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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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Neurodesign In Urban Environments: Fmri Insights For Designing Cognitively Supportive Cities, Saijal Sharma, Tian Cheng, Gerhard Bruyns Jun 2026

Neurodesign In Urban Environments: Fmri Insights For Designing Cognitively Supportive Cities, Saijal Sharma, Tian Cheng, Gerhard Bruyns

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Advances in neuroscience and neuroimaging have created new pathways to interpret how urban environments shape spatial cognition, psychological well-being, mobility, behaviour, and related outcomes across different age groups. This review examines the use of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) in urban settings and assesses its contribution to an age-inclusive, longevity-focused environment. It synthesises interdisciplinary research into a concise framework that integrates fMRI-based pattern recognition with stimuli mapping to generate design insights. Within this context, fMRI is positioned as a complementary methodological approach to be used alongside ethnographic, participatory, and experiential methods in generating neuro-informed design knowledge. The review highlights design-relevant …

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Unwording Design: Demilitarizing The Imaginaries Of Design, Xaviera Sánchez De La Barquera Estrada, Sergio Dávila Urrutia Jun 2026

Unwording Design: Demilitarizing The Imaginaries Of Design, Xaviera Sánchez De La Barquera Estrada, Sergio Dávila Urrutia

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design’s vocabulary is saturated with metaphors of control (targets, strategies, impacts), revealing a militarized ontology that frames design as domination over problems, contexts, and futures. This paper examines the politics of wording and introduces Unwording Design as a practice of ontological care: dismantling violent grammars that sustain extractive imaginaries and cultivating vocabularies grounded in affection, reciprocity, and relational ethics. Drawing on Haraway’s insight that the thoughts we use to think matter (2016), Butler’s performativity (2006), and Escobar’s ontological design (2018), we argue that transforming language transforms the worlds design brings into being. Unwording shifts from languages of war to languages …

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Co-Creating With Fungi: Mycelium Toys And Pedagogies For Regenerative Futures, Flavia Alice Mameli, Robbi Zidna Ilman Jun 2026

Co-Creating With Fungi: Mycelium Toys And Pedagogies For Regenerative Futures, Flavia Alice Mameli, Robbi Zidna Ilman

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This practice-based research project presents BLX, a series of mycelium-based educational toys. Shaped like inflated building blocks, BLX invites children (early years to primary education) to construct playful structures whilst materialising biological and anthropogenic circularity through design. Unlike plastic toys that embody permanence, BLX can be played with, composted, or repurposed as plant pots—rendering regenerative processes tangible. Drawing on speculative design and material studies, the project positions mycelium as both educational medium and more-than-human collaborator. By embracing decay as (re-)generative, BLX challenges material cultures of permanence and offers children embodied encounters with temporality and transformation. This contribution is threefold: methodological …

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The Environmental Citizen’S Playbook: A Catalogue Of Playful Participation For Environmental Action, Savannah Vize, Ferran Altarriba Bertran, İdil Gaziulusoy Jun 2026

The Environmental Citizen’S Playbook: A Catalogue Of Playful Participation For Environmental Action, Savannah Vize, Ferran Altarriba Bertran, İdil Gaziulusoy

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Sustainability problems are complex and overwhelming, with terms like eco-anxiety now commonplace. Sustaining engagement therefore requires attention beyond systemic levers towards relational, social, and emotional dimensions. This paper explores play as a participatory tool to foster wellbeing, maintain engagement and reframe environmental action. Play is known to support healthy development, reduce stress, and connect socially as an antidote to fatiguing emotions. Research has additionally explored play’s transformative potential to disrupt existing structures and imaginaries. This study examines how play can be leveraged to support more inclusive and emotionally sustainable engagement with environmental action. Using a participatory research-through-design process (Situated Play …

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Understanding Sleep Challenges In Shared Dormitories: A Co-Design Inquiry, Zheng Wang, Adrian Gradinar, Lisa Thomas Jun 2026

