Artifact

In order to define instrumentation in the context of mathematics education, it is necessary to define instruments: at this stage of this article we do not differentiate between instruments and artifacts, i.e. regard them as things that are created and used by humans to help, assist, support, enlarge, empower their activity. Instrumentation is the action to give someone an instrument, or the action by which someone acquires an instrument, in order to perform a given activity. The notion of instrumentation is part of a network of concepts; we will focus here on the main dialectical relationships between them.

After an introduction which addresses some basic questions, this article is organized around three points: (1) The theoretical framework of the so-called ‘‘instrumental approach’’ which has been a theme in the last two CAME symposia; (2) A consideration of two processes (instrumentalization and instrumentation) which interact in the instrumental genesis; and (3) The introduction of the idea of instrumental orchestration as a way of allowing the teacher to assist the student’s instrumental genesis

The increasing problem of polymer deterioration in museum collections is challenging conservators to research suitable treatment and storage options for objects made of plastic and rubber. Conservators at The Mariners' Museum have researched and performed treatment experiments on a collection of 24 waterlogged rubber gaskets from the steam engine of the USS Monitor, an American Civil War ironclad. Several analytical methods were used to determine the chemical characteristics of the rubber and to identify corrosion products, including Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). In addition to contributing to the overall study of polymer degradation, the primary goal of the research was to remove corrosion products and mineralization that had formed on the surface. Chemical analysis was performed to extract corrosion products and determine the composition of the rubber. An investigational technique, electrophoresis, was tested for removal of corrosion products and mineralization on the surface with varied results.

This article examines graphic design’s role within
design activism. It outlines design activism in general
and its relation to commercial design culture
in a consumerist economy. Thereafter it discusses
persuasive tendencies in graphic design and questions
if its current contribution to design activism is
limited to its predominant narrow role of persuading
for “the good cause.”

Throughout the scales of design there has been an exploding interest in the ornament that seems to be fuelled by different kinds of digital technology and media from CAD to digital printing in both 2D and 3D. In architecture and industrial design, it is discussed as a "return of ornament" because the aesthetics of Modernism banned ornamentation as "inappropriate" to materiality, construction, and function. In this article we wish to renegotiate this highly normative notion of appropriateness with special regard to sustainable design where the "right" kind of ornaments can mediate attention to more aesthetic and cultural dimensions and open for stronger individual attachments to consumer goods that might prolong their lifespan. Adolf Loos, who led the fight against ornament in the early 20th century, based his critique on an assumption of relation between ornamentation and durability that makes ornaments appropriate or not. This leads us to suggest an array of parameters that point out different situations and meanings of ornamentation: Product categories, Durability of materials, Styles, Aesthetic experience, Emotional attachment and Historical references. We discuss these parameters in cases from fashion and tableware to architecture and link ornamentation to the aesthetics of durability.

After an introduction which addresses some basic questions, this article is organized around three points: (1) The theoretical framework of the so-called “instrumental approach” which has been a theme in the last two CAME symposia; (2) A consideration of two processes (instrumentalization and instrumentation) which interact in the instrumental genesis; and (3) The introduction of the idea of instrumental orchestration as a way of allowing the teacher to assist the student’s instrumental genesis.

To understand how the design process works, the
paper takes the outset in the work of one of the
first innovating type designers: the English printer
and typefounder John Baskerville (1706-1775). By
comparing his way of working with a model for a
contemporary design process, the paper reflects
upon the relationship between this and the way
Baskerville might have worked in the development
of his historical typeface style.

This paper presents an approach to understanding green aesthetics in clothing and design-forsustainability that unifies existing theories and describes aspects of green aesthetics. The aim of this paper is to define the dimensions of aesthetic perception in design and commodities, and while doing so the focus is on green aesthetics in clothing. Hence the approach is made on the basis of aesthetic discourse yet with a multidisciplinary view. The study first constructs an understanding of clothing aesthetics in general: the definition and understanding 'thin' aesthetics in the context of clothing, which combines product properties, multilayered pleasure experiences, and creativity elements. Secondly the study lays the ground for defining green aesthetics, a 'thick' aesthetic evaluation based on environmental aesthetics. Finally the study constructs a framework by which to approach green aesthetics in clothing. On the basis of this paper, parallels and synergies between green aesthetics in design objects and the definition of design-for-sustainability can be drawn, merging aesthetic attributes with environmental values. Hence the paper opens new views on normative beauty in commodities.

