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From Edgeland To Gentrified-Land: Graphic Communication As Intermediary For Negotiating Place Identity In Hackney Wick, London, Angelina Hang Pan, Jennifer Mchugn, Jingnan Bian Jun 2026

From Edgeland To Gentrified-Land: Graphic Communication As Intermediary For Negotiating Place Identity In Hackney Wick, London, Angelina Hang Pan, Jennifer Mchugn, Jingnan Bian

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Hackney Wick has long been regarded as an urban edgeland, marked by significant poverty since the 1860s, with distinctive topographic and socio- economic features. Yet in the early 2000s, it saw a rapid transformation into a creative space as artists began to occupy abandoned warehouses, building a live- work culture and quickly establishing itself as one of Europe’s most vibrant artistic communities. More recently, the development of the London Olympic infrastructure and government-led urban regeneration initiatives have accelerated gentrification and drive for social capital, whilst intensifying social exclusion and community marginalisation amongst disadvantaged communities. This paper integrates visual ethnography (graphic …

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When Play Becomes Language: Transforming International Student Experience Through Environmental Art And Eco-Social Design, Nina Luostarinen, Melanie Sarantou Jun 2026

When Play Becomes Language: Transforming International Student Experience Through Environmental Art And Eco-Social Design, Nina Luostarinen, Melanie Sarantou

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study explores the Miyanohara participatory land art project in Ōmuta City, Japan, as an innovative teaching method for integrating international exchange students into new cultural and environmental settings within higher education institutions (HEIs). By creating a 74-metre installation depicting the Kasumi salamander at a former coal mine site, eleven international students from Kyushu University's Strategic Design course engaged in embodied learning that transcended linguistic and cultural barriers. Using arts-based methodologies and an eco-social design approach, we demonstrate how land art can serve as a powerful tool for HEIs to foster environmental awareness, cultural integration, and transformational learning experiences for …

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Designing For Learning Rhythms: A Taxonomy Of Trajectory-Aware Interventions In Online Learning, Seulgi Sylvia Kim, Zach Pino, Paige Safyer, August Neyrey, Richa Sharma, Tzu-Chi Huang, Maria Sekyi Jun 2026

Designing For Learning Rhythms: A Taxonomy Of Trajectory-Aware Interventions In Online Learning, Seulgi Sylvia Kim, Zach Pino, Paige Safyer, August Neyrey, Richa Sharma, Tzu-Chi Huang, Maria Sekyi

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Online learning platforms give learners unprecedented control over pacing, yet this flexibility often leaves students without support at the moments when they need it most—during transitions between activities, cognitive states, or levels of engagement. Existing self-regulated learning (SRL) interventions tend to rely on fixed schedules or simplistic triggers, overlooking how learners’ trajectories unfold and where they begin to diverge toward productive or unproductive pathways. This paper introduces a framework for trajectory-aware interventions, an approach that integrates temporal design with real-time behavioral diagnostics to identify and support critical transition moments. Through a comparative analysis of major online learning platforms and a …

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Designing Digital Ghosts: Creative Access To Web Archives, Dorsey Kaufmann, Andrea Kocsis Jun 2026

Designing Digital Ghosts: Creative Access To Web Archives, Dorsey Kaufmann, Andrea Kocsis

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents Digital Ghosts, a practice-based research project exploring how creative and tactile approaches to web archives can reimagine engagement with digital cultural heritage and GLAM collections. Using exploratory visualisation of metadata, the project transforms the digital into interactive multimedia installations. Operating within the “post-digital” condition of GLAM, the project investigates how design can mediate between the technical infrastructures of preservation, traditional archivist practice, and the experiential, interpretive needs of users. Rather than treating messy humanities data as a failure, the project frames absence and inconsistency as evidence of the web’s fluid temporality and of institutional decisions about what …

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Driving Public Service Innovation Through Internal Ecosystem Development: Reconfiguring The Internal Management And Service System Of Nanhai Bus Station, Liwen Zhang, Yiqi Liu, Zheng Wang, Jingya Li, Yuexi Dong Jun 2026

Driving Public Service Innovation Through Internal Ecosystem Development: Reconfiguring The Internal Management And Service System Of Nanhai Bus Station, Liwen Zhang, Yiqi Liu, Zheng Wang, Jingya Li, Yuexi Dong

