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Articles 2791 - 2820 of 572289

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

When Data Systems Meet Ecosystems: Tensions Between Ai Platforms And Vitality In Corporate Sustainability, Michelle Westerlaken, Sonja Rattay Jun 2026

When Data Systems Meet Ecosystems: Tensions Between Ai Platforms And Vitality In Corporate Sustainability, Michelle Westerlaken, Sonja Rattay

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Ecosystems are not computers. They are alive, endlessly complex, and deeply intriguing. What if the data systems used to better understand living worlds could embed this more-than-human vitality? This paper examines ecosystem data tools in corporate sustainability, where AI tools have become key mediators in sustainable transitions. Drawing on desk research and empirical data with biodiversity specialists at 13 large corporations, it identifies four tensions that reveal deeper mismatches between computational systems and ecological worlds. These arise between demands for certainty and the unstable dynamics of ecosystems; between the need for data as neutral evidence and as arguments towards managing …

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Designing A Toolkit To Explore The Design Space Of Woven Textiles, Milou Voorwinden, Savanne Klop, Holly Mcquillan Jun 2026

Designing A Toolkit To Explore The Design Space Of Woven Textiles, Milou Voorwinden, Savanne Klop, Holly Mcquillan

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Driven by the potential of smart textiles, shape-changing structures, living textiles, and sustainable manufacturing methods, designers seek to push the boundaries of weaving. However, most existing industrial technologies are designed for mass-producing simple, flat fabrics. This has narrowed the collective understanding of the design potential of woven textiles, thereby restricting the development of complex, three-dimensional, and animated textiles. We present a toolkit, developed through an exploratory workshop and focus group discussions with academic and industry-based designers, that enables exploration and expansion of the design space for woven textiles. The card deck and canvas provide a shared language to externalise and …

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From Values To Metrics: A Methodological Framework For Early-Stage Design Of Rural Cultural Project, Rosana Sanz Segura, Giordana Gallina, Eduardo Manchado Pérez, Ignacio López Forniés Jun 2026

From Values To Metrics: A Methodological Framework For Early-Stage Design Of Rural Cultural Project, Rosana Sanz Segura, Giordana Gallina, Eduardo Manchado Pérez, Ignacio López Forniés

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents the methodological framework of an ongoing design research project focused on cultural creation in rural contexts. It structures the design work that precede co-creation workshops, including the design of tools, participant criteria, session formats and preliminary analyses to understand community needs. Based on design research in rural regions of Aragón (Spain), the study integrates human-centred and community-based design to adapt participatory processes to low-density territories. Initial results include a mapping of key actors, a first set of metrics for evaluating participation and collaboration, and the identification of gaps that justify a specific methodological guide for rural cultural …

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Design Through Co-Elaboration: Friction, Dysfunction, And More-Than-Human, Corentin Loubet Jun 2026

Design Through Co-Elaboration: Friction, Dysfunction, And More-Than-Human, Corentin Loubet

DRS Biennial Conference Series

AI devices are structured by “seamless” and “emotional” design, which conceals many underlying mechanisms and algorithmic rules. By contrast, behavioral objects – through defamiliarization and misbehavior – prompt critical reflection on our relationship with technological artifacts and expose their inner workings. However, most behavioral objects, particularly in art contexts, are designed to ensure predictable outcomes and audience interactions, revealing an underlying desire to tightly control the discourse produced by the work. This paper contends that their critical significance can instead emerge from their material presence through a frictional, more-than-human approach in which dysfunction becomes a source of unpredictable expressivity and …

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Degree Of Anisotropy: A Textile Epistemology Of Making, Sheetal Agrawal, Joy Ko Jun 2026

