Advances in Design and Digital Communication III: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Design and Digital Communication, Digicom 2022, ... Series in Design and Innovation, 27) [1st ed. 2023] 3031203631, 9783031203633

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Springer Series in Design and Innovation 27

Nuno Martins Daniel Brandão   Editors

Advances in Design and Digital Communication III Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Design and Digital Communication, Digicom 2022, November 3–5, 2022, Barcelos, Portugal

Springer Series in Design and Innovation Volume 27

Editor-in-Chief Francesca Tosi, University of Florence, Florence, Italy Series Editors Claudio Germak, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy Francesco Zurlo, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy Zhi Jinyi, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China Marilaine Pozzatti Amadori, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil Maurizio Caon

, University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Fribourg, Switzerland

Springer Series in Design and Innovation (SSDI) publishes books on innovation and the latest developments in the fields of Product Design, Interior Design and Communication Design, with particular emphasis on technological and formal innovation, and on the application of digital technologies and new materials. The series explores all aspects of design, e.g. Human-Centered Design/User Experience, Service Design, and Design Thinking, which provide transversal and innovative approaches oriented on the involvement of people throughout the design development process. In addition, it covers emerging areas of research that may represent essential opportunities for economic and social development. In fields ranging from the humanities to engineering and architecture, design is increasingly being recognized as a key means of bringing ideas to the market by transforming them into user-friendly and appealing products or services. Moreover, it provides a variety of methodologies, tools and techniques that can be used at different stages of the innovation process to enhance the value of new products and services. The series’ scope includes monographs, professional books, advanced textbooks, selected contributions from specialized conferences and workshops, and outstanding Ph.D. theses. The volumes of the series are single-blind peer-reviewed. Keywords: Product and System Innovation; Product design; Interior design; Communication Design; Human-Centered Design/User Experience; Service Design; Design Thinking; Digital Innovation; Innovation of Materials. How to submit proposals Proposals must include: title, keywords, presentation (max 10,000 characters), table of contents, chapter abstracts, editors’/authors’ CV. In case of proceedings, chairmen/editors are requested to submit the link to conference website (incl. relevant information such as committee members, topics, key dates, keynote speakers, information about the reviewing process, etc.), and approx. number of papers. Proposals must be sent to: series editor Prof. Francesca Tosi (francesca.tosi@unifi.it) and/or publishing editor Mr. Pierpaolo Riva ([email protected]).

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/16270

Nuno Martins Daniel Brandão •

Editors

Advances in Design and Digital Communication III Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Design and Digital Communication, Digicom 2022, November 3–5, 2022, Barcelos, Portugal

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Editors Nuno Martins Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture, School of Design Polytechnic Institute of Cavado and Ave Barcelos, Portugal

Daniel Brandão Communication and Society Research Centre, Institute of Social Sciences University of Minho Braga, Portugal

ISSN 2661-8184 ISSN 2661-8192 (electronic) Springer Series in Design and Innovation ISBN 978-3-031-20363-3 ISBN 978-3-031-20364-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

This book gathers the proceedings of Digicom 2022—the 6th International Conference on Digital Design and Communication: 67 best papers were selected out of 94 submissions, upon a rigorous double-blind peer-review process. Digicom was held on November 3–5, 2022, in a hybrid form, at Teatro Gil Vicente, Barcelos, Portugal, and also online. Digicom is an annual event organized by the Design School of the Polytechnic Institute of Cavado and Ave, and by ID+, Research Institute for Design Media and Culture, in cooperation with CECS-UM, which has been bringing together researchers, academics, and designers from around the world. “Digital” is becoming increasingly ubiquitous and prevalent in our networked and global society. Digicom has aimed to be a space for reflection and analysis on the constant challenges digital communication poses to society, institutions, and brands. Despite its strong focus on the area of Communication Design, the objective of the conference—which is very much reflected in the present book—is the promotion of an open, broad, and plural discussion, aggregating different areas of knowledge, namely arts, technology, communication sciences, education sciences, and branding, among others. The conference thus seeks to stimulate interdisciplinary relationships that contribute to a solid development of scientific activity. Digicom 2022 received three keynote speakers: Adérito Fernandes-Marcos is graduated in Computer Science Engineering from the Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal; holds a Ph.D. in Computer Graphics from the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany; and Habilitation (agregação) in Techn. and Information Systems from the University of Minho. He is currently Full Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Saint Joseph, Macao, China. He is also Full Professor at the Portuguese Open University, where he founded and was first Director during 8 years of the Doctoral Program in Digital Media Art, a transdisciplinary joint offer together with the University of Algarve taught in e-learning mode. He is Researcher at the Research Centre for Arts and Communication and collaborates with INESC TEC and LE@D. He is President of the Artech-International Association with activities in all over the world in the

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field of digital media art and Founder of the ARTECH (Int. Conf. on Digital and Interactive Arts) and ARTeFACTo (Int. Conf. on Digital Creation in Arts and Communication) conf. series. He is Regular Consultant of international boards (e.g., European Commission, Macao Science and Technology Development Fund). His research interests embrace different fields from (post-)digital media arts, arteology, media, and human rights to digital education. He is Author/Co-author of more than 120 publications in journals, conference proceedings, chapters, and science promotion booklets. He is Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Creative Interfaces and Computer Graphics (ISSN: 1947-3117). Catarina Lelis began her professional experience in 1997 as a graphic designer. She co-founded a publishing start-up and the Portuguese Association for Innovation and Creativity in Organizations. In academia since 2007, she won two national entrepreneurship competitions. For six years, she taught and researched Brand Design and Innovation in the UK, where she won a teaching fellowship. Currently, she teaches at the University of Aveiro. Her research interests include Brand Design and Smartness, Dynamic/Flexible Visual Identities, Design Literacy, Employability in the New Media and Creative Industries, and Anticipation of Impact. Matthias Laschke heads a research group at the University of Siegen and leads the BMBF research group MOVEN. His research focuses on behavior change in HCI, with a focus on sustainability and transformation. Other foci of current and past research are various topics in human–computer interaction (HCI), such as experience design, affective computing, and interaction with agentive technologies (i.e., otherware), both in the form of digital and tangible artifacts. Projects he has worked on over the last twelve years have addressed challenges in the following areas, among others: persuasive technologies addressing diverse topics such as sustainability, procrastination, willpower or adherence, design theory and methodological approaches, autonomous and learning systems (e.g., in cars), work motivation (e.g., in health care), innovation strategies, and technology development. He publishes on the mentioned research and design areas in relevant national and international conferences and journals (peer-reviewed). His work has been published and discussed in various national and international blogs, books (e.g., Evgeny Morozov’s bestseller “To Save Everything, Click Here.”), and magazines such as the New York Times, Wired, Fast Company, and the R&D Salon of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Moreover, his work is part of the Deutsche Museum’s permanent collection, the world’s largest science and technology museum. In addition to the guest speakers, we also had the opportunity to attend a set of approximately 70 communications, strictly selected by Digicom’s Scientific Committee, from different international researchers and designers. The three days event resulted in extensive debate sessions, where the participants’ personal and professional perspectives and experience encouraged the discussion, showing the importance of this kind of events.

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The promotion of a panoramic vision of Digital Design and Communication is a trademark that Digicom has been affirming and reinforcing through its five editions, and that organizers and participants will continue to build and consolidate in their future works and the upcoming conference editions. With this book, we would like to transmit this message to a broader audience and to attract contributors who share our vision and/or are willing to join our discussion in future conference editions. We would also like to acknowledge all those who have believed in Digicom so far and contributed to its success in many ways. Again, a big thanks to all participants of Digicom 2022 and to all the readers of this book, hoping that you will enjoy and find it useful for your future research. Looking forward to seeing you next year! Nuno Martins General Chair, Digicom Daniel Brandão Co-chair, Digicom

Organization

General Chair Nuno Martins

Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture, School of Design, Polytechnic Institute of Cavado and Ave, Barcelos, Portugal [email protected]

Co-chair Daniel Brandão

Communication and Society Research Centre, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal [email protected]

Team Ana Catarina Silva Cátia Vidinhas Jorge Ribeiro Isabel Xavier Leonardo Pereira Sérgio Dominique

Scientific Committee Albert Inyoung Choi Alberto Sá Álvaro Sousa Ana Catarina Silva

College of Design—Hanyang University, Korea Universidade do Minho, Portugal Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Escola Superior de Design IPCA, Portugal

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Ana Filomena Curralo Ana Carla Amaro Ana Clara Roberti Ana Correia de Barros Ana Filomena Curralo André Rangel Andreia Sousa Camila Soares Catarina Lelis Catarina Moura Cátia Rijo Cláudia Lima Cristina Sylla Daniel Brandão Daniel Raposo Dario Lanza Derek Lackaff Dina Riccò Doris Kosminsky Eliana Penedos Elizete de Azevedo Kreutz Emília Duarte Fabrício Fava Fernando Moreira da Silva Fernando Olivares Delgado Fernando Suarez Carballo Francisco Paiva Filipe Lopes Frederico Braida Gerry Leonidas Hande Ayanoglu Heitor Alvelos Ildo Francisco Golfetto João Abreu João Alves de Sousa João Brandão João Neves João Tiago Santos Jorge Pereira

Organization

IPVC, Portugal Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal CITCEM, Portugal Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS, Portugal IPVC, Portugal FBAUP CITAR, Portugal Universidade Lusófona do Porto, Portugal FBAUP, Portugal University of West London, UK Universidade da Beira Interior, Portugal Escola Superior de Educação IPL, Portugal Universidade Lusófona do Porto, Portugal Universidade do Minho, Portugal Universidade do Minho, Portugal Politécnico Castelo Branco, Portugal Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain School of Communications Elon University, USA Politecnico di Milano, Italy Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Universidade do Porto, Portugal Universidade Univates, Brazil IADE, Portugal Faculdade de Belas da Universidade do Porto, Portugal Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal Universidad de Alicante (ES) Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, Spain Universidade da Beira Interior, Portugal Escola Superior de Media Artes e Design IPP, Portugal Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Brazil University of Reading, UK IADE, Portugal Universidade do Porto, Portugal Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil Politécnico de Lisboa, Portugal Universidade Lusófona do Porto, Portugal Faculdade de Arquitectura, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal Politécnico Castelo Branco, Portugal Escola Superior de Artes e Design, Portugal Escola Superior de Design IPCA, Portugal

Organization

Jorge dos Reis Jorge Vazquez Herrero José Gago Silva Juan Ra Martin Karel van der Waarde Krasimira Borisova Drumeva Leonardo Pereira Letícia Pedruzzi Fonseca Lev Manovich Luís Leite Luís Paschoarelli Luís Santos Maria João Félix Mario Buono Marta Fernandes Manuel Montes Vozmediano Miguel Carvalhais Nelson Zagalo Nuno Coelho Nuno Martins Patricia Ranzo Pau Garcia Pedro Amado Pedro Beça Pedro Cardoso Pedro Portela Priscila Farias Ricardo Melo Rita Almendra Rita Espanha Rita Santos Rodrigo Carvalho Rui Rodrigues Sara Balonas Sara Goldchmit Sara Santos Sérgio Dominique Susana Barreto Teresa Ruão

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Faculdade de Bela Artes U. Lisboa, Portugal Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain Universidade de Évora, Portugal Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, Spain Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia ST Cyril and St. Methodius, University of Veliko Tarnovo, Faculty of Fine Arts, Bulgaria Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Brazil City University of New York, USA ESMAD-IPP, Portugal Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil Universidade do Minho, Portugal Escola Superior de Design IPCA, Portugal University of Campania, Italy Politécnico do Porto, Portugal Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain INESC TEC and FBAUP, Portugal Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal Escola Superior de Design IPCA, Portugal Università degli Studi della Campania, Italy Domestic Data Streamers/Elisava, Spain Universidade do Porto, Portugal Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Universidade do Minho, Portugal Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS, Portugal Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal ISCTE, Portugal Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal ESMAD-IPP, Portugal ESMAD-IPP, Portugal Universidade do Minho, Portugal Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Escola Superior de Hotelaria e Turismo IPCA, Portugal Universidade do Porto, Portugal Universidade do Minho, Portugal

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Tiago Navarro Marques Vanda Sousa Vania Baldi Vera Barradas Martins Virgínia Tiradentes Souto Vítor Quelhas

Organization

Universidade de Évora, Portugal Politécnico de Lisboa, Portugal Universidae de Aveiro, Portugal Politécnico Portalegre, Portugal Universidade de Brasília, Brazil ESMAD-IPP, Portugal

Contents

Digital and Interaction Design Data Visualization in Hybrid Space—Constraints and Opportunities for Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ana Beatriz Marques, Vasco Branco, Rui Costa, and Nina Costa Open Knowledge, Open Archive. An Approach to Open Culture . . . . . Roberta Angari

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Embodiment, Memory, and Consent: Strategies to Conduct a Research in Design Using Participatory Observation in Clubs . . . . . . . . César Lugo-Elías and Pedro Cardoso

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Supporting the Creation of Audio-Visual Content While Promoting Environmental Awareness: The 2G4N Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mónica Aresta and Pedro Beça

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Strategies of Intentional Friction in the User Interface of Digital Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Isabella Silva, Pedro Cardoso, and Bruno Giesteira

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Ascertaining the Influence of Style on the Credibility and Appeal of a Digital Health Avatar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Óscar T. Viana, Miguel Terroso, Cristiana Serejo, and João L. Vilaça

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ForSav: A Mobile Application for Matchmaking Profiles in a Dynamic-Ride Sharing System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gualter Ferrada, Paulo Noriega, Mafalda Casais, and Francisco Rebelo

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Mapping Persona Interaction with Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . José Gago, Tiago Marques, Ema Rolo, Leonardo Pereira, and Nuno Martins

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Contents

Modular Design and Technology for Diversity and a More Sustainable Fashion. The RTFKT X Nike and CLO Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Catarina Marquês, Ana Margarida Ferreira, and Fernando Oliveira

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Turning an Existing Design System into a Service for the BtoB Market (Case Study)—How? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Verónica Silva, Rodrigo Hernández-Ramírez, Beatriz Fonseca, Bárbara D’Alcobia, and Rodrigo Morais Antecedents of Engagement on Social Media: Fatigue and Anxiety . . . . 115 Pedro Espírito Santo, Sandra Marques da Cruz, Nuno Fortes, and Patrícia Azinheira Cardoso A Defense of Friction—Or Why Ubiquitous Computing Should not Recede to the Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Rodrigo Hernández-Ramírez and Davide Maria Parrilli Designing Interfaces for Legal Artifacts. Using Storytelling to Enhance Digital Legal Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Andrés Polanía and Santiago de Francisco Vela Towards Designing Intuitive Mobile UIs Considering Tapping Behaviour of Elderly Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Md. Rokonuzzaman Reza, Md Shadman Aadeeb, Shaqran Bin Saleh, and Muhammad Nazrul Islam Evaluating Usability of Mobile Financial Applications Used in Bangladesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Moumita Bhowmik, Fardeen Ashraf, Tashfia Fatema, Faria Habib, Md Lutful Kabir, Iyolita Islam, and Muhammad Nazrul Islam Interface Design of a Mobile Application Oriented to Packaging Sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Sérgio Ereira Marques Junior and Rui Pedro Costa Rodrigues Video Transmission Speed and Impact on Information Retention: A Pilot Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 João Costa, Ana Faria, Ricardo Dias, Paulo Noriega, Elisângela Vilar, and Francisco Rebelo Service Design Applied to a Health Record System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Lea Camacho, Eliana Penedos-Santiago, and Estêvão Santos Investigation of the Creative Process Based on a Practical Exercise of Creation of Characters from Role Playing Game Dungeons and Dragons - Insights and Discoveries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Bianca Antonio Gomes, Patricia Turazzi Luciano, Vania Ribas Ulbricht, and Carlos Eduardo Verzola Vaz

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Cork Toys: Tradition and Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Teresa Soares, Miguel Salazar, Rui Pedro Freire, José Luís Ferreira, and José Simões Does Signal APP’s Design Protect Users’ Informational Privacy? A Critical Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Davide M. Parrilli and Rodrigo Hernández-Ramírez Sketching Role in Nowadays Design Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Ana Moreira da Silva Digital Medical Design: How New Technologies and Approaches Can Empower Healthcare for Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Gabriele Pontillo Designing a Speculative Design Toolkit for Community Biodiversity Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 Craig Jeffcott and Ana Margarida Ferreira Methodological Approach to the Creation of Oporto’s Poetic Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280 Olinda Martins, Joana Quental, and Alice Semedo Promoting Citizen Engagement in Sustainable Planning Through Installation Design and Digital Gamification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 George Arvanitis, Joanne Hayek, and Marina Peres The Enredo Game-Installation: A Proposal to Counter Hate Speech Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 Susana Costa, Mirian Tavares, José Bidarra, and Bruno Mendes da Silva Society, Communication and Design Portuguese Born-on-the-Net Brand’s Strategy on Instagram . . . . . . . . . 323 Ana Rodrigues and Paulo Silva Development of a Pill Dispenser: System Requirements and Product Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 Octávio Lima, Miguel Terroso, Nuno Dias, João L.Vilaça, and Demétrio Matos EU4ALL: For a Strategic Communication on the Democratic Values Highlighted by the European Parliament to Groups Vulnerable to Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Caio Marcelo Miolo de Oliveira, Rita Assoreira Almendra, Tiago Leitão, and Ana Rita Lourenço Digital Animation and Augment Reality as a Way of Added Value to Artistic Exhibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357 João Alves de Sousa

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Contents

Entutela. A Digital Tool to Facilitate the Drafting and Creation of Tutelas in Colombia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366 Camila Padilla Casas and Santiago de Francisco Vela Artefacts of Culture; Vesak Postage Stamps of Sri Lanka . . . . . . . . . . . 377 Samudra De Silva and Sumanthri Samarawickrama Designing Physical and Virtual Walkshop Methods for Speculative Internet of Things Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392 Nuri Kwon, Naomi Jacobs, Louise Mullagh, Marianna Cavada, Milan Markovic, Benjamin Wainwright, Kirsty Chekansky, and Rachel Cooper A Look into Fashion Shows During and After the Covid-19 Pandemic: Are Digital Fashion Shows Here to Stay? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406 Clarissa de Carvalho Godim and Joana Cunha Different Perceptions of Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415 José Gago, Ema Rolo, Daniel Brandão, Leonardo Pereira, and Sérgio Fereira DID. Value: An Overview of Professional Development and Its Challenges for Students with Disabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424 Maria Potes Barbas and Pedro Matos Embroidering Behaviour. The Power of Storytelling in Patient Activation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435 Renata Arezes, Joana Quental, Anabela Pereira, and Raquel Guimarães The Smartification of Low-Density Territories: The Case of CIM Viseu Dão Lafões . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445 Paulo Bruno Alves and Lídia Oliveira Design Activism and Social Innovations for the Planet . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457 Teresa Franqueira Learning from Nature, Design Tools to Understand Natural Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466 Susana Gonzaga Cyberjournalism: The Influence of Design on Public Participation . . . . 479 Sara Alves and Andreia Pinto de Sousa Critical Digital: Digital Integration in the Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495 Fernando Sousa and Francisco Providência Can Visual Artists Regulate Designs to Manipulate Viewers’ Gaze Patterns? an Exploration with Eye-Tracker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507 Pinaki Gayen, Archi Banerjee, Junmoni Borgohain, Gobinda Banik, and Priyadarshi Patnaik

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Design Culture Ladder: Creation of a Diagnosis Tool to Evolve Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523 Hugo Palmares, Miguel Terroso, and Emília Costa Corporate Disinformation: Concept and Typology of Forms of Corporate Disinformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536 Fernando Olivares-Delgado, Mayte Benlloch-Osuna, Daniel Rodríguez-Valero, and Eva Breva-Franch Graphic Design and Branding Video Ad Informativeness and Narrative Structure and Transportation as Antecedents of Brand Choice: A Portuguese Brand Case Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553 Sara Santos, Pedro Espírito Santo, and Sónia Ferreira Viral Marketing: How Squid Game Became the Most Watched Show on Netflix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566 Carolina Correia, Beatriz Guimarães, and Sara Teixeira Responsive Vox: Extending the Vox-ATypI Typographic Classification System into a Four-Tier Cartesian Model for an Interactive Educational Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581 Pedro Amado Typographic Strategies in Urban Space: Three Artists in the Field of Contemporary Art Using Typography as Their Own Proper Raw Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594 Jorge dos Reis Understanding Korean Aesthetics in the Package Design of the History of Whoo by Culture Code Brand Design (CCBD) Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 606 Kaibin Xing, Bixi Lin, and Albert Young Choi Analyzing the Layout Design of the HuangHai’s Movie Posters Context to the Visual Elements of the Culture Code Brand Design (CCBD) Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615 Wang Chun and Albert Young Choi A Descriptive-Comparative Study of Communication and Brand Positioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627 Gabriela Abdalla, Caroline Renata Delle Finati, and Richard Perassi Context and Operational Concepts of Running Titles in Books for Extended Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639 Ricardo P. Dantas, Pedro M. Amado, Rúben R. Dias, and Fábio D. Martins

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The “Smart” Paradigm in the Field of Communication and Identity Design in MSME'S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653 António Gonçalves Santos and Jorge Brandão Pereira Cooperative Methods as a Trigger for Active Learning in Graphic Design Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666 Suzana Dias and Ana Baptista Visual Identity of Non-profit Organizations: Escola Oficina, a Case Study Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675 João Vasconcelos, Nuno Martins, Daniel Brandão, and Eliana Penedos-Santiago Design of a Brand for the Production of Macroeconomics of Undeveloped Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687 Nicola Corsetto Design for Certification – The Case of Vegan and Vegetarian Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 698 Joana Silva and Álvaro Sousa Recorded: A Visual and Physical Revivalist Ode to Vinyl Culture . . . . . 710 António Castro, Bruno Barros, and Antero Ferreira Sustainable Footwear: Study of Brand Logo Influence and User Acceptance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724 Raysa Ruschel-Soares, Bárbara Contin, Mylena Uhlig Siqueira, Palloma Renny Beserra Fernandes, Rosana Aparecida Vasques, André Leme Fleury, and Júlia Baruque-Ramos Relevance of Typographic Factors in the Identification of Allergens in Food Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 736 Ivo Fonseca, Vera Afreixo, Mário Vairinhos, Joana Quental, and André Moreira Audiovisual Design and Communication The Role of Data Visualization in Science Communication . . . . . . . . . . 753 Ana Duarte, Miguel Carvalhais, and Pedro Amado Asymmetric Gameplay: Types and Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765 Abel Neto, Pedro Cardoso, and Miguel Carvalhais Diegetic Credits in Film and Series Title Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 779 Leonardo Pereira, Nuno Martins, and Daniel Brandão

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Digital Wor(l)ds: Using Dynamic Typography as a Mean of Artistic Expression in Digital and Audiovisual Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 792 Alexandre Martins and Bruno Mendes da Silva Reading Motivation Factors Through Interactive Narratives and Augmented Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 805 Mariana Fiusa, Cátia Peres, and Ana Luísa Marques Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823

Digital and Interaction Design

Data Visualization in Hybrid Space—Constraints and Opportunities for Design Ana Beatriz Marques1,2(B) , Vasco Branco1,2 and Nina Costa1,2

, Rui Costa1,2

,

1 Department of Communication and Art, Aveiro University, University Campus of Santiago,

3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal [email protected] 2 Media and Culture [ID+], Research Institute for Design, University Campus of Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal

Abstract. It is intended to investigate the hybrid space, as a determining attribute of the experience and interaction with augmented reality systems, to assess the potential and limitations of this space for information design, specifically in the context of data visualization. This paper presents a study which focused on the use of augmented reality in data visualization, in cases where there is no direct semantic relation between the virtual content and the real setting where the visualization will be displayed. For this study, a practice-based methodology was adopted, supported by the development, implementation and testing of a prototype of an augmented reality application for mobile devices. This prototype, which allows to visualize data related to design companies in Portugal, was assessed in real context. The data collected in this process sparked a reflection on the achieved results, but also on the challenges inherent to the application of this technology in the design of data visualizations. Keywords: Immersive analytics · Augmented reality · Data visualization

1 Introduction In recent years, Augmented Reality (AR) technologies have experienced great progress, both in accessibility and in hardware resources, encouraging their application to various domains [1], namely in data visualization. In the context of information design, AR has primarily been used to present information about real spaces (e.g. Visits to historic sites). Currently, its application is also expanding into more exploratory domains, in which the objective is not to provide in-situ information, but to support analytical reasoning—“Immersive Analytics” [2]. By adding a layer of AR to data visualization, the most obvious difference regarding traditional visualization forms has to do with the immersive perception of the virtual space where the data is visited. Despite the relevance that space assumes here, there are few bibliographical references about the design for the hybrid space—which results from the combination between real space and virtual space—in the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 3–15, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_1

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context of data visualization. With a few exceptions (e.g. [3, 4]) there are few empirical studies that allow, on the one hand, to disseminate and sustain an appropriation of this technology by information designers and, on the other hand, to verify the effectiveness of the use of AR in the context of immersive Analytics to support different audiences (non-experts) to explore data. This justifies the research work we have been conducting to understand the strengths and limitations of AR technologies from the perspective of Information Design, namely in data visualization. This work has been framed by the Project “Design OBS—Towards a Design Observatory in Portugal” as research of new possibilities for the representation of data collected, analyzed, and interprete on the various sectors of the Portuguese Design ecosystem. This study addresses data visualization with AR in cases where there is no semantic relationship between the data to be visualized and the real space where this visualization will take place, a space that will only serve as an expository setting. This study was based on the development of an AR application – “Floating Companies” (FLOC) – and in its test in real context, carried out in Portugal within the scope of an itinerant exhibition of the DesignOBS Project (FBAUL 2021). This circumstance enabled to observe and qualify the perception of the hybrid space in the data visualization process based on the prototype developed. This article presents the design and assessment process of this application. The data collected during the performed tests serve to reflect on the results achieved as on the challenges inherent to the use of AR in the construction of data visualizations. Therefore, it is intended to contribute to identify strategies allowing a greater appropriation of AR technology by designer(s), trying to overcome existing gaps and identifying guidelines for action.

2 Literature Revision Situated Analytics and Immersive Analytics are complementary techniques that have emerged at similar times. While situated analytics uses augmented reality to support a new form of in-situ interactive visual analysis, i.e. Where real space plays a fundamental role as referent; immersive analytics covers a wider spectrum of techniques and technologies, not implying the visualization of information at the location of its physical referent [5]. The term Immersive Analytics (IA) was proposed for the first time in 2015 by Chandler et al. (2015) to designate a multidisciplinary field which integrates analytical reasoning and immersive virtual spaces. ‘Immersiveness’ is a central theme in Immersive Analytics as the name implies. But despite this characteristic having an endemic relationship with the space perspective, there are few references to studies on hybrid space in this context. Bach et al. (2017) testify the lack of a systematic description of the design space and the resulting implications, despite of some research on embedded data visualization [6]. Marriott et al. (2018) approach the space in IA applications to evaluate their added value for the visualization of 3D information. The authors point that currently there is no agreed windowing metaphor in mixed mode applications, and this is a research topic that warrants attention. Hackathorn and Margolis (2017) reflect on what might be a data visualization in the hybrid space and conceive a data space as a botanical garden by opposition to a movie. While the botanical garden is a three-dimensional space with several layers of information, the movie is a sequence of images controlled by the author. While the

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interpretation of a garden follows a non-linear path and is based on the experience of the ‘lived body’, the interpretation of a movie is much more linear, being mainly supported by vision and aimed at the immobile body. Within media studies, Ryan (2015) analyses space in interactive digital narrative according to two particularly relevant concepts: emotional space and strategic space. Emotional space is characterized by an experience of space associated with affective reactions, whether positive or negative, and its representation is based on a horizontal perspective, ie. a perspective that “captures the perception of the human body, and therefore comes closest to the lived, embodied experience that produces emotions” (p. 106). In contrast, the strategic space is related to the possibilities of action in order to achieve certain objectives (e.g. chessboard), being typically represented through the map view, as it favors an overall view and planning. Based on this binomial, Ryan (2015) distinguishes two modes of experiencing space in an interactive narrative—flânerie and quest. “While a quest is a deliberate search for specific objects, flânerie is a free wandering open to chance meetings and random discoveries. In a quest, space only exists to be traversed (…) in flânerie, it is enjoyed for its own sake and becomes the object of aesthetic pleasure” [7]. The duality between different perspectives of space has also been studied in information design. The contrast between a macro and micro perspective of the dataset was addressed from the standpoint of the content and not so much from the standpoint of space. In one of the pioneering books on information visualization, Card et al. [21] mention the need to simultaneously provide two perspectives over data—the overview (context) and the detail view (focus), pointing out several interaction techniques to enable this coexistence. More recently, within the scope of research on visual representations of historical time, Davis et al. (2013) identified the modes of observation and immersion. What distinguishes these two modes is the perceived distance from the observer to the information. “Seeing the full scope of a comprehensive data-set, patterns emerge for the observer stands outside time; but when the user moves closer and studies individuals in their context, instead a sense of immersion is promoted.” [8].

3 Research Gap Despite AR being a totally different medium from the desktop environment and the press medium, authors who approach AR in data visualization frequently use the traditional language of 2D graphics. Augmented reality in information design still does not seem to have its own culture, which facilitates its appropriation by designers. To understand the reason behind this gap, to demonstrate the interest of that appropriation and to point out ways in that direction are central objectives of the research project that includes this study. In this study we start from the assumption that to establish itself as a medium, augmented reality needs to develop its own language, anchored in the features that distinguish it from previous media, in particular the combination of the following particularities: continuous integration between real and virtual, control over the point of view by the user and inherent interactivity. Despite the importance of space in augmented reality experiences, theoretical references on design for hybrid space are scarce. Thus, it is essential to consider the way of perception in hybrid space when designing data visualization for

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that environment. Ryan (2015) addresses space from the perspective of Interactive Digital Narrative, however the author does not explicitly mention data visualization. Davis et al. (2013) approach the user perspective on space in the scope of information design, but without the layer of augmented reality.

4 Methodology This study intends to answer the following research question – ‘from the design standpoint, what are the strengths and limitations that hybrid space presents for data visualization, particularly in cases where there is no semantic relation between that data and the space where it will be inserted?’. One of the objectives pursued is the development of guidelines for the design of data visualizations with augmented reality, allowing to minimize the limitations and maximize the potential of this technology, namely in the specified cases in which the real space is merely an exhibition setting without any semantic relation with data. Pursuing this goal implies: (1) characterization of the perception of hybrid space in a data visualization; (2) recognition of the strengths and limitations of using augmented reality from the perspective of data visualization where there is no semantic connection to space; (3) identification of the aspects in which augmented reality might complement traditional forms of data visualization. For this purpose, an information artifact was developed enabling to conduct a research based on the design practice, where the iterative process progresses through the evaluation of the artifact in real context and the resulting reflection [9, 10]. While design practice aims to generate new solutions, design research reflects on the usefulness and effectiveness of the artifact created to solve the class of problems identified, thus contributing to the production of new knowledge in Design [9]. The design of this artifact followed the “double-diamond” approach (Design Council, 2004) triggered, supervised, and driven by research objectives that are not limited to the artifact itself. The development of this artifact was sparked during the preparation of the first exhibition of the DesignOBS project [11], whose purpose was to publicly present the achieved results, both in terms of data collected and processed regarding the Portuguese Design ecosystem, as in terms of research on data representation. This exhibition, which was intended to be itinerant, seemed to be an opportunity and the ideal context to test, with interested publics, the relevance and potential of AR technologies for Information Design and to evaluate the suitability of concepts that were in the experimental phase [12, 13]. The initial phase focused, on the one hand, on (1) the exploration of artifacts that use augmented reality and the collection of contributions from other research projects (analyzed in the previous section) that could constitute theoretical and practical foundations to support the design and reflection on the artifact being conceived; and, on the other hand, (2) the study and selection of the dataset, within the Portuguese Design ecosystem, that could be exploited by various stakeholders in the design field through an AR application. In this sense, we chose the database originated in SABI [14] and curated by the DesignOBS project about design companies registered in Portugal with the economic activity code 7410 (design activity), in the year 2019. It contains information on 2,714 companies, including contacts, location, turnover, number of employees, profit, exports, among other relevant economic and financial indicators. When converging on the definition of a briefing to guide the development of the AR application other decisions were

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taken, particularly the representation of the entire database, implying the immediate perception of the size of the companies and their georeferencing. It was intended to give the public a direct notion of the distribution of Design companies throughout the country, not only in number, but also in relative size. The design and development of the application was carried out iteratively, involving the exploration and materialization of data through the employment of different analytical techniques and representation support software such as Tableau or Rawgraph. Each of the indicators in the database was analyzed and described. This first step allowed us to explore how some variables might relate to each other, enriching the primary analysis, and supporting the formulation of questions. This iterative analysis and reflection were fundamental in defining the guidelines for data visualization—form, color, typography, interaction modes and styles, among other aspects belonging to the design field. This project cycle ended with the testing and evaluation of the developed prototype.

5 Floating Companies (FLOC) The prototype of the AR application that visualizes data about the set of Design companies in Portugal was developed using Unity and Vuforia for Android mobile devices. The experience is targeted by an area target—a tracking feature developed by Vuforia enabling to track and augment spaces – in this case, a room with about 2,20 × 5,90 m at FBAUL, previously scanned by a mobile device with LIDAR. It is an empty space without any semantic complementarity with the data that would be presented there, an essential condition to ensure that the application could accompany the exhibition in itinerant situations. Once the application recognizes the space, a set of spheres that seem to float over a map of Portugal appears on the screen of the mobile device, justifying the name given to the artifact: Floating Companies (FLOC) (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. FLOC trial on android tablet, University of Aveiro. (a) FLOC main view. (b) Interaction with spheres. (c). FLOC resume view.

Each Design company corresponds to a sphere, whose diameter translates its size (in number of employees) and whose color indicates its class according to the same variable (micro, small, medium, big, etc.). The position of the spheres in space allows us to have an approximate notion of the distribution of the companies throughout Portugal, but also of their relative performance since the height (the distance to the ground) at which each company is located is an indicator of its profit per employee. By tapping a

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sphere, information about the company is displayed, such as its name, the district where it is based, and its profit per employee. On the floor plan is a map of Portugal, showing its administrative division by districts, reinforcing the perception of the location and distribution of Design companies throughout the country. It is also possible to choose a data visualization—‘resume view’—in which the number of companies by class in number of employees, for each district, is represented based on a sphere chart that synthesizes this information, allowing to compare reality among the various districts (with each chart positioned above its respective district). With the two views of the same information, we tried to explore new logics of representation that were not fully anchored in the traditional grammar of two-dimensional representation, while providing an overview of the data. 5.1 Data Gathering FLOC (Floating Companies) integrated the exhibition “Towards a Design Observatory in Portugal—situation”, at the Gallery of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon between the 3rd and the 10th of December 2021, where it was tested by 21 visitors, using a hand-held device: an android tablet. Their feedback was collected using the Thinking Aloud method, a user experience test in which participants are asked to interact with the system while verbalizing their thoughts out loud in a continuous monologue [15]. The tests were preceded by a brief presentation of this research, contextualizing it in the scope of the DesignOBS project, and by the request for filling out both the informed consent to audio record and a sociodemographic characterization form. These tests allowed the collection of two types of data about the application’s use: audio recording of people’s comments during their experience and participant observation fixed in field notes. Among the 21 participants (11 female and 10 male) the most represented age group was between 21 and 30 years old. The most common academic level is secondary education, with the participants attending a degree course in Art or Design at the institution where the tests took place. The great majority of the participants are Portuguese (90.5%), with only 9.5% being foreigners. Although all participants indicated that they were completely comfortable with using smartphones or tablets (71.4% indicated a score of 5 and 28.6% indicated a score of 4 out of a maximum of 5), they were not familiar with augmented reality technologies (42.9% indicated a score of 3 points out of a maximum of 5). 5.2 Data Analysis The analysis of the audio transcripts was methodologically inspired by Jung et al. (2022) proposal for the analysis of semi-structured interviews which deconstructs informants’ discourse along 5 steps to establish categories of information, identify the main topics present in those categories, and determine themes from related topics [16]. In this case, the analysis process did not go through the 5 steps inscribed in the mentioned proposal, because the type of object under analysis is not the same. Compared to semi-structured interviews, the think aloud method used typically leads to much shorter, spontaneous, and unstructured discourses. The analysis of the transcripts facilitated the identification of observations and themes that were repeated by different participants and supported an overall analysis of the experiences, allowing their results to be compared with the

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field notes. The audio transcripts analysis followed the next process: 1) Transferring the transcripts to a table and sectioning each participant’s transcripts by episode or segment. Different ideas correspond to different segments. 2) Exclusion of segments not relevant for this evaluation. 3) Assigning a descriptive code to each segment. The descriptive code is a phrase that describes and circumscribes a segment. 4) Subcategorization of the descriptive code into a category related to the purpose of the article—data visualization in hybrid space. Some of the categories extracted from the descriptive codes are space perception; interaction techniques; or artistic nature of the experience. In this way, a category can have several descriptive codes. Based on this table (see attached table) it was possible to verify the most repeated categories and descriptive codes related to the experience of space and its perception. From here, a general description of the transcripts was made and, subsequently, triangulation of this information with field observations [17] was carried out as will be seen in the ‘Results’ part. 5.3 Results The observation of participants while interacting with FLOC application enabled to witness the perspective that this medium conveys on information in the hybrid space using a hand-held device, as well as the aspects that affect the ease and fluidity of interaction with augmented reality content. On the other hand, the most frequent topics extracted from the comments collected during the tests with the FLOC application were the following: (1) Difficulty in matching physical space and virtual space; (2) Dichotomy between the aesthetic experience and the informative experience; (3) Limitations identified and presentation of suggestions or other possibilities; (4) Usefulness of the content and engagement; (5) Surprising character of augmented reality. People expressed (1) difficulty in making the correspondence between real space and virtual space, but also between different virtual objects, verbalizing difficulties at three levels: (a) perceiving the location of the spheres in the physical space of the room: “I don’t quite understand where [the sphere] is. I can see it’s over there, sideward Lisbon. But from here I can’t figure out where it is exactly.”; (b) establishing the relationship between the spheres and the corresponding location on the map of Portugal: “I can’t see the relationship between the map and the distribution of spheres in space.”; (c) understanding their own position in virtual space: “— Can’t you perceive your own location in space?—Yes, in space. Not in the living room space, in the virtual space.”. While for some participants reading the information in the hybrid space provoked curiosity and a desire to explore—a strong playful and exploratory component was observed in the interaction with FLOC—for others the application caused some agitation for not being able to quickly synthesize or overview the overall data. This limitation has to do with the positioning of the participants within the information, which does not favor a strategic perspective, but rather an immersive one. Several users mentioned that it would be nice to access a distant perspective of the data—either by bringing the spheres down or moving away from the spheres. “A farther view of the spheres would be better if the space was bigger.”; “Only if I moved farther away would I be able to understand.”; “It would be interesting to see this from above.”.

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Two participants spoke of the application in aesthetic terms as if it were an art installation, (2) opposing the aesthetic experience to an informational or utilitarian experience: “In visual terms it is quite interesting but in practical terms it turns out not to be as effective as would be intended (…) as would happen with a pie chart capable of representing percentages.”. One of the participants mentioned the following: “As a plastic work it works very well, it is visually very appealing, but as an object of analysis it is not accessible. It’s too much.”. Interaction with the virtual content depends on the user’s movement in the space— zooming, browsing, and searching, among other actions, depend on their movement in the space dedicated to the experience. If the recognition of the area target by the application is not completely stable, the fluidity of the interaction is compromised, since the participants tend to avoid moving around to prevent the information from disappearing. (3) The limitations pointed out by users were mostly related to the direct interaction with the spheres: for example, about the difficulty of simultaneously holding the tablet and touching the spheres, or about not being able to select a specific sphere (when they accumulate in a large number in a small space) to learn more about the associated company. But suggestions were also made for some of the problems detected: for example, the possibility of filtering the information by district or the possibility of creating a history for previously selected spheres. Some participants referred to the application—not as an analysis tool—but as (4) a more engaging way of exploring a database than its more traditional excel table form, which does not arouse curiosity. One of the participants mentioned that this application can be a more engaging way of looking at information, and that if it were in text form she probably would not have read or be interested in it. After understanding how the application works, several users spent some time trying to find companies they knew amidst the array of spheres. Other users showed interest and asked questions about the companies that were ‘higher’, reporting higher profits. During the experience, (5) expressions of astonishment and enthusiasm were heard, denouncing the ludic character of the application, but also the technological ‘novelty’ that augmented reality still represents. Some participants pointed out aspects of this technology, namely the possibility of adding ‘things’ to the physical space that would not exist without the device, or the possibility of incorporating information in a space without saturating it. “In the case of augmented reality, the technology not only shows what is directly in front of a user, directly observable with their own eyes, but also what hides behind the building, architecture and other view-obstructing geometry.” [18]. Finally, it was found that the textual information about the application made in the descriptive (‘about’) is not sufficient to support the interpretation of the data. Only one participant selected this option and did not get to read the explanatory text. The assistance in interpreting the visualization should be done through a linear narrative (text, audio, video) that precedes, intersperses, or concludes its free exploration by people.

6 Discussion The hybrid space is a digital, interactive space where the control of the viewpoint is inherently done by the user. It is possible to analyze hybrid space based on the distinction

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between emotional space and strategic space proposed by Ryan (2015) to classify space in interactive narratives (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. FLOC activated by FBAUL’s area target. (a) Vertical view on Unity editor. (b) Tablet screen capture at FBAUL exhibition. (c) FLOC vertical view on Unity editor (resume view). (d) Tablet screen capture (resume view).

The hybrid space, characteristic of mixed realities in which there is a fusion between real and virtual environments, fits into the concept of emotional space and favors a horizontal, immersive perspective that positions the user in the same space as the virtual content. This proximity with the virtual content favors immersiveness and focus, providing a perspective that simulates the lived experience. 6.1 Strengths of Data Visualization in Hybrid Space The horizontal perspective in data visualization promotes aesthetic pleasure, wandering and curiosity, stimulates exploration and discovery. Thus, the engagement generated by immersiveness, stands out as one of the great assets of using augmented reality in data visualization where there is no semantic connection to the physical space. The conception of the hybrid space as an emotional space meets the concept of immersive data space as a botanical garden [4]—a permanent installation designed and curated in constant change, an information-rich landscape that offers various levels of resolution and serves various purposes—from wandering to research. Hybrid space allows bringing reality to data, in the sense that it makes it possible to make abstract numbers concrete by inserting their simulation in a real environment. For instance, if we want to represent 50 trees, we can introduce the simulation of 50 trees in the real environment. The invention of graphics for the print medium came from an abstraction of reality onto the two-dimensional page, encoding reality and representing it on a plane. If graphics are an abstraction of reality, the return of this abstraction to the real world through augmented reality can follow the opposite path, from abstraction to materialization, from the strategic space to the emotional space, from the vertical perspective to the horizontal perspective closer to being in the world, to the perception of the human being. Through simulation, visualization in hybrid space promotes proximity to the data, the focus, and in this way brings you closer to specific cases, to reality, rather than providing an overview. The presence of virtual content in a real environment that the user ‘inhabits’, allows comparisons to be made between that virtual content and visual aspects of the real

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environment—for example size, volume, or positioning—without requiring a semantic connection to the site of experience. A case study that represents what can be the simulation of virtual content in the real environment for the purpose of communicating information is the New York Times Inflation Shrink Ray (April 20, 2022) [19]. It is an augmented reality effect for Instagram that simulates through objects placed in the user’s real environment the effect of inflation on consumer goods by shrinking them. Although the simulation itself can assign meanings to the physical space—in the case of the FLOC application an empty floor becomes Portugal—this space will continue to act as a referent of the real. Thus, in addition to semantic connotations, this type of experience can and should allude to connotations of a physical or corporeal nature to create visual metaphors useful for communicating information: for example, the corner of the empty room may become ‘a’ system of Cartesian axes. 6.2 Constraints of Data Visualization in Hybrid Space Even when trying to convey an overview or strategic view of the data—the resume view in the FLOC application—the immersive perspective still dominates, in the way that we are still in the same hybrid space. By privileging an approximation to the data, the emotional space does make it difficult to get an overview, which is essential to understanding a data set as a whole. This limitation is evident in the dichotomy between aesthetic experience and informational experience mentioned by some participants. Data communication in hybrid space might induce disorientation if that space is not credible enough, i.e. if there isn’t a complete match between the real and virtual environments. To properly work, people should have no difficulty perceiving the position of a given virtual object in the physical space. Only this way will it be possible, on the one hand, to perceive the spatial relationship between different virtual objects, and on the other, to perceive one’s own positioning relative to those objects, i.e. to be able to position oneself in the hybrid space. Although it is easier for a user to deal with occlusion situations when viewing virtual objects in hybrid space as navigation relies on natural interactions, namely their own movement, data representation in hybrid space offers more challenges regarding occlusion situations or poor visibility of information than the desktop environment. The immersive perspective proper of the hybrid space leads more easily to situations of information occlusion as the user is virtually in the same place of that information—he doesn’t read the information from a vertical perspective, but from several perspectives; on the other hand, the visibility of the virtual content always depends on the real environment and on the positioning of the user, making it difficult to predict all situations. Human occlusion is a feature that enables virtual content to be occluded with people. In the conducted tests an android tablet was used which does not support this feature and, therefore, the user’s body appears hidden by the virtual content. In the tests performed an android tablet was used that does not support this feature and therefore the user’s body appears hidden by the virtual content. This form of registration, in which the virtual object is in the foreground, momentarily breaks the integration between reality and virtuality, shattering the interpretation of space as hybrid. The difficulties reported by participants in understanding the location of a sphere on the map may relate to the use of a handheld display to see spheres floating in space.

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7 Design Guidelines Given the difficulty in conveying a data overview in augmented reality systems, it is necessary to find ways to complement the emotional space with strategic information. In the case of FLOC, the approach to this problem will be the introduction of pictorial cues in the hybrid space, namely by projecting the shadows of the spheres on the map (floor) to facilitate the perception of the distribution of companies across the country. Data visualization with augmented reality is not a replacement for previous forms of data visualization, and in this regard, the qualities that distinguish it from other media need to be improved or enhanced—in this case, reinforcing the credibility of the hybrid space. Developing strategies to combine the virtual and real environments in an increasingly natural way will result in a more believable hybrid space and, consequently, in increased immersiveness and engagement. For this purpose, it is necessary that virtual objects interact in real time with the real environment as if they were actual physical objects. Visually they receive light and cast shadow; they can hide real objects and be hidden by other objects or people. In the case of using a target, the credibility of the hybrid space also depends on its complete stabilization, ensuring that the combination of the real and the virtual is not interrupted. The ease of interaction and immersiveness in the hybrid space can be enhanced by using augmented reality glasses or head mounted displays, since handheld displays make some actions difficult. Greater author control at the narrative level will help avoid the sense of disorientation experienced by some users during the experience. By interspersing moments of free exploration and interaction with some linear moments, it will be possible to create a narrative path allowing the transformation of data into information and bringing greater cohesion to the experience.

8 Conclusions The strengths and limitations of data visualization in hybrid space relate largely to the strengths and limitations of immersiveness in information design. By artificially dissolving the barriers between the viewing content and the viewer, immersiveness promotes aesthetic pleasure, engagement and encourages free exploration. Regarding the representation of information, augmented reality makes numerical abstractions concrete, simulating them and integrating them into the real environment. While this has advantages from the engagement point of view, the proximity perspective promoted by the hybrid space naturally makes it difficult to have a vertical perspective on the data. Minimizing the limitations and expanding the potential for data visualization in hybrid space entails balancing the dichotomy between aesthetic experience and information communication. For this purpose, the following design guidelines have been identified: 1) The attribution of meaning to the space through the simulation itself, generating cultural constraints that may facilitate the understanding of the information artifact and its exploration; 2) The development of strategies to integrate strategic views into emotional space using cues in space, complementing the emotional view without trying to replace it; 3) The design of an increasingly believable hybrid space through a better fusion of the real and virtual environments. The presence of virtual objects should have

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implications in the real environment as if they were real objects. These implications can be visual, for example the projection of light and shadow and the occlusion simulation, but also auditory, if sound is included; 4) Narrative integration—to seek greater author control over visualization by crafting a narrative that intersperses moments of exploration with linear moments controlled by the author, ensuring cohesion and communication of information. Although this study has allowed us to define some guidelines for AR information design, it would be more robust if other data visualization applications in the hybrid space could be used for comparative evaluation. In the same direction, a larger number of tests would have reinforced the statistical interest of the results. However, according to Jacob Nielsen [20], the richest results of interaction system usage tests come from the first 5 users, after which there is a progressive decrease in the return per participant with responses being repeated. The approach followed in the development of the application prototype implied some programming skills (in this case C#), which can be a strong constraint for designers who lack it. Thus, it will be interesting to investigate the adequacy for the development of AR-based information artifacts of the most promising platforms among those that have appeared on the market claiming to offer the possibility of developing augmented reality applications without the need for programming (eg. Plugxr, uniteAR, Augmania, Zapworks). As future work, we foresee the implementation of strategies capable of integrating narrative and exploration. We also plan on using augmented reality glasses or Head Mounted Display, along with the tablet, to test whether they lead to a better integration between the real and virtual environments. Acknowledgements. This work is financed by national funds from FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Foundation for Science and Technology), I.P., under the PhD grant «SFRH/BD/144937/2019». The project Design Obs. Para um Observatório de Design em Portugal: Modelos, Instrumentos, Representação e Estratégias, (Towards a design Observatory in Portugal: models, instruments representation and strategies) is supported by the Lisbon Regional Operational Programme (LISBOA 2020) and the Competitiveness and Internationalisation Operational Programme (POCI-01–0145-FEDER-032445), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Foundation for Science and Technology). A special thanks to Francisco Monteiro for his invaluable help and knowledge sharing in C# programming.

References 1. Cavallo, M., et al.: Immersive insights: a hybrid analytics system for collaborative exploratory data analysis. In: 25th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology, pp. 1– 12. ACM, New York, NY, USA (2019) 2. Chandler, T., et al.: Immersive analytics. In: 2015 Big Data Visual Analytics (BDVA), pp. 1–8 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1109/BDVA.2015.7314296 3. Marriott, K., et al.: Immersive Analytics: Time to Reconsider the Value of 3D for Information Visualisation, pp. 25–55 (2018) 4. Hackathorn, R., Margolis, T.: Immersive analytics: Building virtual data worlds for collaborative decision support. In: 2016 Workshop on Immersive Analytics, IA 2016, pp. 44–47 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1109/IMMERSIVE.2016.7932382

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5. Thomas, B.H., et al.: Situated analytics. In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). Springer Verlag, pp 185–220 (2018) 6. Bach, B., Sicat, R., Pfister, H., Quigley, A.: Drawing into the AR-CANVAS: Designing Embedded Visualizations for Augmented Reality. In: Workshop on Immersive Analytics, IEEE Vis (2017) 7. Ryan, M.-L.: Emotional and strategic conceptions of space in digital narratives. In: Koenitz, H., et al. (eds.) Interactive Digital Narrative—History, Theory and Practice, pp. 106–120. Taylor & Francis, New York and London (2015) 8. Davis, S.B., Bevan, E., Kudikov, A.: Just in time: defining historical chronographics. In: Bowen, J.P., Keene, S., Ng, K. (eds.) Electronic Visualisation in Arts and Culture, pp. 243–257. Springer London, London (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5406-8_17 9. Fallman, D.: The interaction design research triangle of design practice, design studies, and design exploration. Des. Issues 24, 4–18 (2008) 10. Forlizzi, J., Zimmerman, J., Evenson, S.: Crafting a place for interaction design research in HCI. Des. Issues 24, 19–29 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1162/desi.2008.24.3.19 11. Branco, V., et al.: designobs.pt. https://designobs.pt/ (2018). Accessed 21 Mar 2022 12. Marques, A.B., Branco, V., Costa, R.: Visualização de Dados—Caminho para uma Narrativa Aumentada. In: VIII International Conference on Illustration and Animation. Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave, pp. 561–571 (2020) 13. Marques, A.B., Branco, V., Costa, R.: Minard Revisited – Exploring Augmented Reality in Information Design, pp. 79–89. Springer, Cham (2021) 14. Costa, N., et al.: Design Companies in Portugal (detailed view, 2018, SABI) (2021) 15. Nielsen, J.: Thinking aloud: the #1 usability tool. In: NN/g Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/thinking-aloud-the-1-usability-tool/ (2012). Accessed 12 Jan 2022 16. Jung, J., Kleinsmann, M., Snelders, D.: A vision for design in the era of collective computing. J. Eng. Des. 33, 305–342 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1080/09544828.2022.2050682 17. Yin, R.K.: Estudo de Caso: Planejamento e Métodos, 2a. Bookman, São Paulo, Brasil (2001) 18. Hofmann, S., Mosemghvdlishvili, L.: Perceiving spaces through digital augmentation: an exploratory study of navigational augmented reality apps. Mobile Media Commun. 2, 265–280 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1177/2050157914530700 19. Pisner, N., Surdam, J.: How inflation has shrunk your dollar—the new york times. https://www. nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/20/business/inflation-shrink-ray.html (2022). Accessed 27 May 2022 20. Nielsen, J.: Why you only need to test with 5 users. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/whyyou-only-need-to-test-with-5-users/ (2000). Accessed 11 Feb 2022 21. Card, S.K., Mackinlay, J.D., Shneiderman, B.: Focus + content. In: Card, S.K., Mackinlay, J.D., Shneiderman, B. (eds.) Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision To Think, pp. 307–310. Morgan Kaufmann (1999)

Open Knowledge, Open Archive. An Approach to Open Culture Roberta Angari(B) University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Via San Lorenzo 31, 81031 Aversa, Italy [email protected]

Abstract. The proposed contribution aims to describe an approach developed as part of doctoral research, the purpose of which is to identify methodologies and tools useful for the archiving, preservation, enhancement, and enjoyment of culture, through the design of digital platforms equipped with different investigation tools. The analysis of the scientific literature and the state of the art on the subject shows that there is a growing need for tools useful for the preservation and protection of memory and culture. To do this, digital design and visual communication have the role of conforming architectures and systems to enhance the archived heritage, with particular attention to different navigational models and to the principles of user interface. These aspects were investigated during the research course, through the study of methods of filing and presenting information, focusing also on the use of diagrammatic representation methods, which are increasingly being employed in digital collections, and participation at various levels and by various types of users, to consolidate the relationship between culture, digital memories, and community. Keywords: Hybrid navigational models · Logical-relational tools · Design approaches for digital archive

1 Introduction In recent decades, the democratization of the operation of information and digital systems has completely transformed the way people access knowledge [1]. Digital and technological objects have become even more present in everyday life, and for this reason have led to a redefinition of the landscape of user relations and interactions, allowing heterogeneous and democratic access to any kind of information available online. Characterized, therefore, by the ever-increasing diffusion of data and information processed through digital devices, contemporary society finds itself living through a revolutionary era, in which the hard sciences [2] of computer science and data analysis, infringe upon the humanities and cultural heritage, redefining how knowledge and memory are protected and given to future generations. Lev Manovich’s contribution on technological innovations and their influence on the democratization of knowledge [3], had already opened up broader reflections on the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 16–29, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_2

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theme of the evolutionary power of the digital, which, according to Ciliberto, has had an even more significant impact on the contemporary world, in a much shorter period [4], thus leading to the need to construct spaces of exploration that can respond to the growing demand for open access to knowledge. This research theme, which belongs to the Digital Humanities as it lies at the intersection of the humanities and computer science, is of particular relevance today, as demonstrated by the attention reserved to it by the past European Horizon 2020 Programme – highlighting how the “Humanities and Social Science” could contribute to the construction of “Inclusive, Innovative & Reflective Societies” determined by the configuration of being human, which also and above all passes through storytelling, the accumulation of stories, creativity and imagination [5] – and the current Horizon Europe, which still emphasizes the importance of issues such as ensuring open access to culture and digital. Therefore, it is possible to deduce the reasons why this topic has become central to the sphere of project culture, as demonstrated by the numerous experiences undertaken by organizations and institutions, in order to guarantee the protection of memory and democratic access to knowledge, facilitating the process of investigation and the construction of one’s own personal and reasoned opinion on the facts of reality, through logical-relational tools [5]. It is in this context that the doctoral research activity, described in this contribution, takes place. Its objective was to study the emerging issues in this sector from a theoretical and methodological point of view, to identify an approach in the design of digital platforms that could contribute to an advancement with respect to the state of the art of reference, thus studying strategies and techniques useful for the cataloging and visualization of cultural and heterogeneous data, without depriving them of the complexity that characterizes them.

2 Background This contribution aims to deal with the theme of the design of digital platforms, in particular archives, in which have been studied approaches that are useful for giving an open value to knowledge, thus allowing people to appropriate it, decoding and processing that information that lives in digital environments, even independently of the end user. Concerning this issue, the analysis of the scientific literature and the state of the art of reference, show how in such projects both the knowledge of digital archiving and curatorship [6], as well as the skills of computer science, for the creation of digital environments based on user interaction [7], and those of visual communication, and in particular the diagrammatic representation and visualization of data and cultural information [8, 9], can contribute transversally. Given the complexity of the disciplinary convergence, as well as of some of the terminologies used in each field, it is deemed necessary to define both the terms and the basic concepts that will be used in this contribution, to clarify the context of their use. In Giovanni Aprea’s contribution on the topic of digital tools applied to archives, several Archival Description Software (ADS) are reported, whose objective is mainly to understand how to apply information technology to archival description, leading to

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experiences that have tried to create a relationship between the international standards on archives – ISAD (G) and ISAAR (CPF) – and the descriptive tradition. The study, which highlights the need to identify and illustrate the context and content of archival documentation to promote its accessibility, facilitating the retrieval and exchange of information, as well as its sharing and integration with other archival institutions, also dwells on the theme of the database, describing what has been the transition from navigational to relational databases, to build a multilevel structure useful for reducing data redundancy but also for creating logical and physical connections between them, thus optimizing their representation. This issue, which would appear to be purely technical and technological, as it is linked to the possibility of making the ordering and consequently the management of and access to the resources more functional, is also to be related to the need to transform the database into an instrument of cultural appropriation by people, that is functional to make the archive collective knowledge. It is precisely from an analysis of the scientific literature that certain aspects emerge, and that can be considered foundational from a methodological point of view because they are useful in tackling not only from an analytical point of view but also from a design point of view, aspects such as the construction of the database, through the arrangement of descriptions according to a scheme of hierarchical relations, which relates the single part to the whole, proceeding from the general to the particular [6]. The archive database must therefore be configured through a dual key, one useful to define the type of cultural object – e.g. images, audio, video, text, etc. – and the other its metadata [8] which are the key element for analyzing and cataloging any information available on the web [10]. Once compiled, the database itself can be used both as a documentary base and as a tool for the realization of data mappings and visualizations, as it offers useful cataloging not only for the definition of the single archived unit but also for the identification of links and relationships. As far as diagrammatic representation techniques are concerned, never as in recent years has there been such an exponential increase in their use, both on analog and digital media, as they are used to simplify users’ understanding of information. Nonetheless, it is necessary to emphasize, as Bellinger, Castro, and Millis [11] state, that to arrive at knowledge, it is necessary to start with understanding the data. The latter simply exists and has no meaning beyond its existence, which is why it needs to be processed and transformed into information. Information is data, which has been given meaning through a relational connection. Although it may be useful, information is not necessarily so, especially since to become useful, it must be decoded by the user. Achieving understanding and awareness of information means transforming it into knowledge, through the cognitive and analytical capacity of the user, who collects the information and appropriates it [12]. Data, information, and knowledge determine what Masud et al. call the DIK continuum, i.e. a flow whose goal is precisely to create new knowledge for the user [13]. In this regard, it is possible to observe how, for the design of digital platforms, this flow is particularly relevant, as it exemplifies what are the foundational aspects of the project, namely, the analysis of data (D), their transformation into visualizations or logical-relational mappings (I), and, through the interaction with the user, the decoding

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of the information and its transformation into knowledge (K), a process, therefore, that finds in the diagrammatic representation an instrument, rather than an end, to increase the possibilities of interaction and appropriation of knowledge. Also concerning data visualization, it is necessary to specify the various subdisciplines in which this finds application, although there are no defined boundaries, and their names are sometimes used interchangeably. The most relevant, for the present contribution, are precisely Data Visualization (DataVis), which refers to the practice of using graphical representation to provide an overview of multiple data [14], Information Visualisation (InfoVis), which consists instead of the use of interactive visual representations of abstract data, supported by computers that amplify comprehension [15], and finally, Knowledge Visualization [16], which, unlike InfoVis, uses visual representations to transfer knowledge between at least one person or a group of people [17], and is therefore characterized by an experiential and actionable dimension [13], which specifically aims to endow knowledge domains with spatial properties [18].

3 Platforms and Visualization Systems: Limits and Potential In 2013, Unesco, at a conference in Vancouver, Canada, turned the spotlight on the need to study methods that could guarantee the preservation of digital data, in order to facilitate not only its dissemination to the current public but above all its access to future generations. This aspect, which was fundamental to the research, also ties in with the issue of the relationship between society and information, to facilitate access to content [19]. The design of digital platforms, which can be enriched by the use of mappings or visualizations that become critical and interpretative tools for culture as well as reality, is thus configured as a topical issue, which, although it already has its own relatively recent tradition, nevertheless requires further investigation, especially from the point of view of the convergence between different techniques and approaches. The search for new ways of representation, which can go beyond the common keyword search approach, has become one of the design challenges for the valorization of cultural heritage and digital memories, an issue that cultural heritage organizations and institutions are addressing by gradually making their collections more accessible online, to ensure greater access to these cultural funds [8], and to recreate ways and means to experience and enjoy the collections on large and small screens, transferring the solutions and approaches from the archival and curatorial fields to these new information spaces [20, 21]. In this regard, it is believed that the convergence between digital platforms and data visualization can lead to the creation of survey environments that allow for a simplification in the navigation process, as they are freed from the only known-item search, thanks to logical-relational representations that, while on the one hand make the richness of the cultural domain visible, on the other hand, make its complexity understandable, through an interactive system that offers a visual synthesis of the contents. This operation makes the materials accessible and brings them to life, enhancing the cultural heritage and digital memories through a democratization activity that can make these contents legible to both, the community of reference and the general public [22].

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Giving the digital platform this role implies the need to hybridize the competencies of communication designers, to create open digital platforms in which data analysis and processing intersect with the design of interfaces and user interaction, as well as with practices related to the valorization of memory and cultural heritage, to determine an active role for the user, who owns the access keys for decoding information and thus for the appropriation of knowledge. Such an approach, which makes the technicality of information technology, the aesthetics of interface design, and the more relational, experiential, and interactive aspects converge, defines a field of communication design that challenges the supposed neutrality of visualization [23] and recognizes the limits of design, which are often linked to the use of extremely technical methods and tools, which can lead to a flattening of the multidimensionality of the data, favoring technicalfunctional fruition [24]. It is for this reason that the study of the database is important, which for the doctoral research project represented the founding element of the meta-project phase, because it made it possible to understand the model of interrogation and articulation of the data of the archived units, most suitable for the definition of categories and classes that lead to the realization of a network and a system of relations and relationships, even before being represented. Only later, the units in the archive can be translated into diagrammatic representations, which make visible the invisible, and relate certain elements, giving reciprocal meaning to one another [9]. This aspect, allows the beholder to enjoy an overall restitution, a macro-object or overview, which emphasizes convergent and divergent, but also evolutionary aspects [9, 25, 26]. In this last statement, it is possible to identify the aim of the research project, namely to construct a multidimensional and interactive space in which user interaction could lead to personalization and filtering of results, thus facilitating the search, decoding of information and the process of access to knowledge for heterogeneous user groups.

4 Empowering the Democratization of Knowledge Through Digital Archives: Approaches Compared In recent years, a design practice based on the integration of information technology and digital environments in culture- and community-related contexts has become increasingly consolidated. This has meant that digital devices and tools, useful for the creation, management, preservation, and sharing of content, have become tools capable of redefining the way culture is presented, leading to the need to study and realize digital environments capable of enhancing the materials hosted. As stated above, the issue of digital platforms and archives, which can provide access to knowledge for present and future generations, is today a central theme for the valorization of cultural heritage, in various spheres, from the broader ones, linked to a territory, to the more specific ones, made up of organizations, museum institutions, and sector associations. In this perspective, the role of the digital archive is evident, because has completely transformed the way people have traditionally accessed knowledge, in fact, through the network, they have been able to access infinite collections, consisting of data, texts, and images, free of charge [27]. This is through the model that Ayers had already defined as

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hypertext [28] in that it is not necessary to follow a pre-structured flow, but rather each user can navigate in a non-linear way, self-constructing his or her search path, which takes advantage of the enormous speed and potential of the network and digital devices. This last aspect is particularly relevant for the research outlined, as the user is not required to have a certain level of expertise on the subject matter or cultural domain of reference, such as to be able to navigate with agility through the materials present, but rather any user should be able to interact with the system, precisely due to the nature of hypertext and non-linear search, which characterize the archive, offering it the flexibility to simply change according to the user’s needs and interactions. All materials – words, images, videos, texts – can link electronically in multiple paths, resulting in what Landow calls open-ended research [29]. Since the introduction of hypertext and the potential offered by the web, graphical interfaces have become a useful tool for people to interact with digital artifacts [7]. Various strategies have been adopted to allow people – academic and non-academic – to build their own model of interaction within a data system or infrastructure. In particular, two models have emerged, creating what is now referred to as the hierarchical and exploratory models [7, 30–32]. The first, also known as the cascade model due to its structured shape often compared to a tree, seem to work well, especially when the user already has a mental model of the entire structure, i.e. a good knowledge of the field and an idea of the information he or she is looking for. In this case, the top-down model is suitable because it allows people to retrieve data and information quickly, without prolonging the navigational process. The exploratory model, on the other hand, is based on a hub structure, reproducing the logic of hypertext. The relationship between the hubs, in fact, places, at least ideally, the information at the same hierarchical level, resulting in a map in which all data are available at the same time. It is the links that can be explored based on an associative relationship of meaning, making all possible opportunities visible. Thus the user, moving through the information horizontally – rather than vertically – will discover associations not previously thought of, opening up countless possibilities for discovering unpredictable associations of unknown connections, by getting lost in a sort of cognitive labyrinth. With this in mind, it is the navigation itself that will suggest new paths, and offer new insights and perspectives, creating a random discovery experience that enriches and expands the user’s knowledge. As reported in Bollini’s study on the topic, although the two models mainly refer to the information architecture defined by Wurman [33], and cognitive navigation strategies, they are deeply linked to specific models of visual representation, in that while the first often adopt the graphical structure of the list – i.e. a logical form – the latter prefers the spatial structure – such as maps – [34]. Consequently, hierarchical representation tends to use ordered navigation steps, based on a sequence from general to particular, mainly displaying information according to an editorial grid system, in which images, text, and links are placed side by side in columns. Hubs and maps, on the other hand, are based on a synoptic structure – both in a temporal and spatial sense – and on a twoor three-dimensional visualization of data and their connections.

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Although this second model has already been the focus of experimentation activities related to data visualization, it is not always clear how to evaluate its effectiveness for user interaction, since although the adoption of visual language is promising, this by its very nature risks introducing additional complexity, instead of supporting user understanding and experience [35]. The risk is that of being faced with a very complex representation, in which everything, from the arrangement of the elements to the ionization strategies of the concepts and their relationships, although significant, may fail to establish a relationship with the user, whose interaction is necessary to make those choices that determine the interpretation of the data [9].

5 Case Studies Analysis Based on the recent adoption of usability methods, also in the field of graphic design [36], the study of the state of the art focused on the identification of examples, which are useful for assessing the organizational model on the one hand and the user experience when navigating within a digital platform/archive on the other hand, which can offer both a hierarchical and explorative search model. Looking at digital collections that pay special attention to the domain of design and project culture, it is possible to observe an interest in a type of design focused on the way the platform interfaces with users. There are various examples for the state of the art of reference, which show some useful characteristics to explain the innovative aspect of such projects. A relevant case is that of the Letterform Archive, which assumes that the domain of design needs specific terminologies, far from those of artists and architects [37], which is why it took the organization two years to find a way to adapt metadata standards and develop useful vocabularies to define and classify typeface and graphic design collections, making them more accessible to designers [38]. In fact, unlike other organization and filing models used in other museum and archive structures, which tend to privilege information such as authors or creators of a given work, the Letterform Archive privileged data that could be relevant to designers, such as discipline, formats, typefaces, designers, typographers, printers, etc., an approach that increased the standard elements of cataloging commonly used. The navigational model of the Letterform Archive is based on the presence of a search bar, in which the user can enter the subject or object of the research, followed by filters, useful for filtering the results by people, signatures, disciplines, decades, countries and formats. If no filter is selected, various archived units are displayed under these in the form of a grid or gallery. If a filter is selected, however, it is possible to customize the display by organizing it alphabetically, by date of addition, by collection, or decade. In this case, the navigation model, which is based on the grid or list visualization, facilitates interaction for those familiar with the cultural domain of reference. What is lacking are logical-relational visualizations that, as the analysis of the relevant scientific literature has shown, can provide a visualization of the complexity and richness of the archived units.

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A further, particularly interesting example is the Australian Prints and Printmaking platform, which sorts and makes accessible archived units through different survey tools. The first characterizing element of this project, which highlights the analysis carried out on the possible users of the platform, is the subdivision of the type of survey into two macro-sections. The first, Search, is based on the known-item approach, thus making the archive easily and more rapidly navigable for experts in the field, or in any case for those who already know the object of their research. The Explore section, on the other hand, organizes the archived units into five sub-sections, Subject Explorer, Timeline, Works and Networks, Decade Summary, and All Artists. Characterizing the latter is the presence of diagrammatic tools, which combine text, images, and numerical elements, in order to make navigation and the end user’s search more intuitive. The approach used in this case is that of grouping objects into blocks, which in other cases becomes a true visual association, as in the case of Google Arts & Culture’s X Degree of Separation experiment, in which works of art from different institutional collections are related to each other through a progression of visual characteristics [39]. From this analysis, it emerges how the convergence of different tools of investigation, together with a visual association approach, can increase the possibilities of use and navigation of the archive, as they emphasize the visual and peculiar character of the archived units and make themselves accessible for different types of users. In this regard, the systematic use of computational analysis and interactive visualization of cultural models is becoming increasingly important in the cultural sphere, emphasizing the need to develop techniques for analyzing and visualizing various types of visual media, a process which from a design perspective is based on three aspects: the availability of cultural data; the availability or elaboration of techniques that enable the automatic analysis of visual media; and the elaboration of techniques for visualizing data, and thus for the visual representation of information from design, media, digital art, etc. [40]. The last case to be reported is that of the People’s Graphic Design Archive, an innovative project from the point of view of user interaction and participation, which, as mentioned above, represents one of the key elements of the doctoral research project. The platform, which in its own declaration presents itself as an archive “built from the ground up rather than the top down”, aims to expand the history of the graphic designer, to discover and include the works and stories of all designers, going beyond institutions, and broadening the definition of graphic design, also through the active participation of the community. The archive, which is equipped with a Submit section, where each user can upload any type of material, as long as it is more than ten years old and inserted within the format provided, is thus being enriched every day thanks to the public, aiming to become a point of reference for those doing research, for those in search of inspiration, for students and teachers, but also for broader public [41]. As far as the search model is concerned, this is characterized by sorting of the archived units by categories (e.g. Motion Graphics, Typography, etc.), while the visualization follows the grid system, the sequence of which can be changed through filters or different sorting (e.g. alphabetical, ascending or descending order).

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The possibility to recombine information, as well as to offer the user visual narratives and associations, which can be modified based on interaction, is thus a further key element, which emerges for the analysis of the state of the art of reference, the aim of which is, in any case, to achieve a greater level of dialogue between users and platforms, reducing those barriers determined by asymmetrical knowledge and specialized knowledge.

6 KONO: A Case of Applied Research As part of the doctoral thesis project, the study of the scientific literature and the state of the art on the subject led to the realization of a digital archive prototype, dedicated to digitally native and digitized visual communication artifacts. In this field, it is evident how artifacts do not only present visual and stylistic similarities or differences, but also hide a very dense network of information and values, consisting of the relationships, places, and influences that have enabled the realization of that specific project. It was precise to enhance this invisible and complex network of events, facts, and information that the KONO platform was created, whose project started with the identification and study of the archived object. This activity aimed to understand which data were necessary for a complete description of the archived units, useful both to detect unique identity elements and information that could become common to the artifacts and therefore also used in the activity of cataloging and filing. Hence, a dataset was constructed, necessary to translate data into information. The dataset, constructed as a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file, can be easily used and automatically imported, opening up the possibility of use in interpretative languages of machine learning and computer programming – one of the possible future developments of the project. This is a type of file that can be used as a computer basis for the realization of static or interactive mapping and visualization systems through Java Script, D3, Processing, and Python languages – for example. This aspect represents an innovative character of the methodology applied in the course of the research, because it makes use, from the earliest design stages, of the convergence between different types of skills that guarantee better performance, management, maintenance and interaction of the platform. Just consider that, mainly concerning the realization of interactive mapping and diagrammatic tools, not making use of this approach leads to the need to punctually go and modify the platform’s code, whenever it becomes necessary to implement or modify the archive itself. While, the use of the CSV file, allows specific and punctual interventions on the dataset itself, then modifying it as a source file, within the code of the platform, which will be modified consequently. From the point of view of activities related to filing, the model used, which is based on the analysis of the characters identified during the classification of the archived units, provides for the input of both anagraphic information and more technical and design content, specific to the description of the individual artifact.

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The following phase is the passage from the design to the prototyping of the survey tools. Since this is an archival platform of material related to the graphic domain, great attention was paid to the valorization of the archived units, as well as the data deduced from them. To do this, tools for visualization and access to the contents were created, which put the visual aspect in the foreground. Thus, rather than grid or list visualization, we opted for representations that also integrate the image in the diagrammatic returns. A further innovative character of the project is in fact that of having arrived at the conformation of two logical-relational mappings, that return data – also related to relationships between each archived unit – in visual form. This can already be observed from the first section of the platform, the Overview, which is configured as an interactive timeline consisting of the units present in the platform that populate the diagram by placing them through the temporal parameter – x-axis – and that of brightness and saturation – y-axis. This operation required the construction of a specific dataset, articulated to automatically analyze the visual media, the output of which is the mapping described (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Overview interface. Here it is possible to observe the selection of a specific time period, and thus the display of artefacts in that time section.

Once the image of interest has been identified, the user can select it and go to the data sheet of that unit, from which it is possible to access the Network. This survey tool is configured as an interactive dendrogram, which step-by-step accompanies the user in discovering the relationships that characterize a single unit, up to the possibility of accessing a further archived unit. This function, in particular, makes use of the dataset constructed through the filing activity, because each interactive block corresponds to a category (Fig. 2).

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Fig. 2. Network interface. Here it is possible to observe visualization of the interactive dendrogram, which starts from a specific archived unit, and branches out, also highlighting relationships, convergences or divergences between other units in the archive and authors.

A further survey tool is the Gallery, which provides users with a more traditional navigation tool, allowing filtering and reordering of the material in the archive, through the parameters determined during the filing activity (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Gallery interface. From this image it is possible to observe the different filters used.

Complete the platform, the presence of the Search section, in which the user has the possibility of conducting a text-free survey, which, as stated above, speeds up and simplifies the research activity for the more technical and expert users of the cultural domain of reference. It is precisely the presence of the different survey tools that further denotes and makes the platform innovative, as in this project an attempt was made to create a hybrid, hierarchical and explorative navigational model. If the interaction modes of the Gallery and Search sections belong to the first category, the Overview and Network sections

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belong to the explorative model, as the aim was to create interactive mappings that were intended to increase the investigation opportunities and explorative capacity of the different users. A further aspect addressed within the project is that of participation, understood as a way of expanding the archived units, thanks to the users. The archive, which was born to be an open platform, has been equipped with a section where users can access and contribute to the population and maintenance of the digital archive, autonomously providing data for the mapping of new units, also following the state of the art evidence. To do this, the section dedicated to uploading units has been provided with a format, structured according to the board, to ensure that the information entered by the user, is in line with the set of information needed to upload a project.

7 Conclusions The wide dissemination of digital highlights the need to fully understand the scenario and potential of the project related to access to knowledge. The digitization and online accessibility of cultural material, in addition to its preservation nature, allows wider access to public domain material for its use in commercial and non-commercial cases [42]. In particular, the area of preservation of digital memories, still highlights open questions, challenges, and potentials, which can be the focus of experiences and research projects, centered precisely on securing and preserving current memory and culture, for future generations. In this respect, methods related to interface and experience design, together with digital humanities, computer science, and visual communication design, offer the opportunity to study new approaches in the design of digital platforms and archives, useful to make a given cultural domain comprehensible to various user groups, overcoming the limits dictated by specific cultural and digital competences and skills. In this perspective, the translation of cultural data into representations of information enables efficient and effective access to knowledge, a theme that highlights how visual learning can be successfully applied to digital platforms, especially since the majority of the audience are visual learners [42, 43]. For this reason, and also to broaden the opportunities for interaction, the Human Interface Guidelines, as reported by both developer.apple.com and developer.android.com, were taken into consideration, to which the project aligned itself in the realization of the wireframe of the interface and the interaction modes. Whereas, from the point of view of the project, this contribution dealt with the issues related to the research activity and its background, as well as the pre-design, useful for understanding the possible users and the scope and domain of use of the project, the design, i.e. the identification of the elements and the graphic and visual structure of the project, with particular attention – as reported above – to user interaction and knowledge appropriation, and finally to the prototype, which is used to analyze the design choices and understand whether these can be compared with the reference state of the art and thus move on to the next design phases, those of implementation and redesign [44], based on the testing carried out on users and the evidence that emerged from the comparison with the latter, as well as with the scientific literature and the reference state of the art. In the light of these future developments, it is believed that the activity described, may outline a possible approach, useful to increase the opportunities for the democratization

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of knowledge through digital archives, especially when considering the possibilities dictated by data visualization and diagrammatic representation, increasingly used in the context of digital collections [26], as well as the integration of users, aspects that together can consolidate the relationship between people and digital memories and, in particular, the appropriation of knowledge.

References 1. Levy, P.: Becoming Virtual. Reality in the Digital Age. Plenum Trade (1998) 2. De Vries, M.J., Cross, N., Grant, D.P. (Eds.).: Design methodology and relationships with science. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers (1993) 3. Manovich, L.: The Language of New Media. The MIT Press (2001) 4. Ciliberto, G.: Design by Numbers: John Maeda e la computazione applicate al graphic design. AIS Design: Stora e Ricerche. Microstorie. (2016) 5. Rebuffo, C., Sisto, S.: Introduzione. Humanitas: le scienze umane nel mondo contemporaneo. Ethics Prog. 10(1) (2019) 6. Aprea, G.: Uno sguardo sugli strumenti digitali applicati agli archivi: il caso dei software di descrizione archivistica. Bibliothecae.it, 7(1), 264–319 (2018) 7. Bollini, L.: A user-centered Perspective on Interactive Data Visualization. A digital flâneries into the documentation of the Historical Italian Mind Science Archive. In Ceccarelli, N., Jiménez-Martínez, C. (eds) 2CO Communicating Complexity 2017 International Design Conference, 106–117 (2017) 8. Windhager, F., et al.: Visualization of cultural heritage collection data: State of the art and future challenges. IEEE Trans. Visual Comput. Graphics 25(6), 2311–2330 (2018) 9. Manchia, V.: Immagini che raccontano storie. Pratiche e strategie di rappresentazione in due esempi di data visualization. Lexia, Rivista di semiotica, 17–18. Immagini efficaci, pp. 473– 490 (2014) 10. Pomerantz, J.: Metadata. The MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series (2015) 11. Bellinger, G., Castro, D., Mills, A.: Data, information, knowledge, and wisdom (2004). https://homepages.dcc.ufmg.br/~amendes/SistemasInformacaoTP/TextosBas icos/Data-Information-Knowledge.pdf. Last accessed 23 Aug 2022 12. Macdonald-Ross, M., Waller, R.: The transformer revisited. Inf. Des. J. 9(2–3), 177–193 (2000) 13. Masud, L., Valsecchi, F., Ciuccarelli, F., Ricci, D., Caviglia, G.: From data to knowledge. Visualizations as transformation processes within the data-information-knowledge continuum. In: 2010 14th International conference information visualization, IEEE, pp. 445–449 (2010) 14. Friendly, M., Denis, D.J.: Milestones in the History of Thematic Cartography, Statistical Graphics, and Data Visualization (2004) 15. Card, M., Mackinlay, J.D., Shneiderman, B.: Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think. Morgan Kaufmann (1999) 16. Okada, A., Buckingham Shum, S., Sherborne, T.: Knowledge cartography. Software tools and mapping techniques. Adv. Inf. Knowl. Process. 1 (2008) 17. Burkhard, R.A.: Learning from architects: the difference between knowledge visualization and information visualization. In: Proceedings Eight International Conference on Information Visualization IEEE, pp. 519–524 (2004) 18. Shiffrin, R.M., Börner, K.: Mapping knowledge domains. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 101(suppl_1), 5183–5185 (2004)

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19. Stoll, M.: L’importanza di essere assonometrici. Domus 955. https://www.domusweb.it/it/int erviste/2012/02/20/l-importanza-di-essere-assonometrici.html. Last accessed 30 June 2022 20. Ruecker, S., Radzikowska, M., Sinclair, S.: Visual Interface Design for Digital Cultural Heritage: A Guide to Rich-Prospect Browsing. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. (2011) 21. Whitelaw, M.: Generous interfaces for digital cultural collections. Digit. Hum. Q. 9(1) (2015) 22. Schnapp, J.T.: Knwoledge Design: Incubating new knowledge forms/genres/spaces in the laboratory of the digital humanities. Herrenhausen Lectures (2013) 23. Piscitelli, D.: First Things First. Comunicare le emergenze. LIStLab (2019) 24. Drucker, J.: Humanities approaches to graphical display. Digit. Humanit. Q. 5, 1 (2010) 25. Anceschi, G.: Comunicare la conoscenza (2011). https://issuu.com/giovannianceschiteoria/ docs/3.1-comunicare-la-conoscenza. Last accessed 23 Aug 2022 26. Manovich, L.: Museum without walls, art history without names: visualization methods for humanities and media studies. In: Vernallis, C., Herzog, A., Richardson, J. (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Digital Media, pp. 252–278. Oxford University Press (2012) 27. Bolick, C.M.: Digital archives: democratizing the doing of history. Int. J. Soc. Educ. 21(1), 122–134 (2006) 28. Ayers, E.L.: The pasts and futures of digital history. History News 56(4), 5–9 (2001) 29. Landow, G.P.: Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. John Hopkins University Press (1997) 30. Rosenfeld, L., Morville, P., Arango, J.: Information Architecture: For the Web and Beyond (ed.) O’Reilly Media, Sebastopol, CA (2015) 31. Resmini, A., Rosati, L.: Pervasive Information Architecture. Designing Cross-Channel User Experiences. Morgan Kaufmann (2011) 32. Bollini, L.: Registica multimodale: Il design dei new media. CLUP (2004) 33. Wurman, R.S.: Information Architects. Graphis Inc. (1997) 34. Bollini, L., Cerletti, V.: Knowledge sharing and management for local community: logical and visual georeferenced information access. In Granville, B., Majkic, Z., Chunping, l. (Eds.), EISWT-09 Conference Proceedings, pp. 92–99 (2009) 35. Karjaluoto, E.: The design method, a philosophy and process for funtional visual communication. New Riders (2014) 36. Schlatter, T., Levinson, D.: Visual Usability: Principles and Practices for Designing Digital Applications. Morgan Kaufmann (2013) 37. The Letterform Archive: The Online Archive: Describing Design (2019). https://letterformar chive.org/news/view/the-online-archive-describing-design. Last accessed 23 Aug 2022 38. Lam, C.: Collections practice as design practice. Des. Cult. 13(3), 325–340 (2021) 39. Klingemann, M., Doury, S.: X degrees of separation. Experiments with Google (2018). https:// artsexperiments.withgoogle.com/xdegrees/. Last accessed 23 Aug 2022 40. Manovich, L.: Cultural Analytics: Visualizing Cultural Patterns in the Era of “More Media”. Domus (2009) 41. Sbarbati, S.: The People’s Graphic Design Archive: un archivio nato dal basso per espandere la storia della progettazione grafica (2021). https://www.frizzifrizzi.it/2021/04/29/the-peo ples-graphic-design-archive-un-archivio-nato-dal-basso-per-espandere-la-storia-della-pro gettazione-grafica/. Last accessed 11 Aug. 2022 42. Martins, N., Alvelos, H., Chatterjee, A., Calado, I., Quintela, M.: Multimedia as mediator of knowledge between older generations and present-day students of art and design. In: 2020 The 4th International Conference on Education and Multimedia Technology (2020) 43. Bradford, W.C.: Reaching the visual learner: teaching property through art. The Law Teacher 22 (2004) 44. Lam, H., Bertini, E., Isenberg, P., Plaisant, C., Carpendale, S.: Empirical studies in information visualization: seven scenarios. IEEE Trans. Visual Comput. Graphics 18(9), 1520–1536 (2011)

Embodiment, Memory, and Consent: Strategies to Conduct a Research in Design Using Participatory Observation in Clubs César Lugo-Elías1(B)

and Pedro Cardoso2

1 Unexpected Media Lab, Research Institute for Design, Media, and Culture (ID+),

Porto, Portugal [email protected] 2 University of Aveiro/DigiMedia, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal [email protected]

Abstract. This paper sums up experiences and reflections obtained by undertaking a two-years ethnography within spaces of consumption of electronic music, specifically clubs of house and techno music. Its focus are the unexpected ethical and logistic dilemmas I faced during my own doctoral research. The information is presented as strategies for embodiment, memory, and consent. The aim of this paper is to help other researchers from the disciplines of art and design to orientate their work in similar settings and topics—clubs, spaces of consumption of music, the aesthetics of youth and subcultures, event design, and experience design—and with similar methodological tools—participatory observations and interviews. Keywords: Clubbing · Design research · Dance floor experience · Experience design · Participatory observation · Research strategies

1 Introduction The accounts and reflections presented here are the by-product of a concluded doctoral research in the field of Design. The main goal of the original research was to explore the interplay among the social, material, and technological aspects involved in the design of the dance floor experience. To achieve that goal, a qualitative study based on participatory observations and interviews was carried out over two years in two different clubs devoted to techno and house music respectively. During this period, the corresponding author performed different roles in those clubs such as doorman, dancer, and DJ. Research strategies combining methods of participatory observation and interviews with participants to acquire qualitative information are common in sociological studies related to clubbing (Flick 2009; García 2013; Li 2008). Participatory observation offers the advantage of learning from any given cultural activity by directly taking part of it, while creating rapport and social bonds with members of different communities. Participatory Observation is preferably complemented with information acquired through © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 30–39, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_3

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interviews with another participants. With the combination of these two methods, the researcher can learn the tacit rules and nuances of the cultural activity from a personal experience, building its own expertise (García 2013, p. 9) while learning the jargon of the participants, shaping interviews, and acquiring informants. On the other hand, design studies related to clubbing tend to be based on secondary sources such as historic interviews, architectural blueprints, images, and objects. Leaving a gap in design studies related to clubbing using an ethnographical approach and firsthand accounts, in this sense, the original doctoral work (Lugo-Elías 2021) helped to close that gap. In addition, two papers have been published as a result of our previous participation at the DIGICOM 2021, outlining the relationship between Design and clubbing from an historic perspective (Lugo-Elías and Cardoso 2022) as well as the results of the dissertation (Lugo-Elías and Cardoso 2023), exploring and describing the interplay among bodies, architecture, sound, and music reproduction technologies, designing the dance floor experience. Yet along the fieldwork and in the aftermath of the doctoral process, it became clear that conducting participatory observations for such long periods and in such a chaotic setting as a club was not an easy task, and that many designers may have difficulties to conduct or replicate such studies. Of course, textbooks should be the first aid for any designer aiming to conduct such research, and this general knowledge is best complemented by a literature review on other works using the same methods and preferably in similar contexts, which can serve as examples. However, along my research I faced the situation that in their methodological accounts, researchers on clubbing tend to leave out details regarding methodological and sometimes ethical decisions and struggles they faced during fieldwork. Some authors address methodological decisions during the fieldwork in an indirect way (Butler 2006; Fikentscher 2000; St John 2010; Thornton 1995), while only few authors described their struggles with more detail (Bhardwa 2013; Calvey 2008; Gadir 2014; Malbon 1999; Robinson 2013; Rosendahl 2013). By omitting fieldwork details, researchers may create the illusion that ethnography in clubs is a linear process, in which the researcher only extracts information from the field, leaving out accounts about the “unanticipated methodological, personal and emotional challenges that accompany ethnographic work” (Bhardwa 2013, p. 40), which can be useful for other researchers. This text is meant to do the opposite. Here, I want to share my own experience of doing participatory observation while researching the material context of the dance floor experience in techno and house clubs, specifically the way I dealt with topics such as becoming participant, the nature and relevance of the relationships with other participants as well as some logistic and ethical issues (such as the use of drugs), and the importance of creating rapport and acquiring consent and taking care of the privacy of the participants. Even if the context of the original study is clubbing, the reflections obtainable here may be of help to other designers applying similar research strategies. In this sense, the present text is directed to researchers—especially those with a background in art and design—to assist them during their research projects focused on spaces of consumption of music, the aesthetics of youth and subcultures, event design, and experience design, who may be in the seek for case studies illustrating the nuances and difficulties that may arise during the field work.

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To that end, the experiences and reflections presented here are formulated as strategies that can possibly be applied to their research contexts. These strategies should be observed without forgetting that fieldwork is a “situated business and not open to rationalistic planning” (Calvey 2008, p. 908), and in consequence, every context and research project brings about different challenges and unexpected situations constituting a unique research experience. The strategies are presented as follows: strategies for embodiment, strategies for memory, and strategies for consent. This paper concludes with some final thoughts and reflections about the need to see the process of participatory observation as a learning process and as a process of negotiation rather than a process of data mining. The present text is also written in first person, outlining the personal nature of the experiences of the corresponding author.

