Design Conceptualization and Communication

The Design Conceptualization and Communication (DCC) section focuses on developing methods and tools for understanding how products and services fit in people’s lives, in their full complexity. These methods and tools help designers understand the context of use for which they design (e.g., contextmapping), and explore new possibilities of interaction (research through design, iterative interactive prototyping). They can be used as well as ways to empower people to arrange their own lives (self-empowerment).

Keywords are: Context, Empathy, Empowerment, Participation, and Prototyping.

Context: how does the product or service fit into the users’ everyday lives ‘world’, how can we learn about the user’s needs and values, in research- and design sessions and especially in their everyday contexts?

Empathy: how can designers step into the shoes of users that are very different from them her, such as children, elderly, or people in other cultures?

Empowerment: how can design be used to increase involvement of citizens and communities of users in matters that affect their wellbeing?

Participation: how can we involve diverse stakeholders, such as end-users and experts, in design processes to increase the quality and adoption of products and services?

Prototyping: how can we quickly make working, interactive setups or visualize future scenarios to experience situations that do not exist yet, and explore potential interactions?