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Growing Pains Of Sustainability: Scale, Care, And Counter-Infrastructures, Angela Ka Ki Lee Jun 2026

Growing Pains Of Sustainability: Scale, Care, And Counter-Infrastructures, Angela Ka Ki Lee

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Sustainability transitions are marked by growing pains: tensions between planetary and local scales, global urgency and lived experience. This paper argues that techno-centric, metric-driven, and scalable approaches obscure inequalities, conceal the labour of maintenance, and overlook affective dimensions. It proposes a counter-infrastructural approach that understands sustainability as emerging through infrastructural, ecological, temporal, embodied, and relational dynamics. Drawing on interdisciplinary theory, participatory workshops, and experiential experiments, the study shows how process-oriented practices can reconnect individuals to energy systems. Bioregional thinking, community-led initiatives, repair and maintenance, and sensory engagement are explored as alternatives that foreground resilience and interdependence. Through lenses of scale, …

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New Agenda For Inclusive Design, Hua Dong, Abdusselam Selami Cifter, Stella Boess, Farnaz Nickpour, Yumei Dong, Weining Ning Jun 2026

New Agenda For Inclusive Design, Hua Dong, Abdusselam Selami Cifter, Stella Boess, Farnaz Nickpour, Yumei Dong, Weining Ning

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The Inclusive Design Special Interest Group of the Design Research Society (InclusiveSIG - with Professor Hua Dong as its Convenor, and Dr Weining Ning as its co-convenor) organised the “New Agenda for Inclusive Design” Track for DRS2026. The Track has attracted more than 50 submissions from 16 countries. In total 19 papers were selected after blind peer-review, and three further papers added, forming four sessions: 1) Rethinking Inclusive Design; 2) Studying Older People: Theories and Methods; 3) Neurodivergent Groups: Adults and Children; 4) Assessing Accessibility and Inclusion. New agenda and trends include “relations as inclusion”, “aesthetics as a driver for …

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Situating Design Research: Unique Perspectives And Practices Of Design Research Locally Grounded, Euan Winton, Kirstie Jamieson, Arno Verhoven Jun 2026

Situating Design Research: Unique Perspectives And Practices Of Design Research Locally Grounded, Euan Winton, Kirstie Jamieson, Arno Verhoven

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This theme track is new to DRS2026 and situates design research in the local environment, providing cases and examples of design research being undertaken that are locally situated and relational to place. This theme track provides an opportunity for researchers contributing new insights to our research community based on the unique opportunities presented by the local context, whether that is related to climate, culture, geography, economics, or institutional. The emphasis on this theme is to learn from locally situated cases of design research through projects undertaken “in situ” that demonstrate a sensitivity and understanding of the local context in which …

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Habitability In Extreme Environments: A Participatory Design Approach To Assess Wellbeing., Efcharis Gourounti, Marianthi Liapi, Konstantinos-Alketas Oungrinis Jun 2026

Habitability In Extreme Environments: A Participatory Design Approach To Assess Wellbeing., Efcharis Gourounti, Marianthi Liapi, Konstantinos-Alketas Oungrinis

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper investigates habitability in extreme environment habitats by examining how occupants contribute to the evolution of functional infrastructures into human-centered environments that support wellbeing. Through fieldwork at the Bulgarian Antarctic Base (BAB), the study combines architectural on-site observations with interviews, questionnaires, and participatory workshops. Three trends emerged from the combined material, highlighting the importance of regulating social interaction through semi-private spaces, the value of flexible spatial organization across work and leisure, and the role of personalization in supporting emotional stability, helping occupants claim the base as a lived habitat over time. By using occupants’ evaluations and spatial adaptations as …

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Material In Transition: Rethinking The Value Of British Wool In Sustainable And Circular Futures, Veronika Kapsali, Nicci James Jun 2026

Material In Transition: Rethinking The Value Of British Wool In Sustainable And Circular Futures, Veronika Kapsali, Nicci James