Degree Of Anisotropy: A Textile Epistemology Of Making, Sheetal Agrawal, Joy Ko

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This research demonstrates textiles as an analytical framework to encode forms of distributed intelligence inaccessible to computational modeling alone, challenging contemporary design's reliance on material homogeneity. Using 3D-printed Voronoi lattices on pre-stretched tulle substrates, we reconceptualize anisotropy (directional variation in material behavior) from engineering liability to design theory cornerstone. While conventional design favors isotropy for predictability, it has been long observed that biological textiles (skin, muscle tissue, tendons, spider silk, etc) have achieved adaptive functionality through engineered heterogeneity. By systematically varying infill patterns within Voronoi structures, we establish a methodology enabling textiles to hold contradictory mechanical states simultaneously and respond …

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Disruption As An Ecologizing Co-Design Method, Alp Yilmaz, Dennis Rolfes, Lutz Robbers Jun 2026

Disruption As An Ecologizing Co-Design Method, Alp Yilmaz, Dennis Rolfes, Lutz Robbers

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Conventional participatory planning and design practice imply linear accumulation of data, facts, and representations, predicting meaningful futures through consensus-driven strategies. Transformation is framed as the transparent management of knowable information towards a providential destiny. By reducing participatory reasoning to factual transfer and discursive negotiation, reductionist approaches fail to address the systemic complexity and contingent character of socio-ecological challenges. They overlook disruptive shocks (financial crises, pandemics) that reorder systems. We propose disruption as a co-design method: a deliberately staged technique that exposes boundaries, surfaces dependencies, and fosters collective sense-making under uncertainty. Drawing on 4E cognition and relational design theory, we propose …

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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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The Embodied Turn In Design Cognition And The Implications From The “Shensi” Aesthetics, Yu Zhi, Hanbing Ren Jun 2026

The Embodied Turn In Design Cognition And The Implications From The “Shensi” Aesthetics, Yu Zhi, Hanbing Ren

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In today's world, AI technology is reshaping design practice. The modern design cognition is shifting from Cartesian disembodied rationality to phenomenological embodied intuition. This study draws on Nigel Cross's research on design thinking and the concept of “Shensi” from traditional Chinese aesthetics. It reveals the embodied essence of design cognition as a dynamic network of body, technology, and environment. This network reconfigures design problems, structures, and meanings. By comparing "Shensi" (embodied, intuitive, humanistic) with AI-mediated design (logical, data-driven, efficient), this study proposes a new design paradigm based on Eastern wisdom to broaden theoretical understanding of design cognition.

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Understanding Digital Health Engagement Among Older Adults In India: A Cultural Probe Based Study, Radhika Sharma, Aakash Johry Jun 2026

Understanding Digital Health Engagement Among Older Adults In India: A Cultural Probe Based Study, Radhika Sharma, Aakash Johry

DRS Biennial Conference Series

India is moving towards a health crisis, with a rapidly increasing population of older adults who have to deal with chronic health issues and declining family support. Remote health monitoring technologies offer opportunities for improved healthcare management; however, existing design guidelines often fail to address the cultural realities of Indian senior citizens. In this study, we identified six critical interaction areas for remote cardiac health monitoring, including self-monitoring, emergency response, and assistance-seeking patterns. Targeted cultural probes were designed for each area to evoke natural behaviours from 27 participants, aged 59-86, across diverse living situations. This participatory approach revealed that elderly …

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Tangible Conversations For Uncertain Futures: A Design-Led Approach With Families Affected By Multiple Sclerosis, Alison Thomson, Hannah Scott, Ruth Dobson Jun 2026

Tangible Conversations For Uncertain Futures: A Design-Led Approach With Families Affected By Multiple Sclerosis, Alison Thomson, Hannah Scott, Ruth Dobson

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Neurological prevention science is gaining traction, with implications for people at raised familial risk of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). We examine how design can intervene in this emerging prevention space through Digesting Science (DS), a co-designed public engagement project that brings families affected by MS together through events and playful, hands-on activities in community settings. We analyse post-event open-ended evaluation forms and a follow up study using auto-photo-elicitation with semi-structured interviews with children and parents. Findings show that DS makes MS discussable without increasing anxiety, embodied activities create shared reference points and language for talking about symptoms, science and uncertainty. We …

