Phd seminar 20170220

POLYU DESIGN

Seminar Winter Session 2017

Programme Booklet Time 9:00 AM 20 Feb (Mon)

6:30 PM 22 Feb (Wed)

Place Innovation Think Tank Chamber 3, V1310, Jockey Club Innovation Tower, PolyU

Welcome

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About Seminar Presentation

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Programme

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Professors

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PhD Researchers

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Welcome

It is our pleasure to warmly welcome you to PhD Seminar Winter Session 2017. PhD students of the School of Design will present their current thesis research, for critique and discussion with invited critics and fellow students. We hope you will enjoy an academically three days in School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University!

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About Seminar Presentation

Seminars have many purposes One purpose is to present your work to the audience so that it an give you feedback about what works, what does not work, and where to go next to improve your work. It also helps you to situate your work into a scientific argument or research tradition.

Seminar presentations also give you an opportunity to rehearse some of the key scientific processes: planning, evaluating, examining, presenting, and writing research. In most conferences, you get about 15-20 minutes for presenting your work.

You want to use that time to make sure the audience can help you forward. The main hallmark of a good presentation is that it is so clear that people can disagree with it.

Presentation format Each student gets a 45 minute time slot for their presentation. Its flow is the following: • • • • •

20 min for presentation 10 minutes for the opponent 5 minutes for questions and answers 5 minutes for the supervisor 5 minutes for guests, including other professors

Ilpo Koskinen 11 Jan 2017

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Programme

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Programme

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Keynote Speaker

Prof. Frans Mäyrä Professor of Information Studies and Interactive Media， University of Tampere

Frans Mäyrä is the Professor of Information Studies and Interactive Media, with specialization in digital culture and game studies in the University of Tampere, Finland. Mäyrä has over 160 scientific publications, and his book An Introduction to Game Studies is used in universities on all continents. He heads the University of Tampere Game Research Lab, and is widely consulted as an expert in sociocultural issues relating to games, play and playfulness. His research interests range from game cultures, meaning making through playful interaction and online social play, to borderlines, identity, as well as transmedial fantasy and science fiction. He has lead 45 externally funded games research projects.

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Keynote speech

Ludification of Culture and Pervasive Play

One of the important current trends in game studies relates to its extensions outside and beyond games or entertainment. Applications of games in areas such as education, simulation or marketing have existed for a long time, but currently we are arguably witnessing more broad-ranging ludification of culture and society. This involves more pronounced role of play in participation in various areas of life, the increased prominence of playful mindset as a mode of orientation, and game-like, or toy-like characteristics informing design and implementation of products and services.

This talk will highlight and analyse such developments, and then move to address the various scenarios of what ‘pervasive play’ could signify for the future of art, science and scholarship – and for daily, everyday life.

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Keynote Speaker

Prof. Tony Fry Professor, Designer Studio at the Edge of the World

Tony Fry is a designer, design and cultural theorist, educator and author. He is principal of the newly created The Studio at the Edge of the World, Adjunct Professor, Griffith University, and a contributing editor of the e-journal Design Philosophy Papers. He was Professor, Design Futures, Griffith University (2007-14), has held positions at several universities and visiting professorships and fellowships at universities in Australia, Asia, Europe and in North and South America.

As a consultant Tony Fry has worked the areas of design, sustainability and futures for the corporate sector and government. He is the author of twelve books, most recently: City Future in the Age of a Changing Climate was published in late 2014; Design and the Question of History, jointly authored with Clive Dilnot and Susan Steward: and, Steel: A Design, Cultural and Ecological History, jointly authored with Anne-Marie Willis both published in early 2015. His working on a commissioned book on Remaking Cities, based on the concept of ‘Metrofitting’, is scheduled for publication this year.

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Keynote speech

Design, Research and the Critical

This presentation will pose and engage questions of the meaning and nature of ‘the critical’ as comprehended in the contemporary world and in terms of the relation of criticality to design research. In doing so three linked areas of concern will be reviewed: technology, the human and the universal. The implication of what will be argued is that design research requires to be turn away from a dominant preoccupation with design process, material and immaterial objects and systems, services and thinking and gain a far greater understanding of ‘design effects’ (the ongoing ontological designing of the designed). Out of this turn a new and expansive agenda of design research will be seen able to arrive.

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External Academic Critics

Mr Thomas Fischer Associate Professor Director of the Design Research Institute at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China

Thomas Fischer is the Director of the Design Research Institute at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China, where he works as an Associate Professor, teaching Architecture as well as Industrial Design. Thomas is a Fellow of the Design Research Society and received the American Society for Cybernetics’ Warren McCulloch Award in 2011. Thomas holds a PhD in Education from the University of Kassel in Germany and one in Architecture and Design from RMIT University in Australia. Thomas previously researched and taught at the School of Design at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University as an Assistant Professor and as the Discipline Leader of Product and Industrial Design. He was a Visiting Associate Professor at the College of Planning and Design at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan from early 2010 to mid-2011. Thomas’ research is focused on computer-aided architectural design, on cybernetics as well as on design education in China and in Sino-foreign contexts. His work in these areas is concerned with the relationships between Chinese and Western philosophical traditions as well as with the relationships between formal and informal approaches to design.

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PhD Researchers

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PhD Researcher (1st year)

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Mr. Shah Parth Bharat Qualifications: BE – University of Mumbai MTech. – VIT University (Gold medallist) Email: shah.parth@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Prof.Dr.Tina Luximon (Main) Prof.Dr. Yong-Ping Zheng(Co)

Biography: Parth Bharat Shah is a PhD candidate working at Asian Ergonomics Design lab, School of Design at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. Born in India, he has got his Bachelors of Biomedical Engineering from University of Mumbai, India in 2012. He also earned a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from VIT University, India in 2015 (Gold Medallist). He has worked on projects related to ergonomics, rehabilitation engineering, designing of orthotics and prosthetics, computer aided designing, computer assisted modelling.

He has expertise in various image processing and signal processing software like MATLAB and LabVIEW, and also CAD software like SolidWorks, ProE, Rapidform. His research interest includes Ergonomics, 3D modelling, computer aided designing, C=computer aided modelling, orthotic designing, medical image processing, product design. In July 2016 he joined the School of Design as a PhD candidate to investigate the role of shape variance and soft tissue parameters of human head in ergonomic product design.

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Title: 3D head and face modelling considering both shape variance and soft tissue deformation parameters

Keywords: 3D modelling, human head and face, shape variance, soft tissue deformation, product design.

Research Report: 1. Overview of thesis: Product related to head and face are designed for protective, medical or aesthetic purpose. With the advent of 3D scanning accurate 3D anthropometric data can be achieved for ergonomic product design (Niu & Zhizhong 2012,3001-3013). To design product for a wide range of population and for deciding optimal product dimensions and sizing, there is a need to understand shape variance amongst people (Luximon et.al. 2012,40-47). Along with shape variance the understanding of product user interface is also an important parameter for a designer. Since the products related to head and face requires a close fit they partially or completely cover the head, this exert some pressure on the soft tissues in that region. If the pressure is large it can lead to discomfort to the user and if it is used for a longer duration of time it can lead to rashes, ulcers or sores (Callaghan & Macaire 1998,361-364). Different pressure thresholds have been studied for foot (Xiong et.al. 2011,282-293). Pressure sensitivity map derived from such study can prove very helpful to the designers.

Hence there is a need of studies about soft tissue deformation and its role in product design.

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- Research questions: 1. How to design an accurate 3D face model which can be effectively used for applications requiring either whole head model or localized part model data?

2. What would be the variance in the 3D developed model based of usage different alignment methods?

3. What is the minimum data required using which a 3D model of human head or face can be reconstructed for developing customized products?

4. Which method can be best suited to be used to acquire tissue deformation data from human facial tissue? And does the data have any generalized relationship to the location on 3D head shape? If so what are the relations.

5. How can both the data acquired for 3D head surface model and from tissue deformation be merged to design better fitting products?

- Research method: Research method to be used for the studies consist of experiments as the study requires quantifiable data. Two different experiments are designed to acquire 3D scan of the participant and second to acquire the soft tissue deformation data. 3D scanning would be performed using Artec Eva hand held scanner and the soft tissue deformation would be acquired using ultrasound indentation device.

- Current stage of research: - Data collection by conducting experiments.

- Data processing of the collected data.

2. Discussion about past 6 months: - Activities: In the past 6 months have conducted systematic literature review about the research area. Training was acquired on using different 3D scanners and use of ultrasound indentation system for data collection and data processing. The different parameters required for the study were deduced and required changes in the processing software were added. The experiments for the studies were also designed and a

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pilot study was performed using 20 Chinese individuals.

- Outcomes: A preliminary data of soft tissue deformation and different pain thresholds were determined. Modifications in the experimental setup and in the software for soft tissue deformation measurements were made based on the experimental experience.

- Reflections: The data acquired from preliminary pilot reading provided an insight about the variation in the soft tissue parameters at different locations of head and face.

3. Planning for next 6 months: For the next 6 months, experiments would be conducted to acquire data required for the studies. Around 400 subjects would be studied during this period and data acquired would be processed to derive the required parameters for the studies.

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Reference: Callaghan, Susan, and Macaire Trapp. "Evaluating two dressings for the prevention of nasal bridge pressure sores." Professional nurse (London, England) 13, no. 6 (1998): 361-364.

Luximon, Yan, Roger Ball, and Lorraine Justice. "The 3D Chinese head and face modeling." Computer-Aided Design 44, no. 1 (2012): 40-47.

Niu, Jianwei, and Zhizhong Li. "Using three-dimensional (3D) anthropometric data in design." In Handbook of Anthropometry, pp.

3001-3013. Springer New York, 2012.

Xiong, Shuping, Ravindra S. Goonetilleke, and Zuhua Jiang. "Pressure thresholds of the human foot: measurement reliability and effects of stimulus characteristics." Ergonomics 54, no. 3 (2011): 282-293.

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PhD Researcher (1st year)

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Ms. ZHANG Jiaxin Qualifications: BEng – South China University of Technology (China) MSc – South China University of Technology (China) Email: jx.zhang@connect.polyu.edu.hk Supervisor: Dr.Yan Luximon(Main) Dr.Clifford Choy (Co)

Biography: Jiaxin ZHANG is a PhD candidate in School of Design, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Born in mainland China, she got her bachelor and master of Engineering from South China University of Technology, in Guangzhou. She is interested in areas of research related to ergonomics and human computer interaction. Since she joined the School of Design in August 2016, her research has been focusing on the physical ergonomics. In order to improve the morphological fit problem of children headwear product, the exploration of children’s 3D head-face models will help.

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Title: Children’s head-face shapes and spectacle frames design

Keywords: Children’s, head-face shapes, spectacle frame, fit.

Research Report: There is an increasing number of children wearing spectacle frame for the need of visual correction and protection (Lim, 2014; Pärssinen,1993). The fit problem of spectacle frames has been concerned by many researchers for a long time. Although there are some research achievements for spectacle frames design, previous studies had indicated that the research results based on adult’s facial dimensions could not be used for designing children’s frames, as children are not miniature adults (Marks, 1961; Kaye, 1989; Wang, 1998). In addition, children’s faces change with age (Farkas, 1992).

The fit spectacle frame for children should have a proper sizing system basing on the morphological development of children, while the existing research on sizing system of children’s spectacle frame design was depended on the interpurillary distance (Wang, 1998). However, the fit problem between nose pad and the nasal bridge of Caucasian children was found (Marks, 1961; Kaye, 1989). It is illustrated that the only providing the interpurillary distance can hardly help children to select the right frame, leaving an obvious research gap. Under this circumstance, a research on the 3D measurement will help to improve the morphological fit of spectacle frames (M. Kouchi, 2004).

Three research questions were proposed: 1.

What are existing problems in children spectacle frame fit?

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What is children’s head shape growth and variation related to the morphological fit of spectacle frame?

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What are the key dimensions influencing the fit of spectacle frame design for children?

To answer these questions, three main studies could be designed in this project. Interview could be used to gain an understanding of practical problems in children spectacle frame fit in the preliminary research. As there is still little known about this issue, the first-hand information will help to better identify fit problems. In the second phase, the experiment will be carried out to check the growth and variation of head-face features by using Artec, which is a 3D scanner.

528 healthy Chinese children ranging in age from 5 to 17 years old would be invited to participant this experiment at the site where would have been arranged for scanning. The 3D models collected will be analysed through various statistics methods and software. Key dimensions for children spectacle frames design could be selected and used to develop the averaged head-face models which could also be served as a sizing system. Lastly, evaluation experiments will be employed to check the effectiveness for the improvement of fit of this new sizing system.

In the past six months, previous research on spectacle frame design and the growth pattern of children’s head were review. Related frames measurements and facial measurements were recognized. Past findings on children’s growth pattern could be employed to calculate the sample size and group participants in my experiment stage. After that, a semi-structured interview study was prepared and conducted to understand practical situation of children spectacle frame fit problems. 23 groups of child and parents had been investigated and 3 dispensing opticians were interviewed too, in a Hong Kong clinic. Its result showed that the width of frame, the nose pads and the shape of legs are meaningful to the fit problem. However, only head width was used as reference for dispensing optician when they help children choose the right spectacle frame. Dispensing opticians were important to selecting a better frame for children, but they might be unable to

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solve fit problems in nose area and ears ear due to the unfulfilling design. In the past, studies on this area were mostly focused on the relationships between traditional measurements of heads and spectacle frame with very limited efforts on how children react to their frames. The results from this study will also be used to interpret the findings from follow-up experimental study.

In the following half year, collecting children’s 3D head-face data will be my main work. The sample size of experiment had been calculated basing the standard ISO15535. Children will be recruited and scanned in Mainland China. As it might be difficult for children to keep still for scanning, special equipment is needed to prepared before conducting the experiment. The 3D Models will be applied to study children’s facial features and general a series of averaged heads for the development of better children’s spectacle frames.

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Reference: Lim, Lik Thai, et al. "Impact of parental history of myopia on the development of myopia in mainland china school-aged children."

Ophthalmology and eye diseases 6 (2013): 31-35.

Pärssinen, Olavi, and AnnaLiisa Lyyra. "Myopia and myopic progression among schoolchildren: a three-year follow-up study."

Investigative ophthalmology & visual science 34 (1993): 2794-2802.

Marks, Roy. " Some factors for consideration in the selection and fitting of children’s eyewear*." Optometry & Vision Science 38 (1961): 185193.

Kaye, Janice, and Henri Obstfeld. "Anthropometry for children's spectacle frames." Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics 9 (1989): 293298.

Wang, Yongjiang, et al. "A study on designing spectacle frame for children aged 5 to 17 and related measurements." Acta Anthropologica Sinica 18 (1998): 35-39.

Farkas, Leslie G., Jeffrey C. Posnick, and Tania M. Hreczko. "Growth patterns of the face: a morphometric study." The Cleft PalateCraniofacial Journal 29 (1992): 308-315.

Kouchi, Makiko, and Masaaki Mochimaru. "Analysis of 3D face forms for proper sizing and CAD of spectacle frames." Ergonomics 47 (2004): 1499-1516.

ISO 15535 (2012), General requirements for establishing anthropometric databases. The International Organization for Standardization.

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PhD Researcher (2nd year)

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Ms. TIAN Yao Qualifications: BA – Minzu University MA – The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Email: yao.tian@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Prof. Ilpo Koskinen (Main) Dr. Sandy Ng (Co)

Biography: TIAN Yao, Yolanda was born in northern China. After graduating from the Academy of Arts in Nationality University in Beijing, she worked as an E-zine designer in China Film Press based on her major graphic design at the time when the interactive magazine had just begun to emerge in China. Then she got her Master degree on Multimedia and Entertainment Technology in the School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2014. During the time in PolyU, her interest and passion for researching design thinking process was ignited through several projects on interactive design, user experience, as well as business management. After one-year working in Sino United Publishing (Holdings) Limited in HK, she came back to PolyU, as a PhD student.

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Title: Tradition and Innovation: How masters in graphic design interpret Chinese Culture?

Keywords: Graphic design, Chinese culture, innovation, designers

Research Report: China produces the largest number of design graduates in the world each year. Yet, the number of top designers who have made their reputation outside China is small. One of the main problems facing Chinese designers and design educators is that they seem to have treated the cultural heritages of China as a sidelined resource and ignored the fact that many internationally successful designers always had strong identities of their own, either through their design works or through their research methods (Jian, Jie, & Taikung, 2005). The understanding of one’s own cultural origin and utilization of cultural heritage directly or indirectly in design is an essential quality of an internationally established designer. However, in China, designers and design educators are not the only ones to blame because they often have to work within the system that government developed for them to operate within (Lu, Etzkowitz, Lu, & Etzkowitz, 2008; Xu, Smith, Bower, & Chew, 2004). The system of judgments on good designs in China is yet to be perfected and the standards are yet to be established. There have been many research projects in design and business in the name of innovation but they always ended up as commercially purposed projects or the projects that showcased only the governments’ successes.

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This research topic directly addresses the issue of lacking of innovation of graphic works among Chinese designers and emphasizes on the importance of cultural factors in the design process by the application of a systematic and culture based innovation methodology (Jian et al., 2005). I assumed that the inertial thinking in the minds of Chinese designers is common and it is necessary to find out the broken links in their design process, in order to enhance their abilities in designing better products, systems, and services.

A hypothesis is that traditional culture can be embedded as a component in the design process for brand identity because culture can be considered as the intention through design to empower brand strength. To test this hypothesis, appropriate theories and data collections are needed, in order to define the design problem spaces and constraints. In other words, master designers’ views and thinking processes are valuable to this research, which is a subjective and effective way to test the primary hypotheses although it can be timeconsuming and unstable. Thus, exploring how famous Chinese graphic designers interpret Chinese culture and use these in their work, and finding out what explains their innovativeness would be the point of focus for this research. If there are designer who refurnish Chinese culture, the initial analytic is wrong. The initial aim of this study is to retest the hypothesis no change. If the second aim is qualitative true, how do leading Chinese designers turn their weak of Chinese culture into a creative resource.

In culture interpretation, Geertz (1973) said’ It is not against a body of uninterpreted data, radically thinned descr(Xu, Smith et al. 2004) iptions, that we must against measure the cogency of our explications, but against the power of the scientific imagination to bring us into touch with the lives of strangers.’ Therefore, thick description first mentioned by Ryle (1971) would be utlized in this research.

Overviewing the whole research process, the deep interviews will be the imperative method, while literature review and pilot study will be auxiliary approach to verifying hypothesis repeatedly.

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The next stages of research will involve a focused approach to further define the constructs of innovation, meaning of culture and the tension between tradition and innovation with design masters. All the designers will be interviewed have been listed before based on the initial analysis of secondary materials, interviewees will double identified while the following interviews conducted. Case studies will involve interviews with these experts to visit their studios and become more familiarized with the design concept in Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan. The interviews with masters such as Henry Steiner in order to consolidate the findings and get more substantial thoughts based on the analysis of data collected. This information will be instrumental in further developing the proposed framework and define how masters in graphic design interpret Chinese culture, what format designer’s philosophy and what explains their ability to innovate.

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Reference: Geertz, Clifford. The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. Vol. 5019. Basic books, 1973.

Jian, H., et al. Three durable friends: Chinese Traditional Graphics and Modern Visual Design [in Chinese], Shandong hua bao press, 2005.

Lu, Lucy, and Henry Etzkowitz. "Strategic challenges for creating knowledge-based innovation in China: Transforming triple helix university-government-industry relations." Journal of Technology management in China 3, no. 1 (2008): 5-11.

Ryle, Gilbert. Collected Papers: Collected Essays, 1929-1968. Vol 2. publisher not identified, 1971.

Xu, Tianji, N. J. Smith, D. A. Bower, and A. S. Chew. "Development strategies for Chinese design institutes." Journal of Management in Engineering 20, no. 2 (2004): 62-69.

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PhD Researcher (3rd year)

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Ms. XUE Bai Qualifications: BA – Jingnan University MA – University of the Arts London Email: 14900800r@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Prof.Cees de Bont (Main) Prof.Tang Mingxi (Co) Dr.Wei Huaxin (Co)

Biography: Xue Bai graduated from Jingnan University in 2011 and her major was Visual Communication as a bachelor. Then she graduated from University of the Arts London in 2013 and got a Master degree, with a major of Graphic Design Communication. Xue Bai has one year working experience in Guangzhou Sandu culture media Co. Ltd. and Lingyan culture media Co. Ltd. as graphic designer. One of her projects named ‘Happiness Surgery’ has been shortlisted in the 2013 Design Shanghai Exhibition. During her PhD study, she has published several abstract, poster and full paper to different conferences and also achieved some systematically research methods.

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Title: How can Yanchuan Patchwork impact designer's creative thinking through the perspective of Semiotics.

Keywords: Culture-based Innovation, Design, Chinese folk arts, Chinese patchworks.

Research Report: With Western culture leading global fashion today, Oriental culture is often seen as a subculture. Traditional Chinese folk art and cultural heritage is gradually disappearing from daily life in China. Rapid developments in technology mean that tradition is often regarded as old-fashioned (Ke, 2004). However, designers can gain inspiration from traditional cultural elements to design projects that have a strong cultural basis and are imbued with meanings beyond their regional significance, although cultural strengths are largely neglected or underused in contemporary design practice and education. It is crucial that the new generation of design students responsible for the creation of new things improve their awareness of the need to protect cultural knowledge through feasible design innovation and exploration.

This research is motivated by several factors. The research site is in Shaanxi, a province located in northwest China that is the origin of the Yellow River Civilisation and is well known for Xi’an’s Terracotta Warriors and Shaanxi Opera. The primary motivation of this research was to discover and preserve such fast-disappearing local traditional handcrafts as Yanchuan patchwork, Fengxiang clay sculptures and Huaxian steamed flower buns and to ascertain the extent to which they can provide inspiration to contemporary designers. These distinct

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forms of artistic expression have been inherited from ancient times and were derived from Chinese philosophy and religions. Although their elements vary, their sources are similar. The process by which the rural Chinese have transformed abstract concepts into visual images using wisdom and imagination has been a lengthy one (Wang, 1996).

