Critical Design Approach Research Articles

A critical review and systematic design approach for innovative upper-limb rehabilitation devices

This paper conducts a thorough literature review and assessment of prevailing upper-limb rehabilitation devices, scrutinizing their strengths and limitations. The focus of this work is mainly on soft exosuit devices but some rigid and hybrid exoskeleton devices are also discussed as a comparative mean. Subsequently, this manuscript delineates explicit design guidelines with the intent of fostering a systematic approach toward innovation in the realm of upper-limb rehabilitation technology. Through an examination of current concepts and technological paradigms, this study seeks to contribute nuanced insights aimed at optimizing both efficacy and user experience in rehabilitation device design. The culmination of this critical analysis results in the proposal of a systematic design procedure to inform and influence the trajectory of specific user-tailored innovations within the domain of upper-limb rehabilitation devices.The proposed approach enables the identification of features and weaknesses in existing devices, facilitating also the design of innovative solutions for unsolved issues in the field of wearable robotics. A design example is presented to clarify the proposed design procedure.

Transforming perspectives on gender through imagined futures: A speculative design inquiry

This paper will present a second-year Fashion Design Theory project, ‘Imagining Gender Equality in 100 Years’. The project outcomes were based on the critical design approach of speculative design (SD), exploring the intersectional issues of gender relevant to a South African context. SD thrives on imagination to create scenarios that change perspectives, beliefs, and values related to social problems. The following questions were posed to the students in developing the project guidelines. Firstly, what will the change in values, beliefs, and attitudes related to issues of gender look like in the future? And how can students use design to imagine spaces in the present for discussion and debate about alternative ways of being in an imagined future? With the application of action research, the paper discusses and analyses a selection of student projects completed in 2020 and 2021. In doing this, the paper aims to reflect on the transformation of a design theory assessment by applying critical design approaches culminating in creative and conceptual outcomes for complex life problems. In addition, reflections and lessons learnt on the blended teaching and learning methods amidst Covid-19 will be imparted.

A Critical Review and Systematic Design Approach for Linkage-Based Gait Rehabilitation Devices

This study aims to provide a comprehensive critical review of the existing body of evidence pertaining to gait rehabilitation. It also seeks to introduce a systematic approach for the development of innovative design solutions in this domain. The field of gait rehabilitation has witnessed a surge in the development of novel robotic devices. This trend has emerged in response to limitations observed in most commercial solutions, particularly regarding their high costs. Consequently, there is a growing need to explore more cost-effective alternatives and create opportunities for greater accessibility. Within the realm of cost-effective options, linkage-based gait trainers have emerged as viable alternatives, prompting a thorough examination of this category, which is carried out in this work. Notably, there is a wide heterogeneity in research approaches and presentation methods. This divergence has prompted discourse regarding the standardization of key elements relevant to the proposals of new linkage-based devices. As a result, this study proposes a comprehensive and standardized design process and offers a brief illustration of the application of this design process through the presentation of a potential new design.

Enhanced chemical looping CO2 conversion activity and thermal stability of perovskite LaCo1-xAlxO3 by Al substitution.

The reverse water-gas shift chemical looping (RWGS-CL) process that utilizes redox reactions of metal oxides is promising for converting CO2 to CO at low temperatures. Metal oxides with perovskite structures, particularly, perovskite LaCoO3 are promising frameworks for designing RWGS-CL materials as they can often release oxygen atoms topotactically to form oxygen vacancies. In this study, solid solutions of perovskite LaCo1-xAlxO3 (0 ≤ x ≤ 1), which exhibited high CO production capability and thermal stability under the RWGS-CL process, were developed. Al-substituted LaCo0.5Al0.5O3 (x = 0.5) exhibited a 4.1 times higher CO production rate (2.97 × 10-4 CO mol g-1 min-1) than that of LaCoO3 (x = 0; 0.73 × 10-4 CO mol g-1 min-1). Diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy studies suggested that an increase in CO2 adsorption sites produced by the coexistence of Al and Co was responsible for the enhancement of CO production rate. Furthermore, LaCo0.5Al0.5O3 maintained its perovskite structure during the RWGS-CL process at 500 °C without significant decomposition, whereas LaCoO3 decomposed into La2O3 and Co0. In situ X-ray diffraction study revealed that the high thermal stability was attributed to the suppression of phase transition into a brownmillerite structure with ordered oxygen vacancies. These findings provide a critical design approach for the industrial application of perovskite oxides in the RWGS-CL processes.

