VA-PEPR presentation by Aysun Aytaç
Aysun was part of a panel at the Swiss Design Network Symposium at ECAL University of Art and Design Lausanne on December 5, 2024. The title of the panel was “(Machine) Learning through Design: Collective Modes of Engaging New Technologies,” organised by Paola Pierri, Adrian Demleitner and Max Frischknecht from Hochschule der Künste Bern-HKB Institute of Design Research.
Aysun presented the Speculative Design phase of the SNSF-funded Voice Assistants-People, Experiences, Practices and Routines (VA-PEPR) project, which was completed in March 2024. She represented the sub-team, which includes herself and other significant contributors to the speculative design phase, as well as other phases of the project: Jon Rogers (Project Co-Lead, Speculative Design Work Package Lead), Sabine Junginger (Project Co-Lead, Principal Investigator), Michael Shorter, Melanie Rickenmann, Aurelio Todisco, and Michelle Murri.
She shared the team’s approach and showcased the project ProvoTypes (Provocative Prototypes), focusing on their reflections on researching voice technologies through design. One of the reflections was an invitation for designers and the HCI community to rethink how to design friction back into these seamless/frictionless technologies that surround us.
You can read more about the project and the reflections in the project books (Project Workbook I and Project Workbook II) and also watch the provotype videos on the project’s YouTube channel.
Die HfG Offenbach: mehr als die Summe ihrer Teile by Dagmar Steffen
Dagmar Steffen has contributed a chapter to the book ‘Vision & Verantwortung. Zur Gründung der HfG Offenbach,’ offering valuable insights into the influence of the Offenbach School’s Product Design department.
The book “Vision & Verantwortung. Zur Gründung der HfG Offenbach,” published by Marc Ries and Kai Voeckler, examines the extent to which the vision that founding rector Dieter Döpfner had for the Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG) Offenbach, Germany, could be realized after its founding in 1970.
In her essay “Die HfG Offenbach: mehr als die Summe ihrer Teile,” Dagmar reflects in particular on the influence that research and teaching at the Offenbach School’s Product Design department had on design discourse and design practice in Germany and abroad. Special attention is paid to three projects: firstly, the theory of product language and its reception in the design community; secondly, the impact of the Des-In Group’s pioneering work in the field of recycling design and decentralized small series production; and thirdly, the response to the digital, customized furniture production of the C_Lab, initiated by Prof. Jochen Gros and Friedrich Sulzer in 1994.
You can download the book preview here.
Citation
Steffen, D. (2024). Die HfG Offenbach: mehr als die Summe ihrer Teile. In M. Ries & K. Vöckler (Eds.), Vision & Verantwortung. Zur Gründung der HfG Offenbach (pp. 155-182). avedition. ISBN: 978-3-89986-416-8
Talk by Guillermina Noël at the Forum of AI-Empowered Sustainable Development Goals, Shanghai
This dynamic event gathered global thought leaders dedicated to exploring AI’s transformative potential in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals. Insights from thought leaders across disciplines sparked engaging discussions at the intersection of design, AI, and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Design als Haltung by Bianca Herlo
Our research group head, Bianca, has co-authored a book titled Design als Haltung: Handlungsfelder jenseits des Kommerziellen (Design as an Attitude: Fields of Action beyond the Commercial). The book encourages designers to explore new fields of action beyond commercial interests.
Ulrike Brückner and Bianca highlight design’s potential to foster a more liveable environment and society. They emphasize that design is much more than mere aesthetics or advertising; it can be a powerful tool for social change, influencing how we interact and behave within our communities.
The book is published by Verlag Hermann Schmidt: “Ulrike Brückner and Bianca Herlo set out to encourage designers to help shape a more liveable environment and society. Using examples from social design, independent art projects, protest actions and cooperative initiatives, they show that design is much more than websites and advertising, editorial and aesthetics. If design is no longer seen exclusively as a service, it can be a powerful tool in shaping politics and society, the world we live in and the way we live together”.
Citation:
Herlo, B., & Brückner, U. (2024). Design als Haltung: Handlungsfelder jenseits des Kommerziellen [Design as an attitude: Fields of action beyond the commercial]. Verlag Hermann Schmidt. ISBN 978-3-87439-977-7.
Poster Presentation by Dagmar Steffen at P-8 Final Conference
On August 30, 2024, the “Hochschule Digital 2024″ Conference marked the culmination of the cooperation project Digitale Lehre – Digitale Präsenz – Digitales Studium (Digital Teaching – Digital Presence – Digital Studies). This project was carried out from 2021 to 2024 as part of swissuniversities’ P-8 programme, aimed at strengthening digital digital skills in teaching. At the conference, Prof. Dr. Dagmar Steffen presented her interdisciplinary research project, “Analog_Digital: Digitisation Opportunities in Mandatory Presence Formats in the Teaching of Design, Music, and Engineering,” alongside 17 innovative sub-projects from three universities.
Dagmar’s project explores whether and how teaching can be made digital. Until the COVID-19 Pandemic, teaching was largely or completely and tied to the presence of students and teaching staff in the workshops, studios, and practice rooms accross the three university departments involved. Due to the pandemic, distant learning formats have gained prominence in recent semesters, prompting university lecturers in all departments to develop initial concepts for the complete or partial digitization of teaching content and practical exercises. Through her research, Dagmar and her colleagues analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the various concepts and settings, and the teaching units will be further developed and documented.
