Changing Systems From Within: Workarounds In Sociotechnical System Transformation,
2026
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Changing Systems From Within: Workarounds In Sociotechnical System Transformation, Tilda Berensson, Mia Hesselgren
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Systems are shaped by dominant mindsets that constrain which futures can be imagined or made possible. Supporting system transformation requires shifting temporal boundaries and revealing the hidden system logics. This study explores how design can contribute to understanding and reframing sociotechnical system change from within. In an empirical study conducted within a research consortium investigating the electrification of road freight transport, we, as design researchers, entered the system change as participants. Using a practice-oriented lens, we learned from riding in trucks, conducting contextual observations, and interviewing drivers and transport planners whose everyday work sustains the system. What is often portrayed …
Service Design In Practice,
2026
Royal College of Art, United Kingdom
Service Design In Practice, Qian Sun, Carolyn Runcie
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Service design has evolved from a niche practice focused on improving customer experience into a transdisciplinary discipline driving systemic and societal transformation. Drawing on an online survey of 82 practitioners with formal training (MA Service Design) and a validation panel with eight experts, this study examines the current state of practice, identifying evolving roles, competencies, and emerging trends. Findings show a shift from tools to mindsets, grounded in curiosity, adaptability, and ethical, human-centred values. Practitioners increasingly engage in strategic and organisational transformation, adopting life-centred and planetary perspectives while integrating generative AI into research, ideation, and prototyping. The study also highlights …
Lifting Threads, Piercing Fabrics, And Tracing Stories Through Stitches: An Embroidery Inquiry Into Analysing Empirical Material,
2026
Department of Health Science, Innovation and Design, Mälardalen University, Eskilstuna, Sweden
Lifting Threads, Piercing Fabrics, And Tracing Stories Through Stitches: An Embroidery Inquiry Into Analysing Empirical Material, Andreea Strineholm, Jennie Schaeffer
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper investigates how textile-based practices can open alternative modes of inquiry into research material. Through an exploratory workshop, a multidisciplinary group of creative professionals and design researchers engaged with photo-elicitation data by embroidering directly onto photographs printed on fabric and wallpaper. This tactile and embodied engagement enabled a slower, more reflective encounter with the material, where meaning emerged through touch, rhythm, and collective making rather than systematic analysis. By lifting threads, piercing fabrics, and tracing stories through stitches, participants enacted a form of textile thinking: one that performs epistemologically through material interaction. This approach situates embroidery as a methodological …
Critical Minerals In The Body: Towards Re-Use In Orthopaedic Healthcare,
2026
Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom
Critical Minerals In The Body: Towards Re-Use In Orthopaedic Healthcare, Anne Schiffer, Anthony P. Cooper
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Recent years have seen an acceleration in efforts to secure global supply chains of ‘critical minerals’ for defence, digital technologies, energy and transport. However, this rapidly evolving geopolitical context also impacts other sectors including healthcare which rely on some of the same resources. In orthopaedics, metals including titanium and medical grade stainless steel are used for implants. Supply chain disruption and rising costs therefore pose risks to product performance in the body, affordability and quality of patient care. Firstly, this paper shares findings from a content analysis of grey literature by leading orthopaedic manufactures. Secondly, it presents an illustrative re-use …
Sustained Memory For Public Design In Latin America,
2026
Northeastern University
Sustained Memory For Public Design In Latin America, Sofia Bosch Gomez, Luca Gaspari, Tina Rosado
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Public-sector innovation units across Latin America increasingly use design methodologies to reimagine policymaking and service delivery. However, fragmented and inconsistent documentation continues to limit institutional learning and sustained impact. This study maps how public design is practiced through a multilingual literature review of 84 sources (from an initial corpus of 700 sources) analyzed across English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. Coding findings at institutional, project, and individual levels reveals four critical patterns: inconsistent terminology hindering synthesis, uneven geographic coverage leaving vast regions underrepresented, superficial methodology documentation describing tools without unpacking adaptation or context, and striking temporal gaps with minimal longitudinal evidence …
Mapping Design’S Contribution To Policymaking: A Framework For Understanding Design’S Roles Across Policymaking Levels,