My starting point is that discussions in philosophy about the ontology of technical artifacts ought to be informed by classificatory practices in engineering. Hence, the heuristic value of the natural-artificial distinction in engineering counts against arguments which favour abandoning the distinction in metaphysics. In this chapter, I present the philosophical equipment needed to analyse classificatory practices and then present a case study of engineering practice using these theoretical tools. More in particular, I make use of the Collectivist Account of Technical Artifacts (CAT) according to which there are different classificatory practices for natural, artificial, and social objects. I demonstrate that in the community studied, artificial kinds are marked by distinctive classificatory practices. The presence of these distinctive classificatory practices in engineering with regard to artificial kinds should inform discussions about the ontology of technical artifacts just as the distinctive classificatory practices in natural science inform discussions about natural kinds.

Resumo: A presente investigação no âmbito do design procura estudar os rituais de sedução e namoro encontrados intemporalmente na natureza para que, através da elaboração de um modelo taxonómico, seja criada uma ferramenta que facilite a inspiração conceptual e poética, a partir de analogias que potenciem a imaginação sobre novos modos de interacção. O principal objectivo será aplicar este estudo na concepção de comportamentos inéditos em artefactos tecnológicos que se relacionam diretamente com o ser humano, ou permitam a mediação entre seres humanos. Será proposta uma taxonomia de comportamentos biológicos baseados nos rituais de sedução e namoro encontrados na natureza, no sentido de definir um sistema que permita mapear uma percepção global de exemplos encontrados na natureza, que se revelem inspiradores para as relações humanas. Esta sistematização visa definir fenómenos naturais, com o objectivo de organizar e caracterizar os comportamentos identificados e estabelecer analogias que permitirão traduzir-se em novos modos comportamentais por parte dos artefactos interativos. A linha de investigação apresentada neste artigo pretende demonstrar a pertinência de incluir os comportamentos biológicos nas metodologias projectuais inspiradas na natureza e aplicadas ao design de produto, passando, desta forma, a constituírem-se como mais uma área de influência para além da inspiração biológica na forma e na técnica que actualmente impera nesta abordagem. Parece-nos que, através deste tipo de analogias encontradas na natureza, será possível gerar novas experiências, comportamentos e seduções alicerçadas em arquétipos biológicos e intemporais que promovam a comunicação entre pessoas e objectos. Acredita-se que estes novos modos de inter(rel)acção com o artefacto tecnológico podem constituir-se como um caminho a ser explorado no percurso contemporâneo da cultura material emergente da sociedade pós-digital. A materialização final deste estudo será o desenho de um conjunto diferenciado de artefactos tecnológicos, que pretende testar a taxonomia proposta, esperando-se dessa forma criar uma ferramenta conceptual que permita gerar novos modos de interacção.

Recent years have witnessed a renewed interest in using oscillatory brain electrical activity to understand the neural bases of cognition and emotion. Electrical signals originating from pericranial muscles represent a profound threat to the validity of such research. Recently, McMenamin et al. (2010) examined whether independent component analysis (ICA) provides a sensitive and specific means of correcting electromyogenic (EMG) artifacts. This report sparked the accompanying commentary Olbrich et al. (2010), and here we revisit the question of how EMG can alter inferences drawn from the EEG and what can be done to minimize its pernicious effects. Accordingly, we briefly summarize salient features of the EMG problem and review recent research investigating the utility of ICA for correcting EMG and other artifacts. We then directly address the key concerns articulated by Olbrich and provide a critique of their efforts at validating ICA. We conclude by identifying key areas for future methodological work and offer some practical recommendations for intelligently addressing EMG artifact.

