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Designer, perspectives et transformations

CNAM Master 2
Transition Numérique et Innovation Collaborative

Scaffolding shared imagination with tangible design

Maarten L. Smith, Sander van der Zwan, Jelle P. Bruineberg, Pierre D. Lévy, and Caroline C. M. Hummels. 2021. Scaffolding shared imagination with tangible design. In Fifteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI ’21), February 14–17, 2021, Salzburg, Austria. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 9 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3430524.3440639

Manuel Zacklad : Communiquer en temps de crise

Communiquer est essentiel, particulièrement en temps de crise. Dans cet exercice, souvent il a été adopté une méthode verticale, contrebalancée par une communication débridée sur les réseaux sociaux, parfois montrés du doigt comme des propagateurs de faits non étayés scientifiquement. Si ce constat porte une part de vérité, il faut cependant veiller à ne pas systématiquement assimiler, dans le cadre de débat démocratique, controverse et complotisme.

Enchanting the everyday

Studying the everyday life would be an absurd undertaking,and anyway fated to catch nothing of its object, if studying the everyday life would explicitlybe with the intention to transform it.
- Guy Debord (1961)

Design-Philosophy correspondance

Transforming practices

Every experience enacted and undergone modiﬁes the one who acts and undergoes, while this modiﬁcation affects, whether we wish it or not, the quality of subsequent experiences. For it is a somewhat different person who enters into them.
- Dewey (2015:35)

Artefactual emptiness – On appropriation in kansei design

Lévy, P. (2020). Artefactual emptiness - On appropriation in kansei design. Proceedings of Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2020, KEER2020. Tokyo, Japan: Japan Society of Kansei Engineering.

Studying requirements for designing a vitality data sharing platform from a multi-stakeholder perspective

Wada, K., van Renswouw, L. M., Wallner, G., Levy, P. D., & Vos, S. B. (2020). Studying requirements for designing a vitality data sharing platform from a multi-stakeholder perspective. Paper presented at 8th International Conference on Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research (KEER 2020), Tokyo, Japan.

Philosophy at Work – Postphenomenology as a Generative Lens in Design Research and Practice

van der Zwan, S., Smith, M. L., Bruineberg, J., Lévy, P., & Hummels, C. C. M. (2020). Philosophy at Work - Postphenomenology as a Generative Lens in Design Research and Practice. Proceedings of the Design Research Society 2020, DRS2020, Sydney, Australia (online). https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2020.337

Exploring Public Playgrounds through a Data-Enabled Design Approach

van den Heuvel, R., Lévy, P., Vos, S., & Hummels, C. (2020). Exploring Public Playgrounds through A Data-Enabled Design Approach. Companion Publication of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, DIS2020, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1145/3393914.3395865

The Office Jungle: A Vision for Wildness to Turn Offices into Jungles

Nieuweboer, I., Damen, I., Brombacher, H., Lévy, P., Vos, S., & Lallemand, C. (2020). The Office Jungle: A Vision for Wildness to Turn Offices into Jungles. Companion Publication of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 341–344. https://doi.org/10.1145/3393914.3395818

Transforming Practices squad

Transforming Practices (TP) considers the transformations of our societies, dealing with major societal issues, local challenges for social resilience, or everyday activities, as well as their interrelations. Envisioning transformative practices, we question through designing the how, who, why and what of design for these major societal issues.

Matter of Transformation

How the interweaving between design, philosophy and human & social sciences impacts practices, societies and individuals

Designing for Systemic Change

Many societal challenges require a systemic approach towards change. An approach where multiple stakeholders together create insight in the challenge at hand, and explore possible directions for systemic change. This session explores the concept of Designing for Systemic Change, including: what is it, how do we approach it, and what are the challenges we face?

Design research and innovation framework for transformative practices

Hummels, C., Trotto, A., Peeters, J., Lévy, P., Alves Lino, J. & Klooster, S. (2019). Design research and innovation framework for transformative practices. In Strategy for change (pp. 52-76). Glasgow, UK: Glasgow Caledonian University. ISBN: 978-972-789-482-6

Designing for the everyday through thusness and irregularity

Lévy, P. (2019). Designing for the everyday through thusness and irregularity. In Proceedings of 8th International Congress of International Association of Societies of Design Research, IASDR 2019. Manchester, UK: Manchester Metropolitan University.

Design 3.0 Forum

Design 3.0 Forum aims to raise and discuss the challenging issues in design research, education and practice in this newly emerging paradigm we now face with new forms of end-user products such as intelligent products and services, DIY/fabrication tools, and IoTs. These new forms of products and services change the ways people interact with them and shape their everyday lives.

Design lectures by Caroline Hummels

A series of recorded lectures on design, by prof.dr.ir. Caroline Hummels @TU/e.

Probing Future

In this Design Fiction project, several potential healthcare futures are explored in a collaboration between Philips Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Design Academy Eindhoven, and Frank Kolkman.

How would our world look like 20, 30, 40 or 50 years from now? Will we monitor each individual on the planet to live a low-risk life? Will we replace organs, eyes, or other parts of our body with artificial alternatives? Will we upload our brains and live on a server? Or do we seek ways to embrace a life more related to mother earth? In this Design Fiction project, several potential healthcare futures are explored. The project is a collaboration between Philips Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Design Academy Eindhoven, and Frank Kolkman.

When designing and developing for an audience, as was done in this project, a wide range of different opinions have to be dealt with. A well-known example are robots and Artificial intelligence (AI). Some people only see the positive side and potentials: what if robots could take over all our work so we have full-time vacation? Others only see the downsides and risks: what if robots become smarter than people and start attacking us? Either way, the truth will be somewhere in the middle, but it is very important to capture such opinions and discover what society thinks of current developments. The goal of this project was to do exactly that by developing design probes for four potential healthcare futures – based on a framework by Philips Design – and exhibiting them during the Dutch Design Week (DDW) and within Philips to provoke a debate.

During the first part of the project, four teams each developed a design probe for one of the potential futures, which were exhibited at the Dutch Design Week.

The project was continued within another team and a fifth probe was designed based on the insights gathered at the DDW. This time, the focus was laid on preventive healthcare in the present time, which led to the design of a fictive device that helps parents to monitor their baby’s health and aids them in growing a healthy child.

projects 03 September 2019 2019-09-03T16:27:15+02:00 In this Design Fiction project, several potential healthcare futures are explored in a collaboration between Philips Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Design Academy Eindhoven, and Frank Kolkman.

Stewart

Stewart is a tactile interface designed for a fully autonomous car.
a final bachelor project by Felix Ros

A Design Approach towards Affording the Trend of Privacy

Muller, D.A., & Lévy, P. (2019). A Design Approach towards Affording the Trend of Privacy. In Design Interactive Systems Conference, DIS19. New York, NY, USA: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3322276.3322324

Le temps de l’expérience, enchanter le quotidien par le design

Lévy, P. (2018). Le temps de l'expérience, Enchanter le quotidien par le design. Compiègne University of Technology, France

Transcription of my defense for Habilitation

I would like to thank you for being here today.

I am very happy and honoured to be able to defend my HDR at the Compiègne University of Technology, for several reasons.

First of all, because UTC has put Technologies and Human Sciences at the centre of its pedagogical project in engineering, and has dedicated one of its educational programme to industrial design. A vision in which I find myself completely.
Also because it was at UTC that I started my studies and obtained my engineering degree in 2001.
It was also through UTC that I set foot in Japan, through my final year project by becoming head of innovation for Decathlon in Japan.
It was also at UTC that I was introduced to research, under the supervision of Anne Guénand.
It was also at UTC that I first met Prof. Yamanaka in 2002, and I had the honour of having him become my thesis director during my doctoral thesis at the University of Tsukuba in Kansei Science obtained in 2006.
It was also at UTC that I first met Prof. Overbeeke, from the Eindhoven University of Technology, in 2003. During my visits to Europe, I never stopped visiting UTC and TU/e, immersing myself in a reflection on design and theories related to embodiment. And in 2009, I had the honour of becoming an assistant professor at TU/e in the Designing Quality in Interaction research group then headed by Prof. Overbeeke.
Later, once settled in TU/e, collaborations continued with UTC, particularly on the subjects of cross perception and sensory substitution with Prof. Lenay.

It is therefore in a form of continuity that I am happy to support my HDR today.

Plan

My presentation is structured in four parts.

I will first explain my approach to research through design, an approach that structures my activity.

I will then present what I call my Japanese experience, which comes from my experience in Japan and my reflections on Japan, which has been decisive for a turning point in my perspective on design.

It is this turning point that I will then explain, as well as what it has led to in my research.

And finally, I will explain the consequences of this turning point for design, and in particular about everyday life rituals.

Research through design

Design research invites the participation of the designer’s skills and attitude in the research activity. The participation of design in the research activity is relevant if it is accompanied by a reflection associated with the action, allowing the creation of knowledge.

This research, linking action and reflection, is based on reflection in action and on action proposed by Schön (1983).
This approach is also in line with embodiment related theories, brilliantly brought to design by Dourish (2001).

The research through the design I conduct is mainly structured on two elements:

Constructive design research, which invites experimentations with devices designed for research. Research-through-Design (Koskinen et al., 2012) is a major marker.
The development of the annotated portfolio research tool proposed by Bill Gaver (2012), which structures an analysis of a corpus of artefacts either designed as part of the research project or external to it.

The role of the prototype is central to this approach, but changes in nature compared to what is traditionally considered in design: it is not a first model, close to what will be produced in series, but what Frens (2006) calls a physical hypothesis, and Hengeveld (2011) an experiential hypothesis, a very eloquent barbarism which I think corresponds entirely to the role of the prototype.

Finally, this approach also requires a project so that design can act and contribute to research. In Sennett’s words and adapting them to design, Hummels describes this request to localize the research question, which can then be followed by a reflection in action allowing it to be questioned, and a reflection on action to inquire the research question a fortiori, beyond the project itself.

This is my approach to design research.

Japanese experience

Before becoming an assistant professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology, I spent about 9 years in Japan, mainly affiliated with the University of Tsukuba, at the Kansei Information Science Laboratory, directed by Prof. Yamanaka, who was also my thesis director during my doctoral studies.

The study of Kansei has been for me a guiding principle that allowed me to progress on two fundamental subjects in my research:

A deepening of my interest in the affective relationship to the lived world, which gradually led me to also become interested in notions related to embodiment.
A personal and intellectual curiosity for the Japanese culture, and for what it reveals about the beauty of the everyday.

Concretisation of the beautiful

In particular, I have been interested in the Way of Tea, which Okakura (1906) describes in his famous book The Book of Tea as the cult of the beautiful of the ordinary in the everyday. And I have been especially interested in the Japanese tea ceremony, which is a ritualized experience of the Way of Tea, established by Rikyu in the 16th century.

To illustrate what I saw there, I would like to take the example of a short moment during the ceremony, illustrated by the photo you see here. Once the light tea has been served, the main guest asks the host if he or she could view objects used for tea. The host then introduces him to the chashaku and the chaire, the chashaku being the small spatula to take tea out of the chaire, which is the tea container. The chaire diameter is about one third the length of chashaku. The host places the chashaku two mats apart from the edge of the tatami in front of the main guest, and aligns the centre of the chaire with the centre of the chashaku. Once the host has withdrawn into the water room, i.e., the kitchen, the guest approaches the two objects so that his knees are two mats from the chashaku. Sitting in seiza, he will then be able to comfortably manipulate and contemplate the two objects presented to him, in a culturally Japanese comfort.