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As public sectors worldwide increasingly adopt design-driven approaches to address complex public service and management challenges, existing research predominantly focuses on citizen-facing experiences while overlooking the critical importance of internal ecosystems as the core of service delivery. This paper examines the Nanhai Bus Station Design Consultation Project in China as a case study, exploring how systematic design interventions originating from within can drive holistic public service innovation through the internal ecosystem. The research conducted in-depth participatory action research through blended research, co-design, and stakeholder engagement methodologies. Addressing challenges such as fragmented internal workflows, ambiguous division of responsibilities, and outdated service …

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Re-Configuring Body Perception: Colour And Dynamic Pattern Strategies To Challenge Aesthetic Norms, Hongyi Xiao, Dongdong Zhang, Yitong Zheng Jun 2026

Re-Configuring Body Perception: Colour And Dynamic Pattern Strategies To Challenge Aesthetic Norms, Hongyi Xiao, Dongdong Zhang, Yitong Zheng

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This research frames colour and print as responsive strategies to challenge entrenched aesthetic norms and empower diverse bodies. It explores how dynamic visual patterns and colour psychology can disrupt static perceptions of body shape, moving beyond the confines of normative ideals. Through an iterative, research-through-design process, the study develops motifs and colourways that foster aesthetic agency, self-confidence, and vitality. By treating surface design as an embodied material interface, dynamic visual elements (such as moiré effects and gradients) are integrated to sustain novelty and reduce aesthetic fatigue. This approach re-frames emotional durability not just as longevity, but as the capacity for …

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Historicising Speculative Design With Mcluhan’S Tetrad, Soyoun Jang, Jay David David Bolter Jun 2026

Historicising Speculative Design With Mcluhan’S Tetrad, Soyoun Jang, Jay David David Bolter

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper introduces and applies Marshall McLuhan’s Tetrad model, grounded in critical media studies, as an interpretative framework for analysing corporate concept videos as design fictions. Through a close reading of seven videos, we identify three recurring themes: present as future, the rhetoric of the new and socio-economic utopia. In parallel, the two diagonals of the Tetrad reveal contrasting orientations: the enhances-obsolesces diagonal reflects a corporate anticipatory (non-radical) future, whereas the retrieves-reverses diagonal is more critical and disruptive. We discuss figure-ground reversal as a key strategy for historicising corporate concept videos and suggest how the Tetrad can foster historical reflexivity …

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Constructing A Scenario-Driven Model For Contextual Brand Experience: The Case Of Chain Coffee Brands, Yi Jui Hsu, Yu Ting Zeng, Hsien Hui Tang Jun 2026

Constructing A Scenario-Driven Model For Contextual Brand Experience: The Case Of Chain Coffee Brands, Yi Jui Hsu, Yu Ting Zeng, Hsien Hui Tang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Brand experience is frequently theorized as a set of fixed domain attributes, yet how consumption context reorganizes the structural priority of these domains remains largely unmeasured. This paper argues that brand experience is a contextually generated design phenomenon that cannot be adequately addressed through static frameworks or single-context evaluation. Focusing on chain coffee brands in Taiwan, we conceptualize dine-in and take-out as distinct behavioral ecologies and apply the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to construct comparable experiential hierarchies across both contexts. Our findings reveal divergent experiential logics—dine-in privileging environmental immersion, take-out foregrounding product reliability and service rhythm—and non-obvious sub-criteria priorities only …

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Narrataive: Using Narrative For Human–Ai Co-Creation In Intelligent Cockpits, Danhua Zhao, Yufei Liu, Yuhao Jiang, Zhongjie Xue Jun 2026

Narrataive: Using Narrative For Human–Ai Co-Creation In Intelligent Cockpits, Danhua Zhao, Yufei Liu, Yuhao Jiang, Zhongjie Xue

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As intelligent cockpits transition toward experience-centered scenario design, designers must organize increasingly complex relationships among users, behaviors, and system responses. While Generative AI (GenAI) accelerates early-stage exploration, it often struggles to interpret designers’ intentions, resulting in semantic drift and inconsistencies. This study proposes NarratAIve, a structured narrative–driven framework for human–AI co-creation in intelligent cockpit design. The framework encodes users, actions, contexts, and feedback into computable narrative units that serve as clear semantic inputs for cross-modal AI generation. Through two workshops with 24 participants (including graduate students and industry experts), six cockpit concepts were produced, demonstrating how narrative acts as a …

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Understanding Food Waste Practices In Cross-Cultural Food Adaptation: The Case Of Chinese Students In The Uk, Xuecheng Dai, Emmanuel Tsekleves, Yekta Bakırlıoğlu Jun 2026