Assuming that an interactive artifact cannot be fully understood by itself due to their increasing number, we explored how individual artifacts are related to each other and how those relationships can be investigated for further design and research implications. This study suggests a concept of ecology of artifacts to describe any implicit or explicit relationships among interactive artifacts in one's personal life. We conducted two types of studies -personal inventory study and an ecology map study -to explore multiple dimensions for understanding a personal ecology of artifacts. We expect the knowledge of artifact ecology would help designers and researchers in the field of HCI to create and analyze interactive artifacts considering their dynamic interplays in an increasingly ubiquitous technology environment.

Students love learning software, while faculty often avoid teaching it. This essay argues that a key way to reengage both students and faculty is to approach software as an analytical tool, a means of not only describing and generating meaningful form, but also synthesizing the practical goal of production with the theoretical goal of conceptual development. Software can thus be a bridge between theory and practice. Theory is by definition general: it is a description or model capable of sustaining its relevance across countless unique situations. Practice, on the other hand, is lived, grounded, and specific: it is the ongoing application of ideas to circumstances, a process that in turn reforms our models, warping and transforming our theories. Like theory, software is general, while practice is specific. Software exists prior to any practical use of it, and yet it is designed to anticipate those uses. Tools such as Photoshop, InDesign, and AfterEffects have cast a net around our field of practice, filtering our daily production of typography, symbols, images, and information systems. No theory or pedagogical practice yet exists to address the role these commercially developed and distributed digital technologies play in shaping and describing design's visual language.

Long time ago, Alain Findeli stated the need to seriously develop the aesthetic side of Design Philosophy (Design Issues, 1994). 1 He presented the topic as needful both for design history and design theory discourses. Since then some articles appeared focussing straight on the topic (Mandoki, Solórzano, Zatonyi are authors usually discussing on aesthetics in Latin America; M.N. Folkmann, F. Pombo, in Europe, have been applying phenomenology to the aesthetic understanding of design...). This paper develops a fist work written in 2007 2 just after a law was approved in many countries of the UE to protect design. The aesthetic side of design is something considered objective enough to be able to be protected legally. In that context, this essay combines an analysis of what implies the text of the law for the aesthetic self understanding of design with a reflection on what has been said by Philosophical Aesthetics related to everyday life and common things trying to outline questions a research field such as this should face. Issues considered are the role of aesthetics in a quantified world, aesthetic appearance as innovation, the potential of aesthetics in the old modern project; finally, it gives a look on the topic of the aesthetization of everyday life as a hope for design's self-understanding.

Abstract We reveal the surprising and counterintuitive truth that the design process, in and of itself, is not always on the forefront of innovation. Design is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the success of new products and services. We intuitively sense a connection between innovative design and emergence. The nature of design, emergence and innovation to understand their interrelationships and interdependencies is examined. We propose that design must harness the process of emergence; for it is only through the bottom-up and massively iterative unfolding of emergence that new and improved products and services are successfully refined, introduced and diffused into the marketplace.

This paper explores regenerative existence for Human 2.0 – the transhuman. In building this focus, the author addresses the use of emerging technologies as propitious in designing the amended, extended, and suspended human body. Here, a first focus covers emerging biotechnologies for regenerative existence, which play a large role in extreme life extension. A second focus covers the digital technologies for enhancing realities, which will play a vital role in our adapting to immersive environments. In bringing these methods together, this paper concludes that the concept of designing a future human body is not only plausible, but will be in high demand around the year 2025.

Over the last ten years we have seen a growing number of researchers integrating design experiments in their research inquiries. Initially, this work borrowed heavily from neighboring fields, employing a dual strategy in which design experiments and their evaluation were largely treated as separate processes that were often carried out by different people. More recently, design researchers have developed several approaches that integrate design-specific work methods to research. This paper takes a methodological look at three such established approaches that we call Lab, Field, and Gallery. We describe them and analyze their similarities and differences. In conclusion, we discuss whether design research today needs foundation based on the standards established for other disciplines.

Virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft offer some of the most immersive, interactive possibilities for learning, simulation, and digital design in use today. While it is clear that they support complex collaborations and productivity, often in highly engaging ways, less well understood are the mechanisms that create conditions favorable to these outcomes. Theories of material ecology offer one approach to improving our understanding of the ways that virtual worlds support these forms of collaboration and productivity. This paper presents two case studies, which consider two particular Second Life ecologies: its public sandboxes (used for developing content with its authoring tools) and the most private spaces of a private role-playing community. This paper offers an application of and a contribution to material ecology theory. The application is to use material ecology theory to understand noncasual productivity and advanced social behavior specifically in Second Life. The theoretical contribution is twofold: to clarify the relationship between a given material ecology and its type or kind; and to propose that technologists extend material ecology theory by incorporating material culture theory.

The general objective of the present study was to investigate how elementary school students engage in their knowledge construction processes in computer-supported collaborative learning. We will report a longitudinal case study of a teacher’s and researchers’ effort to create classroom activities and social practices that support genuine participation in knowledge-creating inquiry. In this curriculum unit, 'The Artifact Project – the Past, the Present, and the Future', the students were asked to analyze artifacts within their cultural historical context, study physical phenomena related to artifacts, examine designs of prevailing artifacts, and finally to design artifacts for the future. We were interested in the nature of questions and explanations generated by the students in the course of their inquiry mediated by Knowledge Forum. While the present investigation was inspired by Marlene Scardamalia’s and Carl Bereiter’s knowledge building approach, it was focused on examining how pursuit of conceptual artifacts (ideas, concepts, designs, drawings) can productively be integrated with various, materially embodied “hands on” activities, such as taking photos of, drawing, exploring, analyzing, and designing material artifacts. We were, further, interested in the constructive use of students’ references to offline activities and expert resources during their inquiry processes. The nature of knowledge generated diverged substantially from one phase of the study to another; a relatively larger percentage of questions and content-related notes produced during the past (history) part of the project was factual in nature in comparison with the present (science experiments) and future (design activities) parts. The results of the present study indicated that conceptual and material aspects of the participants’ activities supported one another; the participants were clearly both “minds” and “hands” on throughout the project. It appears that teachers would do well to put students ideas into the centre of educational activity, and also to pursue various materially embodied activities (organizing exhibitions, analyzing and describing, and design).  Generally, educators would do well to promote students’ undertaking boundary-breaking processes during which connections are forged with expert communities.

Higher education for the design professions – designers, architects and engineers – has been combining traditional disciplines of research and design in new ways, into what is now known as design research. As a discipline in its own right, design research is still quite young, and the design professions need a theory of science that takes their specific character into account, thus contributing to their self-image, and locating them in the greater landscape of research. Using philosophically oriented conceptual analysis I develop a system of basic concepts as elements of such a theory of science for the design professions. The concepts of design, research and design research are analysed, clarified and coordinated, in relation to concepts such as knowledge, theory and practice. At the same time I propose a precise, yet intuitive, terminology that may be shared and foster cross- disciplinary understanding and communication among the design professions, and which each of them can expand for purposes of its own.

Design research, without empirical evaluation, is often looked upon as a poor relation to more obviously experimental work. A common reason to reject design studies submitted for publication concerns their failure to provide an empirical evaluation of the use and effects of an artifact in the laboratory or in more realistic field settings. The authors argue that this scepticism towards pure theoretical design research without empirical results not only hinders scientific progress and scientific efficiency in human-computer interaction research, but also discounts the value of designs conceived and realized in practice. Pure theoretical design research has value because envisioning and implementing a design is a form of theorizing, theory integration, theory refinement, and analytic evaluation. The artifact, in essence, embodies a theory, with analytical value independent of its empirical evaluation. The activities of analysis, design, and construction are common in both academe and in design practice, and represent an underexploited resource for systems design science. In part this limitation might stem from the lack of epistemological grounding for design as a knowledge generating activity, and in part from the lack of a distinct methodological perspective from which to assess theoretical design science. The authors ground their perspective with reference to the philosophy of science and through analysis of a design research exemplar, and suggest a set of criteria for evaluating research products in theoretical design science.

