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Material Agents At Work In Alternative Food Networks, Cagri G. Varli, Stefano Maffei Jun 2026

Material Agents At Work In Alternative Food Networks, Cagri G. Varli, Stefano Maffei

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Despite growing interest in sustainable food systems, their material dimension as active design agents (artefacts and infrastructures) remains largely unrecognized. This study challenges the positioning of packaging and distribution tools as passive elements, repositioning them as entities that shape the ongoing negotiation of ethics, responsibility, and co-dependence within food systems. Drawing on interviews, thing ethnography, and relational mapping across two alternative food network case studies, the study examines the roles of these material agents. The findings show that material artefacts contribute to the organization of care, responsibility, and continuity across both pragmatic and symbolic dimensions of food networks. Differences in …

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Cianalas: How Scottish Dementia Friendly Communities Shaped Design For Wellbeing Research, Lucy Robertson, Christopher Sze Chong Lim Jun 2026

Cianalas: How Scottish Dementia Friendly Communities Shaped Design For Wellbeing Research, Lucy Robertson, Christopher Sze Chong Lim

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper reflects on how two dementia-friendly communities (DFCs) in Scotland shaped participatory research exploring interactive textiles for wellbeing. Drawing on two practice-based studies in Scotland, study 1 which was based in the Outer Hebrides and the study 2 based in both the Outer Hebrides and East Lothian; it explores how place, geography, culture, and community influence participation and sense-making. Using Research through Design (RtD) and person-centred methods, both projects engaged participants using or making interactive textiles. Comparing the two locations shows that the remoteness of the Hebrides, the Gaelic language, the historical textile industry and the surrounding environments fostered …

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Design For Coastal Futures: Rethinking Space And Time With A More-Than-Human And Transcultural Lens., Serena Pollastri, Juan Montalvan Lume, Louise Mullagh, Suzana Ilic Jun 2026

Design For Coastal Futures: Rethinking Space And Time With A More-Than-Human And Transcultural Lens., Serena Pollastri, Juan Montalvan Lume, Louise Mullagh, Suzana Ilic

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Amid the intensifying challenges of climate change, there is an emerging consensus within coastal academic and practitioner networks on the importance of integrating design led-approaches that enhance resilience and foster the long-term adaptation for coastal communities. However, coastal environments present peculiar contexts for design actions, as the movement of water consistently challenges the boundaries between water and land, along with the relational interactions between human and non-human communities—both in cyclical and unpredictable ways. Drawing from the authors’ experiences in tidal coastal and estuarine areas across diverse geographies, this article proposes ways to cultivate design’s response-ability (Haraway, 2016) to the more-than-human …

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Towards Positional Citizenship: Designing For The More-Than-Human Political, Vanessa Monna, Abhigyan Singh, Natalia Romero Herrera Jun 2026

Towards Positional Citizenship: Designing For The More-Than-Human Political, Vanessa Monna, Abhigyan Singh, Natalia Romero Herrera

DRS Biennial Conference Series

“We have never been modern” wrote Bruno Latour, proposing that the dualism between nature and society has represented a convenient fiction. If humans have never genuinely stood apart, what happens to one of its most anthropocentric fabrications, citizenship? Conventionally a marker of political agency, citizenship determines who can speak, act, and belong. This conceptualisation excludes the multiple more-than-human agents shaping collective experiences. Building upon Plessner’s concept of positionality, the paper introduces “Positional Citizenship” to transcend the Cartesian divide between humans and more-than-humans, reshaping the political as a relational space of co-presence. Building on this shift, design becomes a practice of …

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Exploring Embodiment’S Impact On Autonomy And Agency In Behavioral Design, Ruth Schmidt Jun 2026

Exploring Embodiment’S Impact On Autonomy And Agency In Behavioral Design, Ruth Schmidt

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The field of behavioral design uses insight into humans’ cognitive tendencies to help people make better, more rational choices. Yet individuals’ perceptions of what seems rational—let alone viable, or even conceivable—are not universally shared and are often informed by their embodiment as much as cognition. For example, fear of being scolded can inhibit overweight or obese individuals from seeking preventive healthcare, people with ‘invisible’ disabilities may feel pressured to pass as able-bodied to fit in, and Black individuals may avoid ordinary activities likely to prompt ‘birding while Black’ confrontations. Depicting cognition as the single site of judgment and decision-making therefore …