Dagmar’s posters can be accessed here.
Reflections on Using a Diary App to Conduct a Diary Study to Assess Emergent Technologies in Private Households by VA-PEPR team
Dr. Aysun Aytaç contributed to the publication in which the VA-PEPR team discuss how they selected the mobile diary app used for their remote ethnographic research. They reflect on its use from the perspectives of both the researchers and the study participants, as well as its weaknesses.
Citation:
Klotz, Ute; Aytaç, Aysun; Minder, Bettina; Todisco, Aurelio; Riss, Uwe V.; Tödtli, Beat; Ulmer, Tom & Junginger, Sabine (2024). Reflections on Using a Diary App to Conduct a Diary Study to Assess Emergent Technologies in Private Households. Anwendungen und Konzepte der Wirtschaftsinformatik (AKWI), (19), 64-70. https://doi.org/10.26034/lu.akwi.2024.4539
Enhancing Patients and Clinicians’ Capacity through Design Panel Discussion by Guillermina Noël
As the head of the Design Management, International bachelor’s program and an established design researcher in the healthcare field, Guillermina Noël co-organized an event linking design and healthcare, titled “Enhancing Patients and Clinicians’ Capacity through Design,” in collaboration with Lucerne Cantonal Hospital, on 12 July 2024.
The event started with the talks from the two leaders in healthcare innovation, Dr. Thomas Zeltner and Dr. Ian Hargraves, who addressed the pressing healthcare issues.
Dr. Zeltner’s talk focused on design for better teamwork, design for improved work-life balance and career development, and design for increased job satisfaction and the prevention of burnout. On the other hand, Dr. Hargraves talked about Shared Decision Making (SDM) as co-design and emphasized the need to adapt SDM to each patient’s problems.
After the presentation, a panel discussion moderated by Guillermina took place, featuring Dr. Thomas Zeltner, Dr. Ian Hargraves and Dr. Balthasar Hug.
For the full recording of the event and speaker bios, visit the HSLU YouTube channel.
What Would it Take to Take Care? Speculating our Relationships with Products for Future Repair Scenarios by Aysun Aytaç
With her colleague Dr. Serkan Bayraktaroglu from Istanbul University, Aysun presented a 7-minute talk at the Power in Transformation – By Design and By Disaster Conference in July 2024 at BASIS, South Tyrol, Italy.
The annual By Design and By Disaster Conference, organized by the Master in Eco-Social Design at the Faculty of Design and Art of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, has been focusing on social-ecological transformations and what design and art can contribute along with partners and allies since 2013. It offers a mix of inspiring presentations, hands-on workshops, academic tracks, performances, walks, talks, and more in a convivial atmosphere with tasty food, music, dancing, sun, and mountains. The conference gathers transformation-engaged designers and artists, activists, critical scientists, courageous farmers, unconventional social workers, entrepreneurs, commoners, and more.
Aysun and Serkan’s talk, titled “What Would it Take to Take Care? Speculating our Relationships with Products for Future Repair Scenarios,” explored how repair rights and autonomy unveil power dynamics in society and ecosystems. They pointed out that as mass production, mass consumption, and seamless designs shifted our relationship with products towards a more detached and consumer-oriented approach, we distanced ourselves from the inner workings and maintenance of the very items that shape our everyday experiences. They used speculative sketches as props to engage the audience in speculating, re-imagining, and sketching out ideas about future repair scenarios for the things that shape our everyday lives. They explored questions such as:
– How can we re-imagine and redefine our relationships with products we use?
– What kind of repair scenarios we want and need in the future?
– What is design’s role in creating alternative repair scenarios that are possible and preferable?
Citation:
Aytaç, Aysun & Bayraktaroğlu, Serkan (10.07.2024). What Would it Take to Take Care? Speculating our Relationships with Products for Future Repair Scenarios [7-minute talk]. Power in Transformation-By Design and By Disaster, BASIS Vinschgau Venosta, Schlanders-Silandro.
VA-PEPR Provotype Videos released
The VA-PEPR research project YouTube channel is live!
As the project concluded, the team released several films about the provocative prototypes (or “provotypes”) they used to unravel the complexities and unknowns of voice assistants. In addition, the channel features films produced from the VA-PEPR public events and Voice Matters installation. All fims are in English with German subtitles. Enjoy!
Visit the project website to learn more about it!
Zeitreise durch die Küche by Dagmar Steffen
Dagmar contributed to the TEC 21 Schweizerische Bauzeitung magazine with the article ‘Zeitreise durch die Küche’ (Time Travel through the Kitchen). She explores the kitchen concept from the open fireplace to the the iron cooker, the optimised laboratory kitchen to today’s living and dining kitchens as the kitchen space has always been the spatial reflection of technical, social and economic change.
The article can be ordered here.
Citation
Steffen, D. (2024, April 5). Zeitreise durch die Küche. TEC 21 Schweizerische Bauzeitung, 7, 22-25.
VA-PEPR Research Project Workbooks published
The VA-PEPR (Voice Assistants; People, Experiences, Practices and Routines) project team has published two comprehensive workbooks in March 2024 that provide an in-depth overview of the entire project. These workbooks offer a top-level understanding of the project while also delving into granular details. They effectively showcase the collaboration of researchers from diverse backgrounds who contributed to the project’s success.