95 2007 | Volume I, Issue 2 | Pages 95-113 How do designers of interactive media work on the dynamic aspects of their designs? Previous research has emphasized the role of gestures to express what users and computers do. This paper contributes with a detailed analysis of interaction designers' enactments in terms of what they express using a model of interaction design based on five domains: design concept, functions and content, structure, interaction, and presentation. Two enactive means of expression are identified: interaction walkthrough and improvised role play. Gestures drive the interaction walkthrough and scenarios created on the spot drive the improvised role play. In terms of the suggested model of interaction design, interaction walkthroughs start out in the domain of interaction, and improvised role play starts out in the domain of design concept. From these domains the designer can then see consequences for the other domains of interaction design. The five domains of interaction design can be used as an analytical tool for thoughtful reflection, and interaction walkthroughs and improvised role play can be articulated as conscious means of expression.

Virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft offer some of the most immersive, interactive possibilities for learning, simulation, and digital design in use today. While it is clear that they support complex collaborations and productivity, often in highly engaging ways, less well understood are the mechanisms that create conditions favorable to these outcomes. Theories of material ecology offer one approach to improving our understanding of the ways that virtual worlds support these forms of collaboration and productivity. This paper presents two case studies, which consider two particular Second Life ecologies: its public sandboxes (used for developing content with its authoring tools) and the most private spaces of a private role-playing community. This paper offers an application of and a contribution to material ecology theory. The application is to use material ecology theory to understand noncasual productivity and advanced social behavior specifically in Second Life. The theoretical contribution is twofold: to clarify the relationship between a given material ecology and its type or kind; and to propose that technologists extend material ecology theory by incorporating material culture theory.

This paper offers a typology for understanding design fiction as a new approach in design research. The typology allows design researchers to explain design fictions according to 5 criteria: (1) "What if scenarios" as the basic constructional principle of design fiction; (2) the manifestation of critique; (3) design aims; (4) materializations and forms; and (5) the aesthetic of design fictions. The typology is premised on the idea that fiction may integrate with reality in many different ways in design experiments. The explanatory power of the typology is exemplified through the analyses of six case projects.

Throughout the scales of design there has been an exploding interest in the ornament that seems to be fuelled by different kinds of digital technology and media from CAD to digital printing in both 2D and 3D. In architecture and industrial design, it is discussed as a "return of ornament" because the aesthetics of Modernism banned ornamentation as "inappropriate" to materiality, construction, and function. In this article we wish to renegotiate this highly normative notion of appropriateness with special regard to sustainable design where the "right" kind of ornaments can mediate attention to more aesthetic and cultural dimensions and open for stronger individual attachments to consumer goods that might prolong their lifespan. Adolf Loos, who led the fight against ornament in the early 20th century, based his critique on an assumption of relation between ornamentation and durability that makes ornaments appropriate or not. This leads us to suggest an array of parameters that point out different situations and meanings of ornamentation: Product categories, Durability of materials, Styles, Aesthetic experience, Emotional attachment and Historical references. We discuss these parameters in cases from fashion and tableware to architecture and link ornamentation to the aesthetics of durability.

Cellular phone is one of the most developing technological artifacts today. The evolution occurs through random innovation. Our effort is trying to view the evolution of this artifact from memetics. By constructing a phylomemetic tree based on cellular phone memes to infer or estimate the evolutionary history and relationship among cellular phone. We adopt several methods, which are commonly used in constructing phylogenetic tree, they are UPGMA algorithm and Parsimony Maximum algorithm to construct cellphone phylomemetic tree. Therefore we compare with the innovation tree, which is based on serial number and their appearance time. From phylomemetic tree, we then analyze the process of a cellular phone innovation through looking out on the cellular phone type lies in the same cluster. The comparison of the simulation tree result shows a generally different branching pattern, giving a presumption that innovation in cellular phone is not really relating with their serial number, but occurs merely because of random mutation of allomeme design and competes with its technological development.

