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This research develops a rationale for using provocative conceptual designs to foster the innovation of human-centred product ideas – a ‘critical artefact methodology’. This research employed similar tactics to Action Research (Swann 2002): cycles of action (using critical artefact methods in design projects) and reflection on that action (includin...
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Web-based stakeholders’ participation in product co-design is an emerging business model for companies. However, research on user’s online involvement in product co-design is limited. In this paper, we investigated the three major interdisciplinary academic databases Web of Science, Scopus, and ScienceDirect (data collected in May 2020), with the a...
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... Interpreting artefacts has been used as a qualitative research method to stimulate thinking amongst and gain insight from research participants (Wallace et al. 2013;Chamberlain and Craig 2013;Bowen 2009). In art and design, artefacts embody research or outcomes of exploration (Biggs 2002;M€ akel€ a 2007). ...
This paper describes a case study exploring how critical design and public exhibition could be consolidated into an inclusive qualitative creative research method to engage participants in conversations about community. Past literature has acknowledged the ability of physical objects and creative methods in research to activate different lines of thinking and elicit thoughtful, in-depth responses from participants that may not have arisen through more ‘traditional’ methods of enquiry. Critical design, by nature, is intended to be a tool for starting discussion and debate. We employed this approach to inform the design of critical artefacts on the topic of community. These were then displayed at pop-up exhibitions in public spaces to engage members of the public in conversations on community. Responses informed future artefacts, which were exhibited again in an iterative cycle. We explored the potential of this research approach to both elicit and disseminate knowledge.
... For the creation of our probes, we drew upon speculative design practice (Auger, 2013), specifically that of design fiction (Bleecker, 2009). Bowen (2009; argues that speculative interventions are extremely useful as they help multiple stakeholders to begin to collectively think prospectively and critically about possible future alternates to the present-day status quo. Baumann et al (2017) emphasise the potential of such probes to facilitate participants in considering timely social, ethical and legal debates. ...
In an effort to stymie electronic product obsolescence, the UK government introduced the Eco-design for Energy Related Products and Energy Information regulations, commonly referred to as the Right-to-Repair, in July 2021. Mirroring the European Union's 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan, manufacturers are now required to integrate a degree of repairability into certain electronic products sold within the UK, as well as supply their replacement parts for ten years after production. However, this still does not create an equitable form of Right-to-Repair, as the regulations capitulate to manufacturer sanctioned repair services, rather than helping to foster innovative, citizen-oriented cultures of repair. Importantly, the Right-to-Repair also only applies to a limited range of household products and does not account for the rapid increase in the unsustainable consumption and disposal of networked or so-called 'smart' Internet of Things (IoT) devices. This is despite ever greater volumes of electronic waste being characterised as IoT-it is estimated that by 2030, there will be over 25 billion globally active smart electronic devices. Furthermore, smart phones, voice assistants and wearables can easily become 'bricked' when their physical hardware no longer supports digital updates such as the latest software. This paper outlines initial research which begins to explore how design approaches can be harnessed to better understand how citizens' might be empowered to increase IoT device Right-to-Repair within their local communities. Our work was carried out as part of a funded design research project which seeks to identify sustainable and equitable pathways that challenge the top-down hegemony which currently characterises IoT Right-to-Repair policy and practice. To investigate these possibilities, the research team collaborated closely with The Making Rooms, a community makerspace and the eminent creative hub for digital innovation and fabrication in the NorthWest of England. The paper firstly discusses how we designed and delivered two co-design workshops (Sanders & Stappers, 2014), during the second of which we introduced Right-to-Repair speculative design probes (Tsekleves, et al, 2017). Secondly, we use thematic analysis techniques (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to map the collated workshop data. Thirdly, we discuss an initial vision for a local IoT Right-to-Repair ecosystem as co-created with participants. We conclude that our initial findings begin to contribute to growing discourse calling for community adaptation towards Circular Economy principles (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2021) to redress national and international e-waste issues.
... One way that RtD works is by developing design proposals that deliberately take the form of consumer productsoften in an evocative or provocative way-as an invitation to reflect on the values embodied by its design [17,18]. Some examples of the plethora of methods that were developed in design research and adjacent communities that borrow from this idea include critical artefacts [10], diegetic prototypes [29], discursive design [50], speculative design [4], adversarial design [15] or provotypes [8] as modes of inquiry driven by material form. ...
This paper explores how the smartphone's form could be designed to help users establish more intentional usage patterns. A research through design approach that was based in design fiction principles resulted in three design proposals and scenarios, the Planning Phone, the Parasite Phone, and the Placeful Phone. These were evaluated in a focus group and analysed to develop a deeper understanding of how design researchers and developers can use ideas of authorship, barriers and norms to support intentional smartphone use.
... "Intermediary objects" are produced by designers along the research process as a medium for communication and discussion between team members in collaboration processes, as a means to frame and guide the process of research [19]. Other work includes the conceptual framing of material speculations [20], research products [21] and the critical artefact methodology [22]. Critical artefacts are crafted and used in the design process as provisional provocations, as mediators to foster debate and open new design possibilities for alternative innovation. ...
With design having more impact than ever, there is an increased need for critical inquiries into design research and education that engage designers to question established disciplinary assumptions. One prevailing myth is the convenience ideal: the obsession with comfort, efficiency, smoothness, and smartness that relates to a trend of envisioning super-convenient futures. By combining iterative prototyping, anti-solutionist strategies, and tactics of critical and speculative design, we built a counter-approach to conventional design processes: Inconvenient Design. With convenience as the topic for debate, we explored its potential in the course Stranger Things–Prototyping Inconvenience. This paper provides an overview of the approach and course format, using examples of student projects to illustrate how it encouraged them to reflect and debate directly in the design process in a tangible way, enabling them to craft alternatives. Lastly, we discuss the opportunities our methodological approach can bring to design research and education.