2026
Royal College of Art, United Kingdom
Mapping Design’S Contribution To Policymaking: A Framework For Understanding Design’S Roles Across Policymaking Levels, Amy Hyewon Lee
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper examines how design is conceptualised within design and policy literature in public-sector contexts, contributing to the expanding discourse on design for policy. Despite the growing adoption of design approaches in governance, robust evidence of their contribution remains limited. Using a qualitative meta-synthesis of 24 publications spanning design studies, policy design, and public administration, the study identifies four interrelated logics through which design is conceptualised in policymaking: systems learning and reflexivity; legitimacy and relational effectiveness; structuring and coherence; and adaptation and delivery. These logics are reframed as epistemic, relational, systemic, and operational dimensions of contributive capacity that describe how …
Speculative Co-Imagination: Participatory Visualization Informed By Design Fiction,
2026
Tsinghua University, China, People's Republic of
Speculative Co-Imagination: Participatory Visualization Informed By Design Fiction, Moshi Wang, Yining Gong, He Wang, Zhi Geng, Zhuojun Hu, Aiwen Ding
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper proposes speculative co-imagination, a design approach that integrates design fiction with participatory visualization to explore alternative futures. In the post-AI era, as automation replaces standardized tasks, designers increasingly focus on framing critical questions. Design fiction creates plausible yet fictional scenarios to provoke reflection, but often lacks audience engagement. By incorporating participatory visualization, users become co-creators of speculative narratives through data input and interaction. Drawing on the project Sky Protocol, which imagines the urban sky as an algorithmic visual platform, the paper demonstrates how user-driven data shapes collective perception. The practice is guided by a five-stage framework consisting of …
Design Education Leadership As Constellation Practice: Moving Beyond The Heroic Leader,
2026
Heriot-Watt University Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Design Education Leadership As Constellation Practice: Moving Beyond The Heroic Leader, Louise Valentine, Joanna Bletcher
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Design education is increasingly engaging with global challenges that extend beyond its traditional scope. This study adopts a constellation perspective to explore leadership as a pluralistic, relational, and interpretive practice suited to navigating complexity. A selective literature review spanning 25 years across design education, leadership, management, and research reveals six key provocations: systemic disruption, institutional constraints, commercial pressures, universalising narratives, dominant Western paradigms, and limited critical engagement. These highlight tensions that shape contemporary leadership discourse. The findings invite reflection on leadership as a capacity-building process, one that encourages abductive reasoning, material inquiry, evidentiary thinking, financial awareness, and ethical reflection through …
The Studio Model - Creating Space For Continuous Change,
2026
Princeton University, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
The Studio Model - Creating Space For Continuous Change, Kees Dorst
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Problems are not what they used to be. The complexity and scale of today’s challenges require a fundamentally different response from organisations. In this paper we will argue that they effectively need to move from ’problem-solving’ to a design approach. And that they need to move away from a ’one-off’ approach to innovation to creating interventions that move complex system to a better state. This requires a space and infrastructure for continuous innovation. For a model on how to achieve this, we turn to the practices of directors of creative agencies, as they shape environments for ongoing creation. The dynamics …
Co-Designing Equitable Engagement - Home Health Assessment In Healthcare Practice In Scotland,
2026
University of strathclyde, United Kingdom
Co-Designing Equitable Engagement - Home Health Assessment In Healthcare Practice In Scotland, Sonja Oliveira, Laura Maclean, Gráinne Mcgill, Carolina Recart
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper reflects upon the research process of co-designing equitable engagement within the healthcare sector. The research considers approaches to co-design as rooted within researchers sharing decision-making and shifting power not from themselves to participants, but amongst the research team itself. Co-design is mostly discussed as a process of academics and non-academics sharing the research design journey through participatory, inclusive and dialogical methods. This study considers how this process evolves within the research team itself, whereby known research project roles, responsibilities and remit are put to one side allowing difference, conflict and disagreement to be explored using design research methods. …
Mapping The Identity Design Process For Ai Co-Creativity: Interviews With 20 Graphic Designers,
2026
