This project is an exploration of practices around the critical raw materialcobalt, it’s history, and current relevance in Swedish discourse. Critical raw materials are identified by the European Commission as materials of high importance to the EU’s economic system as well as the high risks related to their supply and production. As the demand for cobalt grows due to it’s usefulness in rechargeable batteries in for example smartphones, laptops and electric cars, the metal is predicted to become scarce in a near future. In Sweden there is a discourse on whether or not to mine for cobalt, among other earth elements, locally, and the industry is lookingfor ways to recycle old rechargeable batteries at larger scales to secure the resource. The criticality of cobalt does not only concern supply and economic importance however. In Congo some mines have been reported to still be dug by hand, under extremely poor conditions and risking the health and safety of the workers, as well as the surrounding societies. Through a critical research and design process these topics are explored alongside the more locally known use of cobalt oxide as a vibrant blue colour pigment for ceramics and glass. With the process I aim to create a design that engages with the criticality as well as a designerly fascinationwith the material. The end result being a speculative design fiction of the mythological creature cobelt, and how complex narratives can be unearthed in craft based practice.

Nuclear waste remains radioactive for thousands of years. Burying it underground in an enormous repository, called Onkalo, surrounded and secured by solid rock is the long-term solution Finnish authorities implement right now. Once the repository is filled up, it will be locked up forever and never opened again. At the same time three new nuclear power plants are built. Out of Sight, out of Mind? Ultimately, this raises questions: Can this be the solution for final disposal of nuclear waste? How do we understand a problem clearly exceeding our capabilities as human beings? How do we deal with the dilemmas of uncertainty, invisibility, time, demand, possible contamination, and our individual responsibility as human beings? Understanding Through Interaction I designed three everyday products, a lamp, a toy for children, and a pregnancy test, that afford a familiar everyday action on one hand, while exposing a dilemma related to Onkalo on the other. In doing so, the artifacts make those dilemma tangible and facilitate understanding and critical thinking. Sharing a personal experience, the users can engage in a personal discourse around nuclear waste actively, opposing the distant and highly politicalised discourse spread by the media.

Denna uppsats redovisar en studie av normer i interaktionsdesignen av svt.se, som ett exempel på en nyhetssida av public service-karaktär. Uppsatsen syftar till att undersöka och belysa sociala normer och hur de bäddas in i designen. Vi ville också undersöka och utvärdera metoder och ramverk för att studera webbplatser och dess interaktionsdesign som kulturella uttryck och bärare av sociala normer. För att belysa studiens syfte har vi använt oss av de riktlinjer för tillgänglighet i webbgränssnitt som SVT förhåller sig till i designen. Studien utgick från en multimodal analysmetod för webbplatser och grounded theory. Studien visade att svt.se erbjuder ett tillgängligt gränssnitt som följer de riktlinjer webbplatsen sägs förhålla sig till. Vi såg att det fanns en tydlig aktualitetsnorm där innehåll och design samverkar för att lyfta en aktuell händelse. Studien visade även att könsfördelningen på bilder på svt.se var jämn, men att bilder på icke-vita personer samt personer med funktionsvarianter var mindre förekommande. / In this essay we present a study of norms within interaction design. We have analyzied svt.se as an example of a news site with a public service duty. The essay aims so explore and highlight social norms and how they are embedded in the design. We also wanted to examine and evaluate methods and frameworks for studying websites as cultural expressions and carriers of social norms. To illustrate the purpose of the study, we have used guidelines for accessibility on web interfaces that SVT relate to in their website design. The study was based on a multimodal framework for analyzing websites and grounded theory. The study showed that svt.se provides an accessible interface that follows the guidelines the interface is said to relate to. We also saw a clear convention regarding how current events where depicted where both content and design interacted. The study also showed that the gender distribution on images on svt.se was even, but the images of non-white people and people with functional variants were less common.