You can download your copies here:
VA-PEPR Workbook One
VA-PEPR Workbook Two
If you would like to request a physical copy, please contact the VA-PEPR team at email hidden; JavaScript is required
Citation
Shorter, M., Aytac, A., Junginger, S., Rogers, J., Todisco, A., Tödtli, B., Minder, B., Maier, E., Meissner, J. O., Baldauf, M., Rickenmann, M., Doerk, M., Murri, M., Le, M.-N., Pierri, P., Wolf, P., Ulmer, T., Reimer, U., Klotz, U., & Riss, U. (2024). VA-PEPR. Voice Assistants – People, Experiences, Practices And Routines (Workbook One). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10259120
Shorter, M., Aytac, A., Junginger, S., Rogers, J., Todisco, A., Tödtli, B., Minder, B., Maier, E., Meissner, J. O., Baldauf, M., Rickenmann, M., Doerk, M., Murri, M., Le, M.-N., Pierri, P., Wolf, P., Ulmer, T., Reimer, U., Klotz, U., & Riss, U. (2024). VA-PEPR. Voice Assistants – People, Experiences, Practices And Routines (Workbook Two). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10259122
Towards strengthening Methods in Design Education and Practice by Guillermina Noël
Guillermina and her colleagues present their research on strengthening methods in design education and practice. The publication discusses innovative approaches and strategies to enhance design education, focusing on practical applications and real-world scenarios. To access this publication, please visit the DRS Digital Library.
Citation
Frascara, J., Gardien, P., Noël, G., Rosenberg, D., Stappers, P.J.,and Wilde, D.(2023) Towards strengthening Methods in Design Education and Practice, in Derek Jones, Naz Borekci, Violeta Clemente, James Corazzo, Nicole Lotz, Liv Merete Nielsen, Lesley-Ann Noel (eds.), The 7th International Conference for Design Education Researchers, 29 November – 1 December 2023, London, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2024.029
Digital Teaching for Classes in Studios, Practice Rooms, and Labs by Dagmar Steffen
In this publication, Dagmar explores the use of digital teaching methods in various educational settings, including studios, practice rooms, and labs. The paper delves into the benefits and challenges of incorporating digital tools and technologies into design education. To access this publication, please visit the DRS Digital Library.
Citation
Steffen, D. (2023) Digital Teaching for Classes in Studios, Practice Rooms, and Labs, in Derek Jones, Naz Borekci, Violeta Clemente, James Corazzo, Nicole Lotz, Liv Merete Nielsen, Lesley-Ann Noel (eds.), The 7th International Conference for Design Education Researchers, 29 November – 1 December 2023, London, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2024.106
Enhancing Interactions and Capabilities through Design in Healthcare Settings by Guillermina Noël, Research Symposium Health Lucerne 2024
Our team member, Guillermina Noel -who is also the head of the bachelor’s program Design Management, International (DMI)- contributed to the 2nd Research Symposium Health Lucerne 2024 with two alumni from the program, which was hosted by the University of Lucerne on 31 January 2024. The symposium aims to present research in the field of health and medicine in the Greater Lucerne area and to provide networking opportunities.
Guillermina and DMI alumni participated with three contributions:
– Enhancing Interactions and Capabilities through Design in Healthcare Settings by Guillermina Noel
– Exploring the Role of Caregivers in Promoting Mental Health among Young People in Switzerland by DMI alumni Michelle Arocha;
– Accompanying Support for Family Caregivers of People with Alzheimer’s: A systemic design approach by DMI alumni Tamara Jeggli.
Their work highlights the ongoing need to enhance healthcare through design.
Exploring the Potential of Off-the-Shelf Tools as Digital Probes: Appropriation of a Mobile Diary App by Aysun Aytaç and Sabine Junginger
When Cultural Probes emerged in 1999, they were for the most part crafted from physical, non-digital, materials used to explore people’s lives through playful co-creation and ambiguity. They have since become an important method for design researchers to generate insights into user behavior. Today, there is a growing need for user research to involve remote alternatives something that was very much amplified during the global Covid-19 pandemic. The ubiquity of smart phones has given researchers the potential to have a remote window into people’s lives like never before. This raises questions about the probe-like qualities of smart phone apps from a design research perspective. What options are available to design researchers? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What criteria matter? How may we improve on them?
In this publication, Aysun Aytaç and Sabine Junginger, with their colleague Jon Rogers from the VA-PEPR project team, share what the VA-PEPR team has learned while using a mobile diary app for the remote in-home study conducted with 31 Swiss households. They discuss the limitations of the app they ended up using and identify the need for an easy-to-adapt, off-the-shelf digital probe suitable for design researchers. The results and findings are intended to encourage designers to work towards digital probes and provide guidance for those who depend on commercially available mobile dairy apps in the meantime.
The article will be published in Design Issues journal in the Summer 2024 issue.
Citation
Aytaç, Aysun; Junginger, Sabine & Rogers, Jon (2024). Exploring the potential of Off-the-Shelf Tools as Digital Probes: Appropriation of a Mobile Diary App (in press). Design Issues, 40(3): 18–36.
Citizen-centred Administration by Sabine Junginger, Age Strategy Conference 2023, Zurich
The third Aging Strategy Conference, organized by the Department of Health and Environment of the City of Zurich, took place on November 7, 2023, bringing together 70 stakeholders in aging work. The conference provided an opportunity for participants to discuss ways to further address the needs of the city’s aging population.