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The Parliament Of Things: Shape-Changing Materials As Amplifiers Of Interspecies Relation Design, Yi Sui, Beatrice Bianco, Marinella Ferrara Jun 2026

The Parliament Of Things: Shape-Changing Materials As Amplifiers Of Interspecies Relation Design, Yi Sui, Beatrice Bianco, Marinella Ferrara

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores shape-changing materials as agents of material diplomacy within More-than-Human Design. Drawing from Latour’s Parliament of Things, posthumanism, and new materialism, it investigates how responsive materials mediate ecological and interspecies relations. Through a multiple-case study approach, ten design projects are analyzed using a five-dimensional framework—environmental attunement, ecological flourishing, expressive vitality, co-existence and augmentation, and relational mediation. The analysis explores how these materials can perform communicative and political roles, positioning design as a diplomatic practice that negotiates shared concerns among species, technologies, and environments. It attempts to question extractivist models, support ecological repair, and cultivate forms of interspecies attentiveness. …

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Design For Healthy Ageing: Developing And Applying A Resource Model, Yumei Dong, Hua Dong, Tingting Wang, Richard H. M. Goossens Jun 2026

Design For Healthy Ageing: Developing And Applying A Resource Model, Yumei Dong, Hua Dong, Tingting Wang, Richard H. M. Goossens

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The sustainable development of an ageing society necessitates active participation of older people, requiring effective integration of their individual and collective resources into design. However, designers’ understanding of older people’s resources is rather limited. This study aims to develop a conceptual model of older people’s resources to support design for healthy ageing. Through literature review and interviews with 19 recently retired Dutch seniors, twelve resource types were identified, categorised into six dimensions: practical, emotional, intellectual, social, cultural, and time. These categories were synthesised into a Diamond Model of Resources. The framework, encompassing both resource categories and the Diamond Model, was …

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Weaving Visual Language: Encoding Gaelic In Tartan Length To Facilitate Interaction With Endangered Languages, Emmie Drummond, Dr Loraine Clarke, Miriam Sturdee, Freya Macleod Jun 2026

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 …

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Digital Platform To Foster Social Engagement For The Visually Impaired, Mônica Moura, Cristina Portugal, Márcio Guimarães Jun 2026

Digital Platform To Foster Social Engagement For The Visually Impaired, Mônica Moura, Cristina Portugal, Márcio Guimarães

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper details the development and impact of the "Lembrei de Você" (I Remembered You) project, an inclusive design initiative that created a digital platform to combat loneliness and promote autonomy among the visually impaired, especially the elderly, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Using participatory methods, the research led to the creation of a platform that manages and distributes audio messages through a solidarity network of readers and listeners. The study describes the design process, from accessibility requirements to implementation using WordPress. Results show the platform successfully optimized project logistics and fostered an inclusive digital environment, enhancing social interaction …

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Fostering Human-Material Co-Creative Dialogical Relationship: Operationalizing The Art Of Making Through Degeneration, Ye Yang Jun 2026

Fostering Human-Material Co-Creative Dialogical Relationship: Operationalizing The Art Of Making Through Degeneration, Ye Yang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Moving beyond instrumental rationality that treats materials as passive objects, this study operationalizes the Art of Making (AoM) by proposing a three-dimensional degeneration approach. Degeneration disrupts object fixity, reframing objects as materials in a state of in-betweenness that invites co-creative dialogue. Adopting drawing as a universal making practice, we empirically grounded this proposition through five workshops with ten participants from diverse countries and design backgrounds. By degenerating sensory, bodily, explorative, and social dimensions of drawing products and practices, the resulting state of material-in-between invited participants into dialogical engagements. Findings reveal that this state sparks curiosity, transcends preconceptions, activates subconscious exploration …

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Urban Typography And Cultural Memory: A Literature Review In Support Of A Design-Led Approach To Heritage And Preservation, Carolina Short, Gareth Schott Jun 2026