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 …

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Designing Hope: Civil Society, Empathy And Peace, Or Avoiding World War Iii, Philip Ely, Ilpo Koskinen, Shelley Mcnulty, Brian Dixon Jun 2026

Designing Hope: Civil Society, Empathy And Peace, Or Avoiding World War Iii, Philip Ely, Ilpo Koskinen, Shelley Mcnulty, Brian Dixon

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In the face of widespread global conflict, this paper explores emergent work on empathic design for peace. We draw on award-winning theory and practice within peace studies and previous work on empathic design to develop a theoretical framework for the practical application of design methods, and illustrate this framework by showing how an analysis of a novel—in this paper, Milkman by Anna Burns (2018)—can lead to a multi-scalar approach to civil society-led peacebuilding which can inform future public sector and policy design work. We view this as a form of ‘literary design fiction’—that can harness the positional difference of conflict …

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Design With Empowerment: Developing A Framework And Toolkit For Chronic Disease Management, Renxuan Liu Jun 2026

Design With Empowerment: Developing A Framework And Toolkit For Chronic Disease Management, Renxuan Liu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Empowerment in chronic disease management (CDM) is often treated as an outcome delivered to patients, leaving limited attention to how empowerment is negotiated in practice. This study develops the Needs-Means-Values design empowerment framework and demonstrates how it can be materially enacted through a co-design toolkit. Drawing on literature review, interview, policy and case data, the framework conceptualises empowerment as a situated and relational process shaped by how needs, resources and values are interpreted across different actors in CDM settings. The resulting toolkit consists of four modules that support stakeholders in articulating multiple enactments of needs, exploring resource configurations and generating …

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Caring For Memory: A Neuroscientific Framework For Commemorative Exhibition Design, Caterina Vettraino Jun 2026

Caring For Memory: A Neuroscientific Framework For Commemorative Exhibition Design, Caterina Vettraino

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Contemporary memorial exhibitions presume emotional intensity produces durable memory, employing affective saturation strategies that neuroscientific research reveals as counterproductive. Emotional arousal consolidates central affective impressions whilst compromising contextual understanding: visitors retain visceral sensations but lose historical processes. This paper develops a theoretical framework integrating Assmann's cultural memory theory, neuroscience of memory consolidation, and care ethics to inform commemorative exhibition design. A four-modality taxonomy, individual, collective, spatial, and sensory, translates psychological memory categories into operationally distinct design approaches. Digital mediation constitutes a transversal narrative apparatus serving memory transmission across all four modalities, functioning as infrastructural support. Design parameters specify spatial configurations, …

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Exploring Design Thinking In Entrepreneurship Education: A Pre-Accelerator Programme For The Creative Industries, Billy Franks, Melissa Terras, James Newbery, Susan Lechelt Jun 2026

Exploring Design Thinking In Entrepreneurship Education: A Pre-Accelerator Programme For The Creative Industries, Billy Franks, Melissa Terras, James Newbery, Susan Lechelt

DRS Biennial Conference Series

For many years, design thinking has been recognised as an important process in creating and commercialising new digital products and services. Increasingly, design researchers are attending to design thinking applied in real-world, interdisciplinary settings for entrepreneurial activity. In this paper, we surface and interpret examples of design thinking in the setup and delivery of a multi-cohort education programme connecting Edinburgh’s creative industries with local expertise in digital product innovation and entrepreneurship. Through a thematic analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with programme educators and participants, we explore the role of design thinking in bridging siloed industries and ecosystems. We interpret design …

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Disrupting And Reimagining Women’S Identities: A Feminist Design Methodology Inspired By The Self-Combing Women’S “Goddess Fictual” Practice, Lu Li, Catherine Caudwell, Rosie Scott Jun 2026

Disrupting And Reimagining Women’S Identities: A Feminist Design Methodology Inspired By The Self-Combing Women’S “Goddess Fictual” Practice, Lu Li, Catherine Caudwell, Rosie Scott

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper investigates the feminist identity transformation strategies of "self-combing" women in late nineteenth-century China, who resisted patriarchal marriage identity by enacting alternative female identities through "Goddess Fictual" practice (goddess fiction belief and ritual performance). Through fieldwork of the historical residences and spiritual spaces of self-combing women, this paper identifies the goddess shrine as their new female identity performative site. It was within this specific site that spiritual goddess belief and identity ritual performance converged to support these women’s identities. Inspired by this historical experience, we translate this feminist practice into a new design methodology. It demonstrates how this historical …