As an invited speaker, Sabine delivered a presentation focusing on the importance of human-centeredness in service design. She emphasized the benefits of creating services together with people, rather than just for them, and highlighted the need for regular review and development to meet the changing needs and preferences of the population.
Click here to download Sabine’s presentation (in German).
Further information about the conference can be found here (in German).
Embracing Digital Offboarding as a Design Challenge by Sabine Junginger, Milano
Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger presented her research titled Embracing Digital Offboarding as a Design Challenge at IASDR 2023 in Milano, Italy, in October 2023.
Abstract: Most services we will use or rely on in the future will either contain a digital component or be fully digital. Given the multitude of pressures that are currently reshaping the public sector, great efforts are underway to increase the range of digital public service offerings. Design research and design practice currently contribute to the development of innovative digital public services. In addition, designers support the onboarding experience for people working in public administrations and the members of the public who benefit from or depend on these. This paper argues that we need to explore the needs and implications of digital offboarding – a concept currently not included in the development of digital public services. The author shows why digital offboarding will assume increasing meaning in an ageing society that is more and more dependent on public service provided digitally and through AI.
Citation Junginger, S.(2023) Embracing digital offboarding as a design challenge, in De Sainz Molestina, D., Galluzzo, L., Rizzo, F., Spallazzo, D. (eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-Changing Design, 9-13 October, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.393
“A Democratic Approach to Digital Rights: Comparing Perspectives on Digital Sovereignty on the City Level” by Paola Pierri
Paola Pierri and Elizabeth Calderón Lüning published their article titled “Civic Participation in the Datafied Society| A Democratic Approach to Digital Rights: Comparing Perspectives on Digital Sovereignty on the City Level” in the International Journal of Communication. The article can be downloaded here.
Abstract: This article will be drawing on two cases to reflect on the impact of different ways of practicing civic engagement in urban digitalization policy. Both cases reflect on the importance of cities playing an active role in the promotion of digital rights, obligation of public participation in digital policy making, and need for political digital education to enable democratic conversations on digital transformation. From a democratic theory point of view, the shifts happening through the digitalization of societies raise interesting questions regarding what modes of governance should be implemented for improving digital sovereignty, which could be in line with “locally” grounded politics. Theoretically, the article will frame these issues of governance and civic participation within the literature on “digital sovereignty,” understood as going beyond national territory toward issues of independence, democratic control, and autonomy over digital infrastructures, technologies, and content.
Citation:
Pierri, P., & Calderón Lüning, E. (2023). Civic Participation in the Datafied Society| A Democratic Approach to Digital Rights: Comparing Perspectives on Digital Sovereignty on the City Level. International Journal Of Communication, 17, 19. Retrieved from https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/18907
“Make your magic: Can designers foster caring between patients and healthcare providers?” Presentation by Guillermina Noël at Swiss Center for Design and Health Symposium
Swiss Center for Design and Health (SCDH) held the symposium titled “Design and Health – Practice, Research and Social Relevance” from July 10-12, 2023. Among the other invited speakers, such as Daniel Wahl, Angela Mazzi, Dr. Juan P. Brito and Prof. Dr. Thomas Zeltner, Dr. Guillermina Noël, head of the Design Management, International bachelor’s program and researcher at the Competence Centre Design and Management, presented her talk titled “Make your magic: Can designers foster caring between patients and healthcare providers?” Visit the dedicated SCDH page for more information. The photo is courtesy of SCDH.
“Giving Form to the Invisible: Can we make in-home network data traffic tangible to users?” by Sabine Junginger at DeSForM, Hong Kong
Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger presented the VA-PEPR network data traffic analysis study conducted with Dr. Beat Tödtli and Tom Ulmer at the 12th International Conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM) in July 2023.
Abstract: Most people now connect to the Internet of Things (IoT) through a number of devices within the privacy of their homes. The data traffic generated by smart home and other connected devices remains invisible and intangible to everyday users. Is it possible to make these complex data flows visible in one form or another, and with that accessible and graspable for people? Is there a path for everyday users to participate in desirable future developments, meaningful services, and relevant policies? If so, how do we go about conducting such user research? In this paper, we report and reflect on an experimental study conducted by an interdisciplinary research team with these questions in mind. We explore the possibilities and limitations of a non-intrusive, plug & play network monitoring device. Our findings point to opportunities for empowering participants in sensitive environments like the home and produce insights into how designers may collaborate with researchers in data analysis to make the invisible visible.
Citation
Junginger, S., Tödtli, B. & Ulmer, T. (2023, July 5-7). Giving Form to the Invisible: Can we make in-home network data traffic tangible to users? To be presented at DeSForM 2023, Hong Kong.
Design’s Entanglement with Administrative & Policy Worlds by Minh-Nguyet Le, Berlin
Minh-Nguyet Le presented her PhD at the Design Promoviert Colloqium in Berlin as part of the German Society for Design Theory and Research (DGTF) Conference 2023: Design and Digital Justice. Her talk, “Design’s Entanglement with Administrative & Policy Worlds” turns our attention to a recent historical moment starting in the early 2000s where design and more specifically the diffusion of design thinking across various sites, including innovation labs, digital transformation teams, as well as large management consultancies. As a result, the field appears more complex than ever with the emergence of new actors working in the design for government and innovative policy-making field. The study draws on empirical evidence from 2000 to 2015, a period marked by rapid institutional change and the digital transformations in the public sector. She looks specifically at the role of transnational non-state actors in establishing legitimacy, norms, and their discursive strategies.
