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2026

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Maintaining Counterpublics: Archival Recursion And Prefiguration, Seojoo Han Jun 2026

Maintaining Counterpublics: Archival Recursion And Prefiguration, Seojoo Han

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study examines Interference Archive, a collectively run archive of social movement ephemera in Brooklyn, as a site where archival practice and design converge in continuous public formation. Through an analysis of exhibitions, interviews, and institutional materials, it demonstrates how archives employ the design tactics of tracing and projection not as discrete interventions but as recursive practices embedded in long-term infrastructuring. Tracing reveals genealogies of struggle, enabling participants to locate themselves within shared histories, while projection transforms this awareness into forward-looking artifacts and events that circulate beyond the archive. Unlike conventional participatory design or speculative futuring, IA cultivates a prefigurative …

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The Language Of Reflexivity: Investigating Limitations And Opportunities For Reflexivity In Prevailing Design Process Models, Asa River Jackson Jun 2026

The Language Of Reflexivity: Investigating Limitations And Opportunities For Reflexivity In Prevailing Design Process Models, Asa River Jackson

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Prevailing design methodologies and models tend to contain language specific to pragmatic and contextual foundations of design history and culture. Consequently, these models provide limited support for the diverse and constructive nature of contemporary design practice, and particularly, lack the presence of embedded reflexivity. This paper seeks to determine the predominant and excluded language of 66 design process models, which function as projections of instruction and value in design dissemination. In the analysis, special attention is given to omissions within these process models, as well as their differences among more recently documented methodologies. As a result, the paper explores reflexive …

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Transdisciplinarity In Practice: Challenges And Transformative Potentials Of Participatory Design In Sociobiodiversity Contexts, Denise Dantas, Suzana M. R. Álvares, Laercio Marques Da Silva, Neide Araujo, Joel Leandro De Queiroga, Luiz Octavio Ramos Filho Jun 2026

Transdisciplinarity In Practice: Challenges And Transformative Potentials Of Participatory Design In Sociobiodiversity Contexts, Denise Dantas, Suzana M. R. Álvares, Laercio Marques Da Silva, Neide Araujo, Joel Leandro De Queiroga, Luiz Octavio Ramos Filho

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This article examines the epistemological, political, and practical challenges of transdisciplinarity in a participatory design project with agroforestry family farmers in São Paulo, Brazil, within the Design for Biodiversity initiative. By bringing together designers, scientists, and farmers, the project demonstrates how participatory design operates as a negotiation between institutional knowledge and vernacular expertise. Farmers’ experiential knowledge informed design decisions and interpretations of socioecological dynamics. Findings reveal tensions not only in interactions with farmers, requiring communication adapted to accessible language and local realities, but also within the academic team, due to differing worldviews and validation standards. Through a design-led action research …

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How To Observe Design Practices, Aurelien Catros Jun 2026

How To Observe Design Practices, Aurelien Catros

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Aside from design theories and design methods, the design research field has built numerous methods for observing design practices. Most of them can be classified into two categories: ethnographies, which consist of sharing the daily lives of designers, and experimental approaches, which reconstruct design situations in the controlled environment of a laboratory. This study retraces the history of these methods, that exist almost independently from one another creating silos within the design research field. Throughout their respective developments, both ethnographies and experimental approaches indicate the same blind spot: the study of material traces of processes that have already taken place. …

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"That's Fine..." Uncovering Ambiguity Through Emotional Labelling In Scottish Design Students’ Design Process, Hazar Taissier Marji, Paul A. Rodgers, Ross Brisco Jun 2026

"That's Fine..." Uncovering Ambiguity Through Emotional Labelling In Scottish Design Students’ Design Process, Hazar Taissier Marji, Paul A. Rodgers, Ross Brisco

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Putting emotions into words is a natural human strategy for reinterpreting situations, even when done unintentionally. Evidence shows that this process, known as affective labelling, can reduce distress compared to non- affective verbalisation. Given that, the word 'fine' is widely used as a self-report label for emotional states, yet its meaning remains strikingly ambiguous. Limited research has explored such neutral or mid-spectrum emotional terms that are neither overtly positive nor negative but still shape the design process. This study examines how Scottish design students use 'fine' to describe their emotional experiences during their final design projects. Semi-structured interviews were conducted …

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Plundergeist: Exploring Generative Ai Through Vibe Coding As Reflective Design Practice, Christian Nold Jun 2026

Plundergeist: Exploring Generative Ai Through Vibe Coding As Reflective Design Practice, Christian Nold