DRS Biennial Conference Series

British wool (BW), once central to the UK economy, is now economically marginal yet ecologically regenerative, revealing deep tensions between sustainability rhetoric and material practice. This paper reframes BW as a transitional material, whose value, meaning, and use are shifting across ecological, infrastructural, and discursive systems. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 35 stakeholders across the BW supply chain, combined with policy and industry analysis, the study applies reflexive thematic analysis to examine how value is produced, diminished, and potentially restored. these findings are situated within new materialist and posthuman theory and emerging sustainability regulation (ESPR and Digital Product Passports), the …

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Asymmetric Vr Design To Support Connected Care For Older Adults With Amd, Soyoun Jang, Huijia Huang, Bryce E. Hanna, Xinran Wang, Susan Primo, Michael Nitsche Jun 2026

Asymmetric Vr Design To Support Connected Care For Older Adults With Amd, Soyoun Jang, Huijia Huang, Bryce E. Hanna, Xinran Wang, Susan Primo, Michael Nitsche

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Immersive technologies can assist older adults with visual impairments, but they require meaningful, context-specific design. In collaboration with an eye care provider, we present Macular Mailbox, an at-home Virtual Reality (VR) system that connects clinicians and family members in supporting older adults with Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD). The prototype combines Preferred Retinal Locus (PRL) vision training and monitoring (patient–clinician) with playful acts of making and sharing artefacts (patient–family) designed to foster emotional engagement and self-efficacy. Within an asymmetric VR environment, participants hold distinct yet interdependent roles that contribute to a shared outcome: connected care. We conclude by outlining directions for …

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Should Sustainability Come Second? Artifact Analysis Toward More Positive Outcomes Through Design, Michael C. Kowalski, Jungkyoon Yoon Jun 2026

Should Sustainability Come Second? Artifact Analysis Toward More Positive Outcomes Through Design, Michael C. Kowalski, Jungkyoon Yoon

DRS Biennial Conference Series

While academic research on design for sustainability and design for subjective well-being has grown for decades, application of these perspectives in professional practice remains underdeveloped. Professional designers often struggle to translate these objectives into their work due to conflicting demands, including tight project timelines, cost targets, and manufacturing constraints. Tools and methods developed in academic contexts have faced criticism for failing to consider these practical concerns, resulting in limited professional adoption. Studies indicate professional designers could benefit from concrete case-studies for existing products and systems that clearly demonstrate both processes and outcomes. This paper addresses this need through an artifact-analysis …

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Embracing Complexity: Reimagining Design For Health Education, Stephen Reay, Ivana Nakarada-Kordic, Cassie Khoo Jun 2026

Embracing Complexity: Reimagining Design For Health Education, Stephen Reay, Ivana Nakarada-Kordic, Cassie Khoo

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design for health (D4H) has emerged as its own context for practice, with a corresponding rise in universities offering courses and activities that implement D4H projects in various ways. For the most part, these tend to expose design students to health-related contexts and problems or facilitate interdisciplinary collaborative opportunities. This paper presents an overview of 10 years of D4H curriculum interventions in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. This culminated in the justification and development of a four-paper D4H minor as a strategic offering within a Bachelor of Design programme. The paper presents the theoretical and practical underpinnings of the D4H minor, …

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Embedding Design Capability In Growth-Oriented Smes In China: A Multiple-Case Study, Shiyi Li Jun 2026

Embedding Design Capability In Growth-Oriented Smes In China: A Multiple-Case Study, Shiyi Li

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This multi-case study of seven Chinese growth-oriented manufacturing SMEs explores how design capability is integrated and stably embedded within organizational innovation systems. Through analysing the dynamic process of sensing-seizing-reconfiguring and integrating the RPV framework, four stable embedding patterns are identified: Supporting, Rooted, Cognitive, and Instrumental. Findings reveal that embedding patterns are jointly determined by value creation logic, value chain position, resource conditions, and managerial cognition. Design capability embedding is not a linear maturity process but depends on continuous dynamic adaptation and organizational adjustment. Market validation feedback loops linking design investment to business outcomes play a crucial role in sustaining embedding …

