Unlearning To Rest: Machine Unlearning As A Method Of Mitigating Design Fixation In Human-Ai Creative Collaboration,
2026
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Unlearning To Rest: Machine Unlearning As A Method Of Mitigating Design Fixation In Human-Ai Creative Collaboration, Martin Disley, Murad Khan
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Design fixation - the unconscious adherence to familiar design patterns that limit creative exploration - remains a challenge for creative practitioners despite advances in the development of creativity support tools. While recent work in design research has explored how large language models can augment human creativity, evidence suggests these systems may exacerbate fixation. We propose machine unlearning as a novel approach to mitigating fixation in human-AI creative collaboration. Unlike fine-tuning methods that expand a model's knowledge base, unlearning removes specific concepts to create productive gaps in the model's representational space. Responding to findings that semantic constraints on prompt composition alleviate …
Exploring Circular Economy Strategies In The Fashion Industry: A Comparative Case Study Analysis,
2026
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Exploring Circular Economy Strategies In The Fashion Industry: A Comparative Case Study Analysis, Gabriela Fabro Cardoso, Alessandra Spagnoli
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The transition toward a more circular economy is closely linked to the extent to which fashion brands incorporate sustainability principles into their retail communication, and operational practices. This paper explores circularity strategies within the fashion industry through a comparative case study analysis and data were collected through a systematic desktop review of publicly available sources. The analytical framework is structured around three key themes (Advocacy, Actions, and Transparency) through which brands engage consumers, implement circular operations, and communicate measurable impact specifically within the distribution and consumption phase. Additionally, the study discusses the role of Design as an enabler of circularity, …
Co-Designing Academic Archives: Design-Led Frameworks For Post-Digital Cultural Heritage,
2026
UNIDCOM/IADE, Unidade de Investigação em Design e Comunicação, Jardim António Augusto Simenta Mordido, 2 - 1885 Moscavide, Portugal
Co-Designing Academic Archives: Design-Led Frameworks For Post-Digital Cultural Heritage, Ana Luísa Marques, Juliana F. Duque, Filipe Figueiredo
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Building an information legacy requires method: identifying, selecting, and cataloguing information that can anchor future research demands a thorough archiving process, with accurate information access and rigorous preservation practice. Yet academic archives today must also respond to a broader cultural condition shaped by digital transformation and interdisciplinary collaboration. This paper discusses the development of an academic design archive as part of the wider GLAM ecosystem, where preservation, innovation and digital transformation coexist. It proposes a design-led framework that approaches archiving as a cultural and participatory process. Through literature review and institutional reflection, the study highlights the archive’s dual role: collecting …
From Appraisal To Affect: Designing A Playful Activity For Social Emotional Learning Among Children,
2026
Tata Consutancy Services Ltd, Pune, India
From Appraisal To Affect: Designing A Playful Activity For Social Emotional Learning Among Children, Jonathan Sawian, Aditi Sharma
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The National Education Policy of India (2020) states that Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is essential towards student’s holistic development. While existing curricula provide structured guidance and learning, they often lack playful and participatory elements to engage children in the learning process. This paper describes the design and evaluation of a non-digital, co-operative and playful activity called Bhavna Chakra (Wheel of Emotions) which aims to teach children about emotional awareness using Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions. The study proposes a design framework based on cognitive appraisal theory, narrative structure and social play. A within-subjects study with 40 students (ages 11–12) from low …
Material Agents At Work In Alternative Food Networks,
2026
Istanbul Technical University
Material Agents At Work In Alternative Food Networks, Cagri G. Varli, Stefano Maffei
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Despite growing interest in sustainable food systems, their material dimension as active design agents (artefacts and infrastructures) remains largely unrecognized. This study challenges the positioning of packaging and distribution tools as passive elements, repositioning them as entities that shape the ongoing negotiation of ethics, responsibility, and co-dependence within food systems. Drawing on interviews, thing ethnography, and relational mapping across two alternative food network case studies, the study examines the roles of these material agents. The findings show that material artefacts contribute to the organization of care, responsibility, and continuity across both pragmatic and symbolic dimensions of food networks. Differences in …