What impressed me here is that Rikyu has made an aesthetic proposition towards harmony that corresponds to a system of values (not aimed at effectiveness or efficiency), with aesthetic, ethical and social concerns, and that enables the realization of beauty.

The tea ceremony as a design

This led me to consider that Rikyu (1522-1591) transformed a proposal of values, those of Buddhism and the Wabi etiquette of his time, into a situated system of artefacts, social actors, and signs enabling an engaged and social experience of these values.

This transformation is based on the development of the technology of his time in response to a social expectation of his time. This system is an aesthetic proposal.

The idea that the formalization of the Japanese tea ceremony responds to a “social expectation of its time” already invites us to rethink the ritual not as a fixed repetition of a sequence of actions, but as a practice of daily life re-interpretable in a time and place.

Moreover, the realization of an aesthetic proposal enables the perspective of this aesthetic proposal by Japanese thought, and opens on the notions of contexture and temporality of the daily experience, notions that we will question later.

Mujirushi ryohin

This aesthetic proposal is still found in contemporary design, as for example in mujirushi ryohin, better known simply as muji. If we analyse what has been written about the brand, as well as what the main actors who have participated in the development of the brand and design – notably Kenya Hara and Naoto Fukasawa – have explained about muji’s philosophy and vision, we find most often three key concepts that characterise muji’s design and seem to be in line with the values embodied by the Japanese tea ceremony:

The simple invites to consider what is obvious or essential, stripped of all superfluity.
The ordinary focuses on what appears classic or usual, and useful for everyday life. It also invites to consider habitability, a concept dear to Alain Findeli.
Finally, the void concerns a space of possibilities left open by the design, to be filled by the user (or interactant) with the artifact, in order to adapt the value proposal to one’s place and time within one’s daily life.

The aesthetic proposal proposed by Rikyu is reflected in a contemporary design, that of muji.

Turning point

From this observation on tea, and by observing a corpus of artefacts from the work of contemporary Japanese designers, this aesthetic proposal aiming at a form of harmony between values, bodies, gestures, etc. has caused a turning point in my view on design.

Looking at the Japanese tea ceremony through the lens of design, I saw the tea ceremony as prototypical of design based on Japanese culture, which has deeply shaken my perspective on design.

So I turned the lens over and looked at design through the lens of the tea ceremony, and saw a lack of a theoretical framework for design to explain the tea ceremony. And this absence gave way to a gap to be filled by a cultural decentration of design.

This decentration invites us to redefine the ritual not as an identical repetition of a sequence of actions, but as an aesthetic proposal that allows us to be reconsidered every time in our daily lives.

It also appears that the ritual is both social and singular, and always reinterpretable by those who propose it, the designers, and those who live it.

Design is therefore questioned in the light of the ritual, and the ritual is questioned through design.

Japanese philosophy and culture

To achieve this decentration, I studied Japanese philosophy and culture. Although I do not have time here to present the details of this study, I list here the main topics on which my attention has been focused:

Watsuji’s ethics on relationship, published in 1934;
Nishida’s philosophy (and a little more generally of the Kyoto School) on experience, whose main work was published in 1911;
The writings of Dōgen on time, dating from the 13th century;
And the work on the Buddhist idea of beauty proposed by Yanagi and published more recently in 1972.

Framework for design

From this study, it results that the aesthetic proposal of the Japanese perspective studied here is based on two notions on which design can act:

Thusness, or suchness, which proposes to look beyond human-machine interaction, considering a maximum of elements that constitute the lived world, as well as their relationships and the global harmony. Therefore, it suggests a method that takes the lived world as a starting point, and not the human-machine relationship as it is traditionally done, and aims to a harmonious integration of the designed artefact.
Irregularity offers an ethical vision for the design of everyday life. It does not aim for a form of perfection – very often considered in industrial design – but goes beyond it by presenting itself as a source of freedom and opening up fields of possibilities through interaction.

The two photos shown on the left of the screen are, at the top, an embroidered pattern designed by Akira Minagawa in 2005, and at the bottom a set of chasen handles (the whisk used to mix tea during the ceremony) 3D-printed during Shigeru Yamada’s master project that I supervised in 2016.

The irregularity shown in Minagawa’s design is made through a large number of embroidery stitches intended to be made at the same place, so that the machine can no longer make the stitch because of too high thread density. This causes the needle to twist to continue making the required stitch. This results in one or more embroidery stitches being made in an unplanned location, and therefore in an irregularity.

The chasen handles were based on a parametric design (the shape is described by a mathematical formula). The six models were produced at different printing speeds. From right to left, the first print was made at the standard machine speed, as indicated by the machine manufacturer, then 2, 3, 4 and 6 times faster. When we showed these chasen handles to a group of tea masters, considered experts in this experiment. The second was significantly more appreciated. This chasen handle has both a possibility to be used properly, and also a subtle irregularity that makes the object beautiful. We see in this experiment that irregularity is perceived as beautiful.

The contexture of everyday life

What thusness and irregularity enabled is to reopen the question of everyday life, and in particular the rituals of everyday life. We question here what people feel in their daily lives, especially in terms of aesthetics. The everyday ritual is precisely an interesting moment for design as it gives everyday practices a space for attention.

However, the idea of an aesthetic proposal that was discussed earlier brings us to an aesthetic view of the experience in the here-and-now, and therefore to what I call a contexture.

In this space (or moment) of attention that is the ritual, there is a texture, i.e., an inquiry on form by the organization of space, by the choice of objects, of gestures and practices… This texture is concretized by the ritual. Therefore, our approach questions the contexture delivered by the aesthetic proposal of the ritual and aims at a balance that allows a form of harmony.

Moreover, the ritual includes aspects that are social and singular. To understand it, it is therefore necessary to question it both on its social and singular aspects. To capture the singular, for about two years I have been asking my students, who have sufficient skills to make small films of this nature, to do one on one of their own daily rituals. These films are then viewed, discussed and analysed. This is one method, among others, to capture elements of the complex, intimate and implicit experience of everyday life, which are singular and aim at harmony within this experience.

The temporality of everyday life

I also conducted another experiment to explore a daily ritual, which was based on my personal morning hot chocolate. This experiment has shown that the question of the contexture, enabling to approach the aesthetic proposal, also questions our temporal values, most often in opposition to efficiency that often imposes itself on any question of temporality, especially in industrial design and interaction design.
This raises the question of the time values that are given to these everyday experiences.

How can the temporality of the ritual be characterized, for example differently from the flow theory, proposed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, also aiming at efficiency? We are aiming here at an aesthetic proposal that questions temporality, that invites us to take time: in this proposal, what values stopping to listen to music, contemplating a landscape, etc. This is another major issue addressed by this research program.

Enchanting everyday life through design

My research is therefore a design research, based on the contexture, a questioning of the temporal value, and a structured theoretical framework on thusness and irregularity.

The aim is to use the questions of contexture and temporality to invite the composition of a daily experience. And I like to borrow Bart Hengeveld’s words, who compares such a composition to that of music.

This is done in resistance to the Western culture of industrial design, which focuses almost exclusively on efficiency and effectiveness, and which seems to resist questioning emotion and irregularity. The Design&Emotion Society, established about a dozen years ago and mainly led by the Department of Industrial Design at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, which first worked well, and is currently in standby to discuss and to understand why it didn’t work so well in the end. I hope that this research brings an original perspective to this discussion.

Irregularity is at the heart of the approach. The irregularity enables an absence of fence, avoids a design that would aim at a controlled behaviour by an optimization of the means for a predetermined goal. It contributes to a better understanding of design, and to suggest an epistemology of design on the fact that a totally predictable and regulating system – whether social, cultural or technical – prevents invention or transformation.

Therefore, irregularity prevents us from falling into the trap of industrial production aiming at perfection and infinite reproduction, and enhances the idea of surprise, accident, openness to possibilities, both in the design and manufacturing processes and in the results.

And this research program aims to enchant everyday life through design.

One last thought

This brings me to a final reflection on this research program.

The opening made by my inquiry on the Japanese tea ceremony through design proposes something different to design. It questions the subject and the place of design research afresh, as it raises the question of everyday rituals.

Design research must be reappropriated by a design that is close to the thinking of Art&Craft and the decorative arts, i.e., by a thought that focuses on the arts of living, and that reflects aesthetic values and proposals for balance in the sensitive experience. This ambition to propose balances has rather been forgotten in current design research – and I am referring here to the research communities to which I belong, especially SIGCHI and DRS – which comes rather from industrial design and aims at a form of perfection, i. e., to an end of any reinterpretation.

The objective of design must be to propose aesthetic arrangements aimed at proposals for harmony between artefacts, spaces, gestures, values, etc., and not exclusively to promote effectiveness and efficiency, yet a dominant effort in contemporary design research and particularly in technological education places.

Therefore, I see this research as a form of resistance to functionalism, so well established in the culture of design research, inspired by industrial design.

What is important for such a design is the enchantment of everyday life, that is, an attention to a harmonious aesthetic arrangement made visible by the contexture: questioning again norms that are no longer visible by design, seeking an overall aesthetic balance in everyday life that allows the experience of beauty.

Thank you very much.

publications 18 November 2018 2018-11-18T13:00:33+01:00 The Japanese tea ceremony is an experiential moment of aesthetics and ethics of the everyday, a harmony between objects, beings, places, and practices. It underlines that everyday objects, heart of our material culture, exhibit a profound beauty, uphold a remarkable ethics, and yet go unnoticed. At the crossing of a reflection on a Japanese approach on design through the study of kansei, and a reflection on design in HCI based on embodiment theories, this research inquires first the western cultural hegemony of design in HCI, and second sets a cultural decentration of the discipline taking Japanese philosophy and culture as theory. This results in a novel perspective on design and designing, supported by an ethics of relation, an experience of thusness, and an aesthetics of irregularities. This perspective invites design to enchant the everyday, enabling to consider details of reality as it is lived, and to create unexpected moments, source of surprises and new possible outcomes. Therefore, inviting to culturally decentre design, this research suggests an original approach to design for the everyday, and contributes to find in it a major esthetical and ethical source, towards human development, as well as one’s sensitivity, and one’s values.

Contemplating the impossible

Lévy, P. (2018). Contemplating the Impossible, presented at Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. October 19th, 2018.

Introduction

First, I would like to thank Stephan Wensveen for the organisation and for making this day a such a special one, from start to end (although who knows how it will end…).
I am very glad to be here. It is an honour to participate to this symposium, and to have the role of opening the series of presentations. It is also a challenge I must say. Kees has been enriching the life of many of us, and I believe many of us would have something valuable to tell based on sharing experiences with Kees. I am very conscious of this privilege.

Times ago, discussing this symposium with Stephan, the idea was to have one eye looking back at what Kees brought to us and hoped for the design community, and to have the other eye on the future trying to tell our current students, to remind our alumni and ourselves some aspects Kees carried through his work, that we may bring further.
I have the honour and the challenge to operate this eye gymnastic and to share with you today what I see.