Everyday Data and Everyday Publics by Paola Pierri, CHI’23, Hamburg
The short paper presents initial findings of the VA-PEPR research which investigates the impact of Voice Assistant technologies in people’s everyday lives. Drawing on the project findings, the paper aims to explore the question of how technology design and relevant policies can better inform and coordinate with each other in order to generate safe, inclusive and sustainable new technologies. Click here to download the short paper and visit the VA-PEPR website for further publications about the research project.
Citation
Paola, Pierri, Aysun Aytaç, Jon Rogers, Micheal Shorter and Sabine Junginger. 2023. Everyday Data and Everyday Publics. Implications for Design and for Policy-making: Designing Platform Technology and Policy Simultaneously: A CHI’23 workshop.
“Design in Government: Basics, Current Practices, and Future Outlook” – Keynote by Sabine Junginger at ‘Fit for the Future with Design’
The event was co-organised by Eurac Research and the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.
Guillermina Noël and Dagmar Steffen contributed to “NUMMER, Update Available: Transforming Education in Design, Film and Fine Arts”
The journal was published on the occasion of school’s new curriculum. Both articles deal with the topic of ‘design for sustainability’, one of the key challenges in design education. Click here to read the NUMMER 11 journal. “(Product) Design for Sustainability: What Design (Education) can Contribute to Sustainability” by Dagmar on pages 86–89 and “Design Management to Foster Conditions Conducive to Life: Transformation and Regeneration” by Guillermina on pages 90–93.
Citation
Steffen, D. (2023). (Product) Design for Sustainability. What Design (Education) can Contribute to Sustainability. Nummer, 11. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7418537
Noël, G. (2023). Design Management to Foster Conditions Conducive to Life. Transformation and Regeneration. Nummer, 11. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7418547
Book Chapter by Dagmar Steffen
The tourism scientists, Prof. Dr. Harald Pechlaner, Greta Erschbamer, and Nathalie Olbrich, from the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and Eurac Research in Bolzano, have invited our team member Dagmar to contribute to the book “Destination Design: Neue Ansätze und Perspektiven aus der Designforschung für die Entwicklung von Regionen und Destinationen.”
Her chapter “Designtheoretische Zugänge für die nachhaltige Gestaltung von Destinationen” examines the contribution of design science and design to sustainable tourism destinations from a design perspective. Drawing upon design-theoretical models, the chapter utilizes the city of Lucerne as an example to demonstrate how it has successfully emerged as a popular destination, addresses the challenges of over-tourism, and explores strategies for developing more sustainable tourism practices. You can read her chapter here (in German, Open Access).
Citation
Steffen, D. (2023). Designtheoretische Zugänge für die nachhaltige Gestaltung von Destinationen. In: Pechlaner, H., Erschbamer, G., Olbrich, N. (eds) Destination Design. Entrepreneurial Management und Standortentwicklung. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-39879-8_2
“Digital Off-Boarding for the Elderly: Why the time to act is now!” – Seminar by Dr. Sabine Junginger
On the third Friday of each month, Experio Lab Sweden hosts a digital research breakfast called Experio Seminars, where national and international researchers are invited to present their research on service design and user-driven services in the public sector. The focus of these seminars is to enhance value creation for citizens.
The first seminar of 2023 was conducted by Dr. Sabine Junginger, who presented on the topic of “Digital Off-Boarding for the Elderly: Why the time to act is now!”
Her presentation introduced the concept of ‘digital off-boarding’ for the elderly and explored its implications for designers involved in the development of public services. As most services today and in the future will incorporate a digital component or be entirely digital, there is a growing effort to expand the range of digital service offerings in response to the changing landscape of the public sector. However, the challenge lies in encouraging people to embrace these new digital services. Sabine raised thought-provoking questions about the potential problems that elderly individuals may encounter when using public digital services, as well as the emergence of new services to support them in an ever-evolving digital age. The presentation also highlighted the need for rules, regulations, and exit strategies for off-boarding in the digital realm.
Overall, Sabine’s seminar highlighted the importance of addressing the challenges and implications of digital off-boarding for the elderly, and emphasized the need to develop strategies and support systems to ensure a smooth transition in the digital age.
“Design instead of administration? How design management can support administration?” by Sabine Junginger, 9th Lucerne Management Forum
Lucerne Management Forum (LMF) for Public Administration is a well established platform for further education and networking on management and leadership issues in the public sector. According to LMF, the pandemic has revealed that the digital transformation in public administration is only halfway here. The digitization push has set things in motion at all administrative levels. However, the often expensive projects could not develop their potential to the desired extent. Digital transformation is more than introducing new processes and tools. For the success of the second stage, significant changes in leadership, administrative culture and working methods are necessary. As an expert and consultant in public sector, Sabine Junginger gave a talk at this year’s LMF on November 24, 2022. By sharing practical examples she showed how principles, methods, processes and practices of design management can support leaders in administration and politics in the digital transformation and enable new innovative services.