Understanding Sleep Challenges In Shared Dormitories: A Co-Design Inquiry, Zheng Wang, Adrian Gradinar, Lisa Thomas

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Shared dormitories are the most common living arrangement for Chinese university students and have a crucial impact on their sleep and well-being. Most studies on sleep among this group primarily focus on the physical environment and the individual person, giving far less attention to the interpersonal and social aspects of living in shared dormitories. To address this gap, this paper presents the findings of a co-design workshop with 23 participants which explored their experiences of shared sleeping spaces and involved them in prototyping interventions for improving sleep experience. Findings reveal interpersonal interference as a major factor behind sleep disruption. Even …

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A Product-Service System Design Approach For The Frame Innovation Of Automated Robotaxi Interior Space Cleaning, Zhiqian Hu, Yaojia Zhang, Peiyuan Ge, Leijie Ding, Mager Birgit, Li Zhang Jun 2026

A Product-Service System Design Approach For The Frame Innovation Of Automated Robotaxi Interior Space Cleaning, Zhiqian Hu, Yaojia Zhang, Peiyuan Ge, Leijie Ding, Mager Birgit, Li Zhang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Robotaxi services are expanding rapidly, but interior cleanliness, valued by passengers, remains a critical weak link. This study examines embedding the Automated Robotaxi Interior Space Cleaning (ARISC) framework in existing operations via a product service system (PSS) architecture without reducing fleet availability. Methodologically, frame innovation is undertaken from companies’ internal processes and governance: first, the study benchmarks DiDi Autonomous Driving, Baidu’s Apollo Go, and SAIC Mobility Robotaxi, and maps existing Robotaxi service systems; second, eleven semi structured interviews with cleaning providers, company staff, and passengers yield 384 records indicating functional needs (air circulation, surface cleaning, waste removal) and value needs …

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Darker Affordances: Designing With Values As Vulnerabilities In An Age Of Disinformation, Laura Knight Jun 2026

Darker Affordances: Designing With Values As Vulnerabilities In An Age Of Disinformation, Laura Knight

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In an age of pervasive disinformation, values function as conceptual anchors for comprehending complex information. Design-for-values approaches frame values as alignment opportunities. But the same values that enable ethical, resonant communication can be exploited for manipulative and unethical purposes. This paper argues that values in graphic communication design function as 'darker affordances' — relational properties affording both ethical communication and manipulation with equal reliability. Drawing on Master's students' reflections from a project in which they designed paired climate communication — one ethically aligned, one disinformation — it examines how contrastive pedagogy develops ethical literacy around values' dual nature. Analysis reveals …

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Co-Designing Culture: A Grounded Theory Of Participatory Practice In Indian Folk Music, Abhinav Agrawal, Mudit Chaturvedi, Gaurang Agrawal Jun 2026

Co-Designing Culture: A Grounded Theory Of Participatory Practice In Indian Folk Music, Abhinav Agrawal, Mudit Chaturvedi, Gaurang Agrawal

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Prevailing accounts of co-design remain anchored in Western formal practice. This study repositions Indian folk music as a culturally embedded site of collaborative design. Drawing on Murphy’s anthropology of design and a grounded theory approach, we analysed 1,621 coded segments from interviews with 23 first-generation folk artists across 14 Indian states. We show that musicians function as cultural designers who translate lived experience and shared moral economies into adaptive musical forms through participatory routines: community observation, collective ideation, performance-based prototyping, and iterative calibration through audience feedback. We formalise these dynamics in the Cultural Co-Design Flow model, illuminating how layered semantics, …

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Design For Dignified Longevity: Olfactory-Enhanced Vr Meditation For Sustained Mindfulness Practice, Lei Xia, Xiaomei Li, Dan Li, Ling Fan Jun 2026

Design For Dignified Longevity: Olfactory-Enhanced Vr Meditation For Sustained Mindfulness Practice, Lei Xia, Xiaomei Li, Dan Li, Ling Fan