Contemplating the impossible

Today, in this speech, I will try not to bore you with details of the inaugural lecture of the late Prof Kees Overbeeke, “The Aesthetics of the Impossible”, that he gave in 2007, 11 years ago in exactly a week. Today offers an occasion for me to bore you with a contemplation of some of the key ideas raised during this lecture, and to contemplate them from where and when I stand today. And much have happened in between.

Today is also for me the occasion of getting bold again in the tradition of DQI. For the ones who hoped this was the past, bear with me and I’ll promise I will try to be soft. For the ones who miss it at times, hope you can enjoy.

For the ones who did not meet Kees, I would like to briefly introduce him. Late professor in our department of Industrial Design, Kees had a significant impact on the design and CHI communities all over the world, especially on the topics related to embodiment in design for interaction. But that would not tell much about the guy, by far. If he is remembered and celebrated in such a way as today, is because his ideas, his generosity, his friendliness and appreciation to all, impacted many individual lives, many of us both intellectually and humanly. He is, for many, one of these very few people that significantly meant something to us. He is a moment in the development of thoughts and attitudes.

His inaugural lecture was entitled “the aesthetics of the impossible”. The notion “impossible” demands here a little clarification, which is to me twofold:

Aesthetics, which is the core of design for interaction is ungraspable. It is only when and where it happens, in the here and the now. And then it is gone, suddenly as it happens. It is unique and impossible to grasp. Standardisation is impossible and actually not wished, as it would lead towards an extreme level of boredom and dissatisfaction. Systematic research is difficult but should be challenged.
Impossibility is also in the complexity we encounter in design: that is, in the variety of disciplines our students are facing (challenging skills, knowledge and practices), and in the inherent complexity of interaction and of experience. To address this impossibility, design approaches require a greater balance between making and thinking (supported by reflection on action, which I will address again later).

Therefore today, to contemplate the impossible, I will especially focus on three aspects: believes, teaching and research, making and thinking. And I will do so by freely mixing what Kees said (at least the way I understand it) and by my reflection on it. For the flow of my discourse, I will often borrow from Kees’s inaugural lecture without systematically mention it.

Contemplating believes

Kees explains:
Every scientist, as well as every designer, has a body of knowledge, as well as a galaxy of believes (that is my wording).

Knowledge is established through research activities and transmitted through teaching. It is about how things are. Believes contribute to envisioning how things ought to be. They result from philosophy, intuition, awareness, experience, from our being-in-the-world, in a giving culture, in a giving timeframe.

Believes are guides for where we go, where we look, we what we do, and what strikes us. They condition our engagements, our motives, our stance and our actions in the world. Less than a month ago, Bill Buxton, lecturing here at TU/e, was reminding us the importance, and actually the necessity of having a compass and a horizon in design practice and design research. It is essential for good design (given that this design intends to contribute to the making of a better world).

In the current context where the most striking thing we know is that we do not know where the world is going, because of its complexity, because of challenges that we are aware of but do not fully comprehend, because of tensions we feel but that are not clear to our sight. This is made even more complex by our relation and use of technology: as we praise it and support its development and its use in society, yet questioning it at the same time.

Knowledge and believes then are necessary in design practice, design education, and design research.

A few believes that Kees mentioned during his inaugural lecture, are worth remembering:

“Design is about people. It is about our life and dreams, about our loneliness and joy, our sense of beauty and justice, about the social and the good. It is about being in the world”.
Meaning emerges in interaction and cannot be detached from action. This demands a primacy of embodiment and a primacy of action.

Considering these two first points, a few consequences can be suggested here. The first two ones are also stated by Kees:

A design theory must be a theory of action (and I would add of transformation, which I will discuss later). This theory should focus on embodiment in the first place, and on meaning in the second place. Reflection in/on and for action is a source of knowledge and a creator of new and valuable perspectives on and for design, on and for the world.
Design research and practice are powerful source of knowledge. As I will discuss it later, research and education should be highly interwoven.

To these two considerations, I may add the following:

Design research is not solely an applicative research but contains also, and actually is for a large part, a theoretical research, with the condition that we give space to it. Design theory, constitutive of design research, is a theory of action. If design would to be a science (in the modern sense of the term, which I have throughout the years got progressively to agree with), it would be a transformative science, as any other science with transformative outcomes, such as engineering or chemistry (when it tries to create a new molecule for example). Design is not a descriptive science, such as ethnography, physics trying to describe the phenomenon of gravitation, or chemistry trying to describe a natural chemical reaction.
Design (being practice, education, or research) is about transformations, and is specific as it is about action, about people, and about ethics.
Therefore, I would challenge any reduction of the world or the experience of it, to data. In this crucial moment, where data related technologies become so predominant, with incredible and promising outcomes, design practitioners and design researchers should obviously embrace such technologies, as well as not forgetting that the experience of the world is embodied, is affective, and symbolic. We are beings with a history, culture, ethics, visions and dreams.

Contemplating teaching and research

This is especially important when considering the necessity of aligning research and teaching. Kees reminded us clearly and simply the necessity to align both activities for the academic world.

He told us: “expressivity, beauty and meaning are at the core of design”. In 1999, I (being Kees while in Delft) pointed out the mismatch between teaching and research. Research was about structural aspects of perception, and teaching was about beauty of interaction. I could not change the teaching, so I changed the research. “Emotion became important, which is not obvious as a research topic in the technical background that was then in Delft and now here.”

The PhD of Stephan Wensveen is one of the first and a clear example of research work on emotionally intelligent products. Already then he noticed the challenge and the necessity of interacting in a continuous and simultaneous way with products (topic that was still challenged in the PhD of Jelle Stienstra just 2 years ago). Many related topics were then developed further in various ways throughout most PhDs executed in the DQI research group. And I am no surprised that Stephan today pushes the research further and focuses on questions related to the “aesthetics of the intelligence”.

Recently, our students are facing a progressive increase of topics the design community is engaging in (design based on big data, A.I. and other learning algorithms, but also service design, social design…). All these increase challenges and complexity in their education and their future work. They also face a progressive increase of technological solutions at hand to make their designs.
Now that teaching is challenged by many other topics (related to technology and society), I think It is important for us, as a leading academia in design, to keep focusing where our skills are: as we interact with data through interfaces, being either sensors or actuators… “how do these become meaningful and beautiful to us?” is our core question. Mastering data management (among others) is certainly important, however, providing meaningful, rich and beautiful interactions is the heart of design.

This demands to care for human and their actual experiences as beings-in-the-world, and to keep design teaching and research focusing on this. Only then, when students will embody that by being curious, sympathetic and independent, only then they will embody and act the richness design may provide. Taking again the lines from Kees: “But the only way to develop curiosity, sympathy, principle, and independence of mind is to practice being curious, sympathetic, principled and independent. For those of us who are teachers, it isn’t what we teach that instills virtue, it is how we teach. We are the books our students read most closely”
“Let us practice what we preach”. Let us care, through our teaching, what our students learn and become.

Contemplating making and thinking

The electronic and digital interfaces are loaded with buttons that demands little of our motor-perceptive skills, and too much of our cognitive skills.
This situation leads to standardized and efficient interactions, as well as to boring and poor ones if we consider the human being in its entirety.

Making simple buttons by default is, to my point of view, a triple failure:
First, as we already mentioned it, it fails the possibility to provide beauty in interaction, beauty and care in the experience. It fails the heart of design.
Second, it is defeating the idea that design is about challenges and only addressing these challenges will help, in the long term, to find novel, effective, rich and beautiful ways of interacting.
Third, the button degrades our contact with the world. When there is no experiential relation between the activity of pressing a button and the functional and experiential consequences of doing so, there is also less space for grasping the world, that is for sensemaking. Proposing poor interaction solutions (by opposition of making rich interaction solutions), makes us designer and us users less to experience our being-in-the-world, and therefore inepter (or more moronic is you prefer).

The button here is obviously only the archetype of a quick and easy decision making, yet leading to boredom, poverty in life experiences, and flattening both designers’ and users’ minds.
Our design skills exploring possibilities of rich interactions are therefore not only a way to make user’s experiences and life better, but also a way to advance in design research: exploring through making (using design skills well), and reflecting in and on action is what design can do best, and contribute to the most in the world of academia in the first place, and in the world in the second place.

Finally, as Kees reminded us, we need to keep in mind that we are too many that know, and not enough that make. Reflection on action should be the drive to push design practice and design research further. “in our effort to understand reality, we have been too much abstracted from it”.

Contemplating transformation

As mentioned before, design is about transformation, transformation of practices in societies and in our everyday life. Understanding reality, which means understanding our everyday life, is to transform it:

Étudier la vie quotidienne serait une entreprise parfaitement ridicule, et d’abord condamnée à ne rien saisir de son objet, si l’on ne se proposait pas explicitement d’étudier la vie quotidienne afin de la transformer. Guy Debord

Studying the everyday life would be an absurd undertaking, and anyway fated to catch nothing of its object, if studying the everyday life would explicitly be with the intention to transform it. Guy Debord

And I would like to conclude with this notion of everyday transformation, being actually my research topic which I believe I have built partly on the considerations I have discussed today.

Although this word, “everyday” is so much used in the world of design, addressing it is not as obvious as it seems, and is often actually avoided or subverted. As things become part of our everyday, a process called quotidianisation, they escape from our attention, giving us peace of mind. They stop questioning us, and we stop questioning them. This way, they progressively disappear from our awareness. Perec even speaks about amnesia, rather than lack of attention. What can be extraordinary when new, becomes infra-ordinary through the process of quotidianisation.
Questioning the everyday requires exploring the infraordinary, which demands exploring tiny and often personal details that we are obviously not aware of in the first place. Exploring the everyday to transform it demands to get aware and to understand its most tiny details, which as Coyne & Mathers explain “often appear irrational from a third-person perspective, but most often rational from a first-person perspective”. Therefore, designing for the everyday demands a continuous and structuring dialog between an exploration at the first-person perspective, to create a rational, observing and transforming ones’ own everyday life to comprehend these rationales, and a third-person perspective that enables us to design for others.

I have found the sensibility, the attention to tiny details and the beauty in the everyday in the Japanese culture and philosophy, from which I have elaborated a theoretical framework for designing for the everyday. This framework relies indeed on Japanese philosophers and thinkers, such as Nishida Kitaro or Yanagi Soetsu who through their work have pointed out where beauty relies in the everyday, as well as designers, such as Naoto Fukusawa and Kenya Hara who through their work have not only designed but also reflected on their making to show the values of paying attention to the everyday towards human and social elevation, and have made it existing in our societies all over the world, through companies such as Muji.

Designing for the everyday is to me a clear example of what design claims to do, yet actually (and for now!) fails to do properly. The hope of making design research education and practice an actual unique and yet not isolated contributor to a betterment of our world, goes through a repositioning on what design can do best: focusing and creating meaning in interaction for people’s experiences, using at full reflection in and on action to make sense of the world as it is lived, making sure to enrich the beauty of our everyday life. All that stands in the way of abstraction, standardization.

Contemplating the impossible

To finish on Kees’s considerations: “It is our role, scholars and industrialists, to define a new project for design. We have to avoid remaining in a problem-solver perspective, and to wake-up and let grow the challengers that is in each of the designers we are educating.”

We must dream, to give youngsters hope.

Thanks to Kees for all this teaching, that even in challenging times remain constitutive of our design compass.
La reconnaissance est la mémoire du cœur.