Extracting the cultural elements of these important forms of cultural heritage thus also takes time.

Because of the complicated process of making original handicrafts, the number of people with the knowledge and skills to do so is rapidly declining. Although local governments are trying to protect local cultural heritage through legislative measures, they struggle to keep pace with the rapid disappearance of a huge number of crafts with significant cultural value and diverse styles. China is often treated as a huge international market with abundant market resources and work opportunities. Thus, another motivation for this research was to draw the attention of designers in both China and elsewhere to the urgent need to protect and preserve these highly aesthetic forms of Chinese folk art and to encourage them to devote their efforts to doing so.

Yet another motivation was the recognition that traditional folk arts can be a reflection of a nation’s collective consciousness, attributes and psychological qualities. They contain deep cultural and artistic thinking within them (Zhao, 2011). It is thus necessary to investigate how different historical periods contributed to the design evolution of artistic traditions, with reference to philosophical ideas, artistic thinking, technological innovation and lifestyles.

Research Questions 1.

What is the specific denotation and connotation of the traditional Chinese symbols in Shaanxi’s folk art?

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How can contemporary design properly incorporate the symbols of traditional Chinese handicrafts?

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How can we raise designers’ awareness of the need to protect China’s fast-disappearing intangible cultural heritage through design innovation?

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Research Objectives 1.

To provide a deep understanding of the methods, significance and social value of Shaanxi’s traditional folk art through analysis, a literature review and cognitive and qualitative methods.

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To collect data from field studies, interviews and observation projects, and then conduct data analysis in a theoretical and systematic manner.

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To create a series of design works that comprising the combination and interpretation of specific Yanchuan patchwork elements for use in modern design thinking and to develop a framework that can support the preservation of Yanchuan patchwork and design innovation.

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To conduct tests and experiments with local and none local people and observe how they evaluate the works using traditional Yanchuan patchwork elements into design practice.

Research Methodology The nature of culture-based studies in the design arena requires a combination of research methods and a deep understanding of the relevant cultural knowledge and the masters who created beautiful works of art with their brains and hands. The background to this research project and its methodological context and research questions have been presented. It adopted a combined approach using both quantitative (decomposition of information on patchwork) and qualitative methods (interviews to evaluate and acquire feedback on the information models abstracted from patchwork created by various masters). Two short field studies, a long-term field study, some interviews and observations have been conducted based on the foregoing literature review, and some first-hand data have been collected. A number of experiments through 2D and 3D soft wares have also been conducted in order to test whether the proposed framework can be implemented in practice.Following analysis and synthesis of the knowledge obtained thus far, an evaluation will be conduct in both Hong Kong and Yanchuan.

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At current research stage, we have already started some design tests on Yanchuan patchwork. We have proposed some concepts: through the sketches below, patchwork elements could inspire designers and could also be produced into new design objects by different methods such as cloth printing, 3D printing, ceramic design and so on. 3D Printing is now very popular in different design fields, in order to attract international audiences and researchers, it might be a feasible media to build relationships between Yanchuan patchwork and modern design projects. It is worth nothing that with the purpose of apply traditional Chinese concern about the surface forms but also the deep semiotic meanings. This paper will gradually introduce the origin of patchwork, Chinese semiotics in philosophy, the origin of Chinese Symbols in aesthetic and Chinese semiotics in Culture-based Design Innovation. Thus, people can systematically achieve understandings of Yanchuan patchwork and the using of Chinese symbols.

During the past months, I have learn a 3D software named Auto desk Inventor, this is a professional soft ware for 3D printing and product design. Based on the sketches above, a design series of the God of wealth is in progress. All the elements are picked from Gao Fenglian’s patchworks and the placement of each elements are according to the traditional Chinese thinking of Yin and Yang. The color of this series of tableware are also followed with Gao’s color matching. The significance of these works are, they have made a transcription from research and 2D works to 3D works.

The last part of this research is to conduct an evaluation in both Hong Kong and Yanchuan, both adults and children. To see if this research can really provides inspirations to people and also help the local artists to create their works through new design methods.

In order to introduce Yanchuan patchwork to more people, some methods can be use: firstly, we could find some help from local government and some folk art organizations; secondly, publish relevant papers with theoretical knowledge to academic fields; thirdly, hold some specific exhibitions of patchworks and it would be better to

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invite some artist to present their skills in front of audiences. Culturebased innovation can be treating as a long term way of popularity for those traditional folk arts like Yanchuan patchwork. Armstrong, H. (2012) mentions that design is a powerful method that may help products get more benefits in sustainable competitive. It may also be a strategy to protect the disappearing traditional folk arts. Therefore, the research will be continued and the design tests will be conduct base on deeper investigations.

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Reference: Armstrong, H. 2012. Graphic design theory: readings from the field.

Chronicle Books. (Armstrong 2012,99) Hongtu, ke. 2004. Create the new life of traditional patterns into modern design. Sui Han San You. (ke 2004, 58) Ti, Wang. 1996. Arts in Chinese Folk Custom.The Chinese People’s University Press. (Ti 1996, 173) Nong, Zhao. 2011. Research of Guanzhong Pucheng fabric and spinning- a field study in Weinan rural handicrafts production and protection. Various families of Arts (2).(Nong 2011, 21-28)

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PhD Researcher (2nd year)

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Ms. WANG Shisi Qualifications: BA – Wuhan University of Technology MA – Chonbuk National University Email: w. shisi@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Prof. Ilpo Koskinen

Biography: WANG Shisi hails from Wuhan, China. She entered the PhD program in the School of Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2015.

She earned her Masters of Design Science from Chonbuk National University, South Korea in 2009. She earned her Bachelor of Arts at Wuhan University of Technology in 2007. During her senior year there, she was sponsored to study traditional Korea culture by the South Korean government. She has six-years work experience in her field.

In addition, she has taught editorial design, CIS, packaging design, typographic design and computer-aided design at the college level.

She has also worked as a design director in a well-known designer boutique. Her experience has helped her gain a special insight into the relationship between Chinese traditional visual elements and the modern design practice. She believes Chinese traditional culture can be a rich source of creative ideas for Chinese background designers.

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Title: Images of Tibet: A Study of Photographic Image of Tibet on Tourism Websites

Keywords: Destination Image; Websites; Tibet; Visual Imagery; Ethnography.

Research Report: Tourism industry plays a dominant role in Tibet’s economic structure.

Therefore, many domestic scholars have been interested in doing research of Tibetan tourism resources, tourism culture, eco-friendly tourism, tourism management and so on. Recently, many researchers have shifted their focus to tourism branding and Tibet image. For example, Wang Xiaohui and Yang Kun studied the Tibet tourism image disseminated on website based on semantic analysis; Gan Lu and Wang Xiaohui examined the internal tourists’ perception of Tibet through a large scale of survey; Puebla Changju and Tudeng Kezhu investigated the Lhasa city image by its city branding strategy; Trinle Digye and Wangfan discussed the role of media in spreading the image of Tibet. However, few studies have tried to understand the image of Tibet through Tibetan tourism websites’ pictures despite the fact that the previous studies abroad have proved that tourism website pictures can influence the tourists’ perceived image of a destination.

The aim of the PhD research is to: Collect photographs from internal and external websites relevant to Tibet tourism. Make classifications and interpretations of them.

Explore the reasons, methods, principles and meanings of the photographs collected by interviewing photographers, website

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designers, website editors and website owners.

E v a l uate online Tibet image conveyed in websites photographs critically, by adopting historical events, official archives and news reports in the economic development of Tibet society.

Research Framework: There are many ways to study images, including semiotics, ethnology, marketing theory, critical theory, and cognitive psychology. In my study, Semiology is to be employed to analyze every photograph in Tibet tourist websites, to get to know the general context of each photograph. Ethnology will be used by investigating photograph creators, users’ thinking, and users’ behavior and looking into how these photographs come into existence, how they are spread, and how they are read and shared by people eventually. Finally, the critical marketing method is to be used analyze the development trend of photographs in Tibet tourism websites will be found by combining Tibetan background in digital era with its social culture. This theoretical framework is a possible way to reflect the characteristics of the research in three dimensions.

Research Design: The semiotic analysis mainly focuses on interpreting the images of Tibet. The ethnographic analysis helps to contextualizes them into design practices, and it has three functions: 1) by putting the results of semiotic analysis to their practical design context, it serves to correct the theoretical interpretations in semiotic analysis; 2) it brings design specificity to the study. Semiotic analysis could be done by a semiotician, but ethnographic analysis can grind research into design practice; 3) it contributes to generating hypotheses for critical analysis. The critical analysis contextualizes the interpretation into the development of Tibet. It helps to avoid generalizing current practices as the real ones: it may well be that the practice is different in 2000 than now, and will again be different in 2015.

Data Collection for Semiotic Analysis: Searching "Tibet tourism"," Tibet Travel "and" Tibet Tour " on Baidu

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and Google can find that there are numerous Chinese and foreign websites related to Tibet tourism. Some websites that rank in the top in the retrieval of the information are closely related with Tibet tourism, whereas other websites are not related with this research at all although they are concerned with the keywords. So filter the websites is needed. In order to keep the variety of Tibet tourism websites, the websites were filtrated based on different tourism websites, website geographic location, website property and website legality. 160 websites were met the requirement. In order to find out the typical Tibet tourism websites that the cyber citizens access to most and to reduce repeated content and narrow the research samples, ALEXA website traffic estimate was used to filter the 160 websites. At last, this study selects two research samples from each type of the websites, which rank in the top two. The total research samples include 24 websites. Considering the fact that tourism industries are generally influenced by seasons, data collection from the above 24 websites began from September 2016. After that it was conducted once every three months. It was carried out until June 2017, lasting about a year and covering the four seasons.

Semiotic Analysis: The semiotic analysis was focused on the denotative signs (content, color, shape, position and repetition) and connotative signs (Tibet socio-culture context). Finally, several hypotheses from the semiotic analysis were generated. They will be applied in ethnographic analysis.

Future Study Plan: The researcher will continue to collect picture data about Tibet tourism on 24 websites in the next 6 months and do some preliminary analysis on them at the same time (Figure 6.1). This work has occupied the most of 2016, and will continue as desk research in 2017. When the interpretation gets stable, however, it will require less attention.

When the interpretation is robust enough, this study only follows possible seasonal changes and will be finished at once after Tibet’s tourism seasons have been covered. The main task of 2017 until

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November will be the in-depth interviews with photographers, web designers, web editors and website owners that will be implemented from March 2017. These interviews focus on the design practices that generate the published image. At the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, the third round of investigation will be completed on the basis of critical market theory. It serves as a check to conclusions drawn from the previous two studies. Both of the earlier studies are ahistorical. The third study analyzes possible changes of the image and the practices. It helps to validate the interpretation by ruling out changes in the larger context of Tibet and its tourism. Data for this study has been collected in part during the first year of the study, but interviews will have an oral history section that provides a rich picture of design practice, which is largely unavailable from published sources. In February 2018, the writing and revision of the paper will start.

Reference: Barthes, R. Elements of semiology: Macmillan. 1977b Chalfen, R. Snapshot versions of life. 1987 Ewen, S. Captains of consciousness : advertising and the social roots of the consumer culture.New York: McGraw-Hill. 1976 Koskinen, I., Battabee, K., & Mattelmäki, T. Empathic design : user experience in product design. Edita, Finland: IT Press. 2003

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PhD Researcher (2nd year)

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Ms. Helene Liu

Qualifications: BHons – MIT (Cum Laude).

MSc – University of Hong Kong.

Email: helene.liu@polyu.edu.hk Supervisor: Prof. Tim Jachna

Biography: Helene joined the School of Design as a PhD student in September 2015. Her research focuses on the Design of echo chambers on Social Media. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Paris and her Master in Business & Finance from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).

She has lived in Hong Kong since 1990 where she developed and managed a portfolio of companies in the cosmetic and fashion industries over the years. In 2004, she founded The Master Minds, a niche consulting company in Creative Leadership as a result of a decade-long observation that most issues that plague corporations and individuals have their source in one of the most intangible dimension of the human element: thought. For over a decade, she designed contexts and facilitated co-creative experiences leading to the emergence of new cognitive frameworks for behaviour change. She recently rejoined the cosmetic and fashion industry with a particular focus on the online space.

Helene also has experience as a performing artist, having appeared on stage as an amateur actress, singer and dancer for the past 20 years. As part of her on-going research on the Human mind, she is a student of the internal martial arts, yogic philosophy and practices and completed a Master degree in Buddhist Studies from the University of Hong Kong in May 2015.

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Title: The Design of Echo Chambers on Social Media

Keywords: Echo Chambers, Filter Bubbles, Social Media.

Research Report: 1 OVERVIEW OF YOUR THESIS This is the early stage of a part-time PhD started in September 2015 (end date: 2021). My initial interest was centred on the relationship between internal mental frameworks, self-reflexivity and creativity in the context of social media.

The first few months were spent getting familiar with the world of design. During the summer session, I presented a number of larger theoretical frameworks that could situate a research on social media (Giddens’ fragmentation of the Self, 2nd order cybernetics, system thinking, design thinking) as well as some very initial research on cognition and the media (McLuhan’s “the medium is the message” or how the medium shapes perception, but also Media Logic, the strategies and tactics underlying the design of information (Van Dijck and Poell 2013).

2 DISCUSSION OF PAST SIX MONTHS' WORK 2.1 Activities (what have you done?)

Since the summer session, I spent a large amount of time on familiarising myself with the literature in the field of Media and Communication Studies to help situate my research, understand the larger debates and try to find how to approach my question. This helped me zoom in on the concept of echo chambers.

Following some comments made during the summer session on the short lifespan of some social media platforms, I switched my point of focus from a single platform (Instagram) to the social media ecosystem as a whole.

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2.2 Outcomes (what have you learned relative to your research questions?)

The past 6 months have brought more clarity to the research question.

2.2.1 Echo Chambers on social media In the early days of the Internet, the prevailing idea was that increased exposure to a diversified range of competing ideas would boost the democratic process. This has failed to materialise. Instead, we increasingly see pockets of polarisation popping up online.

While scholars are still debating over the real impact of these phenomena on political opinion change, there is a general agreement on the issue of “confirmation bias” (individuals seek information that conforms to their beliefs, and will stick to their belief even when proof of the opposite is presented) (Iyengar and Hahn 2009).

2.2.2 Algorithms, filter bubbles “Filter bubble”, a term made popular by Eli Pariser, is an aspect of the online echo chamber directly related to the effects of the algorithmic treatment of information. By feeding us the information that we want to see and filtering out the rest, algorithms create an information bubble that most users believe is an accurate picture of the “real world” (Pariser 2011).

2.2.3 Affordances (Social Media) I recently looked into affordances to help shed light on why people are willing to give away so much of their data and privacy on social networks. The concept is more complex than I initially envisaged; different conceptions and perspectives have been put forward over the past years (Gibson 2014, Norman 2013). Gaver’s “Imagined affordances” brings together user’s perceptions, technology’s function and designers’ intentions (Bucher et al. 2017) and could provide an interesting point of entry for the thesis.

2.3 Reflection (what insights have you gained into your thesis?)

The most important insight pertains to understanding how a Design PhD would treat research on social media although I would still welcome input on this matter (see questions at the end).

In summer 2016, my prime intention was to explore ‘how behaviour is designed’ on and by social media. My idea was that the aim of the platforms’ architecture is to control users’ behaviours for monetisation

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purposes. Having read more widely and thought more deeply on this issue, I now realise that the exercise of power on social media is a more complex process and that users can affect the workings of the machine-learning algorithms (Postigo 2016).

3 PLAN FOR THE FOLLOWING SIX MONTHS My next task is to take a hands-on approach to investigate what platform design expects or requires of users and whether there is a way not to conform with an aim to look through the architectural layers and explore what features can and what features cannot be overcome.

I still use the term “social media” generically, but defining the terms used in the literature (“social media”, “social networks”, “social media platforms” etc.) will give a direction for the thesis. For example, the term “platform” makes it easier to relinquish responsibility for the content produced and circulated (“we only provide the environment”).

The same applies to “echo chamber”. The term is used to refer to political ideology (Sunstein 2009), but also to misinformation (Flaxman, Goel, and Rao 2016), polarisation of news (Leeper 2014) etc.

Some researchers argue that social networks sites have become platforms spreading their features throughout the Internet to help them gather more data and increase their programmability (Helmond 2015). Algorithms stand as a black box between the platforms efforts to steer users-generated content (codes) and users response to steer the flow of information activated by the platform (human agency) (Van Dijck and Poell 2013).

3.1 Areas requiring clarification 1. This study covers several disciplines: media/political studies, law, sociology, psychology, design etc. My first and most elemental question is: what will make this a Design PhD rather than a PhD in Media/political studies?

2. Is there a methodology that would work best for the hands-on task described above? How to go about discovering the layers of control built into a social site architecture and how to go about it systematically?

3. Clarifying question #1 will help me answer the question of

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outcomes and outputs of the PhD. Do I want to produce a practical tool? A framework? Something else?

Reference: Bucher, Taina, Anne Helmond, J Burgess, T Poell, and A Marwick.

2017. "The affordances of social media platforms." SAGE handbook of social media. London: Sage.

Flaxman, Seth, Sharad Goel, and Justin Rao. 2016. "Filter Bubbles, Echo Chambers, and Online News Consumption." Public Opinion Quarterly 80:298.

Gibson, James J. 2014. The ecological approach to visual perception: classic edition: Psychology Press.

Iyengar, Shanto, and Kyu S Hahn. 2009. "Red media, blue media: Evidence of ideological selectivity in media use." Journal of Communication 59 (1):19-39.

Leeper, Thomas J. 2014. "The Informational Basis for Mass Polarization." Public Opinion Quarterly 78 (1):27-46. doi: 10.1093/poq/ nft045.

Norman, Donald A. 2013. The design of everyday things. Revised and expanded edition. ed. New York: Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group.

Pariser, Eli. 2011. The filter bubble: What the Internet is hiding from you: Penguin UK. Postigo, Hector. 2016. "The socio-technical architecture of digital labor: Converting play into YouTube money." new media & society 18 (2):332-349.

Sunstein, Cass R. 2009. Republic. com 2.0: Princeton University Press.

Van Dijck, JosĂŠ, and Thomas Poell. 2013. "Understanding social media logic."

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PhD Researcher (1st year)

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Mr. Roderick Walden Qualifications: BDes (Industrial) – UTS (Hons) MDes by Research – University of Technology Sydney Email: roderick.walden@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ilpo Koskinen (Main) Prof. Dr. Kees Dorst (Co)

Biography: Roderick Walden's principal areas of research interest lie in industrial design professional practice, practice-based design research and academic design. He has previously worked as a product designer for a number of commercial office furniture companies including Herman Miller U.S., and Wilkhahn and König + Neurath Germany. His design consultancy, Walden Design Pty Ltd, formed in 2003, designed a range of products for Australian companies, working particularly closely with manufacturing SMEs. In his academic role, he has worked on a series of practice-based research projects and published research on additive manufacturing, university-industry collaboration (UIC), academic design practice, design in business and design education.

His masters (by research) degree studied self-initiated product design and modelled connections between knowledge and practice that he is currently advancing as part of his PhD. Roderick is passionate about his role as a teacher, the technical work of design and the meaning behind the connections designers make with other areas of knowledge to solve problems, innovate and learn.

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Title: Knowledge Through Product Design and Intellectual Agency.

Keywords: Product Design, Knowledge through practice, Academic Design.

Research Report: My project is currently titled: Knowledge Through Product Design and Intellectual Agency. I am in the first 6-months of the Joint PhD Program between Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPolyU) and (my home University) the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). My Chief Supervisor at (HKPolyU) is Professor Ilpo Koskinen and at UTS is Professor Kees Dorst. Professor Dorst was also my Principle Supervisor for my Masters (by Research) in Design, titled: Self-initiated Design Projects - Avenues for Implementation and Practice (2015). I am currently a full-time academic in the Integrated Product Design (IPD) Program and Coordinator of the IPD Honours Course at UTS. I am on sabbatical during this first 6-months of full-time study on my PhD and will return to Hong Kong in 2020 for the final 6-months of the PhD program. My attempts at the thesis statement continue (as expected).

Currently, it reads: That there is a general method for developing intellectual agency, by the generation of knowledge through product design practice. A key term used in the title is 'intellectual agency'.

Before I continue its important to explain my reason for using this term and its relevancy in the generation of new knowledge (a condition of the PhD outcome) in the area of 'research through design' and product design as a practice.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides the following

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description of the term 'agency': In very general terms, an agent is a being with the capacity to act, and 'agency' denotes the exercise or manifestation of this capacity. The philosophy of action provides us with the standard conception and a standard theory of action. The former construes action in terms of intentionality, the later explains the intentionality of action in terms of causation by the agent's mental states and events.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Therefore, for the purpose of this research, the knowledge generated through the practice of design, must be generated with a capacity and intention to act on that knowledge. This is an important aspect of this project, as it has previously been established that knowledge is generated through design practice, though the purpose of this study is to address: a) if there are certain conditions of practice that are best for knowledge generation, b) the types of knowledge that can reasonably be generated through (product) design practice, c) how that knowledge should be captured, and; d) how that knowledge may be used to support future practice both of design and external to design.

The research of this PhD may lead to (or identify models for) a type of ‘hybrid process’ of product design practice that adopts the principles of current ‘industry’ practice, but channels them toward the pursuit of knowledge directives, in the development of (product) innovations.

There must be a means of recording the progress in a particular way so that knowledge development opportunities are identified and can be built upon as the product develops concurrently.