Drawing In The Minor Key: An Approach For Multi-Actor Designing For Societal Transformation,
2026
Eindhoven University of Technology;
Drawing in the minor key
Drawing In The Minor Key: An Approach For Multi-Actor Designing For Societal Transformation, Caroline Hummels
DRS Biennial Conference Series
As a society, we are confronted with polycrisis. An epistemic shift, that means shifting our way of knowing and changing our ways of looking at complex societal issues, is necessary to be able to transform our practices. Tim Ingold offers such an epistemic shift through the concept of ‘minor key’, fostering open-endedness, imagination, and experimentation. Designing for transformation in the minor key requires different forms of co-creating and communicating. In contrast to a major key, closed style of visualising, minor key drawing might fit, due to its potential for imperfection, open-endedness and imagination. In this pictorial, I’ll reflect on a …
Efficiency And Empathy: Integrating Ai Into User Research In An Undergraduate Ux Design Course,
2026
Central Connecticut State Universtiy, United States of America
Efficiency And Empathy: Integrating Ai Into User Research In An Undergraduate Ux Design Course, Nan Hu
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The integration of AI into UX design presents both opportunities and challenges for UX education-how to leverage AI’s efficiency while developing students’ human skills. This pilot study examines LLMs as an analytical AI co-pilot in undergraduate user research. Students (N=17) conducted two cycles of user research: one using traditional methods, and another with Claude-assisted analysis. Findings show 14 (82%) of students perceived the Claude-assisted approach as faster in synthesizing data and extracting insights. However, the results also reveal a trade-off: AI's efficiency may reduce empathy-building, with 6 (35%) students reporting diminished user connection. This research illuminates the inherent tension in …
Cianalas: How Scottish Dementia Friendly Communities Shaped Design For Wellbeing Research,
2026
Heriot-Watt University
Cianalas: How Scottish Dementia Friendly Communities Shaped Design For Wellbeing Research, Lucy Robertson, Christopher Sze Chong Lim
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper reflects on how two dementia-friendly communities (DFCs) in Scotland shaped participatory research exploring interactive textiles for wellbeing. Drawing on two practice-based studies in Scotland, study 1 which was based in the Outer Hebrides and the study 2 based in both the Outer Hebrides and East Lothian; it explores how place, geography, culture, and community influence participation and sense-making. Using Research through Design (RtD) and person-centred methods, both projects engaged participants using or making interactive textiles. Comparing the two locations shows that the remoteness of the Hebrides, the Gaelic language, the historical textile industry and the surrounding environments fostered …
Collective Handiness In Prospective Design: Philosophical Musings On A Serious Play Workshop On Articulation Work,
2026
Federal University of Technology Paraná (UTFPR), Brazil
Collective Handiness In Prospective Design: Philosophical Musings On A Serious Play Workshop On Articulation Work, Polyana Andrade Tavares, Rodrigo Freese Gonzatto, Frederick M.C. Van Amstel
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Building on the German philosopher Heidegger, design philosophy has historically dealt with handiness (zuhandenheit/vorhandenheit) as an ontological relationship between an individual, a technology, and an artificial world. Such handiness conceptualization does not account for the social accumulation of work necessary to bring technology ready-to-specific-hands. Building on the work of Brazilian philosopher Vieira Pinto, this investigation foregrounds the collective aspect of handiness to account for the articulation work behind a new design philosophy program, prospective design. This program embraces philosophy through design; therefore, this investigation includes a description of a stakeholder mapping workshop in which serious play was used to develop …
Territorial Quest | A Phygital Urban Game For Public Design Education,
2026
Università di Parma, Italy
Territorial Quest | A Phygital Urban Game For Public Design Education, Leonardo Moiso
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Design education increasingly unfolds across studio, city and digital platforms, yet these environments are rarely orchestrated as coherent learning ecologies. This paper presents Territorial Quest, a location-aware, game-based activity embedded in a master’s level systemic and service design studio. The intervention turns urban exploration into a structured, data-driven process: student teams investigate different neighbourhoods, collect and categorise contextual data through shared digital tools, and participate in a lightweight scoring system that makes fieldwork visible and comparable. Using a research-through-design and design-based approach, the study combines questionnaires, digital trace data and qualitative feedback to examine how Territorial Quest shapes learning. Findings …
Framing Data Choices: How Pre-Donation Exploration Designs Influence Data Donation Behavior And Decision-Making,
2026
Institute of Design (ID), Illinois Institute of Technology, United States of America