2 Strategies for Embodiment To study any social activity trough participation, especially when it is a highly social activity like clubbing, means to take a role in the field by embodying certain activities and behaviours. This is the very first step to become a participant. When starting in a new community, like that of clubbers, it may be attractive to be taken under the wing of some insider figure, however, this way of incursion in the field may not always bring the desired results. Shortly after starting my observation in the techno club, I quickly connected to the venue’s owner who offered me the position of doorman of the club to support my research. I started this role with excitement, and I tried to gather a much information as possible working over 19 weekends and spending ca. 300 h at the door. At the beginning, it was extremely difficult for me to decide who to let in, and even more difficult was to deny the entrance—an action always followed counterarguments by attendees. By noticing my initial struggles, the bouncers of the club decided to give me some guidance about how to assign access to people. They also gave me tips about how to stand and how to deal with rude clients. Slowly, I started to notice how my attitudes and even my clothes and physical posture became more austere and serious. Almost without noticing it, I started to follow a strategy of mimicry with the bouncers, practicing body authority postures and phrases using deep voice in front of the mirror at home, just before going to work at the club. Following this strategy of mimicry allowed me to come along with the bouncers, and to avoid a few conflicts with attendees in the club. On the other hand, I noticed that by letting the bouncers teach me how to be a doorman, they guided my decisions, which could have made me fail to acquire my own expertise—which is one of the main goals of participatory observation. Furthermore, people attending the club started to approach me with fear, they started perceiving me as an authority—or an authoritarian figure—and not as part of the club community. In sum, the impersonation I was carrying out did not work, even worse, it made many nights at the door of the club exhausting because my physical and mental energy was focused into pretending to be a doorman following the bouncer’s standards, rather than exploring this role by myself. Additionally, the role of the doorman was attached to a specific architectural space, the door, which was different—even if linked— to the space of the dance floor, which was the focus of my study.

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Facing this situation, I decided to change the strategy, and start embodying this role from my own personality, making my own door policies, and approaching the attendees using my own manners. All these changes were certainly not welcome by the bouncers, who started to change their attitude towards me, sometimes arguing my decisions, however—with the gained confidence in my role—I stood firm in my decisions. In retrospective, I did not notice that with my actions at the door, I obstructed the bouncers’ power over the club’s access. Slowly the door started to become a place of discussions, toxic masculinity, saturated with discrimination, and exclusion, characteristic already noticed by Calvey (2008, pp. 910–911) who intensively worked with bouncers for his study. All these situations brought me to change my research strategy and to start embodying the role I was initially interested in, that of the dancer, in the material context that was the focus of my design study, the dance floor. Consequently, I decided to conclude my time as doorman and continue my research exclusively at the club of house music. This change of setting also offered a sort of blank page, a new start in a space where I wasn’t perceived as an authority. In the new context of the house club, my first approach was not to take any position of power, but to simply assist as a dancer. Here, my status as fan of electronic and house music gave me a moderate familiarity (Gadir 2014, p. 35) with the dance floor, which allowed me to gain an understanding of the setting (Malbon 1999, p. 32) with ease and by following my own intuition based on my previous experiences as clubber. Also, similar to my aforementioned rituals of embodiment in front of the mirror during my work as doorman, and learning from those experiences, I developed my own ritual for this new setting, consisting in sleeping well before going to the club and taking a shower to arrive full of energy, fresh memory, sober and with sharp focus, all elements I have learned to be invaluable for me when doing ethnography in clubs (Lugo-Elías 2021, p. 128). In the early weeks regularly attending the house club, I focused pretty much on the observation and less in the participation, consciously putting aside the fact that participatory observation requires both actions. Therefore, to fully participate in the dance floor experience, I needed to be there authentically enjoying the music and translating my enjoyment into dance and body movements while socializing. With time, dancing became not only a form of enculturation of music and music technologies (Thornton 1995) and a way of rendering the human-technology relationship into the subjective domain of collective movement (Rietveld 2003, p. 150), but it also became a strategy to gain acquaintances among other participants. Since my way of dancing granted me positive attention and comments, I used such opportunities to start small talks and short interactions with other participants, like reciprocal smiling, toasts, and short comments about the music. Eventually, people introduced themselves, and held longer casual conversations. Here, I tried to apply controlled gossip (Handwerker 2001, p. 105), always maintaining a level of control about the subject of conversations. Only when I had achieved a certain degree of familiarity with the embodied experience at the dance floor on this specific club, my observations became more focused on specific aspects related to the influence that the material context of the dance floor has in the design of the experience. Like other authors (Gadir 2014, p. 42; Calvey 2008, p. 910), I started my observations without using a previously determinate theoretical framework,

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but by creating a catalogue of interactions (Lugo-Elías 2021), shifting my attention between patterns of interpersonal behaviour, specific spaces within the dance floor where attendees carried out certain activities, the vibe and atmosphere at the dance floor, and the music, which brought me to place the DJ performance at the intersection among these themes (p. 130). What I was trying to determinate was if the interactions at the dance floor could be site-specific (Biehl-Missal 2016), meaning related, or conditioned by the material context—space, dimension, materials, objects, and technologies. To try to describe the link between the social interactions and the material context of the dance floor required the development of a field diary where I could record experiences, ideas, and observations. This is particularly difficult to do in a setting like clubbing without interrupting the activity itself. This required the development of new strategies for memory which are described in the next section.

3 Strategies for Memory As the role of dancer in the house club grew in me, experiencing the dance floor became more natural and the observations more specific and numerous. As a designer I noticed how the orientation of the dance floor and the spatial relation between the DJ booth in relation to the rest of the dance floor influenced the interaction among DJ and dancers. I also started paying more attention to the haptic aspects of the dance floor experience, accentuated by the way sound hits the skin of the participants as well as the walls and objects located inside the dance floor, creating the effect of reverberation. These aspects were determined by the position of the speakers as well as by the subjective energy contained in the music. Like the haptic effect of sound, changes in the room temperature and room lighting conditions seemed to affect the intensity of the experience. Slowly, all these technical and design elements of the material context of the dance floor became evident, but to record those elements represented the logistic problems associated to directly engage myself in the experience while trying to remember specific details. Here, I applied what García (2013) calls memory work, meaning I engaged as fully participant during the event, and wrote field notes later at home. This form of data recording offered the great advantage of not interrupting the observed events. Exceptionally, I used my smartphone to record a note, while pretending to write a message, or while taking a break to go to the toilets, or while waiting at the bar to get a drink. I also took photographs and some videos to record aspects hard to describe in words, such as the lighting, music tracks, and general reactions or vibe at the dance floor. Following this, and echoing García’s (2013) descriptions, I used my camera only after observing other participants taking pictures while paying attention to the general response and without framing anyone (p. 10). My goal was to record environmental aspects as well as details of the material context of the dance floor to use them as memory aids later while I was writing my field notes. In general terms, these materials were not meant for public display and photographs did not frame anyone in specific and in the case some identity could have been displayed, I digitally blurred those pictures (Lugo-Elías 2021, p. 131). Few of these pictures and videos were also used later during interviews with DJs to trigger retrospective inspection (Flick 2009, p. 151). To record what people do in a club, meaning capturing images, videos, audio, recording an interview, or simply describing on text any given event, raises concerns about

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privacy and consent which in my case were resolved resorting to strategies of consent, as I will describe in the next section.

4 Strategies for Consent Regarding consent, it is important to understand why clubbing is such a private activity, even if it is carried out in a semi-public space. Clubs, especially those targeting members of the LGBT+ community are security spaces, where visitors may explore different aspects of their identity other than the identities they carried out in their everyday life, and establish relationships of different nature (Rosendahl 2013). In other words, people feel safe in the club to be clubbers, and they do it specifically in that space. Here, I want to extend this status of security space to all clubs, regardless of the gender and sexuality of their customers, and as such, their activities and identities can be only unveiled by them or with their explicit consent. This sense of privacy can—and probably should—be extrapolated to other activities where Design is involved and Design Research may be conducted, like the intimate home space where family life is carried out. Therefore, we designers should be thoughtful about how sensitive the information we are extracting during our research can be. Having said this, I may suggest that one of the best ways to achieve consent from participants is to handle every situation in the field with honesty. In my specific case, as the appropriate occasion arose, I spoke openly about my research intentions with other clubbers, but also with the venue owners. This was especially important since socializing is essential to clubbing and “ethnography requires engagement with those studied” (Calvey 2008, p. 910). Therefore, it is not a surprise to make friends as “an integral part of the experience in the context of clubbing” (Bhardwa 2013, p. 52). During my fieldwork, I established relationships with three groups of participants. The first group was the club goers whose company and dance moves helped me to fully participate in the dance floor experience, and even if they were not my interview partners, they were always ready to share their opinions through informal conversations. The second group were the club´s staff members, who once informed about my role as researcher, secured my access to the clubs even if the venue was full. Contrary to the previous conflictive relationship built with the bouncers in the techno club, my relationship with the staff members of the house club turned into a security net, making me feel secure in that space, knowing that they will be there in case of any conflict. Finally, the relationship I established with the third group, the DJs, was limited by my role as fan, DJ novice and researcher: as a fan, I genuinely enjoyed their craft and dance to their music; as a DJ novice, they understood that my interest in DJing was serious and always granted me access to their support. These two aspects helped me create the necessary rapport with them to interview them, in my role as researcher. Here, the consent of the DJs for the recording of the interviews was made using a consent form, and since the subject of the interviews was to explore the DJ set as an entry point to understand the interplay among music, venue, social interaction, and material context into the experience, and not in the personality or personal biography of the DJs, the DJs were anonymized in the final work. Now, I want to extend the concept of consent not only to what other participants agree to share with the researcher, but also in the opposite way, regarding to those

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aspects the researcher may need to accept or at least to deal with within the setting. In the specific context of clubbing, the use of drugs, aggression and sexual advances were three ethical aspects I had to deal with. First of all, the centrality of drugs in club environments has been previously pointed by other researchers, who in some cases have drug consumption as a central topic in their works (Malbon 1999; Measham and Moore 2006); other researchers offer reflections about the consequences of taking drugs during their fieldwork (Gadir 2014); while others barely mention it (Thornton 1995) or address this topic by not taking drugs as part of their research (Bhardwa 2013). Along my research and the literature review that accompanied it, I was able to identify that the use of drugs in club research tends to situate the researcher between two anxieties (LugoElías 2021, p. 134): either the researcher doesn’t consume them and fails in becoming a full participant in the club experience; or the researcher consumes them as part of the club experience and faces ethical and legal consequences (Gadir 2014; Calvey 2008), and the possible academic stigma for mixing academic rigor and unlawful practices (Measham and Moore 2006, p. 22). However, this logic can be bypassed by challenging the assumption that drug consumption must be part of the club experience. Here, the consumption of drugs was not central to my research question, and the centrality of drugs was not confirmed during the fieldwork, meaning that not every participant at the dance floor was high and therefore you can participate in the dance floor experience without taking drugs. Additionally, drug consumption is discouraged by the venue owners, and as part of my strategy of image management, I decided to not take drugs during my research to not jeopardize the sympathy and trust of the staff members. In other occasions, in which I did not consent the events occurred in the setting, were when I came to experience how my own gender and sexual identity can shape the data gathering process (Bhardwa 2013, p. 40). During the early stages of my participation, my gay energy brought unsolicited attention in the form of two sexual advances and one verbal aggression. These three occasions occurred separately and with different interlocutors, about whom I ignore any detail regarding their identity or motivations. The seek for romantic and sexual encounters, as well as episodes of verbal and physical violence are part of the setting, and as I learned from my experience as doorman, my position here is not to censure such activities but also not to agree or engage with them. Therefore, in those events I simply walked away from the situations without saying a single word, to continue dancing in other side of the dance floor. Nonetheless, these experiences made me aware about the need to conceal my own gendered identity and my role as researcher (Bhardwa 2013, p. 47). I managed this by holding a site-specific identity (García 2013, p. 12), consisting in attending and dancing by my own, showing a genuine joy for the music and letting other participants to start friendly interactions, mainly through dancing. In sum, as participant the dance floor is also yours, but as researcher you cannot become genderless or asexual (Lugo-Elías 2021, p. 132), therefore is important to be aware about the effect of your own identity may have in the interpersonal relationships you create in the field and how to mitigate any negative effect, avoid physical danger, and deal with ethical issues that may arise during fieldwork. It is important to remind that above the other roles I have played at the dance floor, the role of researcher prevailed along the entire process of data gathering. In this process, I discovered that being researcher

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means to conduct yourself always having the research question and research topics in mind. In a metaphorical way, I suggest that being researcher means to be pregnant with your project, meaning carrying your research interests through your fieldwork, constantly asking, and challenging your assumptions and hypotheses along the process— especially since new information and data constantly emerge. In this sense, I was careful about my image in the field, always presenting an acceptable behaviour, a friendly attitude towards other participants and by staying away from unnecessary gossip and interpersonal conflicts.

5 Final Thoughts Right from the beginning of my work, I was able to foster aspects of my own personality and personal bibliography, which helped me navigate through my fieldwork. Besides my previous experiences as clubber and my joy to dance to electronic music, my ethnic origins, and my abilities to talk with clubbers in different languages, as well as my initial position as doorman helped me accumulate subcultural capital (Thornton 1995) and the necessary street credibility (Bloustien 2016, p. 231). Also, new skills had to be learned to succeed with my research. Once I have decided to focus on the DJ performance as the gateway to understand the dance floor experience, I realized that my technical vocabulary and knowledge about the topic wouldn’t be enough to hold an interview with the DJs. In other words, I did not want to start the interviews by asking basic technical questions. Facing this situation, I decided to start by taking a 50-h long presential DJ course, which included the use of turntables, CDJs and controllers, as well as the basic technical notions about sound production and musical perception. Despite having successfully completed the course, or maybe because of the course itself, I realized that, to understand the DJ performance and shape my interviews, the best way I could go was to become a DJ myself. This included to organize or secure my own gigs, bringing in many cases my own equipment—laptop, controller, and speakers—to different venues and events like art exhibitions, coffee shops, bars, and private birthday parties. Acquiring my new DJ skills brought me a deeper understanding about the jargon used by the DJs, the technicalities of music, the complexities of bringing the right music to the right event and playing the right tracks at the right time. In sum, and considering my old dance and language abilities, plus my new abilities and experiences as doorman and DJ, I can confidently say that participatory observations became a process of constant learning, for which the researcher should remain always open to learn new things. Sometimes is taking a course, sometimes is learning to hold long conversations where you need to listen carefully what your interlocutor has to say, rather than express your own opinion, in any case, to be open to learn and acquire new skills has shown to be one of the best strategies to access information and the experience needed during the participatory observation. In retrospective, at the outset of my research and by having a rather traditional professional training in object and interaction design, I lacked the basic understanding and experience in conducting ethnographical methods. Designers use of course tools such as interviews and empirical observation during the development and testing of products and services (Martin and Hannington 2012, p. 124). However, the level of the

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involvement and the skills required to conduct a participatory observation for a long period of time at the required level for doctoral research exceeded my initial abilities. Here, again, to bring commitment and disposition to keep constantly learning new skills, ended up being an important strategy to bring my study to a good end. Doing participatory observation became an excellent strategy to do research in club environments, but what seemed like a process of data mining at the beginning of my research, became a process of data negotiation later down the road, in which the information is not simply recorded but acquired in change of my own genuine and honest participation of the club experience. This transaction included the use of my own personality traits like character, musical taste, and dance moves to gain access to informants and experiences. Continuing employing the motto of conducting myself with honesty by displaying some aspects of my experience, hopefully this paper will serve as an orientation for other researchers in their own ethnographic endeavours. Acknowledgments. This work was financed by national funds through the Portuguese FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.

References Bhardwa, B.: Alone, Asian and female: the unspoken challenges of conducting fieldwork in dance settings. Dancecult 5(1), 39–60 (2013). https://doi.org/10.12801/1947-5403.2013.05.01.03 Biehl-Missal, B.: Filling the ‘Empty Space’: site-specific dance in a techno club. Cult. Org. 25(1), 16–31 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2016.1206547 Calvey, D.: The art and politics of covert research: Doing ‘Situated Ethics’ in the field. Sociology 42(5), 905–918 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038508094569lastaccessed2019/03/15 Flick, U.: An Introduction to Qualitative Research, 4th edn. SAGE, Thousand Oaks, CA (2009) Gadir, T.: Musical Meaning and Social Significance: Techno Triggers for Dancing. Doctoral Thesis, University of Edinburgh, UK. https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/9478/ Gadir2014.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y (2014). Accessed 28 July 2018 Garcia, L.-M.: Editor’s introduction: doing nightlife and EDMC fieldwork. Dancecult 5(1), 3–17 (2013). https://doi.org/10.12801/1947-5403.2013.05.01.01 Handwerker, W.: Quick Ethnography. Altamira Press, Lanham, MD (2001) Li, J.: Ethical challenges in participant observation: A reflection on ethnographic fieldwork. Qual. Rep. 13(1), 100–115 (2008) Lugo-Elías, C.: Reassembling the dance floor: Exploring interactions at after-parties in spaces of consumption of electronic music in the city of Oporto in the years 2016–2018. Doctoral Thesis, University of Porto, Portugal (2021) Lugo-Elías, C., Cardoso, P.: Design is in the house: basic concepts to understand the role of design in the creation of the club experience. In: Martins, N., Brandão, D. (eds.) Advances in Design and Digital Communication II: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Design and Digital Communication, Digicom 2021, November 4–6, 2021, Barcelos, Portugal, pp. 517–527. Springer International Publishing, Cham (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3030-89735-2_42 Lugo-Elías, C., Cardoso, P.: Design radicalized as experience: disentangling and reassembling the dance floor experience to understand the relationship between design and clubbing. In: Martins, N., Brandão, D., Paiva, F. (eds.) Perspectives on Design and Digital Communication III. Research Innovations and Best Practices. Springer Series in Design and Innovation, vol. 24. Springer, Cham (2023)

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Malbon, B.: Clubbing: Dancing, Ecstasy, and Vitality. Routledge, New York (1999) Rietveld, H.C.: This is Our House: House Music, Cultural Spaces and Technologies. Routledge, London (1998) Rietveld, H.C.: Entranced: embodied spirituality on the post-industrial dance floor. Int. J. Crit. Psychol. 8, 147–167 (2003) Rivera, L.A.: Status distinctions in interaction: social selection and exclusion at an elite nightclub. Qual. Sociol. 33(3), 229–255 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-010-9152-2lastaccesse d2018/07/15 Rosendahl, T.J.: Negotiating salient identities in queer EDM spaces. Dancecult 5(1) (2013). https:// doi.org/10.12801/1947-5403.2013.05.01.15 Thornton, S.: Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital. University Press of New England, Hanover (1995)

Supporting the Creation of Audio-Visual Content While Promoting Environmental Awareness: The 2G4N Project Mónica Aresta(B)

and Pedro Beça

Department of Communication and Art, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal {m.aresta,pedrobeca}@ua.pt

Abstract. Nowadays, social media platforms such as Facebook, Tik Tok and YouTube are the main tools for viewing and sharing audio-visual content. In this context, creating opportunities for students to create digital artifacts able to transmit sustainability and environmental concerns to a wider audience may harness the potential of the online participatory culture and make students active participants in the construction of their own knowledge. In this line of thought, the 2G4N project aims to understand to what extent approaches that combine the production of digital artifacts (namely short-videos) to communicate the importance of preserving the environment with in-nature activities, can foster in younger audiences the development of environmental awareness. To achieve this goal, the project is developing a Toolkit for Video Production, a physical artifact designed to support users with no specific skills in video planning and production to create videos, by using only their smartphone, to alert for environmental problems. The toolkit is being developed following a user-centred design approach, with the target audience involved in the toolkit’s design and validation process. It is expected that, by challenging young students to develop audio-visual contents and to share them in social media channels, this project’s approach may give younger audiences the opportunity to develop environmental awareness and also to competences related to storytelling, communication and creativity. Keywords: Audio-visual content · Short-videos · User-generated content · Environmental awareness

1 Introduction Challenging younger generations to explore nature related information in an engaging and dynamic way can promote a better understanding of the importance of biodiversity and nature preservation. Young students have grown up with web 2.0 tools and technologies and are active producers of digital content—mostly to be shared in the online spaces. In this scenario, creating opportunities for youngsters to become producers of their own content for learning about nature and the importance of biodiversity conservation—combined © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 40–48, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_4

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with in-nature experiential activities—may promote a deeper connection with naturerelated content and a deeper consciousness about the urgence to adopt pro-environmental behaviors. Nevertheless, it must also be acknowledged that despite that familiarity with social media and the intensive production of online content (more than 80% of TikTok users have posted a video, and use the app an average of 52 min per day [1]), it is also true that, while being active producers of digital content—mostly to be shared in the online spaces—, youngsters sometimes lack the structured and specific knowledge and skills needed to produce audiovisual content with the required quality [2]. Taking this scenario into consideration, this paper introduces the 2G4N project, a project that aims to understand to what extent approaches that combine the production of digital artifacts (namely short-videos) to communicate the importance of preserving the environment, with in-nature activities, can foster in younger audiences the development of environmental awareness [2, 3]. Following a background section (Sect. 2) presenting a theoretical background on the production and use of audiovisual content to promote environmental awareness, Sect. 3 introduces the 2G4N project and the 2G4N Toolkit for Video Production, a physical artifact designed to support users with no specific skills in video planning and production to create videos, by using only their smartphone, to alert for environmental problems. Section 4 discusses some of the findings of the study, and the paper ends with Sect. 5, where conclusions and potential directions for future work are presented.

2 Audiovisual Content for Environmental Awareness In the nowadays technological and connected society, social media platforms such as Facebook, Tik Tok and YouTube are the main tools for viewing and sharing audiovisual content. Online, users search for information, talk with friends and family and follow-up news and current events [4]. TikTok—one of the most used platforms in the world and that is expected to become the most used in the near future [5]—is accessed mostly for entertainment (watching amusing and entertaining videos), while Instagram and Snapchat are used as a space for publishing and sharing content [4]. More than just consumers, users become producers of their own digital content, sharing a wide range of data and content on digital platforms. The web, more than a space of consumption, is now a space for interaction and engagement, where communities of users converge to share their thoughts and to find common concerns. The online space emerges as a space for sharing and finding information. GenZ (individuals born after 1996) and Millenials (born between 1981 and 1996), amongst other interests, also access social media to interact and engage with content addressing climate change. According to a Pew Research Center survey [6], these social media users look for information about climate change and environmental problems online, discussing information about climate issues and becoming more involved with the issue through activities. Although the role of social media to communicate the concept of environmental sustainability and to promote its awareness may not be yet fully understood [7], and even considering the existence of eco chambers and fake news, social media power of disseminating content can be used to change attitudes, influencing behaviour towards more responsible and greener outcomes.

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Environmental problems result in an ecological crisis that will affect the lives of populations and the survival of species, which justifies the need for greater concern on the importance of raising awareness on the importance of changing behaviour [8]. In this scenario, video content can be used to visually portray environmental problems, seeking to influence the target audience to change their attitudes, perceptions and practices, especially young people who are currently the largest consumers of this type of content on online platforms [9]. Videos—namely due to its influence on its audience [10, 11]—are being more and more used by teachers to support teaching and learning activities both in formal and non-formal curriculum, e.g. to assist teachers within the classroom environment [12], to work on the exploration and reflection about the Sustainable Development Goals [13] and to foster creativity and engagement when addressing environmental issues [14]. 2.1 From Consumers to Producers: Students, Audiovisual Content and Environmental Awareness The convergence of the media, the increased use of mobile devices and the everincreasing quality of smartphones’ cameras, microphones and storage capacity have contributed not only to the growth in the consumption of audiovisual content on web 2.0 [15] but also in its production by younger generation [16–18]When approached from its potential as participatory media tool—e.g. by inviting students to create and share their own video contents—, audiovisual content can provide opportunities for young people not only to work on critical thinking skills such as creativity, communication and collaboration and express their thoughts and perspectives, but also to develop their media literacy and their knowledge on the media production process [19, 20]. Producing audiovisual content provides graphic and audio-based representations of the addressed subject, allowing the ones who create those contents to work on various learning styles and capabilities in order to understand and process the information they wish to represent [21]. In what concerns environmental awareness, short videos—namely due to popularity by younger audiences and their potential to make a meaningful impact on nature conservation—are seen as an effective way to communicate science to wider audiences [16–18]. Urquiza-Fuentes et al. [22], in a study that aimed to engage students in creative learning tasks such as video-making through the use of a collaborative platform, concluded that significant learning was achieved along the video creation process, as it allowed students to better understand the concept they had to address through the created video. Participants (28 students of an object-oriented programming course) pointed out that the film-making process increased their engagement, and that watching videos created by their colleagues promotes their curiosity and helped them understand the addressed concepts. Harness and Drossman [23] developed a project aiming to increase students (18 students, aged 16–19 years old) environmental literacy and to promote environmental awareness through film making projects that included exploring the conservation topics, conducting interviews and producing the video artifacts. Researchers concluded that filmmaking projects were a successful approach for encouraging environmentally responsible behaviors amongst students.

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Karan and Roehrig [24], in a study that followed a constructionist framework and along which participants (22 high-school environmental science students) created media projects aimed to inform their audience about the causes, effects, and/or ways to prevent their chosen environmental problem. Students used videos (pre-recorded and author videos), still images and information collected from additional sources, and used a user-friendly video design software to edit their projects. Results suggest that students’ environmental awareness and environmental activism increased along the project’s development. Chen [20], in a study that involved the participation of 46 undergraduate students and that aimed to study if engaging students in video production could help them develop their awareness of digital empathy, suggests that by producing their own videos students were more permeable to recognize recognize the importance of having more empathy, when compared with when they were online. Other study, conducted by Olatumile [8] and that involved about 146 undergraduate students, analyzed the importance of mobile phone use both at the level of research and consultation and at the level of identifying and recording environmental problems. Results suggest that environmental issues and problems such as flooding, global warming, environmental pollution and loss of biodiversity, can be brought together through mobile devices to promote reflection on environmental degradation and the need to protect the environment. Finkler et al. [25], on an exploratory study designed to test whether mobile phone video production could promote positive attitudes towards the environment, concluded that video production substantially increased young people’s interest in the environment and had such a significant and positive effect on their attitudes towards environmental problems, both at school and beyond. 2.2 Producing Audiovisual Content While Learning About Nature and Biodiversity Youngsters are active producers of digital content and research points out several positive outcomes of using the creation of videos, by students, as an approach to environmental awareness. Nevertheless, research also indicates that information about the urgence of adopting environmentally sustainable behaviors is not passing through [26, 27]. While creating opportunities for youngsters to become producers of their own content for learning about nature and the importance of biodiversity conservation may promote a deeper connection with nature-related content and a deeper consciousness about the urgence to adopt pro-environmental behaviors, it is also recognized that there are variables apart from students’ environmental knowledge that need to be accounted for their environmental behaviors. Direct contact with nature is linked to environmental awareness and pro-environmental behavior [26, 28], which calls for concerted strategies able to encompass direct and symbolic nature experiences—i.e. experiences that involve direct contact with natural settings through in-nature activities; and experiences that occur through visual and verbal interface that explain nature without the actual contact [29].

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3 The 2G4N Project: Creating Videos for Environmental Awareness 3.1 Background Creating opportunities for students to create digital artifacts able to transmit sustainability and environmental concerns to a wider audience may harness the potential of the online participatory culture and make students active participants in the construction of their own knowledge. Nevertheless, it is also true that—when working with publics that may not have the technological skills needed to produce digital artifacts—new strategies and approaches are needed. Reconnecting youngsters with nature towards the development of an environmental consciousness therefore requires a global approach, one able to encompass exposition to information (e.g. through interacting with learning materials, creating short-videos) and contact with the physical natural environment (e.g. through in-nature activities). As video production via smartphones becomes easier and more accessible, mainly due to the massification of smartphone use and its potential for the production of audiovisual content, several tutorials and guides (online or in manuals) on how to conceive, direct, post-produce and launch audiovisual content become available online. Whether addressing technical issues related to light, image stabilization, camera quality, microphone [30–33] or the design, storyboard, capture and post-production of the content [2, 3], these guides/tutorials seek to guide users with or without experience in the production of their own audiovisual content. Following the Gamers4Nature [34] project—a project that aimed to promote the active participation of the youngest audience in game creation activities, while promoting environmental preservation and biodiversity conservation—the 2G4N project aims to understand to what extent approaches that combine the production of digital artifacts (namely short-videos) to communicate the importance of preserving the environment with in-nature activities, can foster in younger audiences the development of environmental awareness. To achieve this goal, the project is working on a set of strategies and resources designed to inspire youngsters (6th to 9th grades) to adopt more sustainable practices, to understand local problems and global threats to biodiversity preservations and to take action towards a more sustainable and more conscious environmental behaviour. Considering the crescent interest of the project’s target audience in social media and audiovisual content production and acknowledging the difficulties sometimes teachers— in their teaching activities—face when aiming to create their own audiovisual content for teaching and learning, a set of guides to assist in the definition of an audiovisual communication strategy for social media, based on the use of the smartphone, were produced. Tutorials were developed to support both students and teachers (with or without technical skills) to produce and promote videos addressing environmental awareness by only using a smartphones and smartphone applications. Tutorials were developed and validated through expert validation (N = 4) and end-users (N = 26) [2]. Following the development and validation of the audiovisual communication strategy guides, the project’s research team is now developing a Toolkit for Video Production,

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a physical artifact designed to support the video creation process by users (6th to 9th grade students, and teachers) with no technical skills, to create videos addressing environmental problems. Toolkits, due to the granularity of its resources, can be used to support the digital artifacts development process and are seen as powerful learning and teaching tools, allowing faster prototyping, supporting creative design and assisting in the production of interactive artefacts [35, 36]. 3.2 The 2G4N Toolkit for Video Production: Methodological Approach The toolkit is being developed following a user-centred design approach, with the target audience involved in the toolkit’s design and validation process. The toolkit’s development and validation process is articulated in four stages, as represented in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. 2G4N toolkit for video production development and validation process

Stage 1. Stage 1 (ongoing) includes the collection of information (e.g. guidelines, case studies, demos) to be presented in the Toolkit, focused on resources designed to support the video development process: guidelines on how to create video scripts; transmedia storytelling; capture audio and video content using non-professional equipment (i.e. mobile phones); edit, cut and process data; post-production, with suggestion of applications than can be installed in a mobile phone; accessibility, and respect for diversity and ethics; formats for social media. Information is being collected through literature review and benchmarking and validated by specialist in audio-visual production, using the following UX design techniques: card sorting (for grouping and structuring information) and personas (for establishing the end-user’s profile). Benchmarking, although not excluding digital toolkits, is more focused on the use of physical toolkits for creating audio-visual content, as it is intended that—as only the smartphone will be required to produce the video content—the toolkit should be able to be used independently of technological constrains (e.g. computers, internet access), to plan and guide de video capture and production activity. Stage 2. Stage 2 consists in the prototyping stage, with cycles of design, prototyping, validation (with experts and target audience, through expert evaluation and focusgroups) and analysis of the lo-fi prototype. UX design techniques such as A/B testing and Heuristic Evaluation will be used in this stage. Stage 3. Stage 3 consists of the implementation phase, along which a pilot study will be held with students from 6th to 9th grades, in schools, leisure and science centers. Along this stage participants will be challenged to create short videos and media resources

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addressing local environmental problems, and to share it in social media platforms. Although it is not the focus of this project, guidelines and tips on how to analyse the content impact on social media (e.g. social media metrics) will also be addressed. During the pilot study, information will be collected through mainly direct observation. By the end of the pilot study, focus groups with end-users, short interviews and questionnaires will be applied, in order to collect information able to validate the project’s approach. Additional cycles of literature review, prototyping and pilot are also considered.

4 Discussion The literature review and benchmarking processes identified several topics to be addressed in the resources to be produced for the 2G4N Toolkit for Video Production. Topics include light, image stabilization, camera quality and equipment; guidelines on design and image composition; audio-visual narrative and transmedia storytelling; social media dissemination strategies and techniques; audiovisual communication strategies; science communication through storytelling and video. Benchmarking on physical toolkits developed to support the video production (from storyboard to social media dissemination), was also conducted. Although several toolkits to promote creativity (e.g. Creativity+ by Paulina Laroca [37]) and to support storytelling (e.g. Storytelling Toolkit by the Smithsonian Institute, Designercise Storytelling toolkit by UnSchool [38, 39]) were identified, artifacts specifically designed to support the video production process were not found at the time, suggesting that this is an area with many opportunities yet to be explored. The next step of this process will be to select the topics to be addressed in the Toolkit, and to validate this selection through interviews held with video production experts and specialists (from the Academia and the industry). As mentioned in the previous section, card sorting and personas will be used to support and promote the discussion.

5 Conclusions and Future Work When social media and video contents are part of the daily lives and expressions of younger generations, challenging them to explore nature-related information in an engaging way may contribute to promoting a better understanding of the importance of biodiversity and nature conservation. The project described in this paper aims to contribute to the promotion of environmental conservation and biodiversity, especially among a younger public, by developing and implementing an approach that combines the production of digital artifacts (namely short-videos) to communicate the importance of preserving the environment, with innature activities. By challenging young students to develop audio-visual contents and to share them in social media channels, it is considered that this project and its approach may give younger audiences the opportunity to develop sustainability and environmental awareness and also to develop competences related to storytelling, communication, creativity and video production. Acknowledgements. This work is financially supported by national funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., under the project UIDB/05460/2020.

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20. Chen, C., Yu, W.: Developing EFL students’ digital empathy through video production. System 77, 50–57 (2018) 21. Koc, M.: Let’s make a movie: investigating pre-service teachers’ reflections on using videorecorded role playing cases in Turkey. Teach. Teach. Educ. 27, 95–106 (2011) 22. Urquiza-Fuentes, J., Hernan-Losada, I., Martin, E.: Engaging students in creative learning tasks with social networks and video-based learning. In: Proceedings – Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE vols. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (2015) 23. Harness, H., Drossman, H.: The environmental education through filmmaking project. Environ. Educ. Res. 17, 829–849 (2011) 24. Karahan, E., Roehrig, G.: Constructing media artifacts in a social constructivist environment to enhance students’ environmental awareness and activism. J. Sci. Educ. Technol. 24(1), 103–118 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-014-9525-5 25. Finkler, W., Medvecky, F., Davis, L.S.: environmental immersion and mobile filmmaking for science education: a New Zealand pilot study. Interdiscipl. J. Environ. Sci. Educ. 17 (2020) 26. Kesebir, S., Kesebir, P.: A growing disconnection from nature is evident in cultural products. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 12, 258–269 (2017) 27. Zylstra, M.J., Knight, A.T., Esler, K.J., Le Grange, L.L.L.: Connectedness as a core conservation concern: an interdisciplinary review of theory and a call for practice. Springer Sci. Rev. 2(1–2), 119–143 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40362-014-0021-3 28. Sato, M., Aoshima, I., Chang, Y.: Connectedness to nature and the conservation of the urban ecosystem: perspectives from the valuation of urban forests. Forest Policy Econ. 125, 102396 (2021) 29. Mustapa, N.D., Maliki, N.Z., Hamzah, A.: Repositioning children’s developmental needs in space planning: a review of connection to nature. Procedia Soc. Behav. Sci. 170, 330–339 (2015) 30. Holtman, M.: The UK Domain. Seven Tips for Filming Professional Videos on a Mobile Phone. https://theukdomain.uk/filming-videos-on-mobile-phone/ (2020) 31. Hills, M.: Splento Blog. The Future of Smartphone Video Production. https://www.splento. com/blog/videography/the-future-of-smartphone-video-production/ (2021) 32. Horrocks, S.: Mobile Motion. Guide to Professional Smartphone Video Production. https:// momofilmfest.com/guide-to-professional-smartphone-video-production/ (2020) 33. rAVe Team. Rave [ppubs]. Is There a Place for Smartphones in Professional Video Production? https://www.ravepubs.com/is-there-a-place-for-smartphones-in-professional-video-pro duction/ (2019) 34. Beça, P., Aresta, M., Ortet, C., Santos, R., Veloso, A.I., Ribeiro, S.: Promoting student engagement in the design of digital games: the creation of games using a Toolkit to Game Design Proceedings – IEEE 20th International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, ICALT 2020, pp. 98–102. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (2020) 35. Oulasvirta, A., Hornbæk, K.: HCI research as problem-solving. In: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – Proceedings, pp. 4956–4967. Association for Computing Machinery (2016). https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858283 36. Ledo, D., et al.: Evaluation strategies for HCI toolkit research. In: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1–17. ACM (2018). https:// doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173610 37. Larocca, P.: Creativity+: The Catalyst for Creative Thinking (2018) 38. Smithsonian Intitution & Museweb Foundation. Storytelling Toolkit 39. UnSchool. Toolkit|Designercise Storytelling Kit

Strategies of Intentional Friction in the User Interface of Digital Games Isabella Silva1(B) , Pedro Cardoso2 , and Bruno Giesteira3 1 Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

[email protected]

2 University of Aveiro/DigiMedia, Aveiro, Portugal

[email protected]

3 INESC TEC/Faculty of Fine Arts, Design Department, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

[email protected]

Abstract. While deliberately designing friction in game user interfaces may be a fitting approach for challenging players’ assumptions and encouraging reflection, mainstream practices are often dominated by an overarching paradigm of userfriendliness and enjoyment. This study explores how designers can use intentional friction in the user interfaces of digital games as a strategy to create meaningful experiences and encourage reflection in their players. First, we review literature to frame what constitutes interface elements in game design, the user-friendly and enjoyment paradigm, and other perspectives that offer context to the employment of friction as strategy. Afterwards, we explore game instances that use user interface friction when appropriate as a strategy to express a point of view, challenge current systems, or foment critical reflection. The starting point for our observations is Donald Norman’s seven design principles and Jakob Nielsen’s usability heuristics. As a result, we identify six strategies: 1) explore memory shortcomings; 2) faulty feedback; 3) mismatched mental model; 4) impairment of ability; 5) deliberate inefficiency, and 6) oppressive constraints. Although this work is not focused on collecting all friction design approaches indiscriminately, the identified strategies suggest more nuanced techniques than just framing the principles to create a friendly design in reverse. Keywords: User experience (UX) · User interface (UI) · Digital games · Game design · Friction

1 Introduction For decades, digital games have been studied as means of encouraging social involvement, reflection, and political change (Bogost 2010; Flanagan 2013; Frasca 2007; Galloway 2006; Grace 2014; Soderman 2021). However, while game user interface (UI) may be a proper venue for challenging players’ assumptions and provoking players to question the status quo, an overreaching paradigm of user-friendliness and enjoyment permeates UI practices. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 49–62, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_5

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According to Walk et al. (2017, p. 11), every art form has an antagonist entity in many guises, and almost all art stimulates interest at various levels of consciousness through conflict, contrast, or tension. The antagonist entity created in games is usually considered in terms of mechanics and difficulty levels. Still, even though conflict is an essential aspect of game design, the user-friendliness and enjoyment paradigm permeates the industry, particularly in UI and User Experience (UX) practices. This phenomenon appears to result from our society’s frantic attempt to avoid pain and negative experiences (Han 2021), the advances in Cognitive Psychology, and the association between less friction and more consumption (Kuang and Fabricant 2020). While it is acknowledged that games have different usability and design considerations than other types of software (Frasca 2003; Hodent 2017; NNgroup 2021; Norman 2013), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and game UI heuristics usually strive to limit or eliminate friction. Friction is understood here as “points of difficulty occurring during interaction with technology” (Cox et al. 2016, p.2). Hence, there is still space to explore how we could use intentional friction in the UI of digital games as a strategy to create meaningful experiences and encourage reflection. Moreover, there is an opportunity to probe how such strategies may be used to challenge players’ preconceptions and UI design practices themselves. To understand the definition of UI in the context of this work, we consider the Design, Dynamic, and Experience (DDE) framework proposed by Walk et al. (2017) as it explicitly acknowledges the interface as a formal element. Accordingly, the interface concerns the design and production “of elements creating the game in the concrete: everything that serves to communicate the game world to the player – how it looks, how it sounds, how it reacts and interacts with the player, and the game’s internal feedback loops” (Walk et al. 2017, p. 7). In sum, they point out, it is everything the player hears and sees. Every piece of data that does not belong to the game’s executable or configurative code level and, different from the mechanics, is concrete. They further categorize UI into functional elements and content elements in their work. According to them, the reporting system (with meta, diegetic, non-diegetic and spatial elements) and the I/O system are part of the functional interface. The content interface includes the data representation of elements such as interaction design, graphics, sounds, and narrative elements. Friction in the UI is already intentionally explored by some designers. The work of experimental game designer Nathalie Lawhead, author of the critically acclaimed Everything Is Going to Be OK (2017), heavily relies on UI to convey the game’s message or further build on it. Notably, she advocates for a unique approach to UI design, where it should take the upfront stage and be part of the game world rather than being an afterthought (Lawhead 2019). The main question this work looks into is: How intentional friction in the UI of games can be used to communicate ideas, build arguments, and promote reflection in players? To explore it, we consider how do the interaction design principles intended to minimize friction from the UI may be used to create deliberate friction – particularly by looking into Donald Norman’s seven design principles (Norman 2013) and Jakob Nielsen’s usability heuristics (Nielsen 1994) as a basis.

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We conducted an exploratory research by identifying games that purposefully employ friction in their UI design to communicate a point of view, as well as previous experimental work that served as reference. As a result, we identified six strategies 1) explore memory shortcomings; 2) faulty feedback; 3) mismatched mental model; 4) impairment of ability; 5) deliberate inefficiency; and 6) oppressive constraints. The first part of this paper presents an overview of the user-friendly and enjoyment paradigm and other perspectives that offer context to the employment of friction as a strategy. The second part presents the identified strategies. Afterwards, we briefly present some conclusions, limitations and future studies.

2 Overview of the User-Friendly and Pleasure Paradigm UI and UX practices in game design are frequently vulnerable to misunderstandings regarding the importance of friction and to the user-friendliness paradigm. This paradigm is significantly dominant outside the gaming industry and plays an essential role in modern society. Kuang and Fabricant (2020) aim to provide a narrative thread that explains how the practice of UX and the user-friendly paradigm came to be. According to the authors, one of the most significant intellectual and cultural revolutions of the twentieth century was rejecting the enlightenment’s vision of the impeccability of humanity’s reasoning. Hence, they indicate that, because of advances in disciplines like Cognitive Psychology, we have understood how flawed our minds are, our propensity for making mistakes, and our use of shortcuts to make sense of the world. As a result, designers reasoned that they could design errors out of existence if they knew why these occurred. With this in mind, this shift in worldview greatly impacted how new products and technologies are today developed, as things are expected to become easier and easier to use. Consequently, designers usually aim to limit or to eliminate friction in their designs. In the design-thinking process, issues that inconvenience or annoy a prospective customer are often called pain points, something that must be addressed and eradicated from the design and the experience. As pointed out by Han (2021), our society desperately runs away from pain and negative experiences. He argues that this, in turn, leads to coercion to conform and pressure for consensus. Consequently, we end with only variations of the same creations, as pain and commerce are mutually exclusive. Ergo, design practices are often submitted to the easy-to-use, enjoyment, and happiness paradigms. Federoff (2002), one of the first authors to create game-specific heuristics, mentioned that, in comparison to other forms of software, video games have unique design and usability considerations, namely the primary importance of satisfaction over effectiveness and efficiency. Likewise, Norman (2013) recognizes that there are instances where good design is actually about difficulties being deliberate and that violating the rules of ease of use is what is needed. He cites games as a category in which designers deliberately defy the laws of understandability and usability, as games are “meant to be difficult” (Norman 2013, p. 256). Still, when it comes to games, the ideal UI design is still often regarded as “invisible to the player” (Schell 2008, p. 227), or as “non-intrusive as possible” (Federoff 2002, pp. 41–42).

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Playability is a related concept here. González Sánchez et al. (2009) explain that playability is based on and defined by usability’s existing attributes. However, they note that some aspects, such as effectiveness, have different purposes in the context of video games. Thus, playability is “a set of properties that describe the Player Experience using a specific game system whose main objective is to provide enjoyment and entertainment, by being credible and satisfying, when the player plays alone or in company” (2009, p. 67). In other words, “Playability represents the degree to which specified users can achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and specially satisfaction and fun in a playable context of use” (2009, p. 67). Although the authors emphasize the high degree of subjectivity in dimensions such as satisfaction and fun, it is still possible to infer a heavy focus on the intent to provide enjoyment, entertainment, and satisfaction to players. Frasca (2007) argues that games can explore a vaster spectrum of experiences and rhetorics. He remarks that HCI and Design theory generally suppose that the user is constantly looking for a positive, enjoyable, and satisfying experience. However, the author points out that play’s rhetorical range is significantly broader than simply fun and enjoyment (2007, p. 139). Frasca proceeds to draw an analogy between architecture and games. The author explains that, in many instances, buildings are not created to be useful in the design sense of usability. He cites that, for example, pyramids and cathedrals are meant to impress humans; labyrinths are a usability headache by design; a horror house in an amusement park is intended to scare its visitors. Hodent (2017) also recognizes that game UX practices can cater to friction and other types of emotion that are not pleasurable. She delineates game UX as how players will perceive and understand a game, interact with it, and the emotions and engagement elicited via this interaction. Thus, she expresses that although HCI is mainly preoccupied with making interfaces more usable and pleasurable, the game UX discipline, in contrast, considers the emotions and behaviors evoked by the end-user interactions, drawing on information from research methods and cognitive science. She expresses that the primary goal of UX techniques is to provide the intended experience to the target audience. The author further explains that if the target audience is hardcore gamers and the experience intended is one of torment, UX principles can undoubtedly help the designer achieve this aim (2017, p. 100). Others push even further to challenge game design theorists that have often positioned game design as the craft of meeting players’ desires. For instance, Wilson and Sicart 2010 raised the concept of Abusive Game Design, an aesthetic provocation criticizing some conventionalisms in mainstream game design. They frame abusive games as an unquestionable example of user-unfriendly design, and as objects that particularly clash with the notion of player advocacy and urge players to face and comprehend the designer. Likewise, Cardoso et al. (2019) build on similar ideas with the concept of Aesthetic Friction. According to them, the change of emphasis from friendly and frictionless to unfamiliar and uncomfortable is where the experience is less concerned with fun and more with meaning. Frictionless aesthetics prioritizes fun; in contrast, Aesthetic Friction prioritizes meaning and expressiveness. In this sense, they argue that friction may also be a suitable way to express and communicate through empathy, disobedience, deception, uncertainty, and uncontrollableness.

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Furthermore, a potential reason to explore unfavorable moods is that it may optimize how people process, produce, and respond to a persuasive message. Forgas (2017) explains that a positive mood suggests that the situation is secure and familiar and that previous information can be trusted. On the other hand, a negative mood acts as a moderate warning signal, suggesting that the situation is unusual or unfamiliar and that attentive monitoring of new, external information is necessary. His work suggests that a negative mood can have real-life implications for reducing stereotyping and biases, improving detection of deception and skepticism, judgmental accuracy, memory performance, and even beneficially affecting interpersonal strategies. However, he mentions that “given the almost exclusive emphasis on the benefits of positive affect in our culture, this is an important message with some intriguing real-life implications” (2017, p. 104). One well-known concept for game designers is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory (1990). It arises to induce a feeling of enjoyment that keeps players engaged and involved in an intrinsically motivating activity (Hodent 2017). Csikszentmihalyi regards flow as an optimal experience and the secret to enjoyment and happiness in life, linked to a positive psychology perspective (Csikszentmihalyi 1990). On the other hand, as revealed by other authors, from a critical consciousness viewpoint, it is imperative to have a critical distance from the experience of gaming “to think more deeply about dominant and oppressive forces that circumscribe consciousness” (Soderman 2021 p. 70). Therefore, one may consider that flow can hinder a more reflective level of cognition and curb the external perspective present in critical games that aim to provide social commentary. Consequently, there can be instances, moments in a particular game in which it is suitable to eject players from the Flow state, resorting to friction. That being said, we should not be afraid to explore the broad range of human emotions as “both positive, relaxed states and anxious, negative, and tense states are valuable and powerful tools for human creativity and action” (Norman 2013, p. 49). Only in this way can we make games as a medium manage to be more diverse in the form they communicate and express themselves. With this into consideration, friction may be employed in the UI of games not just to boost difficulty levels or to attract hardcore players but also to take a central part in the experience of playing, by expressing meaning through conflict and tension. We then see here an opportunity to study intentional friction as a strategy for game interfaces to explore a greater spectrum of emotions, avoid possible biases produced by the userfriendliness paradigm, and challenge design conventions.

3 Antagonism and Intentional Friction in the Interface Even if a lack of usability and understandability is deliberate, Norman suggests that understanding the principles of good design is still necessary since they may describe how to proceed with our designs in reverse (2013). He suggests that one may systematically break the rules by (2013, pp. 256–257): • Hide critical components: make things invisible; • Use unnatural mappings for the execution side of the action cycle so that the relationship of controls to the things being controlled is inappropriate;

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Make the actions physically difficult to do; Require precise timing and physical manipulation; Require precise and accurate input; Do not give any feedback; Use unnatural mappings for the evaluation side of the action cycle so that the system state is difficult to interpret.

Elaborating on this list and thinking about the unique area of the UI of games, we undertook an exploratory inquiry to uncover examples of deliberate rule violations and other alternative strategies to employ intentional friction. We took Norman’s seven design principles (discoverability, affordances, signifiers, constraints, mappings, feedback, and conceptual models) (2013) and Nielsen’s usability heuristics (1994) as a starting base for our observations. 3.1 Exploit Memory Shortcomings In line with Norman’s (2013) suggestion of deliberately hiding critical components, we could expand this strategy by considering how human memory operates. For instance, the author suggests that human behavior is guided by a combination of external and internal knowledge, being the internal knowledge stored in our short-term or long-term memory. However, to use the information in our memory, we have to store and retrieve it, which may need considerable learning. One design implication is that “as a rule, it takes time for information to get into long-term memory and time and effort to get it out again” (Norman 2013, p. 95). In Bomb the Right Place (Everyday Arcade 2016), the player is a US Commander In Chief tasked with ordering missile strikes on real-life foreign countries. The rules are straightforward, as the player is requested to click on the correct target in a map in a limited time. In other words, the game pushes players to provide accurate input in a restricted time frame. However, the UI deliberately conceals the labels for the countries and cities on the map, limiting the external knowledge available and forcing players to retrieve this information from their memory (if ever learned previously), demanding much more effort. This effort sets players to failure and may compel them to contemplate their ignorance, insensitivity, and detachment regarding geopolitical conflicts and foreign hardships. This example likewise violates Nielsen’s (1994) usability heuristic #6 of recognition rather than recall since it forces players to recall the precise location of several foreign cities and countries simultaneously. It also violates heuristic #5 of error prevention since this UI design makes the player’s decisions and actions prone to error. 3.2 Faulty Feedback Feedback is communicating the results of an action (Norman 2013). Besides giving no feedback, as suggested by Norman (2013, p. 256), a potential strategy to insert friction consists of employing faulty feedback to mislead or overbear players. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (Ninja Theory 2017) is a game that aims to portray psychosis and mental illness, in which several team members interviewed psychosis patients about their experiences during the game’s development (Messner 2017). In the

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opening scene, players are met with a message that declares that the dark rot on the main character’s arm will grow each time players fail in battle. If the mark reaches the character’s head, the quest will be over, and players will lose all progress. Thus, every time the player fails in battle, the mark slowly crawls her arm towards her head, as a feedback of failure and a constant reminder of the ultimate punishment of permadeath. However, this treat turns out to be a bluff. In reality, it does not matter how many times players fail; they are not in actual peril of losing their progress in the game as they can always continue from the last saving point as the mark will never reach Senua’s head. As explained by one of the developers, the game deliberately employs this deceiving feedback to provoke fear and anxiety in players with the prospect of losing all the time invested as a form to suggest the analog fear of death experienced by those with psychosis (Purslow 2018). Moreover, the game uses sound as a UI tool to allude to the auditory hallucinations experienced by people with psychoses. Norman (2013) mentioned that although feedback is essential, it should not overwhelm users’ calm and relaxing environment. However, this game purposefully defies such premise, aiming to create a tense and distracting environment. It accomplishes it by using voices that provide conflicting, unreliable feedback and warnings about Senua’s actions and surroundings. Finally, the game’s lack of heads-up display interferes with players obtaining feedback about their performance by not displaying the health levels of bosses, enemies and the player character. This example flouts Nielsen’s (1994) usability heuristic #1 of visibility of system status, as users are not getting clear communication and feedback about the system’s state. Absence of feedback can produce a feeling of lack of control that can be unsettling (Norman 2013). Therefore, this design choice for the UI also contributes to creating the anxious emotional states envisioned by the designers. 3.3 Mismatched Mental Model Mental models are “the conceptual models in people’s minds that represent their understanding of how things work” (Norman 2013, p.26). Players with experience with multiple games develop a determined level of gaming literacy and may form assumptions regarding specific game genres and terminology. For example, Undertale (Fox 2015) exploits players’ mental models in its UI by utilizing typical role-playing games (RPGs) acronyms for the game stats. It uses acronyms such as HP (Hit Points or Health Points in most RPGs), AT (Attack or ATK traditionally), DF (Defense or DEF traditionally), EXP (traditionally standing for Experience Points), and LV (traditionally standing for Level). However, the acronym EXP is designed to mislead players, as it stands for ‘EXecution Points’ in the game and is gained by killing monsters that the player could befriend. The LV is also misleading as it stands for ‘Level of Violence’ or, in the remarks of one game character, “a way of measuring someone’s capacity to hurt” (Fox 2015). Indeed, this example transgresses Nielsen’s (1994) usability heuristics #4 of consistency and standards and #5 of error prevention as it fails to maintain external consistency with other RPG games and thus leads players to erroneous judgments. Another example that exploits users’ mental model mismatch is September 12th: A Toy World (Frasca 2003). The game was based on the Afghanistan invasion led by the US after the 9/11 attacks. The UI design decision of using a crosshair as the mouse

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pointer deliberately makes the game look like a shooting game and suggests that players attack to win. However, if the players choose to shoot the terrorists, it causes destruction that encourages more civilians to become terrorists, making it a game that is impossible to win. These examples allow players to potentially contemplate the innate violence proneness that occurs in games that do not require the player to reflect on the motives and consequences behind their actions. It also makes a parallel point to Han (2021) as he argues that in a society where everything is consumable, so is violence, to a point where even the act of killing becomes an act without pain. Accordingly, he states that, by the constant exposure of individuals to violence, we become anesthetized and insensitive to the pain of others. 3.4 Impairment of Ability This strategy comprehends utilizing or simulating sensory (vision or auditory) or other types of ability and perception impairment. It aims to develop empathy or provoke reflection and understanding through experience. The intentional impairment of one’s abilities is a known approach employed in the field of Design for professionals and students to experience firsthand the frustrations or challenges an individual might have (Kim et al. 2015). For instance, the old man suit is a costume that emulates the aging process. It may consist of yellow glasses that simulate difficulty with contrast and fine print reading, earplugs that limit hearing, and other components that restrict the user’s range of motion, strength, balance, and tactile sensitivity (Lavallière et al. 2016). Likewise, UI designers could adopt a similar approach to employ intentional friction, aspiring for a meaningful experience. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (Ninja Theory 2017) builds upon this premise with its depiction of mental illness, relying heavily on the interface to achieve the desired effect. As a more subtle take to this strategy, we can mention Hypnospace Outlaw (Tendershoot 2019). It is a simulation game where the player navigates a diegetic interface that parodies the early Internet of 1999 and where it is possible to download a helper software assistant named Professor Helper. While being promoted as a tool for users to better understand and operate the game’s world, it only seeks to annoy and irritate users by mimicking the infamous Microsoft’s Clippy1 and typical malware and adware software. In the Professor Helper page, the game’s UI purposefully displays low color contrast between the text and the background of its terms of service localized below the page, making it deliberately difficult to read. This design choice offers players an opportunity to reflect on real-life companies’ malicious intent when utilizing similar techniques, such as low contrast unsubscribe links sometimes found in email newsletters. The lack of legibility likewise provides a commentary on users’ general tendency to ignore terms of service. Finally, it presents a chance to experience firsthand the difficulties of individuals with low vision. 1 A discontinued user interface for Microsoft Office that aided users via the use of an interactive

animated figure that interacted with Office support information. In the English edition, the default helper was named Clippit (often nicknamed Clippy), after a paperclip.

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Another example is Everyday2 (Silva et al. 2016). The game’s main character is an old woman, which is progressively losing her sight but still autonomously carrying quotidian tasks in her apartment. Everyday, she has a list of tasks to accomplish, such as feed her cat, call her daughter, take her medicine, feed herself, and others. While the screens progressively become black, impairing their visual sensory capacity in-game, players have to become familiar with the game environment and rely heavily on the feedback from sounds emitted from the objects. This game experience was heavily inspired by observing how the author’s grandmother, who was losing her sight, relied heavily on the familiarity of her house and sound feedback to keep performing simple tasks. Players who do not have sight are mainly dependent on the sound UI of games to be able to play it. Thus, Everyday attempts to simulate that experience by providing sighted players with the chance and the challenge to interact with a world depending less on the visual UI. 3.5 Deliberate Inefficiency Another identified strategy is to utilize UI to introduce deliberate inefficiency or, in other words, reduce the speed at which players can get a task completed. This strategy can be seen in games that use the UI as part of the game challenge and to convey its natural antagonistic nature, such as Device 6 (Simogo 2013), which requires the player to keep rotating their device to read the novel. In this game, the way the interface presents the information to players purposefully introduces inefficiency. Consequently, players take much more time to read and to understand the story. Yet, this is designed to be part of the challenge posed by the game. In Papers, Please (Pope 2013) the player is a border-crossing immigration officer assigned to review the paperwork of each immigrant in a fictional world afflicted by political hostilities. The diegetic UI of the game brings the real-life logic and the game universe logic together and binds them together. However, it does so in a way to purposefully mimic the unproductive and frustrating real-life task of going through a set of papers and documents in a limited spaced area, making information hard to visualize and access simultaneously. This less than desirable experience serves the intent of immersing the player in the character role and possibly suggests a prospect to reflect on the impact and motives behind the bureaucracy imposed by institutions of power. The deliberate inefficiency strategy can be seen as similar to the unfriendliness proposed by Cardoso et al. (2019). To exemplify, the authors notes that Papers, Please “unfriendliness is manifested through its user interface, designed purposefully so in order the player is thrust into the shoes of the character she plays, and the anguish of being in that particular situation” (2019, p. 3). 3.6 Oppressive Constraints Constraints are a known design approach to force the desired behavior and prevent errors (Norman 2013). They are among Norman’s seven design principles, and they 2 Created in the Ludum Dare 37 game jam, which ran from December 9 to December 11, 2016,

with the theme ‘One Room’.

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can function as physical, logical, semantic, or cultural curbs that guide actions and interpretations. They force the desired behavior by causing operations to happen in a proper sequence and can be used to reduce the memory load and keep the users safe. He introduces three types of forcing functions: interlocks, lock-ins, and lockouts. Depression Quest (Quinn 2013), an interactive fiction game about mental illness, uses constraints in its UI in an oppressive manner by making options crossed and unclickable to represent the character’s mental state and communicate that those logical decisions may not be available to them. Thus, choices that are more beneficial to the players’ character mental health are displayed in the interface but made unavailable to them by the usage of lockouts. This particular forcing function prevents the player from better outcomes by preventing their selection. Similarly, Abluese3 (Ailin et al. 2018), a short visual novel game about an abusive relationship told through social network interactions, also oppressively exploits UI constraints. Its UI significantly limits players’ choices until a critical moment, simulating the difficulty of getting out of a toxic relationship. This game’s primary interaction is made by confirmation dialogs, a typical example of lock-ins. Confirmation pop-ups usually allow users to check if an irreversible or critical action or input is both deliberate and correct before doing it and is generally used to avoid a type of error known as a slip, defined as an unintentional action (Lidwell et al. 2010). Thus, Abluese uses confirmations pop-ups as lock-ins to force users into a specific behavior of abdicating various positive aspects of the character’s life to appease their in-game partner. This confirmation interaction is purposefully overused in the game, which may lead to a slip in the final moments of the game, as automatic, unconscious processes cause slips, and they typically occur as a result of a break of a pattern or a halt of a task (Lidwell et al. 2010). Thus, the lock-in used in the game also operates on a behavioral level. After being locked into repeatedly performing the same type of action, users may fail to recognize and reflect on the opportunity presented by the end of the game to escape the toxic relationship depicted when the interface finally offers an alternative. Another example of oppressive constrain usage is Before Your Eyes (GoodbyeWorld Games 2021). In this game, the primary way of interacting is through blinking in real life. This input is captured by the game and used to navigate the main character’s memories, advancing time for an indefinite period in his life. However, considering Nielsen’s (1994) usability heuristics #3 of user control and freedom, it is essential to provide exits to foster a sense of freedom and confidence in users, as they often choose system functions by mistake. By using blinking, a natural human constraint since we cannot control this impulse indefinitely, the game removes some of the player’s autonomy and control over the experience. That, in turn, enhances the game’s expressive argument about life’s uncontrollable qualities. These examples show that the interface can create oppressive forcing functions and limit users’ actions while making them aware that the available ones may not benefit the character or the player. These games use the approach of restricting users’ choices to express hardship and diminish the sense of freedom in players.

3 Created in 2018 Woman Game Jam.

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4 Conclusion and Future Work In this paper, we discussed the user-friendly and pleasure paradigm. In addition, we outlined potential strategies to use intentional friction in digital games as a path to create meaningful experiences and provoke reflection. The identified strategies suggest more nuanced techniques than just framing the principles to create a friendly design in reverse. For instance, the opposite of providing feedback to users would be to not provide feedback at all. However, the faulty feedback strategy suggests further approaches, such as giving misleading feedback or overbearing players to create the conditions for them to get into contact with the game’s message. Thus, some identified strategies in the research suggest that there is subtility in the way we look into the wealth of knowledge provided by HCI to use it with the distinct goal of introducing friction instead of removing it. One possible limitation of these strategies is that designers only have indirect control over the player experience and do not have complete dominion over the player’s individual perception (Walk et al. 2017). Thus, the strategies of intentional friction can only provoke and suggest the envisioned experience for the player as games are an emergent and complex system. Additionally, it seems likely that accessibility is one of the possible limitations of employing intentional friction on game UI. By using such strategies, a designer may exclude players with neurological, cognitive, visual, auditory, or physical impairments. For example, the impairment of ability strategy could exclude players who count on that sense as their primary way of interacting with technologies due to a permanent disability or a temporary condition. Another limitation that should be considered is the impact of negative experiences on players. People who suffer from mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety disorders may find such experiences unsuitable and unaccommodating for their conditions. Norman (2013, p. 62) alerts to the phenomenon of learned helplessness, where repeating failure at a task can result in severe difficulties with coping with life, being most frequently studied as a precursor to clinical depression. It is also suggested that the beneficial advantages of negative affect on individuals’ cognition and behavior may apply only to mild and temporary negative moods (Forgas 2017). Nonetheless, on the whole, we can reason that employing intentional friction strategies in the UI of games, when appropriate, could be a potential path to address the following: to build upon the game natural antagonism nature (Walk et al. 2017); to break the flow (Soderman 2021) and avoid domination via positive psychology (Han 2021); to foster critical reflection and challenge dominant structures (Grace 2014); to explore a broader range of human emotions (Norman 2013) other than enjoyment (Forgas 2017; Frasca 2003; Lawhead 2019; Wilson and Sicart 2010); to express and communicate empathy, disobedience, deception, uncertainty, uncontrollableness (Cardoso et al. 2019). Undoubtedly, the presented strategies in this work are not a guide. Still, it is, above all, a compilation of possibilities that invites us to think imaginatively about friction and the UI design practice in itself. With this in mind, this work is not intended to uncover all friction design strategies indiscriminately. On the contrary, the inquiry continues.

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The more attempts at answers emerge from different views and contexts, the more multifaceted and profound our understanding of friction as a strategy will be. As future studies and continuance of this exploration, this project is to be followed by a co-creation workshop with UI and game design students and professionals, aiming to brainstorm and discuss other potential strategies for intentional friction within the UI. Ultimately, the presented strategies in this work and others co-created in future workshops are to be compiled in an ideation tool in the format of a card deck. This tool could support interested designers in putting those into practice while creating game UI that challenges the status quo. Acknowledgments. This paper was funded by the Masters in Multimedia at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto.

References Ailin, N.G., Bittencourt, N., Silva, I.: Abluese [Video game]. https://ailin.itch.io/abluese (2018). Retrieved 5 May 2022 Bogost, I.: Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. MIT Press (2010) Cardoso, P., Melo, R., Carvalhais, M.: Breaking the hedonistic loop: Meaning before fun in videogames. In: ARTECH 2019: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Digital and Interactive Arts, issue 52, pp. 1–4. Portugal (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3359852.335 9902 Cox, A.L., Gould, S.J., Cecchinato, M.E., Iacovides, I., Renfree, I.: Design frictions for mindful interactions. In: CHI EA ‘16: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1389–1397. USA (2016). https://doi.org/10.1145/ 2851581.2892410 Csikszentmihalyi, M.: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. HarperCollins (1990) Everyday Arcade: Bomb the Right Place [Video game]. https://everydayarcade.com/games/bombthe-right-place (2016). Retrieved 5 May 2022 Federoff, M.A.: Heuristics and usability guidelines for the creation and evaluation of fun in video games. Master’s Thesis, Indiana University Bloomington. CiteSeerX (2002). http://citeseerx. ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.89.8294 Flanagan, M.: Critical play: Radical Game Design. MIT Press (2013) Forgas, J.P.: Mood effects on cognition: Affective influences on the content and process of information processing and behavior. In: Emotions and Affect in Human Factors and HumanComputer Interaction, pp. 89–122. Elsevier (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-801 851-4.00003-3 Fox, T.: Undertale [Video game]. Toby Fox. https://undertale.com (2015) Frasca, G.: September 12th: A Toy World [Video game]. http://newsgaming.com/newsgames.html (2003) Frasca, G.: Play the message: Play, game and videogame rhetoric. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, IT University of Copenhagen (2007) Galloway, A.R.: Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture, vol. 18. University of Minnesota Press (2006) González Sánchez, J.L., Padilla Zea, N., Gutiérrez, F.L.: From usability to playability: introduction to player-centred video game development process. In: Kurosu, M. (ed.) HCD 2009. LNCS, vol. 5619, pp. 65–74. Springer, Heidelberg (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02806-9_9

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GoodbyeWorld Games: Before Your Eyes [Video game]. Skybound Games. https://www.before youreyesgame.com (2021) Grace, L.D.: Critical games: Critical design in independent games. In: Proceedings of 2014 Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA), USA (2014). https://doi.org/10.13140/2.1.2607.3603 Han, B.C.: Sociedade paliativa. Editora Vozes (2021) Hodent, C.: The Gamer’s Brain. CRC Press (2017) Kim, B., Liu, H., Joines, S.: Designing for empathy: research expanding aging experience suit for educational purposes. In: Proceeding of IDSA Education Symposium, USA. https://www.idsa. org/designing-empathy (2015) Kuang, C., Fabricant, R.: User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play. Picador (2020) Lavallière, M., et al.: Walking a mile in another’s shoes: the impact of wearing an age suit. Gerontol. Geriatr. Educ. 38(2), 171–187 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1080/02701960.2015.1079706 Lawhead, N.: Everything Is Going to Be OK [Video game]. AlienMelon. https://alienmelon.itch. io/everything-is-going-to-be-ok (2017). Retrieved 5 May 2022 Lawhead, N.: On UI design & using UI as a means to tell a story, convey emotion, create personality... an in-depth look.... The Candybox Blog. http://www.nathalielawhead.com/can dybox/on-ui-design-using-ui-as-a-means-to-tell-a-story-convey-emotion-create-personalityan-in-depth-look (2019). Retrieved 5 May 2022 Lidwell, W., Holden, K., Butler, J.: Universal Principles of Design: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through Design, 2nd edn. Rockport Publishers (2010) Messner, S.: The sensitive challenge of portraying psychosis in Hellblade. PC Gamer. https://www. pcgamer.com/the-sensitive-challenge-of-portraying-psychosis-in-hellblade (2017). Retrieved 5 May 2022 Nielsen, J.: Enhancing the explanatory power of usability heuristics. In: CHI ‘94: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Celebrating Interdependence, pp. 152–158. USA (1994). https://doi.org/10.1145/191666.191729 Ninja Theory: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice [Video game]. https://www.hellblade.com (2017) NNgroup: Video game design and user experience [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=1mTI1rjQiOE (2021) Norman, D.:. The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition. Revised edn. Basic Books (2013) Pope, L.: Papers, Please. [Video game]. 3909 LLC. https://papersplea.se/ (2013) Purslow, M.: Hellblade’s permadeath bluff is “not as simple as people think”. PCGamesN. https:// www.pcgamesn.com/hellblade-senuas-sacrifice/hellblade-permadeath-fake (2018). Retrieved 5 May 2022 Quinn, Z.: Depression Quest [Video game]. The Quinnspiracy. http://www.depressionquest.com (2013). Retrieved 5 May 2022 Schell, J.: The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. CRC Press (2008) Silva, I., Ailin, Osório, F., Pedro, H., Arlam Júnior: Everyday [Video game]. https://web.archive. org/web/20201124103053/http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-37/?action=preview& uid=90258 (2016). Retrieved 5 May 2022 Simogo: Device 6 [Video game]. Simogo. https://simogo.com/work/device-6 (2013) Soderman, B.: Against flow: Video games and the flowing subject. The MIT Press (2021) Tendershoot: Hypnospace Outlaw [Video game]. No More Robots. https://www.hypnospace.net/ (2019)

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Ascertaining the Influence of Style on the Credibility and Appeal of a Digital Health Avatar Óscar T. Viana1(B)

, Miguel Terroso2

, Cristiana Serejo2

, and João L. Vilaça1

1 2Ai – School of Technology, IPCA, Barcelos, Portugal

{osviana,jvilaca}@ipca.pt

2 ID+ - Research Institute in Design, Media and Culture, School of Design, IPCA,

Barcelos, Portugal {mterroso,cserejo}@ipca.pt

Abstract. As part of a project to develop a mobile app, with the capability to aid users in accessing their full lifelong healthcare history, a digital patient avatar was proposed, to be used as a visual display of information and a navigation tool within the app. With this article we aim to build upon previous research to identify how the appearance of this sort of avatar might influence the perceived credibility and trust placed on the information displayed in the app, specifically within the healthcare context. To this end, a survey was executed in which participants would be presented with a series of avatars with different visual styles, and their attitudes towards each of the avatars were recorded. The results fell mostly in line with preconceived hypotheses, that realistic avatars hold greater credibility but higher discomfort while stylized avatars generate increased affinity. However, some additional observations were made as to the discomfort caused by the improper combination of stylized and realistic elements within the same avatar. These results indicated that, for further development of the avatar’s visual style, a more comprehensive study would be needed to fine-tune the most adequate point between realistic and stylized. Keywords: Digital patient · Avatar design · Likeness representation

1 Introduction This article is part of a research project, which aims to develop tools and platforms to increase the efficiency of healthcare processes by employing AI-powered technologies. One of the proposals in this project is the development of a mobile app that would empower users to better manage their health condition by providing access to a complete archive of the healthcare information generated throughout their life, as well as other features based on digital twin technology. Digital Twin technology describes a method of compiling information to create a copy of a real entity, including various relevant metrics and characteristics with the aim to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 63–72, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_6

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match the real entity as closely as possible. The two entities might be connected sharing a constant flow of information, with the real entity sharing its current state and the digital copy analysing that state and predicting how it might evolve based on previous trends. This technology is already implemented in the healthcare sector in various ways [6, 7, 10] such as digital twins of hospitals and equipment, for management and maintenance purposes. However, of particular interest for this proposal, are the digital twin models of patients, or Digital Patients. These are a patient’s digital information model, with the aim to replicate every aspect of the real patient in a virtual copy, encompassing measurements, scans, exams as well as genetic and behavioural data [21]. To create individual digital patients is a shift towards greater efficiency and effectiveness, introducing many possibilities to the diagnosis, treatment, and recovery processes. As defined in “Roadmap for the Digital Patient” [5], it is designed to perform descriptive, integrative, and predictive functions. This means that the digital patient allows for unified access to all relevant clinical information pertaining to the patient, facilitates the meaningful interpretation of this data, consolidates and correlates data to support decisions and create predictions for the evolution of the patient’s health condition and even their reaction to different treatments. Implementing this technology in the proposed mobile app will produce a lot of complex information that, to be accessible to the user, must be transmitted in a way that promotes understanding and readability. For this, visual methods for transmitting information, such as infographics, have been shown to be highly effective in promoting greater memorization and understanding [4, 20, 22], and are especially applicable in the communication of medical and scientific knowledge [3, 16]. In a previous article, several health management apps, were analysed to discern the most common features in these sorts of applications, what data is available, and how it is transmitted. It was detected that while most apps had similar data available only a few presented it in a way that was user-friendly and engaging, displaying it instead mostly through text and digital versions of paper documents. This poses a differentiation opportunity to make the app more appealing by using novel methods of transmitting and navigating information. A possible example of these novel methods of transmitting information is found in the Babylon Health app. This app, among other features, includes a digital twin powered 3D model that visually displays the health condition of the user and of individual organs, providing predictive diagnoses and behavioural recommendations based on the user’s responses to a questionnaire regarding their daily habits. However, a short overview of the reviews available in the app’s Play Store page suggested that most users focus on the app’s function to make appointments and video consultations with health practitioners, ignoring the digital patient functionality. This might be related to this function’s limited usefulness but also to the generic and nondescript appearance of the avatar, that doesn’t appeal to the users or induce them to perceive the information presented as valid and important. Several experiments have been conducted to demonstrate the effects that an avatar might have on users, their perception of information [2], their behaviour [9, 11, 23, 24] and how the avatar’s likeness might influence its effectiveness. One of these studies, based on Sigry’s Self-Congruity Theory [17], concluded that when a user creates an

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avatar in their own likeness, they perceive the information shared through the avatar as more favourable and persuasive than if it were a generic avatar [11]. From these observation it is concluded that an avatar might be the most appropriate method to transmit information within the app, as the presence of an avatar that resembles the user’s likeness makes the information transmitted be perceived by that user as more credible and influential, helping them to better understand the data presented and use it to make positive behaviour changes. Beyond the avatar’s likeness, the way in which that likeness is represented is still an area that warrants additional research. With this article, the aim is to demonstrate that variation in visual style will have an impact on the perceived credibility of the information transmitted through the avatar. While 2D elements of style are identified as colour, shading, texture, and line, for 3D characters they are form, surfaces, and lighting [13, 14]. These are the elements that differentiate the look of an avatar, which we believe might have an additional effect on the perception of the information transmitted by that avatar. Studies have shown that a stylized avatar will manifest in users a greater affinity than a realistic avatar [1, 8]. This result is understood as an effect of the uncanny valley, which is described by Mori [15] as a point in the scale of human likeness beyond stylization where a figure approaches total realism without fully attaining it and creates discomfort upon the viewer. It’s important to consider this when balancing the look of an avatar. An inadequate attempt at combining the benefits of stylized and realistic might have an adverse effect, which justifies the need for a more in-depth analysis of avatar style and how it influences perceived credibility and trustworthiness.

2 Method Our goal within the project is to define an adequate style, which will foster trust, credibility, and comfort, for the avatar to be implemented in a health management mobile app. For this, the process shared in Tencent ISUX [18, 19] was used as reference to outline a method for determining the ideal visual style of the avatar. This method encompasses: • • • • •

Select and sort existing avatars with varied visual styles. Analyse the avatars and identify the characterizing elements of their visual style. Collect participants’ reaction and attitudes towards each avatar. Associate the elements of the avatar’s style with the recorded attitudes. Build a cohesive style with the elements corresponding to desired attitudes.

Following this method, a survey was developed, where users would be asked to indicate their attitudes toward a given number of different avatars. The selection of avatars to include in the survey was based on their familiarity, popularity, and variety of visual style, intending to include clearly differentiated styles on the realism scale. In order to attract more submissions, the survey was built to be engaging and concise, taking only a few minutes of participants’ time. For this only five avatar systems were explored: Mii, Samsung AR Emoji, Zepeto, Sims 4, Metahuman. The focal point in this investigation is to ascertain how variations in the visual representation style of an individual, in an avatar, might influence the perception of

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information shared by that representation. Therefore, to focus participants’ attention exclusively on the visual style, all avatars were built to represent the same likeness. This likeness was artificially and randomly generated using the website This Person Does Not Exist (thispersondoesnotexist.com), resulting in the image below (Fig. 1). With this survey serving as a preliminary investigation into participants’ attitudes, intended to reach as many participants as possible, and responses were anonymised, it was impractical to develop avatars in the likeness of each participant. This might, however, be interesting to follow in further studies, to compare variations in attitude.

Fig. 1. Artificially produced image to be used as likeness reference in building the avatars

The avatars were built to, as closely as possible, match the generated likeness and were then sorted from stylized to realistic. Incidentally, this sorting coincided with the shrinking ratio of head to body proportions, the more closely an avatar matched the established 1/8 ratio, the higher it was placed in the realism scale (Fig. 2). The following figure presents all the avatars, which will from this point on be referred to as A.1, A.2, A.3, A.4, and A.5.

Fig. 2. Selected avatars, ordered from stylized to realistic

Considering the usage context intended for the avatar, credibility, trust, comfort, and identification were identified as the main desired attitudes for users to feel towards it. A survey was developed to record to which degree would participants feel these characteristics regarding the selection of avatars presented.

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According to the previously presented research, it is hypothesized that the most realistic avatars will promote greater identification, therefore being more credible, while the stylized avatars will be the most appealing [1, 8]. The survey begins with a short introduction to the project, the terms of participation and some instructions. After a few demographic questions, participants would then begin the questionnaire, the first part of which would present the participant with the picture of the generated user (Fig. 1) accompanied by one of the avatars, instructing the participant to report, as if they were the user pictured, on a scale of 1 to 7 (with 1 being “Strongly Disagree” and 7 “Strongly Agree”), the degree to which they agreed to the following statements: “I identify myself in this avatar.”, “This avatar is visually pleasing.”, “I feel comfortable sharing information with this avatar.”, and “This avatar is capable of sharing credible information.”. This process was repeated for all avatars. In the second part of the questionnaire, participants would be presented with all the avatars simultaneously and asked to compare them directly, selecting: “In which avatar do I identify myself more?”, “Which of the avatars is more trustworthy?”, “Which of the avatars is more credible?”, “Which of the avatars is more adequate for the proposed use?”, and “Do any of the avatars cause discomfort?”. The survey was launched in the Google Forms platform, first as a test run without demographic questions, which received 20 participations, and then a final run which recorded an additional 55 participations, with very similar results.

3 Results and Discussion Participation was limited to Portuguese speakers over the age of 18, with about 95% of participants being aged under 30 an the oldest 59. Participants’ area of study/occupation ranged from Art & Design, the biggest group, Administration, Biology & Earth Sciences, Systems Development, Social Sciences, Communication and Health & Wellness. This last group is of special interest, considering the proposed use of the app, and their responses showed slight favor toward more realistic avatars. When asked, 5 participants reported experiencing a degree of difficulty when reading and identifying elements of mobile interfaces. This group showed a noticeable favor towards A.3. All of these, as well as 67% of all participants reported having used already some sort of health management app. Those who hadn’t, composed the group in which more favor for A.1 was noted. Participants were also asked on their familiarity with using and customizing avatars. Growing familiarity was related with preference towards more realistic avatars. The sample size, however, was too small to draw any conclusive observations for any individual category, so all responses were analyzed as a single group. The raw data of selections was processed by calculating the average score given to each statement, and used to produce the following graph, comparing participants’ responses to the avatar (Fig. 3). This graph allows us to identify that, as expected, the slightly stylized avatars, A.3 & A.4, were the most highly rated, with A.4 leading all categories expect visual appeal. Unlike the initial hypothesis, the degree of identification is not necessarily correspondent to the avatar’s degree of realism, with the most stylized, A.1, overcoming the

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4 3

A.4 A.5

2 I idenfy myself This avatar is I feel comfortable This avatar is in this avatar. visually pleasing. sharing capable of informaon with sharing credible this avatar. informaon.

Fig. 3. Results of the survey’s first part.

most realistic, A.5. However, as expected, in terms of credibility, these two avatars’ positions are inverted. As for the second part of the questionnaire, the results show participants’ responses when viewing all avatars simultaneously. When directly comparing the avatars, participants were more favorable to A.4, as in the previous questions, followed closely by A.3. One notable variation in user perception is that A.5 now mostly surpasses A.1, even in categories where the latter was favored in the first phase. This variation in the results might explain the shift between the hypothesis and results noted previously in the article. A cause for this might be that A1 is the first avatar with which the participants are presented, at that point having no frame of reference to compare with others, and their attitude changes when being able to simultaneously view all avatars (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. Results of the survey’s second part.

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It’s also notable that none of the patients selected A.2 for any of the categories, this reflects the opinions shared in the following question, where as many as 87% of participants selected A.2 as a source of discomfort. The second placement was A.5, with about half of those selections (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5. Results of the survey’s second part.

According to the uncanny valley theory presented previously, the effect is notable in near-realistic depictions of humans, this justifies the number of selections for A5 in this question. However, the results show a greater number of participants agree that A2 is a source of discomfort. This might indicate that an inadequate attempt at balancing realistic and stylized elements, as in A2’s incorporation of the user’s photograph in a heavily distorted body, might have a greater sway in invoking effects of the uncanny valley than a slightly unnatural but cohesive realistic style (Fig. 6). When directly comparing the two most highly rated avatars, A.3 & A.4, the most evident difference is the variation in proportions, with A.3 having a more childlike exaggerated head and features while A.4 has more accurate proportions to those of an average adult. This manipulation on proportions observed in A.3 is used in character design to create more compelling and expressive characters [12], being one of the explanations for the increased affinity noted in participants’ responses. As for formal detail, it is more extensive in A.3, in which it is primarily modelled, as seen in the hair, whereas in A.4 most detail is transmitted through painted textures. This also transpires through the avatars’ silhouettes, with A.3 having several modelled details to break the form and create visual interest and A.4 being much more uniform and consolidated.

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Fig. 6. The two most highly rated avatars (A.3 & A.4).

4 Conclusion With this analysis, it is concluded that for the intended use, its essential that the proposed avatar’s style retain a level of realism to accurately represent the necessary anatomy. However, as the final product is to be used by common individuals through a mobile app its necessary to consider factors such as the affinity towards the avatar, the usability limitations of small screens and processing power of mobile devices, all of which condition the avatar’s level of detail. These considerations indicate that the proposed avatar’s style must be a compromise between realistic and stylized, being able to adequately represent the necessary elements without causing a visual overload or discomfort on the user. The avatar to be developed might benefit from an assimilation of the styles seen in these two avatars (A.3 & A.4). Further work will require the production of concepts with slight variations of style elements, to fine-tune the results attained in this article and find the most adequate intersection point, possibly through a new survey. It’s also meaningful that participants were asked to respond to the questionnaire as a person other than themselves. This might have an impact on the results, and it’s worthwhile to consider running another survey with avatars tailored to each participant and compare responses. Acknowledgement. This work was funded by the project “NORTE-01-0145-FEDER- 000045”, supported by Northern Portugal Regional Operational Program (Norte2020), under the Portugal 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER).

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23. Yee, N., Bailenson, J.: The proteus effect: the effect of transformed self-representation on behavior. Hum. Commun. Res. 33(3), 271–290 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958. 2007.00299.x 24. Yee, N., Bailenson, J.N., Ducheneaut, N.: The proteus effect: Implications of transformed digital self-representation on online and offline behavior. Commun. Res. 36(2), 285–312 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650208330254

ForSav: A Mobile Application for Matchmaking Profiles in a Dynamic-Ride Sharing System Gualter Ferrada1(B) , Paulo Noriega2,3 , Mafalda Casais2 and Francisco Rebelo2,3

,

1 Lisbon School of Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

[email protected]

2 CIAUD, Research Centre for Architecture, Urbanism and Design,

Lisbon School of Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal 3 ITI/LARSyS, Faculdade de Arquitetura, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract. Shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) have been widely addressed in research for their advantages regarding dynamic-ride sharing (DRS) and last-mile solutions. The adoption of DRS systems relies on user acceptance and our intention is to develop an interactive system that considers the moment when a passenger schedules a ride until he/she arrives at the destination as a whole experience. In this paper, we present the development of a mobile application-based DRS system for SAVs that optimizes profile matchmaking in rides considering users’ preferences. We found rich evidence that comfort (a human experience regarding social aspects and personal safety) impacts the adoption of an environmentally friendly mobility option. Through a design methodology composed by user research, information architecture, and prototyping, we generated knowledge for further development of these systems. Further research is encouraged on the implications of profile matchmaking systems in passengers’ discrimination. In the future, we will continue the development of an interactive system as a 360º solution, considering the DRS mobile application, in-vehicle activities and interactions between passengers, and the possibility to mutually authenticate other passengers’ identity to avoid distrust in such services. Keywords: Dynamic-ride sharing system · Shared autonomous vehicles · Matchmaking profiles

1 Introduction Every day we are reminded that our resources are finite. This reflects on rising gas prices, for example, which, alongside traffic congestion and environmental concerns worldwide, lead us to consider wiser solutions on the daily use of personal vehicles. Such a solution could be a more intelligent use of the transportation system, namely through the inclusion of autonomous vehicles (AVs). AVs will drastically change transport systems because of their potential to avoid deadly crashes, to provide mobility for the elderly and disabled people, to decrease current traffic, and to lower emissions (Fagnant and Kockelman, 2015). In order to lower © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 73–84, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_7

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emissions efficiently and decrease traffic congestion, a particularly interesting mobility option within AVs is the shared autonomous vehicle (SAV). This option is interesting for the advantages it brings, considering dynamic-ride sharing (DRS) and last-mile solutions (Krueger et al., 2016). The concept of DRS intends that passengers with similar departure and destination locations join in rides for some part of their trips, resulting in lower costs (Krueger et al., 2016). It is based on free routes with users sharing the vehicle, at the same time (temporarily synchronous) or at different times, just as Uber or Bolt users do right now (temporarily asynchronous). In this paper, we will consider synchronous sharing as an option to travel in SAVs for its efficiency in lowering emissions. However, “DRS heavily relies on user acceptance” (Krueger et al., 2016, p.3) because most of the time, users will be spending periods of time with unknown people in a closed space as a result of similar routes or destinations. Over the years, solutions incorporating DRS systems have emerged in the market, relying on lower traveling costs; however, user preference has not been addressed properly. Solutions as the Avego Shared Transport software application, based on the relation between driver and rider (Agatz et al., 2012), are different from our research purpose – which is applying a DRS system to SAVs – because the relation we focus on is between riders without an actual driver (SAVs are classified in autonomy level five, i.e., autonomous driving under all conditions). There are feasibility constraints being observed in current DRS matchmaking applications: time, comfort, and cost (Agatz et al., 2012). A user can define a departure time and not an interval for it nor a maximum time to spend on a trip. Although these constraints minimize the information needed by the application, they also minimizes its flexibility and users’ time preference in matchmaking trips. Just as important as time and cost, comfort must also be addressed in any DRS system and it is highly related to “personal safety or social considerations” (Agatz et al., 2012, p.3). In this paper, we consider comfort as a human experience regarding social aspects and personal safety. We can think about many examples where comfort decides whether a possible user accepts a trip or not, such as remaining spare seats, gender, or even smoking. However, the more restrictions a user sets for him/herself in such a system, the more difficult it will be for him/her to find a successful match. Nevertheless, cost, alongside environmental benefits, is the major reason why DRS systems emerged in recent years (Agatz et al., 2012). The importance of cost for users’ acceptance has to do with saving money by sharing ride expenses with other users rather than going alone on usual or spontaneous courses. The expression “stranger danger” is often referred to in the literature as one of the main problems to address in ridesharing systems (Thaithatkul et al., 2015; Amey et al., 2011), and likely the biggest issue regarding user comfort. A possible solution to the “stranger danger” problem is to consider passengers’ preferences and personalities in matchmaking. Research conducted in recent years has considered social network connections in DRS systems (Kleiner et al., 2011; Graziotin, 2013; Yousaf et al., 2014) to increase matching success and increase user trust. According to Graziotin (2013), DRS has several issues to be solved, one of which is “reaching the critical mass” (Graziotin, 2013, p.5), a problem that is highly related with incentives, safety, and trust problems. Safety must be provided by the DRS system itself to receive incentives or investment from government structures. With these two problems solved (personal and common safety,

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and reaching large numbers by easing the service’s access and adapting it to society’s needs), the trust of the public opinion increases. For example, nowadays, carpooling users must submit their identity information (e.g., ID cards or driver’s license) to decrease safety concerns (Ni et al., 2016). It is a personal sacrifice in terms of data privacy to ensure mutual safety. Passengers’ personalities and preferences are unique. Thaithatkul et al. (2015) proposed a model to calculate the ridesharing utility (defined by the authors as a measure to evaluate personal preference in ridesharing), which is dependent on traveling cost and user preference. In this model, the DRS system calculates the most fitting matching options among the available passengers and drivers with the best traveling cost for the user. Therefore, the chances of an enjoyable trip are higher. In the SAVs case, the DRS system will not consider drivers, but instead passengers, available seats and vehicles for determined destinations. Fagnant and Kockelman (2018) conducted research about a DRS system for SAVs and concluded that certain DRS parameters must be conservative in order to reduce vehicles-miles traveled (VMT) in unoccupied vehicles that are relocating to pick up users. However, this research also concluded that an investment like this could be highly profitable, even considering low-cost travels. According to Kleiner et al., (2011), an auction-based mechanism that allows users to choose different options between drivers and passengers, even at higher costs, is another approach to the matchmaking question. Providing this option to users while presenting a balance between cost, VMT, and matchmaking is certainly a desirable freedom for any DRS system. Information and communication technologies (ICT) provide the possibility to gather people with similar interests, communities, or itineraries in the same ride through their social network (Thaithatkul et al., 2015). We could even imagine a well-established mobility company working for the future of autonomous driving (e.g., Volkswagen or Tesla) acquiring a social networking platform (e.g., Facebook, Weibo) or ensuring a partnership between companies to provide such a service. As stated, there are some problems to be solved in such a system, like comfort, cost, and trust. In the current research, we will focus on user comfort by considering their preferences in a matchmaking DRS system. Taking this into account, this paper presents the development of an application of a DRS system for SAVs that optimizes profile matchmaking in rides according to users’ preferences to ensure a positive traveling experience. 1.1 Safety and Data Privacy Implications There are some systems providing this possibility in matching drivers and riders; however, only a few consider privacy and safety as an important last step before the pairing (Goel et al., 2016). Furthermore, in most field areas, systems involving sensitive data “must be carefully designed to maintain and preserve [the] anonymity” (Ferrada and Casais, 2021, p.3) of its users. Ridesharing companies Uber and Lyft’s privacy policies have been questioned by its users for the access that their employees have to sensitive information – precise spatiotemporal data can lead to individuals’ identification, behavioral patterns, or the identification of work and home locations (Goel et al., 2016). Gargiulo et al. (2015) compared ridesharing to booking flights, where users select the best option that fits their needs, such as vehicle specifications, journey durations, or user

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profiles. However, the adoption of user profile matchmaking in these systems increases the need for security protocols to preserve data and anonymity. Hasib (2009) identified the threats regarding social networking services’ security vulnerabilities as being: 1) the lack of information disclosure concerns (especially among teenagers); 2) concerned users often failing to manage privacy preferences due to interface ambiguity; and 3) the lack of appropriate authentication tools, access controls, and security processes of social networking platforms. Blockchain and cybersecurity technologies could be suitable to apply in the transportation field area (Meng et al., 2018), in order to tackle such issues. Mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) is an emerging cutting-edge technology in the mobility field with the ability to ease the matter of multiple vehicle suppliers in the same system, validating digital tickets, providing payment methods, and planning trips dynamically (Nguyen et al., 2019). MaaS meets user needs about mobility by compiling all the mobility services in one application, being aligned with blockchain (Subramanian et al., 2020). In recent years, a pilot study involving a blockchain-based MaaS solution emerged – Tesseract – which has the capability to gather different users and authenticate their payments through Ethereum-based smart contracts (Subramanian et al., 2020). Joining the challenges of SAVs dynamic-ride sharing systems and matchmaking profile algorithms to address users’ preferences, a blockchain-based MaaS could be a desirable approach to mitigate cybersecurity and data privacy concerns. MaaS provides a solution for the communication between vehicle providers and their passengers; however, it does not solve the issue of mutual safety. Ni et al. (2016) proposed an anonymous mutual authentication (AMA) protocol to ensure personal privacy and trace passengers and drivers’ misbehavior during rides in carpooling systems. AMA should be applied in DRS systems to help mitigate misbehavior between unknown passengers by letting an individual authenticate another passenger’s identity without disclosing his own personal identity. Thus, our intention to develop a mobile application of a DRS system for SAVs that considers users’ preference. Through an interaction design methodology composed by: 1) user research, 2) information architecture, 3) prototyping, and 4) evaluation, we intended to develop and improve the solution presented through an iterative process. In the following section we will present the problem in greater depth and the development process of the mobile application.

