Digital Commons Network^™

Unleashing Collective Imagination Through Controversies: Lessons From A Smart City Project, Julieta Matos-Castaño, Corelia Baibarac-Duignan, Michiel De Lange, Anouk Geenen, Mascha Van Der Voort

DRS Biennial Conference Series

We explore the role of futures-oriented design interventions in leveraging socio-technical controversies to foster collective imagination. We elaborate on a practical application of a speculative and scenario-based design tool called Future Frictions. Our study focuses on the use of Future Frictions to engage citizens in the development of an assessment framework for implementing sensors in Amsterdam. By employing the "controversing" framework to operationalize controversies through design, we explore how Future Frictions provides an interface that bridges speculative and real-life urban contexts. This interface facilitates recontextualizing controversies in daily life, fostering sensemaking, and making space for collective agency. This, we argue, …

Creative Workspaces And Designer Metacognition: A Framework, Measures, And Interventions, Chris Mcteague, Katja Thoring

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Well-designed workspaces have the potential to enhance a designer’s creativity if the designer knows how to make effective use of that space. ‘Metacognition’ refers to the monitoring and control of one’s thought process and could provide a theoretical basis for understanding designer-environment interactions. However, there is a lack of theory at the intersection of metacognition and workspaces. Here, we adapt Lebuda and Benedek’s Systematic Framework of Creative Metacognition to the topic of designers and creative spaces. Using this framework and empirical research about creative metacognition, we (i) identify two roles for metacognitive processing in the context of creative spaces, (ii) …

Empowerment Of People With Disabilities Through Collaborative Making: Exploring User Involvement In Designing And Adapting Assistive Products, Koray Canlar, Çağla Doğan

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study investigates the extent of the empowering effects of making and collective production activities on people with disabilities and the assistive products they use. The universal and participatory design approaches intend to empower people with disabilities, but how a person with a disability can be empowered, and the requirements for it are highly dependent on the individual and the context. The research utilizes the elements of The Empowerment Theory to assess the resulting empowerment of participants’ making-related experiences. Semi-structured interviews and participant observations were conducted to understand the role of making and collective production activities in enabling the participation …

Balancing Cognitive Load In Design Work: A Conceptual And Narrative Review, Jakob Clemen Lavrsen, Jaap Daalhuizen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Designers address complex and even wicked problems, which requires them to deal with high levels of uncertainty and ambiguity, requiring high levels of mental effort. The cognitive load of designing is thus likely to affect design behaviours, activities and method use. However, the nature of design work presents a challenge in applying existing theory on cognitive load to explain and predict design behaviour. Especially designers' tendency to expand the design space to increase creative potential seems to fall outside the current theories on cognitive load. Following recent calls for theory-building within design, this paper outlines a conceptual framework mapping the …

Designing For Playful Learning In Formal Education: A Case Study Of Virtual Reality Field Trips, Eileen Mcgivney

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Despite the benefits of playful learning experiences to increase students’ motivation and learning, traditional classrooms lack opportunities to learn through play. Virtual reality (VR) is a promising tool to bring rich, playful contexts into classrooms, but designing instructional models that make the most of its affordances remains challenging. This paper describes a multi-year design process implementing VR field trips in high school engineering classrooms to highlight the benefits and challenges of using VR to promote playful learning in schools. In both remote and in-person classes we developed virtual field trip lessons using immersive videos and videogame-like environments. Over time, learning …

Cultural Transition By Digital Technologies: Invasion Or Empowerment?, Zhiming Liu, Han Sun, Zhijun Peng, Zhenyun Duan, Deng Pan

DRS Biennial Conference Series

With the growing influence of digital transformation on global communities, critically examining the interaction between digital technologies and traditional cultures is becoming more pressing, especially in minority groups. This paper explores the complex relationships between digital technologies and cultural landscape in Eastern Tibet based on a 34-day ethnography study by photographic materials from 28 counties and cities. Through looking into these visual materials, also including observations and interviews, the tension surrounding commercialization, public relations, creative expressions, and the environment are uncovered. We discuss the unintended and pervasive consequences of modernization, including cultural homogenization and the rise of individualism, imagining possible …