Moving from Probabilities to Possibilities: How will the New European Bauhaus serve us? – Keynote at EIMAD ’22 by Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger
As an an expert on the principles, methods and processes of human-centred design, the head of our research group Prof. Sabine Junginger, PhD was invited to give a keynote at the 8th EIMAD Conference which took place in Castelo Branco, Portugal, between 7-9 July 2022. “How will the New European Bauhaus serve us? How will it prepare design practitioners and design researchers to contribute?” In the past, design moved to center stage when people realized that their existing values, beliefs, norms and behaviors no longer served the needs of society and the individual. It is no coincidence that the original Bauhaus offered rigorous design education among the uncertainties of the Weimar Republic, nor that the Ulm School of Design (HFG) forged new possibilities for the future in the aftermath of the Nazi regime. When nothing seems quite what it was and when the status quo is no longer tenable, the ways in which we conceive, plan, develop, and deliver new paths into the unknown acquire new significance. We move from probabilities to possibilities. The New European Bauhaus, too, emerges in the context of a newly experienced VUCA World – a world full of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. How will this initiative serve us? How will it prepare design practitioners and design researchers to contribute?Materialising the Immaterial: Provotyping to Explore Voice Assistant Complexities by VA-PEPR team
VA-PEPR team has completed the first two phases of the project: Ethnographic in-home studies and RCC Student Household studies. Currently, the third phase of the project, Speculative Design Workshops, continues and they are gradually disseminating the project insights and results.
The VA-PEPR team presented the initial findings of the speculative design workshops at the prestigious Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS’22) which had an acceptance rate of 23%.
The paper discussed three generalisations in respect to the role of provotypes for the exploration of voice assistants. Their findings show provotypes can serve as the necessary props by which we can bring in missing perspectives around this technology and generate material which enables designers to speculate, debate, and sketch out ideas for meaningful futures of voice assistant applications.
You can access the article here.
Citation: Mike, Shorter, Bettina, Minder, Jon, Rogers, Matthias, Baldauf, Aurelio, Todisco, Sabine, Junginger, Aysun, Aytaç, and Patricia, Wolf. 2022. Materialising the Immaterial: Provotyping to Explore Voice Assistant Complexities. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’22), June 13– 17, 2022, Virtual Event, Australia. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 13 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3532106.3533519
Keynote by Aurelio Todisco, MA
Aurelio Todisco was invited to give a talk at the Master Design panel “Future Challenges in Design” as part of the graduation exhibition Werkschau Design & Kunst 2022. Various keynotes highlighted the current challenges and best practices in design which took place in the Action Hall at the Viscosi building in Lucerne and streamed live on Zoom. Aurelio shared his design research work in the VA-PEPR project, focusing on speculation and visualization of future service possibilities. June 25, 2022.
“Voice Assistant Use: Challenges for the Home Office Work Context” by VA-PEPR team
The VA-PEPR research team has completed the first two phases of the project: Ethnographic in-home studies and RCC Student Household studies. With the co-lead of Dr. Jens O. Meissner, the team presented initial findings of the ethnographic in-home studies with relation to voice assistant use in home offices.
Methods: The paper provides qualitative empirical insights from an ethnographic household study and student journal study.
Results: The paper generates novel insights into the emerging issues associated with the use of voice assistants in a home office work context. It advances our knowledge through its focus on the domestic office set-up, user experience, and privacy issues. The paper delivers a description of general themes that mainly interfere with the characteristics of home office work to raise consciousness regarding this delicate socio-technical arrangement.
Conclusion: People working from home need to pay attention to the conscious use of voice assistants in their direct working environment to avoid distraction and secure privacy. Effective business applications of voice assistants are rare but keep a significant upside potential for the future.
Citation:
Meissner, J. O., Minder, B., Klotz, U., Todisco, A., Murri, M., Junginger, S., Wolf, P., Aytaç, A., Baldauf, M., Tödtli, B., Rogers, J., Shorter, M., Doerk, M., & Ulmer, T. (2022, June 15-17). Voice Assistant Use: Challenges for the Home Office Work Context [Paper Presentation]. EURAM 2022: Leading Digital Transformation, Zürich, Switzerland.
“Rethinking the Home Office as a Co-Working Space: New Directions for Research and Practice” by Aysun Aytaç and Sabine Junginger
Dr. Aysun Aytac presented their paper titled “Rethinking the Home Office as a Co-Working Space: New Directions for Research and Practice” at the EURAM 2022 Conference in Winterthur, Switzerland on 16.06.2022 with Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger and Katharina Kleczka . The paper represents the results of the UmUmUm research project. It positions the home office as a human-centered design problem rather than a problem of the individual solo worker. It aims to contribute to a broader understanding of the future home office that builds on the challenges and opportunities it presents as a co-working space. Dr. Aysun Aytac, Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger and Katharina Kleczka argue that a deeper understanding and acknowledgement of the situational aspects of the home office can inform future practices, aid the development of more suitable work-set ups in the home and point to hidden benefits, for example when it comes to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary learning.
You can download the paper here.
Citation:
Aytaç, Aysun; Junginger, Sabine and Kleczka, Katharina (15.06.2022). Rethinking the Home Office as a Co-Working Space: New Directions for Research and Practice. EURAM 2022: Leading Digital Transformation, Zürich, Switzerland.