2 Problem Definition Present DRS systems are not capable of retaining users because they do not offer a high demand on supply or the possibility of its users choosing with whom they are going to ride (Kleiner et al., 2011). As mentioned earlier, comfort and users’ preferences are highly related and by considering them during the development of such a system, it is possible to ensure the continuous use of an environmentally friendly mobility option in the future. The present research involves the development of a DRS mobile application for SAV users where they have the freedom to choose the ride that better fits their needs, considering cost, time, and other passengers. Additionally, it is part of a larger research that also considers in-vehicle activities and interactions between passengers in order to provide a complete experience in dynamic-ride sharing.

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2.1 User Research Through an online survey, we intended to understand user acceptance (i.e., their willingness to use) of the concept of SAVs and the impact it would have on their comfort in shared rides. We gathered 343 answers using non-probability sampling, from a range of different countries, including Portugal, India, Germany, and France. The countries with most answers were identified as Portugal, United States of America, and Brazil. The range of ages was from 22 to 70 with an average of 45 (SD = 28,3). 2.1.1 Procedure The online survey was developed in Google Forms and distributed across social networking platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook, and through Amazon Turk, with the goal of getting a considerable sample and targeting different countries and cultures. With that aim, the survey was developed in two languages – Portuguese and English. It consisted of an informed consent, a short text about the concept of SAVs, questions with closed and open answers, and Likert scales to establish the identification of user groups. The survey was developed to take, on average, 10 min to complete. 2.1.2 Results and Discussion No main difference was found between the different samples (from the multiple countries), so we compiled and analyzed all the data together. Concerning previous knowledge of the SAVs, the majority of the sample (71,6%) responded being aware of it. When asked about using of this type of vehicle in the future, 40% of participants stated that they would use SAVs, while 23% answered that they would only use it with known people (family or friends). The remaining sample, 32,4% were not sure about their future usage of SAVs (a sum of the answers “Maybe, but I would not use it right away” with a weight of 26%, and “I do not know”), and only 2,6% had a negative answer. When questioned about the physical sharing of the vehicle space, 56% responded positively, 40% answered positively with the condition that they knew the other passengers (family or friends), and 4% responded that they would prefer to travel alone. Considering user comfort (the human experience that takes into account social aspects and personal safety), when sharing the vehicle with others, participants answered positively on three the possibilities presented in the survey (Fig. 1). From the collected data, we can observe that users’ acceptance of SAVs usage is far from one-sided. Despite a considerable percentage of users agreeing to share the vehicle space with other passengers, results indicate that the about half is conditioned by previous knowledge of others in this context. However, results also suggest that similarities between passengers’ destinations and/or interests tend to increase user comfort. The possibility of having a private space in a shared autonomous vehicle has also been deemed desirable for users, although the answers were more distributed in the Likert scale. The presented data clearly indicates the users’ willingness to adopt SAVs as a mobility option, while also revealing that they are conditioned by their comfort in this setting. In this regard, we identified the need to work towards interaction aspects and the matching between different passengers.

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Fig. 1. User comfort ratings in different vehicle possibilities.

3 Mobile Application Development 3.1 Information Architecture We structured the functionality of a DRS system mobile application for SAVs by identifying the main areas and its subsidiary areas into a visual scheme (see Fig. 2). The presented structure was defined based on case studies, literature review, and brainstorming meetings with the research team. 3.2 Prototyping Previous design process stages informed us to the creation of wireframes and the development of a prototype to evaluate users’ acceptance on the concept and further research on the topic. The prototype was created using Figma software, considering signup flow, ride scheduling for the moment and the future, payment methods, and the visualization of other passengers’ interests (Fig. 3). The prototype was based on the previous design stages, case studies, literature review and obeyed the following usability heuristics: 1) consistency, 2) efficiency, 3) feedback, and 4) easy recovery from errors (adapted from ISO 9241–11:2018; ISO 9241–110:2020; ISO 9241–112:2017; ISO 20282–1:2006; ISO 9241–306:2018; Schlatter and Levinson, 2013).

4 Evaluation The developed prototype, which we named ForSav, was in an early development stage, with flaws and limitations related to the software used. Our main intention with it was

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Fig. 2. The interaction between the user and the dynamic-ride sharing system in a ride between point 1 and point 2.

to: 1) understand whether the authentication-imposed protocols helped in the users’ confidence regarding the mobile application and its impact on their experience; and 2) understand whether the user prefered to choose the rides that best suit him/her or if it was considered preferable that the application matched the passenger automatically, considering user profiles. Considering that our main goal was to explore the mental

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Fig. 3. Our prototype’s functionality on major tasks – signup and scheduling a ride.

model of our users and what they expected in these applications, we conducted the Think Aloud method with a large enough sample to obtain results (Nielsen, 1994). The sample was composed of five users from different countries and cultures. The analyzed data was retrieved for further improvements on the ForSav solution. 4.1 Procedure A pilot test (n = 3) was conducted to improve the evaluation protocol of the Think Aloud test. Subsequently, we conducted the Think Aloud test to a sample of five participants. The environment was isolated and controlled (a closed space with no external disturbance) to ensure the user was not distracted during evaluation. The five Think Aloud tests took, on average, 20 min to complete, and a mobile device model Huawei Mate 20 Lite black was used by the participants to interact with the system. An informed consent was given each participant alongside previous information regarding the study purpose and the participants’ role.

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The test was composed of two main tasks: 1) signup in the mobile application and schedule a ride for the moment; and 2) schedule a ride for the subsequent day. During the interaction with the ForSav prototype, a mediator asked questions regarding what the participants were seeing on the screen, their expectations regarding specific actions, and their feelings considering personal confidence and comfort. The participants were sitting in a chair and close to the mediator to improve communication. The tests were recorded to revisit and assess the information produced by the participants in the analysis phase. 4.2 Sample The selected sample was composed of three males (from Portugal, Brazil, and Bolivia) and two females (from Portugal and Italy), with ages between 20s and 30s. The participants were recruited during university classes at the Lisbon School of Architecture (University of Lisbon). The sample had different backgrounds and cultures but a similar broad professional area, Design. None of the participants had previous knowledge of the research. 4.3 Results and Discussion We revisited the recordings, transcribed each test, and generated codes from the answers. Codes were grouped by similarity and subsequently transformed into a final code to serve the purpose of improving the mobile application. For instance, in the transcription “Now I see information about CO2 emissions, and I imagine I am doing good to the environment,” we identified the code “I am doing good to the environment,” which grouped with similar environmental codes originated the final code “I like ecological information” (Table 1). The most common codes in all the tests focused on ecological information, generating nine initial codes, and comfort (of knowing other passengers before the ride), which generated fifteen initial codes. Following these, we found a preference for similar destinations in short rides, generating six initial codes. We found ambiguity in the authentication protocols and in the definition of “social skills” (both generated three initial codes in two different tests). From this information, we obtained five final codes: 1) “I like ecological information; 2) Authentication is confusing as-is; 3) Social skill is not understandable; 4) “I feel comfortable knowing others before the ride”; 5) and “I prefer similar destinations for short rides.” The research questions that led us to conduct a Think Aloud test were: 1) understanding whether the authentication-imposed protocols help in the users’ confidence regarding the mobile application and its impact on their experience; and 2) understanding whether the user prefers to choose the rides that best suit him/her or if it is preferable that the application matches the passenger automatically considering user profiles. The authentication protocol implemented in our prototype was different from other applications, which affected users’ experience during the evaluation. Users were expecting a protocol we commonly see in other applications, the two-factor authentication (2FA), which is known for fluid communication between two different channels owned by the same person. In this case, users expected to receive the code in their mobile phone (via SMS) or

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Think Aloud data (examples)

Codes obtained

Final code

User (U): “Now I should put my interests first and now I think I am ready to go on. [clicked] Now I see information about CO2 emissions, and I imagine I am doing good to the environment (…)” – P003 U: “I would schedule here, [click schedule] now the date, hour and destination. Okay, I see that he’s telling me about the emission savings. [clicked private option] Okay, I like it because it tells me that I’m doing damage to the environment here and I see that here is my rides’ number (…)” – P003

“I imagine I am doing good to the “I like ecological environment”, “Maybe I will have information” more ecological information here”, “Important ecological information”, “Carbon emissions”, “It tells me how much emissions I am saving”, “In private mode it tells me that I am damaging the environment”

via email and only then set up their password and fingerprint authentication. The users’ preference to choose the rides on their own was clear during the Think Aloud test. Users were interested about checking other options to see the passengers that already secured their seats. The tendency to explore the application happened in all the tests, mainly because of this possibility. According to our results, we recommend that the freedom to choose rides considering users’ preferences be adopted in any DRS system. Other unexpected results should also be considered for further steps. The environmental aspects of the mobile application were appreciated in all tests and were often referred. One of the participants said that they would appreciate the possibility of knowing more about the environmental advantages of this mobility option, in the form of a short description of the ForSav’s vision, for example. Another interesting result relates to the comfort associated with knowing other passengers before the ride, which was appreciated in all the conducted tests. Lastly, an additional unexpected result was the confusion regarding the meaning of “social skills,” which occurred in three tests. The option “similar destinations” was often chosen by the users because the presented journeys were at most 15 min long. However, two users said that they would choose the other option if the rides were longer because, according to them, an enjoyable conversation tends to easily happen if passengers share “similar interests.”

5 Conclusion and Future Studies The present research helped us understand not only the importance of comfort (defined as a human experience that considers social aspects and personal safety) in the acceptance (willingness to use) of emerging mobility options, but also the role of environmental concerns in decision making. We found some concerning issues during the Think Aloud

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tests that highly impact trust and comfort in this service if users start defining what they aim to be instead of what they are (e.g., false profile pictures or interests). Another potentially impactful problem is the possibility of existing users without a profile picture, which would lead to misunderstandings and distrust between passengers. Ethnicity, age, gender, or even social status discrimination are possible outcomes of this solution and should be addressed in further research. For example, Farajallah et al. (2019) found evidence that drivers with Arabic names sell fewer seats than French names in the carpooling platform Blablacar. Although checking other passengers’ profile pictures before scheduling a ride seems comforting, our solution could be working to bypass photo-based prejudice. In this regard, we intend to continue this research to develop a balance between comfort and an inclusive solution, free of discrimination. In the future, we will also conduct further research in the development of an interactive system to assist and engage interaction between passengers during shared rides and the possibility to mutually authenticate other passengers’ identity to avoid distrust in the service. The prototype presented in this paper was evaluated by a sample composed of students of an Interaction Design master’s degree. Concerning generalization of results for population we assume that the sample used could be more representative, however that was the available sample at the time of the study. Interaction designers are used to not only develop these mobile applications, but to also focus on wicked problems. According to Zimmerman et al. (2007), one of the benefits of Research through Design (Rtd) or Research through Interaction Design (RtIxD) is that it allows interaction designers and the research community to engage with wicked problems that cannot be solved through science or engineering practice and theory. The exercise of developing a mobile application for dynamic-ride sharing systems considering profile matchmaking is a good example of a wicked problem and the work presented here intends to provide and share valuable knowledge with the community. In future studies, we encourage researchers to perform the evaluation of a similar solution with larger samples, disfavoring technology professionals because of their potentially biased perspectives. The presented work is part of a larger study that involves the development of an interactive system for shared autonomous vehicles considering the moment where a user schedules a ride (the DRS mobile application discussed in this paper) until he/she arrives at the destination as a whole experience. In the future, we will work towards the interaction between passenger-passenger and between passengers-vehicle exploring the co-experience benefits in shared autonomous rides and possible in-vehicles’ activities. Acknowledgements. This work is financed by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the strategic Project with the references UIDB/04008/2020 and UIDP/04008/2020 and LARSyS-FCT Plurianual fundings 2020–2023 (UIDB/50009/2020).

References Agatz, N., Erera, A., Savelsbergh, M., Wang, X.: Optimization for dynamic ride-sharing: A review. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 223(2), 295–303 (2012)

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Amey, A., John, A., Rabi, M.: Real-time ridesharing: opportunities and challenges in using mobile phone technology to improve rideshare services. Transp. Res. Rec. 2217(1), 103–110 (2011) Fagnant, D.J., Kockelman, K.M.: Dynamic ride-sharing and fleet sizing for a system of shared autonomous vehicles in Austin. Texas. Transportation 45, 143–158 (2018) Farajallah, M., Robert, G.H., Thierry, P.: What drives pricing behavior in peer-to-peer markets? evidence from the carsharing platform BlaBlaCar. Inf. Econ. Policy 48, 15–31 (2019) Ferrada, G., Casais, M.: Developing a digital application for patient medical history. UXUC - User Experience and Urban Creativity 3(1), 54–75 (2021) Graziotin, D.: An analysis of issues against the adoption of dynamic carpooling. arXiv preprint arXiv:1306.0361 (2013) Hasib, A.A.: Threats of online social networks. Int. J. Comp. Sci. Netw. Secu. 288–293 (2009) IISO 20282–1 – Ease of operation of everyday products – Part 1: Design requirements for context of use and user characteristics (2006) ISO 9241–11 – Ergonomics of human-system interaction – Part 11: Usability: Definitions and concepts (2018) ISO 9241–110 – Ergonomics of human-system interaction – Part 110: Interaction principles (2020) ISO 9241–112 – Ergonomics of human-system interaction – Part 112: Principles for the presentation of information (2017) ISO 9241–306 – Ergonomics of human-system interaction – Part 306: Field assessment methods for electronic visual displays (2018) Kleiner, A., Nebel, B., Ziparo, V.A.: A mechanism for dynamic ride sharing based on parallel auctions. In: Twenty-second international joint conference on artificial intelligence (2011) Nguyen, T.H., Partala, J., Pirttikangas, S.: Blockchain-based mobility-as-a-service. In: 28th International Conference on Computer Communication and Networks (ICCCN), pp. 1–6 (2019) Ni, J., Zhang, K., Lin, X., Yang, H., Shen, X.S.: AMA: Anonymous mutual authentication with traceability in carpooling systems. In: 2016 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), pp. 1–6 (2016) Nielsen, J.: Estimating the number of subjects needed for a thinking aloud test. Int. J. Hum Comput Stud. 41(3), 385–397 (1994) Schlatter, T., Levinson, D.: Visual usability: Principles and Practices for Designing Digital Applications. Newnes (2013) Subramanian, N., Chaudhuri, A., Kayıkcı, Y.: Blockchain applications and future opportunities in transportation. Blockchain and Supply Chain Logistics, pp. 39-48. Palgrave Pivot, Cham (2020) Thaithatkul, P., Seo, T., Kusakabe, T., Asakura, Y.: A passengers matching problem in ridesharing systems by considering user preference. Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies 11, 1416–1432 (2015) Yousaf, J., Li, J., Chen, L., Tang, J., Dai, X.: Generalized multipath planning model for ride-sharing systems. Front. Comp. Sci. 8(1), 100–118 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11704-013-3021-6 Zimmerman J., Forlizzi J., Evenson S.: Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘07), pp. 493–502 (2007)

Mapping Persona Interaction with Scenarios José Gago1(B)

, Tiago Marques2 , Ema Rolo3 and Nuno Martins5

, Leonardo Pereira4

,

1 CIAUD Faculdade de Arquitetura, Universidade de Lisboa, Rua Sá Nogueira,

Polo Universitário, Alto da Ajuda, 1349-055 Lisboa, Portugal [email protected] 2 CHAIA, Universidade de Évora, Largo dos Colegiais 2, 7004-516 Évora, Portugal [email protected] 3 GOVCOP, Universidade de Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal 4 University of Aveiro, DigiMedia, DeCA, Aveiro, Portugal 5 Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture, School of Design, Polytechinc Institute of Cavado and Ave, Barcelos, Portugal

Abstract. The following article describes a Persona Method through Visual Clues and Socio-Economic Scenarios Interference (PMVC+) in a learning setting performed in the course of Design of Interfaces I, School of Arts, University of Evora, Portugal, in the academic year of 2021/22. The study follows a descriptive case methodology. Supported by previous work, the proposed PMVC+ concerns the project’s early stage and reveals how a mosaic assemblage of visual clues concerning Persona construction and socio-economic scenarios allows an empowered perception of consumers and how those scenarios can influence consumption behaviors. In project guidance, a discovery map was developed to provide an itinerary on cohesive information acquisition. The proposed PMVC+ allowed students to implicitly reason the influence of external variables in their constructions of reality and value external socio-economic scenarios when projecting a persona, enabling a strong focus on consumers and scenario fluidity. Although in part working in fictionalized settings, the PMVC+ triggers the reasoning on the complexity and influence of socio-economic scenarios and delivers more immersive mapping solutions in working with Personas allowing students to retrieve reasoned product opportunities. Keywords: Visual methods · Visual communication design · Persona method · Visual literacy

1 Introduction Persona design has been recognized as a design tool for ideation with different user groups since the 1990s. The method originated in software development has become a widespread method adopted in many disciplines and design processes, such as product innovation and idealization, user experience design, agile systems development, communication, and marketing [1–3]. In Persona design, there are two main aspects of the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 85–93, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_8

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usage of the persona method: on the one hand, it is used as a communication device and, on the other hand, as a design aid made to help designers, developers, and project stakeholders focus on users and their needs during the design and development of the system. The persona material also can potentially communicate the results from user research to the relevant groups. The Persona exploration support the project stakeholders in incorporating the knowledge about the users during the design process [4]. Persona ideation contains the description of social constrictions stereotypes. These social constructs stereotypes, characterized by being empty of content, occur when participants have a less professional and cultural experience and cannot add content to the person’s understanding. Persona authors’ knowledge may limit the design of Personas ideations because they use their own experience to fill in the details like age and knowledge of the domain and how a person in marketing looks [5]. In order to achieve that the product design is closer to the everyday lives of the users, design personas are a means to capture the everyday experiences and needs of users and customers. Focusing on the user or customer in the design process is in opposition to an artistic understanding of the designer as someone who, by experimentation with materials and form, gets inspiration to create unique products [2]. Working on a structured process; engaging persona, needs and situation, and scenarios create room for specific discussions that are concrete, anchored in, and focused on the user [6]. However, the term consumer lends a more holistic dimension to a design project. Consumers refer to the use of technology for consumption, the concept of users can lead to a prospect that humans can be easily reduced to factors in complex technical systems [7]. As mentioned in numerous scientific studies in various areas and scopes consumers behaviors are shaped by different socio-economic scenarios[8]. It is a game changer for designers to know consumer behavior; understanding consumer responses is crucial for successful design projects [9].

2 Development This study focuses the question how the interaction between Persona depictions and socio-economic external scenarios, represented in satellite boards, contributes for Design project development in learning settings. This research is framed within the project INCREASE (Interaction Print Media Design and Autonomous Systems). An exploratory study of interaction design, given its current context influenced by autonomous systems based on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and how it can be applied to print media. Recent interaction design practice emphasizes artifacts that fit into a ‘digital ecology’ rather than unique products and interfaces. INCREASE project intends to use exploratory and design methods to discover which interactions can be established for print media, transformed by technological augmentation, and their integration in this dynamic environment [10]. This study supported in previous studies answers to a need to amplify the perception on Personas and scenarios influence. Answering the demand for more detailed studies to determine the impact on cross-cultural personas projects [5]. Focusing on the user or customer in the design process is in opposition to an artistic understanding of the designer as someone who, by experimentation with materials and form, gets inspiration to create unique products [2].

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In this study the Persona Method through Visual Clues and Socio-Economic Scenarios Interference (PMVC+), puts into practice the concept of consumer, the Persona can be described as a representation or life model of demographic possibilities in various consumers. The PMVC+ is supported by previous studies [11, 12]. In the learning contexts related to this study, higher education students developed an exploration of a map of connections, between scenarios and visual boards of personas, through the Persona Method Through Visual Clues (PMVC), based on previous studies [11]. The visual board of persona involves the following phases: 1- Choosing a Profession on a Certain Context/ Country Finding information about workplaces, culture and social context 2- Searching for the Persona’s Photo Guided by the cultural and social context search for the persona’s photo in a stock image supplier 3- Finding the Persona Name Guided by the cultural and social context 4- Choosing the Place of Residence and the Workplace Through a map search engine and retrieving commuting times. 5- Interconnecting the “Residence” and the “Work” to obtain others frequent Places and Commuting’s Students match the quantitative data to commuting times and the task’s qualitative data to visual context. In the project related with the present article, students should develop an interface solution optimized to a specific business model revealed by discovering business opportunities through the PMVC+. The project was conducted in the course of Design of Interfaces I, School of Arts, University of Evora, Portugal, in the academic year of 2021/22, second semester. The class of twenty-two students produced ten PMVC’s containing a day routine. In the development of the PMVC+, students searched for business opportunities, connecting, in a general map, the persona’s daily routines, to a set of scenarios retrieved from news, collected from different newspapers, from those connection with socio-economic scenario’s resulted the PMVC+. It was the objective of the authors to develop a “manual” exploration, based in previous experiences carried with different age groups, where the tangible interaction triggered insights and experiences of discovery supported by different types of reflection [13]. The authors applied the strategy in order to stimulate a physical action on the part of the group, for such the PMVC’s b boards were printed, as well as the scenarios (the collected news). The links

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were developed using materials such as; plasticine, strings of various colors, and pins, Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Students connecting different elements.

Students were encouraged to find connections, looking for influences between PMVC’s and the external socio-economic scenarios. The teacher assisted with the process, generating questions to stimulate connections. The discovery session lasted approximately 5 h and ended with the identification of several codes. The montage of the PMVC+, occurred in March and guided the individual project development, Fig. 2. PMVC board design ↓ PMVC+ montage ↓ PMVC+ discovery ↓ PMVC+ code idenficaon ↓ Individual project development Fig. 2. Sequence of activities developed with students.

In the delivery of the project, to access students’ feedback on the experience of the PMVC+, students answered a survey. The textual information was analyzed by evaluating the textual recurrence of words in the descriptions of the processes resulting from the following question: “Explain how linking different scenarios in the overall persona map

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allowed you to identify a project opportunity”. The purpose of the survey was to explore which concepts the students highlighted and hierarchized in their descriptions. Data was collected in two forms, textual (from the survey) and graphical, by evaluating the quality of the focus of the design project. The evaluation of the solutions at the level of visual design lasted from March to May.

3 Methods The presented research followed a descriptive case study methodology. A descriptive case study is one that is focused and detailed, in which propositions and questions about a phenomenon are carefully scrutinized and articulated at the outset [14]. Descriptive case studies describe the natural phenomena which occur within the data in question. Descriptive case studies may be in a narrative form [15]. The data analysis of text, collected from the surveys, involved the creation of word clouds, informative keywords and thematic analysis. A word cloud, called also a tag cloud is a “visual presentations of a set of words, typically a set of tags, in which attributes of the text such as size, weight or color can be used to represent features (e.g., frequency) of the associated terms” [16]. Keywords are set of representative words of a document that give high-level specification of the content for interested readers [17]. In the present study, the authors gave special attention to the informative Keywords because they refer to words recurrent in a phrase statement context. The analysis of images and text, conducted with students with the purpose of code retrieving form the PMVC+, followed a thematic coding, a form of qualitative analysis which involves recording or identifying passages of text or images that are linked by a common theme or idea allowing the author to index the information into categories and therefore establish a “framework of thematic ideas about it” [18].

4 Results In the analysis of the PMVC+, students discovered several relations that resulted, after the thematic coding, in opportunity “Codes”, Fig. 3. These codes were the association of one or more concepts and guided an anchored creation process. The “discovered” codes through thematic coding resulted from a group reflection and discussion. These interpretations do not necessarily represent a fact because the students used press articles referring to the period between 12 and 18 March 2022. Intolerance with the difference + Loneliness Toxic fashion + Aquarium (containing tank) Super heroes + Aquarium (containing tank) Screen time + Loneliness Electric Cars + War Flexible working time + Loneliness Desertification + Loneliness Fig. 3. Codes retrieved from the PMVC+.

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After the project was submitted, the textual information related to the project description was analyzed. When analyzing the student’s responses to the survey, appears significantly in first place the reference to “Controlled Environment” and after a thematic coding analysis on a small data set, surfaced the themes of “Life Problems” and “Overcome Limitations” triggered by the scenarios in the Persona’s description. Based on the PMVC+, Fig. 4, different perspectives have been gathered in the twenty projects, supported by a problem/ opportunity discovery and its ecosystem (stakeholders’ and external variables), that range from the topic of physical exercise to the development of peptic interfaces that relieve the cognitive load of communication, two of these projects are summarized in this article.

Fig. 4. The resulting PMVC+ had a length of 427 cm and a height of approximately 216 cm, containing connections between boards and scenarios.

From the submitted projects, in the project POD, following the code “Superheroes + Aquarium (containing tank),” one of the students proposed the creation of a gym service with private training rooms that adapt to the user and has a system of reservations and specialized monitoring, Fig. 5. The MAISON project followed the code “Intolerance with the difference + Loneliness.” The app focuses on a target audience, people with higher education, newly arrived in the labor market, who want to live in central locations and seek to share a home. The concept focuses on a matching approach in the logic of interests, Fig. 6. All the twenty proposals focused on different targets and business opportunities resultant from the exploration of the PMVC+ mapping and subsequent identification of codes.

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Fig. 5. Project POD developed by the Student, Bernardo Pereira

Fig. 6. Project MAISON, developed by the student, Andreia Arêde.

5 Discussion Concerning the search for business opportunities anchored on problem identification, it seems more appropriate to describe the finding and solving of “problems” as a dynamic, cyclically self-sustaining process. The primary purpose appears to be the creation of connection points for the continuation of the process [19]. Design as a discipline must extend towards analyzing the problem-space, e.g. the mechanisms of how “problems” emerge. It could be called a problem definition competence, leading to “problem-design.“ [19]. In the survey conducted on the project final submission, appears significantly in the first place the reference to “Controlled Environment” and in the thematic analysis,

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surfaced the themes of “Life Problems” and “Overcome Limitations”. Through the personas, we can see how events are connected and how people interpret the events [20]. When personas information portrays complex limitations, problems and controlled environments, they achieve more human qualities. Avoiding idealized personas allows the representations of full complexity and range of costumers [21]. Personas represent not just a demographic target in the range of users who can buy the developed product. Personas can describe consumers embedded in cultural contexts influenced by external scenarios. From diving into these complexities, students can measure possibilities and practical constraints of everyday life. The development of the PMVC+ allowed students to explore how scenarios influence idealized portraits. And implicitly amplifying students’ knowledge of consumers, their needs, and the fluctuation of trends. Contributing to the promotion of reflective research interventions that foster the synergistic relationship between speculation and reflection. [22]. The PMVC+ allowed also the visual curation of the contents. In the perspective that curatorship refers to the “distribution” in a context with organization, annotation/ identification, and presentation [23]. The scenario concept conducted in the PMVC+ also allows a deeper understanding of possible futures. As an experimental method, Scenarios allow the edification of ‘stories’ illustrating visions, or aspects of a possible futures. It is perhaps the most emblematic foresight or future studies method, related specifically to simulations of some possible futures, [24].

6 Conclusion The proposed PMVC+ allowed students to implicitly reason the influence of external variables in their constructions of reality and value external socio-economic scenarios when projecting a persona, enabling a strong focus on consumers and scenario dynamics. Although in part working in fictionalized settings (the persona board portrayed in the PMVC), the PMVC+ triggers the reasoning on the complexity and influence of socioeconomic scenarios and delivers more immersive mapping solutions in working with Personas, allowing students to retrieve reasoned product opportunities. The PMVC+ significantly impacted the growth of a student’s literacy over potential consumers and allowed students to explore contextual scenarios that will implicitly amplify their knowledge of possible trends, helping them to anchor the focus of their design proposals. This study’s limitations relate to the necessity of a facilitator that can guide the process. The future development of the PMVC+ can include future research with a strong focus on mapping limitations, constraints, and examples of cognitive overload in a Persona life description. Acknowledgments. The authors of this article would like to acknowledge the class from the course Design of Interfaces I, 2021/22, and the coordination of the degree in Design, School of Arts, University of Evora Portugal.

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References 1. Adlin, T., Pruitt, J.: The Essential Persona Lifecycle: Your Guide to Building and Using Personas. Elsevier Science (2010) 2. Nielsen, L.: Design Personas – New Ways, New Contexts. Pers Stud 4, 1–4 (2018). https:// doi.org/10.21153/psj2018vol4no2art799 3. Pruitt, J., Grudin, J.: Personas: Practice and Theory. In: Proceedings of the 2003 conference on Designing for user experiences - DUX ’03, p. 1. ACM Press, New York, New York, USA (2003) 4. Gudjonsdottir, R.: Personas and scenarios in use (2010) 5. Nielsen, L.: Personas in Cross-Cultural Projects, pp. 76–82 (2010) 6. Nielsen, L.: Dissertation Engaging Personas and Narrative Scenarios (2014) 7. Dahlbom, B.: From users to consumers. Scand J Inf Syst 15, Art. 3 (2003) 8. Kaufmann, H.R., Panni, M.F.A.K.: Socio-Economic Perspectives on Consumer Engagement and Buying Behavior. IGI Global (2017) 9. Fenko, A., van Rompay, T.J.L.: Consumer-Driven Product Design. In: Methods in Consumer Research, vol. 2, pp. 427–462. Elsevier (2018) 10. Noves, M., et al.: Between print and interaction. In: increase.fa.ulisboa.pt (2021). https://inc rease.fa.ulisboa.pt/. Accessed 29 Jul 2022 11. Silva, J., Raposo, D., Neves, J.: Persona Diagnostic, A Mosaic Approach - Diagnostic Learning Module In Mobile App Design. In: Research and the Teaching in Design and Music. Edition IPCB. 1st ed. IPCB, pp. 157–161 (2017) 12. Silva, J., et al.: Enveloping a day – Persona visual mapping. In: AHFE 2022 Proceedings. SPRINGER (2022) 13. Silva-Gago, J., Raposo-Martín, D., Díaz-Gómez, M., Berbel-Gómez, N.: Cartografía visual: creación de narrativas visuales colaborativas a partir de conexiones acerca del barrio Nou Llevant-Soledat Sud de Palma. Arte, Individuo y Soc 34, 275–293 (2022). https://doi.org/10. 5209/aris.73851 14. Descriptive Case Study. In: Encyclopedia of Case Study Research. SAGE Publications, Inc., 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks California 91320 United States (2010) 15. McDonough, J., McDonough, S.: Research Methods for English Language Teachers. Taylor \& Francis Group (2016) 16. Halvey, M.J., Keane, M.T.: An assessment of tag presentation techniques. In: Proceedings of the 16th international conference on World Wide Web - WWW ’07, p. 1313. ACM Press, New York, New York, USA (2007) 17. Siddiqi, S., Sharan, A.: Keyword and keyphrase extraction techniques: a literature review. Int J Comput Appl 109, 18–23 (2015). https://doi.org/10.5120/19161-0607 18. Thematic Coding and Categorizing: In: Analyzing Qualitative Data. SAGE Publications, Ltd, 1 Oliver’s Yard, 55 City Road, London England EC1Y 1SP United Kingdom, pp. 38–55 (2007) 19. Jonas, W.: Design as problem-solving? or: Here is the solution —what was the problem? Des Stud 14, 157–170 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1016/0142-694X(93)80045-E 20. Gudjonsdottir, R.: Doctoral Thesis in Human-Computer Interaction (2015) 21. Salminen, J., et al.: Are personas done? Evaluating their usefulness in the age of digital analytics. Pers Stud 4, 47–65 (2018). https://doi.org/10.21153/psj2018vol4no2art737 22. Grocott, L.: Design Research & Reflective Practice (2010) 23. Thilagavathy, P.P., DR: The impact of content curation for personal / informal learning. Int J Sci Res 5, 1673–1676 (2016) 24. Scenario Method: In: Eur. Foresight Platf (2022). http://foresight-platform.eu/community/for learn/how-to-do-foresight/methods/scenario/

Modular Design and Technology for Diversity and a More Sustainable Fashion. The RTFKT X Nike and CLO Case Studies Catarina Marquês1(B) , Ana Margarida Ferreira1,3 , and Fernando Oliveira1,2 1 UNIDCOM/IADE, Unidade de Investigação em Design e Comunicação, Av. D. Carlos I, 4,

1200-649 Lisbon, Portugal [email protected] 2 Faculdade de Design, Tecnologia e Comunicação, Universidade Europeia, IADE, Av. D. Carlos I, 4, 1200-649 Lisbon, Portugal 3 Universidade da Beira Interior, Faculdade de Artes e letras, Rua Marquês D’Ávila e Bolama, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal

Abstract. Fashion and design are closely linked. Through the various resources that are available it is possible to find varied solutions that, at the same time, allow design creation to be more practical, complete, and fun. In this way, it is necessary to analyze which means can be used to achieve this goal and how these will impact the final solution and society in general. This paper is part of an ongoing PhD research work and explores the potential linkage between modular design and technology to the emergence of new and unexpected solutions through two case studies, namely the RTFKT X Nike and CLO. A qualitative methodology is used to better understand the performance of the selected brands and the potential of modular design and technology to divergent thinking, diversity but more sustainable practices in a fast market dynamics. The conclusion highlights a possible change in the creation processes and the way of engagement and use of new design strategies and tools for more innovative and sustainable solutions to this important economic and creative sector. Keywords: Modular design · Creativity · Technology · Diversity · Sustainability

1 Introduction Sustainability, digital and consumer engagement are the aspects that should be most considered as opportunities for 2022 (BoF 2021). Thus, it becomes relevant to relate several issues in order to reach a conclusion to the problem at hand, in this case, the overproduction and overconsumption of resources, and therefore, of garments, which are suffocating our planet (Besser 2021; Clark et al. 2009; Silva 2021). Through Metaverse Mindset adaptation, due to the growing interest and engagement in online work and leisure, fashion market leaders will unlock new ways to engage with groups in order to leverage new avenues for creativity, community building and commerce: NFT’s, digital platforms, gaming and virtual fashion (BoF 2021). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 94–103, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_9

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On a modular and creative level, it is possible to reduce the environmental impact, in the case of physical pieces, and to create more variety and innovation. This results in greater engagement through constant discovery (on a creative level) by the user, allowing him to access the real world through the virtual world (Vaid 2021), as in the case studies portrayed in this paper.

2 Methodology This paper is based on literary and qualitative research (Nonmetric Data) (Leavy 2017; Marczyk et al. 2005) in order to understand the connection between modular design and technology, and how they apply to the selected case studies. To understand the behavior, methods and ways in which the market operates, we selected the union of RTFKT and Nike, a new approach between a brand and a digital platform that join the new NFT technology, and the CLO software, a mean to produce digital fashion products (3D) without waste resources to create new fashion/clothes possibilities. These cases stand out for their union with design and technology, allowing to have an alternative approach, generating several design possibilities in a recreational way, as said. To proceed with their study, in order to better understand their performance within the current industry, and also what their goals are for the future, a qualitative (Novikov and Novikov 2013) and multicase (Ozcan et al. 2018) research and analysis was conducted, taking into account the way both companies act, thus, being possible to understand how this creates impact on society.

3 Modular Design Modular design relies on a complex system. It is treated in a simple way, being divided into several subsystems and is considered ideal when changes made in one component do not affect any other (Catel and Monateri 2006). Modularization allows for greater diversity/variety in products (Nunes et al. 2014), faster updating, cost reduction, innovation and reduction regarding environmental impact (Santos et al. 2008), allowing us to anticipate the future (Staib et al. 2008). According to Santos et al. (2008), modular design, in order to meet sustainable design, is based on 4 stages: pre-production phase, production phase, use phase and discard phase. In fashion design, modular design is expected to be one of the techniques that will revolutionize the sector and also, consequently, other sectors such as sustainability and economy, for example. Design by modules, as already mentioned, consists in the construction and deconstruction of pieces through various types of fastening mechanisms, in this case, zippers, Velcro, pressure springs, buttons, magnets, among others, as seen in Figs. 1 and 2. The main goal is to be able to change the shape of the object according to either its purpose, or the look desired by its user giving the pieces the definition of “multifunctional”, “convertible” or “adaptable” (Vaid 2021). This trend, although beginning to be taken into account now (and more than ever), is present in garments and it is quite likely that most people have already had one with

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Fig. 1. A Modular Anrealage Silhouette Through Blocks. Source: The Cutting Class (2020)

this function, for example, hoodies of jackets that can be put on and taken off through zippers, pants with zippers that allow them to be transformed into shorts, etc. One of the examples in Vaid’s article (2021) mentions that modular design, besides allowing the variability of the pieces, makes it possible, through the deconstruction of the pieces, to separate the different components for later recycling, for example, in cases where the body, sleeves, hoodie, among others, are produced from different materials. This practice enables a significant reduction in consumption and, thus, the disposal and the so large production and acquisition of new pieces, through the possibility of “remaking” the clothing through its transformation, supplying needs for the consumer, and increasing the useful life of the piece. Silva (2017) refers that Frings (2012) states that the consumer tends to be attracted by multipurpose pieces, because they provide comfort, functionality and generate the experience of customization/creativity. According to Ribeiro et al (2009, p. 9), “a made-to-measure (MTM) molding system is considered essential for mass customization, responding to the need to produce attractive and wearable pieces according to consumers’ desires.“

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Fig. 2. Dress composition based on a modular approach. Source: Authors (2021)

4 Technology Recently, companies in the fashion area have presented technological solutions, as is the case of Kim (2009), a tool whose purpose is to provide data on design, clothing and trends, making them virtual and accessible to the world, and Fernandes and Microsoft (2019), a platform that associates fashion with artificial intelligence (AI), and also through the upcycling of unsold clothes, helping both designers at the level of the creative process and supporting sustainable fashion (Camuri n.d.), as the environmental issue and the reduction of textile waste, by changing aspects such as material, color, pattern, among others (Ruppert-Stroescu 2009) and not discarding possible manufactured and unsold pieces, for example (Fig. 3). There are several ways to solve problems through technology, whether through AI, digital modeling, 3D printing of materials and/or garments, among many others. As such, events on technology allied to fashion have been held, and will certainly continue to be held, where topics such as those mentioned above are addressed, as well as “the digital development in the creative and production process up to the digital and ecological transition, (…) of data and the cloud in the analysis of consumer behavior, without forgetting the strategies to be adopted in social networks, the integration between ecommerce and traditional distribution, or the potential of blockchain, Metaverse and NFT.“ (Muret 2022, p. n.d.).

5 RTFKT X Nike In 2021, Nike bought the virtual fashion platform RTFKT (“artifact”), known for creating virtual sneakers (see Fig. 4) (BoF 2022; Hernandez 2021; pplware 2021). The sportswear

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Fig. 3. Changing the World with Virtual Garments. Source: CLO 3D (2022)

giant had already partnered in 2019 with the gaming platform Roblox to create a trio of digital characters, and worked with the Fortnite company to put the Jordan’s as an accessory (skin) in the game (BoF 2022). RTFKT was created when Chris Le realized that in games, such as Counter-Strike, players were not only buying skins for the games, but were sneakerheads (collectors and fans of sneaker culture) (dictionary.com n.d.), in real life. Le then saw an opportunity and created RTFKT (Alsever 2021). The latest news from Nike and RTFKT was the launch of the collection “RTFKT X Nike CryptoKicks NFT: a RTFKT X NIKE DUNK GENESIS CRYPTOKICKS Sneaker Powered by DRM OS and Skin Vial Tech” (Figs. 5 and 6). This consists of a range of 200000 pairs of NFT’s sneakers in the metaverse, which can be used on a platform called “NikeLand”, and also as a skin in the Snapchat application (Davis 2022). This collection has a particularity: the models do not have the decorative part, more exactly, the skins, fabrics/non-wovens, colors and patterns that personalize the models. Only a few pairs of sneakers are on sale with this particularity, the rest will be customized later by their buyers, with the skins that were then also made available in the metaverse (Ledger Insights 2022). They are called Skin Vials and consist of an NFT’s product that is placed on the sneakers and will give it the appearance contained in that same Vial. These Skin Vial’s vary by their rarity, as does their price - the rarer, the more expensive (Tran 2022).

6 CLO CLO is a 3D apparel design software used by designers, small companies and businesses, and large investors in the fashion industry to achieve an excellent digital business flow (CLO 2022). Created by Jaden, a PhD student in Computer Engineering, who initially developed a prototype of a program that allowed his colleagues to create 3D apparel, later, and due to the fun achieved through the same program, Jaden decided to make it public.

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Fig. 4. Nike X RTFKT. Source: McDowell (2022)

Fig. 5. Skin Vials. Source: Rarible (n.d.)

After its launch, one of its first users, a cosplay artist, realized that the program had the capacity to be revolutionary. He quickly achieved popularity and created “Marvelous Designer”, a specific program for virtual cosplay artists. With this new program, cracked versions began to appear, which generated some concern about its profitability. Weta Digital (Clo’s first customer) heard about Marvelous Designer through the Computer Graphics (CG) community, as did many other companies who became Clo’s partners afterwards. After this leverage was perceived, brought about by users of the program, Clo began to have a user-focused mindset (BOF TEAM 2020; CLO 2022). As Clo grew in the GC’s community, a specific program was developed for the fashion industry, with all the resources that professionals in the area need, also facilitating the process of creation and subsequent production, giving prominence to processes that in

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Fig. 6. RTFKT X NIKE DUNK GENESIS CRYPTOKICKS Sneaker Powered by DRM OS and Skin Vial Tech. Source: Gorny (2022)

Fig. 7. CLO 3D. Source: ADC Seams (2021)

addition to simplifying the entire development of the piece from the beginning, as seen in Figs. 7 and 8 (BOF TEAM 2020). As Clo and Marvelous Designer’s have grown over the last 10 years, they have been developed further and further due to the engagement with the user, and as a result, CLO-SET (CLO-SET 2022) was developed, which allows the user a three-dimensional simulation of clothing created by himself. The team of these programs continues to work

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Fig. 8. Modular Mode – Marvelous Designer. Source: Burton (2017)

on new projects, always focusing on the user and the industry (BOF TEAM 2020; CLO 2022).

7 Conclusion Through the analysis of Nike and CLO, it was possible to explore how society is constantly changing and adapting to novelty. It is possible to use modular design, as presented, to change components and create diversity, and technology, to bridge the gap between information, the amount of data and the creation of the most varied combinations. RTFKT and Nike, through their latest collection (RTFKT X NIKE DUNK GENESIS CRYPTOKICKS Sneaker Powered by DRM OS and Skin Vial Tech) have basically united design to modular design, through technology, being possible to change certain aspects of sneakers, allowing the creation of new models always with the same base. CLO makes it possible to create various pieces of clothing design, using the creative and recreational part. Thus, we conclude that the marriage between modular design and technology works by creating and developing more practical, diverse and sustainable solutions, based on practicality, creativity and fun.

References ADC Seams: The Future of Fashion - CLO 3D - ABC Seams® (2021). https://abcseams.com/clo3d-virtual-prototyping/ Alsever, J.: RTFKT is selling NFT cybersneakers to the metaverse - Utah Business (2021). https:// www.utahbusiness.com/rtfkt-made-millions-off-of-nft-cybersneakers/ Besser, L.: Dead white man’s clothes: How fast fashion is turning parts of Ghana into toxic landfill - ABC News (2021). Retrieved 2 June 2022. from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-12/ fast-fashion-turning-parts-ghana-into-toxic-landfill/100358702 BoF: The 10 Themes That Will Define the Fashion Agenda in 2021 | BoF Professional, News & Analysis | BoF. Business of Fashion (2021). https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/retail/ 10-themes-that-will-define-the-fashion-agenda-in-2021-the-year-ahead BoF: Nike Acquires Virtual Fashion Start-Up RTFKT (2022). https://www.businessoffashion. com/articles/technology/nike-acquires-virtual-fashion-start-up-rtfkt/ BOF TEAM: At CLO Virtual Fashion, Digitising the Design Process to Drive Transformation | BoF (2020). https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/technology/at-clo-virtual-fashion-dig itising-the-design-process-to-drive-transformation/

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Burton, A.: Marvelous Designer 7 Overview (2017). https://80.lv/articles/marvelous-designer-7overview/ Camuri, M.: Unlocking AI’s potential to transform fashion (n.d.) Catel, F., Monateri, J.: Strategic perspectives on modularity To cite this version : HAL Id : halshs00097733 (2006) Clark, G., Kosoris, J., Hong, L.N., Crul, M.: Design for sustainability: current trends in sustainable product design and development. Sustainability 1(3), 409–424 (2009). https://doi.org/10.3390/ su1030409 CLO-SET: CLO-SET (n.d.). Retrieved 25 May 2022. from https://style.clo-set.com/aboutus CLO: CLO | 3D Fashion Design Software (n.d.). Retrieved 10 May2022. from https://www.clo3d. com/en/company/about-clo CLO 3D: CLO | 3D Fashion Design Software (n.d.). Retrieved 30 June 2022. from https://www. clo3d.com/en/ Davis, G.: Nike Dunk Genesis Cryptokicks Now Available! Here’s How To Purchase These NFT Sneakers | Tech Times (2022). https://www.techtimes.com/articles/274797/20220427/ nike-dunk-genesis-cryptokicks-now-available-heres-purchase-nft-sneakers.htm dictionary.com (n.d.): Sneakerhead Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com. Retrieved 10 February 2022. From https://www.dictionary.com/browse/sneakerhead Fernandes, O.R., Microsoft: XNFY LAB (2019). https://xnfylab.com Frings, G.S.: Moda: do conceito ao consumidor, p. 496 (2012) Gorny, L.: Stink Studios reports back on its treasure hunt to get Nike’s first NFT (2022). https:// www.itsnicethat.com/news/rtfkt-nike-dunk-genesis-digital-260422 Hernandez, J.: NIKE, Inc. Acquires RTFKT, Preps For Metaverse (2021). https://sneakernews. com/2021/12/13/nike-rtfkt-acquisition/ Kim, S.: CLO Virtual Fashion (2009). https://clovirtualfashion.com Leavy, P.: Research Design - Quantitative, Qualitative, Mixed Methods, Arts-Based, and Comunity-Based Participatory Research Approaches. The Guilfoord Press (2017) Ledger Insights: Nike, RTFKT launch CryptoKicks NFT customizable sneaker collection - Ledger Insights - enterprise blockchain (2022). https://www.ledgerinsights.com/nike-rtfkt-launch-cry ptokicks-nft-customizable-sneaker-collection/ Marczyk, G., DeMatteo, D., Festinger, D.: Essentials of Research Design and Methodology. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (2005). https://doi.org/10.18488/journal.10/2017.6.3/10.3.48.57 McDowell, M.: 2022 fashion-tech predictions | Vogue Business (2022). https://www.voguebusi ness.com/technology/2022-fashion-tech-predictions Muret, D.: Pitti relança a sua e-P Summit dedicada à moda e tecnologia em Florença (2022). https://pt.fashionnetwork.com/news/Pitti-relanca-a-sua-e-p-summit-dedicada-a-modae-tecnologia-em-florenca,1402432.html Novikov, A.M., Novikov, D.A.: Communications in cybernetics, systems science and engineering - research methodology from philosophy of science to research design. In: Kybernetes, vol. 41, Issue 5/6, Taylor & Francis Group (2013). https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2012.06741eaa.005 Nunes, F., Júnior, J., Mauro, R.: MODULARIZAÇÃO - CONCEITOS , ABORDAGENS E BENEFÍCIOS : UMA REVISÃO TEÓRICA. July (2014) pplware: Nike aposta no metaverso com a compra da RTFKT (2021). https://pplware.sapo.pt/int ernet/nike-aposta-no-metaverso-com-a-compra-da-rtfkt/ Rarible: RTFKT SKIN VIAL: EVO X - Collection | Rarible (n.d.). Retrieved 30 June 2022. From https://rarible.com/skinvial-evox/items Ribeiro, L., Miguel, R., Duarte, P.: Aplicação experimental do co-design e da modularidade no design de moda. In: Congresso E_design – Visões Para o Ensino Na Europa Nos Novos Contextos Ambientais e Económicos, August 2015 (2009)

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Turning an Existing Design System into a Service for the BtoB Market (Case Study)—How? Verónica Silva1(B) , Rodrigo Hernández-Ramírez2 , Beatriz Fonseca1 , Bárbara D’Alcobia1 , and Rodrigo Morais2 1 IADE – Faculty of Design, Technology and Communication, Universidade Europeia, Avenida

D. Carlos I, 4, 1200-649 Lisbon, Portugal [email protected], [email protected] 2 UNIDCOM/IADE, Avenida D. Carlos I, 4, 1200-649 Lisbon, Portugal {rodrigo.ramirez,rodrigo.morais}@universidadeeuropeia.pt

Abstract. Nowadays, digital product and service development companies have invested heavily in design systems. Design systems eliminate inconsistencies across products, save time, and provide means for all stakeholders to communicate better, thus reducing error and development time, resulting in faster cycles of development and, ultimately, better experiences for end-users. In some cases, the design system might show potential for becoming a tool that could be shared beyond the company and be adopted and repurposed by other companies. Such is the case of Mondrian, a design system that Claro’s DesignOps teams developed. The problem is that Claro’s DesignOps team was unsure how to turn Mondrian into a product-service system, nor which could be the ideal market for it. Through semi-structured interviews with the creators of Mondrian and drawing from current best practices concerning design systems development, we found out that the best customer would be the BtoB market because of the complexity involved in the development, implementation, and maintenance of a design system. In this paper, we describe the case study we performed, the research and the analysis of the information obtained. The process we followed might interest anyone engaging in digital product and service development and design research. Keywords: Design system · Product-service system · Semi-structured interviews · Graphic design · Digital design

1 Introduction Visual design is about creating meaning from shapes; paraphrasing Paul Rand (Rand 2008), it is about establishing relationships, specifically between form and content. Furthermore, in that process, going from complexity to simplicity, or rather, to understandability; since, as Don Norman (Norman 2010) would put it, the role of design is making complexity not simple but understandable. Moreover, understandability is strongly influenced by aesthetics (Norman 2004), particularly in the context of digital design, as it is well known nowadays that whenever users regard a digital product as © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 104–114, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_10

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more aesthetically pleasing, they also consider it easier to use (Tractinsky 1997; Kurosu 1995). This strong correlation is known as the “aesthetic usability effect” (Yablonski 2020). In visual design and, therefore, in User Interface design,1 the most effective means to make something seem consistently “well designed”—and hence aesthetically pleasing and usable—are visual coherence and hierarchy, which in turn are best achieved through adequate management of rules and constraints. Coherence and hierarchy have become even more important as companies develop products that have to provide a consistent user experience (UX) across a growing ecosystem of platforms and contexts. For most users, the interface is the product (Gould 1985); therefore, consistency should manifest through interfaces that, amongst other things, are effective, efficient, easy to learn, and memorable. Otherwise, products risk falling prey to the consequences of “Jakob’s Law” (Yablonski 2020). Over the last decade, design systems have become a popular means for companies to maintain consistency across their digital products and make the development and maintenance of those products more efficient by allowing all the people involved to communicate better. Companies—usually through their “DesignOps” teams—normally develop design systems tailored to their needs. However, as in the case of IBM’s “Carbon” or Google’s “Material Design”, sometimes those design systems become product-like, open-source tools that allow other companies (particularly medium to small-sized companies that struggle to develop a design system from scratch) to develop their products. Nonetheless, such systems can become highly complex and include features that are not useful for all potential users. While nowadays there are plenty of sources (albeit mostly non-academic) concerning design systems and best practices for developing them, there is little concerning how to transform an existing design system into a product. This paper describes the process we followed to understand how Mondrian, a design system created by Claro Brazil, could be “productized” for third parties. Through a case study (composed of semi-structured interviews and an extensive literature review) and based on best practices about design systems, we show that in this case, the target audience for Mondrian would be BtoB instead of BtoC because of the complexity involved in implementing and maintaining a design system. In Section Two, we offer a contextualization of the importance and use of design systems in contemporary digital design, as well as a brief history of Mondrian. In Section Three, we delve into best practices for design systems and product-service systems. Section four describes the methodology we followed in conducting this research. Section five contains our discussion after analyzing all the information gathered. Lastly, Section six focuses on the implications that our research brings for design research and the use of design systems. Overall, we claim that: a) the implementation of a design system must be done in incremental steps; b) the best ally when building a design system is the stakeholders; c) case studies should be utilized to a greater extent to encourage the interlinking of design theory and practice. Such assertions shed light on the way designers conduct their research, as well as how design systems are being implemented around the world.

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2 The Emergence of Design Systems Although they have become prevalent in recent years, design systems—or rather systematic approaches to design—are not new. Design emerged as a recognizable practice during the industrial revolution when distinguishing the tasks of conceiving new products and producing them became a necessity. This separation between making and producing eventually turned designing into a process of finding which things deserved to be created and multiplied (Redstrom 2020), which raised the question of which methods would be more apt for doing so and what would be the best way to codify and convey them. Design as a discipline emerged because of this quest to systematize the process(es) of design, first by the Bauhaus’ attempt to join art and technology and the establishment of the “grammar” of design (Buchanan 2009) and afterwards by the Ulm School of Design’s systems-thinking approach and the “design methods movement” of the second half of the twentieth century (Cross 2001). This process of systematization has accompanied the evolution of design through the “four orders” spanning its disciplinary scope of action: communication, construction & fabrication, action and deliberation, and systemic integration (Buchanan 1998; Buchanan 2009). Design systems, as we now understand them, are primarily used in the context of digital design, but both User Interface Design (UID) and visual design owe most of their elements, rules, and principles to the evolution of graphic design. Things such as Layout, typography, color, perceptual and graphic principles are all concepts that were established and “worked” by graphic designers before W.A. Dwiggins coined the term “graphic design” in the early 1920s. From Russian Constructivism, Dada, Futurism, and De Stijl to the Bauhaus’s incorporation of Gestalt psychology and Itten’s color theory, to the (Swiss) International Typographic style, twentieth-century graphic design, these movements constitute the roots of contemporary visual design (and culture). Nonetheless, of all the graphic design movements, two had a more decisive influence on the emergence of contemporary graphic design, desktop publishing, web design, and design systems: the Bauhaus and the International Typographic Style (Vesselov 2019). Both emphasized the notion of a unified design language with rigorous guidelines for arranging and combining elements and focusing on modularity and rational patterns (e.g., a mathematical grid). The rise of personal computing, the emergence of the World Wide Web and Web technologies such as CSS JavaScript also contributed to the development of design systems. In particular, the growing adoption of JavaScript since the mid-2000s brought a paradigm shift in web design and development: it enabled web developers and designers to enhance interactivity and performance by allowing them to build websites in a modular fashion through components. This means that instead of building an entire website one webpage at a time, they could use “lego-like” components that could be easily manipulated, combined, reused, shared, and repurposed following patterns not only across a single website but across multiple websites. Arguably, the current popularity of design systems owes much to Google’s “Material Design”, which was initially released in 2014, however much of the foundations of contemporary design systems as we now understand them have deeper historical roots in design. In 2006, Yahoo! released its YUI Library as open source, a collection of tools for developing applications used by Yahoo!’s development team. YUI became a landmark for how component-based frameworks should be organized and had significant

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influence on Twitter’s Bootstrap (originally released as “Blueprint” in 2011), also an open-source component-based framework for front-end development. These component libraries were, in turn, heavily inspired by the work of Jenifer Tidwell (2020) on UI design. However, pattern-oriented design can be traced even further back to Christopher Alexander’s (1977) “A Pattern Language”, a landmark text that had a profound impact on the evolution of object-oriented programming. The shift from page-based design to pattern-oriented component-based design brought the DRY (Do not Repeat Yourself) principle to digital design and thus made web design faster and easier. Nonetheless, having a growing number of components that could be infinitely combined and styled made it necessary for companies to have some means to organize them and categorize the different ways (and contexts) in which they could be used. Otherwise, they would risk losing track of them and ending up with visually incoherent products and families of products. Here is where design systems come into play. In general terms, a system may be defined as any set of elements within a given constraint that interact with each other following certain “rules”, this interaction leads to some form of emergent behavior. In the case of a design system, the elements are UI components, and the rules are the visual guidelines. Still, however, as is the case with most complex concepts, there is no single definition of a design system. Many sources, including The Interaction Design Foundation, characterize design systems as libraries of (User Interface) components and guidelines. Nonetheless, a design system is more than a collection of components and guidelines, and could be better understood as a set of interconnected patterns and shared practices (Kholmatova 2017a, b). Design patterns are established, recurring, and reusable solutions for specific problems in specific contexts, that suggest function, interaction, and intent (MacDonald 2019). Patterns may be functional (e.g., buttons, headers, form elements) or perceptual (e.g., typography, color palette, interactions, animations); they are the “building blocks” of the interface. For their part, practices are the way people in a team, particularly designers and developers, choose to create, implement, organize, share, and talk about those patterns. As any other designed thing, a design system should be easy to learn and use, it should be flexible, but also robust and privilege coherence. As noted earlier, design systems thus represent a means for companies to develop and maintain a cohesive and consistent visual identity, which also implies developing a unified language that allows teams to communicate and minimize errors and misunderstandings, thus allowing the company to be more efficient (Frost 2019). Efficiency and coherence were the main drivers behind the development of Mondrian, a design system developed by Claro Brazil’s (Claro is a subsidiary of América Móvil, the largest telecommunications company in Latin America) DesignOps team in 2019. Mondrian was conceived as an ecosystem of component libraries flexible enough to be adapted to different users yet consistent enough to maintain semantic coherence. The libraries can be installed in the most common design and front-end development tools. Currently, however, access to Mondrian’s libraries is invite-only, as the process for turning the system into a product-service is ongoing. As noted in the introduction, the goal of this paper is to outline part of the experience we had working with Claro’s DesignOps to produtize Mondrian. In the following section, we provide an account of

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the ideas that helped us to understand what are the features that a robust design system should have, to understand whether Mondrian meets them (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Example of the design elements that can be configured inside Mondrian’s design system

3 What Makes a Good Design System and a Good Product-Service System A well-implemented design system should provide consistent styling through standardized elements (boxes, menus, approved brand colors and fonts, and icons) and guidelines about how and when to use and combine those elements (IDF 2022). Fessenden (2021) notes that design systems have two main parts: the design repository (a style guide, a component library, and a pattern library) and the people who manage the system. This characterization highlights a typically overlooked aspect of design systems: they are not static. Having a repository and guidelines is not enough; to be genuinely functional, a design system needs operators who maintain and update and contribute to its growth. When properly used, a design system can bring considerable advantages for design teams who deal with complex projects (Couldwell et al. 2019; Fessenden 2021). A design system allows teams to replicate design work at larger scales by providing a means to categorize and organize UI components. Efficiency and productivity increase as designers and developers can focus their effort on essential tasks and eventually tackle more complex projects. Moreover, a robust design system can serve as a unified language on which stakeholders with different responsibilities can rely. Finally, since the design system is meant to become the sole repository of visual language for an organization, it can also serve as an educational tool and reference for new employees, junior designers,

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and anyone involved in creating products within that organization. When all of these criteria are met, an organization is likely to have developed a strong brand and the means to offer users of their product’s visual consistency and, therefore, a better user experience across multiple platforms. Design systems, however, can be problematic, although this is not often mentioned in the literature. These problems usually arise when the design system is not appropriately used and can lead to frustration, eventually leading the team to abandon it altogether. According to Fessenden (2021), most problems arise due to poor management and understanding of the role of a design system within an organization: 1. All stakeholders must be acquainted with the design system and its proper use. 2. After the design system is created, a dedicated team must maintain it. 3. Everyone in the organization needs to understand that products, particularly digital ones, are not static; they require constant updating to meet the requirements and specifications of the technologies supporting them. A design system must evolve alongside the products. When enclosed within a single organization, a design system may be regarded as a (complex) tool. However, when the design system is conceived or scaled to work across multiple organizations, it can arguably be regarded as a product-service (PSS). According to Goedkoop et al. (1999), “a product service system is a system of products, services, networks of players, and supporting infrastructure that continuously strives to be competitive, satisfy customer needs and have a lower environmental impact than traditional business models”. Albeit with some variations, most subsequent definitions of PSS have been based on that one. Design methodologies that are PSS-specific are not abundant. Therefore, most PSS are developed through “conventional” product design approaches (Cook et al. 2006). Hence, there is the danger of overlooking the relationship between the tangible and intangible components of the PSS and how they might evolve (Mittermeyer et al. 2010). In the specific case of Mondrian, the design system discussed in this paper, the team needs to consider the requirements, advantages, and disadvantages of both a design system and a product-service system. Developing each is a difficult task already but focusing solely on constructing a design system would lead to limited success in the future due to the highly competitive environment of design products. In section five, we discuss the main points of the interview conducted with the Claro team to study the literature discussed so far in a real-world application.

4 Methodology: How We Conducted Our Research In early 2021, Claro’s DesignOps team approached our school (to maintain the anonymity of this paper, the name of our school has been omitted) to see whether we would be interested in establishing some form of collaboration with them. After several meetings with Claro, we organized a team of graduate and undergraduate students from our branding and design courses and created a brief detailing a year-long project that would include several subprojects and outputs, including the productizing of Mondrian. Given the nature of this task (i.e., determining how Mondrian could be scaled from an in-house tool to a product-service for third-party users), we decided that the best approach would be to treat the situation as a case study.

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Typically, case studies comprise three phases: (1) Define & design; (2) Prepare and collect data; and (3) Analyze & conclude (Summers et al. 2008). During the first phase, we got acquainted with Mondrian and participated in several meetings and workshops with Claro’s DesignOps to understand their needs and the requirements that we should meet; during that phase, we determined that the best approach would be to analyze Mondrian in terms of the business opportunity it could bring for Claro. For the second phase, we conducted a semi-structured interview with Henrique Aveiro, leader of the DesignOps team, and carried out an extensive literature review to frame and compare the information we would obtain. Finally, we analyzed all the information obtained, which we discuss in Sects. 5 and 6 of this paper. Many researchers believe that the case studies are not robust enough to qualify as a research method, but according to Summers et al. (2008), an extensive level of investigation can be achieved if data triangulation is used. Heale et al. (2013) define triangulation in research as “the use of more than one approach to researching a question. The objective is to increase confidence in the findings by confirming a proposition using two or more independent measures.” To carry out the data collection for this paper, we utilized independent sources (interview and literature review) that, when combined, created a sturdier body of research. When conducting case studies, after combining quantitative and qualitative data and analyzing it, three different outcomes may arise (Teddlie et al. 2003): “(1) the results may converge and lead to the same conclusions; (2) the results may relate to different objects or phenomena but may be complementary to each other and used to supplement the individual results; and (3) the results may be divergent or contradictory.” In the case of this research, we arrived at converging results, which “increase the validity through verification” (Teddlie et al. 2003). These results are discussed in detail in section five of this paper and aid our objective of developing design theory and practice in proximity. Regarding the interview, we chose to perform a semi-structured interview, mainly because although “the interviewer prepares a list of predetermined questions, semistructured interviews unfold in a conversational manner offering participants the chance to explore issues they feel are important” (Clifford 2016). While we already had thought about the main topics we wanted to explore while speaking to the Claro team, we anticipated that additional topics would arise during the conversation. Eventually, this method turned out to be the most appropriate for gathering the qualitative data for this investigation.

5 What We Found Out During our interview with Henrique Aveiro, we learned about the internal process the team went through when creating Mondrian, as well as some of the challenges they encountered and the main takeaways from this substantial undertaking. According to Aveiro, although people usually confuse the terms, it is essential to differentiate a design system from a design library; since the latter is just part of that system (as noted in the previous section). Additionally, Aveiro emphasized the need to give access to the assets to all the people involved in creating materials, including designers, developers, and marketers. In other words, the system must be centralized but accessible. The former

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statement aligns with the ideas of Couldwell et al. (2019) and Fessenden (2021) about the design system needing to be a single source of materials within an organization. Aveiro notes that people within the organization should understand the importance of centralization and scalability before creating a design system. All stakeholders involved need to understand that the system will become a bible-like tool (Couldwell et al. 2019) containing all information about UI components but also about branding and visual design. In addition, for the system to be scalable, the team should be able to handle an ever-increasing workload by repurposing different design elements in various situations (Weinstock et al. 2006) without resorting to creating new elements repeatedly (the DRY principle). Aveiro notes that the first step in that process is to create the simplest elements, such as the typographic scale, and make it available to every stakeholder. By doing so, people will begin to learn how to use the new system and why they should use it. After that initial step, icons and other elements may be added. Finally, code elements for both designers and developers can be included in the system. By then, most users should be comfortable with the system, and the transition will be likely uncomplicated. Furthermore, Aveiro pointed out that once the design system is set up, someone must oversee its maintenance and updating, introducing modifications according to the organization’s or team’s specific needs. Moreover, Aveiro highlighted the importance of providing proper training to current and new employees or team members to guarantee the system’s best use. In his words, it is equally important to educate others about the fact that a design system goes beyond the technical or design elements and is a strategic asset for the organization. This idea echoes Couldwell et al. (2019), who note the importance of "selling" the design system within the organization through strategic partnerships with coworkers and clearly explaining how the system can bring value and tangible benefits to all stakeholders. After Claro’s DesignOps team used Mondrian for some time, they noticed the advantages that tools like those bring to an organization and its employees, particularly those working in cross-functional teams. Hence, the next logical step was to turn Mondrian into a product they could sell to other companies. Aveiro claims that Claro is a company with a forward-thinking model. Considering they already have a large customer base; productizing Mondrian would be an excellent opportunity to expand their products and services portfolio to include a product-service asset. Manzini et al. (2003) define a product-service system as "an innovation strategy, shifting the business focus from designing (and selling) physical products only, to designing (and selling) a system of products and services which are jointly capable of fulfilling specific client demands". In that sense, it is understandable that an organization focused on telecommunications, such as Claro, decides to expand its product and service portfolio. Nonetheless, selling a product-service system (PSS) is not a simple endeavour, with many factors to consider. For starters, “consumers in certain parts of the world are more likely to accept the PSS than those from other parts. Consideration of the cultural conditions is necessary for the PSS, and an organization should first verify that the right conditions are in place.“ (Beuren et al. 2013). In that sense, despite Claro being a company that operates in 18 countries in America and seven countries in Europe (Claro 2021), the buyer for the PSS is not necessarily an existing customer, nor individuals

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yearning for a design system. Thus, the BtoB (Business to Business) market might be a feasible solution for the Mondrian design system. Mondrian is an advantageous asset for Claro’s DesignOps as not all companies who need a design system can afford to create one from scratch. As shown in Fig. 2, creating a comprehensive design system can be costly in terms of resources and time. Alternatively, adopting an existing design system is cheaper and faster to implement, but it can also lead to low brand differentiation. For this reason, combining Mondrian (the product) and Claro’s DesignOps expertise (the service) could become a value proposition for third parties. It follows that Claro’s focal point should be the BtoB market, considering the pros and cons described before. While individuals or even small companies do not need a design system the size of Mondrian’s, more prominent companies may have the means to create their own.

Fig. 2. Diagram explaining the 3 ways one can approach a design system

6 Implications Three main ideas may be explored further based on the research undertaken for this paper. First, when attempting to implement a design system, starting with a more conservative goal is vital. As Aveiro notes, people within an organization implementing a design system must first get acquainted with it and regard it as the source of visual design and tools. Only after they realize, through practice, the importance of a centralized and scalable system will they likely begin to use it more frequently. For instance, Mondrian began as a library for typographic scales; later, color palettes and other design elements were incorporated until it grew to harbor all the components and style guides required by the companies in their design system. Up to this point, however, the team members were already using Mondrian naturally, and no drastic transition was needed. Secondly, contrary to popular belief, the people inside a company that are the main assets in adopting a design system are not the designers or developers but the stakeholders. Suppose the people who make the decisions, particularly financial decisions, do not understand the benefits to the business (including competitive advantage, faster results,

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and lower effort). In that case, obtaining the necessary support to implement a design system will be more challenging. Besides the initial effort and resources, there must be an allocated team in charge of maintaining and updating the system and training newcomers, which translates to revenue. Therefore, if a team wishes their design system to remain operational, clear communication about the overall benefits is the most pressing matter. Finally, after comparing the results obtained from the literature review and the close examination of a real-world case in point, it is evident that the design research requires additional case studies. Not only will the practical cases be validated or rejected, but the theory can be updated and enhanced when required. In design, one needs both theory and practice. Without the first, the solutions might lack accuracy, and without the practical aspect, the theory lacks execution. Therefore, case studies can function as the quintessential cross-over between theory and practice in this situation.

7 Conclusion In closing, we state that for a design system to be successfully implemented within a company, small-scale maneuvers should be taken for people to get acquainted with using a centralized and scalable source for all their design needs. Furthermore, to assure that the entire project remains alive, stakeholders and decision-makers must be involved in the project and explicitly be informed about the benefits their company will have if the design system is used correctly. Lastly, further case studies must be executed to benefit the design theory and practice. In the context of digital design, given the aesthetic usability effect, the relationship between form and content will be the predominant focus for designers. Hence the importance of having a design system in place, especially if cross-functional teams are involved. To continue this research, Claro’s Mondrian system will be tested when constructing our school’s design system (to maintain the anonymity of this paper, the name of our school has been omitted). The goal is to create uniformity in all the materials created within the institution, both internal and external, and involve a group of students with a real-life challenge. Thence, the initial goal of linking theory and practice will be achieved.

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Antecedents of Engagement on Social Media: Fatigue and Anxiety Pedro Espírito Santo1(B) , Sandra Marques da Cruz2 , Nuno Fortes2 and Patrícia Azinheira Cardoso3

,

1 Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão (ESTGA), Universidade de Aveiro,

Rua Comandante Pinho e Freitas, nº 28, 3750-127 Águeda, Portugal [email protected] 2 Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra – ESTGOH, Rua General Santos Costa nº4, 3400-124 Oliveira do Hospital, Portugal {sandra.cruz,nuno.fortes}@estgoh.ipc.pt 3 Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra – ESEC, Rua Dom João III, 3030-329 Coimbra, Portugal [email protected] Abstract. People are connected to the Internet every day and social networks are deeply embedded in our lives. Nowadays, more and more people expose themselves on the various social networks for various purposes. For example, people search for information about products and services or seek to exchange experiences with other people. Therefore, the amount of information that people have today is high and causes exhaustion and fatigue. Due to the fatigue caused by information, some social media users become anxious and social media engagement is affected. Within this framework, our study tested a model that relates social media fatigue and anxiety to engagement. To this end, it was tested using structural equations with a sample of 280 social network users and the results found that social network fatigue causes anxiety in individuals. Additionally, we point out that anxiety influences social media engagement. Keywords: Anxiety · Fatigue · Social media engagement

1 Introduction New technologies have transformed the interaction between individuals and, nowadays, they are present in most human tasks, whether at work or in personal life [1]. Nowadays, the internet is used for several purposes: as entertainment, as contact with friends and colleagues, as a work tool through social networks or as an indispensable tool in the academic environment [2]. The interactive features of social media attract users to be followers of multiple pages and user profiles. In this sense, social media have changed the dynamics of the business environment and facilitated communication between users. Data collected from the Statista website [3] show that there are 3.81 billion active users on social networks, and 3.76 billion users who access social networks through mobile devices. Thus, it can be seen that users access greater amounts of information that they did not have access to before. Thus, the information that users receive through © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 115–124, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_11

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the online channel is considerable and each user finds it difficult to manage the information they receive. This situation will cause a difficulty in paying due attention to the information received [4]. Consequently, social media have changed the communication habits between people and, in this sense, their engagement has been modified. However, engagement on brands’ social media pages is important to potense in users desirable behaviours for brands. For example, engagement contributes to increase customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention by brands and depends on daily use and contact with the information [5]. Some studies have showed that users who engage in social media create stronger relationships with their brands [6]. However, the exhaustion caused by the excess of information obtained through the Internet has consequences for human beings, namely fatigue and anxiety. Thus, the research presented here analyses the role of fatigue and anxiety in users’ involvement in social networks. Thus, we present the theoretical framework and a research model, from which, after analysing the results, we draw important conclusions.

2 Theoretical Framework 2.1 Fatigue Mental fatigue refers to the effects that people may experience after or during prolonged periods of cognitive activity. In this sense, fatigue is a very common phenomenon in modern daily life. The popularity of social media such as Facebook or Instagram has attracted many users who access social media many times a day [3]. Excessive use of social media results in fatigue. One of the consequences of compulsive social media use is fatigue and sometimes burnout due to the amount of information that individuals have access [4, 7]. Users who have higher levels of fatigue are more susceptible to physical and psychological problems, such as decreased personal and professional satisfaction [8]. 2.2 Anxiety The widespread use of social media produces a perpetual obsession and creates expectations that people are forced to respond quickly to meet the expectations of others. In this sense, we study anxiety in this research. Anxiety is defined as a generally apprehensive state of mind in which people worry about possible difficult situations or threats [9]. Traditional psychology literature suggests that anxious people are likely to suffer from multiple perceptual and evaluative disorders, such as misinterpretation of dangers and threats as well as issuing false alarms and engaging in irrational judgments and unsystematic information processing [10]. Consequently, anxious people experience this state of anxiety as a chronic problem. Moreover, they believe that their ability is limited in their engagement and concentration on the tasks performed [11].

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Therefore, fatigue and anxiety are related. Someone who is experiencing high levels of fatigue sees their abilities reduced, which reduces the ability to regulate and control mood and concentration and thus anxiety is higher [12]. Other studies reveal that anxiety is the result of fatigue and exhaustion states [13, 14]. In this framework, we propose the following hypothesis: H1: Fatigue caused by social networks has positive effects on users’ anxiety. 2.3 Social Media Engagement People have been exposed on social media for many purposes and engagement on social media usually, starts with a “Like” on a Facebook page [15] to follow the social network. Beukeboom et al. [16] references that when a user “Likes” a page, the notification appears in the “feed” of their “friends” and this action can be considered as a pass-through to other users [16, 17]. Customer engagement is a multidimensional concept that develops over time and is widely studied in the marketing literature [17, 18]. Social media engagement is divided into three levels: ‘liking’, ‘commenting’ and ‘sharing’ [19]. Muntinga et al. [20] presented the COBRA (Consumer’s Online Brand-Related Activities) model and suggested that the dimensions of social media engagement (‘consumption’, ‘contribution’ and ‘creation’) vary in the degree to which consumers interact with social media and engage in its consumption, contribution and content creation. The COBRA theory of Muntinga et al. [20] presents engagement under three dimensions as types of behaviour. Consumption appears as a first dimension, in which users view images and videos, read the information, but the user has a passive behaviour, with no interaction with the social media pages. Contribution is a second dimension in which users like, comment, and share experiences of others on social media. Muntinga et al. [20] note that these two dimensions can appear as a single dimension. At a higher level of involvement in social media, the third dimension appears, which refers to users’ actions that produce and publish original information and is designated as ‘creation’. In the consumption dimension, the user just observes and this is a very frequent behaviour in social networks [21, 22]. However, for anxious users, interacting on social networks at the consumption level is much easier because anonymity can be maintained and there is no contact which may cause fear about some negative evaluation [23]. In the literature review, we also found that users with anxiety, seek attention or support from other users on these social networks [24] and in that sense, consumption and contribution as a single dimension and conceptualizes the creation dimension as a high level of engagement. Therefore, our study will test the following hypotheses: H2: Anxiety has positive effects on consumption engagement H3: Anxiety has positive effects on the creation dimension of involvement The results of [20] showed that there is a hierarchical relationship between the dimensions COBRA: Consumption has an effect on contribution. Therefore, our study will also test the following hypothesis: H4: Consumption dimension has an effect on content creation in social media.

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From hypotheses presented, we built the conceptual model represented in Fig. 1:

Fig. 1. Conceptual model

3 Methodology To achieve the research objectives and evaluate the proposed model, we conducted a study in the context of social networks. Data collection was made through an online self-completion and respondents were contacted through social networks. The study variables were operationalized using scales existing in the literature and adapted to the context of our study. Following Dhir et al. [10] we used 2 items for fatigue (FAT). Anxiety (ANS) was measured using 3 items adapted from Dhir et al. [10] and items for the dimensions of engagement (consumption-Consumption, and creation-CREA dimensions) were measured from Schivinski et al. [25]. All items were measured using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Thus, we present the items that were used in this research (in Table 1). 3.1 Sample Data were collected through a self-administered survey conducted between September and December 2021. The sample collected has 280 valid answers and Table 2 shows the characterization of the sample. It is found that 59.6% are female and most of the observations are from individuals under 40 years of age (N = 162; 57.8%) (Table 2).

4 Results The sample size of this study allows for the use of multivariate analysis techniques such as structural equation modelling (SEM) considering the 5:1 (responses:items) rule [26]. SEM is a multivariate analysis technique used to analyse the proposed relationships. For this study, we used AMOS software and the research through SEM was analysed in two phases. First, the analysis of the measurement model (reliability and validity) and second, the hypotheses under study were evaluated through the significance of the relationships between the variables.

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Table 1. Items description Variables

Code and items description

Fatigue (FAT)

FAT1 - The amount of information on social media puts me under pressure FAT2 - I am overwhelmed with the amount of information available on social media

Anxiety (ANX)

ANS1 - I worry about what others think of me on social media ANS2 - I worry that others will not like me on social networks ANS3 - I worry that others do not like me on social networks ANS4 - I worry about what others say about me on social media

Consumption (CONS) CONS1 - I follow more pages on social networks than my friends CONS2 - I see more pictures on social networks than my friends CONS3 - I read more social media posts than my friends Creation (CREA)

CREA1 - I create more social media posts than most of my friends CREA2 - I post more pictures on social media than most people CREA3 - I create more content on social networks than other people CREA4 - I am one of the people who creates more videos for social networks

Table 2. Sample Variable

Category

N

%

Gender

Female

167

59,6

Male

113

40,4

Age

≤20

30

10,7

20–29

86

30,7

30–39

46

16,4

40–49

75

26,8

≥50

43

15,4

A preliminary analysis of the data was performed and we ran a series of regression models on the various constructs to calculate the VIF (Variance Inflactor Factor) value. Thus, we found that the VIF value is below the threshold recommended by the literature (VIF < 5) and, therefore, we assumed that multicollinearity is not considered problematic. In the analysis of asymmetry (Sk - Skewness) and flatness (Ku - Kurtosis), we concluded that the items do not diverge from normality (Sk < 3; Ku < 7) [26]. Additionally, we calculated the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value as well as Bartlett’s test of sphericity to measure sampling adequacy. The KMO is 0.835 (>0.7) and the sphericity is significant at p < 0.05. Therefore, the data are suitable for factor analysis. In addition, we analysed bias by the common method because our data were collected from the same source. To analyse this potential bias, we used ex ante and ex post

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procedures. The ex ante procedures were followed by recommendations from Podsakoff et al. [27]. We pre-tested the questionnaire with 22 social network users to avoid vague concepts and questions with complex syntax. In addition, on the first page of the survey, we informed respondents about the anonymity of their answers and that there would be no right or wrong answers for each item. From the procedures, ex post, we ran Harman’s one factor test and the result shows four factors, and the first factor explains 32.15% of the variance. 4.1 Measurement Model As the study variables were measured using existing scales, a confirmatory factor analysis with maximum likelihood estimation was performed to assess reliability and validity. The results of the model fit indices were acceptable (χ2 = 122.378; df = 59; χ2/df = 2.074; GFI = 0.923; CFI = 0.972; NFI = 0.948; IFI = 0.972; TLI = 0.963; RMSEA = 0.072) [28]. Table 3. Measurement model Variable

Mean

Std error

λ

t-values

R2

FATIGUE (CR = 0,781; AVE = 0,647) FAT1

1,84

0,858

0,921

6,883

0,848

FAT2

2,43

1,088

0,667

(a)

0,445

ANXIETY (CR = 0,943; AVE = 0,804) ANX1

2,47

1,167

0,897

18,86

0,805

ANX2

2,09

1,091

0,869

17,626

0,755

ANX3

2,36

1,171

0,94

20,841

0,883

ANX4

2,40

1,154

0,88

(a)

0,775

CONSUMPTION (CR = 0,921; AVE = 0,795) CONS1

1,98

0,953

0,85

16,497

0,723

CONS2

2,02

0,892

0,945

19,424

0,893

CONS3

2,04

0,864

0,877

(a)

0,769

CREATION (CR = 0,933; AVE = 0,777) CREA1

1,55

0,778

0,897

20,697

0,805

CREA2

1,51

0,716

0,95

23,984

0,903

CREA3

1,53

0,780

0,913

(a)

0,833

CREA4

1,29

0,594

0,753

14,186

0,567

Notes: CREA = Creation; CONS = Consumption; ANS = Anxiety; FAD = Fatigue; λ = standardized coefficients; R2 = multiple regression coefficient; (a) The path value was set to 1.0 to establish the construct metric. Average Extracted Variance (AVE) and Composite Reliability (CR)

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Convergent validity and reliability were analysed through the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) and Composite Reliability (CR) [28, 29]. Thus, Table 3 shows that AVE (ranging from 0.647 to 0.804) and CR (ranging from 0.781 to 0.943) are above the threshold values (AVE > 0.5; CR > 0.7). In addition, we examined the standardized loadings (λ) and all of them are above the recommended value (λ > 0.7) [30]. In Table 4, we present the Fornell and Larcker [31] criterion to examine discriminant validity. We found that all AVE values (on the diagonal of the table) are higher than the squared interconstruct correlation estimates. Table 4. Discriminant validity Variable

Fat

ANX

CONS

FAT

0.647

ANX

0.280*

0.804

CONS

0.174*

0.146*

0.795

CREA

0.091*

0.053*

0.294*

CREA

0.777

Notes: The values on the diagonal are the AVE (average variance extracted) values; * Correlations significant at 1% significance level; CREA = Creation; CONS = Consumption; ANX = Anxiety; FAD = Fatigue

4.2 Structural Model Table 5 shows that the structural model validated 3 of the 4 hypotheses under study. Furthermore, we found that the conctual model showed an adequate fit (χ2 = 135.74; df = 61; χ2/df = 2.225; GFI = 0.916; CFI = 0.967; NFI = 0.942; IFI = 0.967; TLI = 0.958; RMSEA = 0.077) [28]. Table 5. Hypothesis Test β

Hyp

Relation

t-values

p-values

Result

H1

FAT → ANX

0.521

6.440

p < 0.01

Corroborated

H2

ANX → CONS

0.389

5.439

p < 0.01

Corroborated

H3

ANX → CREA

0.031

0.443

p > 0.05

Not Corroborated

H4

CONS → CREA

0.531

7.215

p < 0.01

Corroborated

Notes: CREA = Creative; CONS = Consumption; ANX = Anxiety; FAT = Fatigue; β Standardized path coefficients

5 Discussion The Internet in general and social networks in specific, generate content for users and, currently, the amount of information that these users receive is vast [32]. Our research

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examined the relationship between psychological variables (fatigue and anxiety) and their effects on social media engagement. Therefore, information overload causes changes in online attitudes and behaviors [4]. The fatigue and pressure that exists due to social media content overload makes people immensely exhausted [10]. Our research sought to analyze the effects of fatigue on social media networks and we obtained evidence to conclude that anxiety is a state of mind that arises from fatigue, as suggested by Richards et al. [12]. Cognitive abilities are reduced and Chaouali [14] shows that users with higher online fatigue will be more vulnerable to anxiety states. In our study, we confirm that fatigue, in the context of social media, positively influences anxiety (βFAT→ANS = 0.521; t = 6.440; p < 0.01), so our research supports hypothesis H1. Anxiety is a psychological state related to a concern about the individuals’ relationship with others. Thus, considering that individuals with higher levels of anxiety interact online more frequently on social networks, our study obtained statistical significance to confirm that anxiety has effects on the consumption dimension of engagement (βANS→CONS = 0.389; t = 5.439; p < 0.01). Thus, this study concluded that users who are anxious for information on social media seek to obtain more content consumption by reading posts or comments. These findings are related to the statement by Vannucci et al. [24], suggesting that anxious users are more engaged with social media in order to reduce their anxiety state. Thus, we corroborate hypothesis H2. In this study, we found no direct relationship between anxiety and content creation on social media (βANS→CREA = 0.031; t = 0.443; p > 0.05) so our study does not support hypothesis H3. We believe that this result obtained in hypothesis H3 is related to two aspects that we consider relevant. On the one hand, the users in the sample of this study revealed that they create few contents for social networks and, on the other hand, according to the literature, anxiety is more related to the search for information to reduce the state of anxiety than to the publication of new and original contents by users [33]. However, our work found a significant relationship between Schivinski et al. [25] dimensions of engagement. We found that content consumption on social media has positive effects on content creation (βCONS→CREA = 0.531, t = 7.215; p < 0.01) which leads us to accept that users who consume more content are also the individuals who create more content. Therefore, hypothesis H4 is supported by this research.

6 Conclusions, Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research Our study presents a model in which most of the causal relationships between the constructs were supported by our research. The model presented has a good fit and proves to be adequate. At the theoretical level, this research concludes that there is a positive relationship between social network fatigue and anxiety. Our study also shows that users with higher levels of anxiety have higher social media engagement. At a practical level, we believe that this study should serve to understand the effects of psychological aspects, specifically the consequences of fatigue and anxiety, on social network engagement.

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Despite the important results, we considered that future research could include other variables to help explain the model like fear of missing out. This study looked at antecedent effects of social media engagement, so we suggest that further studies look at analyzing the consequences of social media engagement. In addition, our study only considered a sample of social network users living in Portugal. The analysis of users from other countries may be relevant to explain the model presented.

