Please introduce yourself, your role in the DRS and your research.
I am a research tutor at the Royal College of Art’s School of Design, where I lecture and tutor students in the Service Design MA and Design Futures MDes. I also supervise doctoral students whose research, like my own, is at the intersection of design studies, public administration, political sciences, and innovation management. As a researcher, I am particularly interested in how central and local governments can use design approaches in the development and implementation of public services and public policies to produce more equitable futures for the communities they affect.
Likewise, I am a Design & Futures Fellow with the UNDP’s Strategy and Futures Team, where I deliver future literacy training, sensemaking workshop facilitation, and policy note and report drafting.
In June of this year, I was elected as a member of DRS’ International Advisory Council (IAC) for a period of six years. Also, I am part of the convening group of DRS’ Design for Policy and Governance Special Interest Group (PoGoSIG), which brings together researchers, designers, and academics to critically examine, promote, and explore the effect of design on innovation in policy and governance.
Could you talk about the initiatives you’re involved with in the DRS and any upcoming events you’d like to share?
As part of PoGoSIG, together with Scott Schmidt, we have been producing Design for Society, a podcast about real-world innovation at the intersection of design, technology, government, and business. Each episode focuses on a different researcher, practitioner, or educator by examining firsthand their career and thoughts on a world in rapid transition. Our latest episode was recorded during the Design Research Society (DRS) 2024 International Conference at Northeastern University in Boston, MA, where we interviewed Prof Don Norman, Prof Ezio Manzini, and Prof Rachel Cooper on their take on the growing relationship between design and policy and governance. The interview resulted in a conversation between our three guests, and it went in some exciting directions.
Likewise, we are currently working on a number of different initiatives ranging from a PoGoSIG symposium for 2025 and an edited book aiming to capture, in a more long-term format, many of the conversations and research projects that have been discussing ‘design for policy’ at DRS and other design research fora.
What do you see as the benefits of being involved with the DRS and how can those interested become more involved in the Society?
I started my involvement with The Design Research Society as a Master’s student, and since then, I have been increasingly involved in different capacities. In my experience, being involved with the Design Research Society offers numerous benefits to design researchers, practitioners, and educators. Being a global, multi-disciplinary community, DRS provides an invaluable platform for networking, knowledge exchange, and collaboration. Many of the projects I work on nowadays are largely linked to exchanges and conversations that started at DRS conferences. Also, through publications and Special Interest Groups like PoGoSIG, members can stay at the forefront of design research and contribute to shaping the future of the field.
One of the key advantages of DRS membership is the opportunity to engage with a diverse international community of design researchers. This exposure to varied perspectives and approaches can significantly enrich one’s own research and practice. Having the opportunity to directly engage with researchers who have shaped my own journey in design research has been invaluable to me.
Lastly, as you become more involved, I would recommend everyone to consider running for positions on committees, such as the International Advisory Council, or join Special Interest Groups. I cannot think of a better way to contribute to the growth and development of the design research community as a whole.
DRS Digital Library Picks
As announced by Prof Paolo Ciuccarelli in Boston, DRS2024 showed a strong emphasis on foresight, speculation, and prospective thinking condensed under the term ‘Design Futures’. To reflect this, I have selected five readings from the latest conference that delve into different aspects of the close epistemological relationship between designing and futuring. Yet, given the search of the term “futures”, returns over 390 results (and that is only for 2024!) I encourage readers to explore DRS Digital Library for a more comprehensive understanding of the diversity of research projects in this space.
Yu, S. (2024) What Kind Of Futuring Is Transition-Oriented Futuring? Conceptualising And Expanding Notions of Futuring in Transition Design, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.328
Samuel Yu’s is a relevant contribution to the evolving field of transition design and design futures. It bridges concepts from futures studies with design practices, offering a more robust theoretical foundation for transition-oriented futuring. The expanded approach proposed could significantly enhance the effectiveness of transition design projects by broadening the scope of futures considered and explored.