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Mindfulness meditation supports psychological wellbeing and stress regulation—factors closely associated with healthy aging and longevity. However, practitioners often struggle to sustain attentional depth over time. While virtual reality (VR) has been explored as a tool for immersive meditation, most systems rely primarily on audiovisual stimuli and overlook olfactory cues despite their strong influence on emotion and environmental perception. This study introduces ScentSync, an olfactory-enhanced VR meditation system integrating AI-generated environments with synchronized scent delivery. A controlled experiment with 54 experienced meditators compared traditional meditation (Non-VR), VR meditation (VR), and olfactory-enhanced VR meditation (VR+Olfactory). Results show that the VR+Olfactory group achieved …

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Where Regenerative Design Theory Meets Ground: A Case Study Of Xreef On Weizhou Island, Chengjun Li, Valentina Rognoli, Fuqing Xu Jun 2026

Where Regenerative Design Theory Meets Ground: A Case Study Of Xreef On Weizhou Island, Chengjun Li, Valentina Rognoli, Fuqing Xu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As the Anthropocene increasingly undermines natural systems, there is an urgent need for design to move beyond harm reduction toward active ecological restoration. Regenerative Design (RD) has emerged as a promising paradigm to complement sustainable design; however, fragmented knowledge and inconsistent terminology hinder designers’ systematic understanding. To bridge the gap between theory and practice, this study first reviews the philosophical stances and key approaches of RD, then examines its implementation in a coral reef restoration project on Weizhou Island. Reflection on the project revealed three major challenges: limited capacity for interdisciplinary collaboration, insufficient tools for stakeholder engagement, and inadequate dynamic …

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Service Design In Practice, Qian Sun, Carolyn Runcie Jun 2026

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 …

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Towards An Operational Framework For Design For Values: An Exploration Through Systematic Literature Review, Yingjing Duan, Fei Hu* Jun 2026

Towards An Operational Framework For Design For Values: An Exploration Through Systematic Literature Review, Yingjing Duan, Fei Hu*

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design for Values (DfV) offers a robust approach for embedding values into technology, yet practitioners often face a “principles-to-practice gap” due to a lack of methodological guidance. To bridge this gap, an operational framework is developed, connecting abstract design processes with concrete practical methods. Through a systematic literature review, this research identifies 47 specific methods that explicitly support DfV practice. These methods are analysed from four dimensions—source discipline, methodological nature, operational characteristic, and practical purpose—to map the current DfV methodological landscape. This analysis informs the construction of a six-stage framework integrated with the Double Diamond model: discover, manage conflicts, conceptualise, …

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Lifting Threads, Piercing Fabrics, And Tracing Stories Through Stitches: An Embroidery Inquiry Into Analysing Empirical Material, Andreea Strineholm, Jennie Schaeffer Jun 2026

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 …

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Critical Minerals In The Body: Towards Re-Use In Orthopaedic Healthcare, Anne Schiffer, Anthony P. Cooper Jun 2026

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 …

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Mapping Design’S Contribution To Policymaking: A Framework For Understanding Design’S Roles Across Policymaking Levels, Amy Hyewon Lee Jun 2026

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 …

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More-Than-Human Self-Tracking: An Uncertain Account Of Urine Monitoring, Protein Excess And Ecological Entanglements, Anton Poikolainen Rosén Jun 2026

More-Than-Human Self-Tracking: An Uncertain Account Of Urine Monitoring, Protein Excess And Ecological Entanglements, Anton Poikolainen Rosén

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores self-tracking technologies through a more-than-human lens, focusing on the entanglements between protein consumption, urine monitoring, and environmental care. Using autoethnography, I reflect on the practices of measuring protein and nitrogen in urine as a means to interrogate how personal health data intersect with ecological concerns, particularly nitrogen runoff and its contribution to overfertilization of the Baltic Sea. The account highlights tensions between the precision promised by digital health apps and the uncertainty, messiness, and environmental costs of measuring itself. By mapping nitrogen metabolism across bodies, infrastructures, and the environment, the paper identifies potential points of intervention: dietary …

