be
conversation-triggers in form of media and creation of ‘narratives’ that represent
what kind of questions can be asked and what kind of answers we aim for. The
purpose is to inspire diverse discussions around ways we can push for the kinds of
aesthetics that align with democratic meaning-making, beyond the the idea of
universal modernist functionality.

Keywords: aesthetics; democracy; participation; politics
1 Context of the Conversation Topic

The aim of this Conversation is to inquire taken-for-granted foundations for design aesthetics, often
associated with usability, visual appearance as informed by semantics (cf. Bill, Maldonado, Monö).
Hence, we believe that when posing questions of usability, the answer (as in, the visual appearance)
will turn out to be influenced by certain aesthetic programs similar to semantics.
We consider this Conversation to be a starting point for a discussion, asking ourselves what kind of
answers we might get if we change the way we ask questions about aesthetics. For example, there is
a difference between asking questions about how something can visually appear for someone, and
questions such as who is included and who is not; in the way something is perceived. The purpose is
to discuss ways we can push for the kinds of aesthetics that align with democratic meaning-making,
rather than the idea of universal modernist functionality.
Although the field of design has embraced participation, equality, and democracy in a
methodological and topical sense, we believe that aesthetic considerations and responsibilities given
to the designers remain highly privileged. As such, designers can be considered to have the privilege
to create aesthetics in designs with a certain competence. For example, aesthetic programs such as
semantics narrow down the scope for aesthetic expression and inhibit involvement of others in a
designer’s practice. From the perspective of who is involved in the design process, design aesthetics,
despite being framed in different ways, basically continues to consider product use and users in a
particular way, emphasizing functionality and visual appeal rather than engaging with contemporary
matters and concerns for values in life. Hence, in this Conversation, we will focus on social orders
and the privilege to make judgments about aesthetics (Ranciérè, 2013) by asking what kind of
question might be raised, and what kind of answers we see reflected in contemporary design
practice.
Our intention is to shift away from more usual aesthetic questions such as: How to make this ‘object’
appear as usable for someone (indicating a certain use and intended user), toward a Conversation
that revolves around aesthetics as conditioned by the diverse worldviews that steer designing,
focusing on values such as democracy, diversity and ethics.
1.1 Conversation research question

This Conversation is a dialogue on aesthetics in terms of Ranciéré’s (2013) notion of “the distribution
of the sensible”, understood as that which can transform can be perceived, i.e. what is visible,
audible or thought. Consequently, the session aim to push for a “disruption” of social orders in
democratic design experiments.
With a broad range of designers and non-designers attending DRS2018 (DRS2018) in Limerick, we
suggest three themes (disruptions) as starting points for groups discussion. These themes are not to
be understood as hard-cut categories as they all intersect with each other at multiple levels. Rather,
each theme brings out a certain particular disruption of worldviews with fixed ideas of aesthetics.
These paths are as follows:
1. Disruption of capitalism
2. Disruption of the anthropocene
3. Disruption of technocentrism
The readers should note that this Conversation does not aim for the definition of a new design
aesthetics as the answer. Rather, the ‘shift’ in aesthetics is demonstrated by asking better questions
during this Conversation. Hence, this Conversation itself can be seen as an attempt to prototype the
way that we are able to come together and unpack the current deficiencies in design aesthetics by
asking better questions.
2 The Conversation
2.1 How plans were put into action, including the ‘set-up’ of the space and roles
In the Conversation, each convenor had several roles, starting out with introducing the Conversation
topic and the structure for the session to the participants. A key part of this initial session was
providing inspiration for the following Conversation. Hence, product semantics was used as a
backdrop for discussing discussing the shifting perspective of aesthetics, and encourage
conversations inspired by Ranciérè’s notion of “the distribution of the sensible” (2013) as a starting
point, but not as its endpoint of a conversation. All convenors acted as conversational partners with
the participants, critically discussing the questions raised and summarising the discussion in the end.
The participants were divided into smaller groups of four to five people and matched with the
predefined themes. Each group discussed their given themes and used the materials supplied (a
large sheet of paper, pens, co-design materials) to visualise their conversation using a draw-as-you-
talk protocol. During the thematic group discussions, the convenors critically engaged with the
groups.
Figure 2 Each group discusses a given theme helped by the convenors and the supplied materials.
Each group was asked to expand and visualise their conversation by writing/drawing a narrative
using the supplied materials and images. The images contained a wide variety of images of
designers, contemporary designs, man-made environments, and ecological phenomena. The
narrative was an opportunity for the team to communicate their conversation concisely. The format
for capturing the narrative was one-shot video done on a mobile phone (Interactive Institute, 2018).
The Conversation ended with a summative discussion on how we as a design community want to
articulate, develop and maintain a generative aesthetic-making practice that supports democratic
values. The initial idea had been to discuss the videos at the ending as well–however, during the
session, we ended up prioritising the face-to-face dialogues since the videos were very easy to share
at a later moment. Thus, to wrap things up, the convenors summarised the versions of aesthetic-
making practices discussed and shared the videos with the participants.
2.2 What discussions, activities and experiences took place, including on the
Discussion forum, and at the associated Exhibition
Figure 3 Overview of the living documentation of participant’s conversation. The participant’s conversations were
supported by the canvas with provocative questions, co-design material and images
The format for the Conversation was kept intentionally open to every specialisation of design by
choosing broad themes. The somewhat abstract nature the theme was balanced by the
concreteness of examples provided as images. Additional materials given to the participants
included a canvas and co-design materials, which enabled note down, make, doodle, doddle, etc.,
along the conversation. The conversations in the peer groups started with introductions and
individual viewpoints and inevitably ended up as a collage of viewpoints that were captured through
the videos. The wrap-up of the conversations as short videos provided the participants with the
constraints to round off the discussions, even though a conversation can essentially go on much
longer. In these videos, we find the conversations documented as a diverse set of, perhaps
incommensurable, views on aesthetics–from metaphorical explanations of aesthetics to more
action-oriented ideas for design projects. The videos can be accessed through the links provided in
the appendix at the end of this article.
A concluding round-up of discussion summed up what the individual participants would take back to
their own work environments and projects, as well as how convenors planned to continue their
exploration of the Conversation question.
In general, the Conversation at DRS2018 was conducted as planned. However, we did some changes
in the way we introduced the session, which slightly affected the way the Conversation was
performed. One such change was that we decided not to present any given interpretation of the
three themes in the introduction, but rather join each group and expand on the themes through
examples often taken from the supplied images. Adjustments such as this one expose our struggle
with balancing a conversational format that opens up to several voices and interpretations and at
the same time works with limitations such as time, space and explaining the complexity of Ranciérè’s
philosophy (2013). It certainly put the spotlight on our roles, ethical responsibilities and the overall
aesthetical framework of the DRS2018 Conversation format.
Although our intention was to exhibit the videos at the conference, in line with the conference
format for Conversations, we had no access to large display screens or a projector at the conference
venue. So instead, we suggest that the shared videos become exemplars of the Conversation by us
and inspire the conference participants and others reading this paper to hold similar conversations
in their own work environments. We could for example imagine that such a conversation would be a
valuable opportunity to bring different designers/researchers together around a topic such a
conversation could be valuable to bring together different designers-researchers around a topic of
common concern or to address the shifts in aesthetics in a particular design specialisation. Such a
conversation could also be valuable for design education, where the students and teachers together
are able to the shift in aesthetics and its implications for teaching and learning.
Figure 4 Introduction of the Conversation by the three convenors of the session at Design Research Society conference being
conducted by all three convenors of the session
2.3 What outcomes or insights were produced?
Our experiences from our Conversation can summarized and communicated in different ways. From
analysing and discussing the outcome of the event, we will emphasize two major trajectories that we
experienced as the most outstanding in this context: the aesthetics of a conversation and insights
from having a Conversation about shifting perspectives of aesthetics.
First, having a shared conversation about aesthetics could be seen as revealing kinds of aesthetic of
a conversation. Already in the DRS2018 format for the conference and Conversations certain
elements are in place that frame the aesthetics of performed Conversations, such as who participate
at the conference, time limitations for the Conversation, limitation of participants in each session
and the premises for each Conversation. Within this framework we as convenors decided the
aesthetical format for the Conversation: introduction, dividing participant’s randomly in groups of
four or five, pre-decided themes, supplied images, design materials and a canvas with a circle with
provocative questions etcetera. But, perhaps, more importantly, our choice to charge the
Conversation with the notion of “the distribution of the sensible” (Ranciérè, 2013) in a way directed
the vocabulary and (initial) ways of interacting. The main reason was to trigger a discussion that
moved beyond the concrete (present) towards discussions about taken for granted
structures/orders for aesthetics. Hence the focus on what kind of questions we need to ask to
change, push or explore diverse aesthetical answers. We acknowledge that having conversations
about aesthetics might be a shared and contemporary concern to explore ways to push design
toward democratization, and dwell over who is involved in aesthetical matters and who are not,
what becomes perceivable/apparent and what remains hidden, depending on how we relate to
different orders.
Figure 5 Elements of aesthetics of a Conversation at DRS2018

Secondly, the main contribution of having a conversation about shifting perspectives of aesthetics
was to explore a shared vocabulary together inspired by Ranciere’s work on “the distribution of the
sensible” (2013). This vocabulary was able to shine a light on the knotty problem of addressing
aesthetics (beyond product semantics) amongst a diverse set of designers/researchers attending the
DRS2018 conference. During the workshop, it was clear that the participants had been grappling
with the notion of aesthetics in their own way. In this sense, the Conversation brought them
together, giving them a common framework to start discussing the practical-theoretical implications
of considering aesthetics beyond product semantics. The goal for this exercise was not to privilege
one definition of aesthetics (Ranciérè’s or anyone else’s), nor to invent a new definition. Rather it
was a way of rehearsing how we can talk about aesthetics that are grounded in democratic values
and which can lead us (designers/researchers) to re-examine our own disciplinary practices,
apparatuses and institutional structures. From our experiences during and after the Conversation we
acknowledge that this exercise was difficult for several of the participants, although highly valuable
and rewarding.
Figure 6 Snapshot of a conversation about shifting perspectives of aesthetics
Along the way we experienced a pedagogical challenge of framing an event that opens up ways to
talk about aesthetics in terms of democratic values etcetera. Already in the planning phase this was
a challenge for us and a matter of concern: On one hand, how to perform a session together without
ourselves representing a certain view or order, and on the other how to simultaneously manage the
format of a conversation with time-limitations and similar constraints? Between the three of us, we
had extensive discussions on how to orchestrate the Conversation, for example, asking ourselves
how inclusive and accessible we wanted to keep the format? How abstract or concrete the images
needed to be? What vocabulary to use? One example was how to start up the session, since we
acknowledged that while there is a certain irony, and yet perhaps also some benefit, in doing a
lecture-style introduction to get everyone on board (as opposed to distributing information out in
the groups), there is also an interesting irony in introducing inspirational images like we had
prepared. Are these actually opening up or shutting down discussion? Creating shared ground, or
imposing an ironic and perhaps even self-defeating taste regime? In some way, this all seems to be a
balancing act between some more pedagogical concerns (making the most out of a limited format)
versus the substance of our Conversation. That friction between form and content seems to speak
very much to what we are proposing, staying on this meta-level of the session being a prototype
etcetera.
3 Critical reflections on the session

Our way of organising this Conversation addressed human-planetary politics (for example by using a
theme such as the anthropocene) and at the same time discussed the orders that hold the design
discipline in place (e.g. authority, authorship and the privilege of designers). No doubt, the
participants struggled to relate their own practice to this tension, which was perhaps the most
difficult yet rewarding part of the conversations. If we were host this Conversation again in the
future at a different venue or for a different audience, the arrangement would probably be anchored
more closely to the participants’ individual practices. However, for a venue like the DRS conference,
we found the Conversation format to be a good platform to rehearse ways in which we can address
some of the more abstract and complex problems that the design disciplines faces. A conversation,
after all, does not necessarily yield an answer but can provide inspiration or insight into your own
practice, as questions that stay with you long after the sessions ends. We believe that aesthetics, as
a core concept in designing, need to be brought back into conversation again and again within the
design research community, and this is what we have attempted in the most inclusive manner
possible. For future iterations it would be desirable to bring in other voices that have not been
represented in this discussion as of yet, by taking this Conversation to other locations and
communities that design.
4 References
Bill, M. (2015). Form, function, Beauty = gestalt. Architectural Association London.
Interactive Institute, (2018), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-sRyyDi4H8. (Accessed 15 of February,
2018)
Monö, R. (1997). Design for product understanding: the aesthetics of design from a semiotic approach. (1. ed.)
Stockholm: Liber.
Maldonado, T. (1962). Journal of the Hochschule für Gestaltung. Ulm 6, October.
Ranciérè, J. (2013). The politics of aesthetics: The distribution of the sensible. Bloomsbury Academic.
Braun SK 2 Radio. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Braun_SK_2_Radio.jpg [Accessed 17
Apr. 2018].
Tin Can Radio. Available at https://bit.ly/2mX6dyD [Accessed 17 April, 2018]
5 Appendix
Given below are links to videos summarising the discussion in each participant group:
https://youtu.be/bbyT9W-Dtsw,
https://youtu.be/kl2Ns7_RjLE,
https://youtu.be/zTFplJo5AnA,
https://youtu.be/d-3mmjafxos,
https://youtu.be/QJHMMsez3b4
About the Authors:
Monica Lindh Karlsson is a PhD candidate at Umeå Institute of Design. Her research
focuses on exploring togetherness in doing design together, a shift from ‘what’ to
‘who’, inquiring the role of designers being the authority for a whole.
Aditya Pawar is a PhD candidate at Umeå Institute of Design. His research is focused
on participatory design with publics around socio-political issues. His current
research question looks at the rhetoric of ‘openness’ in participatory design
practice.
Søren Rosenbak is a PhD candidate in design as critical practice at Umeå Institute of

Design in Sweden. His research revolves around the question of how pataphysics
can infuse and advance a critical design practice.
Imagining critical practises in practise based design
research: What is your ‘critical’ approach?
AGID Shanaa*; OLANDER Sisselb ; AKAMA Yoko c; LENSKJOLD Taud
a Parsons School of Design
b KADK
c RMIT University
d University
of Southern Denmark
* Corresponding author e-mail: agids@newschool.edu
doi:10.21606/dma.2018.765
Figure 1 The 1-into-8 booklet as format for contemplation and dialog on critical approaches in practice-based design
The idea and concept of ‘criticality’ in design research has emerged as a contestation
over the sites, forms, methods, and capacities of and for design. These debates are
influenced by social science inquiry, cut across design fields, and are explored
through different approaches to and investments in design research. These include
‘critical’ and ‘post-critical’ orientations in constructive, speculative, and co-design

design research; grounding and emergent critical frameworks in ‘change-oriented’
practise-based design research; political and ethical investments that challenge
assumptions in design research, and more. This Conversation will engage conveners
and participants in asking how the notion of the ‘critical’ shapes our practises,
approaches to practise, and the knowledge, action, proposals, or ways of working
related to them. Building on short introductory presentations of the Conversation’s
framing question, ‘What are the different kinds of critical strategies that researchers
pursue and how can they be conceptualised?’ Participants and convenors will make
inquiry-based visual/textual explorations of our ‘critical approaches’, examining how
– as practitioners and researchers – we understand, shape, and become aware of
‘critical’ ideas, outcomes, processes, and possibilities in design research.
Keywords: critical practise; practise-led design research; positionality; engagement
1 Conversation Research Question

What are the different kinds of critical strategies that researchers pursue and how can they be
conceptualised?
2 Context of Conversation Topic