Sociala medier är ett hett tema i samhällsdebatten runt om i världen, och det är inte utan anledning. Dagens unga är uppkopplade och håller sig uppdaterade på internet från de vaknar till de lägger sig. Ett av de mest populära och kändaste sociala medier plattformarna är Instagram. Unga lägger på denna plattformen ut bilder i stor mängd. Detta ledde in oss på följande frågeställning: “Vilka visuella normer finns det på instagram?” För att få reda på detta använde vi oss av bildanalyser där vi analyserat bilder från olika instagramkonton tillhörande fem kändisar och tre influencer. Resultatet gav svar om vilka normer som var populärast, samt om det varierade mellan kändisar och influencer. Normerna fick vi fram genom omvärldsanalys och forskning, resulterade i två instagramkonton med namnen, ME1588CSHPL1 och ME1588CSHPL2, där det ena följde normen och den andra bröt normen genom att använda sig av critical design. Vi använde oss av Hooktheory och en skapad ljudmetod för att skapa musik till bilderna. / Social media is a hot topic in community debates around the world, and that's not without reason. Today’s young people are hooked up on the internet and always updated on the newest happenings from they wake up until they go to sleep. One of the most popular and famous social media platforms is Instagram. Young people post many pictures on this platform. This led us to our questioning: "What visual norms exist on Instagram?" To find out, we used image analysis where we analyzed images from different instagram accounts to five celebrities, and three influencers. The result of the analysis gave answers to which norms that was most "popular", and if it varied between celebrities and influences. The norms we got through research and analysis resulted in two instagram accounts with the names, ME1588CSHPL1 and ME1588CSHPL2, where one followed the norms and the other broke the norms through using us of Critical Design. We used Hooktheory and a created sound method to create music for the pictures.

This research project explores how we can apply Emerging Design Landscapes such as Critical Design and Collective Creativity, in combination with traditional fields of visual communication to address societal challenges in cooperation with society. In particular, this paper aims to question the visual representation of nuclear warfare, and how we could utilize Peircean Semiotics to better understand set representation. The design outcome is a critical board game that at its core aims to create a discussion around the visual representation of nuclear warfare today and act as a learning platform that would help its user better understand the practice of semiosis.

This thesis introduces and critically reflects on a design programme, Storyforming, that explores ways to design objects and places to enrich daily life narratives. Using an experimental design approach, the goal is to exemplify and explore this idea with discursive artefacts that, through their physical and temporal form, act as catalysts in the construction of meaningful experiences. In the current sustainability discourse, behavioural change has been pointed out as a key factor in achieving a sustainable society. Historically, design has been very effective in increasing production and consumption behaviours by creating new types of needs and, in a way, manufacturing desire (Forty, 1986). Drawing on this, the overarching aim of this thesis is the investigation of the ways design, through a suggested programme, can afford alternative types of meaningful experiences in contrast to the prevailing consumer culture. The empirical work reported in the thesis stems from several research projects looking into the matter of energy use in relation to design. In addition, two of the projects have been carried out in the author’s own design practice. Some concepts are explored more in-depth—involving events such as field studies, situated interviews, workshops, prototype building, design interventions in the form of domestication probes, and contextual studies ranging from a few weeks up to a year—while other concepts exist only as sketches or photo montages. The diversity of these concepts, the design experiments, helps span a design space becoming a new provisional design programme. The idea for this programme has evolved from observations and reflections made throughout the experiments presented in the thesis. The general results are the suggested approach of Storyforming, which focuses on the design of artefacts supporting daily narratives that can be used to create engagement, meaning, and alternative values applicable to the discourse of sustainable behaviour. Specific contributions are the selection of design experiments. In the thesis, the experiments have first been examined from the perspective of stories and forming as a basis for the new programme formulation. Through this articulation of the programme, the experiments are revisited through three leitmotifs, part of the provisional programme focusing on different properties related to the aspect of forming. From the perspective of the user, these themes—seeing and accessing designs, exploring and expressing complexity, and sharing experiences and negotiating use—are finally elaborated on in relation to other theoretical concepts as well as their implications for future research. / <p>QC 20140825</p>

Den här uppsatsen undersöker hur design kan synliggöra rådande maskulinitetsnormer inom gym och träning med syfte att undersöka hur gym bättre tillgodoser gymbesökares behov. Utifrån studiens resultat utvecklas ett normkreativt gymkoncept samt prototyp. Studiens litterära efterforskningar beskriver hur design använts som kritiskt och synliggörande verktyg samt hur maktförhållanden kopplade till rådande maskulinitetsnormer tar sig i uttryck. Studiens koncept och prototyp är ett möjligt förslag på hur en bredare syn på maskulinitet, gym och träning skulle kunna möjliggöra uppfyllandet av fysiska och psykiska behov genom att introducera gymkontexten för värden som inte ryms inom rådande maskulinitsnormer. / This study examines how design can be used to highlight the current norms around masculinity within gym and excercise with the purpose of exploring how gyms better meet the gym visitors needs. The result of the study is developed in to a norm-creative concept and prototype. The literary research in the study describes how design has been used as a critical and highlighting tool and how current norms around masculinity and associated power relations expresses itself. The study’s concept and prototype are a possible suggestion for how a widened understanding of masculinity, gym and exercise could facilitate the gym meeting the gym visitors physical and mental needs by introducing values in the gymcontext which isn’t included in current masculinity.