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Cut It Out: Reframing Hand Paper-Ripping As A Collage Method For Wellbeing And Care, Danielle Vaughan Jun 2026

Cut It Out: Reframing Hand Paper-Ripping As A Collage Method For Wellbeing And Care, Danielle Vaughan

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Hand-based paper-ripping collage-making (PRCM) promotes wellbeing through circular engagement with re-purposed papers as transitional materials, demonstrating a threephased framework (apprehension, confidence, co-creation) that is potentially transferable to bio-based materials and other substrates. The study introduces paperpeutic, a neologistic term describing the therapeutic value arising from mindful, improvisational engagement with manual ripping in PRCM contexts, drawing inspiration from Japanese Chigiri-e and Western collage traditions. The practice fosters mindfulness, creativity, and community through direct, hands-on engagement, providing an accessible alternative to the abstraction and precision of digital design. Salvaged paper is reframed as an active collaborator in the processes of meaning-making and …

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Care Through Ambiguity: Findings From Participatory Health Design, Xiran Mi, Kin Wai Michael Siu, Shujie Xie Jun 2026

Care Through Ambiguity: Findings From Participatory Health Design, Xiran Mi, Kin Wai Michael Siu, Shujie Xie

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores how ambiguity can function as a condition for care in participatory health design. Through patient-centred interviews and a participatory workshop, it examines how uncertainty and emergent understanding shape the relational and ethical dimensions of care. The study finds that ambiguity enables participants to remain responsive within unequal structures and to negotiate care through hesitation, metaphor, and embodied expression, highlighting how relational sensitivity operates within asymmetrical power relations. Care is reframed not as a stable act of giving, but as a social process of continual adjustment and mutual dependency. By embracing indeterminacy in design practice, this research shows …

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Navigating Ai In Design Leadership: Insights On Emerging Competencies And Cultural Challenges In China, Xuan Gao, Yekta Bakırlıoğlu Jun 2026

Navigating Ai In Design Leadership: Insights On Emerging Competencies And Cultural Challenges In China, Xuan Gao, Yekta Bakırlıoğlu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores current challenges of and competencies in design education through an industry lens, highlighting both the opportunities and obstacles arising from the growing integration of AI. Drawing on the interviews with design leaders, scholars and students, the findings reveal diverse perspectives and challenges related to AI, including four main aspects: (1) AI can serve as an assistive tool in design practice; (2) AI creates new requirements and needs for designer roles and affects job displacement; (3) AI can improve work efficiency and reshape organisational structures; and (4) AI raises ethical issues such as plagiarism. Moreover, two AI-related cultural …

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From Passive List To Active Script: Menu Design As A Strategic Agent For Restaurant Sustainability Transformation, Huiyi Zhang, Keren Zhang, Yijia Jiang, Kin Wai Michael Siu Jun 2026

From Passive List To Active Script: Menu Design As A Strategic Agent For Restaurant Sustainability Transformation, Huiyi Zhang, Keren Zhang, Yijia Jiang, Kin Wai Michael Siu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Restaurants face the challenge of lacking systematic integration pathways in their sustainability transition (ST), struggling to fully incorporate sustainable principles throughout their operational systems. In this context, menu design demonstrates significant potential as a strategic tool to drive comprehensive ST. This study employs Goffman's dramaturgical theory to conceptualize restaurants as "social theaters," examining how menus function as "scripts" to systematically drive ST. Through analysis of eight representative cases, the research: 1) develops an integrated framework comprising three strategic dimensions, including nine key design intervention tactics that provide concrete implementation pathways for restaurant ST; 2) reveals three agency mechanisms of menus, …

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Care-Full Co-Production — An Aotearoa Case Study, Anjuli Clare, Anna Brown Jun 2026

