On Fat Clothes: Unraveling Plus-Size Design Discourse

This article considers the possibilities and limitations of plus-size clothing— a subcategory of ready-to-wear that is deeply embedded in the history of dieting, exercise, standardized sizing, and the industrialization of clothing manufacturing in the United States. In doing so, it draws on fashion theory and disability theory in exposing how plus-size clothing functions as a normalizing mechanism, thereby inhibiting innovation in this sector. The article concludes with a counterexploration of the possibilities of “fat clothes” and the novel w ays of seeing and existing in the world that they might enable.

Materializing the Agency of Design in Innovation Practices

This article critically reviews how we think about design in technology and service innovation. Human-centered design has emerged in this science-driven field as a way to include the interests of humans and their needs in production processes. As such, design has a considerable effect on the development of new technologies and services. Making visible the agency of design in these practices thus is of immense importance. A gap remains in the ability of current concepts of design to visualize and conceptualize design agency. Therefore, drawing on concepts of materiality in design and practice, this article proposes a framework that makes design agency visible.

Approaching Things that Trigger Things: A Review of Three Shifts in the Character of Things and Their Implications for Design

In this article I focus on the changing character of things. In doing so, I review and draw together a set of existing sources, and emerging strands and conceptions of design, to discuss three fundamental shifts that have profoundly changed the character of the things we surround ourselves with, and I discuss their implications for design. I contribute to existing design research by bringing these strands together, and by making this accessible in the form of the three shifts.

Flexible Environments for Hybrid Collaboration: Redesigning Virtual Work Through the Four Orders of Design

The COVID-19 pandemic made visceral for many the fact that virtual forms of collaboration— simultaneously liberating and frustrating—are here to stay. Workers’ frustrations demonstrate that challenges remain for work and its design in increasingly “hybrid” collaboration— work in which some people, interacting face-to-face, are co-located while others with whom they work are remote. Using Buchanan's four orders of design, in conjunction with management and information systems scholarship, we present a framework for improving these virtual forms of collaboration. In this article, we review the latest knowledge from these disciplines on virtual collaboration through the lens of the four orders of design. In doing so, we demonstrate that conceiving of work in terms of flexible collaborative environments could increase the unity of purpose between work and workers by leveraging the capabilities of varying degrees of virtuality to engender experiences that benefit all those who interact with work systems.

Weaving Together a Decolonial Imaginary Through Design for Effective River Management: Pluriversal Ontological Design in Practice

Looking at how we, as designers, can move beyond charges of neo-colonialism in social design, this article uses the empirical example of a design project focused on the restoration of a riverine system in New Zealand to provide an outline of ways that pluriversal ontological design can occur in practice. Exploring how the use of design tools and frameworks (e.g., boundary objects and infrastructuring) can help build out a decolonial imaginary, the article demonstrates how— through our design practice— we are able to successfully acknowledge, and work with, different “ways of being” in the world.

Values that Matter: A New Method to Design and Assess Moral Mediation of Technology

In this article, we aim to strengthen the basis of designing for values, by relating it to philosophy of technology. We start by discussing several theories to understand technology-induced value mediation: mediation approach, technology assessment methods, and types of value change. We continue by connecting these theories to design practice by proposing a new design for values methodology: Values that Matter. This methodology provides the means to evaluate moral mediation of technology during the design process and to responsibly design for it. The methodology is explained by the redesign of continuous vital sign monitoring technology in hospitalized patients.

Problematizer Design: A Foucaultian Approach

Based on a line of inquiry initiated by Dorst, this article explores Foucault's work as a philosophical inspiration for design research and practice. In terms of foucaultian problematization, notions of discourse and problematization— instead of notions of design problems— is an alternative way of dealing with design situations. It is argued that through the problematization of the discourses interwoven in a design project, the designer takes on a critical and political dimension of their own work. In this way, through the project, designers can have the option to critically choose between reinforcing discourses— in case of agreement with them, or subverting discourses— in case of disagreement.