This paper offers a typology for understanding design fiction as a new approach in design research. The typology allows design researchers to explain design fictions according to 5 criteria: (1) "What if scenarios" as the basic constructional principle of design fiction; (2) the manifestation of critique; (3) design aims; (4) materializations and forms; and (5) the aesthetic of design fictions. The typology is premised on the idea that fiction may integrate with reality in many different ways in design experiments. The explanatory power of the typology is exemplified through the analyses of six case projects.

The great icons of industrial and architectural design are cornerstones of our material culture. They are referred to again and again in education, research, and cultural debate, and as such they have become nodal points of human discourse. The knowledge embedded in such artefacts has often been referred to as "silent knowledge". Drawing on the one hand on an analysis of the elements of the design process and, on the other, on a simple model for knowledge construction as such, taken from the world of scientific research, this article discusses the nature of such silent knowledge. It is argued that the structure of any new knowledge contribution is the same regardless of field, be it art, philosophy, or science, whereas the phenomena involved are different.

If you are a design researcher or graduate student who enters the keyword "branding" into the typical university library catalogue search engine, you will be as likely to yield books on cattle as on corporate identity. Or if you are a practitioner and want to locate one of the doctoral dissertations on design, completed in a handful of research-oriented PhD programs around the world, you will need a pretty good idea of the title or researcher's name to find it. And if you are design faculty and find it necessary to access work in non-design disciplines that might be relevant to your scholarship, you will be on your own to winnow the titles from hundreds of books within a Library of Congress topical category to find something truly useful to design. In other words, there are no current databases on design research and few design-sensitive keywords that drive other disciplinary search engines. This work proposes a solution to that dilemma.

Cellular phone is one of the most developing technological artifacts today. The evolution occurs through random innovation. Our effort is trying to view the evolution of this artifact from memetics. By constructing a phylomemetic tree based on cellular phone memes to infer or estimate the evolutionary history and relationship among cellular phone. We adopt several methods, which are commonly used in constructing phylogenetic tree, they are UPGMA algorithm and Parsimony Maximum algorithm to construct cellphone phylomemetic tree. Therefore we compare with the innovation tree, which is based on serial number and their appearance time. From phylomemetic tree, we then analyze the process of a cellular phone innovation through looking out on the cellular phone type lies in the same cluster. The comparison of the simulation tree result shows a generally different branching pattern, giving a presumption that innovation in cellular phone is not really relating with their serial number, but occurs merely because of random mutation of allomeme design and competes with its technological development.

In this article we argue that, for educators in design, urbanism and sustainability, the responsibility of connecting emergent design practice and changing societal needs into pedagogical activities demands that attention be given to ecologies of learning that explore the interplay between what is and what might be. As such, this futuring imperative brings into play a mix of modes of situated learning experience, communication and tools from design and learning to query the planned and built environment as a given, while offering alternate future visions and critiques. In this article, we argue for agile pedagogy that enables students to co-create as citizens in public spaces, through agentive multimodal construction of their identities and modes of transformative representation. Our core research problematic is how to develop, enact and critique design-based pedagogies that may allow designer-educator-researchers and students alike to co-create learning ecologies as dynamic engagem...

The meaning of ‘design ’ can be captured in a general way by a good definition, but even the best definition cannot provide an understanding sufficiently deep to guide the professional designer or the student of design in the intricate deliberations of doing design in practice. Therefore we explore design beyond the level of definitions, reviewing canonical theories about design as a professional enterprise. We find that the well-established theoretical notion of ‘co-evolution ’ of problem and solution in design has its merits in regard to understanding design deliberations; but also that existing theories leave the practitioner at a loss for guidance in some respects. To remedy this situation, we propose the notion of ‘triple co-evolution ’ that also involves the ‘audience ’ of a designed artefact. Furthermore, we conjecture that the study of so-called ‘constitutive rhetoric ’ offers valuable conceptual resources for conceiving of design in terms of such triple co-evolution. For ex...