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15. Stephen, A.T.: The role of digital and social media marketing in consumer behavior. Curr. Opin. Psychol. 10, 17–21 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.10.016 16. Beukeboom, C.J., Kerkhof, P., de Vries, M.: Does a virtual like cause actual liking? How following a brand’s facebook updates enhances brand evaluations and purchase intention. J. Interact. Mark. 32, 26–36 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2015.09.003 17. Santos, S., Santo, P., Augusto, L.: The role of customer engagement in the COVID-19 era. In: Samala, N. (ed.) Insights, Innovation, and Analytics for Optimal Customer Engagement, Hershey, PA, USA, pp. 91–116. IGI Global (2021) 18. Santo, P.E., Cardoso, P.: 500 Brand and Marketing Definitions: for Researchers and Professionals. Independently published (2021) 19. Peters, K., Chen, Y., Kaplan, A.M., Ognibeni, B., Pauwels, K.: Social media metrics — a framework and guidelines for managing social media. J. Interact. Mark. 27(4), 281–298 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2013.09.007 20. Muntinga, D.G., Moorman, M., Smit, E.G.: Introducing COBRAs. Int. J. Advert. 30(1), 13–46 (2011). https://doi.org/10.2501/IJA-30-1-013-046 21. Ferreira, S., Santos, S., Santo, P.E.: Social media engagement through video advertising: informativeness and self brand connection as predictors. In: Antipova, T. (ed.) ICADS 2021. AISC, vol. 1352, pp. 249–260. Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03071782-7_23 22. Utz, S., Beukeboom, C.J.: The role of social network sites in romantic relationships: effects on jealousy and relationship happiness. J. Comput. Mediat. Commun. 16(4), 511–527 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2011.01552.x 23. Shepherd, R.-M., Edelmann, R.J.: Reasons for internet use and social anxiety. Personal. Individ. Differ. 39(5), 949–958 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2005.04.001 24. Vannucci, A., Flannery, K.M., Ohannessian, C.M.: Social media use and anxiety in emerging adults. J. Affect. Disord. 207, 163–166 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2016.08.040 25. Schivinski, B., Christodoulides, G., Dabrowski, D.: Measuring consumers’ engagement with brand-related social-media content: development and validation of a scale that identifies levels of social-media engagement with brands. J. Advert. Res. 56 (2016). https://doi.org/10.2501/ JAR-2016-004 26. Hair, J.F., Black, W.C., Babin, B.J., Anderson, R.E.: Multivariate Data Analysis. Pearson Education Limited (2013) 27. Podsakoff, P.M., MacKenzie, S.B., Lee, J.-Y., Podsakoff, N.P.: Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. J. Appl. Psychol. 88(5), 879–903 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879 28. Bagozzi, R.P., Yi, Y.: On the evaluation of structural equation models. J. Acad. Mark. Sci. 16(1), 74–94 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02723327 29. Anderson, J.C., Gerbing, D.W.: Structural equation modeling in practice: a review and recommended two-step approach. Psychol. Bull. 103(3), 411–423 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0033-2909.103.3.411 30. Chin, W.W.: The partial least squares approach for structural equation modeling. In: Modern Methods For Business Research, (Methodology for Business and Management. Mahwah, NJ, US, pp. pp. 295–336. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers (1998) 31. Fornell, C., Larcker, D.F.: Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. J. Mark. Res. 18(1), 39–50 (1981). https://doi.org/10.2307/3151312 32. Augusto, L., Santos, S., Santo, P.: E-Commerce: O papel principal da confiança. Revista Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação (E34), 557–570 (2020). (in Portuguese) 33. Augusto, L., Santos, S., Santo, P.E.: Envolvimento nas redes sociais: uma análise multigrupos entre indivíduos de Portugal e da Polónia. Revista Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação (E24), 112–124 (2019). (in Portuguese)

A Defense of Friction—Or Why Ubiquitous Computing Should not Recede to the Background Rodrigo Hernández-Ramírez(B)

and Davide Maria Parrilli

UNIDCOM/IADE, Unidade de Investigação em Design e Comunicação, Av. D. Carlos I, 4, 1200-649 Lisbon, Portugal [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. The idea that friction is problematic and artefacts which draw attention to themselves are inefficient has significantly influenced how we think about ubiquitous computing. This paper shows that friction’s ambivalent nature as something that enables, and limits activity makes it an inescapable topic for design and an effective hermeneutical tool for approaching the relationship between complexity and privacy. We argue that by striving to make smart devices “self-effacing” and “seamless”, designers are bringing more underlying complexities and dangers for users. We contend the main challenge of designers is not avoiding or disguising frictions but helping users understand them and manage them. Finally, we argue that when balancing the unavoidable trade-offs between privacy and ease of use that seem to be intrinsic to ubiquitous computing, designers cannot continue to rely on legislation but adopt an ethical stance as a critical aspect of their practice. Keywords: Complexity · Design ethics · Friction · Privacy · Ubiquitous computing · User-centered design

1 Introduction Friction is a multifarious concept. As a physical phenomenon is not yet well understood as it emerges from complex interactions between components of a given system. Metaphorically, friction is often used to talk about negative situations arising from human–technology interactions. A longstanding tradition in engineering regards friction as something “noisy’ that invariably lowers productivity and increases costs (Franinovi´c and Serafin 2013). This understanding of friction continues to influence many design decisions. For example, to properly function, the Internet of Things (henceforth, IoT) and ubiquitous computing (henceforth, UC),1 Systems should be designed with interoperability and communicability in mind; thus, data accessibility and transmission must 1 There is a subtle difference between ubiquitous computing and the Internet of Things: the

former refers to the phenomenon of background, interface-less computing; the latter to the technical infrastructure that enables it. However, in this paper, IoT and UC will be treated interchangeably. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 125–136, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_12

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be as frictionless as possible. Similarly, in the context of interaction design and user experience (UX), elements, processes, and situations that confuse users are often called “frictions” (Cooper 2004), which designers are trained to eradicate or at least mitigate. The idea that friction is problematic and that artefacts which draw attention to themselves are inefficient has dramatically influenced the way we think about technologies nowadays, particularly smart artefacts. For many people, the most “profound” technologies (e.g., writing) are those that do not draw attention to themselves and become invisible (Weiser 1999)—once they silently fade into the background of human experience, we naturalize them; they exist “ready-to-hand” (Heidegger et al. 2010). Current trends in IoT design continue to push for further naturalizing human–technology interfacing by reducing frictions, simplifying use, and thus improving UX. Voice interfaces found in virtual assistants such as Apple’s “Siri” and Amazon’s Alexa are excellent examples of such trends. Nonetheless, frictions are often symptomatic of complex and deeper sociotechnical issues (Dorst 2015) and may not be resolved even by the most detailed and comprehensive UX design. Friction, in the restricted physical and extended metaphorical senses, cannot be eliminated, and for a good reason: friction is vital for many phenomena: for example, without it, we would not be able to walk. Furthermore, friction might be crucial for protecting people’s privacy. The IoT needs a constant flow of data to operate. A smart thermostat, for example, needs to “know” its users’ habits and preferences to be genuinely “smart”: It activates the energy-saving mode when it becomes aware that users leave the house and turns on the air conditioning when it is alerted that users are on their way home. Such behaviour is possible because an app connects the device to the users’ mobile phones. To that degree, ubiquitous computing is based on a recent economic paradigm that relies on the constant accumulation of people’s data, which has been described as “surveillance capitalism” (Foster and McChesney 2014; Zuboff 2019) or “surveillance society” (Capurro 2005).2 The problem is that such constant unbridled tracking reduces human experience to a raw material (Couldry and Mejias 2020; Zuboff 2019) which can be modelled to manipulate people, thus hindering their free will. Some authors make the case that personal information is a toxic asset (Véliz 2020). It follows that in a world where informational flows increasingly shape our sense of self, a minimum degree of “informational friction” is necessary for maintaining our privacy (Floridi 2014). This paper shows that friction’s ambivalent nature, as something that enables and limits activity, makes it an inescapable topic within design. It also shows that friction, as a concept, is an effective hermeneutical tool for approaching some of the dynamics of contemporary human-technology relations, particularly when looking at smart technologies and privacy. In this paper, we will focus on the friction between the need to make the necessary complexity of digital artefacts understandable for people and how that may compromise their privacy. We argue that this friction should be mediated by design ethics, meaning a conscious and responsible assessment by designers of the moral consequences that their actions and decisions throughout the design process will have

2 For the purposes of this paper, we contend that the term “surveillance” should be reserved for

situations where people’s freedom and life might be under threat; hence we favour instead of the term “tracking”.

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on the lives of the people using their creations. Following current research about privacy in design (see Parrilli and Hernández-Ram´ırez 2021), the paper begins with a brief account of the origins of the dominating conception of ubiquitous computing. Next, it discusses the friction between complexity and privacy and the problems caused by the “withdrawal paradigm” dominating ubiquitous computing design. Section four discusses how the enchanting conception of technology hinders our understanding of the frictions that artificial devices can bring to human life, whereas the final section outlines why an ethical stance can be beneficial for design. Overall, this paper aims to raise awareness about existing problems in user-centred design and how a stronger ethical stance could help overcome them and, hopefully, help designers develop better, privacy-respecting smart devices.

2 Tracing the Origins of IoT In recent years, digital technologies have dramatically changed how many everyday artefacts work. Thanks to digitalization, so-called “smart”—i.e., connected to the Internet— appliances perform many more functions than their analogue counterparts. For instance, a smart food processor not only chops and purees foodstuff but can also provide information about calories and suggest healthy recipes. Similar “augmented” functionalities exist in digital scales, headphones, thermostats and any other IoT artefact. Digitalization has blurred the distinction between being online and offline since many people inhabit both realms simultaneously, a condition Floridi (2015) calls the “onlife”. Ubiquitous computing (UC) has further generalized this condition. Nominally, the origins of UC date back to 1988, to the Computer Science Laboratory (CSL) at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). According to Mark Weiser, head of the laboratory at that time, the “Ubiquitous Computing Program” there developed originated as a radical response to the existing flaws of personal computers, namely: their complexity and poor usability, their constant “demand for attention”, their lack of mobility and the notion that they “isolated users” from other people and activities (1999, p. 693). Weiser and his team wanted to redefine “the entire relationship of humans, work, and technology” by displacing computing to the “environmental background”, thus privileging human-to-human relations over human-computer interfaces (1999, p. 694). In that utopia, devices would be fully interconnected through cheap wireless networks and, since information would be available everywhere, carrying a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) would not be required, making computing non-intrusively available throughout the environment (Weiser 1993b). This vision implied making not only the computer’s interface but the entire system “self-effacing” (Weiser 1993a, 1993b, p. 71); such disappearance, according to Weiser, would allow users to focus on the task at hand without worrying about operating the device. As envisioned by Weiser, UC was not assistive but augmenting. Its aim diverged from the idea that computers should be autonomous agents (e.g., robots) taking over human activities (Weiser 1993a). Rather than carrying out tasks on behalf of humans, UC would make the user feel that she completed the task herself, naturally and effortlessly. Unlike the PDA paradigm, where systems draw attention to themselves, UC would get out of the way, “allowing people to just go about their lives” (Weiser 1993b, p. 76).

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UC was not about portability, turning the computer into a “metamedium” (see Kay and Goldberg 1977), or furthering intimacy between humans and their devices—as is the case with contemporary smartphones. Moreover, Weiser’s vision of UC was “diametrically opposed” to virtual reality (VR). The reason is that the latter simulates a world “inside” the computer, creating “a map” rather than “a territory” (Weiser 1999, p. 3) that eschews the nuances and richness of the physical world (Weiser 1993a), failing to integrate computing with existing human environments and activities. Weiser’s phenomenological conception of UC has partially materialized in recent years. Our world is populated by many artificially “a-live” objects (e.g., motion-activated self-flushing toilets; programmable vacuums; smart thermostats, door locks, and speakers) with varying degrees of autonomy. The growth of mobile communication services (thanks to more satellites, cell sites, and WIFI hotspots) has made our physical environment friendlier to smart devices. More humans online, faster, and efficient computing, more sensors communicating with each other, more RFID tags, and more actuators have meant more opportunities for collecting data on human-machine transactions (Floridi 2012). This accumulation of data has enabled purely syntactical and semantically incompetent systems to be considered “smart”. Even though, for Weiser, UC could “adapt its behaviour in significant ways without requiring even a hint of artificial intelligence” (Weiser 1999, p. 5), current implementations go to great lengths to incorporate the latest artificial intelligence (AI) methods, such as machine learning. For Weiser, UC should take the focus away from the computer. Paradoxically, however, most a-live devices rely on smartphones as their interfaces, whether to accept the terms of service, manage preferences and updates, and program and monitor the device. Consumer-level UC does not merely work out of the box. To properly function, UC presupposes that all the systems in the network are capable of exchanging data. This interoperability is difficult to achieve. There is no universal standard governing how different devices should communicate over a network due to commercial and technical reasons. The current IoT ecosystem is thus filled with incompatible operating systems, software protocols, and dependencies. The resulting complexity exposes users to undesirable situations, such as component obsolescence, bugs and, more importantly for this paper, unbridled data collection and unsafe data handling, which are grave threats to people’s privacy.3

3 The Friction Between Complexity and Privacy and the “Withdrawal Paradigm” Weiser’s “ready-to-hand” vision of ubiquitous computing presupposes those technologies, and their interfaces should be as transparent and unobtrusive as possible; we may call this the withdrawal paradigm of UC. UI “transparency” and the idea that people should not be forced to overthink to use a device—to prevent them from feeling stupid or incompetent—are tenets of Interaction Design (IxD) and UX and, arguably, the reasons 3 Defining privacy is difficult because the understanding of the term is influenced by culture

and legislation. We characterize privacy mainly as data protection, meaning the safeguard of personal information or “informational privacy” (Floridi 2014).

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these fields exist in the first place. User-centred Design (UCD), the dominant paradigm in IxD and UX practice, emerged when engineers and researchers in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) realized that people are not logical machines nor “data-driven mammals” (Monteiro 2019) and therefore, it was not their job to have to adapt to machines, but rather the other way around. The job of designers, according to UCD, is to mediate human-technology relations, bridging the gaps by understanding human cognition and emotion (Norman 2010); in other words, their job is to make the complexity of systems understandable and manageable for users (Norman 2011). Designers do so by creating appropriate represented models of those systems, i.e., interfaces that are simple and easy to use but also transparent. The withdrawal paradigm, according to which well-designed things ought to be simple, austere, and transparent, stems partly from an industrial obsession with frictionless efficiency (no friction, no noise, no problem) but also from the modernist dislike of ornamentation and commitment to making things that are “true to their materials” (Hauser et al. 2021). This idea is also related to a specific strand of (Heideggerian) philosophy of technology (and its austere protestant undertones) that considers machines that draw attention to themselves as problematic. In short, the conflation between transparency (getting out of the way) and simplicity has a strong moral dimension: things that are austere in form are more efficient and easier to use; thus, we do not notice them, and that is good. However, as Hauser et al. (2021) note, this ideal worked well for industrial objects; the problem is that current software-based systems are necessarily complex: unlike a radio or a chair, they are dynamic; their behaviour emerges from the interaction of multiple processes, which in turn have multiple dependencies with countless other similar systems. To make these systems understandable, designers do not simplify them; they make them less complicated and thus simpler to use. Properly designed represented models (e.g., usable, and useful interfaces) make the underlying complexity of systems reasonable, excusable, appropriate, and learnable (Norman 2011). However, when a designer successfully makes the interaction less complicated for the user, the underlying complexity of the system increases. This paradox is known as “Tesler’s law of the conservation of complexity” (Norman 2011). In the case of IoT systems, the challenge is even greater. Getting computers to withdraw to the background seamlessly is not just a matter of interface design but also involves considering the whole context of usage of the system. The withdrawal paradigm calls for disappearing the interface altogether, hiding every button, knob, and switch, and privileging voice interfaces and predictive algorithms—hence why many IoT devices can be controlled through virtual assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon Alexa. Besides giving users a misguided sense of augmented agency, as argued elsewhere (Hernández-Ramírez 2019), the type of simplification pushed by the withdrawal paradigm furthers the gap between “what things are and do” and “how they are presented for use” (Hauser et al. 2021). People may perceive the systems as simpler to use, but at the cost of turning them into black boxes. The represented model not only stops resembling the implementation model, but the design deliberately conceals how the systems work. All done in the name of reducing friction by improving usability and

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even accessibility (voice interfaces are friendlier for people with visual impairments). To further complicate matters, any attempt to peer into the black box is marred by legal terms and conditions and privacy policies that are long and unreadable, seemingly by purpose (Litman-Navarro 2019; Pater 2016). A case can be made that people do not need to know how artefacts work to benefit from their use, which may be true of cars, TV, or AES encryption. However, as implied earlier, IoT systems work thanks to the vast amounts of user data currently available. How and when that data is collected should be a matter of grave concern for users because it affects their privacy and, therefore, their liberty and even their sense of self: as Floridi (2014) argues, we are our data. As earlier noted, friction cannot be eliminated altogether when it comes to designing for ubiquitous computing. With its sleek, unassuming design, a smart speaker controlled by Google assistant (See Fig. 1) sits unobtrusively in the background, continuously listening until activated by the simple “Hey Google” command. Assuming one speaks one of the supported languages, interacting with the device is, in principle, frictionless. However, if one were to read Google’s privacy policy to understand what data is collected, how and when it is collected and what happens with it, one is confronted with a 30page document generously peppered with links to several other legal agreements and policies. These are frictions deliberately introduced to prevent users from understanding the system and forcing them into an asymmetrical relationship with the service provider. In short, sharing personal data with Google is a frictionless process, but attempting to gain control over what happens to that data brings as many frictions as can be.

Fig. 1. Google Home has an unassuming, sleek design and can be activated by simple voice commands.

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It may be argued that there are robust mechanisms in place for protecting people’s privacy,4 the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is perhaps the paradigmatic example. Nonetheless, as with most bureaucratic and legal solutions, the mechanism that ought to safeguard people from companies’ abuses provides excellent conditions for the abuse to flourish. For example, everyone in Europe browsing the Internet will be constantly bombarded by cookie consent banners (see Fig. 2). In theory, these modals exist to guarantee that users exert their right to decide what service providers can and cannot do with their data. However, thanks to easily designed dark patterns, people are routinely tricked into surrendering all their data with a single click. In summary, people are not only victims of sub-par UX (cookie modals are highly annoying), but the resulting frictions also conspire to allow service providers to extract their data. As the withdrawal paradigm meets with the contemporary obsession to “enchant” every conceivable everyday object to make it smart, people’s data become even more likely to be collected.

Fig. 2. Complexity nudges users to accept all cookies and be tracked.

4 IoT, “Enchanting” Objects, and Privacy Ubiquitous computing, as idealized by Weiser and people influenced by his ideas, implies “enchanting” objects, that is, taking everyday items, such as pens, lightbulbs, or shoes, and augmenting them with sensors, actuators, wireless connectivity, and embedded processors (Rose 2015). The enchanting approach meets the requirement of background 4 In 2019 the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) imposed a penalty of 50 million euros

on Google for lack of transparency, inadequate information, and lack of valid consent regarding ad personalization. See https://www.cnil.fr/en/cnils-restricted-committee-imposes-financ ial-penalty-50-million-euros-against-google-llc (last access November 15 2021).

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computation (the withdrawal paradigm) and creates new relationships between devices and humans by taking existing items and designing new forms of interaction. Purportedly, enchanted objects embrace and take advantage of “nudging” principles (Thaler and Sunstein 2008), providing information and suggesting healthier behaviours. These objects do not replace the human but unobtrusively help her achieve tasks. Ubiquitous computing was initially conceived as a tool to provide information, entertainment, or reduce people’s cognitive load; the enchanted paradigm enhances this idea with a solid aesthetic, affective, and playful focus. The argument is that by enchanting everyday objects, these could become “partners in ubiquitous meaning-making” (Jenkins and Bogost 2014, p. 738). The enchanting objects paradigm is problematic. To begin with, the idea is underpinned by a magical portrayal of technologies, which prevents users from confronting unsettling questions about their devices (Selinger 2015). From the point of view of privacy, those range from “what personal data are collected and for which purposes?” to “are people’s data sold to third parties?”. Magical thinking, together with technological efficiency, supports the discourse behind the gig economy, which prevents users from looking at the negative consequences of ubiquitous computing, including real estate speculation, diminishing labour rights and, of course, loss of privacy and freedom of choice. The more people regard technology in magical terms, the more they ignore the complexities of the underlying infrastructure enabling their devices. Magical thinking eschews many constraints and frictions imposed by real life, obscuring the fact that they may exist for a reason. A common trend in ubiquitous computing seeks to make ordinary human movements more fluid by automating physical barriers. For example, smart door locks within a home or an office that open as users are getting close, thanks to either biometric information (e.g., digital print) or an RFID tag. Some solutions have even suggested enhancing these door locks with long-distance geo-location and predictive algorithms that can anticipate the time a given person might likely approach the door (Rose 2015). The problem, however, is that these functionalities imply acquiring vast amounts of data about users; information that would otherwise remain hidden or would only be accessible through conversation or keen observation— and being so sensitive, could be misused should it be available to the wrong people. By removing the friction of opening a door, that sort of ubiquitous computing would also have to remove the frictions that enable critical human situations to exist.

5 Ethical Simplicity for Design for Privacy Privacy is a function of information flow. Reducing “informational friction” (Floridi 2014), i.e., the forces opposing informational flow (whether physical, technical, legal or otherwise), reduces privacy. Making data transmission seamless might make systems more efficient and arguably convenient for users, but it usually turns privacy into an afterthought. One may argue that encryption is enough to dispel potential worries in this regard; however, no system is infallible against tampering. Moreover, encryption is not tantamount to privacy. Computers generate data about when they are used, for which purpose, and by whom, thus making the most minute details about their usage knowable (Zuboff 2015). People’s “data exhaust”—the information people shed as a byproduct

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of their actions and movements in the world (Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier, 2013)— generated directly or indirectly by smart devices can be collected, stored, abstracted, aggregated, analyzed, and sold by service providers to undisclosed third parties. As earlier noted, this new form of accumulation and exploitation is often characterized as “surveillance capitalism” (Zuboff 2019). It follows that reducing informational friction for the sake of a machine’s operation or, worse, to profit from people’s activities is against every principle in User-centered Design (Hernández-Ramírez 2019). The assumption that technologies should retreat to the background of human experience because that is how they operate best is questionable. This Heideggerian notion (see Heidegger et al. 2001, 2010) is problematic because ubiquitous computing systems are far more complex and different from a hammer. We humans use technologies to enhance our capacities and outsource repetitive tasks. In so doing, we become dependent and intrinsically linked with the myriad devices populating the built environment. As our dependency on smart devices increases, so do the chances that they end up calling the shots, distorting, and constraining our behaviour and our physical and conceptual environments to further accommodate us to them (Floridi 2012). The danger is that instead of establishing healthy dialectic relationships, we end up adapting to their “needs” only “because that is the best, or sometimes the only, way to make things work” (2012, pp. 252–253). Ubiquitous computing is now primarily dependent on AI—therefore, on data—this trend is not likely to slow down, for data has arguably become the engine of post-industrial societies. By striving to make interfaces even more “self-effacing”, designers bring more underlying complexities and unforeseen frictions for users. Rather than allowing humans to focus on everyday activities, designers are bringing more obfuscation about systems’ operations. This trend runs against UCD’s principles of making complexity (of technologies and the world) understandable and manageable. Designers should always consider what role a given technology will play in people’s lives, which puts them “in a position where difficult moral and ethical choices have to be made” (Papanek 2019, p. 38). We contend the main challenge of designers is not avoiding or disguising frictions but helping users understand and manage them. When balancing the unavoidable trade-offs between privacy and ease of use that seem intrinsic to ubiquitous computing, designers cannot rely solely on legislation. So far, regulations have proven incapable of deterring surveillance capitalism and sometimes have even worsened the problems they were supposed to prevent (Solove 2006). On the other hand, design ethics can offer designers tools to manage those frictions. Design ethics applies common-sense moral principles to the design process. Installing a camera that records what people do in a hotel room without their consent is undeniably unethical in every culture, irrespective of how they regard privacy. Checking a friend’s or partner’s phone without permission is also clearly wrong. Why should designers who create IoT devices that constantly and surreptitiously monitor users not abide by the same moral logic? How digital objects present themselves to users—i.e., their interfaces—should be as faithful as possible to what those objects are and do to respect and empower users: A cookie consent modal window should employ adequate hierarchies to allow users to reject trackers easily. A smart product should not employ its functionalities (e.g., audio

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and video recording) to spy on users but add value to their experience. Finally, whenever objects are collected, service providers should straightforwardly inform them, through accessible copy, what data is gathered, for which reasons, and what happens to them. One could argue that making smart objects that still behave smartly while respecting users’ privacy is more complex and costly because it would have to overcome (that is, integrate) informational friction as a feature. It follows that if the solution is simply unbearable cost-wise, the device might not be developed because the alternative would be unethical. Design ethics is still an open territory even though design ethics and aesthetics are necessarily intertwined. We propose that design for privacy understood as an approach “based on universally acceptable ethical principles, aimed at empowering users and citizens through the protection and enhancement of their privacy” (Parrilli and HernándezRam´ırez 2021, p. 11), can be an effective tool for helping designers manage the friction between ease of use and privacy. Moreover, it can contribute to developing smart artefacts that are genuinely “true to the materials” and complexities intrinsic to ubiquitous computing and digital objects in general and help steer design practice from its current role as a means to “give form to (data) mining tools in disguise” (Hauser et al. 2021, p. 14).

6 Conclusions Arguably, friction is a central issue for contemporary Design. However, merely reducing friction for the sake of technological efficiency should not be the goal of best practices in Design. Certain forms of friction are necessary. By attempting to make processes more fluid, we might as well interfere with existing tacit human relations, thus, paradoxically, bringing more friction to users. We must reformulate our approaches to Interaction Design, redirecting our attention toward managing complexity. Designers should learn to say “no” and “why” when dealing with ubiquitous computing; they should question whether specific processes require automation and interfaces should be hidden. UCD needs more than be empathic towards the user; it must assume a clear ethical stance towards technological development and, arguably, the courage to enforce that stance. As argued elsewhere (Parrilli and Hernández-Ramírez 2020), Designers should critically examine the role technologies play in our lives and ask what types of new relations we want to establish with our devices. Acknowledgements. This research was supported by UNIDCOM under a Grant by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) no. UIDB/DES/00711/2020 attributed to UNIDCOM/IADE, Unidade de Investigação em Design e Comunicação, Av. D. Carlos I, 4, 1200- 649 Lisboa, Portugal.

References Hernández-Ram´ırez, R.: On false augmented agency and what surveillance capitalism and usercentered design have to do with it. J. Sci. Technol. Arts 11(2), 18–27 (2019). https://doi.org/ 10.7559/citarj.v11i2.667

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Designing Interfaces for Legal Artifacts. Using Storytelling to Enhance Digital Legal Experiences Andrés Polanía1(B) and Santiago de Francisco Vela2 1 Facultad de Artes y Humanidades, Universidad de los Andes, Cra. 1 Este No. 18A – 70,

Bogotá, Colombia [email protected] 2 Departamento de Diseño, Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño, Universidad de los Andes, Cra. 1 Este No. 18A – 70, Bogotá, Colombia [email protected]

Abstract. Most legal content and procedures turn out to be so complex for citizens. Many of these are found in laws, decrees, statutes, and regulations considered legal artifacts. To access legal services, citizens require a lawyer’s assistance. So, how can an average citizen - a non-lawyer - access legal services without advanced knowledge or a lawyer? One possibility to bring citizens closer to judicial services is the design of legal interfaces. These interfaces serve as a medium between users and artifacts. The Rapporteur is a proposal for a legal interface to visualize health guardianship files. This interface is built from Storytelling, data visualization, and Legal Design principles. The result shows a proposal for constructing Storytelling for health tutelas actions in Colombia. The aim is to improve the legal experience of citizens who want to compose a tutela by generating new transparent and reliable legal interfaces. Keywords: Legal interfaces · Legal artifacts · Legal design · Storytelling

1 Introduction The world consists of artifacts constructed by human beings. Different types of artifacts, objects, and products are part of a technological system articulated with practices and meanings [1]. In addition, technological artifacts coexist with their interfaces thanks to their interaction relationship. Human-computer Interaction (HCI) has contributed to the design of interfaces. However, interfaces have evolved in new technology-related ways [2]. The interface concept was defined in Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines [3] as “the sum of the communicative exchanges between the computer and the user”. According to Scolari [4], an interface can be understood as a concept for exchanging or transferring information. Therefore, to understand the relationship between an artifact and its interface, it is necessary to identify the relationship in the transfer of information, marked by directionality, information, and communication. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 137–147, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_13

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Interfaces are responsible for bridging the transfer of information exchanges between a user and an artifact. An analog clock, for example, is composed of numbers and hands. The reading of the time is given by the interpretation given to these hands. Each part of the clock has a specific function, which allows us to read the time when seen as a whole. However, could it be possible that an artifact requires multiple interfaces to interact with its contents? Think of the similarities between the analog clock and a contract. Both are objects, have materiality, and occupy a place in space. Both were constructed by someone, an author, or an organization. A production company developed and marketed the clock, while a person, most likely a lawyer, wrote and used the contract. As an object, an analog wristwatch comprises parts, such as the motor, the battery, the strap, and the hands. As a legal document, a contract has parts such as clauses, obligations, and the object that define the nature of the contract. This materiality is the one that defines the interface. Both the wristwatch and the contract were produced by a series of social and cultural system needs. Therefore, both can be called artifacts. However, the contract is a little more complex. The way a contract is constructed requires specialized knowledge to understand. This is why we need an interlocutor (lawyer) to interact with the legal contents in most cases. As well as contracts, there are other artifacts of a legal nature, such as laws [5]. Contracts as laws can be called legal artifacts due to an authors’ intentions and agency, according to artifactual theory [5].

2 What Are Legal Artifacts? The field of study of law has focused on the formation, creation, modification, and composition of laws and norms framed within the legal environment. We have called these laws and norms legal artifacts. These artifacts serve different functions and inhabit the social context of each country. They are intended to be used by people to regulate possible human behavior and resolve conflicts [6]. However, the legal artifacts that exist today are so complex that, in most cases, they cannot be used by non-lawyers. This situation is challenging because the legal field must operate in different contexts and realities. Nevertheless, even if it is a complex context, the judicial branch should adapt legal artifacts to people without increasing their complexity. In the Colombian context, this field is mainly regulated by contents inscribed in the Political Constitution of Colombia. The Political Constitution of Colombia is composed of laws, rules, codes, and regulations. It is an example of a complex legal artifact constructed with a unique technique and specific intentions and objectives [7]. As a legal artifact, the Constitution of Colombia organizes social behaviors, norms, and the different sanctions applied to citizens and foreigners. However, its interface consisting of technical text makes it not accessible to all people. The legal contents and procedures are complex for citizens. To read and decode legal artifacts, citizens need to acquire advanced knowledge. The National Planning Department (NPD) announced a digital transformation program for the judicial branch in Colombia as a strategy to close this gap. This announcement presents a fertile landscape for developing technological projects to help modernize the judicial branch and get closer to its citizens. Interfaces are one of these technological opportunities that would allow the decoding of legal artifacts’ contents. However, to develop these interfaces, it is necessary to understand the relationship between humans and technology.

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2.1 Human Technology Relation/Design and Computing for Legal Artifacts There are different approaches to understanding the relationship between humans and technology. One of these approaches is the one presented by Don Ihde [2], where from post-phenomenology he talks about the roles that technology adopts within human experiences. Ihde speaks of four types of relationships: Embodiment, Hermeneutics, Alterity, and Background. In the four relationships, the author discusses technology’s role and how it intervenes in the interactions between human beings and the world. In the specific case of legal artifacts and their interfaces, we will delve into two of the relationships: Hermeneutics and Alterity. In these two relationships, humans have the ability to interact directly with the technology and not embed the technology or leave it in the back seat. Hermeneutics focuses on how technology allows us to read information from the context to encode it and make sense of it. Technology serves as a translator of information for humans. If we apply this principle to legal artifacts, we can think of ways interfaces help us understand the artifacts’ contents. One way of doing this might be to reveal hidden information about these artifacts, such as how many words a contract has, how long it takes one to read it, and what level of knowledge I need to understand [8]. Alterity focuses on how technology functions as a means of interacting within context. Technology serves as an interlocutor of human interactions within their context. If we apply this principle to legal artifacts, we can think of how interfaces facilitate the use of artifacts. One way of doing this can be to create new ways of interacting with artifacts, for example, by developing the digital experience of a citizen who wants to file a tutela [9] or the digital experience of a judge who has to make decisions about the tutela they receive. Different disciplines are in charge of interpreting these relationships and translating them into products or services in design. These disciplines are interaction design, service design, or UX and UI design. However, to talk about legal artifacts, there is a growing branch called Legal Design [10–13]. Information communication is one of the essential components of Legal Design [14]. 2.2 Legal Design UX and UI In recent decades, design as an area of knowledge has developed tools capable of intervening in different fields of expertise, including the social sciences. In this case, the field of law is no exception. Since 2004, a paradigm shift has been generated in design with the emergence of user-centered methodologies. Its primary reference is design thinking [15], consisting of people-centered research, observation, and prototyping. Legal contents are framed in political, social, and cultural history, so design becomes a field of intersecting knowledge. At the same time, it addresses human activities, practices, and their meanings. Divergent and convergent thinking techniques are applied in different steps to generate innovation in projects or areas of knowledge. For this reason, it is possible to apply the user-centered methodology and innovate in the legal field because designers, lawyers, or other disciplines can use it to define, construct, and design legal artifacts such as legal norms. In this way, it is possible to provide communication tools in order to transmit ideas and to be able to bring information to all citizens that empowers them and allows them to access the systems if they have a

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legal need. For this reason, since 2015, there has been a new aspect of design called legal design, which consists of “the application of human-centered design to the world of law, to make legal systems and services more human-centered, usable, and satisfying” [16]. Designers and lawyers can consider the generation of legal content and its implications in the human sphere. Citizens can appropriate legal artifacts and interfaces from their user experience, aiming at the knowledge and understanding of their rights, duties, and freedoms. 2.3 Storytelling and Narratives for Artifacts in a Legal Experience Context Stories are composed of formal, technical, and structural aspects that shape the communication of the message in a specific language [17]. Jacob Lothe [18] proposes a model of relationships composed of Narrator-Narrative-Reader. This model describes the narrator’s importance and the content of the message so that the reader can decompose it. For instance, the system of signs, symbols, and signals used in a narrative must be understandable by both the storyteller and the reader. The communication can be transmitted through the defined channel or medium, and understanding is guaranteed. Storytelling is the deconstruction of the story’s content into pieces or, more specifically, a hierarchy of pieces [17]. In deconstructing a legal narrative, it is possible to find narrative patterns in legal artifacts. These legal narratives must communicate the legal intention or need and have a natural interface defined by technical language, materiality, and the textual format or channel. It is evident that in legal systems, requirements regulate the procedure and legal minimums of legal content but do not refer to this type of artifact’s narrative, materiality, or design determinants. Therefore, the justice centers define the kind of artifact to be processed. Still, these justice centers do not have the necessary tools for this purpose in Colombia and other countries.. The legal context has favored more traditional artifacts such as templates and pro forma formats that do not allow other narrative structures and could help the storyteller communicate their intention more clearly. In the existing body of laws, those guaranteeing and protecting subjects’ rights are designed so that anyone can use them as mechanisms to regulate possible human behavior or resolve conflicts. In this type of legal narrative, the communication model can be evidenced in which the narrator plays a significant role in the narrator-narrativereader relationship. Therefore, a narrative of this type must consider that the reading process involves different legal actors who intervene and identify the elements in the constructed narrative. In most cases, legal artifacts are built in a textual medium - a lettersize document and 12 pt font - but do non-lawyers have a familiarity with the language used by the reader who is a lawyer? This condition will affect the final decision to be taken. From this perspective, it is advantageous to have the conception of characters, events, and other narrative units within stories to mark how information is shaped and communicated. Therefore, it is possible to apply rules and dynamics focused on the legal context when modeling information. As mentioned in Storytelling, the narrator plays a significant role because “the narrator exists only in the “text”-be it fictional or virtual” [17]. The narrator determines the story’s point of view and the perspective to be shown to the reader. Thus, in a legal context, if the narrator participates fully in the story, it may be

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more challenging to understand the narration because of the subjective character of the experience. Therefore, a story told by a narrator who is not a character in the story is a third-person narration that will explain in a better way what happened in the whole narration. Thus, the conception of characters, events, chronological order, and other narrative units within the stories mark their sense of interpretation, verisimilitude, and feasibility within a legal context. From a narrative perspective, it is possible to propose mechanisms for constructing legal artifacts that involve co-narration and make the construction of specific legal instruments more popular. For instance, the tutela in Colombia is a legal mechanism for claiming before judges the protection of fundamental constitutional rights when these are violated or threatened by the action or omission of any public authority [19]. 2.4 Where is Legal Design Heading? Although Design has been doing multidisciplinary work in recent years, the idea that law can be a legal artifact and that it can be designed addresses many authors to write about ways of understanding the complexity of the law. The main contributors to the state of the art are Margaret Hagan, professor of The Legal Design Lab at Stanford, and Helena Haapio, a lawyer at the University of Turku in Helsinki; both women are pioneers in the subject of information design and its application to legal services. In short, the field of Design has excellent potential to intervene in the legal experiences of citizens so that they can access human services for people. Rossi et al. [19] present a perspective to approach the issue of legal conflict resolution because design patterns offer certain advantages. First, identify best practices and proven standards to generate impact on building relationships and how problems can be solved. Second, it provides a set of rules applied to the language to define a coherent syntax and semantics so that different people can understand the information presented and the legal effects that can originate are clear. As a result of their work, it is possible to see the definition and creation of design patterns as usable tools and methodologies that, when applied to the legal context, can generate specific effects and solve common problems in different contexts. Therefore, in this case, in the construction of the legal action, the interdisciplinary approach can play a fundamental role in building stories and thus generate understandable, transparent, and reliable relationships.

3 Design Case: The Rapporteur - Observer of Stories Platform In the Colombian context, in many cases, citizens must choose the path of the tutela action as a close and effective mechanism to protect their fundamental rights. People build legal artifacts to turn into a legal instance so that judges can decide on the situation they live in [20]. The Rapporteur platform was designed to become a digital interface for legal artifacts that are difficult to understand and used by non-lawyers. To test the coexistence between artifacts and interfaces in the legal context, the authors developed this case study to demonstrate the relationships in the judgments reviewed by the Constitutional Court in

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Colombia based on an understanding of the following components: Actors, Respondents, Events of the story, Rights violated, Supreme Court judges, and the complexity of the legal artifact (judgment). This visualization starts with an overview of all the judgments uploaded to the platform. These judgments are part of the data used by citizens when building a tutela action in health (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Interface of stories a visual representation of legal artifacts.

3.1 Legal Context Mapping Information Gathering. The authors collected the working material used for this project from different sources of information to study ways of applying the principles of Storytelling in the construction of legal narratives. For this reason, a corpus of 40 tutela actions related to health issues was consolidated. The authors applied computational linguistic techniques to perform a distant reading to investigate the narrative structures in the tutelas, the types of Storytelling, and the essential elements of these legal artifacts. For the scope of the Rapporteur’s prototype, we proceeded to load sentences reviewed by the Constitutional Court between 2019 and 2021 related to Colombians’ health rights. Consequently, this exercise allowed for a dissection of the health system in Colombia, and the principle violated the rights selected by the Court. The analysis process made it possible to identify the wording structures and grammatical hierarchies of the Tutelas. Each judge should take an average of 50 min of reading time to evaluate each case. However, this situation is not met due to the high requirement; a judge will have only 5 min in a preliminary phase to read, understand

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and validate the judicial action. Therefore, the length of the text of the legal artifact, its structural composition, and grammatical complexity will affect the communication of the claims and assertions that the applicant wants to resolve. Information Mapping. The authors created an interactive map to understand the social and legal reality of the health experience in Colombia. The modeling activity consists of choosing the features of the observed reality (e. g. an object in a domain) to be formally represented (the abstract model). This formalization requires adopting a data structure related to a language helpful in describing the abstraction. [22]. Thus, the information structuring considered the representation of decisions and their implication when defining a visualization. The results of content are selected to describe a reality that it represents. On the one hand, it is related to computational issues, infrastructure, indexing systems used, and technological mechanisms. On the other hand, cultural and social effects are embedded in the categories of information, domains, and entities. However, are these situations taken into account when dealing with technological issues? Or is this issue de-emphasized and left to chance? The field of digital humanities studies these issues related to technological systems, the technique in which reality is modeled, and its social and cultural effects. The artifacts modeling of information used by the authors refers to a question of language, structure, and meaning. “A formal computational language, […] is a question of data structure and abstract data types, i.e., graph (the network), tree (a hierarchy), table (a relation), sequence (a list)” [23]. For this reason, the organization, modeling, and structuring of information in digital environments must be designed to represent the observed reality. In the case of Rapporteur, the authors implemented markup languages such as XML (extensible markup language) to model and encode the documents. The markups were based on rules that structure the legal narrative content. The authors used these markups to adapt the initial language to a formal language, which comprises elements such as people, and events, among other objects, to model, store, process, and present the unstructured contents of the legal narrative through a digital interface. To carry out the information loading processes on the platform, the authors built an information transformation algorithm. This algorithm can transform an Excel tabletype dataset into a rich JSON format, which has the following advantages. Its main structure is XML-like and complies with the most well-known standards. It is selfdescriptive and allows the definition of text markup easily. It has parsing procedures natively implemented by different technologies such as JavaScript. The algorithm can align JSON objects with the platform’s formal language, allowing the creation of object domains in a dynamic language—Unicode UTF8 encoding. The modeling of the legal artifact in the digital environment represents the human cultural and social reality in which the person who initiates the legal process finds himself and allows the execution of legal analyses to be carried out by the actors who interact with this artifact.

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3.2 An Interface for the Observer of Stories As a digital platform, the Rapporteur can become one of the most crucial entry points of information and guarantee the quality of the data when filing a tutela action in Colombia mainly because it does not seek to focus on the digitization of documents created with techniques from the analog world. On the contrary, the Rapporteur contemplates creating the legal artifact from a digital environment to model the minimum set of data necessary. Moreover, at the moment of entering the judicial system, it can be processed and computed, depending on the situation, managing to impact not only the logistical process of filing tutela actions but the entire legal experience that an applicant lives. The authors can point out that this project’s information modeling aims to support the Colombian judicial system by improving the legal artifacts’ data quality and broadening the tutela action notion. In the plan for the digital transformation of the judicial branch, technologies favor formal aspects and contemplate improving the legal experience of users who need to understand, act and appropriate legal artifacts through the generation of new, transparent, and reliable legal artifact interfaces. Current Interface Approach. During the last few years in Colombia, as part of the digital transformation plan of the judicial branch, some technological advances have appeared to rethink the judicial system. These improvements aim to bring the justice service closer to citizens, improve their confidence through transparent procedures, and reduce the time of attention and management of decision-making in the justice system. One example is the Tutela Online interface, which allows the processing of tutela actions digitally. Although it intends to improve the process, it loses its impact because it concentrates only on favoring one component of the legal experience: optimizing the process of sending tutelas. This focus on infrastructure and platform interconnectivity neglects the actors involved in the legal experience. Also, it does not account for the entire understanding of the context and situations in which citizens must turn to a lawyer to navigate the complex process of filing a tutela action in Colombia. There is a deficiency in the design of legal interfaces today that, in some cases, do not allow non-lawyers to access and use the laws (legal artifacts). For this reason, this project’s objective is to construct a legal interface so that judges can later navigate the legal histories incorporated in health tutelas and thus can resolve them. In this case, the understanding of the tutela is only a methodological excuse to evaluate the legal artifacts and explore the characteristics that the design of their interfaces must fulfill. Visual Representation of Legal Artifacts. The representation of information is one of the most convergent points of digital humanities and other information fields, so Johanna Drucker [24] presents some relevant concepts and tools when developing projects in digital humanities. This author raises statements related to the complexity of creating, storing, interpreting, and representing the data that structures the information of legal artifacts. For this reason, this project explores the information representation mechanisms currently used by the Office of the Rapporteur of the Constitutional Court and the challenges it faces in achieving all of its proposed objectives. The Rapporteur’s office has a function beyond serving as a repository of texts that “a user” consults in search

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of information. The textual content presented has a high cultural and social value for citizens because the rulings are judicial precedents that affect the legal sphere. The Rapporteur proposes standards or mechanisms to structure and enrich legal information artifacts that become digital cultural objects [25]. However, traditionally, quantity has taken precedence over quality, with information accumulating in repositories and digital libraries, documents in unstructured PDF format, or, in the case of the Rapporteurship section, judgments in plain text files of more than 100 pages in length and without a metadata system. User Profiling. Each time users enter the Observer interface, they have to answer some questions that will start profiling the interface and adjust the contents within the artifact to the user’s level of legal knowledge. Each path allows for the translation of some aspects within the platform to ensure understanding of the information. Profiles exist for users who have never interacted with the legal system and therefore do not have the knowledge nor the tools to navigate the system. Also, the legal system can consider lawyers a more specialized profile that knows how to navigate the legal system. Prototype Process. From the digital humanities, practice, design, and creation are a fundamental part of the processes of knowledge construction [26]. From this perspective, “prototypes aim to fail quickly and economically so that less time and money is invested in an idea that turns out to be a bad one” [16]. Therefore, documentation and experience are fundamental for this project as they allow us to incorporate reflective elements of what is being done. Additionally, it will enable authors to offer an insight to analyze and learn from experiences in developing other projects. For this reason, the Rapporteur is the result of at least three versions of prototyping that have explored ways of decoding legal artifacts so that non-lawyer users can act on them and appropriate them in reality. The first iteration dealt with issues related to the National Code of Coexistence and Police and its impact on coexistence with neighbors. The second iteration was linked to legal artifacts from the financial world, in the Colombian Superfinanciera as an actor that regulates the economic territory and the practices of banks when offering their services to clients. In the final iteration, the Rapporteur proposes mechanisms to support the experience of constructing the tutela action by applying the principles of Storytelling and defining units to communicate stories better. In the process of iteration and prototyping of legal interfaces, the disconnection and lack of interest of non-lawyer citizens in understanding the legal artifacts were evident. This situation reflects that structurally there is no intention to relate citizens to legal issues; it only happens at the moment of conflict resolution. Thus, it is essential to propose mechanisms for citizens to inform themselves and internalize the messages contained in the different artifacts because there will be legal implications regardless of the context or human activity. Therefore, the lawyer and other types of law authors should contemplate the construction of the legal artifact and the definition of interfaces to act and appropriate the artifact. To improve the legal experience, the authors propose to generate new, transparent and reliable legal interfaces.

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4 Reflection and Final Thoughts Legal Design has advanced data visualization and communication issues [27]. However, interfaces for legal artifacts are rare. Unlike communication, there are no design guidelines for the nature of legal interfaces. Similar to a wristwatch, legal design comes with specialized knowledge. It’s possible to build them and facilitate the understanding or to improve the legal experience for the people who use them. Legal interfaces allow people to be informed and internalize the messages in legal artifacts such as contracts, notices, or tutelas. For instance, the Legal Aid Clinic of Universidad de los Andes underwent a process to transform its digital service to improve the experience of students and advisors [27]. The role of the lawyer and other legal authors in the construction of legal artifacts and the design of interfaces is key in the legal experience because, regardless of the context or human activity, everything has legal implications. As a result, thinking about legal interfaces allows us to establish guidelines for designing future legal artifacts and rethink the current lawyer’s role as a ‘maker’ and ‘storyteller’. Storytelling presents communication models in which the narrator plays a significant role in the narrator-narrative-reader relationship, and this applies to the legal narratives contained within legal artifacts. This approach and conception of characters, events, and other narrative units within the stories give guidelines for shaping and structuring the information. The Rapporteur-Observer aims to improve the legal experience by enabling users to access and understand legal artifacts’ contents by generating new, transparent, and trustworthy legal interfaces. These interfaces add layers of content that translate the bulky information into easy-to-read visualizations. These visualizations allow the reader to connect valuable information that does not emerge from reading a text that a database can easily recognize and interconnect with other helpful information. As for a judge, these interfaces and visualizations allow them to identify their decision-making process related to the evaluated cases. Creating these connections improves how justice is understood and gives citizens a chance to participate in the decisions that are taken.

References 1. Nye, D.E.: Technology Matters: Questions to Live with. Mit Press, Cambridge (2007) 2. Ihde, D.: Technics and Praxis: A Philosophy of Technology, vol. 24. Springer, Dordrecht (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9900-8 3. Apple Computer, Inc.: Apple Human Interface Guidelines: The Apple Desktop Interface. Addison Wesley Publishing Company, Boston (1987) 4. Scolari, C.: La interfaz y sus metáforas. Gedisa, Barcelona (2004) 5. Burazin, L., Himma, K.E., Roversi, C.: Legal Systems as Abstract Institutional Artifacts. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2018) (2017, Forthcoming) 6. Harwood, J.: The Interface: IBM and the Transformation of Corporate Design, 1945–1976. U of Minnesota Press (2011) 7. Kroes, P.: Design methodology and the nature of technical artifacts. Des. Stud. 23(3), 287–302 (2002) 8. Polanía, A.: Legal service design: Rediseñando el Mundo legal. Medium (2020). https://med ium.com/bit%C3%A1cora-naranja/legal-service-design-redise%C3%B1ando-el-mundolegal-35b4d203dd7d

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9. Padilla Casas, C., de Francisco Vela, S.: Entutela. A digital tool to facilitate the drafting and creation of tutelas in Colombia. Manuscript submitted to Digicom 2022 (2022) 10. Hagan, M.: A human-centered design approach to access to justice: generating new prototypes and hypotheses for interventions to make courts user-friendly. Ind. JL Soc. Equal. 6, 199 (2018) 11. Perry-Kessaris, A.: Legal design for practice, activism, policy, and research. J. Law Soc. 46(2), 185–210 (2019) 12. Santuber, J., Krawietz, L., Owoyele, B., Edelman, J.: A framework theory of legal design for the emergence of change in the digital legal society. Rechtstheorie 50(1), 41–58 (2019) 13. De Francisco Vela, S., Guzman-Abello, L., Pardo Rodríguez, S.: Design for justice lab: interdisciplinarity in times of virtual education. In: Bohemia, E., Nielsen, L.M., Pan, L., Börekçi, N.A.G.Z., Zhang, Y. (eds.) Proceedings of the DRS Learn X Design 2021: 6th International Conference for Design Education Researchers, vol. 2, pp. 499–515. Design Research Society (2021). https://doi.org/10.21606/drs_lxd2021.03.242 14. Brunschwig, C.R.: On visual law: visual legal communication practices and their scholarly exploration. In: Schweihofer, E., et al. (eds.) Zeichen und Zauber des Rechts: Festschrift für Friedrich Lachmayer. Editions Weblaw, Bern, pp. 899–933 (2014) 15. Beckman, S.L., Barry, M.: Innovation as a learning process: embedding design thinking. Calif. Manag. Rev. 50(1), 25–56 (2007) 16. Rossi, A., Palmirani, M.: From words to images through legal visualization. In: Pagallo, U., Palmirani, M., Casanovas, P., Sartor, G., Villata, S. (eds.) AICOL 2015, AICOL 2016, AICOL 2016, AICOL 2017, AICOL 2017. LNCS, vol. 10791, pp. 72–85. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00178-0_5 17. Wei, S.L., Wei, H.: Uncovering hidden maps: illustrative narratology for digital artists/designers. Comput. Compos. 23(4), 480–502 (2006) 18. Lothe, J.: Narrative in Fiction and Film. An Introduction. OUP, Oxford (2000) 19. Constitución política de Colombia. Leyer, Bogotá, Colombia (1991) 20. Rossi, A., Ducato, R., Haapio, H., Passera, S.: Legal design patterns: towards a new language for legal information design. In: 22nd International Legal Informatics Symposium IRIS 2019 (2019) 21. Plazas-Gómez, C.V., Moreno-Guzmán, D.M.: Impacto económico de las acciones de tutela en salud en Colombia. Vniversitas 135, 325–376 (2017) 22. Tomasi, F.: Modelling in the digital humanities: conceptual data models and knowledge organization in the cultural heritage domain. Hist. Soc. Res./Historische Sozialforschung. Suppl. (31), 170–179 (2018) 23. Peroni, S., Tomasi, F., Vitali, F.: The aggregation of heterogeneous metadata in web-based cultural heritage collections: a case study. Int. J. Web Eng. Technol. 8(4), 412–432 (2013) 24. Drucker, J.: The Digital Humanities Coursebook: An Introduction to Digital Methods for Research and Scholarship. Routledge (2021) 25. Zhang, Y., Liu, S., Mathews, E.: Convergence of digital humanities and digital libraries. Libr. Manag. (2015) 26. Terras, M., Nyhan, J., Vanhoutte, E.: Selected further reading. In: Defining Digital Humanities, pp. 317–320. Routledge (2016) 27. Brunschwig, C.R.: Visual law and legal design: questions and tentative answers. In: Brunschwig, C.R. (ed.) Visual Law and Legal Design: Questions and Tentative Answers. In Proceedings of the 24th International Legal Informatics Symposium IRIS, pp. 179–230 (2021) 28. Feghali Vargas, N., Padilla Casas, C., Vanegas Herrera, L.V., Guzman-Abello, L., de Francisco Vela, S.: Designing legal interfaces: transforming the digital services of a legal aid clinic. In: Martins, N., Brandão, D. (eds.) DIGICOM 2021. SSDI, vol. 19, pp. 235–247. Springer, Cham (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89735-2_20

Towards Designing Intuitive Mobile UIs Considering Tapping Behaviour of Elderly Users Md. Rokonuzzaman Reza1,2 , Md Shadman Aadeeb1(B) , Shaqran Bin Saleh1 , and Muhammad Nazrul Islam1 1

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Military Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), Mirpur Cantonment, Dhaka, Bangladesh [email protected], [email protected] , [email protected] 2 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The International University of Scholars, Banani, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract. A mobile user interface (UI) is a graphical and usually touch-sensitive display on a mobile device that allows the user to interact with the device’s apps, features, contents, and functions. Since people of the elderly age group were not as exposed to technology as much as the people of the present generation, they face hurdles while using mobile apps. Furthermore, designers also face difficulties while designing user interfaces for elderly users. It is difficult for them to determine whether a designed UI component will be perceived by the elderly users as per its purpose. An elderly user may perceive a tappable UI component as not tappable and vice versa. Therefore, the objective of this research is to propose a conceptual framework for developing an efficient system to evaluate whether an UI is usable to the elderly people or not considering the tappability of its (UI) components. As outcomes, a deep learning-based conceptual framework for such a system is proposed based on the identified user-requirements through semi-structured interviews. An initial UI prototype of the system is also developed and evaluated by the real end-users. It is expected that the conceptual framework will be able to pave the way for developing a system to help the elderly user by increasing the usability of the UIs and to aid the designers in designing intuitive UIs considering the limitations of the elderly user. Keywords: Usability · Mobile user interface · Tappability · Deep learning · Elderly users

1 Introduction “Tapping” is one of the most important motions on mobile interfaces that initiates every basic function. Even though this is a pretty simple function, many individuals face difficulties in determining which components of a user interface are tappable and which are not [1–3]. In comparison to a standard desktop Graphical User Interface (GUI), which is considerably more defined, there are very fewer ways to determine if a UI element is tappable or not in mobile applications. Poor tappability can lead to a lack of accessibility and usability, while inappropriate affordances may cause discomfort, ambiguity, c The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023  N. Martins and D. Brand˜ao (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 148–160, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_14

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and user errors [4]. Furthermore, new design patterns and interface features are frequently introduced by newer platforms for mobile apps, making it difficult to design the UI for such platforms with adequate tappability signifiers [5]. Designers are trying to add new features and options to the interface which makes the interface more complex and difficult to use for users with different background like illiteracy, elderly, age, etc. Again, modern phones are mostly touchscreen smartphones and no dedicated physical buttons are available for various options. Hence, the UI designs should be intuitive (easily understandable, clear and concise) for the intended users to ensure the usability and accessibility. Nowadays, people of all ages are using smartphones. Older generations are also becoming more enamored with smartphones. People in their old age face different situations like loneliness, isolation, physical inability to move or function, sleeplessness, etc. [6]. Elderly people are getting engaged with their smartphones to pass their lonely time and overcome their boredom. Many older people stay away from their families or children. They can communicate with their family members using smartphones. Also, they use their smartphones to get health care services, read news, listen to podcasts, and for entertainment purposes. For these reasons, old people are getting more engaged with smartphones day by day. Along with technological advancement, new features and functionalities are being added to smartphones unabatedly. Though people of all age groups are using smartphones at present, they are not being designed considering certain age groups. It seems that the newer designs mostly attract the younger generations but the older people find it difficult to adapt to the newer designs in terms of tapping, going through several options, navigation, and other gestures [7]. Because of various usability concerns such as memory, match, help, visibility, control, customization, minimalism, and ergonomics [8, 9], the mobile interface’s use by elderly people is often not up to the mark [10]. It is sometimes hard to differentiate the UI elements and determine whether the elements are tappable or not tappable. This could be more difficult for the elderly users who are often handicapped due to various constraints. Due to their physical constraint, it is very difficult to correctly perceive an element as tappable or not tappable. Furthermore, UI designers don’t have any assistive system to determine the perceived tappability of their proposed designs. The requirement elicitation process conducted for this study has revealed that the UI designers find it difficult to address the tappability issues of their designed UI elements. In the recent years, research has shown that deep learning based systems have been gaining popularity in different fields [5, 11, 12]. The use of deep learning in several systems helps in performing different tasks including classification, regression, suggestion and it greatly helps in enhancing efficiency and applicability [13]. Thus, considering tapping behavior to design UIs’ for elderly users have become an important and crucial concern in the design and development of intuitive mobile app UIs for the elderly users around the world. The UI designers need to be provided with an effective tool to determine whether their designs will be able to provide the intended services considering the issues related to tappability. Moreover, considering the effectiveness and development of deep learning in the recent years, the existing tools used for UI design can also be supplemented with uses of deep learning techniques.

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Therefore, the objective of this research is to propose a conceptual framework to develop a system for predicting tappability of UI elements in order to design intuitive app UIs for elderly users. The rest of the article is organized as follows: Sect. 2 discusses previous literature, Sect. 3 briefly presents requirement elicitation study; while a conceptual framework is proposed in Sect. 4. Prototypical development and evaluation are discussed in Sect. 5 and this study concluded in Sect. 6.

2 Literature Review This section briefly discusses the prior literature regarding the constraints of old users, mobile interface tapability, and deep learning. Elderly users have vision, hearing, cognitive, and motor systems limitations. The old eye receives only 1/3 of the light that the eye of someone in their twenties receives [14]. Some elderly users face problems with hearing and they can’t detect very high and very low pitches [15]. Users are unable to predict what a program is doing (or may do) and how to proceed with completing a task; as a result, the error rate rises dramatically, and it becomes difficult to plan and recall an interaction procedure. The most successful user interface is one that assists users in achieving their objectives with as little confusion and as few errors as possible [16]. Salman et al. [10] identified the potential usability problems among elderly adults when interacting with a smartphone’s UI. A total of 27 usability problems were found out and categorized following the SMASH (SMArtphone’s uSability Heuristics) and proposed a prototype smartphone launcher for usability testing of elderly participants in the future which can give more accurate decisions. Balata et al. [17] studied the understanding of the elderly people regarding their usage of mobile phones and also investigated the problems associated with the ergonomics and accessibility of the user interfaces of mobile apps. They proposed a new UI named KoalaPhone which is more accessible and user-friendly, particularly for elderly users. Although they conducted a qualitative study through a semi-structured interview (n = 3) and a quantitative study through an online survey (n = 118), a new UI can be proposed more accurately using deep learning techniques considering users tapping behavior. Similarly, Shvo et al. [18] created an RL (Reinforcement-Learning) based framework in which RL-based agents can accomplish tasks in a mobile application where the agents interact with the screen elements by tapping or typing and are rewarded for completing tasks based on their difficulty. Interaction can be more precisely predicted by tapping. So, modeling the tapping can be an efficient predictor for interaction design and evaluation. Nasution et al. [19] presented a design approach for the GUI of software applications for illiterate users. Their interface provided an easy and friendly environment for illiterate users. Their study can be more accurate if they know the design requirements before and trace the behavior of users of the GUI. By assessing users tapping behavior, this design approach can be more efficient. Thus it will guide to design more appropriate design of GUI. Deka et al. [20] developed a system that is able to trace the users’ interaction with the applications installed in their mobile phones. It traces user interaction by recording the changes in the UI background. They also built a machine learning model to detect the elements and layouts from the UI and

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were able to indicate of 23 common user interaction behaviours. In order to improve their work, tappability prediction can also be included with their work for determining more precise interaction path which will also aid the UX designers. Wu et al. [21] studied a data-driven approach to predict user engagement with mobile UI animation. Also, they developed a novel deep neural network for learning the spatial and temporal information of mobile animation and predicting its user engagement level. The user engagement (UE) design model can assist when looking for design resources online, automatically recommending a high-quality reference set of typical animations, so designers don’t have to manually filter out substandard animation examples. Their model can be extended to measure the UE with different signifiers and how they perceived what is a tappable or non-tappable element. In a similar study, Swearngin et al. [5] presented an approach for modeling tappability using crowdsourcing and predicting the tappable vs non-tappable elements by building a neural network. They computationally analyzed different signifiers and finally developed a tool. Mismatches between the tappability of each element as perceived by a human user can be automatically diagnosed with this tool. Their study focuses on a binary classification and more features can be included for enhancing the trained model. Nguyen et al. [12] proposed advanced deep learning models based on a recurring neural network (RNN) and a generative adversarial network (GAN) to learn UI design patterns from a variety of existing mobile applications to semi-automate UI design tasks that are generally manual and time-consuming. Once trained, those models can be used to find UI design samples based on natural language descriptions provided by users and to create professional-looking UI designs from simpler, less elegant design drafts. In summary, the review of the related works showed that several researches have been conducted to help in UI designing where machine learning based techniques and approaches have been adopted in different ways. However, none of the researches were focused towards identifying the usability requirements of elderly while using mobile applications. Moreover, no research was found to address the mobile apps accessibility issues of the elderly using machine learning based approaches. Furthermore, very few researches were conducted where tapping behaviour of the users were considered and no research took into consideration the tapping behaviour of the elderly people.

3 Requirements Elicitation A requirement elicitation study was carried out in order to propose the conceptual framework for addressing the research gaps. In this section, the entire requirements elicitation process has been described in details. At first the participants’ profile including their demographic information is described. Next, the study procedure conducted with the participants is presented in detail. Lastly, the requirements obtained as a result of the conduction of the study is discussed. 3.1 Participants Profile In order to gather participants, one of the authors adopted the Snowball Sampling method [22, 23]. A total of 23 participants including 15 men and 8 women participated

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in the study. Among them, 15 participants were elderly mobile users and 08 participants were UI designers. The average age of the elderly participants were found to be 50 years and each of them had experiences in using smartphones in their day to day lives. The UI designers had good level of experience in designing user interfaces for different cross-platform smartphone applications and worked in different reputed companies. 3.2

Study Procedure

An onsite semi-structured interview was arranged at the Software Engineering Laboratory of the authors’ institution. A consent form was signed by the participants. Also the participants were assured that the data collected from them would be strictly used for research purposes and their personal information would be kept strictly confidential. Furthermore, with the kind permission from the participants, the audio recording of the interviews was done for later analysis. The interview was at first conducted with the elderly smartphone users. Initially they were asked about their overall experiences in using smartphones. Next, they were asked about the different types of mobile applications that they used in their day to day lives. They were then asked to describe what they liked about the smartphone applications and what they did not. Furthermore, while discussing about the mobile applications, they were asked about the layout designs of the applications that they were using. Moreover, the authors also investigated the challenges that the elderly users usually face while using the smartphone applications. The UI designers were asked about challenges they face while designing mobile applications specially for the elderly users. Furthermore, the evaluation procedure of their designed applications was investigated. Moreover, the challenges faced by them while designing apps were inquired from them as well. 3.3

Revealed Requirements

After analyzing the feedback of interview session from different stakeholders, several issues were identified which were later transformed into different requirements. It was found that the elderly smartphone users require understandable user interfaces. The applications designed for them should be composed of UI elements which are very simple and easy to understand. The study also identified that most of the times, the elderly people face trouble in understanding the basic UI elements. For example, they did not understand whether a UI element could be tappable or not. From the UI designers it was identified that there are several issues in designing mobile UI for elderly users. Firstly, most of the designers obtained evaluation results and feedback from their peers and the users. However, due to different perspectives of different users and peers; and due to the unavailability of a large number of evaluations, several times different design issues (like icons’/symbols’ tappability) were overlooked which resulted in reducing the system usability and acceptability. Moreover, the UI designers did not have any efficient system for evaluating UI elements and hence it was time consuming to justify their designs.

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Both groups of participants agreed that an effective evaluation system should be there for UI elements evaluation which will not only be effective in saving time but also act as an aiding tool for the designers to accurately evaluate their designs. 3.4 Requirements Elicitation Summary As a result of conducting the requirement elicitation study, the demands and concerns of the stakeholders could be clearly identified. From the study it was clearly established that the elderly people face trouble in understanding the UI elements while the UI designers face challenges in designing and evaluating the UI elements. Furthermore, the demand for a system capable of aiding the UI designers in evaluating their designs for the elderly users was justified.

Deep learning model

Classification result (Tappable, Not sure, Not Tappable)

Classification matches with designers intention?

No

Input Yes Redesign

Icons

Send for evaluation

Fig. 1. Framework of the proposed system

4 Conceptual Framework Based on the above requirement elicitation study a conceptual framework is proposed as presented in Fig. 1. To propose this framework, tapping behavior was taken into consideration and modeled, to aid designers in designing more precise UIs for elderly users. In the proposed framework, firstly, a UI image designed by the UI designer will be given as input to the deep learning model. The deep learning model will classify an specific UI element (e.g. an icon, navigation buttons, thumbnail, etc.) considering the perception of the elderly people which will be either tappable, not sure or not tappable. In the third step, the classified UI will be shown to that particular UI designer and if the result matches with the designer’s intention then next UI element will be processed for

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UI image is given as input to the neural network

2 Output given to the designer

Classifying the icons

1

3 Deep Learning Model 6

5 Tappable UI prepared by the Designer

UI given again to the model

The buon perceived as not tappable

New UI 4 Redesigning the icon

This icon is supposed to be tappable

Designer

The buon perceived as tappable

Fig. 2. Use-case scenario of the proposed system

evaluation. Otherwise, it will be redesigned and then again evaluated by the proposed deep learning model. A use-case scenario is shown in Fig. 2 to discuss working procedure step by step. Here, it is shown that an icon which is designed to be tappable has been found to be not tappable after classifying by the deep learning model. Hence, it is being subjected to redesign again to make it seem tappable. Again, the development steps that can be followed for implementing the proposed conceptual framework is presented in Fig. 3. For training the deep learning model, mobile UI screenshots can be collected from the different open source dataset. Furthermore, custom dataset can also be prepared using suitable labeling tools. After that the following five features could be extracted and used to train the deep learning model. (i) Element pixel: A UI contains various elements like text box, button, text, toggle bar etc. After labeling the elements explicitly by the elderly users, the labeled element pixels can be cut and considered as a feature. (ii) Screen pixel: Represents the whole screenshot of the UI. (iii) Element type: What kind of element it is i.e. whether an UI element is a button, text box or text. (iv) Click intention: User’s perceived intention of tapping. (v) Word count: Counts how many words are present in a particular UI element. The deep learning model [24] architecture will consist of several layers which can be broadly classified as the input layer, hidden layers, and the output layer. The hidden layers will mainly consist of convolutional, dense, and pooling layers [25]. Activation functions like Relu, Tanh, or Leaky Relu [26] can be applied to the hidden layers. Since the output layer of the model will be used for classification purposes, the Softmax activation function [27] can be applied to it. In order to classify a user interface element as “Tappable”, “Not sure” and “Not tappable” for the elderly, it will take five identified

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Fig. 3. Development steps of the proposed conceptual framework

Fig. 4. Deep neural network architecture

features of the user interface image as input including the words on the icon in a bag of words format [28], word count, icon type, bounding box co-ordinates of the icon, the icon pixels, and the overall screen pixels. After taking these features as inputs, they will be propagated through hidden layers of the model as layer activations. Finally, the final layer of the model will use these activations to decide whether the icon can be considered as “Tappable”, “Not sure” and “Not tappable”. The deep learning model architecture is shown in Fig. 4.

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Fig. 5. Homepage of the prototype

5 Design and Evaluation This section briefly discusses the design and evaluation of the prototype. 5.1

Prototype Design

The working system was visualized through the implemented prototype. There are only two buttons on the home page: one for uploading a UI screenshot and another for assessing the screenshot. The UI/UX designer then uploads the screenshot of the mobile UI and clicks the “ASSESS TAPABILITY” button to continue. The home page is shown in Fig. 5. Upon clicking the “ASSESS TAPPABILITY” button, the UI will be assessed by the conceptual deep learning model. Assessment results from the model will be displayed through an interface which is shown in Fig. 6. For each component of the UI, three results are shown with the labels “Tappable”, “Not sure”, and “Not Tappable”. Furthermore, the tappability of the UI elements are also indicated by three different colored boxes. The components highlighted with green color, pink color and red color can be interpreted as tappable, not sure and not tappable respectively.

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Fig. 6. Interface to show the tappability result

5.2 Evaluation The prototypical system was evaluated through heuristic evaluation [29]. First two authors of this article conducted the evaluation considering the mobile usability heuristics (see Table 1) proposed by Bertini et al. [30]. For measuring the severity Nielsen’s [31] proposed scale 0 to 4 (see Table 2) was adopted. Table 1. Mobile usability heuristics Heuristic no. Description H1

Visibility of system status and findability of the mobile device

H2

Match between system and real-world

H3

Consistency and mapping

H4

Good ergonomics and minimalist design

H5

Ease of input, screen readability and glanceability

H6

Flexibility, the efficiency of use and personalization

H7

Aesthetic, privacy and social conventions

H8

Realistic error management

As outcome of the evaluation, we found three usability problems. Firstly, there is no option for going into the previous page which violates H6 and it is identified as a minor usability problem and severity score is given as 2. Secondly, a user cannot upload multiple UI screenshots at a time which violates H5 and H6 where it assigned 3 in severity scale. Lastly, the icons seem unfamiliar where heuristic H2 and H4 are violated with severity score of 3.

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Decision

0

Not a problem

I don’t agree that this is a usability problem at all

1

Cosmetic problem

Need not be fixed unless extra time is available

2

Minor usability problem Fixing this should be given low priority

3

Major usability problem Important to fix, should be given high priority

4

Usability catastrophe

Imperative to fix this before the product is released

6 Conclusions This study focused on designing a prototype for classifying UI elements into three classes: “Tappable”, “Not sure” and “Not tappable”. A conceptual framework is also proposed that shows how a deep neural network model can be adopted to classify any UI elements automatically into “Tappable”, “Not sure” and “Not tappable”. In future, the full implementation of this framework will be completed. As a result, the UI designers will be able to create UIs that elderly people can use easily without any external help. UI designers may also test their UIs during the design phase through the proposed system.

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Evaluating Usability of Mobile Financial Applications Used in Bangladesh Moumita Bhowmik(B) , Fardeen Ashraf, Tashfia Fatema, Faria Habib, Md Lutful Kabir, Iyolita Islam, and Muhammad Nazrul Islam Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Military Institute of Science and Technology, Mirpur Cantonment, Dhaka 1216, Bangladesh [email protected], {iyolitaislam,nazrul}@mist.cse.ac.bd

Abstract. Mobile Financial Services (MFS) allows consumers to conduct financial transactions using their mobile devices. In Bangladesh, most of the population uses mobile phones whereas most of them are digitally illiterate. So, the objective of this research was to evaluate the usability of existing MFS applications. To attain this objective, the six most extensively used mobile banking applications in Bangladesh (bKash, Nagad, Rocket, SureCash, Upay, and Tap) were selected, and they were evaluated using Bertini et al.’s heuristics and user study. As the outcome, four issues are found to be widespread, while there are unique usability issues with each programme. Five major sections were created out of all the identified issues, and each section’s design issues were solved. Finally, the evaluation’s findings were used to create the design requirements for each application. Keywords: Mobile financial service · Mobile financial service Bangladesh · Usability evaluation · Digital illiteracy · Interaction mechanism · Human-computer interaction

1 Introduction Mobile Financial Services (MFS) are offered by a bank or financial institution that allows users or customers to execute financial transactions remotely using just a mobile device (smartphone, tablet, etc.). It is a subcategory of electronic banking which incorporates both banking and mobile commerce [9]. Mobile payments are highly convenient enabling economic empowerment in developing countries [11]. The mobile application business is expected to produce around 693 billion worldwide downloads by 2021 [5]. As a result, for tech-savvy generations, mobile applications have become an essential aspect of life. Over the last decade, lots of progress have been made in boosting financial accounts in the MFS sector. However, given the large number of inactive customers, a deeper investigation is needed to determine the causes of the service’s low adoption. In Bangladesh, 48% of the adult population is currently within the banking cover as of 2020 [17]. Although the percentage appears to be increasing, the number of active users is still rather low, given that more than 95% of individuals use a mobile phone [21]. According © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 161–176, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_15

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to Bangladesh Bank’s Mobile Financial Services (MFS) comparative summary statement from February 2022, there were only 42.523 million active accounts out of 116.101 million registered accounts [3]. Again, during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, when physical handling of payment was restricted, the Global System for Mobile communications Association (GSMA) Consumer Survey found that just 17% of mobile payment account holders used their account directly as a transaction channel [1]. A number of factors including security; administrative, business, and regulatory issues; insufficient information; illiteracy and ignorance are preventing Bangladesh from adopting mobile banking [9]. In Bangladesh, despite significant progress in mobile phone adoption and the expansion of numerous mobile services, individuals are still not digitally savvy, even with a literacy rate of 74.70% [2]. Unfortunately, digital illiteracy continues to affect a large section of Bangladesh’s population. This is especially true for the older groups, who have a difficulty in learning and adapting to new methods of doing stuff, as well as some of the other issues that come with using modern technology efficiently in general. A large portion of this population, both educated and uneducated, is unaware of the proper usage of smartphones, let alone MFS applications. People in rural areas, on the other hand, who may not have access to 3G/smartphones, are ignorant of the likely benefits of MFS and are wary of smartphone technologies and costs, which have a major influence on the adoption of MFS in Bangladesh and other emerging economies. Several factors including poor usability, User Interface (UI) in different languages, lack of basic education, poor understanding of IT, unavailability of internet connectivity or lack of computer skills, etc. are responsible for existing digital inequality in Bangladesh [12]. On the other hand, a UI with good usability of any application can be easily acceptable and understandable for any person. So, usable design is a concern for adopting any application by the mass people in Bangladesh. Therefore, the objective of this research is to measure the usability and performance of existing MFS applications in Bangladesh. Usability problems were revealed and categorized into groups. Next, design requirements for developing such an MFS application in the context of a developing nation like Bangladesh, especially for the digitally illiterate and semi-illiterate people are proposed grounded on the revealed usability problems. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: in Sect. 2, an overview of related works; in Sect. 3, the methodology adopted to demonstrate the requirements’ elicitation process; in Sect. 4, the summary of the usability problems are mentioned including some design recommendations. Lastly, Sect. 5 concludes the paper with potential future works.

2 Related Works This section briefly discussed some research works related to the usability evaluation of MFS applications. To identify the related articles, multiple data sources including Google Scholar, Science Direct, IEEE, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and Scopus were searched. Recent studies have evaluated the usability of various mobile banking applications globally to increase user effectiveness. For instance, using a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) Hussain et al. [10] presented a set of usability dimensions and measurements that can be used to evaluate the usability of mobile banking applications.

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While Cooharojananone et al. [8] evaluated the usability factors of two mobile payment applications in Thailand, Cooharojananon showed that usefulness, ease of use, trust, and design had an effect on the users of these applications. Abubakar et al. [4] proposed a model which was evaluated by six domain experts’ using a heuristic evaluation approach and identified that there are need to apply the model to real mobile banking application users in order to strengthen its accuracy and usefulness for the intended applications. In another study, Sangar et al. [22] proposed a model for increasing the usability of mobile banking applications on smartphones where he suggested that learnability, satisfaction, and efficiency are the first-grade factors that greatly determine the usability of an application. Through deliberate web searches and consultation of library resources, very few studies were identified where usability evaluation of different mobile applications like mobile health applications, ride-sharing applications [20], etc. were carried out in the context of Bangladesh. For example, Nazrul et al. [15] researched the usability of the egovernment websites of Bangladesh. The study results indicated that the e-government websites of Bangladesh were significantly suffering from usability problems. Nazrul conducted another research on the usability evaluation of mobile health applications in Bangladesh [13]. The findings of this study suggested that the usability of the mobile health applications in Bangladesh is not satisfactory in general and could be a potential barrier for wider adoption of mobile health services. The author conducted a separate research on a mobile application for mental health care during COVID-19 pandemic [14]. The results of this study showed that the application was usable and useful to provide a positive impact towards improving the mental health state during the pandemic. Malik et al. [18] performed ‘User Testing’ and ‘Heuristic Evaluation’ for two major mobile banking applications of Pakistan. Malik suggested to use easy terminologies in the UI to maintain enhanced visibility of the transaction status, to keep feedback method for guiding new users, to keep the user abreast about where he is and what to do next by improved navigation and to keep the interface simple by providing only necessary information. Nugraha et al. [19] evaluated the usability of three major mobile banking applications of Indonesia considering their main functions. Evaluation findings showed that poor UI design lowered the usability of most of the applications. The author commented that the three mobile banking applications had a quite good usability, although there were still several aspects that needed to be improved. Khan et al. [16] investigated the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction of bKash MFS application used in Bangladesh. The author provided a few insights for researchers, financial policymakers, and senior management from the banking industry for rendering and upgrading services to end-users and customers of mobile banking. While Akter et al. [6] conducted a comparative study on mobile banking services between Bangladesh and South Korea and showed that lack of effort in educating the consumers toward online banking further affected the usability of online banking in both the countries. The above discussion portrays that a significant number of research have been conducted on the usability evaluation of mobile banking applications in different countries of the world, but only some works have focused on the context of Bangladesh. Again,

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very little research have been carried out considering MFS applications of Bangladesh like bKash or Rocket where the focus is mostly on their quality of service, comparison, and differences. However, these studies have not focused on the UX or usability of the UI design, which is one of the key factors for adopting these MFS applications by the mass population in the socio-economic and cultural context of Bangladesh. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to assess the usability of the MFS applications used in Bangladesh, highlighting necessary design considerations for improvement with a view to making those applications more versatile for wider acceptance by the common people.

3 Usability Evaluation To outline the design issues that need to be addressed to enhance the usability of the existing applications, firstly, the design problems of existing m-banking applications were identified through heuristic and user study evaluation. From the result analysis of both study methods design requirements are determined. 3.1 Heuristic Evaluation (HE) Evaluation Procedure. The HE was carried out by the authors of this article who have practical experience in usability and UX evaluation of software applications. This evaluation study is designed considering the socioeconomic and demographic features of digitally illiterate and semi-illiterate people in Bangladesh such as knowledge about the subject matter, educational background, and experience with mobile application interfaces in Bangladesh. At first, a number of existing MFS applications on the android platform (Nagad, Rocket, bKash, SureCash, Upay, and TAP) were selected for the observations and evaluation purposes. In this study, the heuristics proposed by Bertini et al. [7] (see Table 1) are used for evaluating the usability of the six most widely used MFS applications used in Bangladesh. The severity ratings like (0–4) are assigned to the identified problems where ‘0’ represents ‘Not a problem: I don’t agree that this is a usability problem at all’, ‘1’ represents ‘Cosmetic problem: need not be fixed unless extra time is available’, ‘2’ represents ‘Minor usability problem: fixing this should be given low priority’, ‘3’ represents ‘Major usability problem: important to fix, should be given high priority’ and ‘4’ represents ‘Usability catastrophe: imperative to fix this before the product is released’. Evaluation Result. The summary of the revealed usability problems is presented in Table 2. Cases of both common problems and individual problems found in each app are numbered out serially along with their severity and number of violated heuristics in the Table. As showed in Fig. 1, utilizing Bangla Unicode to display numerical data on the UI is not an option in bKash which violates the Heuristic H6 (see P12 in Table 2). Illiterate users may not be able to read these statistics, which could result in a significant loss for them. As a result, this problem has a severity rating of 3. Again, the UI of the bKash main page is overloaded with sections for advertisement, offers, and suggestions (see P14 in Table 2) violates Heuristics H4 and H6 as it lacks good ergonomics and decreases user efficiency. This issue is assessed as having a severity rating of 2 since

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they might divert the users. Additionally, bKash has a needless “Log Out” button on the navigation side panel that violates Heuristic no. H4. However, as it does not pose a significant usability issue, it is given a severity rating of 2. Table 1. Set of heuristics [7] Heuristic no

Heuristic description

H1

Visibility of system status and findability of the mobile device

H2

Match between system and real world

H3

Consistency and mapping

H4

Good ergonomics and minimalist design

H5

Ease of input, screen readability and glanceability

H6

Flexibility, the efficiency of use and personalization

H7

Aesthetic, privacy and social conventions

H8

Realistic error management

Fig. 1. User interface of Bkash app

Similarly, through evaluating Nagad some major problems are identified which is represented in Fig. 2. Firstly, the button for one of Nagad’s facilities under Insurance uses the incorrect icon. It violates H2 as it fails to provide a match between system and real world and has a severity level of 2 since the users do not find its icon to be relevant.

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Additionally, there are a lot of annoying adverts that are useless for users, which violates H4 as it decreases good ergonomics and gets a severity level of 2. Furthermore, the nonfunctional location icon violates Heuristic H1 as it fails to provide visibility of the system status. Table 2. Common and app specific problems found through the HE App

Common

Nagad

Problem Problem no

Description

Violated heuristics

Severity

Most violated heuristic

Highest severity

P1

Zooming is not available

H5

4

H4

4

P2

Icons are too large considering the labels, difficult to read

H4

3

P3

All the icons are H2, H4 very similar, and each option’s description is not very clear

3

P4

Guideline not provided about the usage of each option and an entire task thoroughly

H1, H6

4

P5

Nonfunctional location icon

H1

2

H4

3

P6

Lots of icons on homepage may confuse the users

H4, H6

3

P7

Insurance button H2 uses the wrong icon

2

P8

Distracting ads which are not useful for users

2

H4

(continued)

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Table 2. (continued) App

Rocket

bKash

Problem Problem no

Description

Violated heuristics

Severity

Most violated heuristic

Highest severity

P9

Confusing input option named “Enter Biller name” in the payment option

H5

3

H3, H4

3

P10

Confusing question “Are you sure about logging out?” while trying to exit the app

H3, H4

3

P11

To exit the app extra login page is showing which is not necessary

H3, H4

2

P12

There is no H6 option for seeing numeric data on the UI by using Bangla Unicode

3

H4

3

P13

There is no H4 confirmation textbox to ask the user if he wants to exit the application

2

P14

Home page UI is H4, H6 cluttered with Ads, Offers and Suggestions section

2

(continued)

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App

Upay

TAP

Problem Problem no

Description

Violated heuristics

Severity

P15

While entering H5 the numeric pin, tapping the’back’ button eliminates all of the input digits rather than just one

2

P16

Useless ‘Log Out’ button on the navigation side panel

H4

2

P17

No information is provided in case of a faulty transaction

H7, H8

4

P18

Card payment H2, H3, H6 3 option is only available for limited cardholders, which were not mentioned anywhere before

P19

Water bill payment option only available for users of certain location

H2, H3, H6 3

P20

The use of ‘More’ button seems meaningless

H4

2

Most violated heuristic

Highest severity

H2, H3, H6

4

H4

3

(continued)

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Table 2. (continued) App

SureCash

Problem Problem no

Description

Violated heuristics

Severity

P21

The suggestions H4 option is unnecessary as the pay bill option is already on the home page

3

P22

In case of any invalid information during payment, the error notice appears with a long delay

H1, H8

4

P23

The device registration option appears far too frequently

H1, H4

3

P24

The phrase wallet, which refers to a user’s id, is perplexing

H5

3

P25

When entering data, paste option does not work

H5, H6

3

Most violated heuristic

Highest severity

H1, H5

4

However four common problems were identified that includes: i. No option to zoom in. ii. Difficult to read icons that are larger than their labels. iii. The descriptions of each option are not very clear, and all the icons are extremely similar to one another. Finding a specific service is challenging. iv. There is no guidance about how to use each choice and a task completely.

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Fig. 2. User interface of Nagad app

In addition, for each application, the most violated heuristic and the highest severity level have also been identified. This analysis represents that the most violated heuristic from all individual applications is H4 and most of the applications hold severity ratings between 3 and 4 considering the all 25 problems (See Table 2). Also, Fig. 3 illustrates that H4 is the most frequently violated, while H7 is the least frequently violated heuristic. The rest have a frequency score ranging from 5 to 10, indicating a medium level of violation in almost every app. 3.2 User Study Evaluation The selected applications were also evaluated by an user study. The detailed procedure and results of this evaluation is discussed in this section. Participants Profile. The user study evaluation was conducted through a field survey. Total 20 individuals were chosen from Dhaka city. The average age of the recruited participants ranged from 42 to 58 years, with 10 men and 10 women from a variety of occupations, including housewives, gatekeepers, drivers, etc. All of them were capable of reading or writing in Bengali and majority of the participants (12) were capable of reading or writing in English. The rest of them could barely understand basic English. Each participant had used a smartphone, mostly an Android device for making and receiving phone calls (Viber, Imo, Whatsapp, etc.). Only 8 of the participants had actual experience utilising MFS applications on various occasions, despite the fact that all of them had some knowledge of MFS. Study Procedure. All participants were taken through an experiment session following the steps below:

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Fig. 3. Total frequency of violations by heuristic

– Participants were briefed separately about the purpose of the study. It was made clear to them that the experiment/survey was not aimed to assess them. The purpose was to evaluate the existing MFS applications. It was ensured that participants provide an unbiased opinion about the overall application functionalities and performance during the experiment. – Then participants were provided with a short training of 5–10 min individually so that they are able to demonstrate how to use different MFS applications. – After completion of the training, the participants were asked to perform two main tasks by an MFS application: navigate to select ‘Send Money’ option (Task 1) and complete ‘Send Money Operation’ (Task 2). – At last, all participants were asked to complete a set of post-test questionnaires. Analysis and Results. The data derived from the above study were analyzed to identify the usability parameters according to ISO-1998 that includes effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction for the selected applications in Table 3 [5]. Effectiveness: Effectiveness is the accuracy and completeness to achieve goals. In this study, two variables were considered to measure effectiveness: (a) tapping behavior (number of taps used to perform a specific task), (b) number of attempts (how many times users tried to complete the task successfully). The result shows that for task 2, the average tapping activity among the users was quite consistent, however, this is not totally true for task 1. Although only SureCash has a larger tapping behaviour in task 1, task 2 has the same highest tapping behaviour in both Upay and SureCash. As a result, it can be deduced that users had greater difficulty navigating the option than completing the transaction. Additionally, Table 3 shows that the number of attempts is higher for Upay and SureCash than it is for the other 3 applications. Therefore, the design should be created in such a way that the navigation may be completed swiftly and with minimal effort. Self-explanatory options should be provided as well as suitable help documents

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on each page so that users may receive sufficient guidance during the execution of each activity, making it easier for them to complete the tasks without serious problems. Table 3. Summarization of the user evaluation study for all m-banking applications Evaluation metrics

Data type

Effectiveness

Tapping behavior

Task1 Task2

26.33

29.33

27.67

No of attempts

Task1

2

1

1.33

Task2

2

1.67

2

Completion Time (sec)

Task1

17.67

54

Task2

35

63.67

Asked for help

Task1

1

Task2 –

Efficiency

Satisfaction

Overall satisfaction

Tasks

Average value Nagad

Rocket

bKash

Upay

TAP

SureCash

10

13.33

9.33

6.33

19

23.33

31.67

21

31.67

3.67

1

3.67

2.33

2

3.67

18.67

23.67

29

54

47.33

50.33

31

50.33

2.33

2

0.33

3

2.33

2

2

2

2.67

1

2

2

2

2.33

3.67

3

2

Easy to use

–

2.33

2.33

2

3.67

2

2

Easy to learn

–

2.67

3

2.33

4

2

3

Future use

–

1.67

3.33

3.33

3

3

1.33

Recommendation

–

2.33

3.33

3.33

3.67

3

2.33

Efficiency: Efficiency is the resources expended to complete a task successfully. In this study, two variables have been used to measure efficiency: task completion time (time taken to complete a task) and number of times help was sought for (number of times help asked from the researcher). The result shows that the task completion time for tasks 1 and 2 is relatively long, implying that users were confused and had difficulties completing the tasks correctly. For most of the apps, users requested assistance in case of both tasks. Therefore, effective voice assistance on each UI of the program in their native language can be incorporated, allowing users to understand how to do each task successfully without having to look for assistance. Satisfaction: Satisfaction is the participants’ positive attitudes towards using the application. In this study, to measure satisfaction, five questions were asked encompassing: overall satisfaction level, ease of use, ease of learning, willingness to use the application in the future, and willingness to recommend it to others. These questions were measured using the 5-point Likert scale, a type of response scale where the respondents can specify their level of agreement with a statement with answer scales typically ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). User satisfaction has been measured by giving numbers to the questions from 1 to 5. On average, the values for all applications are in

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a range from 2 to 3 which is not very satisfying. This is a matter of concern since users were dissatisfied with the application after using it, necessitating to improve the usability standard for digitally illiterate persons with a view to achieving more satisfaction and boosting the application’s total usage by the common people of Bangladesh.

4 Summary Findings From the heuristic study and the user evaluation study, a few major problems have been identified. Then, according to the findings some design requirements have been proposed to improve user efficiency. 4.1 Usability Problems The identified usability problems can be generalized into five issues according to Table 4 which are UI design issue, logical error, lack of proper guidance, unavoidable faulty transaction and difficulty in understanding. For instance, ‘Can not zoom in the options’ (P1), ‘Icons are too large than the labels’ (P2), ‘Distracting ads’ (P8), ‘No option for seeing numeric data on the UI by using Bangla Unicode’ (P12), ‘Home page UI cluttered with Ads, Offers and Suggestions section’ (P14), ‘Useless Log Out button on the navigation side panel’ (P16), etc. problems can be recognized as UI design issues. These problems have been encountered in both heuristic evaluation and user study evaluation. In contrast, P5, P7, P15, P20, P21 and P25 can be addressed as logical errors. However, the major problem that scores the highest severity and causes extra time in task completion is the lack of proper guidance which includes P4, P6 and P9. Again, during the heuristic study, two issues have been identified regarding error transaction. ‘No information provided in case of a faulty transaction’ (P17) and ‘When entering invalid information during payment, the error notice appears with a long delay creating confusion’ (P22) are examples Table 4. Problem categories and their findings Problem category

Problems

Findings From heuristic evaluation

From user study evaluation

UI design issue

P1, P2, P6, P8, P11, P12, P14, P16, P19, P23

Yes

Yes

Logical error

P5, P7, P15, P20, P21, P25

Yes

Yes

Lack of proper guidance

P4, P6, P9

Yes

Yes

Unavoidable faulty transaction

P17, P22

Yes

No

Difficulty in understanding

P3, P9, P10, P13, P18, P22, P24

Yes

No

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of unavoidable faulty transactions. Finally, since the heuristic study was conducted by researchers who are well-educated and understand the meaning of each word, they found no difficulties, whereas a user evaluation study revealed that users found these types of activities difficult which are mentioned as P3, P9, P10, P13, P18, P22 and P24 due to digital illiteracy. 4.2 Design Considerations The findings of the evaluation encourage proposing design requirements by addressing the problems found through user evaluation and make the application more understandable and efficient for users with digital illiteracy. According to the problem classification, the design requirements can be divided into four sections which are mentioned below: Simplifying UI Design – Relevant, meaningful, common and easily understandable, and natively common icon/symbols should be used to avoid confusion. – Zoom in options should be incorporated for clear visibility and better readability.