Ai Art Perceptions With Genframe – An Image Generating Picture Frame, Peter Kun, Matthias Freiberger, Anders Sundnes Løvlie, Sebastian Risi

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Image-generation models are changing how we express ourselves in visual art. However, what people think of AI-generated art is still largely unexplored, especially compared to traditional art. In this paper, we present the design of an interactive research product, GenFrame – an image-generating picture frame that appears as a traditional painting but offers the viewer the agency to modify the depicted painting. In the current paper, we report on a study where we deployed the GenFrame in a traditional art museum and interviewed visitors about their views on AI art. When provoked by AI-generated art, people need more of the …

Power Signifiers: The Subtle Forms Of Power In Design Practice With Marginalized Craft Communities, Seher Tabasum Mirza

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper discusses how craft practice may offer empowerment strategies for critically reflective spaces, that allow for social transformation, using the case of traditional textile communities of women in rural Pakistan where development opportunities are limited. It uses the reflective practice of its design researcher, to explore established power relations, and search for new dialogues that build meaningful relationships for creating new forms of power in interrelated social, development and design contexts. This practice-based discussion contends with the embedded layers of power arising from social constructs and those extending beyond. A combined methodology, ‘Power Signifiers’ is presented as a critically …

Challenges For Design And Designers In Interdisciplinary Product Development: A Qualitative Interview Study In Industry, Bernd Stoehr, Christian Koldewey, Yasemin Acar, Roman Dumitrescu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Today’s challenges in areas such as climate change, health technology, and digitization require adapted or even new products. Thus, product design gains higher importance since it defines human-centered solutions, leading to lower or higher acceptance of new design solutions. While the benefits of design seem to be compelling, previous research has shown that industry still faces challenges in prioritizing design along complex interdisciplinary development processes. In this paper, we aim to gain a deeper understanding of these challenges. Based on qualitative exploratory interviews with thirteen designers from the industry, three main and interrelated challenges were identified: A lack of knowledge …

Empathy From Within: User-Enacted Design With Autistic Young Adults, Niels Van Huizen, Wouter Staal, Mascha Van Der Voort, Jelle Van Dijk

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The ‘double empathy problem’ highlights the challenge of mutual empathy between autistic and non-autistic individuals. In applying this concept to supportive technology design, it has been argued that designers cannot accurately imagine the unique experiences and needs of autistic users. We explain that co-design, suggested to bridge the gap, falls victim to the same criticism. We decided to start from the opposite point of view, which we call ‘user-enacted design’. Instead of creating conventional co-design tools that enable designers to empathise and design with end users, we developed tools with which autistic individuals can design their own supportive interventions. We …

Design For Serene Textile Experiences: A Toolkit, Stefano Parisi, Holly Mcquillan, Elvin Karana

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Serenity plays a pivotal role in human well-being, as it fosters an enduring sense of peace and calmness. Everyday textile artifacts, with their qualities of softness, malleability, and flexibility, hold the capacity to greatly enhance serenity in user experiences. Drawing from the foundation of materials experience and material-driven design, this paper introduces a design toolkit aimed at harnessing the potential of textiles in creating serene experiences. The toolkit was refined through two exploratory workshops involving design professionals from both academic and industrial backgrounds. By emphasizing the interplay of form, material, and time in textile experiences, this toolkit offers a vocabulary …

Generating User Personas With Ai: Reflecting On Its Implications For Design, Vanessa Sattele, Juan Carlos Ortiz

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The aim of this research is to analyze and expose risks associated with using AI tools such as Large Language Models and Text to Image Models to create user personas, and initiate a discussion about their application in design practice. First, a model is presented comparing the traditional user research approach with an AI persona generation method. Through a case study involving the creation of personas within the context of Mexico City, a critical analysis is conducted, revealing biases. Possible causes and risks for design practice and education are discussed, as well as potential benefits. Finally, a model for scalability …

Empowering Stakeholders To Address Gentrification's Impact On Urban Schooling, Nidhi Singh Rathore, Ayushi Jain