Framing Data Choices: How Pre-Donation Exploration Designs Influence Data Donation Behavior And Decision-Making, Zeya Chen, Zach Pino, Ruth Schmidt
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Data donation, an emerging user-centric data collection method for public sector research, faces a gap between participant willingness and actual donation. This suggests a design absence in practice: while promoted as "donor-centered" with technical and regulational advances, a design perspective on how data choices are presented and intervene on individual behaviors remain underexplored. In this paper, we focus on pre-donation data exploration, a key stage for adequately and meaningful informed participation. Through a real-world data donation study (N=24), we evaluated three data exploration interventions (self-focused, social comparison, collective-only). Findings show choice framing impacts donation participation. The "social comparison" design (87.5%) …
Design For Coastal Futures: Rethinking Space And Time With A More-Than-Human And Transcultural Lens.,
2026
ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Design For Coastal Futures: Rethinking Space And Time With A More-Than-Human And Transcultural Lens., Serena Pollastri, Juan Montalvan Lume, Louise Mullagh, Suzana Ilic
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Amid the intensifying challenges of climate change, there is an emerging consensus within coastal academic and practitioner networks on the importance of integrating design led-approaches that enhance resilience and foster the long-term adaptation for coastal communities. However, coastal environments present peculiar contexts for design actions, as the movement of water consistently challenges the boundaries between water and land, along with the relational interactions between human and non-human communities—both in cyclical and unpredictable ways. Drawing from the authors’ experiences in tidal coastal and estuarine areas across diverse geographies, this article proposes ways to cultivate design’s response-ability (Haraway, 2016) to the more-than-human …
A Messy Substance: Mediating The Stigma And Lived Experience Of Endometriosis Through Participatory Design,
2026
SDSI - Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree - Service Design Strategies and Innovations (Art Academy of Latvia, University of Lapland and Estonian Academy of Arts)
A Messy Substance: Mediating The Stigma And Lived Experience Of Endometriosis Through Participatory Design, Carolina Vaz-Pires, Ricardo Melo
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Endometriosis is a chronic condition often surrounded by taboo, silence, and misunderstanding. Although diagnostic uncertainty and epistemic tensions shape endometriosis care, little is known about how design can address the communicative and relational gaps between patients and gynaecologists. This article investigates how participatory and speculative design can support communication between these groups. Using a Research through Design approach, three co-design workshops were conducted with six individuals with endometriosis and five doctors. Participants created analogue artefacts including empathy maps, body maps, clay representations, written narratives, speculative futures and collective posters that materialised embodied pain, emotional burden and clinical perspectives. The workshops …
Towards Positional Citizenship: Designing For The More-Than-Human Political,
2026
TU Delft, IDE Faculty, Human Centred Design Department, Netherlands, The
Towards Positional Citizenship: Designing For The More-Than-Human Political, Vanessa Monna, Abhigyan Singh, Natalia Romero Herrera
DRS Biennial Conference Series
“We have never been modern” wrote Bruno Latour, proposing that the dualism between nature and society has represented a convenient fiction. If humans have never genuinely stood apart, what happens to one of its most anthropocentric fabrications, citizenship? Conventionally a marker of political agency, citizenship determines who can speak, act, and belong. This conceptualisation excludes the multiple more-than-human agents shaping collective experiences. Building upon Plessner’s concept of positionality, the paper introduces “Positional Citizenship” to transcend the Cartesian divide between humans and more-than-humans, reshaping the political as a relational space of co-presence. Building on this shift, design becomes a practice of …
Exploring Embodiment’S Impact On Autonomy And Agency In Behavioral Design,
2026
Institute of Design, Illinois Tech, United States of America
Exploring Embodiment’S Impact On Autonomy And Agency In Behavioral Design, Ruth Schmidt
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The field of behavioral design uses insight into humans’ cognitive tendencies to help people make better, more rational choices. Yet individuals’ perceptions of what seems rational—let alone viable, or even conceivable—are not universally shared and are often informed by their embodiment as much as cognition. For example, fear of being scolded can inhibit overweight or obese individuals from seeking preventive healthcare, people with ‘invisible’ disabilities may feel pressured to pass as able-bodied to fit in, and Black individuals may avoid ordinary activities likely to prompt ‘birding while Black’ confrontations. Depicting cognition as the single site of judgment and decision-making therefore …