Diminishing Logical Error

– General Copy-Paste data should work during entering mobile number or recipient’s name. – Icons should be matched with their labels which will represent similarity between the system and the real world. – Using redundant buttons and options should be prohibited.

Delivering Proper Guidance

– Video assistance should be provided as a distinct instruction manual. – Audio instructions in native language should be offered upon tapping any symbol.

Avoiding Faulty Transaction

– Third-party authentication should be enabled through a trusted phone number in order to avoid a faulty transaction. Besides, security must be ensured in case of user’s personal details and transactions. Intuitive UI Design for Better User Understanding

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Intuitive UI Design for Better User Understanding

– Alternative usage of the native language and native numeral should be considered in the application design. – Only major functions and their equivalent symbols/icons should be kept for better usage efficiency. – Simplified sentence construction should be used for application guidelines. – Emphasis should be given to providing more visual cues rather than textual cues to a user while completing a task.

5 Conclusions The study investigates the usability and limitations of MFS applications for technologically illiterate individuals in Bangladesh. Through heuristic analysis and user evaluation, this article explores the obstacles that may discourage people from embracing Mobile Financial Services and suggests significant modifications to application design. Existing popular MFS applications can utilize this reference and work diligently to enhance their designs in order to serve clients, including unskilled citizens. During the user evaluation study for digitally illiterate people, only two essential tasks were evaluated. Yet, there were more significant features that were not assessed. A prototype could be designed and developed considering the proposed design requirements. Also, evaluate the prototype to validate the propose design considerations to make it more exclusive. In future, further research will be carried out focusing on user-friendliness and fully functional money transfers along with other services. The prototype may be incorporated into real life for people who lack digital literacy to enhance the adoption of MFS applications in developing countries like Bangladesh.

References 1. https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMT_Suppor ting_Lives_during_a_Crisis_updated.pdf. Accessed 27 May 2022 2. https://bbs.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/bbs.portal.gov.bd/page/a1d32f13_8553_4 4f1_92e6_8ff80a4ff82e/2021-05-14-06-22-47723b0e1476ed905d1c121f8f07d935.pdf. Accessed 30 May 2022 3. Bangladesh bank. https://www.bb.org.bd/en/index.php/financialactivity/mfsdata. Accessed 25 May 2022 4. Abubakar, H.I., Hashim, N.L., Hussain, A.: Usability evaluation model for mobile banking applications interface: model evaluation process using experts’ panel. J. Telecommun. Electron. Comput. Eng. 8(10), 53–57 (2016) 5. Ahmed, R.: Mobile financial services (MFS) in Bangladesh: measuring its consumers’ attitude & its role on buying decisions of other company’s products of the consumers (2018). SSRN 3170571 6. Akter, S., Kim, T.J.: Online banking service: a comparative study between developing country (Bangladesh) and developed country (South Korea). J. Econ. Mark. Manag. 7(2), 15–23 (2019)

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7. Bertini, E., Gabrielli, S., Kimani, S., Catarci, T., Santucci, G.: Appropriating and assessing heuristics for mobile computing. In: Proceedings of the Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces, pp. 119–126 (2006) 8. Cooharojananone, N., Kongnim, P., Mongkolnut, A., Hitoshi, O.: Evaluation study of usability factors on mobile payment application on two different service providers in Thailand. In: 2012 IEEE/IPSJ 12th International Symposium on Applications and the Internet, pp. 233–238. IEEE (2012) 9. Hossain, M.A., Haque, M.Z.: Prospects and challenges of mobile banking in Bangladesh. J. Bus. 35(2) (2014) 10. Hussain, A., Abubakar, H.I., Hashim, N.B.: Evaluating mobile banking application: usability dimensions and measurements. In: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information Technology and Multimedia, pp. 136–140. IEEE (2014) 11. Islam, I., Munim, K.M., Islam, M.N., Karim, M.M.: A proposed secure mobile money transfer system for SME in Bangladesh: an industry 4.0 perspective. In: 2019 International Conference on Sustainable Technologies for Industry 4.0 (STI), pp. 1–6 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1109/ STI47673.2019.9068075 12. Islam, M.N., Inan, T.T.: Exploring the fundamental factors of digital inequality in Bangladesh. SAGE Open 11(2), 21582440211021410 (2021) 13. Islam, M.N., Karim, M., Inan, T.T., Islam, A., et al.: Investigating usability of mobile health applications in Bangladesh. BMC Med. Inform. Decis. Mak. 20(1), 1–13 (2020) 14. Islam, M.N., Khan, S.R., Islam, N.N., Rezwan-A-Rownok, M., Zaman, S.R., Zaman, S.R.: A mobile application for mental health care during COVID-19 pandemic: development and usability evaluation with system usability scale. In: Suhaili, W.S.H., Siau, N.Z., Omar, S., Phon-Amuaisuk, S. (eds.) CIIS 2021. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 1321. Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68133-3_4 15. Islam, M.N., Rahman, S.A., Islam, M.S.: Assessing the usability of e-government websites of Bangladesh. In: 2017 International Conference on Electrical, Computer and Communication Engineering (ECCE), pp. 875–880. IEEE (2017) 16. Khan, A.G., Mahmud, M.S., Lima, R.P.: Investigating the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction of BKash in Bangladesh. Int. J. Financial Serv. Manag. 10(1), 1–17 (2020) 17. Khan, S.: Bringing unbanked poor under financial services. https://thefinancialexpress.com. bd/views/bringing-unbanked-poor-under-financial-services-1579104999. Accessed 25 May 2022 18. Malik, H.A.M., Muhammad, A., Sajid, U.: Analyzing usability of mobile banking applications in Pakistan. Sukkur IBA J. Comput. Math. Sci. 5(2), 25–35 (2021) 19. Nugraha, A.P., Syaifullah, D.H., Puspasari, M.A.: Usability evaluation of main function on three mobile banking application. In: 2018 International Conference on Intelligent Informatics and Biomedical Sciences (ICIIBMS), vol. 3, pp. 1–6. IEEE (2018) 20. Rahman, M.M., Sarker, A., Khan, I.B., Islam, M.N.: Assessing the usability of ridesharing mobile applications in Bangladesh: an empirical study. In: 2020 61st International Scientific Conference on Information Technology and Management Science of Riga Technical University (ITMS), pp. 1–6. IEEE (2020) 21. Riquelme, H.E., Rios, R.E.: The moderating effect of gender in the adoption of mobile banking. Int. J. Bank Mark. 28, 328–341 (2010) 22. Sangar, A.B., Rastari, S.: A model for increasing usability of mobile banking apps on smart phones. Indian J. Sci. Technol. 8(30), 1–9 (2015)

Interface Design of a Mobile Application Oriented to Packaging Sustainability Sérgio Ereira Marques Junior1(B) and Rui Pedro Costa Rodrigues1,2 1 ESMAD - School of Media Arts and Design, Polytechnic of Porto, 4480-876 Vila do Conde,

Portugal [email protected] 2 DigiMedia Research Centre, DeCA–Department of Communication and Art, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal

Abstract. The interface design applied in a system can be a crucial factor to the success level of the user experience, which has as its goal to guarantee the satisfaction while using a determined system. This article continues the work presented at “Mobile Application Oriented to Packaging Sustainability” (Marques and Rodrigues 2021). The creation of a simple categorised system to classify different packaging types according to how sustainable they are is presented based on all the research done previously. The purpose of this project is to simplify the theme and make it available to the general public through the proposed mobile application. The methodology applied in the project is called “User Centred Design” (UCD). Series of UX methods and its results are available in order to validate the system. The final product is a functional prototype ready to be developed in terms of coding. An initial validation of the interface is also approached. The application shows significant potential for positive environmental impacts through its purpose. Keywords: Interface design · User experience design · Circular economy · User centered design · Digital product · Packaging sustainability

1 Introduction The world we are living on today is facing several nature related problems and it is believed that we as a society, have been triggering part of those problems like the increasing temperature in the planet over the last decades being related to air pollution for example. But not only, and between many problems is the presence of packaging materials on natural environment. It is estimated that 4.9 billion tons of plastic were discarded into landfills or natural environment between 1950 and 2015, from a total plastic production of 8.3 billion tons in the same period (Barnes et al. 2009). Around 80–85% is the contribution of plastics in the trash volume in the oceans (Auta et al. 2017). With an initial idea of changing that panorama, this paper comprehends the development of an application prototype and its interface design based on studies about retail packaging, packaging materials as well as design studies through related concepts. The application, also called by “app”, has its concept based on the idea of allowing the user to read a product’s barcode and easily find information about its packaging, such as which materials © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 177–190, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_16

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compose it, how to dispose and how long does it take to degrade. The main goal of the application is to inform and influence people in their decision while choosing a specific product, considering environmental related aspects, such as its level of sustainability. Having a tool like that, easily accessible, drives thoughts to a possible behaviour change where an individual adds sustainability to its list of considerations when purchasing a product. Focusing on the mobile application pretended, specific objectives are: i) To create an easy to use and understand mobile application: ii) To achieve a high-quality interface design product; iii) Provide solutions to user needs when using the system; iv) To motivate the user when using the application.

2 Background The background of the studied project is the impact of plastic and other packaging materials over the environment. The main use of plastic is seen on packages applied in all kinds of products such as food, beauty, medicine, electronics, etc. An example of a type of packaging very commonly used is the plastic bag, it is estimated that one trillion single-used bags are used per year (Larsen 2014). A plastic bag potentialize environmental pollution and can take 1.000 years to degrade, causing several problems such as the death of wild animals, blockage of sewerage systems, rivers and seas pollution and deterioration of a natural landscape (Riyad and Maher Ali 2014). It is not hard to imagine other materials and its consequences, as hundreds of them have their end at landfills or the ocean, as plastic bags. The mobile application proposed pretends to act as one of many needed answers to this question: how to reduce the disposal of packaging on the environment? Inside the sustainability universe there is a system which works as a methodology, called Circular Economy, directly connected to the studied project theme. It is defined by being a regenerative system in which resource input and waste, emission, and energy leakage are minimised by slowing, closing, and narrowing material and energy loops. This can be achieved through longlasting design, maintenance, repair, reuse, remanufacturing, refurbishing, and recycling (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017). he engagement to the Circular Economy can work as a measure to be analysed. These indicators were studied by the European Commission (2018) and a Final Report about the study was released in October 2018. According to the results, most part of the European society is concerned about the environment and it is willing to adjust their behaviour in order to achieve an “eco-friendlier” way of living. This data is aligned with the mobile application’s concept where it tends to influence people on changing their behaviour based on a product’s sustainability information. In order to consider a package sustainable, there are several characteristics to be considered such as all recycling process costs, possibilities of reuse and the number of times a certain material can be recycled. Analysing materials characteristics previously presented in the initial article, a scale from A to F was created to give materials a grade based on their level of sustainability (Table 1). The goal of this scale is to be used in the application as the main method of evaluation regarding the product researched. It will help the user on understanding and thinking about the associated characteristics of a specific product before purchase.

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Table 1. A to F sustainability scale. Category

Description

A

Short to mid-term biodegradable packaging

B

Fully recyclable at low cost (more than two or three times), mid-term degradable, can be re-used and non-toxic

C

Easy and available to recycle more than two or three times

D

Materials that have a complex or expansive recycling process such as the need of separating materials and are toxic

E

Long-lasting materials that are complex to process, non-recyclable and mid-toxic

F

Non-recyclable, non-degradable and highly toxic

Similar systems/products were researched as well and an analysis can be seen at the previous paper developed (Marques and Rodrigues 2021). The applications found served as an important basis for comparison and reference in terms of content as well as technical. Also, as part of the background are the design fundamentals applied in the research, starting with User Interface Design (UI), being the mean of communication that a system needs to be able to interact with its user or simply, the study of how humans interact with computer systems (Stone et al. 2005). It is extremely connected to a field of study called human-computer interaction (HCI). Human-computer interaction is the study, planning and design of how people and computers work together so that a person’s needs are satisfied in the most effective way (Galitz 2007). Comprehends the relationship humancomputer, their understandings and therefore, about creating software that would ease the human work (Bansal and Khan 2018). HCI is multidisciplinary but it has an intrinsic relationship as a subfield of computer science (Dix et al. 2003). An interface has the objective of being easily understood by its user as well as to be easy to manipulate. Through an interface people can see, touch, hear, and even talk, those actions will be recognized by a specific system and give a response. All possibilities need to be considered and studied accordingly in order to achieve its objective as its best. When researching on UI, User experience design (UX) has to be considered. According with the Interaction Design Foundation, UX design is more than interaction design, it also involves user research (finding out who the users are in the first place), creating user personas (why, and under what conditions, would they use the product), performing user testing and usability testing, etc. UX can also be defined as the experience a product or service delivers to people, so it is not about its function but the way a user interacts with it in order to achieve a certain objective. In other words, Garrett (2011) explains this definition in his book: “User experience is not about the inner workings of a product or service. User experience is about how it works on the outside, where a person comes into contact with it. When someone asks you what it’s like to use a product or service, they’re asking about the user experience. Is it hard to do simple things? Is it easy to figure out? How does it feel to interact with the product?”. Another definition according with Hassenzahl (2013) is that UX is a field of study that focus on the user and its context of

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interaction with a product or service. It considers the psychologic and emotional aspects related to the interaction and it is analysed in two parts. One, focusing on a particular interaction moment, considering the action, thoughts and feelings. The second focus on the experience as a narrative that can vary between users and those outcomes can be incorporated in the final product. Interaction design (IxD) is another related field, and it can be defined as designing interactive products to support the way people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives (Preece et al. 2015). Its core can be found in an orientation towards shaping digital products, services, and spaces, with particular attention to the user experience quality (Fallman 2008). It is about designing experiences that improves the way people interact, communicate and work. Another definition made by the Interaction Design Foundation adds that IxD is the design of interactive products and services which a designer’s focus goes beyond the item in development to include the way users will interact with it. Methodology is an important allied to the development process. The chosen methodology in this case is called “User Centred Design” (UCD). It consists of considering the end-user of a product at every stage of the conception and design process (Allen and Chudley 2012). This methodology is based on Ergonomics and Usability in order to find user’s needs, it is a project-oriented approach to interactive systems development (Chammas et al. 2015). The process can start by asking a few questions about the project, like “who will use the product?”, “why?” and “how?”. UCD is often used by designers as real users are considered to validate a product through testing procedures. Consulting the end-user as often as possible using specific techniques will help making decisions more assertively.

3 UX Research and Prototype Design When a prototype is ready, it will be tested with user’s and based on feedback, new design changes are applied, and that circle is repeated until a faceted final product is achieved. But before that stage, some chosen UX methods were applied in order to guide on structuring the system. A questionnaire was the first method used to understand people’s behaviour and perception about the subject. This method is described in detail in the previous article mentioned,1 Personas and Card sorting were the following methods used during the research process and they are both also presented in the previous article mentioned. Based on the research done, further technics were also developed and those are described as follow. 3.1 System Map With all information collected from the UX techniques applied until this stage, a system map was defined. Card sorting results were a great value in order to develop this map as it helped connecting sections and placing information into certain areas. The map represents the architecture of the application, the first structure of the system and is mandatory to the creation of the entire prototype (Fig. 1). 1 “Mobile Application Oriented to Packaging Sustainability” (Marques and Rodrigues 2021).

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Fig. 1. System map.

It contains the most important navigation sections which are five. The main one is “Scan” which is the main functionality of the application, where the user will be able to find a product through its barcode or name. The other four sections are “profile”, “history”, “news” and “recycle”. The “profile” contains user’s personal information like its name, e-mail, photo and access to the tutorial. “History” will keep record of all product’s found in the “scan” section. “News” will display sustainability related news and “Recycle” is a dedicated area to inform about how to recycle based on user’s location. In this section is also possible to search for a recycling dock near based on GPS location. This map is the main support to the wireframing development, as with the main structured defined the focus could be at the interface design of all screens. 3.2 Visual Identity Visual identity is a necessary item in order to create a brand identity to the proposed system. The results from this step will impact on the way people receive and, together with the interface design, interact with the application. References of systems in similar areas are valuable to understand and build a digital environment – based on visual elements, style, colours and typography - where the user will exercise its actions and probably achieve its objectives. According with Wheeler (2009), a strong brand identity will help build brand equity through increased recognition, awareness, and customer loyalty, which in turn helps make a company more successful. In the studied project’s visual identity, those elements were initially created: Logo, Colour Pallete, Typography, Iconography and UI Elements (Fig. 2). Together, those items will be the image of the application and the base of the design elements as well. The logo was created with the intention of representing rough natural elements aligned with a modern and young approach through the lettering style. The idea is to have a graphic form that not only represents the recycling subject, but to add other matters to it, like the circular economy and nature. This is a final version up to this

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Fig. 2. Visual identity elements.

point in the project, considering feedback from the user testing, the logo as some other visual elements can potentially be improved. The colour palette was defined based on the same main characteristics mentioned for the logo as they were built together. The values must be clear through the colours as they will be applied through all identity from this point, especially the application’s interface. Typography had to be defined as part of the visual identity. Circular family was chosen due to its great readability. For main titles, the indicated is Circular Black and for a text font, Circular Book, Book Italic and Bold. Readability in digital platforms is a great concern considering a whole application is going to be designed using it. An initial iconography was created at this stage as well in order to support the interface design development further. The main navigation icons as well as how buttons are going to look are defined. Some interface ideas were created as well as a level-meter, secondary buttons and a slider meter. 3.3 User-Flow As some screens were being drawn, the design was carried in Adobe XD software. At this phase, all secondary screens are created, meaning that not only the sections found on the system map were designed, but all co-related screens as well. Under that definition we can mention pop-ups and the on-boarding tutorial, product search and categories screens as examples. In the user-flow all interactions between sections are described, like taps and swipes. The full user-flow can be seen in the next image (Fig. 3).

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Fig. 3. User-flow.

3.4 Prototype The whole design was defined and in order to create the prototype, almost all buttons were activated and connected to its respective destination. A prototype can be defined as a pre-production representation of some aspect of a concept or final design (Camburn et al. 2017). According with the same author, prototyping often predetermines a large portion of resource deployment in development and influences design project success. In the studied project a high-fidelity prototype is being created, meaning that it gets as

Fig. 4. Prototype screens

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closer as it can be in terms of design and functionalities to a final – programmed – version of the application. Some screens can be seen as follow (Fig. 4). This version is used for usability testing, its analysis and results are available in the following sections. Good quality feedback is expected from it, that will potentially be applied, generating an improved version of the app. 3.5 Usability Testing Usability testing is the process of learning about users from users by observing them using a product to accomplish specific goals of interest to them (Barnum 2011). The user testing was designed based on results from all other UX techniques applied in order to gather the maximum information possible before creating the prototype. Personas created are extremely important in this phase where real users are testing the system. The objectives of the user test are to validate the application in terms of usability and graphical interface as well as to recognise possible flow issues and improvements. Recruitment was done by the author of this paper using social media channels and personal contacts, specific people that have interests in sustainability matters were found. Personas were considered at this stage as they represent the application users. The only information shared with participants was generic, mentioning that the test is about a prototype of a mobile application and the approximate length of it. It is important to mention that considering the Covid-19 pandemic situation, some difficulties were found due to testing limitations. That resulted in a low number of representatives for Persona 3, which is 60 years old. The test was planned to happen during a real time video-call (moderated remote) due to the actual Covid-19 situation where is advised from the General Health Direction to avoid human contact. A main requisite is that the participant uses its smartphone to test the application while the video call is happening in another device. This was applied to all participants in order to achieve consistency through the process. As soon as the video call starts, the interviewer explains that the test is about a sustainability application but that no further information will be provided as the participant perception will be taken into consideration in a future stage. It was asked to all participants to video record their interaction with the application and that every thought they might have during the experiment, to be said out loud. This last technique described is called “think aloud protocol” and is a unique source of information as it generates direct data through the performance (Jaspers et al. 2004). Prototype limitations are also described such as non-working text fields and external links, being examples of how they will look in a final version of the system. There is no specific goal for the user to achieve, the idea is to explore all sections with a free navigation and get conclusions by themselves. It is also explained that the final stage of the test is a post-test questionnaire that they are asked to answer after using the prototype. The questionnaire is available at appendix 2. When all those steps are concluded, the interviewer provides a link to the prototype and the participant can start recording its smartphone screen, and finally click on the link to start the experience. The interviewer is available and present all the time during the experience for possible questions, concerns or technical issues. Only the questionnaire was usually answered by the participant after the video call, where the participant has its own time and no additional pressure to answer the questions.

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The prototype valuation was realised with a convenience sample of 18 participants aged from 24 to 55, the average age is 33.44 and the median is 33.5. They are all people concerned about the environment at a certain level and that have knowledge about the Portuguese language, as primarily the application is built towards the Portuguese market. The educational level of all participants is superior, meaning they all have a bachelor’s degree and their technological level vary from mid-low to high. A few technical issues were faced while doing the tests and their root is related to the software used, but the exact cause is not known as the prototype works perfectly at a desktop environment. The first issue was the disappearance of the bottom tab on screens with scroll, like “news” and “history”, that happened in 5 devices. In those devices, some destinations were malfunctioning as well, for example a non-clickable button was directing the user to the “product search” section. Adobe Xd was checked while running the test and that connection did not exist. The one with a higher incidence of issues was a Nexus 5 Android device, but the tab issue was found on an iPhone8 as well, meaning that the operational system is not related to the problem. The participant using the iPhone 8 tried to access the prototype through Safari and Chrome web browsers and the tab issue persisted on both. The second issue was that the prototype is not compatible with iPhone 6 or lower Apple devices, which caused one participant to use the application on desktop as there were not alternatives. 3.6 Analysis and Results Results show a medium experience time actually navigating through the application of 9 min and 30 s approximately. From the outcome, is possible to say that in general, participants found that the application is easy and pleasant to navigate. The objective of this stage is to organise and analyse all feedback received in order to implement improvements to the application, this process is part of the project methodology and can be easily recognised at the virtuous circle presented earlier in this document. All collected content from screen recording videos with audio comments and answers to the questionnaire is organise in order to deliver clear results that can lead into objective conclusion. Firstly, some sections that are not extremely obvious like the “categories”, “user levels” and “product suggestion” were chosen in order to identify if people were able to access them. Due to its importance in the application, the main functionality, “scan” and the “product page” are added to the selected sections as well. Results are described at the following table (Table 2). Table 2. User testing results of sections access. Participant

Scan

Product page

Categories

User levels

Product suggestions

01

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

02

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

03

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes (continued)

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Scan

Product page

Categories

User levels

Product suggestions

04

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

05

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

06

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

07

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

08

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

09

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

10

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

11

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

12

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

13

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

14

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

15

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

16

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

17

No

Yes

No

No

Yes

18

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Analysing the data from this table is possible to identify that “categories” and “userlevels” are not easy to access as 10 out of 18 participants did not found the user-levels information and 7 did not found the “categories” page. It is also relevant that the older participant did not click at the “scan” button and even representing approximately only 5.5% of testers, considering its age, this is a matter to register. Another valuation method is based on the most common types of comments made during the test. It is important to mention that even inputting the think aloud into the test, some participants do not express a good amount of information. In the next two tables is possible to see how many participants were thinking similarly. The issues related comments are listed in the first one and the positive ones, in the second (Tables 3 and 4). Table 3. Incidence of issue related comments during test. Comments

Number of times mentioned

Doubts about the meaning of categories and the need of finding 8 it earlier Ways of closing the tutorial with no need to see it all over

2

Confused about the “suggestion” product tab

4

Miss further information when editing profile

2

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Table 4. Incidence of positive comments during test. Comments

Number of times mentioned

Like categories

2

Appreciation of the recycling tab

2

Appreciation of suggested products tab

4

Positive comments about the scan function

3

The most common comment while testing the application was about understanding the packaging categorisation. The categories section is only available at a product’s informational page. These comments are extremely helpful as they are a clear fact that those categories should be available in an easier accessible area in the application. Another relevant comment happened when participants saw the “suggestion” tab on a product’s page, where they were unsure about what they would find in that tab, it is not clear that the content is displaying eco-friendlier products compared to the one in question. Some participants initially thought that they could give their own suggestions in that area. Despite participants doubts about the “suggestion” section, they rapidly understood the correct function of that tab and positive comments about it were given. Participants also did positive comments about the scanning function, saying that they would definitely use the app. An interesting behaviour through participants is that around half of them firstly accessed the product’s page through the “history” section and not the “scan”. The reason for that can be that they initially explored same level sections at the tab and later, they tried the “scan” which is accessible via a unique centred button, designed to attract more attention and centred positioned, giving its level of importance in the app. With the focus on the post-test questionnaire, there were a variety of answers from the first and second questions. The first question asked, “What do you like the most about the application?” and answers are all related to the positive environmental impact and about the application usability. The second question asked, “What do you like the least about the application?” and the most relevant answers are about the categories being clearer, 2 answers mentioned the use of colour and 6 were not able to answer, saying that they liked everything about the application. That feedback enhances the need of making access to the categories easier. A slightly adjust to some colours through the app might need some attention as well. The next question is “Which feature would you likely use the most?” and 66,66% of participants mentioned the scan feature and that is a positive feedback from users, meaning that the scan is at its correct place in the app and its functional idea is well designed, but together with minor comments made through the tests, there is room for improvements. When questioned about how often they would use it, most of answers just said that they would use every time they go shopping and this will actually depend on everyone’s lifestyle, but is important to acknowledge that the participants recognize the application as an easy tool that can be accessed in their pockets. The questionnaire follows with a question about any features that they think could be missing in the application and some answers were simply “no” and apart from those, the most mentioned was about real rewards, like discount coupons for example, that would

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highly incentive users. From quantitative questions, 66,7% of participants said that the navigation of the app is good, while 33,3% answered as being very good, being a good feedback when considering navigation. The next three questions are based on a linear scale from 1 to 5, 1 representing the extreme negative and 5, the extreme positive. They are: “On a scale of 1 to 5, rate your experience using the mobile application”, “On a scale of 1 to 5, rate the interface of the mobile application” and “On a scale of 1 to 5, rate the intuitiveness of the icons”. These answers are mainly positive, but a minor number of participants had an average experience with the interface meaning that not all information is well structured and there might be some areas in need of interface improvements. The questionnaire only re-enforced the feedback from the screen recording and conversations along the test and made it possible to synthetise all data collected clearer.

4 Conclusion 4.1 Study Limitations and Future Work On March 2020, quarantine was imposed in European Union as a measure against proliferation of the SARS-CoV-2, a coronavirus never identified in humans so far. Those measures partially limited presential research, such as face to face card sorting and the prototype user testing. Those were done remotely through existent tools that made them possible. This limitation interfered on the recruitment of representative participants to the Persona 3, which has 60 years old. A software limitation delivered issues while running user-testing. Almost 25% of participants had interaction problems while testing the prototype facing buttons disappearing and wrong connections inside the application. Those were not major, but the experience of those participants was prejudicated, as they had to find other ways of entering a specific section for example. The future work of the studied project is firstly to keep the virtuous circle ongoing, meaning that all feedback from the user testing will be applied to the interface and new user tests will applied, until a higher quality product is achieved. The main improvements to be done are: i) Create a clearer and earlier access to the categories section; ii) Change the “suggestion” tab title; iii) Add profile photo at “edit profile”; iv) Add a close button to the tutorial, so it’s possible to close it at any stage; iv) User-level area to be recognised as a clickable area. Those might interfere in certain aspects of the actual application state creating the need to adjust other elements or screens in the interface, but those are certainly needed and will impact positively the project. Focusing on a commercial side, partnerships could be set, working along with retail brands that are actually on the market could add a great value to the application. Through partners, the app could also offer higher incentives to the user as mentioned before, to include real prizes as compensation could increase the number of users, reaching a wider public. 4.2 Final Considerations Through the presented article all project development stages are described, from research and applied design techniques, to the final prototype and its results when tested by real

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users. Based on the research presented in this document, the application developed has potential of guiding users on their buying decision, presenting information about a product’s package sustainability level. If used on a large scale, the platform can have positive impacts on the environment, reducing the presence of toxic and nonbiodegradable materials on the environment. It is important to recognize the improvements needed in certain aspects of the studied project and those are clear now thankfully to the usability testing and further UX techniques. All those objectives are connected, as so, is recognisable that they all have great areas of improvement. The UX techniques applied during the research phase show a high potential of users for the application, this can be seen as a motivational factor for the future work already mentioned. The mobile application presented is also thought to be implemented outside Portugal, as the recycling guidance is designed to work based on GPS location, adapting itself to the local market. The language is something that could easily be adapted as well, elevating the potential of the app to a higher level.

References Abras, C., Maloney-Krichmar, D., Preece, J.: User-centered design. In: Bainbridge, W. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks (2004) Allen, J.J., Chudley, J.J.: Smashing UX design: foundations for designing (2012) Auta, H.S., Emenike, C.U., Fauziah, S.H.: Distribution and importance of microplastics in the marine environment: a review of the sources, fate, effects, and potential solutions. Environ. Int. 102, 165–176 (2017) Bansal, H., Khan, R.: A review paper on human computer interaction. Int. J. Adv. Res. Comput. Sci. Softw. Eng. 8(4), 53 (2018). https://doi.org/10.23956/ijarcsse.v8i4.630 Barnes, D.K.A., Galgani, F., Thompson, R.C., Barlaz, M.: Accumulation and fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 364(1526), 1985–1998 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0205 Camburn, B., et al.: Design prototyping methods: state of the art in strategies, techniques, and guidelines. Des. Sci. 3 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1017/dsj.2017.10 Cerulli-Harms, A. et al.: Behavioural Study on Consumers’ Engagement in the Circular Economy. Publications Office of the European Union (2018). https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/ publication/5de64de7-f9d3-11e8-a96d-01aa75ed71a1 Chammas, A., Quaresma, M., Mont’alvão, C.: A closer look on the user centred design. Procedia Manuf. 3, 5397–5404 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2015.07.656 Cooper, A., Reimann, R., Cronin, D.: About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design (200705-07). Wiley (2021) Cooper, A.: About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design (19-Sep-2014) Paperback. (2021), 4th edn. Wiley, 19 September 2014 Dix, A.: Human Computer Interaction (2003-09-30). Prentice Hall; 3rd edn. (2003-09-30) (2021) European Parliament. Plastic waste and recycling in the EU: facts and figures. (Online forum post). European Parliament, 19 December 2018. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/hea dlines/society/20181212STO21610/plastic-waste-and-recycling-in-the-eu-facts-and-figures Fallman, D.: The interaction design research triangle of design practice, design studies, and design exploration. Des. Issues 24(3), 4–18 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1162/desi.2008.24.3.4 Galitz, W.O.: The Essential Guide to User Interface Design: An Introduction to GUI Design Principles and Techniques (2002-05-29). Wiley (1864) Garrett, J.J.: The Elements of User Experience. New Riders (2011)

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Geissdoerfer, M., Savaget, P., Bocken, N.M., Hultink, E.J.: The circular economy – a new sustainability paradigm? J. Clean. Prod. 143, 757–768 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016. 12.048 Augusto Mateus & Associados: Study on the Relevance and Impact of Portugal’s Waste Sector on the Perspective of a Circular Economy (Executive Summary), March 2018. http://m.smartw asteportugal.com/fotos/editor2/sumario_ing_versao_finais-1.pdf Marques, S., Rodrigues, R.: Mobile application oriented to packaging sustainability. In: Martins, N., Brandão, D. (eds.) Digicom 2020. SSDI, vol. 12, pp. 13–22. Springer, Cham (2021). https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61671-7_2 Moharam, R., Almaqtari, M.: The impact of plastic bags on the environment: a field survey of the city of Sana’a and the surrounding areas, Yemen. Int. J. Eng. Res. Rev. 2(4), 61–69 (2014). http://lieutengreen.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Impact-of-PlasticBags-on-the-Environment.pdf Moran, K.: Usability Testing 101. Nielsen Norman Group, 1 December 2019. https://www.nng roup.com/articles/usability-testing-101 Norman, D., Nielsen, J. (n.d.): The Definition of User Experience (UX). Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/definition-user-experience Norman, D.: The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition, Revised edn. Basic Books (2013) Nunnally, B., Farkas, D.: UX Research: Practical Techniques for Designing Better Products, 1st edn. O’Reilly Media, Sebastopol (2016) Preece, J., Sharp, H., Rogers, Y.: Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction, 4th edn. Wiley, Hoboken (2015) Rodriguez, F.: Plastic. Britannica Encyclopaedia (2019). https://www.britannica.com/science/pla stic Stone, D., Jarrett, C., Woodroffe, M., Minocha, S.: User Interface Design and Evaluation (Interactive Technologies). Morgan Kaufmann, Burlington (2005) Wheeler, A.: Designing Brand Identity. Wiley, Hoboken (2009)

Video Transmission Speed and Impact on Information Retention: A Pilot Study João Costa1(B) , Ana Faria1 , Ricardo Dias1 , Paulo Noriega2,3 and Francisco Rebelo2,3

, Elisângela Vilar2,3

,

1 Lisbon School of Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

[email protected]

2 Research Centre for Architecture, Urbanism and Design, CIAUD, Lisbon School of

Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal {pnoriega,ebpvilar,fsrmccdr}@edu.ulisboa.pt 3 ITI/LARSyS/Lisbon School of Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract. New features related to manipulating multimedia content on applications such as Youtube and Whatsapp allow users to adapt video and sound speed to their preferences. This feature is also being used for e-learning platforms. However, changing video and sound speed could influence how content is perceived and retained by users. Thus, this pilot study aims to investigate the effect of video speed on users’ emotional responses and information retention. The central hypothesis is that video speed will influence information retention, with a double speed increment negatively affecting it. Another assumption was that seeing a video using double speed will affect arousal and pleasure. To test these, twenty volunteers participated in an experiment with two experimental conditions, a Control – in which a video was shown to participants at a normal speed and a Test – in which they saw the same video at double speed. Dependent variables were participants’ emotional responses and level of information retention. The main results confirmed the first hypothesis - information retention is higher at normal speed. However, arousal and pleasure were not affected by video transmission speed. These results are essential for asynchronous e-learning platforms as they show that allowing students to increase video speed will have a negative impact on information retention, which is an important aspect of the learning process. Keywords: Video playback speed · Information retention · Affective slider · Emotional response · Cognitive ergonomics

1 Introduction New features are being tested and implemented with the ever-growing offer of content available on online video-sharing services, like YouTube and streaming platforms. An example is one of the latest updates on Whatsapp, one of the most used mobile messaging apps with more than two billion users [1], allowing users to fast-forward received audios. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 191–200, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_17

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In 2019 [2], streaming platform Netflix decided to test a new feature on its app. This feature also allowed users to fast-forward a vast catalogue of movies and series. Various filmmakers rushed to share their dissatisfaction since this feature would “take control of everyone’s art and destroy it”. According to them, viewers were disrespecting their vision and intended scene timings by choosing to speed the pace of shows. Time is often an essential stylistic factor - a trope - setting a movie’s atmosphere and stimulating the viewer’s emotions. For instance, in scenes where directors want to convey danger, time can be extended to explore the adrenaline [3] fully. A typical example is when a character struggles to defuse a bomb while its countdown timer moves slower than in real-time. The impact of sped-up content in literature is, most of the time, applied to an educational context. Some studies were made focusing on the effect of video speed on students’ comprehension [4], grade level in a course [5], and learning [6]—most of them suggested none or a small negative effect mostly related to increasing speed in 2 times. Another aspect to consider that is often explored when visual content is produced (for learning or leisure purposes) is the emotions the content could provoke in users. Emotions could also affect memory, as shown by a study about the impact of emotional arousal on the enhancement of focal memory [7]. In this study, the author, with the support of behavioural evidence, argues that valence also affects how people remember situations and points out that emotional arousal-induced situations can lead to focal memory enhancements. According to the author, focal enhancements are more likely to occur in negative experiences rather than positive ones. More so, the limited human capacity to retain information is already known [8], so the acceleration of video may cause a situation where even consuming more content in a given period, people could take away less from this content. Although it may be advantageous for some content platforms that users consume more video (given that, generally, this means that more revenue is generated through an advertisement), it may be putting users in a difficult position in the long run by creating the illusion of productivity without any actual transference of knowledge. It has even more impact when asynchronous e-learning platforms also adopt this feature of allowing users to speed-up videos. Keeping in mind these two criteria - memory and emotion – this pilot study aims to investigate if playback speed affects the users’ capacity to retain information presented in videos and if the intended emotions are warped. We also seek to understand if there is any correlation between emotion and information retention in the short term - are people predisposed to remember more information while manifesting a particular type of emotion?

2 Methodology The main goal of this exploratory study is to investigate the relation between the presentation speed, information retention and emotions applied to a multimedia format. According to the different dependent variables, this study considers three different scenarios.

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The first scenario is related to the influence of multimedia speed on information retention. Mainly if watching the video at double speed affects this process. It is anticipated that, much like the relation between brain activation and attention, the respondents’ capacity to retain information when doubled the playback speed of the video will be negatively affected. This effect, allied to the already quick sequences on some action videos, is expected to aggravate the loss of information even more. Thus, the following hypothesis was formulated: Information retention is negatively influenced by speed-up a video two times. The second scenario is related to the influence of video speed on perceived arousal. The following hypothesis was formulated: Perceived arousal is higher when watching a video at double speed. And the third scenario is related to studying the impact of video speed on perceived levels of pleasure. Thus, the following hypothesis was formulated: Perceived pleasure is negatively influenced by speed-up video twice. Thus, considering the hypotheses, the video playback speed and the video playback gender of the movie (i.e., calm or action movie) were defined as independent variables. Information retention (verified as memory recognition and recalling) and emotional responses are the dependent variables. Two experimental conditions were defined, a Control (video presented on normal speed) and a Test condition (video on double speed). A mixed design was considered, being: • Between-subject design – video playback speed (i.e., normal or double) independent variable. • Within-subject design – gender of the movie (i.e., calm or action) independent variable. 2.1 Participants Twenty volunteers (ten males) participated in this study. The mean age was 22, ranging from 16 to 32 years old. All participants were asked about and didn’t report any colour vision problems. Participants were separated into two groups, a control, and a test group, composed of equal numbers of males and females. To control order effect, Control and Test groups were subdivided into Control A and Control B, and Test A and Test B groups, with participants equally distributed across them. 2.2 Measurement Tools To verify information retention, memory retrieval - the process of searching for memory and finding it [9]- was tested, considering both recognition and recall. In recognition, retrieving a memory is often easier since people are given clues that act as activators for information in memory [10] - and with those clues, people can judge whether they have encountered a specific stimulus previously. The process of recalling information has fewer clues, making people produce an item from memory in response to a question. According to Haladyna [11], understanding what is intended to measure is fundamental in choosing the most appropriate item format. Multiple-choice questionnaires are low-inference format items, often used to test cognitive processes - in this case,

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recognition. Thus, we will also use this type of question to assess the performance of our participants in this process. Though, we also aim to measure the recall process, and, for this purpose, we will use the “fill-in-the-blank” item format. We decided to use this format since its answers, like the multiple-choice questions, provide an objective score. With these items, we can approach a “binary” response scoring - either the participants give an entirely correct answer, scoring 1 point, or a wrong one, not scoring any point. A self-assessment method called Affective Slider (AS) [12] was used to test participants’ emotional responses. This reporting tool is a digital approach to SAM (SelfAssessment Manikin), and it has been validated and cited in more than 200 articles. With the AS, the participants, using an online slider, can report their levels of arousal and pleasure. Thus, considering the study’s goals, participants’ emotional responses will be collected immediately after watching each video and answering the memory-related questions. 2.3 Stimuli Small sequences from two movies were selected to understand better the impact of watching a video at double its normal speed on the participants’ emotional response and information retention. The movies were chosen to fulfil the requirement of being the opposite of each other, considering their gender. So, scene sequences were selected from calm to action movies. The first video clip that will be called further in the study “calm” shows two groups of kids, with one of the boys from one group falling in love with a girl from another and contemplating her beauty with a friend. Further in the scene, the boys from the first group stand up to play a game. The scene has a minimalist, piano-based music playing while we see the kids playing and enjoying the game in slow-motion. We chose this scene because it conveys a serene and relaxed ambience. According to Wöllner, Hammerschmidt and Albrecht [13], the use of slow-motion in the scene can lead to lower perceived arousal but higher pleasure compared to real-time scenes. The study also confirms that the presence of music can increase perceived arousal (with physiological metrics also demonstrating it). The second clip which will be called further in the study as “action” shows two soviet helicopters chasing the main character while also destroying a village. The villagers try to stop the helicopters by shooting them down, but they are retaliated by missiles thrown from the helicopters. In the end, the main character can shoot down one of the vehicles with a heavy weapon. The entire scene has an action soundtrack playing in the background, while it is also possible to hear the guns being used and the population screaming and running from the attack. We chose this scene because, overall, it conveys a frenetic and aggressive ambience. 2.4 Procedure Data collection occurred from December 23rd to January 5th through videoconference (using tools such as Zoom or Google Meet) and an online platform created for the study and previously prototyped. Before starting the collection of data, we performed a pilot test to understand if the platform was clear enough for the participants to navigate through

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and if any error while using the website would interrupt the study. We also assured that none of our participants had any inability to see simple shapes and colours since some of our questions were based on that information. Each session had, on average, 5 min of duration. During the experiment, the participants had to keep their cameras and microphones on and have their surroundings and workspace on the frame to ensure there would be no distractions or devices to manipulate their answers. The participants also needed to share their screens so that we could know what they were seeing and guide them through the platform. A consent page for enrolling in the research study was created, explaining the context of the experiment, the procedure to follow and the rights and benefits of the participants. At the end of the page, the participants had to click on the button indicated by the interviewer if they agreed to participate. After this initial page, respondents were presented with one of the videos. The order of the videos was kept variant for the participants so that order effects would not affect the responses. After watching the clips, the respondents were asked to assess their perceived arousal and pleasure using two sliders [12]. After answering, the participants were presented with a brief questionnaire to test their information retention. As stated above, we used different types of items to measure both recognition and recall methods: the first section of the questionnaire had three “fill-in-the-blank” questions to measure the former, and the second section had three multiple-choice questions to measure the latter.

3 Results and Discussion Data will be presented according to the study’s hypothesis: i) information retention will be negatively influenced by video speed, and ii) seeing a video using double speed will affect arousal and pleasure. Thus, information retention and emotional response are the main variables to be analyzed and discussed. Answers from the questionnaire were converted into a binary scale, where one correct answer means 1 point, and one wrong answer means 0 points (for both multiple-choice and fill-in-blank questions). Thus, each participant could have a maximum of 6 points per video (12 in total). The 6 points per video were divided by type of retrieval, meaning that half of them tested recognition and the other half tested recall. 3.1 Information Retention Based on the first hypothesis, descriptive statistic results for information retention variables (i.e., recall and recognition) for the two experimental groups (i.e., control and test) and according to the gender of the video (i.e., calm and action) can be seen on Table 1.

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Table 1. Descriptive statistics for information retention in control and test groups according to the gender of the video (i.e., calm and action) Control group

Test group

Mean

Standard error

Mean

Standard error

Calm video recall

2.1

0.23

2.1

0.18

Calm video recognition

2.7

0.21

1.9

0.31

Calm video total

4.8

0.29

4.0

0.39

Action video recall

1.3

0.30

0.7

0.15

Action video recognition

1.7

0.33

1.3

0.21

Action video total

2.0

0.21

2.0

0.21

Total recall

3.4

0.40

2.8

0.25

Total recognition

4.4

0.31

3.2

0.44

Total

7.8

0.63

6.0

0.54

Information retention was analyzed considering the total score for recall and recognition computed together. Considering the total value (i.e.,12) for the information retention variable despite video arousal level, participants from the control condition presented a mean value higher (7.8) than those from the Test condition (6.0), as expected. Figure 1 shows the boxplots for information retention scores for control and test groups. Results show that, on average, people get 7,8 of 12 questions right when they saw the videos at normal speed, compared to 6 of 12 right questions when the videos were played at double speed. Regarding the type of memory (recall or recognition), on average, people who saw the videos at normal speed got 3.4 of 6 recall questions right, compared to the 2.8 of 6 questions right shown by participants on the Test condition (video in double speed). For the recognition, participants showed a similar pattern, with the control group getting 4.4 of 6 questions correct, compared to the mean of 3.2 of 6 questions attained by the test group participants. Considering the level of arousal of the video, participants who saw the low arousal video in the control group got 4.8 of 6 questions right (2.1/3 in recall and 2.7/3 in recognition). Participants in the test group got 4 of 6 questions right (2.1/3 in recall and 1.9/3 in recognition). For the high arousal video, the control group got 3 of 6 questions right (1.3/3 in recall, 1,7/3 in recognition). The test group showed a mean of 2 of 6 questions right (0.7/3 in recall and 1.3/3 in recognition). Mann-Whitney test was conducted to check for statistically significant differences between control and test groups considering the information retention (recognition and recall). The results allow us to confirm this (Z = −2.032, p = 0.043). Thus, we can conclude that there is enough statistical evidence to infer that those who watch the video at its normal speed have more correct answers than those who watch the video at double

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speed, allowing us to confirm the hypothesis that information retention is negatively influenced by increment on video speed.

Fig. 1. Shows boxplots for information retention scores in Control and Test groups.

Mann-Whitney test was performed to verify the effect of double speed on recognition and recall separately. The results from the test showed only statistically significant differences for recognition when Control and test groups were compared (Z = −2.04, p = 0.04). No difference was found for the recall variable between the two groups Recall (Z = −1.335, p = 0.18). 3.2 Emotional Response Regarding the responses from the Affective Slider, results from the two conditions related to the gender of the movie (calm and action) were not remarkably divergent. In general, the results show that, as expected, participants perceived a higher arousal level in the Action Video compared to the Calm Video. Accordingly, the respondents perceived more elevated levels of pleasure after watching the Calm Video versus the Action Video. Table 2 shows average results for emotional responses for the conditions (control and test) according to the gender of the movie. In the calm video, arousal levels were very similar in both the Control and Test groups (55.9 and 54.4). The levels of pleasure were also similar, being the Test groups’ average pleasure slightly higher (58 in the Control Group and 65 in the Test Group). It was in the Action Video that responses showed the most significant differential. Where the Control group scored an average of 65.9 in perceived arousal, the Test Group scored 81.3. Similarly, the Test Group showed a slightly higher perceived pleasure response of 56.4, against a 47.9 in the Control Group. It was formulated that, on average, those who watched the video at double speed had higher perceived arousal levels than those who watched the video at its normal speed. The Student’s T-test (Two-Sample Assuming Equal Variances) was carried out to test

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this hypothesis. Results show that the observed statistic (tobs ∼ = −0.9507) is not inside the critical region (tcrit ∼ -1.686), so we do not reject the null hypothesis based on = our sample with a significance level of 5% (α = 0.05, df = 38, p ∼ = 0.1739). Thus, we can conclude that there is insufficient statistical evidence to infer that those who watch the video at double speed have higher perceived arousal levels than those who watch at normal speed. Table 2. Descriptive statistics for emotional response (affective sliders) in control and test conditions according to the gender of the video. Control condition

Test condition

Mean

Standard error

Mean

Standard error

Arousal calm video

55.9

5.3

54.4

8.7

Pleasure calm video

58.0

6.4

65.0

7.8

Arousal action video

65.9

7.1

81.3

5.1

Pleasure action video

47.9

6.2

56.0

8.0

According to the study’s objectives, we also try to understand whether the average perceived levels of pleasure decrease when the video is watched at double speed. We formulated this hypothesis based on the cited study about the effects of slow-motion [13]. Suppose footage played in slow-motion increases perceived levels of pleasure. In that case, it is important to understand whether or not there is a decrease in pleasure while the speed increases, thus decreasing linear function. The Student’s T-test was performed to test this, and the results show that the observed statistic (tobs ∼ = 1.3176) is not inside the critical region (tcrit ∼ = 1.686). Thus, we do not reject the null hypothesis based on our sample with a significance level of 5% (α = 0.05, df = 38, p ∼ = 0.0978). Therefore, we can conclude that there is insufficient statistical evidence to infer that those who watch the video at double speed have lower perceived levels of pleasure than those who watch at normal speed.

4 Conclusions This pilot study aimed to investigate the effect of video speed on users’ emotional response and information retention. Primary hypotheses were that: i) information retention will be influenced by video speed, with a double speed affecting it negatively and ii) seeing a video using double speed will affect arousal and pleasure. Succeeding the observation of the results, it is possible to sustain the first hypothesis initially made - the playback speed affects the retention of information of the viewer. This conclusion is supported by the overall decrease of correct answers from the control group to the test group in both recall and recognition questionnaires (46.2% decrease in the score of the recall high arousal video between the control and test group; 29.6% decrease in the score of the recognition low arousal video between the control and test

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group; 23.5% decrease on the score of the recognition high arousal video between the control and test group). Even though we proved our first hypothesis to be as previously expected, this reality wasn’t so apparent for the second hypothesis: playback speed affects the perceived arousal and pleasure of the viewer. This fact is particularly detectable when we analyze the results for the calm video, where the levels of arousal and pleasure were nearly the same (1.5% decrease in arousal levels from the control to the test group and a 7% increase in levels of pleasure). Despite the more unnoticeable effects of playback speed in the previous video, there were more diversions of results regarding the action video, with an increase of 15.4% in levels of arousal between control and test groups and an 8.5% increase in perceived pleasure levels. With this, it is possible to conclude that playback speed influences the emotional perception of the viewer. However, this is not as visible with videos with low arousal levels or stimulation and original slow speeds, such as the video presented. However, some limitations could be highlighted and could be explored further. One is that shown videos were not specifically made for the test. Perhaps, by creating original videos with equal variables, such as the characters, scenarios, and other information (like clothes, colours, or animals), but with different narratives, being one a more dramatic story and the other a calm one, we could better understand the impact of arousal in the retention of the information. Furthermore, despite being homogenous in terms of age and balanced in terms of gender, the sample was relatively small, which might hinder the generalization of the results. A bigger sample would allow us to segregate between ages and, therefore, understand whether the results are different between younger audiences, used to this habit of media consuming, and older audiences. Lastly, there is the recency issue, as we tested the participants’ ability to recall or recognize information right after they saw the videos. For further investigation, it might be interesting to assess if the results would have been different if the questions were made after a more extended period. From the perspective of media makers, we find that the claim that increasing playback speed destroys the experience of film watching is not entirely valid. While our research found significant proof that increasing speed affects how the brain negatively retains information, there is not enough evidence to claim that it affects people’s arousals or their feelings regarding the content they are watching. In this sense, it could be said that our results are of more importance to the asynchronous e-learning platforms than for streaming platforms and other forms of leisure. This is because, in an academic context, information retention is more important than in platforms for video streaming. Acknowledgement. National funds finance this work through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the Strategic Project with the references UIDB/04008/2020 and UIDP/04008/2020. 2020 and ITI -LARSyS-FCT Pluriannual funding 2020- 2023 (UIDB/50009/2020).

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References 1. WhatsApp. Two Billion Users -- Connecting the World Privately. WhatsApp Blog (2020). https://blog.whatsapp.com/two-billion-users-connecting-the-world-privately/?lang=en 2. Welk, B.: Aaron Paul, Judd Apatow and More Speak Out About Netflix Test of Faster Playback Speeds. The Wrap (2019). https://www.thewrap.com/aaron-paul-judd-apatow-netflix-fasterplayback-speeds/ 3. Odin Lindblom. (n.d.). Images in Time: Expressing and Manipulating Time in Cinema Videomaker. Videomaker. May 25, 2022. https://www.videomaker.com/article/c18/17968images-in-time-expressing-and-manipulating-time-in-cinema/ 4. Murphy, D.H., Hoover, K.M., Agadzhanyan, K., Kuehn, J.C., Castel, A.D.: Learning in double time: The effect of lecture video speed on immediate and delayed comprehension. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 36(1), 69–82 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1002/ACP.3899 5. Lang, D., Chen, G., Mirzaei, K., Paepcke, A.: Is faster better? a study of video playback speed. In: ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, pp. 260–269 (2020). https://doi. org/10.1145/3375462.3375466 6. Ness, I., Opdal, K., Sandnes, F.E.: On the convenience of speeding up lecture recordings: increased playback speed reduces learning. In: Huang, Y.-M., Lai, C.-F., Rocha, T. (eds.) ICITL 2021. LNCS, vol. 13117, pp. 461–469. Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-91540-7_47 7. Kensinger, E.A.: Remembering the details: effects of emotion. Emotion Review : J. Int. Society Res. Emotion 1(2), 99–113 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073908100432 8. Marois, R., Ivanoff, J.: Capacity limits of information processing in the brain. Trends Cogn. Sci. 9(6), 296–305 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1016/J.TICS.2005.04.010 9. Gleitman, H., Fridlund, A., Reisberg, D.: Psychology (Snavely, S.L., Ed.; 8th ed.). W.W. Norton & Company Inc. (2011) 10. Raluca Budiu. Memory Recognition and Recall in User Interfaces. Nielsen Norman Group (2014). https://www.nngroup.com/articles/recognition-and-recall/ 11. Haladyna, T.M.: Developing and validating multiple-choice test items (3rd ed.). Routledge (2004). https://www.routledge.com/Developing-and-Validating-Multiple-choice-Test-Items/ Haladyna/p/book/9781138967472 12. Betella, A., Verschure, P.F.M.J.: The affective slider: a digital self-assessment scale for the measurement of human emotions. PLoS ONE 11(2), 1–11 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0148037 13. Wöllner, C., Hammerschmidt, D., Albrecht, H.: Slow motion in films and video clips: Music influences perceived duration and emotion, autonomic physiological activation and pupillary responses. PLoS ONE 13(6), 1–16 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0199161

Service Design Applied to a Health Record System A Prototype for a Refugee Field Hospital in Iraq Lea Camacho1(B)

, Eliana Penedos-Santiago2

, and Estêvão Santos3

1 LIDA - Research Laboratory in Design and Arts, ESAD.CR, Polytechnic of Leiria, 2500-321

Caldas da Rainha, Portugal [email protected] 2 ID+ Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture, University of Porto, Praça Coronel Pacheco 2, 4050-453 Porto, Portugal 3 Unidade de Saúde Pública do ACES Pinhal Litoral (Public Health Unit of Leiria) Polytechnic of Leiria, Leiria, Portugal

Abstract. The humanitarian crisis recently striking our world has led millions to flee their homes and country to find refuge in other places. Health nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) such as Adventist Help (AH) arose from the need to provide aid and lessening human suffering. Working in this context over the past 5 years demonstrated a compromised quality of care, due to an uncertain and limited health record system (HRS). If quality in healthcare have been associated with a functional HRS for its management, delivery, and safety, thus the identification and implementation of such a system is imperative. The systematic collection of patient’s health features and continuity of care to a database is elemental to ensure high standards of care, especially in contexts where health systems are destroyed or disrupted leaving the population affected without proper care. Using a service design methodology, this study aims to develop a HRS’ service blueprint within an emergency field hospital in Iraq, inside a refugee camp, to avert a scenario of a meagre patient care. A service safari with informal ethnographic interviews was conducted to understand the current situation leading to a Service Prototype and Speed consulting workshop with national and international health professionals working at AH’s field hospital, to explore improvement opportunities to the present system. Organisational and individual accountability, and a HRS’s upgrade where the predominant solutions for improvement and re-design of the current system, increasing the access and quality of patient’s care and communication between health stakeholders. Keywords: Humanitarian crisis · Health record system · Service design

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 201–212, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_18

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1 Introduction 1.1 The Humanitarian Crisis Phenomena Forced displacement has led to over 80 million people fleeing their homes, and the number is expected to continue rise [1, 2]. More than 140 million people have been forced to migration or displacement due to armed conflicts or natural disasters with a staggering number of almost 50 million internal displaced persons (IDPs) [3, 4]. Besides the distress from the displacement itself, these populations are exposed to continual health treats as for the exacerbation of pre-existing health conditions and infectious diseases created by a disrupted or even destroyed health system, coupled with very limited resources to healthcare delivery [1, 3, 5–7]. To assist in saving lives and alleviating human suffering to the crisis-affected population [4, 8, 9] humanitarian assistance is indispensable, relying on professional and volunteer aid to achieve improved health outcomes [7, 9, 10], often involving limited resources and cultural and language barriers [1, 5, 11, 12]. However, the increased humanitarian crises have demonstrated a lack of leadership and a need for a more customized approach [13]. This became evident to the author when engaged in contact with an emergency medical non-governmental organization (NGO), providing assistance to the IDPs in Iraq in the year of 2017, when they got established in camps in response to the mass movement occurred [14]. A field hospital was rapidly established to meet, on a temporary basis, the immediate emergency necessities [9, 15] outside the city of Mosul. The problem started to become evident when communication between health stakeholders were hindered by a precarious and non-standardized health record system (HRS) [16]. The lack of a simple yet functional system capable of accounting the healthcare provided [17], facilitating communication between stakeholders [18–20], supporting transparency of care and enhancing its efficiency and effectiveness [16, 21] hindered the performance of the health system in place [22–24]. 1.2 Digital Technology Innovation The humanitarian sector undergoes numerous funding limitations [5, 7, 25], specially affecting health organizations working with refugees, as numerous operate without a standardized HRS [1, 26], resulting in many organizations developing their own, in order to meet their needs [22, 27]. This situation results in a non-standardized system, deterring quality control, communication and data analysis and effectual health responses [9, 26]. Literature has long-established that medical records are central for good clinical practice [1, 9, 16, 19, 21, 22, 24, 28]. The humanitarian action can be improved through innovation and technology, as health records and its data management can profit from the use of electronic health record systems (EHRS) [1, 12, 13, 29], specifically tailored to this kind of settings [1, 12, 30–32].

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There are still many arguments against the use of digital technology deterring its use, as lack of funding, technical skills and digital literacy, availability of the technology needed, electricity and privacy and security concerns [30, 31, 33, 34]. Nonetheless, health technology is speedily advancing [30], to meet up with the ERHSs need [28]. In the humanitarian context, in order to improve and meet the demand, changes are more frequently required [4, 5, 7, 16, 21]. Camacho et al., (2022) compared some clinical software available for the purpose of recording clinical care, to find out that almost all are not free or tailored to the specificity of the clinical environment at the field hospital in Iraq and its HRS’ journey (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Adventist Help’s HRS journey map [35].

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2 Methodology From a benchmarking analysis conducted to several EHRS’ [35] the most favourable solution was an open-source cloud-based clinical software titled OpenMRS. The free personalised system presents all the requirements for a suitable EHRS to the context, but its implementation will take some time as it demands an appropriate tailoring to the hospitals’ HRS journey map. 2.1 Service Prototype A Service Prototype [36] was initially developed taking into consideration the knowledge obtained from the Service Safari [37] to local health NGO’s working in the region, to test and validate the design choices for the electronic system, replicating the experience of interacting with the service (EHRS) in its original context [35]. The main purpose was to eliminate unnecessary paper records, integrating it into the system and improving legibility and accountability. The prototype consists of an Excel sheet, with all relevant clinical information pertaining a patient. Drop-down lists were added into key sections to speed up clinical work. The electronic prototype is shown on Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. Service prototype of the EHRS’s interface.

The implementation of the prototype was a success. The transition from a paperbased to an electronic record was smooth and intuitive, as the system was essentially the paper record template transposed to a digital format. It proved to serve as a systematically collection of patient information and care provided, although with improvement areas to work upon. A SWOT analysis was performed to the electronic prototype, in order to determine weaknesses and strengths of the system (Fig. 3). This first prototype contributed with some initial and critical conclusions, central to the development and improvement of the system. The main issues to be addressed are pertaining to the simplicity of the program used, as it is not a clinical software [1, 31, 36, 37], thus not presenting some expected functionalities of an EHRS (e.g., individual patient health record). Legibility and accountability were greatly improved, however it

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Fig. 3. SWOT analysis to the ERHS’s prototype.

still needs a more structured and mandatory data cells filling (e.g., if a doctor prescribes X number of a certain medication, the system should require that the ‘medication dispensed’ cell is filled with the Y number of medications given to the patient). 2.2 Speed Consulting Workshop In order to help improve end users’ experience with the service (health professionals using the current HRS), a Speed Consulting workshop [38] was developed, to rapidly collect ideas and/or solutions to main problems/issues regarding the EHRS in place. After the implementation of the electronic system and analysis of the positives and negatives of the system, a list of issues where compiled. Three problems stood out, that most implicated the system and need action taken. The workshop was developed to work under these problems and explore future possibilities for improvement. Figure 4 exemplifies the actions taken in regard to the selected problems.

Fig. 4. EHRS’s problems and possible solutions/ideas to explore during the workshop.

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The workshop was conducted at the field hospital divided into 3 sessions, with national and international teams of doctors (4), nurses (4) and a microbiologist – Laboratory assistant (1), with a duration of 35–45 min each session. It consisted in 3 phases: 1) introduction (5 min) for welcome and explanation of the purpose and workshop phases; 2) breakdown (30 min) in 3 separate areas/tables with problems/issues regarding the current EHRS. The group had 10 min to discuss and write on sticky notes as many ideas as possible and/or solutions to meet the problem. When time’s up, they rotate and moved to another problem to repeat the process; 3) discussion and conclusion (5–10 min) so the team could provide feedback about the exercise and ideas given. Figure 5 demonstrates the speed consulting workshop progress.

Fig. 5. Speed consulting workshop with national and international health professionals.

3 Outcomes Workshop outputs where analysed and grouped by area of interest resulting in 3 main themes, recurrent to all three problems, represented by different colour-coding. Also, an alpha-numeric code was given to each participant to preserve their privacy and anonymity. Table 1 summarises the workshop analysis. A total of 70 ideas and possible solutions were collected from the three EHRS’ challenged problems with the most recurrent solution being accountability (53%), immediately followed by a system’s upgrade (34%), represented by Fig. 6. Even though the electronic system has been proven to have increased efficiency, legibility, and the

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Table 1. Summary of speed consulting workshop’s analysis. PROBLEMATIC

Poor health records’ information from the health professionals

THEMATIC COLORS

Paper record

Any idea or solution that will involve a paper-based record system

Accountability

Any idea or solution that involves any kind of participant’s responsibility, either by themselves or through a third party, training, or a consequence/ warning system

System upgrade

Any idea or solution that involves any system or software change, modification, or improvement

CODE

No accurate/ existent record of the number of medications dispensed

The health record system does not create an individual file/ record for patients

Coding representation of the health professionals involved in the workshop

advantage of accessing it remotely, a paper-based solution still emerged as a problemsolving to the electronic version of the current HRS, despite these solutions doubling the documentation process and increasing to the current system’s issue. Concerning the ideas/solutions under the theme ‘Accountability’, the most recurrent solution was by imparting most of the responsibility to the service users or through a punishment/reward system. Figures 7, 8, 9 represent the analysis to the speed consulting workshop.

Fig. 6. Speed consulting workshop results.

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Fig. 7. Speed consulting workshop problem 1 health professionals’ quotes and analysis.

Fig. 8. Speed consulting workshop problem 2 health professionals’ quotes and analysis.

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Fig. 9. Speed consulting workshop problem 3 health professionals’ quotes and analysis.

4 Final Considerations Differences in working practices and experiences between national and international health professionals where noticeable during the workshop. Whereas the nursing staff were the most actively brainstorming among the team and offering more ideas, it was the national staff who suggested an increase of their workload and/or duplication of services provided as well as paper-based solutions. On the other hand, international health professionals focused on a system’s upgrade solutions, with an improvement of the HRS’s functionalities that would automatically increase the staff’s accountability, while national doctors where more to do with a system’s upgrade or through a thirdparty’s accountability (e.g., hiring a pharmacist, transferring responsibility to the patient, nurses should be responsible for checking). Most solutions focused on the improvement of the HRS’ accountability, nonetheless a considerable number of these ideas would benefit directly from an upgrade of the current system. Even though the Excel HRS has proven to facilitate data recording, there is a need to have a more specialized software that is more accurate and tailored to perform the task. The need of a more structured and required data entry (e.g. as reasons for patient visit, clinical examination and findings, treatment details, medication administered or prescribed [19]) will improve the quality of care and professional accountability. The HRS should be flexible enough for the nature and specificity of the environment and to the end users, with the precision of a quality and effective record keeping tool. The main distinctions between national and international staff might bring a good balance of what is desired to what can be achieved in country and upon the resources available. The advantages of having international health professionals’ input, used to more hi-tech solutions can foster alternatives to the current record system, while keeping

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the simplicity and effectiveness desired. A cloud-based open source clinical software can be a way forward for this type of settings [1, 31, 39, 40]. To assist in this efforts, the insights gathered will support the development of a Service Blueprint [41] of the current EHRS, capable of making visible different processes and components of the HRS to optimise the user experience.

References 1. Brotherton, T., Brotherton, S., Ashworth, H., Kadambi, A., Ebrahim, H., Ebrahim, S.: Development of an offline, open-source, electronic health record system for refugee care. Front. Digit. Heal. 4(847002) (2022). https://doi.org/10.3389/FDGTH.2022.847002 2. UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2020. UNHCR Global Trends. p. 72 (2021). https://www.unhcr.org/60b638e37/unhcr-global-trends-2020 3. Abbas, M., et al.: Migrant and refugee populations: a public health and policy perspective on a continuing global crisis. Antimicrob. Resist. Infect. Control 7(114), 1–11 (2018). https:// doi.org/10.1186/S13756-018-0403-4/TABLES/1 4. Daar, A.S., Chang, T., Salomon, A., Singer, P.A.: Grand challenges in humanitarian aid. Nature 559, Nature Publishing Group, pp. 169–173 (2018) 5. Kohrt, B.A., Mistry, A.S., Anand, N., Beecroft, B., Nuwayhid, I.: Health research in humanitarian crises: an urgent global imperative. BMJ Glob. Heal. 4(6), 1–8 (2019). https://doi.org/ 10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001870 6. Toole, M., Waldman, R.: The public health aspects of complex emergencies and refugee situations. Annu. Rev. Public Health 18, 283–312 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1146/ANNUREV. PUBLHEALTH.18.1.283 7. Debarre, A.: Hard to Reach: Providing Healthcare in Armed Conflict. (2018). www.ipinst.org 8. ReliefWeb Glossary of Humanitarian Terms. (2008) 9. Van Berlaer, G.: Disaster and humanitarian emergency response. The importance of field medical data registration (2017) 10. Sphere association the sphere handbook: humanitarian charter and minimum standards in humanitarian response. Sphere Project (2018). www.practicalactionpublishing.org/sphere 11. Jordan, K., Lewis, T.P., Roberts, B.: Quality in crisis: a systematic review of the quality of health systems in humanitarian settings. Confl. Health 15(7), 1–13 (2021). https://doi.org/10. 1186/S13031-021-00342-Z 12. Shen, Y., Tay, Y.C., Sim, H.: When electronic health records and humanitarian aid meet: technology in a rural setting. In: Prehospital and Disaster Medicine 32(S1), S89 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049023X17002321 13. Spiegel, P.B.: The humanitarian system is not just broke, but broken: recommendations for future humanitarian action. Lancet 6736(17), 1–8 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-673 6(17)31278-3 14. Toole, M.: Health in humanitarian crises. In: The Health of Refugees Public Health Perspectives from Crisis to Settlement, Second Edi., 36(2), Allotey, P., Reidpath, D.D., Eds.: Oxford University Press, pp. 54–84 (2020) 15. Norton, I., von Schreeb, J., Aitken, P., Herard, P., Lajolo, C.: Classification and minimum standards for forein medical teams in sudden onset disasters. WHO - Global Health Cluster. pp. 1– 91 (2013). papers3://publication/uuid/4A499536–20D3–4C15-B203–8A9C03FC02DE 16. El-Khani, U., et al.: The patient safety practices of emergency medical teams in disaster zones: a systematic analysis. BMJ Glob. Heal. 4(6), e001889 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1136/ BMJGH-2019-001889

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Investigation of the Creative Process Based on a Practical Exercise of Creation of Characters from Role Playing Game Dungeons and Dragons - Insights and Discoveries Bianca Antonio Gomes1,2(B) , Patricia Turazzi Luciano1 , Vania Ribas Ulbricht1 , and Carlos Eduardo Verzola Vaz1 1 Federal University of Santa Catarina, Campus Universitário Reitor João David Ferreira Lima,

Florianópolis 88040-900, Brazil [email protected] 2 Instituto Federal de Educação ciência e tecnologia de Santa Catarina, Campus PHB, Rua João Bernardino da Rosa S/N, Palhoça 88137-010, Brazil

Abstract. Creativity is an appropriate approach in facing new challenges, and its potential can be expanded when associated with digital tools, such as games. The game is a voluntary activity where there is an artificial conflict, defined by rules, where it achieves a quantifiable result. This article seeks to understand and find insights into the creative process in the context of the Role Playing Game (RPG). To this end, a short-term dynamic of character creation was planned and applied. There were 13 participants who worked in teams to create, each one, an RPG character, adapted from the d20 Dungeons and Dragons system. This research is exploratory and classifies as action-research based on the data collection procedures used. These were: Extensive Direct Observation and semi-structured questionnaires. The dynamics process was recorded chronologically, with mapping of the participants’ difficulties, points of interest and, at the end, the characters were evaluated for the consistency with which they were constructed and the groups for their work during the dynamics. The characters created were coherent, and the creation process in this dynamic was observed, generating interesting insights about creativity and its use as a tool. Keywords: Creativity · Role playing game · Creation process

1 Introduction Creativity has gained more and more importance in the search for new solutions to the problems faced by human society, being a valued skill in the world of working [1]. Once seen as a gift that few possessed, today it is an area of academic study that in the last 50 years has developed methods to measure it. Through these approaches, one can recognize the strongest traits, abilities and talents of each individual, and, on a larger scale, allows for an understanding of the nature of human abilities and giftedness. The © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 213–225, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_19

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methods applied to groups make it possible to collect comparative data, which allows for communication between professionals from different areas such as teachers and psychologists. In addition, it helps to break the idea of creativity as an inaccessible area [2]. Creativity is a valid and widely used approach to face new challenges, to think outside the box, and the potential of creativity is greatly increased when it is combined with new tools of the digital age such as computers and games [3]. In fact, according to the authors, this perspective of the relationship between creativity and digital skills is highlighted by the European Commission document called Council Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning, which states individuals should be able to use digital technologies to support their social inclusion, collaboration with others, and creativity to achieve personal, social, or business goals. The game and the act of playing are present at different stages of human life, from childhood to adulthood [4]. Since ancient times, the game was already part of the lives of individuals and is present in different cultures and civilizations. Several studies [3, 5–7] have addressed creativity in subjects who play games, relating high levels of creativity and innovation with the activity of playing regularly, especially the Role Playing Games - RPG. In Mikhailova’s [5] study of high school students, for example, it was found that students who played role-playing games had higher rates of originality, imagination, and creative thinking compared to students who did not play role-playing games, even representatives of the group involved in role-playing games possessed a more developed skill for leadership and a higher level of innovation than their peers not involved in roleplaying games. And students involved in computer games of any style and in the activity of playing are characterized by greater originality, imagination and creative thinking than their non-playing peers. The aim of this study is to explore the creative process of individuals in the context of RPG. Tracing relationships between creativity and the creative process during character development for RPG. For that, an experiment was carried out with a group of subjects with no previous experience in RPG. It is intended with this experiment to understand the differences and similarities of the creative process and how it occurred during the creation of an RPG character for people who have never had direct contact with this game. In this way, it is intended to obtain insights and subsidies that help in future research and application of experiments on creativity in the context of games and in studies on role playing.

2 Creativity Creativity is inherent to the human being, being dependent on both personal characteristics and cognitive abilities, motivation, personality traits and learning and creativity styles. As well, it can be developed in the process of studying and putting into practice strategies to generate and analyze ideas, make decisions and solve problems. In addition, the culture in which the person is inserted, with its rules and values, also influence the development and implementation of new ideas [1]. According to Vygotsky [8] creativity can be defined as when a subject combines, changes and creates something new, no matter how small. The process of creating an RPG character integrates all these dimensions explained above and is therefore considered a creative act in this study.

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2.1 Convergent and Divergent Phases The creative process, according to the authors [9–11] has two distinct phases: divergent phase and convergent phase. a) The divergent or creative thinking phase corresponds to the creation of possibility, in which different, original, daring, apparently illogical and out of normality responses are rescued from the unconscious. b) The convergent phase must analyze and give a structure to the ideas generated in the previous phase, choosing among the ideas developed those that should move forward, compared to the objectives of the initial project. In the creative process aimed at innovation, the approach commonly used in the divergent phase is brainstorming and in the convergent phase the mental maps [10]. The first is used to multiply options and create competing solutions, while the second is used to organize these generated ideas in a visual way, establishing relationships and hierarchies. This organization can lead to a synthesis, that is, a convergent thinking, in which one chooses among the alternatives generated in the previous phase. However, depending on the reality of each project and the objective for which the creative process is being developed, it is understood that some tools will be more or less suitable, and can be adapted to the context in order to having a better use [10]. Similarly, each person has their particular characteristics, knowledge, experiences and skills. In this research, considering the limitations of time and technology available, as well as the objective of the research, the tool chosen to be applied in the dynamics carried out was the brainstorming. The application of dynamics and results will be presented in heading 5. Bainstorming. Osborn [12] defined brainstorming as a process designed to create new ideas without judging them or their usefulness. It can be done in a group or individually, the main factor being the non-judgment of what comes up. When using brainstorming, four rules must always be followed: 1. The objective of brainstorming (divergent phase) is to produce a large number of ideas, not necessarily high-quality ideas; 2. There should be no judgments of ideas (e.g. whether they are good or bad); 3. Unusual ideas are very welcome and encouraged; 4. The modification or adaptation of previously suggested ideas is also encouraged [13]. Most brainstorm models have a simple structure with two steps - planning and implementation.

3 Games, Creativity and Role-Playing When talking about games, there are several definitions depending on the authors studied. The vast majority of definitions, however, revolve around norms, rules, goals, fun and fantasy. In the definition of Zimmerman [14], adopted in this study, game is a voluntary activity with the explicit participation of the player (interactive activity) where there is an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that ends in a quantifiable result. The rules restrict the behavior of players by limiting what is possible to do within the game, and the quantifiable result has several forms ranging from winning or losing, receiving items, progressing within the game to receiving points or medals.

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3.1 Role-Playing Game The RPG is a narrative game, where the participants (players) and the Game Master - GM create a story and play characters. The story is not fully defined - player actions will define the course it will take. The GM is responsible for creating the initial plot of the story and conducting it according to the actions of the players. He is also responsible for creating and interpreting the other characters in the story (antagonists, supporting characters, monsters, etc.) who are not the protagonists. The players, in turn, are responsible for creating the main characters, and the player is free to decide what their characters do and say, and these decisions are what moves the plot [15]. Generally, groups of RPG players are composed of three to six participants who do not compete with each other, on the contrary, they are encouraged to work as a team, where each player makes up for the deficiencies of the other (with different skills, races and classes) thus facilitating overcome the challenges proposed by the master and thus enabling his advancement in history [16]. Any type of battle or any action taken by characters during the game, including the character creation step itself, is governed by rules. The set of rules that govern the RPG game is called the RPG System, which encompasses the resolution of questions and disputes that players will face, thus controlling the game and the actions of the characters and defining the level of difficulty of the accomplishment. The same. Dungeons and dragons is a medieval fantasy RPG and uses the D20 system. 3.2 Creativity and Role-Playing Game Role-playing by a group of participants within a game is something as old as humanity itself. Enjoying role playing, or pretending to be someone else, and engaging in competitive exercises is one of the most basic human characteristics [17]. In addition to the benefits of a game, the role playing part instigates new ways of thinking and using objects and interacting with people in different contexts [3]. The stimulation of creativity is intrinsically related to role playing. A behavior frequently observed in RPG players is an increase in their creativity, with this the participants enrich the scenario originally created by the master and manage to create more creative or innovative conditions or solutions, thus bringing more advantageous results. This, by the way, is one of the main reasons why organizations use war games for strategic military planning; however, they are also being used for civilian purposes. An example is role-playing games for business professionals [17]. The authors also state that stimulating the imagination is the way to prepare the person for enlightenment. Enlightenment, also called lighting or the eureka effect, is the phenomenon of generating a new idea. Therefore, games and role-playing can be used with various creativity tools such as brainstorming to achieve the phenomenon of enlightenment. Gjedde [18] states that the creative processes, interactions and expression in RPG can happen at four distinct levels: a) At the level of incorporation (immersion) - construction of a character and expression/interpretation of the character through costumes, gestures and voice; b) At the level of the story (epic) - the narrative development; c) At the game level (playful) - follow the rules, receive feedback through progression, advance with the other players; d) At the meta-level (mindful) - becoming aware of the rules of the game, being empathetic with the rules, roles and story unfolding and even trying to change them.

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In this study, the incorporation level (immersion) is approached using the process of building an RPG character.

4 Methodology This study had three moments: the theoretical research by doing a traditional literature review which founds were presented on readings 2 and 3; application and observation of a dynamics aiming character creation; and third, application of questionnaires to a group of non-specialists. The theorical findings served as a pillar for the elaboration of the dynamics and the questionnaires. The themes researched in the review were: creativity, games and role-playing-game, making it possible to know tools and methods to stimulate creativity. This study takes into account the experiences and point of view of the research subjects, that is, we try to see through the participants’ eyes [19], since this research is addressing the creative process of individuals, it is necessary to know and understand the participants’ point of view, in order to really understand their creative process. The data collection was carried out through observation and questionnaire. The observation was documented (annotations made by the researchers, print-screens and video recording) throughout the dynamics. The questionnaire as a research tool usually has a relatively small number of questions, since very long questionnaires are more likely to not be answered, together with the fact that respondents do not feel obliged to answer them [20]. For this reason, was used a short questionnaire, with only 10 questions, which were included only questions strictly necessary to meet the objective of this research. The questionnaires were applied with the subjects at the end of the dynamics and aimed to identify: • The participants’ prior knowledge of character creation or role-playing games; • The procedure chosen for the development of the character and by which item they started; • The creative process developed in a group of non-specialists and by specialist individuals; • Difficulties encountered in the character creation process. The dynamics was applied to post-graduate students from Institution Name hidden for blind review attending the third academic quarter of 2021. Three teams were set up with 5 to 6 participants. The participants of each team were drawn and then distributed among the Yellow, Green and Pink groups. The platforms used to carry out the activity were chosen considering the possibility of collaboration and ease of understanding. Thus, they were selected: Miro (collaborative whiteboard tool) as a space for brainstorming and convergence of ideas, Google platform for rolling dices and GoogleForms for the application of questionnaires. The dynamic lasted 120 min. In an RPG, the character is created and played by the player himself. The construction of the character can occur in several ways, and creativity is present in this process as the player creates (invents) his character, giving it shape, personality traits, ideals, history and physical and mental stats from a few numbers [16]. It is a cyclic process, it does not have a defined order of these steps nor a specific step to start (see Fig. 1.).

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Fig. 1. Character creation process.

To create an RPG character, the character sheet is used, which consists of a series of numbers, notes and information about a character. In the sheet are present: character’s history, personal information of the character (such as full name, personality, family, among others), physical characteristics, abilities, special powers, magic, items and equipment. In the dynamics carried out in this study, the students were challenged to create a character from the traditional RPG (also called tabletop or analog RPG), having to choose the attributes, race, class and skills of the character. And create a story for it, then creating the character sheet for that character. Within Miro, a simplified character sheet model was developed (see Fig. 2.), under the D20 Dungeons and Dragons system. This sheet was adapted for the time of the dynamic, and inside Miro explanatory boards were placed regarding each item of the Character Sheet (each race and its traits, classes and its traits, what each skill does, the ways each attributes improves the character) in this way, the participants could consult the basic and more specific definitions throughout the dynamic, in addition, the tables were one of the tools for the researchers followed the entire creative process. In addition the race options that were given as an option for choice were only: Human, elf, dwarf, halfling and tiefling. And the class options were just: barbarian, cleric, warrior, wizard, bard and rogue. Two evaluation criteria were established for the group dynamics: a) the cooperative creation and building an idea on top of the other’s idea; b) coherence of the created character between all the specs used on the character sheet.

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Fig. 2. Character sheet used in the activity.

5 Results and Discussion Thirteen students participated in the dynamics of character creation and of these, 10 answered to the questionnaire. The analysis of creation in cooperation and building an idea on top of the other was carried out through the observation of the activity and the recording of activities (in chronological order) of the Miro platform. The timeline of the insertion of ideas in the character sheets was reconstructed in chronological order and by each team. Data analysis looked for patterns of activity that indicated a collaborative construction of ideas within teams and the exchange of ideas between teams. Regarding the character construction sequence and creativity thinking, it was possible to clearly see 7 key actions that occurred in all three groups: 1. Choice of race; 2. Class choice; 3. Rolling the data and distributing the values in the attributes; 4. Choice of skills; 5. Character name; 6. Description of the character’s personality; 7. Description of the character’s story. The Yellow and Green groups agreed to start by rolling the dice and distributing the values in the attributes, followed by the choice of race, class and skills. From this point, the Yellow group began to define the character’s personality and history and finally,

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established the name. In other hand, the Green group started by giving a name to then develop the personality and history of the character. The participants of this group had a lot of fun during the dynamics and were light and open to all suggestions from their peers. In contrast, the participants of the Pink group were much more focused and took the dynamic very seriously, finding the fun at the end of the activity, when everything was already chosen and they were debating over the character’s name. The Pink group had a very different creative process from the other two, which started by defining the race, and then moved on to rolling the dice and distributing the values in the attributes. The next step was to define the character’s name, followed by the class, history and personality. At this point, the participants went back to the attribute values and finished with the choice of skills. The yellow and pink groups devoted more time developing the character’s story and describing his personality, and although the Pink group devoted more time to debate between their peers, the proportion of time devoted to completing each item on the model character sheet was quite similar. The pink group still spent a lot of time debating and creating the character’s name, because for the team the name would give the character the missing life and for that reason they looked for a name that matched and reflected the personality chosen for the character. The green group had a distinct work process, with more time devoted to an initial brainstorming, choosing a character’s name, and choosing skills. Less time, according to Miro’s record, devoted to the description of history and personality may be due to the fact that many of these questions were developed in the initial debate. All three groups were able to create their characters during the dynamic and they all created characters that were very consistent in terms of abilities, skills and attribute values, reflecting their characters’ stories and each one’s class. In all groups there was a great collaborative work of creation. Everyone discussed and presented their ideas, defining the best ones and adding more details, developing, improving and deepening the idea chosen by the group. There were no conflicts between the participants and brainstorming was used by all three groups for the initial ideas for character creation and his story. 5.1 Coherence of the Characters Created Yellow Group - created the character Galis Eltonahen, a name created from the composition of the first syllables of each team member names. It is possible to see a desire of the group to see themselves in the character created, to create a connection between creation and creators. The choice for the human race was because they believed it to be the most adaptable. For character’s class, the group debated between mage and warrior, discarding the last one because they believed that everyone who plays for the first time would likely choose warrior, so a mage would be an unusual character. Despite seeking the unusual, the character’s story starts from a group members discussion about the stories of King Arthur from British literature, leading to the construction of the narrative starting in Wales. Unlike the Arthur’s book story, the wizard character created is not an advisor to the king, but rebels against his tyranny and, because of that, lives 15 years running. This running time is not explored and does not present a character evolution, and, at the end of this cycle, he finds an artifact - The Scroll of Knowledge, which grants

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him all the knowledge necessary to fulfill his desires. Each time the scroll is used, the character gets old faster. Here, it is possible to observe a contemporary concern with physical appearance that would have little repercussion on a character background which focus in moral principles. The group even builds one last ruse, in which the character can end this side effect of aging if he finds the Jeremejevite Stone. The personality has been described as headstrong, fair, and charitable, even at the cost of his life. Again, not consistent with the concern of a short life. The selected skills were: Intuition, Perception and Survival. As for the attributes, they assign values in descending order to: charisma, dexterity, intelligence, constitution, wisdom and strength. Despite reporting years of study in their mage training, wisdom appears as the penultimate attribute, while charisma appears as the first. The character developed by the yellow group has a superficial coherence and the character does not present an arc of evolution and achievements, being a figure that is born ready. His story progresses, exclusively, with the acquisition of magical artifacts that do not reflect any change in his personality or maturation. Green Group - created the character Arieoz, a name that emerged at the end of the dynamic. After having created the character, the group was in doubt about what name it should have, after several discussions without reaching a consensus, the name Arieoz (zoeira read from backwards, a portuguese word for joking or make fun) was proposed since the created character was based on the idea of the Brazilian anti-hero Macunaíma (main character of the book Macunaíma: O hero without any character, by the author Mário de Andrade), who made a lot of fun throughout the story. The group also looked to personality archetypes as the basis for creating their character’s personality. A tiefling (race) rogue (class) was created by the group. From the beginning of the dynamics of character creation, one thing was very clear in this group: they wanted to get out of the ordinary. Their intention was to do something different, explore the most unthinkable possibilities and stay away from the classic and known, for example: they didn’t want to use the human race, nor the elf because they were very well known and used in other media such as digital games, movies and books. Nor did they want to make a good and heroic character because it was something very common. So, the tiefling race was chosen because it was the most unusual of those available in the dynamics, and with which the group had never had contact before. Another thing that became clear is that the group was creating a character they wanted to actually exist. The character’s story begins with the murder of his best friend and the theft of part of his powers by the killer. With a vengeance in focus, Arieoz is also an outlaw, but not a murderer. He spends his life wandering alone, looking unfriendly, committing thefts and petty crimes, trying to find his friend’s killer. Therefore, it can be observed that the developed character has a history that justifies his life choices and his current posture. The personality has been described as reflective, mystical, vindictive, spiteful, brooding, and insecure. A race like tiefling, which lives more in the shadows, hidden or solitary, was a great choice for this created personality. The selected skills were: athletics, investigation and persuasion. A description consistent with the character’s history. As for the attributes, they assign values in descending order to: intelligence, strength, wisdom, constitution, charisma and dexterity. Despite reporting an unfriendly-looking character, they put the charisma score ahead of dexterity - a relevant attribute for a rogue. The character developed by the green group has a consistency in the character’s history, personality and skills. The choice of

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attributes, in general, was quite consistent with the character’s history and his class, however, as a rogue depends more on his dexterity, could have left the strength much less and the dexterity greater. This may have happened due to some confusion between strength and dexterity, since the character can also use his dexterity (and not just strength) to be effective in combats, better dodge attacks and have greater flexibility to overcome terrain challenges that may arise. But this did not de-characterize the character, nor did it make him inconsistent with the proposal. Investigation and persuasion are quite consistent skills for a rogue who, according to his history, lives off the success of small thefts and finds. Still depending on your success in deceiving people to continue. In addition, the character needs good stamina and physique to run, hide, flee, and the physical actions (such as fighting) necessary to carry out his revenge, making athletics a coherent skill that closes the character’s skill set very well and makes its history more palpable. The character’s history explains his evolution as a reflection of the events he went through. Pink Group - created the character Estemis Luthien, elf and half goddess. Born in an attempt to unite again Gods and Elves who differed in the kind of punishment to give to a group of barbarian thieves, generating a great disagreement between the two races. The character here is an icon, symbol of a possible peace between these two races and nations which have been disunited for a millennia. Her story is not told, the only fact revealed about her, is her birth. The character class is mage and race is elf. Her personality has been described as tolerant, loving, loyal, courageous, appeasing, sensible, balanced, selfless, eloquent, and charismatic. The selected skills were: Arcana, Intuition, and Persuasion. As for the attributes, they assign values in descending order to: wisdom, intelligence, constitution, dexterity, charisma and strength. Despite describing the personality as charismatic and loving, the charisma attribute is the second lower value. However, the group decided to focus on wisdom and intelligence as Estemis is a symbol of peace and responsible for uniting gods and elves. That’s why the group believed that they would be the most important attributes for the character to achieve what she was born to do. The group spent a lot of time debating about the character, one of the first things they decided was that she would be a woman, as the group was composed only by women who saw themselves in the character and therefore wanted this female representation. The team debated races and, in particular, the elf race - which sparked the debate over Umberto Eco’s idea of ugliness and beauty. For the personality, they discussed some ideas of Freud’s psychology. For the development of the character’s name, they ended up looking for references in Greek mythology, especially the Greek legend of the Seven muses, using brainstorming to arrive at the final name: Estemis Luthien. Estemis is a portmanteau of Estel and Artemis, the name Estel being an elven word that appears several times in the universe of author J. R. R. Tolkien (Creator of the Lord of the Rings, whose history the group pointed out that there were many elves), meaning “hope” and “trust”. And Artemis is the Greek goddess of hunting, being associated with nature, moon and magic. Luthien was another word taken from the J. R. R. Tolkien’s Universe and means “daughter of flowers”. So, from the definition of the name, the character background was created. The character developed by the pink group has little depth in its history, it was thought about the world it inhabits and what happened before its birth and the reason for its birth, but its history was not described.