Integrating culture in future speculation: Speculating Chinese wedding futures

Futures and design are intensively collaborating with each other in the field of experiential futures, with critical design as a source of inspiration. Rather than focusing on the imagination and speculation of future technology as most critical design genres do, this paper examines critical design from a cultural perspective and explores approaches through which future as a way of life is speculated. Special attention has been paid on Design for the Speculative Future (DSF), a culture-centred critical design approach that describes future scenarios in design languages. A framework for integrating cultural resources in the future speculation process has been proposed, taking Chinese weddings as an exemplary case study. Two DSF studios were conducted online in a Chinese social-cultural context to formulate and examine this framework. The proposed framework will benefit both design beginners at a practical level to adopt it in the process of speculating futures, and researchers at the intersection of design and futures to examine how critical design links the present and future and has an impact on futures through construction of future scenarios.

Decolonization of care through a wholistic way of living: Gaga from the Tayal in Taiwan

This article explores the “wholistic” as a central concept of “the good life” as expressed by the Bnkis, Tayal Indigenous Elders, who participated in the Day Club, Tayal territory of Northern Taiwan. In particular, we analyze the stories of care experienced by the Bnkis from the standpoint of wholistic relationships. The stories were recorded primarily between 2015 and 2018. In this analysis we used a critical qualitative design approach, privileging Tayal epistemology and informed by Tayal hermeneutics. Our results show that the concept of well-being for the Bnkis is closely linked to their relationships with people and with the land and spirituality. Through these relationships, the continuation of Gaga—Tayal law and cosmology—has been adapted organically over time. We argue that Gaga is central to Tayal Elder/Bnkis care and essential to Bnkis’ well-being. We propose that the concept of wholistic relationships embedded in the Tayal law of Gaga is vital in developing an elderly care system that is genuinely culturally relevant in the long run. This research demonstrates how the wholistic concept can improve human health and well-being, and ultimately provides an implication to sustainable development.

Teaching alternative Paradigms through Critical Design

This paper introduces and reflects on a master elective course for Interaction Design students titled Researching the Future Everyday. Aiming to equip students with the skills to critically adapt their own practices to the changing societal roles of design, the course guides students through a critical design approach with three key elements: a Science and Technology Studies paper that provides an alternative paradigm for assumed relations between design and societal issues, a Critical Design approach that makes the paradigm relatable for designers, and the use of Research Products to stimulate generalization of design implications beyond the exemplar. By analyzing ten student projects, we identify two patterns of using critical design to extend and enrich alternative paradigms. One uses oppositional designs to develop alternative design approaches. The other uses accelerational designs to extend alternative problem spaces. These patterns and their variations reveal avenues to further support students in developing critical practices.

“Data Hegemony”: Reflections for the Application and Development Direction of Metaverse Technology in Urban Design based on Digital

This paper is based on the phenomenon of Tittytainment and big data control. It discusses the ways in which working youths live and work in their large suburban communities in Beijing as well as their leisure and entertainment activities. Then develops a problem statement and research questions. In addition, the project explores this reality phenomenon dialectically through the analysis and speculation of the new virtual reality technology “Metaverse.” Based on a critical design approach, the phenomenon is explored through a detailed description and examination of reality, before critically suggesting the possibility of future social control by big data companies through the “metaverse” space. Furthermore, this paper alerts to the neoliberalism that dominates globalization through anti-utopian expressions, waking up young people who are compromised by big data control and addicted to Tittytainment.