The idea and concept of ‘criticality’ in design research has emerged as a contestation over the sites,
forms, methods, and capacities of and for design (DiSalvo, 2012; Dunne and Raby, 2013; Suchman,
2002; Ward & Wilkie, 2009). For many, critique in constructive design research is mostly associated
with projects related to traditions of critical and speculative design (Malpass, 2012). But the
question of critique has also been part of discussions in co-design and participatory design,
especially as influenced by descriptive-analytical traditions in the social sciences (Latour, 2004,
2008), which have led to understandings of design as a network-based phenomenon (Lenskjold,
Olander & Halse, 2015; Pedersen, 2016). One approach to this has been to explore ‘post-critical’
dispositions, refusing to know in advance how emergent configurations of humans and non-humans
may lend themselves to issues of power and critique. At the same time co-design and participatory
design research are often more focused on procedures of representation, processes for
engagement, and the design of infrastructures and democratic possibilities than in the design of
discrete objects and of technologies as critical objects (Binder et al., 2015; Björgvinsson et al., 2012;
Karasti, 2014). Practise based design researchers with a change agenda may also draw on feminist
epistemologies of embodied, relational, and collective knowledge making in design engagements
and design(ing) infrastructures (Light & Akama, 2012; Lindström & Ståhl, 2014). Here, the prospect
of the ‘critical’ is shaped through political and ethical orientations that ground design research (Agid,
2011), through the introduction of theoretical frameworks that challenge assumptions in design
research (Akama, Stuedahl, D., & van ZyI, 2015), or emerges as a kind of excess that overflows a
research engagement situated in less overtly ‘critical’ venues, for example, public innovation
projects (Olander, 2016).
Beginning with the presumption that ideas of and investments in ’criticality’ in design research are
contested and worth exploring, this Conversation will engage conveners and participants in asking
how the notion of the ’critical’ shapes our practises, approaches to practise, and the knowledge,
action, proposals, or ways of working related to them. The discussion and activities will engage the
critical positions, possibilities, and concerns of practise-based design researchers working across a
range of fields, including participatory design, co-design, service design, speculative design, and
more. Building on the framing question, which will be further explained by each convener in two
groups, participants will look to their own practises and investments to examine how – as
practitioners and researchers – we understand, shape, and become aware of ‘critical’ ideas,
outcomes, processes, and possibilities in practise-led design research. The goal of this Conversation
is to explore and construct conceptions of role(s), form(s) and articulations of the ‘critical’ across
design fields that engage complex social and cultural issues with non-academic partners and ‘non-
designers’ and are oriented toward ‘change work’, situated and articulated in a range of ways.
3 The Conversation
Figur
e2
First
parti
cipan
ts
mad
e
indivi
dual
book
lets
work
ing
from
a set
of
gene
rativ
e
keyw
ords.
Follo
wing
from
this,
the
parti
cipan
ts
discu
ssed
their books and developed a second booklet, in groups or individually, based on one word with special significance for
reflecting on their critical approaches.
Working from the assertion that critical practices in design are constituted in so many different
ways, responsive to people and contexts, the session was programmed to avoid abstracted
discussions and attempts at narrowing down definitions of critical practices. Instead, we focused on
the interactions with generative constraints to explore the diversity of critical practices that blend
provocation, dialogue, reflection, creativity, and making. By means of making and working through
1-into-8 booklets, the aim was for the participants to trace and manifest articulations, individually
and in groups, of their own stories of critical approaches materialised through the booklet format
(see figure 2).
After a short introduction, the convenors presented six keywords (conundrum, chance, reliable,
ambivalent, messy, diagnosis) and gave brief anecdotal accounts of critical approaches relating a
keyword to their own practices. For each of the six keywords participants were instructed to think of
an anecdote from their own practice in which they had engaged the same idea/feeling/experience in
a way that resonated with their understanding of “criticality”. From these instructions, participants
wrote/illustrated/mapped out their own experiences in their designated 1-into-8 booklets and
presented their work in groups (see figure 3).
Figure 3 Examples of three 1-into-8 booklets exploring the six keywords. Each row is one participant’s book
Following on from group conversations, participants were prompted to pick only one word. This
could be either from those given or new words spun off from their first book or the subsequent
conversation. From here they were asked to develop a second book taking into account a broader
network of references, such as theories of practices and criticality or specific commitments related
to the chosen word and its accompanying story. Some groups decided to develop the second
collectively while others would continue to work on their own books (see figure 4).
Figure 4 Example of the second booklet exploring the keyword ‘conundrum
In order to make the most of the limited timeframe (90 min), the session was programmed to allow
participants to concentrate on working through the booklet format, interspersed with conversations
within their groups, rather than allocation of time to plenary discussions, feedback or final
assessment of outcomes. Consequently, the participants would work on their booklets right to the
end of the session and either leave their books with us on their way out or wait just long enough for
us to photograph their works.
This format, we believe, enables a deeper and more engaged discussion among group members all
the way through the session, and therefore this format was chosen over a more classical workshop
plenum debate.
4 References
Agid, S. (2011). ‘How can we design something to transition people from a system that doesn't want to let
them go?’: Social design and its political contexts, Design Philosophy Papers, (3), pp. 1-11.
Akama, Y., Stuedahl, D., and van ZyI. (2015). Design Disruptions in Contested, Contingent and Contradictory
Future-making. Interaction Design and Architecture(s) Journal - IxD&A (26), pp. 132-148.
Binder, T., Brandt, E., Ehn, P. and Halse, J. (2015). Democratic design experiments: between parliament and
laboratory, CoDesign (11) (3-4), pp. 152-165.
Björgvinsson, E., Ehn, P. and Hillgren. P. A. (2012). Agonistic participatory design: working with marginalized
social movements, CoDesign 8(2-3), pp. 127-144.
DiSalvo, C. (2012). Adversarial design, MIT Press.
Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative everything: design, fiction, and social dreaming, MIT Press.
Karasti, H. (2014). Infrastructuring in Participatory Design, Proceedings of the 14th Conference on Participatory
Design, Windhoek, Namibia, October 6–10, pp. 141-150.
Latour, B. (2004). Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern, Critical
Inquiry, 30(2), pp. 225-248.
Latour, B. (2008). A cautious Prometheus? A few steps toward a philosophy of design (with special attention to
Peter Sloterdijk), In Proceedings of the 2008 annual International Conference of the Design History Society,
pp. 2-10.
Lenskjold, T. U., Olander, S., & Halse, J. (2015). Minor Design Activism: Prompting Change from Within, Design
Issues, 31(4), pp. 67-78.
Light, A and Akama, Y. (2012). The human touch: From method to participatory practise in facilitating design
with communities, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Participatory Design, Roskilde, Denmark, August
12–16, pp. 1-10.
Lindström, K., & Ståhl, Å. (2014). 15 Publics-in-the-Making: Crafting Issues in a Mobile Sewing Circle, in Ehn, P.,
Nilsson, E.M. and Topgaard, R. (eds.), Making Futures: Marginal Notes on Innovation, Design, and
Democracy, MIT Press, pp. 303-322.
Malpass, M. (2012). Contextualising Critical Design: Towards a Taxonomy of Critical Practise in Product Design,
Thesis, Nottingham Trent University.
Olander, S. (2016). Post-critical potentials in experimental co-design, In Proceedings Design Research Society
Conference, Brighton.
Pedersen, J. (2016). War and peace in codesign, CoDesign, 12(3), pp. 171-184.
Suchman, L. (2002). Located Accountabilities in Technology Production, Scandinavian Journal of Information
Systems 14 (2), pp. 91-105.
Ward, M., & Wilkie, A. (2009). Made in Criticalland: Designing Matters of Concern. In Networks of Design:
Proceedings of the 2008 Annual International Conference of the Design History Society (UK). Goldsmiths
Research Online.
About the Authors:
Shana Agid is a teacher, designer, artist, and activist based at Parsons School of
Design in New York, US. Shana’s collaborative design practise explores possibilities
for self-determined services and campaigns through community-led organising and
design research.
Sissel Olander is an assistant professor at the KADK, Copenhagen. For many years
she has worked with co-design, design anthropology and post-critical practises,
especially related to public innovation projects in libraries.
Yoko Akama is a design researcher at RMIT University, Australia. Her Japanese

heritage has embedded a Zen-informed relational practise to carve a ‘tao’ (path) in
design. This is further constituted by working with communities to achieve self-
determining process and outcomes.
Tau Lenskjold is an assistant professor at SDU, Denmark. In his work he focuses on

design as a critical practise ranging from research projects around speculative
prototypes and social design.
Smuggling ideologies? Inquiring into the underlying ideas
embedded in design for public governance and policy-
making
FERREIRA Mariaa and VAZ Federicob *
a AaltoUniversity of Arts, Design and Architecture
b Institute
for Design Innovation, Loughborough University in London
* Corresponding author e-mail: f.vaz@lboro.ac.uk
doi:10.21606/dma.2018.783
Figure 1 Smuggling Ideologies: Inquiring into the underlying ideas embedded in design for public governance and
policy-making
This Conversation asked participants to inquire about the underlying ideas on the
use of design approaches within the public sector, specifically when contributing
towards the development of public policies and governance. The aim was set on
discussing the potential ideological co-optation of the design approaches currently in
use. Likewise, it was intended to bring together practitioners and researchers to
debate the political implications of using design methods and tools in the public
sphere.

The session consisted of an initial provocation, followed by a discussion and
questions for further development. Participants were asked to exchange their
thoughts, firstly in groups and finally in a plenary discussion. Groups were organised
around three ways in which design approaches are introduced into the public sector:
discourses, techniques and artefacts. These three groups, each focussing around one
way, exchanged their thoughts from different perspectives before feeding back into
the overall Conversation. By the end of the session, participants and convenors
reflected on the main arguments and offered questions for further discussion.
All participants agreed upon continuing the Conversation by other means after DRS
Conference. Convenors organised and distributed the conversation’s outputs to
foster the post-conference discussion.
Keywords: governance; policy-making; ideology; design
1 Organising question(s) or provocations

The proposed research questions aimed at unearthing underlying ideas which shape the tools and
promote expanding ‘not noticeable’ ideologies when introducing and applying design approaches
into the public sector:
● What are the ideologies design tools and approaches used in government/policy are carrying
with them?
● What are the limitations when designing to produce a change in society from a public-sector
perspective?
Whereas the first question led the Conversation during the group discussion, the second one was
proposed as a follow-up to the plenary discussion. The two were proposed after presenting an
example providing insights on a government introducing a social policy. The example based on the
Uruguayan government showed, on the one hand, the idea of co-creation through an innovation lab,
and on the other, a successful public policy which was not conceived using such approaches. This
example was given to problematise the discourse around design –and innovation– in the public
sector, and that of traditional policymaking posing also questions regarding the current trend of co-
participation as the hegemonic approach to conceiving public policies. The policy example, it was
argued, would not have been possible to be implemented by those means in the timeframe and
conditions it was. Furthermore, the example and the discussion were framed in terms of three ways
in which design approaches can be introduced into the public sector (see Figure 2), offering a
framework for their understanding whilst facilitating a discussion of the underlying ideas within
them.
Figure 2 Ways in which design is introduced in the public sector
2 The Conversation
2.1 Conversation Set-up
With the aim of incorporating and documenting the contributions of the delegates, the session was
structured in three stages: introduction and provocation, discussion, and questions for further
development. Likewise, the room was set-up to foster group discussions around the three ways in
which design approaches can be introduced to the public sector, namely through its discourses,
techniques, and artefacts. For this, the room was organised in three areas and material including
pictures, reports’ excerpts, manifestos, and web-site screenshots were provided for each of theme
(See Figure 3).
Figure 3 Design discourses’ prompt material
The material consisted of a range of elements from organisations which, at different levels and with
different aims, utilise design discourses, techniques (methods), and artefacts in their public-sphere
related activities. The utilised material belongs to the following organisations:
● AGESIC Social Innovation Lab for Digital Government – Uruguay
● CISNA -Colombia
● City of Helsinki Lab - Finland
● Laboratorio de Gobierno - Chile
● Laboratorio para la Ciudad - Mexico
● MindLab - Denmark
● OpenIDEO - USA
● Policy Lab - UK
This selection made to facilitate the illustration of concepts and ideas was based on the condition of
material familiar to the convenors and easily accessible to the delegates after the Conversation.
Throughout the session, both convenors shared equal responsibilities, presenting the Conversation
and framing the discussion at each stage. In practice that implied they joined all three groups during
their focused discussions and accompanied the plenary discussion by moderating it as well as
commenting on specific points. This allowed for note-taking to keep a record of the ideas exchanged.
2.2 What took place

2.2.1 Provocation - 15 min
The session started with a brief introduction of the convenors followed by an introduction to the
issues prompting the Conversation topic. Sparking a tone for the Conversation, the convenors
presented a quote from Opazo et al (2017), in which the role of tools as conditioning political
artefacts is highlighted as central in understanding how design and politics are becoming
increasingly intertwined:
Arguing that the conventional boundaries that separated design from politics have
begun to dissolve, Winner says we should better understand tools and instruments as
the political artifacts that strongly condition the shared experience of power, authority,
order, and freedom in modern society (Opazo et al., 2017, p.75)
This also allowed the convenors to more seamlessly introduce the proposed framework of
discourses, techniques, and artefacts as a means of studying the ideas embedded in the design
approaches utilised within the public sector. Furthermore, and in order to avoid a reductionist
perception of the framework, an example was presented and dissected using the framework as to
help in the understanding of the systemic view it can provide.
The example was two-fold: Firstly, it presented AGESIC Lab, a ‘Laboratory of Social Innovation in
Digital Government’ created within Uruguay’s government to introduce co-creation approaches in a
governmental agency. AGESIC, the Uruguayan government agency pursuing open and e-
government, started operating in 2005 and works on transparency and digitisation of public services.
In 2015, it implemented a social innovation lab to start including the users in the processes of
changing governmental bureaucracies. The lab had received training from the Danish Mindlab
(Totorica et al., 2016), and technical and financial support from the Inter-American Development
Bank (IDB) (Acevedo & Dassen, 2016).
Following the introduced framework we identified:
● Discourses: transparency and innovation in the public sector, through flexibilisation,
experimentation, and co-creation with users
● Techniques: co-creation, participation, human-centred design
● Artefacts: persona creation, user journey map, empathy map
Secondly, it presented the delegates with a sound case of a public policy which functioned as
Uruguay’s local implementation of Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child project (One Laptop
per Child, 2011). This has locally been called Plan Ceibal (see Figure 3) and since its introduction in
2007, it has delivered circa 450,000 laptops to every student and teacher in primary education level
(Ceibal.edu.uy, n.d.). Applying the framework to the case we identified:
● Artefact: free XO Laptops for students and teachers in the public primary education system.
● Techniques: programming, robotics, and English language lessons.
● Discourse: introduce Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in an effort to
bridge the digital divide whilst increasing the digital literacy of future generations.
Figure 4 Primary school students working on an XO laptop. Source: Presidencia de la República, Uruguay, 2008
The overall goal in presenting this example was to problematise the lab approach to policymaking,
which bases its processes on the idea of co-production, amongst other pillars. With this, the
convenors looked to inquiring into these approaches’ limitations. The example was presented as to
show how this policy revolved around the artefact (the XO laptops) in place of the techniques and
the discourses, although these are not only present but also the real motivation for providing free
laptops to school-age children. Interestingly, this policy was originally debated and resisted by some
sectors including the primary teacher’s associations (Severin, 2016). Moreover, the policy was
developed by the executive branch of government and implemented in a top-down manner without
further consultation with other stakeholders, thus aggravating its resistance. Later, and in the light
of its many achievements (Severin, 2016), the policy gained massive support from almost all sectors
of society (Rivoir & Lamschtein, 2012), becoming uncontested by all the political spectrum. Finally,
this case was introduced as to present how a top-down policy was able to introduce a strong
ideological perspective by means of an artefact whilst avoiding public consultation. Furthermore, it
intended to assist in carrying a counterfactual exercise, in which the delegates could debate on the
limitations of design’s co-participatory approaches to public policy-making based on the example.
2.2.2 Discussion in groups - 40 min
After having introduced the framing for the discussion, delegates were separated into three groups
to discuss the question “what are the ideologies design tools and approaches used in
government/policy are carrying with them?” The triadic framework discourses-techniques-artefacts
was used to approach the question from three different perspectives, one by each group.
Interestingly, each group made use of the provided material in different ways and therefore built
their arguments in a different fashion. Whereas the group working on design artefacts (see Figure 5)
picked one artefact (City of Helsinki Lab’s Participation Game) and analysed it as to elicit ideologies
embedded in it, the group addressing the question from the perspective of the design discourses
gathered around the material’s table and standing shared their views. Somewhere in between, the
group discussing the design techniques brought all the material to their table and developed a
concept map drawing on their ideas.
Figure 5 Design artefacts’ discussion table
2.2.3 Discussion in plenary - 25 min

The third and last part of the Conversation focused on each group presenting their thoughts on the
question from their lens of the framework. While one group shared their ideas the other two offered
feedback and comments from their perspective. Although most of the time allocated for this activity
was spent on the groups’ presentations of their insights, the convenors introduced the second
question: What are the limitations design as an approach has when producing a change in society
from a public-sector perspective?
This question was implicitly suggested during the introduction of the example in the first part of the
Conversation. However, the convenors’ aim was to allow the discussion in terms of the underlying
ideologies during the group phase, to later link it to the limitations those ideologies – and
propagation – may pose.
2.3 Outcomes
The Conversation produced a multiplicity of new questions ranging from the interrogation of design
tools as means of introducing designerly ways in other realms (such as public policymaking), to the
questioning of design in the public sector as a cover-up for the reduction of public expenditure. In
the broader sense, the Conversation’s outcomes do not refer to definite answers to the questions
posed (though, these were not expected), but to the development of more sophisticated ones which
could ultimately define a research agenda on the issues of design in the public sector.
Figure 6 Design techniques’ discussion table
Perhaps one of the most salient insights for the convenors was the realisation that the Conversation
delegates were not only deeply concerned about the issues presented but that they also brought
with themselves profound arguments both from the academic and the professional world (see
Figure 6). This should not surprise anybody in the setting of an academic conference, however, the
issues addressed during the Conversation are not commonly touched upon in the policy design
literature and they do not represent archetypical problems discussed on design education either. In
any case, this shows a disciplinary concern with a critical understanding of the role design plays in
shaping society.
2.4 Reflections and further steps

The Conversation enabled to begin a discussion amongst design scholars and practitioners, about
the ideological implications of introducing design in the public realm. Design has entered
government in a fast-paced manner and there is a need to reflect on the worldviews it carries.
During the Conversation, delegates were eager to start discussing from the very beginning,
introducing some modifications in the Conversation’s agenda. Combined with the session’s limited
time-frame, it did not allow for developing a shared vision of future research on the discussed issues,
as it was originally intended. However, the delegates’ interest in continuing the discussion allowed
the convenors to move the Conversation beyond the conference. To date, a number of follow-up
Conversations between delegates and convenors had been taking place after the conference and it is
expected that the dissemination of the Conversation’s material will evolve into further discussions.
It is important to note that prior to the Conversation taking place, the convenors aimed to foster the
delegates’ engagement through the Disqus Forum4. Although this proved to be an ineffective way of
generating momentum, the Keynote Debate earlier on the Conversation’s day did. This helped in
setting the stage for the convenors to move quickly through the theoretical framing of the issues to
address. It also became clear that Prof Ramia Mazé and Dr. Andrea Siodmok’s debate on the “Social
and Public” fuelled the delegates’ ideas, whilst framing the Conversation itself by bringing the insight
from both the academic and the practitioner’s perspectives. Moreover, having the keynote debate’s
moderator, participating in the Conversation also helped in following up from some of the issues
addressed during the debate.
3 References
Acevedo, S., & Dassen, N. (2016). Innovation for better management: The contribution of public innovation
labs. Inter-American Development Bank.
Ceibal.edu.uy. (n.d.). Sobre Nosotros. [online] Available at: https://www.ceibal.edu.uy/es/institucional
[Accessed 13 Jul. 2018].
Bailey, J., and P. Lloyd. (2016). The Introduction of Design to Policymaking. Paper presented at DRS2016:
Design Research Society Conference, Brighton, June 27–30.
Bason, C., ed. (2014). Design for Policy. Aldershot: Gower.
Boyer et al (2011) In Studio: Recipes for a systemic change. Sitra.
Christiansen, J. (2014). The irrealities of public innovation: Exploring the political epistemology of state
interventions and the creative dimensions of bureaucratic aesthetics in the search for new public futures.
PhD Dissertation, School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University.
Kimbell L. & Bailey J. (2017) Prototyping and the new spirit of policymaking, CoDesign, 13:3, 214-226
Kimbell, L. (2016). Design in the Time of Policy Problems. Design Research Society, 50th Anniversary
Conference, p 1-14
Kimbell, L. & Blyth, (2011). Design Thinking and the Big Society: From solving personal troubles to designing
social problems. Actant and Taylor Haig.
Krohn, W., & Weyer, J. (1994). Society as a laboratory: the social risks of experimental research. Science and
public policy, 21(3), 173-183.
McGann, M., Blomkamp, E., & Lewis, J. M. (2018). The rise of public sector innovation labs: experiments in
design thinking for policy. Policy Sciences, 1-19.
One Laptop per Child. (2011). Mission. Retrieved from http://one.laptop.org/about/mission
Opazo, D., Wolff, M., & Araya, M. J. (2017). Imagination and the Political in Design Participation. Design Issues,
33(4), 73-82.
Peters, B. G., & Rava, N. Policy Design: From Technocracy to Complexity, and Beyond.
Rhodes, R. A. W. (1996). The new governance: governing without government. Political studies, 44(4), 652-667.
Rivoir, A., & Lamschtein, S. (2012). Cinco años del plan Ceibal. Algo más que una computadora para cada niño.
Uruguay: UNICEF Uruguay.
Severin, E. 2016. Building and sustaining national ICT/education agencies: Lessons from Uruguay (Plan Ceibal).
World Bank Education, Technology & Innovation: SABER-ICT Technical Paper Series (#09). Washington, DC:
The World Bank.
4
Available at http://www.drs2018limerick.org/conversation/cn15-smuggling-ideologies-inquiring-underlying-
ideas-embedded-design-public-governance
Totorica, P., da Rosa, S., Bianchi, N., Sarno, X., Sarro, D., & Fierro, A. (2016). The Experience of the Social
Innovation Laboratory of AGESIC. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Theory and
Practice of Electronic Governance (pp. 149-152). ACM.
Verbeek, P. P. (2011). Moralizing technology: Understanding and designing the morality of things. University of
Chicago Press.
Winner, L. (1987). Political ergonomics: Technological design and the quality of public life. IIUG.
About the Authors:
María Ferreira is a doctoral candidate at the Design Department of Aalto School of