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Generative AI (GenAI) has sparked intense media debate, yet design research has often echoed these narratives rather than examining how GenAI reshapes everyday design practices. This paper presents a year-long auto-ethnographic study involving 34 games and apps created through vibe coding, a GenAI-native approach that uses natural-language prompts to generate code. The study reveals distinct qualities that unsettle design processes: playful intervention, creative forgetting, spectral echoes, inventive excess, and fragile limits. Two key insights emerge: designing with GenAI requires deliberate engagement with cultural archetypes and treating AI as an unruly collaborator. Drawing on John Oswald’s 1985 concept of ‘plunderphonics’, the …

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Función-Nepantla: The “Other” Functionality Inspired By Mexican Philosophy For Rethinking Industrial Design In Mexico, José De La O Jun 2026

Función-Nepantla: The “Other” Functionality Inspired By Mexican Philosophy For Rethinking Industrial Design In Mexico, José De La O

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design in Mexico, often disconnected from the local industry value chain, has long relied on arte popular as a self-referential cultural narrative to add value, establish identity, and find its “substance.” While this practice stems from a genuine search for rootedness and authenticity, it frequently leads to stagnation, raises concerns about cultural appropriation, neo-colonial dynamics between designers and craftspeople, neglect of functionality, and lack of innovation. This paper critiques this and proposes a framework for defining functionality, rooted in Mexican philosophy as an alternative value system. Drawing on thinkers such as Emilio Uranga and Grupo Hiperión’s work, it identifies parallels …

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Dynamics In Relating Craft Practices, Distinguishing Shifting Emotional States To Expand Tacit Knowledge Transfer, Catherine Schwarz, Nicola Sofia Rohsig Lopez, Yassamine Zmir, Jean-François Bassereau, Jenny Faucheu Jun 2026

Dynamics In Relating Craft Practices, Distinguishing Shifting Emotional States To Expand Tacit Knowledge Transfer, Catherine Schwarz, Nicola Sofia Rohsig Lopez, Yassamine Zmir, Jean-François Bassereau, Jenny Faucheu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Disappearing tacit knowledge in high-end craft industries and expert industries, stresses the need to examine the workings of crafting to maintain and gain competitive advantage. To pursue this study, we have been conducting interviews with craft professionals and apprentices to gather insight into their rapport with their practices. Using quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods, we have identified specific moments of a craftsperson’s discourse when relating to their practice, revealing distinct emotional states during the interaction with the material. These findings support enquiry into the craftsperson’s emotional states during the craft practice, to expand knowledge transfer.

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Projects As Actors In Design Education, Barak Pelman, Edith Bouton Jun 2026

Projects As Actors In Design Education, Barak Pelman, Edith Bouton

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study examines how design projects function as actors within studio-based pedagogy, drawing on Actor-Network Theory. Data were collected over a nine-month fieldwork at a higher education institution, covering courses in architecture, industrial design, and ceramics design. The study was conducted as a Research-Practice Partnership, uniting education researchers and design practitioners to shift the focus away from practitioners' specialized knowledge and experiences by positioning them alongside critical perspectives from K-12 educational research. Our findings demonstrate how students and instructors view projects as active actors in the design process across three main dimensions: 1) Through language: instructors and students personify projects, …

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Reimagining Body–Instrument Relations Through Feminist Design Practice: Reflections On An E-Textile Musical Interface, Qiaosheng Lyu, Ryo Ikeshiro Jun 2026

Reimagining Body–Instrument Relations Through Feminist Design Practice: Reflections On An E-Textile Musical Interface, Qiaosheng Lyu, Ryo Ikeshiro

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores how e-textile musical interface can reimagine the relationship between body and instrument from a feminist perspective. Drawing on a practice-based research project, the study examines how soft, deformable materials and embodied interaction can challenge the masculine-coded logic of control that dominates digital musical instrument (DMI) design. Constructed from knitted conductive textiles, the interface functions both as musical controller and prostheses that redistributes agency between performer and instrument. Through design practice, reflective performance, and a somatic experiment with another performer, the research investigates the entangled relationship between performer and instrument from a feminist perspective. The findings suggest that …

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From Citizen Innovation Labs To Social Transformation: Analysing The Conectando Cozinhas Case Through The Lens Of Infrastructuring, Laryssa Tarachucky, Diego Hernando Florez Ayala, Aksel Ersoy Jun 2026

From Citizen Innovation Labs To Social Transformation: Analysing The Conectando Cozinhas Case Through The Lens Of Infrastructuring, Laryssa Tarachucky, Diego Hernando Florez Ayala, Aksel Ersoy