While the practical implementation may face challenges, the theoretical framework provided offers a solid foundation for further development and refinement of transition design methodologies (another big topic at the latest DRS conference!).
Tekogul, I., and Forlano, L. (2024) Cultivating Future-Oriented Responsibility in Design with Care, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.1295
This paper presents a timely and essential contribution to the field of design research. By integrating care ethics into design futures, the authors offer a promising avenue for addressing the challenges of precarity and uncertainty. To do this, the authors outline three guiding research questions that shaped their inquiry:
- What are current practices of corporate future-making, foresight and design futures?
- How are design practitioners addressing precarity in future-making?
- How can we design futures with care?
The ethnographic examples provide valuable context, showing how these ideas might manifest in real-world settings.
Moreover, the paper’s emphasis on moving beyond human-centred design to consider more-than-human worlds and future generations is particularly noteworthy. This aligns with growing trends in design research towards posthuman and entanglement theories.
With a solid theoretical foundation, this paper opens up important avenues for future exploration in design ethics and futures studies.
Mauricio Mejía, G. (2024) Strategic Design Futures: Exploring strategy and futures to learn and practice design for intentional change, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.675
Arizona State University’s Prof Mauricio Mejía’s paper is highly relevant to design education research, particularly in the areas of strategic design and futures studies. It offers a practical framework for teaching complex design approaches and highlights the challenges and opportunities in integrating these concepts into design curricula.
His paper uses a case study approach, describing and analysing three iterations of a graduate-level course. Prof Mejía, who is also the course instructor, provides reflective insights on the course structure, activities, and outcomes. This approach allows for a detailed examination of the teaching process and its evolution over time.
The paper concludes that the Strategic Design Futures (SDF) approach offers a valuable framework for teaching and practising design for intentional change, extending beyond traditional artifact-focused design. Despite its limitations (some related to the student’s length of engagement), the SDF approach provides crucial skills for designers to imagine desirable futures, intentionally drive change, and anticipate the consequences of their work.
Ye, Y., and Zhang, D. (2024) Co-creating pluralistic futures: A systematic literature review on participatory speculative design, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.1316
For this paper, Yingfei Ye and Prof Duoduo Zhang conducted a systematic literature review, analysing 18 articles from the past decade that explicitly combine speculative design and participatory design methods. They used thematic analysis to answer two research questions:
What are the practical pathways of participatory speculative design across different problem domains?
Under different practical pathways, what participatory methods can be used in participatory speculative design to co-create pluralistic futures?
The paper identifies three practical pathways (Technical, Social, and Integrated Speculation) and seven participatory methods in Participatory Speculative Design (PSD). It also proposes a four-phase framework for PSD flow, which integrates different levels of participant involvement throughout the design process.
This paper makes a valuable contribution to the emerging field of Participatory Speculative Design by synthesising current practices and proposing a structured framework for implementation. It also highlights important considerations for future research, particularly in cross-cultural contexts and developing countries.
Mintrom, M., Sumartojo, S., Grocott, L., Korsmeyer, H., and Doughty, M. (2024) Policy Design, Lived Experience, and Speculative Futures, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.192
This paper makes a significant contribution to the field of policy design by introducing the innovative “Tomorrow Party” method, which aligns with emerging interests in incorporating lived experience into policymaking processes. It argues compellingly for a creative, speculative approach to policy design that bridges traditional analytical methods with more participatory, future-oriented techniques. The authors discuss four key findings from their pilot studies, providing a fantastic resource for policy researchers and practitioners interested in developing this growing field. By understanding the multiple perspectives that can emerge when addressing policy challenges through creative engagement, this paper supports future researchers in selecting suitable strategies for incorporating lived experience into policy design. The paper concludes with a discussion of how artefacts from the Tomorrow Party might be used in policy advocacy, inspiring future research on integrating speculative methods in policy processes. It is a must-read for any policy researcher or related disciplinary expert pursuing innovative approaches to policy design that centre on lived experience and creative futures thinking.