Arts, Design and Architecture. Her research focus on exploring the relationship of
design and the public sector.
Federico Vaz is a PhD Researcher at the Institute for Design Innovation at

Loughborough University in London. His research is on the use of design tools and
approaches for public policy innovation, particularly considering European policy
and innovation labs as its vehicle.
Divergence and convergence in graphic design and
communication design
HARLAND Roberta*; KELLY Veronicab ; VAN DER WAARDE Karelc and SPELMAN Eamond
a Loughborough University
b University of South Australia
cSwinburne University of Technology, Melbourne + Basel School of Design
dLimerick Institute of Technology
* Corresponding author e-mail: r.g.harland@lboro.ac.uk

doi:10.21606/dma.2018.771
Figure 1 Divergence and convergence in graphic design and communication design
Academics have recently explored establishing two education networks in graphic

design and communication design, one respectively in the UK and the other in
Australia. However, although based on similar concerns, beliefs, and aspirations, the
two networks have assumed different names. For some, graphic design and
communication design are interchangeable terms. For others, they mean different
things. This may be confusing for some in a higher education sector that has
continually evolved and expanded in recent decades.
This ‘Conversation’ session set out to explore the similarities and differences
between graphic design and communication design. The formation of these
networks was briefly outlined and delegates worked together to identify how

various defining qualities – competencies, knowledge, skills, activities, functions –
might differentiate between graphic design and communication design.
The objective was to establish where there are converging and diverging interests,
and where there needs to be further research into differentiation that challenges
territorial assumptions about practice, theory, and history in graphic design and
communication design.
Keywords: graphic design; communication design; pedagogy; research

The session aimed to bring design educators and researchers together in an engaging dialogue about
the ambiguity between graphic design and communication design.
An overarching question guided the organisation of the Conversation session:
1. What are the similarities and differences between graphic design and communication
design?
Additional sub-questions shaped the focus of the Conversation:

1. How are these similarities and differences represented in curriculum design?
2. What are the convergent and divergent design research agendas in these disciplines?
3. What are the direct consequences of the ambiguity for design researchers?
4. Where and who are the respective design practice communities?
2 The Conversation
Figure 2 Participants share the key points that arose in their group discussion
The workshop session was planned for approximately 90 minutes. Of the 32 people who signed up
to attend, 16 people actually participated. While more than half the participants were from the
United Kingdom and Ireland, Barbados, Australia, Switzerland, Finland, and Qatar were also
represented. The participants were:
● Nicola St John, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
● Glen O’Sulllivan, Rubix Design, Ireland
● Shelley Mayers, Barbados Community College, Barbados
● Emily Corrigan-Kavanagh, Surrey University, United Kingdom
● Brenda Duggan, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland
● Paulo Dziobczenski, Aalto University, Finland
● James Corazzo, Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom
● Denielle Emans, Virginia Commonwealth University, Qatar
● Joe Lane, Limerick Institute of Technology, Ireland
● Stella Hackett, Barbados Investment and Development Corporation, Barbados
● Simon Downs, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
● Denise McEvoy, Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design, and Technology, Ireland
● Claire Lerpiniere, De Montfort University, United Kingdom
● Steve Rigley, Glasgow School of Art, United Kingdom
● Michael Renner, Basel School of Design, Switzerland
● John Paul Dowling, National College of Art and Design, Ireland
2.1 Set up of the space and structure of session

The room set up involved six tables in groups for four, each displaying a range of topics set out on
cue cards (see examples in Figures 3–6). The cue cards have since been made available for download
at: https://doi.org/10.17028/rd.lboro.6865238. Upon arrival, participants were encouraged to read
the topics and select where to sit based on the issues they were interested in. The session began
with van der Waarde introducing two short presentations by Harland and Kelly, respectively
explaining the formation of two networks: Graphic Design Educators’ Network (GDEN) and
Communication Design Educators’ Network (CDEN). This provided some context for the workshop
and encouraged delegates to consider research and practice in graphic design and communication
design. As noted above, participants self-organised into groups of four and each group responded to
issues set out on cards designed to facilitate discussion about similarities and differences between
graphic design and communication design. These were designed to cover competencies, knowledge,
skills, activities, functions. The session convenors were available to informally join in with group
discussion but mostly the groups functioned independently. The discussions were recorded on three
smartphones that were circulated to sample the nature of conversations. Each group then
communicated the essence of their discussion to other session delegates, leading to open
conversation about the similarities and differences between graphic design and communication
design, led by Harland and Kelly. Van der Waarde closed the session with some concluding remarks.
Figure 3 Sample DRS2018 Conversation card number 2

2.2 What discussions, activities, and experiences took place?

The introduction by the three convenors elaborated on some key issues (Spelman was unable to
attend due to personal circumstances). Van der Waarde presented a further set of questions. Are
the terms graphic design and communication design the same in different countries? Are they
different in the same country? What do programmes in each area actually teach? What do the
teachers research? What journals do academics publish in?
Harland explained that the Graphic Design Educators’ Network had formed, in part, because of a lack
of continuity between various graphic design events over a period of time. He cited a prophetic
statement from 1990 that ‘access, expansion and increasing diversity … could threaten the essential
cohesion … of graphic design’ (CNAA, 1990), and yet graphic design now identifies the highest
number of programmes in UK Higher Education, despite considerable diversification. This was
supplemented by a provocation drawn from Walter Benjamin: ‘Putting one’s job into words is part of
the skill required to perform it’ (Benjamin, 2008 [1936]: p. 23). Kelly explained how the graphic
design industry in Australia had lacked an appetite for critical discourse, and that most larger public
universities had shifted to renaming programmes in graphic design as communication design. The
inaugural forum of the Communication Design Educators’ Network first confronted two questions:
What are university design degrees good for? How do we educate design practitioners for the
future? She set out the four key concerns identified by senior design academics from across
Australia: promotion and advocacy; networking; publication, research, and academic collaboration;
accreditation.
Recordings of the group conversations confirm that the discussions were content-rich and explored
the issues from a number of differing perspectives. These will not be reported fully here, but a
snapshot across the different groups, summarised below, reveals a deep capacity for self-reflection
and breadth of understanding.
Most believed communication design to encompass a wider range of disciplinary perspectives, from
illustration, advertising, photography or sound design. This is especially appealing for specialist
practices such as illustration, whose practitioners may be comfortable identifying with this in part
because of not wanting to be associated with graphic design. Communication design also has appeal
as a humanities subject because of its close association with media studies.
Occasionally, prominent design commentators such as Victor Margolin (2002) were referenced as a
starting point for understanding graphic design as a professional practice, whereas visual
communication can be understood as a basic human activity in which everyone engages, and is
hundreds of thousands of years old. Such comments also reflected how communication design was
occasionally substituted for visual communication.
Institutional structures were also discussed. In one instance, what had been a graphics, illustration
and photography department, had become visual communication, and now communication design.
And yet students still saw themselves as graphic designers, illustrators, photographers! In other
cases, visual communication had proved difficult, and there had been a concerted effort to move
back towards graphics because prospective students understood what it meant and alumni
confirmed that industry was much more familiar with the term. At the same time, while graphic
design was seen as more familiar with students coming into higher education, once students were
studying in a programme they grew to consider themselves more as just ‘designers’. Graphic design
communication, graphic communication design, visual communication design were provided as
further evidence, from across Europe, of other options. The simple analogy of a taxi journey was
explained in one discussion: when a taxi driver asks you what you do, visual communicator means
nothing, but graphic designer means something.
In one case, a post-doctoral researcher explained how they were employed as a communications
designer but actually did interaction design. This led to further questions. Is interaction design
embedded in visual communication? It’s not in graphic design, which may be thought of as
something more traditional aligned with illustration, typography, book design, or print design. In
order to create design interaction you need some graphic design. You need visual communication.
No, you need communication. Communication is not just about designing visual content; it is also
about designing experiences, designing behaviours. Communication has become broader and
broader as design is getting bigger and bigger.
A similarity was made with product design that has resisted shifting from that name despite work
produced by these designers being less about materiality, and increasingly concerned with
interaction, service, and functionality, or user-experience design – leading to the assumption that
those working in these fields must have studied product design.
In another case, it was claimed that we think of graphic as form; it has an aesthetic and is tangible.
Graphic is inscription. You can see it. You can make a mark on the screen in that typography is visual,
dealing with graphics, but most significantly, dealing with mark making.
One of the most focused and structured group discussions benefitted from close alignment with the
statements provided on the tables. It was all the more interesting for the presence of two textile
design participants, and participants from Barbados. This encouraged discussion about the less
mature development of graphic design in a region where more recent practices such as transition
design, or design thinking, are not yet on the radar. There emerged crossover between textiles and
graphics in areas such as print and visual merchandising, or multimedia design, and textiles students
quite often moved into graphics, becoming website designers. However, it was acknowledged that
textile designers’ typographic skills were undeveloped and graphic designers did not know how to
generate patterns for surface design. This all became more relevant when communication design
was considered to be a useful phrase to capture this breadth of activity, leading to graphic design
being considered a subset of communication design.
As noted, this group fulfilled the task more than others regarding using the prompts on the cue
cards. Their discussion about competencies stimulated much debate and lines of inquiry, and the
participants used the card to structure their discussion (Figure 7).
Figure 7 Completed DRS2018 Conversation card number 11

Working from a card structured against recently published research (Dziobczenski & Person, 2017)
the group very quickly made a differentiation between core skills and others that are more
specialised. Brand visual identity was thought to be of relevance to both graphic design and
communication design, whereas digital design was thought to be more aligned with the latter,
suggesting graphic design to be more associated with analogue media. Film and animation were
thought to relate to neither: ‘film and animation should be film and animation’! These were both
thought to have separate identities with established degrees in their own right, and the matter of
expertise arose with regard to the risk of dabbling. This contrasted with the competency packaging
and point of sale, which was thought to be ‘classic graphics’. The merchandising aspect of this
sparked the earlier mentioned point about how textile design also claims visual merchandising as a
core area of student activity. Conversely, print and advertising satisfied both fields, whereas retail
and environmental design were thought to fit comfortably with neither. Similar to film and
animation, this has a strong independent identity that could easily be taught as part of an interior
design degree, and its specialist interest in retail environment design.
This sub-group concluded that graphic design and communication design were significantly different.
Graphic design displays much expertise in the visual and crafting of an artefact. It may be considered
a subset of communication design and provide a foundation for digital design. Some competencies
such as packaging and point of sale might be considered ‘classic’ examples of graphic design and
provide a good indicator of a discipline that is outcome led. Similarly, print and advertising have dual
appeal. Communication design was thought to be broader, and more concept and solution driven.
Context and culture are important and thought to more embrace digital design (Figures 8 and 9).

2.3 Critical reflection on the session and future directions

The question about the similarities and differences between graphic design and communication
design remains unanswered in sufficient depth to challenge prevailing misconceptions that they are
synonymous with each other. But there is certainly a sense that there is difference. This brief
portrayal illustrates this point, and the cue cards made available for this workshop session
stimulated serious and in-depth discussion enough to suggest there is work to be done by these
respective design practice and research communities. Other terms, such as ‘visual communication’
remain in use, often substituting for either term. Other variations will no doubt emerge with the
next technological shift. Further research is needed to make comparisons at curriculum level to
determine a continuum of change between one and the other. With this in mind, further research is
also likely to reveal where there is harmony. Communication design in Australia is assumed to be
embedded as a practice, meaning fewer major universities with large programmes name graphic
design in its own right. However, under the umbrella term of communication design, these curricula
continue to incorporate many of the competencies and functions discussed in this workshop. This is
different in the UK where there is great diversification and nuanced understandings of different
programme nomenclature. This diversity poses challenges for academics to report the research
undertaken that underpins revisions to syllabus, and programme titles, to mitigate the increased
lack of cohesion in a field of study, arguably the largest in art and design.
The overriding conclusion from the session is that graphic design and communication design are not
synonymous with each other, and it is in neither’s interest for these to be interchangeable terms.
Taking Benjamin as a cue, a more skilful use of words is required to explain the deeds associated
with each of these distinct practices.
3 References
Barnard, M. (2005). Graphic Design as Communication, London: Routledge.
Benjamin, W. (2008 [1936]). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, London: Penguin Books
Limited.
Bonsiepe, G. (1994). "A Step Towards the Reinvention of Graphic Design." Design Issues, 10(1), 47–52.
CNAA. (1990). Vision and change: a review of graphic design studies in polytechnics and colleges. London:
Council for National Academic Awards.
Crilly, N. (2010). The roles that artefacts play: technical, social and aesthetic functions. Design Studies, 31(4),
311–344. doi:10.1016/j.destud.2010.04.002)
Drucker, J. (2014). Graphesis: Visual Forms of Knowledge Production, Harvard University Press: London,
England and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Dziobczenski, P. R. N., and Person, O. (2017). "Graphic Designer Wanted: A Document Analysis of the
Described Skill Set of Graphic Designers in Job Advertisements from the United Kingdom."
InternationalJournal of Design, 11(2).
Frascara, J. (2004). Communication Design: Principles, Methods, and Practices, New York: Allworth Press.
Harland, R. G., (2018). Divergence and convergence in graphic design and communication design: conversation
cue cards. Available at https://doi.org/10.17028/rd.lboro.6865238, Accessed 5 August 2018
Icograda Design Education Manifesto, Taipei 2011, Available at:
http://www.ico-d.org/database/files/library/IcogradaEducationManifesto_2011.pdf, Accessed 5 August 2018
Margolin, V. (2002). The Politics of the Artificial: Essays on Design and Design Studies, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
NSAD Accredited Professional Design Degree Programmes (2016-17), Available at:
https://educators.aiga.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/NASAD-COMPETENCIES.pdf, Accessed 5 August
2018
Walker, S., (2017) Research in Graphic Design, The Design Journal, 20:5,
549-559, DOI: 10.1080/14606925.2017.1347416
van der Waarde, K. (2009). On graphic design: listening to the reader: Avans Hogeschool Research Group
Visual Rhetoric AKV | St. Joost.
About the Authors:
Dr Robert Harland is a Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication (Graphic Design) at

Loughborough University and chair of the Graphic Design Educators’ Network. His
research explores the relationship between graphic objects and urban objects
through graphic design as urban design.
Dr Veronika Kelly is Senior Lecturer in Communication Design, University of South

Australia, and has co-led the establishment of an Australian Communication Design
Educators’ Network (CDEN). Veronika’s research focuses on design and rhetoric,
critical design pedagogy, and design practice culture.
Dr Karel van der Waarde studied graphic design in the Netherlands (BA) and in the
UK (MA & PhD). He combines a commercial Graphic Design – Research consultancy
in Belgium (Designing and testing information about medicines), teaching (Basel
School of Design, Switzerland), and research (visual argumentation & reflective
practice).
Eamon Spelman is Programme Leader of Graphic Design Communication at the

Limerick School of Art and Design/LIT and is a Professional Panel member of the 100
Archive. His areas of specialisation include; data visualisation, typography and Irish
graphic design culture.
HAVE WE REACHED PEAK DESIGN THINKING? Are we
entering a new paradigm for how it is used within
practice and business?
DOUGLAS Michelle; KIERNAN Louise b SPRUCE Johnc and RYAN Annmarieb*
a Griffith University, Australia
b University Limerick, Ireland
c Liverpool John Moores University, UK
* Corresponding author e-mail: Michelle.douglas@griffith.edu.au

doi:10.21606/dma.2018.727
Figure 1 Have we reached peak design thinking?
Design thinking has gained recognition as an acclaimed process for generating

innovative, human-centred solutions at a social and business level. It has also gained
notoriety amongst many designers, who claim that its success as an exported
element of the design process has resulted in its commodification, and led to it
becoming a diluted series of processes that lack criticality. As design disciplines and
the role of designers continue to evolve, we should reflect on design thinking’s
original context and understand its progression into a non-design world. Our
hypothesis is that design thinking has reached a ‘peak’ in contemporary practice, and
as the term 'design' is further adapted and conformed to suit a business function,
this Conversation will elicit a constructive debate on the future of design thinking
and its positioning within design and non-design industries. Has design thinking’s
commodification and consumption as a step-by-step road map to innovation
reduced it to a mainstream approach? Can we use the undoubted successes of
design thinking as a catalyst for future design research? It is anticipated that through

analysis and discussion, this Conversation will inform the conceptualisation of
enhanced methodological frameworks that aim to support innovation across
divergent industry practices.
keywords; Design thinking; design practice; design skills; non-design disciplines
1 Introduction
1.1 Have we reached peak design thinking?
The aim of the Conversation was to promote dialogue and elicit experiences from the audience,
enabling the identification of varying approaches in the application of design thinking. For example,
are there discernible disconnects between design thinking as employed by non-designers, and the
design process, as practiced by designers? The Conversation may reveal high levels of plurality in the
application of design thinking amongst these different groups, and identify common elements in
determining degrees of success or failure. To guide the session the following sub questions were
used:
1. Should there be a designer involved in all design thinking processes or is everyone a
designer?
2. What is the difference (or is there a difference) between design and design thinking?
3. When does design thinking not work?