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Not Just One "Best" Green: Soundscape Determines The Optimal Green Wall Form, Wenbo Li, Yihe Li, Hengji Wang, Yang Liu Jun 2026

Not Just One "Best" Green: Soundscape Determines The Optimal Green Wall Form, Wenbo Li, Yihe Li, Hengji Wang, Yang Liu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In high-density cities, window-view green walls (GWs) are implemented to improve psychological well-being, but their design often ignores context. Existing research overlooks how GW geometric forms interact with ambient urban soundscapes. This study investigates this critical audio-visual interaction. We conducted a 4 (sound: between-subjects) × 4 (visual: within-subjects) experiment in Virtual Reality (N=80). Participants were exposed to four visual forms (No-GW, Triangle, Square, Rectangle) within four dominating soundscapes (No Sound, Traffic, Conversation, Ventilation), reporting their Stress and recovery results. Results revealed a significant interaction effect, showing the optimal GW shape for psychological well-being was context-dependent: rectangular forms were best for …

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Becoming Humus: Embodied Ecological Literacy Through Designing, Ines Weigand Jun 2026

Becoming Humus: Embodied Ecological Literacy Through Designing, Ines Weigand

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper employs environmental humanities theories through design, translating them into a more-than-human experiential pedagogy. Drawing on Haraway’s (2016) concept of humans as “humus” and Braidotti’s (2013) notion of the subject as embodied and embedded, it presents an approach that uses the human body to cultivate ecological literacy and make ecological relations tangible through personal involvement. In two public workshops, participants produced phosphate fertiliser from their urine, revealing connections between bodily and planetary metabolisms. This linked the biogeochemical flow of phosphorus within the Planetary Boundaries framework (Rockström et al., 2009) to everyday routines, reframing urine from taboo to resource. The …

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Designing The Echo. Practices For Oral Heritage In The Digital Age, Ilaria Bollati, Luisa Collina, Alice Biancardi Jun 2026

Designing The Echo. Practices For Oral Heritage In The Digital Age, Ilaria Bollati, Luisa Collina, Alice Biancardi

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Oral heritage is inherently unstable: unlike written records, it persists through repetition and reinterpretation rather than through the conservation of a stable object. In post-digital cultural heritage contexts, safeguarding oral memories therefore cannot be reduced to storing audio files; it requires the socio-technical conditions to be designed that make voices interpretable, discoverable, and reactivatable. This paper develops and applies a three-phase framework ̶ Listening / Composing / Amplifying ̶ as an analytical and methodological lens for tracing how oral material is collected, translated into an questionable structure, and returned to the public through differentiated formats. The paper grounds the framework …

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

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

DRS Biennial Conference Series

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

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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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Capturing The Impact Of Co-Creation In Circular Transitions: A Comparative Analysis Of Evaluation Frameworks And Models, Tekla Komlossy, Sonja Van Dam, Conny Bakker Jun 2026

Capturing The Impact Of Co-Creation In Circular Transitions: A Comparative Analysis Of Evaluation Frameworks And Models, Tekla Komlossy, Sonja Van Dam, Conny Bakker

DRS Biennial Conference Series

While participatory design approaches such as co-creation and co-design are increasingly used to develop circular solutions, there are limited contributions on assessing their impact. This paper systematically reviews and compares fourteen existing evaluation frameworks and models for collaborative design approaches across domains such as public health, social innovation and energy transition. Through a systematic literature review and comparative analysis, the study examines how impact is conceptualised and assessed, the extent to which existing approaches are operationalised, and their applicability to circular transition contexts. Results show that most frameworks do not explicitly define or evaluate impact, offer limited operational guidance, and …

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Mapping Circular Design Pathways For Wearables: An Annotated Portfolio At The Intersection Of Material-Driven Design And Bio-Hci, Nicla Guarino, Venere Ferraro, Valentina Rognoli Jun 2026