While designers do generate knowledge through design practice, they may not necessarily recognise the knowledge produced as discernable from the 'product' outcome. As it has been put before, the knowledge generated through design often remains trapped in

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the product embodiment. One of the objectives of the research is to attempt to demonstrate that the knowledge produced from design can be captured and developed as a separate, value outcome of the design project. Should we be able to determine the conditions of practice that provide the best opportunity for knowledge creation through product design and the types of knowledge a practitioner can reasonably expect to generate through practice; we can begin to establish an intention for the pursuit of knowledge and the required capacity to drive a design project for a dual outcome - a tangible product outcome + a knowledge outcome(s). So, this means that when the product design project starts, there should be an intention and capacity to produce two outcomes - a new product concept and new knowledge. Considering the definition of 'new' in terms of a product outcome, I suggest that here we refer only to innovations in particular - radical innovations (Verganti, 2009). I do not believe we can conduct this research on incremental improvements to products.

I consider that to try and certify the knowledge outcomes from such instances of incremental change design, may be too difficult.

In terms of new knowledge generation in design research: "Design research is an activity that aims to produce knowledge useful to those who design: design knowledge that designers and nondesigners (individuals, communities, institutions, companies) can use in their processes of designing and co-designing."

"Design knowledge (is) a set of visions, proposals, tools and reflections: to stimulate and steer strategic discussions, to be applied in a variety of specific projects, to help understand what we are doing or could do.

This knowledge has to be explicit (to be clearly expressed by whoever produces it), discussable (to permit the exchange of opinions among many interested interlocutors), transferrable (to be applicable by other designers) and possible to accumulate (to form a reservoir of design knowledge that could be the starting point for producing further knowledge by other researchers)."

Ezio Manzini (2009)

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Manzini's description of design research provides a very suitable basis upon which to identify the ways that the practice of design may connect with the objectives of the research academic whose responsibility is to add to the body of knowledge. In terms of adding to the body of knowledge through the work that they do, an academic research professional conducts their work in a scholarly fashion, which means that the research, in making claims about the world must be validated with evidence and communicated.

Manzini's four points puts it succinctly. The knowledge generated through research must be explicit, discussable, transferable and possible to accumulate. It is incumbent upon the product designer who, through the course of their practice, believes to have identified new knowledge that may shed light on our understanding of people or the material world; to treat, manage and develop that knowledge according to the highest standard, if possible. An academic standard of practice that meets the four conditions in Manzini's statement, is a good goal.

The recent introduction of the concept of 'Academic Design' represents a compelling avenue of enquiry and based on the way it has been described, overlaps with my PhD thesis in many regards. I have used the term to describe some of my practice-based research in a paper that I co-authored recently (Walden, et al. 2015) and the rationale, to support my Honours program where students are expected to integrate practice and theory. A recent paper by Koskinen and Dorst (2015) proposes four distinguishing features of Academic Design. (1) That Academic Design is situated between the field of design practice / problem solving and academic discussion; with the dual purpose of framing real-world problems and translating academic thoughts and discussion into (experimental) action. Through the 'modeling' of reality, abstracting from everyday problem solving creates a 'new vantage point'. Academic design practice develops models that 'express' new possible futures for the field, while the integration of design and experimental research can lead to new knowledge and radical innovations. (2) That Academic Design is a

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'construction' born from the need to improve rigor in design research.

Hence it is open to criticism from both 'parents', but particularly from professional practice where it may be perceived as a threat. This must be considered carefully, because, we in fact wish to improve the accountability and relevancy of academic design research within the industry. (3) That Academic Design is neither 'pure research' or 'applied research', but a response to the complex, farther reaching challenges faced by design professions, in more sophisticated ways than conventional practice can allow. The authors refer to Academic Design as a new 'species' of design. In companies seeking to become design-led in their development of technologies, there is a shift from classic R&D (where design follows developments in science and technology), toward a (new) 'D&R' model (where design is required to lead investment in research and technology development. (4) That Academic Design can 'move' in and out of academia. It is essentially nomadic as academic design practitioners have a foot in practice as well as in universities. Increasingly, I see my research being closely related to the advent of Academic Design practice. At the conclusion of the paper, the following questions are posed: • How could/should or will this species evolve?

• How will the other species - professional design and academic practices - adapt?

• Who will take the lead in the development of academic design?

• Will specific 'kinds' of academic design arise or should it be envisaged as dynamically adapting to where the issues are - not joined to particular fields of design practice?

Considering Manzini's statement - that design research should produce knowledge useful to those that design - together with the potential conflict between the objectives and conduct of academic research and the intentions of industry-based practice indicated by Koskinen and Dorst, I suggest that a reformation of the role and practice of design ought to be devised.

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I am aware that at this early stage, there seems to be a contradiction in my thesis: 'that the designer is developing a capacity and intention to act on knowledge generated (an intellectual agency), while working on the design project' and/or 'that the designer has already developed an intellectual agency before starting a project and should set-up the project so that the dual outcome of a product innovation + new knowledge can be generated' The answer might be both. And below are three reasons why this might be the case: 1. P.J. Stappers (2007) published a model he referred to as 'the iterative spiral of generative and evaluative cycles in design/research'.

It recognises the integration of new knowledge and the way the design process can provide new insights that build on that knowledge through the act of design. This refers to the way designers 'learn' their way toward new solutions.

2. Design Abduction as a form of problem reasoning (Dorst, 2016), recognises the way designers (in innovative projects) creatively combine a series of unknown factors into workable 'frames' in order to relate what a 'thing' may be and 'how' it might operate for a given 'value outcome'. An extension of problem-solution co-evolution. This refers to a way of thinking or a 'creative intelligence' inherent in the designer’s approach to addressing ill-defined complex problems, that enables them to deal with multiple 'unknowns'. It may even imply a preferred way of working - particularly in the pursuit of true innovation.

3. That design is, by its very nature, context specific and situation specific (Koskinen, 2011). A design outcome is developed according to a particular combination of circumstances and is therefore (often) not directly applicable to other 'design briefs'. This means designers must gain new knowledge and methods of practice, to some degree, with each new project.

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So, it may be that, the designer with the intention of generating both a product innovation and knowledge outcomes, through the practice of developing a design, must have a level of capacity and intention (intellectual agency) to act on knowledge both at the beginning of the project and during the project. And, the knowledge processed during the development of the product both generates new knowledge and has some effect on the development of the designers own intellectual agency as a consequence.

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Reference: Dorst, Kees. 2016. "Design practice and design research: Finally together?" Paper presented at Design Research Society 50th Anniversary Conference, Brighton, UK, 30 June 2016.

Dorst, Kees, and Nigel Cross. 2001. "Creativity in the design process: co-evolution of problem-solution." Design Studies 22 (5):425-437.

Koskinen, Ilpo and Dorst, Kees. 2015. "Academic Design." 20th International Conference on Engineering Design, Milan, Italy, 27-30 July 2015.

Koskinen, Ilpo., Binder, Thomas., RedstrĂśm, Johan., Wensveen, Stephan and Zimmerman, John. 2011. Design Research through Practice: From Lab, Field, and Showroom. Morgan Kaufmann: San Francisco.

Manzini, Ezio. 2009. "New design knowledge." Design Studies 30 (1):4-12.

Stappers, Pieter Jan. 2007. "Doing Design as a Part of Doing Research." In Design Research Now: Essays and Selected Projects, edited by Ralf Michel, 81-91. Basel: Birkhäuser Basel.

Walden, Roderick; Pandolfo, Berto; Lie, Stefan & Lockhart, Cathy.

2015. "The academic design practitioner". Paper presented at the Creative Practice Conference: Making Research - Research Making, Aarhus, DK.

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PhD Researcher (3rd year)

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Ms. Julija Naskova Qualifications: BA Cinema, San Francisco State University (Cum Laude) MFA in Film and Television – University of California, Los Angeles Email: julija.naskova@polyu.edu.hk Supervisor: Prof.dr. Ilpo Koskinen (Main) Prof.dr. Huaxin Wei (Co)

Biography: I come from the field of filmed entertainment, directing shorts films and working in post-production for over a decade. In 2008, I transitioned to digital media as the production tools were still being developed.

Inadvertently, I ended up doing user experience research and design improvement of the tools. Since then, I have been following UX design by attending meetup.com events and reading articles. I find UX practitioners to be an eclectic group of people coming from different backgrounds: film, photography, biology, graphic design, computer science... They are eager to improve digital products and have great ideas. Unfortunately, UX design is usually an after-thought during development and many times businesses believe they know their users the best. I want to explore these relationships and how digital tools have evolved in the last ten years. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that screenwriting techniques are applied when creating user journeys, mental models, personas‌ During my research, I was glad to discover the application of dramaturgy for data analysis. It is like making movies all over again, but this time they are playing in real live!

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Title: Designers’ Experience on the Cloud

Keywords: Symbolic interactionism – dramaturgy – UX design

Research Report: My research question is how designers’ experience changed with the introduction of Cloud based tools and functions in their daily work.

The research design employs grounded theory methods for data collection and symbolic interactionist principles for data analysis (SSSI 2016). First method applied is case study of Adobe Dreamweaver CC – how the tool changed with its move to the Cloud. From this research a questionnaire was devised to obtain information on designers’ perception of the Cloud, changes in their workflow and experience with the technology. Nethnographic method (Kozinets 2010) was used by randomly distributing the questionnaire to thousand designers featured on Bēhance, receiving fifty responses. Out of those ten designers were interviewed through Skype, FacebookIM or in-person.

Group observation and informal interviews were also conducted through participation in meetup.com and other design related networking events. Here I recruited designers for in-person semistructured interviews, completing ten more interviews.

Currently in progress is thesis writing combined with literature review of existing research on user experience. Once the research develops few theories, those will be tested by conducting industry expert interviews. I also plan to conduct a workshop on technology acceptance and other user experience theories.

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The past six months were dedicated to data collection and transcription. During July and August of 2016, I conducted interviews in Macedonia with designers, developers and professors in the field of design and human computer interaction. I also interviewed three European artists/designers working on a cross cultural project at a local design center. I participated in a one week hacking camp called PIF_camp and observed how artists apply Cloud technology to their artwork in Trente, Slovenia. I presented my research at SSSI Topola under the name Symbolic Interactionism and Human-Centered Design; Blumer’s principles in user experience studies (Naskova 2016a). At SSSI Seattle I presented a paper proposal on Symbolic Interactionism and Acting Techniques; From Blumer to Stanislavsky (Naskova 2016b). During both conferences, I was exposed to new research methods applied in sociology, most notably Goffman’s frame theory and discourse analysis (Goffman 1959; 1983). In addition, I went to a one day UX camp in Los Angeles where I reconnected with old contacts and accomplished few more interviews. While in Seattle, I attended meetup.com events with UXPA and WordPress designers.

In December 2016, I presented at SKIMA conference in Chengdu, Sichuan the paper Dreamweaver on the Cloud; Web designers’ perspectives (Naskova 2016c). I also interviewed local designers and developers.

The learning process was gradual and so is the outcome. I started with Grounded theory and triangulation of data collection methods.

After reading work that applies Grounded theory to the field of design, I realized that my data collection process was more of an iteration. When interviewing only young visual designers did not yield much information, I decided to add new knowledge by widening the research group with more technically savvy designers and developers.

They either come from the field of computer technology or have attained significant technical knowledge through practice. Final addition to the research group were artist/designers who apply Cloud based open source technology to their artwork in innovative ways.

When reflecting upon my research, I find different answers to the research questions. Therefore, I need to analyze how each group of

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participants uses and defines Cloud based technology. In this case, Goffman’s frame analysis (Goffman 1986) helps because it acknowledges the fact that different people frame their experiences in a different way. In the next six months, I will be writing my thesis and doing additional literature review based on my findings. Currently, I am researching various theories of experience, such as Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw 1989) and flow experience (Csikszentmihalyi 2014). I plan to conduct a workshop on how existing user experience theories apply to non-hedonistic systems, such as Cloud based tools and collaborative platforms.

Reference: Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. 2016. “Welcome to SSSI.” Accessed June 27. https://sites.google.com/site/sssinteraction/ Kozinets, Robert V. 2010. Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.

Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books.

Goffman, Erving. 1986. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Naskova, Julija. 2016a. “Symbolic Interactionism and HumanCentered Design; Blumer’s principles in user experience studies.”

ResearchGate.net. Accessed February 14, 2017. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313651035_Symbolic_ Interactionism_and_Human-Centered_Design_Blumer%27s_ principles_in_user_experience_studies doi: 10.13140/ RG.2.2.32952.55041 Naskova, Julija. 2016b. “Symbolic Interactionism and Acting Techniques; From Blumer to Stanislavsky.” ResearchGate.net.

Accessed February 14, 2017.

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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313650973_Symbolic_ Interactionism_and_Acting_Techniques_From_Blumer_to_ Stanislavsky. doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.36307.99360 Naskova, Julija. 2016c. “Dreamweaver on the Cloud; Web designers’ perspectives.” ResearchGate.net. Accessed February 14, 2017. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313651232_Dreamweaver_ on_the_Cloud_Web_designers%27_perspectives Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 2014. Applications of Flow in Human Development and Education: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Springer Netherlands.

Davis, Fred D., Bagozzi, Richard P., & Warshaw, Paul R. 1989. “User acceptance of information technology: a comparison of two theoretical models.” Management Science 35(8), 982–1003. http://dx.doi. org/10.1287/mnsc.35.8.982

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PhD Researcher (1st year)

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IDr. Louie T. Navarro, PIID, CIDE Qualifications: BFA – Interior Design - University of Santo Tomas MA - Art Studies - University of the Philippines Email: louie.t.navarro@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Dr. Gerhard Bruyns (Main) Prof. Ilpo Koskinen (Co)

Biography: IDr. Louie T. Navarro, PIID, CIDE is a co-founder and Senior Interior Design Associate of Philippine-based interior design firm 1B Design Group Inc. For his Ph. D. in Design, Louie is exploring what futures can the Professional Practice of Interior Design expect with the continued digitisation of ways of representing the design idea. With a BFA Interior Design degree from the University of Santo Tomas and an MA Art Studies degree (major in Art Theory and Criticism) from the University of the Philippines, Louie is also a part-time Interior Design educator for the interior design programs of UST and De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde School of Design and the Arts. As Chairman of the Committee on Membership of the Philippine Institute of Interior Designers (PIID)— the only national organisation recognised by the Philippine Government as the Accredited and Integrated Professional Organization (AIPO) in the field of interior design—he is helping in the amendment of the ByLaws for the said organisation in order to address issues of its 2,000 plus-strong membership. Louie was recently invited as a guest speaker at the Hong Kong Interior Design Association (HKIDA) Master Talk 2016 wherein he shared his experience in the professional practice of interior design in the Philippines—with particular focus on Philippine Codes and Regulation.

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Title: The Perfection of the Interior Design Render and it’s Impact on the Practice of Interior Design: Perspectival/three-dimensional Representations of the Interior from the Italian Renaissance to the Digital Age

Keywords: Built Environment/Interior Decoration/Interior Design, Computer Aided Design, Virtual Reality/Virtuality, Perception, Beauty, Aesthetics

Research Report: In spite of 150 or so odd years of the practice’s professionalisation by way of its differentiation from the mere upholsterer in 19th century England (Eastlake 1869; Rice 2004), the historical manifestos that afforded the recovery of identities (Eastlake, 1869; de Wolfe 1913; Oliveros 1979; Rice 2004; Wharton, Codman & Wilson 2007), and discourses that have elevated the status of interior space from merely a site of consumption to that which that shapes/orders (Ardener 1993; Aynsley & Grant 2006; Braham 1999; Ferry 2003; Oliveros 1979; Wise 2000), interior design is still considered today as an exercise in excess (that frivolous addition to architecture) or at best, a practical exercise in domesticity (that primarily feminine endeavour) by many.

This study will not be dissimilar, at least initially, to the definitive scholarships on the representation of interior spaces of Robin Evans in “The Developed Surface: An Enquiry into the Brief Life of an Eighteenth-Century Drawing Technique” (1997) and Laura Jacobus in “On ‘Whether a Man Could See before Him and behind Him Both at Once’: The Role of Drawing in the Design of Interior Space in England c. 1600-1800” (1998). Narrowing in on the developed surface interior/ laid-out interior as a (then) popular means of representing interior spaces, Evans forwarded how this convention of drawing “makes it possible to see some things more clearly by suppressing other things:

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something gained, something lost” (199) while Jacobus argued for the limits imposed of the drawing technique on the design itself of interior spaces. Further, as editor Lois Weinthal in the introduction to the section dedicated to representations of interior spaces in the reader Toward a New Interior: An Anthology of Interior Design Theory (2011) would point out: “Alternative forms [of mapping] specific to the interior allow interrogation, analysis, and synthesis of elements that can affect the design and construction of the interior” (298).

Although their arguments still rings true today—against the notion of the drawing merely as a conveyor of ideas conveniently borne of necessity and more importantly, how such a means of representation can indeed make a difference in relation to outcomes—this study will focus instead on perspectival/three-dimensional modes of representing the design of the interior which is considered to be the final act of such a representation before actual construction commences.

This study will be looking into the history of representing the interior space from the varied perspectives, or better yet, the evolutionary perspectives of the practice of interior spatial representation itself: from painters to architects to decorators and eventually, interior designers.

This will serve as a catalogue of the rich history of representation in interior design and by continuing the scholarly perspective of how “representation structures thinking and shapes attitude” (Aynsley & Grant 2006, 18), this study will attempt to establish a correlation between perspectives of representing the design idea and its perception through the ages: from the first documented, hand-drawn perspectival/three-dimensional render all the way to the perfected/ immaculate computer-generated renderings of the present times. By looking into how these perspectival/three-dimensional drawings of the interior relate to the other arts and their processes beginning from the conception of interior space itself—as it was first used specifically as a design tool—this study will argue how such representations can

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secure interior design’s claim as a legitimate art form.

Now, this may seem antithetical given the frame of reclamation most especially when one considers that this is suggestive of a return to an autonomy—that divorce of form and function—that has been repeatedly levied against art in order to diminish its significance. But let us look at this as a necessary step, keeping in mind that the final appraisal of interior-designed spaces is still determined by that very quality that the arts have concerned itself with since antiquity: beauty and its representation.

RESEARCH QUESTION How does the perfection of the interior design render change the way we practice interior design?

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE This study aims at looking into how changes initiated by the continued digitisation of ways of representing the design idea affects the field of interior design in its totality beginning from education all the way to the professional practice and even institutional/governmental policymaking.

RESEARCH METHODS Historical/comparative analysis Case study CURRENT STATUS Currently continuing work on the Literature Review and finding focus in terms of narrowing the scope of the study (ex. a particular geographical location such as the Philippines and/or Hong Kong or preselected practitioner/s of interior design) to serve as a specific case study in order to substantiate the study’s hypothesis.

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Reference: Ardener, Shirley. 1993. Women and Space: Ground Rules and Social Maps. Rev. ed. Cross-cultural Perspectives on Women; v. 5. Oxford, UK; Providence, R.I: Berg.

Aynsley, J., Grant, Charlotte, & Arts & Humanities Research Council.

Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior. 2006. Imagined interiors: Representing the domestic interior since the Renaissance. London: New York: V&A Pub.; Distributed in North America by Harry N. Abrams.

Braham, William W. 1999. ”A Wall of Books: The Gender of Natural Colors in Modern Architecture." Journal of Architectural Education 53, no. 1: 4-14.

Eastlake, Charles L. 1869. Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery, and Other Details. Longmans, Green.

Evans, Robin. 1997. “The Developed Surface: An Inquiry into the Brief Life of an Eighteenth-Century Drawing Technique.” In Translations from Drawing to Building, 195-231. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

De Wolfe, Elsie, and Cairns Collection of American Women Writers.

1913. The House in Good Taste. Century.

Ferry, Emma. 2003. "'Decorators May Be Compared to Doctors'.

And Analysis of Rhoda and Agnes Garrett's Suggestions for House Decoration in Painting, Woodwork and Furniture (1876)." Journal of Design History 16, no. 1: 15-33.

Jacobus, Laura. 1988. "On 'Whether a Man Could See before Him and behind Him Both at Once': The Role of Drawing in the Design of Interior Space in England C. 1600-1800." Architectural History 31: 14865.

Oliveros, Edith. 1979. Designing Homes. Manila: Sinag-Tala Publishers, Inc.

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PhD Researcher (1st year)

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Ms. Aruna Venkatesh Qualifications: G.D. Arch (Rachna Sansad, Mumbai, India) MDes Design Education (School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) Email: aruna.av.venkatesh@polyu.edu.hk Supervisor: Prof.Dr.Ilpo Koskinen (Main) Prof.Dr.Gerhard Bruyns (Co)

Biography: With a brief experience in working with architectural firms in India, I joined the interior design industry in Hong Kong, working mainly on hotel design projects in the capacity of an assistant interior designer.

I later started practicing interior design as a free-lancer for a project in India. Having developed a keen interested in teaching design, I went on to do a Masters in Design (Design Education) from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. My final dissertation was a research project in reflective thinking studied through the premises of design students’ reflective journals. During the course I discovered a passion for design research. My current research areas are pedagogies of interior design and application of design knowledge in practice.

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Title: A Study on the Learning Development of Designing Interior Spaces

Keywords: Interior spaces, learning development, critique

Research Report: 1) Overview of the thesis My interest in this topic of research came during my MDes (Design Education) course at SD. Coming from the interior design industry; I was studying at how education responds to the rapid changes in industry. Secondly, during my practicum I was observing how students learn the tacit concepts of aesthetics and spatial experience. This led me to do a background research on the areas of interior spaces and knowledge acquisition.

Interior space concerns: The historical journey of interior design has always been about the negotiations of the inside and outside, with structure always being a pre-condition. Branzi (2002, 12) argues that the built environment of the 21st century no longer matters; the city becomes an infinite interior. According to Brooker and Stone (2010) interior design is bound to its situation but it is dependent on human activities. The interior designer creates the spatial experiences to not only suit the purposes of the activities but to also make it meaningful.