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Residential stratification has long governed American cities, as has the under-achievement of children living in urban areas (Sandy & Duncan, 2010). Policymakers, administrators, and educators working to address these systemic inefficacies need to consider intersectional factors to redesign urban schooling carefully. Gentrification often leads to more significant gaps between the socioeconomic classes, increasing the chasm between the needs of residents. How can we enable policymakers, educators, and parents to (1) track socio, cultural, and environmental conditions, (2) learn from the lived experience of underrepresented groups, and (3) design more equitable urban schooling policies? In this paper, the authors share the …

Reimagining Temporality: Exploring The Intersection Of Time And Trauma In Design Research, Catherine Wieczorek, Laura Forlano

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Time plays a central role in design research, influencing how people complete daily tasks, plan for the future, and interact with technology. Designers employ various methods, such as journey maps, diary studies, temporal probes, and storytelling, to articulate their conceptualizations of time. They use time to ground findings and envision future possibilities through tools like systems maps and the futures cone. This paper critically examines the use of time-based techniques in design research, highlighting their limitations and capabilities. It explores the intersection of time and trauma, acknowledging trauma's impact on an individual's perception and experience of time. The paper advocates …

Designing From The Plants' Perspective. A Field Case Study In Urban Forest Of “La Goccia”, Francesco Vergani, Fabio Di Liberto

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Designing by engaging more-than-human agents such as plants is a complex chal-lenge, as they have long been regarded as "ontologically inferior" resources pri-marily serving human needs. Emerging studies in the field of Plant Neurobiology are now breaking down knowledge barriers, gathering extraordinary data that recognize plant actions and behaviors guided by a distinct form of intelligence. Considering this breakthrough findings, this paper describes a 10-day workshop involving 52 international design students from Politecnico di Milano University that focused on experiencing plants in a former industrial area within the city borders. Through the years, this area has gone from desolation to …

Designing Sound For Public Spaces Through A Research-Creation Collaboration Framework, Valérian Fraisse, Marcelo Mortensen Wanderley, Nicolas Misdariis, Catherine Guastavino

DRS Biennial Conference Series

When designing a sound installation in public spaces, creators consider a wide range of factors related to the site where it will be deployed as part of the artistic statement. However, anticipating the impact of the sound installation on user experience is difficult in the absence of established methods to inform the design and evaluate the outcomes. Based on three case studies involving sound artists and soundscape researchers, we propose a research-creation collaboration framework through four stages: 1) field recordings of pre-existing sound environments; 2) diagnosis of pre-existing sound environments and public space usage; 3) sound installation prototyping in laboratory …

Drawing-Philosophy Correspondence: Towards Transforming From Within, Caroline Hummels

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The global call for transformation towards a more just, sustainable and pluriverse world has also materialised within the design field, asking for new design practices that embrace open-ended and relational processes. Several approaches emerged over the last decades, built on different values, and investigating ontological, epistemological, ethical, and practical dimensions. In this pictorial, I explore what these new practices can be and do, through embarking on a drawing-philosophy correspondence journey. This pictorial shows my three-year quest to explore the role of drawing for researching design for societal transformation. By visually researching philosophical concepts such as correspondence, commoning, minor key, and …

Visioning And Managing Change: Analyzing Strategic Designers' Approaches In Salient Podcast Episodes, Ruchita Arvind Mandhre, G. Mauricio Mejía, Wenqi Zheng, Kendon Jung, Xueting Wu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Strategic design considers strategy as the core deliverable of practice, where designers are intentional about creating change. However, there is limited research that reveals change as a deliverable in these projects. The purpose of this study is to understand how experienced practitioners do strategic design and to identify their approaches for behavioral, organizational, and social change intentionally. With many experienced strategic designers invited to podcast shows, we analyzed the content of salient podcast episodes. This qualitative study uncovers themes, methods and approaches that expert strategic designers use to implement intentional change. We found that strategic designers embed themselves in particular …

Beyond Human-Centered Empathy: Tools And Techniques To Engage Curiosity, Cassini Nazir