Thank you

publications 19 October 2018 2018-10-19T10:30:52+02:00 Times ago, discussing this symposium with Stephan, the idea was to have one eye looking back at what Kees brought to us and hoped for the design community, and to have the other eye on the future trying to tell our current students, to remind our alumni and ourselves some aspects Kees carried through his work, that we may bring further. I have the honour and the challenge to operate this eye gymnastic and to share with you today what I see.

Everyday

everyday as a concept

Everyday

everyday as a concept

Everyday

everyday as a concept

Everyday

everyday as a concept

Kees Overbeeke symposium

Preceding the inaugural lecture of prof. Stephan Wensveen, you are cordially invited to attend the Kees Overbeeke symposium at the Senaatszaal in the Auditorium, on Friday, October 19, 2018.
On the legagy of Prof. Kees Overbeeke

Designing for the everyday

Addressing the ordinary through design

Description

The everyday is the reality in which we act and perceive through unremarkable experiences. It is about going to sleep, waking up, cleaning, eating, dressing and undressing, reading, drinking tea or coffee… It is therefore in the flow of the infraordinary (Perec, 1989) and the banal, away of the extraordinary and of the memorable. What the everyday is actually less a matter of activity value than a matter of ‘specific mode of manifestation’ (Dewolf, 2008).

The aim of this course is to address the qualities embodied in the everyday from an interaction design perspective, and to explore the relation between the designed artefacts and the everyday they are involved in. The main focus will be on how to capture the everyday and to design towards it. A continuous discussion throughout the elective will address the merits of addressing the everyday in interaction design.

To address this course through a project, we will first focus on a personal everyday ritual, in order to determine descriptive elements. We will then explore ways to approach the everyday through a project.
The final day will close the module by a demonstration of the design addressing the students’ inquiry on the everyday, and a discussion on these designs.

Describe your street. Describe another one. Compare.br> Make an inventory of your pockets, of your bag. Wonder about the origin, the use, the future of each of the objects you take out.
Question your tea spoons. []
It matters little to me that these questions are fragmentary, barely indicative of a method, at most of a project. It matters a lot to me that they seem trivial and futile: that’s precisely what makes them as essential, if not more so, as so many others by which we have vainly tried to capture our truth. (Perec, 1989)

Learning objectives

The learning objectives of this course include:

Describing everyday rituals and the everyday;
Implementing details related to the everyday through interaction design;
Arguing the design decisions taken during implementation and their consequences;
Assessing or evaluating the everyday-related qualities in interaction.

projects 04 September 2018 2018-09-04T00:55:28+02:00 Addressing the ordinary through design

Barely out of bed

床を抜け匙にて点てるココアの茶

The beauty of making hot chocolate, an inquiry on designing for everyday rituals

Lévy, P. (2018). The beauty of making hot chocolate – an inquiry on designing for everyday rituals. In Design Research Society 2018, DRS2018. Limerick, Ireland: Design Research Society. https://doi.org/10.21606/dma.2017.514

The Proceedings of the Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2018, KEER 2018

Lokman, A.M., Yamanaka, T., Lévy, P., Chen, K., Koyama, S. (Eds). 2018. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research 2018 – KEER2018. Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. ISBN: 978-981-10-8612-0.

Analysis of the Design and Engineering-process towards a First Prototype in the Field of Sports and Vitality

Janssen, M. A., Heuvel, R. van den, Megens, C. J. P. G., Levy, P. D. & Vos, S. B. (2018). Analysis of the design and engineering-process towards a first prototype in the field of sports and vitality. In Proceedings of 12th Conference of the International Sports Engineering Association, 2(6), 297. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI). https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2060297

Light behavior design: violation of unification principles and the effect on the user experience

Dassen, W., Wensveen, S., & Lévy, P. (2017). Light Behavior Design: Violation of Unification Principles and the Effect on the User Experience. In Design Interactive Systems Conference, DIS17 (pp. 259–263). New York, NY, USA: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3064857.3079157

People Place Process: A self-reflection tool to become a professional in design thinking, based on pedagogical action research

The nature of design thinking projects requires a great capacity to solve situated-inquiry problems (versus technical problem solving – Schön). Design thinking requires practitioners to become reflective professionals. This piece of research provides a protocol and tools to guide their journey of self-reflection.
Doctoral dissertation of Véronique Hillen

Enhancing co-responsibility for patient engagement

Neutelings, I., Lévy, P., Djajadiningrat, T., & Hummels, C. (2017). Enhancing co-responsibility for patient engagement. The Design Journal, 20(sup1), S2273–S2283. https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2017.1352743

3D-modeling and 3D-printing explorations on Japanese tea ceremony utensils

Lévy, P., & Yamada, S. (2017). 3D-modeling and 3D-printing explorations on Japanese tea ceremony utensils. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interactions, TEI17. Yokohama, Japan: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/3024969.3024990

What matters for ritual visualization, towards a design tool for the description and the composition of rituals

Lévy, P., & Hengeveld B.J. (2016). What matters for ritual visualization – Towards a design tool for the description and the composition of rituals. Proceedings of Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2016, KEER2016. Leeds, UK: Japan Society of Kansei Engineering.

Reinventing the (steering) wheel, A kansei design approach for novel driving experience

Kennedy, R., & Lévy, P. (2016). Reinventing the (steering) wheel – A kansei design approach for novel driving experience. Proceedings of Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2016, KEER2016. Leeds, UK: Japan Society of Kansei Engineering.

Gesture-based and Haptic Interfaces for Connected and Autonomous Driving

Terken, J., Lévy, P., Wang, W., Karjanto, J., Yusof, N.M.., Ros, F., & Zwaan, S. (2016). Gesture-Based and Haptic Interfaces for Connected and Autonomous Driving. In I.L., Nunes (Eds.) Advances in Human Factors and System Interactions, Proceedings of the AHFE 2016 International Conference on Human Factors and System Interactions, July 27-31, 2016, Walt Disney World®, Florida, USA (pp. 107-115). Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41956-5_11

Perspectives en design d’interaction

Lévy, P. (2016). Perspectives en design d’interaction, presented at La Pré-Fabrique de l’innovation – UdL, Saint-Étienne. June 10th, 2016

IxD&A #30, Special issue: On Making

Marti, P., Frens, J., Hengeveld, B., & Lévy P. (Eds). 2016. Interaction Design and Architecture(s), special issue: On Making. ISSN: 1826-9745.

Kinectic Folds: Interaction Priming

This research focuses on what happens to our relationship with objects when they come alive and engage in reciprocal communication with us.
An (es)sense research project by Kevin N. Andersen

Exploring the challenge of designing rituals

Lévy, P. (2015). Exploring the challenge of designing rituals. In V., Popovic, A., Blackler, & B., Kraal (Eds.), the Proceedings of 6th International Congress of International Association of Societies of Design Research, IASDR 2015. Brisbane, Australia: Queensland University of Technology.

Perceptive qualities

And thoses who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
- Friederich Nietsche (1885)

Composing Everyday Rituals

Addressing these qualities embodied in rituals from an interaction design perspective

The Chatter Door, designing for in-between spaces

Duel, T., & Lévy, P. (2015). The Chatter Door, designing for in-between spaces. In V., Popovic, A., Blackler, & B., Kraal (Eds.), the Proceedings of 6th International Congress of International Association of Societies of Design Research, IASDR 2015. Brisbane, Australia: Queensland University of Technology.

Experiential design landscapes: how to design for behaviour change, towards an active lifestyle

The design process is taken into society by creating infrastructures where designers work together with stakeholders in jointly creating experienceable propositions that can evolve over time.
Doctoral dissertation of Carl Megens and Michel Peeters

Designing rituals

The aim of this course is to address these qualities embodied in rituals from an interaction design perspective, and to explore the relation between the designed artefacts and the rituals they are involved in.

Our lives are a collection of rituals. The way we wake up, the way we leave or enter our home, the way we prepare our suitcase before going on a trip are just simple examples of the many rituals each of us have constructed and that structure our everyday lives. These rituals are not rigid procedures, but a seemingly established series of activities from which experiential meaning emerges, and by which personal values are expressed.

The aim of this course is to address these qualities embodied in rituals from an interaction design perspective, and to explore the relation between the designed artefacts and the rituals they are involved in. Through this exploration, we will gain insights in the reciprocal nature of these influences between the artefacts and the ritual (and by extension the experiential meanings and the expressed values). The final discussion will address the merits of addressing rituals in interaction design, and how to design for meaningful rituals.

To address this course through a project, we will first turn to a Japanese tea ceremony, which is one of the most elaborated and rich rituals and one of the pillars of the Japanese craftsmanship culture. By extracting key characteristics of this ritual, we will start a design exploration to conclude with a concept at the end of the first week. The entire module focuses on one ritual (to be decided), and each group will focus on one artefact within this overarching ritual. The second week focuses on opportunities of a series of prototyping iterations to reach details. Each of them being concluded by a discussion on the reciprocal influences between the artefacts and the ritual and the implication on the interaction design process. The final day will close the module by a demonstration of the ritual with the newly designed series of artefacts.

projects 03 November 2014 2014-11-03T16:27:15+02:00 The aim of this course is to address these qualities embodied in rituals from an interaction design perspective, and to explore the relation between the designed artefacts and the rituals they are involved in.

Impact of perception theories on kansei design

Lévy, P. (2014). Impact of perception theories on kansei design. Journal of Japan Society of Kansei Engineering, 13(1), 21–26.

aGravity

Nobody ever said that defying gravity is easy!
a final bachelor project by Alex Jurtan

Perception Theories and Kansei Design

Lévy, P. (2014). Perception Theories and Kansei Design. In P., Lévy, S., Schütte, & T., Yamanaka (Eds.), the Proceedings of Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2014, KEER2014 (pp 287–297). Linköping, Sweden: Japan Society of Kansei Engineering.

Rite de transition – a design choreographic exploration of cultural value exchange, through development of intercultural ritual artefacts

Kint, J., Klooster, S., & Lévy, P. (2014). Rite de transition – a design choreographic exploration of cultural value exchange, through development of intercultural ritual artefacts. In P., Lévy, S., Schütte, & T., Yamanaka (Eds.), the Proceedings of Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2014, KEER2014 (pp 1115–1125). Linköping, Sweden: Japan Society of Kansei Engineering.

Data Resonance

What does data feel like?
by Sander Dijkhuis

The bases of direct interaction design

Lévy, P. (2013). The bases of direct interaction design, presented at Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, Japan. December 3rd, 2013.

Direct interaction design

Lévy, P. (2013). Direct interaction design, presented at Musashino Art University, Tokyo, Japan. November 19th, 2013.

Exploring constituents for kansei design, towards a framework

Lévy, P. (2013). Exploring constituents for kansei design, towards a framework. the Proceedings of 5th International Congress of International Association of Societies of Design Research, IASDR 2013 (pp 148–159). Tokyo, Japan: Shibaura University of Technology.

Matter of transformation, designing an alternative tomorrow inspired by phenomenology

Hummels, C., & Lévy, P. (2013). Matter of Transformation: Designing an Alternative Tomorrow Inspired by Phenomenology. Interactions, 20(6), 42–49. https://doi.org/10.1145/2533713

Beyond kansei engineering: the emancipation of kansei design

Lévy, P. (2013). Beyond kansei engineering: the emancipation of kansei design. International Journal of Design. 7(2), 83–94

Sensual Dynamics

The primacy of perception towards interaction is the main focus of this workshop, proposing an approach to effectively taking it into consideration in the design process.