Care-Full Co-Production — An Aotearoa Case Study, Anjuli Clare, Anna Brown

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Embedding an ‘ethics of care’ into relational and collaborative design research practices benefits from a reflexive and reflective iterative approach. Through this process new ways of elevating multiple forms of knowing are developed, power asymmetries are disrupted, and inclusivity can be expanded. While care may often be included in our mindsets and principles for design research, care itself is often invisible or under talked about. Using the example of our project — Care-full Co-production — a practical perspective on co-producing research is taken. Through a case study of women’s health in Aotearoa New Zealand, this perspective highlights the everyday acts …

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From Tool-First To Intention-First Pedagogy: A Framework For Evaluating And Selecting Empathy Tools In Design Education, Akanksha Singh, Ilya Fridman, Purba Joshi, Daphne Flynn Jun 2026

From Tool-First To Intention-First Pedagogy: A Framework For Evaluating And Selecting Empathy Tools In Design Education, Akanksha Singh, Ilya Fridman, Purba Joshi, Daphne Flynn

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design education has embraced empathy, developing a diverse repository of tools and methods for cultivating empathic engagement. Yet guidance on how or why these tools should be selected remains limited. Current practices often conflate availability with appropriateness, with tools chosen based on familiarity or convenience rather than empathic fit or contextual suitability. This leads to shallow engagement, limiting the empathic understanding needed for effective design outcomes. This paper proposes a criteria-based framework for evaluating empathy tools, grounded in psychological theory and established empathic design frameworks. The proposed criteria offers a structured lens to assess how tools operate, for whom, and …

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Reframing Design Success: Care As A Chain Of Responses, Ruiqi Yao, Ziwei Lin, Yiying Wu Jun 2026

Reframing Design Success: Care As A Chain Of Responses, Ruiqi Yao, Ziwei Lin, Yiying Wu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper emerges from a reflection on what counts as success in design. We examine how the relational qualities of care can guide design practice, approaching design as a continuous and socially embedded practice of responsiveness. Drawing on two projects in China, an age-friendly digital service initiative and a community governance intervention, we analyse how design unfolded through incremental adjustments, shared responsibilities, and situated betterments. Across both contexts, value developed through chains of responsiveness involving institutional uptake, resident participation, and evolving collaborations that extended the influence of the work beyond the designers’ immediate involvement. By bringing design into dialogue with …

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Extending Futures Literacy To Speech Scientists And Technologists, Sjuul Bos, Simone Ashby, Julian Hanna Jun 2026

Extending Futures Literacy To Speech Scientists And Technologists, Sjuul Bos, Simone Ashby, Julian Hanna

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As speech technologies make rapid strides, facilitating multi-tasking, workflow automation, and cross-cultural collaboration, attention to the adverse effects of such technologies (e.g., legacy bias and inequities) continues to lag, exposing the need for non-designers, such as speech scientists and technologists, to critically assess the ethical implications of their work. In this paper, we present the art-based futuring methods used in a speech technology summer school we co-organized for guiding students in exploring the unintended consequences of speech technology outputs. By sharing our methods and pedagogical insights, we aim to help educators promote discussions on themes like fairness and inclusivity and …

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Transitional Materials And Collaborative Craft: European–Indonesian Design Practices From The Design Matters Lab Programme Toward A Resilient Future, Xingyu Tao, Samantha Vettese Jun 2026

Transitional Materials And Collaborative Craft: European–Indonesian Design Practices From The Design Matters Lab Programme Toward A Resilient Future, Xingyu Tao, Samantha Vettese

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design Matters Lab (DML) was a collaborative design programme that brought together ten emerging designers from Europe and Indonesia for an online and in-person design residency in Bandung, Indonesia. This paper explores the concepts, methods, and outcomes of DML, offering a potential blueprint for small-sized international businesses seeking to integrate crafting techniques and local, sustainable materials into their manufacturing processes. The project also proposes a methodology for teaching sustainability in design through meaningful environmental engagement rooted in local collaboration and applied practice. It emphasises the importance of working with local communities and using locally available waste and bio- materials. The …