But meanings are constantly getting transformed due to the mobility of the people, resulting in changing social, cultural and political space constructs, often technologically driven. Since technology allows activities to take place anywhere, Mitchell (2002, 51) contends that the attractiveness of interior space will determine the location of the user; he calls this the ‘revenge of place’.

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Pedagogical concerns: “What we learn in school and how we learn has an enormous impact on how we ultimately practice in a particular discipline” - Poldma (2003, 107). There are several pedagogical models but most design programmes run on a studio-based learning model (SBL) and more recently a problem-based learning model (PBL). Though both follow a learning-by-doing methodology and a ‘reflexive questioning-creative experimentation’ process, there is a difference between the two (Galford, Hawkins and Hertweck 2015).

SBL takes place in a studio; it was originally seen as teacher-centric with feedback coming from peers, tutors and a jury-based review system. PBL is a problem-centric, team-based approach, where team decisions are taken for a solution that incorporates self-evaluation and peer-evaluation. Modeled on the design practice scenario it is seen as effective in developing critical listening skills and interpersonal skills in dealing with the clients. The other PBL – project-based learning is more learner-centric where students decide the nature of the projects, is teacher-facilitated, with four learning areas of active contructivism, situated learning, social interactions and cognitive tools (http://www. pblearning.net/); providing for a more meaningful and motivated learning. Few of the issues with the above models are: 1. Evaluation implies developing a habit of reflection which seems to be lacking in design students, according to my Masters studies 2.It may not be possible to simulate a real-world scenario in education in the absence of real clients 3. The professional practice involves more complex interactions that take place in physical and virtual platforms 4. Assessment of tacit knowledge is difficult in design education – even in outcome-based education which I think may be become outcome-centered than learner-centered.

There are several ad hoc teaching strategies that are also worth exploring. I’m also interested in the threshold learning barriers in the different stages of learning. Based on the above my research questions are: Question: How do interior design students learn to design interior spaces?

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Objective: To explore and understand the learning processes of interior design students in designing interior spaces Support question: How does critiquing influence their learning of designing interior spaces?

Objective: To investigate what the students perceive is the role of interactions with tutors, practitioners and peers in critiques and how it influences their designing of interior spaces The meaning of interior space will be explained in the literature review. Critiquing may mean interactions in tutorials, class discussions, or in presentations. I will be using a pedagogical perspective with a learner-centric approach.

I hope my study will not only give feedback to learners, tutors and practitioners on knowledge exchange, but also a research backing for evaluating teaching and learning methods and contribute to the interior design body of knowledge.

Methodology and Methods At this point, since my research is exploratory and interpretive, I plan to use a qualitative methodology, epistemologies of constructivism and symbolic interactionism and perhaps a multiple case-study strategic approach of inquiry. The research will be conducted in SD, EID programme.

Methods of data collection will be observations, interviews, document and artifact analysis, self-evaluative reports. Methods of data analysis will be grounded theory.

I am now in the process of doing literature review and I will start pilot observations of design studios from this week.

2) Work in the past 6 months: I started my research by doing the literature review, and then started concentrating on methods following discussions with my supervisor.

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At the same time I took Design Research Methods as a course subject.

While this gave me thorough understanding of this area of research, I was trying to refine my research question. I decided to focus of the conceptual part of the design process so my research question was changed to: How do interior design students learn to problematize interior spaces? Another reason was that I was asked to clarify my observation criteria to get permission from the ID department.

However, the question seemed unclear. A subsequent meeting with the supervisors suggested that at this point it was not necessary to decide about the methods. Instead, that I should just observe the studios and have a folder of observations. Regarding the question about what to observe, I have now decided to focus on the user experience in interior space. This decision was based on a few indepth interviews I conducted with practitioners who were uniform in their answers that the most important part of interior space was how the spatial quality reflects the client’s personality. I’m soon starting my pilot observations of attending a couple of design studios in each year of study with the hope of finding unexplored research areas in user experience and thus to refine my research question. Simultaneously, I received advice on what areas to cover in my literature review. I’m now in the process of resuming my literature review which I feel I should not have been neglected in the first semester.

My challenge at this stage remains the research question. What I realize now is that I should have done more background research before thinking about the research questions and methods. On the other hand, having a well-defined research question would have helped me control the literature review, which I now feel is quite vast, because I have to cover areas on interior space as well as those on pedagogy. The struggle has been to find the appropriate approach to the challenge of the research question. Thus, keeping to the timeschedule of the PhD programme is a concern.

3) Plan for the next 6 months: My plan is to strengthen the understanding of my research area

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through the literature review. Secondly, I plan to observe as many design studios as possible to decide the scope of my research – for example, how many stages of the ID programme should I consider. I also hope to understand the EID programme at SD. Thirdly, I hope to have a clear research question(s) with objectives, so that I can decide on the methods and have a detailed plan for data collection for the next academic year.

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Reference: Branzi, A. 2010. “Provocation: Ten Modest Suggestions for a New Athens Charter.” IDEA Journal, 12-13. Accessed February 12, 2017. http://idea-edu.com/journal/2010-idea-journal/ (Branzi 2010, 12) Brooker, G., and Stone, S. 2010. What is interior design? Mies, Switzerland: RotoVision.

(Brooker and Stone 2010) Mitchell, W.J. 2002. “E-bodies, E- Building, E-Cities.” In Leach, N. Designing for a digital world, 50-56. London: John Wiley & Sons.

(Mitchell 2002, 51) eProject-Based Learning. n.d. Accessed February 9, 2017. http://www. pblearning.net/project-based-learning Galford, G., Hawkins, S., and Hertweck, M. (2015). “Problem-Based Learning as a Model for the Interior Design Classroom: Bridging the Skills Divide Between Academia and Practice.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 9(2). Accessed February 10, 2017. doi. org/10.7771/1541-5015.1527 (Galford, Hawkins and Hertweck 2015) Poldma, T. 2003. “An investigation of learning and teaching processes in an interior design class: An interpretive and contextual inquiry.”

Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Accessed June 16, 2016. http:// www.poldmadesign.com/Poldma_PHD_Web.pdf.

(Poldma 2003, 107)

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PhD Researcher (2nd year)

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Ms. Chan Wing Mui Helen Qualifications: BSc – The University of Hong Kong MA – The Hong Kong Polytechnic University MA – The Chinese University of Hong Kong MA – The University of Hong Kong PhD–The Renmin University in Beijing Email: hwmchan79@gmail.com Supervisor: Prof. Cees De Bont

Biography: Helen received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Hong Kong. She has worked with the Immigration Department for 28 years in various areas. She was in charge of the Information Systems Branch of the Immigration Department and was responsible for the design and implementation of various information systems in the Department including the Smart Identity Card System. She has also led consultants to formulate the Information System Strategies for the department and responsible for the implementation of the strategies.

While she was with the Immigration Department, Helen obtained a Master degree on Information Systems Management (Distinction) from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, a Master in E-commerce from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, a Doctor degree from the Renmin University in Beijing and a Master degree on Buddhist Studies from the University of Hong Kong. After her retirement from the government, she also obtained a Master degree on Chinese Culture from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

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Title: Mindfulness and Innovation

Keywords: Mindfulness, Innovation, Mindfulness-based intervention, Organizational Innovation

Research Report: INTRODUCTION This paper presents my PhD research area and my progress so far.

My research is on mindfulness and innovation and the paper will first define the focus of my research. Mindfulness and innovation are two different topics each having its own characteristics and research methods. The paper will briefly describe the findings from literature review on the characteristics of mindfulness and innovation.

The proposed research methodology for my research will also be presented in the paper.

RESEARCH AREA Mindfulness Mindfulness has its roots in many of the Eastern and Western lifeknowledge traditions (McKenzie, 2015) and notably in Buddhism. It has started gaining popularity and interests in the West since the end of the 1970s as a result of the successful launching of a number of mindfulness-based therapeutic applications where a large number of chronically-ill patients and mental patients have been relieved of their symptoms. Increasing number of clinical psychology and psychiatry researches have been conducted since then on how and why mindfulness have benefits on physical and mental health. At the same time, there were on-going studies on mindfulness in the field of social psychology. In addition, neurobiological studies were also being conducted to find out the mechanism by which mindfulness can have effect on the mind and the body.

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With the successful application of mindfulness in clinical settings, the mindfulness practice was later introduced to schools and recently to the workplace.

What is Mindfulness?

There is quite a number of definitions for mindfulness from the literature and these definitions vary according to whether it is viewed from a contemplative or a cognitive perspective. The most frequently cited definition is from Jon Kabat-Zinn where he defined mindfulness as ‘‘awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment’’ (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). In his doctoral research, Cardaciotto (2005) commented that a generally accepted operation definition of mindfulness is still missing. There are also a number of models of mindfulness being conceptualized where mindfulness is considered as “state” or “trait”. A cognitive model of the mindfulness state was proposed in which mindfulness is considered as “a two-facet construct including (1) an intentional state of meta-awareness, and (2) an open and receptive attitude to content of experience” (Holas & Jankowski, 2013).

Mindfulness in the Workplace Mindfulness has aroused great interests in the workplace in recent years in the West and now many of the Fortune 500 companies, like Google, Facebook, Twitter, General Mills, Aetna have introduced mindfulness programmes for their staff or even to their clients. The Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group in UK has reviewed and reported in the end of 2015 on the evidence of how mindfulness has transformational effects and identified the workplace as a key environment to test mindful approaches (Chapman-Clarke, 2016).

Innovation A search on the literature reviews a wide range of definitions for the term innovation. The Oslo Manual (OECD, 2005) proposes the following definition for innovation: “an innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external

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relations”. A wide range of different types of innovation are being included in this definition.

A lot of researches have been conducted on innovation. The early researches focused mainly on various aspects of technological innovation. Later on, the trend was changed towards exploring other forms of innovation like service innovation, process innovation and strategic innovation to explore how they are managed and how they contribute to long-term business success (Birkinshaw J., 2008).

Organizational Innovation Organizations require to innovate in order to sustain and survive and successful organizations adopt innovation continually over time.

Innovation adoption in organizations encompasses the generation, development and implementation of new behavior or ideas which will help improve the performance and effectiveness of the organization.

When organization innovativeness is being studied, multiple innovations should be considered (Damanpour, 1991). According to Oslo Manual published by OECD, organization innovation refers to the “implementation of a new organizational method in the firm’s business practices, workplace organization or external relations” (OECD, 2005). Innovation covers changes in different areas including corporate governance, the architecture of production, management structure, employees’ payment system or financial systems (Hage, 1999; McMillan, 2010).

Proposed Research The research of mindfulness at the organizational setting is still in its infancy and the study is complex (Choi, 2015). In the workplace context, there has been studies on the effect of mindfulness in leadership, communication, creativity, etc. but not many of them has gone through empirical tests and there is yet any empirical study on the impact of mindfulness on innovation. Taking mindfulness as a state of mind and adopting the “two-facet construct” model proposed by Holas & Jankowski, my research will focus on the impact of mindfulness on organizational innovation.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY FOR PROPOSED STUDY Mindfulness-based Interventions and Measurement of Mindfulness

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Experiments and interventions like Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) are the common methods used to study state mindfulness and preexperiments, quasi-experiments and pure experiments are the three categories of experimental designs for studying mindfulness (Choi and Leroy, 2015).

For the current research, mindfulness-based invention suitable for organizational settings will be designed to test the effect of introducing mindfulness to the individuals in the organization and the resulting effect on the organization’s innovativeness. To ensure greater internal validity for the research, systematic variation and standardization of the intervention will be performed. The design of components of intervention and the timing for practice will be very important. Thus systematic variation and standardization of the components like the types of meditation techniques to be used, the frequency of practice, etc. is necessary when designing the mindfulness-based intervention for study.

Mindfulness research is complex as mindfulness has impact on multiple facets of human experiences. Quantitative study only provides part of the data. For mindfulness researches, surveys should be complemented with qualitative approaches such as interviews to capture the phenomenological experiences of the participants (Atkins and Parker 2012; Dane and Brummel 2014).

Measurement of Innovation Although many companies know that innovation is important for them to compete and sustain, not many will measure it. According to a survey done by the Boston Consulting Group in 2008, less than 50% of the companies participating in the survey measured innovation in the company and the reason is because there is lack of metrics or measurement (James, August 2008). According to Jensen and Webster (2009), there is not much consensus as to how to measure innovation. This is caused by the many definitions of innovation and that it can be viewed from different perspectives and has many types and levels (Mathiassen & Pourkomeylian, 2003). Shapiro (2006) pointed out that there is no single measure that can measure all aspects of innovativeness.

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Framework of Proposed Research The purpose of the proposed research is to explore whether mindfulness has impact on organizational innovation. To achieve this purpose, experiments have to be done to see if the organization has any changes in innovation arising from the individuals in the organizations having practiced mindfulness. In these experiments, changes in organizational innovation will become the dependent variable of individual mindfulness practices within the organization.

The research will be done by case studies using both quantitative and qualitative methods for data collection and analysis.

The proposed research will be divided into three main stages and basically follow the path shown in the diagram below:

Reference: Atkins, P. W. B., and Parker, S.K. (2012). Understanding individual compassion in organizations: the role of appraisals and psychological flexibility. Academy of Management Review, 37(4), 524-546. doi:10.5465/arar.2010.0490

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Birkinshaw J., H. G. M., M.J. . (2008). Management Innovation.

Academy of Management Review, 33(4), 825-845.

Chapman-Clarke, M. (2016). Mindfulness in the workplace: an evidence-based approach to improving wellbeing and maximizing performance (M. Chapman-Clarke Ed.). Philadelphia: Kogan Page.

Choi, E., and Leroy, H. (2015). Methods of mindfulness: how mindfulness is studied in the workplace. In J. a. A. P. W. B. Reb (Ed.), Mindulness in Organizations: Foundations, Research, and Applications: Cambridge University Press.

Damanpour, F. (1991). Organizational Innovation: A Meta-Analysis of Effects of Determinants and Moderators. Academy of Management Journal, 34(3), 555.

Dane, E., & Brummel, B. J. (2014). Examining workplace mindfulness and its relations to job performance and turnover intention. Human Relations, 67(1), 105-128. doi:10.1177/0018726713487753 Hage, J. T. Organizational innovation and organizational change.

Annual Review of Sociology, 25(1), 597.

Holas, P., & Jankowski, T. (2013). A cognitive perspective on mindfulness. Int J Psychol, 48(3), 232-243. doi:10.1080/00207594.201 2.658056 James, P. A., Knut, H., David, C.M., Harold, L.S., Andrew, T. (August 2008). A BCG Senior Management Survey—Measuring Innovation 2008: Squandered Opportunities.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003). Mindfulness-Based Interventions in Context: Past, Present, and Future. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10(2), 144-156. doi:10.1093/clipsy.bpg016 Mathiassen, L., & Pourkomeylian, P. (2003). Managing knowledge in a software organization. Journal of Knowledge Management, 7(2), 6380. doi:10.1108/13673270310477298 McKenzie, S. (2015). Mindfulness at Work: How to avoid stress, achieve more, and enjoy life! : Career Press.

McMillan, C. (2010). Five competitive forces of effective leadership and innovation. Jour nal of Business Strategy, 31(1), 11-22. doi:10.1108/02756661011012741 OECD. (2005). Oslo Manual—Guidelines for Collecting and Interpreting Innovation Data. OECD Publishing.

Shapiro, A. R. (2006). Measuring innovation: beyond revenue from new products. Research Technology Management, 49(6), 42-51.

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PhD Researcher (2nd year)

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Ms. Kyulee Kim Qualifications: BFA Hons – Carnegie Mellon University MFA – Basel School of Design Email: kyulee.kim@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Cees de Bont (Main) Dr. Laurent Gutierrez (Co)

Biography: Ever since her departure from her homeland, South Korea, Kyulee Kim’s life has been an artistic and cultural journey through the U.S., U.K., China, and Switzerland. She received her BFA in Fine Art from the Carnegie Mellon University. Since her Bachelor studies, Kim has always been interested in how to efficiently communicate with audiences and how to build influential concepts for her visual works.

Hence, she decided to walk to a path as a designer. Later, Kim attended MFA in Graphic Design program in Basel, a small city in Switzerland, yet a traditional hub of art and design. After the master degree, she moved back to Seoul, where she worked as a Design Consultant and a Design Lecturer. In 2015, Kim joined the School of Design at PolyU with great passion to explore more powerful methods to create visual storytelling as a designer who constantly needs to share thoughts with others.

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Title: Designerly Way of Creating Shared Value

Keywords: Design Thinking, Creating Shared Value, Design as Busienss Strategy

Research Report: Introduction Today, while profit maximization is still the bedrock of the capitalist model, society has embraced the idea of social contribution as a useful strategy for businesses in the free market. In this recent movement, Creating Shared Value (CSV) aims to achieve business goals coupled with positive social values and outcomes.

Although the terminology CSV was not invented in the field of design, design as an “interdisciplinary discipline� (Cross 2007), has a long history of satisfying multiple stakeholders in one project and collaborating with other fields. Many scholars have illustrated cases where design played an essential part in developing a good strategy in business (Liedtka and Ogilvie 2011, Martin 2009, Pink 2006, Verganti 2009). Also, the philanthropic values have been already embedded in design activities (D’Anjou 2009. Tromp et al. 2011, and Wang 2015).

With this interdisciplinary power of design, I will illustrate that design will play an imperative role in creating a socially responsible businesses, namely, creating shared value. By exploring existing design studies on CSV and design tools for business strategy, I was able to establish two research questions. Starting from the questions I built, I will prepare case studies on design thinking workshops, and

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build a pilot study of new design thinking workshop most suitable for creating shared values.

Research Gaps: defining “wicked problems” in “Designerly Way of Creating Shared Value” The common contribution of existing design literatures on CSV was to enhance the awareness of shared value in the design community and to introduce new design opportunities in shared value. However, all five literatures neither show an actual design project that is organized to simultaneously solve both societal problems and enhance the monetary value of the business, nor discuss applications of design in CSV. The absence of research on the topic may prove there is an additional need for study, but there may be serious obstacles around the development of the topic as well.

One difficulty may be because idea of CSV is still very young than socially responsible design and business (Crane et al. 2014 and Kang 2015). The concept of Creating Shared Value (CSV) was first introduced by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer in the Harvard Business Review in 2011 in their efforts to form a new business strategy. When most CSR conventionally organized to demonstrate companies’ social contribution by their non-profit activities, CSV is evolved from CSR with an aim for both society and the company to gain. CSV is an important perspective to bear in mind when an individual has to solve a social problem in an organization or to create a CSR activity. CSV has the potential to generate a creative solution. For example, most of successful CSVs come from re-organizing companies’ existing systems or utilizing its most accessible resources. However, CSV cannot cover all social activities. Thus, CSV may not be the best derivative of CSR because it can easily causes self-constraints.

Secondly, there is a barrier between design and CSV in business strategy. Designerly way of creating shared value also needs a way to prove it can deliver profitability for it to be adopted by competitive businesses. One possible solution comes from the qualitative analysis

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of business performance. Design and economic scholar, John Heskett suggested that tacit and qualitative value measurements could be accomplished (Heskett 2016).

Lastly, modifying existing design thinking workshops to be specialized for CSV may not be necessary. In other words, either totally new design thinking tool might be needed, or some of existing design tools is already perfectly applicable for CSV when this research progress in advance levels. Further research can define what type of tools from design thinking should be further developed for shared value creators.

Scholars claim that design is tricky to deal with because of its so-called “ill-structured” (Simon 1973) tasks or “wicked problems” (Rittel and Webber 1973). In essence, there are two research questions. What is a plausible profitability measurement method for design within a business and what design tools are most suitable for businesses to create shared value? These two questions are still wicked mainly because its final outcome is most likely theoretically and practically challenging to answer in one study. However, the questions are worth to ask because of its ability to ignite critical discourse about theory and practice of design’s application to create shared value.

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Reference: Heskett, John. 2016. A John Heskett Reader: design, history, economics. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

Elke den Ouden, 2013. “Creating Meaningful Innovations: the value framework.” In Advanced Design Methods for Successful Innovation, edited by De Bont, Cees, Elke den Ouden, Rick Schifferstein, frido Smulders, and Mascha van der Voort. Netherland: Design United.

Porter, Michael and Mark Kramer. 2011. “Creating Shared Value.”

Harvard Business Review Jan/Feb2011, Vol. 89 Issue 1/2: 62 – 77.

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PhD Researcher (2nd year)

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Ms. Qingchuan LI Qualifications: B.Eng. – Sichuan University.

MSc – The University of Hong Kong.

Email: qingchuan.li@polyu.edu.hk Supervisor: Dr. Yan Luximon (Main) Dr. Clifford Choy (Co)

Biography: Qingchuan LI is a PhD candidate in School of Design at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Born in Northern China, she got her Bachelor of Engineering in Industrial Design from Sichuan University, Chengdu in 2013. She also earned a master's degree in Industrial Engineering (distinction) from The University of Hong Kong in 2014, specialized in Human Factor and Ergonomics. Since her master studies, she started to explore her interests in visual ergonomics and cognitive ergonomics especially for special population. In July 2015, she joined the School of Design as a PhD student to continually investigate and study how to apply ergonomics and human factors to build a bridge between the world of design and special population.

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Title: Designing for older adults: investigation on the factors that influence perceptions and use of mobile technologies

Keywords: Mobile Technology, older adults, perception, usage behavior, usability, cognition

Research Report: An increasing number of older adults are adopting advanced technologies, but most of them only use elementary features and limited functions (Li and Luximon, 2016). The reasons may largely lie on two aspects. On the one hand, the features of advanced mobile technologies may lead to different adoption and usage patterns from general technology (Zhou et al., 2012). On the other hand, aging process has brought many significant changes to their physical and mental abilities, which may influence the way that how older adults use and perceive mobile technology in their daily life (Wagner et al., 2014; Pan and Jordan-Marsh, 2010). Thus, this study aims to investigate the possible factors that influence older adults’ perceptions and interactions with mobile technologies, highlight the capability and limitations of older adults, and provide a framework of user-task-technology interaction model for designers based on these results. The major research questions are defined as follows: - How do older adults perceive and use mobile technologies in their daily lives, and what are their major needs, limitations and difficulties?

