BEYOND HUMAN-CENTRED DESIGN. AN ENQUIRY INTO THE FUTURE OF PARTICIPANT INTERACTION

Wednesday 18th October 2023

City host: Sonipat (Delhi NCR), India

World University of Design in partnership with the School of Design at RIMT University (India)

The integration of the participant in the design of a tangible and intangible artefact is interpreted as the design of the interaction between humans with their environment. This theme engages with the trajectory of HCD to explore frontiers and boundaries and construct an integrated whole where the system and its “human” work together to create a holistic environment. The recent technological developments, such as AI or VR and AR, and their consequent impact on human-environment interaction is the key focus of this conference hub.

Human Centred Design enhances effectiveness and efficiency, improves human well-being, user satisfaction, accessibility, and sustainability, and counteracts possible adverse effects of use on human health, safety, and performance. To design an interactive system, an understanding and specification of the context of use are critical, along with the user’s requirements. Design solutions generated for both products & services, for individuals and community, need to be evaluated for efficiency and effectiveness. However, the processes and evidence adopted must be critically reviewed and enriched. Though the role of humans in the design processis intrinsic in traditional knowledge systems, today, this is interpreted as an explicit understanding of users, tasks, and environments where end-users are involved throughout design and development. The responseof design as a postcolonial construct is to mediate binaries and provide a space for peripheral groups to express their identities. As an iterative process, design is driven and refined by feedback loops such as human-centred evaluation. The design team includes multi-disciplinary skills and perspectives and addresses the full spectrumof human experience and beyond, such as technologies or non-human actors.

The design ethos engages with the community as a social construct that reacts to design as a collective entity which is more than a sum of its parts. Cultural contexts are manifested to preserve, revive, protect, and generate intangibles that have a bearing on the designed product. Exploring and proposing paradigms that aid in innovation and amalgamation of technology and design, resulting in solutions that bridge the chasm between physicality and the virtual realm in ways that are radical in their implementation and implications. Design thinking as a discipline integrated into ancillary domains is the hallmark of the professional ecosystem leading to ethical, sustainable development. As a response to ecological disruptions envisaged in Sustainable Development Goals, human-centred design hopes to mediate humanity and the earth. Papers may be structured around the following themes while addressing theoretical concerns and practical implications and may be interpreted based on individual research interests.

Submissions for the conference has closed.

The call for papers from the design doctoral research community including Ph.D. scholar, Ph.D., Postdoc and individual researcher is out from the World University of Design.

  • Researchers may interpret human-centered design through the lens of the queries raised and
    are invited to discuss their research in the following formats:
  • Paper: 3000 – 4000 words with appropriate graphic content, text and description.
    Accepted authors will summarize their paper and participate in plenary panels.
  • Poster: A graphic presentation providing a visual summary of research accompanied
    by a 250-300 word abstract.  
  • The paper and poster are to be submitted in the conference template

Additional information on the submissions for Sonipat’s can be found on their individual host website

Themes of enquiry/questions: 

  • What is the role of ethical binaries in creating a sustainable ecosystem and decolonising design? 
  • Are cognition and tactility foundational pillars of the creative process? What is the relationship between physicality, the virtual domain and human experience? 
  • What is the impact of social, cultural, and ecological processes to the stakeholders of the design process? 
  • In the evolution of design thinking, is HCD a historical document? 
  • Is academia prescriptive or descriptive in design education? 
  • How does a craft-based approach have the potential to positively impact design for sustainability? What are the key aspects of an applicable craft-based approach to design as a way to allow a higher degree of stakeholder participation?

Conference Venues

Monday 16th

The Discipline of Design – transdisciplinary practices (Bilbao, Spain)

Faculty of Architecture at the University of the Basque Country in partnership with the University of Deusto, (Spain).

Tuesday 17th

Living in the Pluriverse (São Paulo, Brazil)

School of Archítecture and Urbanism, University of Sao Paulo, (Brazil)

Wednesday 18th

Beyond Human-Centred Design Research (Sonipat, India)

World University of Design in partnership with RIMT University, School of Art & Design.

Thursday 19th

Exploring the Social Impact of Design Research (Espoo, Finland)

Aalto University, Department of Design (Finland) in partnership with the department of design at the Politecnico di Milano (Italy), the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology (USA), and the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University (USA).

Friday 20th

Extreme Making (Glasgow, Scotland)

The Glasgow School of Art, in partnership with the School of Design at Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh University.