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Empathy has long held a central role in design. However, when exploring more-than-human design, empathy has definite limits. We feel empathy primarily toward humans. Our empathy may also extend to certain animals and few, if any, objects. This paper will explore the limits of empathy and argue that cultivating curiosity is a necessary first step in a more-than-human design approach. It introduces techniques to develop curiosity and offers ways to make our curiosity more durable. It will then trace the linguistic roots of care, an etymological ancestor to curiosity, and argue that care is also necessary. Because care is fostered …

Advancing Maternal Health: Development And Implementation Of A Cognitive Computing Model To Predict Unplanned Obstetric Readmissions Within A Multi-Campus Academic Healthcare System, Glenn Robert Doty

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This study aims to develop and validate an OB-readmission cognitive computing model for identifying women at elevated risk of unplanned readmissions after childbirth. The model intends to assist healthcare providers in identifying vulnerable patients and implementing targeted interventions and strategies to reduce readmission rates, improve patient outcomes, and optimize resource utilization.

A comprehensive analysis of relevant literature identified key predictors associated with postpartum readmissions, including maternal age, race and ethnicity, medical comorbidities, obstetric diagnoses and complications, treatment and diagnostic modalities, socioeconomic status, and previous hospitalizations. These factors were incorporated into the proposed OB predictive model, which was based on the …

Homogenization Effects Of Large Language Models On Human Creative Ideation, Barrett R. Anderson, Jash Hemant Shah, Max Kreminski

Computer Science and Engineering

Large language models (LLMs) are now being used in a wide variety of contexts, including as creativity support tools (CSTs) intended to help their users come up with new ideas. But do LLMs actually support user creativity? We hypothesized that the use of an LLM as a CST might make the LLM’s users feel more creative, and even broaden the range of ideas suggested by each individual user, but also homogenize the ideas suggested by different users. We conducted a 36-participant comparative user study and found, in accordance with the homogenization hypothesis, that different users tended to produce less semantically …

A Study On The Relationship Between Ai Anxiety And Ai Behavioral Intention Of Secondary School Students Learning English As A Foreign Language, Fangchen Wen, Yushun Li, Ying Zhou, Xin An, Qinghua Zou

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides new tools and approaches for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning, yet it also brings new risks and challenges, such as AI anxiety. With the gradual adoption of AI in EFL learning, AI anxiety has brought about a variety of issues. In order to help educators understand students’ concerns and promote the use of AI for secondary school students’ EFL learning, this study took the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and relevant aspects of AI anxiety as the theoretical foundation. Subsequently, this study analyzed the situation of AI anxiety among secondary …

In Their Own Words: Lgbtqia Plus Stigma In Secondary School, Erin Stevenson, Greg Sandman

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

LGBTQIA+ youth often face stigma from society as they develop their personal identities. In the United States, legislation has recently been focusing on reducing protections in schools for queer youth and limiting access to resources like gender affirming healthcare. Youth have increasingly been targeted for identifying as queer and have experienced verbal and physical violence for expressing their gender identities. Research links stigmatization with increased mental health and substance use problems. However, there is limited information on how stigma experienced during adolescence may continue to impact young adults over time. Using a qualitative retrospective framework, LGBTQIA+-identified undergraduates (N = 8) …

A Call To Duty: Supporting Military Families Raising Children With Disabilities, Mariya T. Davis, Christina M. Gushanas, Kimberly S. Grotewold

Special Education Faculty Publications (Archived)

Military families raising children with disabilities face many challenges locating and accessing support and services from a local school district following a redeployment. Proper and adequate support from education agencies can help facilitate smooth school transitions for military children and their families. Therefore, it is critical to explore various supports and services offered by school systems and learn about military families’ experiences when attempting to access those resources. The purpose of this scoping review was to examine the extant research related to supports and services offered to military families, explore parental experiences with accessibility, and guide future research on the …

Wip: A Novel Learning Log Application For Classifying Learning Events Using Bloom’S Taxonomy, Alex M. Phan, Jenna Metera, Sonia Fereidoona, Cham Yang, Minju Kim, Carolyn L. Sandoval, Phuong Truong