Hey Google! Risks and Opportunities of Using Voice Assistants – Talk by Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger
Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger gave a talk at the 51. Fachveranstaltung organised by Netzwerk Risikomanagement in Olten on March 17, 2022. In this special event aimed for companies, the important and timely theme of «Risks of social media for companies – what to do?» was discussed with an interdisciplinary approach from three perspectives. Sabine’s talk titled “Hey Google! Risks and Opportunities of Using Voice Assistants” provided insights into the use of voice assistants gained through the “Data Network Analysis Study” of the SNSF Sinergia research project VA-PEPR. The slides of the talk can be downloaded here (in German).
Shared Home-Offices: When Work Life and Everyday Life Interact at Home by Dr. Aysun Aytaç and Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger
On Friday, March 04, 2022, Dr. Aysun Aytaç and Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger gave a 15-min talk at the online Interaction Week 2022 conference organised by Interaction Design Association (IxDA). In this 15-min talk, Aysun and Sabine discuss the home office as shared work space where co-working is the norm, calling on interaction designers to rethink the concept of home office. The talk is now publicly available at Vimeo platform.
Health Design: The New Design Literacies by Dr. Guillermina Noël
In March 2022, Guillermina gave a talk titled Health Design: The New Design Literacies at the Design Literacy – Engage with Ideas event. She explored how design can help to mitigate the current challenges posed to healthcare systems by chronic disease and aging populations. Covid-19 and associated deaths highlighted how acute is this challenge becoming. Guillermina asks:
- But are we ready for it?
- What is necessary for designers to help face current healthcare challenges?
- Are design programs preparing students to face these challenges?
She argues that designers are increasingly entering sphere of Design for Health and Well Being.
Materialising the Immaterial: Provotyping to Explore Voice Assistant Complexities by VA-PEPR research team
VA-PEPR research paper presented at the ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2022 (DIS ’22): Digital Wellbeing 2022, at the virtual event.
Abstract: Voice assistants (VAs), typically promoted as omniscient conversational butlers, still remain below users’ expectations. Interaction designers seem to struggle bringing in user perspectives necessary to develop more meaningful VA applications beyond simple use cases such as playing music. One of the reasons might be the immateriality of cloud-based VA technology making it difficult to comprehend such complex and ever-evolving systems. In this paper, we investigate provotyping as a design tool for ‘materialising the immaterial’. In our case study, teams of multidisciplinary experts devised twelve provotypes to explore intangible VA technology. We present and discuss three generalisations in respect to the role of provotypes for the exploration of VAs. Our findings show provotypes can serve as the necessary props by which we can bring in missing perspectives around this technology and generate material which enables designers to speculate, debate, and sketch out ideas for meaningful futures of VA applications.
Citation:
Michael Shorter, Bettina Minder, Jon Rogers, Matthias Baldauf, Aurelio Todisco, Sabine Junginger, Aysun Aytaç, and Patricia Wolf. 2022. Materialising the Immaterial: Provotyping to Explore Voice Assistant Complexities. In Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1512–1524. https://doi.org/10.1145/3532106.3533519
Design Research: Interference of Theory and Practice by Prof. Dr. Dagmar Steffen
On 25 November 2021, Prof. Dr. Dagmar Steffen gave a lecture followed by a discussion as part of the lecture series “Research & Design” of the master’s degree program “Transformation Design” at the Faculty of Design at Augsburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany.
The four-part lecture series focus on questions of what research in the rapidly changing field can look like and what possibilities designers have for producing knowledge. In her lecture “Design Research: Interference of Theory and Practice”, Dr. Steffen addressed the relationship between the interest in knowledge production and design practice as well as the role of design objects in research. Other speakers are Judith Dörrenbächer (University of Siegen, 26.10.21), Helga Schmid (London College of Communication, London, 16.12.21) and Claudia Mareis (Humboldt University Berlin, 18.01.22).VA-PEPR Research Project Presented at the HSLU Learning Safari by Aurelio Todisco / November 2021
The Citizen-Driven Transformation of Neubad Lucerne / July 2021
Bettina Minder, PhD and her colleagues share the project of Neubad and its story of how the former public indoor swimming pool in Lucerne transformed into a place for inspiration, incubation and innovation in an open source manner, in the open access book ENABLING the CITY >> pp. 97-105 ??
“Enabling the City is a collaborative book that focuses on how interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary processes of knowledge production may contribute to urban transformation at a local level in the 21st Century”.
Project team: Patricia Wolf – Christian Lars Schuchert – Sibylla Amstutz – Alex Willener
Taking the Next Step Towards Convergence of Design and HCI: Theories, Principles, Methods by Prof. Dr. Dagmar Steffen
The 23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2021) has been held as a virtual conference in July 2021. Prof. Dr. Dagmar Steffen participated in the conference with her poster titled “Taking the Next Step Towards Convergence of Design and HCI: Theories, Principles, Methods”. The article highlights selected theories, principles, and methods of product design and HCI, their parallel yet time-delayed development, and the existing overlaps. Among other things, it shows that the semiotics established in product design has so far only been superficially received in HCI. An integration of semiotic or semantic theory and a human-centred design approach is proposed to address current challenges of digital transformation and hybrid artifacts. The paper is available online through the SpringerLink Digital Library.