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Attributes, skills, and personality have great consistency with the idea of the character’s story. The chosen skills: Arcana, Intuition and Persuasion, have a deep relationship with the character’s class and race, as well as their attributes and were chosen because they are considered the most important by the group for this character to actually reach the difficult destiny to fulfil: the peace between two races which have been for years apart. Elves are a race more oriented towards nature, peace and have a facility for the use of magic. Arcana is related to magic and knowledge about it, very important for a mage class character. Intuition and persuasion are important diplomacy skills, which the group believes is the best way to bring the two races together. 5.2 Questionnaires At the end of the activity, the group’s members were asked to answer an online questionnaire with seven questions. There were 10 responses, and it was found that 70% of the participants had no previous experience with role-playing games (analogic or digital), despite this, 80% declared having had some previous experience with character creation. Half of these creative experiences were related to teaching and learning, one appearing in marketing, one in creating personas, which is a very common activity in marketing and design and in the design thinking approach. Character creation for plays and books was also previously performed by another participant. Five were open-answer questions, sought to understand the creative process of creating a character, the difficulties encountered in this process and the difficulties experienced to carrying out the dynamic. As for the order of construction of the characters, the yellow and green group reported starting with attributes, followed by race and class, skills and, finally, personality and history, with only one respondent from each group recording the definition of the character’s name as a process step. Another relevant point was that only one participant reported that they returned to some items already established to give coherence to the character. The participants’ reports demonstrate a certain linearity in the stages of character construction. When asked about the creative process within the groups, 90% responded that it was based on the free exchange of ideas and prior knowledge, including dialogues about characters from cinema and literature, as illustrated by the responses of two of the participants: “All ideas were played in the wheel without any kind of judgment and we were polishing from our purpose”; “We share experiences in readings, films with fictional characters”. And use of brainstorming. This can still be proven during the observation of the dynamics, where the participants used several areas of previous knowledge, such as philosophy, history, mythology, for the debates and brainstorming about the characters to be created. In addition, 30% expressed concerns throughout the process regarding the coherence of the character being developed, and 20% said they first defined the basics and then deepened. It was found that in all groups, prior knowledge helped a lot in the creation of the character and in the character information, such as name, qualities and even physical characteristics had some concrete meaning, a reason, a story, a why to be that way. This showed the presence of the two phases of the creative process: divergent phase and convergent phase on all three groups, first the ideas are generated and then organized, chosen and transformed to shape the final objective.

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The observation showed and, the questionnaire corroborated, that none of the team members felt inhibited in the divergent phase, all exposed their ideas in the generation stage, and there were no reports of shame, neither fear of judgment from others when exposing an idea; confirming thus, role-playing really is an effective tool against inhibition at the idea generation stage in conjunction with brainstorming. The game, also due to its playful, fun and voluntary nature, may have helped to make the participants less inhibited. Regarding the difficulties encountered in the process, 40% pointed to the definition of the character’s story, followed by 20% who reported concerns about escaping stereotypes, and finally 10% said they had difficulties to visualize and give coherence to the character. Technical difficulties were limited to difficulties with the internet connection (20%) and difficulties with the Miro platform (10%).

6 Conclusion The dynamics showed that a collective activity to create a character in a short time for a non-specialist audience was possible. The platforms used were well accepted, and, although some participants showed difficulties, they managed to be overcome within the time of the dynamics. The simplified character sheets - developed specifically for this dynamic, proved to be compatible in terms of the number of items to be filled in with respect to time. The size of the groups, between 5–6 participants were also assertive with space for everyone to express their opinions in constant exchange of ideas and without idleness of individuals. The construction of the characters in this dynamic was a gradual process, the groups in general started from some basic, initial definitions and then deepened the elements already created, so that the creativity in the development of characters happened as a process, as described by the authors Hocevar [9], Brown [10] and Álvares [11]. And it was this process that allowed the groups to reach enlightenment: the generated idea, the new created, which materialized in the form of very rich and distinct characters. Creativity is a process that can take different times, depending on the participants and the goals to achieve. The participants had a lot of fun during the dynamics and the presence of inhibition was not noticed in the creative phase, showing the potential of role playing as a way to prevent inhibition from happening in the idea generation stage of the creative process. The fact of working with the game, whose characteristics permeate the ludic, the fun, the non-obligation to participate or to obtain an effective result (that is, the permission to fail) may also have greatly influenced this atmosphere. All participants sympathized with the characters created and would like to actually play them in an RPG. The creation of RPG characters could be used as a dynamic in the classroom to captivate students and, at the same time, instigate creativity and engagement. The continuation of this research intends to investigate the differences in the creative process, in the scope of character creation, between a group of non-specialists and a group of RPG specialists.

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2. Alencar, E.M.L.: Criatividade e ensino. Psicologia: ciência e profissão 6, 13–16 (1986) 3. Di Fuccio, R., Ferrara, F., Di Ferdinando, A.: The DoCENT game: an immersive roleplaying game for the enhancement of digital-creativity. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Methodologies and Intelligent Systems for Technology Enhanced Learning Conference, pp. 96–102. Springer Cham, Spain (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23884-1_13 4. Rosadas, C.: “Quem sou eu? Jogo dos vírus”: uma nova ferramenta no ensino da virologia. Revista Brasileira de Educação Médica 36(2), 264–268 (2012) 5. Mikhailova, O.B.: High school students involved and not involved in mmorpg: creativity and innovativeness. Int. J. Cognitive Res. Science, Eng. Educ. (IJCRSEE) 7(2), 29–39 (2019) 6. Green, P.G., Kaufman, J.C.: Video Games and Creativity. Academic Press, Cambridge (2015) 7. Oshin V.O., Beatty, E.L.: Cognitive brain training, video games, and creativity. In: Green, P.G.; Kaufman, J.C. (eds.): Video Games and Creativity, pp. 185–198. Academic Press, Cambridge (2015) 8. Vygotsky, L.S.: Imagination and creativity in childhood. J. Russian East European Psychology 42(1), 7–97 (2004) 9. Hocevar, D.: Intelligence, divergent thinking, and creativity. Intelligence 4(1), 25–40 (1980) 10. Brown, T., Katz, B.: Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. HarperBusiness, New York (2019) 11. Álvares, M.R..: A criatividade na solução de problemas. In: 4º Congresso Internacional de Pesquisa em Design Proceedings, pp. 35–45. Rio de janeiro (2007) 12. Osborn, A.F.: Applied Imagination. Scribner, New York (1957) 13. Kunifuji, S., et al.: Creativity support in brainstorming. In: Wierzbicki, A.P., Nakamori, Y. (eds.) Creative Environments. Issues of Creativity Support for the Knowledge Civilization Age, vol. 59, pp. 93–126. Springer, Berlim (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-715 62-7_5 14. Zimmerman, E.: Narrative, Interactivity, Play, and Games. First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, pp. 154- 164. MIT Press, Cambridge (2004) 15. Bettocchi, E., Klimick, C.: Convergências e divergências em ilustrações de RPG. In: 3o Simpósio do laboratório da representação sensível Proceedings on Proceedings, pp. 320–332: Trompe l’oeil, Rio de Janeiro (2004) 16. Rocha, M.S.: Desvendando o Role Playing Game: História, definição e prática. Novas Ideias, Rio de Janeiro (2010) 17. Ryoke, M., et al.: Gaming and role playing as tools for creativity training. In: Wierzbicki, A.P., Nakamori, Y. (eds.) Creative Environments. Issues of Creativity Support for the Knowledge Civilization Age, vol. 59, pp. 255–280. Springer, Berlim (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-540-71562-7_11 18. Gjedde, L.: Role playing game as a platform for creative and collaborative learning. In: 7th European Conference on Games-Based Learning Proceedings, pp. 190–197 (2013) 19. Bogdan, R., Biklen, S.: Investigação qualitativa em educação: uma introdução à teoria e aos métodos. Porto, Portugal (1994) 20. Gil, A.C. Métodos e técnicas de pesquisa social. 6. edn. Atlas, São Paulo (2008)

Cork Toys: Tradition and Innovation Teresa Soares, Miguel Salazar, Rui Pedro Freire, José Luís Ferreira, and José Simões(B) Escola Superior de Artes e Design and ESAD.IDEA – Research in Art and Design, Sra. da Hora, Portugal [email protected]

Abstract. Innovative technologies are embraced by children in natural and spontaneous ways. However, today’s children need the same primary needs as those of past centuries and their healthy development still involves running, jumping, manipulating objects, stimulating the senses and socializing. In this paper, the authors describe the design and development of a first collection of toys made with cork (elou® collection) material. The design process from the ideation phase until prototyping and industrial manufacturing is described. All toys developed are in the market. Keywords: Toy · Cork · Child · Education · Sustainability · Innovation

1 Introduction Technology, computing and programming have invaded the current toy offer, making it sometimes a very complex object, both in manufacturing and assembling and in the act of playing. However, a simple piece of wood can be used as a horse for running or a sock for a puppet. These are very simple experiences that were explored within the project described in this paper. The design approach was based on contemporary classic toys, finding a balance between technology and spontaneity, imagination and creativity. An investigation on the mechanisms of how children acquire knowledge in the first years of life is essential for the conception of any toy, because “play is our brain’s favorite way of learning” [1]. The theory of evolution from the biological point of view has served as a platform for recent psychological studies concerning the development of the human being. Jean Piaget scrutinizes through real experiences the stages of child development that are still studied and applied by professionals, paying special attention to play as a fundamental vehicle for healthy growth at a psychological, emotional and physical level [2]. According to Piaget [2], the game cannot be seen just as fun or prank for energy waste, as it favors physical, cognitive, affective, social and moral development. Play, therefore, under its two essential forms of sensory-motor exercise and symbolism, is an assimilation of the real to its own activity, providing it with its necessary food and transforming the real according to its multiple needs. That is why active methods of educating children require everyone to provide children with a convenient material so that, by playing they assimilate the intellectual realities that, without it, remain external © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 226–235, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_20

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to children’s intelligence [3, 4]. Other theorists defend the same, emphasizing that the game it is not trivial, it is highly serious and of profound significance [5]. It is through play that knowledge is built, especially in the sensorimotor and pre-operational periods, which correspond to the ages of the first set of toys of the elou® collection. Cork (100% natural and 100% Portuguese) is the main material used to manufacture the toys and the design process was developed considering inherent design constraints presented by this type of material. Cork is a very light natural material obtained from the outer layer of the cork oak. It is a hypoallergenic material, compatible with all stages of child development, whose main attributes are soft texture, lightness, shock resistance and absorption properties [6].

2 The elou® Concept The elou® concept aims to offer a set of toys to stimulate the child’s imagination through objects and little figurative or even abstract illustrations that stimulate the child to imagine different worlds with the same object. It is an innovative alternative that intends to restore the spontaneity immanent to the educational process of playing [6]. The Mies Van der Rohe’s maxim - Less is More – is the intended philosophy approach through formal minimalism using the minimum of resources, elements and colors, privileging the forms of simple geometric shapes [7]. The toys were developed considering innovation and sustainability principles, the last one based on four values as referred in the website of the company [6]: 1. Cultural - Cork harvesting and transformation activities are deeply rooted in the Portuguese tradition. So, by bringing a whole new approach to the industry, it is an objective to value Portugal, the raw material itself and the whole surrounding culture; 2. Social - To promote equality of opportunities to all individuals, the company offers resort to institutions dedicated to support social inclusion of people with motor and cognitive disabilities; 3. Economic – the company offer intends to promote the growth and recognition of the cork supply chain and is mainly sustained in the primary and secondary economic sectors, contributing to economic development; 4. Environmental - By proposing a 100% natural and recyclable offer, it is intended to minimize our ecological footprint and grant children an early touch with nature. Elou® is the brand and name given to the collection of the toys (Fig. 1). The name was based on the phonetics of “hello” in Portuguese and intends to transmit and ingenuous formal and visual language. Considering that it is the first collection of toys, it was not developed in collaboration with any pedagogues or specialists in oriented games, and the toys were designed to provide pleasure to play, and due to the age group target it does not need to be oriented to develop cognitive skills. Even though, the didactic role is associated because “the child develops, essentially, through the toy” [8] and this first collection of toys can be a starting point for a research project to collect information on the interaction of the child with those, which can be helpful for further development of new toys on a scientific basis.

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As a project goal, the brand would have to transmit a uniform and coherent language to establish memories through the elou® toy. In the beginning of the project, the identification of the target audience was based on detailed analysis of types of toys they play with nowadays, as well as for the business model for the company. Figure 2 shows the mind map with fundamental requirements for the project.

Fig. 1. The elou® logo.

Fig. 2. Mind Map with main requirements for the project development.

Even though some constraints were defined, total freedom was given to the team for the ideation process and development of the set of toys. The freedom referred does not mean ease of completion, but it can lead to fine-tuning and restructuring during the development of the project [9]. The goal was to design objects that would have the potential to transmit purity and simplicity. The brand should convey the feeling that space is respected, not promoting all the valences just at once without saturating the look. Scandinavian and Japanese designs were references used. All these references were exposed in an inspiration board (Fig. 3) - a tool that allowed the team to visually communicate ideas, thoughts, shapes, impressions, sensations, concepts and environments for the creation of the objects and brand. In addition, it is an excellent way of organizing the design

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thinking and to communicate effectively and objectively influences for the project, in which everyone involved could follow the process and understand the path that was being followed.

Fig. 3. Inspirational board.

Geometry is an important design aspect within the creation of toys, justified by the tendency of geometric patterns of lines and circles started in 2016 until 2017 [10]. The following elements were considered (Fig. 4): 1. The circle as a basic geometry. Other derived geometries transmit positive symbologies like unity, harmony, community and equality, being instinctively familiar to the child; 2. A basic geometry to develop different types of objects; 3. A neutral colored palette with one or two contrasting colors; 4. An interior design to approximate environments to people;

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5. Objects that “breath” free space to highlight the product; 6. The abstract, insinuating the figurative, gives room for imagination and creativity.

Fig. 4. Visual geometry elements used.

Five typologies were defined as mandatory for the toy’s collection: the cube (which later covered basic geometric figures), building blocks, balance toys, stacking toys and free play toys (rug and gymnasium, later associating others that fit the same philosophy, was considered). These typologies supported the creation of different product branches, combining concepts of: 1- Movement: toys should encourage the child to move; 2- Learning: toys are created in a free play perspective, including pedagogical and learning characters; 3- Creativity: interconnected with free play and must be intuitively developed; 4- Touch: cork is the material that stimulates the touch, with the possibility of applying different textures, in addition with other materials such as wood and natural rubber; 5- Safety: all toys must meet European standards. Figure 5 illustrates some of the explorative sketches that were used for digital modelling and later physical modelling and prototyping. Models were made with paper, cork, wood and polystyrene, mainly for visual and physical analysis. The objective using these models was to understand how the geometric dimensions and related proportions, colours, textures and illustrations were suitable for the child and for the feasibility of building and operating the toy (Fig. 6).

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Fig. 5. Explorative sketches.

3 Prototyping and Industrial Manufacturing The project was developed with the collaboration of cork manufacturing companies using an innovative and competitive manufacturing process of cork thermoforming. Although this process is not new, its application to cork is recent and it is still on an improvement stage, in which the cork mixture for each product requires adaptation of mechanical and chemical requirements. However, it has already acquired sufficient satisfactory characteristics (proven with products in the market) to make an investment in tools for massive industrial production. The first toy created was the car (Fig. 7). Its main geometry was then used as the basis for the development of other toys of the collection. The car is a classic toy which children identify themselves early on. Playing with cars stimulate spatial orientation as the child makes accelerating or braking sounds. The toddle also gains some knowledge about driving rules. To avoid mere formal application in all objects, and at the same time transmit the notion of set, some characteristics were defined to design a balanced and coherent collection of toys: 1. The same radius of fillets applied to the vertical edges; 2. The outer dimensions of 70 x 70 x 70 mm for all docking and construction toys, ensuring the possibility of being used together; 3. A secondary matrix, based on circles of the same diameter, externally tangent, as a base for the development of other parts; 4. The sphere and semi-sphere were essential elements of the designs. Experimental physical models are advantageous for understanding of volumes and proportions, and for definitions of the toy’s dimensions to the child’s age. Furthermore, these models can evidence manufacturing problems that would be practically imperceptible with simple analysis of drawings. Some essential parts were rapid prototyped. Simultaneously, virtual models were modelled and analyzed using Alias AutoStudio (free form creation), Solidworks (for production) and KeyShot (for rendering) software. Digital models have the advantage of making it possible to test different geometries very

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Fig. 6. Physical and digital models.

Fig. 7. The cork race car.

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easily and quickly, and can guarantee dimensional accuracy to solve fitting and assembly problems, as well as to anticipate manufacturing constraints. Rendering plays an important role in the project to define colors and material combinations, being very useful in the application and visualization of illustrations. After approval of the collection, technical drawings of the different parts of the toys were made and sent to the respective suppliers for approval and for manufacturing. The key partners in this project are specialists in cork products manufacturing using compression molding techniques to obtain relatively complex geometries at a cadence of production and costs more advantageous than conventional machining. However, the manufacturing technology presents some constraints: 1. The volume is limited to machine size, and it may be necessary to make production of parts separated; 2. Details or small details lose their definition with the increase of the cork grain size; 3. A minimum wall thickness is necessary for adequate mechanical resistance; 4. Tolerances of functional dimensions for metal parts or plastic cannot be used with cork and part fittings can be more complex; 5. For each part it is necessary to analyze the best molding position; 6. Parts must be specifically designed to be manufactured by compression molding; 7. The use of colors with cork is relatively limited (Fig. 8). The first elou® collection is composed of 26 toys as shown in Fig. 9.

Fig. 8. Colour testing.

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Fig. 9. The elou® toys first collection.

4 Conclusions In this paper we briefly present the creating and developing process of the first elou® toys collection. The elou® project brings a new approach to design with cork material and combines physical-chemical characteristics of the material with sensorial and aesthetic characteristics. The international recognized success of the elou® brand reveals the success between enterprise-academic partners to generate innovation and commercial success. Aknowledgments. The authors would like to acknowledge Mr. Francisco Xavier from the Elou company who supported financially the project, as well as financial support under the esad—idea project UIDB/05237/2020 funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.

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References 1. Auerbach, S.: Dr. Toy talks about why classic toys are important. https://www.behance.net/gal lery/47810259/2017-Design-Trends-Guide?utm_content=buffer32cc Accessed 10 June 2022 2. Piaget, J.: O raciocínio da criança. Record, Rio de Janeiro (1967) 3. Piaget, J.: A formação do símbolo na criança. Zahar, Rio de Janeiro (1975) 4. Piaget, J., Inhelder, B.: A psicologia da criança. Difusão Europeia do Livro, Rio de Janeiro (1973) 5. Froebel, F.: The Education of Man. D. Appleton, New York (1887) 6. Elou, Elou cork toys. https://www.eloucork.com Accessed 10 June 2022 7. Wong, W.: Princípios de forma e desenho. Martins Fontes, são Paulo (2010) 8. Vygotski, L.S.: A formação social da mente: o desenvolvimento dos processos psicológicos superiores. Martins Fontes, são Paulo (2007) 9. Cross, N.: Design Thinking. Bloomsbury, London (2011) 10. Behance. 2017 Design Trends Guide. www.behance.net/gallery/47810259/2017-Design-Tre nds-Guide?utm_content=buffer32cc Accessed 10 June 2022

Does Signal APP’s Design Protect Users’ Informational Privacy? A Critical Assessment Davide M. Parrilli(B)

and Rodrigo Hernández-Ramírez

UNIDCOM/IADE, Faculdade de Design, Tecnologia e Comunicação, Universidade Europeia, Lisbon, Portugal {davide.parrilli,rodrigo.ramirez}@universidadeeuropeia.pt

Abstract. BigTech corporations and governments erode privacy rights for alleged legitimate interests and public security reasons. The business model fueling this process, called ‘surveillance capitalism’, relies on increasingly sophisticated means to capture people’s data, often taking advantage of people’s willingness to share personal information over digital platforms to enable massive surveillance. This paper argues that the violations of users’ privacy by the recipients of personal information exchanged through messaging apps threaten the dignity and wellbeing of the affected users. Building on our recent research on privacy infringements between end-users on the messaging platforms WhatsApp and Telegram, we assess Signal’s features to understand whether it allows users to exchange personal information securely. Signal is praised for not being controlled by a large corporation and for allowing users to send end-to-end encrypted messages that are stored directly on the users’ devices. However, encryption does not guarantee that the information exchanged is properly used by the recipient. The paper shows that adequate informational privacy against threats by other users can only be achieved through changes in design practice. Keywords: Design ethics · Informational privacy · Signal app · UX design

1 Introduction The evolution of digital technologies and their ubiquity in contemporary societies have made data essential for the wellbeing of human life, both from a practical and ontological standpoint. For example, the artificial intelligence (AI) embedded in every contemporary smartphone requires massive amounts of data to operate properly (Stephens-Davidowitz 2018). Moreover, according to proponents of Information Ethics, humans are now part of the “infosphere” (Floridi 2014), an environment we share with other informational agents. As such informational organisms, or “inforgs”, we humans exist simultaneously in three overlapping and intertwined dimensions: a physical dimension (our bodies); an emotional dimension (our minds); and an informational dimension (our data). A comprehensive understanding of privacy must, therefore, be concerned with these three dimensions. Privacy, particularly data privacy, has arguably become a key concern for contemporary designers (Falbe et al., 2020; Monteiro 2019) since every digital product or service © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 236–245, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_21

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necessarily deals with user data. Consequently, over the last decades, designers have been progressively nudged to consider some form of Design Ethics both as another dimension of their practice and as an evolving disciplinary area in its own right. The problem, however, is that the foundations of contemporary Design Ethics cannot continue to rely on the ideas of design thinkers with a clear ethical stance, such as Dieter Rams or Victor Papanek (Jong et al., 2017; Papanek 2019), since privacy (understandably) was not an issue they considered. Moreover, the very conception of privacy is an open problem as it nowadays concerns the protection of one’s physical integrity (“bodily privacy”), but also to the safeguard of one’s personal information (“informational privacy”) against undesired intrusions. Not to mention that the question of whether privacy deserves to be protected remains a controversial topic among scholars. Following Westin’s (Westin 1967) influential legal characterization, we regard privacy1 as the right of a person to control information about themselves and to decide how, when, and to which extent that information may be communicated to other people (Bowles 2018; Rachels 1984; Waldman 2018). This conception of privacy is meaningful regardless of whether that information is secret or not.2 As we will discuss further in this paper, even when people voluntarily share information, their privacy might be at risk— think ‘revenge porn’ by ex-partners, or house robbery during holiday periods based on information, posted by the victims on social networks, about their actual location. These issues have been further increased by social media and people’s willingness to submit themselves to what may be called “voluntary surveillance” (Albrechtslund 2008). Nonetheless, in this paper we will address the consequences of sharing information with trusted third parties through instant messaging. Mobile instant messaging apps have become popular channels for sharing all kinds of data (Zhang et al. 2015), and arguably, the most common concern for users regarding these tools is the security they provide against third-party prying. These services rely on increasingly powerful encryption methods to safeguard user privacy against hacking, whereas governments implement increasingly comprehensive privacy legislation to protect users not only from third-party intrusions but also from potential data mishandling by the service providers. However, one of the most pernicious types of privacy violation comes not from hackers nor from service providers, but from other users (Fukuyama 2022); namely, from recipients whom the sender of a message trusts. In this paper, we argue that since existing privacy legislation such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) does not apply to exchange of information between individuals, it is up to designers (and developers) to come up with means to mitigate potential abuses in peer-to-peer messaging platforms. Our research relies on the scarce literature on instant messaging apps and privacy (Morris et al. 2021; Patil and Kobsa 2004). However, it aims to fix the gap in the investigation about such services and privacy from the point of view of their design, understanding instant messaging apps as designed objects, and assessing if their design features protect the users’ information privacy and confidentiality. Scholars recognise that research in 1 For the sake of simplicity, henceforth in this paper the term ‘privacy’ will mean ‘informational

privacy’. 2 Limiting privacy to the protection of “unknown or unknowable” (i.e., secret) information, as

Floridi (2014) suggests, is, in our opinion, dangerous.

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the field of user experience (UX) design is still underdeveloped, with the exception of the issue of dark patterns and consent notices (Nelissen and Funk 2022; Santos et al. 2020).

2 Scope and Methodology As part of a PhD research project about design, privacy, and ethics, this paper analyses the features of the messaging service Signal to determine the extent to which this application mitigates the risk of misuse of sensitive information by recipients of messages. The results presented here expand our previous analyses of similar services, WhatsApp and Telegram (Parrilli and Hernández-Ramírez 2022). Signal is a free cross-platform messaging app that can be used in smartphones (Android and iOS), tablets (iOS only), and desktop computers (Windows, macOS, and Linux). The app has been available since the early 2010s, however, it gained popularity after January 2021, when Meta Platforms announced controversial changes in the privacy policy of the popular messaging service WhatsApp. Since 2018 Signal’s development and maintenance has been supported by grants and donations administered by the Signal Technology Foundation, a non-profit organization registered in the United States. In the first quarter of 2021, Signal had 40 million active users and had been downloaded on 105 million devices.3 Messages sent through Signal are end-to-end encrypted through the open-source Signal Protocol developed by Open Whisper Systems (this encryption protocol is also used by closed-source services such as WhatsApp, Google Messages, and Skype) and stored on the user’s device. The app allows peer-to-peer and group chats, voice calls, and sending media attachments such as audio messages, images, videos, and other files. In the context of this contribution, we rely on Westin’s definition of informational privacy. In particular, we will assess how Signal, through design solutions, effectively guarantees that users may keep a form of control over the information they exchanged voluntarily—thus enhancing their right to control how, when, and to what extent that information may be communicated to third parties. The broader scope of the research is to set steppingstones to design messaging apps that adequately protect the users’ information, and to contribute to increase the understanding of how privacy is fundamentally a design issue. Our methodological approach is mainly a lab assessment: we installed the Signal app (version 5.36.1) on a set of iOS and Android devices, and we tested potential privacyenhancing features in peer-to-peer chats, group chats, and video calls.4 The tests were designed to assess the level of privacy that Signal offers based on the following questions: 1. [RQ 1] Does Signal allow to send temporary messages (i.e., messages that are erased after they are read or once a certain amount of time set by the sender or group administrator expires)? If so, does this mode prevent recipients from saving media (e.g., audio or images) or files included in the message in their own device? Does 3 Source: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/signal-statistics/ (last accessed: 4 May 2022). 4 The tests involved four users: two with an iOS device (iPhone SE 2022) and two with an Android

smartphone.

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the mode prevent recipients from taking screenshots or making screen recordings of temporary messages? Does the feature prevent the recipient from forwarding the message, media, and files to third parties? [RQ 2] Can the sender delete messages and files for everyone once they have been sent? [RQ 3] Can the sender prevent the recipient from forwarding messages or attachments to other users? [RQ 4] Can the sender prevent the recipient from copying and saving messages and attachments? [RQ 5] Can the sender prevent the recipient from making screenshots or screen recordings from messages? [RQ 6] Is it possible to send hidden text that requires the recipient to carry out some type of action to read the message? [RQ 7] Can the sender be notified if the recipient forwards, saves, takes a screenshot, or makes a video recording of a message and its attachments? [RQ 8] Is the caller notified if the other participant takes a screenshot, or records the screen?

In the next section we will present the results of our investigation through detailed answers to the previous questions. In the fourth section we will discuss these results and, with the help of the two following thought experiments, we will show how voluntary disclosure of private information can have dangerous consequences: 1. [TE 1] John works in a retail company under a temporary employment contract. He participates in a group chat in Signal with other co-workers. John was recently diagnosed with a serious disease that requires long, debilitating treatment. Trusting his co-workers, John shares this information on the group chat. One of his colleagues forwards the message to their manager and the following week John is notified that his contract will not be renewed. 2. [TE 2] Olivia is a 19-years-old college student. She has a boyfriend who is enrolled in the same course, Patrick, with whom she shares intimate photos and videos on Signal. After a few months Olivia decides to break up with Patrick who, as a revenge, shares those photos and videos with all his male friends who also happen to be enrolled in Olivia’s course. Once she discovers it, Olivia suffers a mental breakdown and must temporarily leave college to seek psychological treatment. These TEs are aimed to exemplify the risks arising from a reckless diffusion of personal information through digital media. Technology, though, is not to blame for the violations of users’ privacy and their consequences—moral and legal liability lies with the people who infringed the sender’s trust. However, these infringements happen through digital designed products, hence it must be a design concern to find suitable solutions. From the ethics perspective, technologies are not directly liable, but “are morally significant” (Verbeek 2014, p.76). Designers cannot design better people, but can—and should—design products that protect weaker users. In the last section of the paper, we will present some concluding remarks and introduce the developments of our research.

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3 Protecting Signal Users’ Privacy Through Design Like other messaging services such as WhatsApp or Telegram, Signal allows users to customize the privacy settings. In this section we present the results of our lab assessment. 3.1 [Rq 1] Signal does allow users to send “disappearing messages”—i.e., messages that expire after a certain period set by the sender. Users can set a default expiration time for all new chats. The default expiration date ranges from 30 seconds to 4 weeks, but users can choose a custom time ranging from one second to four weeks. Once the expiration time is reached, the message and any accompanying attachment disappear. The disappearing messages feature is available for both peer-to-peer and group chats. In a group chat, members can set their own timer for disappearing messages in the chat settings panel. Before the message automatically disappears, the receiver can save the message, media, and files on his device, forward them to third parties, and take a screenshot or make a screen recording. 3.2 [Rq 2] After sending a message, regardless of its contents, users can delete it, just for themselves or for everyone. However, deletion only applies to information inside the chat. If the receiver forwards or downloads the content to their device, it will not be erased. In the chat, the content of the deleted message will disappear, and it will be replaced by a notification indicating the message has been deleted (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Once deleted, the message is replaced by a notification visible for both the sender and the receiver.

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3.3 [Rq 3], [Rq 4] The answer to questions three and four is negative. Users cannot prevent recipients from forwarding or copying messages and attachments. 3.4 [Rq 5] The answer to question five is negative. Signal does not allow users to prevent recipients from making screenshots. However, Signal for Android has a feature (unavailable on iOS due to sandboxing) that impedes receivers from making screenshots and screen recordings on a device where Screen Security has been enabled. We tested whether this feature also blocks screen recording by third-party apps,5 the result was a black screen. Screen Security also prevents Signal previews from appearing in the app switcher (in both iOS and Android). However, this feature does not prevent the recipient from taking screenshots on their device, unless Screen Security is also activated on the receiver’s phone. Moreover, the recipient can still save and forward messages and attachments to third parties. Screen Security is intended to protect information included in the chat from people who might gain access to the user’s phone; but its effectiveness in terms of privacy enhancement is dubious if the “attacker” were to gain physical access to the device: the potential intruder could easily turn Screen Security off before making a screenshot or could simply take a picture of the chat and its attachments using their own device. Presumably, however, Screen Security might be of more service in the case of remote attacks, where a third-party gains access to the device via some type of malware (the prime example being the extremely sophisticated targeting spyware “Pegasus”, developed by the Israeli cyber intelligence company NSO Group). 3.5 [Rq 6], [Rq 7], [Rq 8] Answers to questions six through eight are negative. Unlike Telegram, Signal users cannot send hidden text that requires the recipient to carry out an action to read the message. Signal also does not alert users when the recipient forwards a message, saves attachments or records the screen either on video or as screenshots, including during calls. Android users with Screen Security activated cannot record their own screen during a video call, but, as noted earlier, this only applies to their own devices. 3.6 Other Privacy Features Our tests revealed that Signal has the following additional features for increasing the confidentiality of messages: Face and Content Blurring. Before sending an image, users can toggle an option that automatically places a blurred square on top of any recognized face and can also manually blur any section of the image. This feature, however, does not work with videos (Fig. 2). 5 The tests were carried out with the screen recording app “Mobizen”, for Android.

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Fig. 2. Blurring can be automatic and retouched manually.

View Only Once. The user can limit the number of times a receiver can open an attachment to “view only once”. When activated, the thumbnail in the chat box does not show a preview of the file. Instead, the message “Media” (on the sender’s device) and “View Photo” or “View Video” (on the receiver’s device) will be displayed. The feature, however, does not prevent the receiver from taking a screenshot or recording the screen. Hide Content from Notifications. To protect the confidentiality of information against prying eyes, users can choose which notifications Signal will show: (i) name, content, and actions; (ii) name only; (iii) no name or content. Screen Lock. Signal users can toggle the screen lock tab to prevent unauthorized access to chats and messages.

4 Discussion The previous analysis shows that Signal has useful features for protecting the privacy and confidentiality of information exchanged through it. Now, based on the following thought experiments [TE 1] and [TE 2], we will show to what extent those features are effective for ensuring informational privacy. In [TE 1], John could take advantage of the disappearing messages tool to prevent his colleagues from sharing his sensitive information with third parties. After sending the message, John could also delete it for everyone. Nonetheless, as we already noted, these features do not prevent other members of the group from forwarding the message to a third party before it has been deleted, and in case they do so, John would have no way of knowing it. Other features, such as Screen Security would also be useless in that regard. Only a feature that could prevent recipients from forwarding the received messages could effectively protect John’s informational privacy. In this sense, the Restrict Saving

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Content feature in Telegram chat groups prevent recipients from forwarding messages (Parrilli and Hernández-Ramírez 2022). [TE 2] requires separate analyses given the type of content that Olivia sent to Patrick. Had Olivia sent (only) personal images to Patrick, she could have sent them as disappearing messages to minimize privacy risks. However, her informational privacy would have still been compromised, if Patrick were to download the pictures to his device or would have taken screenshots. The same applies had Olivia deleted the pictures for everyone after sending them. Only a feature that prevents the recipient from taking screenshots or downloading the media can effectively protect the user’s informational privacy. Once again, Screen Security is useless for this situation. Similarly, Telegram and WhatsApp do not have in place tools that comprehensively prevent users from taking screenshots or downloading media. The most sophisticated feature is Restrict Saving Content in Telegram app that impedes pictures (but not videos) from being registered in screenshots in group chats (Parrilli and Hernández-Ramírez 2022). Olivia could have blurred her face. However, this feature is used by senders who do not trust recipients. In our though experiment, Olivia trusts Patrick; but given the nature of the images, she could have used the “view only once” mode. Regardless, this feature could not have prevented Patrick from saving the pictures on his device or taking a screenshot had he wanted to. The previous alternatives also apply to disappearing messages, delete for everybody, Screen Security, and view only once, had Olivia sent videos instead of pictures. Patrick could have saved the media on his device, or recorded the screen, without Olivia knowing so. Once Patrick has control of Olivia’s videos, he can betray her trust and forward the media to his contacts if he wishes to do so. The same applies to WhatsApp6 and Telegram (Parrilli and Hernández-Ramírez 2022). The answers to our questions and the assessment of the thought experiments show that when it comes to protecting informational privacy, Signal’s design is ineffective. Users have no power to prevent recipients from re-sharing sensitive information. The lab tests we performed, and the resulting discussion, show that the effectiveness of disappearing messages, delete for everybody, and view only once to protect the sender’s informational privacy is limited. These features should be enhanced or replaced by more robust features that genuinely empower users by putting them in control of their informational practice—e.g., by effectively blocking any possibility for the recipient to save received media on their device, and to forward and screen record message. With this respect, the blur faces feature is perhaps the most effective one for protecting user’s informational privacy. Worryingly, our previous research revealed that the design of both WhatsApp and Telegram is unsuccessful in protecting the users’ informational privacy and confidentiality in a robust and consistent way (Parrilli and Hernández-Ramírez 2022). Based on an assessment of the actual design features of the apps, Telegram’s developers appear to be more concerned with users’ privacy, although the solutions that have been implemented so far need to mature to reach their full potential.

6 Mark Zuckerberg announced on his Facebook profile on 8 August 2022 that new privacy features

are coming to WhatsApp, including prevent screenshots on view once messages.

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5 Conclusions This paper is part of a broader research project aimed at understanding how design can contribute to ensuring that users have effective control of their personal information, and, ultimately, to provide designers with conceptual and practical tools to address this issue. By analysing Signal’s privacy features we gained a better understanding of the potential vulnerabilities in the design of messaging services. We obtained further evidence of the gaps that designers of this type of services still must bridge to provide users with an acceptable level of informational privacy. Regardless of the potential flaws we found, we must recognize that, compared to similar services (such as WhatsApp), Signal has taken important steps for helping users to dodge some of the inherent dangers of what has been called “surveillance capitalism” (Doctorow 2020; Foster and McChesney 2014; Zuboff 2019). However, the way Signal’s privacy features were designed still fails to protect users from violations of informational privacy by other users, regardless of whether they are trusted or not. The reason we focus on potential abuses by trusted peers is that this problem is often disregarded, and because this type of abuse can have grave consequences for the victims. Tragically, it is not uncommon for victims of revenge porn, to take their own life due to shame and guilt over their “mistake”: having trusted someone who intentionally shares private information to do harm. Complex solutions are required to address such intricate problems, starting with more and better education about how to respect people and their informational identities. Unfortunately, the pervasiveness of social media and the toxic behaviours they often help to amplify (Monteiro 2019; Véliz 2020) have made these problems worse. Not so long ago, Olivia could have switched college to start a new life far from Patrick. Nowadays physical distance would likely be ineffective, as her informational identity and Patrick’s are ubiquitous. Design has an ethical responsibility (Papanek 2019) to find solutions to pressing issues, including the protection of informational privacy. The response must be radical. Design should create tools that effectively protect the privacy and confidentiality of users’ information, and ultimately their dignity, integrity, and life. In practice—since design is about turning ideas into things (Archer 1984)—designers must help people gain control of their informational self. More research is needed to determine how to act. The privacy features analysed in this paper can be incorporated into every messaging service and even into other type of services, such as social media. However, doing so may require more sophisticated solutions to empower users to control their information. Our ongoing research seeks to address these questions and contribute to that roadmap. Acknowledgments. This study was supported by UNIDCOM under a Grant by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) no. UIDB/DES/00711/2020 attributed to UNIDCOM/IADE – Universidade Europeia, Lisbon, Portugal.

References Albrechtslund, A.: Online social networking as participatory surveillance. First Monday (2008). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v13i3.2142

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Sketching Role in Nowadays Design Education Ana Moreira da Silva(B) CIAUD, Lisbon School of Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa, 1349-063 Lisbon, Portugal [email protected]

Abstract. The apprehension, creation, memory and reflection on nature, spaces and forms has a long tradition in free hand drawing. Over the last decades, expectations about design education have changed following the paradigm shift of our times, with a strong and increasingly use of the new technologies. However, most designers still base their work on sketches. The main aim of this paper is to understand how sketching can work as an operative representation of new ideas, as part of the design process, and as a key process for thinking, reasoning, creating and exploring solutions for design problems. Through a qualitative research, using literature review methodology, studying and analyzing several authors, this paper investigates the sketching importance, aiming to promote reflection and bringing new perspectives on the nowadays use of sketches in design practice and in design education. From this theoretical approach we also purpose to verify drawing teaching relevance for future designers despite the paradigm changes. Keywords: Design · Sketching · Design education

1 Introduction This study integrates an ongoing post-doc research mainly motivated by the necessity of producing more knowledge and reflection on Drawing. The main research question focuses on nowadays relevance of the use of sketches as a critical and operative instrument for design. We aim to achieve contribution on the study of the creative process, enhancing hand drawing/sketching important value for design students and professionals.

2 Sketching Freehand drawing makes part of our human nature, and this is evident as we start by drawing naturally, even before learning to write. A child does not sketch exactly a car, she sketches her meaning of a car. Drawings made by children during their sequential development, when in scribbling stage, are meaningful experiments in representation [1]. Drawing’s considerable importance is the capability it offers to represent abstract concepts and to produce the ground for the new ideas development. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 246–254, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_22

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Sketches have been present over centuries, mostly since the Renaissance in Italy, when drawing importance began to be recognized for conception and creation. During those times, the intellectual drawing feature was finally acknowledged and the artists, such as Alberti or Vasari, considered drawing like something coming from the human brain that the hand perform [2]. Since those times, we can recognize that sketches constitute an important ground for creative works, both in painting and sculpture and in architecture and design. Along generations, sketches have been widely used by most designers. Sketches can help when starting the ideas generative phase, and also allow that more quality conceptions can be start as basic first ideas. Through sketching uninterrupted use, these initial ideas can be analyzed, recombined, before their selection and development also based on more detailed sketches (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Charles Eames chairs sketches (1943). Source: https://www.google.pt/search?q=Charles+ eames+sketches&tbm, accessed 2020/01/23.

Sketching is an easy and quick process, permitting to analyze and improve ideas in a fast, iterative and visual way. It is not necessary to learn how to work with technologically

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sophisticated tools, the simple use of any pencil on a piece of paper or a marker on a whiteboard enables new ideas to emerge. It is a basic, fast and easy method widely used in multiple creative professions. Sketches can be performed anywhere, anytime, using several mediums (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Designer Alec Issigonis did Mini first sketches on a napkin, during a dinner. https://www. acp.pt/classicos/os-classicos/noticias/detalhe/8117, last accessed 2022/05/27

3 Sketching Importance in Design Practice and in Design Education In the past, hand drawing classes were always present in the design schools. With the arising of many new technological advances have completely changed the paradigm. Due to these changes, the importance attributed to freehand drawing has almost completely disappeared and it becomes necessary to reflect about the tools students and designers use to start and develop a project. Over the last decades, design education paradigm has changed dramatically, as designers are increasingly expected to be more multidisciplinary, have more systematic and critical thinking, and integrate more relevant knowledge from other academic disciplines. As designers work consists on the creation of solutions for required problems from varied fields, sketches can be an operative basis for the solutions working-out through the ideas development along the several phases. Creativity consists of transforming new ideas into reality. Can be related to the ability of perceiving reality with a new vision, to create new relations between the real and the virtual, to make connections between what we see and what we imagine, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves the process of thinking, imaging and making [3].

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Several authors and specialists have been writing about the importance of sketches during the design activity. Their general conclusions point to sketches as a required means for allowing new ideas to emerge freely during the creative process and provide a rigorous critic analysis before the final solution choice. Trough sketching the designer’s ideas can be externalized, clarified, recreated and re-examined, until finding a possible design solution [4]. Within the design activity, in the idea generation stage, one of the sketching relevant functions is supporting a re-interpretative cycle within the thinking process [5]. The rough nature of sketching permits that designers can, easy and fast, put an idea on paper. Observing new concepts in a visual form can be a great help, particularly during the first stages of the design process. Sketching gives designers a chance to visualize their ideas, select those that can became a solution, and work out problems on those that need improvement. As sketches are quick and easy, they can freely put out whatever’s in their thought. Sketches can even became a way to open the mind when there is lack of inspiration. Allowing that new ideas came out, even if the sketch is rough, it can help to proceed. Gerard Huerta, typographer and graphic designer, states that when we are stuck, we should walk away from the computer and draw, because it will help us to better find a solution [6]. Drawings happen when our hand, controlled by our brain, perform representations of real things, thoughts or concepts. Through sketches we externalize ideas, confer coherence on scattered concepts for clarity and for creativity. Scientists found evidences that the act of making hand drawings activates large networks of our brains. When sketching, the mental control of the hand movements involves the senses, establishing and giving rise to neural activities that manage high levels in the cognition and learning processing [7]. Our hands being an extension of our brains can give visibility to our ideas through sketches. Doodling, outlining, putting lines in searching something new can be a creative catalyzer. Based on psychological research about creative practice, it needs freedom and space to flourish, and the sketch space is the place where ideation and imagination often take place because it allows for that freedom. Scientists have proved the benefit of sketching for creativity, calling it ‘restructuring’ or ‘transforming ideas’ that drive on creative transformation [8]. This kind of freehand drawings is important for the clarification and restructuring of concepts when trying creative solutions, helping to reach new ideas [9]. Sketching can stimulate a re-interpretative cycle in the individual designer’s idea generation process through the capacity of transforming ideas and arranging or re-arranging concepts, opening new perspectives and possibilities for creativity. Cross [10] states that sketches can be a solution for the process of creation in design and that in the first phases of a project they constitute a means of dialoging with ourselves, concluding that the creative stages are supported by the ideas evolution through sketches. According to Donald Schön, sketching practice is much more than a mere conceptual representation, covering reasoning progress. Analyzing the drawing itself, we can find a way to actively reflect [11].

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When their students use sketches during exercises, Ortega and Weihermann [12] have arrived to the conclusion that ideas happen freely and unveil new solutions not previously thought or considered. For Mike Baskinger, sketches are important in most designers working processes. Sketching can be very useful during team work. Free hand drawings enable to think differently about any project issue and can provide better results during collaborative phases. Sketches can help when passing to digital on several tools. The ease, spontaneous action using a pencil or a pen for letting ideas flow on any surface can be both effective and entrancing. Sketching ones ideas can clarify, lead the way and facilitate collaboration in significant ways [13] (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Mike Dutton’s sketches for a Google doodle (2014). Source: https://www.google.com/ doodles/john-venns-180th-birthday, last accessed 2019/12/05

In order to find the best solutions, designers need to study in detail each step of the project to obtain the final result. Sketches became more complex and detailed as the designer advance toward the ideal or possible solutions. During the creative phase it is necessary not to underestimate the significance in a simple line, in a scribble, in a rough drawing. For the creative process development this simple contributions can be useful.

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In design, the sketchbook use is not only for drawings but also for registering thoughts and to put several graphic information useful for the project development. Represents a means for reasoning through sketches along the creative phase. For Rohde, the main sketching purpose is to promote new ideas seeking to find problem solutions and also a clear and effective communication [14]. It is possible to summarize that sketches, within the design process, have many functions, such as: record, explore, communicate and express witch can also be combined [15] (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. Sketch book is an important designer’s tool. https://helsinkidesignweek.com/2021/02/11/ sketchbook-is-an-important-tool/?lang=en, last accessed 2022/05/28

Free hand drawings allow the ideas, the reasoning and the thoughts to develop in the mind to be translated and understood through the impressions present in the support surface. Mind and hand are directly connected and drawings are its physical evidence, being the hand a brain extension. Rohde [14] states “sketching is the visual thinking power tool”. Its use in design is a path to increase new software solutions. As conclusion, this author says that in the creative process in the project field, the frequent use of freehand drawing continues to be of great importance, especially in the current digital age, since sketches are more than a tool for visual thinking, they are a process for acquiring new knowledge, allowing the exploration and dissemination of ideas. Sketching helps us to think outside the box, allowing the emergence of new ways of looking, exploring possible solutions and allowing constructive discussions with clients and partners.

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For Wilkinson [16], sketches can be a simple drawing to start, but something happens when sketching, that arouses creative thinking and ideas begin to flow, begins to take form and ‘thinking through drawing’ allows the development of several solutions and their critical analyses to achieve the best outcome. For Wilkinson [16], we can start with a simple scratch to awake the surge of new ideas that then start to be visible and taking shape. This ‘thinking through sketches’ allows finding solutions and critical analysis to find the best outcome. Norman [17] states that the changes that have been happening in design, because o actual reality where the new technologies became so important, justify a large discussion on the drawing classes’ role in design courses, adapted to the new paradigm. Norman [17] states that recent changes in design working methods, where technology became essential, justifies that drawing classes in design training, should be adapted to nowadays reality. Nevertheless, the new technological paradigm cannot replace the central role played by sketching, both in the ideation phase, the moment of emergence of the first ideas, which implies their rapid registration, and during the creation, testing and redesign phases, until reaching a possible solution.

4 Conclusions Based on the developed research, until the moment we can conclude that sketching, within the design process, continues to serve several functions. Sketches can be powerful representations of new ideas, as part of a larger design process, as a key method for thinking, reasoning, and exploring solutions for design problems. Besides their functions as representation and communication tools, sketches also trigger designer’s creativity. Sketching can boost an important re-interpretive and restructuring cycle in the designer’s idea generation process. As sketches are often unspecified and vague, allowing for perceptual creativity to flesh out a new structure. Combining and restructuring are both related to creativity, suggesting that both mental processes are needed in order to conceive creative products. Since the process of restructuring depends strongly on sketching, several authors suggest that sketching constitutes a crucial part of the creative process. The act of creation requires the brain to find new associations, generate new connections. Sketching can stimulate a re-interpretive cycle in the individual designer’s idea generation process. It appears that sketches stimulate creativity in this generation process, by providing new directions for ideas to breed in an individual generate-interpret cycle. Sketches can make an important contribution to the creative act in design. We can still underline the validity of the use of new technologies in the scope of the projectual act in design, that have a high number of advantages, among which the facilitation of practical tasks with great time savings. This fact does not invalidate the role of sketching that has been adapted over time. During drawing, designers easily and rapidly can make choices, compose alternatives, and select what and how to communicate, both in their ideas representation and in their several design solutions, as well as they can evidence forms and ambiances, or

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even show appearances of what we see or think. Experiencing free hand drawing may give us more attentive awareness and reflexive capacity. Regardless of the paradigm shift in our changing times, we can consider that sketches will remain inseparable from the designers training and practice, assuming an important operational support in the design process. Acknowledgements. The author would like to acknowledge the support given by CIAUD – Research Center for Architecture, Urbanism and Design, Lisbon School of Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa, and by FCT – Foundation for the Science and Technology, Portugal.

References 1. Brooks, M.L.: Drawing to learn. In: Narey, M.J. (ed.) Multimodal Perspectives of Language, Literacy, and Learning in Early Childhood. EYC, vol. 12, pp. 25–44. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44297-6_2 2. da Silva, A.M.: De Sansedoni a Vasari: um contributo para o estudo do Desenho como fundamento do processo conceptual. Universidade Lusíada Editora, Lisboa (2010) 3. Naiman, L.: Creativity at Work (2021). https://www.creativityatwork.com/about/. Accessed 20 Dec 2021 4. Tversky, B., Suwa, M.: Thinking with Sketches. In: Tools for Innovation, Chapter 4, Markman, A., Wood, K. (Eds). Oxford Uiniversity Press, Oxford, UK (2009) 5. Van Der Lugt, R.: How sketching can affect the idea generation process in design group meetings. Design Studies 26(2), 101-122 (2005). Elsevier, Amsterdam 6. Fransen, M.: (2016). https://www.vye.agency/blog/10-quotes-on-creativity-and-inspirationto-motivate-your-team. Accessed 20 Apr 2022 7. Van der Meer, A., Van der Weel, R.: Only three fingers write, but the whole brain works. a high-density EEG study showing advantages of drawing over typing for learning. Journal Frontiers in Psychology 8, 706 (2017). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/. Accessed 20 Apr 2022 8. Verstijnen, I., Heylighen, A., Wagemans, J., Neuckermans, H.: Sketching, analogies and creativity. On the shared research interests of psychologists and designers (2001). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242674163_Sketching_analogies_and_cre ativity_On_the_shared_research_interests_of_psychologists_and_designers. Accessed 21 Apr 2022 9. Jellema, P., Annemans, M., Heylighen, A.: Drawing - the researcher into data: drawing as an analytical tool in qualitative research (2022). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357 225310. Accessed 10 May 2022 10. Cross, N.: Engineering Design Methods, Strategies for Design. John Wiley & Sons, Lt. Chichester, England (2005) 11. Schön, D.: Educando o profissional reflexivo: um novo design para o ensino e a aprendizagem, Artes Médicas Sul. Porto Alegre. Brasil (2000) 12. Ortega, A.R., Weihermann, S.: Graphic dialogues: the progress of knowledge in architecture studio. In: Kong, M.S.M., Monteiro, M.R. (eds) Progress(es) – Theories and Practices, pp. 111–114. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, London, UK (2017) 13. Baskinger, M.: Pencils before Pixels, A Primer in Hand-generated Sketching. In Interactions, vol. XV (2008). https://mv122011.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/baskinger-pencils_p ixels.pdf. Accessed 21 Apr 2022

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14. Rohde, M.: Sketching: The Visual Thinking Power Tool (2011). http://alistapart.com/article/ sketching-the-visual-thinking-power-tool. Accessed 21 Apr 2022 15. Lawson, B.: What Designers Know. Elsevier, Oxford (2004) 16. Wilkinson, C.: Thinking through drawing (2016). https://vimeo.com/159085592. Accessed 30 Mar 2022 17. Norman, D.: Why Design Education must change (2010). http://www.core77.com/blog/col umns/why_design_education_must_change_17993.asp. Accessed 28 Mar 2022

Digital Medical Design: How New Technologies and Approaches Can Empower Healthcare for Society Gabriele Pontillo(B) University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Via Roma 29, 81031 Aversa, Italy [email protected]

Abstract. This contribution aims to describe how the convergence of digital design and medical design can lead to the realization of innovative design solutions, which improve the relationship between science and society and in particular between medicine and society, especially concerning the design of artifacts that can empower healthcare and wellbeing for society. The analysis of the scientific literature and the state of the art of reference, highlights the increasing use of digital, new technologies and innovative tools, in the field of medical and health design, in particular for the realization of goods and services capable of increasing the diffusion of health and well-being in society. Nevertheless, it is not possible to avoid reflections on contemporary issues, such as environmental sustainability and equal access to care and treatment, which make improving the quality of life accessible and widespread. These themes will be addressed through the description of a design and production approach, developed within the framework of an Industrial Characterization Ph.D. in Environment, Design, and Innovation, which, thanks to the use of the new technologies and tools of digital design, parametric design, and additive manufacturing, has dealt with the design of therapeutic and rehabilitation devices, customized to specific needs. Keywords: Digital medical design · New technologies and approaches · Health care systems

1 Introduction In recent years, the increasing focus on issues such as the widespread quality of life, health, and well-being in society has highlighted the need to create and realize artifacts, goods, and services, which bring medical practice closer to the people, to improve the health condition of the community. The aging of the population, misinformation on medical and health issues, ineffectiveness of drugs, and inaccessibility to services, are just some of the issues that the health field is confronted with [1]. This condition is closely linked to the definition of Quality of Life (QoL), formalized in 1991 thanks to an international project called the World Health Organisation Quality of Life [2], which has been the focus of countless experiences, theories and projects for some © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 255–269, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_23

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time now, as it includes various domains, such as physical health, psychological health, independence, social relations, environmental conditions, even touching on the spheres of spirituality, religion and personal beliefs [3]. In line with this, the focus on Health in the Horizon EU Framework Programme is highlighted. The latter is the second Cluster of Pillar II “Global Challenges & European Industrial Competitiveness”, whose areas of intervention - in detail - are: Health throughout the life course; Noncommunicable and rare diseases; Tools, technologies, and digital solutions for health and care, including personalized medicine; Environmental and social health determinants; Infectious diseases. Including poverty-related and neglected diseases; Health care systems [4]. From the comparison with this context, it appears that health and wellbeing - the latter term often used interchangeably with the previously reported neologism of QoL [2] - have become important areas for research and experimentation of the design project, which through its methods and approaches, has already begun to deal with the realization of tangible or intangible products, services, installations, etc., that can respond to the needs detected by the reference context. Concerning the study carried out on the scientific literature and the state of the art on the subject, it emerges that at the basis of these projects is the convergence of the different technical and design skills, with those more closely linked to the medical/scientific sphere, which outlines the constraints, performances, and functions to be taken into consideration during the design activity. Giving shape to medical functions and performances through the design project is a practice that must fully understand what are the technical and scientific methods and contents, assimilate and translate them [5] as well as guarantee their effective and efficient use. Indeed, to arrive at the realization of artifacts that can have a positive medical influence on users, designers cannot avoid confronting the ethical responsibility [6] that makes health and well-being democratically accessible to society. In broader terms, the literature on the subject points out how design can contribute to the medical and health sectors, as it offers the possibility of empowering people to achieve their goals, thanks to increased awareness, perception, and cognition of emotions and behavior, but also thanks to an increased ergonomics and comfort of the designed solution [7]. To do this, it is necessary to center the design process on the user, i.e. on the evidence of the results emerging from the observation of users at various levels of participation, which allows designers to study and analyze people’s needs, even the most hidden ones, to address through the design, those aspects linked - for example - to disease management or the promotion of a healthier lifestyle [7, 8]. In this perspective, digital technology is capable of bringing a considerable innovative thrust in terms of design and relationships between and among different competencies, for the reference context, as it offers the opportunity and the means to study and experiment innovative design solutions, based on the experiences and needs of the user, who is understood centrally for the process that goes from the creation to the realization of the artifact, especially in the phases in which the collaboration between the actors operating in the research and design phases is more evident, where it is necessary to think in an evidence-based logic that leads the project to investigate solutions that can have a positive impact on society.

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Regarding the described scenario, a further aspect to be taken into consideration emerges from the comparison with the COVID-19 pandemic health emergency, which has shown how vulnerable the world’s production chains are [9], and at the same time the methods and systems of management of medical environments, which are subjected, never before as at this time, to such pressure as to turn the spotlight on possible strategic interventions in various spheres, such as the decentralization of treatment and therapy processes, moving them towards patients’ homes [10]. To do this, design for health can intervene in the design of artifacts that, on the one hand, can increase the impact of the dissemination of scientific research topics, such as chronic diseases, obesity, the aging population, and consequent problems [11], on the other hand, they can become an integral part of the user’s life. In particular, conforming artifacts as wearable devices that can help the user in his or her daily life both from the medical and therapeutic and monitoring point of view makes these tools relational artifacts, both highly scientific and soft in conception [12]. Therefore, the scenario described highlights numerous opportunities for intervention for design in health and medicine, to meet the needs of the context, bringing innovation and improvements over the state of the art, including through the use of methods, techniques, and digital tools, which collaborate in the design of medical devices for health and well-being, in order to achieve improvements in terms of both experiential and functional, and design and production. The scientific literature emphasizes how the role of design in medicine is changing, as it is no longer only concerned with the design of the individual device, but also with the future of health practice [13], for example through the design of smart tools for the daily monitoring of the person [14]. To address this issue, this contribution aims to describe the research activity carried out within the framework of an Industrial Characterization Ph.D. in Environment, Design, and Innovation, which focuses consists of the design of medical, customized, and innovative devices, through an approach that has seen the use of digital design and additive manufacturing technologies, which, as revealed by the analysis of the scientific literature and the state of the art, constitute a useful approach to process and product innovation.

2 Background: Digital Design, Health and Wellbeing The area of interest of the research, finds a fundamental reference in the statement “The idea that design and creative practice are somehow separate from health, would be a misnomer” [15]. The research addressed the theme of design in the medical field, approaching it through the convergence of different disciplines and competencies, thus uniting the creative and design practice with the scientific and health ones. It is precisely thanks to this convergence, and to the study of the scientific literature, that has emerged the need to address design challenges in this sector, with an awareness to the emerging themes of the contemporary society, such as health emergencies [16, 17. 18], more democratic and widespread access to health and wellbeing [19], the possibility of achieving customized design solutions [20, 21], as well as paying greater attention to the increasingly urgent issues of environmental sustainability [22]. To clarify what is the innovative and original contribution of the present research to the outlined context, the relevant aspects from a theoretical and practical point of view

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will be reported below, to highlight how new technologies and approaches can have a positive influence on society. As stated earlier, the issue of health emergencies has led society to confront a condition of endemic fragility, linked to all aspects of daily life. If, on the one hand, the lack of access to healthcare facilities has led to the need to rethink the monitoring and management of patients, particularly those undergoing rehabilitation or home-based care treatments [23], on the other hand, the lockdown and blockage of transport - both import and export - as well as of traditional production chains, have had an important impact on the availability of medical devices, both therapeutic for end users and of use for medical personnel [24]. To address these issues, as shown from the field’s study, additive manufacturing technologies have demonstrated that they can be decisive for the emergency context because they make it possible to address precisely the difficulties associated with traditional production and the lack of medical and medical devices. If digital manufacturing technologies were already being widely used in various contexts, even in space, as demonstrated by the experiments conducted by NASA [25], the pandemic emergency has globally disseminated the idea that 3D printing could be used to produce medical and health devices [26], both theoretically and practically, mainly because they are easily available and so can lead to a rethinking of the process that goes from the creation to the production of an artifact, shortening the distance between the initial and final stages of the production chain [27]. Additive manufacturing, therefore, has its relevance from the point of view of the benefits it brings in various contexts [28], due to its possibility of producing customized products characterized by complex shapes more simply. What characterizes the design process is the possibility of approaching production cyclically and iteratively; based on the results of prototyping it is possible to make modifications and refinements to improve the functionality and quality of the design in much less time than in traditional production, where such iteration leads to a greater expense of time and cost since a modification of the design implies a modification of the entire production process, including the necessary tools and equipment. This leads to a delay in meeting needs, especially in the emergency context of the pandemic, where demand is significantly high. Therefore, the faster the iteration process, the better the outcome in terms of meeting user needs [24]. The comparison with the theme of the health emergency in turn opens up further reflections on the subject of more widespread and democratic access to health and wellbeing. In this regard, digital design as well as additive manufacturing techniques, have shown, as reported earlier, that they can play a strategic role, as the economic and management aspects of creative and production processes are redefined, leading to better and faster satisfaction of needs. Accessibility and equal opportunities for all have become, also thanks to digital technology, one of the main themes of the project culture in the last decade [28], as demonstrated by the attention shown to it by the international development strategies reported above, and by the focus on the health and quality of life of all people, not only those with disabilities [29]. To address these issues, therefore, the approach constituted by the use of digital design and additive manufacturing technologies makes it possible to arrive at customized

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and easily reproducible design solutions in less time and with less expenditure of materials and resources - including economic ones - even in the most complex contexts and developing territories [30], leading to the transformation and redefinition of geopolitical, economic, social, demographic, environmental and security dynamics [31]. In this perspective, and from the comparison with the traditional supply chain, the analysis of the scientific literature and the state of the art of reference, highlights some relevant experiences, in which the integration between 3D printing and digital and medical design, has led to the creation of various types of customized devices [19, 21] both from an aesthetic and purely functional point of view. The process employed mainly makes use of tricks such as the creation of a perforated texture and the variation of surface thickness to achieve a lighter and more breathable artifact generated through digital and, more specifically, parametric modeling [32]. In the healthcare field, therefore, the use of digital design tools and additive technologies has revolutionized the production chain by reducing its complexity, as well as the cost of the final product [33], aspects that, thanks to the new techniques and approaches, lead to greater and more democratic access to medical devices for the well-being and health of society, and at the same time to an increase in production capacity. About this last aspect, it should be pointed out that the new techniques and approaches are also strategic from the point of view of environmental sustainability, a further emerging contemporary theme that in recent months has become more important than ever in comparison with the impact that traditional production chains and processes have on the environment. Here again, the analysis of the scientific literature on the subject [22, 34, 35], highlights how digital manufacturing techniques are not only more sustainable because they require lower resources and energies, but, as reported earlier, they shorten and simplify the entire supply, becoming a key element in the sustainable society of the future [36]. About what has been described, it emerges how the convergence between digital design and new techniques and approaches may not only constitute an instrument to increase the diffusion and access to devices and treatments for the well-being and health of society but also to change and simplify the entire traditional production chain of artifacts and consumer goods, in particular from an environmental sustainability perspective, both in terms of process and product innovation. These aspects, constitute the background of the research activity and the proposed contribution, as it is believed that through this integration it is possible to advance the scientific literature and the state of the art on the subject, as well as to determine a useful knowledge for the scientific, technical and design community, which can have a positive impact on the production of goods and services. Alongside the reported concepts, which are mainly related to new approaches and production techniques, the research also investigated the topics of design methods, opening up a reflection on the relationship between digital design, user-centered methods, and e-health, a still-emerging field of health and medical design, born out from the intersection of IT, medicine and health, which refers to health services and information provided or improved through digital tools and technologies. In a broader sense, the term means not only a purely technical development but also a way of designing healthcare to improve it locally, regionally, and globally, using

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information and communication technologies [37], as well as digital design approaches and tools. About the research topic, it is emblematic to summarize what are the parameters that characterize e-health, a term that does not only refer to the domain of electronics, and that has been defined by Eysenbach through what the author defines as the “10 e’s”, considerable as possible challenges in the field of medical, health and well-being design. – Efficiency: Increasing the efficiency of healthcare, reducing its costs, through systems that allow for fewer diagnostic or therapeutic interventions, through improved communication possibilities between healthcare facilities and patient involvement. – Enhancing quality of healthcare. – Evidence-based interventions, to ensure greater effectiveness and efficiency of activities. – Users Empowerment: Increasing users’ knowledge and awareness, through peoplecentered tools, and leading to a greater understanding of medical and scientific information. To meet this need, an area of digital design whose possible applications are still much to be investigated, is that of the use of digital environments, virtual and augmented reality, or three-dimensional models and spaces, which aim to render medical information - generally complex and invisible - more realistic. – Encouragement: Encourage the relationship between users and technicians in the medical sector, to make the community proactive in its choices and information. In this regard, the relationship between the different competencies of design and digital projects, with the medical and scientific ones, is fundamental, leading to the realization of innovative devices that can increase awareness and encourage users in acquiring useful behaviors for the improvement of the widespread quality of life in a logic of proactivity for what are the technical and scientific information or indications of the sector, also highlighting the close and bijective relationship that exists between these indications and everyday life. – Education: Increasing the training activities of both doctors and the community through online sources or tools for the dissemination of medical and scientific research topics. The education sector has experienced rapid and exponential changes in recent years, especially in the area of medical sciences. Digital technologies, such as the previously mentioned augmented and virtual reality, but also additive manufacturing, exponentially increase the training possibilities linked to both purely digital tools, such as software or platforms and hardware. This also influences the relationship with society, which will increasingly be able to access tools that enable the understanding of research and medical science topics. – Enabling the exchange of information and communication in a standardized manner between healthcare facilities. – Extending the conventional boundaries of healthcare through digital tools, which can enable users to obtain information but also advice through actions ranging from the more specific and complex areas of medicine to the more general ones. – Ethics: Developing new forms of interaction between patient and doctor, while ensuring that ethical issues such as informed consent, protection of privacy, etc. are met.

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Equity: Making healthcare more equitable, guaranteeing access regardless of cost, cognitive ability, and specific skills, which may adversely affect its use. This is one of the reasons why, especially when dealing with the design for health and well-being for society, it is necessary more than ever to design with a view to accessibility and inclusiveness of different abilities and skills, to reduce the gap that still exists between different populations, economic backgrounds, age groups, gender, etc. Thanks to the study of the “10 e’s” and of the issues presented in this paragraph, it emerges how new technologies and tools of digital design can constitute an important starting point for research and experimentation in the sector, as they determine the challenges and open questions to be taken into account, in which, thanks also to the integration of IoT technologies [23], the role of design becomes of fundamental importance for the investigation and identification of innovative approaches for the realization of design solutions that increasingly tend to take on a key role in the way health is experienced, as well as a determining factor for well-being [15], and to the answer to specific needs.

3 Digital Medical Design: The Approach When dealing with the design of medical devices, used in the field of health and wellbeing, some key aspects are dictated by the study and understanding of the constraints of context and use, which can only be understood through dialogue with medics and the relevant scientific community. Defined by the World Health Organization as “any instrument, apparatus, implement, machine, appliance, implant, reagent for in vitro use, software, material, or other similar or related article, intended by the manufacturer to be used, alone or in combination, for human beings, for one or more specific medical purpose… And does not achieve its primary intended action by pharmacological, immunologic, or metabolic means, but which may be assisted in its intended function by such means” [38], medical devices can be used for various contexts such as diagnosis, prevention, monitoring, prognosis, treatment [39], and therefore the design of this type of devices is of critical importance to ensure a positive impact on the use by both medical professionals - in the case of instruments and equipment - and the end-user as well as on their QoL. For this reason, entering in detail into the aspects of medical research, which constitute the basis on which the project requirements are based, was - and constitutes - the first phase of the approach to the research activity carried out within the framework of an Industrial Characterization Ph.D. at the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, during which it was also possible to understand how to act to satisfy the users’ needs and expectations, to achieve greater user compliance for the project realized. In the field of reference, the term compliance means all those factors, such as psychological acceptance, which can intervene to improve patient adherence to medical indications, as they are closely linked to how the user perceives not only the device or service as an end in itself, but also within the system to which it is connected, and which has the possibility of influencing daily life and lifestyle [40]. In the approach outlined, and to achieve this result, the User Centered Design (UCD) method, has been used to investigate the needs and expectations of users, to balance the

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more technical and rigorous aspects of efficacy and clinical and healthcare performances, with the social and psychological implications linked to the relationship with the device and its use. This method, which is generally implemented through tools such as contextual inquiry, questionnaires, and interviews, increases the opportunities for dialogue between the scientific community, people, and the project, to make design solutions more adherent to the needs detected, such as usability, adaptability, ergonomics [41]. The tools and techniques of digital design, particularly in the field of design for medicine and health, thus make it possible to realize - in line with the analysis of the scientific literature and the state of the art reported above - personalized and innovative therapeutic or monitoring devices. Once the needs analysis has been completed, we move on to the stages more closely linked to the design and production process of customized devices. The approach outlined generally starts with the digital acquisition of the geometry of the user’s anatomical part. To do this, 3D scanning can be used, a technology that has seen exponential diffusion in recent years, and which allows the detection of more or less complex anatomical parts, without requiring direct contact with the patient. Once detected, the geometries are converted into three-dimensional models, which can be used for modeling and then for the manufacture of the object. Various digital surveying techniques can be used in the medical field, although the most popular are structured light technology and photogrammetry, which rely on the use of scanners and other eye-safe devices [42]. These technologies, which are becoming even more accessible as they can be integrated into pre-existing digital devices such as smartphones and tablets, become strategic in the logic of accessibility and fairness of therapeutic treatments, because if on the one hand they greatly improve the result compared to the traditional techniques used previously, on the other hand, they considerably reduce the stress to which the anatomical part to be treated is subjected. In the phase of geometry definition, there are various modeling techniques and approaches that can be used, depending on the specific application of the project. In some cases, digital modeling by manual approach is sufficient to define a geometry that respects the constraints of the project from a functional, ergonomic, and experiential point of view. In other cases, especially when dealing with wearable devices characterized by complex geometries, and which, according to the contextual requirements, require a greater level of customization for the users’ needs, it is instead more useful to make use of parametric design, which, through mathematical functions, allows the designer to create a flow that leads to the generation of the geometry of the object. Thanks to parametric design it is possible to achieve greater optimization of the structural aspects that also improve the wearability and comfort conditions of the device, thus with a focus on user well-being [12]. A further relevant aspect of parametric design is that it makes the conformation process repeatable and usable even for those not specifically involved in modeling. Finally, some parametric modeling software allows the exportation of all components useful for the realization of applications or interactive tools, which can be used by end users for the definition of certain parameters that allow the customization of the final product. An example of this is the company Xkelet, ISO and FDA certified, through

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whose site the end-user can define the characterizing aspects of a device for therapeutic immobilization that is then tailored to specific requests and needs. As stated earlier, parametric design can be effectively used for many applications related to the design of wearable devices. In the case of devices that fall within the ehealth domain, and in particular that are augmented by the insertion of sensors, parametric design allows not only the study of the conformation, but also the optimization of its positioning and relationship with the geometry of the overall model, in a logic that reduces the risk of human error, due to displacements or resizing, an aspect, the latter, that underline how vast could be the potential of this approach in the reference area, which is based on very precise data and measurements, and which requires adjustments in term of both ergonomics and function. Once the modeling phase has been completed, medical wearable devices can be manufactured through additive manufacturing and digital technologies, which have already demonstrated their evolutionary power and benefits in the medical and healthcare fields. So, once the most suitable printing technique and material have been identified for the specific application, 3D printing allows the realization of even very complex geometries, with much reduced times and costs compared to the state-of-the-art reference analysis [43]. An example of this is FDM printing technology, which is particularly suitable for the realization of medical instruments and devices, as well as orthopedic and wearable devices, boasting among its strengths that it is an inexpensive and widespread process, with a wide range of materials [33]. Thanks to what has been stated, in particular about the convergence between digital tools and technologies with the field of medical design, it is possible to define the approach itself as Digital Medical Design, i.e. medical design aided by the digital and its potential, which aligns with and deals with the development of innovative design solutions, in terms of access and dissemination of health and medicine in society, to ensure greater well-being as well as QoL.

4 Results As stated above, the described approach, which ranges from the conception to the creation and production of a customized medical device, and which makes use of digital tools and techniques, has been shaped and deepened within the framework of doctoral research activities. To do so, the same approach was applied to some experiments, aimed at understanding the potential and possible uses of the approach itself. Biocast (Fig. 1) is a brace for therapeutic immobilization, created from the digital scan of the patient’s limb. Once the geometry of the anatomical part to be treated was obtained, the model of the brace was generated using a parametric approach, starting with the characterizing curves of the arm. Subsequently, through algorithms, the geometry was divided into two components and then characterized with a perforated texture, which guarantees greater comfort, lightness, and breathability of the object compared to the reference state of the art. Once the parametric geometry generation process is completed, it is exported to a file useful for additive manufacturing, and for this reason, in addition to being customized to the patient’s measurements, the device can also be aesthetically customized, based on the end user’s color preferences. The device, characterized by the

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presence of holes differentiated according to the area to be most immobilized, where the weave becomes denser, can be further enriched through the use of bumpers, silicone elements inserted in the holes, which reduce the risk of shocks, and can also be aesthetically customized according to the user’s tastes.

Fig. 1. Printed and worn prototype of the BioCast arm brace. Authors: Pontillo, G., Langella, C., Castaldo, L.

ElCast (Fig. 2) is a rehabilitation device, designed for the treatment of diseases such as rhizoarthrosis, De Quervain Tendonitis, carpal tunnel, hand atrophy, as well as nerve injury, peripheral neuropathy, polyneuropathy, and other incidental injuries of the upper limbs, and more particularly of the hand, treated through specific therapies for functional re-education (Pontillo et al., ibid.). Again, the design approach starts from the identification of the geometry of the hand, although it was not necessary to digitally survey a specific user, as this device is worn for a period of time limited to the performance of rehabilitation exercises. Once the key elements characterizing the geometry had been identified, and it was understood that for better wearability for various types of users it was necessary to design a device available in different sizes (S-M-L), we moved on to the phase of modeling and then 3D printing the object. The ElCast, in particular, is a device that fully falls within the e-health domain, as it is equipped with an electronic heart and sensors that enable TENS therapy (analgesic therapy through electrostimulation) and sensors that allow patient data to be monitored and then made available to the doctor. Among the other innovative aspects of the project, there is definitely wearability, in fact, certain design features make it easy to use for patients of various ages, regardless of caregivers. As part of the experiments conducted, thanks to the doctoral research activity and the collaboration with the team of the Multidisciplinary Department of Medical-Surgical and Dental Specialities of the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, a finger brace was created, the function of which is to facilitate the recovery of a portion of a part accidentally amputated and rejoined to the patient’s limb.

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Fig. 2. Printed and worn prototype of ElCast. Authors: Gravante, F., Pontillo, G., Langella, C.

Given the specificity of the project, this was first based on a dialogue with the medical team to understand the constraints and clinical requirements of the project, followed by the phase of surveying the anatomical part to be treated. Through the approach outlined, and thanks to the tools of digital design, it was possible to arrive at the creation of a brace that presents a differentiated geometry, capable of allowing the movement of the

Fig. 3. Printed and worn prototype of the finger brace. Authors: Pontillo, G., Langella, C.

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finger by bending it towards the palm, and at the same time of immobilizing the lateral deviation, which would have affected the process of rejoining the two parts. Once the digital modeling phase was completed, the model was produced by 3D printing in a flexible material, and thanks to the images below, it is possible to observe how the printed object performs for the requirements identified (Fig. 3). The projects described are only part of the experimentation activities carried out within the framework of the doctoral research pathway, but it is believed that they allow us to observe how the pervasiveness of digital technology and its tools, offers the possibility of achieving significant advances for the state of the art of reference, particularly in terms of effectiveness, comfort, and ergonomics of those solutions/devices that have a direct impact on the quality of life of users and more specifically of patients. This aspect is considered to constitute the relevance of the research, as well as its originality and innovativeness concerning similar experiences, as it has shown that it can be scaled up for various spheres and different applications, based on specific needs and contextual requirements.

5 Conclusions There are various competencies of design culture, medicine, and science, which in a transversal manner can intervene in the field of design for the health and well-being of society. In line with this contribution, it emerges how design plays a central role in this field, as it is capable of intersecting the purely medical and scientific domain with the technical domain of new technologies and the digital, as well as with the domains of usability and experience that refers to the relationship that people establish with such artifacts. For this reason, it is necessary to intend design as a practice that deals with mediating between the different spheres and skills that collaborate in the project, in a logic that focuses on making use of those that are the newest and most advanced frontiers in terms of experimentation and technologies, in order to arrive at innovative solutions that improve the health and well-being of society. To do this, the research activity described, which is only a part of the activity carried out within the framework of the Ph.D. programme, aims to highlight how Digital Design, Health Design, and Medical Design can coexist within projects that use digital as a means of improving the quality of life, and not as a design pretext, aligning with the themes highlighted by the analysis of the scientific literature and the state of the art on the subject of e-health, wearable devices, and the shifting of healthcare places from hospital facilities to the home. A further open question to be investigated remains that of the implementation of devices through digital tools, such as platforms, databases, applications, or mapping, which can offer a visualization, where necessary, of the interaction and relationship that users establish with the device itself, with a view more closely linked to access to knowledge, as well as to the dissemination and dissemination of scientific research in society. Acknowledgment. The author would like to thank all the students, researchers and professors, who had an active and proactive role in this research activity. In particular, the author thanks the

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Professor Carla Langella, tutor of the doctoral thesis project and founder of the Hybrid Design Lab, where the experiments described were developed.

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Designing a Speculative Design Toolkit for Community Biodiversity Activism Craig Jeffcott1(B)

and Ana Margarida Ferreira1,2

1 UNIDCOM/IADE, Unidade de Investigação em Design e Comunicação, Lisbon, Portugal

[email protected]

2 Faculdade de Artes e Letras, Universidade da Beira Interior, Rua Marquês D’Ávila e Bolama,

6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal [email protected]

Abstract. This paper forms part of a doctoral research project based on the proposition that a diverse Speculative Design practice can support community biodiversity activism, from which a Strategic Speculative Design Framework rooted in queer and more-than-human perspectives and theories was developed. This Framework forms the basis of the ongoing development of a Design Toolkit, which aims to be a practical application of the framework’s principles that can be applied in community biodiversity activism settings. The toolkit draws on speculative gaming elements to make the framework concepts accessible for a wide audience, and has been tested, both in terms of the overall concepts and in play-testing specific game elements, as part of the design process. The conclusions drawn from this iterative design and testing phase, which is still underway, are that the speculative strategies in the framework can indeed be a useful tool to engage communities in considering possible futures for the environment, but that this depends on the toolkit being designed in order that they can be understandable to a wide audience and being well structured that there is a logical flow between activities that will scaffold the participants to think speculatively and craft transformative speculations about the future of the ecosystem. Keywords: Speculative design · Community activism · Biodiversity · Queer ecology · Design sustainability

1 Introduction This paper gives some detail about the ongoing development of a Strategic Speculative Design Framework and Toolkit aimed at supporting community biodiversity activism. The Speculative Design Framework was developed out of interviews and library research, and has formed the basis for the ongoing development of a Design Toolkit. This paper explains the rationale behind the creation of this Toolkit, and discusses some participatory workshops aimed at developing and refining the resource.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 270–279, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_24

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2 Background This paper is a report of ongoing research from a doctoral research project in design. This overall research project aims at demonstrating that a Speculative Design practice that is rooted in queer and more than human perspectives can be an effective approach for supporting community biodiversity activism. More details about the rationale, aims and theoretical background to the project can be found in (Authors 2021b) but a general overview is as follows: The research starts from the premise that Speculative Design has not always been practiced in a diverse way, and with diverse practitioners (though in recent years the emergence of a more diverse speculative design practice has occurred) which makes it difficult for radically different futures to be proposed by it [12], raising the provocation that to be applied to a situation that requires diversity to be prioritised—biodiversity activism—it should be practiced according to a more diverse set of world views. Thus, the project draws on perspectives from queer theory—Muñoz’s conception of the queer utopia [11]—more-than-human perspectives (such as Guattari’s Ecosophy (Guattari 1989) and Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto [6]—drawing together in Timothy Morton’s Queer Ecology, where he invokes the concept of the Strange Stranger, a queer, boundaryless concept of a being that rejects catagories, rendering all things equally strange and equally familiar. 2.1 Speculative Framework Through subject interviews and literature reviews into the futuring strategies of queer and more-than-human beings and communities, a Speculative Design Strategic Framework was developed, which can be read about in more detail in (Authors 2021a). The framework is built around three key strategic goals for futuring: care, collaborative work, and staking a claim on the future, and is characterized by five distinct types of futuring strategy: making, playing and performing, mapping, time-travel and storytelling.

3 Speculative Design Toolkit 3.1 Rationale The Speculative Design Strategic Framework is a structure in which a community Speculative Design practice can be situated, but there is a necessity to bridge the gap between theoretical strategies and community outcomes via a more practical deployment of speculative design practices, in order to demonstrate that a design practice rooted in diverse strategies for futuring can play a role in community biodiversity activism. This led to the development of a Speculative Design Toolkit. Developing a toolkit as a design outcome emerged from an initial research framing aimed at creating new Speculative Design tools and techniques. But this proved to be challenging and perhaps a little arrogant. Design methods and techniques are porous, and as Gaver [4] describes, are under-described by theory, and from Morton’s queer

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ecology perspective, they are both hyper specific and contextual and at the same time part of a wider category. What this is to say is that to make a claim of an entirely new design technique or tool is difficult to prove or justify – it’s an untestable claim and given the many years of design practice and many different techniques and tools that exist, rather a tall order. What is rather more testable, and more compelling as both a contribution to design practice and as a contribution to knowledge, is to gather together some design approaches, methods, techniques according to the Strategic Speculative Design framework them in the biodiverse futures context, thus acting as a testable artefact that can be deployed, using existing design approaches with particular framing, to answer the claim that said strategies can be a foundation for a design practice and that such can play a role in community activism settings. Purposes of Design Toolkit

1. Supporting community biodiversity activism through speculative practices 2. Demonstrating that speculative practices can support community biodiversity activism 3. Being a contribution to knowledge as a design artefact 3.2 Concept The conception of the toolkit has been twofold – a resource that can be used by a designer to facilitate speculative design practices in the community, but also one that can be deployed and used within the community itself. This then leads to the reflection that there must be a framing of the strategic framework and the design practices that can be made accessible to lay people. Speculative Gaming A possible approach then, is to introduce game-like elements to the toolkit, in fact, to generate a playable game in and of itself, but also that can be used within the context of design workshops. The use of games within Speculative Design has been discussed by Paul Coulton, Adrian Gradinar and Daniel Burnett, who suggest that "explorative worlds produced by games has [sic] much to offer over the traditional mediums of speculative design due to their inherent interactivity through which players can explore the complexity of the wicked problems society faces through play” [3]. In this regard, the strategies themselves guide the game play development – narrative, means it’s a game that is about storytelling, play and performance, it’s about taking on roles and different perspectives, time travel and mapping – about speculating and being rooted in place, and making, activities that actually involve doing things in the world. With queer ecology being the core of the theoretical proposition being used, Morton’s Strange Stranger concept, where all beings are equally familiar and equally strange, becomes central to the development of the game aspects.

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3.3 Toolkit Users The toolkit should be of utility for designers, to lead speculative activities, such as workshops, and for community members to conduct design speculations unguided. It’s components will be twofold; a Designers Handbook, and a Speculative Game. The purpose of the Designer Handbook is to provide a framework for a biodiverse speculative practice aimed designers working with communities, while the Speculative Game is intended to make the speculative practice fun and accessible to community members. Together, the aim is for a community to engage with a local biodiversity challenge through speculative design practices. The core of this will be the game play, but this can then build into more concrete design interventions as led by designers. The toolkit draws on different domains - design, queer, more than human, performance, science fiction. 3.4 Toolkit Components The developing Design Toolkit currently is composed of the following elements: a Strategies Die with a symbol representing each of the strategies of the framework; a ‘guess who’ style game where participants have to adopt the persona of different beings and use imaginative activities to explore those identities; a series of prompt cards of beings, places, strategies, speculations; design activity cards, which should be approached from a mindset of different beings; a situation report worksheet to identify an issue in the local environment to tackle; A designers handbook, which gives more information on the theoretical background and strategic framework and gives more context about the activities in the toolkit.

4 Participatory Developmental Testing 4.1 Workshops Two participatory testing session will be discussed; one online workshop to do preliminary proof of concept testing of some of the initial ideas, and one in person play testing workshops, in Lisbon in November 2021. 4.2 June 2021: Online Concept Testing Workshop The first workshop was arranged on 25 June 2021, as part of the DRIW online conference hosted by UNIDCOM / IADE in Lisbon, with participants being virtual attendees selfenrolled on the workshop. In general, the participants were designers involved in higher education, whether as PhD researchers or teachers. The workshop took the format of an online zoom session, with an initial presentation about the workshop and the research project, followed by two distinct but linked speculative activities. It took place at a very early stage in the development of the design toolkit, before any components of the toolkit had been prototyped or designer; it was a proof of concept test to explore whether activities based on the speculative design framework had any potential for use in workshop settings. Specifically, the workshop aimed

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to answer whether there is a potential of design activities based around the Speculative Design framework to support speculative practices in community biodiversity activism, if each design activity leads to the expected outcome for which it is intended (and if not, why not?), and whether the activities flow together well. Format of the Workshop The workshop, which was titled “More Than Human Futures on the Margins” was structured around a real world location: Quinta do Braancamp, a contested marginal site in Barreiro, a suburb of Lisbon, on the south bank of the Tejo river. It is an atemporal place of rewilding land and agricultural and industrial ruins, where the presence is keenly felt of its pasts as private estate and cork farm and as part of a rich esturial ecosystem. It exists in the present in a fragile and tentative state as a nowhere place on the verge of transition to contested, possible futures: while the local authorities hope to sell the land to private developers, with a bland vision of aspirational housing and quasi-public space that aims to revitalise the area with a slick and generic modernity, local community groups wish to keep the space just as it is, hazardous ruins alongside nesting egrets, as a space for the local community and for nature that slowly disintegrates back/forward to some pre/post-industrial state. Both these futures exist in the shadow of the dominant present paradigm of consumer capitalist, human-centric and privitised modernity; one that embraces it, one that rejects it passionately, but both subject to its status as the legitimate possessor of The Future. A court decision was made to suspend the local authority’s planned develpment following protests from local community action groups. This impasse opened up a brief window of speculative opportunity to imagine richer, stranger, futures for the site; in the workshop, it was imagined that the local authority and community groups have come together to launch a new open call for proposals for the site that prioritise more than human and culturally diverse perspectives. Workshop participants were given the description of the workshop that “in small teams of designers and activists, you will approach the brief through a series of speculative techniques through which you will propose strange and radical visions for the place, finding a way to tell the story of different, and more than, human futures.” Workshop Activities The workshop consisted of two activities: creating a more-than-human persona, and a speculative design activity imagining the creation of structures on the site to mediate interactions between these personas. Activity One: Strange Strangers Personas This activity draws on Timothy Morton’s concept of the Strange Stranger – that every being is equally strange and equally familiar, whether a human family member, a dog, or a mycelial network, and applies it to a typical model from interaction design, the user persona: a speculative and notional (human) being who might be the typical or atypical user of a particular design artefact. Each participant was given a virtual card, with a specific being relevant to the Braancamp site represented on it: Algae, Ant, Cicada, Cuttlefish, Dog, Dolphin, Egret, Hoopoe, Iceplant, Palmtree, Ruins, Seahorse, Soil, Water, Wild Flowers.

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They were then given a series of questions to answer as though they were themselves that persona. These questions ranged from being fairly straightforward and pragmatic (What do you contribute to the ecosystem? Do you prefer mornings or evenings?) to more speculative and whimsical (What famous person do you most identify with? What is the meaning of life?). Participants had to ask these questions of each other in turn, aiming to guess what persona each of the participants was adopting. The purpose of this exercise, beyond being an icebreaker for the group, was as a priming exercise: to prepare the participants for a speculative, fabulatory mindset, and to shift them from a human normative to a more than human mindset. Activity 2: Diegetic Carpentry The second activity applied a speculative technique called Diegetic Carpentry, which draws from the philosophical principle of Object Oriented Ontology that suggests that all objects are real, but that their internal state can never be known by an external observer, and can only be partially understood through imaginative practices. [7] Diegetic Carpentry was proposed by Ian Bogost [2] as a speculative practice whereby speculative objects can be devised that allow a mediation of communication with another being. Workshop participants were asked to take their beings from the first speculative exercise, and imagine that they had been commissioned to build structures for the Braancamp site that might mediate communication with the being that they been exploring. This activity had the purpose of encouraging the participants to speculate from the frame of reference of beings other than human, to make a proposal of a future that wasn’t human centred. Workshop review While somewhat limited in scope by the online setting, participants engaged well with the workshop activities, and quickly grasped the idea of the more than human user persona. The follow up activity resulted in some interesting ideas, not all of which were entirely relevant to the setting, mostly resulting in some quick sketches and brief notes of ideas, but provided enough of a sense that such activities could be a successful way to engage people, as well as showing the usefulness of a priming activity followed by a speculative activity. Feedback from the participants on the workshop was mixed, but broadly positive. They reflected on the challenge of taking a more than human viewpoint: the necessity to find empathy for non living things outside of their relationship to humans, and the difficulty of shifting perspective away from a binary between nature and human, and from the human point of view. The participants valued the workshop as a reflective exercise, but it was commented that “the format is quite compressed for this kind of reasonings and leave the participants at a superficial level”. 4.3 November 2021: Play Test Workshop, Barreiro, Lisbon This playtest workshop took place in early November 2021, at Unreal Cities Creative Space in Barreiro, Lisbon. There were four workshop participants, selected through convenience sampling, who were professionals in ecology, filmmaking, technological

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art, and theatre. This workshop took place in a context where a prototype of the design toolkit had been created, but had yet to be tested, so the purpose of this workshop was principally to play-test the developing Speculative Game elements of the toolkit for the first time in a workshop with participants; again, the workshop aimed to demonstrate the potential of the toolkit to support speculative practices in community biodiversity activism, and to test how well the individual components worked, both on their own and in combination with each other. The workshop was organised around three activities; an icebreaker “who am I ?” game, a discussion of principles, and a speculative activity oriented session. Activity 1: Icebreaker Who Am I? This activity has three purposes - to break the ice and warm up participants, to orient them to the way of thinking in terms of strange strangers and more-than-human perspectives, and to introduce the speculative strategies. It is based on the common party game where participants write the name of a famous person and affix it to another’s head, and the aim is to guess which person you ‘are’. This activity used the dice, being cards, and game cards assigned to the five speculative strategy types. The rules of the game as explained to the participants: each person selects a being card, then takes it in turn to throw the dice and select a game card corresponding to the speculative strategy. These consist of questions and activities to carry out, with the intention that each person represents their being card through the activity on the card. Other players need to guess the being. One thing that became clear during the gameplay was the lack of a ‘win’ condition made the gameplay confusing, as it wasn’t clear if the aim was to guess other people quickly, or to be able to get the other players to guess who the player was quickly. Another observation was that a time constraint would be useful to make the game move along, especially when there is an activity without an obvious end point. A point was made that a time constraint would make it easier to just commit to an activity and not overthink it. I would include an hourglass in a future iteration. The game seems to have been fun for the participants, as a way to introduce these concepts. Whether there was a strong or obvious lead in to subsequent activities is less clear. Perhaps the game cards should be labelled with the speculative strategy, if the purpose is introduce these concepts. Sometimes being cards caused confusion -for example, is the politician shown (Nelson Mandela) the ‘being’ or is it just an example. And some pointed out the use of inanimate objects with living beings was confusing. Since this is a key principle of the toolkit, perhaps this needs to be clarified. Activity 2: Principles Discussion In this activity, participants were asked to each select a principle card in turn, and as a group discuss the principle covered. This was included as a way to bridge the introduction of the more than human / queer ecology perspective to the speculative activities by pulling in some of the theoretical principles underlying the toolkit. This activity was included as this is in some way a workshop with people with domain expertise, and in many community settings it may be less appropriate. In those instances, it might be necessary to consider an alternative approach.