Mapping Circular Design Pathways For Wearables: An Annotated Portfolio At The Intersection Of Material-Driven Design And Bio-Hci, Nicla Guarino, Venere Ferraro, Valentina Rognoli

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As the environmental impacts of wearable technologies intensify, exploring how material choices can enable circularity in such a waste-intensive sector has become critical for design research. In response to this challenge, materials are recognised as pivotal in emerging wearable alternatives, yet how they can actively support circular practices remains underexplored. The study addresses this gap through an annotated portfolio of 40 case studies situated in or informing the wearable domain at the intersection of Material-Driven Design and Bio-HCI. By foregrounding recurring materials, methods, and tools, the analysis aims to reveal how matter can act as a transformative agent in shaping …

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From Metrics To Meaning: Enabling Iterative Design For Multi-Stakeholder Engagement And Behavioural Change In Systemic Climate Transitions With Quali-Quantitative Assessment And Sensemaking, Rohit Mondal, Sabrina Bresciani, Morgan Ricard, Ilenia Piergallini, Nikhil Chaudhary, Francesca Rizzo Jun 2026

From Metrics To Meaning: Enabling Iterative Design For Multi-Stakeholder Engagement And Behavioural Change In Systemic Climate Transitions With Quali-Quantitative Assessment And Sensemaking, Rohit Mondal, Sabrina Bresciani, Morgan Ricard, Ilenia Piergallini, Nikhil Chaudhary, Francesca Rizzo

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Cities pursuing systemic approaches to climate neutrality increasingly leverage bottom-up strategies to foster multi-stakeholder engagement, enabling societal and behavioural transformations. However, assessing their impact through conventional quantitative indicators alone fails to capture the complexity of change. Design for systemic climate transitions enables cities to build pluralistic understandings of impact through mutual and reflexive learning that cultivates collective intelligence and shared insights. In this study, we analyse the quantitative indicators, qualitative data and collective sensemaking from 53 European cities participating in the EU Mission Cities: findings show that collective sensemaking has become a key enabler of reflexive learning, allowing cities to …

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Not Another Design That Ends Up In A Drawer: Mechanisms To Legitimize Design Outcomes In The Public Sector, Geert Brinkman, Elke Wennekers Jun 2026

Not Another Design That Ends Up In A Drawer: Mechanisms To Legitimize Design Outcomes In The Public Sector, Geert Brinkman, Elke Wennekers

DRS Biennial Conference Series

While design has gained significant interest in the public sector in recent years, it has yet to gain real traction. Even in countries seen as frontrunners, design has not become mainstream practice and its potential to meaningfully address public issues remains largely unrealized. One of the main reasons for this is that designers find it difficult to legitimize design. In this study, we conducted eight interviews with designers to explore how they attempt to gain legitimacy for the outcomes of their work. We adopted an argumentation lens to identify the various legitimation strategies employed. Rather than individual strategies, we present …

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Causal Loop Diagrams As A Tool In Textile Innovation Trajectories, Hellen Van Rees, Geke Ludden, Jan Mahy, Angelika Mader Jun 2026

Causal Loop Diagrams As A Tool In Textile Innovation Trajectories, Hellen Van Rees, Geke Ludden, Jan Mahy, Angelika Mader

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Innovation in textile production and usage is gaining momentum, driven by both the urgent need for sustainable solutions and rising technological maturity of embedded functionalities in textiles. Traditional linear models of production and consumption are increasingly being replaced by product-service systems (PSS) that can extend product lifecycles through maintenance, reuse, and digital integration. Realizing the full potential of such innovations requires addressing complex interdependencies which are currently lacking within the day-to-day reality of textile innovation projects. We recognize Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) for their potential to gain insight into these complexities, but their intricacy limits their use in practice. In …

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Mapping How Design Engages With Systems Thinking In Complex Healthcare Systems: A Scoping Review, Yuanrong Guo, Zixuan Wang, Sarah Kettley, Autumn Roesch-Marsh Jun 2026