- What are the possible factors that influence older adults’ perceptions and interactions with mobile technologies, with special considerations of user characteristics, task demands, and technology features?

- How to predict and evaluate human-technology interactions based on these influential factors?

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To answer the research questions, research methods are planned to work together with each other systematically. In the first stage, the semi-structured interview was conducted. The results contributed to the comprehension of how older adults perceive the advanced mobile technologies usage, and what are their usage habits, limitations, and expectations. Combined with the systematical literature review, the research scope was narrowed down to the mobile navigation tasks. Results also assisted in defining the possible factors that influence older adults’ interaction with mobile technologies. In the second stage, a series of experimental methods will be applied to quantify the complex relationships between the previous factors that defined in semi-structure interviews, such as user characteristics, task demands and interface design. Finally, based on the results from experiments and semi-structured interviews, a predictive user-task interaction model will be developed and evaluated to help designers for analytically evaluating the complexity and efficiency of mobile technology design.

For now, this project is at the second stage of experimental investigation. In the past six months, the first phase of experimental study was conducted to examine the possible effects of interface design and task complexity on the mobile interface navigation and investigate relevant capabilities that involved in the process.

15 participant aged from 24 to 81 years old participated in this experiment. A mixed 3 (visual presentation of icon-text, icon-only, and text-only) × 3 (task complexity of level 1, level 2 and level 3) factorial design was manipulated. Three particular cognitive capabilities in term of working memory, spatial ability, and attention and processing speed, as well as the visual abilities were measured using some performance test and self-reported methods. User’s navigation performance and subjective evaluation were collected and analyzed. The results found that both of the navigation performance and subjective evaluation are significantly different between age groups. Users with higher level of attention and processing speed is more likely to find the information and complete the navigation task efficiently and effectively. Results also suggests that the task

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complexity should be important design considerations especially for older adults.

In the next 6 months, follow-up research is necessary for study 2 by recruiting more participants, refining the experimental setting design, analyzing the effects of user characteristics and employing the method of task analysis to investigate the effects of interface features and task complexity on navigation performance in details. More research is necessary in examining possible relationships in various task contexts of mobile interface navigation. This will be done through the different experiments. Following that, research will be undertaken to identify how these factors are related with each other to model a valid predictive tool for user modelling and technology design evaluation.

Finally, the model will be evaluated by designers as a tool to inform the mobile technology design for older adults.

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Reference: Li, Qingchuan, and Yan Luximon. 2016. “Older Adults and Digital Technology: A Study of User Perception and Usage Behavior.� In Advances in Physical Ergonomics and Human Factors, edited by Ravindra Goonetilleke, and Waldemar Karwowski, 155-163. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Zhou, Jia, Rau, Pei-Luen Patrick, and Gavriel Salvendy. 2012.

"Use and design of handheld computers for older adults: A review and appraisal." International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 28.12: 799-826. Accessed January 04, 2016. doi: 10.1080/10447318.2012.668129.

Wagner, Nicole, Hassanein, Khaled and Head, Milena. 2014. "The impact of age on website usability." Computers in Human Behavior 37: 270-282.

Pan, Shuya, and Jordan-Marsh, Maryalice. 2010. "Internet use intention and adoption among Chinese older adults: From the expanded technology acceptance model perspective." Computers in human behavior 26.5: 1111-1119.

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PhD Researcher (2nd year)

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Mr. KING Pui Yuk Alex

Qualifications: BSc - The Hong Kong Polytechnic University MBA -The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Email: 15902919r@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Prof.dr.Kin Wai Michael SIU

Biography: Alex King is a professional designer and has worked extensively in China. He is specializing in inclusive design, universal design, elderly and dementia studies. Alex received numerous international design awards and obtained a Silver Prize from OPUS Optical Design competition in 2010. He is keen on product design in the field of telecommunication and had run his own business in China before beginning of his academic career. In 2008, he served as a team leader in developing a series of mobile phones for older persons where the simplified design has been widely accepted among western countries. Alex has substantial experience in teaching. He teaches bachelor and higher diploma courses in tertiary institutions including the Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong (THEi) and the Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI). He was invited to serve as a Subject Officer in Creative Industry Discipline of CreateHK, HKSAR in 2013. Alex is currently studying PhD in product design with his research area in adopting universal design principles to enhance the living quality with dementia elderly through qualitative approach.

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Title: Universal Design in Public Housing: An Ethnographic Study in Enhancing the Quality of Living of Elderly Living Alone with Dementia

Keywords: Universal Design, Inclusive Design, Elderly Living Alone, Dementia

Research Report: As life expectancy rises and fertility continues to decline, there is no doubt that ageing populations will continue to occur throughout the world. The proportion of populations over 60 years of age will grow progressively to reflect 12% of the global population. According to the United Nations (UN), the number of older persons in all countries is projected to reach 1.4 billion by 2030 – a number that may double by 2100. This gigantic figure places significant pressure on current social protection and health care systems (United Nations, 2015).

The ageing situation is even worse in Hong Kong than in other Asian countries. In 2024, Hong Kong was home to 397,000 people over the age of 80, 24.8% higher than the figure received in 2014 (Census and Statistics Department, 2016). Between 1961 and 2011, the average annual growth rate of older persons increased at a rate of 4.8%, from 87,918 to 941,312. An ongoing ageing trend is projected for the coming decades due to the ‘baby boomers’, who were born from 1946 to 1964. The elderly should be allowed to live independent lives, regardless of disability status under the senior citizen residences scheme in Hong Kong. In 2011, 12.7% of people aged 65 and above were identified as elderly people living alone – a 9.5% increase from 2006 (Census and Statistics Department, 2011). The diseases associated with ageing are some of the biggest challenges for older persons.

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Hong Kong’s population exhibits an ongoing ageing trend. The elderly population (aged 65 years and over) is expected to increase from 1,065,900 in 2014 to 2,582,300 in 2064 – 15% and 33% of the total population, respectively. This change in the structure of the ageing population will require an effective housing policy and health care system to tackle the resultant social problems. According to the United Nations (2015), the percentage of the population of people aged 60 and over in Asian countries is expected to shift from 12% to 25% by 2050. In Hong Kong, the percentage of the elderly population aged 80 or over is 15% – nearly double the figures projected in the United States (8.3%) and Norway (8.8%). In 2012, the life expectancy at birth for males was 80.7 years in Hong Kong, even higher than the results obtained in Japan (79.9 years). The Aging, Demographics and Memory Study (ADAMS) conducted in the United States reported that 13.9% of people aged 71 and over had been living with dementia (Plassman et al., 2007). There is no doubt that the prevalence of dementia will continue to accelerate alongside the world’s ageing population. Literature in the field of dementia and its research study have been mostly carried out in western countries with most of them are from developed world (Chan et al. 2010). There are some research studies to reveal the prevalence of dementia in Chinese elderly in Hong Kong. Very limited research exists to serve as a guide for designers to make use of universal design with the goal of improving wellness and health. Thus, strategies are needed to develop dementia-friendly residential homes and product designs.

The key aims of this study is to investigate the needs of living alone elderly with dementia focus in public housing in order to provide a better consideration when designing public housing for single elderly in future in Hong Kong. To enhance the findings, the study does not only focus on the exploration of the design in individual housing for elderly with dementia, but also empirical review on individual elderly living home in Hong Kong. The project expects to collect more data to identify more issues related to the living environment of elderly living with dementia.

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The specific objectives are: to briefly review and explore the common strengths and limitations of existing public housing for elderly in different densely populated cities/countries, e.g., Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Ireland and United Kingdom; to review and explore the strengths and limitations of existing public housing for elderly in Hong Kong; to identify the deficiencies of current public housing in terms of universal design focus; to enhance the scope of universal product design research involving elderly living alone with dementia so that a theoretical system examining ergonomics and user behaviour can be found; to propose new design directions and guidelines for universal design involving elderly with dementia so as to enrich the language of design; Research Questions “What is the quality of elderly public housing in Hong Kong?”

“How can universal design principles be applied more effectively in developing single elderly public housing with dementia in Hong Kong?”

“How can we contribute to design and development of dementia friendly products, services and systems in day-to-day activity through participatory design approach?

Dementia is a biomedical disease characterised by the degeneration and loss of abilities over time. The hallmark deterioration in cognitive function is not considered to be part of normal ageing. These cognitive impairments are often preceded by a decline in emotional control, motivation and social behaviour. Dementia may occur when the brain is affected by specific diseases, including AD or a series of strokes that cause confusion, speech problems and progressive memory and cognition loss (Alzheimer’s Society, 2016). This gradual decline in function eventually creates the need for extra support in daily life.

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There have been significant changes in social structures over the past few decades as the number of older people who are living alone has increased. Government reports in Hong Kong have shown that the proportion of elderly living alone increased from 11.3% in 2001 to 12.7% in 2011 (Census and Statistics Department, 2011). Living alone is one of the major causes of loneliness among the elderly. It lowers their accessibility to regular social connections and integration, mutual support and communication with different people (Weiss, 1973).

Universal design plays a key role in enhancing the potential to develop a better quality of life for a wide range of individuals (Russell, 1999). It is characterised by building at little or no extra cost while maintaining an attractive and functional style that satisfies all people, regardless of ability or disability (Mace, 1985). It supports people’s efforts to be selfreliant and socially engaged.

Research Methodology Ethnography is a useful tool in research that the ethnographer seeks to reveal those contemporary concerns on social sciences.

It is originated as the major research method of anthropology that exploring human culture. Ethnography is the way that culture is being illustrated through a process of observing, recording and writing (Inda, 2005).

Participant Observation Participant observation has been using as a data collection method in ethnographic studies in elderly cares home for many decades. It is a process enabling the researchers to learn about the activities of people under study in a natural setting through observing and participating in that activities (DeWalt & DeWalt, 2002). In addition, according to the definition from Schensul, Schensul and LeCompte, participant observation is “the process of learning through exposure to or involvement in the day-to-day or routine activities of participants in the researcher setting.� (Schensul et al, 1999). With the help of the centre manager from Christian Family Service Centre (CFSC), in this research, I will recruit eight people living with dementia who are living

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alone in Hong Kong. The age ranges between 55 and 85 years where the number of men and female are equal. It is a purpose sampling as all participants are referred by CFSC who had participated in the training currently or in the past. I will gain formal ethical approval from the Institute Ethics Committee and will ask each participant to complete the consent form to confirm their participation in research.

In-depth Interview with Elderly Living Alone with Dementia, Caregiver and Centre Manager Because interview data as resource represents the conventional social science perspectives that interviewee has pre-existing knowledge, such as their attitudes and experience, the researchers has to get in order to produce the data. (Baker 2004). These data are then analyzed by the interviewer by seeking ‘theme’ in the content of what is said by the interviewee.

Prior to this research study, I have conducted a participant observation with four elderly living with dementia who are having mild cognitive impairment using traditional board games to decrease the rate of cognitive decline supported by CFSC. The Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) score of each selected participant is between 21 and 26, while people with normal cognitive function is 27-30. There are no other specific criteria for selecting participants except they are able to hear and understand. Findings of this study were recorded to discuss whether the principles of universal design should be applied to design consideration. For example, there was a general lack of concern about minimal physical effort. Respondents repeatedly tried and failed to grasp the single triangular piece of tangram, and eventually chose another triangular piece next to it. This might have affected his preference, influencing the entire game set. It is suggested that the tangram pieces be made thicker to satisfy the ergonomic considerations, leaving the player free to experience the game in terms of cognitive focus thanks to the benefits of universal design. This pilot study revealed that many of the game sets used in a traditional elderly day-care dementia centre in Hong Kong did not satisfy the foundation meaning of cognitive training due to lack of

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universal design consideration. By adopting participant observation and semi-structured interviews as research methods in order to enhance the credibility when receiving trustworthy information.

Further semi-structured interviews were conducted with the centre manager and caretaker to reveal concerns about the daily activities of elderly persons with dementia. It is necessary to raise awareness of the importance of applying universal design principles to cognitive gameplay as a rehabilitation tool for elderly persons with dementia.

Findings of this pilot study will help improve participation in gameplay among elderly persons living with dementia by enhancing the designs of current play tools. The timing for reviewing play tools is relevant so as to promote dementia-friendly products and environments enhancing the meaningfulness of daily life. Further study on literature review regarding public housing for elderly between different cities should be included. By comparing with their similarities and differences of existing public housing for elderly, one will be able to understand the strengths and weaknesses of current situation and to pursue possible improvement strategies on housing issues.

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Reference: Reference: [Chicago human science citation style, 15 citations max].

Alzheimerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Society. 2006. Facts about Dementia: Facts about Dementia: < h t t p s : / / w w w. a l z h e i m e r s . o r g . u k / s i t e / s c r i p t s / d o c u m e n t s . php?categoryID=200120> [accessed 3 May 2016].

Census and Statistics Department. 2011. Hong Kong Population Projections. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Special Administration Region Government Printer.

Census and Statistics Department. 2016. Hong Kong Population Projections. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Special Administration Region Government Printer.

Chan, W. C. 2010. Lived experience of caregivers of persons with dementia in Hong Kong: A qualitative study. East Asian Archives of Psychiatry.

(Chan 2010, 20(4), 163â&#x20AC;&#x201C;168) DeWalt, Kathleen M. & DeWalt, Billie R. 2002. Participant observation: a guide for fieldworkers. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

(DeWalt 2002) Inda, J. 2005. Analytics of the Modern: An Introduction. In Inda, J. (ed.), Anthropologies of Modernity: Foucault, Governmentality, and Life Politics. Oxford: Blackwell.

(Inda 2005, 1-22) Mace, R. 1985. Universal design: Barrier free environments for everyone. Designers West.

(Mace 1985, 147-152) Plassman, B. L. 2007. Prevalence of dementia in the United States: The aging, demographics, and memory study. Neuroepidemiology.

(Plassman 2007, 29(1-2), 125-13)

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Russell, L. 1999. The future of the built environment. The Millennium Papers. London: Age Concern England.

(Russell 1999) Schensul 1999. Essential Ethnographic Methods: observations, interviews, and questionnaires. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

(Schensul 1999) United Nations. 2015. World population prospects. New York: United Nations.

(United Nations 2015) Weiss, R.S. 1973. Loneliness: The experience of emotional and social isolation. Cambridg., MA: MIT Press.

(Weiss 1973)

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PhD Researcher (3rd year)

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Ms. Kimberly Anne Sheen Qualifications: BA – Florida State University (Cum Laude).

MLIS – Florida State University (4.0).

MSc – University College London (Merit).

Email: Kimberly.Sheen@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Dr. Yan Luximon (Tina) (Main) Dr. Clifford Choy (Co)

Biography: Kimberly Sheen is a PhD candidate in the School of Design at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Born in Hinsdale, Illinois, she received her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature with a Minor in Communications from Florida State University. She holds a Master of Library and Information Studies from Florida State University in Information Architecture and Web Design and a Master of Science from University College London in Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics. Currently her research focuses on electronic textbooks and ergonomics. She is interested in areas of research related to designing technology for humans, human computer interaction, and organizational implementation of technology.

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Title: Design recommendations for future of electronic textbooks in the engineering and design disciplines.

Keywords: Electronic textbooks, Ergonomics, Interface components, Interface Design, Education technology, Technology and design.

Research Report: Many universities around the world are shifting from physical textbooks to electronic textbooks. Yet the future of electronic textbooks is still in its infancy. There is a distinct lack of research on whether this type of textbook can even meet studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; task requirements and how they may affect academic progress. To address this gap, investigation into how student characteristics play a role in the perception of future electronic textbooks, what supporting tasks students preform whilst completing readings in both types of textbooks and how it differs, what aspects and components students and professors feel are necessary for future electronic textbooks, what the discrepancies between students and professorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; perceptions are, and how changes based on these needs and desires will be utilized and accepted will be undertaken. Past research has shown that perceived usefulness is key to the acceptance of new technology and that intuitive displays are essential to the user experience. Thus, the findings will provide crucial recommendations for future electronic textbooks to better support studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; tasks, facilitate the adoption of the electronic textbooks, and minimize the student-professor mismatch.

To discover the perspectives and habits of students and professors that are vital to this research, exploratory methods will be used. This research area is inherently constructivist because of the multiple

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realities different disciplines construct regarding electronic textbooks.

In line with constructivism, the methodology of this research follows the naturalistic paradigm. The form of inquiry based on this paradigm will allow for an understanding and meaningful conclusions to be drawn. Qualitative research allows for the understanding of how students and professors construct their realities, but it lacks the generalizability of findings that is available through a quantitative approach. By following a mixed approach, using qualitative and quantitative methods, the research will be more descriptive, in-depth, and meaningful. The individual methods that will be used are a survey, focus groups, interviews, an experiment, and usability testing of prototypes that will be developed based on the literature and previous methods.

During the past two years, I have honed my research questions based on feedback gained through my confirmation and I have developed and completed my focus groups with undergraduate students from the design and engineering faculties, conducted interviews with professors, and conducted an experiment on current electronic textbooks. I have also started to design the prototypes and will conduct usability tests on these prototypes.

At this time, I have acquired the majority of my expected outcomes. I now have an in depth understanding of how disciplines view electronic textbooks, complete their reading tasks, and how the characteristics of the discipline play a role in student habits.

In addition, I have finalized a list of aspects and components that students believe are necessary for electronic textbooks. I have also identified differences in learning approaches and views of learning material for two similar disciplines, engineering and design. Through these findings, I have gained immense insight into the differences in discipline needs and approach to learning and product design.

During the next six months, I will finish my prototypes and complete my usability testing. I will then outline my findings and process in my dissertation.

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Key publications: Sheen, Kimberly Anne, and Luximon, Yan. 2016. “Student Views on Academic Reading and its Future in the Design and Engineering Disciplines.” International Journal On Advances in Life Sciences 8(3&4): 257-266. Accessed January 20, 2017. url: http://www. iariajournals.org/life_sciences/lifsci_v8_n34_2016_paged.pdf Luximon, Yan, Sheen, Kimberly Anne, and Luximon, Ameersing. 2016.

“Time dependent infrared thermographic evaluation of facemasks.”

Work 54(4): 825-835.

Sheen, Kimberly Anne, and Luximon, Yan. 2016. “Academic Professor Perception of the Future of Electronic Textbooks.” In Advances in Physical Ergonomics and Human Factors, 165-173. Springer International Publishing.

Sheen, Kimberly Anne, and Luximon, Yan. 2016. “Focus Group Study on Student Perception of Electronic Textbooks.” In ACHI 2016, The Ninth International Conference on Advances in Computer-Human Interactions, 110-115. Venice, Italy: IARIA. Sheen, Kimberly Anne, and Luximon, Yan. 2015. “The Future of Electronic Textbooks from a User Perspective.” In International Conference on Learning and Collaboration Technologies, 704-713.

Springer International Publishing.

Sheen, Kimberly Anne, and Luximon, Yan. 2015. “Relationship between academic discipline and user perception of the future of electronic textbooks.” Procedia Manufacturing 3, 5845-5850.

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PhD Researcher (3rd year)

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Mr. Tan Liang Qualifications: BA – Hunan University of Technology MFA – Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Email: liang.tan@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Prof. Kenny Chow (Main) Prof. Gino Yu (Co)

Biography: Tan Liang (Ricky) started his PhD study in Dec. 2014. His current research interests include tangible interaction design, interactive space and creative coding. He has over 10 years’ experience in teaching and design practice related to digital media art. In 2004, he started to teach in New Media Art & Design program at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, and was promoted to associate professor in 2013. He was also a visiting scholar at Art School of Aix-en-Provence in France where he studied creative coding and worked for several projects of public interactive installation from Oct. 2009 to Jun. 2010. His book Processing - Interactive Programming Art is one of the most popular publications in digital media education in China. His design projects include “Tunnel” (interactive installation) in China Pavilion at EXPO 2005 Aichi, Japan and “Bamboo Grove” in China Pavilion at EXPO 2010 Shanghai, China.

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Title: An Embodied Approach to the Analysis and Design of Experience with Ambient Media

Keywords: Embodied cognition, ambient media, audience experience.

Research Report: Abstract With the emerging trend toward fostering situated and engaged experience in Human-Computer Interaction, embodiment is widely accepted as an important theoretical basis in research of interaction design and HCI. Ambient media, as a novel media form, can actively engage people in situated interaction by integrating interactive technology with physical environment, but few studies have explored meaningful audience experience with ambient media in context of embodiment. Building on embodied cognition, this research aims to identify and analyze key characteristics of audience experience and the role of physical interaction in meaning making through theoretical and empirical studies. This report briefly presents the research progress, which comprises establishing a theoretical framework, conducting case analyses and experimental tests, analyzing qualitative data, and discussing relevant periodic findings.

Introduction While design paradigm is continually shifting from designing for usability to designing for meaningful experience, extensive design research has concentrated on the embodied, emotional, and hedonic properties in peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experience with products and interactive systems (Desmet and Hekkert 2007, 60; Hassenzahl, Diefenbach,

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and Göritz 2010, 354). People’s everyday experience is increasingly mediated by pervasive and accessible digital computing, and the vision of interaction design tends to expand to designing meaningful experience for people’s everyday activity. Embodiment highlights the dominant role of people’s sensory-motor interactions in shaping cognition, understanding digital media, and expressing meaning (Chow 2013, 1-6; Gibbs 2006, 1-13; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999, 16-20).

Furthermore, ambient intelligence embeds technology in everyday physical environment to support people’s intuitive interactions in living, work, and public spaces. Interactive ambient media shift daily objects and environments into novel interactive forms which aim to actively engage people in meaningful interactions by providing bodily and cognitive affordances (Tan and Chow 2016, 2; Lugmayr 2012, 356). In spite of the fact that experiential and physical issues become widely concerning to researchers in HCI and interaction design, few studies have been done to investigate the mechanism between embodied engagement and creating meaningful experience in the context of ambient media. Against this background, the major research questions are addressed: What major factors can be identified in audience experience with ambient media? How can bodily engagement inform meaningful experience? What mechanism can reflect the relationship between engagement process and audience experience?

