This paper describes the development and results of the pedagogical photo-based method PhotoReflexivity. This method is designed to support reflexivity for students in design education, which guides them in better understanding and situating themselves in the outside world. To uncover the value of this method, mixed research methods including iterative prototypes were deployed in real-world learning scenarios with design students. Attitudes, behaviour, and reflexive conversations were analysed, from which design patterns and recommendations were derived. It is argued that PhotoReflexivity fills a gap in design education by aiming for extensive and transformational outcomes associated with reflexivity, which previous research has considered hard to achieve. It does so by providing pragmatic technologies and materials to support 1) sharing and collaboration, and 2) verbalising reflexive thoughts. By facilitating reflexivity, students might become more autonomous and responsible design professionals.
DOCUMENT
In this paper the Feltscaping-method is described, its characteristics and requirements, and some examples of how it was used and further developed. In doing so this paper aims at embedding feltscaping into the existing discourse of arts-based research. Furthermore, it will reflect on possibilities for further development of the Feltscaping method.The development of the method started seven years ago, as Cora Jongsma as a way of delving into the different layers of the landscape connected with the landscape. The product of this process is a feltscape, a representation of the landscape made up of several layers of wool that tells a story about a specific area. The layering in the feltscape, in the beginning, was purely the result of interaction between the creative process, conversations with land users, landscape research and visual experience, drawing a parallel to the formation process of the landscape. Starting as a personal search of the artist on how to connect the feltscapes to the landscape, after a few years, developed into an instrument to stimulate good conversation with people that in one way or another are connected to the landscape. In this way, feltscapes enable the researcher to test and exchange own sensory perceptions and to extent existing knowledge or questions about the landscape by eliciting social interactions.
DOCUMENT
Socially aware persuasive games that use immersive technologies often appeal to empathy, prompting users to feel and understand the struggles of another. However, the often sought-after standing in another's shoes' experience, in which users virtually inhabit another in distress, may complicate other-oriented empathy. Following a Research through Design approach, we designed for other-oriented empathy - focusing on a partaker-perspective and diegetic reflection - which resulted in Permanent; a virtual reality game designed to foster empathy towards evacuees from the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. We deployed Permanent 'in the wild' and carried out a qualitative study with 78 participants in the Netherlands and Japan to capture user experiences. Content Analysis of the data showed a predominance of other-oriented empathy across countries, and in our Thematic Analysis, we identified the themes of 'Spatial, Other, and Self -Awareness', 'Personal Accounts', 'Ambivalence', and 'Transdiegetic Items', resulting in design insights for fostering other-oriented empathy through virtual reality.
DOCUMENT