Aidan Rowe

Bio: Aidan Rowe is an academic researcher from University of Alberta. The author has contributed to research in topics: Participatory action research & Design education. The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 2 publications receiving 8 citations.

Re-thinking health through design: collaborations in research, education and practice

Abstract: Current health-care systems are confronted with progressively complex demands: ageing populations, growing drug ineffectiveness, health mis/disinformation and access to comprehensive services are j...

Participatory Action Research and design pedagogy: Perspectives for design education

Abstract: Design’s scope of practice has grown from one that was traditionally defined by materials and processes to one where designers are working on some of the most pressing challenges of our times. Once a reactive, artefact-based practice (e.g. poster, typeface, chair, etc.), design is now being situated as a proactive, social and participatory practice focused on outcomes as much as artefacts. Historically, as an academic subject, professional practice and research area, design has suffered from a lack of formal, established research frameworks and theoretical practices. By drawing on established literature, this article makes the case for the use of methods and practices developed in Participatory Action Research (PAR) to inform and enrich design practice, research and particularly education. The article identifies three shared areas between PAR and design that offer an opportunity for further interrogation; these are: a central concern of working with people; the use of iteration and reflection; and the measuring of success through change.

The Impact of the Healthcare Environment on Patient Experience in the Emergency Department: A Systematic Review to Understand the Implications for Patient-Centered Design

Abstract: Background: The emergency department (ED) is a complex, volatile, and limited-resource healthcare setting. Many environmental factors, including high patient volumes, overburdened staff, long waits, and a tense atmosphere, converge in the ED. The objective of this study was to perform a systematic review of extant literature to understand how the ED environment drives patient experience and identify methodological or empirical insights for patient-centered ED design. Methods: We searched eight academic databases (Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Medline [Ovid], CINAHL, PyscInfo, Compendex, and IEEE Explore) to identify studies that employed observational (descriptive) or interventional (evaluative) methodology. We performed a co-citation analysis of potentially eligible articles and a qualitative synthesis of findings from studies included in our final sample. Results: Our search yielded 117 records. Of the 35 potentially relevant articles, 18 were published in the last 5 years, and 50% were authored by investigators in the United States. We used 33 articles for a co-citation analysis, revealing three interdisciplinary clusters and promising potential for collaboration across fields. Thirty articles were subjected to a full-text analysis, resulting in the identification of three overarching dimensions linking the ED environment to patient experience. Conclusion: The most commonly identified factors influencing patient experience in the ED included overcrowding and wait times, privacy, and communication; however, existing literature is limited. More research is needed to understand how ED environments configure patient experience and can be improved through design. Particularly, there is little research on participatory interventional strategies in the ED, despite strong evidence suggesting a need for stakeholder participation.

Expanding Studio Boundaries: Navigating Tensions in Multidisciplinary Collaboration within and beyond the Higher Education Design Studio.

Abstract: In this article the authors set out and critically reflect upon an innovative pedagogical approach to delivering studio-based learning – drawing on the ‘Collaborative Futures’ project. Collaborative Futures is a live project premised on a futures-focused design brief written with an external partner. In previous iterations of the project, partners have included Hitachi and The Royal Bank of Scotland. Each year this project brings together a team of students in their final year on the Masters European Design programme to collaborate with a group of early career design graduates. Between 2019 and 2020, the Collaborative Futures project worked with Glasgow City Council’s Centre for Civic Innovation to explore and prototype citizen-centred scenarios surrounding data experiences set in the context of Glasgow 2030. Throughout the project the student-graduate team engaged in multidisciplinary collaboration within and beyond the boundaries of the higher education studio context, working with civic, academic and design professionals, public and third sector organisations, and members of the public. The authors reflect on the design process; theoretically unpack the cross-cultural, studio-based collaboration that took place; and discuss the complex challenges that emerged and the meditating role design artefacts played. Building on the work of Ross (2018) and McAra and Ross (forthcoming), the insights presented in the article have value for design educators seeking new approaches to designing and delivering studio-based design learning that fosters creative, multidisciplinary communities of practice and collaborative capacity-building for design students in a professional setting.

