To engage effectively in designing digital technologies through participatory design processes, users are required to actively partake in concrete design choices. To know what possibilities there are for design, all involved in the design process need to understand the capabilities and limitations available technology offers for design.
Bringing participants closer to the technical aspects of design is a challenging aspect of design with end-user participants, especially because the participants in PD processes are likely to have varying levels of competence in technology.
What is technological imagination?
We frame the knowledge of technological possibilities needed to generate new design ideas and expressing them as technological imagination. We use the concept of technological imagination as a lens to understand how we can bring participants closer to the technical aspects of designing technologies in PD.
Our experiences make up the material for our imagination. Having led the longest lives, older adults may have the richest imaginations of us us. However, around 40% of this group report minimal to little experience with digital technologies.
In this master thesis, you are invited to design ways to give experience with relevant digital technologies to people who have minimal prior experience. What do they need to know to develop technological imagination? How should it be communicated?
Participatory design or research through design
You can approach this project by working with participatory design and mutual learning.
You can also do research through design, if you for example, want to create experimental installations or visualizations of technology that aim to communicate digital technologies to those with little prior experience. Or create prototypes based in your imaginative ideas as a designers, but not developed from PD processes from the start.
We encourage you to approach this problem through design and making. Both screen-based and tangible technologies are applicable. However, other experiences could also be relevant, such as experience with working with the user group and pedagogy.
Suited for student groups
This thesis topic is suited for students who want to work as part of a larger group of both faculty, PhDs, and students, and is also interested in having students who will want to write their thesis together. We have very positive experiencing with students working together in parts, or all, of their thesis work, which has proven to be extra helpful in situations involving practical work, e.g., prototyping, fieldwork, and workshops.
Relevante fag kan være:
IN5510 Participatory experimental design
IN5530 Research through design
IN5120 Tangible interaction