Holism and kansei design, kansei beyond borders

Lévy, P. (2013). Holism and kansei design – kansei beyond borders, presented at the International Colloquium on Kansei and Design 2013, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan. August 30th, 2013.

Holism and kansei design – kansei beyond borders

In the field of kansei research, three main disciplines contribute, in different ways, to the creation of artefacts: kansei engineering, kansei science, and kansei design. In this presentation, I will focus specifically on kansei science and kansei design, and on their differences and similarities. Finally, I will show how these two disciplines are actually complementary and that their collaboration can be relevant.

First, I will briefly describe these two disciplines and their approach. More detailed work on these descriptions, together with a comprehensive historical approach on the disciplines of kansei research can be found in (Lévy, 2013).

Kansei science (KS) was first proposed by Akira Harada, and was introduced at the crossing of kansei and cognitive sciences. The research initiated in the eighties by Harada aimed at describing holistically users’ cognitive processes related to preference and choice of products. KS is built upon brain science, mostly cognitive neuroscience and psychophysiology, and relies on related philosophies. The mind/brain identity theory is for example used extensively in KS. Human’s thinking and resulting behaviours can be best understood by using a model involving mental representational structures and mental procedures that operates on these structures. These models and structures can be studied by psychophysiological approaches. In this academic context, KS research aims to characterize and to evaluate emotional experiences and creativity, to contribute to a better understanding of the mind based on physiological and psychological approaches. Moreover, it is important to notice that KS has very often worked with design research to develop conjointly new methods and inspiration means for design and communication.

Kansei design (KD) is, on the other hand, an emergent discipline in the field of kansei research. Currently, there are two approaches in the discipline of KD, which can be differentiated by their focus.

The first approach focuses on the physical materiality of artefacts (i.e., their intrinsic properties), and their evaluation or preference by the user. This approach is very close to KS in terms of domains of application, in term of tools (often based on semantics), but differs by their attitude towards ambiguity and uncertainty. While KS intends to avoid it or to “solve” it by means of logic reasoning, KD deals with it by means of design skills and experience.

The second approach focuses on the interactive materiality of artefacts (i.e., the qualities of the artefact in interaction). This approach is the one adopted and explored by the author. Whereas KE and KS have found their roots in scientific establishment, KD intends to return to (Japanese) philosophical or cultural works related to kansei, and to use them as a source of knowledge and opportunities to be addressed by design. From this perspective, two major stances are taken: the primacy of action (“We see a thing by action, and the thing we see determines us as much as we determine the thing. That is action-intuition.” - Nishida) and the primacy of the body (“Just as the body of an artist is the organ of art, so is the body of a scholar the organ of scholarship; the life of an artist exists in beauty and that of a scholar in truth. Even the activity of thinking does not exist separately from our physical body.” - Nishida). Example of kansei design works can be seen in the aforementioned referenced paper.

What is interesting to notice when overviewing these two disciplines together is the closeness of the focus despites the great difference in the approach. KS is obviously internalist (perception is a process taking place within the human mind), and KD externalist (perception is a process taking place within a system composed of the human and the environment). However, both disciplines focus on the immediate experience, i.e., on the here and the now of the human experience.

In previous research projects, addressed from a kansei science perspective, I have explored the idea that as long as there are two persons in the same space, there is diversity. I call this interX. Most classically studied ones are the intercultural and interdisciplinary aspects. I have focused on the diversity in a broader sense and used a kansei science approach to contribute to the creation of tools that supports this diversity. The output were the Evoked Metaphor (a conceptualising tool facilitating knowledge sharing among members of an interdisciplinary design workgroup to work together upon individual and disciplinary differences) and MATiK (a computer-mediated communication system, inspired by the cocktail party effect using positive filters to provide each member the necessary information according to the consideration of individual qualities). See (Lévy & Yamanaka, 2006) for more details.

Now, I would like to succinctly explore what could be the starting point from a KD perspective on the same topic. As the variety of interX types is immense and can hardly be overviewed (KD aims at considering opportunities from a holistic perspective), I propose to reverse this inquiry and to address a fundamental commonality: we are in the world, and there is a primacy of the body in interaction (as suggested by Nishidian’s action-intuition). Note that he stance is also addressed by various contemporary psychology and philosophy, notably: Gibson’s ecological psychology and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. Kansei design address is how to design for direct and immediate experience. It addresses it by synthesising concepts coming from Japanese philosophy (notably the school of Kyoto) and relying on Japanese cultural values of aesthetics and craftsmanship. However, as kansei design is a very emerging discipline highly related to direct interaction design, many conceptual and methodological aspects are still borrowed to it. Consequently, kansei design aims at creating ‘irresistible’ artefacts, i.e., that resonate with the user engaged in interaction. Resonance interaction is the “perfect interplay between the product and the person which evokes strong positive emotions” [Kevin Andersen].

To conclude, based on my research experiences within the two disciplines, I strongly believe that we can go beyond the theoretical differences (not to say the contradictions) and mutually contribute to both the understanding of kansei and its application to the creation of kansei-quality artefacts. From this mutual contribution, kansei will be more widely, and therefore better understood, and kansei designs will be more irresistible. Challenges are to be faced, opportunities are to be taken!

References

Lévy, P. & Yamanaka T. (2006). MATiK – CMC Design by Kansei Information Approach, in Proc. KEIS’06.

Lévy, P. (2013). Beyond kansei engineering: The emancipation of kansei design. International Journal of Design, 7(2).

publications 30 August 2013 2013-08-30T21:55:59+02:00

Portfolio for the University Teaching Qualification (BKO)

Lévy, P. (2013). Portfolio for the University Teaching Qualification (BKO). Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

People, Place, Process: Lessons Learnt on the Path to a d.school

Hillen, V., & Lévy, P. (2013). People, Place, Process: Lessons Learnt on the Path to a d.school. the Proceedings of International Conference on Engineering Design 2013, ICED13 ([on CD]). Seoul, Korea: The Design Society.

Perceptive Qualities in System of Interactive Products

On May 3rd 2013, Eva Deckers has received a Ph.D. degree CUM LAUDE on the topic of Perceptive Qualities in System of Interactive Products.

This doctoral project investigates whether and how to design for perceptive qualities in systems of interactive products from a phenomenological point of view. It sets out to form and frame a new perspective on designing an artefact's intelligence from a quality- and action-centric approach, rather than a functional approach. Artefacts and the systems they create become increasingly intelligent and disappear to the background of our environment. How do we understand all these intelligible connections that systems create in our environment when they are invisible and highly flexible? Moreover, how do we design for such systems of intelligent and interactive artefacts? I am convinced that if we want to design for successful intelligent systems that are perceptible to and evolve around its user, the artefact's intelligence has to build on the direct interaction with its user(s). It is shown that, by designing for perceptive qualities, the system's activity becomes meaningful to its users. Moreover, the user activity becomes meaningful to the system in the course of the interaction.

The work is inspired by and directly synthesises from theory. The theoretical starting point and the generated design-relevant knowledge, in the form of design notions, are a leitmotiv through this work. Three main chapters are structured around this connecting thread. In each of these chapters, designing plays an essential role. The first chapter follows a minimalist approach in context and in implementation to bring forward fundamental knowledge for designing. The second chapter investigates the added value of the generated knowledge for designing, and a step is made towards design practice. In the third chapter, a third-person perspective corroborates the first-person approach and findings. It is crucial that these three chapters feed into each other to inform, inspire and validate.

projects 23 May 2013 2013-05-23T16:27:15+02:00 On May 3rd 2013, Eva Deckers has received a Ph.D. degree CUM LAUDE on the topic of Perceptive Qualities in System of Interactive Products.

Designing for Perceptual Crossing: designing and comparing three behaviors

Deckers, E.J.L., Wensveen, S., Lévy, P., & Ahn, R. (2013). Designing for Perceptual Crossing: designing and comparing three behaviors. the Proceedings of SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI'13 (pp 1901–1910). Paris, France: ACM. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2466251

Systems Design - The Eindhoven School

While we are starting to understand how to design for interaction through the integrating of form, interaction and function, the next challenge is already in sight: designing for systems.

The future of design is unclear, as designerly responsibilities are changing. The emphasis used to be on form and production, but as the products to be designed have changed, design has changed. With an interactive product the designer needs to consider not only the form but also the temporal aspects of the product?s interaction and behaviour, and even the specifics of its functionality. While we are starting to understand how to design for interaction through the integrating of form, interaction and function, the next challenge is already in sight: designing for systems.

From a design perspective, there is very little experience of designing systems, and there are no methods ready at hand. However, our question of ?how to design for systems? is not a ?methodology? question in the first place. To formulate a method is to simplify and abstract the design challenge into a defined set of subsequent steps to be taken. In the case of design for systems, this is problematic because it is difficult, if not impossible, to have an overview of the complete system before it exists or of its impact on society. Not only is our grasp of the system limited by our point of view, but systems also allow for many different yet valid points of view, thanks to their inherent complexity.

In order to overcome these issues it is necessary to start exploring the design space for systems. As we have little experience in this area, it is essential that we get involved in designing ourselves and let our insight in these matters grow until we can compile it into a relevant methodology. What is more, we need to take an experiential approach to the design of these systems. That is, we need to undergo the experience of living with such systems as we are designing them if we are to make value judgements on the direction the solution should take. In other words, the uncertainty of method and the complex nature of systems call for a research-through-design approach, with ?doing? as the mechanism for obtaining insight into the process at hand guided by relevant theory and a vision of what we want to achieve.

This exposition contains a selection of projects involving members of the Designing Quality in Interaction (DQI) group in which research, education and industry come together. These projects provide insights into our perspective on design and how it has changed over the years. We aim to paint a picture of a world that could be, as well as giving insight into how we think the design challenge for industrial designers is changing.

Text by Oscar Tomico

projects 12 December 2012 2012-12-12T16:27:15+02:00 While we are starting to understand how to design for interaction through the integrating of form, interaction and function, the next challenge is already in sight: designing for systems.

Shift - an installation for the Glow festival

Light through Culture is an international design school which explores the theme of complexity in learning environments.

Designing for perceptive qualities: 7 showcases

Deckers, E.J.L., & Lévy, P. (2012). Designing for perceptive qualities: 7 showcases. the Proceedings of Design Interactive Systems Conference, DIS12 (pp 496–505). Newcastle, UK: ACM. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2317956.2318030

Designing for perceptual crossing: applying and evaluating design notions

Deckers, E.J.L., Lévy, P., Wensveen, S., Ahn, R., & Overbeeke, K. (2012). Designing for perceptual crossing: applying and evaluating design notions. International Journal of Design. 6(3), 41–55

Introducing research activities: Knowledge Sharing and Creativity with Kansei Design

Lévy, P. (2009). Introducing research activities: Knowledge Sharing and Creativity with Kansei Design. Journal of Japan Society of Kansei Engineering, 8(2)

Light in Transition

Intelligent products and systems are omnipresent, weave into our everyday life, and consequently have the power to transform our society. Adoption of these systems in our environments invites for exploring further how we interact with our environment.
by Nadine Amersvoort

We are accepting technology more and more into our lives as means to enhance the experience of the everyday. Intelligent products and systems are omnipresent, weave into our everyday life, and consequently have the power to transform our society. Adoption of these systems in our environments invites for exploring further how we interact with our environment.

