Over the past few decades, key studies have highlighted the benefits and challenges of co-design, emphasizing its potential to generate creativity, improve research quality, and deliver user-centered outcomes. However, formalizing co-design as a research method and establishing a unified framework for its application remains a challenge. This book addresses these issues by introducing and expanding the concept of Research Through Co-Design (RTC).
This book offers an insightful examination of how co-design can revolutionize research practices across various fields. It introduces a cognitive model for RTC that is grounded in the Control System Theory (CST) and integrates elements from Research Through Design (RTD). Bringing together contributions from 41 authors across 13 nations, this title provides a collection of cross-disciplinary perspectives and experiences that covers STEM, design research, and the third or social economy sector. The 23 chapters showcase diverse applications and reveal the potential of co-design in producing knowledge and valuable insights and methodologies that can enhance research practices. By highlighting theoretical frameworks and practical case studies, the book illustrates how RTC can be effectively utilized in various academic and professional contexts.
The reader will gain a thorough understanding of RTC and how it can be utilized across multiple disciplines and settings. Exploring Research Through Co-Design: Multiple Perspectives for Collaborative Inquiry is an essential resource for researchers, academics, and students who are interested in leveraging co-design as a research strategy, including those in human factors and ergonomics fields, design thinking/engineering, social economy projects and other multidisciplinary tasks.
This book offers an insightful examination of how co-design can revolutionize research practices across various fields. It introduces a cognitive model for RTC that is grounded in the Control System Theory (CST) and integrates elements from Research Through Design (RTD).
1. Research Through Co-Design: The Early Idea and Origin.
2.
Participatory Research Through Design.
3. Re-Framing Co-Design Practices.
4.
Co-Design as a Transformative Practice.
5. RRI Operationalization in
Ecosystems Through Co-Creation.
6. Decolonizing RTC: Pluriversal Research
Through Radical Participatory Design.
7. Research Through Co-Designing To
Explore the Potential of Open Design and Collaboration-by-Iteration.
8. The
Ripple Framework: A Generative Design Methodology To Support Multiple Doing,
Undoing and Redoing.
9. When Multiple Actors, Scholars, and Practitioners
Collaborate in Design Processes: Bridging Research Through Design, Co-Design,
and Participatory Action Research.
10. Transnational Research Through
Co-Design: Case Studies of UK-China Collaborative Projects.
11. Co-Designing
With Climate-Neutral-To-Be Cities.
12. Co-Designing Inclusive Wayfinding
Systems With Cultural Institutions and Precincts.
13. Co-Designing With
Peripheries: Conducting Ethnographic Fieldwork With Urban. Marginalized
Woman.
14. Research Through Design With Ontologies and Worldviews in
Communities and Platforms.
15. Co-Designing Social Interventions: From
Participatory Exploration of Progetto.
16. RTC in Urban Development
Initiatives: The Case of Two Municipalities in Tuscany, Italy.
17.
Prostheses: Co-Designing Form and Function.
18. Co-Design and User-Centered
Design for Medical Devices: Managing the Burdens of Regulatory Constraints.
19. Humanity-Centered Co-Design: Shaping the Future of Healthcare Innovation.
20. The Power of Cognitive Maps as a Co-Creative Design Research Tool.
21. A
Cyber-Physical Toolbox for Teaching Digital Construction Technical
Configuration, Learning Tactics and Hands-On Testing and Evaluation in
Dedicated Courses.
22. Interactive and Practical Teaching of Digital Work
Design Using the Process Simulation.
23. Conclusions and Future Steps for RTC.
Daniele Busciantella Ricci is an Assistant Professor within the University of Florence's Department of Architecture, Italy. He has over a decade of experience in design research, participatory design, and social innovation and has collaborated with institutions and communities worldwide. His research focuses on design for social inclusion and innovation, working in labs like IDEE and DRLab. He frequently participates in international conferences and has published extensively on design. Ricci co-founded Codesign Toscana and is a member of the Design Research Society and the Italian Society of Ergonomics and Human Factors. He received the European Commission's Seal of Excellence.
Sofia Scataglini is a Biomedical Engineer and Visiting Professor at Antwerp University, Belgium, specializing in Digital Human Modelling (DHM) and wearables for ergonomics and health. She holds the title of European Ergonomist (Eur.Erg.), CREE. Sofia is a member of the International Ergonomics Association's (IEA) Scientific Committee and chairs the IEA Technical Committee on DHM and Simulation. She founded the Digital Human Modeling by Women (DHMW) group and organizes conferences on human factors and ergonomics. She is an active editor, writer, and reviewer and her research focuses on designing health and well-being products using Co-Design and User-Centered Design methods.