Theoretical and methodological considerations This research establishes a theoretical framework for investigating audience experience with ambient media by reviewing relevant literature on embodied cognition, ambient media and audience experience. Embodiment emphasizes that human cognitive processes are essentially grounded in sensory-motor experience with the physical world. Dourish (2001, 153-154) proposed embodied interaction as a theoretical foundation for HCI research, and he believes that meaningmaking is a process of physical and social interactions. The interaction between human and machine is embedded in a composition of both physical (tangible) experience and social (cultural) experience, and user experience is created from direct and situated engagement with

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living environments. Ambient media are embedded in the everyday environments and people are more likely to be immersed in it with intuitive actions (Hespanhol and Tomitsch 2015, 311). Ambient media has three major properties: The novel physical forms (Spatiality) of ambient media attract attention of audience and provide affordances for bodily interaction. The audience may experience unexpected feedbacks (Unexpectedness) when being engaged in embodied interactions with ambient media (Engagement). Audience experience is an active process of engagement where the perceptual, emotional, kinesthetic, and cognitive responses are derived from interactions (Tan and Chow 2016, 4). “Audience experience” is used to differentiate “audience” from “user” of product design and “consumer” of marketing.

The nature of this research is to inquire actions, engagement, and the richness of experience, which is in accordance with the instrumental and experiential features of experience, which is in accordance with the instrumental and experiential features of pragmatic paradigm that considers experience and empirical method as a continuous cycle in terms of primary experience and the refined objects of reflection requiring a systematic thinking. Following the paradigm of pragmatism, I draw on an analytical and interpretive research approach including case studies, experimental studies, and qualitative analysis to investigate audience experience with ambient media.

Research progress (1). Literature review and theoretical study (December 2014 – November 2015) (2). Case studies (December 2015 – May 2016) Based on the key elements of the theoretical framework, an analytical model was built for interpretive analysis of ten ambient media cases. This model integrates multi-level experience dimension, the properties of ambient media, and embodied metaphor. The results of case analyses include a preliminary model of meaning making in embodied interaction and a typology of ambient media, which

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provide a possible direction for further empirical studies.

(Tan, L., and K. K. N. Chow. 2016. "An embodied interaction framework for facilitating audience experience with ambient media."

Paper presented at the Fourth International Conference on Design Creativity, Atlanta, GA, USA.) (3). Empirical study 1 (June 2016 – December 2016) After identifying a series of criteria for the first experimental study, I built a high-fidelity prototype as an experimental test bed for understanding audience experience. Qualitative data was collected through observation and semi-structured interviews. A coding scheme was developed through thematic analysis, by which qualitative results reflecting participants’ primary experience were summarized.

The findings show bodily movement plays a key role in eliciting metaphorical meaning and facilitating new audience experience.

A model of movement-based meaning making was developed to illustrate the cognitive processing of embodied conceptual mapping and schema-based imagination.

(A paper was submitted to the 11th ACM Conference on Creativity and Cognition) (4). Empirical study 2 (January 2017 – May 2017) As previous empirical studies (e.g., Van Rompay & Ludden, 2015) demonstrate that visual and material properties of physical product and visual elements can elicit sensory experience from which perception-based metaphorical meaning is derived, meaning making does not entirely rely on real-time bodily actions. This research stage aims to explore: What are other types of mechanism in metaphorical mapping except for movement-based one? Is there a possible way to investigate embodied experience with other ambient media works for a more holistic understanding? What other embodied schemas can be identified as design guidance for meaningful experience with ambient media?

(5). Thesis writing (June 2017 – November 2017)

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Reference: Chow, K. K. N. 2013. Animation, embodiment, and digital media: human experience of technological liveliness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Desmet, P., and P. Hekkert. 2007. "Framework of Product Experience."

International Journal of Design 1 (1):57-66.

Dourish, P. 2001. Where the action is: the foundations of embodied interaction. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Gibbs, R. W. 2006. Embodiment and cognitive science. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Hassenzahl, M., S. Diefenbach, and A. Göritz. 2010. "Needs, affect, and interactive products - Facets of user experience." Interacting with computers 22 (5):353-362.

Hespanhol, L., and M. Tomitsch. 2015. "Strategies for Intuitive Interaction in Public Urban Spaces." Interacting with Computers 27 (3):311-326.

Lakoff, G., and M. Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York: Basic Books.

Lugmayr, A. 2012. "Connecting the real world with the digital overlay with smart ambient media—applying Peirce’s categories in the context of ambient media." Multimedia tools and applications 58 (2):385-398.

Tan, L., and K. K. N. Chow. 2016. "An embodied interaction framework for facilitating audience experience with ambient media."

Paper presented at the Fourth International Conference on Design Creativity (4th ICDC), Atlanta, GA, USA. Van Rompay, T., and G. Ludden. 2015. "Types of Embodiment in Design: The Embodied Foundations of Meaning and Affect in Product Design." International Journal of Design 9 (1):1-11.

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PhD Researcher (1st year)

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Ms. Yuanhong Ma Qualifications: B. Arch â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Harbin Institute of Technology M.Arch â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Harbin Institute of Technology Email: yuanhong.ma@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Prof. Kin Wai Michael Siu

Biography: Yuanhong Ma, Rachel is a Joint PhD student for dual awards between Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Harbin Institute of Technology.

She is an architect and a researcher, specializing in senior living buildings, facilities and environment design. During her undergraduate study, she had done some research on architecture design in cold area in China. Besides, she worked as a part-time assistant designer in Architecture Design and Research Institute of HIT, wherein she participated in many design projects, including residence and community design, hospital design, campus design, and urban planning.

She joined the School of Design in January 2017 as a PhD candidate, now she is also a PhD candidate in HIT for her second year study.

Her research project is related to elderly facilities and building design, Environmental Behavior Psychology and Social Design. Now she is working on the research on how to design a new kind of community elderly facilities to meet the lifespan development needs of Chinese urban senior citizens.

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Title: Developing a Social Ecological Systems Model of Senior Living Facilities in Existing Urban Communities: a case study in China

Keywords: Ecological Systems Theory (EST), Senior living facilities, Social Design, Existing Urban Communities, China

Research Report: Introduction The senior population numbers are rising at a staggering rate and this is expected to continue to increase in the future, especially in China.

Since 1999, Chinese government promoted the “9073” social service system for the senior, that is to say more than 97% of urban elders will live and age in communities. Communities act as the main living place and source of social support for Chinese urban elders. Besides, based on Lifespan Developmental Physiology, the senior people prefer to live in their familiar surroundings which can give them a sense of belonging or attachment to place (Shirley L. O'Bryant, 1982; Wiles, Janine L., et al, 2009). As growth and decline happen throughout the life cycle and the environment or spatial domain would affect human’s behavior and development (Léonie Sugarman, 2001; Robert S. Feldman, 2013; Paul B Baltes, 1999; Altman I, 1975; Gardner, G. T., & Stern, P. C.,1996), a well-designed social system and community condition would play a positive role in elders’ lifespan development.

However, in China, the existing senior service system has problems.

Community support for the elderly in China are confronted with a number of social problems, like lacking pre-design for the elderly, lacking communication and lacking professional care (Si Wei, Wang Yuan, 2015; Li Xiaoyun, 2014). Thus, it is necessary to create appropriate retirement facilities, environment and social ecological

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systems model in their original communities to meet their demands of successful aging.

Objectives The senior’s living atmosphere and surroundings, especially the original or old built communities, are not suitable for seniors’ cognitive and social-emotional development. Their needs are neglected or negative so much so that it needs to create a positive system and environment for the elders. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (EST) is the most widely adopted theoretical framework for studying individuals in ecological contexts (Bronfenbrennr, 1977, 1979). It divides the environment into different systems which would influence the development of an individual interactively. Based on the situation of existing urban communities in China, the research presents how the EST can be applied to develop senior living facilities. Based on the EST, taking social design into consideration, it will also develop a model of Social Ecological Systems Model (SES) for the elders, to understand the social design for the senior in the urban communities. Taking elders’ biological changes, cognitive changes and socio-emotional changes into consideration, the SES Model of elderly seeks to identify and rebuild the positive relationships among society, community and neighborhood, in order to make elders aging successfully in the context of urban communities and their familiar surroundings.

Research Questions What are the original Ecological Systems for the elderly citizens based on the EST of Bronfenbrennr?

What are the key elements for building a Social Ecological Systems (SES) Model, and what is the appropriate social design process for Chinese urban community seniors?

How the developed SES Model of senior living facilities ground a fundamental perspective to understand the relationship among the seniors, buildings and facilities in communities, and whether it needs

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any modify?

Research Methodology The research is divided into three phases. The first phase is a case study of Chinese urban social and living condition analysis for the senior. Based on the finding of the case study and literature review of EST, the second part of the research uses theoretical analysis, and proposes to create a Social Ecological Systems Model of senior people and senior living facilities. The final step is interview, survey and data analysis to verify and modify the model built in the second phase.

Research outcomes In the past months, a thorough review of literature was conducted.

This literature included theories and models of Ecological Systems, lifespan developmental physiology and social support for the elderly.

The literature provides a foundation for understanding and analyzing the elderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s demands which can support the theoretical analysis of SES Model.

Plan for The following work In the next few month, I will build a universal SES model based on case study, Ecological system theory and Social Design for Chinese elderly citizens. And investigate some communities and interview senior people in different contexts, and put forwards the focuses of design model in different contexts. In order to carry out my research, I will complete a write-up or paper about the SES Model. In addition, since I want to design a new kind of community elderly facilities based on the SES model and complete my thesis, I will analysis the eldersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; persona in China and put forward the design process and principles for the new kind of community elderly facilities.

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Reference: Bronfenbrenner, U. 1977. Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32, 513â&#x20AC;&#x201C;531.

Bronfenbrenner, U. 1979. The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Chen, Dung-Sheng, et al.2016. "Social design: An introduction."

International Journal of Design 10.1.

Neal, Jennifer Watling, and Zachary P. Neal. 2013. "Nested or networked? Future directions for ecological systems theory." Social Development 22.4: 722-737.

O'Bryant S L. 1982. The value of home to older persons: Relationship to housing satisfaction[J]. Research on Aging, 4(3): 349-363.

Wiles, Janine L., et al. 2009. Older people and their social spaces: A study of well-being and attachment to place in Aotearoa New Zealand. Social Science & Medicine 68.4: 664-671.

William M. PeĂąa, Steven A. Parshall. 2001. Problem Seeking: An Architectural Programming Primer. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons Inc

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PhD Researcher (2nd year)

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Mr. Oluwole Abayomi SOYINKA Qualifications: OND. OSCOTECH B.Sc. UNILAG M.Sc. UNILAG Email: oluwole.a.soyinka@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Prof. Kin Wai Michael SIU.

Biography: The Lagos born Tpl. Oluwole, has a strong back ground in Urban and Regional Planning and he holds several awards at different areas of his career pursuits.

He, is a Registered Town Planner (TOPREC), a Member of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planning (MNITP) and a Member of the Nigerian Institute of Management (MNIM). Oluwole, has built career in professional planning practices with different planning projects and teaching with research at the University of Lagos, Nigeria over the years. He has passion for sustainable development, urban public space, urban informality and infrastructure planning. He has published several international peer review journals, book chapters, unpublished academic projects and dissertations with several other papers under peer-review from his area of research interest. Oluwole is sponsored by the Hong Kong Research Grant Council Ph.D. Fellowship at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, to study Urban Informality and ProPoor Infrastructure Planning: A Comparative Study of Hong Kong and Lagos Metropolis.

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Title: Urban Informality and Pro-Poor Infrastructure Planning: A Comparative Study of Hong Kong and Lagos Metropolis.

Keywords: Urban Planning, Sustainable Development, Urban Informality, Infrastructure Planning, Environmental Design

Research Report: 1. Overview Considering the global challenges of urban informality, infrastructure inadequacy and poor habitation in urban design and planning with its critical damages to global environment (Habitat III 2015). This thesis investigates Hong Kong experience, its challenges and success in urban informal settlement and infrastructure planning and Lagos metropolis, Nigeria, so as to draw out concepts and strategies to ameliorate this challenge globally.

The aim of this research is to investigate infrastructure planning in selected informal settlement of Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria and Hong Kong with the view to develop strategies for sustainable settlement and infrastructure planning. Above all, the research intends to answer the research question of â&#x20AC;&#x153;what is the significant relationship between informal settlement and infrastructure planning in achieving sustainable urban settlement and environmental design of Hong Kong and Lagos metropolisâ&#x20AC;?

This study adopts case study research methodology, triangulation method of data collection and mixed method of data analysis. The selection of settings in (Lagos Metropolis and Hong Kong) uses the multi-criteria method for the decision rule.

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Triangulation method of data collection is use as data collection strategy in this study and the triangulation method involves more than two methods of data collection strategy. The sampling procedures first consider criteria method to determine the sample size and then the random sample method to determine the respondent. The data analysis adopts mixed method of data analysis and followed by the study of the two case studies using the criteria selected in both countries. Literatures review and conceptual framework serves as support and part of the triangulation methods of data collection and conduct of the thesis.

2. Discussion The research student has been involved in several academic research activities in relation to the student thesis development in the last six months and this includes a, the student thesis confirmation exam, b, the data collection exercise in Lagos metropolis, c, paper presentation at the RISUD Annual International Symposium 2016 (RAIS 2016)Smart Cities, d, Conference research paper in Shanghai China, e, the data collection exercise in Hong Kong and several journal and conference paper accepted among other academic activities.

The summary and the noteworthy outcomes of the student academic activities in relation to the thesis writing reflects that the challenges of urban informality and infrastructure planning is a global challenge, and the challenge is identified to associate with several other factors as its inducers in different countries as in different forms.

As the study of Lagos metropolis reflects that there is a significant relationship vis-Ă -vis urban informality and infrastructure planning and which cannot be categorically stated about Hong Kong, based on data collected and interviews carried out so far. The outcome of the research activities carried out also reflects strategies and approach to achieve sustainable development globally but required the research student testing and presenting their feasibility and viability to ameliorate the challenges by presenting them in conference and journal publications.

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3. Future Plans/Actions The research studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plan for the next six months and to the end of the student program is to attend conferences, workshops, research training activities, develop journal paper and book chapters that will guide the student thesis writing and compilation by adopting the constructive feedback received in consideration of the study areas, the data collected in the studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis writing and compilation.

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Reference: Agbola, Tunde, & Agunbiade, Elijah M. 2009. Urbanization, Slum Development and Security of Tenure: The Challenges of Meeting Millennium Development Goal 7 in Metropolitan Lagos, Nigeria. A. de Sherbiniin, A. Rahman, A. Barbieri, JC Fotso, and Y. Zhu (eds.), 316 Pages.

Alan, Smart. 2001. Unruly Places: Urban Governance and the Persistence of Illegality in Hong Kong's Urban Squatter Areas. Journal of American Anthropologist, American Anthropological Association., Vol. 1(Issues 103), Pages 30-44.

Hernรกndez, Felipe, Peter William Kellett, and Lea K Allen. 2010.

Rethinking the informal city: critical perspectives from Latin America.

Vol. 11: Berghahn Books.

Kennett, Patricia, and Toshio Mizuuchi. 2010. "Homelessness, housing insecurity and social exclusion in China, Hong Kong, and Japan." City, Culture and Society 1 (3):111-118.

Lawanson, Taibat, and Samson Fadare. 2015. "Environment and health disparities in urban communities: Focus on Eti Osa, Nigeria."

City, Culture and Society 6 (1):43-52.

Rufina Wu, and Stefan Canham. 2009. Portraits from Above-Hong Kong's Informal Rooftop Communities: MCCM Creations, Peperoni Books.

Tam, Isabella Yin Shan. 2012. "Hidden Slum-Poor People in Rich Hong Kong."

Ziblim, A. 2013. The Dynamics of Informal Settlements Upgrading in South Africa: Legislative and Policy Context, Problems, Tensions, and Contradictions. Final Report, Habitat for International/EMEA office, Bratislava, Slovakia.

Inam, Aseem. 2015. "Informality and Urbanism." http:// informalurbanisms.org/informality-and-urbanism-aseem-inam-ph-d/.

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PhD Researcher (1st year)

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Ms. Huang Lusha Qualifications: MFAâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;School of Visual Arts.

BFA â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.

Email: lusha.huang@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Prof. Hanna Wirman (Main) Prof. Kin Wai Michael SIU (Co)

Biography: Huang Lusha is an industrial designer, interaction designer, and researcher with a keen understanding of innovation and a passion for culture change. Lusha is from Guangzhou, China where she gained a BA in Industrial design at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Her passion for design has been recognized in various international design competitions, such as the IF Design Award. She holds five patents for her work and was the only Chinese student asked to participate in the Milano Salone in 2012.

She earned her MFA degree in Products of Design from School of Visual Arts in New York city. As a designer, Lusha channels her upbeat personality and love for learning and technology into her products and interactive designs. She worked at Quirky and littleBits in New York City, where discovered her interest in smart objects and The Internet of Things (IoT). She also worked as a design researcher at IDEO New York. Before she came to PolyU, she worked as an industrial designer, designed consumer products for Polycom, Belkin at Pip Tompkins Studio in Los Angeles. With a strong point of view she wants to use her design power to promote equality for the real people and real world.

In July 2016, she joined the School of Design as a Ph.D. student to explore the needs for Visually Impaired People.

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Title: Enhancing the Digital Product Experience through Gamification for the Visually Impaired Using Empathic Design and Sensory Ethnography

Keywords: Digital Product Experience, Visually Impaired People, Gamification, Empathic Design Research, Sensory Ethnography

Research Report: Introduction While there are numerous digital products designed specifically for visually impaired people (VIP), such products often receive negative reviews from users. In most cases, the designers did not fully understand the needs of VIP, they did not empathise enough with VIP. The target research subjects of my study are VIP who, despite lacking the sense of sight, have other stronger senses. Empathic design research and sensory ethnography will be adopted as the core values and the two main points of departure throughout this research. The principal objective is to develop an approach rooted in sensory ethnography in order to rethink the empathic design research.

As such, this research aims to contribute to efforts to employ the sensory ethnography methodology to uncover the real life stories and experiences of VIP and to explore their actual needs in everyday life contexts. Therefore, the study will focus on how VIP use their sense of smell, touch, hearing and taste to enrich their life experience. In addition, I will use gamification which can enhance the engagement of the digital products to do my study. Crucially, the findings of this study will fill the research gap for VIP in the field of digital technologies.

This paper can help advance design research of VIP. Moreover, I will consider how to utilise sensory ethnography to understand how interdisciplinary partnerships. It is worth remembering that VIP are

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often able to do what their sighted counterparts can. Therefore, it is imperative to enrich VIP’s life experience and help them to build their perception. The objective of this Ph.D. project is to assess and determine the needs of VIP in order to propose innovative solutions to enhance their experience in the digital world. The intuitive ability to identify with the thoughts and feelings of VIP in order to determine their actual needs and values will be fundamental to the success of the current research project.

Research Question The principal research question of my research is: how could the digital product experience of VIP be enhanced through gamification using empathic design and sensory ethnography? Pelling (2002) first introduced the term “gamification” as he discussed making electronic transactions both fast and enjoyable by applying game-like user interface design. The main research question will be supplemented with the following five sub-questions: - What is the current situation of VIP using digital products in Hong Kong?

- How can the researcher successfully implement the empathic design and sensory ethnography methodology to better understand the needs of VIP? - How do VIP use their non-visual senses to engage with the world?

What is the difference between VIP in the Hong Kong and those in other regions, for example, Guangzhou, Japan and the US? - What is the best way to add the gamification element to digital products in order to enhance the experience of VIP? In this study, the focus will mainly be on VIP aged between 18 and 35 in Hong Kong. During the past six months, I have conducted a preliminary investigation at Ebenezer School, the only specialist school for visually impaired students in Hong Kong. There are some key insights to address. Polly, a social worker at Ebenezer School, commented that the students’ lives are quite meaningful and enjoyable due to smartphones. She also emphasised that, ‘What you can do, they can also do’. VIP are familiar with their everyday

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life. Accordingly, enriching VIPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life experience is a key objective.

However, going to unfamiliar places and trying new things often concerns VIP and their families. The focus will be on enhancing VIPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s digital experience to enrich their quality of life by adding encouraging elements through gamification. Burke (2014) proposes that gamification, a compelling tool, is used by numerous organizations in their digital engagement strategy to motivate people to achieve their goal. Balata, Franc, Mikovec, and Slavik (2016) propose the concept of gamification as the process of integrating game components and game development methods to devise solutions to serious issues, including business problems and social or healthcare challenges.

Meanwhile, Balata et al., (2016) also suggest that VIP can navigate collaboratively by adopting game elements. Ultimately, the findings can contribute to the identification of more applicable empathetic solutions. For instance, hypothetically, it could direct user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) designers for digital products to an empirical method that would ensure more relevant [design outcomes/ designs] and make their product more accessible to VIP.

Research methodology This study will use a hybrid empathic design research and sensory ethnography methodology to uncover the real life stories and experiences of VIP. The research methodology consists of three main elements, namely secondary research, exploratory research, and research through design (Figure 1). The data from these three elements is consolidated and analysed parallel to them. Nevertheless, these four main sections are not governed by a fixed order but all conducted simultaneously. They will be conducted iteratively as part of an agile process.