In advance of the session the Conversation was sparked via a Twitter feed using
#peakdesignthinking to elicit people’s thoughts on the topic. The Conversation session was
convened as follows:
2.1.1 Section 1: background. 10 min
The participants were introduced to the format of the session and invited to respond via Twitter
throughout the session. The background to the topic was provided.
2.1.2 Section 2: choose your position. 10 min
The participants were asked to put their initial thoughts about design thinking on post-it notes and
apply them to the wall at the beginning of the session. A number of posters with positional
statements were also in place around the room. Delegates were then asked to place a sticker on the
poster with the statement they identified most with. This participatory exercise enabled the
conveners to better curate the discussion based on who was in the room.
2.1.3 Section 3: Discussion. 1 hour
As listed above three sub questions were posted between the conveners and delegates to discuss
and debate the theme. For each of the three questions delegates were asked to:
● Give an individual response on post-it notes,
● Discuss as a group.
● Summarise group discussion further on post-its.
● Finally, pick one person from each group to summarise to rest of room.
Figure 2 Peak design thinking Conversation in action
2.1.4 Section 4: The path forward. 30 min:

An open discussion took place where solutions were proposed and discussed as to how we can use
the success of design thinking as a catalyst for producing more and effective methodologies that can
be applied by other disciplines.
3 The DRS2018 Conversation findings

3.1 Choose your position
A number of the session’s participants used #peakdesignthinking to post initial comments at the
start of the Conversation, aligning to their starting viewpoint, and then throughout the session as
the sub questions were discussed, with retweets and comments reaching beyond the immediate
Conversation participants. The Twitter hashtag recorded 126 engagements on the topic during and
after the Conversation. The majority of the Twitter comments reflected the views and discussions
that emerged through the Conversation, such as that “everyone can be a designer – it doesn’t mean
everyone is good at it” and that “often the context of commissioning design can limit the capacity to
imagine better futures” and also raising views that ask “does it matter how we define and package
design thinking or rather look on the impact of design thinking” as a priority. The range of comments
highlight some of the polarities of opinion surrounding design thinking framed within the
Conversation proposal itself, and provided a useful ‘sub-layer’ of commentary to the live
Conversation.
Figure 3 Initial thoughts from participants at beginning of session
A number of posters that highlight the existing polarity of opinions surrounding design thinking were
positioned around the conversation venue itself, to act as prompts and help draw out audience
opinion. The posters contained statements from design industry commentators, practitioners,
academics and prominent design blog writers. Delegates were then asked to place a sticker on the
poster with the statement they identified most with. The highest ‘scoring’ statements amongst the
conversation participants were less reflective of the polarizing opinion that design thinking
generates. Seven participants aligned mostly to Gadi Amit’s 2018 comment that “A six week course
at Stanford won’t make you a designer.” http://fortune.com/2018/03/07/what-is-design-thinking/.
The other most identified statement being “Design thinking is more about a mindset that focuses on
how to look at challenges around us. Methodologies & processes are important, but these are mere
tools.” From Amol R. Kadam (2018) https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/310282 also recorded
seven post-its. These two statements are perhaps more measured and descriptive of the potential
value a design thinking methodology may offer within the design process.
Figure 4 High-scoring participant poster statements
The selections may be reflective of the Conversation audience, mainly comprising design researchers
and academics rather than design practitioners. Participants’ selections of other statements were
very evenly spread across positive and negative viewpoints. Such as Natasha Jen’s 2018 statement
that “design thinking packages a designer’s way of working for a non-design audience by way of
codifying design’s processes into a prescriptive, step-by-step approach to creative problem solving
— claiming that it can be applied by anyone to any problem.” https://uxplanet.org/design-thinking-
is-not-doomed-its-misused-cda1cf8948e1 versus Gadi Amit’s 2018 statement that “The great value
of design thinking is it’s way of improving communication across the entire organization.”
http://fortune.com/2018/03/07/what-is-design-thinking/. See poster examples below.
Figure 5 Sample Statement Posters used for the Conversation
Figure 6 Placing stickers on the posters
3.2 The Conversation

In order to facilitate further discussion following the “choosing your position” introductory phase,
participants were propositioned with three main questions that investigated the designer’s role in
design thinking, the differences between design-doing and design-thinking and the functionality of
design thinking.
3.2.1 Q1: Should there be a designer involved in all design thinking processes or is everyone
a designer?
This is a question which had some opposing views with some people believing that the designer is
essential to the process.
Everyone is not a designer. It depends on your educational experience, your practical
experience, the craft of being a designer. We strongly believe that a 4-week course in
design thinking doesn’t make you a designer.
We’re saying that you do need a designer in the process, but it depends in what stage of
the process. If it’s the very start of the process where you’re trying to identify the
problem, do you need a designer to facilitate that? Someone else can facilitate that. But
they (designer) would be there to witness what’s being said or to capture it.
Everyone is not a designer. Sometimes it may be helpful to have a designer involved.
Others believed that it was not always necessary to have a designer on the project.
The non-designer may find loop holes that designer [sic] is unaware of and will help
facilitate solving the problem.
The context and scale of the project was considered to be a factor.
In small organisations without a designer it is OK. On the other hand large projects
should not spare on a designer.
There was also a view that the term ‘design thinking’ assumed that a designer was not involved and
that it was a toolkit for non-designers.
Is design thinking not a way to ‘tell’ how design tools are to be used by non-designers?”
The term ‘designer’ was also considered to be vast making it difficult to define the role and the skills
that a designer could bring to the project.
I think that for example a visual communication designer’s role is inferior to an industrial
designer’s role.
You can’t categorise a designer as a designer or a design thinker, I think it’s a very vast
area, but the background (as a designer) has an influence on how we see the world…. I
look at the detail in the world and I don’t think a lot of businesses look at details. I
worked in corporations where they don’t see the small things, like I do. So I think they
don’t see the problems sometimes.
It was also pointed out that designers were not all the same in terms of thinking.
Everyone does not think alike and even designers think subjectively.
It depends on the nature of the project and the designer’s knowledge.
What was considered as being important was that the process had someone who could coach, lead
and mentor the project with an understanding of design.
Not every squad requires a formally trained designer. However each squad does require
a coach to help them advance practice.
Leadership, mentorship, coaching and facilitation is required (trained as a designer or
otherwise).
Perhaps it’s more necessary to have a person with some design understanding and a
design mind-set involved.
3.2.2 Q2 What is the difference (or is there a difference) between design and design
thinking?
There was a sense that the boundaries were very much blurred but that design requires experience
and skills learnt over time. Designers were seen to be good at exploration and experimentation
while design thinking was seen as a process or toolkit that can be followed by any reasonably
creative person.
Blurry boundaries, however design is a discipline and ‘design thinking’ (as posted by
IDEO and spread by others) are processes and design tools to be ‘spread’ and ‘sold’ in
non-design contexts.
Any creative individual can have the ability of design thinking. Design requires
experience, knowledge and an education in a design field.
There is a difference. Good designers do it intuitively. They may not even be able to
articulate it or identify a process or tools but they practice it daily. Design thinking tries
to put tools and a process to help others tap into what designers practice in different
forms in varying disciplines.
We were talking about design being more than just craftsmanship. It’s not
craftsmanship alone. There seems to be some intuitive problem solving component, so
intuitive problem solving plus craft. And then you get design. But not all of us were in
agreement.
There was also a sense that design thinking was a co-creative sense making process involving and
embracing people early on in the process while design was traditional and more craft and solution-
oriented requiring both aesthetics and technical skill.
Design – traditional. Has a focus on strange making and demands a small amount of
sense making. Design thinking places an emphasis on sense making and is wholly co-
creative.
Design: intent behind an outcome. Creating a better future, craft. Design thinking: an
approach/framework for diverse teams to embrace people ambiguity and iteration.
Design thinking is a co-creative strategic activity with an emphasis on sense making
practiced at the early stage of the innovation process.
Design thinking = process. Design = result. Design thinking leads to design.
Working in industry, I think when people hire a designer, in most cases, in 90% of the
cases they’re not thinking about design thinking, they’re thinking about the craft…they
want someone to make a website look good, they might be thinking about the UX
process, but I think 90% of the time, the hirer of the designer doesn’t think about design
thinking when they’re hiring a designer…which I think causes some problems with the
definition and tasks that should be undertaken by the designer.
Design was seen to be focused on artefacts while design thinking worked on organisations and
systems.
Simple distinction of John Maeda: “ ‘Classical’ design cares about artefacts (real or
virtual), design thinking works on organisations.
While differences were verbalised by the participants there was a belief that there was an overlap
between the two.
Both design and design thinking are ways to problem solve.
Design is thinking visualised in an object or physical something. So thinking is part of
design process and therefore the designer is a thinker.
When debating the how design thinking should be used in companies, there was some debate on
the correct use of context and role of the designer.
Graphic Design education is sometimes is [sic] just producing the aesthetics, I think the
client wants you to make something look good. You also have the designer as an
activist, where they’re trying to communicate something that they feel really strongly
about. And then we did a project where we looked at the voting system, in Ireland,
coming up to the referendum, which was very topical. And we said to the student body,
‘what would you do to improve this?’ And they went through a what we called a user-
centred design thinking process, because that was perfect for that context. Where it isn’t
perfect for designing a book cover. You’re not going to have a user centred design
approach then. But you would have if it was a service design…it always depends on the
context. You’ve a graphic designer, you’ve an industrial designer, you’ve a service
designer, you’ve a UX designer…there’s so many different roles in design. It always
depends on what the context of the problem is. So in a voting process where you had to
look at the user to find out what the user wanted and needed then it’s perfect. But a
book cover, it is you that is designing for a client or a brief, where the user doesn’t come
into it. The client comes in and says yes or no. There isn’t a user as such in that process.
However, some other participants argued a different perspective.

A word that helps me make sense of it is ‘experience’ and I would argue that whether
you’re doing a book cover or whether you’re doing a voting process, there’s still a fair bit
of experience there and our goal as a designer, be it professionally trained or through
professional experience is to be able to listen to those emotional responses. And then
where I think where design thinking really connects there, it’s the rest of your
constituents, be they or stakeholders or team mates, to start to think about experience
more deeply and give you the space as a designer to be able to practice your craft and
be able to deliver that great experience.
The best way to sell design and/or design thinking within an organisation is not to talk
about design. It’s to talk about the outcome which typically is the experience we
experience.
3.2.3 When does design thinking not work?
Some participants flipped this question and gave examples of real life experiences where they
believed design thinking was not used, but should have been used and tested to produce a better
outcome.
Every time I arrive at Frankfurt airport, I feel stupid because I don’t find the way.
Basically, the system of how they arranged the airport, as I don’t think there was anyone
thinking about it…but basically the placement of things in context of walking around. So
I don’t think there was design thinking actually practiced and seeing how it functions.
Also buying a ticket in the transportation system, it is extremely difficult for a non-
German speaker, so I don’t think these things were tested.
Overall it was felt that design thinking did not work when it is applied as a rigid and overprescribed
process that can be applied to all projects.
When it’s viewed as a rigid process and/or an absolute solution for all problems.
Arguably there are no absolutes.
It depends on the context. It could be too limited, patronising and creative oriented for
certain kinds of complex local problems and some stakeholders.
When a challenge needs a quick answer/fix and the context is mighty
regulated/structured.
When it is seen as profit making fast solution.
Design thinking doesn’t work when a company or (person) seeks immediate profit.
Design thinking needs more time. Design thinking needs more money and time. The CEO
doesn’t want to pay for that.
Design thinking was also believed not to work when there was a lack of skill and knowledge amongst
those practicing it, when there was poor collaboration amongst the participants and when it is
imposed on unwilling players.
Design thinking doesn’t work if the person must work with a project without the
necessary practical experience about the design project.
When subtle differences matter a lot. Lacking deep skills (experience) makes impossible
to make certain decisions fast and effective.
It was also believed that design thinking did not necessarily work across cultural boundaries, with
some final thoughts eluding to a change of phrase by dropping the word ‘design’ from design
thinking.
When crossing cultures and bringing ‘local’ way of design thinking to a new context and
expecting it to run on its own in a new locality where the whole context is lost in space.
I think we need to totally change our thinking, the word design should be evaporated,
and put thinking…when are we going to start thinking as human beings. We have a
thinking brain but where does the thinking happen and how is it executed…design
thinking is just too much.
If we want to be the catalyst of positive change, in general, the ‘design’ should be
dropped for this word…maybe design thinking should be called ‘problem-finding’
thinking or something like that.
3.3 The DRS2018 Discussion and the path forward
The Peak design thinking Conversation was well attended by participants and harvested interesting
objective debate. One of the clear messages that came out of the session was the agreement that
we have a divided opinion on the use and scope of design thinking as a mindset and process. Some
initial feedback from participants suggested the format could also have been focussed entirely on
the poster propositions, as opposed to the question prompts, and this is something we may consider
for future data gathering.
The subject of design thinking clearly provokes a range of polarising opinions, as the responses from
the participants in this Conversation highlights. The conveners believe that there is a great scope to
further pursue a number of the points raised within this Conversation over a broader audience of
contributors and across different territories, to reveal any discernible consistencies in viewpoint, and
also to develop opportunities where participants can further elaborate on experiences of design
thinking to act as case studies in reviewing more systematically the impact of applying design
thinking methodologies across a range of contexts.
The findings reveal a need for a framework that can better define both Design and design thinking,
their scope, their differences how they can complement each other. This would then provide
companies and educators a means of determining the skills sets and disciplines when creating
solutions for problems or opportunities.
Figure 7 Final thoughts at end of session
4 References
Brown, T., 2009. Change by Design. 1st ed. s.l.:Harper.
Buchanan, R., 1992. Wicked Problems in Design Thinking. Design Issues, Volume 8.
Di Russo, S., 2016. Understanding the behaviour of design thinking in complex environments. s.l.:s.n.
Huffington Post, 2014. Live at Davos: 2014 Tim Brown. [Online]
Available at: Ideo CEO Tim Brown: 'Everyone Is A Designer'
[Accessed 2018].
Jones, J. & Thornley, D., 1963. Conference on Design Methods. Oxford: Pergamon.
Kimbell, L., 2011. Rethinking Design Thinking: Part 1. Design and Culture, Volume 3.
Martin, R., 2009. The Design of Business. s.l.:Harvard Business Press.
Norman, D., 2010. Core 77. [Online]
Available at: http://www.core77.com/posts/16790/design-thinking-a-useful-myth-16790
[Accessed 9 Feb 2018].
Norman, D., 2013. Core 77. [Online]
Available at: http://www.core77.com/posts/24579/Rethinking-Design-Thinking
[Accessed 9 Feb 2018].
Nussbaum, B., 2011. Design Thinking Is A Failed Experiment. So what's next?. [Online] Available at:
https://www.fastcodesign.com/1663558/design-thinking-is-a-failed-experiment-so-whats-next [Accessed 9
Feb 2018].
Rowe, P., 1987. Design Thinking.. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press..
Simon, H., 1969. The Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Vinsel, L. (2017, 12 06). Design Thinking is Kind of Like Syphilis — It’s Contagious and Rots Your Brains.
Retrieved from Medium: https://medium.com/@sts_news/design-thinking-is-kind-of-like-syphilis-its-
contagious-and-rots-your-brains-842ed078af29
About the Authors:
Michelle Douglas is a senior design academic with global experience. Her research
interests are in design ecosystems and practice and the value of design in
geographic regional contexts. She lectures on design thinking, collaborative practice
and experience design at Masters level.
Dr Louise Kiernan is a product design lecturer at the University of Limerick. She has
sixteen years of industry experience as a senior design engineer and product
designer. Her research interests include, team collaboration, design education and
design for health.
Jon Spruce lectures in the design of objects and spaces, his research interests focus
on exploring how design education may be developed through increased dialogue
and understanding between academics, the design industry, users of design services
and consumers of design
Dr Annmarie Ryan is a Lecturer in Business Marketing. Her research interests relate

to interaction and relationships between business and the arts, and on lived
experience of interdisciplinary working. Her work has been widely published in
Marketing and management literature
Lexicon Live: Performing the discursive space around
keywords
FIT Liesbetha; DROOGLEEVER Fortuyn Irenea ; PATELLI Paoloa*; AKAMA Yokob* and RICCI Donatoc*
a Design Academy Eindhoven; Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, The Netherlands
b RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
c Sciences Po Médialab, Paris, France
* Corresponding author e-mail: liesbeth.fit@designacademy.nl

doi:10.21606/dma.2018.717
Figure 1. Lexicon Live: Performing the discursive space around keywords
Terminology moves fast across conferences, blogs, journals and schools. The
Conversation we propose is an attempt at making use of the endless ambiguity such
volatility produces, to open a productive discursive space. The Design Research

Group (Knowledge Circle) of the Design Academy Eindhoven, comprising
representatives from Masters, Bachelors and Readerships, will host a gathering of
opinions, positionings and phrasings, around words chosen from the DRS2018
conference materials. As DRS2018 invites design researchers to explore design as a
“powerful catalyst for change”, we would like to explore what these words could
mean, through a series of “Socratic Dialogues” with participating convenors and
delegates of the conference. A Socratic Dialogue can be defined as an attempt to
develop a mutual understanding related to a fundamental question through
systematic consultation. The outcomes of the Conversation will include new notes
and entries in the ongoing project Lexicon of Design Research
(http://www.lexiconofdesignresearch.com/) maintained by Design Academy
Eindhoven. The structure and the methods proposed are adapted from previous Live
Lexicon events organised by the same group in Eindhoven and during Salone del
Mobile in Milan 2017.
Keywords: Lexicon; dialogue; socratic method; systematic reflection; change