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Citizen Innovation Labs (LabICs) have emerged as experimental infrastructures for collective design and civic transformation. Operating in close partnership with public institutions, these laboratories create collaborative spaces where urban publics co-design responses to issues of shared concern. Yet, little is known about how these laboratories operate as long-term supports for community-driven initiatives beyond their initial phases of experimentation or incubation. This paper investigates how LabICs mobilise processes of infrastructuring to support broader cycles of social transformation by analysing the case of Conectando Cozinhas, a citizen-led initiative developed within LabIC Novale (Brazil). Using a retrospective qualitative case study, the research reconstructs …

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Sketch-Based Ai: How Ai-Influence Levels Shape Perceived Authorship And Creativity In The Design Process, Byungsoo Kim, Haeyoung Kim Jun 2026

Sketch-Based Ai: How Ai-Influence Levels Shape Perceived Authorship And Creativity In The Design Process, Byungsoo Kim, Haeyoung Kim

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Understanding perceived authorship and creativity is critical for novice designers to improve efficiency and engagement in human-AI collaboration. This study explores how different AI influence levels (100% = high human-drawing influence, 0% = low drawing influence) affect perceived authorship and creativity, and how these levels relate to design intents that shape authorship and support the process-oriented nature of creativity. Vizcom workshop post-surveys measured perceived authorship and creativity (N=45). Regarding authorship, when high AI influence (low authorship threshold), basic resemblance to the sketch was enough; when low AI influence, participants expected signature cues and minimal AI changes. Regarding perceived creativity, high …

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Make It So(Und): Speculative Sonic Metaphors As Boundary Objects For Design Research, Kc Collins Jun 2026

Make It So(Und): Speculative Sonic Metaphors As Boundary Objects For Design Research, Kc Collins

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper investigates how speculative sound design can employ metaphors as boundary objects to mediate shared understanding across users and designers. Because sound is ephemeral and difficult to describe, participants often rely on metaphor, drawing on nature, human behaviour, or emotion. We surveyed 72 people online to respond to textual prompts with descriptions of futuristic sound objects, and analysed their responses using several methods. We present results and outline suggestions for re-deploying sonic metaphors as design prompts, and discuss their potential to support sound design.

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Frame Excavation: Revealing And Critiquing Existing Problem Frames To Improve Migrants’ Awareness Of Public Services, Amir Pakpour, Ville-Veikko Minkkinen, Parnian Ghaderiazad, Oğuz Buruk, Thomas Olsson Jun 2026

Frame Excavation: Revealing And Critiquing Existing Problem Frames To Improve Migrants’ Awareness Of Public Services, Amir Pakpour, Ville-Veikko Minkkinen, Parnian Ghaderiazad, Oğuz Buruk, Thomas Olsson

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The prowess of design to reframe complex sociotechnical issues has made it appealing for tackling wicked problems faced by the public sector. Effective reframing requires an understanding of the problem frames in use and their shortcomings to avoid past mistakes. Literature on this groundwork for reframing is sparse. To address this gap, we report a case study on assisting migrants’ awareness of public services, involving interviews with service coordinators working in a Finnish municipality and migrants, and a co-design workshop to surface assumedly problematic frames. We then concretized the frames through an investigation of solution artifacts, encompassing in-person services, websites, …

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Translating Nature's Emotions: Building An Affective Design Framework Rooted In Classical Chinese Poetry, Yi Li, Shuzhan Ji, Yifan Chen, Wanhao Luo, Yuyan Ma, Yu Gao, Xinming Zhou Jun 2026

Translating Nature's Emotions: Building An Affective Design Framework Rooted In Classical Chinese Poetry, Yi Li, Shuzhan Ji, Yifan Chen, Wanhao Luo, Yuyan Ma, Yu Gao, Xinming Zhou

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Current human-computer interaction and more-than-human design increasingly emphasize affective experiences emerging from the dynamic interplay between humans and their environments. However, research in this domain remains largely anthropocentric, often translating non-human emotions in anthropomorphic terms and thereby neglecting their distinctive affective expressions and relational nuances. This paper draws on classical Chinese poetry, renowned for its profound sensory and affective engagement with nature, to analyze how nonhuman entities convey complex emotions such as tranquility, melancholy, and transience. Using grounded theory, we systematically code and categorize the representations of Shui (水, Water), flora, and fauna in poetic excerpts that convey specific affective …

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Integrating Attachment And Social Identity Theories In The Co-Design Of A Hokkien Nursery Rhymes App, Kaiqing Chen Jun 2026