... Tharp & Tharp 2018) or the Critical Artifact Methodology (e.g. Bowen 2009). Although some of these methods follow different intentions, they all have a common functionality that offers a great potential for SciCom: They are separating the design discipline from commercial purposes focusing on "how things are" and make use of the design language to visualize and explore "how things could be". ...
Many new design approaches that can nowadays be summarised under the term of discursive and speculative design practices arose from Critical Design in the past decades. They form a proper design discipline that is uncoupled from commercial demands and makes use of design practices to create tangible imaginaries of probable futures for stimulating public debates. Thus, these approaches find increasing application in technological agenda-settings. Furthermore, they offer an unexplored potential for science communication and public engagement in science. But this potential is accompanied by questions on the ethical responsibility of the designer and the efficiency of the debate: How can speculative imaginaries of the future be more credible and prevent misleading debates? Against this background, this paper presents a newly developed method "From fact to Artifact" aiming to identify a schematic process to develop fact-based scenarios.
... The inconvenient approach to design strongly builds on current discourses and practices on new forms of critical and speculative inquiries within HCI and interaction design research that address the gray area between "affirmative" and "critical" design [3,8,15]. Related work includes the conceptual framings of material speculations [24], research products [17] and the critical artifact methodology [6]; the critical framework of reconstrained design [1] and interaction design research on provocations [2,18], frictions [13], limitations [19] and discomfort [20]. ...
There is a prevalent obsession in design-oriented disciplines and in the technological industry with comfort, efficiency, smoothness and smartness, which relates to a trend of envisioning super-convenient futures. In this paper, we raise convenience as a topic for inquiry within critical design practice and affirm the importance of questioning the broad implications of "design for convenience" in design research and design education. To this end, we investigate the potential of Inconvenient Design as a discursive and critical approach. By combining prototyping with tactics of critical and speculative design, we build a methodology that aims to push designers beyond their "comfortable human perspective", engaging them to question current practices in design and to think about alternatives. This methodology was the starting point of "Stranger Things-Prototyping Inconvenience", a design course held at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. The key insights and reflections from this course are summarized and illustrated through the results of the iterative prototyping sessions as well as the final projects completed by the graduate and undergraduate students.
... Stakeholders' and designer's engagement with the critical artefact then provokes them to reflect on the limitations of their current understanding that consequently broadens their understanding". (Bowen, 2009) It was felt that this methodology could be used to broaden stakeholder imagination about what is possible in end of life care, but it doesn't directly reflect a person's life, personality and experiences in the way that object elicitation does. ...
... In other words, CDE are primarily intended to be used in problem-solving processes, such as the planning of a new hospital or prison, in order to foster innovation among everyone involved in the process. Thus, designers obtain improved knowledge of the relationship between humans and physical objects in extreme environments when creating CDEs, which function in the same way as critical artefacts, speculative design objects (Bowen, 2009;Dunne & Raby, 2013), and 'provotypes' (Mogensen, 1992;Boer & Donovan, 2012). This is to say that, by engaging with them, designers are challenged to leave their comfort zones and think outside of the box in order to find better solutions to design problems. ...
Universal design thinkers are needed now more than ever. The world is facing one humanitarian crisis after the other, forcing people to flee their homes and resettle elsewhere without knowing anything about the local language, traditions, and way of life. Moreover, an ageing population is in need of (housing) design that facilitates long-term accessibility and hence homeowners 'ageing in place' safely without losing their independence. Moreover, nations such as Japan, Spain, and Norway have made diversity and inclusion part of their national political agendas to ensure that future products, buildings, and exterior spaces, are inherently accessible to all. Taking all of this together, it is imperative that the next generation of designers is informed about and skilled at dealing with future challenges and demands, however complex they might be.
Originally developed as a powerful tool for designers, architects, and others to explore 'extreme environments', such as hospitals and prisons, and the ways in which objects impinge on existential wellbeing, the critical design method is now gradually being adapted and applied to the field of universal design. Two series of workshops have been conducted to test and further develop this way of thinking about design for educational contexts. The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of applying the critical design method to various universal design contexts, and to discuss the results thus far. Furthermore, the paper examines to what extent critical design is an appropriate method for questioning and improving the field of universal design.
... In addition to facilitating the evolution of a design brief to a design solution, representations such as models and sketches act as modes of communication between the involved actors of a design process-between an industrial designer and an engineer, between the designer and the manufacturer, or even between users and the designer. In a broader view, mock-ups or cultural probes may even be used to critically engage with users, as opposed to gaining concrete solutions to user needs [5]. ...
... In the HCI community there well could be people interested in pursuing this stream further (e.g. [15,16]). ...
Critical design arouses increasing interest in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Critical Design is a relatively novel and a contentious design approach within this stream, while also other critical design approaches are emerging in HCI. Information systems research, then again, has been fascinated with critical research for decades and strongly integrated the critical lens into studies on systems development and use. However, critical information systems research is weak in the design practice -- very few studies actually involve design. We argue that combining the forces of these various critical traditions, an empowering approach to design can be developed. A categorization of critical design approaches is proposed and fascinating paths for future work are identified. Particularly we call for future developments on critical design research along two lines: expert-led critical design better integrating the tenets of the critical research tradition and user-led critical design truly advocating the empowerment of the power-weak.