Through the Socratic Dialogues we want to investigate the terms ‘Change’ and ‘Catalyst’ and come
to a mutual understanding of them, making different positionings visible.
Overarching question: What is the meaning of the term ‘Change’ and/or ‘Catalyst’ in design
research?
● Sub 1: How do we use the terms ‘Change’ and ‘Catalyst’ in our practices?
● Sub 2: How many angles or points of view on the subject can be listed, and how do we
position ourselves towards them?
Figure 2 DRS2018 Lexicon Live event: Performing the discursive space around the keyword “Change”
2 The Conversation
2.1 Set-up of the conversation
The Conversation took place at standing tables for an active participation. The tables were ‘dressed’
with paper and utensils for making notes. On the table were the words Catalyst and Change, made
out of 3D forms. A manned computer with screen showed relevant text and images and reacted
directly on the Conversation. This whole was filmed from the top and screened onto the wall. See
also this link for a short movie of the Conversation: https://vimeo.com/293113382
2.2 Participants in the Conversation
● Irene Droogleever Fortuyn (Dialogue Moderator)
● Liesbeth Fit (Lead and Contact)
● Agata Brilli (Visualising and Documenting)
● Paolo Patelli (Visualising and Documenting)
● David Hamers
● Bas Raijmakers
● Donato Ricci
● Yoko Akama
● Yoyce Yee
● Marti Louw
● Aisling Kelliher
● James Corazzo
2.3 Introduction Lexicon of Design Research

The concept of the Lexicon of Design Research was explained and showed online to the participants
by Design Academy Eindhoven Reader in Places and Traces David Hamers.
At Design Academy Eindhoven research happens in all Bachelor and Master departments, as well as
in the research programs of the Readerships Strategic Creativity and Places and Traces.
Manifestations of design research include objects, services, events, drawings, films, texts, maps,
styles, identities, scenarios and more. In 2014, a Design Research Group (Knowledge Circle) was
formed, comprising representatives from Masters, Bachelors and Readerships. In 2015, we initiated
a platform to host discussions and notes around the terms that define our our – and the students’ –
research and practice: a Lexicon of Design Research (see link: www.lexiconofdesignresearch.com)
The project is an ongoing endeavour, constantly being refined and built upon, through iterations of
both internal dialogues and public Lexicon Live events, structured gatherings and discussions open
to the public. The Lexicon of Design Research is an attempt to develop a common language to
explicitly discuss a repertoire of practices.
2.4 Introduction Socratic Dialogue
The moderator Irene Droogleever Fortuyn explained the rules for the Socratic dialogue.
A Socratic Dialogue can be defined as an attempt to develop a mutual understanding related to a
fundamental question through systematic consultation. The question stays central during the entire
session. Under the guidance of a moderator the participants work together intensively; they ask
questions, listen carefully, recap and think together.
In our everyday conversations we often rely on conceptual frameworks informed by our upbringing,
education, authoritative opinions, ingrained habits and thought patterns. A Socratic Dialogue offers
a “conversation space” in which all existing frames are moved to the background as much as
possible. By requiring active listening, Socratic Dialogues require mutual respect, question hidden
assumptions, and produce experience-based comprehension and shared meaning between parties.
While this form of dialogue derives its name from Socrates – who tried to get to a shared
understanding by asking questions, giving examples and analysing experience – the direct
background for this proposal lies in concrete experiences in design research.
2.5 Development of the Conversation

We started the Conversation with choosing which word – “catalyst” or “change” – we would be
talking about. In agreement we decided upon “change”:
● Because it is more active.
● Change is used a lot; it is maybe overused.
● There is a fear of change, because it is enormous.
● Many people see change as a positive thing, but it can also be seen as negative.
● Sometimes change is presented as if it were a neutral concept, as if nobody can object to it.
Then we decided upon the route we would take in convening about the term. We decided upon the
order:
● Examples, assumptions, definitions.
● We did this because it is dynamic for the Conversation and we would not get stuck in
definitions immediately.
In the following paragraphs, we will report from the Conversation as directly as possible. This means
that we adhere as much as possible to the words and phrases uttered by the participants.
2.6 Report on “Examples”

In this part we all tried to give examples of what change could mean or when it occurred (in our own
practices).
1. As academics we are so resistant to change, there is entrenchment in my own institution.

We have a model from the 1900’s, it does not reference the broader social world and we
have set up false binaries between academia as a pipeline for production and learning to
become a whole human being (‘Bildung’ ideal).
2. There is a difference between change that is forced upon us or when we opt for change. The
first can be disruptive in a political, social and environmental way (e.g. being forced out of
your home because of disruptive weather conditions (status quo change). There is change
that goes more gradually and is more intentional: transformative or gradual change (e.g.
institutional change, a slow progress). Example of institutional change: UK higher education
has seen a change in the last four years. Not all institutional change is gradual, because some
institutes want radical change. However, some institutes do it very badly and there change
becomes disruptive or even destructive. That is when change can raise fear; I see that with
colleagues. When we are so forced into it, it is hard to negotiate were we go from there.
3. There is constant change, like in nature, it never stands still and there is no status quo.
4. In our everyday lives we often experience change in a fluid way. We think that we are
not moving but we are, on a personal level. It is difficult to recognise when you are in it.
RECAP: We concluded that there is disruptive, gradual, constant and fluid change.
5. An example of positive change: Developing as a human being (is gradual change). You realise
only afterwards that it has happened. So, you should realise the change in order for it to
being happened.
6. If you change in the same direction and/or at the same pace as things around you, you do
not notice the change. Only when one of the flock does something else, change becomes
manifest.
Example of Transition Theory in Science and Technology Studies: e.g. climate change: we
need to change something, but we don’t know how yet, so we are trying out all kinds of
changes simultaneously and nobody knows what will succeed eventually.
7. We can see change as something positivistic, that we know happens and that we can
observe, like a transformation to a butterfly. But when it comes to something personal, it is
different: we cannot observe this kind of change from an outside perspective. It is intimate.
The moment that you are changing from one state to the other, you experience fragility.
There is an amount of work involved in holding things in place and not letting them change.
That is when we are negotiating change.
8. There are always power dynamics behind change, the pushing and pulling of different
groups to move things in the direction of the kind of change that they want. Even in nature
power is involved, because it is about survival and adaptation.
In nature we can speak of forces rather than power. It is not only a matter of evolution;
sudden events can also force us to change.
Example: I was regularly traveling by plane from London to Amsterdam. Once I was forced
by the weather to go by train and since then I do that. The situation taught me.
RECAP: Power dynamics: think about social relations and hierarchies in a social system. Forces
matter, even if it does not seem to be organised (as in a natural system).
9. Introduction of the word ecosystem (that one of us used in a project) to bridge the gap
between nature and the social or economic; it can fit both.
10. The term adaptation is mentioned: You need to change to adapt to a new situation. We are
constantly changing to adapt to a changing context or ecosystem. Perhaps change is not the
end result but our way to adapt.
11. Alliances are mentioned: Something external makes you build new alliances and undo some
of the other (See the example from plane to train). Within the notion of change there is a
binary state. There is a previous state and a following one. That means rebridging or
unbridging.
The term cosmogram is introduced, related to ecosystem: A description of all the things that
keep you in a certain shape. To what do I have to pay attention, or what do I care for, in
order to stay where I am? If I have to change, I have to build different alliances and then the
cosmogram changes. So, it is not me that changes; in a ‘cosmogrammatic’ description
change always happens in relations to something else. Change is the experience of the set of
relations.
12. You can also make a resolution to change. Species that make alliances do not have to be the
fastest, fittest, etcetera. This is not a Darwinist evolutionary perspective; you can also build
relationships to survive.
2.7 Report on “Assumptions”

In this part of the discussion we tried to formulate the hidden assumptions behind the meanings of
change that we talked about.
1. Change implies that something is wrong.
2. There is a frozen state that we change, this implies that we are not moving in the first place.
3. We have to use words to explain something. There is more than we speak about, it is also
felt.
a. Change is sometimes something that happens in our mind or heads and not visible
at all. In the conference the assumption about change is that we need to talk about
it all the time. Why don’t we ‘do’ change?
b. Are we able to ‘do’ change without talking about it? Observing and experiencing is
not enough to do the change. We need speaking and sharing through speaking to
achieve the doing, they go hand in hand.
c. Can we change without talking about it? Depends on your worldview. First world
nations have inflicted upon other species and nations a certain worldview. These
issues are surfacing in this conference. What you do is talking about something that
is already based in an epistemology or worldview. This is frustrating if you come
from a different worldview.
d. The worldview that we share in the format of the congress. Can we have a
meaningful sharing without talking about it, is that an option? It is very good to keep
on talking, not to define or fix but to temporarily share some platform, find each
other momentarily.
e. You can also be sitting without talking and there can be a lot of communication
happening, a form of negotiating. The assumption is that we strive for change in only
one modality but actually it is the context and the relationships that change.
4. The assumption about progress, change being situated in a kind of ontological position that
we are moving somewhere that was better than where we were before.
a. Change is not neutral.
b. Our assumptions are a kind of pattern. What is beyond the more modernist
assumptions of change; everything must change and for the better?
c. Can there be neutral change? In the worldview of progress it’s not neutral, there is
always the suggestion of a meaning, purpose or ambition behind it. Also on the level
of taking or gaining power. In nature, it’s neutral, or we can say indifferent. The
weather is indifferent to us.
5. There is another assumption in that: the separation between nature and human.
a. I see connectedness as a third worldview. In an ‘eastern worldview’ this is important
and different from the ‘western’ worldview where you can conquer everything or
the ‘nature’ worldview were things are also connected but without meaning
(indifference).
RECAP: We now differentiated three worldviews: Modernism, in which we conquer; Nature, which is
indifferent, and Connected, which has meaning.
6. Whose meaning? Experiencing meaning, giving meaning or ‘is’ there meaning? Things are
continuously reacting on each other, sometimes in dependency, sometimes in causality. An
action-reaction kind of relation. Things need each other but for me that is not yet meaning.
a. It needs someone to give it meaning.
b. It is about culture and not about someone. Culture has given meaning and we are
part of that, it is not up to us to create or change it. Maybe you can change it a little
bit, after a few decades…
c. Meaning is dependent on what culture you come from.
7. Anchor points: in a state where everything changes, when you realise it is changing, you
need anchor points. At that point, you decide if you are still happy where you are or if you
(referring back to the cosmogram) see connections. You need anchor points to see where
you are at and to reflect on the change.
8. Assumption: change is two dimensional.
9. Rather than having anchor points I have the feeling we are adrift. If our culture is what is
giving us meaning... I think our culture is a little unmoored? Because people are fearful.
a. Can’t we, better than things being connected, talk about alliances? It brings agency
back into it, because you have to work to form alliances or to disentangle them and
it allows space for the anchor points that have different kinds of weights. You can
become unmoored but some hold us quite good, they are a heavy anchor: the land
coming back.
b. Maybe it can be a buoy, something that drifts and floats and moves along and is not
too static. Something to hold on to. Feeling and being in place but still dynamic, not
fixed.
2.8 Report on “Definitions”

In this last stage, we tried to come up with some ingredients for the definition of “change”. We
started with the recap of the last things said to develop it from there. However, instead of ending
with a definition, we addressed all the things we might not have taken into account and we talked
about the assumptions behind the Lexicon.
RECAP: Rather than using the word connected there is more agency in using the term alliance
between things. Some alliances we find hard to disentangle ourselves from, while other anchor
points and alliances are quite heavy and hold certain things.
1. Isn’t this more the definition of change as a verb and not as a noun. This is what is
happening when you are changing maybe?
2. Is there a worldview that we have not considered yet? The word agency is bothering me.
There is in other cultures not as much control over change, not as much agency as we think
there is. There is this need of designers to change the material conditions of things. There
are maybe other points of view or there are much larger forces at work that we have not yet
talked about. We are talking with an a-religious quality, coming from a Darwinian thought
tradition. We should at least question if we want to do that.
3. Have we explored how different languages or cultures describe change? Or what is the word
they use to describe change (and if there is any?). Is there room in the Lexicon for different
language interpretations of change or even different characters, from Chinese or Japanese,
Korean, Arabic and what they actually mean. Because character based languages are made
of different characters that mean different things. Can the definition of change include how
it is described in other languages and cultures?
4. Do you have to be upfront about the assumptions made about the Lexicon? It is textual and
imagery and there is an assumption/decision made about how you describe certain
concepts. Can those assumptions be made explicit for those who come across it?
a. There is one type that is made explicit and another not. Our approach to design
research is made explicit, as stated in the manifesto. Not explicit is how we have
structured every item in the lexicon. You can see it, but why we have chosen it is not
really explained. The lexicon is built like a coin with a text and image side that you
can flip. We make clear that the lexicon presents terms in the context of their use at
Design Academy Eindhoven (how we use the words), so it is not universal. We also
want to open up, nothing is fixed and new terms can be added.
b. We aim for the lexicon to be a process and be alive; this is why we are using a
method like this Lexicon Live event to interact around a certain term. We gain many
different insights from it; it opens up the heads and the hearts, and changes the way
we relate to words.
3 Outcomes and conclusions

The Conversation took place in 1.5 hours of utmost concentration and the Socratic method provided
a safe and balanced way of conversing in which there was room to partake for all participants.
In the Conversation, some experiences from the conference as a whole were included. For instance,
the “why is design so white” experience from one of the keynote debates.
The online forum was not used by any delegate apart from the convenors.
The input from the Conversation will become part of the Lexicon of Design Research and can already
partly be viewed online. See link: Lexicon of Design Research.
4 References
Lexicon of Design Research: www.lexiconofdesignresearch.com
Forum DRS21018: http://www.drs2018limerick.org/conversation/cn21-lexicon-live-%E2%80%8Bperforming-
discursive-space-around-keywords
Conversation movie: https://vimeo.com/293113382
About the Authors:
Liesbeth Fit is a lecturer Writing at Design Academy Eindhoven and Royal Academy
of Art The Hague. She obtained her Bachelor Design at the Academy of the Arts in
Utrecht and her Master Cultural Studies at the University of Amsterdam.
Irene Droogleever Fortuyn is an artist and lecturer, head of the department Man
and Leisure at Design Academy Eindhoven and creative director at KETTER & Co, a
foundation that works on social, urban and environmental space from different
disciplines and collaborations.
Paolo Patelli is Associate Reader “Places and Traces” at the Design Academy
Eindhoven and artist-in-residence at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. He
obtained his PhD in Urban Design at the Politecnico di Milano.
Yoko Akama is an Associate Professor at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. She

is co-founder and co-leader of Design and Social Innovation in Asia-Pacific platform
at RMIT. and has a PhD in Communication Design. Her expertise is in human-centred
design.
Donato Ricci is a designer and a researcher working at the intersections of social

sciences, humanities and communication design. He obtained his PhD from the
Politecnico di Milano and is the design lead at Sciences Po | médialab, in Paris.
Design Education as a Catalyst for Change
HOLLAND Donála*; MAZÉ Ramiab; MILTON Alexc; MULDER Ingridd* and STORNI Cristianoe
a University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
b AaltoUniversity, Finland
c National College of Art and Design, Ireland
dDelft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
c University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
*Corresponding author e-mail: donal.holland@ucd.ie

doi:10.21606/dma.2018.773
Figure 1 Design Education as a catalyst for change
This Conversation aims to explore the relationships between design education,

design practice, and social change. To achieve this aim, the Conversation will bring
educators and researchers from a variety of disciplines together to foster new
exchanges and collaborations, allowing us to better explore questions about what it
is that we learn when we learn to design, why that is, and what impact that has on
our societies. During the Conversation, audience members will work in groups to
create “prototype” research articles responding to themes and provocations
proposed by the convenors.
Keywords: Design education; social change; design profession; hegemony

1 Context of Conversation Topic
Taking a lead from the overall conference theme (Design as a Catalyst for Change), this Conversation
session focused on the role that design education can play in achieving social change. A starting
point for the Conversation was thinking of designers in terms of Gramsci’s definition of intellectuals:
the people who organise society and define or reinforce the cultural hegemony of the dominant
class (Gramsci, 1989). If designers fit this definition, then what role does education play in instilling
hegemonic values in designers? And could changes in design education help to foster counter-
hegemonies? Put differently, if designers really do shape the world, and if education shapes
designers, then could design education serve as a “leverage point” for achieving broad social
change? Scholarship in the field of science and technology studies (STS) tells us that the relationship
between technology and society is not a simple one: neither pure technological determinism (the
idea that technology shapes society) nor pure social constructivism (the idea that society shapes
technology) is accurate. Rather, technology and society “co-produce” each other (e.g. Bijker et al.,
2012, p. x). It seems reasonable to expect that a similar model of co-production could be used to
understand the relationships between design education, design practice, and social changes. Two
examples illustrate the point:
1. In the US during the late 19th Century, engineering education began to be taught in
universities alongside the emergence of engineering as a profession and the rise of
corporate capitalism. The struggle for the “useful arts” to be accepted as an academic
discipline drew strength from, and in turn strengthened, the consolidation of corporate
power in society (Noble, 1979). From the beginning, the curricula of the new American
engineering schools emphasised a design education focused only on narrow problems of
technical performance and cost, thereby producing disciplined design employees for the
emerging corporations (Schmidt, 2001; Noble, 1979).
2. In the 2000s, a particular brand of “design thinking” (DT) attracted the attention of the
management world (Dorst, 2011). Ostensibly drawing on ideas from design education, DT
promised a method of solving almost any business problem, from corporate governance to
accounting (e.g. Berger, 2009). It also happened to reinforce hegemonic (neoliberal) values
of entrepreneurialism and market-based solutions by framing all problems in terms of
consultants and clients (Vinsel, 2017). While some have claimed that DT was a management
fad whose time has passed (e.g. Nussbaum, 2011), it seems to have had a significant and
potentially lasting impact on education (Miller, 2017). Ironically, it has also exerted an
influence on design education itself.
Both examples demonstrate relationships of co-production between design education, design

practice, and society, and both are examples of changes in design education reinforcing broader
hegemonic projects. Of course, many attempts have also been made to challenge rather than
reinforce the current hegemony by introducing new perspectives on design to the undergraduate
curriculum. From the appropriate technology movement to feminist technoscience to Transition
Design, the adoption of these philosophies in education has been less uniform than in the examples
listed above, ranging from isolated efforts by individual instructors to wholesale curriculum redesign
by entire design schools (e.g. Irwin et al., 2015). Obstacles are to be expected in any efforts to
challenge the social status quo, but how could an understanding of these obstacles strengthen
efforts to contribute to social change through design education? What can we learn from historical
examples of the co-production of designers and society? What design experiments could we
perform to yield new insights on this topic?
This Conversation aimed to explore the relationships between design education, design practice, and
social change. To achieve this aim, the Conversation brought educators and researchers from a
variety of design disciplines together with experts from a range of other humanities and social
science disciplines. Much of the current educational research within design disciplines draws
primarily on methods and theories from psychology and focuses on understanding how students
learn to do design. The Conversation aimed to foster new exchanges and collaborations that could
expand the scope of research on design education, allowing us to better explore questions about
what it is that we learn when we learn to design, why that is, and what impact that has on our
societies.
2 Organising questions
How does design education relate to broader social, economic, and political change?
Sub-questions: How have design education and social changes shaped each other in the past? What
might design education for beneficial social change look like? What research methods are
appropriate for studying this topic?
3 The online discussion

In advance of the conference, the five convenors along with four invited participants used an email
listserv to discuss the topic of design education as a catalyst for change. The online participants
were:
● Amy Bix, History Department, Iowa State University
● Eddie Conlon, Faculty of Engineering, Dublin Institute of Technology
● Cameron Tonkinwise, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney
● Kari Zacharias, Department of Engineering in Society, Concordia University
The discussion began with participants describing their research interests and their perspectives on
the Conversation topic. As participants responded to each other and shared relevant literature, five
themes emerged. The lead convenor compiled these themes, along with related questions,
provocations, and reading material, to guide the Conversation session at DRS2018.