Virtual worlds, shared graphical spaces on the Internet, are an exciting new medium of human presence for the twenty-first century. This article explores the origins, evolution, and future of the virtual world medium from their humble beginnings in multi-player games to their use in education, business, science, and engineering. Its focus will be on the development of social virtual worlds including environments such as Habitat, Active Worlds, and Second Life.

The aim of this article is to show how the design process influences the planning and development of moving images, i.e., live-action movies, animation, and television. The paper documents the significance of design in the early stages of film and television production and shows how industry practitioners value the contribution of designers in developing the narrative through visual support. The paper suggests a comparison of design and screenplay research and analysis. In addition, it touches on the subject of design fiction in the case of a project involving collaboration of production design students from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design, and screenwriting and producer students from The National Film School of Denmark. Finally, this article provides insight into one of the newer trans-disciplinary developments in design, namely the cross-pollination taking place between the fields of design research and film research. As a result, the paper contributes to o...

This article uses a case study to discuss drawing and interior dwelling as enstasic methodological practices that reach potentials beyond those available to thinking prescribed by the written word. In considering the means by which the short film Munted (Ings 2011) was drawn into being, it suggests that drawn approaches to the design of filmic narratives might enable the designer to reach in unique ways, into ideation and outwards into the communicative content and appearance of a text.

This article examines graphic design’s role within design activism. It outlines design activism in general and its relation to commercial design culture in a consumerist economy. Thereafter it discusses persuasive tendencies in graphic design and questions if its current contribution to design activism is limited to its predominant narrow role of persuading for “the good cause.”

This article examines graphic design’s role within design activism. It outlines design activism in general and its relation to commercial design culture in a consumerist economy. Thereafter it discusses persuasive tendencies in graphic design and questions if its current contribution to design activism is limited to its predominant narrow role of persuading for “the good cause.” To illustrate the hypothesis that such a persuasive approach lacks activist potential and thus social impact, cases that represent traditional graphic-design activism are compared to alternative approaches with an informative rather than persuasive character. The latter cases exemplify how information design can challenge the status quo and range from conventional leaflets to interactive tools and data visualizations. The discussion explores how these cases work as a non-commercial service to its audience, rather than solely solving communicative problems for commissioning clients. It is argued that in this ...

This article suggests applying several alternative perspectives and logics when working with spatial aesthetics in practice. The framework presented here-the Aesthetics Steps-is developed as a tool for reflection and dialogue in co-design processes with users concerning the role of aesthetics in knowledge and learning environments. By expanding the concept of aesthetics to include social meaning and social relations more discourses are created, which may further a more varied dialogue about the effects and purpose of aesthetics in this context. The framework consists of five steps comprising these possible discourses and logics. Through the steps, aesthetics becomes gradually more complex with an increased focus on the specific user group and its social and cultural contexts. The last step of the framework represents a relational aesthetic approach articulated by the art theorist Nicolas Bourriaud whose ideas about Relational Aesthetics are applied here to a spatial design context.

In exploring the productive potential of virtual worlds, one relevant line of inquiry is the degree to which immersive online environments can support the objectives of real-world enterprises. Despite the favorable treatment of virtual worlds in the popular and business press, organizations remain cautious in their acceptance and adoption of virtual environments. Since there is a dearth of academic literature on this facet of the virtual world phenomenon, this research aims to provide an assessment of executive perspectives on the potential impact of virtual worlds on businesses and the challenges that may be encountered in organizational application of such environments. To capture business-oriented perceptions of virtual worlds, we analyzed the reports of twenty-five business executives who recently spent considerable time training in and exploring Second Life, a popular online virtual environment. We identify and discuss seven tensions reflected in their assessment of the organizational role of virtual worlds, and situate these tensions in the prevailing computer-mediated communication discourse. Findings point to significant parallels with evaluative perspectives on earlier waves of Internet-based innovation, insights from the existing literature on computer-mediated communication, and an opportunity for theory generation through dialectical reasoning.