Mapping How Design Engages With Systems Thinking In Complex Healthcare Systems: A Scoping Review, Yuanrong Guo, Zixuan Wang, Sarah Kettley, Autumn Roesch-Marsh

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Integrating systems thinking and design thinking offers a promising approach to address systemic challenges in healthcare. However, existing studies apply diverse systems thinking theories and methods across different healthcare contexts, and design also shows methodological pluralism. Such diversity has created conceptual fragmentation and uncertainty about how designers can meaningfully apply systems thinking. This paper presents a scoping review of 44 empirical studies that apply both design approaches and systems thinking theories or methods in healthcare service systems. The analysis examines where systems thinking is positioned within studies and identifies four relationship types: (1) design as systemic practice, (2) systems thinking …

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Contextualising Soil To Soil Textile Production In Aotearoa, Genevieve Rae, Gina Russell, Seonaid Burnie, Ngaio Cowell Jun 2026

Contextualising Soil To Soil Textile Production In Aotearoa, Genevieve Rae, Gina Russell, Seonaid Burnie, Ngaio Cowell

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Regenerative textile design begins in the soil, and ends in the oneone (soil). In this paper oneone is described and articulated by Papahoa Fibreworks (Papahoa or the organisation) as their context and guide for designing a textile production system in Aotearoa. The kaupapa (purpose, foundational approach) of context based design, alongside Hua Parakore has led Papahoa to offer organically grown linen, dye plants, and dye services for the local fashion industry. As a case study, Papahoa demonstrates both soil to oneone textile processes in Waitaha (Canterbury) historically, and looks into the future of how fibre production could be remodeled in …

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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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Incommensurable Durations: Fungal Time And The Limits Of Attunement In Multispecies Design, Nina Williams, Alia Parker Jun 2026

Incommensurable Durations: Fungal Time And The Limits Of Attunement In Multispecies Design, Nina Williams, Alia Parker

DRS Biennial Conference Series

An emerging dimension of multispecies design is the effort to attune to new sensory entanglements with the more-than-human world that foreground the alternative temporalities of multispecies life. Adding to such approaches, in this paper we want to emphasise that there is an incommensurability between the timeframes of organisms and those of human ways of thinking about time and of capitalist production. Indeed, multispecies design involves trying to work with alternative timeframes that necessarily disrupt dominant rhythms of design and production. Exploring a set of encounters with fungal time, we consider how such experiments have the capacity to plunge us into …

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Design For Mending The Rift: Rethinking Sustainable Design From An Eco-Marxist Perspective, Yan Yang, Zhaoyu Wang, Jia Ren, Tie Ji, Han Meng Jun 2026

Design For Mending The Rift: Rethinking Sustainable Design From An Eco-Marxist Perspective, Yan Yang, Zhaoyu Wang, Jia Ren, Tie Ji, Han Meng

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Despite the advancement of sustainable design, a critical paradox persists: many practices remain embedded in industrial paradigms, failing to address deep-seated socio-natural contradictions. Grounded in the Eco-Marxist "metabolic rift" framework and informed by recent Agricultural Innovation Design (AID) research, this study proposes a key path for mending these rifts. The research offers a systemic framework for intervening in complex social-ecological systems. The primary conclusions are: (1) metabolic rifts are fundamentally rooted in relational alienation, characterized by the disruption of healthy and reciprocal metabolic relationships between society and nature; (2) structural sustainability requires reshaping metabolic relationships across social, ecological, and intergenerational …

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Supporting Mental Health And Wellbeing Through A Staff Home Food-Growing Project, Laura Maclean, Andrew Wodehouse, Frederike Garbe, Mia Shepherd, Sarah Bowyer Jun 2026

Supporting Mental Health And Wellbeing Through A Staff Home Food-Growing Project, Laura Maclean, Andrew Wodehouse, Frederike Garbe, Mia Shepherd, Sarah Bowyer