At the beginning of the two-hour session at DRS2018, the convenors gave a general introduction to
the topic, explained the online discussion that had taken place, and discussed the five emergent
themes and related provocations and literature. The Conversation attendees then broke into groups
– one for each theme. The attendees were asked to discuss their chosen theme and to plan a
research project they could undertake on that topic. A brief think-pair-share activity was used to
initiate the breakout conversations. Handouts summarising the themes and a template paper
outline, intended as conversation aids, were provided and participants were asked to prototype an
outline of the paper that would result from their planned study. After an hour of small-group
discussion, each group gave a verbal summary of their conversation and the session ended with a
large-group discussion. Attendees were encouraged to exchange contact information with other
members of their group to facilitate collaborative projects that might emerge from the session.
Attendees were also invited to sign up for a mailing list to continue the Conversation online. The
following sections summarise the themes and resulting discussions from the session.
4.1 Theme 1: Co-evolution of design education, design practice, and society
This theme focused on understanding how design education, design practice, and society shape and
are shaped by each other. The online discussion highlighted the potential of learning from historical
changes in design education and practice, such as the push for diversity in higher education and in
the professions, as well as the involvement of designers and related professionals in movements for
social change. The growing Transition Design movement was identified as an ongoing case study in
co-evolution, and the potential of design as a vehicle to restructure the broader university was
highlighted. Relevant literature identified during the online discussion included Bix (2014), Zacharias
(in press) Irwin et al. (2015), and Mazé (2014).
During the session at DRS2018, the breakout group selected ‘the rise of service design in the Finnish
public sector in the past 10 years’ as a case study of the co-evolution of education, practice, and
society. The participants, all early-stage researchers, sketched a plan for a study that would use
semi-structured interviews to collect data on the growth of service design in Finland. Snowball
sampling was proposed as a method of recruiting subjects, and the participants discussed using a
grounded theory approach.
4.2 Theme 2: Participation and power
This theme focused on the “participatory turn” in design, and in particular on questions of power
related to that turn. Previous scholarship on this topic, in particular work from feminist and
postcolonial perspectives, was raised during the online discussion (e.g. Keshavarz and Mazé, 2013).
This led to questions about power imbalances present in efforts to bring participatory design into
the classroom. For example, if a more just form of design would include the perspectives of
marginalised communities (e.g. homeless people, asylum seekers, etcetera) then including such
communities in student projects seems desirable. However, treating such communities as an
educational resource (by asking them to participate in student projects for presumably minimal
compensation, if any) raises serious ethical questions. This discussion also raised questions about the
role of designer and the role of design, touching on the crisis of expertise and debates about design
as future-making. Relevant literature included Stembert and Mulder (2013) and Storni (2015a).
During the session at DRS2018, the breakout group discussed a study on ‘social contracts and
engagement in cooperative/participatory design’. They proposed identifying existing social contracts
and expectations in groups and communities, existing relevant cases of cooperative or participatory
design, and relevant pedagogical techniques. This scoping activity would be followed by new case
studies of participatory design projects in educational contexts, during which the researchers would
collect data on social contracts and individual experiences in the projects. Data sources would
include students’ reflections during the projects, and the researchers would map the relations and
tensions within the groups. The aim of the study would be to produce a typology of relations for
these types of design projects, guidelines for practice, and new or improved courses and projects.
4.3 Theme 3: Time, maintenance, and repair
This theme was concerned with changing the way that student projects are framed. The online
discussion raised the issue that social change must take the form of phased change over time,
whereas student projects are typically geared towards the “serial monogamy” of short, well-
bounded design tasks (Tonkinwise, 2014). The need for students to experience tentative, exploratory
design and the potential for multi-year student projects were highlighted. Donna Haraway’s (2016)
exhortation to ‘stay with the trouble’ was identified as relevant to an improved approach to design
education. In addition, the potential for maintenance and repair, rather than innovation, to serve as
a frame for design was raised (Russell and Vinsel, 2016).
During the session at DRS2018, the breakout group discussed a study on long-term, multifaceted
class projects that would allow students to tackle wicked problems while developing the mindset
and skills required to pursue this type of work in their professional practices. Participants proposed
using an action research methodology for the study, with the aim of yielding improved guidelines for
educational practice alongside improved learning outcomes for students.
4.4 Theme 4: Instilling values
This theme focused on the values guiding designers and on the role of education in instilling these
values, including through the hidden curriculum (Giroux & Purpel, 1983). The frequent use of
competition in design projects (from head-to-head robotics competitions to pitches for investment)
was identified as an example of the hidden curriculum in design. Projects and assessments that focus
on cooperation rather than competition were proposed as a means of changing the implicit values of
design education. Including discussions and assignments on ethics in student design projects was
discussed as a way to question and make explicit the values of both individual students and the
design profession. Participants in the online discussion argued that the values of individual designers
are not sufficient to change industry practices, as designers are usually employees with limited
autonomy, i.e. they do not control the types of problems and projects they work on. Thus, the
broader context and social relations of design employment itself, as well as whatever problem
designers happen to be working on, must be taken into account. Relevant literature included
Gramsci (1989), Schmidt (2001), and Verbeek (2008).
During the session at DRS2018, the breakout group proposed a study titled ’Whose values? Minding
the gap between design educators and students’. They proposed conducting interviews with both
educators and students, aimed at understanding the values of each group and their thoughts on how
these values related to the curriculum and teaching methods. The Conversation participants
suggested that this could be supplemented with a co-design project, in which students would write
their own project brief by drawing explicitly on their own values.
4.5 Theme 5: Evaluation, assessment, and measurement
A recurring theme throughout the online discussion was the problem of measurement. On the one
hand, participants rejected positivism and the neoliberal turn in education, which focuses on
quantitative metrics over critical thought and speculation. On the other hand, a concern with change
(in education, design practice, and society at large) must rely to some extent on measurement to
understand both the current situation and the effect of attempts at changing that situation. The
online discussion covered relevant literature including Collini (2017), Graeber (2018), and Storni
(2015).
During the session at DRS2018, the breakout group proposed a longitudinal study aimed at
identifying and evaluating design that is good (in the moral or ethical sense). They suggested
tracking the employment journey of design graduates over 5-10 years, combined with a historical
study of data on other designers’ careers. They hoped that the study would yield insights on what
good design looks like, on whether careers guided by a strong ethical commitment are sustainable,
and on the impact (if any) that a good designer can have, especially at the early stages of their
career.
5 Conclusions and Reflections

The Conversation was well-attended; places were fully booked in advance and the room was full
throughout the session. At the end of the session, 16 participants signed up for the mailing list to
continue the Conversation. The themes that arose in the online discussion seemed to overlap well
with some of the other Workshops, Conversations, and Technical Sessions at the conference, and
some of the one-to-one conversations that began during the session continued over the subsequent
days.
The convenors decided to use an email listserv, rather than the forum provided on the conference
website, as the medium for the pre-conference online discussion. This decision was partly based on
the convenience of keeping the Conversation thread within one’s email inbox, rather than having to
visit another website. The use of email offered other advantages, such as being more conducive to
longer posts, allowing attachment of relevant files, and allowing the Conversation to be split into
multiple separate threads. It also brought disadvantages, most notably the fact that the
Conversation remained private and could not be viewed or joined by other conference attendees in
advance. Overall, the main challenge with organising an online discussion in May and June is that
many academics are busy with grading, graduation shows, thesis deadlines, and travel to other
conferences. Given this, keeping the Conversation in email may have helped to remind people about
it and increase their level of participation.
The convenors are in discussion about producing a position paper based on the Conversation.
Informally, session participants have told convenors that they have stayed in contact with fellow
participants and continued discussions that began during the session. As the primary aim of this
Conversation was to encourage new research collaborations focused on design education as a
catalyst for change, the convenors consider these ongoing discussions to be an indication of success.
6 References
Berger, W. (2009). Glimmer: how design can transform your life, your business, and maybe even the world,
Random House.
Bieker, W. E., Hughers, T. P., & Pinch, T. (2012). The Social Construction of Technological Systems, Anniversary
Edition, MIT Press.
Bix, A. S. (2014). Girls Coming to Tech!: A History of American Engineering Education for Women. MIT Press.
Collini, S. (2017). Speaking of universities. Verso Books.
Dorst, K. (2011). The core of ‘design thinking’ and its application, Design Studies, 32(6), pp. 521-532.
Giroux, H. and Purpel, D. (1983) The Hidden Curriculum and Moral Education. McCutchan Publishing
Corporation.
Graeber, D. (2018). Bullshit jobs. Simon and Schuster.
Gramsci, A. (1989). The Intellectuals, in Gottlieb, R. S. (ed.) An Anthology of Western Marxism: from Lukács and
Gramsci to Socialist-Feminism, Oxford University Press.
Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Irwin, T., Kossoff, G., Tonkinwise, C., & Scupelli, P. (2015). Transition Design 2015,
https://tinyurl.com/y8etcgau, p. 9, (accessed 15 February, 2018).
Keshavarz, M., & Mazé, R. (2013). Design and dissensus: framing and staging participation in design research.
Design Philosophy Papers, 11(1), 7-29.
Mazé, R. (2014). Our Common Future? Political questions for designing social innovation. In Proceedings of the
Design Research Society Conference 2014.
Miller, P. N. (2017). Is ‘Design Thinking’ the New Liberal Arts?, in Marbner, P. and Araya, D. (eds.) The Evolution
of Liberal Arts in the Global Age, Routledge, pp. 167-173.
Noble, D. F. (1979). America by design: Science, technology, and the rise of corporate capitalism, Oxford
University Press.
Nussbaum, B. (2011). Design Thinking Is A Failed Experiment. So What’s Next? https://tinyurl.com/y8kreqo8
(accessed 15 February, 2018).
Russell, A., & Vinsel, L. (2016). Hail the maintainers. Aeon Essays. https://aeon.co/essays/innovation-is-
overvalued-maintenance-often-matters-more (accessed 25 June, 2018).
Schmidt, J. (2001). Disciplined minds: A critical look at salaried professionals and the soul-battering system that
shapes their lives, Rowman & Littlefield.
Stembert, N., & Mulder, I. J. (2013). Love your city! An interactive platform empowering citizens to turn the
public domain into a participatory domain. International Conference Using ICT, Social Media and Mobile
Technologies to Foster Self-Organisation in Urban and Neighbourhood Governance.
Storni, C. (2015a). A Manifesto for Epistemological Empowerment in Chronic Disease Self Care. In Bihanic, D.
(ed) Empowering Users through Design, Springer: Cham, pp. 267-279.
Storni, C. (2015b). Notes on ANT for designers: ontological, methodological and epistemological turn in
collaborative design. CoDesign, 11(3-4), 166-178.
Tonkinwise, C. (2014) Transition Design as Postindustrial Interaction Design?
https://medium.com/@camerontw/transition-design-as-postindustrial-interaction-design-6c8668055e8d
(accessed 25 June, 2018).
Verbeek, PP. (2008). Morality in design: Design ethics and the morality of technological artifacts. In Kroes et al.
(eds) Philosophy and design. Springer, Dordrecht. pp. 91-103.
Vinsel, L. (2017) Design Thinking is Kind of Like Syphilis — It’s Contagious and Rots Your Brains,
https://tinyurl.com/y9gnh9dg (accessed 15 February, 2018).
Zacharias, K. and Wisnioski, M. (in press) Land-Grant Hybrids: From Art and Technology to SEAD, Leonardo.
About the Convenors:
Dónal Holland is Assistant Professor in Mechanical and Materials Engineering at

University College Dublin, and Associate at the Harvard School of Engineering and
Applied Sciences. His research interests include engineering education and the
design of robotic systems for rehabilitation.
Ramia Mazé is Professor of New Frontiers in Design at Aalto University, specialising

in critical and politically-engaged design and design research practices. Recent
projects include a book on feminist spatial practices and the project UTOPIA NOW
HERE at the Istanbul Design Biennial.
Alex Milton is Head of the School of Design at the National College of Art and
Design. His research addresses the development of design policy and strategy; he
served as Programme Director of Irish Design 2015, devising and delivering a major
government-backed programme.
Ingrid Mulder is Associate Professor in Design for Social Transformations at TU

Delft. Her ongoing research interestingly combines the strategic value of design and
participatory design methods to diffuse design capabilities to trigger societal
change.
Cristiano Storni is a Lecturer and Director of the MSc/MA in Interactive Media at

University of Limerick. His research explores the impact of ICT on people,
organisation and society, and his expertise includes Actor Network Theory and
Social Studies of Information Systems
How Complexity Science Can Support Design for Societal
Change
JAMSIN Ella; BAKKER Conny and HEKKERT Paul*
TU Delft, Industrial Design Engineering
* Corresponding author e-mail: e.jamsin@tudelft.nl
doi:10.21606/dma.2018.723
Figure 1 How complexity science can support design for social change
At the core of design for sustainability lies a conundrum: While designers’ output is
at the level of products, services and companies, sustainability is an issue of global
scale. The success of designs with ambitious sustainability aims is therefore often
highly dependent on complex social dynamics among humans and organisations:
How quickly and widely will a product be adopted by users? How will a solution
change the dynamics of its users or of an industry? Who to collaborate with to
develop a given innovative sustainable business model? In the past few decades, a
collection of scientific disciplines has given rise to analytical models of complex
systems, including social ones. Many of these models have the potential to deliver
powerful tools for designers aiming to improve sustainability, such as computer
simulation, guidance, and methodologies. Arguably, such applications of complexity
science to design for sustainability are still in their infancy.
This Conversation’s aim was to catalyse research and collaboration towards
developing complexity science-based tools for design towards sustainability. To this

end, we discussed theories and methods from complexity science and explored the
needs of designers.
Keywords: complexity, modelling, sustainability, tipping points, networks
1 The challenge of complexity in design for sustainability

Most sustainability endeavours are fraught with complexity issues of social, ecological and
technological natures. Designers aiming to address sustainability are therefore continuously faced
with the need to deal with complexity.
Within disciplines as diverse as ecology, social science, computer science and physics, the science of
complexity has been rapidly developing over the past few decades, delivering many insights of
relevance to sustainability. This conversation stems from the conviction that these could be
leveraged much more than they currently are in design for sustainability. Our aim was to get a
designer’s perspective on the potential of complexity-based tools in design for sustainability.
1.1 Two lessons from complexity science

Two key lessons from complexity science were used as stimulus for the conversation:
1. Complex systems are interconnected: Every part of the system may influence other parts.
These interconnections drive important phenomena, such as the spread of ideas and
diseases among people and the reliance of species on other species. A complex system can
therefore be seen as a network, or in other words, a set of nodes and links (e.g. people and
their collaborations; devices and the transfers of data; organisations and their supply chain
relationships). By modelling complex systems as nodes and links, network theory has
delivered numerous insights, for example on the causes of fragility and robustness in a
system, the characteristics of key opinion influencers, and the formation of communities
within a system (Scott, 2007; Newman, 2010).
2. Complex systems are dynamic. Complex systems are constantly undergoing some form of
change. The concept of tipping point has become rather widespread among sustainability
practitioners, most likely thanks to Malcolm Gladwell’s highly popular book (Gladwell, 2000).
It suggested the idea that great effects could be triggered by small efforts. Tipping points are
however also widely used in various scientific disciplines, such as ecology and social
sciences, where they exhibit a few differences with the picture drawn by Gladwell. For
example, tipping points are always preceded by a stagnation phase. In real-world situations,
where many parameters are at play, it is very difficult if not impossible to tell whether you
are close or far from a tipping point (Scheffer, 2003). Should you be far from it, no small
effort will give rise to a large effect as suggested by Gladwell.
These inputs triggered some initial discussions:

● How does one choose the boundaries of a network model when representing a real-world
situation? Any model remains a simplification of the real world. Choosing appropriate
boundaries depends on the question one tries to solve.
● Tipping points can be either positive or negative. In the context of sustainability, an example
of a positive tipping point is the transition to a sustainable society while negative ones are
the degradation of ecosystems and climate change. Understanding the dynamics of complex
systems in design for sustainability is useful both in creating desirable tipping points and
avoiding undesirable ones.
● Complex systems are often unpredictable in nature, even with advanced computational
models. The latter can however help to explore the space of potential future scenarios and
estimate the relative chances of different outcomes.
2 Breakout discussions on system design challenges