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 …

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Participatory Design As Third Space: Iterative Ethic In Singapore’S Contemporary Multiculturalism, Cheng Chen Jun 2026

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 …

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Public Design Education: Plural Practices And Situated Teaching And Learning, Luis García, Lara Salinas, Sofía Bosch Gómez, Geert Brinkman, Francesco Leoni, Estefania Ciliotta Chehade Jun 2026

Public Design Education: Plural Practices And Situated Teaching And Learning, Luis García, Lara Salinas, Sofía Bosch Gómez, Geert Brinkman, Francesco Leoni, Estefania Ciliotta Chehade

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This editorial introduces Track 8.1, Public Design Education: Plural Practices and Situated Teaching and Learning, and reflects on the submissions, review process, and accepted contributions as a way of exploring how public design is currently being interpreted, taught, and learned. We position public design as a transdisciplinary mode of practice enacted within and alongside public administration and other public-sector subjects, where institutional ways of working, governance conditions, and commitments to public value shape the design process itself. Drawing on contributions to the track, we examine the diverse interpretations surrounding the term, the competencies and capabilities associated with becoming a public …

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Discourses In Design Research: Historical, Critical, And Speculative Perspectives, Peter Lloyd, Theodora Vardouli, Moa Carlsson, Arlene Oak, Anna Talley, Haian Xue Jun 2026

Discourses In Design Research: Historical, Critical, And Speculative Perspectives, Peter Lloyd, Theodora Vardouli, Moa Carlsson, Arlene Oak, Anna Talley, Haian Xue

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The field of design research is now over 60 years old but, despite comprehensive archives existing, such as the DRS Digital Library, little systematic historical research has been done looking critically at how concepts in the field have developed over time. Studies looking at how certain discourses have come to dominate in design research, and those that have been disregarded, are long overdue. The theme-track Discourses in Design Research: Historical, Critical, and Speculative Perspectives invited submissions engaging historically and critically with ideas and concepts that have helped shape the discipline of design research. The papers share a concern both with …

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Futuring Digital Cultural Heritage, Marco Mason, Raffaella Trocchianesi, Vince Dziekan, Ross Parry Jun 2026

Futuring Digital Cultural Heritage, Marco Mason, Raffaella Trocchianesi, Vince Dziekan, Ross Parry

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design is playing an increasingly important role in relation to cultural heritage, with designers and design researchers at the forefront of reimagining how cultural organisations, such as museums and galleries, operate in a mediatized, networked, and digitally mature world. In this light, the tools and methods, practices, and cultures of design are helping GLAMs navigate their postdigital condition and social, cultural, and technological complexities that this entails. This track (Futuring Digital Cultural Heritage) seeks to open new territory for design researchers to respond critically and creatively to how design engages with digital culture and can be used to interrogate, reconfigure, …

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Navigating Pluralism In Systemic Design: Global Perspectives And Diverse Vocabularies, Sine Celik, Hannah Goss, Jotte De Koning, Mari Suoheimo, Amina Pereno, Asja Aulisio, Silvia Barbero, Thomas Maiorana Jun 2026

Navigating Pluralism In Systemic Design: Global Perspectives And Diverse Vocabularies, Sine Celik, Hannah Goss, Jotte De Koning, Mari Suoheimo, Amina Pereno, Asja Aulisio, Silvia Barbero, Thomas Maiorana

DRS Biennial Conference Series

No abstract provided.

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Design Education In Its Teenage Years: Growth With Tensions, Nicole Lotz, Ricardo Sosa, Violeta Clemente Jun 2026

Design Education In Its Teenage Years: Growth With Tensions, Nicole Lotz, Ricardo Sosa, Violeta Clemente

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design education research is one of the largest clusters of contributions at the Design Research Society 2026 Conference. This editorial reflects on the thirty papers of this cluster presented across five sessions. It identifies emerging concerns and persistent tensions in the field. Drawing on a synthesis of themes including creativity and identity, systemic and situated pedagogies, reflective practices, cultures and knowledges, and AI in design education, the editorial characterises the field as being in a productive phase of transition. Like an adolescent discipline, design education research shows signs of rapid growth alongside enduring continuities and noticeable leaps. Across the papers, …