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Bodystorming Through Disruption: Ai-Assisted Design Improvisation Pedagogy, Jiawei Li, Jiayue Wang, Lin Zhu, Jiaxuan Xu, Changran Zhao, Zhiyong Fu Jun 2026

Bodystorming Through Disruption: Ai-Assisted Design Improvisation Pedagogy, Jiawei Li, Jiayue Wang, Lin Zhu, Jiaxuan Xu, Changran Zhao, Zhiyong Fu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study presents an AI-assisted Design Improvisation Pedagogy integrating artificial intelligence with bodystorming in space design education. Built on a three-dimensional framework—Embodiment, Enactment, and Improvisation—an AI system was developed using Coze to generate emergent scenarios and guide improvisational performance. Validated over three semesters with 16 undergraduate students tackling extreme environment challenges, the system employed Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to deliver context-rich, adaptive prompts. Results showed strong correlation between AI support and enhanced improvisational creativity (r = 0.48), especially in spontaneous adaptability. Students often underrated their own performances, with significant gaps in Improvisation (p < 0.01). Material types influenced outcomes, with sound-based tasks producing the largest evaluation discrepancies. Findings highlight AI’s evolving role from tool to creative collaborator, offering a novel pedagogical model that merges embodied cognition, reflective practice, and AI to foster design thinking under constraints.

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The In-Situ Ai Pattern Merchant: A Speculative Intervention In Huayao Embroidery Futures, Hao Li, Duoduo Zhang, Siqi Chen, Nick Bryan-Kinns Jun 2026

The In-Situ Ai Pattern Merchant: A Speculative Intervention In Huayao Embroidery Futures, Hao Li, Duoduo Zhang, Siqi Chen, Nick Bryan-Kinns

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Research on AI and Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) often reflects a static, object-centered perspective. This paper instead explores how generative AI can be embedded in the living practices of ICH. Through a speculative intervention in a Huayao embroidery community in Hunan, China, we reframe AI not as a tool for content generation, but as a social mediator within local craft networks. By performing as an “AI Cross-stitch Pattern Merchant” during the local festival, the study reveals how AI’s creative empowerment of young women sparked intergenerational tensions around legitimacy, labor, and authority. While youth embraced GenAI for playful self-expression, elder embroiderers …

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Information Hierarchies For Better Health Communication: Mapping Expert-User Differences For Drug Instruction Design, Hengyi Shi, Hao Wang, Zhilong Luan, Chunxi Huang Jun 2026

Information Hierarchies For Better Health Communication: Mapping Expert-User Differences For Drug Instruction Design, Hengyi Shi, Hao Wang, Zhilong Luan, Chunxi Huang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Designing drug instructions that communicate effectively to both experts and lay users requires understanding of their different information needs. This study examines how healthcare professionals and the public differ in their priorities and cognitive focus when interpreting drug instructions, offering design guidance for future instructions and labeling system. Using a two-stage approach, we conducted a survey of 111 professionals and 123 public participants to assess their perceived importance of 22 information items, followed by focus groups exploring perceptual and structural expectations. Professionals prioritized procedural accuracy and detailed guidance, while public users emphasized clarity and safety. Despite these differences, both groups …

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Unlearning To Rest: Machine Unlearning As A Method Of Mitigating Design Fixation In Human-Ai Creative Collaboration, Martin Disley, Murad Khan Jun 2026

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 …

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Reconfiguring Care: Envision Postpartum Support For Women In Southern China Through The Lens Of Home-Based Iot, Wentao Deng, Yunfei Chen, Yingying Luo, Ying Hu, Yiwen Wang Jun 2026

Reconfiguring Care: Envision Postpartum Support For Women In Southern China Through The Lens Of Home-Based Iot, Wentao Deng, Yunfei Chen, Yingying Luo, Ying Hu, Yiwen Wang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study explores design opportunities to support postpartum mothers during “zuòyuèzi,” a culturally significant confinement practice in southern China, through the lens of home-based Internet of Things (IoT) systems. Grounded in feminist ethics of care, the research employs a three-phase methodology combining digital ethnography, co-design workshops, and thematic analysis. Participants from multigenerational households shared experiences and envisioned the roles of IoT systems to facilitate postpartum transitions. Findings reveal that users expect technologies to function as empathetic intermediaries that foster emotional well-being, facilitate caregiving management and negotiate relationships. Distinct patterns emerged across care distribution, interpersonal communication, and interaction, underscoring the cultural …

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Reflective Sociomaterialist Learning For Design For Sustainability (Dfs) In The Global South: Evaluations Of Students’ Product Service System (Pss) Design Projects At A Thai Design School, Hyunwook Hwangbo Jun 2026