Abadir Academy, Catania, IT
Mapping The Identity Design Process For Ai Co-Creativity: Interviews With 20 Graphic Designers, Melani De Luca, Sebastian Berns
DRS Biennial Conference Series
With the increasing insertion of AI tools in creative work in recent years, concerns about misinterpreting creativity and rendering designers obsolete are growing. Moreover, progress in AI predominantly comes from computer science, often resulting in misconceptions about graphic design. In particular, when it comes to highly specialized practices like identity design, the use of AI often remains too generic and fails to reflect the diversity employed by designers in their practice, propagating the homogenization of trends in graphical artefacts. This paper aims to bridge the discourse and methodological gap between computer science and graphic design by presenting a detailed exploration …
Touchbox: A Research Toolkit Of Haptic Textile Cubes For Experiencing, Evaluating, And Co-Designing Tangible Remote Communication,
2026
DFKI - Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz GmbH, Germany
Touchbox: A Research Toolkit Of Haptic Textile Cubes For Experiencing, Evaluating, And Co-Designing Tangible Remote Communication, Hannah Friederike Fischer, Hanns-Peter Horn, Emil Woop
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The novel nature of tangible communication technologies and users’ lack of prior experience pose a significant challenge for engaging stakeholders in participative activities for non-verbal, tangible remote-communication devices. To address this gap, we developed a research toolkit consisting of wirelessly connected textile cubes capable of transmitting haptic signals such as motion, warmth, shape change, heartbeat, vibration and visual cues. This paper examines the potential of the toolkit as a methodological tool for identifying suitable input-output modalities and capturing user perceptions in the early stages of device development. Applied within a recent research project, the toolkit enabled participants to engage with …
Reimagining Cultural Heritage: Designing Game Jams As Learning Spaces,
2026
University College Copenhagen, Denmark, Denmark;
Aarhus University, Denmark
Reimagining Cultural Heritage: Designing Game Jams As Learning Spaces, Kim Holflod, Eva Eriksson
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Game jams have increasingly been adopted as innovative learning approaches to explore and address complex cultural and societal challenges across formal (e.g., university) and informal (e.g., GLAM) educational contexts. However, there remains a lack of pedagogical models and materials that align learning goals, activities, and assessments constructively for such events. Based on an analysis of four cultural game jams (2024-2025) involving 168 young people (aged 14-32) held in an art museum, this paper proposes a pedagogical design model grounded in systematisation and adaptability as core design principles. The model promotes hybrid and inclusive participation that connects young people, museum professionals, …
Understanding Food Waste Practices In Cross-Cultural Food Adaptation: The Case Of Chinese Students In The Uk,
2026
ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK;
School of Arts, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Understanding Food Waste Practices In Cross-Cultural Food Adaptation: The Case Of Chinese Students In The Uk, Xuecheng Dai, Emmanuel Tsekleves, Yekta Bakırlıoğlu
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Food waste is a global sustainability concern, yet its connection to cross-cultural adaptation remains underexplored. For international students, adapting to unfamiliar food environments involves cycles of trial, error and waste. Among Chinese students in the UK (one of the largest international student populations), cultural differences and short stays intensify these processes, resulting in distinct forms of waste. This study explores how food adaptation relates to waste among first-time Chinese students in the UK, attempting to reveal areas for design interventions. Seventeen students completed seven-day cultural probes, combining daily tasks with self-reflection on food practices. The analysis revealed various types of …
Countering Tokenism In E-Participation: Potentials Of Participatory Design In Democratic Policymaking,
2026
Politecnico di Milano
Countering Tokenism In E-Participation: Potentials Of Participatory Design In Democratic Policymaking, Jia Xin Liu, Marzia Mortati, Lucy Kimbell
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The implementation of e-participation platforms in policymaking has removed spatial and temporal barriers to citizen engagement; however, digitalisation also introduces new challenges which undermine democratic values and risk participation outcomes becoming symbolic and superficial. In this paper, we conducted a narrative literature review and examined barriers in e-participation through the framework of narrow and broad sense tokenism. Through a theoretical discussion, we position participatory design (PD) as a steward in addressing tokenistic participation, focusing on PD’s notion of creating carefully designed participation ‘spaces’ and ‘approaches’ that foster more democratic, deliberative, and inclusive forms of digital participation, thereby countering tokenistic tendencies.