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Participatory Design As Emotional Infrastructure: Supporting Collective Reflection And Resilience After The Pandemic, Xinyu Zhang Jun 2026

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, …

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Locality As A Driver For Transitional Materialities, Gökçe Deniz, Owain Pedgley, Camilo Ayala-Garcia Jun 2026

Locality As A Driver For Transitional Materialities, Gökçe Deniz, Owain Pedgley, Camilo Ayala-Garcia

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Material designers worldwide are transforming how innovation emerges through local engagement, moving beyond conventional material selection to create materials that reflect and embody their originating contexts. This research examines how locality influences design motivations, resource utilisation, and collaborative approaches through a systematic analysis of 635 material design projects across 56 countries, complemented by questionnaire responses from 19 practitioners across 14 countries. The mixed-methods research establishes the state of the art by mapping ingredient sourcing patterns, fabrication processes, and stakeholder engagements across diverse geographical contexts, while illuminating designers' conceptual frameworks regarding the role of locality in material development. The research reveals …

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Ai-Enhanced Chinese Style Furniture Design: Integrating Cnn Cultural Recognition With Latent Diffusion Generation, Yupeng Jiang, Jiayong Zheng, Bingchen Gou, Jie Song, Jianing Kang, Zhaoxian Ren, Ying Liu, Lingwei Lyu, Junyan Lin, Suyao Wei, Weilan An Jun 2026

Ai-Enhanced Chinese Style Furniture Design: Integrating Cnn Cultural Recognition With Latent Diffusion Generation, Yupeng Jiang, Jiayong Zheng, Bingchen Gou, Jie Song, Jianing Kang, Zhaoxian Ren, Ying Liu, Lingwei Lyu, Junyan Lin, Suyao Wei, Weilan An

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In the wave of artificial intelligence development, employing computer technology to advance the innovative design of Chinese-style furniture and optimize the intelligent development of cultural products is crucial for revitalizing the industry and strengthening cultural confidence. This study identifies issues of homogenization and cultural dilution in intelligent furniture design and proposes an intelligent design model based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and a latent diffusion model (LDM). CNNs are used to recognize cultural features in Chinese-style furniture, while the LDM generates design schemes, rapidly producing Chinese chairs that meet contemporary aesthetic preferences while retaining traditional cultural attributes. The study enhances …

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Design For Adversarial Growth: Post-Traumatic Growth, Resilience And Subjective Wellbeing, Xueliang Li, Haian Xue, Siyuan Huang Jun 2026

Design For Adversarial Growth: Post-Traumatic Growth, Resilience And Subjective Wellbeing, Xueliang Li, Haian Xue, Siyuan Huang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Adversity is an inherent part of human life. This paper adopts a transformative approach to adversity, viewing it as fertile ground for personal growth. Through a theory-driven narrative review, we synthesise insights from positive psychology, post-traumatic growth, resilience, and wellbeing-driven design to introduce the Design for Adversarial Growth (DAG) framework, a guide for shaping designers' motivations and cultivating their sensibilities when designing for adversarial growth. This framework encompasses three key components of adversarial growth, each illustrated through design examples. We further discuss its contributions to design research and practice, as well as the ethical considerations for its application. With this …

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Pro-Des. Localising Design Research For Scientific Publishing. A Case Study Of Research And Experimentation In Italy, Elena Formia, Eleonora Lupo, Lorela Mehmeti Jun 2026

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 …

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Conversing With Scenario Data: Exploring Experienced Designers’ Data-Informed Reasoning Strategies In Smart Product Concept Exploration, Yaqin Peng, Xiang Yuan, Yuxuan Tan, Zikun Song Jun 2026

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 …

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Enquête D’Âme: A Participatory Visualisation Of Wellbeing Through Embodied Reflection, Ricardo O'Nascimento, Bruna Petreca Jun 2026

Enquête D’Âme: A Participatory Visualisation Of Wellbeing Through Embodied Reflection, Ricardo O'Nascimento, Bruna Petreca