This research is grounded on the phenomenology of perception and ecological psychology, considering perception to be active. Perception is result of the dynamic coupling between a person’s action in relation to her or his environment and the sensory input this environment provides. In other words, we have to act to perceive and we concentrate our senses in the direction of the stimuli: e.g., turn our body around to see what is behind us, in order to perceive.

The research focuses on how interaction with interactive artefacts can add intrinsic value on space being experienced as a transitory space. Four topics are introduced to investigate our experience of space as transitory space: ritual, space, light and craft. They serve as the backbone of the project and we could say that the ritual is the means for the technology (light) to enable the value (sense of place) to emerge in interaction with (hand) crafted artefacts. In this project I investigate if an interactive lighting installation can trigger our sense of place and belonging in spaces.

Throughout this project I follow a ‘research-through-design’ approach. This is an approach where products are designed to explore implications of theory in context. The idea of perceptive qualities in interactive lighting installations is explored, and I question if an interactive artefact contributes to the experience of transition and allows for a greater feeling of involvement in the space. The project is divided into three cases:
- In the first case (Homelab), different light behaviours and interaction in a home situation are explored.
- Simultaniously, we investigate the relationship with an interactive artefact in context. In the second design case (Videolab), the influence of an additional object on the space being experienced as transitory space is explored. In the third design case (Mirror), the gained relevant designknowledge is united and expressed in a concluding interactive light object.
- With this project I aim to get a grip on how interaction with interactive artefacts can add intrinsic value on space being experienced as transitory space.

(Nadine Amersvoort)

projects 03 September 2012 2012-09-03T16:27:15+02:00 Intelligent products and systems are omnipresent, weave into our everyday life, and consequently have the power to transform our society. Adoption of these systems in our environments invites for exploring further how we interact with our environment. by Nadine Amersvoort

Luma

This research project focuses on how to design for perceptive activity in artifacts in order for crossing in perception of expressivity between person and artifact to happen.
by Koen Beljaars

Monty

Due to its curious nature Monty might not always be focused on what you are doing. He can however be temporarily motivated to move towards a particular area on your desk.
by Rens Alkemade

Passage

Passage is a kansei design project on the in-between space carried out in 2012 by Gracia Goh, Chiyong Lim, and Kate Vermeyen at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

(Excerpt from my Habilitation)

Passage is a project carried out in 2012 by Gracia Goh, Chiyong Lim, and Kate Vermeyen at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Passage focuses on the place of transition between two physical spaces, i.e. their inter-space. The project statement invites students to create a design for the inter-space without influencing the experience of either space. This statement seems a priori phenomenologically incoherent, since the experience of something external to oneself necessarily takes place in a space and requires that the user’s attention be directed at least partially towards this thing. Yet, not only does the inter-space not seem to be a space (but rather a surface), and the attention of a person passing through a door is most often directed towards the space in which they intend to travel.

After multiple iterations including prototype production, situation tests, reflections based on the Kansei context, etc., a remarkable design has gradually taken shape. Passage is an installation mounted on the frame of a door. This installation consists of a line of light-emitting diodes (RGB LEDs) projected on a thin aluminium foil that reflects light back towards the door once it is ajar. The diodes very slowly change the emitted color. The aluminium foil undulates depending on how the door is opened: a quick opening will create much more turbulence than a slow opening. The light impression projected on the door is therefore unique with each opening and closing.

What is remarkable about this design is that the light projection is not visible to the passer-by when the door is fully closed or open, so that interaction only takes place in the action of the door opening. The experience begins as soon as you start opening the door and ends before you finish opening it. Not only is the installation (almost) located in this inter-space, but the experience is also located in this inter-space: it almost does not interfere with the passer-by’s intentionality to pass into the next space. The design objective is thus achieved.

In addition to certain “classical” kansei descriptors, such as the grain, the light-shade interaction or the feeling of an invitation to appreciate this inter-space, kansei descriptors specific to this project have been established: instantaneity and the elusive, and even more so their couple. What is remarkable is that this experience is engaging from the point of view of its expression, engaging by the gesture, and that its intensity comes from the fact that it is very short, unavoidable, and elusive: in an instant it engages us then liberates us, without us being able to really escape it, or do anything about it. That is the beauty of this design.

projects 03 September 2012 2012-09-03T16:27:15+02:00 Passage is a kansei design project on the in-between space carried out in 2012 by Gracia Goh, Chiyong Lim, and Kate Vermeyen at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

The Practice of Constructive Design Research

The Practice of Constructive Design Research is a conversation proposed by Stoffel Kuenen at the DRS2014 conference.

Involving psychophysiological knowledge in Kansei design

Lévy, P., Kim, D., Tsai, T.J., Lee, S.H., & Yamanaka, T. (2012). Involving psychophysiological knowledge in Kansei design. International Journal of Design Engineering. 5(2), 122-141. doi:10.1504/IJDE.2012.053018

The multi-disciplinary nature of kansei research: an historical approach

Lévy, P. (2012). The multi-disciplinary nature of kansei research: an historical approach. Penghu, Taiwan.

Special issue: kansei research in Europe

Lévy, P. (2012). Special issue: kansei research in Europe, presented at the Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2012, KEER2012, Penghu, Taiwan. May 22-25, 2012.

Rights through Making - Skills for Pervasive Ethics

Pervasive ethics is a social praxis aimed at justice and freedom, which pervades society in a capillary way, becoming a Universal attitude that makes people aware of their own rights, able and willing to contribute to seeing their own rights and those of all people fulfilled.
Doctoral dissertation of Ambra Trotto

This thesis starts with a Manifesto, bold, passionate and ambitious. Goals are set high, as to commit to a major endeavour: how can design contribute to a new civilisation. The first version was written in 2006 in Bertinoro, Italy, where Caroline Hummels, Kees Overbeeke and I were giving a workshop on Aesthetics of Interaction for the University of Bologna. In this Manifesto, we declared our belief and proposed a vision, concerning how design can change Western thinking towards pervasive ethics. By pervasive ethics I mean a social praxis aimed at justice and freedom, which pervades society in a capillary way, becoming a Universal attitude that makes people aware of their own rights, able and willing to contribute to seeing their own rights and those of all people fulfilled. I called this approach Rights though Making. The manifesto stated a mission1, which was later applied and validated. The main lines of thoughts of the manifesto have been respected and enforced through several actions. This thesis will describe these actions, the underlying theory and the related reflection both on the approach and on the outcomes. The Manifesto integrated the points of view of the writers, united by a common drive, in a world riddled with all sorts of social uncertainties. In the Manifesto we declared our intention of preparing and doing workshops with students of different nationalities, stimulating the integration of skilful points of view among future designers. When the Manifesto was written, there was not yet a concrete strategy on how to empower people towards pervasive ethics. The only anchor point was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We wanted the values contained in this document materialised, embodied in (intelligent) products or systems. Both the outcome of what we were envisioning (intelligent products or systems empowering towards the realisation of human rights) and the process of realising it (workshop) had to work towards ethics. This was all I knew at that point. Later I designed the way to do it, based on this solid and enthusiastic shared vision.

Throughout the years, the underlying theoretical framework started to acquire its own body. Only after the realisation of the first 5 workshops (out of 7 in total), was I able to explicitly structure and describe the platform of theory that was supporting my endeavour. These actions (the workshops), contributed to the formation of a body of knowledge, of which the potential strength and soundness until then had exclusively been perceived through intuition. This tacit knowledge was dredged out, reflected upon and refined, through iterations of reflection-on-action, in which the “active” parts were the individual workshops.

Thus the forming of this theoretical platform, the refinement of the research quest or design challenge and giving the workshops were overlapping in time and closely intertwined. For clarity, in this thesis I chose to position them in the following order:

Part 1: defining the design challenge / research quest and the Rights through Making Approach;
Part 2: illustrating the theoretical framework underlying the whole work. This theoretical framework is formed by three elements: (1) Ethics (2) Making and (3) their integration, i.e. how Making empowers towards Ethics: the core of the RtM approach.
Part 3: describing how this theory is applied in design workshops and how the Rights through Making (RtM) approach evolved;
Part 4: reflecting on the overall research experience and the underlying personal motivations.

Before this central body I placed and introductory part, containing acknowledgments, rights of the readers, synopsis (this chapter) and tables of contents. After the fourth part, I positioned a part called “Annexes”, which is composed of two main sections:

In the first section I present the RtM workshops in detail, in regard to both the process of each RtM workshop and their evolution;
In the second section, I illustrate the direction in which I envision the diffusion of RtM in the future, through the realisation of an Internet platform.

projects 15 May 2012 2012-05-15T16:27:15+02:00 Pervasive ethics is a social praxis aimed at justice and freedom, which pervades society in a capillary way, becoming a Universal attitude that makes people aware of their own rights, able and willing to contribute to seeing their own rights and those of all people fulfilled. Doctoral dissertation of Ambra Trotto

When Movement Invites to Experience: a Kansei Design Exploration on Senses’ Qualities

Lévy, P., Deckers, E.J.L., & Restrepo Cruz, M. (2012). When Movement Invites to Experience: a Kansei Design Exploration on Senses' Qualities. In the Proceedings of Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2012, KEER12 ([on CD]). Penghu, Taiwan: Japan Society of Kansei Engineering.

Developing a design approach, exploring resistance and ambiguity

Trotto, A., Hummels, C.C.M., & Lévy, P. (2012). Developing a design approach, exploring resistance and ambiguity. In the Proceedings of Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2012, KEER12 ([on CD]). Penghu, Taiwan: Japan Society of Kansei Engineering.

Making the world through kansei: 3 Approaches

Lévy, P. (2012). Making the world through kansei: 3 Approaches, presented at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan. March 16th, 2012.

Light through Culture - Experience Human Rights

Light through Culture is an international design school which explores the theme of complexity in learning environments.

Psychophysiological Applications in Kansei Design

Lévy, P., Yamanaka, T., & Tomico, O. (2011). Psychophysiological Applications in Kansei Design. In & M., Shi (Eds.) Kansei Engineering and Soft Computing: Theory and Practice (pp. 266-286). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/978-1-61692-797-4.ch015

Ohlala: Exploring the Relation between Content Completeness and Emotional Experience

Lévy, P., Kuenen, S., Overbeeke, K., Uchiyama, T., & Yamanaka, T. (2011). Ohlala: Exploring the Relation between Content Completeness and Emotional Experience. In N., Roozenburg, L.L., Chen, & P.J., Stappers (Eds.), the Proceedings of International Association of Societies of Design Research 2011, IASDR11 ([on CD]). Delft, The Netherlands: Delft University of Technology.

Designing Quality in Interaction theory

The primacy of perception towards interaction is the main focus of this workshop, proposing an approach to effectively taking it into consideration in the design process.

Luciole, lighting up the design process

Lévy, P., Wijnen, J., Hummels, C.C.M., & Vinke, A.A. (2011). Luciole, lighting up the design process. In P., Marti, A., Soro, L., Gamberini, & S., Bagnara (Eds.), the Proceedings of 9th ACM SIGCHI Italian Chapter International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Facing Complexity - CHItaly (pp 103). Alghero, Italy: ACM. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2037296.2037323

Kansei et kansei design

Lévy, P. (2011). Kansei et kansei design, presented at l'École Nationale Supérieure de la Création Industrielle, Paris, France. March 31st, 2011.