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The Paradox Of Richness: A Discourse-Centered Framework For Equitable Visualization, Fangbo Wu, Canyu Jiang, Yanlin Yin, Yonghong Liu Jun 2026

The Paradox Of Richness: A Discourse-Centered Framework For Equitable Visualization, Fangbo Wu, Canyu Jiang, Yanlin Yin, Yonghong Liu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The proliferation of new technologies, notably GenAI, alongside augmented and virtual reality, has produced a paradoxical situation in visualization practice: while offering unprecedented multimodal richness, their complexity erects new barriers to entry, thereby exacerbating inequality and undermining design's democratic promise. Although research at the micro-level of visualization techniques abounds, a critical and systematic methodology for addressing the inherent power dynamics and design justice issues from meso- and macro-perspectives remains conspicuously absent. This paper intervenes by adapting an analytical framework from Critical Discourse Analysis to embed design justice within visualization practice. We propose a four-layer framework—Culture, Context, Meaning, and Expression (CCME)—as …

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Care-Full Systems: Applying Tronto’S Ethics Of Care Into Systemic Design Processes, Maud Gruyters, Kaat Kenis, Ivo Dewit, Alexis Jacoby Jun 2026

Care-Full Systems: Applying Tronto’S Ethics Of Care Into Systemic Design Processes, Maud Gruyters, Kaat Kenis, Ivo Dewit, Alexis Jacoby

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores how care ethics, particularly Joan Tronto’s five dimensions of care, can enrich systemic design practices by embedding ethical and political reflections into co-design processes. The paper uses Tronto's framework as an ethical guide through the systemic design methodology of Jones and Van Ael and a retrospective case study involving children with incarcerated parents. It highlights how care ethics can guide designers in navigating complex relational dynamics, redistributing power, and fostering trust and responsiveness in co-creative processes. The study emphasizes the importance of designer positionality, expectation management, and co-ownership, especially when working with vulnerable groups. Ultimately, it proposes …

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Scaffolding Oceans Futures: Design For Embedded, Embodied, And Emergent Thinking, Gillian Russell, Katherine Reilly, Jihyun Park, Lauren Thu Jun 2026

Scaffolding Oceans Futures: Design For Embedded, Embodied, And Emergent Thinking, Gillian Russell, Katherine Reilly, Jihyun Park, Lauren Thu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Citizen science and citizen data are widely used to engage with anthropogenic effects such as pollution and species loss. However, their focus on data gathering and objectivization can result in dispassionate learning. Futures scaffolding offers an alternative design approach that reimagines how environmental knowledge can be generated, experienced, and materialized. Positioned within co-speculative design, this practice uses design methods to make visible what data represents and to cultivate ocean futures. This paper mobilizes a workshop kit called Monsters of Marine Debris (MMD) as an object of design to illustrate futures scaffolding. MMD makes data a source of futures-making rather than …

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Participatory Place-Shaping Through Collaborative Counterstorying, Danielle Lake, Sandy Marshall, Berenice Sanchez-Rosaldo, James Shields Jr. Jun 2026

Participatory Place-Shaping Through Collaborative Counterstorying, Danielle Lake, Sandy Marshall, Berenice Sanchez-Rosaldo, James Shields Jr.