DESIGN FICTION IN DESIGN EDUCATION: A CASE STUDY ON STUDENT PROJECTS

Design fiction is a critical design approach which speculates on possible futures and forms technology-based visions on how future life might be and explains fictional worlds through the designed artefacts. Design fiction opens a free space to question current assumptions, operations, and systems. Design fiction is also used to create alternative worlds by moving away from various constraints, business expectations in particular, and to provide a convenient atmosphere for students to be able to think in a conceptual context, to develop new discourse, and to question their relation with reality. The present article argues that design fiction can be used as an instrument to question the position of design education in providing a labour force to the sector, and to move out of the structure of the design fiction that focuses on now and today. In this scope, the design fiction projects produced in the course of a Visual Communication Design Project will be examined, the methods used and the stages followed will be explained, and opinions will be presented on the possible angles of outcomes for students in design education. Keywords: Design fiction, design education, visual communication design, speculative design

Exploring the Potential for Just Urban Transformations in Light of Eco-Modernist Imaginaries of Sustainability

This article approaches urban ethics through critically examining the production and reproduction of an eco-modern socio-technical imaginary of sustainable urban development in Sweden, and the conditions and obstacles this poses for a just transformation. We see that notions of ecological modernization re-present problems of urban sustainability in ways that do not challenge the predominant regime, but rather uphold unjust power relations. More particularly, through an approach inspired by critical discourse analysis, we uncover what these problem representations entail, deconstructing what we find as three cornerstones of an eco-modern imaginary that obstruct the emergence of a more ethically-engaged understanding of urban sustainability. The first concerns which scales and system boundaries are constructed as relevant, and how this results in some modes and places of production and consumption being constructed as more efficient—and sustainable—than others. The second cornerstone has to do with what resources and ways of using them (including mediating technologies) are foregrounded and constructed as more important in relation to sustainability than others. The third cornerstone concerns the construction of subjectivities, through which some types of people and practices are put forth as more efficient—and sustainable—than others. Utilizing a critical speculative design approach, we explore a selection of alternative problem representations, and finally discuss these in relation to the possibility of affording a more ethical urban design and planning practice.

Exploring Deaf heritage futures through critical design and ‘Public Things’

ABSTRACT Increasingly, critical design methods offer heritage scholars new ways of exploring identities, experiences and relationships, extending a dialogic approach that supports the testing and realisation of heritage futures. This paper focuses upon a two-year national project that aimed to bring together curators, heritage professionals and Deaf communities to consider Deaf heritage as future-making. Throughout four collaborative workshops, participants co-designed model museums, designed BSL infrastructures, formulated Deaf heritage professions and prototyped BSL souvenirs. By materialising heritage processes and ‘public things’ participants re-purposed their symbolic power to articulate prevailing inequalities and possible Deaf futures. We discuss the ways in which these playful future-making objects revealed hidden, oppressed, and contradictory heritage relations. We argue that a critical design approach to working with BSL users facilitated the disruption of conventional categories of heritage, Deafness and culture.

The Critical Catalog: Giving Voice to Diverse Library Materials through Provocative Design

Although laudable strides have been made to highlight and provide access to diverse library materials about and made by traditionally marginalized communities, current approaches are curatorial, non-scalable, and non-systematic. Using a critical design approach, we address how libraries might move beyond curatorial practices with the proposal of a “Critical Catalog” that advocates for diverse materials and discusses the problems and challenges of categorizing identity. The proposed provocative catalog offers the possibility to raise awareness of diverse library materials; expose readers to new and different resources, ideas and cultures; alter reading habits; and ultimately provide more equitable representation by preventing the inadvertent and unintentional erasure of diverse library materials, thus giving a stronger voice to marginalized communities.

