Computational empowerment: participatory design in education

ABSTRACT

We propose computational empowerment as an approach and a Participatory Design (PD) response to challenges related to the emerging need for digital literacy in lower secondary education. Our approach extends the current focus on computational thinking to include a concern for how children and youth are empowered through constructive, analytical and critical engagement with technology. We argue that PD has the potential to drive a computational empowerment agenda in education by connecting political PD with contemporary visions for addressing a future digitised labour market and society. We provide a model for understanding and engaging with computational empowerment and report on the emergence of the computational empowerment agenda in a Danish context and how this agenda is reflected in the newly developed curriculum for a course on technology comprehension running on trial basis in 46 schools across Denmark.     

A participatory design approach to information architecture design for children

A design process that involves the participation of children should effectively elicit the needs of child users by considering characteristics such as their age-appropriate levels of cognitive ability, shyness, language skills, and motor-sensory capabilities. Since the 1960s, a variety of methods and guidelines have emerged specialising in children. Participatory design deals with the problem of enabling users to participate in the design process and with the task of generating ideas by means of generative toolkits and workshops. Hence, participatory design enables designers to look at problems from a child's standpoint and, simultaneously, deal with childhood traits such as shyness and immature language skills. This paper introduces two participatory design toolkits: namely Info Block and Info Tree. These toolkits enable users to build information architecture (IA) that can, firstly, reflect their cognitive characteristics and, secondly, elicit user needs with respect to the information architecture design of children's websites. In a case study, the toolkits were used to evaluate the usability of the Yahoo!® Kids (Korea) directory. The results show that the information architecture of children differs from that of adults in depth, breadth, and clarity of contents and logicality. Finally, suggestions are made to improve the usability of children's websites.     

Sustaining participatory design initiatives

While many participatory design (PD) projects succeed in establishing new organisational initiatives or creating technology that is attuned to the people affected, the issue of how such results are sustained after the project ends remains an important challenge. We explore the challenge of sustaining PD initiatives beyond the individual project and discuss implications for PD practice. First, based on current PD literature, we distinguish between four ideal typical forms of sustainability: maintaining, scaling, replicating and evolving. Second, we demonstrate from a case study how these various forms of sustainability may be pursued in PD practice and how they can become a resource in reflecting on PD activities. Finally, we discuss implications for PD practice, suggesting that a nuanced conception of sustainability and how it may relate to PD practice are useful resources for designers and researchers before, during and after design processes.     

The construction of fictional space in participatory design practice

This paper explores the creation of fictional space in participatory design and relates the notion of fictional space to the more general conception of design space as a space created through the situated practices of participants. The notion of fictional space provides insights for understanding the process through which participants in participatory design create a design space in which established conventions of everyday practice are altered or suspended. With inspiration from literary theory, it is argued that the production of fictional space may be understood in terms of participants practicing games of make-believe mediated by props. The motivation for discussing fictional space is traced through ongoing work on designing new exhibition spaces for museums. Through a case study from a participatory design session, it is explored how games of make-believe progress and the role of props in this process.     

Participation as a matter of concern in participatory design

This article starts from the paradox that, although participation is a defining trait of participatory design (PD), there are few explicit discussions in the PD literature of what constitutes participation. Thus, from a point of departure in Actor-Network Theory (ANT), this article develops an analytical understanding of participation. It is argued that participation is a matter of concern, something inherently unsettled, to be investigated and explicated in every design project. Specifically, it is argued that (1) participation is an act overtaken by numerous others, rather than carried out by individuals and (2) that participation partially exists in all elements of a project. These traits are explicated in a design project called ‘Teledialogue’, where the participants are unfolded as networks of reports, government institutions, boyfriends, social workers and so on. The argument is synthesised as three challenges for PD: (1) participants are network configurations, (2) participation is an aspect of all project activities and (3) there is no gold standard for participation.     

Integrating community engagement and children's voices into design and planning education

This article shares outcomes from a year-long participatory planning process – one that brought together children and youth engagement, city planning, campus planning, and a university environmental design course to explore child-friendly, dense and affordable housing for a city of approximately 100,000 residents. This process of engagement asked design students to include youth participation and child-friendly cities as an integrated component of sustainable cities. The article shows varying degrees of transformation, views of children as credible participants, and values gained from the project. Many undergraduates changed their thinking about the role of young people in design processes and outcomes.     

In the details: the micro-ethics of negotiations and in-situ judgements in participatory design with marginalised children

ABSTRACT

Engaging marginalised children, such as disabled children, in Participatory Design (PD) entails particular challenges. The processes can effect social changes by decidedly attending to their lived experience as expertise. However, involving marginalised children in research also requires maintaining a delicate balance between ensuring their right to participation as well as their protection from harm. The resulting tensions are politically charged, affected by myriads of power differences and create moral dilemmas. We present seven case studies, drawing from two participatory design research projects. They illustrate the in-situ judgements taken to address specific dilemmas and provide nuanced insights into the trade-offs required by child-led participatory design processes. Subsequently, we identify three challenges: positioning our work to the children’s carers’ values, protecting ourselves, and enabling the (relative) risk-taking associated with participation for children. We call for this micro-ethical approach to be used when reporting research ethics in practice, and as a guidance for the training of researchers and practitioners.     