Data And The Changing Landscape Of Architectural Intelligence,
2026
Harvard Graduate School of Design, United States of America
Data And The Changing Landscape Of Architectural Intelligence, Elizabeth Bowie Christoforetti, Andrew Witt
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The paper addresses emerging and potential changes to the core expertise and structural frameworks of architectural practice in an era of human-machine collaboration and transdisciplinary design, utilizing history and theory to situate the current condition of the profession and its socio-technical infrastructure. The role and relationships defining the architect within society are dissected in light of practical uses of artificial intelligence, highlighting the rapidly evolving ways in which our relationships with site, construction, collaborators, and even the fundamental DNA of the building as an artifact are shifting in the transition from digitization to digitalization. Activities surrounding data collection, classification, process …
The Parliament Of Things: Shape-Changing Materials As Amplifiers Of Interspecies Relation Design,
2026
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
The Parliament Of Things: Shape-Changing Materials As Amplifiers Of Interspecies Relation Design, Yi Sui, Beatrice Bianco, Marinella Ferrara
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper explores shape-changing materials as agents of material diplomacy within More-than-Human Design. Drawing from Latour’s Parliament of Things, posthumanism, and new materialism, it investigates how responsive materials mediate ecological and interspecies relations. Through a multiple-case study approach, ten design projects are analyzed using a five-dimensional framework—environmental attunement, ecological flourishing, expressive vitality, co-existence and augmentation, and relational mediation. The analysis explores how these materials can perform communicative and political roles, positioning design as a diplomatic practice that negotiates shared concerns among species, technologies, and environments. It attempts to question extractivist models, support ecological repair, and cultivate forms of interspecies attentiveness. …
Design For Healthy Ageing: Developing And Applying A Resource Model,
2026
Jiangnan University
Design For Healthy Ageing: Developing And Applying A Resource Model, Yumei Dong, Hua Dong, Tingting Wang, Richard H. M. Goossens
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The sustainable development of an ageing society necessitates active participation of older people, requiring effective integration of their individual and collective resources into design. However, designers’ understanding of older people’s resources is rather limited. This study aims to develop a conceptual model of older people’s resources to support design for healthy ageing. Through literature review and interviews with 19 recently retired Dutch seniors, twelve resource types were identified, categorised into six dimensions: practical, emotional, intellectual, social, cultural, and time. These categories were synthesised into a Diamond Model of Resources. The framework, encompassing both resource categories and the Diamond Model, was …
Weaving Visual Language: Encoding Gaelic In Tartan Length To Facilitate Interaction With Endangered Languages,
2026
University of St Andrews, United Kingdom
Weaving Visual Language: Encoding Gaelic In Tartan Length To Facilitate Interaction With Endangered Languages, Emmie Drummond, Dr Loraine Clarke, Miriam Sturdee, Freya Macleod
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This project reimagines tartan as a data-physicalization of Scots Gaelic. Extending ‘Radical Gaels’, a psycho-geographic soundscape that maps the identity, geographies and material history of Contemporary Gaels. Weaving Visual Language translates Scots waulking songs and geographies through cryptographic mapping to weave structure, using a Python-based binary matrix encoding system, illustrating the loss of Gaelic oral traditions. The resulting textiles act as linguistic archives and objects of cultural dissent. The project proposes a framework for museums to engage audiences through preserving information within the artefact itself, rather than exterior labelling. Theoretically, this work develops the idea of ‘culturally constrained physicalization’, where …
Digital Platform To Foster Social Engagement For The Visually Impaired,
2026
Statement University of São Paulo - UNESP, Brazil
Digital Platform To Foster Social Engagement For The Visually Impaired, Mônica Moura, Cristina Portugal, Márcio Guimarães
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper details the development and impact of the "Lembrei de Você" (I Remembered You) project, an inclusive design initiative that created a digital platform to combat loneliness and promote autonomy among the visually impaired, especially the elderly, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Using participatory methods, the research led to the creation of a platform that manages and distributes audio messages through a solidarity network of readers and listeners. The study describes the design process, from accessibility requirements to implementation using WordPress. Results show the platform successfully optimized project logistics and fostered an inclusive digital environment, enhancing social interaction …