Guardian: Made in Cambodia: Experimental textile design responding to Cambodian factory conditions, unionism and the phenomenon of Neak Ta possession

Abstract Guardian: Made in Cambodia is an ethical textiles project undertaken in response to the low-income and hazardous working conditions of garment factory workers in Cambodia. The project critically designs a range of garments that acknowledge and raise awareness of cultural manifestations of unionism in Cambodia, specifically the Neak Ta phenomenon. The garments are speculatively imagined as capable of ethical production by a small community of workers from Cambodia’s garment factories in order to (capacitate) provide a mode of production and sustainable source of income alternative to industrial factory employment. The Neak Ta phenomenon refers to mass fainting associated with land guardian spirits unique to Cambodian Animist belief. The phenomenon is regarded as a culturally appropriate form of rebellion occurring in a country where unionism is discouraged and labour protests can become violent. Guardian: Made in Cambodia applies a methodology of experimental material and processes research through textile-focused studio practice, as a means to better understand the conditions of Cambodian garment workers and the Neak Ta phenomenon. This process corresponds to a critical design approach that engages with the topic interrogatively through experimental making, in order to challenge paradigms of design and production. The resulting textile and apparel products visualize the repetitive piecework of garment factory work and the disruption caused to it by the Neak Ta phenomenon. Open and closed seams, darts and hems recall the repetitive qualities of piecework labour, disrupted by dark-toned natural dyeing techniques intended to capture and convey expressions of fainting and possession.

Norm Critical Design and Ethnography: Possibilities, Objectives and Stakeholders

The aim of this article is to describe the potential of combining norm critical design and ethnography in a collaborative project seeking to promote social change. In doing so the article will contribute with new perspectives on how design and ethnography can be practised in a joint effort between researchers and organisations. The article examines the following research questions: How can norm critical design and ethnography be used in a collaborative project seeking to promote change towards gender equality in an organisation? What distinguishes a norm critical design approach from other approaches using design and ethnography for intervention and social change? By taking their point of departure in a collaborative project with the Swedish fire and rescue service the authors demonstrate how a norm critical perspective on design in combination with ethnography provides a pedagogical tool for different stakeholders seeking to promote change in organisations. Even though a norm critical design approach like this shares the same interest in social change as more conventional ethnography and design projects do, there are some crucial and interesting differences when it comes to objectives and the collection of stakeholders that will be explored in this article.

Using the critical design approach for rethinking citizens’ emotional bond with urban spaces

This paper focuses on the use of the critical design approach to analyze and understand the connection between human beings and urban spaces. Taking inspiration from the value that place and space have for people (e.g. for the construction of their individual identities) and from previous works conc

Digital myths and delusions: an approach to investigate interaction aesthetics

Digital myths and delusions is here suggested as a way of working with interaction aesthetics of computational products. It is a critical design approach introducing alternative design proposals in three steps. In the first step we define myths and delusions of digital products restricting interaction and awareness. In the second step we introduce critical myth exposures reading, exposing, reviewing and demystifying the myths. In the third step we design ‘transformers to explore design alternatives, i.e. we transform the myths by changing the design and the way the product is being presented in use. The aim is to question what counts as normal and intuitive with respect to all those everyday computational products we are getting more and more used to. Defining and questioning digital myths is here seen as one form of design critique.

Transforming Adult Learning Through Critical Design Inquiry

Marching toward the 21st century, there are not only drastic changes in global economic and political development, but also in technological advancement and ecological evolution. All of these are intertwined with one another to shape national and societal development in various areas. In the milieu of education, these changes exert great influence on the way we perceive learning and instruction, this in turn calls for a paradigm shift in the way we design learning and instruction. Consequently, calls to critically examine the way we have been designing our learning and instruction have gained more and more attention in the past decade. Since design could help in realizing our visionary ideals, and transforming these ideals into innumerable learning and working contexts, we need to probe into how our learning and instruction could be more creatively and powerfully designed. The author contends that most learners, through the process of critical envision and enaction, could learn to design their own learning, either independently or collectively, through the cultivation of design capacities. In this paper, the author first presents the historical analysis of the theoretical foundations of instructional design, and then takes a critical approach to examining the alternative possibilities of instructional design. Based on the critical perspectives of design, she develops the critical design inquiry by integrating the richness of contemporary critical thinking into that of systems thinking and design thinking. To make the critical design inquiry an educational praxis, rather than just another design theory, the author takes a participatory and collaborative approach to design with a group of adult students. The critical design approach aims at enlightening the adult learners’ inner systems revolution and enriching the outer learning environments through collaborative design engagement. In the final section, the author explicates how the confined roles of instructional designers could be conceptualized through the critical design inquiry.