Digital Commons Network^™

Living Through Misinformation: An Autoethnography Of Autism In Chinese Communities, Joy Lu

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This critical autoethnographic essay examines how misconception, misinformation, and disinformation shape understandings of autism within Chinese communities and produce tangible harm for autistic individuals and their families. Drawing on lived experience, advocacy work, digital observation, and cross-cultural analysis, it explores how language, medical practices, social media, and professional authority sustain persistent misrepresentation.

The essay argues that this misinformation is not merely the result of ignorance, but a socially reinforced and institutionally supported system of knowledge. By situating personal encounters within broader cultural and structural contexts, it highlights the interconnected roles of language, power, and exclusion in shaping autistic lives. It …

Designing For Transversal Play: Experience, Materiality And Connection, Kim Holflod

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper introduces transversal play as a material, experiential, and relational mode of playful inquiry and connection that traverses disciplinary, institutional, and cultural worlds in pedagogy and education. Drawing on design philosophical, posthumanist, and play theoretical perspectives, transversal play is framed as a situated, collaborative, and world-travelling practice of interbeing, where difference becomes a generative site for collective experimentation, care, and transformation. Through four design-based research examples, the paper explores how transversal play emerges in tangible engagements with materials, experiences, and agencies. These examples illustrate how transversal play can reconfigure roles, soften boundaries, and support speculative, caring, and ethical pedagogical …

Value Co-Creation, Co-Displacement, And Co-Destruction In Design: Bridging Value And Values In Human-Data Interaction, Boyeun Lee, Ella Tallyn, Ramprabu Thangaraj, Chris Elsden, Chris Speed

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Data has emerged as a fundamental driver of value creation within design processes, shaping economic, ethical, and environmental outcomes across societies and socio-technical systems. Existing scholarship often frames value in binary terms of co-creation and co-destruction, overlooking the systemic complexities introduced by interconnected, data-intensive systems. This paper introduces the novel concept of value co-displacement to capture how alternative forms of value emerge and displace others within human–data interaction. Drawing on four design research case studies, we investigate how value and values are co-created, co-displaced, and co-destroyed across interconnected, data-intensive systems. We develop a framework that conceptualises the dynamic interplay of …

Frictions And Constraints Of Institutioning: Facilitating Equitable Participatory Design With Migrants In Municipalities, Uttishta Sreerama Varanasi, Rūta Šerpytytė, Thomas Olsson

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Applying participatory design in the public sector is both challenged and fuelled by the diversity and dynamism of changing populations, particularly with institutions looking to engage and integrate their migrant residents. We examine the capabilities of Participatory Design (PD) in a Finnish municipality, providing empirical evidence of the frictions and constraints of institutioning efforts towards equitable participation. Through the lens of institutioning, we analyse the political and social nature of institutional participatory approaches by the municipality. By engaging NGOs as civic intermediaries in between migrants and the public sector, we unpack the metacultural discourses, institutional strategies and policies that may …

Enframing Creativity: Speculations On Design Education's Transformations In The Age Of Generative Ai, Alireza Sharifi, Michael Hohl, Fredrik Skatar

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The rapid advancement of AI technologies necessitates a shift from reactive adoption to speculative inquiry into long-term consequences for educational systems. Grounded in Martin Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology," this research examines the epistemology of AI in design education. Methodologically, it employs speculative futurology, integrating speculative design, critical design, and scenario planning to explore possible futures, culminating in a philosophical mapping framework based on Heidegger's critical stance. The findings reveal a critical temporal mismatch between rapid AI capability growth and slower educational adaptation, creating urgency for human-centered frameworks. The research concludes that design education's future depends on consciously cultivating Critical …

Situated Pedagogies For Public Design Through Genai, Anca Serbanescu, Noor Murteza

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores the integration of Generative AI (GenAI) in design education through the lens of public design learning. Drawing on critical pedagogy and a situated classroom case study, it examines how GenAI reshapes the epistemic and ontological journey of becoming a public designer. The study foregrounds ethical, cognitive, and systemic challenges associated with human–AI co-creativity, highlighting the pedagogical implications for cultivating political sensitivity, collaborative reflexive capabilities, and design agency. Through an in-class activity involving persona co-creation with GenAI, the paper illustrates how students engage with plural and contextually grounded design practices. It concludes by advocating for inclusive, reflexive, and …

