https://journal.gerontechnology.org/currentIssueContent.aspx?aid=2248 "Abstract Purpose Existing solutions facilitating mobility among older adults mainly focus on supporting physical disabilities. However, solutions are more likely to succeed when current activities and capabilities serve as a starting point. Participatory design is a suitable approach to detect these. We investigated (i) how participatory design techniques can be applied to obtain insight into the daily activities and capabilities of older adults, and (ii) what the design implications are of taking these activities and capabilities as a basis for the development of a mobility-enhancing application. Method Research context was a three-year European project comprising health care managers, researchers, and designers from Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Germany. Older adults were involved in each of the four-step iterative design process (participatory design sessions, scenarios, user requirements, and user evaluation). Results & Discussion (i) Reflection on the design process showed that particular issues should be considered in selecting participatory design tools (e.g., diaries and photo assignments are more suited than interviews) and organizing joint sessions (e.g., reserve more time for informal activities, address privacy concerns, and provide opportunity to ventilate doubts towards technology). The participatory design methods appeared suited to provide input for the application’s functionalities based on activities and capabilities. (ii) A mobility-enhancing mobile application for older adults should apply (a) Demographics: validated user profiles as a basis, but enable personalization; (b) Cognitive and physical abilities: Facilitate activities close to the home of the older adults; (c) Safety perception: Support older adults cognitively during their activities outdoor, but also prior to and afterwards and foster social contact. Future work The results of the current study have been used as input for prototype development, which has been tested in a pilot study in Spain and The Netherlands."
Het doen van co-design en co-research samen met de mensen in het betreffende maatschappelijk domein kan veel beweging in gang zetten. Het is zaak om ook juist deze functie van applied design research als ‘key enabling methodology’ verder te ontwikkelen, evenals een repertoire van cases te verzamelen om uit te kunnen putten.
This paper examines how a serious game approach could support a participatory planning process by bringing stakeholders together to discuss interventions that assist the development of sustainable urban tourism. A serious policy game was designed and played in six European cities by a total of 73 participants, reflecting a diverse array of tourism stakeholders. By observing in-game experiences, a pre- and post -game survey and short interviews six months after playing the game, the process and impact of the game was investigated. While it proved difficult to evaluate the value of a serious game approach, results demonstrate that enacting real-life policymaking in a serious game setting can enable stakeholders to come together, and become more aware of the issues and complexities involved with urban tourism planning. This suggests a serious game can be used to stimulate the uptake of academic insights in a playful manner. However, it should be remembered that a game is a tool and does not, in itself, lead to inclusive participatory policymaking and more sustainable urban tourism planning. Consequently, care needs to be taken to ensure inclusiveness and prevent marginalization or disempowerment both within game-design and the political formation of a wider participatory planning approach.
The pace of technology advancements continues to accelerate, and impacts the nature of systems solutions along with significant effects on involved stakeholders and society. Design and engineering practices with tools and perspectives, need therefore to evolve in accordance to the developments that complex, sociotechnical innovation challenges pose. There is a need for engineers and designers that can utilize fitting methods and tools to fulfill the role of a changemaker. Recognized successful practices include interdisciplinary methods that allow for effective and better contextualized participatory design approaches. However, preliminary research identified challenges in understanding what makes a specific method effective and successfully contextualized in practice, and what key competences are needed for involved designers and engineers to understand and adopt these interdisciplinary methods. In this proposal, case study research is proposed with practitioners to gain insight into what are the key enabling factors for effective interdisciplinary participatory design methods and tools in the specific context of sociotechnical innovation. The involved companies are operating at the intersection between design, technology and societal impact, employing experts who can be considered changemakers, since they are in the lead of creative processes that bring together diverse groups of stakeholders in the process of sociotechnical innovation. A methodology will be developed to capture best practices and understand what makes the deployed methods effective. This methodology and a set of design guidelines for effective interdisciplinary participatory design will be delivered. In turn this will serve as a starting point for a larger design science research project, in which an educational toolkit for effective participatory design for socio-technical innovation will be designed.
This PD project aims to gather new knowledge through artistic and participatory design research within neighbourhoods for possible ways of addressing and understanding the avoidance and numbness caused by feelings of vulnerability, discomfort and pain associated with eco-anxiety and chronic fear of environmental doom. The project will include artistic production and suitable forms of fieldwork. The objectives of the PD are to find answers to the practice problem of society which call for art that sensitises, makes aware and helps initiate behavioural change around the consequences of climate change. Rather than visualize future sea levels directly, it will seek to engage with climate change in a metaphorical and poetic way. Neither a doom nor an overly techno-optimistic scenario seem useful to understand the complexity of flood risk management or the dangers of flooding. By challenging both perspectives with artistic means, this research hopes to counter eco-anxiety and create a sense of open thought and susceptibility to new ideas, feelings and chains of thought. Animation and humour, are possible ingredients. The objective is to find and create multiple Dutch water stories, not just one. To achieve this, it is necessary to develop new methods for selecting and repurposing existing impactful stories and strong images. Citizens and students will be included to do so via fieldwork. In addition, archival materials will be used. Archives serve as a repository for memory recollection and reuse, selecting material from the audiovisual archive of the Institute of Sound & Vision will be a crucial part of the creative work which will include two films and accompanying music.
First Virtual Reality Museum for Migrant Women: creating engagement and innovative participatory design approaches through Virtual Reality Spaces.“Imagine a place filled with important stories that are hard to tell. A place that embodies the collective experience of immigrant women during their temporary stay”. In this project the first museum around immigrant women in Virtual Reality is created and tested. Working with the only migration centre for women in Monterrey, Lamentos Escuchados, project members (professional developers, lecturers, and interior design, animation, media and humanity students) collaborate with immigrant women and the centre officials to understand the migrant women stories, their notion of space/home and the way they inhabit the centre. This VR museum helps to connect immigrant women with the community while exploring more flexible ways to educate architects and interior designers about alternative ways of doing architecture through participatory design approaches.Partners:University of Monterey (UDEM)Lamentos Escuchados