Reflective Sociomaterialist Learning For Design For Sustainability (Dfs) In The Global South: Evaluations Of Students’ Product Service System (Pss) Design Projects At A Thai Design School, Hyunwook Hwangbo

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study explores how teaching service design through Product-Service System projects can encourage reflective sociomaterialist learning for Design for Sustainability in the Global South. It analyses 22 Product-Service Systems projects by undergraduate students at a Thai design school to examine how design education, aligned with Thailand’s bio-circular-green (BCG) economy initiative, helps develop students as social agents who drive sustainable innovation. Using ethnographic action research and thematic analysis, six case vignettes illustrate how participatory design methods and systems thinking in Product-Service Systems projects empower students to build sociotechnical systems and offer localized, community-centered solutions. Findings show that integrating Product-Service Systems practices …

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Ai' S Brush On Novice Posters: Unfolding Visual Competence Shifts Of Design Students, Yisu Zhao, Chuhan Li, Qianqian Hu, Fang Liu, Renke He Jun 2026

Ai' S Brush On Novice Posters: Unfolding Visual Competence Shifts Of Design Students, Yisu Zhao, Chuhan Li, Qianqian Hu, Fang Liu, Renke He

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As generative AI tools increasingly permeate design education, questions arise about their impact on novice students’ creative competence. This study addresses two research questions: (RQ1) How does AI participation affect students’ creative outcomes, particularly the visual dimensions of their work? (RQ2) How do evaluators redefine competence amid AI involvement in novice design students’ creative processes? Using a mixed-method approach, Study1 analysed professional evaluations of 88 student projects, showing that AI-assisted works scored higher in creativity and visual elaboration but not in design logic, with greater score divergence.Study2 involved interviews with eight design experts, revealing tensions in evaluators’ attribution of competence …

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Rethinking Communication And Power Relations In A Collaboration Between Designers And Welfare Communites/Organisations, Zhixin Zhang, Sarah Kettley, Agnese Sile Jun 2026

Rethinking Communication And Power Relations In A Collaboration Between Designers And Welfare Communites/Organisations, Zhixin Zhang, Sarah Kettley, Agnese Sile

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents a disabled researcher’s reflection on communication and power relations experienced through direct participation in an Inclusive Design Workshop in Tokyo. It explores how designers collaborated with welfare facility communities to develop inclusive ideas and practices. The study conceptualises inclusion as a relational process that extends beyond accessibility compliance, shaped through communication, emotion, and care. Through a reflexive ethnography that combined participant observation and multimodal analysis, four key themes emerged: Communication Barriers, Effective Communication, Effective Operation of Design Decisions, and Responding to Communication Strategies. Insights suggest that institutional hierarchies and emotional asymmetries often acted to hinder participation but …

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Queering Empathy In/For/With/By Design, Jessica Meharry Jun 2026

Queering Empathy In/For/With/By Design, Jessica Meharry

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Empathy is widely used as the initial stage of the design process to understand users and meet their needs and desires. Recently these methods have been critiqued for commodifying empathy in commercial practice, centering the designer instead of the user, and failing to account for power dynamics. Empathy is also under attack in political spheres, increasing the dehumanization of others. To address these criticisms, we explore the value of empathy in design processes and examine how queer theory and queering methodologies can help designers move past “walking in someone else’s shoes” towards intersectional design processes rooted in political responsibility. Synthesizing …

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Making The Invisible Visible: Supporting Older Adults’ Expression Of Emotional Needs For Companion Robots Through Visual Co-Design Tools, Chuxuan Xu, Hua Dong, Mohammed Elsouri, Mingfeng Wang Jun 2026

Making The Invisible Visible: Supporting Older Adults’ Expression Of Emotional Needs For Companion Robots Through Visual Co-Design Tools, Chuxuan Xu, Hua Dong, Mohammed Elsouri, Mingfeng Wang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As populations age, companion robots are increasingly explored to support emotional well-being in later life. However, older adults often find it difficult to express abstract emotions or imagine interactions with unfamiliar technologies, limiting their participation in early-stage design. This study develops and validates a structured toolkit designed to support emotional articulation and co-design participation. The toolkit, consisting of companionship cards, robot role cards, and recording canvases, was refined through expert evaluation and user testing, and validated through comparative interviews with older adults (n=10). Results show that the toolkit supported richer emotional expression, smoother dialogue, and more sustained engagement, helping participants …