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Co-Designing Equitable Engagement - Home Health Assessment In Healthcare Practice In Scotland, Sonja Oliveira, Laura Maclean, Gráinne Mcgill, Carolina Recart Jun 2026

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. …

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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 Jun 2026

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 …

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Inter-Poly-Creation (Ipc): Unifying Mass Customisation And Co-Creation, Hoi Wah Chan, Christopher J. Parker, Darren J. Southee Jun 2026

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, …

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Build & Connect: Designing A Constructive, Participatory Physicalization Activity & Toolkit For Community Reflection, Jenny Long, Caroline Gausden, Tara Capel, Uta Hinrichs Jun 2026

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 …

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Restorative Retail: A Literature Review On Consumer Well-Being In The Retail Environment, Katelijn Quartier Jun 2026

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 …

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Re-Materialising Design: Material Agency And The Reconfiguration Of Creative Practice, Olga Ioannou Jun 2026

Re-Materialising Design: Material Agency And The Reconfiguration Of Creative Practice, Olga Ioannou

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper examines biobased materials as agents of creative and systemic transformation within design practice. Drawing from a university course on circular building product design, several graduation theses, and two research projects -one focused on food waste valorisation and another on load-bearing mycelium composites- it investigates how engagement with biobased, regenerative materials reconfigures the designer’s role across the value chain, from sourcing to post-use reintegration. By situating material experimentation within ecological and socio-technical transitions, the paper argues that biobased materials enable a re-materialisation of design knowledge, where making becomes a mode of inquiry into interdependencies between nature, technology, and culture. …

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Age-Ready Suburbia: Designing Distributed Care And Housing Transitions For Longevity, Kaicheng Zhuang, Minghao Du Jun 2026

Age-Ready Suburbia: Designing Distributed Care And Housing Transitions For Longevity, Kaicheng Zhuang, Minghao Du

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This thesis reimagines the aging U.S. suburb as a site of transition, where single-family housing can evolve into distributed care infrastructure supporting longevity and community well-being. Through onsite research in Sacramento and collaboration with local care providers, the project develops a scalable framework for retrofitting suburban homes into neighborhood-based care hubs connected by shared food, mobility, and caregiver networks. Integrating architectural transformation, service design, and participatory co-design methods, it proposes a systemic approach that bridges individual housing adaptation with urban-scale resilience. Rather than pursuing technological “smartness,” the model advances a human-centered LongevityTech vision,where design mediates between housing, health, and social …

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Reorienting Design Futures With Hope, Manuela Celi, Victoria Rodriguez Schon Jun 2026

Reorienting Design Futures With Hope, Manuela Celi, Victoria Rodriguez Schon

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper reorients Design Futures through hope as a situated, anticipatory, and actionable practice for working within postnormal conditions marked by uncertainty, systemic crisis, and defuturing. Bringing together futures studies, feminist epistemologies, and decolonial perspectives, it argues that design can help imagine and enact alternatives through situated interventions. The paper develops a conceptual and reflexive methodology that synthesizes three strands of literature; hope, hope and design, and hope and futures, and formulates three tactics for operationalizing hope in design practice: hoping as present-tense praxis, hoping otherwise, and projectual hope. Together, these frame hope as an ethical and political orientation that …

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When Grief Takes Shape: Codesigning Creative Modalities In Grief Support Groups For Children, Kirstine Neimann Skov, Eva Knutz, Thomas Markussen Jun 2026

When Grief Takes Shape: Codesigning Creative Modalities In Grief Support Groups For Children, Kirstine Neimann Skov, Eva Knutz, Thomas Markussen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Research highlights the positive impact of creative modalities, such as drawings and images, in grief practice for children. However, more knowledge is needed to guide grief practitioners regarding the effects and contributions of these modalities to children’s coping strategies and wellbeing. This paper investigates the use of creative modalities in Danish grief support groups for children through a study involving participatory design research. The study provides a comprehensive overview of how creative modalities can support grieving processes and lay new ground for future work in codesigning creative modalities for and with practitioners and children. The concept of grief as an …