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Figure 1: overview of the research methodology utilised

The various methods which will be adopted in order to conduct this research will now be outlined. I only talk about the exploratory research in this paper. In-depth multisensory participant observation, semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and surveys will be conducted at the Hong Kong Society for the Blind. I will engage in sensorial observations through VIPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s participation in the environments and practices they share with others. Furthermore, I will seek to understand the living environments and activities of VIP. This encompasses the material, digital, social, invisible and intangible aspects. Multisensory participation, which spans textures and sounds, unanticipated smells and unexpected sensory experiences, can enhance the researcherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s empathy towards the target users of this research (Pink, 2015). Participants will be asked questions relating to their feelings, opinions and disparate ways of using their body and

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senses.

What is more, I will observe the participants undertaking activities together, such as night walking, having dinner, and perceiving fivesense experiences. Using video in the research process was essential as a facilitating tool in that it enabled us to examine the material and sensory qualities of these items performatively. During the video tour, I will encourage VIP to express and show how they explore a new location using their sensoriality and materiality as props and prompts. Some participants will actually feel, smell and engage sensorially with items in the surrounding environment as a way of asserting their sensory qualities while engaging in the verbal decisionmaking procedure and articulating their meanings as well (Pink, 2015).

The video will encourage research participants to use their whole bodies and material environments to show their multisensoriality experiences through these behaviours (for discussions of the findings of this study see Pink 2005b, 2007c). To discover as many needs as possible for VIP, critical design approach will be used to determine the possibilities for users in the initial stages of this research. Compared to conventional ethnography which only represents findings through text, representations of sensory ethnography are not only for academia but also public audiences (Pink, 2015). New practices for communicating the results of sensory ethnography are emerging, which sometimes take the form of academic writing, ethnographic filmmaking or collaborations with artists (Pink, 2015). The outputs have shifted from text to video, photography and art. Consequently, the researcher will consider, as a designer, how to best utilise design skills to showcase the findings of this research.

Future study plan During the following six months, I will devise a specific research plan that facilitates the use of sensory ethnography for data collection. The video tour will be conducted in the Hong Kong Blind Union. The initial prototype will be developed based on critical design for empirical study. Subsequently, at least one conference paper concerning the use of sensory ethnography for VIP will be submitted.

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Reference: Balata, Jan, Jakub Franc, Zdenek Mikovec, and Pavel Slavik.

"Collaborative navigation of visually impaired." Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces 8, no. 2 (2014): 175-185.

Balata, Jan, Zdenek Mikovec, Pavel Slavik, and Miroslav Macik. "Game Aspects in Collaborative Navigation of Blind Travelers." In Handbook of Research on Holistic Perspectives in Gamification for Clinical Practice, pp. 497-523. IGI Global, 2016.

Burke, Brian. "Gamify: How gamification motivates people to do extraordinary things. Bibliomotion." Inc., Apr (2014).

Pelling, Nick. "Conundra Ltd - Home Page." Conundra Ltd - Home Page. Accessed February 13, 2017. http://www.nanodome.com/ conundra.co.uk/.

Pink, Sarah. "Walking with video." Visual Studies 22, no. 3 (2007): 240252.

Pink, Sarah. Doing sensory ethnography. Sage, 2015.

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PhD Researcher (3rd year)

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Ms GUAN Jing Qualifications: BHons â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Nanjing Forestry University.

MSc â&#x20AC;&#x201C; University of Edinburgh.

Email: dorajing.guan@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Dr. Clifford Choy (Main) Prof.Peter Hasdell (Co)

Biography: Guan Jing holds a master degree in Product Design from The University of Edinburgh, UK in 2014. She got her bachelor degree in Furniture Design (Industrial Design) from Nanjing Forestry University, Jiangsu in 2012. In 2014, she joined the School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her PhD research area is design and technology, with a focus on a developing a design toolkit for visually impaired people on travelling experience.

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Title: Towards a Design Toolkit for Visually Impaired People on Travelling Experience.

Keywords: Visually Impaired people, design toolkit, travelling experience, information management.

Research Report: Going out to do some activities can improve visually impaired peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s well-being, the perception of self-esteem and self-competence, and preserve them from handicap. It is widely accepted that the right to fully participate into the community and enjoy the life is the same for people with or without a visual impairment. However, when designing interactive products for visually impaired people on enhancing their travelling experience, designer should be equipped with relevant knowledge, frameworks and methods, which are quite different from those for sighted people. In fact, there is no holistic and systemic research focus on the visually impaired peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s travelling experience, and many of existing design methods, techniques, and/ or tools are not suitable for user research, as these methods and tools rely on sighted information and communication. Therefore, the aim of my PhD study is to develop a design toolkit, which can help designers identify opportunities, organize design project, and manage their own knowledge database when they conduct an interactive design project for visually impaired people.

The research area of design toolkit for visually impaired peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s travelling experience is a multidisciplinary field. It may include design theories, and specific on user-centered design process (Harper, 2008) and development of design toolkit. It includes psychology through the

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study of making sense of experience (Wright, McCarthy & Meekison, 2005), travelling system and the impact of visual impairment on these aspects (Hersh & Johnson, 2010). It also includes computer science, and more precisely human-computer interaction, through the study of interactive prototyping techniques and non-visual interaction.

The initial design toolkit for visually impaired peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s travelling experience was based on our literature review and personal design experience. We have conducted an exploratory research to understand how designersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; anticipant and real experience an encounter with visually impaired people, we kept track of the design studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; thoughts, feelings, and reflections throughout their design process. The information collected from their self-reports and tutorials served as research data. We investigated this information by means of observations, structured interviews, and questionnaires.

Based on the previous studies, we found that design processes in the interactive technology field are often multi-disciplinary cases, which are often under-productive. When designers or engineers conduct their design project, they will face problems in finding the useful information they are looking for from the existing design toolkit, sharing the information within the design groups, and accumulating information to create their own toolkit.

To solve these problems, in the last semester we reviewed existing information architecture approaches in facilitating knowledge classification and accumulation (like Controlled vocabulary approach, taxonomy approach, ontology approach semantic web approach, and Scema.org approach) (Garshol, 2004; Maedche& Staab, 2001; Bikakis et al., 2013; Berners-Lee et al., 2001), reviewed existing design process communication approaches in facilitating documentation and sharing of knowledge among groups of people working on projects with related scope (e.g. concept map), and reviewed existing tools on website that can facilitate these tasks (e.g. the morphological Chart).

In the coming months, we will further develop the design toolkit

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and hold more trails to evaluate it. Firstly, we will seek a good way to enable designers share and reuse information during the design process effectively; secondly, we will try to figure out how to visualize the design toolkit and improve its usability; thirdly, we will further evaluate the design toolkit by means of holding design workshop.

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Reference: Reference: Berners-Lee, Tim; James Hendler; Ora Lassila 2001. The Semantic Web. Scientific American Magazine. Retrieved March 26, 2008.

Bikakis N., Tsinaraki C., Gioldasis N., Stavrakantonakis I., Christodoulakis S.: "The XML and Semantic Web Worlds: Technologies, Interoperability and Integration. A survey of the State of the Art" In Semantic Hyper/Multi-media Adaptation: Schemes and Applications, Springer 2013.

Garshol, L. M. 2004. Metadata? Thesauri? Taxonomies? Topic maps!

Making sense of it all. Journal of information science, 30(4), 378-391.

Harper, R. H. 2008. Being human: Human-computer interaction in the year 2020. Microsoft Research Limited.

Hersh, M., & Johnson, M. A. 2010. Assistive technology for visually impaired and blind people. Springer Science & Business Media.

Maedche, A. & Staab, S. 2001. "Ontology learning for the Semantic Web". In: Intelligent Systems. IEEE, 16(2): 72â&#x20AC;&#x201C;79.

Wright, P., McCarthy, J., & Meekison, L. 2005. Making sense of experience. In Funology (pp. 43-53). Springer Netherlands.

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PhD Researcher (1st year)

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Mr Chris Shaw Qualifications: MA (Dist), Bournemouth University, UK BA(Hons), Falmouth University, UK Email: chris.shaw@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Dr. Henry Ma Prof. Ilpo Koskinen (Co)

Biography: Chris Shaw is currently the Head of the Puttnam School of Film & Animation, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. He has 23 years experience teaching and managing Undergraduate and Post-Graduate Film and Animation programmes.

His career started in Animation with Walt Disney Animation, on the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He spent several years in the film industry, contributing to films such as Steven Spielbergâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s American Tail II and in the advertising industry producing TV commercials with clients such as BBC, Paul McCartney, IBM, Reuters News Agency, Lego, Halls, Rice Krispies, Ribena, Barclays Bank and MTV. As an educator, Chris has been involved across a wide range of initiatives and incentives including Chairing Education and Training conventions, External moderation, Validation panels and Government Advisory Committees.

He is a Phd candidate in the School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research is focused on Creativity â&#x20AC;&#x201C; more specifically on identifying Educational Frameworks that promote and nurture Imagination as part of the creative process, within the context of Animation.

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Title: Identifying An Educational Framework To Develop Imaginative Thinking For Animation Students : An Asian Perspective.

Keywords: Creativity, Imagination, Thinking, Habit, Singapore, Education Pedagogy, Animation

Research Report: Historically, Singapore has successfully developed at a rapid pace through an economy based on manufacturing. Unfortunately, it is losing its market share at a rapid pace due to the establishment of new economies, specifically the BRICS and ASEAN countries. As a consequence, the Singaporean Government identified the need for a creative and imaginative workforce or ‘creative cluster’ (MTI, 2002) in Singapore in a move towards a knowledge-based economy (KBE) from a skills-based economy (manufacturing). The plan drew on roots from the United Kingdom’s definition and the need for the emergence of Creative Industries during Tony Blair’s administration (Flew 2012).

Although there are a wide range of definitions for Creativity (Kaufman, J. C. and Sternberg, R. J. 2010, Runco, M. A. 2014, Sawyer, R. K. 2012), it is commonly agreed it comprises of Knowledge and a Novelty factor (something new/unique) to produce something of use (Robinson, K. 2011,Sternberg, R. J. 1998). In order to grow the Creative Industries in Singapore, educational programmes understandably need to provide opportunities and resources for students to develop both aspects of this definition – Knowledge and Imagination. Currently, there are considerable methods and approaches to measure Knowledge transfer in schools and students.

This is not the case for Imagination.

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As a subset of the creative process, Imagination is an experimental section of the mind used to develop theories and ideas based on domain specific knowledge. It is the fundamental component in the creative process that provides new or revised ideas (Robinson 2009). It is vital for developing and improving methods, products and services to accomplish the novel, new and unique. Imagination is the ability to consider options (Robinson, K. 2011, Sternberg, R. J. 1988, 1998). It is the rapid prototyping of the brain. It is the ability to apply knowledge and ask â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;What if?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; questions without being limited by obstacles such as conventions and practical rules (Egan 1992).

Within the Singapore context, it proves to be a challenge to instill creative thought processes due to the inherently skills-based education system and extensive focus on swift economic growth instead of the need for time to inculcate creative practices for students (Miles 2013). It is the aim of this project to investigate how a range of creative arts programmes instils creative thinking and specifically how lecturers can develop the imagination of their students.

Additionally, this research also aims to seek a deeper understanding of the relationship between imagination and creativity. Creativity has largely been considered a Western concept and there has been minimal literature on the Asian definitions of creativity and imagination. This project also intends to identify approaches and methods to inculcate the development of the imagination into curriculum to develop habitual creative thinking within a Singaporean, though not limited to, context.

To achieve this, the project will begin with a thorough investigation of the practical uses of creative thinking tools and the factors that affects imaginative thinking. As illustrated in the literature review, it can be assumed that imagination is a contributing factor to creative thinking behaviour. This project will attempt to ascertain the success of creative thinking initiatives taking by a creative arts programmes and will propose a framework to address these findings with the intention of

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developing habitual behaviour over the course of a BA(Hons) 3 year programme, rather than a single classroom exercise.

My initial research questions are listed below.

1. What are identified as best practices and factors in developing the imagination for creative thinking?

2. What are the factors inhabiting and promoting the execution of creative thinking?

3. What are the factors required for the successful assessment of creativity?

4. How can a pedagogical framework be identified and established to develop and nurture the imagination for creative thinking?

5. How can habitual behaviour be exploited to develop the consistent use and internalizing of imagination thinking from explicit to implicit?

Based in the RQs above, my current research involves analysing and comparing established Conceptual Frameworks to identify and define the development and assessment of Creativity. The objective is to: 1. Contextualize an overview of the Historical Research 2. Identify and define key concepts and theories 3. Establish Operational Definitions The aim is to then review and refine my research methods which involved a two-tiered approach â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the first being gathering data through observations made in classrooms and in-depth interviews with students, alumni and teaching staff. The second tier will then be approached through an interpretive content analysis of programme documentation. Data will be collected across 12 to 18 months.

Tier One: Participant Observation and In-depth Interviews Using initial literature on creativity and imaginative thinking, this tier will focus on creating a rubric to assess imaginative thinking and the use of practices and behaviours that demonstrate the presence of imaginative thinking in class. Participant observations of students and

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lecturers will be conducted in order to establish teaching methods and delivery to identify student behaviour, specifically related to approaches in thinking behaviour.

To supplement these observations, in-depth interviews will be conducted with current students, alumni and teaching staff. This will allow the researcher to gain a higher level of the definition of creative thinking tools and imaginative behaviour amongst personnel in each college as well as how creativity differs or is similar amongst individuals of the same education and/or cultural context. Data collected from this tier will also allow the researcher to ascertain if imaginative thinking is being inculcated into staff, students and alumni as a habitual process.

Furthermore, in-depth interviews can also be carried out with Deans, Programme Leaders and the Lecturers. This will allow the researcher to establish the programme philosophy and how it is implemented in classes. Alumni will also be interviewed so as to determine if college education had played a key role in their creative development after graduation.

Tier Two: Content Analysis A second tier of data collection will be added in order to allow the researcher to gain a holistic picture in order to identify links between creativity and the development of imagination as a habitual behaviour.

Content analysis of programme documents would be appropriate for this study as it allows the researcher to overcome individual bias that have the potential to surface during the in-depth interview and participant observation sessions.

Profiling of the staff and students will also be conducted, in an attempt to establish potential contributing factors and influences beyond the classroom â&#x20AC;&#x201C; such as hobbies, interests, activities, family and gender.

In essence, this two-tiered approach will ensure that the study can

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holistically cover the educational landscape required to understand the links between creativity, imagination and habitual behaviour in an Asian context. These research methods will also enable the research to determine if there are creative thinking tools specific to the Asian context. It will also allow the researcher to determine where and when they are being employed and to what affect.

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Reference: Amabile, T. M. (1998). How to Kill Creativity. Harvard Business Review : Innovation Sept-Oct Issue Amabile, T. M. (2012). Componential Theory of Creativity. Harvard Business School Flew, T. (2013). Origins of Creative Industries Policy. In Global Creative Industries. London: Sage Publications. http://site.ebrary.com/ id/10756552.

Kaufman, J. C. and Sternberg, R. J. (2010). The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. Cambridge University Press Landry, C. and Bianchini, F. (2008). The Creative City. Routledge Miles, G. (2013). Is the Singapore Soil Fertile for Creativity?

TODAYonline. http://www.todayonline.com/commentary/singaporesoil-fertile-creativity?page=1.

Ministry of Trade and Industry. (2002). Creative Industries Development Strategy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Propelling Singaporeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Creative Economy.

Ministry of Trade and Industry Singapore. https://www.mti.gov.sg/ ResearchRoom/Documents/app.mti.gov.sg/data/pages/507/doc/ ERC_SVS_CRE_Exec.pdf.

Robinson, K. (2011). Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative.

Capstone Runco, M. A. (2014). Creativity: Theories and Themes: Research, Development, and Practice. Academic Press Sawyer, R. K. (2012) Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation. Oxford University Press Sternberg, R. J. (1988). The Nature of Creativity: Contemporary Psychological Perspectives. Cambridge University Press Sternberg, R. J. (1995). Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity. Free Press Sternberg, R. J. (1998). Handbook of Creativity. Cambridge University Press

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PhD Researcher (3rd year)

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Ms. Peiyao Cheng Qualifications: BEng – Northwestern Polytechnic University.

MSc – Delft University of Technology.

Email: pei-yao.cheng@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Prof.dr.Cees de Bont (Main) Dr.ir. Ruth Mugge(Co)

Biography: Peiyao Cheng is a PhD candidate in School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Born in Xi’an, China, she received her Bachelor of Engineering in Industrial Design from Northwestern Polytechnic University, Xi’an. She earned her Master of Science from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), the Netherlands, specialized in Strategic Product Design. In August 2014, she joined School of Design as a PhD student. Nowadays, designers develop a number of innovative products. She is interested to know how consumers respond to these products. Her PhD project focuses on exploring the role of product appearance on influencing consumers’ comprehension of product innovations.

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Title: Designing for Better Comprehension: Facilitating Consumers’ Comprehension of Really New Products through Designing Product Appearances

Keywords: C o n s u m e r s ’ C o m p re h e n s i o n , P ro d u c t I n n o v a t i o n , P ro d u c t Appearance, Really New Products (RNPs).

Research Report: Overview Designers are more frequently involved in developing product innovations. A product innovation implies that the product being introduced to the market has some novel elements (Chandy and Prabhu 2011). Product innovations can be categorized into incrementally new products (INPs) and really new products (RNPs), depending on the extent to which the novel elements of the product in question differentiate it from the existing products in the market.

INPs (a.k.a. continuous or incremental innovations) are innovations that incorporate new benefits, features, or improvements on existing products, which are based on current technologies and markets.

RNPs (a.k.a. discontinuous or radical innovations) are innovations that integrate advanced technology that has rarely been used in the industry before and enables consumers to do things they were previous unable to do (Garcia and Calantone 2002, Song and Montoya‐Weiss 1998). These products can establish a totally new product category, but can also belong to an existing product category (Goldenberg, Mazursky, and Solomon 1999, Moreau, Lehmann, and Markman 2001). For example, the first smart phone is still perceived as a member of the mobile phone category although it integrated functions that enabled consumers to do more than they could with a traditional mobile phone.

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As INPs and RNPs vary in terms of their innovativeness, consumers respond to these innovations in different ways. Consumers understand INPs relatively easily because they have accumulated sufficient knowledge and experience during daily usage of similar products. In contrast, gaining comprehension of RNPs is difficult for consumers (Hoeffler 2003) because the integration of really new technology calls for completely different ways of thinking and new usage patterns (Veryzer 1998). The knowledge that is needed to understand the new technology goes beyond consumersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; current knowledge (Gatignon and Robertson 1985). This difficulty in comprehending a RNP may even make consumers reluctant to adopt it (Veryzer, 1998), and is considered to be one of the main barriers to the success of RNPs (Hauser, Tellis, and Griffin 2006).

It has been argued that consumers go through five stages when adopting a RNP (Rogers 1995). The first stage is the knowledge stage. In this stage, a consumer becomes aware of an innovation and has some idea of how it functions. As consumers have had only limited experiences with the innovation up to that point, the comprehension obtained by consumers at this stage is predominantly a subjective comprehension of the product innovation. Consumers may either feel that they lack comprehension of the RNP and its novel functions, resulting in a feeling of discomfort and confusion about what the innovation entails, or they may feel confident that they understand the product innovation and its benefits in detail. After the knowledge stage, the persuasive stage starts, in which consumers form a favorable or unfavorable attitude. Next, consumers engage in activities that lead to a choice to adopt or reject the innovation at the adoption stage. The implementation and confirmation stage follows.

In these stages, the consumer uses and evaluates the innovation.

However, unlike the conventional assumption that consumers carefully consider the potential of product innovations during the persuasive and adoption stages, recent research has pointed out that consumersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; resistance to product innovations does not in fact involve a serious evaluation of the product innovation (Talke and Heidenreich 2014).

In most cases, consumersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; initial resistance towards a product innovation is established early in the knowledge stage. If consumers

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feel that they lack comprehension of an innovation, the resulting confusion can result in initial resistance to the innovation. This resistance then leads these consumers to disregard its potential and subsequently reject it. For the successful adoption of innovations, it is crucial that consumers believe that they comprehend the product innovation, as the knowledge stage is a precondition for further evaluation by consumers (Reinders, Frambach, and Schoormans 2010).

Figure 1. The innovation-decision process (Rodgers, 1995)

To facilitate consumers’ comprehension, previous research has explored several effective marketing and communication strategies, such as product bundling (Reinders et al., 2010), mental simulation (Zhao, Hoeffler, and Dahl 2009) and the use of analogical learning in the advertisements of product innovations (Gregan Paxton and John 1997). However, the potentials of designing for better comprehension have not received sufficient research attentions. This PhD project aims to investigate the potential of facilitating consumers’ comprehension of RNPs through designing product appearances. Specifically, this PhD project focuses on three different aspects (i.e., visual complexity, transparency and product metaphor) of product appearances on consumers’ comprehension of RNPs.

Progress So far, three studies have been conducted. Multiple research methods have been used, including controlled experiment, consumer interview and expert interview. Study 1 focused on visual complexity and compared the effect of visual complexity on consumers’ comprehension of INPs and RNPs. Study 2 was conducted with a focus on transparency in product innovations. Study 3 was conducted to clarify the potentials and risks of using product metaphors in RNPs.

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Study 1: ‘Complexity in Simplicity’: The effects of visual complexity on consumers’ comprehension of product innovations Consumers often have difficulty understanding the really new functions of product innovations, which may hinder their acceptance of these innovations. This study explores the potential role of product appearance, and more specifically visual complexity, in improving consumers’ comprehension of product innovations. As visual complexity is under the direct control of designers, it is essential to equip designers with the knowledge of how visual complexity influences consumers’ comprehension.

Two studies were conducted to explore the value of visual complexity in RNPs. In study 1, an experiment was conducted (n = 77) to test how consumers respond to simple and complex product appearances for both INPs and RNPs. The results revealed a significant interaction effect between visual complexity and type of innovation on consumers’ comprehension. Specifically, a more complex product appearance results in a state of congruence with the functions of a RNP, and this congruence positively influences consumers’ comprehension of this innovation. For INPs, no effects for visual complexity were found.