For the following part of the Conversation, we separated into three groups, each of which focused
on a different challenge of system design, with the aim to imagine a computer simulation or other
type of tool that would help to address the challenge. The three challenges were:
● Design a system of connected washing machines that promotes minimal use of energy,
detergent and water.
● Design a system of built environment stakeholders that promotes the reuse of building
materials and components.
● Design a system of energy products, services and regulations that makes sustainable energy
consumption in households self-evident.
In a first step of the breakout discussions, the groups were encouraged to get their head around the
challenge, and in particular to map the key actors and elements of the design challenge together
with their interactions, drawing on the network perspective discussed earlier (see figure 1). Second,
they would start listing the main questions and uncertainties arising in the exploration. Finally, they
would describe the type of tool that could answer such questions and therefore help to design the
system.
Figure 2 System maps of the three groups (top left: connected washing machines; top right: built environment; bottom left:
energy system) highlighting key actors and elements with their interactions
Most of the groups began by raising questions on the objectives of the breakouts. In the built
environment group, we discussed the fact that you cannot, per se, design a system of stakeholders,
but you can envision one and design a process or an intervention with the intention to give rise to
the vision. The expression “designing a system” should thus be seen in this context as a shortcut for
“designing something that will contribute to the system evolving towards a desired state”.
When exploring ways to influence the system, all groups highlighted the importance of stakeholder
behaviour and the potential to influence it. They brought up themes such as educating, engaging and
persuading stakeholders, and debated on which stakeholders to focus. The future systems that were
envisioned tended to be more decentralised than the current ones, and so the groups pointed out
the need for different forms of organisational governance, e.g. more community-based ones.
When discussing tools, the various groups tended to converge towards engagement and persuasion
tools, rather than computational system simulations such as the ones developed in complexity
science, but with which very few of the participants had prior experience.
However, when further stimulated to consider these, the built environment group came up with a
concept combining a stakeholder engagement tool (e.g. an app or a platform) together with a
simulation of the built environment stakeholder network (e.g. based on an agent-based model),
which would model the flows of materials and money throughout the system (see figure 2). The data
from the engagement tool would provide information about the stakeholders’ behaviours that
would be fed into the simulation tool, which in turn would provide evidence and visualisations of the
desired built environment system that could be used in the engagement model. The designer’s role
would be at the interface of the two components, translating engagement data into inputs for the
model and turning the model outputs into effective communication and visuals for the stakeholders.
This promising concept would be well worth further developing in future research, to be discussed at
DRS2020?
Figure 3 Concept combining a stakeholder engagement tool (left-hand side) and a simulation tool based on a model of
material and financial flows (right-hand side)
3 References
Gladwell, M., (2000). The tipping point: How little things can make a big difference. Little, Brown.
Newman, M. (2010). Networks: an introduction. Oxford university press.
Scheffer, M., Westley, F., and Brock, W. (2003). Slow Response of Societies to New Problems-Causes and Costs,
Ecosystems 6(5), 493
Scott, J. (2017). Social network analysis. Sage.
About the Authors:
Ella Jamsin’s main research interest is to apply computational models of social

systems to design for sustainable transitions. Prior to her position at TU Delft, Ella
obtained her PhD in theoretical physics, worked in management consulting and
conducted analysis and research on circular economy at the Ellen MacArthur
Foundation.
Conny Bakker’s main research field is Circular Product Design. She explores
strategies such as product life-extension, reuse, remanufacturing and recycling, and
the business models that enable them. A second research interest is the field of user
centred sustainable design, which focuses on exploring the relationships between
consumer behaviour, sustainability and design.
Paul Hekkert’s research concentrates on the various ways in which products and
systems impact people, including their sensory experiences, social behaviour,
values, and well-being. Increasingly, Paul is fascinated by the role creative
professionals could play in major societal change processes.
Beyond black boxes: tackling artificial intelligence as a
design material
Figure 1 AI and Machine Learning as design materials; permission of Conversation author
KELLIHER Aislinga*; BARRY Barbarab; BERZOWSKA Joannac; O’MURCHU Norad* and SMEATON Alane
a Virginia
Tech, US
b Mayo Clinic Centre, US
c Concordia University, Canada
dUniversity of Limerick, Ireland
eDublin City University, Ireland
*Corresponding author e-mail: aislingk@vt.edu

doi:10.21606/dma.2018.784
The growth and development of artificial intelligence is fast becoming a powerful

influence on the global economy and society overall. While advancements in AI are
successfully reshaping many transactional contexts such as image search and
purchase recommendations, the progression of this technology is somewhat slower
in contexts that involve multidimensional experiences aimed at advancing human
intelligence and the overall human condition. Issues of transparency, ethics, bias,
and privacy are more and more emerging as topics of public debate, while the
ultimate role of accountability, responsibility, and eventual consequence still
requires some interrogative work. In this Conversation, we examine AI as a formative
material to design with, often requiring a nuanced, pragmatic, or indeed sceptical
mindset. We will use examples from our experiences in digital healthcare, smart
textiles, and curatorial practice to seed a wider discussion about the form, function,
and promise of AI in design practice.
Keywords: artificial intelligence, machine learning, design, system, materials

1. Introduction and Organising Questions
The growth and development of artificial intelligence is fast becoming a powerful influence on the
global economy and society overall. While advancements in AI are successfully reshaping many
transactional contexts such as image search and purchase recommendations, the progression of this
technology is somewhat slower in contexts that involve multidimensional experiences aimed at
advancing human intelligence and the overall human condition. In this conversation, the convenors
aim to present their evolving experiences engaging AI and machine learning as a vital design
component in their research and practice in health, fashion, and expressive domains. The
Conversation will examine both the philosophical “whatness” of AI as a material and the practical
“howness” of going about working with it. There is a growing body of literature examining the
relationship between design, AI, and user experience [Dove et. al, 2017; Holmquist, 2017; Kuniavsky
et al, 2017] and this Conversation aims to build and expand upon this emerging area of interest.
The five panelists tackle the issue of AI and design from a variety of perspectives, disciplines, and
praxis cultures. In this Conversation, they will foreground the metaphors, strategies, and methods
that best support their design process in conceptualising, implementing, and understanding the
power (and threat) of AI as a key material in creating and presenting systems for diverse contexts
including home-based stroke rehabilitation [Kelliher and Barry, 2018, Kelliher et al., 2017], digital
mental health (Barry, 2017; Kelliher and Barry, 2018; Ring et al, 2013; Smeaton, 2017), interactive
textiles (Berzowska, 2017), reminiscence therapy (Smeaton, 2017, Yang et al., 2013), and curatorial
practice (O Murchú, 2015).
The primary research question for this proposed conversation will ask: How can we enhance and
evolve the intelligence, abilities, and experience of all human actors in AI supported systems? From this
initial prompt, we propose addressing four other interrelated questions:
• How can we move beyond a model of AIs replacing humans, or humans simply serving to
enhance AI algorithms and performance (e.g. crowdsourcing of image labelling)?
• How can we design experiences where humans and machines symbiotically learn and develop
together?
• When do we feel understood or misunderstood by AI, and how can we design for mutual
understanding?
• What are the optimal conditions and approaches for creating a more nuanced form of cyber-
human intelligence that takes into account algorithmic bias and the normalising aspects of
machine learning?
2. The DRS2018 Conversation session
Figure 2. Room setup and five groups of participants
The convenors began the Conversation with very brief personal introductions before quickly getting
down to the topic at hand. The 24 participants were invited to consider the research question which
was written on one of the whiteboards in the room: “How can we enhance and evolve the
intelligence, abilities, and experience of all human actors in AI supported systems?”. The participants
then self-organised into five groups and began discussing the nuances of the question within their
groups, while one team member documented the evolving conversation on large pieces of paper
centrally located at each group table. The convenors spent time at each table listening to group
discussion and interjecting or commenting as appropriate. After about 45 minutes of in-group
discussion, the convenors brought that activity to an end and moved toward a public accounting and
discussion of key outcomes. A delegate from each group summarised their conversation, while the
convenors began to draw a mind-map on the whiteboard in an attempt to discern connections,
overlap, and novel areas of discussion within and across the groups. Figure 3 depicts the final map as
created during the session, and while probably still somewhat legible to the workshop participants,
further analysis is required in surfacing the approaches, critiques, and opportunities highlighted by
the Conversation delegates.
Figure 3 Draft mind map of participant responses to the conversation primary question
Following the Conversation, the convenors examined the material artefacts created and
documented during the event (e.g. photos of the mind maps, personal notes taken, group discussion
summary sheets etcetera). It was fascinating to examine how different groups tackled the
Conversation question, with some groups beginning with historical perspectives, another starting
out with a close examination of current AI systems (e.g. Netflix, automated cars, machine learning
surveillance etcetera), while yet another group moved very quickly from contemporary concerns
towards an extended examination of near and far-term opportunities and possibilities. We
summarise some of the outcomes from our overall analysis of the event below.
2.1 Current Concerns

2.2.1 Stakeholders
Identifying who the “human actors” are in AI supported systems generated discussion about end
users (public or industry), developers, educators, designers, and marketing executives as individuals
of concern. From this relatively straightforward positioning of the human players, consideration was
also given to the possible responsibility of non-human actors in opening clarifying their non-human-
ness in any interactions with humans in an AI system. Machine failures within these systems could
be perceived by human actors as akin to human-like mistakes, leading to possible confusion on the
part of the human, the use of deliberate obfuscation on behalf of the machine, and overall issues of
trust and transparency (more on this later).
2.2.2 Narratives and perceptions of AI

The use of historical precedents (e.g. Microsoft’s Clippy) or relatable analogies (e.g. robots) were
proposed as ways to strengthen general public perceptions around AI and machine learning systems.
Efforts need to be made to move beyond the binary narratives of fear and imminent doom versus
the over-promise of ‘solutionism’ (Morozov, 2013) as a salve for all. Opportunities also exist to
develop communal and social narratives that situate AI in very different scenario environments and
indeed directly critique the individualistic/libertarian/ capitalistic framing of many current
imaginings.
2.2.3 Trust: transparency, reliability, accountability, and control

Not surprisingly, a clear outcome from the Conversation was widespread concern about issues of
trust within AI supported systems. As designers, the participants described how system transparency
(e.g. introduce the type of ML being used, how, and why), accessibility (e.g. humans should be able
to access their data and in human readable formats), reliability (e.g. data integrity and verification),
and accountability (e.g. acknowledgement of failure) are paramount for designers and system
developers. Building on this, concepts of power and control are fundamental in considering how
humans and machine subsume, relinquish, and partner in optimisation and decision-making in AI
supported systems.
2.2 Opportunities and future directions

Several promising directions for design research and praxis both about and within the fields of AI
and machine learning were identified and discussed by the workshop participants. A broad
conceptualisation of AI as comprising subject/artefact/material/method/tool/system helped open
up a rich seam of potential inquiry and indeed, proved critical within the context both of the original
charge of the conversation proposal and as a positive vector for discussion at the event. As a subject,
the potential to interrogate AI algorithms and systems from an anthropological viewpoint drew
participants to critique the simplistic human/machine dichotomy, and instead propose non-binary
lenses for examining AI that could be relational, communal or intersectional. As a tool or method
within an anthropological framing, the potential for AI bots to conduct interviews at scale or as a
way to amplify good research broadly was also broached. Related to the prior suggestion about
changing the narratives of AI, there was general agreement about the necessity to create situated
communal AI knowledge systems, with distributed loci of control, access, and accountability. The
concept of speculative AI (as related to speculative/critical design) was thus introduced as one
potential way for at least beginning to imagine such communal systems.
Overall, the convenors and the participants concluded the in-person Conversation with remarks
about the variety of ideas discussed and indeed the potential for some concepts (especially the
future-oriented ones) to grow into further publications or design works. While this, of course,
remains to be seen, the general interest and meaningful excitement about the topics covered during
the Conversation will hopefully bear fruit in a variety of ways as the participants and convenors
continue to critique, design, implement, and embrace and reject AI supported systems.
3. References
Barry, B. (2017). Empathy as a constant - improving college student health by designing in community, Stanford
MedX, retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRHBoY5t8Vw
Berzowska, J. (2016). Wearables: The future of everything. TEDxYouth@Montreal, retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiBMgpUAHt4
Dove, G et al., (2017). UX Design Innovation: Challenges for Working with Machine Learning as a Design
Material. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '17).
ACM, New York, NY, USA, 278-288.
Holmquist, L. (2017). Intelligence on tap: artificial intelligence as a new design material. interactions 24, 4 (June
2017), 28-33.
Kelliher, A and Barry, B. (2018). Designing Therapeutic Experiences with AI in Mind, forthcoming at the AAAI
2018 Symposium, Designing the User Experience of Artificial Intelligence, March 2018
Kelliher,A. et al. (2017). HOMER: an interactive system for home based stroke rehabilitation, ACM ASSETS 2017,
Oct 30 - Nov 1, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Kuniavsky, M., Churchill, E., Steenson, M. (2017). Designing the User Experience of Machine Learning System.
Part of the AAAI Spring Symposium Series, March 27–29, 2017
Morozov, E. 2013. “The Perils of Perfection” New York Times, March 2, 2013
O’ Murchú, N. (2015). "Collaborative Modes of Curating Software," in IEEE MultiMedia, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 88-92,
Jan.-Mar. 2015.
Ring, L. et al. (2013) Addressing loneliness and isolation in older adults: Proactive affective agents provide better
support, Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII), Geneva, 2013, pp. 61-66.
Smeaton, A. (2017) Applications of data analytics: three data-driven reminiscence therapy deployments. In:
Technology and Dementia Preconference at the Alzheimer's Associated International Conference, 15 July,
2017, London, UK. Ireland
Yang, Y. et al. (2013) Design and field evaluation of REMPAD: a recommender system supporting group
reminiscence therapy. In WISHWell’13, 3 Dec 2013, Dublin, Ireland
About the Authors:
Aisling Kelliher is an Associate Professor of Computer Science with a joint

appointment in the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology at Virginia Tech.
She co-leads the Interactive Neurorehabilitation Lab where she creates systems for
stroke rehabilitation.
Barbara Barry is the Design Strategist for Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation and an
Assistant professor in the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine. She leads a design team
and develops applications of AI to drive health care transformation.
Joanna Berzowska is Associate Dean Research of the Faculty of Fine Arts at

Concordia University and a member of the Hexagram Research Institute in
Montreal. She is also the founder and research director of innovative electronic
textiles company, XS Labs.
Nora O’Murchú is a curator and designer based in Ireland. Her practice engages
with fictions and narratives to explore how complex sociotechnical systems are
imagined, built, and used. She is currently a lecturer in Interaction Design at the
University of Limerick.
Alan Smeaton is Professor of Computing at Dublin City University and Founding

Director of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics. He is a winner of the Royal Irish
Academy Gold Medal in Engineering Science and a Fellow of the IEEE.
“Is Universal Design Dead?”: Creating inclusive user
experience design methods
ARMSTRONG Helena*; GUFFEY Elizabethb; NICKPOUR Farnazc and WILLIAMSON Bessd
a North Carolina State University
b Purchase College State University of New York
c University of Liverpool
d School of Art Institute of Chicago
* Corresponding author e-mail hsarmstr@ncsu.edu

doi:10.21606/dma.2018.790
Figure 1 “Is Universal Design Dead?” Creating inclusive user experience design methods
By 2050 there will be more people over age 65 than under 5 in developed countries
(United Nations, 2015). The question is not “are you disabled” but “when will you be
disabled.” Simultaneously, we are seeing a shift away from the precepts of Universal
Design toward a more flexible and inclusive paradigm. Sometimes labelled “design
for one,” the latter builds on the heritage of barrier-free design, but aims not for
design for all, but one size fits one. Our research methods should acknowledge these
changes. While differentiation and customisation to individuals—via emerging
technologies such as Machine Learning—is increasingly the “new norm,” our current

user-centred design tools presume user abilities in vision and motor dexterity. They
lack inclusion. This Conversation will begin by assessing and discussing existing user-
centred design methods in relation to users with disabilities. This Conversation will
then broaden the discussion to consider Universal versus Inclusive Design. More
specifically, how does our reconsideration of user-centred methods reflect a larger
shift toward designing for unique users? What impact do emerging technologies like
Machine Learning have upon these approaches? How can adaptive strategies for co-
design be applied to a range of users that fall upon a spectrum of impairment?
Keywords: Inclusive design; user experience methods, universal design; co-design;

accessibility; disability; design for all; psychosocial inclusion

Overarching question: Is Universal Design dead and what are the implications of newer paradigms
for our research?
Sub-questions:
1. How do we augment existing or develop new methods for research to meet our changing
understanding of disability and the growing needs of our users?
2. How can we leverage new technology to open up possibilities not only for adaptive and
responsive designs but also adaptive and responsive user-centred design methods?
3. How might we move/push beyond the current archetypes of design for inclusivity,
embracing the more contemporary, complex and critical contexts and challenges?
2 The Conversation
Figure 2 Inclusive Design Discussion

2.1 Structure of Conversation
Each convenor introduced their research and identified one barrier and one opportunity in regard to
inclusive design. Following the convenor introductions (summarised below), participants moved
between four stations in the room. Each station asked the participants to discuss and document
their responses to a specifically provided query. All four participant groups moved between the
provided stations over the course of the Conversation. A convenor recorded the discussion at each
station as it occurred. After these small group discussions ended, all the participants came together
for a final wrap-up discussion.
2.2 Part One: Summaries of Convenor Research Introductions

2.2.1 Helen Armstrong
Helen Armstrong is a design educator, author, and researcher who explores the potential for
emerging technology to make data more accessible to users with Impairments. Armstrong
introduced recent user-centred industry partnerships and larger grant projects that focused on
designing intelligent interfaces that might detect and respond to unique user needs.
Figure 3 Conversation Introduction

Figure 3 Helen Armstrong introduces the discussion
I’m working at NC State to integrate inclusive design into our core design curriculum. My
research focuses on designing interfaces that respond to the unique needs of users with
disabilities. My projects have included working with SAS Analytics to create accessible
data visualisations for blind/low vision users. Working with North Carolina Museum of
Natural Sciences to use technology to generate exhibition spaces that welcome adults
on the autism spectrum. Working with a team of astronomers, designers and computer
scientists on the iData grant project to make astronomy data accessible to blind/low
vision high school students, and—most recently—working the IBM Watson Health team
via our first year Masters of Graphic Design students—some of whom are here today—
to consider how Machine Learning might be used to meets the needs of Deaf/Hard of
Hearing and Blind/Visually Impaired users. Machine Learning has increasingly become a
focus, particularly in ways that it might be used to detect and respond to unique user
needs.
● Identified barrier: Many user-centred design research tools presume user abilities in vision
and motor dexterity.
● Identified opportunity: How might we use ML to detect and respond to unique user needs?
2.2.2 Bess Williamson