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper examines how the Power+Place Collaborative — a participatory placeshaping design partnership — reflects, reinforces, and resists the dominant educational, political, and social systems it seeks to transform. Since 2018, the Collaborative has been working with historically and systematically marginalized communities to critically examine the power-laden place-design processes of a diverse, semi-urban county in the Southern United States. Through oral history interviews, digital and place-based storytelling, and community gatherings, the Collaborative aims to construct a more inclusive narrative of our county and cultivate opportunities for systemic transformation. Reflecting the call to consider the ethics of participation in systemic design, …

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Play And Pilina: Reimagining Play Design Through Material Kinship And Cultural Practice, Corinne Takara Jun 2026

Play And Pilina: Reimagining Play Design Through Material Kinship And Cultural Practice, Corinne Takara

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Playful encounters at the intersection of familiar consumer materials and place-based natural matter are fertile terrain for speculative play world-building. This paper introduces bio-collaborative play, a design paradigm where materials and organisms are recognized as active collaborators and kin. This shifts play design away from the manipulation of objects toward a sustained dialogue with living systems. Grounded in Kānaka ‘Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian) principles of pilina (reciprocal care) and kuleana (privileged responsibility), this framework reimagines speculative play as an act of communal care spanning biological scales and generational time. By treating plants, microbes, and everyday materials as co-authors, this approach analyzes …

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Cultivating Careful Design Responses To Homelessness Through Practice, Theory And Education, Jodi Sturge, Charlotte Persijn, Lynn Wens, Noor Fleerackers, Dotte Van Den Elshout, Stephanie C.J. Kohnle, Timon J.H. De Groot Jun 2026

Cultivating Careful Design Responses To Homelessness Through Practice, Theory And Education, Jodi Sturge, Charlotte Persijn, Lynn Wens, Noor Fleerackers, Dotte Van Den Elshout, Stephanie C.J. Kohnle, Timon J.H. De Groot

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Homelessness is a public health problem worldwide. System-wide failures often hinder solutions to this complex issue. In design and architecture education, the issue of homelessness is rarely brought into the curriculum. This paper describes how practice and theory related to homelessness can be applied to design education. First, a practice-based workshop was developed to enhance student reflexivity through exploring biases toward homelessness and applying trauma-informed theory to redesign products, services, and systems for homeless populations. Secondly, two case studies applied the theory deductively and critically reflected upon trauma-informed principles to housing and homeless design projects in hindsight and foresight. Our …

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Reframing Design Through Events: Generative Events As Ontological Units In Object-Oriented Design Ontology, Fengjin Yu, Qiaozhi Zhao Jun 2026

Reframing Design Through Events: Generative Events As Ontological Units In Object-Oriented Design Ontology, Fengjin Yu, Qiaozhi Zhao

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study confronts the theoretical challenges arising from the increasing practical overlap of Participatory Design (PD) and Co-Design. Existing research, largely confined to method comparisons, lacks an ontological perspective capable of explaining its underlying integrative mechanisms. To address this critical gap, this paper argues for a fundamental ontological shift. We introduce the concept of 'generative events' as the basic ontological unit of design, a concept constructed by synthesising Object-Oriented Design Ontology (OODO) with Process Ontology. This framework reframes design as a dynamic generative process where humans and non-human objects collaboratively construct relationships and meaning within specific contexts. The contribution of …

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From Commodity To Commons: Creating Local Eco-Systems For The Design Of Sustainable Nhs Garments In Scotland, Lewis Urquhart, Paul Rodgers, Niki Taylor, Euan Winton, Lucy Welsh, Sophia Murden Jun 2026

From Commodity To Commons: Creating Local Eco-Systems For The Design Of Sustainable Nhs Garments In Scotland, Lewis Urquhart, Paul Rodgers, Niki Taylor, Euan Winton, Lucy Welsh, Sophia Murden

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper investigates the transformation of NHS Scotland garment systems through a design-led, commons-based localist framework that challenges prevailing globalised procurement models. Drawing on co-design methodologies and sustainable material innovation, this project repositions garments - specifically surgical caps and scrubs - as relational artefacts embedded within systems of care, identity, and ecological responsibility. Collaborations with healthcare professionals, designers, and regional manufacturers have yielded prototypes utilising regenerative fibres such as lyocell and linen, made locally within Scotland. These interventions demonstrate the potential of commons-design to foster civic engagement, decentralised production, and circular economies. By embedding garment systems within local ecologies and …