Based on this finding and the aesthetic preference towards simplicity among designers, the design strategy ‘complexity in simplicity’ is proposed. In study 2, experienced designers (N=6) were invited to apply this design strategy. Results showed that it was possible for designers to design really new products following the strategy of ‘complexity in simplicity’ and possible ways to achieve it are explained.

Study 2 --- Transparency in Product Designs: Investigating Design Intentions and Consumers’ Interpretations The application of transparency in product designs is a strategy to create distinct styles and reveal additional product details underneath product covers. By exposing additional product details through transparency, designers intend to convey additional ‘messages’ that consumers need to interpret. This study follows the design as communication framework to investigate the application of transparency in product designs from both designers’ and consumers’ perspectives.

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By in-depth interviews with experienced designers (N=6), five design intentions of using transparency in product designs were identified: influence looks and feels, influence consumer experience, communicate information regarding product operations, show working process, and demonstrate technology. Consumer interviews were conducted to validate these findings from consumers’ perspective (N=13) and results revealed that these design intentions were generally fulfilled. Results further showed that when interpreting transparency in product designs, it was possible for consumers to infer the reason why transparency was used in certain product designs.

Consumers were more likely to actively draw such inferences when transparency was used for demonstrating technology. These findings contribute to the design as communication framework by investigating design intentions and the active role of consumers while interpreting product designs for the product feature of transparency.

Study 3: A smart home system is like a “Mother”! The effects of product metaphor on consumers’ comprehension of RNPs Really new products (RNPs) are often difficult to comprehend, which may hinder consumers’ adoption. It is generally believed that designers can stimulate consumers’ comprehension by embodying RNPs in the form of product metaphors. However, empirical evidence for this is lacking. This study empirically examines the effects of product metaphors on consumers’ comprehension of RNPs. The findings of an experiment (N= 114) demonstrated an interaction effect of the presence of a product metaphor and a textual clue that explains the product metaphor on consumers’ comprehension of RNPs. Specifically, embodying a RNP in the form of a product metaphor will confuse consumers and reduce comprehension, unless the product metaphor is also explained through a textual clue.

However, the reason of the sole presence of a product metaphor leads to consumers’ confusion is still unknown. The benefits of using product metaphors in RNPs other than influencing consumers’ comprehension remain unclear. Therefore, a follow-up study is necessary to discover above questions.

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Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s next?

Currently, I am working on a follow-up study for study 3 and writing literature review chapter for the thesis. For the following months, I plan to finish the follow-up study and finalize the thesis.

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Reference: Chandy, Rajesh K, and Jaideep C Prabhu. 2011. "Innovation typologies." Wiley international encyclopedia of marketing 5.

Garcia, Rosanna, and Roger Calantone. 2002. "A critical look at technological innovation typology and innovativeness terminology: a literature review." Journal of product innovation management 19 (2):110-132.

Gatignon, Hubert, and Thomas S Robertson. 1985. "A propositional inventory for new diffusion research." Journal of consumer research 11 (4):849-867.

Goldenberg, Jacob, David Mazursky, and Sorin Solomon. 1999.

"Toward identifying the inventive templates of new products: A channeled ideation approach." Journal of Marketing Research 36 (2):200-210.

Gregan Paxton, Jennifer, and Deborah Roedder John. 1997.

"Consumer learning by analogy: A model of internal knowledge transfer." Journal of Consumer Research 24 (3):266-284.

Hauser, John, Gerard J Tellis, and Abbie Griffin. 2006. "Research on innovation: A review and agenda for marketing science." Marketing science 25 (6):687-717.

Hoeffler, Steve. 2003. "Measuring preferences for really new products." Journal of Marketing Research 40 (4):406-420.

Moreau, C Page, Donald R Lehmann, and Arthur B Markman. 2001.

"Entrenched knowledge structures and consumer response to new products." Journal of marketing research 38 (1):14-29.

Reinders, Machiel J, Ruud T Frambach, and Jan PL Schoormans. 2010.

"Using product bundling to facilitate the adoption process of radical innovations." Journal of Product Innovation Management 27 (7):1127-

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1140.

Rogers. 1995. Diffusion of innovations: 4th Edition. New York: The Free Press. Reprint, 4th Edition.

Song, X Michael, and Mitzi M Montoyaâ&#x20AC;?Weiss. 1998. "Critical development activities for really new versus incremental products."

Journal of Product Innovation Management 15 (2):124-135.

Talke, Katrin, and Sven Heidenreich. 2014. "How to Overcome ProChange Bias: Incorporating Passive and Active Innovation Resistance in Innovation Decision Models." Journal of Product Innovation Management 31 (5):894-907.

Veryzer, Robert W. 1998. "Discontinuous innovation and the new product development process." Journal of product innovation management 15 (4):304-321.

Zhao, Min, Steve Hoeffler, and Darren W Dahl. 2009. "The role of imagination-focused visualization on new product evaluation." Journal of Marketing Research 46 (1):46-55.

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PhD Researcher (2nd year)

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Mr. Markus WERNLI Qualifications: MFA New Media.

Email: markus.wernli@connect.polyu.hk Supervisor: Prof. Timothy J. JACHNA (Main) Dr. Po-Heng Henry LEE (Co)

Biography: Markus is researching through design, that is, with a critical practice that questions ways of knowing, sensing and being through the enactment and social staging of what is normally understood as the discomforting. His design research centres on questions of humanenvironmental interaction, with specific focus on human relationships to plants and soils. Addressing the socio-cultural aspects of upgrading organic waste in Hong Kong, he launched a citizen-driven learning platform named Fermenting the City to evaluate the viability and sustainability of ecological alternatives in local production and consumption.

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Title: Enzymatic Affordances: Exploring Body-Centered Enablement in Urban Metabolic Relationships

Keywords: Action research, domestic phenology, fermentation, participatory city, gestalt practice, do-it-together, inclusive metabolism enzymatic [en-zahy-mat-ik, -zi-] adjective: relating to, or caused by enzymes: molecular biological catalysts and activators of energy in the transformation processes of food webs. affordance [\ə-ˈfȯr-dəns\] noun: in psychology the qualities or properties of an object or environment that define its possible uses or make clear how it can or should be used.

Research Report: INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION Most people who use a flush toilet in Hong Kong probably do not think where their bodily fluids travel after they release them.

This is because our modern sanitation systems are engineered to eliminate personal responsibilities when it comes to handling these most intimate forms of bodily excretions (Kawa, 2016). With the ability to carry human excrement out of sight, modern infrastructure perpetuates the illusion that human excrement can be made to disappear. In Hong Kong, human excrement is considered waste and mixed up it with graywater from households, industries and street runoff. If the flush toilet is connected to the sewer, human waste is collected in the filtration plant as toxic, greenhousegas-emitting sludge and disposed as toxic cocktail in landfills. During excessive

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storm water, filtration plants are forced to release raw sewage into the ocean. This kind of ‘waste treatment’ shows complete disregard for the potential value of our excrement and for soils and water so vital to human life on this planet. “Everyone shits, but the creation of human waste is a matter of human choice” (Jenkins, 2010). We choose to throw things away rather than reuse them. Human excrement is really only waste if we decide to discard it and treat it as something devoid of value. It has the potential to be many other things, including energy for gas stoves, fertilizer for useful crops or simply organic matter that can feed microbial ecologies in our soils.

For most of humanity’s existence on this planet, people relied primarily on plants that fed them, and people in turn fed the soils that supported them with bowel and bladder movement. Before the development of agriculture, this was likely done without much thought. With the emergence of farming, it became a management practice for many human populations across the world. When properly composted, the activity of thermophilic microbes that break down human excrement will heat the organic matter well beyond the temperature needed to kill most potential pathogens. After their enzymatic work is done, they leave rich humus that is ideal for the production of many crops. Most people in urban Hong Kong, however, find the idea of composting their excreta far too unsavory or inconvenient (not to mention socially alienating) to attempt.

Compared to some rural areas in China that are trying to amend depleted soils, or resource-oriented Europe striving for energy independence, Hong Kong governance seems to lack the perspective for integrating biomass reuse with agricultural, energy production and eco-system services. Nevertheless this does not stop the population from releasing live-giving human nutrients... And, increasingly a few in Hong Kong are looking for ways to buck their dependency as consumers from the linear, throw-away economy and seek more meaningful relations to local communities and natural environment.

Revaluing one’s own bodily residues is imperative if we are to reclaim our biological role in natural energy and material circulations. This

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research explores the unlikely socio-psychological niches for how high-density urban dwellers can creatively relate to their innermost biophysical foundation through participatory processes of enablement and sharing of material pleasures of fermentation, composting and horticulture.

RESEARCH CONCERNS The intention is to move away from the framing of our ecological challenges as a crisis, towards one of supporting creativity (Desmond, 2016) that is rooted in strengthening diverse life forms, social modes and technologies. This study investigates how we can attend more closely to our sensorial, animating bodies-in-process and relating them in tangible, experiential ways with the biological world. The focus is on skills, creative processes, and perceptions for re-engaging practically and sense-able ‐ in ‘passages of food’ between people, microbes, and plants ‐ towards more intimate interbody relationships. The aim of this research is to test out how we can design such dialogical passages that can bring movement into what is considered ‘normalcy’, by helping people to recognize and internalize new dispositions inside their everyday experience. This study wants to contribute to a better understanding for how we can develop an ecological habitus from the bottom up, where the body is a member of the living environment ‐ not separate from it ‐ constituting a lived body/environment continuum. This applied study in grass-roots, small-scale behavioral change is confronted with the following concerns: How can DIY-fermentation of human excrements (in particular urine) in contemporary Hong Kong make sense and enable people to reengage with their bodily role in biophysical circulations?

1. What kind of activation models (tactics) helps ‘time-pressed’ urbanites to stay committed over an extended period of time, necessary to nurture bacterial and vegetal life?

2. What mental frameworks (metaphors) can assist ‘disgust-biased’ urbanites to overcome deep-seated socio-psychological stigma associated with human waste?

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3. What forms of exchange protocols help ‘anthropocentric’ urbanites to become receptive for the pleasures and troubles when cooperating with microbial and vegetal life forms?

4. Urban Domestic Usability of ‘Antroponics’: How can do-it-yourself fermentation and horticulture for growing plants from urine be optimized for safe, ergonomic and emission-free indoor application?

RESEARCH FRAMING This research is about relating one’s own bodily materiality more immediately to social forms. It is about the linkage between the stories we tell ourselves (social narrative) and the bio-materialial effects in human and non-human bodies and between them. My study suggests to shift from the epistemological way of how we make sense of the world to an ontological approach of storytelling (Boje et al, 2012). Socialisation is an agent of change. Temporalisation is a matter of change. Mattering is an agent of change. If we tell us only fictions to make sense without changing the material conditions it is of no use.

Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory develops an understanding of cause and action, considering the role of actants, agents, actions, and processes into new shapes of counter-narratives which help to deconstruct what is hidden. Deconstruction gives way to the materialist aspect and is constituted from the flow of lived experience.

Man becomes the actor in his social reality (Boje et al 2012). Latour considers the individual mind, a member of the actor network as a part of physical assemblages that make up material realities including resources, food and materials that lead up all the way to climate systems (De Landa, 2006). From this material perspective we can view thought and language from a position of matter and energy which humans use to create social institutions and individual networks existing in reality and apart from any ideology.

Change in this research is understood as transformation that is about discontinuity and difference, not about returning from disrupting or about gradual repetition. This aligns with Michel Foucault’s “dialogue forthcoming”. It is about break out, ruptures, coincidences, an

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fermenting-formenting assemblage, a rhizome. This what Karen Barad (2007) refers to as “vibrant materiality” in human discourse that intrapenetrates with the materiality world of timespacemattering. In Mikhail Bakhtin (1981) terms it is referred to as “chronocicities”: cognitive discourse with ethics, aesthetics and architectonics. Dialogue here is a way of building practical trust attuned to the real-world-materiality as a form of steering change. This dialoguing with vibrant matter connects this study to Kurt Lewin, the father of action research, planned change with his “vibratory” field theory, which is more of a methodology than theory. Lewin’s work in participatory-democratic change processes entail complexity and storytelling to rebuild bridges between practice and theory.

METHODOLOGY This study encounters microbes, plants, persons and groups as whole, functioning, total organisms (French and Bell, 1990), an approach cultivated in Gestalt psychology. Here the researcher tries to assist individuals and groups to shift their perception of themselves and the situation in question, which, in turn, they can find confidence in undertaking changes in their behavior (Smith et al, 1982). For Lewin (1936) behavior is not caused by something in the past or the future, but is grounded in the totality of the present situation. Importantly, how persons behave is not just dependent on the forces that impinge on them, but also on their subjective perception of these forces. Lewin refers to this field of forces that make up one’s “reality” as life-space which includes the person and her aspirations. Here behavior change is seen as a learning process, which involves gaining or changing perceptions, insights, outlooks, expectations or thought patterns (French and Bell, 1990).

In order to bring about change, one has to establish which forces to modify in a person’s “reality” and to judge what effect this would have. This participative learning is just the start of a change process.

To achieve this, it is necessary to understand also group dynamics as element in planned change. This relies on a structured, participative and iterative process for identifying and analyzing change options

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and implementing the chosen ones. This process is called action research. This though only facilitates the ‘moving’ of behavior, it does not necessarily sustain behavior. The process of participative learning, which is fundamental to force field theory, allows individuals and groups both to map out their current life-space (their reality) and construct a new, more desired life space (reality). However, this can only be done if there is widespread participation, understanding and learning. This is why changes that are imposed or that only have superficial participation tend to bring only limited benefits – those who have to make the changes have only limited understanding of, and commitment to, what is being changed and why (Burnes 2009; Oreg et al . 2011). In essence, action research coupled with group dynamics and the psycho-material forces making up one’s lifespace (field theory) allows individuals and groups to explore existing organizational realities, assess their appropriateness and create new organizational realities. (Dent and Goldberg 1999; Schein, 1997). This ‘Gestaltian’ and Lewinian methodology is not about quantifying forces and relationships, but about producing an understanding about what people do and why they do it.

Through experimental design this research attempts to contribute to knowledge relevant to evidence-based practice rooted in the everyday. Using ethnographical observation from participatory action research, the causal factors of outcome with regard to a small sample group are examined to gain understanding in the mechanisms of change and renewal (Brownell, 2010:15). The direction of this qualitative research is congenial. It is important that participants become fellow researchers and have a researchful attitude, looking for evidence to back up or disprove their observations and hunches.

This also includes critical de-construction of assumptions about what constitutes valid research instruments. Inventiveness and adaptability of method are central to this practice to stay appropriate to the subject and purpose.

PARTICIPATORY STUDY Between 1 April to 30 May 20 participants in Hong Kong will be

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invited to partake in a small-group, interaction research project.

Framed as a home-based, bio-social citizen science project it is an attempt to suspend the boundaries between nutrients and toxins, waste and flourishing, intimacy and detachment, human and nonhuman life. During the six-week long aesthetic-reflective passage with bacterial and vegetal life participants will be enabled to purify small urine samples safely into a veritable medium for growing plants. We are using ancient lactobacilli fermentation, akin to yoghurt cultivation, repurposed into a bioremediation method to stabilize and render odorless a daily sample of urine for 21 days that becomes both diagnostic time capsule of human-enviro flourishing â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and plant fertilizer.

The participants and researcher here collaborate together, which means, all involved become part of each othersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; situation. The work becomes a piece of action research since it seeks to generate a rich understanding of the context and focuses on the formation of meaning. Pursuing knowledge here is meant to open up a circular dialogue among participants and the themes of inquiry. According to Barber (2006:44) this allows for deeper mining into an understanding of what exactly happens and to generate a more complete interpretation of events. This approach investigates the researcher as much as the topic, and involves the researcher in the explanatory process.

Aside from careful instruction and support, participants will receive an Anthroponic Plant Breeding Kit (APBK) for do-it-yourself urine fermentation, indoor plant-nursing and bio-monitoring the health of all organisms involved (self-diagnosis). This compact, urine-powered hydroponic plant nursery allows participants to grow on their window sills at home lettuce seedlings that depend solely on the donorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; nutrients for their growth and prosperity. The fledging plants are vulnerable to toxins and hormonal residues, thereby bringing nutrients donors and their lifestyle choices purposefully into a consequential plant-people relationship. Assisted by a range of do-it-yourselfbiomoderation instruments (Urinalysis, 9-Way WaterSafe tests, plant

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growth measuring index, nutrients deficiency diagnosis, phenotype indicators), participants are asked to keep a journal of their food intake and bodily release to generate an inventory of consumption behaviors and body burdens and correlate them with prosperity indicators across the living organisms involved, humans, lactobacilli and lettuce.

Candidate Intake: Before participants enroll into the project, researchers and candidates discuss the procedures, requirements and mutual expectations. Potential participants are asked to state their initial motivations for engaging, current food and lifestyle habits, personal background and things they hope to accomplish.

Both researchers and participants agree to go deliberately into this common endeavor.

Keeping a Food Diary: Journaling can be a useful tool of selfawareness. It also provides themes for the dialogue in the group sessions and a resource during individual exit interviews (debriefing).

Depending on how awareness among participants is evolving and how receptive the work group is, the journaling can be further expanded.

Dialogical Sessions: The work group sessions are meant to move participants from one phase to another, from collecting nutrients to fermenting to growing. Each session therefore has a theme that will frame the dialogue and decision-making. If we perceive the work group as an extended family that includes microbes and plants, we can adapt the Global Assessment of Relational Functioning (GARF) as reference to describe the relational context in which persons live and conflicts arise. In this research, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; can refer to human and nonhuman persons alike. This is a very simplistic constructed screening instrument that can only indicate the overall group dynamics. It is unable to reflect the living depth and variations of relational processes (Cierpka and Stasch 2003:195).

Interview Schedule: Each participant is interviewed at least twice, at the beginning (intake) and end of the project (exit). For the second interview, a tailored schedule will be constructed for each individual,

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based upon her responses in the first interview and the project development. If possible the interview takes place at the site where the plants are growing to tangibly integrate the materials mentioned.

The questions for each topic area are explored through three contact dimensions of individual-world as outlined in Gestalt practice: the sensing body (“I notice”), spheres of movement (“I imagine”), and dialogic relationship (“I want”).

EVALUATION AND ANALYSIS This research looks at changes taking place at the boundaries where the person’s self-understanding affects other(s), and vice versa, inside the complexity of the situation. This analysis-through-process is about the interpretation of situational and relational components making up a person’s presence and contribution (Brownell, 2010). Gestaltian research does not establish a system for the interpretation of texts (coding), but instead, an orientation for the interpretation of lived and materialized experience (hermeneutics). Here the “indicator approach” which evaluates given criteria across a group of individuals seems too mechanic or “technometric” (‘stimuli-response formula’) and does not really do justice to a person’s personal context and development path.

Force field analysis offers a method to identify individual or group realities and instigating a new organizational reality (Boje et al 2011). It evaluates the polyphony of elements that make up a perceived reality (life-space) and the complexity involved, require the data collection to continue throughout the change process. This assessment process is not linear but iterative, one whereby, through discussion of their own behavior, the participants gain insights into and understanding of their situation. The goal is to look at how the persons’ needs, abilities, intentions and expectations (goals) are evolving alongside barriers and resistance (Burnes and Cooke 2012). Driving and constraining forces are the result of positive and negative forces of goals. With respect to any given goal, these forces have direction, distance, strength and point of application: the person. The person’s reaction to these forces is physical or psychological movement towards or away from a goal,

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an effect Kurt Lewin called “locomotion” (M. Lewin, 1998:108, figure: field locomotion diagram). We can give weighting to the forces within the life-space by labeling their importance as high, low or uncertain.

Constructing and interpreting a life-space is a slow and participatory process that needs careful change agents and facilitation (Depanfilis, 1996).

Importantly, people can perceive a single factor as an enabler in one instance and as a constraint in another what Swanson and Creed call the “inverse principle” (2013). The force field is not impermeable or concrete; instead, it is fluid and dynamic. Resistances still emerge with strength, and enablers still materialize with gusto; but the reasons why the forces manifest as they do are not as clear, as once thought, and can change midstream due to the complex undercurrents of certain situations. This lack of clarity makes implementation of change vulnerable to undesirable outcomes (Swanson and Creed, 2013).

Therefore scoping the forces of planned change needs to combine the inverse principle with a complex representation of forces (full field diagram).

Based on the participants perception of their reality, the study looks at how their relation to their bodily and environmental context is changing in the course of the experiential study and compare their narrative report at the start of the project with the end. The force field analysis of complex organizational scenarios is applied onto a bricolage and corroboration approach to emerging discoveries from semi-structured interviews, biophysical inventory, author observation, critical reflection and literature survey. Bricolage is defined as ‘making do with current resources, and creating new forms and order from tools and materials at hand’ (Baker et al., 2003, p. 264). In essence, ‘the bricoleur speaks through things, as well as with them’ (Dezeuze, 2008). Corroboration is the collation and comparison of qualitative data as a form of triangulation. In an additive sense, corroboration involves building upon an existing base of knowledge with more knowledge of similar semantic content (Gottlob, 2000). With semistructured interviews playing a core feeding role, other rich

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sources of data analysis from bio-monitoring of urine (urinalysis), plant growth development, food-intake/body-care journal (self-observation) and audio-visual material from self-documentation, together with theory projection and development will be aligned by bricolage and corroboration systematically throughout the research. Based on these self-reports and participant-driven documentation potentially verifiable consumption patterns with the inventory of foodstuffs and bodycare products possessed in the household can surface. J.D. Mayer (1998) has refined Lewinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life-space model to describe and compare what surrounds personality traits. Here a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life-space is constituted of the four domains, biological foundations, owned possessions, daily interactions and activities, and group memberships. The analysis will look at how the relations between these domains pertaining to domestic life are changing (Brackett and Mayer, 2007) in the course of the participatory study.

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POLYU DESIGN

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