Integrating Attachment And Social Identity Theories In The Co-Design Of A Hokkien Nursery Rhymes App, Kaiqing Chen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study presents the co-design of Hokkien Nursery Rhymes, an educational app supporting intergenerational language learning and cultural transmission. Grounded in Attachment Theory, the design promotes parent–child co-use to strengthen emotional bonds and create a secure, trusting learning atmosphere. Social Identity Theory informs the app’s cultural framing, reinforcing children’s sense of belonging to their linguistic and cultural heritage. Using participatory methods creative workshops with children and interviews with families from diverse sociocultural backgrounds—the study translated insights into tangible design features: emotionally responsive virtual companions, collaborative parent–child tasks, culturally meaningful narratives, reward mechanisms, and personalized audio from caregivers. These elements foster …

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Beyond Ephemerality: Boundary Objects And The Plasticity Of Listening In Collaborative Design, Stefano Delle Monache, Dave Murray-Rust, Elif Özcan, Nicolas Misdariis Jun 2026

Beyond Ephemerality: Boundary Objects And The Plasticity Of Listening In Collaborative Design, Stefano Delle Monache, Dave Murray-Rust, Elif Özcan, Nicolas Misdariis

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Sound-driven design requires shared objects to bridge disciplinary divides and support collaboration between diverse expertise. Boundary Objects and Intermediary Objects typically fulfil this need, yet the ephemerality of sound is in apparent conflict with the stability needed for this boundary work. However, we argue for extending the object beyond the ephemeral sound wave to encompass tools, user interfaces, methods, and lexicons that provide material persistence. To support this we develop an analytical framework combining BO and IO properties and apply it to a selection of sound design tools in the literature. We argue that the required interpretive flexibility and perceived …

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Playing Future Places Together, Troy Innocent, Carolyn Briggs, Ashleigh Dharma, Carlo Tolentino Jun 2026

Playing Future Places Together, Troy Innocent, Carolyn Briggs, Ashleigh Dharma, Carlo Tolentino

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Cities are physical manifestations of how we live together in urgent need of redesign to adapt and respond to impacts of climate change. Place-based methods offer critical and imaginative ways to work with neighbourhoods as living labs for regenerative futures and planetary civics. Reworlding explores urban play as method in co-governance of the green transition of neighbourhoods. It works with posthuman methods to give nature a voice, supporting more-than-human approaches, and addressing climate, biodiversity, and pollution challenges. Play and democracy balance interests, power, and knowledge asymmetries among neighbourhood actors by engaging cultural actors and use local, indigenous, or marginalised knowledge …

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Decolonizing Care In Design Research: Familiness And Relational Practices From Creative Ageing In Thailand, Khemmiga Teerapong, Boonanan Natakun Jun 2026

Decolonizing Care In Design Research: Familiness And Relational Practices From Creative Ageing In Thailand, Khemmiga Teerapong, Boonanan Natakun

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper advances a decolonised understanding of care within design research by examining how relational and culturally grounded practices shape engagements with older adults in Thailand’s rapidly aging society. Drawing on the Monday Museum creative ageing initiative in Bangkok’s Khlong Bang Luang neighbourhood, the study critiques Western-centric framings of care that privilege clinical, individualised, or outcome-driven approaches. Fieldwork and co-design activities with elderly residents reveal that care emerges as a relational practice embedded in local cultural norms, expressed through attentiveness, reciprocity, and shared responsibility. The paper introduces “Familiness” as a Thai, culturally situated framework that embodies warmth, flexibility, and family-like …

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Dwelling, Making, And Digital Mediation: Mani Stone Piles In Eastern Tibet, Danmeng Xu, Han Sun, Zhijun Peng, Deng Pan, Jing Su Jun 2026

Dwelling, Making, And Digital Mediation: Mani Stone Piles In Eastern Tibet, Danmeng Xu, Han Sun, Zhijun Peng, Deng Pan, Jing Su

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study examines mani stone piles in Eastern Tibet as material forms emerging through dwelling, movement, and situated acts of making. Drawing on Tim Ingold’s dwelling perspective and long-term visual ethnography conducted between 2016 and 2025, it shows how mani piles are produced through the embodied selection, carrying, and stacking of stones at passes, riverbanks, and crossroads. Rather than treating these piles primarily as fixed religious symbols or products of prior design intention, we argue that their forms arise from the practical coordination of bodily skill, available materials, topography, ritual habit, and movement through the landscape. It further shows that …

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Belonging Across Borders: A Framework For Transnationally Resonant Retail Design, Zakkiya Khan Jun 2026

