Graduation LaunchPad Themes

What to expect from the DCD Lab

At the Data-Centric Design Lab we explore tools and methods to use data collaboratively in the design process. All projects revolve around how data can become a conversation material to deepen interactions with stakeholders while using data effectively and responsibly. We prototype and apply these tools in contexts spanning from sustainability to health. You will meet on a weekly basis with the DCD members for reading sessions and hands-on activities with data, sharing your topic while getting an understanding of the Data-Centric Design landscape.

Are you a master’s student passionate about exploring how we experience and express ourselves as sexual beings? This theme invites you to dive into research and design around the broad and important topic of sexuality, as defined by Rathus et al. (2007): “the way in which we experience and express ourselves as sexual beings.”

Some potential avenues of interest include:

• Applying a feminist lens to designing sexual stimulations
• Investigating the impact of serious illness on sexuality
• Flirting
• Exploring alternative forms of intimacy with a partner
• Designing for female masturbation practices
• Asking someone out on a date

The topics are sensitive and intimate, we will support you to approach them professionally and ethically.

Data sharing is going to be fundamental to advance our ability to solve societal problems. Unfortunately, today, data sharing is dominated by privacy-by-design paradigm, preventing the exploration of value that data can generate for individuals, communities and the society. In this theme we explore the potential of personal data in collaboration with participants to understand the insights that can emerge from data-centric conversation, leading to data intimacy, i.e. a deeper understanding of oneself, the data, and how it can contribute to societal challenges.

• Our intimacy through Network Technology: How can telemetry data from WiFi networks, mapping our

  intimate behaviours, can become an effective conversation material to enrich IoT design processes?

• Couple Dynamic: How can relational data from romantic couples can help us converse and design for them?

• Product Companionship: How to understand product companionship – the intimate

  relationship with a product such as a sleep robot – through data?

What if citizens established a research/consultancy agency to help – as experts by experience – investigate research questions of civil servants and scientists? This would enrich research results and citizens would no longer be exploited. The Afrikaanderwijk/Vreewijk Cooperatives are embarking on this experiment with a concrete assignment for the municipality and/or Ombudsman in Rotterdam. The DCD Lab and Design&Publics will develop methods and tools to ensure that data can be governed jointly and on the terms of the collective, so that value can be generated from it.

• Data Donation Campaign: How can citizen-researchers conduct data donation campaigns to responsibly collect the data they need?
• Participatory Data Analysis: How can data support citizen researchers in generating the necessary conversation and evidence to actively participate in the decisions that affect their neighborhood?
• Data Tools for Citizen-Researchers: What are the tools citizen-researchers need to effectively and responsibly analyse and interprete data?

The development of research and education on the use of data in design is very active at IDE, from the Data-Centric Design and AI labs to the data and AI-related courses throughout the curriculum. Yet, the effective and responsible use of data in design remains challenging as the tools fail to fit the design practitioners’ literacy and goals.

• Shaping the collaborative data studio: What are the tools, facilities and methods designers need for designing with data and participants to partners with data participants?
• Designing tools for Prototyping with data: How can a tool like Data Foundry become the backbone data platform for data-related education at IDE?
• Designing with Data in collaboration with Artificial Intelligence: How can generative AI can help us design and collaborate with Data?

The DCD Lab teams up with Zimmer Biomet, a global leader in musculoskeletal healthcare transitioning from implants to solutions provider. They are transforming the surgical journey and patient care with ZBEdge, their integrated digital technologies, robotics, implant solutions, and consultancy services. Its patient-facing side usually works on mobile devices and provides education and guidance to patients via text and videos while allowing patients to communicate remotely with their care teams. It empowers patients to take an active role in their recovery. For the care teams, it provides constant updates on how their patients are doing since it collects mobility and patient-reported data (surveys).

• Patient Perspective: How can data help Zimmer Biomet collaborate with patients to understand what provide them most value?
• Healthcare Provider Perspective: How can data help Zimmer Biomet collaborate with healthcare providers to understand how to leverage and integrate their platform more effectively?

In this theme, projects will follow a data-centric approach, where (behavioral, personal) data is used as a collaborative design material. It will involve the exploration of behavioral data from Zimmer Biomet’s digital services and beyond, visualizing and pre-analyzing data to collaboratively analyze/interpret them with users, and co-designing future solutions with patients, healthcare providers, and Zimmer Biomet based on generated insights. To this end, the DCD lab will support you in exploring opportunities with data, responsibly dealing with the ethics of personal data, conducting data donation campaigns to collect data, and participatory data analysis.

Conversational agents (CAs) in healthcare are increasingly designed to simulate human-like interactions, promoting empathetic and meaningful communication. CAs can play a considerable role in providing emotional support and guidance, particularly relevant with the ever increasing healthcare workforce shortages. In this project, we will explore how conversational technologies can contribute to careful communication, focusing on the quality of interactions which fosters trust and comfort.

While we welcome case studies proposed by students, projects can also be part of our larger research collaboration with Erasmus MC. In this collaboration, we are designing care technologies for cancer survivors, shifting care from hospital settings to the home environment.