Bess Williamson is a historian who focuses on the intersection of design and social movements of
the 20th-21st centuries. Her book Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design will be
published in early 2019 from NYU Press.
Figure 4 Bess Williamson introduces her work on Inclusive Design
My research examines the ways that designers come to know disability, looking at
historical examples of universal and accessible design. My findings from looking at
examples ranging from post-World War II rehabilitation devices to modern consumer
appliances are that changing politics of disability underlie all major shifts in approach.
Most notably, the voices of disabled people are often sublimated to commercial or
political assessments of disability, something that design research must address.
● Identified barrier: Institutional flattening of disability into the issue of accommodation; little
sense of disability as a contribution to the learning environment.
● Identified opportunity: Emerging student generation who identify as disabled politically and
culturally, including cognitive and mental health disabilities.
2.2.3 Farnaz Nickpour

Farnaz Nickpour is a human-centred design researcher, educator, and practitioner. Her work
explores critical and contemporary dimensions of design for inclusion. She leads the Inclusive Design
Research Group in the United Kingdom.
As an Industrial Designer by background, my starting point has been the study of design
in the physical realm; objects and products. Hence the foundational focus of inclusive
design on physical, cognitive, and sensory capabilities is a precondition. However,
almost three decades forward, I believe there is an urgent need to revisit the core
concept of ‘design for inclusion’ and challenge its current definitions, scope, theories,
and applications. We need to embrace the wider, more challenging, and contemporary
contexts for design for inclusion - exploring the full spectrum of ‘human diversity’. Firstly,
move beyond age + ability; looking into cases such as lifestyle exclusions, invisible
disabilities, and neurodiversity. Secondly, move beyond physical access and physicality of
experience, entering the realm of psychosocial, and aiming for overall quality of
experience. I share two examples of inclusive solutions which I believe are relatively
successful; Bradley haptic watch, designed primarily for blind people and a desirable
multi-sensory timepiece for all - using two sense to engage with time. Biomimicry food
packaging designed by Mimica, with vision impairments in mind —starting with an
inclusive mission but adopted as innovation in sustainability and food waste.
● Identified barrier: Getting stuck with the ‘access-provision’ mentality focusing on physical
accessibility as the ultimate goal rather than the starting point
● Identified opportunity: Engaging with the extreme and innovating for the mainstream as
core (diversity as a driver for innovation)
2.2.4 Elizabeth Guffey

Elizabeth Guffey is a design historian and author of various publications, including Designing
Disability: Symbols, Spaces, and Society. She is also founding editor of Design and Culture.
Figure 5 Elizabeth Guffey shares her experiences with Inclusive Design
As a specialist in design history/theory/criticism and a disabled person, my book

responds to the International Symbol of Access. At the DRS, I described how my book
derived from my experience sitting on board of access at the building of my University,
which was designed as “accessible” inside, but not outside. The symbol, I explained, was
present, but doesn’t guarantee compliance. Indeed, I noted that the introduction of a
newer symbol depicting a more ‘active’ chair user is often used in what I call
‘bluewashing’.
I noted that ‘Universal Design’ is a term often referred to in the US as a form of ‘heritage.’ Inclusive
design is an alternative, though not well /consistently defined. At the same time, I noted, there
remains a culture of fear and sense of defensiveness around the subject. This has not helped as
lawsuits are mounting over digital access (and institutional secrecy in matters of access).
How are ways to counteract these measures? I concluded, arguing for a variety of co-design
practices—bringing disabled people into design fields, etcetera.
● Identified barrier: The “culture of fear” (about breaking the law, doing something “wrong,”
etcetera, as a barrier to moving forward)
● Identified opportunity: Opportunities for co-design, tap the creativity of disabled people
(more designers with disabilities trained/brought into practice as in WITH program)
2.3 Part Two: Small Group Query-Driven Discussions via Rotating Stations
2.3.1 Station 1. Inclusive Research. Identify opportunities and barriers for inclusive research
in your field—whether history/criticism, practice/research or other
Figure 7 Research opportunities discussion

Figure 8 Research opportunities documentation
The discussion recognised that many barriers could also be opportunities.

Opportunities:
● Organisational incentives
● Long-term goals: envisioning value
● Uniqueness: Identity
● Performance of assistive devices like hearing aids
● Empathy more than sympathy
● How can disciplines work together via inclusive design? Lots of opportunities for cross-
disciplinary research.
● Integration of inclusive design projects into the curriculum rather than isolated stand-alone
projects
● At the local government level, there is a lack of incentives around inclusive design. City Con
in London is offering a change in the right direction by adding incentives through
government.
● As educators working in design for social innovation, we need to help our students to
understand issues of liability. This is a highly regulated environment. How might our
curriculum support our students and allow them to produce work that can advance? Often
our curriculum doesn’t account for that.
● Opportunities around aesthetics. Some of the most powerful projects put aesthetics at the
forefront.
● As an educator, I feel we don’t talk enough about the people we are educating students to
design for.
● Opportunities for ML are interesting particularly around interface design. Paradigm
changing. How can ML move us toward design for one?
Barriers:
● The misconception that data might be enough is a barrier—that data will suffice instead of
bringing real people to the table. Dealing just with data allows designers to avoid dealing
with the nuance of lived experience around disability
● Lack of training at University leads to having to self-educate
● Inclusive design standards can lead to designer defensiveness which causes barriers to go
up.
● Unrealistic measurements of social values
● Acceptance or decline of charity
● Perceptions of aging
● Embodying these experiences easily
● Rate of abandonment
● Performance of assistive devices like hearing aids
● Dated welfare state
● Few academics have an interest in this topic in my country
● Ethical concerns. Need for training before engaging with disabled people
● Budget restrictions
● Lack of expertise around designing for inclusivity and the technical knowledge needed to
interpret the government regulations
● Privacy issues: what information are people willing to share?
● Availability of feedback for research projects
● Resistance to change
● There is a mistaken assumption that everyone can use technology
● Lack of defining inclusive design as part of a design career
● Practice and interface design. Companies go after government contracts. Lots of regulations
around access that are creating opportunities to address users with disabilities but a lot of
resentment. Some companies use inclusivity as a reason not to update things. Resistance to
change. Inclusion as a barrier and an opportunity
● There is a misconception that older adults are always vulnerable—like infants. This attitude
is a barrier that affects general perceptions of how we age. Having a mindset that we peak at
40 limits our ability to embrace a more fulfilling life as we age
● Lack of user buy-in
● The distance between researchers and end-users
2.3.2 Station 2. Inclusive Design Methods. List current inclusive design methods. Describe
problems and successes that you have experienced with these methods.
Figure 9 Inclusive design methods discussion

Figure 10 Inclusive design methods documentation
Problems:
● Filling out forms: bureaucracy
● How to achieve institutional buy-in
● Ethics and extensive paperwork
● Exclusion: calculation/estimation—good for persuading clients, too narrow needs to be
complemented by user research but often no funding is allowed to this.
● User observation involvement: lack of funding and time, the client wants answers tomorrow or they
won’t listen, difficulty recruiting more excluded groups.
● Motivation for awareness
● Role of the state?
● Simulation: can be limited and not welcomed by some communities
Successes:
● User Observations: useful but sometimes vague
● Timely and urgent discussion as design practice evolves
● Co-design processes in both school and studio setting
● Universal Design barriers vocalised for me for first time—have already experienced this in
reality
● Establishing trust—protecting rights of participants
● Experimental methods—engaging family members in the project
● Role-playing
● Colour/type legibility
● User testing
● Non-Universal Design methods?
● Educate clients about expectations
2.3.3 Station 3. Inclusive Practice. List voices/disciplines/reference points you currently

engage with in your inclusive practice. Who/what do you feel is currently missing?
Figure 11 Inclusive practice documentation
Current reference points:

● End user’s family/relatives
● Networks of professionals
● Project stakeholders
● Experts
● Social media (a biased reference point)
● Internal resources and reference points – people, stories and facilities
Missing reference points:

● Positive motivations rather than tick-the-box and bare minimum mentality (Inclusive Design
is not sexy, but it could be?)
● Research tools (limited and inaccessible)
● Books, guides, inclusion and exclusion case studies (effective info on how what we do affects
us)
● Access to networks of professionals – interdisciplinary input and perspectives
● End users (there is still a lot of voice and input missing from them), communities, children
● Knowledge, guidance on how/when to address Inclusive Design within the process
● Transition design and system design perspectives
● Social, cultural & global perspectives (e.g. culture-sensitive research methods and
approaches)
● Democracy, decolonisation, tokenism perspectives
● Race, gender and power perspectives
● Cognitive psychology
● Information and guidance on desirability?
Key issues raised:

● Apart from some usual suspects, the reference points could vary from one practice to
another - depending on the nature of the practice (research, product, policy, service,
etcetera), scale, client, timescale, and level of priority/proactiveness and familiarity of the
team leading the project.
● The client is a key factor - in practice, almost everything goes back to how much/little they
are interested, what their angle on inclusivity is if/why they care, and if/how inclusion sits as
strategic part of the brief.
● Inclusion suffers from ‘afterthought’ mentality and is mainly seen as ‘add-on’ in industry
briefs, hence direct impact on inclusion practices.
● Integration of principles, methods, and practices in the educational curriculum is crucial -
that’s where people first and foremost learn about inclusive practices.
2.3.4 Station 4. Networking Table

Names and sites of the study were shared (see attached participants list). We also discussed some of
the institutional “homes” for disability research and the barriers to learning/sharing information.
Some themes that emerged:
● Most people do not have a disability-specific academic background and only a few
encountered this subject in design school
● Design research projects seem to either identify “inclusive” strategies or not include
disability (some participants shared how disability issues had come up in projects not
otherwise labelled as such)
● Paths to entry are not always clear – participants mentioned not wanting to be “patronising
observer” or “outsider” / life experiences with disability (whether self or family/community)
had often shaped them but were not recognised as research
2.4 Part Three: Wrap-up Discussion. What have we missed in our discussion?
Key Points:
● E Guffey: Are we designing against each other? Cross-disability conflicts. Disability is a huge
field. A lot of the things that are helpful to blind people get in my way. We are often
designing against each other. I’m not sure how to solve that.
● S Red Wing: language and terminology issues can be a barrier. How knowledgeable are we
about terms that we throw around. People may not know what those words mean. We get
categorised under terms that don’t represent us. Build better language to address and share
our practices.
● Mac Hill: Inclusivity as afterthought/check box, problematic verses opportunity. Working in
the field of inclusivity often feels like an afterthought. A box that you check off. Make
something that is usable for people instead of just checking the box.
● Andrew Shea: What is the range and diversity of projects that people work on?
● Joe, practitioner: How designs are at odds, cases for the industry?
● Farnaz: Practice-based work, case-based versus critical discourse
● E. Guffey: “Design for One” - individual cases, but does this avoid bigger question? The
thrust right now is toward designing for an individual. Designing for one. How does this cycle
out to bigger questions. How do you design for one person’s problem without shutting
someone else out? This should also be part of the discussion.
● Joy: Data driven approach. My research that looks at data in the population tries to get at
this by trying to measure who would be including and excluding. Better for evaluation than
developing new ideas.
● E. Guffey: Kat Holmes who created the Microsoft toolkit is writing a book around exclusion.
She talks about inclusion verses exclusion in her new book: Mismatch. The mismatch
between disability and the larger world.
Final question from wrap-up: How do we want to move forward to continue this Conversation?
● Share specific studies and experiences.
● Invite everyone to join the Google Doc.
● Distil conversations and share insights.
3 References
Clarkson, John. (2003). Inclusive Design: Design for the Whole Population, Springer.
Center for Universal Design, North Carolina State University, “The Principles of Universal Design,” Version 2.0,
April 1, 1997.
Cong, H, Cardoso C, Cassim J, Keates S, Clarkson PJ Inclusive Design: reflections on design practice. University
of Cambridge UK CUED/C-EDC//R 118 (2002)
Greed, Clara. (2004). Designing a More Inclusive World, ed. S. Keates and J. Clarkson, Springer.
Guffey, Elizabeth. (2017). Designing Disability: Symbols, Spaces and Society, Bloomsbury.
Hamraie, Aimi. (2017). Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability, University of Minnesota
Press.
Iwarsson and A. Stahl. (2003). Accessibility, Usability and Universal Design—Positioning and Definition of
Concepts Describing Person-Environment Relationships, Disability and Rehabilitation 25, no. 2.
Mace, Ronald. (1985). Universal Design: Barrier Free Environments for Everyone, Designers West, November.
Mullick, Abir and Edward Steinfeld. (1997). Universal Design: What It Is and What It Isn’t, Innovation 16, no. 1.
Newell AF, Gregor P. (2000). User sensitive inclusive design: in search of a new paradigm. Proc. ACM
Conference on universal usability, November, Washington DC, pp 39-44
Pullin, Graham. (2009). Design Meets Disability, MIT Press.
Salmen, John. (1994). The Differences between Accessibility and Universal Design, Universal Design Newsletter
1, no. 7.
United Nations. (2015). World population ageing 2015. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population
Division, pp 1 - 164.
About the Authors:
Helen Armstrong is a design educator, author, and researcher who explores the
potential for emerging technology to make data more accessible to users with
impairments.
Elizabeth Guffey is a design historian and author of various publications, including

Designing Disability: Symbols, Spaces and Society. She is also founding editor of
Design and Culture.
Farnaz Nickpour is a human centred design researcher, educator and practitioner.

Her work explores critical and contemporary dimensions of design for inclusion. She
leads the Inclusive Design Research Group in the United Kingdom.
Bess Williamson is a historian who focuses on the intersection of design and social
movements of the 20th-21st centuries. Her book Accessible America: A History of
Disability and Design will be published in early 2019 from NYU Press.
Index of Conversation Facilitators
AGID Shana, 77 LINDH KARLSSON Monica, 68

AHMED Tanveer, 23 MAZÉ Ramia, 124
AKAM Yoko, 115 McENTEE Kate, 43
AKAMA Yoko, 77 MILTON Alex, 124
ALMEIDA Teresa, 15 MORRISEY Kellie, 15
ARMSTRONG Helen, 142 MULDER Ingrid, 124
BAILEY Paul, 29 MULDER Sander, 50
BAKKER Conny, 131 NICKPOUR Farnaz, 142
BALAAM Madeline, 15 NIMKULRAT Nithikul, 35
BARRY Barbara, 136 NORRIS Jane, 35
BOESS Stella, 50 O’ MURCHÚ Nora, 13
BRANDALISE Isabella, 43 O’MURCHU Nora, 136
CAMPS BANQUE Marta, 29 OLANDER Sissel, 77
DOUGLAS Michelle, 102 PATELLI Paolo, 115
Droogleever Fortuyn Irene, 115 PAWAR Aditya, 68
DURRANT Abigail, 13 PENNINGTON Sarah, 23
FASS John, 29 PRENDEVILLE Sharon, 13
FERREIRA Maria, 83 RICCI Donato, 115
FIT Liesbeth, 115 ROGAL Maria, 58
FRITSCH Jonas, 50 ROSENBAK Søren, 68
GUFFEY Elizabeth, 142 ROWAN Jaron, 29
GÜNTHER ANDERSEN Jon, 43 RYAN Annmarie, 102
HARLAND Robert, 92 SÁNCHEZ Raúl, 58
HEKKERT Paul, 131 SMEATON Alan, 136
HERNÁNDEZ Gabriela, 58 SØNDERGAARD Marie Louise Juul, 15
HOLLAND Donál, 124 SPELMAN Eamon, 92
HOMEWOOD Sarah, 15 SPRUCE John, 102
JAMSIN Ella, 131 STORNI Cristiano, 124
KARANA Elvin, 35 THAM Mathilda, 23
KELLIHER Aisling, 136 VAN DER WAARDE Karel, 92
KELLY Veronica, 92 VAZ Federico, 83
KIERNAN Louise, 102 VERHOEVEN Eva, 29
LEAHY Keelin, 13 WILLIAMSON Bess, 142
LENSKJOLD Tau, 77

9 781912 294367
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ISBN 978-1-912294-36-7

25–28 June 2018 Limerick, Ireland.

Cover and conference identity design by Piquant

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Book of DRS 2018 Conversations: Catalyst

ISBN 978-1-912294-36-7 (ebook)

Published by the Design Research Society

Design Research Society Secretariat

DRS Special Interest Groups

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Editorial: Conversations ................................................................................................................ i

Shifting Perspectives of Aesthetics ............................................................................................. 54

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* Corresponding author e-mail: talmeida@kth.se

This Conversation seeks to examine woman-centred design as a novel form of

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keywords; Women; gender; feminisms; technology design

1 Organising question(s) or provocation(s)

2 The DRS2018 Conversation session

Figure 4 Sketching and illustrating ideas during the design exercise

Figure 5 Woman-centred sensitivity training (left); Power-Positions (right)

About the Authors:

Teresa Almeida is a postdoc in Interaction Design at KTH Royal Institute of

Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard is a PhD candidate in Digital Design at Aarhus

Sarah Homewood is a PhD student at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Madeline Balaam is an Associate Professor in Interaction Design at KTH Royal

* Corresponding author e-mail: s.pennington@gold.ac.uk

Figure 1 Design and sexism: assembling a community of care

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Keywords: design, sexism, care, intersectional feminism

2 A Conversation about Design and Sexism

2.1 Set-up of the session and roles

Proposals for gender equality included:

About the Authors:

Sarah Pennington is an AHRC PhD candidate at Goldsmiths, University of London,

Figure 1 Conversation in a snug. Picture by John Fass

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Keywords: Design research; imagining; assembling; embodying

Figure 2 Embodiment Conversation seen from outside of the snug

Figure 3 Embodiment Conversation

Figure 5 Radical imaginary Conversation

About the Authors:

Keywords: More-than-human; anthropocene; new materiality; co-making; outside-

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Pre-Conversation provocations: included posting Material Sonic Fiction experiments on Soundcloud

Figure 2 Screenshots of Tweets aimed at stimulating a pre-Conversation discussion

2 The DRS2018 Conversation session

2.1 ‘The Materials opening address’

2.2 Co-presenter ‘Professor Stainless Steel’

Figure 5 Small group conversations on ‘What does it mean to listen to Materials?’

2.3 Materials conclude with final summing up…

2.4 What outcomes / insights and Critical reflections on the session

Figure 9 Session image Tweeted by Dr Elaine Igoe