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents a co-designed, nature-based intervention supporting NHS staff wellbeing through food growing. The NHS Home Growing Group (HGG) was collaboratively developed by DesignHOPES, NHS24, and a community garden. Home growing was identified as a feasible and meaningful activity compatible with shift work, with the potential of improving mental wellbeing in line with the NHS’s Five Steps to mental wellbeing model: connect, be active, keep learning, give, and take notice. Following a feasibility study, the 12-week intervention (April–July 2025) engaged 60 NHS staff using windowsill-growing kits designed for flexibility, autonomy, and asynchronous participation. Kits were sustainably sourced through recycled …

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Changing The Lens: Micro-Systemic Change Through Design Interventions, David Perez, Nuri Kwon Jun 2026

Changing The Lens: Micro-Systemic Change Through Design Interventions, David Perez, Nuri Kwon

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper examines how design-led activities function as micro-systemic interventions that can influence people’s perceptions, actions and decision-making towards the futures. Using the optical metaphor of a design lens, we reinterpret Voros’ (2003) Futures Cone as a flexible field of vision that can be focused, dispersed, or magnified through design. The “design lens” serves as a conceptual framework comprising three components: design settings, information, and collectiveness. We apply this lens to two projects: a speculative walking workshop for policymaking, and a creative engagement project with residents in a social housing redevelopment. The aim is to examine how these elements interacted …

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Inclusive Design Revisited: A Paradigm Of Trustworthy Connectedness, Iris Van Hest, Eveline Van Zeeland, Jörg Henseler Jun 2026

Inclusive Design Revisited: A Paradigm Of Trustworthy Connectedness, Iris Van Hest, Eveline Van Zeeland, Jörg Henseler

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper revisits inclusive design by moving beyond its traditional emphasis on individual accessibility, which tends to overlook the relational dimension of inclusion. It proposes a paradigm of trustworthy connectedness, in which inclusion is conceptualised not merely as individual participation, but as the facilitation of relational ties between the designer or researcher and the individual or group. Inclusive design often relies on participatory methods, yet when participation and control become central, they risk silencing the very groups these approaches seek to include. Rather than participation or decision control, trustworthy connectedness, expressed through the designer’s competence and warmth, is central to …

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A Survey Of Generative Ai Adoption Amongst Industrial Design Experts, Trym Abrahamsen, Charlotte Sjödell Jun 2026

A Survey Of Generative Ai Adoption Amongst Industrial Design Experts, Trym Abrahamsen, Charlotte Sjödell

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper is based on interviews with 20 expert industrial designers with 8-40+ years of experience about how they are adopting generative AI into their workflows. Using thematic analysis, the study reveals how top-down pressure for speed and efficiency drives rapid, bottom-up adoption of generative AI tools. The core finding is that in this scramble for adoption, designers and design businesses risk cognitive offloading and significant loss of control over micro-decisions in key parts of the design process. By critically examining the potential loss of control and reflection, the inquiry explores how the value of industrial design work extends far …

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Analysis Of Design Start-Up Companies’ Challenges And Enablers In Saudi Arabian Ecosystem, Omaimah Alsenani, Paul Rodgers, Alexander Holliman Jun 2026

Analysis Of Design Start-Up Companies’ Challenges And Enablers In Saudi Arabian Ecosystem, Omaimah Alsenani, Paul Rodgers, Alexander Holliman

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In recent years, Saudi Arabia’s economy has shifted from oil dependence toward diversification, spotlighting the “creative economy”. This transformation highlights the design economy, where designers are pursuing entrepreneurial and commercial opportunities. Understanding the challenges and enablers that shape design start-ups is key to supporting their growth within the design economy. This paper, part of larger PhD research, explores the Saudi Arabia design ecosystem and the experiences of running a design start-up. The paper addresses the question: “How does the Saudi Arabian ecosystem support or hinder design start-ups?” It provides a qualitative perspective based on semi-structured interviews with fifteen designer-entrepreneurs across …

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