October 22, 2021
12:00–1:30 pm MST
Panel
Design Collaboration Across Disciplines
Captioning and ASL interpretation
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Design researchers and practitioners collaborate across a wide range of communities, disciplines, and subject matters. When people from different fields choose to work together, they need to find ways to understand each other as they are often separated by the words they use, the ways they work, and how they think. However, they also often share a common ground, seeking not only to better understand what already exists, but to make useful guesses about possible better futures. The guesses consist of small forays into that future, using strategies that are variously called learning through making, research through design or, more simply, prototyping. For over 15 years, Drs. Roberts-Smith, Radzikowska, and Ruecker have collaborated on projects across the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. In this talk, they will share the contexts for their work, a theoretical framework, and a set of methodologies for interdisciplinary collaboration in design.
Moderator:
Gillian Harvey – Assistant Professor, Design Studies, University of Alberta
Presenters:
Dr. Milena Radzikowska - Professor, Information Design, Faculty of Communication Studies, Mount Royal University
Dr. Jennifer Roberts-Smith - Associate Professor, University of Waterloo
Dr. Stan Ruecker - the Anthony J. Petullo Professor of Design, University of Illinois
Gillian Harvey is an Assistant Professor in Design Studies, Department of Art & Design at the University of Alberta (Canada), where she teaches Undergraduate students Design theory, practice and research. Gillian’s work as a partner and studio owner over the last 15 years has included a diverse set of private and public sector clients that has included educators, health care professionals, nonprofits and government. Her design work has included educational and social marketing campaigns, data visualization and the design of complex wayfinding systems.
Gillian’s research focuses on several areas: information design, design for decision making and wayfinding and signage. She prioritizes the simplification of complex information in order to make it understandable for people. She advocates for understanding different audiences and the importance of user-centred design. Her recent work uses applied design research or the purposes of communicating a procedure in emergency situations. Gillian’s research interest in signage and wayfinding has led to various opportunities to critically explore wayfinding systems and their importance to urban growth and development in a city.
Her work has been recognized with dozen regional, national, and international awards, and she has published in the IIID’s Journal of Information Design.
Gillian is a professional member of International Institute of Information Design (IIID), the Graphic Designers of Canada, Alberta North Chapter, the president of the Edmonton Wayfinding Society in Edmonton, Alberta and an IIID World Region Representative.
Dr. Milena Radzikowska has more than 75 publications and presentations on data visualization, aesthetics, interaction design, interaction theory, design methods, and design research. She is the co-author of Visual Interface Design for Digital Cultural Heritage (Routledge Publishing, 2011), two upcoming books, Design + DH and Better Futures: How Prototyping Improves the World (Intellect Books, 2020), and two books in progress, Digital Feminist Activisms and Raising the Bar: The Practice of Intersectional Feminist Design Research. She is a member of the Design Concepts Lab research group, and one of the founding members of the qLab (qcollaborative.com), an Intersectional Feminist Design Research Lab, located at Mount Royal University, University of Waterloo, and University of Illinois.
Dr. Jennifer Roberts-Smith (PhD, Toronto) is an award-winning artist-researcher, whose transdisciplinary, design-based work explores performance, digital media, history, education, and social justice. She has been instrumental in securing the place of performance-informed scholarship in the digital humanities, including through the design of virtual historical reconstructions, pedagogical games, and justice-oriented digital pedagogical environments. JRS is currently a co-director of the qCollaborative (the critical feminist design research lab housed in the University of Waterloo’s Games Institute), and leads the SSHRC-funded Theatre for Relationality and Design for Peace projects. She is also creative director and virtual reality development cluster lead for the Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation (DOHR) project. Her recent publications have focused on methods for design research that deepen interdisciplinary understanding and take a relational approach to design. In current creative work, JRS is exploring the integration of accessibility and aesthetics, and the relationship between virtual reality and the performative realities that were generated in the medieval and early modern theatre. Jennifer joined the University of Waterloo in 2007, after working as an actor and director in small and large scale Canadian theatres, and teaching at the universities of Ottawa, Toronto, and Windsor. Her work has been supported by SSHRC, MITACS, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Oculus, and an Ontario Early Researcher Award.
Dr. Stan Ruecker is the Anthony J. Petullo Professor of Design at the University of Illinois. He has been tenured at three different universities: the University of Alberta in the MA in Humanities Computing program; Illinois Tech in the School of Design (a.k.a. the New Bauhaus); University of Illinois School of Design. From 2013-16, he was Visiting Professor at UNISINOS in Brazil; since 2018, he is Visiting Professor at the Dalian University of Technology. Since joining the faculty at University of Illinois, he has been appointed as Affiliate Professor in the Informatics Program of the iSchool and the Carle College of Medicine.
Professor Ruecker has written extensively on design and the digital humanities. He has co-authored with over 250 different people, working collaboratively in over 23 academic disciplines. In addition to his 2011 book with Milena Radzikowska and Stéfan Sinclair, Visual Interface Design for Digital Cultural Heritage: A Guide to Rich-Prospect Browsing, he has published over 150 academic papers and presented at more than 200 conferences. His work has focused on the future of reading; his research teams have developed more than two dozen prototypes for use in algorithmic criticism. He is currently exploring physical interfaces for complex conceptual work, such as text analysis, modeling time, and designing experience.