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Speculative Woolgathering: Using Design Approaches To Explore Values In The Uk Wool Supply Chain To Enable Digital Good, Naomi Jacobs, Emily Birch, Peter Craigon, Katherine Drury, Anabel Gutierrez Mendoza, Louise Manning, David Perez Jun 2026

Speculative Woolgathering: Using Design Approaches To Explore Values In The Uk Wool Supply Chain To Enable Digital Good, Naomi Jacobs, Emily Birch, Peter Craigon, Katherine Drury, Anabel Gutierrez Mendoza, Louise Manning, David Perez

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents an interdisciplinary project using speculative design to explore the intersections of sustainability and technology in the UK Wool industry. Through a process of value mapping, worldbuilding, design fiction, and card development, the project involved stakeholders across the wool supply chain who contributed their perspectives and priorities. This process revealed how value is created in the wool industry, and how relationships and systems are mediated by hidden, often contrasting values. Findings highlight the importance of these values in shaping sustainable and equitable futures for the sector. We present a conceptual framework of valuation, revaluation and evaluation as a …

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Material Awareness And Meaning-Making: Leather In Handbag Design, Jaana Päeva Jun 2026

Material Awareness And Meaning-Making: Leather In Handbag Design, Jaana Päeva

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This article explores how material properties and sustainability awareness shape aesthetic perception in leather handbag design. Drawing on practice-based research, the study combines memory collection, collaborative designer-led prototyping and user feedback to examine designer and consumer experiences. Findings show that designers focus on structural and tactile qualities—stiffness, thickness, and texture—while aesthetic attributes such as colour and surface finish support conceptual and stylistic intentions. Sustainable tanning methods and innovative leathers introduce new challenges, requiring adaptive strategies. For users, long-term interaction with leather fosters appreciation for durability, patina, and cultural meaning, shifting aesthetic evaluation from immediate visual appeal to qualities signalling longevity …

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Re-Voicing Identity: Care Ethics And The Politics Of Unsilencing After Total Laryngectomy, Gala Lucia Gonzalez Barrios Jun 2026

Re-Voicing Identity: Care Ethics And The Politics Of Unsilencing After Total Laryngectomy, Gala Lucia Gonzalez Barrios

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Voice loss after total laryngectomy disrupts identity and quality of life yet current assistive technologies reproduce techno-ableist assumptions, prioritizing speech mimicry over identity restoration while systematic marginalization excludes laryngectomees from research and innovation. This paper presents a care-centred participatory design agenda bridging a propositional approach “Singing Without a Larynx”, a vowel-based vocal interface for singing, with cross-cultural photovoice research in the United States and Argentina. Grounded in care ethics, we operationalize attentiveness, responsibility, and relational accountability, positioning participants as co-designers whose embodied knowledge shapes technological imaginaries, and community challenges and assets. We propose: (1) a critical framework integrating care ethics, …

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Breaking The Cycle: Understanding Self-Experimentation As A Health Behavior Change Approach For Young Adults With Adhd, Çağla Şen, Jaap Daalhuizen, Jos J. Kraal Jun 2026

Breaking The Cycle: Understanding Self-Experimentation As A Health Behavior Change Approach For Young Adults With Adhd, Çağla Şen, Jaap Daalhuizen, Jos J. Kraal

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is characterized by executive dysfunctions that disrupt the initiation and maintenance of everyday behaviors, making habit formation challenging. As a result, many individuals with ADHD struggle to sustain healthy routines. Conventional behavior change approaches overlook the complexity and variability of ADHD, highlighting the need for adaptive and personalized methods such as Self-Experimentation (SE). This study explores the potential of SE in supporting individuals with ADHD to change health behaviors. Using a Research through Design approach, stakeholders were involved across three iterative phases. The process resulted in two prototypes that facilitated SE while generating insights on how individuals …

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