“Why Do All The Schools Look The Same?” Exploring Children’S Spatial Design Preferences Through Generative Ai In India, Chinmay Pade, Charu Monga

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Artificial Intelligence is increasingly embedded in creative and spatial design processes, transforming how ideas are visualized and interpreted. This study examines how generative AI tools influence children’s imagination and articulation of spatial design preferences for schools in India. In a context where school environments are often standardized and children’s perspectives remain marginalized, participatory workshops with primary-school students engaged them in describing, writing, and generating AI-assisted images to express their visions for school spaces. The process revealed both the potential and the limits of AI-driven visualization. While AI expanded imagination and made ideas instantly visible, it also reproduced globalized aesthetics detached …

Distributed Care Hubs: Rethinking Disability Care Policy Through Participatory Research, Christina Chi Zhang, Kyra Zimmerman, Austin Duncan, Jiin Jung

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper develops the concept of "distributed care hubs" to describe the informal, relational infrastructures through which disabled people sustain everyday life amid insufficient formal care systems. Drawing on participatory research in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania—combining community mapping, ethnographic interviews, and computational analysis—we show how community-built care emerges through ordinary social interactions, shared spaces, and reciprocal relationships. Distributed care hubs reveal that disability care and everyday sociality are inseparable; they challenge independence-centered policy frameworks by foregrounding interdependence as a universal human condition. Yet these hubs remain precarious, functioning as compensatory mechanisms shaped by systemic failures that force disabled people into informal survival …

Sketching Social Robots: Visualising Futures Of Human–Robot Interaction Through Participatory Imagination, Nicholas Vanderschantz, Jessica Turner, Jemma Konig, Claire Timpany, Rafeea Siddika, Nathan Shakes

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In this paper, we explore sketching as a speculative and reflective practice for imagining social robots. Through a series of participatory design workshops, participants observed two prototype robots and then produced sketches and word maps envisioning possible appearances, behaviours, and social roles for robots in everyday life. Analysing the artefacts of these workshops reveals how non-expert human users perceive and imagine future robots in their worlds. We examine common themes of emotion, familiarity, discomfort, and relational values in the artefacts produced by the workshop participants. Our work highlights a way that sketching and written idea generation by non-designers can serve …

Revisiting Kansei Engineering Through Japanese Scholarship: Toward Field Kansei Engineering, Liang Dong, Hong Zhang, Chun-Hsien Chen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Japan, as the birthplace of Kansei Engineering (KE), has played a pivotal role in shaping this field, building a solid research foundation and accumulating extensive scholarly experience. A substantial body of valuable Japanese-language studies has been published in academic conferences and journals in Japan. However, current English-language review articles in KE rarely include these Japanese works. To address this gap, this study provides a preliminary attempt to compile and analyse Japanese publications that propose new concepts, theories, models, and frameworks within KE. The review highlights distinctive perspectives developed by Japanese scholars, revealing contextual and situational sensitivity, collective and social understanding, …

Inclusive Co-Learning In Transnational Design Classrooms: Bridging Linguistic And Cultural Gaps Between Chinese Students And British Curricula, Linli Zhang, Jinze Hao, Yaqi Wang, Liang Xiao

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study explores inclusive co-learning strategies in transnational design education, focusing on Chinese students enrolled in a joint program jointly delivered by Beijing Jiaotong University and Lancaster University within China. These students complete their entire undergraduate studies domestically, without the opportunity to immerse themselves in an English-speaking or multicultural environment. As a result, they often rely on translation tools to overcome linguistic and cultural barriers when engaging with British pedagogy. Drawing on classroom observations, student interviews, and reflective teaching practices, the study proposes an Inclusive Co-Learning Framework that integrates linguistic scaffolding and cultural mediation to foster language development, cultural understanding, …

Design Research Laboratories: A Historical Review, Lynn Harles

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In recent decades, Design Research Labs have proliferated across design educational institutions worldwide, emerging as dynamic spaces that challenge traditional pedagogical models. However, understanding this contemporary phenomenon requires contextualizing it within the historical origins of the laboratory metaphor in design—a concept repeatedly reimagined over nearly a century. Building upon Hasenhütl's (2018, 2023) identification of two historical generations from the early to mid-20th century, this research extends the genealogy to encompass contemporary developments, with particular attention to socio-ecological themes. The analysis reveals four distinct generations of Design Research Labs that do not follow strictly linear chronological progression but represent "expanding parameters" …