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Ddenso: An Evaluation-Driven Methodology For Information Visualisations, Michele Mauri, Elena Aversa, Anna Cattaneo, María De Los Ángeles Briones Rojas Jun 2026

Ddenso: An Evaluation-Driven Methodology For Information Visualisations, Michele Mauri, Elena Aversa, Anna Cattaneo, María De Los Ángeles Briones Rojas

DRS Biennial Conference Series

When designing Information Visualisations for Media and Information Literacy (MIL) initiatives, a significant challenge lies in ensuring that they effectively transmit and consolidate knowledge, particularly when the Information Visualisation literacy of the audience is unknown. Applying a Research through Design approach, this article describes a meta-process: the reflective and iterative path that led to the definition of DDENSO, a replicable design methodology for creating and evaluating Information Visualisations that allow for knowledge retention. Grounded in prior theoretical and practical experience in Information Design, DDENSO emerged through the development of the artefacts for a MIL exhibition exploring the social implications of …

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Holding Paradoxes Together: Navigating Institutional Complexity In Public Design, Luis Garcia, Geert Brinkman Jun 2026

Holding Paradoxes Together: Navigating Institutional Complexity In Public Design, Luis Garcia, Geert Brinkman

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores the evolving practice of design in the public sector. To do so, we initiated a reading group that brought together academics and practitioners from around the globe to discuss how public design is understood and practiced in different contexts. The common thread across the six reading groups held so far was that public design is inherently paradoxical. Three core paradoxes appear to characterize its practice: the identity paradox (blending in to stand out), the enablement paradox (constraining design by enabling it), and the political paradox (designing apolitically while designing politically). These paradoxes highlight the need for strategic …

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Fictionalized Affective Relations:Rethinking Wellbeing In Human–Ai Interaction From A Design Perspective, Boyu Zhang, Li Zhang Jun 2026

Fictionalized Affective Relations:Rethinking Wellbeing In Human–Ai Interaction From A Design Perspective, Boyu Zhang, Li Zhang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As AI increasingly enters everyday life in intimate roles of companionship and emotional support, established understandings of wellbeing in design research are being challenged. Conventional approaches tend to frame wellbeing as an optimizable experiential state, typically enhanced by means of emotional design. However, as AI becomes a medium for emotional engagement, wellbeing shifts toward a relational outcome that emerges from ongoing interactions.This paper introduces fictionalized affective relations to describe how users, despite knowing AI lacks genuine consciousness and emotion, nonetheless disclose vulnerability, invest affectively, and derive experiences of intimacy. It identifies three ethical tensions: emotional capitalization, loss of affective sovereignty, …

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Bridging Awareness And Action: Visual Communication Strategies For Sustainable Consumption In Fast Fashion, Alice Biolchini Jun 2026

Bridging Awareness And Action: Visual Communication Strategies For Sustainable Consumption In Fast Fashion, Alice Biolchini

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Fast fashion accounts for continuous labor exploitation and 8-10% of global carbon emissions, perpetuating environmental degradation. Yet consumer awareness alone often fails to drive sustainable behavior. This systematic literature review aimed to understand how psychological and communication elements can be used to design an intervention capable of changing consumption behavior. Following PRISMA 2020 methodology, 103 peer-reviewed studies were analyzed from 1,384 papers retrieved across six academic databases. Three thematic strands emerged: sustainable consumer behavior and decision-making, visual and aesthetic influence on awareness, and artificial intelligence in engagement contexts. Findings reveal that consciousness alone is insufficient; interventions are suggested to combine …

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Designing For Dignity: A Method To Explore Emotional Lived Experiences Of Stigma And Dignity In Perinatal Mental Health Environments, Carmen Heuvelmans, Aslı Günay, Geke Ludden, Jodi Sturge Jun 2026

Designing For Dignity: A Method To Explore Emotional Lived Experiences Of Stigma And Dignity In Perinatal Mental Health Environments, Carmen Heuvelmans, Aslı Günay, Geke Ludden, Jodi Sturge

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Psychiatric care environments are intended to heal, yet their design is often experienced as stigmatizing. This paper presents the Uncovering and Designing for Dignity through Emotions (UDDE) method, a participatory approach designed to uncover the meaning of dignity for perinatal women in psychiatric care, explore lived experiences of stigma and dignity, and identify how care features can be re-designed to uphold dignity. While dignity is often defined as an inherent worth every person possesses, in everyday life dignity is experienced as a lived value shaped by interactions with others and the environment. Emotions act as biological signals that can reveal …

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