Bringing Forth Constructivist Education Assessment: A Frame of Reference to Inspire and to Support Design Education

Lévy, P., Hummels, C.C.M., & Vinke, A.A. (2011). Bringing Forth Constructivist Education Assessment: A Frame of Reference to Inspire and to Support Design Education. the Proceedings of Fifth International Conference on Design Principles and Practices ([on CD]). Rome, Italy: CGPublisher.

publications 14 March 2011 2011-03-14T21:32:12+01:00 The Industrial Design Department of Eindhoven University of Technology is continuously developing and putting in practice a holistic and integrative educational approach, focusing on designing intelligent systems, products and related services for societal transformation. During the semester, each student is supported by a personal coach, by assignors and experts, who eventually provide feedbacks on the student’s learning, achievement, and reflection upon learning. During the end-of-term assessment, students are evaluated on their overall development (taking skills, knowledge, reflection, attitude and identity into account). After describing the rational of the educational system of TU/e and its process in practice, this paper focuses on the introduction of a new educational tool aiming at supporting education, assessment included: the Frame of Reference. The holistic quality of the educational system allows the personalisation of the entire student career. Therefore, there are as many visions and student paths as the number of students. Each student is different from others in terms of their knowledge, skills and experience. Consequently, no standardized criteria can be properly applied to the evaluation procedure. The Frame of Reference is structured as an intelligent space, both physical and virtual, and adaptive to the visitors’ expectations and experience. It offers referential works and development of design students (prototypes, reports, showcases…), illustrating stages of and processes for competency development and over-all development as a designer. The Frame of Reference is introduced and described as a place for sharing points of views and experiences, between students, coaches, experts, assessors, and external visitors. It is designed to inspire and to support students as well as staff, by creating a comprehensive and clearer, yet non-homogenous vision of what students throughout the department achieve, of how this is evaluated and how this contributes to students’ overall competence of designing.

The origin of experience

Lévy, P. (2011). The origin of experience, presented at the the seminar series Catch the Future, the Department of Industrial Design of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea. March 8th, 2011

Kansei research in Eurasia

Lévy, P. (2010). Kansei research in Eurasia, presented at the the TIK Symposium 2010, Taihung, Taiwan. October 23rd, 2010.

Japanese philosophy inspired design

Western art transforms the 'impression' into description. The haiku never describes; its art is counterdescriptive, to the degree that each state of the thing is immediately, stubbornly, victoriously converted into a fragile essence of appearance.
- Roland Barthes (2007)

感性価値の高い化粧品開発にむけた手法と考え方感性認知脳科学的視点から考える感性価値創造

Yamanaka, T., & Lévy, P. (2010). 感性価値の高い化粧品開発にむけた手法と考え方感性認知脳科学的視点から考える感性価値創造 [Kansei Science and Kansei Value Creation through Kansei, Behavioral and Brain Sciences]. Cosmetic Stage. 4(33), 1-11

The Proceedings of the Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2010, KEER 2010

Lévy, P., Bouchard, C., Yamanaka, T., & Aoussat A. (Eds.). 2010. The Proceedings of the Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2010 – KEER 2010. Paris, France. ISBN: 978-4-9905104-0-4.

publications 04 March 2010 2010-03-04T22:10:51+02:00 On behalf of Arts et Métiers ParisTech, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to Paris for the International Conference on Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research: KEER 2010. This event has been co-organized by the Japanese Society of Kansei Engineering, the Taiwan Institute of Kansei, and Arts et Métiers ParisTech. KEER 2010 is organized for the first time in Europe, more specifically in Paris. We are all the more proud to host this conference within our School, which is one of the oldest Schools of Engineering in France, with a culture that focuses strongly on innovation in technology and processes. The overall theme of the conference is ‘Crossing places, crossing experiences, crossing minds’. We sincerely hope that the conference will set a strong ground for future scientific and cultural exchanges. With time, we hope that the contacts you will make here will help construct long-lasting bridges between our cultures, and bring us closer together in mutually beneficial work relationships. We have been fortunate this year to receive many contributions from 25 countries worldwide, which added up to 410 submitted papers and posters, over 230 of which were selected in the final program. In the next three days, we have organized 7 simultaneous sessions to host presentations from the authors, as well as two keynote presentations every day. We hope each and every one of you will find nourishment for your scientific curiosity and for future lively and fascinating debates. I am greatly thankful to all authors for their excellent contributions, to the program committee members, and to the referees for their contribution and valuable insight during the reviewing process. I would also like to thank all the people who have helped with organizing the conference: Prof. Hisao SHIIZUKA (Kogakuin University, President of JSKE), Prof. Kuohsiang CHEN (National Cheng-Kung University), Prof. Toshimasa YAMANAKA (University of Tsukuba), Prof. Yu-Ming CHANG (Southern Taiwan Universty of Technology), Assistant Prof. Pierre LEVY (Eindhoven University of Technology) and Assistant Prof. Carole BOUCHARD (Arts et Métiers ParisTech). Particular thanks go to the members of the KEER 2010 organizing committee here in Arts et Métiers ParisTech. Welcome to Paris. We wish you all a very fruitful and convivial conference. Améziane AOUSSAT Conference Chair

Developing sensory functions: Transfer human senses from contextual perception

Tsai, T.J., Lévy, P., Ono, K., & Watanabe, M. (2010). Developing sensory functions: transfer human senses from contextual perception. In P., Lévy, C., Bouchard, T., Yamanaka, & A., Aoussat (Eds.), the Proceedings of Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2010 - KEER2010 (pp 304–313). Paris, France: Japan Society of Kansei Engineering.

Prospective psychophysiological approach for Kansei design: knowledge sharing between psychophysiology and design

Lévy, P., Yamanaka, T., Ono, K., & Watanabe, M. (2009). Prospective psychophysiological approach for Kansei design: knowledge sharing between psychophysiology and design. the Proceedings of International Association of Societies of Design Research Conference 2009 - IASDR09 ([on CD]). Seoul, Korea: Korean Society of Design Science.

The Repertory Grid Technique as a Method for the Study of Cultural Differences

Tomico, O., Karapanos, E., Lévy, P., Mizutani, N., & Yamanaka, T. (2009). The Repertory Grid Technique as a Method for the Study of Cultural Differences. International Journal of Design. 3(3), 55-63.

Colourful Rain, Experiencing Synaesthesia

Lévy, P., Kim, D., Tsai, T.J., Lee, S.H., & Yamanaka, T. (2009). Colourful Rain – Experiencing Synaesthesia. the Proceedings of International Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces - DPPI09. Compiègne, France.

Kansei Studies Description and Mapping through Kansei Study Keywords

Lévy, P., & Yamanaka, T. (2009). Kansei Studies Description and Mapping through Kansei Study Keywords. Kansei Engineering International. 8(2), 179–185.

Methods and Means for Kansei Design

Tsai, T.J., Lévy, P., Ono, K., & Watanabe, M. (2010). Developing sensory functions: transfer human senses from contextual perception. In P., Lévy, C., Bouchard, T., Yamanaka, & A., Aoussat (Eds.), the Proceedings of Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2010 - KEER2010 (pp 304–313). Paris, France: Japan Society of Kansei Engineering.

Neural networks involved in artistic creativity

Kowatari, Y., Lee, S.H., Yamamura, H., Nagamori, Y., Lévy, P., Yamane, S., & Yamamoto, Y. (2009). Neural networks involved in artistic creativity. Human Brain Mapping. 30(5), 1678–1690. doi:10.1002/hbm.20633

Lier Affectivité et Conception: l’Ingénierie Kansei

Lévy, P. (2008). Lier Affectivité et Conception: l’Ingénierie Kansei. Techniques de l'Ingénieur, AG2140v1

User’s appreciation of engagement in service design: The case of food service design

Lévy, P., & Wakabayashi, N. (2008). User's appreciation of engagement in service design: The case of food service design. the Proceedings of International Service Innovation Design Conference 2008 - ISIDC08. Busan, Korea.

An Approach on Functional Analysis in Developing Guideline for Designing Service-embedded Product

Tsai, T.J., Lévy, P., Ono, K., & Watanabe, M. (2008). An Approach on Functional Analysis in Developing Guideline for Designing Service-embedded Product. the Proceedings of International Service Innovation Design Conference 2008 - ISIDC08 ([on CD]). Busan, Korea.

Development of Competences for Service Design

Ono, K., Lévy, P., Ishizuka, A., Hachima, S., & Waatanabe, M. (2008). Development of Competences for Service Design. the Proceedings of International Service Innovation Design Conference 2008 - ISIDC08. Busan, Korea.

publications 22 October 2008 2008-10-22T20:45:41+02:00 Objective of this research is to clarify crucial competences for designers who design service and competences that education institutes should develop for future service designers. To refer about Service Design, firstly, it is necessary to clarify each of two concepts, design and service, that both are elusive. In this research, design is treated as a process to create a meaningful new option through doing simulation of creation, imagination (of people who will enjoy the benefit) and evaluation. Regarding service, this research shows that a concept of service includes several different concepts and those are able to be categorized into two major concepts. One is the concept of service in a narrow sense, which there are nothing left after goods are bought and sold and nonphysical economic goods to provide satisfaction and utility (e.g. cleaning shop, hair salon, etc). Another is the concept of service in a broad sense which is economic nonphysical combination of goods of products, information and narrow services for getting satisfaction and utility (e.g. restaurant, car dealer, hotel, etc). Consequently this research proposes that broad service is that we should cover and the competence we should develop is to do cycle in a level of combination of products, information and narrow services. However about the way to develop the competence, if the simulation of creation, imagination and evaluation is the exclusive means in order to create a meaningful new option, it might be impossible to start to do the simulation in a level of narrow services without any knowledge and experience and also difficult to find the excuse that designer should be competent for the simulation in a level of narrow services. Therefore, by expanding the ability of imagination which enhanced by repeating the simulation in a level of products and information as conventional design process to the level of service, the competence for creating meaningful new services in a narrow, also broad service should be developed.

Kansei Engineering|Science, Trans|Interdisciplinary Research

Lévy, P. (2008). Kansei Engineering|Science – Trans|Interdisciplinary Research, presented at the KEER International Symposium 2008, Taipei, Taiwan. October 2nd, 2008.

Designing based on the evoked metaphor, Case study

Lévy, P., & Yamanaka, T. (2008). Designing based on the evoked metaphor - Case study. In D., Marjanovic, M., Storga, N., Pavkovic, & N., Bojcetic (Eds.), the Proceedings of 10th International Design Conference 2008 (pp 1095 – 1104). Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Kansei physiological measurements and contructivist psychological explorations for approaching user subjective experience during and after product usage

Tomico, O., Mizutani, N., Lévy, P., Takahiro, Y., & Yamanaka, T. (2008). Kansei physiological measurements and contructivist psychological explorations for approaching user subjective experience during and after product usage. In D., Marjanovic, M., Storga, N., Pavkovic, & N., Bojcetic (Eds.), the Proceedings of 10th International Design Conference 2008 (pp 529 – 536). Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Explaining kansei design studies

Lévy, P., Nakamori, S., & Yamanaka, T. (2008). Explaining kansei design studies. In P.M.A., Desmet, S., Tsvetanova, P., Hekkert, & L., Justice (Eds.), the Proceedings of Design and Emotion Conference 2008 - D&E08. Hong-Kong: School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Kansei Studies Description and Mapping through Kansei Studies Keywords

Lévy, P., & Yamanaka, T. (2008). Kansei Studies Description and Mapping through Kansei Studies Keywords. the Proceedings of International Symposium on Emotion and Sensitivity 2008 - ISES08. Daejeon, Korea.