Discover Ambiguities, Invent New Possibilities, Express (New) Values: What Experience Based Pragmatism Contributes to the Policy Design Process in Pluralistic Settings by Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger
The 5th International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP5) Barcelona took place in a hybrid format. Jointly organized with the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI), the conference took place from July 5 to July 9, 2021 at the Pompeu Fabra University, Ciutadella Campus, and online. The Universitat de Barcelona (UB), the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) also collaborated in the organization of this edition. Among many eminent researchers, Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger presented her paper titled “Discover Ambiguities, Invent New Possibilities, Express (New) Values: What Experience Based Pragmatism Contributes to the Policy Design Process in Pluralistic Settings“.
Humanizing Public Services through Design / June 2021
https://youtu.be/C9VsBxnRGpc Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger contributed to the Humanizing Technology through Design Conference with her speech titled Humanizing Public Services Through Design: When design takes the form of democratic engagement and serves the common good, on June 17, 2021. The conference was a project by Circolo del Design curated by Jan-Christoph Zoels, and directed by Sara Fortunati.
“Power to the People: Using Mobile Diary Apps to Collect Ethnographic Data” by Aysun Aytaç
Aysun Aytaç presented the data gathering method used in the in-home studies of the VA-PEPR project at the 5th session of the Online Design Seminar series held by the Department of Industrial Design, Izmir Institute of Technology on June 1, 2021. Her presentation is titled “Power to the People: Using Mobile Diary Apps to Collect Ethnographic Data”.
Visit the VA-PEPR website for further publications about the research project.
Rethinking & Appropriating Design Education for a VUCA World – by Jan Eckert, Sabine Junginger, Guillermina Noël published in Cumulus 2021 Proceedings
Design as Common Good Conference Proceedings Published – Editors Sabine Junginger and Massimo Botta
Design as Common Good online conference was organised by Swiss Design Network, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and hosted by University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland and co-chaired by Massimo Botta and Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger, head of our research group. Click here to download your copy of conference proceedings ‘Design as Common Good – Framing Design through Pluralism and Social Values’, edited by Massimo Botta and Sabine Junginger.
A Matter of Education: Changing Attitudes and Expectations on Design in the Public Sector by Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger
Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger presented her work online at the International Research Society of Public Management 2021 Conference. Her paper can be downloaded here.
Designtheorie auf neuem Wege. Anfänge, Etappen und Kontexte des Offenbacher Ansatze by Prof. Dr. Dagmar Steffen
As an alumna of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach, Prof. Dr. Dagmar Steffen contributes to the book “Der Offenbacher Ansatz: Zur Theorie der Produktsprach” published in January 2021.
Her introductory essay appears on page 27.
This is an anniversary publication on the occasion of 50 years of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach (University of Art and Design Offenbach) in Germany. In the middle of the 1970s, Prof. Jochen Gros and colleagues developed the “Offenbach Approach” towards the “Theory of Product Language”. At that time, this semiotic theory initiated a paradigm shift ‘from function to meaning’ in design. The publication includes re-prints of the source texts, which were out of stock (in German), as well as essays contextualizing the theory, and last but not least comments and statements by renowned design theoreticians such as Klaus Krippendorff, Guy Bonsiepe, Josiena Gotzsch, Siegfried Gronert, Bernhard E. Bürdek, Martin Gessmann, Markus Holzbach and others (partly in English).
A Short Essay on Designing for Complexity and Agile Governance by Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger
The book Matters of Communication focuses on how communication is designed and how design communicates today. It offers a mixture of English and German essays on design and communication. The article by Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger can be found in the section Society and System.
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Matters of Communication – Formen und Materialitäten gestalteter Kommunikation edited by Axel Vogelsang, Sabine Foraita, Bianka Herlo
She Ji Special Issue on Design Education Part II – edited by Dr. Guillermina Noël / Summer 2020
Dr. Guillermina Noël, guest edits the second issue of She Ji Special Issue on design education. The issue Design Education Part II is published in Summer 2020. She also organised and moderated great webinar series to move the conversation from the paper to the schools.
Design im Wandel: Welche neuen Berufsbilder entstehen im Design und wie können Praktizierende von Designforschung profitieren? (in German)
Prof. Dr. Sabine Junginger talks to Swiss Design Association President Dominic Sturm and Swiss Design Association Vice President Meret Ernst. 22 June 2020.
Live interview on the topic Design Research in Turkey and Beyond
In this live interview, Dr. Aysun Aytac talks with Prof. Dr. Özlem Er to learn about the current state and the future challenges of design research in Turkey, its existing and potential contributions to the shared body of knowledge in design theory and practice globally. 22 June 2020.
Systemic We-Construction: Exnovation as a Key to a Common Future
Dr. Sabine Junginger co-hosted the workshop «Systemic We-Construction: Exnovation as a Key to a Common Futures» as part of the States of Change “Learning Festival”. Exnovation is the necessary counterbalance to innovation. It is characterized by the deconstruction of systems, practices or technologies that are no longer effective or in line with strategic development. The concept of exnovation is crucial for the design of mission-oriented transformation.
Dr. Guillermina Noël guest edits She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation / April 2020
Dr. Guillermina Noël, also the head of Design Management, International Bachelor Programme, guest edits the She Ji Special Issue on design education. The issue Design Education Part I is published in Spring 2020.
Designing an Optimal Document in the Health Sector
Dr. Guillermina Noël presents their research ‘Designing an optimal document in the health sector’ with Jorge Frascara at the Information+ Conference in 2018.