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It is also a rather ‘dry’ and almost pedagogical activity. Perhaps something that is principles oriented but less prescriptive would work better. Participants seemed to find it interesting and engaging, though again the lack of time constraints made it lack sufficient structure - when to move on to the next activity. Activity 3 - Speculative Design Challenges In some way, this is the core part of the Speculative Design toolkit - applying a more than human and queer mindset to a number of specific creative exercises. A series of activity cards have a name and speculative strategy icons on the front cover, and a description and instructions inside. Participants were asked to throw a dice, select an activity that corresponds to the dice throw (most cards overlap with at least two or three speculative strategies). In this workshop context, participants were asked to spend 15 min carrying out the activity on the card. This may be artificially too constrained, as the activities may lend themselves to a two hour or more period of time, or may even be something that could be elaborated into an intervention, performance or artwork. Again, there were limitations within the time constraints. Participants were asked to consider, at the end of each activity, what would they do if they were to have more time, or were to actually ‘do’ (rather than discuss) the activity concerned. This caused some confusion and a discussion about diegetic and non-diegetic realities (ie things that are real within a narrative versus things that are real in the present world). When asked how they might enact a planned nightclub event set on a spaceship, for example, someone said it wasn’t possible, they couldn’t get a spaceship… it was necessary to clarify that they weren’t being asked how they might do it in a diegetic sense (actually building a spaceship) but how in the real world they might plan this event: by dressing an event space as though it was a spaceship, in the way they’d advertise it, the dress code, and so on. On reflection, there seems to be key mental strategy here of being able to slip between diegetic and non-diegetic thinking. How to perform futures, and how to grasp the core principle of futures being something that you perform and create not to be true, but to be real. In addition, some gameplay issues arose: The dice throwing felt important, as a ludic element and as part of reinforcing the five strategies, but it was not clear how it might lead to the choice of the activity. Should each player be dealt a number of activity cards to choose from, or is it a free choice? Is it better to have the whole group undertaking one task, or to split into separate groups? Is it better to have a free choice or a discussion of what principle or strategy to focus on? Some of the instructions were unnecessarily complicated, e.g. some activities instructed participants to take some optional cards as well as some prescribed cards, and some activities had compulsory use of some cards while other just suggested them. In one instance, this resulted in the group trying to organise a speculative event that included every single element from the cards chosen, which became confusing. This needs to be simplified, but in some instances, the use of multiple card types could be necessary. Instructions can be made more straightforward and unambiguous, or could involve stepwise card use.

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Workshop review Considered across the whole exercise, the workshop was a success. It demonstrated that speculative and game play activities based on the speculative framework could be engaging and thought provoking, and that a flow of activities from fun “ice breakers” to speculative design practices made sense. It also revealed ways in which the resources or the workshop organisation could be improved.

5 Conclusions In conclusion, these developmental workshops, whether to test out the speculative proposition or to play test some elements of the Design Toolkit, proved very useful, and allow the drawing of some broad conclusions. Speculative Design activities can be an engaging and interesting way for groups to explore issues in biodiversity. There is an importance, as written by authors such as Morton [10] and Guattari [5], to decentralise the perspective of the human, and to move beyond an artificial separation between nature and humanity, but this can be difficult to do, given the impossibility of truly knowing what it is to be another being. Harman [7] and Bogost [2] have argued about the value of imaginative practices in approaching such an understanding, and it was observed in both workshops that the silly and somewhat surreal activities were sufficiently fun and unusual that some breakdown of conceptual barriers was able to occur, and some empathy if not true knowledge of the state of the more-than-human world was engendered. Speculative Design operates on some unfamiliar premises, so it is important to structure the sequence and level of activities to the community in question; it is particularly important to take care of the languaging of the resources, and not to use academic or technical terms where simpler descriptions might suffice. James Auger has written about the importance of “crafting the speculation” [1] in design and other speculative practices: speculative worlds must be sufficiently outside of the expected quotidien world in order to create the conditions for imagination, for engaging with other perspectives, and to facilitate debate. They must however have a clear path between the real world and there, and must not be too disconcerting or bizarre that people struggle to extend their own context and world view to include it, and thus not be able to commit to engaging with the implications of the speculation. Further research and development into the gameplay elements and mechanics is necessary, and in particular, research into existing games for speculative practices and design workshops will be useful, to identify elements and gameplay components that have proven to be useful and successful in past speculative engagements.

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References 1. Auger, J.: Speculative design: crafting the speculation. Digital Creativity 24(1), 11 (2013) 2. Bogost, I.: Alien Phenomenology, Or, What It’s Like to be a Thing. U of Minnesota Press (2012) 3. Coulton, P., Gradinar, A., Burnett, D.: Games as Speculative Design: Allowing Players to Consider Alternate Presents and Plausible Futures (2016) 4. Gaver, W.: What should we expect from research through design? In: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI 2012, p. 937. ACM Press (2012) 5. Guattari, F.: The Three Ecologies. Bloomsbury Academic, London, New York (1989) 6. Haraway, D.J.: A cyborg manifesto: science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century. In: Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge (1981) 7. Harman, G.: Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything. Pelican, London (2018) 8. Jeffcott, C.C., Ferreira, A.M.: Can diverse futuring strategies inform an ecology-centred speculative design practice? In: Advances in Design and Digital Communication, pp. 244– 251. Springer International Publishing (2021) 9. Jeffcott, C.C., Ferreira, A.M.: A strategic framework for biodiverse speculative practices. In: Martins, N., Brandão, D., Moreira da Silva, F. (eds.) Perspectives on Design and Digital Communication II: Research, Innovations and Best Practices, pp. 233–248. Springer International Publishing, Cham (2021) 10. Morton, T.: Queer ecology. PMLA 125(2), 273–282 (2010) 11. Muñoz, J.E.: Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. NYU Press, New York (2009) 12. de O. Martins, L.P.: Privilege and Opression: Towards a Feminist Speculative Design (2014). http://a-pare.de/2014/privilege-and-oppression-towards-a-feminist-speculative-design/

Methodological Approach to the Creation of Oporto’s Poetic Archive Olinda Martins1(B)

, Joana Quental1

, and Alice Semedo2

1 ID+ Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

[email protected] 2 CITCEM Transdisciplinary Research Centre «Culture, Space and Memory», Faculty of Arts

and Humanities of University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

Abstract. Based on poetic observation and sensory ethnography, this article presents in detail the path adopted, the instruments and procedures used for data collection and analysis in a fertile and layered process susceptible to diverse readings. As with other ethnographic studies, it was also possible to access a wide variety of information, describing it in as much detail as possible to draw conclusions supporting the construction of Oporto’s Poetic Archive. This research reflects on the ways of doing this Archive as a place to preserve images of the city’s graphic heritage, whose purpose is to inspire the creation of new narratives. Keywords: Poetic archive · Graphic heritage · Oporto

1 Introduction Starting from an ethnographic approach that invites designers to register the images that are most significant to them, the process’s subjectivity and synchronicity are assumed, and poetic observation of the landscape is proposed, in which the designer registers the elements that stand out as configurators of new meanings. Alongside this survey, the reflection on the procedures present in the construction of this archive allows the systematization of its guiding principles, legitimating the poetic observation of the designer in the identification of the graphic heritage present in the landscape and enhancer of other narratives. During the course of the research and based on the poetic potential of the observation and selection of graphic compositions with great pictorial value, there emerged a consensual idea of graphic heritage validated by the designers involved in the study and a corpus of possible categories of the records found. The methodological approach, methods, techniques, and instruments used in this study are presented in more detail below.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 280–292, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_25

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2 A General Framework for the Methodology Authors such as Frayling (1993), Cross (2007), Friedman (2008), and Findelli, Brouillet, Martin, and Moineau (2008) have contributed to the debate on design research, pointing out projects of various natures (practical or theoretical, developed in academic or other contexts) and their different positions in the research landscape. Based on these authors, Clemente, Tschimmel, and Pombo (2018) present a classification model, which contemplates four categories of design research classification: research on design; through design; from design; and for design. The research presented here fits into what these authors define as the approach through design, which covers the creation and development of projects within academic institutions, in which theory and critical reflection by the researcher should happen alongside the development of the practical component (Clemente et al., 2018, p. 695). Design, as a discipline, integrates a specific way of acting and comprises particular ways of knowing and investigating (Cross, 2007). According to Cross, although some authors argue that design research should not be influenced by methodological approaches imported from other areas, it is possible to take advantage of different methodological experiences to design new research paths appropriate to the nature of the discipline and specificity of its discourses (2007, p. 46). Based on methodologies from the Social Sciences and Humanities, this research falls within the interpretive paradigm (Coutinho, 2016, p. 16) also called constructivist (Lincoln et al., 2018), contemplating the immersion in the subjects’ world as a way to understand how they interpret it and what meanings they derive from it. Ontologically, a relativistic position is adopted (Lincoln et al., 2018, p. 220), since it assumes the existence of as many realities or “socially and experientially localized mental constructions” (Coutinho, 2016, p. 17) as individuals, and inspired by a subjectivist epistemology, since it values the role of the researcher, who assumes a position of interpreter of the subject’s actions, is an effect of “interpretation of interpretations” (Coutinho, 2016, p. 18), always partial and perspectival. The involvement of the body, its movement, and immersion in the landscape allows a multisensory experience (Ingold, 2000; Pink, 2015) that contributes to the spiral, iterative, and cumulative knowledge construction process (Coutinho, 2016, p. 19; Lincoln et al., 2018, p. 223). Methodologically, it is presented as an inductive and systematic investigation, in which design and theory are constructed as data emerge from fieldwork. The idea originates from observing the subjects and how they interpret and make their meanings from the landscape and graphic heritage. For the creation of Oporto’s Poetic Archive, Sensory Ethnography was adopted, which comprised a set of techniques for data collection such as short questionnaires, walking conversations, semi-structured interviews, recording, and image analysis.

3 Archive Under Construction 3.1 A Critical Literature Reviews The critical literature review around the principles that guide this research allowed for better clarification of the primary and satellite concepts of the themes under study. From

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the research questions and their unfolding into sub-questions, the various themes to be studied were listed to create a theoretical model to better frame and support the fieldwork. Starting from the convergence of four distinct areas – Oporto’s landscape, poetic observation by designers, graphic heritage, and archives – the first step was to identify their limits and potentialities, elaborate a theoretical body, deepen these themes, and identify their areas of overlapping or eventual gaps. From the outset, a question of particular importance emerged: What is the Oporto graphic heritage? The answer varied according to the respondents, verifying that it is a complex term with diverse interpretations, closely related to each social actor’s experiences and cultural context. Thus, it became necessary to establish the conceptual limits of what graphic heritage would mean and its precise definition within the scope of this research. Likewise, other concepts, such as landscape and poetic observation and their use in the study context, needed to be clarified to make them intelligible to others. 3.2 Selection and Characterization of Participants Since this research aims to assess the contribution of poetic observation by the designer for the identification and recognition of graphic heritage in the landscape, it was considered that only participants with higher education in design and with teaching experience or proven professional experience should be considered for selection. Thus, two participant profiles were initially defined: one composed of communication designers working as teachers in higher education institutions (Profile A), and another with communication designers with more than five years of professional experience and work developed in the area (Profile B). The first approach and presentation of the project were made by phone or personally and then formalized by email. Each participant was asked to fill out a questionnaire to collect personal data and characterize the relationship that each one had with the city. The aim was to ascertain socio-demographic data, the frequency with which they usually visit the city if they are not locals, and the degree of familiarity with the route to be taken. It is important to note that each instrument or data collection technique was later subjected to analysis to extract data and knowledge for further research. In the questionnaire survey administered to the participants, the data were treated quantitatively, giving direct information about the profile and the experience and knowledge of the city. 3.3 Routes Since the city of Oporto was the location for the collection of graphic heritage, it was necessary to establish specific routes that the participants would travel through by recording their poetic observations. Once again, the previous work of critical literature review was fundamental to understanding the city from various points of view. Knowing the history of Oporto, from its foundation to the present day, allows comprehension of the city from multiple aspects – social, cultural, and economic – verifying how this evolution left its marks and had an impact on territorial occupation. Also, the observation and experience of the city by

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authors from various fields (literature, visual arts, cinema, music) and the way this relationship served as inspiration for their artistic creation completed the framework. They encouraged the designers’ defence of a similar position: the city as an inspiration for creating new narratives. Based on these assumptions, three criteria were established for the definition of the routes: (1) To be within the limits of the Centre (of the city) before the Auzelle Plan (1962), which had as its northern limit the Gonçalo Cristóvão Street, to the south the Almeida Garrett Square and the Mouzinho da Silveira Street, to the west the Cordoaria Garden, and to the east, the Batalha Square; (2) Include at least one route built at the time of the Almadas Plan (1758/1813); and (3) to be explorable on foot for an average of 120 min. Three distinct routes were created from these criteria, but only one used in this study: Route 1 from the Trindade Metro Station heading southwest and ending at the S. Bento Metro Station. 3.4 Walking Conversations These walks through the city aimed to identify and photographically register potentially significant elements in the landscape and collect the participants’ contributions to establishing an expanded definition of the concept of graphic heritage, identifying possible categories for cataloguing their images. During the first contact with the participants, it was explained to them that it was intended that the designers, starting from the poetic observation of the Oporto’s landscape, would collect the specimens of the existing graphic heritage. Two days before the tour, a presentation was sent to the participants clarifying concepts related to the research leaving room for them to think and collaborate on this characterization. The idea of heritage as “the ensemble of man-made works in which a community recognizes its specific and particular values and with which it identifies itself” (Naeyer et al., 2000), a set of concepts related to the recognition of graphic heritage was added to guide the observation of the landscape. The aim was to contextualize the idea of graphic heritage theoretically to cover two types of visual content: two- or three-dimensional visual manifestations that integrated at least one of the communicational functions presented by Barnard (2005) – informative, persuasive, decorative, magical, and metalinguistic or phatic –, and visual compositions of high graphic value, formed by essential elements such as point, line, shape, direction, position, scale, volume, texture, tone, color, movement, and contrast (Dondis, 1988; Moles, 1986). The tour day began with a brief introduction on the understanding of graphic heritage, and after a quick exchange of impressions, the walk started with a consensual idea on the theme, based on the initial presentation, but expanded with suggestions from the participants. In the first part of the tour and generalized, all participants showed some insecurity about what to record, referring to “I don’t know if this fits what you want” or verbalizing analogous comments (participants CS, IF, DP). There was always a positive reinforcement approach to all these doubts on the researcher’s part. After these first moments,

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confidence was gained and replaced by observations about what was being recorded, why, and what connections it would have with other contexts. Throughout each of these walks, conversations and consequent critical reflections on the records were established continuously. Therefore, these excursions were called walking conversations. These were the starting point for a dialogue about the evolution of the city and the urban landscape, the graphic richness of some streets and the recharacterization of others, and the photographic record of the graphic heritage. At each walk, comments and questions arose from the participants that led to a profound reflection on the positioning of this study and triggered improvements in the procedures and protocols of the following walks. The methodological approach applied in these walks, in which participant and researcher walk through the landscape of Oporto, was supported by the work of authors such as Tim Ingold (2000) and Sarah Pink (2015), who refers to the importance of the body’s involvement and its movement through space. The act of walking allows for immersion in the territory, perceiving the landscape, feeling it multisensorial, and attributing meanings to it. The body is understood here as a central investigation tool since the sensory, affective, and empathic dimensions of the human being are central to the investigation process (Pink, 2011, p. 606). The senses function as a whole, interdependent and complementary. Sarah Pink states that observation is not only through sight but also through the involvement of all senses and their permanent interconnection, which create and trigger memories, later translated into visual records. Vision is not limited to observation, being only one part of a multisensory process through which we interpret the environment (2011, p. 605). In these walks, there were several multisensory references. The smell, the light, and the temperature at a given moment provoked various sensations, impacting not only what is verbalized and what is recorded but also the participants’ behavior (non-verbal communication). These aspects brought to the conversation about past and lived memories by the participants: childhood habits (MFZ); episodes of more recent history (AT); or the physical experience of what it is like to walk in a city that is undergoing a profound transformation, either by the obstacles created by urban renewal or by the excess of people on the streets (mentioned by all participants), making evident the importance that internal factors (individual culture and personal experiences) and external factors (weather conditions, day of the week or the number of people circulating in the city) have in the reading of the landscape. Sensory observation, a term suggested by Sarah Pink (2011), implies an observation that involves all senses (going beyond participant observation) and that uses multi-media (and not only textual) records in data collection. Accompanying the participants on their walks allowed the researcher to understand the whole experience better, witnessing and recording comments, behaviors, and verbal and non-verbal language through field notes and photographs. The images recorded by the participants are, thus, the result of specific contexts, encounters, and multisensory involvements in which photographing condenses the convergence of different elements: social, material, discursive and cultural (Pink, 2011, p. 602).

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The field notes, collected in the hours following each of the walking conversations, were subsequently analyzed to identify the terms and phrases that helped to answer the questions and objectives set for the walks – to obtain an expanded definition of graphic heritage; to identify vocabulary to categorize the collected specimens. 3.5 Collecting Specimens As the goal of these tours was to obtain a significant set of photographs of the Oporto’s graphic heritage, each participant was asked to carry a cell phone (GPS coordinates) to make these records. After the tours, the participants were asked to analyze their photographs and select the ones they wanted to make available for the archive. The objective was to allow them to individually reflect on the collected material, discarding repeated, blurred specimens or others they did not want to present. About two days later, they sent the images to the researcher, and an interview was scheduled to take stock of the situation after the tours. As far as the photographic records collected by the participants and the researcher are concerned, they immediately revealed a close relationship. Each set presented a wide variety of specimens. Still, they all generally reflected a careful observation of the landscape, with particular attention to details, composition, framing, and color. Even though everyone went on the tours with different levels of education about graphic heritage, this does not seem to have impacted the set of specimens collected. From the collected images, a visual content analysis was performed. Similar to the field notes analysis, it was able to identify specific and recurrent visual elements – such as color, typography, composition, and framing, among others – giving rise to a first categorization. Through the automatic extraction of meta-data from the images, it was found that the information that the georeferencing APIs recognize may not be as accurate as the human analysis (non-automated), so it was decided to develop tables for research that would synthesize this information and that had as reference the original itinerary used in the tours. The data analysis allowed an understanding of where the most occurrences were and how this was related or not to the length of each street. It also shows that fewer specimens were collected on the second part of the route, a fact identified by some participants, mentioned initially in walking conversations, recorded in the researcher’s field notes, and reinforced in some interviews. In the records, images that portray different scales and frames of the city were found. Based on the cinematographic context and Susan Hayword’s seven types of framing (shots) (2000, pp. 328–330), a simplified version that contemplates only three levels of framing was defined for this project. Distance shots of the urban landscape reproducing one or more buildings, relating the volume and cut-out of the building against the blue background of the sky. Medium shots, where smaller portions of the landscape can be found, portray elements on a more human scale, such as storefronts, doors, or posters. Detail shots capture almost abstract details, where the composition defined by the photographer plays a vital role in the valuation of those same contents. Some records focused more on typographic, calligraphic, and graffiti shreds of evidence, while others concentrated on shape, texture, stain, and color. In some images, the

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rhythm and contrast, the geometry or the organicity of the forms stood out, in others, the transparencies, the layers, and the superimpositions of elements. When analyzing the collected images, we verified the existence of repeated occurrences recorded by different participants. Although they were not precisely the same images, they were very similar in theme and framing. From these repeated records, one can also prove that the city is a living organism in permanent mutation. Although captured over seven months, it is possible to detect changes in the same fragment of landscape with the removal or addition of various elements (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Specimens recorded by participants IF (March 2018), MFZ (August 2018), and AT (September 2018) where changes in graphic heritage are seen.

3.6 Participant Interviews Two to three days after the walks, interviews were conducted with each participant via Skype or Facetime. The questions followed a semi-structured interview to get to know the participants’ reflections on the walking conversations and the collection and editing of the recorded specimens. More specifically, it was intended to: (a) ascertain whether the act of walking through the landscape with the specific purpose of recording the graphic heritage changed the way they perceived that heritage; (b) identify which images they considered more representative of that heritage and why, and (c) collect the participants’ contribution on possible categories emerging in the collected specimens. During the interviews, several sensorial references (visual, sound, and tactile) retained from the tours were also recalled, and some images were called upon to illustrate the arguments presented by the participants. Photographs were also used to evoke specific situations, thus helping deepen the reflection on the objectives set for the present research. Harper (2002, p. 13) states that, more than words, images evoke deep elements of human consciousness and that exchanges based only on words use less brain capacity than those that bring words and pictures together. Gillian Rose (2008, p. 239) reinforces this idea by pointing out that the use of images (in particular photographs produced by the interviewers or the interviewees) stimulate themes of conversation that would not be possible if they were omitted and that the interpretation of responses should be made from these images and consequent dialogue. Thus, in an adaptation of the photo-elicitation

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technique (Harper, 2002; Rose, 2008), the images were integrated into the interviews as a way of materializing and illustrating verbal references from the interviewees and serving as a starting point for further discussion. In general, the participants said that the concept of heritage had not been changed but rather broadened and that by the end of the tour, they could define it more precisely. These walks refined their observation of the landscape and identified details, elements, and positions that they now include and associate with urban graphic heritage. The participants were almost always evasive when asked which images they considered most representative of that heritage and why. It was difficult for them to choose a set of pictures to synthesize their impressions. By broadening the scope of the graphic heritage concept, this task was made more difficult by the increased diversity of specimens collected, making it more challenging to represent each collection with a limited set of images. Facing this setback, an adaptation was made during the interview to collect this information indirectly. From the complete analysis of each interview, but mainly from the answer to the last question – If you had to organize the images in groups, how would you do it? – it was possible to identify some specimens that stood out from the testimonies of each participant. By asking for the enumeration of possible categories to organize the images collected, the narrative that triggered each collection emerged, and it was able to ascertain some reasons why specific photos were recorded. It was concluded that it is not always visible in the photograph what motivated its capture. In some cases, what was recorded may give rise to very different interpretations by those who later see the same images. For example, participant MFZ mentioned having registered a building numbering, considering the material in which it was produced – enamel, a material for which he has a particular fascination. In another picture, he captures what he considers an example of contrast in the landscape. From the observation of the images before the interview, an empirical reading and a preliminary categorization of these specimens were made, considering primarily typographic issues, not foreseeing other possibilities of cataloging – the material and the contrast – referred to only in the interview. The same image allows the construction of different interpretations, establishing links to other contexts that depend on the observer. This is the possibility that is left open with the creation of the Poetic Archive: whoever visits it may make his interpretation or individual reading of each of the images, even though this may not have been the intention of those who initially registered it. New possibilities emerged from each of the tours and interviews, identifying possible adjustments, implemented in subsequent events, improving the participants’ experience and the data collection. The analysis of the interview data went through, in the first moment, the appreciation of the direct answers to the questions asked, and in the second moment, through content analysis to identify terms, phrases, or ideas that could be useful for the broad definition of graphic heritage and the categorization of the archive specimens. The triangulation of the collected data (questionnaire, walking conversations/field notes, collected images, and interviews) was carried out to emerge conceptual patterns

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materializing not only in the categories of the Poetic Archive but also in the reinforcement of the idea of a poetic observation by the designers.

4 Archive Structure 4.1 Specimens Analysis and Selection The photographic records were then analyzed, and repeated or blurred specimens were deleted. The rest of the assets were organized through an inventory and categorization process. Like any other archive, this one is also the result of a selection made by specialists, who may have left out equally valid and important records. This follows, in fact, from the basilar characteristic of archives: being built and expanded through a process of selection, rejection, and destruction of evidence (Blouin Jr. & Rosenberg, 2010, p. 86), being the process of collection, evaluation, organization, and cataloguing of the records that compose them determinant in the way users of the archive explore its contents and consequently the type of narratives they create from it. In this process, some of the records were also edited by slightly readjusting the framing and making some corrections in light and contrast to improve the overall quality of the image. Thus, the final set of specimens that would become part of Oporto’s Poetic Archive was reached. 4.2 Categorization of Specimens A fundamental aspect of the archive is the classification of its documents, which may or may not result in an effective search result. It is therefore important not to exclude or miscategorized the different specimens, making it impossible to include them in the search results. It was necessary to think of a type of categorization that would cover the needs of each of the specimens, taking some care not to over-classify the documents and thus make the research results unrefined. In addition to the categories suggested by the theoretical research – contrast; color; direction; scale, shape, geometry; line, movement; point; position; texture; tone; tridimensionality; volume –, terms that emerged from the walking conversations, the field notes, and the interviews were identified, thus arriving at a set of words that implicitly or explicitly, with more or less frequency, appeared referred to in this research. The diversity and quantity of terms dictated the need to find an analysis strategy that would enhance the set of words most appropriate to the entire collection, discarding the less relevant ones, structuring, and relating the categories to be made available in the archive. Based on this assumption, three moments of analysis and organization followed, aiming to create meaning and organize the topics to define a coherent set of categories and associated keywords. In the first moment, the words were organized according to visual, material, or more emotional affinity relationships, obtaining a first configuration of the potential connection between words and concepts. With this action, carried out by the researcher, semantic (meaning) and syntactic (form) relations were found among the terms, proposing their

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grouping into three distinct sets to which a first nomenclature was attributed, based on an empirical and still quite generic approach. In a second moment, four communication designers were invited to participate in a collaborative session (https://miro.com). They were asked to establish new possible relationships based on the terms presented and with some guidance and explanation of their respective context. A new configuration emerged from this session, where some keywords considered missing were included in addition to creating groups and their respective names. It was also decided to abolish some terms as they were deemed redundant and repetitive, not adding value to the overall picture. The main challenges encountered in this categorization process were not only to group the terms judiciously and understandably for future users of the archive but also to name the categories created in a way that mirrored their contents. The first two moments of categorization allowed a critical analysis of the contents, establishing new premises for the final phase of redefinition and reorganization of the categories. It was thus possible to identify two significant approaches to the urban landscape and its heritage: one more focused on the formal characteristics of the specimens collected and whose associated terms would be more linked to specific visual components and materials – typography; calligraphy; graffiti; signage; pattern; tiles, iron –; another more emotional and sensory, adding words that allow more poetic and personal readings – coexistence; overlap; softness; rigidity. Six categories were established from these two approaches, whose nomenclature was inspired and based on several theoretical works in visual perception, visual language, communication design, cinema, photography, and phenomenology. This was also an assumption of this research, navigate the lexicon of designers to categorize better the specimens they collected since, as Amelia Grounds and Kate Long, librarians of the Letterform Archive, point out, the words designers use to describe processes and materials are often different from those used by professionals in other fields (The Online Archive: Describing Design – Letterform Archive, n.d. para. 3). Each category is directly related to all the others. A specimen can simultaneously be one thing and another, revealing multiple layers of interpretation and possible categorization. Although some categories oppose or complement each other (Form / Matter and Grammar / Subjects), others are practically omnipresent (Framing and Qualifiers) either because they start from formal principles of composition or reveal possibilities of poetic interpretation. For the start-up phase of the online platform of Oporto’s Poetic Archive, all images were categorized and may belong to more than one category. 4.3 Access and Structuring of the Oporto’s Poetic Archive From its theoretical conception, Oporto’s Poetic Archive was conceived as a digital archive since it foresaw that the collection of specimens would be collected by cell phone, allowing the digital photographic record and the georeferencing of each of them. By having the images dematerialized, making them public in digital support was a natural step, taking advantage of all the benefits associated with new information technologies and what it means to have the contents at a click away. Making the archive available online meant making it accessible to a much more extensive range of users, at any time,

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from anywhere in the world. Still, it also allowed taking advantage of other tools (such as search engines) that would help its dissemination. By authorizing access to all content without restrictions, it was necessary to find a safeguard mechanism to attribute credit and origin to the specimens and the project in which they are inserted. It was thus decided to associate the Creative Commons license for attribution of origin, which allows sharing and adapting the materials from the archive, as long as the proper credit is given (Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0, 2021). Available online, the project was structured in two distinct areas: one to access the archive itself, which foresees six possible paths to reach the individual information of each specimen; and another section, with the presentation and contextualization of the whole project. On the site’s homepage, two possibilities exist to access the graphic heritage specimens. One more fortuitous, through a set of images that appear randomly, and another through specific searches: by category, dominant color, location map (georeferencing), street name, or by collection. The distinction between these two types of navigation aims to allow, on the one hand, visits that do not obey any specific search criteria or, on the other hand, more targeted consultations. Regarding how to search in the archive, it was essential to access the contents not only through the principles underlying the textual categories mentioned above but also through an approach of visual references. In this regard, search by dominant color was highlighted, allowing the user to access images grouped by chromatic similarity. For each specimen, an inventory card was prepared with information of different natures, including the title, authorship, categories, and subcategories to which it belongs, location by street name and georeferencing, dominant color, and whether or not it is part of a collection. It was determined that each of these inventory sheets would not be the end of the line but rather an access point to other images that relate to the content viewed, thus creating a continuous circuit.

5 Archive Materialization 5.1 Obtaining Longitude, Latitude, Addresses and Dominant Colors With the objectives, requirements, and structure of the site defined in previous stages, in this phase of materialization of the Oporto’s Poetic Archive, efforts were focused on the interface design (navigation), the visual design, and the implementation of the contents (André Grilo, 2016). To record the exact location of each of the images collected, a device was used to capture them that, in addition to recording the photography, automatically associated to the digital file as metadata, among others, the geographic reference (longitude and latitude). In this way, after the walks and talks and the recording of the images, it was possible to automatically extract from all the specimens collected these geographic references, which were later associated with the catalogue. This metadata extraction process was performed using the Exiftool tool (https://exiftool.org/). The information collected was used in the inventory sheet of each specimen to correctly position the location where the photograph was recorded on a map.

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Considering that it was also intended to make available a search by location with toponymy indication, and due to the size of the archive in terms of the number of photographs, an automated process to obtain this information was resorted (Geoapify service API), later refining the data manually. Since it was intended to have a search/filter by dominant color, making this classification per specimen was necessary. An algorithm generated a color palette from each input, revealing the most used colors in each photograph. Applying this algorithm to all specimens, a new attribute was obtained for each feature representing its dominant color. All this information was used either as a general filter on all archive pages or as a contextual search mechanism on the specimen page, allowing navigation to a new page with images with the same attributes. 5.2 Implementation Considering the requirements intended to be implemented in the digital archive, a collection of images accessible from categories, subcategories, and attributes (author, street, color), and after completing the extraction and preparation of data, it was possible to obtain the data structure for each specimen. The platform selected for the implementation of this digital project was the WordPress content manager with the WooCommerce plugin. Since this platform already has all the basic requirements to provide the desired filters and searches, the implementation work was limited to the implementation of the design. The decisions in this regard were primarily based on finding graphic solutions that were not visually dominating, focusing mainly on the images in the archive.

6 Closing Remarks Ethnographic studies are rich in information, which is often camouflaged and needs to be analyzed and cross-referenced from several sources to be revealed. By presenting in detail the methodology for the creation of the Oporto’s Poetic Archive, it was possible to highlight the procedures that brought light to the fundamental data for the creation of the archive – definition of the territory and participants in the study; involvement of participants in the categorization of specimens; description of the structure and access; materialization and operation of the archive. Acknowledgement. Financial support for this study was provided by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), grant SFRH/BD/109020/2015, funded by the Programa Operacional do Capital Humano (POCH) - Portugal 2020.

References Grilo, A.: O que é Arquitetura da Informação e como ela influencia a UX do seu produto | by André Grilo | Comunidade UX Design Natal-RN | Medium (2016). https://medium.com/ux-design-natal/o-que-é-arquitetura-da-informação-e-como-elainfluencia-a-ux-do-seu-produto-b4f20881b2b4

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Barnard, M.: Graphic Design as Communication. Routledge (2005) Blouin Jr., F.X., Rosenberg, W.G. (eds): Archives, Documentation, and Institutions of Social Memory – Essays from the Sawyer Seminar. The University of Michigan Press (2010) Clemente, V., Tschimmel, K., Pombo, F.: Methodologies in doctoral research in design: the role of research paradigms. In: Moret, O. (ed.) Back to the Future/The Future in the Past Starting Again: Understanding Our Own Legacy, pp. 694–698. Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona (2018) Coutinho, C.P.: Metodologia de Investigação em Ciências Sociais e Humanas: teoria e prática (2°). Almedina (2016) Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0. (2021). https://creativecomm ons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Cross, N.: From a design science to a design discipline: understanding designerly ways of knowing and thinking. In: Design Research Now, pp. 41–54. Birkhäuser (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-3-7643-8472-2_3 Dondis, D.A.: La Sintaxis de la imagen (7a ). Editorial Gustavo Gilli (1988) Findeli, A., Brouillet, D., Martin, S., Moineau, C., Tarrago, R.: Research through design and transdisciplinarity: a tentative contribution to the methodology of design research. In: Network, S.D. (ed.) Focused - Current Design Research Projects and Methods, pp. 67–91. Swiss Design Network (2008) Frayling, C.: Research in Art and Design. Royal College of Art Research Papers 1, 1–5 (1993) Friedman, K.: Research into, by and for design. J. Visual Art Pract. 7(2), 153–160 (2008) Harper, D.: Talking about pictures: a case for photo elicitation. Vis. Stud. 17(1), 13–26 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1080/14725860220137345 Hayward, S.: Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts (second). Routledge (2000) Ingold, T.: The Perception of the Environment – Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. Routledge (2000) Lincoln, Y., Lynham, S., Guba, E.: Paradigmatic Controversies, Contradictions, and Emerging Confluences, Revisited. In: Denzin, N., Lincoln, Y. (eds), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, 5th edn., pp. 213–265. SAGE Publications (2018) Moles, A.A.: The legibility of the world: a project of graphic design. Des. Issues 3(1), 43–53 (1986) De Naeyer, A., Arroyo, S., Blanco, J.: Krakow Charter 2000: Principles for Conservation and Restoration of Built Heritage. Bureau Krakow 2000, 5 (2000) Pink, S.: A multisensory approach to visual methods. In: Margolis, E., Pauwels, L. (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Visual Research Methods, pp. 601–614. SAGE Publications Ltd (2011) Pink, S.: Doing Sensory Ethnography. SAGE Publications Ltd. (2015) Rose, G.: Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials. SAGE Publications (2008) The Online Archive: Describing Design – Letterform Archive. (n.d.) (2021). https://letterformar chive.org/news/view/the-online-archive-describing-design

Promoting Citizen Engagement in Sustainable Planning Through Installation Design and Digital Gamification George Arvanitis1 , Joanne Hayek2 , and Marina Peres2(B) 1 RMJM, Dubai, United Arab Emirates 2 Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (DIDI), Dubai, United Arab Emirates

[email protected]

Abstract. This paper aims to explore tools and methodologies to promote citizen engagement in sustainable city planning through the design of interactive experiences. The study features documentation of the ‘Shape your City’ project, co-designed and developed by the authors along with collaborators, and piloted as part of Dubai Design Week 2021. The project is presented as a case study to investigate the use of installation design and digital gamification as mediums to enable citizen participation in urban planning. Starting with a brief overview of the context of Dubai and the Dubai Design Week Architectural Exhibition (1), the paper presents the co-curation process of the installation and expands to present the exhibition design, visual identity and wayfinding systems (2), followed by the web-app design and development, to end with an analysis of the findings of this pilot edition and recommendations for a long term implementation of the project (3). Keywords: Interactive exhibition · Wayfinding · Gamification · Participatory planning · User-generated mapping

1 The Future Sustainable City With the initiative during Design Week for the exhibition for the 2040 Dubai Masterplan, this platform became an opportunity to “comprehend ideas and concepts on the sustainable future of, Dubai, from some of the brightest minds in the field,” as advocated by Khadija Al Bastaki, executive director of d3 Dubai. Her vision was that visitors may witness a “multimedia journey” of how Dubai could look in 20 years, from developments in transportation, public spaces and tourist sites. It will also consider “how architecture can contribute to enhancing happiness, well-being and quality of life in a sustainable manner. In her words, she stated “We hope the architecture festival will spark conversations about the future of sustainable cities, which is now more important than ever before as the world population grows and plans of megacities are being set. Our world’s population is set to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, so it is vital to rethink the building of the past and carefully plan and consider our future living spaces, particularly in light © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 293–306, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_26

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of climate change,” she says. In imagining as to how we might deliver the future sustainable city, this objective needs to be viewed both from the social and environmental perspective and how this synergy can constitute to an essential condition and achieve a more successful delivery of the ecology for the sustainable city. It is the extent of their facilitation of integration and inclusion, rather than the constant partition of our cities into disparate fragments, both in social and spatial terms. This deeper understanding of social relationships and how the modes of production have influenced their formation. It is the extent of their facilitation of integration and inclusion, rather than the constant partition of our cities into disparate fragments, both in social and spatial terms. This deeper understanding of social relationships and how the modes of production have influenced their formation. 1.1 The City as a Social Construct In his book Social Justice and the City, David Harvey has analysed social relations, built form and environment and how each influences the other, but his reference to environment is restricted to the built-environment and not the natural systems. He states that urbanism may be regarded as a particular form or patterning of the social process. This process unfolds in a spatially structured environment created by man. The city can, therefore, be regarded as a “tangible, built-environment- an environment which is a social product.” As our cities are expanding, public spaces are also rapidly shrinking, in both physical and socially equitable terms. The community and public spaces that foster participation, social exchange and dialogue also have become challenged in the face of urban expansion. These spaces which are the foundation for successful city planning, ensure that the wellbeing of physical, social and participatory attributes of our daily quality of life. 1.2 From Neighbourhood to City The close correlation of urban form and participation in its formation by its future inhabitants from the onset to the eventual delivery of city development is a process that leads to sustainable city planning. By advocating a neighbourhood-based development approach, rather than a top-down master planning process, one that is decentralized and localized it is possible to then engage more directly with the city inhabitants and deliver a more bottom-up process that allows for collective and collaborative approach to city making. In general, Masterplans are generally ‘top-down’ processes and to be resilient need to have an equally ambitious opportunity to allow for a collective intervention and dialogue, allow for localization and re-thinking of existing urban context. Together with the formation of neighbourhood scale plans it is necessary to develop also city-scale sustainability ideas and plans and through that process evolve alternate vision for cities. Therefore, the agglomeration and unification of the various neighbourhoods become the building blocks of the city through localized city planning. As architect and urbanist PK Das, states “It is neighbourhood plans that must form the basis of city planning.” Such an effort requires a paradigm shift in the mindset of

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formal planning, obsessed with building barricaded monoblocks that divide and brutally fragment city landscapes, to include sustainable ecology and environment as the central aspect of city development plans, prepared with the objective of unification, with people’s participation right from its inception. It is for the fulfilment of this objective, that Dubai as a future Sustainable City has become the focus of the research conducted in Shape Your City. We seek to bring forward the participatory aspects and rejuvenation of localized city planning within the future of the Dubai 2040 Masterplan forming a platform that would allow for integration, and re-envisioning so that Dubai might become a resilient city for people, their stories, to strengthen its future and vision and one is built upon active participation and collective imagination.

2 Exhibition Design, Visual Identity and Way-Finding Systems Shape your city was designed as a 360-degree interactive exhibition to invite the visitor to engage on a holistic experience and to know more about the principles behind the future Dubai urban development. Inspire by the holistic design and the idea of the entire experience is not limited to digital devices but is a mix of digital, real-world, human interactions, collaboration, and innovation, this approach involves activities that ensure everyone’s voice is heard and the target activities are empathic and easy to engage and play the game and have an optimal experience (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Shape your city exhibition | Dubai design week 2021

The big challenge was to balance and achieve the optimal combination of the actions (activities) done by the visitors / target group; the interaction with the visual objects located in the environment (physical and digital); understanding and gather information about feelings in particular context or topic. Inclusion is a big part of the design process. One of the challenges was to consider how design ideas might resonate with the audience. A successful communication process requires tangible results: how to generate new ideas through an empathetic design experience? An exhibition as a holistic space for mutual learning (Muller and Druin, 2012) must receive and understand all voices, thinking, attitudes, emotions, motivations, and

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abilities. As a socio-interactionist perspective and cultural context (Vygotsky 1962), new knowledge and findings can be achieved from interactions between people actions and artifacts. The visitor experience is based on the intersection point of three components: co-creation and participatory design process (as the methodology), empathy (the focus on people’s needs and ambitions) and technology (taking advantage of technology). Visual Design is the strategy for the optimal experience (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Diagram of the entire experience flow.

2.1 Participatory Design and Empathy as a Methodological Approach of the Holistic Experience Participatory Design is a methodological and philosophical current that originated in Scandinavia, in the context of a political movement of the working class for democratic management, starting in the 1960s. It gained notoriety and nowadays converges on the objective of guaranteeing the participation of the target groups (potential users) in the process of developing products, services and/or processes, promoting collaboration, dialogue and exchange of knowledge and experiences between designers and representatives of the target audience (Muller and Druin 2012). In the context of Shape your City, the idea of Participatory Design is to mediate communication and establish a common language between designers and the target group (Light and Luckin 2008). On the other hand, provided an empathetic environment that should allow each person involved to feel able to contribute, within their constraints. The contributions from the target group can make vary according to their stage of life, their cognitive, and cultural background, their identity, and their relationship to the design task (Muller and Druin 2012), and unexpected insights were part of the process. Design Thinking is a problem-solving approach and a holistic human-centered perspective (Brown, 2008), to create innovative solutions. The first early stage begins with a rational and analytical research of the problem. Gaining empathy is one of the first

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steps on the process. A deep understanding of the problem that humans face is needed in order to critically examine the assumptions about the problem and define a concrete problem statement. The main goal is to understand the reasons behind human needs and behaviors. In the context of this project, a deep understanding of the ways of thinking, attitudes, emotions, and abilities of the Dubai community members is fundamental to know more about human needs, motivations, and ambitions for the future of the City of Dubai. The motivation is to gather qualitative data with small samples and collect observation-based findings to achieve results and deep insights into how and why people do what they do. The participants became able to explore experimentation and develop the practice of a systemic and iterative process. Empathy in design helps to understand the needs, motivations, behaviors, and ambitions of the target group. It is fundamental to give the visitor a feeling of inclusivity. Visual design can establish emotional connections and interactions. The main objective of this is to maintain the interaction (performance) to control the process and obtain feedback. Empathy, as a strategy, comprises everything that is exercised between the service/system and the target group promoting commitment to the experience. As a process opens the way for the sharing of knowledge and information, and guides people and tasks, facilitating common work, promoting the spirit of cooperation, and developing the collective sense to improve the individual-system relationship (Kalla, 2006). The main goal is to engage the target group on the path of creative thinking that has been explored by Double Diamond (Design Council, 2005). Divided into two “basic” stages: the first one is based on examination and understanding (analysis), and the second one remounts the situation based on the improvements discovered in response to their needs and motivations (synthesis). In between these two stages, something can happen: transformation, co-creation and innovation. 2.2 Installation Design: Visual Design Concept and Identity This chapter addresses visual design as a powerful communication device and explores how it can be used as a semantic practice to communicate ideas. It can be easily recognized and used to convey meaning through a process of semiotics, denotation, and cognition. The cognitive interpretation of the visual design depends upon how it is presented. The theoretical model of communication (Morris, 1964) that involves humans and the sign fits into this study as a main process of communication through linguistic signs. The behavior of signs in semiotics is evaluated in three specific dimensions. Syntax, as the first dimension, translates the formal relationship between the signs and within each sign. Semantics, second, refers to the relationship of the sign with its meaning achieved. Pragmatics focuses on the relationship between the signs. Signs and their receiver (Fig. 3). Based on perceptions of what we, as humans, can experience and sense, it seems important to refer to icon, index, or symbol, depending on the degree of detail and the formal attributes in the context of the message within the communication system, as elements of empathy and functionality.

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Fig. 3. Infographics elements from the mobility panel.

Information design is a practice of communicating visual stories and sharing new knowledge. Data visualization can convey an idea or a considerable amount of information very quickly. The designer as a storyteller is the agent of transformation. He selects what to observe in the composition and how to communicate it, with a clear understanding of how the visual representations are working on the perceptual and cognitive levels. As part of the transformation process, systematically, the story is frozen in graphic moments as part of the narrative and perceived as a cognitive experience. Through the transformation process, texts and images are combined and organized to instill the meaning and the action to trigger the feedback and stimulate empathy to build upon the ideas and themes.

Fig. 4. Exhibition circular shape | Concept and wayfinding flow development.

The configuration of the exhibition is based on a circular layout (Fig. 4) to display a series of visitor interactions through a holistic experience. Across the physical space, the wayfinding system guides the visitors to complete the holistic experience. The main experience is divided into three interactive moments. Know the context (1) visitors start the holistic experience engage with the information design on the physical panels. Graphic objects and questions are strategically located in the physical environment to guide visitors along the experience. Play on Web App (2) by scanning the QR code, available in the physical environment, and start the digital interaction. As part of the participatory process, visitors are able to share their needs and ambitions for the future of Dubai, based on the knowledge achieved in the first part of the experience (physical). A web-app has been designed and developed for this purpose. Frame Insights (3), in the last phase, insights are collected and documented to guarantee the success of the

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experience, and the data is summarized in real-time on a screen on the last panel of the exhibition, as explained further in Sect. 3.2. 2.3 Wayfinding System and Installation Design As part of the design strategy, we use wayfinding as a consistent visual communication system to orient the visitor and enhance the target group experience. The visual content is systematically designed and organized to create the links in the chain of data, guiding the visitor along the narrative. Orientation, content, and participation were factors that influence the visitor throughout the experience. In this project, a challenge was to create the optimal spatial configuration and the balance between the visual representation and the overall human experience. The information design aspects were organized based on a provocative communication decision regarding how the viewer would receive and interpret the visual representation and take an action for the final purpose. The visual offers a state of equilibrium and reveals a complex relationship between each representation. Harmony and balance were used to link each topic or theme. A visual system was designed with a combination of text, pictograms, maps, photographs, models, and diagrams as objects of thought. As part of the system, the color scheme (Fig. 5) was defined as part of the expression of the exhibition’s visual concept and has been used to differentiate each theme of information and provide orientation.

Fig. 5. Color scheme and visual elements as orientation purpose: landscape (green), sustainable development (blue), cultural heritage (orange) and mobility (red).

As well some of the visual representations were used to help the visitor to develop a mental map of the exhibition and the directional references, lines and signs with arrows guide them to explore the space and find the destination. Visual composition determines the purpose and meaning of a visual manifestation (Fig. 6). Destination identification elements such as title, typography, text, and images were in each theme panel and composition. The visual unit in each composition was processed through the coordination of all elements of the composition (Fig. 7).

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Fig. 6. Themes, exhibition entrance and signage as part of directional information.

Fig. 7. Cultural heritage composition | Destination identification

2.4 Conclusion and Next Steps The appropriation of shared knowledge increases and communication channels become open and empathetic for sharing needs and ambitions on the topic under discussion. Visual design and visual narratives as part of a wayfinding system are empathic methods to encourage and guide target groups to participate and complete tasks. Participatory Design can promote learning by engaging the target groups in collaborative practical activities oriented toward sharing mutual knowledge and seeking insights to create new products and services. This is especially relevant when related to city development and community contexts. A good balance between participation/collaboration, empathy and visual design makes it possible to hear the voices of those who generally have less power in decision-making but are those who are consistent with the idea that in a community of practice members, regardless of their “origin” or status, progress from novice to expert. In terms of strategies behind the visual design, this project aims to move forward and continue to explore new ways to use wayfinding systems and combine them with augmented reality; thus extending the experience of the target group and contributing further to the service of urban development and planning.

3 Gamified Digital Co-planning: Web-App Design and Development The rise of networked collaborative technologies is rendering top-down urban design obsolete (Varnelis 2008; Bennett and Segerberg 2012; De Lange 2019) and is opening the

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door to participatory methods of urban planning that engage non-professional citizens in the co-creation and co-improvement of their city. In such contexts, the design of frameworks of engagement is needed to facilitate this shift in methodology. This section provides documentation and analysis of the pilot version of the Shape your City webapp released during Dubai Design Week 2021, in view of exploring strategies for the design of co-planning tools. Envisioned as digital social innovation (DSI) models, these co-planning tools would allow professionals and amateurs to collaborate in co-creating knowledge and solutions for societal challenges (Novak et al. 2018). Complementing the physical exhibition, the Shape your City web-app was designed to enable citizen participation in urban planning through a gamified digital experience. Gamification, which has proved to be an effective method to promote citizen engagement in city-making (Raessens 2014), is used here as a tool to (1) simplify complex information in the form of accessible user-friendly content, (2) to facilitate citizen engagement in urban design through a step-by-step input process and (3) to create momentum and incentivization through interactivity, real-time data visualization and animation. Featuring an interactive map of Dubai, the app took the users through the different layers exhibited in the installation: mobility, landscape, community living and cultural heritage. Each layer was presented as a step in the game, linking with the curated content displayed on the physical panels. The users were invited to contribute to the planning of the future of Dubai, by proposing additions to its urban fabric, such as new mobility routes, tree planting and 15-min city amenities and cultural preservation sites as detailed in the following paragraph. The overall aim was to inform the visitors about the Dubai 2040 master plan while inviting them to contribute to its co-creation by means of crowdsourced ideation and mapping. Taking the visitors through a step-by-step journey, the web-app’s design aimed to maximize user-friendliness to allow non-experienced visitors of the exhibition to navigate it with ease. The flow chart, visual identity and content were designed to match and coincide with the physical panels and wayfinding. The application and installation

Fig. 8. Screenshots of the ‘Shape your City’ web-app opened at the mobility layer: on a phone showing user input of bike lane and on the exhibition screen showing progressive display of all user inputs.

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both end with the presentation of a wide screen a live map summarizing the inputs of the visitors in the form of an animated data visualization (see Fig. 8 and 12). 3.1 Web-App Graphics, Features and Functionalities Similar to the physical panels, the app starts with a yellow introductory section explaining the game and gathering basic information about the user needed to validate the data collection. The user profile questionnaire was designed to be short and playful: it is presented as a starting step in the game, as a call to customize the user’s avatar (Fig. 9).

Fig. 9. Screenshots of pilot version of ‘Shape your City’ web-app: introduction section and avatar customization steps.

Once the user profile is completed, the app evolves through a series of maps, each numbered and color-coded based on the layer explored, and featuring graphic icons as call to action (see Fig. 9 and Fig. 10). Animated pop-up windows appear progressively on the screen to guide the use of the application. Standard scroll and swipe behaviors were chosen to maximize user-friendliness. As the screen turns from one step to the next, the grey left and right arrows are consistently present, offering the user the possibility to freely navigate back and forth between the layers, which share a similar overall wireframe. Control buttons and search icon allow the players to geolocate themselves, and zoom in and out freely on the map. The typography, infographics and color palette of the digital application were designed to match the visual identity developed for the physical intervention. The below paragraphs detail the input process and design of interactions in each of the layers: mobility (01), landscape (02), sustainable environment (03), and cultural heritage (04). The Mobility Layer (01). The mobility layer features five icons, each allowing to add a type of mobility route to the future of Dubai: walking path, cycling path, hyperloop track, boat path and air tram path (see Fig. 10). When clicking on an icon, it turns red, indicating that the sublayer drawing tool is selected, and a pop-up appears on the screen explaining how to draw a path: by clicking on the map, the user adds a start and end of the route. The existing route is shown in thin solid line and the computed proposed direct connection is shown with a thicker dashed line. After sharing a route, the user has the possibility to click and drag the start or end points. In that event, the code recomputes the route and displays the new one on the screen.

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Fig. 10. Screenshots of pilot version of ‘Shape your City’ web-app: mobility and landscape layers.

The Landscape Layer (02). The landscape layer invites visitors to contribute through point-based submissions. After selecting a sublayer by clicking on one of the black icons representing the type of landscape feature to be added to the map (a native tree, a park or green space, a natural reserve, a camping site and a water feature), the user can click on the map and add the selected feature at different locations (see Fig. 11). Once placed, the feature can be moved by clicking and dragging, or deleted by double clicking. The base map utilized in the landscape layer features more information about the existing landscape features of the city such as parks and reserves.

Fig. 11. Screenshots of pilot version of ‘Shape your City’ web-app: community living and cultural heritage layers.

The Community Living Layer (03). This layer invites the visitors to choose the neighborhood where they would like to live in 2040. The aim of this step is to ensure that each neighborhood operates like a 15 min city, featuring all necessary amenities within a short distance equivalent to 15 min walk or cycling. After clicking on the map to select the area in which they would like to live, the map zooms into the area and opens a pop-up indicating the next steps while showing the icons of the inputs available: adding a hospital or healthcare facility, a school, a playground, a cultural space or a farmers’

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market. The base map indicates the existing amenities and allows the user to suggest additions by clicking on the map. The Cultural Heritage Layer (04). The last layer in the sequence, the cultural heritage layer, proposes a crowd-mapping experience. Inviting users to share information about the ‘hidden gems’ of the city, it offers the possibility to input geo-localized stories. A click on the map triggers the appearance of a Mapbox pop-up designed to resemble a sticky note. This pop-up contains an editable text area for the user to share written information about different localities. The user can add as many stories as needed. Inputs of users included personal memories, preferred spots, historical data, as well as descriptions of certain qualities of public spaces. In future versions of the app with larger amounts of inputs, Python sentiment analysis tools can be used to categorize the types of qualitative data shared, and identify potential categorizations and commonalities.

3.2 Real-Time Data Visualization: Digital Gamification Enabling Co-creation Once the players completed all four steps, the game ends with an animated page congratulating them and inviting them to check the live summary map broadcasted on a wide screen on the last panel of the installation (see Fig. 12). This screen featured a real-time summary of all the user inputs, per layer. On the left side, a map featured a dynamic geospatial summary of the individual user-inputs in the layer, while on the right, a comparative infographic was animated to progressively show the amounts of user-inputs per sublayer. For instance, in the mobility layer (left of Fig. 12) visitors could see the number of walking, biking, hyperloop, boat and airframe routes added in an animated chart that progressively scaled. Meanwhile, on the left side of the screen, the map was animated, gradually retracing all the added routes drawn by the users. This geospatial mapping aimed to provide a macro reading of the multiple individual inputs shared by the visitors. Similarly, for the community living layer, the map took the visitors through the different locations that the app users chose to select as living location, and was showing progressively the various amenities that they were adding to their 15 min city (see Fig. 12).

Fig. 12. Screenshot of animated data visualization generated by the pilot version of ‘Shape your City’ web-app: wide screen summarizing inputs of visitors in real-time; mobility and community living layers.

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3.3 Co-design Process, Web-Development Strategy and Code Architecture The Shape your City webapp was co-designed by a cross-disciplinary team in a phase of one month, which ran in parallel with the programming phase, which allowed to test the functionalities as the design and content was progressively being developed. The main coding language used is Javascript. The Mapbox and Turf Javascript libraries were used for the interactive map, along with the Mapbox Geocoder API for geolocation and search features. The web-app was hosted using Firebase, and used Firestore as database; a NoSQL database that allows a flexible data structure. This modular code architecture allowed to rapidly deploy the application prior to the pilot launch. 3.4 Conclusion and Next Steps The merging of physical and digital interfaces through customized playful media technologies allows to engage citizens in the design and prototyping of future city scenarios. As De Lange argues, playfulness is a productive concept to help conceptualize truly smart cities (De Lange 2019). Furthermore, the separation of cross-sector data into color-coded sequential layers helps reduce the complexity of the information, making it accessible to professional and non-professional contributors. In the next version of the web-app, a feature offering the players the possibility to suggest supplemental sublayers will be added, thus expanding the co-ideation process. A sentiment analysis system would also help categorize and quantify the qualitative types of inputs such as the cultural heritage mapping. Dashboards and varied access per user role (citizen, urban planner, public organization, etc.) would also be needed to allow to properly enable the actor relational network of city planning to efficiently cooperate and scale. Volunteered geographic information (VGI), such as the data collected by Shape your City, presents challenges of potential unreliability such as positional inaccuracy (Fonte et al. 2017) and social bias. Pairing the latter with a neighborhood-planning workshop conducted by urban design and planning professionals would help strengthen the approach. And finally, further cross-media explorations such as augmented reality would be instrumental to further link the physical and digital experiences and enhancing the citizen engagement.

References Bennett, W.L., Segerberg, A.: The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2012) Brown, T.: Change by Design. Harper Business (2009) De Lange, M.: The playful city: citizens making the smart city. In: The Playful Citizen: Civic Engagement in a Mediatized Culture. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam (2019) Fonte, C., et al.: Assessing VGI data quality. In: Mapping and the Citizen Sensor. Ubiquity Press, London (2017) Harvey, D.: Social Justice and the City (2010) Light, A., Luckin, R.: Participatory Design: The Third Space in Human-Computer Interaction (2008) Morris, C.: Signification and Significance: A Study of the Relations of Signs and Values. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts (1964)

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Muller, M.J., Druin, A.: The Third Space in Human–Computer Interaction (2012) Novak, J., Becker, M., Grey, F., Mondardini, R.: Citizen Engagement and Collective Intelligence for Participatory Digital Social Innovation. UCL Press, London (2018) Newman, W.E.: Data Visualization for Design Thinking. Applied Mapping. Routledge (2017) Paul, A., Romedi, P.: Wayfinding, People Sign & Architecture, Focus Strategic Communication, Incorporated, Toronto, 2002 Author, F., Author, S., Author, T.: Book title. 2nd ed. Publisher, Location (1999) Per M., WayShowing: a guide to environmental signage – Principles and practice (2005) Raessens, J.: The ludification of culture. In: Rethinking Gamification, pp. 91–114. Meson Press, Lüneburg (2014) Varnelis, K.: Networked Publics. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2008) Light, A., Luckin, R.: Designing for Social Justice. People, Technology and Learning. FutureLab. Innovation in Education (2008) Wilbur, P., Burke, M.: Infografica, GG, Barcelona (2011) Vygotsky, L.S.: Thought and Language. The MIT Press, Cambridge (1962)

The Enredo Game-Installation: A Proposal to Counter Hate Speech Online Susana Costa1,2(B) , Mirian Tavares1 , José Bidarra2 and Bruno Mendes da Silva1

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1 Research Centre for Arts and Communication, Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal

[email protected] 2 Research Centre for Arts and Communication, Universidade Aberta, Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract. In this article we encourage conflict sensitive attitudes and multicultural awareness based on the potential for creative responses. Through digital media art and serious games strategies we seek to create safe areas for dialogue, debate, and awareness of hate speech. These solutions will be even more effective if they are based on the understanding of how different forms of expression emerge, interact, and potentially dissipate in the virtual environment. Grounded on the possibilities of digital media art, through a practice-based research methodology, we explore the process of creating a gamified counternarrative, designed with the objective of responding to hate speech, and, at the same time, capable of providing an experience of aesthetic enjoyment. Foreseeing the establishment of a collaborative network with the educational community and the non-specialized public (parents, youth, associations, educators), this project is also based on the key concepts of media and information literacy, which are important not only to understand and analyze the phenomenon of online hate speech, but also to develop strategies and tools that allow the containment of this type of speech. Keywords: Online hate speech · Media literacy · Digital games

1 Introduction In this article, we seek to analyze the definitions of online hate speech and the way in which it manifests in videogames and game’s platforms, to outline counteracting strategies, namely, a game-installation allowing for the understanding of the phenomenon. Exploring the boundaries between videogames, namely serious games, used for educational purposes, and digital media art, we consider the role of art and technology in the creation and dissemination of digital artifacts. The relationship between games and contemporaneity is increasingly intertwined, with the breaking of barriers between them, enabling new modes of creation and interaction between spectator and work. The contiguity between video games and digital art can be realized through new forms of interactivity and experimentation with technologies, but also through the narrative and poetic context of the works. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 307–320, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_27

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Digital games can work as learning tools that allow the development of physical and emotional skills through immersive narratives, puzzles, or logical and deductive problems. However, in order to become fully accepted as a teaching/learning tool in both formal and informal contexts, game technology has to overcome some challenges. One of the main issues is how to measure their actual learning effects. In this field some studies (Backlund and Hendrix 2013) while evaluating the effectiveness of game-based learning concluded that among the several studies analyzed, serious games had shown a positive effect on learning. The results of such studies are important to overcome a second difficulty related with the acceptance of these teaching tools by teachers, students and parents. By creating united communities around the development of counter-narratives, we see the creator at the center of a political and social movement with possible repercussions for the audience. In this article, we start from the study of the state of the art of online hate speech, especially in digital games, we analyze the possible approaches between media literacy and the problem of online hate speech, and then we propose a methodology to produce a game installation to curb online hate speech.

2 Online Hate Speech Online Hate Speech, also known as cyber hate, toxic online behavior or virtual disinhibition (Kwak and Blackburn 2015; Suler 2004), is defined by European Union law “as public incitement to violence or hatred directed at groups or individuals based on certain characteristics, including race, color, religion, descent and national or ethnic origin” (EUR-lex 2008). At the end of the last decade, academic interest in hate speech has seen an important increase, reflected, for example, in the volume of production indexed to the Web of Science (WoS), which increased from 42 to 162 between 2013 and 2018 (Paz et al. 2020). The researchers describe online hate speech as a set of behaviors that categorize themselves as toxic in terms of constantly renegotiating and evolving social norms. It is possible to identify different types of online hate expression motivated by gender, sexual identity, nationality, historical events, or religious beliefs (Paz et al. 2020; Blaya 2019; Agustina et al. 2020; Deslauriers et al. 2020). The HateBase platform, a web application that collects examples of online hate speech around the world, indicated in 2019 that most cases target individuals based on ethnicity and nationality, but incitement to hate centered on religion and social class have also been increasing (Quinn 2019). In order to stop the spread of illegal hate speech, on May 31, 2016, the European Commission, together with Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft, agreed on a Code of Conduct to combat this phenomenon “in the effort to respond to the challenge of ensuring that online platforms do not offer opportunities for illegal online hate speech to spread virally” (European Commission 2016). The latest assessment of this Code of Conduct, published in June 2021 and carried out by the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers 2021), concluded that sexual orientation is the most reported reason for hate speech (33.1%) followed by xenophobia, including hatred of migrants (15%).

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Experiences with online hate speech happen in three ways: exposure, victimization and aggression (Machackova et al. 2020). Wachs et al. (2021) found a link between contact with unknown people online, excessive Internet use, sensation seeking, and cyberhate perpetration, as well as impaired self-control, greater irritability, social conflicts, social consequences, and aggressive behaviour. A report focusing on the analysis of cyber hate experiences of children aged 11 to 17 in 10 European countries found that exposure to hate speech increases with age, a trend likely to be correlated with greater global engagement with the virtual world. (Machackova et al. 2020). This trend was accentuated during the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Sustainable Development Goals 2020 Report, provided by the United Nations, during confinement and school closures, all over the world, due to the pandemic, the risk of children being exposed to cyberbullying increased (Sachs et al. 2020). Because they violate the dignity of the other, hateful messages are being limited and controlled. Digital platforms like Facebook or Twitch have implemented mechanisms that allow the authors of such messages to be silenced, for example by blocking their participation in certain spaces for a limited time. However, despite its complexity, combating and eradicating hate speech are not the only tasks that emphasize the need to analyze and understand it in depth. Wachs et al. (2022) developed a multidimensional “Motivations for Hate Speech Perpetration Scale” (MHATE) considering a set of six different motivations, namely revenge, power, exhilaration, ideology, group conformity, and status enhancement. In this study, the most frequently referred aspect “was revenge, followed by ideology, group conformity, status enhancement and exhilaration and then power” (Wachs et al. 2022, p. 16). Research on this type of content also makes it possible to understand what motivates the expression of hate, where it comes from, how it arises, how it spreads on the Internet and, above all, what are the consequences for the network users who are exposed, who are victims or who are aggressors. A better understanding of the dynamics of hate speech can lead to innovative and creative responses to this problem, which allow us to go beyond solutions that undermine freedom of expression, such as repression or silencing. 2.1 Hate Speech in Digital Games The phenomenon of online hate speech is transversal to all virtual media, however, it seems important to understand how this type of speech is manifesting itself in the specific and growing field of digital games. Online games provide players with the thrill of true competition (Kwak and Blackburn 2015), leading to the verbal expression of blasphemies and obscenities, often tolerated as a common reaction in moments of anger and frustration (Breuer 2017; Gagliardone et al. 2015; Citron and Norton 2011). During games, chat interaction is common, and dialogue varies between praise and negative or ironic comments about game performance, personal insults based on sexual orientation or ethnicity, harassment and attacks on minorities (Uyheng and Carley 2021). Hate speech in digital games is often the result of these interactive dynamics between players, in unmoderated activities such as team building, sharing strategies and chats or live streaming on gaming platforms

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and communities, which are a common means to spread this type of toxic behavior (Matamoros-Fernández 2017). Dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchrony, minimization of status and authority, individual differences and predisposition can trigger toxic disinhibition, as defined by Suler (2004, p. 321). The author proposes that the effect of anonymity on the internet leads individuals to a feeling of freedom, which leads them to actions different from those they would have if they were face-to-face with the other. This phenomenon favors the use of hate speech, characterized by the demonstration of power or expression of frustration in the face of defeat. It is a behavior that is sometimes harmful to the physical and psychological well-being, as well as the self-esteem of aggressors and victims (Breuer 2017; Harriman et al. 2020; Arbeau et al. 2020). As a long-term consequence, the desensitization process has been studied since the 1960s, showing that exposure to violence and hatred in the media reduces the intensity of children’s and young people’s emotional response. Exposure to media violence, initially induces an intense emotional reaction in viewers. Over time and with repeated exposure, however, viewers often exhibit decreasing emotional responses to the depiction of violence and injury. Over the years, different experiments have analyzed physical and psychological responses to hate, such as heartbeats, sweating, together with emotional reactions and social cognitions, allowing the construction of a theoretical framework of desensitization with effects on personality and on the way children and young people deal with the phenomenon (Brockmyer 2013; Funk et al. 2004). More recent experiences have shown the process of desensitization to online hate speech (Uyheng and Carley 2021; Soral et al. 2018), confirming that greater exposure to cyber-hate leads to indifference to this type of verbalization, also showing that there is greater insensitivity towards victims and, on the other hand, the normalization of prejudice. 2.2 Hate Speech and Media Literacy According to the conclusions of the European Council (2016) on the development of media literacy and critical thinking through education and training, media literacy involves technical, cognitive, social, civic and creative skills that allow access, the development of a critical understanding and the interaction with both traditional and new forms of communication. It is, as defined by Rainieri and Fabbro, a “pedagogical strategy aimed at promoting critical understanding and mindful production (or use) of media” (Ranieri and Fabbro 2016, p. 109). It is, also, closely related to active involvement in democratic life, citizenship, and the ability to exercise critical and independent judgment, as well as to reflect on individual and collective actions, and can thus increase individuals’ resilience in the face of extremist and disinformation messages. In fact, the resilience paradigm represents an important professional commitment to support – children and young people – creating a positive and healthy bond, giving meaning to traumatic and difficult experiences. It is, therefore, a paradigm impregnated with an affective and solidary network, with an inclusive approach, respecting singularity, and diversity, which promotes the development of new meanings for life, and helps to arouse trust, enhancing identification, acquisition and appreciation the internal resources of children, youth and adolescents.

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Potter (2010) identifies four recurring themes in the definition of media literacy: the (positive and negative) effect of the media on individuals; the role of literacy as a tool to help individuals cope with the influence the media may have; media literacy as a competence not intrinsic to human beings and the multidimensional character of media literacy, involving multiple dimensions of the individual. The same author addresses different interventions capable of providing tools and skills to media users to mitigate the negative influence it can have on the individual. Sonia Livingstone and Shenja Van der Graaf (2010) propose a knowledge-based approach to media literacy, which allows for the development of the necessary skills to critically analyze the form, content, media production and the social impact of each media message. The authors emphasize the transformative and dynamic field of digital media to underline that literacy must involve not only media reception, the public as recipient, but all its dimensions: access, understanding and content creation. Education for digital citizenship seeks to prepare individuals for the exercise of an informed and conscious citizenship through the knowledge of rights, freedom of expression and social and civic responsibility. It is important to articulate freedom, beliefs and personal opinions with citizenship, respect for others, tolerance, and inclusion. Technologies and social networks have brought about a profound change in the consumption and production of media by individuals: from consumers of media messages, they have become producers, creators and curators of information (Gagliardone et al. 2015), leading to the evolution of the concept of media and information literacy, amplified by the dynamics of the Internet. In their social context, new media trace new paths for the relation development between people and media, building new foundations and promoting openings for reinvention in the processes of message creation. Nowadays, reception participation configures new strategies, considering that people’s spontaneous contributions interfere in the construction of new narratives. The concern of citizenship education with hate speech is twofold: it encompasses the knowledge and skills to identify hate speech and it should provide individuals with the tools and information to be able to combat hateful messages. Media and information literacy play a key role here, as it includes the development of the technical skills necessary to use digital technologies, as well as the knowledge and skills needed to find, analyze, evaluate and interpret media texts, create messages and recognize their social and political influence, tackling issues such as the right to freedom of expression, privacy, inclusive citizenship and civic participation. Networking and promoting actions that increase the creative and multidisciplinary power of gamification can lead to greater awareness, with the aim of changing behaviors (Gagliardone et al. 2015). According to the recommendations made by the team responsible for the study Current Trends and Approaches to Media Literacy in Europe (Tornero et al. 2009), it is imperative, in mediated societies, to create conditions for the development of media literacy in a transversal and cooperative way, protecting public interests, such as the importance of pluralism in the media, the protection of minors and consumers, and increasing media awareness and literacy. The politics of media representation (social class, gender, race, and sexuality) can be seen as a fundamental feature of literacy, especially when conceived as a form of critical education for citizenship (Ranieri and Fabbro 2016), ensuring that they are not distorted,

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by representations that sustain systems of power and inequality. This issue is particularly relevant in video games, where there is a tendency towards overrepresentation of men, whites and adults, and an underrepresentation or misrepresentation of the minorities, such as women, Hispanics, blacks, children, and the elderly (Consalvo et al. 2009; Clough 2018). Digital literacy is one of the key elements that permeates this project, considering game culture and digital art as engines to promote democratic values and digital citizenship, promoting positive behaviors that can mitigate online hate speech. Games and gamification will then be devices that underpin the proposed counter-narrative in order to develop response skills.

3 Methodology In this project research, we seek to study the phenomenon of online hate speech, understand the motivations and effects on children and young people, as well as analyze the use of interactive installations and digital games, as a strategy to prevent its emergence or attenuation of its effect. The research methodology based on artistic practice can be understood as an extension rooted in the art-based research paradigm (Candy 2006). There we can find different methodological paradigms, predominantly exploratory, in which creative, communicational and expository processes allow the research to evolve. This methodology implies the dual roles of the researcher, who is at the same time an artist and a creator, who analyzes and reflects on the artistic practice and on the interaction between the public and the installation. As an alternative methodology to traditional quantitative and qualitative methods, research based on artistic practice is grounded on a basic concept: research and practice are interdependent and complementary processes, in which the research questions themselves arise from practice. This emerging paradigm adapts the principles of the creative arts in order to approach research questions in a holistic and engaged way, in which theory and practice are intertwined (Leavy 2009). In research based on artistic practice, the creative practice itself is understood as generating knowledge and complementary innovations with other research methods, guided by a flexible approach, capable of incorporating a variety of methodologies within its limits. Patricia Leavy (2009) argues that practice-based research is particularly suited to projects that aim to describe, explore, discover or disturb, highlighting the ability of the arts to access the process. In addition to this characteristic, the same author emphasizes the six strengths of arts-based research practices: it allows for problem-centered research; has holistic characteristics; allows establishing connections at micro and macro level; it is evocative and provocative; it allows creating critical awareness, destabilizing stereotypes, challenging dominant ideologies, amplifying marginalized voices and perspectives; has a participatory and engaging nature, promoting dialogue; it allows the emergence of meanings, democratizes knowledge and promotes social justice. Based on the concept of convergence culture (Jenkins 2008), which defines the technological, economic, cultural and social transformations perceived in the contemporary media scenario, we propose a participatory approach, considering it the most effective

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in terms of capacity building tools for change. Within this scenery of a convergence culture, spreadability becomes evident considering the creation of an environment in which interactivity and individual participation are the most emphasized references. According to Jenkins, spreadability is related to content dislocation, such as adherence models that circulate through interactivity between people in communication processes. On the other hand, the participatory action-research approach (Gubrium and Harper 2013) asserts itself as an effective path to mutual understanding, typical of tolerant and inclusive communities, aiming to promote democratic and cultural values and digital citizenship in school communities, where violence has found fertile ground for conflict and aggression. According to the OCDE, the Portuguese school reality must adapt to the needs of students, and for this, it is necessary to provide educational agents with tools that allow them to fit into the technological plan, ensuring the participation of young people and the involvement of educators, to whom it is important to offer means to work with the new reality of schools, inclusive education and training for active citizenship, provided for by the National Initiative Digital Competencies, Portugal INCoDe.2030, implemented in 2017 (INCoDe.2030, na). Situations such as cyberbullying and cyberracism, associated with hate speech, are realities among young people with harmful consequences for their development and self-esteem. This project benefits from the combination of various tools and techniques for collecting data, such as questionnaires, by survey and by interview (according to the ethical procedures of the General Directorate of Education) to assess the impact of the artifact on reflection, identification and provision of tools and strategies to deal with the phenomenon. In this empirical study, the analysis of data from the questionnaire and focus group surveys, both quantitative and qualitative, will allow validating or refuting the hypotheses raised during the research and it will be possible to reach conclusions on the contribution of the installation and games in the prevention and mitigation of the impact of the hate speech in the identity development of youth. The narrative approach, namely fiction-based research, can cause changes in the way individuals relate to themselves and others (Clandinin and Rosiek 2007), since the research developed is more truthful, meaningful, useful, accessible, and humane (Leavy 2009). The narrative, through a reflective, participatory and aesthetic process (Leavy 2009), is assumed here as multidisciplinary and is considered an extension of interpretive approaches in the social sciences (Riessman 1993). Using the metaphor of history, this methodology analyzes the way individuals or groups position themselves in the face of events and actions, making it possible to capture processes of social representation, such as feelings, images and time. As recommended by Gill (2001), this approach should be complemented with other methodologies that allow overcoming some limitations inherent to the subjectivity of the narrative, namely quantitative methods. Patricia Leavy (2009) highlights the educational, transformative, and emancipatory character that this type of research can assume. On the other hand, aspects related to science communication are also highlighted: research results must be disseminated, not only within the academy, but must be accessible to various audiences, through appropriate channels and forms. In this sense, the objective of this project is to occupy a place as a political and social influencer within a community.

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4 The Enredo Project Enredo is the name of the game-installation, developed as a digital medium-art product and as a game. It seeks to provide aesthetic fulfillment, and at the same time a reflective experience around the theme of hate speech present in online video games and gaming communities, in social networks and digital platforms. Currently, children and youth are increasingly becoming consumers and producers of media, and there is an urgent need to provide knowledge and skills that enable them to have a more informed level of consumption and media literacy. The study of the impact of videogames on education and the possible contributions of information and media literacy on behavior is the starting point of the project. It is intended that the installation-game can generate learning and behavioral changes. Among the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, we find some of the key ideas and concepts that support the project: “to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and the contribution of culture to sustainable development” (Sustainable Development Goals, nd). Aladro-Vico et al. (2018) highlight the potential of art forms as a new educational and formative language for social transformation. The authors developed experimental prototypes with artists and young people to conclude that the creative environments generated by artivist experiences humanized spaces and involved young people. Through this new language, it is possible to create learning communities, break the limits of the classroom, redefine the role of students and educators, enabling the discovery of new identities and new ways of understanding and participating in the world. These initiatives can have a positive impact on communities by creating spaces where children and young people can ensure their voices are heard and their stories represented. From the experimentation of the installation/game by students of basic education, questionnaires will be applied by inquiry and a survey of qualitative data will be carried out through a focus group, with groups of young people and adolescents aged between 10 and 14 years, in order to assess the impact of the artifact. We intend to find a significant sample that can allow us to measure results, between 300 and 500 young people from Portuguese public schools in the Algarve region, a culturally diverse region. 4.1 The Concept Starting from the proposals of Tuck and Silverman (2016) and Citron and Norton (2011), we combine education and the development of counter-narratives, to generate the game installation Enredo. This installation is designed to be an immersive space, isolated by three panels and a curtain, which invites the interactor to immerse himself in its luminous environment. Inside the cabin, it is possible to find a 13-inch screen with the announcement that the feed of a web page will be discontinued and the only access will correspond to the post-mortem, guaranteeing the documentation of the incident that

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led to the decision and thanking the fans and regular visitors. The cancellation leads to questions voiced in the comments box: what happened to the authors? Why did they decide to stop writing? When choosing to find out what happened, the interactor will be able to find the archive messages. When reading and decoding them, it will be possible to find the intensification of various types of hate messages among the followers. 4.2 Technical Features The narrative in interactive fiction was developed in the application Celtx and in Twinery to allow the visualization of the possibilities of paths and choices. The interactor must discover the main theme of each page to identify the keyword, which allows, when writing it in the comments, to advance in level. If the interactor misses the keyword three times, a clue is provided, highlighting in yellow the place where the text that leads to the identification of the keyword is (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Narrative construction in CELTX.

The physical dimension of the installation consists of a light cabin, measuring 1.50 x 1.50 x 2.68 m, divided into 3 panels and 1 luminous roof. It is a construction in white melamine MDF with application of 50% of the external area in self-adhesive vinyl; closed with a curtain. Lighting is provided by RGB wallwhashers with transformer and motion sensor for color change (Figs. 2 and 3). The cabin has the following characteristics: – Base in metallic structure coated with black laminate with leveling paters; – Metal structure coated on the outside with alucobond (very light aluminum composite); – Ceiling with opaline acrylic light box with RGB LED lighting;

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Fig. 2. Image of the cabin prototype.

Fig. 3. Prototype image of the pulpit inside the booth.

– The door with a black flannel curtain, fireproof, easy to assemble with ties (allows you to enter and prevent the light from going out); – The lighting will have a timer/sequencer that will be programmed for the light color to change every 30 s;

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– The lighting will consider the presence of the interactor, avoiding energy waste when the cabin is empty. 4.3 Functional Aspects Entering the cabin, the interactor is faced with an illuminated, immersive, and closed environment. On the screen is the post-mortem of a video game website. In this postmortem the game mechanism is also presented. One of the users, in the comments, writes the following: MetaHacker Guys, I already found out what happened! Type “Welcome” into the search bar and find out what made them close the page… And on the second page, you can read: Neon What will be the keyword to get to the next post? Tip: What is the main theme of the blog? Based on the theme of a given entry, the interactor can advance through the site that is no longer active, discovering and experiencing the escalation of hate, in the comments. When it fails to find out what the keyword is in three tries, the game gives a clue by highlighting something that leads to that keyword. In the school context, the main target audience of the installation-game, in addition to the enjoyment of the game inside the cabin, individual, a collective work will be proposed, based on a pedagogical itinerary that provides the orientation of a pedagogical itinerary in which students become co-authors, of the interactive installation.

5 Final Considerations The spread of hate speech online is an evolving problem. All efforts and initiatives, individual and collective, appear to be important steps to analyze their meaning and consequences. Online spaces offer unprecedented potential for interaction, while providing an important flow of data that generates clues to analyze and understand human behavior. The approach based on a narrative practice, which we propose here, implies that the researcher also assumes the role of interpreter. This methodological approach favors the access to a specific problem or trauma: racism, sexism, xenophobia, migrations, among other social, economic problems or politicians, represented through the construction of a character and a plot. It may allow to address aspects of aesthetic reflection with the aim of generating in users a deep cognitive and philosophical experience. Essentially, we seek to approach the phenomenon of online hate from three points: the analysis of the problem and its expression and consequences for young users of the network; the theoretical contributions of media and information literacy, both for the analysis of hateful messages and for the creation of solutions, and, finally, the role of

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videogames and serious games in the creation of a counter-narrative, which may conduct to changes in behavior. Ultimately, the installation and presentation of the exhibition will allow accessing a new set of data, through the evaluation of the effect of the Enredo artifact on the public. This will be a leverage point for a new phase of the study, allowing for a review of the research questions addressed in this article. Acknowledgments. This publication is financed by national funds through the projects “UIBD/04019/2020 CIAC” and “UI/BD/150850/2021” of the Foundation for Science and Technology.

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Society, Communication and Design

Portuguese Born-on-the-Net Brand’s Strategy on Instagram Ana Rodrigues1 and Paulo Silva2(B) 1 Escola Superior de Educação, Instituto Politécnico de Viseu, Viseu, Portugal 2 Escola Superior de Educação, CI&DEI, Instituto Politécnico de Viseu, Viseu, Portugal

[email protected]

Abstract. The internet has become a primary communication and advertising platform, leading to the rise of born-on-the-net brands. These brands are born and widespread on the internet, and their communication strategy is based on this platform. This strategy combines digital marketing and social media like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, which allows brands to establish a close relationship with their customers. This study’s main goal was to understand the communication strategies adopted by the born-on-the-net brands on Instagram and to identify their preferences regarding a publication on this social network. It was also intended to understand the brand’s motivations for choosing the online medium instead of the physical one and to realise how important social networks are for them and which are the most relevant. The research was conducted through a mixed methodology that met qualitative and quantitative methods and included an interview with six born-on-the-net fashion brand managers and a social media specialist, followed by the content analysis of 293 Instagram publications of those same brands. Thus, this investigation intended to contribute to a better knowledge of the born-on-the-net brands and their ways of communication through social media and reflect on the growing domination and importance of the online medium and its platforms. Keywords: Digital marketing · Social networks · Instagram · Born-on-the-net brands · Fashion brands

1 Introduction Consumer culture has been increasingly present in people’s lifestyles (Berger 2010). Consumption, despite going back to distant times, is something that has been increasingly encouraged over time (especially after the Industrial Revolution and the introduction of mass production) (McKendrick et al. 1982), ensuring not only a greater economic flow as well as a guarantee of the satisfaction of desires and needs, of a personal or material (Baudrillard 1999). The individual’s identity also ends because it’s defined by what he buys and acquires and his choices (Bourdieu 1984). Inevitably associated with consumer culture are its main drivers, the brands (Rosa 2014). The technological revolution and the development of the internet at the end of the 20th century contributed to traditional © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 323–335, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_28

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marketing tools and, more recently, digital marketing; these can more efficiently and more persuasively lead the consumer to purchase their products (Smart 2010), promoting a consumerist lifestyle, in which the act of purchase becomes a routine and important moment (Berger 2010). With the internet becoming one of the primary communication and advertising media, this led, at the beginning of the 21st century, to the emergence of social networks, which are virtual communities based on sharing other types of content (Kaplan and Haenlein 2009). Whether to share, read the news or go shopping, every individual ends up accessing them at some moment of their day, having witnessed in recent years its exponential growth and a constant appearance of new virtual communities of this gender (Weber 2007). Aware of the new domain of social networks, brands also migrated to this platform (Kerpen 2011). What gives social networks such significant importance is the fact that these allow brands to dialogue and create a relationship with the consumer efficiently and economically like never before. A strategy that integrates social networks allows for creating/reinforcing recognition of a brand, connecting with the target audience and influencing marketing messages content, as well as the way they are disseminated (Smith and Chaffey 2005). The main objective of a brand or company should always be to establish a strong bond of trust with its consumers (Kerpen 2011). These ties have become much easier to generate with the emergence and growth of social networks because the communication established through these is faster, practical, and efficient, allowing a direct and personalised interaction with everyone (Kerpen 2011). If the brand can relate to the consumer profoundly and emotionally, this will inspire them much more quickly to share it with their contacts (Kerpen 2011), thus having a mutual benefit. That is why having a presence in a single social network may not be enough (Marques 2014). Social networks thus become not only a path of closer relations between brands and consumers (Smith and Chaffey 2005) but also a means conducive to the emergence of contemporary brands. These new brands are usually created by young and dynamic entrepreneurs, who immediately create profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, among others, as a way to get more audiences; they don’t even start in a physical context, in a store, giving their genesis on social networks such as Facebook or Instagram, in which they share photos and information of their products. From there, gradual growth is expected, reaching a status that allows them to be mentioned in the press and (perhaps) open their stores. The brand created on the internet is aimed mainly at digital natives and primarily focuses on customer experience. Despite being born-on-the-net1 , this type of brand does not have to be limited to that context; it can be extended to an offline environment, that is, to be marketed in physical sales spaces. Don’t have to adapt to the future, already being, doesn’t even need to get young clients because it starts with them (Dunn 2008). One of the most used social networks today is Instagram, which allows sharing photos or videos (permanently or temporarily) with the follower’s community. Aware of this phenomenon, brands have thus migrated to this type of platform, where they interact

1 Born-on-the-net brands (born in the online context) or, according to Dunn (2008), DNVB

(digital native vertical brands), are brands born and first experienced on the Internet.

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more efficiently and personalise with their consumers, allowing them to achieve a more accessible approximation.

2 Methods The study’s main goal was to understand the communication strategies adopted by the born-on-the-net brands on Instagram and to identify their preferences regarding a publication on this social network. It was also intended to understand the brand’s motivations for choosing the online medium instead of the physical one and to realise how important social networks are for them and which are the most relevant. A mixed methodology was selected due to the heterogeneity of the data. Through its adoption, a qualitative instrument was applied, which will be an interview with the founders of fashion brands created in the online context (see Table 1), a social media specialist, and a quantitative one, which consists of applying a content analysis of publications made by the brands on Instagram, too identify the aspects that they consider most relevant (at the level of the image and the caption) in those same publications. Table 1. Research sample brands. Brand

Industry

Instagram

Cinco

Jewellery

http://www.instagram.com/cincostore

Mahrla

Clothing accessories

https://www.instagram.com/mahrla store/

Feliz é Quem Diz

Stationery decoration

http://www.instagram.com/felizquemdiz

Josefinas

Footwear accessories

http://www.instagram.com/josefinaspor tugal

Rust & May

Clothing accessories furniture

http://www.instagram.com/rustandmay

Alameda Turquesa

Footwear accessories

http://www.instagram.com/alamedatu rquesa

The choice of a mixed methodology will be since none of the methodological instruments mentioned is, in isolation, sufficient to achieve the objectives set for this research. In the qualitative part, interviews with brands and the social media specialist will only allow collecting information about the aspects to which brands attribute (or should attribute) greater importance at the time of publication on Instagram, as well as about the preference for the online medium rather than the physical environment and the importance attributed to social networks, overall, and Instagram in particular. The interview with the social media specialist will be seen, in addition to what has already been mentioned, as a reference point for establishing some of the parameters to be analysed in the quantitative methodological part. This is also essential to explain, from a more informed point of view, the choices of communication strategies conducted by brands on the social network Instagram, as well as to explain, in a scientific way, the recent and growing phenomenon of brands created in an online context.