Ai And Thou: Empathy, Artificial Intelligence And Alterity In Design, Matt Sinclair, Peter Buwert

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Empathy is a key differentiator in Nigel Cross' model of Design as a third discipline, and has become established as a vital component of both research and practice. Yet agreed definitions of empathy in design remain elusive, and the roles it should play have been questioned and problematised. Recent developments in the capabilities of Large Language Models have generated discussion of the possibility of both simulated and actual empathic behaviour by artificial intelligences. In this paper we gather and synthesise relevant philosophical debates on the nature and operation of AI-empathy. Concepts of alterity in the work of Martin Buber and …

Design For Well-Being: A Preliminary Investigation On Design Interventions In The Context Of Loneliness Economy, Jinxia Liu, Angela Giambattista, Loredana Di Lucchio

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Loneliness has become a prominent public health issue that causes negative consequences at both individual and social levels. Concurrently, the market is actively responding and gradually forms the loneliness economy, addressing human emotional needs by offering related products and services. However, the largely implemented digital solutions remain problematic. This paper aims at investigating how design research has addressed the loneliness issue and what roles design plays in addressing loneliness. A mixed methodological approach was adopted, combining analysis of keyword co-occurrence and a meta-narrative review. The results identify the threefold design contributions: building and enhancing social connectedness, creating artificial companions and …

Crafting Savage Futures: Translanguaging And The Material Politics Of Peripheral Making, Guilherme Meyer, Seher Mirza, Raees Calafato

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Dominant paradigms have confined imaginaries to narrow, hegemonic narratives, severing them from plural, relational, and non-domesticated possibilities. This paper challenges monolithic views of language and material craft by offering a transformative lens on cultural and linguistic dynamism within design research and practice. Drawing on “savage” futures (Lévi-Strauss, 1966) and “translanguaging” (Lee, 2015; García & Kleifgen, 2020), we highlight the situated creative practices of peripheral craft makers as mediums for multilingual storytelling, identity negotiation, and speculative futures. Translanguaging extends beyond language, involving embodied, material, and affective communication as non-hierarchical resources for collective worlding and shared meaning-making. Through participatory craft projects in …

Mediating Heritage Through Design: Participatory Approaches To Post-Digital Transformation, Lorenzo Barberis, Lorenzo Arena, Vlasios Kasapakis, Viktor Malakuczi, Ioannis Chatziannakis

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This research explores how design mediates the digital transformation of cultural heritage through hybrid and multisensory installations in archaeological contexts. Using the Case Romane del Celio in Rome as a pilot site for the European project HeritAdapt, it aims to redistribute visitor flows and promote sustainable tourism by enhancing the intangible value of minor sites. The study contributes to the post-digital museology debate by framing design as a critical, participatory practice operating across physical and virtual dimensions, fostering collaboration among engineering, management and restoration. Combining Service Design, Extended Reality and Artificial Intelligence technologies, qualitative research and iterative prototyping guided the …

Code Ecologies: Reclaiming Design As Meaning-Making Within Human–Ecological Systems, Laura Santamaria

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper reclaims the role of design as a practice of meaning-making within human–ecological systems. While meaning has always been part of design discourse, successive turns – semiotic, experiential, relational – have addressed what meaning is without asking why living systems make meaning at all. Drawing on recent advances in neuroscience, biosemiotics and code biology, it argues that meaning-making is not a cognitive phenomenon unique to humans but a regulatory process intrinsic to living systems. Code Ecologies offers a philosophical framework that reinterprets the biosphere, technosphere and semiosphere as interdependent ecologies of codes, resonant with relational and Indigenous cosmologies. The …

From Appraisal To Affect: Designing A Playful Activity For Social Emotional Learning Among Children, Jonathan Sawian, Aditi Sharma