abstract: Open Design is a crowd-driven global ecosystem which tries to challenge and alter contemporary modes of capitalistic hardware production. It strives to build on the collective skills, expertise and efforts of people regardless of their educational, social or political backgrounds to develop and disseminate physical products, machines and systems. In contrast to capitalistic hardware production, Open Design practitioners publicly share design files, blueprints and knowhow through various channels including internet platforms and in-person workshops. These designs are typically replicated, modified, improved and reshared by individuals and groups who are broadly referred to as ‘makers’. This dissertation aims to expand the current scope of Open Design within human-computer interaction (HCI) research through a long-term exploration of Open Design’s socio-technical processes. I examine Open Design from three perspectives: the functional—materials, tools, and platforms that enable crowd-driven open hardware production, the critical—materially-oriented engagements within open design as a site for sociotechnical discourse, and the speculative—crowd-driven critical envisioning of future hardware. More specifically, this dissertation first explores the growing global scene of Open Design through a long-term ethnographic study of the open science hardware (OScH) movement, a genre of Open Design. This long-term study of OScH provides a focal point for HCI to deeply understand Open Design's growing global landscape. Second, it examines the application of Critical Making within Open Design through an OScH workshop with designers, engineers, artists and makers from local communities. This work foregrounds the role of HCI researchers as facilitators of collaborative critical engagements within Open Design. Third, this dissertation introduces the concept of crowd-driven Design Fiction through the development of a publicly accessible online Design Fiction platform named Dream Drones. Through a six month long development and a study with drone related practitioners, it offers several pragmatic insights into the challenges and opportunities for crowd-driven Design Fiction. Through these explorations, I highlight the broader implications and novel research pathways for HCI to shape and be shaped by the global Open Design movement. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Media Arts and Sciences 2020

This scientific paper aims to study how one can create and use digital art through criticaldesign as design perspective. The goal with our digital art is to draw attention to a socialproblem in society. In this case, we are focusing on the darker side of the advertising videosof gambling activities. The digital art is created in the form of surrealistic imagemanipulation that are inspired by photographers and artists like Erik Johansson. The articlewill research and analyse gambling advertising and problematize this subject to thenillustrate a design from a critical, dark, humorous and artistic perspective.The topics that the article will go through will be the said art style, and the problems withgambling and it ́s advertising, but also takes a closer look at storytelling techniques likevisual storytelling and image communication. The design research is inspired from criticaldesign, but also practise-based research, and through these perspectives the article willdescribe the design methods and analysis that's been done and what outcome of it has led upto. The surrealistic image manipulation is a practical and visual result that was created anddeveloped during this scientific article. / Den här vetenskapliga artikeln syftar till att undersöka hur man kan skapa och användadigital konst framtaget med critical design som designperspektiv. Syftet med den digitalakonsten är att belysa och peka på ett socialt problem i samhället, där vi har valt att titta påbaksidan av spelreklam. Den digitala konsten är skapad i form av surrealistiskbildmanipulation, inspirerad av fotografer och konstnärer såsom Erik Johansson. Artikelnkommer att undersöka spelreklamen, och problematisera detta ämne för att sedan illustreraen gestaltning från en kritisk, mörk, humoristisk och konstnärligt perspektiv.Ämnen som artikeln går igenom kommer vara den nämnda konststilen, samt problematikenkring spel- och spelreklam men kommer även att titta närmare på bildberättande medelsåsom visual storytelling och bildkommunikation. Utöver critical design tar undersökningenäven inspiration från practise-based research, och genom dessa designperspektiv kommerartikeln beskriva de designmetoder och bildanalyser som utförts, och vad de har lett till.Den surrealistiska bildmanipulationen är ett praktiskt och visuellt resultat som skapats ochutvecklats genom den vetenskapliga artikelns gång.Nyckelord:bildberättande, critical design, design, digital konst, marknadsföring, kommunikation,medieteknik, spel- och spelreklam.

Artikelns syfte är att undersöka hur vi kan skapa en gestaltning som väcker tankar kring ‘Human Enhancement Technologies’ (Pariseau-Legault et al., 2018) genom kritisk design och VR-teknik. Detta har skett genom ett utforskande av våra fysiska händers beröring (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2009) i vardagliga aktiviteter samt spelarens beröring i en VR-upplevelse. Denna undersökning ledde till en gestaltning som vill förändra en spelares upplevda beröring i samband med en vardaglig aktivitet, där vi genom teknologiska modifikationer ger dina händer ny funktionalitet. / This article aims to research how we can design an experience that challenges our ideas about ‘Human Enhancement Technologies’ (Pariseau-Legault et al., 2018) through critical design and VR-technology. This through exploration of our hands physical touch (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2009) in everyday activities and exploring touch in Virtual Reality. This research helped to create a design that aims to change a player's touch in connection with an everyday activity where we through technological modifications give your hands new functionality.