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Enquête d’âme is an interactive installation and research instrument that reimagines design impact assessment by shifting from affect detection to wellbeing articulation. A textile-covered keyboard allows participants to select from sixteen wellbeing dimensions; each input generates a coloured circle within a shared projection, forming an evolving visualisation of collective resonance. Three public deployments—a cultural event, arts festival, and university showcase—combined observations, brief interviews, and log analysis. Findings show that slow, tactile interaction fosters mindful engagement; participants treat the dimensions as reflective anchors rather than diagnostic labels; and aggregate patterns vary contextually (e.g., Optimism/Future-self in policy discussions, Playfulness/Participation in festival settings). …

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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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Patterns Of Everyday Care: Translating Cultural Practices For Online Communities, Austin Toombs, Seora Park, Tilar Manion, Xinyun Zhang Jun 2026

Patterns Of Everyday Care: Translating Cultural Practices For Online Communities, Austin Toombs, Seora Park, Tilar Manion, Xinyun Zhang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design research in social computing has used the concept of care to describe how technologies help or hinder interpersonal support online. Yet opportunities remain to explore how the subtle, everyday forms of care that have long sustained communities can inform social technology design. Addressing this, we present a collection of design patterns that translate culturally specific, everyday social practices like passeggiata (Italian social stroll) and sobremesa (Spanish post-meal lingering) into design prompts for digital platforms. Our collection has five pattern families: Shared Habits and Routines, Atmospheric Qualities, Collective Identities, Facilitation Roles, and Boundary Practices. The patterns map these families to …

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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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Strategic Design In Business Organizations: An Approach For Design Management, Business Strategy, And Design Strategy, G. Mauricio Mejía Jun 2026

Strategic Design In Business Organizations: An Approach For Design Management, Business Strategy, And Design Strategy, G. Mauricio Mejía

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The term “strategic design” gained popularity over the last three decades. It originated in the 1990s, when design management scholars began studying the strategic value of design within business organizations. In the 2000s, terms such as design thinking and user-centered design gained traction, expanding the scope of design work and who was considered a designer. In professional networks, strategic design has been emerging as some professionals claim to be strategic designers or discuss related practices. This exploratory paper aims to identify definitions, roles, and skills associated with strategic design in the context of business organizations. A scoping of the literature …

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Evaluating Creative Efficacy In Human-Ai Design Convergence: An Experimental Study Of Support Modes, Yuying Pei, Ling Fan* Jun 2026

Evaluating Creative Efficacy In Human-Ai Design Convergence: An Experimental Study Of Support Modes, Yuying Pei, Ling Fan*

DRS Biennial Conference Series

While Artificial Intelligence (AI) has demonstrated significant potential in the divergent phases of design, its role in the convergent phase (solution selection) is less understood. This study investigates how different AI-assisted selection modes impact a designer's creative efficacy. We conducted an experiment (N=40) with graduate design students, who used four distinct AI support modes—(1) Textual Description, (2) Pros/Cons Comparison, (3) AI Scoring, and (4) Direct Recommendation—to select a final design from a set of concepts. Efficacy was measured using behavioral data (selection time, choice), user satisfaction (QUIS), cognitive load (NASA-TLX), and technology acceptance (TAM). Results show that the AI Scoring …

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Imperfect Utopias: Norms In Vr Design And Queer Counter-Strategies, Alexandra Chalmers Braithwaite Jun 2026

Imperfect Utopias: Norms In Vr Design And Queer Counter-Strategies, Alexandra Chalmers Braithwaite

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper puts forward a set of strategies for designing queer experiences for virtual reality. First, the paper will outline The Body Traces Archive VR experience, the primary practice-based outcome of my doctoral research. This will be followed by a discussion of the medium of virtual reality and three industry-standard design norms that serve to limit and foreclose the possibilities of virtual reality: militaristic mastery and control, seamless (dis)embodiment, and prioritisation of comfort. For each industry standard norm, I propose a queer counter-strategy that works to re-align VR towards other possibilities. In turn, they are: utopian worldbuilding, embodiment via friction, …

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