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The National Education Policy of India (2020) states that Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is essential towards student’s holistic development. While existing curricula provide structured guidance and learning, they often lack playful and participatory elements to engage children in the learning process. This paper describes the design and evaluation of a non-digital, co-operative and playful activity called Bhavna Chakra (Wheel of Emotions) which aims to teach children about emotional awareness using Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions. The study proposes a design framework based on cognitive appraisal theory, narrative structure and social play. A within-subjects study with 40 students (ages 11–12) from low …

Efficiency And Empathy: Integrating Ai Into User Research In An Undergraduate Ux Design Course, Nan Hu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The integration of AI into UX design presents both opportunities and challenges for UX education-how to leverage AI’s efficiency while developing students’ human skills. This pilot study examines LLMs as an analytical AI co-pilot in undergraduate user research. Students (N=17) conducted two cycles of user research: one using traditional methods, and another with Claude-assisted analysis. Findings show 14 (82%) of students perceived the Claude-assisted approach as faster in synthesizing data and extracting insights. However, the results also reveal a trade-off: AI's efficiency may reduce empathy-building, with 6 (35%) students reporting diminished user connection. This research illuminates the inherent tension in …

Weaving Visual Language: Encoding Gaelic In Tartan Length To Facilitate Interaction With Endangered Languages, Emmie Drummond, Dr Loraine Clarke, Miriam Sturdee, Freya Macleod

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This project reimagines tartan as a data-physicalization of Scots Gaelic. Extending ‘Radical Gaels’, a psycho-geographic soundscape that maps the identity, geographies and material history of Contemporary Gaels. Weaving Visual Language translates Scots waulking songs and geographies through cryptographic mapping to weave structure, using a Python-based binary matrix encoding system, illustrating the loss of Gaelic oral traditions. The resulting textiles act as linguistic archives and objects of cultural dissent. The project proposes a framework for museums to engage audiences through preserving information within the artefact itself, rather than exterior labelling. Theoretically, this work develops the idea of ‘culturally constrained physicalization’, where …

Design Education In Multicultural Contexts: Student Perceptions Of Cultural Inclusivity In The Classroom, Jasmine Yiming Sun, Najla Mouchrek

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Fostering intercultural integration of students of diverse backgrounds is a key concern for design education. This study examines how design students at a culturally-diverse North American university perceive cultural inclusivity in their educational experience and effects on sense of belonging and integration. We surveyed 102 undergraduate and graduate students about expressing cultural identities in the design classroom, cultural inclusivity of learning materials, environment and interactions, and navigating challenging experiences in cross-cultural integration at the school. Although the study found a considerable level of cultural inclusivity, findings suggest that efforts to foster diversity and integration are still necessary, since difficulties seem …

Urban Typography And Cultural Memory: A Literature Review In Support Of A Design-Led Approach To Heritage And Preservation, Carolina Short, Gareth Schott

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Typography has increasingly been recognised as a valuable lens for cultural and urban analysis. This literature review extends such perspectives by examining how design-led approaches can support the documentation, reinterpretation, and revitalization of urban letterforms as cultural heritage. Drawing on typographic studies, geosemiotics, and design research, it focuses on urban typography — typographic landscapes — understood as spatial and multimodal carriers of memory, identity, and cultural value. While existing scholarship has explored the semiotic and aesthetic dimensions of typography in the urban environment, and some have proposed design-led interventions, connections between theory and practice remain open to further development. The …

Participatory Design As Third Space: Iterative Ethic In Singapore’S Contemporary Multiculturalism, Cheng Chen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Participatory designers in Singapore work within Bhabha’s “third space,” where identities and practices are continuously negotiated across cultural boundaries. This qualitative study, based on interviews and ethnographic observation with 18 designers addressing social welfare for marginalized communities, examines how designers’ intersectional identities—such as female, queer, Chinese, and gig creatives—shape an ethic of care rooted in Asianised neighbourliness. Designers strategically inhabit in-between spaces, balancing top-down and bottom-up approaches through critical curiosity and cultural competence. Findings identify three interlinked personas: (1) Facilitator—mediating perspectives and trust; (2) Maker—engaging in embodied, situated making; and (3) Reflexive practitioner—cultivating curiosity across demographics. This iterative ethic enables …

Participatory Design As Emotional Infrastructure: Supporting Collective Reflection And Resilience After The Pandemic, Xinyu Zhang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