Rapid Prototyping Politics: Design and the De-material Turn

Abstract: Over the last two decades, design as a discipline has focused less on the production and manufacture of material things and become more concerned with immaterial or ephemeral interactions. The role of the designer has been rigorously debated and questioned, in part due to the rise of specialisms such as Interaction Design, User Experience Design, and Service Design (Press and Cooper 2003; Danish Designers Manifesto 2010; Inns 2010). Coinciding with this de-material turn in design practice, we have seen a ‘material and speculative turn’ throughout the humanities, whereby power and political agency are attributes of non-human entities – conjuring a world, in Jane Bennett’s words, of ‘vibrant matter’ (Bennett 2010). The ‘material turn’ has been expanded through different disciplines, from philosophy (Bryant, Srnicek, and Harman 2011) and cultural studies (Bennett and Joyce 2013) to anthropology (Hicks 2010), and reaffirms an examination of the material domain as essential for our understanding of current political and economic realities. This ‘turn’ moves us beyond a conceptualisation of the world as socially or technologically deterministic, towards a networked distribution of agency. A world of distributive agency, where material entities are recognised actors that ‘make the difference’ and ‘make things happen’ (Bennett 2010: 9), naturally calls into question the role of design. Moving design from a politics of production to a production of politics calls for a radical rethink of the educational modes and frameworks built over the last century. This chapter examines the role of design in shaping, prototyping, and manipulating the political terrain and considers how educators might equip the next generation of designers with the appropriate ethos, mindset, tools, and techniques to survive and flourish in this new complex context. In order to build a clearer picture of what I mean by the de-material turn, I look to design thinking as an exemplar of a sub-discipline that evolved without a material basis. With its history in the design science movement of the 1970s (Cross 2001) and its more recent adoption into innovation and business studies (Kimbell 2011), design thinking has been developed and deployed as a series of tools and methods outside the traditional mediums of design:

An Overview of Sensors, Design and Healthcare Challenges in Smart Homes: Future Design Questions.

Abstract: The ageing population increases the demand for customized home care. As a result, sensing technologies are finding their way into the home environment. However, challenges associated with how users interact with sensors and data are not well-researched, particularly from a design perspective. This review explores the literature on important research projects around sensors, design and smart healthcare in smart homes, and highlights challenges for design research. A PRISMA protocol-based screening procedure is adopted to identify relevant articles (n = 180) on the subject of sensors, design and smart healthcare. The exploration and analysis of papers are performed using hierarchical charts, force-directed layouts and ‘bedraggled daisy’ Venn diagrams. The results show that much work has been carried out in developing sensors for smart home care. Less attention is focused on addressing challenges posed by sensors in homes, such as data accessibility, privacy, comfort, security and accuracy, and how design research might solve these challenges. This review raises key design research questions, particularly in working with sensors in smart home environments.

Training clinical researchers with design thinking to develop dementia caregiving research initiatives

Abstract: Abstract Training healthcare professionals with Design Thinking (DT) can support patient-centred care by recognizing patient/care provider needs through empathizing. This article explored the Design Thinking in improving clinical researchers’ understanding of relatively unexplored and understudied dementia caregiving problems. Following the Double-Diamond, a Design Thinking process model, we conducted a series of workshops and invited family caregivers of patients with dementia as active participants to provide training to clinical researchers on Design Thinking. We then evaluated the benefit of the workshops in improving clinical researchers’ understanding of the caregiving problem and solution space through pre- and post-surveys. Our findings revealed researchers’ overall perception of Design Thinking, their clear insights on dementia caregivers’ challenges, and speculating caregiver-specific interventions. Our paper contributed to the health design community by exploring the benefit of Design Thinking in understudied areas by (1) Recognizing urgent matters in healthcare, (2) Revealing implicit needs through collective expertise and knowledge exchange, and (3) Producing original health care research and contributions. We hope this study inspires and supports training healthcare researchers to advance dementia caregiving and healthcare research initiatives by adopting the Double-Diamond process model.

Potentials and problems of teaching design thinking as massive open online courses in the Chinese context

Abstract: Though design thinking has gained increasing popularity in higher education, few studies have explored how it is perceived and taught in non-western contexts. This study identified and reviewed twenty design thinking related courses offered as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) taught by instructors from a number of Chinese universities between February and June 2020. Further, we selected six courses from these MOOCs for in-depth analysis by reviewing the design cases and examples introduced in the course videos. Our findings reveal the absence of well-stated learning outcomes, and lack of diversity when it comes to the cultural contexts and design areas of the design cases covered in all the MOOCs. We propose three recommendations for future design of DT-related MOOCs in the Chinese context, in terms of situating teaching design thinking in the wider curriculum structure, integrating more active and peer learning components to create better flipped learning experiences, and increasing the diversity of design cases. Apart from supplementing current case studies, this research can shed light on why and how the teaching of design thinking can be modified in different contexts, to achieve quality rather than simply borrowing design thinking as a much-hyped concept.