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Learning can be a daunting and challenging process, particularly in engineering. While cognitive models for learning such as Bloom's taxonomy have been developed since the 1950s and evidenced to be useful in designing engineering courses, these models are not commonly explicitly taught in classrooms to help students manage and regulate their own learning. In highly demanding curriculum such as engineering, ineffective strategies can lead to poor academic performance that cascades throughout a student’s academic career. Feedback from traditional examinations often do not provide personalized and actionable changes to study habits (i.e., with suboptimal scores, students may know they need to …

Board 303: Implementing Oral Exams In Engineering Classes To Positively Impact Students' Learning, Huihui Qi, Carolyn L. Sandoval, Curt Schurgers, Marko Lubarda, Alex M. Phan, Saharnaz Baghdadchi, Maziar Ghazinejad, Minju Kim, Zongnan Wang, Nathan Delson

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

In this paper, we present the outcomes of a three-year NSF IUSE project focused on the integration of oral examinations in engineering classes. Our exploration begins with an examination of the manifold advantages of oral exams, benefiting both students and instructors. We delve into oral exams as an assessment tool, elucidating their learning benefits and emotional advantages. While some of these aspects align with existing literature, we also unveil novel findings. Additionally, we address the benefits for instructors and Teaching Assistants (TAs), encompassing informative insights that can catalyze instructional improvements. Next, we share our strategies for mitigating the scalability challenges …

Board 125: Work In Progress: Faculty Experiences And Learning Through Oral-Assessment Implementation In Engineering Courses, Minju Kim, Carolyn L. Sandoval, Josephine Relaford-Doyle, Torus Washington Ii, Saharnaz Baghdadchi, Nathan Delson, Marko Lubarda, Alex M. Phan, Curt Schurgers, Huihui Qi

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

This WIP qualitative research paper explores faculty experiences with implementing oral exams in high-enrollment undergraduate engineering courses at a research university. With a primary goal to improve conceptual mastery, as well as a desire to ensure academic integrity in the sudden move to remote instruction at the height of the pandemic, a group of faculty in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering departments implemented oral assessments in their own engineering courses across several quarters. They formed a research group with educational developers in a teaching and learning center on campus, and investigated the impact of oral assessments …

Am I Underpaid Because I Am An Immigrant? Exploring The Lived Experiences Of The Skilled Temporary Worker Visa Holders In Stem Occupations In The American Workplace, Aynur Charkasova, Ahmed Al-Asfour

Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development

Whether documented or undocumented, migrant workers have always been in the center of significant debate in the United States. The presence of high-skilled immigrant workers receives constant attention amid immigration policy discussions. In the United States, the demand for temporary workers has doubled since the 1990s, particularly in the wake of the technology boom. Many employers have found temporary worker visa programs useful for hiring foreign talent in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) occupations. While skilled immigration provides benefits for the American workforce, there are concerns about the impact of skilled immigration on native workers and wage inequality.This study …

Assessment Of Infant Exposure To Antidepressants Through Breastfeeding: A Literature Review Of Currently Available Approaches, Leah Arbitman, Shirley Chen, Brian Kim, Melinda Lee, Peng Zou, Bennett Doughty, Yanyan Li, Tao Zhang

Pharmacy Faculty Scholarship

Despite the prevalence of depression in lactating mothers, there is a lack of knowledge about the excretion of antidepressants into breast milk and its potential adverse effects on infants. This creates concern, making depressed lactating mothers more likely to avoid pharmacological treatment. Clinical lactation studies are the most accurate and direct method to predict and demonstrate the excretion of antidepressants into human breast milk, and results from clinical studies can be included in drug labels to help physicians and patients make decisions on antidepressant use during lactation. However, there are limited clinical trials and studies on the pharmacokinetics of antidepressants …

A Humanistic Approach To Politics: Ahp's Call For An "Authentic" Politics Of Truth And Accountability, Carroy U. Ferguson

Psychology Faculty Publication Series

As human beings on this tiny planet in the cosmos we call Earth, we live as ‘citizens’ in a variety of people-determined land demarcations that we call countries, each with its own unique version of politics. Citizens in the United States and people in the world, therefore, are engaged in a variety of political dramas. It is fair to say that in the United States and globally, the current political climate is very divisive. In the United States and globally, humanity is at an inflection point in the evolution of its consciousness at individual and collective levels. Out of fear, …