Inter-Poly-Creation (Ipc): Unifying Mass Customisation And Co-Creation,
2026
Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Inter-Poly-Creation (Ipc): Unifying Mass Customisation And Co-Creation, Hoi Wah Chan, Christopher J. Parker, Darren J. Southee
DRS Biennial Conference Series
To innovate stakeholder value, designers, business strategists, and marketers rely on shared understanding to co-create value. While co-creation is established in strategic design, practitioners use related terms interchangeably, including co-creation and Mass Customisation (MC). While conflicting terminology enables stakeholder participation, resources and knowledge are fragmented, obstructing a unified practice and limiting shared understanding of value creation. This paper clarifies co-creation and MC terms, explains why practitioners interchange terminology, and examines how stakeholder value and disciplinary perspectives shape their usage. We analysed 828 academic papers across the design, business, and innovation disciplines, focusing on commonly confused lexicons. We reveal that designers, …
Build & Connect: Designing A Constructive, Participatory Physicalization Activity & Toolkit For Community Reflection,
2026
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Build & Connect: Designing A Constructive, Participatory Physicalization Activity & Toolkit For Community Reflection, Jenny Long, Caroline Gausden, Tara Capel, Uta Hinrichs
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper explores how slow design and care can inform reflective data physicalization practices. Physicalization has been recognized to widen participation in data exploration, but how can it serve communities with varied relationships to power, access, and exclusion? We explored this question through a case study that aimed at supporting a long-term community project through physicalization activities. We found that language around data and representation created barriers to participation, even when demonstrated through established physicalization activities. Centering design processes around participants’ reservations we arrived at Build & Connect, a constructive, participatory physicalization activity and toolkit which, based on the analogy …
Deconstructing The Designer-Genai Interaction In The Design Process: A Framework For Surfacing Micro-Dynamics And Agency,
2026
Design Department, Politecnico di Milano, Italy;Elisava, Barcelona School of Design and Engineering (UVic-UCC), Spain
Deconstructing The Designer-Genai Interaction In The Design Process: A Framework For Surfacing Micro-Dynamics And Agency, Fabio Antonio Figoli, Francesca Mattioli, Lucia Rampino
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper presents the Imagery Modes framework for analysing the designer–genAI interaction, complementing established metaphor-based accounts. Developed through Constructivist Grounded Theory and structured using Activity Theory, the framework focuses on the micro-dynamics of a single input–output exchange. It identifies four sequential sub-actions—crafting, processing, generating, and evaluating—that trace the relations between subjects (designer, genAI) and instruments (input, output). Central to the framework is the concept of “output imagery”, defined as the clarity with which the designer envisions the expected output prior to the interaction. Three modes of interaction are identified: Before, During, and After Imagery. The findings highlight the fluid and …
City Of Longevity: A Framework To Integrate Emerging Technologies And Participatory Design Into Urban Environments,
2026
Voice Italia, Italy
City Of Longevity: A Framework To Integrate Emerging Technologies And Participatory Design Into Urban Environments, Camilla Borghi, Beatrice Ferrarini, Valeria Leonardi, Xueying Xiong
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The City of Longevity (CoL) framework integrates emerging technologies, participatory methodologies, and systemic service design to mainstream longevity in urban planning. Anchored in equity and intergenerational engagement, CoL introduces an AI-driven decision-support platform that translates longevity evidence into actionable urban policy through participatory co-design, KPI setting, and systemic service design principles. Following the Longevity as a Service (LaaS) concept, CoL advances a phased, coordinated implementation architecture whose deliverables are tailored to each municipality's cultural heritage and civic identity. This architecture is embedded within a collaborative inter-city network. Methodologically, this work synthesises convergent evidence from exposome science, longevity-ready urbanism, participatory design, …
Restorative Retail: A Literature Review On Consumer Well-Being In The Retail Environment,
2026
Hasselt University, Belgium
Restorative Retail: A Literature Review On Consumer Well-Being In The Retail Environment, Katelijn Quartier
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In an era increasingly shaped by consumers’ search for meaningful and emotionally engaging experiences, the concept of restorative retail is emerging as a key paradigm in retail and service design. This semi-systematic literature review synthesizes theoretical and empirical research across marketing, environmental psychology, and architecture to examine how physical retail environments can promote psychological restoration and well-being. Drawing on foundational frameworks—Attention Restoration Theory (ART), biophilia, and servicescape theory—the review identifies central design principles such as nature integration, sensory harmony, and spatial openness that underpin restorative experiences. Although evidence supports the restorative potential of retail environments, empirical validation remains limited, particularly …