Kansei-Physiological Measurements and Constructivist, Psychological Explorations for Approaching User’s Subjective Experience during and after the Product Use

Yamanaka, T., Tomico, O., Mizutani, N., Yokoi, T., Cho, Y., & Lévy, P. (2008). Kansei-Physiological Measurements and Constructivist – Psychological Explorations for Approaching User's Subjective Experience during and after the Product Use. the Proceedings of International Symposium on Emotion and Sensitivity 2008 - ISES08 ([on CD]). Daejeon, Korea.

Interdisciplinary Design Method for EcoDesign, Introducing Kansei research for design to EcoDesign

Lévy, P., & Yamanaka, T. (2007). Interdisciplinary Design Method for EcoDesign – Introducing Kansei research for design to EcoDesign. the Proceedings of 5th International Symposium on Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing - EcoDesign2007 ([on CD]). Tokyo, Japan.

Kansei and Kansei Studies: an Overview towards Kansei Design

Lévy, P. (2008). Kansei and Kansei Studies: an Overview towards Kansei Design, presented at the the International Symposium of the 21th Century COE Program for the Promotion of Kansei Science for Understanding the Mechanism of Mind and Heart, Tsukuba, Japan. September 9th, 2007.

On Kansei and Kansei Design: a Description of a Japanese Design Approach

Lévy, P., Lee, S.H., & Yamanaka, T. (2007). On Kansei and Kansei Design: a Description of a Japanese Design Approach. the Proceedings of International Association of Societies of Design Research Conference 2007 - IASDR07 ([on CD]). Hong-Kong: School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Creating an Evoked Metaphor for Kansei Design

Lévy, P., Yamanaka, T., Wang, L., & Igarashi, H. (2007). Creating an Evoked Metaphor for Kansei Design. the Proceedings of International Conference on Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research - KEER07 ([on CD]). Sapporo, Japan.

Towards a definition of Kansei

Lévy, P., & Yamanaka, T. (2006). Towards a definition of Kansei. the Proceedings of 2006 Design Research Society International Conference, Wonderground 2006 ([on CD]). Lisbon, Portugal.

Interdisciplinary workgroup methodology based on Intuition, Application to a communication tool design based on Kansei information approach

Lévy, P., & Yamanaka, T. (2006). Interdisciplinary workgroup methodology based on Intuition – Application to a communication tool design based on Kansei information approach. Kansei Engineering International. 5(4), 31–40.

publications 10 September 2006 2006-09-10T20:58:39+02:00 The artifact is a complex element. Besides its elementary dimensions (material, functional and formal), the artifact is composed of much more dimensions: ergonomic, emotional, cultural, and even ethologic or theological. To take into account this great quantity and diversity of dimensions, the designer’s work has to be widened out. Necessarily, this goes through an interdisciplinary approach, i.e. through an interdisciplinary workgroup activity. Nevertheless, this brings issues, notably concerning knowledge communication and sharing. For each variety of knowledge (tacit, prescriptive and descriptive), interdisciplinary activity provokes issues either because of disciplinary ontology differences, or because of human subjective understanding differences. Intuition is a mental process which is able to minimize these issue effects. We then propose a methodology based on intuition, structured on the theory of Ba, on the SECI Model, which an evoked metaphor (EM) is added to. Through the EM, each member of the workgroup is able to participate to every steps of the design process and to communicate with other members, thanks to an intuitive understanding permanently validated by involved disciplines. This creates an efficient interdisciplinary dynamics and the realization of fully interdisciplinary projects. To illustrate this methodology, the design of MATiK is introduced as an example. MATiK is an original workgroup communication system based on a Kansei information approach. In order to understand the expected functionalities of MATiK and to design it, the EM is set up. Considering basic aspects of an extensive workgroup operative process, the Loft is defined as an EM. The Loft offers an opportunity to understand MATiK’s original functionalities, MATiK’s design, and MATiK’s functional and technical requirements intuitively. This methodology, based on the EM, asserts its relevancy for interdisciplinary design. Its strength comes from the fact that the EM links all the levels of the design process (the idea/concept level, the reality level, and the technical level) and makes their understanding accessible to all members thanks to intuition.

MATiK, CMC design by Kansei Information approach

Lévy, P., & Yamanaka, T. (2006). MATiK – CMC design by Kansei Information approach. the Proceedings of Kansei Engineering and Intelligent Systems - KEIS'06 ([on CD]). Aizu, Japan

Kansei information approach for an interdisciplinary design method proposal based on intuition

Lévy, P., & Yamanaka, T. (2006). Kansei information approach for an interdisciplinary design method proposal based on intuition. In D., Marjanovic (Eds.), the Proceedings of 9th International Design Conference 2006 (pp 1475 – 1482). Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Interdisciplinary design for the cyberspace by an approach in kansei information, Methodology and Workgroup Communication Tool Design Approach in Kansei

Lévy, P. (2006). Interdisciplinary design for the cyberspace by an approach in kansei information – Methodology and Workgroup Communication Tool Design Approach in Kansei. University of Tsukuba, Japan

publications 24 March 2006 2006-03-24T15:27:47+01:00 The evolution of humanity, and notably of societies which are composing it, is marked all along its history, by evolutions, verily revolutions, of communication technologies (invention of spoken language, written language, of printing techniques, and so on. . . ). The digital technology and the advent of the Internet are significant steps of this evolution. Nowadays, the impressive development and the intrusion of information technology at every level of the society, at the institutional levels as well as the private ones, bring the need for a new social and societal paradigm based on the knowledge and intelligence economy. This new paradigm includes the concept of Cyberspace to denote the virtual space for human and social exchanges based on human knowledge and experience. Each human being is a center of this paradigm. The individual, owner and retailer of intelligence, is emphasized by her/his own experience. Considering Chisei and Kansei, both cognitive elements of each individual, and descriptive and tacit knowledge, owned by each individual, there is a necessity to consider subjective (or personal) dimension in social communication while designing tools for the Cyberspace. The actual evolution, brought by the new information technologies, makes possible for each individual to share and announce one’s own knowledge with the rest of the group (by extension, with the whole humanity), whatever its size or nature. This is certainly a revolution. This is at the beginning of a new context allowing the design of relevant tools enable to help humanity to understand its common action. This understanding reaches to Collective Intelligence, a new opportunity for human community to progress. Thus there is a real need for new design objectives: creation of tools for Collective Intelligence. Kansei, translated in English as a mental sense of subjectivity, is influencing human relationships. It has an influence on both the ideation and the understanding of interpersonal communication. Thus, Kansei becomes a key point in social context behavior of each individual, influencing not only the social context it-self (its structure and its operation), but also the information flow. Therefore, Kansei Information can contribute to integrate human subjectivity aspects in the design of tools for the Collective Intelligence. Considering these points, the aim of this study is to understand how Kansei Information can contribute to the creation to the creation of a design methodology for Collective Intelligence, and thus to the improvement of communication structures of interdisciplinary workgroups.

Introducing MATiK service, Proposition for a new IT communication system through an approach in Kansei

Lévy, P., & Yamanaka, T. (2004). Introducing MATiK service – Proposition for a new IT communication system through an approach in Kansei. the Proceedings of 2004 Design Research Society International Conference - Futureground 2004 ([on CD]). Melbourne, Australia: Monash University.

Illustrative Industrial Interactions Through Kansei – Towards a dynamic reflection of Kansei in the Marketing/Design/Engineering relationship

Sanabria, J.C., Lévy, P., & Lee, S.H. (2003). Illustrative Industrial Interactions Through Kansei – Towards a dynamic reflection of Kansei in the Marketing/Design/Engineering relationship. In H., Aoki (Eds.), the Proceedings of 6th Asian Design International Conference - 6thADC ([on CD]). Tsukuba, Japan: University of Tsukuba.

Kansei studies, kansei design

A piece of waka makes your heart abate and kansei, which is a virtue of waka.
- Yoshida (1687)

Design industriel et interdisciplinarité, Méthode et outil d’intégration de l’interdisciplinarité dans la formation pédagogique initiale du design industriel

Lévy, P. (2002). Design industriel et interdisciplinarité – Méthode et outil d'intégration de l'interdisciplinarité dans la formation pédagogique initiale du design industriel. Université de Technologie de Compiègne, France

Designer, perspectives et transformations

Scaffolding shared imagination with tangible design

Manuel Zacklad : Communiquer en temps de crise

Enchanting the everyday

Le temps de l'expérience, enchanter le quotidien par le design

Design-Philosophy correspondance

Transforming practices

Artefactual emptiness – On appropriation in kansei design

Studying requirements for designing a vitality data sharing platform from a multi-stakeholder perspective

Philosophy at Work – Postphenomenology as a Generative Lens in Design Research and Practice

Exploring Public Playgrounds through a Data-Enabled Design Approach

The Office Jungle: A Vision for Wildness to Turn Offices into Jungles

Transforming Practices squad

Matter of Transformation

Description

Learning objectives

Designing for Systemic Change

Design research and innovation framework for transformative practices

Designing for the everyday through thusness and irregularity

Design 3.0 Forum

DESIGN 3.0 FORUM

Programme

Design lectures by Caroline Hummels

Probing Future

Stewart

A Design Approach towards Affording the Trend of Privacy

Le temps de l’expérience, enchanter le quotidien par le design

Transcription of my defense for Habilitation

Plan

Research through design

Japanese experience

Concretisation of the beautiful

The tea ceremony as a design

Mujirushi ryohin

Turning point

Japanese philosophy and culture

Framework for design

The contexture of everyday life

The temporality of everyday life

Enchanting everyday life through design

One last thought

Contemplating the impossible

Introduction

Contemplating the impossible

Contemplating believes

Contemplating teaching and research

Contemplating making and thinking

Contemplating transformation

Contemplating the impossible

Everyday

Everyday

Everyday

Everyday

Kees Overbeeke symposium

Designing for the everyday

Description

Learning objectives

Barely out of bed

The beauty of making hot chocolate, an inquiry on designing for everyday rituals

The Proceedings of the Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research International Conference 2018, KEER 2018

Analysis of the Design and Engineering-process towards a First Prototype in the Field of Sports and Vitality

Light behavior design: violation of unification principles and the effect on the user experience

People Place Process: A self-reflection tool to become a professional in design thinking, based on pedagogical action research

Enhancing co-responsibility for patient engagement

3D-modeling and 3D-printing explorations on Japanese tea ceremony utensils

What matters for ritual visualization, towards a design tool for the description and the composition of rituals

Reinventing the (steering) wheel, A kansei design approach for novel driving experience

Gesture-based and Haptic Interfaces for Connected and Autonomous Driving

Perspectives en design d’interaction

IxD&A #30, Special issue: On Making

Table of content

Kinectic Folds: Interaction Priming

Exploring the challenge of designing rituals

Perceptive qualities

Composing Everyday Rituals

Description

Learning objectives

The Chatter Door, designing for in-between spaces

Experiential design landscapes: how to design for behaviour change, towards an active lifestyle