Belonging Across Borders: A Framework For Transnationally Resonant Retail Design, Zakkiya Khan

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As global cities become increasingly transnational, retail environments have become key sites where mobile publics negotiate belonging through spatial and commercial experience. While transnational consumers are widely theorised, the spatial implications of their participation in global retail remain underexplored. This conceptual paper draws from transnational and diaspora studies to argue that retail design operates as a transcultural interface where familiarity and difference coexist, shaping plural modes of belonging. It proposes the concept, ‘Transnationally Resonant Retail Design’, a conceptual framework outlining how affective resonance, cultural mediation, and social recognition foster civic belonging within commercial spaces. These principles are illustrated by the …

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"It's Going To Be A Really Good Place To Hang Out": Supporting Diversity In Community Indoor Environments By Eliciting Autistic Adults’ Preferences, Asako Osedo, Stella Boess Jun 2026

"It's Going To Be A Really Good Place To Hang Out": Supporting Diversity In Community Indoor Environments By Eliciting Autistic Adults’ Preferences, Asako Osedo, Stella Boess

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study investigates how indoor environments, for example of schools or workplaces, can actively support the diversity of communities, by considering the case of autistic adults’ preferences for them. Employing a participatory design approach, we engaged autistic individuals to understand their lived experiences, preferences for meaningful in-person social interactions, and their strategies to engage in social settings. Key findings highlight the importance of sensory regulation, vibrant and engaging spaces that mitigate awkwardness and promote authentic interactions, and the role of predictability and autonomy in reducing unnecessary stresses. We show how autistic adults can be supported in managing their regulation to …

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Absent Voices, Alternative Futures: What Design Issues Didn't Say About Design (1984-2025), Yeqiu Yang Jun 2026

Absent Voices, Alternative Futures: What Design Issues Didn't Say About Design (1984-2025), Yeqiu Yang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Can Western design theory be a universal panacea? Celebrating Design Issues' 40-year legacy (1984-2025), "The Unfolding Culture" exhibition asks how culture will shape design's future, yet overlooks whose culture dominates design discourse. Through critical analysis of Design Issues, the author reveals three structural absences that question theoretical universalism: (1) Medium constraints—text-based format systematically excludes sound, video, and material-based knowledge production, eliminating epistemologies that resist textualization; (2) Temporal lag—non-Western topics arrive decades late, revealing one-way delayed recognition rather than dialogue; (3) Divergent concerns—East and West simultaneously focus on fundamentally different design questions yet lack mechanisms for synchronous exchange, resulting in parallel …

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The Dcf Framework: Integrating Cross-Cultural And Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives On Comfort Experience, Danhua Zhao, Rui Qin, Chaomin Ma, Yuhao Jiang, Bingquan Wang Jun 2026

The Dcf Framework: Integrating Cross-Cultural And Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives On Comfort Experience, Danhua Zhao, Rui Qin, Chaomin Ma, Yuhao Jiang, Bingquan Wang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design plays a key role in driving economic and organizational transformations. However, existing approaches face significant challenges in addressing the translation of cross-cultural needs, integrating diverse perspectives, and critically reassessing the role of design within the singular economic/efficiency paradigm, particularly regarding affective experiences assessment such as comfort. To address these, this study proposes a qualitative framework that incorporates multiple stakeholders and cross-cultural users into the design process, referred to as the Diversity-Co-Creation-Framework (DCF). Through four phases—Scanning, Framing, Mapping, and Deepening—the DCF combines tools such as semi-structured interviews and the Futures Triangle from foresight research to engage opinion leaders and cross-cultural …

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Designing Under Uncertainty: How Novices Rationalize Prototype Choices Before And After Parallel Testing, Pa Chang Vang, Carlye Anne Lauff Jun 2026

Designing Under Uncertainty: How Novices Rationalize Prototype Choices Before And After Parallel Testing, Pa Chang Vang, Carlye Anne Lauff

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study examines how novice designers justify prototype concept choices before and after parallel stakeholder testing in early-stage product development. Drawing on 99 survey responses collected across two checkpoints in a 16-week interdisciplinary design studio, we used an inductive-deductive coding approach to map emergent themes to innovation frames of desirability, feasibility, and viability. Six themes emerged: desirability (primarily perceived play value) dominated pre- and post-test reasoning, while feasibility (simplicity/modularity) and viability (production cost, market potential) shaped secondary trade-offs. Parallel testing prompted revisions when stakeholder engagement or client cues contradicted expectations; many students retained choices when testing validated initial impressions or …

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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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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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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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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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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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