COVID-19 has left enduring emotional distress for many citizens even as public attention to the crisis has faded. In this context, participatory design (PD) is increasingly recognised as a dialogic and restorative practice that enables collective reflection and emotional recovery through shared meaning-making. This study examines how participatory design supports citizens in reflecting on pandemic-related psychological distress, with particular attention to war metaphors widely used in governmental and media communications during COVID-19. While these metaphors mobilised collective action, they also intensified perceptions of risk and vulnerability. The research is based on a year-long participatory design project, W&M, involving nine participants, …

Pro-Des. Localising Design Research For Scientific Publishing. A Case Study Of Research And Experimentation In Italy, Elena Formia, Eleonora Lupo, Lorela Mehmeti

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper deals with the issue of scientific publishing of design research basing on a national scale approach, that can become a reference and be transferable and replicable in other contexts. In 2023, within SID -Società ltaliana di Design (Italian Design Society), the national research group Pro-Des.Scientific production of Design has been established, committing with the aim of researching and experimenting the complex phenomenon of scientific publication of design. Over the last two years, the group has coordinated and developed several activities to position the topic and set the discussion at the national level by looking at the international panorama …

Conversing With Scenario Data: Exploring Experienced Designers’ Data-Informed Reasoning Strategies In Smart Product Concept Exploration, Yaqin Peng, Xiang Yuan, Yuxuan Tan, Zikun Song

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Smart product concept exploration unfolds in dynamic and diverse use situations (DDUS) that yield fragmented, multimodal scenario data, yet how experienced designers organise design reasoning in data-intensive environments to support problem framing remains underdescribed. We used a Scenario-Data-Informed (SDI) Canvas to make designer-data conversations visible and ran task-based sessions with 18 designers. From coded think-alouds and canvas inscriptions, we report three findings: first, three reasoning stances that structure work with scenario data; second, three language-in-use strategies and an actor-network mapping that renders translations among contexts, artefacts, and intentions as a traceable network; third, shareable cues that support collaboration and surface …

Along The Line Of Emotional Support: Reimagining Ai Companions For Young Adults’ Wellbeing, Giulia Jiangxian Zhu, Xue Pei, Andrea Gaggioli

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Young adults increasingly face emotional stress, uncertainty, and a lack of accessible, non-judgmental support. While AI technologies are emerging as potential companions, many adopt anthropomorphic and chat-based models that risk emotional overdependence, blurred boundaries, and false intimacy. This research explores how AI systems might be reimagined to foster authentic and ethical forms of companionship that support young adults’ wellbeing. Grounded in Positive Technology and its focus on promoting human flourishing, this research adopts a research-through-design approach, integrating semi-structured interviews, co-design sessions, hands-on prototyping, and user feedback. The resulting prototype, ALONG is a calm, embodied AI companion designed to encourage personal …

Infodesign Journal: Tensions And Contradictions In Twenty Years Of Information Design Research In Brazil, Sara Miriam Goldchmit, Tiago Barros Pontes E Silva, Cláudia De Souza Libânio

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The Brazilian InfoDesign journal specializes in the subject of information design (ID), with a historical trajectory that reflects efforts in establishing a Brazilian perspective on the traditionally Anglo-American ID epistemology. Recently, the paradox of indexing to gain international scientific recognition marked an inflection point for this knowledge ecosystem, posing new editorial challenges and language barriers while opening avenues for the dissemination of pluriversal approaches. Aiming to map tensions and contradictions in the evolution of information design research in Brazil, this paper presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the InfoDesign journal database, containing 397 publications spanning from 2004 to 2024. Findings …

Decolonising Digital Practices In Intangible Cultural Heritage. Implications From Literature And Funded Ec Research Projects Towards A Framework Of Design Principles, Eleonora Lupo

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In the context of a digitally mature world in which the relationship between Cultural Heritage and digital technologies is under re-evaluation, this paper critically rethink the use of digital technologies for preserving and valorising Intangible Cultural Heritage through a decolonising lens. A criticall literature review is provided and a comparative analysis is conducted on EC funded reserachprojects in order to depict from rhetoric misuses to real transformative uses of digital technologies, in avoiding excluding actors depending on their gender, cultural inclination or digital literacy, generating a genuine capacitation and participation of the whole ecosystem and distributing leadership and agency. This …

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 …