Towards a Framework for Capturing Interpretability of Hierarchical Fuzzy Systems - A Participatory Design Approach

Designers are increasingly involved in designing alternative futures for their cities, together with or self-organized by citizens. This article discusses the fact that (groups of) citizens often lack the support or negotiation power to engage in or sustain parts of these complex design processes. Therefore the “capabilities” of these citizens to collectively visualize, reflect, and act in these processes need to be strengthened. We discuss our design process of “democratic dialogues” in Traces of Coal—a project that researches and designs together with the citizens an alternative spatial future for a partially obsolete railway track in the Belgian city of Genk. This process is framed in a Participatory Design approach and, more specifically, in what is called “infrastructuring,” or the process of developing strategies for the long-term involvement of participants in the design of spaces, objects, or systems. Based on this process, we developed a typology of how the three clusters of capabilities (i.e., visualize, reflect, and act) are supported through democratic dialogues in PD processes, linking them to the roles of the designer, activities, and used tools.

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Improvisation as Technique and Practice for Design

The Urban Improvise ◽

10.12987/yale/9780300243048.003.0007 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 170-187

Author(s):

Kristian Kloeckl

Keyword(s):

Performing Arts ◽

Participatory Design ◽

Role Play ◽

Design Methods ◽

Design Approach ◽

Concrete Situation

This chapter explores the richness of practice-based frameworks and improvisation techniques in the performing arts. It illustrates how these can become a resource for an improvisation-based design approach by developing a concrete hybrid city application. Participatory design methods use improvisation to develop applications in collaboration with users. They attempt to unlock tacit kinds of knowing and gain firsthand appreciation of existing or future conditions by engaging participants and designers together in a concrete situation. In role-play techniques, for example, cards are handed to each participant that introduce the scene and contain information about rules associated with that specific scene, goals to be achieved, and the roles that participants enact.

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Creating Gameful Design in mHealth: A Participatory Co-Design Approach (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.11579 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Stian Jessen ◽

Jelena Mirkovic ◽

Cornelia M Ruland

Keyword(s):

Chronic Conditions ◽

Participatory Design ◽

Design Approach ◽

Self Management ◽

Chronic Patients ◽

Starting Point ◽

Wide Range ◽

Design Activities ◽

The Look ◽

Mhealth Apps

BACKGROUND Gameful designs (gamification), using design pieces and concepts typically found in the world of games, is a promising approach to increase users’ engagement with, and adherence to, electronic health and mobile health (mHealth) tools. Even though both identifying and addressing users’ requirements and needs are important steps of designing information technology tools, little is known about the users’ requirements and preferences for gameful designs in the context of self-management of chronic conditions. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to present findings as well as the applied methods and design activities from a series of participatory design workshops with patients with chronic conditions, organized to generate and explore user needs, preferences, and ideas to the implementation of gameful designs in an mHealth self-management app. METHODS We conducted three sets of two consecutive co-design workshops with a total of 22 participants with chronic conditions. In the workshops, we applied participatory design methods to engage users in different activities such as design games, scenario making, prototyping, and sticky notes exercises. The workshops were filmed, and the participants’ interactions, written products, ideas, and suggestions were analyzed thematically. RESULTS During the workshops, the participants identified a wide range of requirements, concerns, and ideas for using the gameful elements in the design of an mHealth self-management app. Overall inputs on the design of the app concerned aspects such as providing a positive user experience by promoting collaboration and not visibly losing to someone or by designing all feedback in the app to be uplifting and positive. The participants provided both general inputs (regarding the degree of competitiveness, use of rewards, or possibilities for customization) and specific inputs (such as being able to customize the look of their avatars or by having rewards that can be exchanged for real-world goods in a gift shop). However, inputs also highlighted the importance of making tools that provide features that are meaningful and motivating on their own and do not only have to rely on gameful design features to make people use them. CONCLUSIONS The main contribution in this study was users’ contextualized and richly described needs and requirements for gamefully designed mHealth tools for supporting chronic patients in self-management as well as the methods and techniques used to facilitate and support both the participant’s creativity and communication of ideas and inputs. The range, variety, and depth of the inputs from our participants also showed the appropriateness of our design approach and activities. These findings may be combined with literature and relevant theories to further inform in the selection and application of gameful designs in mHealth apps, or they can be used as a starting point for conducting more participatory workshops focused on co-designing gameful health apps.

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