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Human-Centred Digital Twin Design For Elderly Care: Addressing Comorbidity And Wellbeing, Nan Sheng, Emmanuel Tskeleves, Paul Cureton, Qi Chen Jun 2026

Human-Centred Digital Twin Design For Elderly Care: Addressing Comorbidity And Wellbeing, Nan Sheng, Emmanuel Tskeleves, Paul Cureton, Qi Chen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

China's rapidly ageing urban population faces complex mental health challenges, particularly with comorbid conditions. Current elderly care is nonpersonalised and unresponsive to support holistic wellbeing. To address the challenges of inclusive, responsive, and adaptable senior care, this study suggests a human-centred digital twin framework that incorporates service ecosystem design. This study employs a human-centred digital twin design methodology based on service ecosystem theory, focusing on how digital twins can mediate between users’ lived experiences and service innovation. The findings from the literature review and design practice indicate that digital twin technology has potential foster older adults’ life experience, social inclusion, …

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Queer(Ing) Epistemology By Design: Tmi-Web—A Relational Knowledge System For Intersectional Data Science And Affective Queries, Jess Parris Westbrook, Coraline Ada Ehmke Jun 2026

Queer(Ing) Epistemology By Design: Tmi-Web—A Relational Knowledge System For Intersectional Data Science And Affective Queries, Jess Parris Westbrook, Coraline Ada Ehmke

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Queer(ing) is a practice of questioning, unsettling, and liberating that resists normative ways of knowing. This paper advances a Queer(ing) epistemology for intersectional data science and offers TMI (Too Much Information)-WEB as a working case. This open source, theory-driven qualitative data analysis ecosystem treats identity, lived experience, and power as relational, contextual, and co-constructed. Built on a human-centered graph data model, it reimagines databases as dynamic knowledge systems rather than neutral containers. Authentic, identity-driven personas emerge from participants’ own narratives, while affective queries invite researchers to explore (and experience) patterns of harm, coping, joy, and self-acceptance across intersectional lives and …

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Images Of Humans In Public Sector Design, Mieke Van Der Bijl-Brouwer, Jennie Winhall Jun 2026

Images Of Humans In Public Sector Design, Mieke Van Der Bijl-Brouwer, Jennie Winhall

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Human-centred design is an essential element of the application of design in public and social sectors. What has remained largely unexpressed in the field is the way in which design is influenced by how we see humans, and how that is informed by our worldviews and dominant paradigms. In this conceptual paper, we investigate five common views on humans – user, worker, fallible individual, consumer, and whole and social being - based on four dimensions. The dimensions include 1) depth, 2) personal focus, 3) social focus, and 4) level of agency. Based on a case study of youth unemployment, we …

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Designing Preparatory Haptics: Relational Timing And Bodily Anticipation In Industrial Driving Contexts, Zhe Dai, Yonghong Liu, Pingping Fang, Xiangtian Bai, Yifei Xue, Fan Wu, Qian Ou Jun 2026

Designing Preparatory Haptics: Relational Timing And Bodily Anticipation In Industrial Driving Contexts, Zhe Dai, Yonghong Liu, Pingping Fang, Xiangtian Bai, Yifei Xue, Fan Wu, Qian Ou

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In safety-critical industrial contexts, visual alerts often fail under high cognitive load. This paper introduces Preparatory Haptics, framing haptic timing as a relational medium that reshapes bodily anticipation. We developed a wearable haptic prototype synchronized with auditory cues to investigate how temporal coordination and vibration modes influence attention and readiness. A driving-simulation study showed that advance-timing haptic cues foster proactive anticipation, whereas sustained vibrations are perceived as bodily resonance rather than interference, particularly under complex task conditions. These findings ground the Preparatory Haptics Framework, which treats temporal materiality as a generative element of embodied interaction and offers theoretical and practical …

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