The quality of conversations in participatory innovation

In co-design there seems to be a widespread understanding that innovation is a planned, goal-oriented activity that can be propelled forward through well-facilitated events in which company employees collaborate with external parties (users in particular) and the conversations aim at consensus about new product and service ideas. Conflict belonged to the ‘old days’ when participatory design played a part in the struggle between workers and management. Based on the theory of complex responsive processes of relating, we suggest a new way of understanding innovation as the emergence of new meaning in – often conflictual – conversations. We argue that the meeting of participants with different stakes is crucial precisely because crossing intentions can create new insight and movement of thought and action. We use improvised theatre to investigate what happens in industrial (and other) organisations that embark on participatory activities, and the barriers that prevent them. By analysing improvised scenes and the way the audience reacts, we characterise the quality of conversations that seems to allow new meaning to emerge and thus stimulates innovation. We suggest that we need to develop new formats of collaboration for large, complex contingents of stakeholders, where conflicting intentions are encouraged.     

Nonhumans in participatory design

This article examines the role that nonhumans play in participatory design. Research and practice concerned with participatory design mostly focuses on human participants, however nonhumans also participate in the design process and can play a significant role in shaping the process. This article focuses on how nonhumans participate in the design process. An empirical case study is used to illustrate how humans and nonhumans assemble to form networks in order to effect a design. Nonhumans increase the level of participation in a design process. The case study reveals how nonhumans help to maintain, destroy or strengthen networks by substituting, mediating and communicating with humans and often, in doing so, making human actors more or less visible in the process. Nonhumans play a part in configuring the social. Revealing the presence and roles of nonhumans is an important means through which to increase the democracy within the design process.     

防水设计与建筑学教育

通过对防水设计与建筑学教育之间关系的阐述，说明教育的缺失是防水技术落后的原因之一。     

亚洲地区高等教育中城市设计专业教育及启示

中国城市设计行业存在专门人才不足的现象,因此,加强对国外相关教育现状的认识将有助于国内业界学科教育的发展和实践。文章对亚洲高等教育中城市设计学科的发展概况进行了介绍和分析,结合QS学科专业排行榜等,重点选取了三所具代表性的亚洲高校作为案例分析,对其学科的发展现状,包括专业设置、教育目标、课程内容等要点进行解析,以期对国内城市设计专业的设置和培养方案设计有所指导。     

环境设计教育回顾与展望

通过回顾环境设计专业教育的发展历史,指出环境设计是整体的人居环境艺术与设计,该专业的创办具有划时代的意义。另一方面,环境设计正面临着环境艺术或环境设计的基本定位,以及专业整合与学科分化的抉择。研究结果表明,环境设计专业应该继续秉承整体的人居环境设计办学理念,依托"设计学"一级学科,以专业性教育为基本定位,设置合理的本科和研究生课程体系,探索环境设计中的技术科学问题。     

关于建筑色彩设计及建筑色彩设计教育的思考

人类对自然界的认识源于各种感官体验。本文分析了色彩设计在建筑设计中被忽视的原因,阐述了色彩设计在建筑设计中的重要性,还指出了建筑色彩设计教育存在的问题,并提出改革建议。     

艺术设计教育初探

介绍了我国艺术设计教育的现状,针对我国的艺术设计教育在很多方面还难以适应时代发展要求的问题,指出应积极引进国际先进的艺术设计教育理念和模式,并阐述了欧洲艺术设计教育对我国的启示,以建立有中国特色的艺术设计教育模式。     

教育建筑设计初探

简要叙述了教育建筑的基本特点和发展,讨论了现代教育建筑的设计表现具有创新、共融和高效的特点,并结合实例对现代教育建筑设计方法进行了初步探讨.     

城市规划专业CAD课程教学框架设计

计算机辅助设计是高校城市规划专业的一门重要技术课程,以培养城市规划专业学生的计算机专业绘图能力为目标。文章从城市规划计算机辅助设计课程的作用和特点出发,在总结课程教学目的与要求的基础上,提出了教学模块设计、教学内容设计、教学模式设计和实践环节设计四位一体的课程教学框架,以此为高校城市规划教育的课程改革提供一种新思路。     

Tensions in human-centred design

In human-centred design (HCD), researchers and designers attempt to cooperate with and learn from potential users of the products or services which they are developing. Their goal is to develop products or services that match users’ practices, needs and preferences. In this position paper it is argued that HCD practitioners need to deal with two tensions that are inherent in HCD: they need to combine and balance users’ knowledge and ideas with their own knowledge and ideas; and they need to combine and balance a concern for understanding current or past practices with a concern for envisioning alternative or future practices. Six HCD approaches – participatory design, ethnography, the lead user approach, contextual design, codesign and empathic design – are discussed in order to argue that these different approaches are different ways to cope with the two tensions. In addition, several examples from practice are provided to illustrate these tensions. Moreover, it is advocated that HCD practitioners critically reflect on their practices, their methods and their own involvement, so that they can more consciously follow specific HCD approaches and more mindfully cope with the two tensions.     

视觉信息时代艺术设计教育探讨

随着社会经济、文化的发展,艺术设计的形式和内容日益多元化,艺术教育作为文化传承的重要方式,也需顺应时代的改革创新。以当前艺术设计教育存在的问题入手,分析信息时代所需创新型人才应具备的基本特征,论述进行艺术设计教育创新的必要性,提出艺术设计教育应着重培育学生从事艺术实践的思维方法和工作方式,并就如何在艺术设计教育中进行创新,做出有益的探索和尝试。     

浅谈ATB-25的配合比设计与施工工艺

根据工程实践,介绍了ATB-25的配合比设计,从温度控制、运输、摊铺、碾压、接缝处理等多个方面论述了ATB-25施工工艺,提出了施工中应注意的问题,以完善ATB-25施工工艺,推广ATB-25的应用。     

整体环境中的动态分组城市设计教学

大学四年级是建筑学专业教育的重要环节。本文通过四年级两个城市设计课题的设置与教学,阐述了在动态教学中整体环境观念的培养及分组中协作精神的形成,力图对以创造性思维为核心的全面综合素质的培养模式进行探索。