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The quantitative element will cover a content analysis based on the Herring (2004) model, whose parameters will later be presented in the form of a grid (see Table 2) partially adapted from the Serrano and García (2016) model. This element will then analyse the publications made by the brands on Instagram to understand which characteristics they prefer regarding the features that make up the image and the caption. Table 2. Content analysis grid. Variable

Element

Author

Image

Predominant colours

Birren (1961), Holtzschue (2011), Ciotti (2016)

Colour temperature

Holtzschue (2011), Serrano and García (2016)

Product position

Serrano and García (2016)

Product layout

Lee (2014)

Caption

Language

Hammond (2014)

Name and description

Author’s elaboration

Presence of another user

Author’s elaboration

Size

Bacon (2009), Trembath (2015), Trappe (2016)

Own hashtags

Author’s elaboration

The choice of the mixed method makes it possible to analyse the phenomenon of the creation and expansion of brands created on the Internet through social networks, not only from the point of view of the brands themselves, which explain the options they carry out to establish their communication strategy on Instagram (interviews, Tables 3a and 3b) but also from the perspective of what the follower/consumer will see and perceive through the publications of the brands concerned on this social network (content analysis). The interview with the social media specialist thus complements the two previous approaches, offering the point of view of those who observe and follow the phenomenon of brand creation and expansion in the online context and their communicative choices on social networks, as well as suggesting new options for an improvement of their communication strategy on Instagram. This gives a more comprehensive approach to the market, which allows us to analyse the theme in question from the perspective of brands, consumers, and a social media specialist. Table 3a. Domains and objectives of the interviews (brands). Domain

Goals

Brand

Identify the reasons that led to the creation of the brand in an exclusively online context

Social networks

Recognise the importance of social networks and Instagram

Strategy

Understand the strategies on Instagram

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Table 3b. Domains and objectives of the interviews (social media specialist). Domain

Goals

Social networks

Understand the value of social networks for brands and their engagement with consumers

Instagram

Recognise the importance of the social network for brands created in an online context

Instagram post

Identify the components that may be predominant in the brand’s communication strategy in the social network

3 Results 3.1 Analysis of the Interviews Conducted with the Brand Founders The structure of the interview included ten questions. In the first question, the founders were questioned about the reason for their brand creation. No equal answers were obtained, and two brands mentioned the taste for the type of product created and two others the need for creative freedom and to create something personal. Other reasons cited were the desire to create a trademark of its own and unemployment. The second question searched the reason for the brand’s launch through the Internet as an alternative to a physical space. The responses indicated the belief in eCommerce, the online presence already achieved through another online content platform (such as a blog), an initial goal of internationalisation and the ease of creating a low-cost close relationship with the customer. The third question was intended to know if social networks were considered an essential tool to boost the growth of the brands and the social networks that were favoured beyond Instagram. All brands have acknowledged that, saying they also attach extreme importance to Facebook. In one of the responses, they also referred to the social networks Tumblr and Pinterest. Through the fourth question, it was intended to know the opinion of brands about what would distinguish them from others belonging to the same segment and how they tried to convey this difference through Instagram. Of the six responses obtained, two indicated personality and originality. In contrast, the others mentioned the absence of a defined strategy and a common factor among the brand’s followers, positioning (luxury) and diligence, transparency of the brand and loyalty to oneself. All the answers were affirmative regarding the fifth question, which would ask whether the brands attributed a degree of importance to the relationship established with their followers on Instagram to make them grow. Following the previous question, the brands were asked about the strategies adopted to create and maintain this relationship with their followers in the social network. Two of the answers obtained were identical, pointing to a total absence of this strategy. The other responses indicated the presence of a philosophy rather than a system (that of honouring customers and followers), the use of texts or subtitles that hold the attention of those who see the publications, the sharing

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of their daily life and the creative process and sending a personalised card along with the orders accompanied by an adjustment to the customer and a search for feedback. The seventh question revealed that brands considered the visual aspect of their Instagram posts to be fundamental, disclosing special attention to the optical element. Asked whether the language used in their Instagram posts related to their own identity and target audience, three of the brands responded to using English as a vehicle for internationalisation or easier communication with the public through consolidated internationalisation, and two others claimed to use both English and Portuguese since they also have a solid market presence in Portugal. One brand claimed to use only Portuguese as a way to communicate with an audience, also Portuguese (also being aware that the use of the English language would allow it to reach a more significant number of people). The ninth question, which consisted of identifying the strategies adopted by brands to stand out on Instagram, obtained answers that referred to the absence of strategy and creativity, a constant routine of publications and a sharing of images of real customers, to simple, sincere, and genuine communication and the sharing of photographs and contact with digital influencers (in this case, bloggers and Instagrammers). The interview concluded by questioning the brands about whether they consider the creation of unique and focused hashtags a way to attract more followers and users. Two of the responses achieved were negative, despite mentioning their use, and the remaining four responded to consider them, in some way, necessary, both to give them identity and to gather images with the same concept, find users who shared their products or create a relationship with Instagram users. 3.2 Analysis of the Interview Conducted with the Social Media Specialist The interview with the social media specialist consists of ten closed questions. The first question was to understand brands’ current value attributed to social networks and whether they could definitively replace physical interactions. The response highlighted the fact that Portugal is the third country that uses more social networks, serving them to promote interaction with individuals and brands. In the second part of the question, there is a belief that, in the future, social networks will completely replace stores and physical means of interaction, believing that brands still need them (although their importance tends to decrease). The second question of the interview sought to identify whether social networks brought closer customers and followers to the brands. The answer was yes, noting that social networks balance the relationship between brands and consumers and have raised a need for brands to be close to their customers and provide them with positive experiences to avoid negative reviews. Through the third question, it was intended to understand whether a brand created on the Internet could establish itself, expand and exist only through social networks. Some examples of born-on-the-net brands with physical expression have been presented, which do not only exist in social networks but expand through these, and others that exist only thanks to the Internet, stating that, in these cases, communication and growth go through social networks.

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Then, the fourth question was to realise how important Instagram is to born-on-thenet brands. The response indicated that it did not consider any social network crucial to a brand’s survival but a strategy based on various platforms so that it can be affirmed in the online context. Through the fifth question, we sought to know if it were considered that through Instagram, the follower/client could create a closer relationship with the brand than that produced on another social network. The response was negative: Instagram allows consumers to be more easily exposed to the brand’s message and, consequently, more influenced by it. It was also highlighted that the proximity between brand and consumer goes far beyond the platform, based on the values and personality promoted by the brand. Keeping the theme centred on Instagram, the sixth question focused on the main elements to be considered by a brand on this social network to attract more followers. It was said that it was essential for the brand to understand if its audience uses Instagram and that its strategy on this social network should safeguard its own identity, also mentioning the importance of elements such as the creation of images, the language used, the use of the right hashtags and iconography and the reference to other profiles of the network and the location of certain events. Following the previous question, the seventh question wanted to know if the image was more important than any other publication element (caption, links to purchase the product, hashtags, identification of other users…) on the social network Instagram. The response obtained shows that the image is a dominant element. The eighth question tried to discover that Portuguese born-on-the-net brands already aim at internationalisation when they access social networks, such as Instagram. The answer was affirmative, indicating that a brand born in this specific context will only succeed if it realises that its market is global (not local) and adapts to be understood worldwide. Regarding the best strategy for a brand to differentiate itself from others on the social network Instagram, it is considered that it should include a helpful content strategy and that it is essential for the brand to have creative content at the level of image and copy. It also mentioned the involvement of other users, and digital influencers, for example, in brand communication and creating stories through this platform. 3.3 Analysis of Posts on the Social Network Instagram The analysis of publications content on Instagram consisted of creating a unique model based on the Herring (2004) model, Garcia and Serrano (2016) and the content collected during the interviews phase. This analysis is structured in the image (predominant colours, colour temperature, product position and layout of the product) and caption (language used, name and description of the product, indication of how and where to buy it, presence of another user, size of the caption and use of own hashtags) and was made to the publications of the six brands chosen and interviewed (Fig. 1). The results of the content analysis grids (image and caption) to the publications of six Portuguese born-on-the-net fashion brands are presented. A total of 293 publications were analysed (Figs. 2 and 3 and Tables 4a and 4b):

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Fig. 1. One of the publications analysed.

Table 4a. Results were obtained through image analysis. Element

Variable

Number of publications

Colours

Clear

189

Position

Product

Neutral

67

Dark

37

Hot

212

Cold

81

Central

167

Central bottom

29

Central upper

29

Right centre

20

Left centre

20

Top left

18

Bottom right

11

Top right

8

Bottom left

8

Arranged without model

174

Arranged with model

119

Portuguese Born-on-the-Net Brand’s Strategy on Instagram

Fig. 2. Example of one of the images.

Table 4b. Results were obtained through caption analysis. Element

Variable

Number of publications

Language

English

167

Portuguese

104

Combination of two languages Non-use Another combination Name

Name

Description

Description

Reference

Presence of another user Where/How to buy

Size

Hashtags

Small

14 7 1 121 7 124 84 125

Medium

88

Big

80

Use of own hashtags

196

Fig. 3. Example of one of the captions.

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4 Summary and Conclusion A joint analysis of the results obtained through qualitative methods (interviews) and quantitative methods (content analysis of publications) allowed the following conclusions: 1. Through the content analysis of the 293 posts on the social network Instagram of the six chosen brands, it was possible to trace a “profile” of a post on this social network with the characteristics preferred by the brands: a. The most used colours in the image are light and neutral, with hot temperatures. Besides being more appealing, the light and neutral colours convey more positive and harmonious sensations. In addition, warm colours make it possible to create a relationship of greater empathy with those who visualise an image, giving a sense of more excellent proximity between the brand and its followers. Thus, the image is an intention to approach and create a sense of familiarity between the brands and the consumers; b. The most common position for the arrangement of a product in the image is central, whether superior, centred, or lower. The disposition of any product in a prominent position captures the individual’s attention more instantaneously since the gaze immediately focuses on the central area of any image (Serrano and García 2016). Thus, it is intended to instantly capture the attention to the brand/product of those who visualise the image, as well as to awaken feelings and emotions through it; c. The captions of the publications are primarily medium or small due to their more practical and fast character and summarising the essential information. This demonstrates an awareness of how quickly everything is happening today and an explicit consideration by the follower/user, who does not want to waste too much time with a caption to have more information about the product displayed in the image. Most of the subtitles analysed had a generous size and were more personal, revealing, for example, gratitude to their followers for the success of the brand, telling its history or a particular product. d. The most widely used language in captions is English. This aspect supports the internationalisation strategy, thus aiming, as proven in the responses collected through the interview’s method, to reach a more significant number of international users and communicate with an international audience already previously called. The market for a brand thus becomes global, no longer existing any barrier to its growth; e. The brands present their products individually and through “models”, illustrating their use’s visual result. This shows the prominence that gives the product itself, its elaboration, and its visual appearance, but also to the followers themselves, valuing its use of the product and thus intending to appeal to the purchase of it, showing the satisfaction of other consumers. The user/consumer thus ends up taking part in the “history” of the brand itself, contributing to engagement between the brand and other followers.

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2. As verified through the responses collected in the interviews, all the above aspects regarding the image reflect the concern of brands with the imagery content they share (Weber 2007) since the image is the first contact with the brand and their respective products. Brands should consider the iconography and creativity of the image, as this will be the most crucial aspect to consider in an Instagram post. The importance attributed to the image in an Instagram post also meets a societal trend in which everything happens at an increasing speed and more instantaneously and visually, making the image the fastest and most effective way of capturing the individual’s attention; 3. No significant importance is given to the sign of the name or description of the product, as the follower/consumer may have access to this information on the brand’s website; 4. There are many references to the presence of other users in the publications, which shows the importance that brands attribute to them and the content they create (with their products). In the responses obtained through qualitative methods (interviews), most brands assumed to share posts from other users/followers as part of their communication strategy to make it simpler and more genuine. Sharing publications from digital influencers will also integrate this strategy to achieve greater reach in the social network (Uzunoglu and Kip 2014). This is in line with what was said by the social media specialist interviewed, who argues that an effective communication strategy, which allows a brand to differ from the rest on Instagram, should integrate a sharing of content created by other users (including digital influencers). Brands value and use content created by other users, thus incorporating them into their communication strategies and allowing them to function as their “ambassadors”; 5. Although their importance has been increasing, hashtags themselves have not yet been considered an essential element for posting on the social network Instagram. Still, the presence of this element was found in most Instagram posts analysed (196 out of a total of 293). Hashtags can be used to create their own identity and to bring together images with the same concept, also allowing to find users who share their products and create a closer relationship with those who use Instagram. They also make the brand easier to find on this network; 6. Creativity was considered critical in believing in the communication strategy. Allows brands to differentiate themselves from so many others found in the same market segment, which becomes paramount to attracting more followers and, consequently, more customers; 7. The results obtained through the qualitative method (interviews with brands and social media specialists) also allowed us to conclude that nowadays, the establishment and growth of a brand created in an online context would be impossible (or quite tricky and time-consuming) without the use of social networks (since increased time is spent on the Internet or working). In a world where everything becomes easily disposable and outdated (Bauman 2007) and time is considered a rarity, the means provided by the Internet thus become quite suitable to adapt to the new lifestyles of the individual.

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5 Limitations and Future Research The present study has some limitations that should be considered for this purpose. Despite the choice of fashion brands, it would be possible to select other business areas to cross some of the results, considering that even in the fashion brands segment, it is possible to find a diversity of products and brands. Since the analysis conducted in this investigation was limited only to the image and the caption, an in-depth study of the comments in each post would have helped analyse the communication between the brand and its followers/potential customers. A quantitative analysis of the metrics of various publications, such as the number of likes and comments, would also have served to verify the scope of each post in the social network studied. Future research may add the study of reception (effects) and not just the emission of content by the brands; it would show the predisposition of sender and receiver and their behaviour in the communication strategy as well as other business areas, thus generating insights that can add value to the investigation.

References Bacon, J.: The Art of Community - Building the New Age of Participation. O’Reilly, Sebastopol (2009) Baudrillard, J.: The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks (1999) Bauman, Z.: Liquid Modernity, 8th edn. Polity, Cambridge (2007) Berger, A.: The Objects of Affection - Semiotics and Consumer Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, New York (2010) Birren, F.: Color Psychology and color Therapy - A factual Study of the Influence of Color on Human Life. Citadel Press, Secaucus (1961) Bourdieu, P.: Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1984) Ciotti, G.: The psychology of color in marketing and branding. Obtained from Helpscout (2016). https://www.helpscout.net/blog/psychology-of-color/ Dunn, R.: Identifying Consumption, 1st edn. Temple University Press, Philadelphia (2008) Hammond, A.: How did English become the world’s most widely spoken language? Obtained from Blog Esl (2014). https://blog.esl-languages.com/blog/learnlanguages/English/English-lan guage-global-number-one/ Herring, S.: Computer-mediated discourse analysis: an approach to researching online communities and designing for virtual communities in the service of learning, pp. 316–338 (2004) Holtzschue, L.: Understanding Color - An Introduction for Designers. Wiley, New York (2011) Kaplan, A., Haenlein, M.: Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Bus. Horizons 53, 59–68 (2009) Kerpen, D.: Likeable Social Media. McGraw Hill, New York (2011) Lee, K.: Instagram for Business: 12 answers to the biggest questions about timing, hashtags, and more. Obtained from Buffer (2014). https://blog.bufferapp.com/instagram-for-business Marques, V.: Marketing Digital 360, 1st edn. Actual Editora, Lisbon (2014) McKendrick, N., Brewer, J., Plumb, J.: The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England. Europa Publications, London (1982)

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Rosa, A.: Semiótica, consumo e publicidade. Formalpress, Ramada (2014) Serrano, M., García, Á.: Personal Style bloggers: the most popular visual compositions principles and themes on Instagram. Observatorio J. 10, 89–109 (2016) Smart, B.: Consumer Society: Critical Issues and Environmental Consequences. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks (2010) Smith, P., Chaffey, D.: eMarketing Excellence, 2nd edn. Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford (2005) Trappe, C.: How many characters do you have in an Instagram caption before the more button shows? Obtained from The authentic storytelling project (2016). https://authenticstorytell ing.net/how-many-characters-do-you-have-in-aninstagram-caption-before-the-more-buttonshows/ Trembath, S.: How to write the best Instagram caption. Obtained from Later (2015). https://later. com/blog/how-to-create-the-best-instagram-caption/ Uzunoglu, E., Kip, S.: Brand communication through digital influencers: leveraging blogger engagement. Int. J. Inf. Manag. 34, 592–602 (2014) Weber, L.: Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business, 1st edn. Wiley, New York (2007)

Development of a Pill Dispenser: System Requirements and Product Architecture Octávio Lima1(B)

, Miguel Terroso2 , Nuno Dias1 and Demétrio Matos2

, João L.Vilaça1

,

1 2Ai – School of Technology, IPCA, Barcelos, Portugal

{olima,ndias,jvilaca}@ipca.pt

2 Media and Culture, School of Design, ID+ - Research Institute in Design, IPCA, Barcelos,

Portugal {mterroso,dmatos}@ipca.pt

Abstract. The elderly population has been significantly increasing all over the world, causing an emerging need to create products that facilitate the day-today life of this population and that promote their independence in the domestic environment. This article focuses on the second phase of an investigation project which aims at creating a device that stores and dispenses pills automatically with the integration of a virtual assistant. In this second phase it was intended to define the system requirements and product architecture of the device, based on the stateof-the-art research, user experiences and business model defined in a previous paper. As a result, it was possible to discover the user needs and, consequently, the device’s requirements, which helped define the product architecture including a diagram of the system electronics and a basic representation of the device, aiding in the conception and development of the device. Keywords: Pill dispenser · User needs · Product requirements · Product architecture

1 Introduction This paper is the second part of a research project that aims at targeting the issues in complex medication regimes and supervision of elders by developing a device that dispenses pills automatically, with the integration of a virtual assistant. The goal is to assist the elderly, by improving medication adherence and communication with caregivers and health professionals, such as nurses and doctors. In a previous paper, presented in an international conference [6], the foundations for this project were released. In that paper a state of the art was carried out, addressing topics such as health problems that affect the elderly, ambient assisted living, and devices already available on the market of automatic pill dispensers and virtual assistants. Based on the acquired information, the user experience was defined using the sequential model of Beyer and Holtzblatt [7] in which it was concluded that there would be three types of user experiences, namely: in domestic environment, hospitals, and nursing homes/adult © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 336–344, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_29

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day care centres/continuing care units. These sequence models helped define the business model for the product though a canvas, structured by Osterwalder and Pigneur [8], which divides business models in nine building blocks: customer segments, value propositions, channels, customer relationships, revenue streams, key resources, key activities, key partnerships, and cost structure. In this paper, the aim is to define the system requirements and product architecture. Firstly, by gathering all the needs that the device should respond to, then transforming those needs into requirements, and finally by selecting the system electronics, and arranging them in a basic representation of the device.

2 Methods For the project development, a couple of methods were used during each stage, as demonstrated in Fig. 1. Starting off, a survey was carried out on the current state of the art, which outlined the user experiences and business model for the product. This phase can be found in a previous paper, recently presented at an international conference [9]. The current article presents the second phase of the project development, in which all the needs that the device should respond to, as well as their degree of importance, are extracted. For this, the needs were transformed into product requirements, to obtain more specific data of which functionalities to implement. These requirements have been categorized into 4 groups: functionality, usability, aesthetics, and security. For each requirement, all influencing factors were assimilated, which outlined their specifications. Subsequently, a classification of their cost-benefit and degree of importance was carried out.

Fig. 1. Method for defining system requirements and product architecture

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The fulfilment of those requirements allowed us to define the product architecture, in which all the electronic components for the device operation were outlined. The dimensions obtained from the electronic components informed the development of a basic 2D illustration of the device, to display the arrangement of external and internal components. This process was based on several authors who explore and describe methods and techniques to perform these tasks in product design and development, such as: Ulrich & Eppinger [10]; Mital et al., [11]; Bonsiepe [12].

3 System Requirements To define the system requirements, the needs to which the device should respond were expressed, and later transformed into requirements to be implemented in the device. Its development followed an adaptation of the methodology present in the book by Ulrich & Eppinger [10]. 3.1 User Needs The extraction of needs was based on the state-of-the-art research. Initially, there was a plan to conduct interviews and surveys among the elderly and their caregivers, to detect needs beyond those found in the state-of-the-art research. However, due to the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it was decided to cancel these interviews, given the vulnerability of the target group. The needs obtained were numbered and then grouped to avoid possible repetition of content. Each one was classified based on three points, “important • • • ”, “basic ••” and “low interest •”. They were developed respecting the standards imposed by Ulrich and Eppinger’s [10] methodology, expressing what the device should do, without seeking solutions, using affirmative sentences for better understanding, and not using expressions such as “should”. In Fig. 2 it’s possible to see some examples of needs. In total, 45 needs were found for the operation of the device, which were then broken down into 8 groups (identified by the black bar), with statements such as: – The device meets the physical and cognitive needs of the elderly. – The device alerts the users efficiently without provoking anxiety. – The device considers the behaviours of the elderly that may make it difficult to adopt technology. – The device has an operation capable of meeting the needs of the users. – The device has a simple and straightforward charging process. – The mobile app of the device enables better supervision over the elderly by caregivers. – The device includes several types of security to prevent improper pill dosage. – The device integrates a virtual assistant capable of assisting users with everyday tasks.

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Fig. 2. Example of the needs table. On the left side the numbering. The black bar operates as a way of grouping the needs. On the right side the classification.

3.2 Product Requirements The needs extracted informed a possible vision for the device. Later, these were transformed into something more specific, namely, requirements. For this purpose, an adaptation of the methodology of Ulrich & Eppinger [10] was made, developing a table divided in seven columns: • In the first column, the requirements were numbered for easy identification. • In the second, the requirement was expressed. • In the third, the factors that influence the requirement were described, such as: dimensions, connections, quantities, type of materials, shapes, and others. • In the fourth, the specifications of the requirement were detailed based on the influencing factors. • In the fifth, an analysis was made assigning the cost-benefit of the requirement to 1 of 3 points, “high • • •”, “medium ••” and “low ••”. • In the sixth, the degree of importance of the requirement, rated as “important • • •”, “basic ••” and “low interest •”, based on the influencing factors, specifications, and cost-benefit. • In the seventh, the needs that prompted the creation of each requirement. To facilitate the development of the requirements, they were grouped into 4 categories: “functionality”, in which all the hardware needed for the device to work was outlined; “usability” in which all the functions needed to promote and facilitate the use of the device were expressed, like ergonomics and features related to the digital interface of the system; “aesthetic” in which addressed requirements relating to the shape, materials, textures and colours of the device; finally, requirements were addressed regarding the “security” of the device, concerning access to the pill compartment as well as access to the digital interface.

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In total, 46 requirements were designated. It should be stated that not all columns in the table need to be filled, as there may be requirements with characteristics impossible to quantify or classify. In Fig. 3 it’s possible to see some requirement examples, corresponding to each category: functionality, usability, aesthetics, and security.

Fig. 3. Some examples of requirements from each category, namely functionality, usability, aesthetics, and security.

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4 Product Architecture These requirements allowed to move forward in development, to defining the product architecture by selecting all the essential hardware components for the prototype. 4.1 System Electronics Diagram In this first phase, all the electronic components for the operation of the device were defined, excluding only the electronics of the pill dispensing mechanism, which is still under development by the electronics and design team. Figure 4 shows, through a diagram, all the components and the necessary connectivity for the creation of a functional prototype. In total, 10 components were selected, namely: a 10.1inch touch screen, a 12-V 3-amp power supply, a 6000 mAh battery with a voltage of 12.6, a BMS (Battery Management System) for power control, a 5-V buck converter, a Raspberry Pi 4 model B, a 20-W sound amplifier, an 8-megapixel camera with a 120º field of view, two 57 mm 20-W speakers, and lastly, a board with 6 long range microphones.

Fig. 4. System electronics diagram

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4.2 Basic Device Representation Defining the requirements and the electronic components of the system, allowed for the execution of a basic 2D representation of the device (Fig. 5), from which guidelines were obtained for the arrangement of internal and external components, making it possible to proceed to the design and development of the prototype. On the exterior, it was established that a handle would be included, to make it easier to move the device. Below the handle would be a touch screen, to interact with the digital interface, and a camera, for video calls and facial recognition, to ensure that only the correct user takes the pills. The buttons, which will allow control over the digital interface and the ability to make emergency calls, will be placed at the centre. Below them, would be the place for the cup, into which pills will be dispensed, the LEDs for notifications, and speakers, for audio. At the bottom resides a mechanism to rotate the device. Internally, is located the pill dispensing mechanism. On the bottom are all the electronic components of the system, namely: the Raspberry Pi 4, in which the software will run, the microphone board, for videocalls and for voice assistance, the sound amplifier, essential for the speakers to work, the battery, for backup in case of power outage, the buck converter, to step down voltage going into the Raspberry Pi 4, and the BMS, responsible for energy control of the power supply and battery.

Fig. 5. Basic representation of the device’s internal and external components

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5 Conclusion In a previous article, a couple of topics were addressed, such as the state-of-the-art research, user experiences and business model. This information allowed to extract and group the needs that the device should respond to. These needs were converted into more specific requirements, which were grouped, specified, and classified in terms of cost-benefit and degree of importance. Defining the requirements informed the product architecture, specifying all essential electronic components, excluding the stillunder-development pill dispensing mechanism. Lastly, it was possible to construct a basic representation of the device to display the arrangement of internal and external components. These previous findings will allow further development of the project, moving on to the design, mockups, 3D printing and prototyping of the device. In later stages there are plans to conduct usability tests with elders, nurses, doctors, and caregivers to evaluate their interaction with the prototype, with special focus to the experience with ergonomics and digital interface of the device. Acknowledgements. This work was funded by the project “NORTE-01–0145-FEDER- 000045”, supported by Northern Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Norte2020), under the Portugal 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER).

References 1. Gonçalves, C., Carrilho, M.L.: Ageing – an increasing phenomenon with geo-graphical differences. Revista de Estudos Demográficos 40, 21–37 (2006) 2. Orimo, H., Ito, H., Suzuki, T., Araki, A., Hosoi, T., Sawabe, M.: Reviewing the definition of elderly. Geriatr. Gerontol. Int. 6(3), 149–158 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1447-0594. 2006.00341.x 3. World Health Organization. World report And Ageing on Health (2015) 4. Advinha, A.: Avaliação da Capacidade Funcional da População Idosa na Gestão da Sua Medicação (2017) 5. Reinhard, S.C., Given, B., Petlick, N.H., Bemis, A.: Supporting family care-givers in providing care. Patient Safe. Qual. Evid. Handb. Nurses (2008) 6. Lima, O., Terroso, M., Dias, N., Vilaça, J.L., Matos, D.: Development of the business model and user experience for a pill dispenser: a designer perspective. In: Martins, N., Brandão, D. (eds.) Advances in Design and Digital Communication II. DIGICOM 2021. Springer Series in Design and Innovation, vol. 19, pp. 552–564. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-030-89735-2_45 7. Benyon, D., Turner, P., Turner, S.: Designing Interactive Systems. Addison Wesley (2005) 8. Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y.: Business Model Generation. John Wiley & Sons (2010) 9. Lima, O., Terroso, M., Dias, N., Vilaça, J.L., Matos, D.: Development of the business model and user experience for a pill dispenser: a designer perspective. In: Martins, N., Brandão, D. (eds.) Advances in Design and Digital Communication II. DIGICOM 2021. Springer Series in Design and Innovation, vol. 19, pp. 552–564 . Springer, Cham (2022i). https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-89735-2_45

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10. Ulrich, K., Eppinger, S.: Product Design and Development (6th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education (2015) 11. Mital, A.: (208 C.E.k) Product Development a Structured Approach to Design and Manufacture. 425 (2014) 12. Bonsiepe, G.: Teoria e Prática do Design Industrial (Centro Português de Design (ed.); 2nd ed.) (1983)

EU4ALL: For a Strategic Communication on the Democratic Values Highlighted by the European Parliament to Groups Vulnerable to Information Caio Marcelo Miolo de Oliveira1(B) , Rita Assoreira Almendra1 , Tiago Leitão2 , and Ana Rita Lourenço2 1 CIAUD, Research Centre for Architecture, Urbanism and Design, Lisbon School of

Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa, Rua Sá Nogueira, Pólo Universitário do Alto da Ajuda, 1349-063 Lisbon, Portugal [email protected] 2 Aproximar, Cooperativa de Solidariedade Social - CRL, Rua do Paraíso 2, 2610-136 Amadora, Portugal

Abstract. The European Parliament (EP) constantly works to communicate European democratic decisions, resolutions and values to the European population, however there is still information that is not easily accessible to groups in a situation of vulnerability of information; associated with misinformation, excess information or lack of information, which mainly affects groups in situations of social exclusion. In order to achieve efficient communication, it is necessary to plan the material in a way that reaches levels of semiotic pertinence, which privilege the perception of meaning and enable holistic knowledge about the recipients’ culture, as in “Human-Centered Design” (HCD). In this context, this paper presents the case study on the development of the EU4ALL project, co-founded by the EP, which is being developed by a Portuguese cooperative and aims to create strategies to communicate the 10 democratic values highlighted by the European Parliament, in a way that is more accessible to communities in situations of information vulnerability, specifically to people serving time in prison and living in social housing. For this, the Double Diamond design model was used, involving a literature review about democratic values, research synthesis, validation sessions with Portuguese Euro Deputies (MEPs), creation of communication materials, testing with users and finally the delivery of the materials and realization of sensitization sessions with vulnerable groups. Therefore, it was possible to verify the validity of the approaches used, which explored the levels of semiotic pertinence, establishing strategic and efficient communication. Keywords: Information vulnerability · Democratic values · Human centered design · Strategic communication · Semiotic

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 345–356, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_30

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1 Introduction Communicating political information and European democratic values to society in an efficient and engaging way proves to be a major challenge for the European Parliament (EP). The EP has already disclosed through various means of digital channels the decision-making carried out during the plenary sessions that reveal its work and advances that it has brought to the future of a more united and developed Europe, however there is still little accessible information, in the sense of being understood groups of people in situation of informational vulnerability. Information vulnerability mainly affects people with lower levels of education and groups in situations of social exclusion [1]. Allied to the vulnerability of information, two other aggravating factors: the issue of these vulnerable groups routinely not having access to the internet and suffering from misinformation, which affects society as a whole, linked to access to erroneous communications, which are intended to influence public opinion in order to protect private interests. In order to have efficient communication for the different types of information vulnerability already mentioned, it is necessary to plan the information so that it impacts these groups in a more accessible and understandable way. Among the suitable approaches for this is Human-Centered Design (HCD), which incorporates methods from anthropology and participatory design to gain empathetic knowledge about recipients and their contexts, being concerned with the way they see, interpret and coexist with the communication channels created [2–4]. Intrinsically associated with the HCD approach are studies on sensitive perception for the production of meaning, based on the semiotic experience approached by Fontanille [5]. To this end, relevant levels of semiotic analysis are recognized, that is, necessary conditions for the perception of meaning in materials, and therefore, for the diffusion of discourses present in them. These levels are: visual signs, texts, the object, predicative scenes, strategic situations and ways of life. From this approach, what is desired is to integrate the different levels in order to produce coherent messages, accessible to the public [5]. Based on this issue, this paper present a case study of a project co-founded by the European Parliament, EU4ALL (European Union for All), has been developed since January 2021, with an expected completion date of July 2022, which aims to design communication strategies - supported by the approach of HCD and levels of semiotic relevance - to communicate the 10 democratic values highlighted by the European Parliament, in order to be more accessible to communities in situations of information vulnerability; specifically to people serving time in prison and living in social housing in vulnerable situations, made up of ethnic groups, minority groups, nomads, refugees, etc. The 10 democratic values identified in the developed process were: Rule of Law; Social Justice; Solidarity; Health and Environment; Research and Innovation; Freedom; Education; Human Rights and Equality; Economic Development; and Valorization of European Culture. It should be noted that this project was proposed and submitted by a Portuguese cooperative and approved by the European Parliament. It is worth noting that despite knowing that there are many democratic values, the proposal to choose only 10 consisted of making the information more synthetic and

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capable of being assimilated by the public, as it was thought that the more information one wants to transfer, the more risky would be its efficiency. EU4ALL was developed from the “Double Diamond” design model [6], containing 4 design phases: (1) Discover, in which a literature review was carried out on democratic values based on the “Plenary insights” reports (as per indicated by the EP itself); (2) Define, in which an analysis and synthesis of the values found and validation sessions with Portuguese MEPs were carried out; (3) Develop, in which the general communication strategy and communication materials were designed; and (4) Deliver, in which tests were carried out with people in the group, improvements were made to the materials, reaching the final communication strategy, which involved the production/delivery of materials and awareness sessions with the aforementioned vulnerable groups. In this context, this paper presents a literature review on the context of information vulnerability, on HCD and the production of meaning through Design, after this, the development of the EU4ALL project, followed by an analysis supported by the explored approaches of HCD and semiotic pertinence.

2 Context of Information Vulnerability and Misinformation Information vulnerability is addressed here as a state of susceptibility to damage caused to people by excessive exposure to information or lack of access to information [7]. The excess of information is caused by the incessant production of communication materials, which is increasingly aggravated in the digital age, in which information is received through different channels, such as social networks, television, pay channels, etc. Such content production occurs with such speed that their speeches no longer contemplate real purposes when they are produced, becoming without cultural, political and social values, resulting in a trivialization of interfaces, leading society to indifference [8]. In this context, society is dominated by mass culture, where every manifestation is subjected to the consumption of commercial slogans, snobbish entertainment, thus contemplating a system that feeds itself by the intense consumption of trivialized visual signs and messages [9]. That is, according to these authors, the contents produced, in addition to many, are designed in an inaccessible way or without clear and efficient objectives, which it is not possible to have an adequate assimilation by the receivers. On the other hand, associated with the lack of information, it comprises the fact of not reaching people with information (because they do not have access to the internet and other communication channels, whether digital, audio-based or printed), which mainly affects groups in social exclusion, such as: members subordinates of hierarchical groups, the elderly people with dementia and nursing home residents; persons receiving social security or social assistance benefits; unemployed poor people; minority ethnic and racial groups; homeless, nomads, refugees; people serving time in reclusion, etc. [1]. In addition to the excess of information or lack of information, “disinformation”, also currently called “fake news”, is one of the current problems that have been addressed by the European Parliament in several publications on its social networks, such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and on its official page. This refers to misleading information that is disseminated through networks, whether printed and mainly digital, which are the largest

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source of current information. This issue led the EP to create a sanctions regime to punish this type of news [10]. From this scenario, which involves the excess/lack of information and even misinformation, a proposal was planned to create a strategic communication to spread the democratic values of the European Parliament through Design.

3 Production of Meaning and the HCD Design is one of the main areas responsible for communicating messages and, therefore, for the production of meaning. To this end, it is necessary to create materials with attractive, understandable and convincing messages so that they stand out in the tangle of existing information [11, 12]. Aiming at the production of meaning, and seeking to stand out amidst so much existing information, it is relevant to approach the study of Fontanille [5], which addresses the modes of sensitive perception based on semiotic experience. The author theorizes pertinent levels of semiotic analysis, that is, necessary conditions for the perception of meaning in materials. The relevant levels are: visual signs, texts, the object, situations, strategies and ways of life. What is desired, with the understanding of the levels, is to integrate them in order to produce coherent narratives [5]. The first of them, visual signs and figures, are minimal units of experienced perception, linked to aesthetics and style, conceived through human sensory devices. The second level includes verbal and non-verbal texts, which, in a way, require the ability to interpret, to assign a significant direction. The third level is objects, which are material structures inscribed by texts and visual signs. Endowed with identifiable form and function, they integrate texts and visual signs, allowing a double morphology, reaching another level of relevance, giving form of expression. As an example, the author cites murals and electronic panels, objects that, in addition to establishing communication based on their shape, their aesthetics, are constituted by figures and texts, which complement each other to effect communication [5]. For the aforementioned author, it is necessary to evolve to another higher level, which considers the surroundings of objects, the interaction with the spectators’ path, contemplating the semiotics of practices. For that, the perspectives necessary to adjust the interactions are predicative scenes and strategic situations, which are, respectively, the fourth and fifth levels of semiotic pertinence. The first refers to the experience, to the context in which instrument and user are associated in the same predicative scene, being influenced by what is in the surroundings [5]. The strategy-situation, the fifth level, considers critical areas of the route, which influence the experience, resulting from the relationship between concomitant and concurrent predicative scenes. It tries to predict practices to develop new meaningful sets, by programming the intersections of different related practices. An example is the fixing of posters, which includes a scene, which must adjust to the other postings, other artifacts present, in short, the other scenes, in order to articulate strategies, to ignore them, to stand out from the surroundings [5]. Finally, the sixth and final level deals with more than relations with the situation and strategy, but with a set of strategies, constituting ways of life in general. The ways of life

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are constituted by the conglomerate of pertinent actions, responsible for the materiality of the expression [5]. From the premises for the transmission of messages and production of meaning, aiming to have a strategic communication, which is understood by the public, we explore here the Human Centered Design (HCD) approach. This also values the meanings before the experience that the user obtains with a certain artifact, be it a product, a service, an interface. One of its main authors, Krippendorff, highlights the importance of having knowledge about the recipients of speeches, as well as the context and environment they are inserted in, in order to understand their understanding [4]. The HCD recommends articulation between the designer and the networks of stakeholders, which are fundamental for creating a convincing narrative about how the present can be transformed into a desirable future. The collaboration of communities in projects is contemplated, engaging stakeholders as active participants [4]. Based on the theoretical review presented, we sought to develop the EU4ALL project, in order to involve stakeholders in the process, according to HCD guidelines and guided by the theory of relevant levels of semiotic analysis in order to establish strategic and efficient communication.

4 Development of the EU4ALL Project To develop the EU4ALL project, started in January 2021, co-founded by the European Parliament and developed by the Portuguese cooperative, the “Double Diamond” design model was used. In this, one seeks to explore an issue more broadly or deeply, through divergent thinking, and then take focused action, with convergent thinking [6]. A four-phase Design process is suggested: (1) Discover, which aims to understand the problem, involving stakeholders who are affected by the problems or have experience of the situation addressed; (2) Define, in which the insights gained in the previous phase are synthesized in order to help define the focus of the problem; (3) Develop: creative phase to give answers to the defined question; (4) Deliver, which involves testing solutions on a small scale, to correct errors and improve the product/service created [6]. In the following subheadings, each of the stages and what was developed in each of them are presented. 4.1 Discover and Define The first stage, Discovery, began by reading the monthly reports available on the European Parliament’s website, called “EP Insights”, which contain the main topics on the agenda, decisions of the plenary sessions, results of research or interviews carried out with citizens, among others. This research aimed to understand which were the most discussed topics in recent years that are related to democratic values. In addition to theoretical research, in order to develop empathy for users, that is, the recipients of messages to be communicated, it would be necessary to carry out research on the target groups of this project, which are people living in social housing and people serving time in reclusion. However, as the cooperative has been working specifically with these groups for over 10 years, developing several European projects for social

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inclusion, this research was not carried out; but the team prepared to involve users in the next steps of the process. Then, in the second stage of the process, Define, an analysis and synthesis of the themes found in the literature research was carried out. For this, the “thematic network” technique was first used, which consists of facilitating understanding, organizing words by central themes and subtopics, creating a network of words and convergence [13] were arranged in more central spaces and in larger font size. After the creation of this network of words, individual online sessions were held with Portuguese MEPs. The purpose of the sessions was to present the project, the keywords researched (thematic network), get their insights on the identified democratic values and ask them for help in identifying the 10 most relevant values. 30-min sessions were held with five MEPs and one parliamentary adviser of an MEP. All 21 MEPs were invited, but they were the ones who managed to organize time in their agendas to serve the cooperative team.

Fig. 1. Session with Portuguese MEPs presenting the thematic network and designing the infographics.

During the sessions, while the MEPs spoke, infographics were created with the main values identified by each of them. As an example, Fig. 1 is shown: on the left, the thematic network presented and on the right one of the infographics created during one of the sessions. Illustrations already pre-drawn by the team were used, which were related to the researched topics. Along with the illustrations, topics mentioned by MEPs, explanations and established relationships, when they existed, were inserted. After the six sessions, the topics addressed were analyzed, highlighting the most cited, and an attempt was made to make some relationships between very close topics, in order to reach only 10 values. As an example, the value “health and the environment” was grouped into one because it was often cited as something intrinsic by MEPs. Among the 10 values identified, there were two that were not included in the thematic network and were quite pointed out by MEPs: Social Justice and Appreciation of European Culture, in the sense of developing a greater appreciation of “being European”. Thus, the following values were randomly enumerated: (1) Rule of Law; (2) Social Justice; (3) Solidarity; (4) Health & Environment; (5) Research & Innovation;

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(6) Freedom; (7) Education; (8) Human Rights & Equality; (9) Economic Development; (10) Valorization of the European Culture. It is important to mention that the participating MEPs showed interest in the EU4ALL project and some of them highlighted the relevance of the theme and the design process carried out by the cooperative. 4.2 Develop After choosing the 10 most relevant democratic values, the strategy to be implemented was designed, which in part was already pre-established in the application for cofinancing; and also, the creation of the visual identity and design of the printed and digital materials. It was then configured that two types of communication actions would be carried out: a more comprehensive one, delivering communication materials in 10 Prison Establishments and in 10 social housing in Portugal “door-to-door” (or distribution in strategic locations, such as community centers). For this type of communication, it was planned to deliver around 10,000 printed materials. And on the other hand, more strategic communication, in which more participatory and engaging awareness-raising sessions would be held, for groups of 15 to 30 people (each), as follows: 10 sessions in 10 prisons (one in each) and 10 sessions in 10 social housing (one in each). In these sessions, the materials created would also be delivered. The proposed material planned to be delivered was an A4 folder containing infographics about the 10 values. This idea consisted of making the values available in an attractive way that could be reused, that is, the folder, unlike other types of materials, such as flyers that are used to store papers and, therefore, being more useful after delivery to the receiver. In addition, although it is important to seek alternatives to restrict the printing of materials, the proposal to print the material refers to seeking to reach groups that suffer from informational vulnerability, because they do not have access to the internet, for example. A letter soup game was also designed, to be printed on A4 paper and to be inside each folder. The idea was to make the content learned more interesting and “recapitulate”. In addition, pens to be distributed in the 20 sessions and t-shirts for the facilitators of the sessions (cooperative employees). As for the illustrations, characters were created representing each value and it was concerned to create profiles that demonstrate diversity of gender, age, cultural, ethnic, etc. Next to each character, the name of the respective value was written with some explanations how each value is applied in practice. These topics were created based on research and from what MEPs mentioned. The sensitization sessions were planned to take approximately 1 h and 30 min, divided as follows: 20 min to present the cooperative, the EU4ALL project and data on the history of the European Union and the EP; 10 min to carry out the letter soup activity, encouraging the search for the 10 values and sharing what they found; 15 min for the cooperative team to present the 10 highlighted values, 5 min to present the videos in which they are again presented in an animated way and with voiceover; 15 min for a recap activity, in which the 10 images related to the 10 democratic values would be projected and ask each participant to place a post-it on each image referring to the value

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represented in each image; and finally, 5 min for each participant to answer the following question: would they choose these values or suggest others?

Fig. 2. Folder prototypes and video screenshot.

4.3 Deliver After planning the communication actions and designing the materials, a validation/testing session was held with Portuguese citizens in situations of vulnerability, which helped to understand what information was not accessible and how it could be improved. These people were recruited through another project to be carried out by the cooperative, which involved the same public in a vulnerable situation. One of the points

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identified by the participants was the numerical order of the values, which should start on the cover, continue on the inside and end on the back. Some participants also mentioned that they did not like some visual elements, which were confusing.

Fig. 3. Usability tests of the designed materials.

After testing with users (Fig. 3), adjustments were made to the folder and the video to be presented in awareness sessions and digital publications about each of the values were created. Although the project is to be more face-to-face, it was thought that exploring the digital potential would be an asset, achieving greater reach. Both materials were created in Portuguese, as it is the most widely spoken language in these places and English is not accessible to the educational level; however, some editions were created in English, in case there were foreign people who understood English better than Portuguese. In Fig. 4 are presented an images composition of the folder, internally and externally, and the “letter soup” to be inserted inside each folder.

Fig. 4. Composition of images of the cover, back and inside of the folder and the “letter soup” contained within.

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Fig. 5. Awareness session in social housing.

After designing the materials, the final phase of the project involved the printing of graphic materials and the implementation of 20 awareness-raising sessions. It is worth mentioning that these sessions are still taking place throughout 2022. In Fig. 5 is the record of one of the first sessions, held in a social housing and which had an engagement from the participants, who were very participative and interested in the themes.

5 Analysis of the Communication Strategies Based on the literature research carried out on the levels of semiotic relevance for efficient and strategic communication, and on the HCD approach, an analysis is carried out in this topic on how each approach contributed to the development of the EU4ALL project. In Table 1, the information was organized as follows: on the first column are the six levels of relevance; in the second, are the elements created to supply each of the levels; and in the third, the stakeholders involved in the constitution of each level are indicated. Table 1. Analysis of communication strategies. Relevance levels

Strategies

Stakeholders involved

1st - Visual signs

Visual identity and illustrations

Users (in testing phase)

2nd -Texts

Texts about the 10 values

MEPs (design) and users (in testing phase)

3rd - Object

Briefcase, video, digital publications, pen and t-shirt

Users (in testing phase) (continued)

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Table 1. (continued) Relevance levels

Strategies

4th - Predicative scenes

Stakeholders involved

Go to user contexts (social housing Users and prisons)

5th - Strategic Situations

Delivery of folders (door-to-door)

Users

6th - Ways of life

Awareness sessions (presentation of values, delivery of materials, interactive activities and questions to participants)

Users

Based on Table 1, it can be seen that the communication strategy created manages to reach the six levels of relevance. More than just creating the materials, that is, objects composed of visual signs and texts, the team went to the context of the users (social housing and prisons), that is, the predicative scenes. And in this sense, when carrying out an action to deliver the folders (strategic situation), it manages to stand out in the midst of so many forms of communication; not only by the action of delivery, but also by the shape of the object: a folder, which can be reused by the receivers, an object that will have other meanings in addition to communicating. And finally, ways of life, involving the set of strategies, especially in relation to the awareness sessions, in which the 10 values were addressed in a participatory and “playful” way, inviting participants to collaborate with the construction of knowledge about the values. Regarding the HCD approach, there is also an adequate engagement of stakeholders. Users were involved in the testing of the materials created (texts, visual signs and objects) and, of course, in the phases of their reception. In addition, there was also involvement of MEPs, the specialists in the subjects covered in the project, who validated and helped to choose 10 highlighted values.

6 Conclusion Therefore, based on the applied research carried out, the relevance of the approaches adopted for the design of a communication strategy was verified. Firstly, in relation to studies on sensitive perception for the production of meaning and the levels of relevance of semiotic analysis, based on Fontanille [5], they helped the team to be attentive to meet all levels and seek to create a set of efficient communication strategies for the production of meaning and that stands out among so many other communication channels. Regarding the HCD approach, it was also possible to verify the importance of engaging stakeholders in the process, from the conception of the contents to be communicated and in the prototype test phases. Also in this context, it proved to be quite suitable for the EU4ALL project to explore the “Double Diamond” design model, which enables a creative process with very constructive moments of synthesis and generative processes, encouraging the involvement of stakeholders in the different phases.

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For future studies, it is suggested to analyze how the understanding of the values is addressed, because as the EU4ALL project has not yet been concluded, it is not possible to present more in-depth results on this issue. Finally, it can be concluded that the study was quite valid in showing how a Design process can be carried out to communicate complex and very relevant information to groups in situations of information vulnerability. In this sense, this article serves as a model for other social areas, such as social work, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and even areas focused on public, economic and health policies, which need to transmit content, often complex, but of great social relevance. Acknowledgment. This work is financed by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the Strategic Project with the references UIDB/04008/2020 and UIDP/04008/2020. We also acknowledge the European Parliament co-founded the EU4ALL project, object of study of this paper.

References 1. Macklin, R.: Bioética, vulnerabilidade e proteção. In: Garrafa, V.; Pessini, L. (Org.). Bioética: poder e injustiça. São Paulo: Loyola, pp. 59–70 (2004) 2. Steen, M.: The Fragility of Human-Centered Design. Delft University, Amsterdam (2008) 3. Sbordone, M.: Human-Centered Design: sustainable ideas and scenarios for the development of projects and products based on knowledge and human abilities. Revista Internacional de Sostenibilidad, Tecnología y Humanismo, 127–157 (2008) 4. Krippendorff, K.: The diagonal reality of meaning. Am. J. Semiotics. EE.UU (2011) 5. Fontanille, J.: Significação e visualidades. Sulina, Porto Alegre (2005) 6. Council, D.: Eleven Lessons: Managing Design in Eleven Global Companies-Desk Research Report. Design Council (2007) 7. Vitorino, V.: A competência em informação e a vulnerabilidade: construindo sentidos à temática da vulnerabilidade em informação. Ciência da Informação 47(2) (2018) 8. Baudrillard, J.: A transparência do mal: ensaios sobre fenômenos externos. Papirus, Rio de Janeiro (1990) 9. Eco, U.: Apocalípticos e integrados. São Paulo: Ed. Perspectiva (1993) 10. Europarl. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/pt/headlines/priorities/desinformacao. Accessed 01 May 2022 11. Frascara, J.: Diseño gráfico para la gente. Buenos Aires: Infinito (1997) 12. Bonsiepe, G.: Design, Cultura e Sociedade. São Paulo: Blucher (2011) 13. Martin, B, Hanington, B.: Universal methods of design: 100 ways to research complex problems, develop innovative ideas, and design effective solutions. Rockport Publishers (2012)

Digital Animation and Augment Reality as a Way of Added Value to Artistic Exhibition João Alves de Sousa(B) HEI-Lab, Lusófona University, Lisbon, Portugal [email protected]

Abstract. A public art exhibition aims to allow for the best possible appreciation of the works of the artist by the largest volume of potential audience. This article explores a strategy to maximize public interest and engagement using Digital Animation and Augmented Reality technology as a way of promoting a complementary look at the work of art in this context. The exhibition No Plan for Japan, consisting of six collections of original drawings by the Portuguese illustrator Ana Aragão was on display at the Museu do Oriente – Fundação do Oriente between November 5th, 2021 and February 14th, 2022. The artist drawings emerge from the utopia and fantasy of creating imaginary buildings that stand out for their great degree of detail and the sensation of life and movement they convey, through elements such as flags, fluttering cloths or even through the fragile balance of their foundations. Inspired by this implicit movement, a teacher from the undergraduate course in Video Games and Multimedia Applications at Universidade Lusófona do Porto, guided a group of four students in a joint project animating 18 illustrations selected from No Plan for Japan and, using the mobile application Artivive, integrated these animations in the exhibition space through Augmented Reality. This study intends to analyse the results of this collaborative project demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed strategy in contributing to an increased and differentiated look at the exhibited artworks. Keywords: Art exhibition · Augmented reality · Digital animation · Illustration

1 The Artist Ana Aragão has a degree in Architecture from the Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, but her professional and artistic activity is focused on illustration, mainly exploring the theme of urban imaginary and paper architecture. In her own words, “My drawing work, normally very detailed, is a meeting between the real and the imaginary” [1]. Based on the creation of two test animations, we approached the artist in order to inquire about her interest into a creative partnership, still without anything defined besides the desire to materialize, even more, the movement and life in Ana Aragão’s illustrations, through animation. The interest was immediate and Ana revealed that she © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 357–365, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_31

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was preparing an exhibition entitled No Plan for Japan that would be on display at Museu do Oriente – Fundação do Oriente between November 5, 2021 and February 14, 2022. She invited us to see, in first hand, the new illustrations she was developing and think about complementary animations and ways to integrate them in the exhibition. Knowing that there would be budgetary and technical restrictions in terms of implementing multimedia systems in the exhibition hall, we thought what would be the most practical and interesting way to integrate the animated digital content that we would produce as well as the best way to create close connections to the artist’s physical artworks. Based on the description that Ana gives of her illustrations, we thought about the connection between the real and the imaginary, but this time, through technology. Based on our research, the best answer for this challenge would be using Augmented Reality. 1.1 The Art of Augmented Reality (AR) Augmented Reality results from the addition of virtual objects to the real world through the real-time interaction of a subject using a technological device [2]. In this sense, reality serves as a basis or background for the overlapping virtual elements, usually generated through computer graphics [3]. Its objectives centre in enriching, real environments or objects through a visual compositing with the virtual elements creating immersive experiences [4]. This potential has been used in several areas, from education to tourism and advertising, mainly through the use of smartphones [5] as they are accessible devices with sensors and cameras, able to conveniently play AR media. Its use in the context of an exhibition has resulted in many and very interesting projects such as the experience REViVRE, Les Animaux Disparus en Réalité Augmentée in the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle of Paris, engaging the visitors into watching AR animated recreations of extinct animals [6]. The Art of London Augment Gallery [7] was a collaboration between the National Portrait Gallery and Heart of London Business Alliance that allowed the virtual exhibition of 20 classic portraits in the streets of London using AR and it’s another good example of a creative use of this technology. The interest for using AR in the field of art exhibition has even led to the creation of Artivive, a virtual gallery and web platform that promotes the use of AR in conjunction with physical art pieces, through a free and easy to use mobile application that allow artists to create their own AR artworks [8].

2 Development This project began with a meeting between the working group composed by Ana Aragão, the teacher/researcher in charge and a group of four students that participated in this project integrated in the activities of the curricular unit of Project and Professional Integration Seminar, a kind of internship program proposed by coordinating teachers. The artist gave the context to some particular art works and everyone was able to brainstorm the best ideas and choose the favourite illustrations each participant of the team would animate. Having received and distributed the high-resolution digitized illustrations, the teacher gave the initial guidelines and good practices for the practical development of the project.

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Ana Aragão’s work is very analogic, mostly done with BIC pen on paper, sometimes introducing color. One of the most time-consuming parts of this project was the difficulty to accurately digitally cut the many elements that would be animated. In addition to cutting out these layers, it was also necessary to fill in the empty spaces that appeared due to the absence of these elements. This filling was done digitally by cloning similar elements in the image (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Cutting the elements to animate and digitally retouching the backgrounds

Having the entire image separated into layers, the second part of the work consisted in the animation of all the elements with keyframe animations of the rotation, position and scale properties. Shape distortions and other simple effects were also used to give movement to the illustrated flags and cloths. The main intention and main rule the team followed was always not to betray the artist’s vision in each image, but to emphasize it through animation. The feeling of peace and tranquillity and the idea of subtle movement in imaginary buildings frozen in time, was mostly emphasized with slow and smooth movements that gave the illustrations an almost hypnotic contemplative effect. Combined with the fact that all the animations were created as loops, this allowed a potential contemplative infinite visualization without any noticeable cuts. Besides that, the maximum time of each animated cycle was defined at 45 s, taking into account the time recommended by Artivive as the ideal duration of a visualization without becoming tiring for a person to hold the smartphone, conveniently using the camera to superimpose the animations with the live video capture of the artworks. The possibility of developing an exclusive mobile application for this exhibition that would allow the visualization in Augmented Reality was considered, but during the research period the team realized there were already existing solutions. We agreed that it would be more advantageous to use Artivive as, in addition to being a ready to use application developed exactly for this type of intended context, it also has a community of creators and a platform for worldwide network and dissemination of AR Art. This, of course, added value to its use.

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The development of the animations took about 3 months and another 2 weeks of testing and tweaking the AR implementation in the application. This implementation and recognition of the images occurred mostly without problems, but sometimes it was necessary to change the brightness or contrast of the reference illustrations so that it was properly recognized by the application. It was also necessary to carefully correct cropped images in the final stages of framing the art works, so the animated versions would properly fit the frames. In one of the illustrations, the option of using 3D layers, made possible by Artivive’s online editor was used and, despite not presenting the desired degree of control and precision, it allowed an interesting depth effect, peeking through the various layers of depth, reactive to the positioning of the exhibition visitor. This type of strategies encourages the movement and interaction of the viewer, something that is always desirable to achieve in AR [9]. The team considered adding sound to the animations but, after some thought, decided not to include any audio as to respect the quietness of the exhibition space as it would not be practical to force the visitors to use headphones in this context.

3 The Exhibition Based on other authors experiences and perspectives on how can art museums and galleries benefit from the use of technology to engage its visitors [10] the team developed this collaboration knowing the challenges and opportunities that we could face. The inauguration of the Exhibition was on November 4th and the development team was present and able to directly observe the public’s interaction with the artworks. We were proud with the animated pieces, all approved by the artist so we knew that the main challenge to the success of the project was not in the quality of the work done but in the AR component of the exhibition, especially on how to have a non-intrusive way to convince the visitors to install the Artivive App on their smartphones. The strategy to achieve that was based on three strands: – Free advertising/communication on the museums, the artists, the development team and Lusófona University social networks, prior and during the length of the exhibition, highlighting the innovative use of Augmented Reality and Animation in a new way to look at the work of Ana Aragão; – Signage at several spots of the exhibition with the indication of which illustrations had associated AR animations and instructions for installing Artivive through Android and iOS app stores (Fig. 2).

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Fig. 2. Artivive signage to install the app

– Using the application itself. The development team and visitors used their smartphones and tablets to observe the animations in AR increasing the curiosity and interest of other visitors who would have not installed the app from the start of the exhibition. Using tablets was especially effective because it’s larger scale screens easily allowed the other visitors to quickly understand what was happening on the screen, without feeling that they were invading to much of the privacy of the person using it. Feedback from visitors was extremely positive and their surprise and satisfaction was evident when they pointed their smartphones at the illustrations and the animations automatically appeared superimposed on the frames, creating the illusion that they really existed in that space. The possibility to freely move, approaching or moving away from the frames and, synchronously, being able to see the animation in more detail, created a great immersion that motivated a double and, sometimes triple viewing. In the first place, the visitors tended to just observe the illustrations carefully, as in a regular illustration or painting exhibition. Then they would pick up their smartphones and see the animation in Augmented Reality, focusing their observation on the animated elements in each image. Many of them even recorded the video from the app and posted in their social networks identifying the artist, which helped to promoted this feature to the following visitors. Finally, some of the visitors would look a third time to the illustrations after seeing the animations, observing the details drawn by the artist that inspired the animations and understanding the multiple simple narratives implicit in small partitions of the full illustration. It promoted an interesting relation between the fruition of the digital and analogical versions of the artwork, complementary to each other (Fig. 3). There was always the concern whether the public visiting the Museum’s gallery would notice the signage for the app’s installation, which ideally should be placed in more visible spots, and if, after seeing the signage they would feel motivated to install the app in their smartphones.

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Fig. 3. Using a tablet to see the AR animated digital version of the real illustration

The digital natives are used in dealing with technology and to use it to improve their experiences [11] but some elderly visitors didn’t know how to, or felt comfortable installing an app without additional help. In families or couple visits, often just one member would install the app and everyone would see the animations through it, but in groups and within digital natives, the install rate increased showing the interest of this subjects to have a closer and more innovating contact with the artworks [12] (Table 1). Table 1. Approximated number of visualizations of the AR animations through artivive app during no plan for Japan exhibition – numbers collected by the platform free data collection instruments November

December

January

February

Total

6000

4000

4000

8000

22000

With approximately 22,000 total visualizations through the Artivive app, divided by the 18 available animations we calculate an average value of 1222 views of each art work. The most shared animation through social media by the visitors was “The delirious story of the Capsule Tower”, the only one that, in addition to the animation, used layer depth, creating the illusion that the art work expands beyond the frame. In future projects, this notion of the 3D space inside and outside the frame is something that would be interesting to further explore. Besides that, the visitors that installed the app tended to

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see each one of the 18 AR animations, as we observed very similar visualization rates in each artwork (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. Sample of 5 of No Plan for Japan’s Exhibition artworks (Ana Aragão).

It’s possible to visualise some of the created AR animations using the free Artivive App holding the mobile device in from of each image of this Figure.

4 Final Considerations and Future Projects This collaboration was successful and motivated the visit to the exhibition by people not only interested in Ana Aragão’s work but also curious about the use of Animation, Augmented Reality and Technology in art exhibition. The artist was very happy with the result and the receptivity by the visitors and there are already plans for making a new exhibition with an inverted approach, in which the animations and multimedia experience are the main focus. This is a considerably different project for Ana Aragão, as her focus is in drawing, the manual and analogue and No Plan for Japan’s AR animations always intended to value the fruition of the original physical artworks. Augmented Reality technology can in fact bring an extra layer to the fruition of artistic pieces, whether with a didactic or informative character or, in this specific case,

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an interpretation of the same elements, in an animated way. Thus, the use Technology proves to be an effective way to engage visitors in a museum or gallery experience [13]. Public of all ages are interested in this type of approach, but especially within digital natives, who are more comfortable installing and using different apps on their smartphones. It can also be a way of motivating child visitors to enjoy the artistic work as it combines the experience with the typical enthusiasm of children for animation and using technology. Museu do Oriente representatives confided some previous doubts about the use of multimedia applications together within art exhibitions, for fear that the focus on the exhibited pieces would be lost, but they realized that the idea is precisely the opposite and that the use of technology and Augmented Reality, such as the name proposes, can augment/enrichen the experience. For the four students that collaborated in this project the experience was also very valuable because they understood an artistic process very different of the ones they are used to, as their work is mainly on the digital. Working with an analogue artist, and using animation and AR, helped them realize the potential of mixed media as a way to create closer and more interesting relations between the reality and the imaginary.

References 1. Aragão, A.: as cited in Correira, A. https://expresso.pt/cultura/2020-02-19-Cidades-de-papel.A-arquiteta-que-constroi-cidades-a-mao-com-canetas-Bic. Accessed 19 Feb 2020 2. Rodrigues, R.L., et al.: Realidade Aumentada para o Ensino de Geometria Espacial. Anais Do XXI Simpósio Brasileiro de Informática Na Educação (SBIE 2010) (2010) 3. Zorzal, E.R., Cardoso, A., Kirner, C., Júnior, L.: Realidade Aumentada Aplicada em Jogos Educacionais 1–5 (2005) 4. Kirner, C.: Realidade Aumentada : Conceitos, Projeto e Aplicações. In Realidade Virtual e Aumentada: Conceitos, Projeto e Aplicações Livro, vol. 1 (2007). http://ckirner.com/dow nload/livros/Livro-RVA2007-1-28.pdf 5. Pinto, F.S., Centeno, J.A.S.: A Realidade aumentada em smartphones na exploração de informações estatísticas e cartográficas. Boletim de Ciências Geodésicas 18(2), 282–301 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1590/s1982-21702012000200007 6. https://www.jardindesplantesdeparis.fr/fr/programme/galeries-jardins-zoo-bibliotheques/rev ivre-animaux-disparus-realite-augmentee-4077 7. https://www.npg.org.uk/visit/art-of-london-augmented-gallery 8. Artivive https://artivive.com/ 9. Morais, B.D.D.S.: Realidade Aumentada em Dispositivos Móveis. Researchgate.Net, 105 (2011). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marlon_Luz/publication/228557926_Realid ade_Aumentada_em_Dispositivos_Moveis/links/5595501008ae99aa62c713b5/RealidadeAumentada-em-Dispositivos-Moveis.pdf 10. Alexander, J., Barton, J., Goeser, C.: Transforming the art museum experience: gallery one. In: Proctor, N., Cherry, R., (eds.) Museums and the Web 2013. Silver Spring, MD: Museums and the Web. Published 5 February 2013. Consulted 27 May 2022. https://mw2013.museum sandtheweb.com/paper/transforming-the-art-museum-experience-gallery-one-2/

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11. Jenkins, H.: Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture. Scarecrew Press (2009) 12. Palfrey, J., Gasser, U.: Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. Basic Books (2008) 13. Charr, M. (ed.). How technology is bringing museums back to life. MuseumNext, 17 June 2020. https://www.museumnext.com/article/how-technology-is-bringing--museumsback-to-life/

Entutela. A Digital Tool to Facilitate the Drafting and Creation of Tutelas in Colombia Camila Padilla Casas

and Santiago de Francisco Vela(B)

Departamento de Diseño, Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño, Universidad de los Andes, Cra. 1 Este No. 18A – 70, Bogotá, Colombia {c.padila12,s.defrancisco}@uniandes.edu.co

Abstract. The restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, meant that many services had to accelerate their digital transformation processes if they were to continue to exist. In the case of justice services, specifically the tutela action, a digital filing tool called Tutela en Línea was adapted. This tool allowed citizens to continue using the tutela remedy to protect their fundamental rights. However, Tutela en línea is only the beginning of what is expected for the digital transformation of legal services in Colombia. Accordingly, Entutela is intended to overhaul people’s current experience of creating and visualizing a tutela in digital media, presenting a tool built based on the study of the different views involved in the system, dispelling myths and traditional practices, to simplify access to the tutela for people with no legal knowledge. Keywords: Digital transformation · Legal design · Access to justice

1 Introduction The tutela is the primary judicial defense mechanism introduced by the Political Constitution of 1991 to protect fundamental rights. Since its creation, it has been considered an agile, informal, and simple instrument. The resource can be used by anyone without the need to comply with the formalities of other judicial processes, such as having to be accompanied by legal professionals. Tutelas do not require formalities for their submission; they can be written, oral, formal, or informal. They can be delivered to any of the country’s over 4500 judges. Besides that, it must be solved within ten days of being filed. This characteristic makes the tutela attractive and feasible. The restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, led the Colombian Judicial Administration Authority to create and implement an online tool in June 2020, via which the population could file tutelas. However, the challenge associated to this implementation lies in guaranteeing access to sectors of the population, especially those who cannot connect to the Internet or do not know how to use virtual tools. 1.1 Digital Transformation of Justice in Colombia According to Dejusticia [1], the tutela is the best-known legal mechanism in Colombia and is very positively perceived among the public. However, it is also the mechanism that imposes the most significant burden on the judicial system. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 366–376, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_32

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The Judicial Branch has been implementing digital transformation solutions since 2017 to relieve the system from this burden. This effort reached a milestone in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Due to the restrictions imposed, the Colombian Judicial Administration Authority implemented an online portal to receive all the tutelas in the country in record time. Statistics show that between 2019 and 2020, the number of tutelas filed decreased by almost 50%. This is extremely odd as there is no reason why the violation of fundamental rights in the country drastically decreased from one year to the next. However, previous studies have shown that this drop could be caused by barriers such as lack of internet access or legal advice from a lawyer. In March 2021, the National Council for Economic and Social Policy in Colombia approved CONPES 4024, which favors capital investment for the Digital Transformation of Justice Program. The first phase comprises three fundamental components: (i) institutional strengthening of the Judicial System, (ii) strengthening of digital and technology services for justice, and (iii) strengthening of the digital environment and culture. The main focus will be on the Judicial Branch and the Ministry of Justice and Law as the articulating entity in charge of promoting the implementation of the electronic case file, preferably in entities with jurisdictional functions. The tutela mechanism is therefore an excellent tool via which to (i) study the digital transformation of justice, (ii) identify factors that could be important to consider in making this process effective, and (iii) identify actors that are relevant in this transformation and how their different perspectives and interests can converge to create tools that improve citizens’ quality of life based on a better-managed legal system. 1.2 Anatomy of a Tutela Decree 2591 of the Political Constitution of 1991 establishes that the content of the tutela is informal. It can even be presented verbally when the plaintiff does not know how to write or is a minor. However, it must contain at least straightforward content, expressing the action or omission that motivates its filing. It must contain the fundamental right threatened or violated and the author of the threat or violation of the right. Finally, it must also include the applicant’s name and place of residence. However, these requirements have been altered, and today, some tutelas can be 40 —or even up to 200— pages long. In an analysis of 20 writs of tutelas, a section called “legal grounds” was identified, which is a legal analysis that explains why the situation threatens or violates a fundamental right. For these grounds, articles of the Constitution are cited to support the claim of violation. Besides the above, the language commonly used in these writs is highly formal and contains legal terms, meaning that legal professionals are highly relevant in the tutela process as it is common for people pay a lawyer to draft and file the writ. There are two main problems associated to hiring a lawyer. The first involves the fact that lawyers may charge to write the tutela document, as it is they that have the expertise and knowledge of the “legal grounds” that have to be included. There is no standard fee for this, which may lead some lawyers to overcharge citizens for the service. Second, this practice prevents people with no legal knowledge from writing their own tutelas, as they may feel that they cannot do so correctly. However, it is, in fact, not true that the “legal grounds” section gives weight and validity to the judge’s reading of the document.

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1.3 Tutela, from the Standpoint of the Citizenship We conducted secondary source research about the tutela system from the standpoint of the citizenship, concluding that there is little public information on the functioning of the judicial system and the tutela mechanism. The current information focuses on the administrative processes, limiting the openness to new research points that take this data as a basis. This lack of data also makes it challenging to design services and solutions that respond to the needs of the people benefited by the tutela and makes it difficult to imagine new possibilities and trends for the future of access to justice. The closest instrument that includes a human-centered perspective is the National Legal Need Survey, a poll sponsored by the Colombian Government every four years. This survey provides a broad view of the judicial system and the citizens’ experience of resolving their judicial needs. This information is difficult to reach by other means because it involves analyzing problems that individuals solve in non-formal mechanisms or fail to solve [2]. We also found the “Effective Access to Justice Index” proposed by the Departamento Nacional de Planeación [2], built using the guidelines published by the Rule of Law Initiative of the American Bar Association. We identified six essential dimensions through which to understand access to justice: favorable environment, legal empowerment, legal aid, access to institutions, fair procedure, and compliance with decisions. These dimensions can be understood as the stages a citizen must navigate throughout any judicial process. Considering the data gaps in both Legal Needs Surveys [1, 2] and the Effective Access to Justice Index [2], we decided to create our survey of legal needs to understand the users’ practical and emotional experiences of the tutela. We analyze the first three dimensions: enabling environment, legal empowerment, and the index’ legal aid. These dimensions allow us to study the part of the tutela process in which citizens have the most agency. To explore the emotional experience, we took this as a transversal dimension rather than another step in the access to justice index intended to understand any person’s emotions and experience when facing a tutela process, especially in its digital version. Our main goal was to understand the emotional path of people in a tutela process, differentiating the experience of legal professionals and that of people with no legal knowledge. For example, when we inquired about how a person felt when filing a digital format tutela, it became evident that people with no legal knowledge tend to identify with the emotions of doubt and frustration. In contrast, legal professionals or law students are more inclined to feel optimism and enthusiasm. These responses were supported by explanations of how people with no legal knowledge felt. One person responded that they felt “uncertain about the reception and use of the tool because the answers are delayed, and the platform is not entirely user-friendly.” Nevertheless, for legal professionals, going digital in this process implies “less wear and tear because it is faster to file and you don’t need to move” or “enthusiasm for the improvement in service and technological implementation.” Thus, there is a clear difference in the emotional perception of the analyzed groups.

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2 Methodology: Creative Research This work was developed as a creative research project [3, 4] to explore the design for access to justice [5, 6], and was based on the Tutela en línea platform. In this approach, it is not only the final result that is relevant but also the transformation process carried out through the research [4]. Tutela en línea is a platform born in response to the isolation measures imposed in March 2020, to mitigate the spread of the Covid 19 virus. At that time, all courts were closed, with no mechanisms to receive files. Email accounts began to be used to receive tutelas, but this became obsolete very quickly given the excessive amount of incoming mail. Faced with this situation, the Coordinator of the Administrative Jurisdictional Services Center for the Civil, Labor, and Family Courts decided to develop a form to make it possible to receive tutelas and make the distribution process simpler and more centralized. This was accepted by the Superior Council of the Judiciary and implemented all over the country. The Tutela en línea portal was launched in June 2020, and continues to be used to this day. Although it is not clear what the transformation objective is for the tutela, it is clear that Tutela en línea will continue to be the valid channel for digital filing. It is essential to mention that the Judicial Branch has been working on the “Strategic Plan for Digital Transformation (PETD) 2021–2025” for years. This plan includes “the set of projects designed to strengthen and improve the justice administration service in the country, by promoting technology, technological innovation, and data science through disruptive tools” [7]. For this creative research process, interviews, cultural probes [8], and co-creation sessions [9] were held with judicial branch officials, law students, judges, and citizens. The first intervention was with the Coordinator of the Administrative Jurisdictional Services Center for Civil, Labor, and Family Courts, which implemented the first version of Tutela en línea. The second intervention was made with law students of a Legal Clinic, who are being trained in issues of access to justice. The third intervention was with judges, who are the ones who receive the tutelas and decide on them. The fourth intervention involved citizens. Together with one of the courts, the first version of the Entutela prototype was online. Modifications were made to the prototype for each intervention until reaching the current version. 2.1 From the Courthouse to the Web: The Tutela en Línea Website Research. An in-depth interview was held with the creator of Tutela en línea to understand its functionality. The tool runs in google forms. It requests location data or place of sending, personal and contact data. The user can attach the tutela file as a pdf document, together with any evidence. This information is sent to the Coordinator via email to forward the case to a court for review. Once the information reaches the court, the court is in charge of contacting the parties and informing them of the steps. Ebert and Duarte [10] describe digital transformation as an action to adopt new technologies that increase productivity, value creation, and social welfare. This interview highlights that Tutela en línea is far from being a digital transformation response. For example, the information entered in the form is not stored in a database, making historical

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data analysis impossible. Also, the tutela file material is handled as a PDF attachment, meaning that there is no change in how the tutela is created. This practice means that there is no advantage of a digital system. Finally, the platform’s language continues to generate an asymmetry of information due to its technicality. Creation. As part of the creative research study, a working test platform was assembled to write a tutela. Twelve parts were defined to build the new platform, taking different models of tutelas: place, data of the affected party and who is affected, representation, facts, violated rights, legal grounds, claims, evidence, provisional measure, oath, and signature. There are two significant barriers to drafting a tutela: knowledge and language. The first is the technical knowledge needed to draft a tutela. For example, a person should know all the fundamental rights that may be violated or consider the legal grounds that justify the violation. The second is the technical language that a person requires to draft a tutela. In all the references taken, there is an overuse of technical terms and complex language which is foreign to most ordinary citizens. With all these elements in mind, the platform’s first version is assembled in Jotform, a digital service for creating electronic forms. The platform consists of the 12 parts mentioned above. The only attachments are those containing the evidence, so when information is entered, it can generate data that can later be analyzed. For example, how the facts are written or how the violated rights are chosen. We validated some of this information with lawyers and law students using this prototype.

2.2 Lawyers and Tutela: Traditional Practices and Their Effect on Access to Justice Research. With the support of a legal consultancy, we contacted lawyers and law students who have experience with tutela cases. Two activities were carried out. The first was a co-creation workshop to group fundamental rights and create categories. The second was a user test of the platform created to draft tutelas. In Tutela en línea, there is a list of 31 fundamental rights from which people must select the one or ones they consider appropriate according to their situation. There are many rights, and not everyone knows the meaning of each one of them. Through a Card Sorting exercise [11], participants organized the fundamental rights into categories that made sense and named each category. As a result of this exercise, 12 categories of fundamental rights were defined to contemplate the 31 rights in Tutela en linea (see Fig. 1). User testing was undertaken by navigating the platform. Participants were asked to take a case and fill out the form as if they were going to write a tutela. Participants discussed concerns, perceptions, and possible improvements to the prototype. For example, one concern that came up was whether it made sense to create a platform of this style for use by citizens without the help of lawyers. For most, it was essential to have more legal know-how that can be crucial for a favorable ruling on a tutela. Another concern was the formality of the text. Many said that judges have to write to them with specific drafting protocols. With these tensions in evidence, it was decided to address another perspective, in this case, that of the judges.

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Fig. 1. Card sorting exercise with law students.

Creation. The work with lawyers and law students made it possible to enrich the content of the part related to the selection of the violated right. The categories defined and the shorter lists within each category provide a more exciting option than viewing a long list. On the other hand, participants navigating the platform pointed out some interesting challenges in terms of how to help citizens draft a tutela as if they had legal knowledge. These challenges were incorporated to ensure that a judge would approve the document under the minimum guidelines. Version 2.0 of the prototype included a series of aids and descriptions of technical terms; for example, tips on how to draft certain parts of the tutela. Also, the facts were to be listed in chronological order, specifying certain aspects such as what happened and when. A similar process was also implemented for claims, with each claim being written as an independent element.

2.3 A Reading from the Judges: What Are the Essentials? Research. Virtual meetings were held with eight judges (five women and three men) and a secretary. The judges were from different parts of the country. Three exercises were carried out during these sessions: a reading traffic light, a hierarchy of contents, and navigation through the 2.0 prototype. The reading traffic light is taken from a tool called Entrelíneas from a Legal Service Design consultancy [12]. The objective of the reading is to highlight all the relevant and essential information in green, all unnecessary information in yellow, and the information that should not be there in red (see Fig. 2). The participants were given a tutela file to do the exercise. One of the judges commented that the documents are generally full of formalities, such as the salutation or citations to articles of the Constitution that are unnecessary. On the other hand, all the participants agreed that the legal grounds are unnecessary unless it is a new case. They speak of this part as “the copy of the copy,” an unnecessary over-argumentation. When they got to the facts, they all agreed that this was the heart of the tutela.

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Fig. 2. Example of a traffic light reading by a judge

The judges placed the relevant information in the files in hierarchical order. The most common hierarchy included the following parts: (i) review data of the affected party and who is affected, (2) review whether there is a provisional measure, (3) the wording of the facts, (4) the claims, and (5) the evidence. This hierarchy shows two things: first, all the parts that are not included or should not be included or are not necessary; and second, the order in which a file is presented does not necessarily respond to this order. Although the drafting order requires a particular chronology, the reading order does not necessarily have to have that structure. Finally, the judges also navigated the prototype platform. By this point, the prototype already allowed for creating a PDF of the final dossier. Each participant could create their dossier from start to finish and receive the PDF in their mailbox. Creation. The work with judges allowed us to make new iterations of the prototype. Within the iterations, four topics were considered: reading order, visual elements, the parts that should be in the document, and the wording of the facts. For the reading order, the results of the hierarchy exercise were taken to build an information scheme that will benefit the reading of the judges. Visual elements were included to highlight specific information within the form and the PDF document. These elements were blocks of color, bold text, and text boxes. In this case, it was interesting to understand how judges perceived these alterations in the format of the tutela. This understanding helps us define which parts should be in the form and which should be in the document. The results of the traffic light reading were also taken into account to change the format of the tutela. The information included in it and parts of the tutela itself were changed significantly in terms of the language and formalisms identified. Therefore, it was imperative to determine whether the content was complete or whether there were parts missing. Finally,

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following the sessions with the judges, we understood the importance of the facts in the tutela brief. To further explore this point, we studied the construction of the facts in different tutela documents found on the Internet in greater depth. In most cases, the narration of the facts appears in chronological order and numbered facts. When analyzing the structure of the different narratives on the facts, they are usually composed of five elements: temporality (when?), stakeholders (who?), a place (where?), an action (what?), and a reason (why?). Judges consider it a good practice to state the problem from the beginning and read the facts with the infraction in mind. This practice speeds up the reading process. To connect the facts with the problem statement, we use a scheme called “The path of expression” [13]. This scheme is based on psychological theory about memory and creativity, which uses present experiences as a starting point, good and bad memories from the past, and hopes and dreams for the future [13]. The Path of Expression used in the tutela is as follows: First, “looking at the present” equates to the current problem, i.e., why use a tutela in the first place. Second, “remembering the past” serves to answer what happened to get to the current problem. Third, “reflecting on the past” lists chronological events that explain the current problem. Fourth, “imagining the future” is the basis for answering the question, “how do I expect the problem to be solved? Which raises the exercise of the pretensions (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Applying the path of expression to drafting a tutela.

3 Entutela: A Prototype for the Citizens Entutela was built to connect justice with people with no legal knowledge, legal assistance, and legal empowerment. Entutela uses UX and UI design to transform technology to make those gaps less drastic. Aarron Walter [14] mentions the importance of an interface being practical and engendering positive emotions. The best experience is reached

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when anyone can complete a task and end with a smile. Entutela focuses on creating a more enjoyable experience for citizens, to the point that they feel good about it and could recommend it to someone else. We expect to disseminate the platform to anyone with no proper access to justice, either because they do not have the means, or because they lack the knowledge. We launched a campaign to create a tutela from scratch without lawyers in conjunction with a courthouse. The latest version of the prototype is uploaded on this courthouse microsite. The tool has had a total of 1,341 visits between April 25 and June 14, 2021. One hundred and nine of these visits resulted in tutelas being created, and the estimated time of use is 28:43 min (see Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. Jotform analysis of the use of Entutela.

3.1 Preliminary Results We contacted the 84 people who created their tutelas to ask them about their experience and results. Of these, we received a response from one person, which found out about the tool through court’s advertising. He used Entutela to report an alleged problem with a public company, which happened in April 2022. The person created the tutela in Entutela and then filed it in Tutela en Línea. In ten days, he obtained a favorable ruling. This response means that his tutela was accepted and approved by a judge in the first instance. When we spoke with this person, he told us that he already had some experience in filing tutelas, even though he was not a lawyer. He emphasized that the tool was handy and straightforward. There are two elements worth mentioning here. The first has to do with the usability of the tool. Although this person already had experience in writing tutelas, the format allowed him to do so easily. The second has to do with the PDF format provided by Entutela. This format is known as the tutela file. Usually, these files look like a contract and average 20 to 50 pages in length. The proposal with Entutela was to simplify it and give it a reading order and hierarchy for the judge. If a judge has already ruled in favor of one of these tutela formats, the format is viable.

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We are waiting for more responses from citizens who have used the tool to understand their user experiences.

4 Reflection and Final Thoughts Designing to improve access to justice has enormous challenges. The first challenge has to do with including all stakeholders in the process [5, 6]. This inclusion involves understanding the views of lawyers and law students, who provide legal advice; judges, who make decisions on a case-by-case basis; organizations, which are directly affected by judicial decisions; and citizens, who need mechanisms to defend their rights. However, there are many tensions when it comes to aligning these visions. It is believed that with no legal knowledge, it is not possible to draft a tutela. Also, certain formalities must be followed in order to address a judge. These formalities generate much uncertainty among citizens. Therefore, mechanisms such as tutelas, which are expected to be informal, accessible, and easy to use, are capitalized by lawyers. This situation has unleashed an informal trade in legal advice for drafting tutelas, which means that citizens are losing the autonomy to defend their rights given the lack of easy-to-use tools. We acknowledge that digital tools can be another barrier to accessing justice. However, we must develop them to serve the needs of all citizens, with and without internet access. Nevertheless, this is not the only barrier to developing digital tools for citizens. One of the most prominent is legal empowerment for non-lawyers. We have encountered the dichotomy of thinking that there are few possibilities to improve this situation. There is much skepticism about the idea of legally empowering citizens. There is also a fear that such empowerment may result in more extensive congestion of the number of tutelas imposed on judges. However, with Entutela, we have realized that the tool can also have a formative purpose. The process of drafting a tutela should be enlightening and not frustrating. It should help anyone understand their situation and find the best way to resolve it. With this in mind, we have started to work on other tools that serve this formative purpose. One of them has to do with the feasibility of a tutela. This tool works as a checklist that allows a person to know the minimum requirements needed to file a tutela before a judge. Another tool teaches users about their fundamental rights. We are developing a set of cards to help people to learn about different rights, which ones apply to them, and an example of a guide. We are sure that we can improve two of the indicators of the “Effective Access to Justice Index” with this type of tool. The first is legal aid. If more judicial institutions are in charge of socializing these tools, more people will be better informed about their legal needs. The second is legal empowerment. By having access to more user-friendly digital and analog tools, people will be able to make better legal decisions.

References 1. La Rota, M., Lalinde, S., Uprimny, R.: Encuesta Nacional de Necesidades jurídicas. Análisis general y comparativo para tres poblaciones. Centro de Estudios de Derecho, Justicia y Sociedad (Dejusticia) (2013). https://www.dejusticia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/fi_ name_recurso_618.pdf

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2. Departamento Nacional de Planeación (DNP): Índice de Acceso Efectivo a la Justicia (2017). https://sej.minjusticia.gov.co/AccesoJusticia/Paginas/indice-de-Acceso-Efectivoa-la-Justicia.aspx 3. Candy, L.: Practice based research: a guide. CCS Report, vol.1, no. 2, pp. 1–19 (2006) 4. Daza, S.L.: Investigación - Creación, un acercamiento a la investigación en las artes. horizontes pedagógicos (2009). https://horizontespedagogicos.ibero.edu.co/article/ view/339/303. Accessed 11 May 2022 5. Feghali Vargas, N., Padilla Casas, C., Vanegas Herrera, L.V., Guzman-Abello, L., de Francisco Vela, S.: Designing legal interfaces: transforming the digital services of a legal aid clinic. In: Martins, N., Brandão, D. (eds.) DIGICOM 2021. Springer Series in Design and Innovation, vol. 19. Springer, Cham (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89735-2_20 6. De Francisco Vela, S., Guzman-Abello, L., Pardo Rodríguez, S.: Design for justice lab: interdisciplinarity in times of virtual education. In: Bohemia, E., Nielsen, L.M., Pan, L., Börekçi, N.A.G.Z., Zhang, Y. (eds.) Proceedings of the DRS Learn X Design 2021: 6th International Conference for Design Education Researchers, vol. 2, pp. 499–515. Design Research Society (2021). https://doi.org/10.21606/drs_lxd2021.03.242 7. Rama Judicial: Plan estratégico de Transformación Digital. Ir a Transformacion Digital (n.d.). https://www.ramajudicial.gov.co/web/transformacion-digital/plan-estrategico-detransformacion-digital. Accessed 10 May 2022 8. Gaver, B., Dunne, T., Pacenti, E.: Design: cultural probes. Interactions 6(1), 21–29 (1999) 9. Sanders, E.B.N., Stappers, P.J.: Co-creation and the new landscapes of design. Co-design 4(1), 5–18 (2008) 10. Kleinert, J.: Digital transformation. Empirica 48(1), 1–3 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10 663-021-09501-0 11. Hinkle, V.: Card-sorting: what you need to know about analyzing and interpreting card sorting results. Usability News 10(2), 1–6 (2008) 12. Háptica: Toolkit de legal service design (2021). https://haptica.co/product/el-toolkit-de-legalservice-design/ 13. Sanders, E.B.N., Stappers, P.J.: Probes, toolkits and prototypes: three approaches to making in codesigning. CoDesign 10(1), 5–14 (2014) 14. Walter, A.: Designing for emotion by Aarron Walter. A Book Apart (2020). https://abooka part.com/products/designing-for-emotion. Accessed 4 Apr 2022

Artefacts of Culture; Vesak Postage Stamps of Sri Lanka Samudra De Silva(B)

and Sumanthri Samarawickrama

University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa 10400, Sri Lanka [email protected]

Abstract. Postage stamps are an integral part of a communication system, the postal service of a country. Technically they are fiscal receipts of the prepayment for a postage service. Although postage stamps are less encountered in daily lives today, they remain as primary sources of global material and visual culture. Being a product made by humans of a specific community, for an intentional communication, and inherent of purposeful and symbolic content, a postage stamp can be identified as an artefact of the culture that it was produced in. When looking at philatelic practices of Sri Lanka, issuing a Vesak commemorative stamp annually has been the longest continuing tradition. The Vesak postage stamps of Sri Lanka have its roots in Buddhist culture. Vesak is the combined commemoration of the birth, enlightenment and passing away of Buddha, celebrated by 506 million Buddhists worldwide, which is approximately 6% of the world population. It is an international holiday for United Nations member countries in South-East Asia. Propagating the message of compassion and devotion to the service of humanity, various philanthropic activities, religious observances, as well as Vesak decorations, happen during Vesak. Complementing the state sponsored national Vesak celebrations, Sri Lankan government issues a Vesak postage stamp, annually. A total of 86 Vesak stamps have been issued by the Philatelic Bureau of Sri Lanka from 1969 to 2020. This research analyses Vesak stamps and its application as artefacts of Sri Lankan Buddhist culture. Three case studies with three sets of Vesak stamps were investigated to learn how the information intrinsic to culture is inscribed within them. Through the study if was found that Vesak commemorative stamps of Sri Lanka depict both material and non-material aspects of Vesak culture as well as Vesak stamps are planned to act as carriers of ideological meanings and values in Buddhism, to the audiences. Keywords: Culture · Artefacts · Postage stamps · Sri Lankan postage stamp · Vesak postage stamp

1 Background Postage stamps provide information in a few ways. First, being physical objects made of paper, ink, glue etc. they demonstrate the paper manufacturing and printing technology of the time. On a second level, stamps provide primary records of the postal services of the issuing country. The third level of evidence, stamps bear symbols, as a part of a © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 377–391, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_33

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communication system between the issuing authority and the user (Reid 1984). Stamps may now be less commonly encountered in daily lives than in the past, but this allows us to look at stamps as primary sources of global material and visual culture, carrying symbolic messages to the audiences. At the same time, there are preconceived ideas about the significance of a postage stamp, as a means of visual communication, due to the small size and them being mundane everyday objects. So this study first intends to understand the relationship between postage stamps and culture, and how they become an artefact of culture. The research focuses on Sri Lankan Buddhist culture conveyed in Vesak postage stamps.

2 Literature Review 2.1 Postage Stamps as a Communication Medium Postage stamps provide a means of communication between the issuing authority and the members of the general public who buy and use them. When looking at it closely, postage stamps serve three main purposes in communication; the utilitarian purpose, representative purpose and the commemorative purpose (Scott 1995). Technically, postage stamps are receipts, affixed as evidence of a prepayment for a postal service. Upon use, the postage stamp is cancelled using a postmark stating the date and place of service fulfilment, to avoid re use of stamps. This utilitarian postal requirement can be fulfilled by issuing simple postage stamps with minimal symbols related to the issuing state, such as a national flag or a monarch’s bust (Osmond 2008). Yet they come with a wide array of visuals which are worthy of further research. Discussing examples of China, Russia and Germany opting to exhibit their advancement in Science and technology through postage stamps, while going through drastic political changes during a period, Yardley (2015) documented how postage stamps moved from being solely a fiscal receipt into a medium of representational and commemorative functions. Despite the preconceived ideas of the importance, and small size of the postage stamps, many studies have documented that they are ideal means of propaganda (Stoetzer 1953; Andreou 2017; Hoyo 2012; Raento and Brunn 2005), and pointed out several reasons why. First, the postage stamps are official documents, designed, regulated and issued by states through dedicated agencies. Second, by covering the whole territory of the state, even the most isolated communities within it, the national postal system acts as a national communications network regulated through a central agency (Daunton 1985; John 1995). Third, each stamp is used only once, attached to an address and meant to reach specific individuals. This can generate a much more personal feel, and probably gain much more attention, when compared to a banknote being circulated in an impersonal way (Hoyo 2012). Fourth, due to their small size, and their repetitive and ‘discrete’ appearance in people’s lives, postage stamps can carry significant messages, without the intention becoming apparent. In postage stamps of Great Britain, the recurrence of the portrait of the monarch became customary, that it has replaced the name of the country itself (Andreou 2017; Child 2005). Official commemorations of a state are aimed not just at celebrating but reminding the citizens about something, and to memorize it in a particular way. Such narration is

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shaped by the values, ideologies, experiences, and goals of the authorities organizing the celebration (Anderson 2006; Davis 1994; Gillis 1994; Kaplan 1994; Hoyo 2012). Key events such as national days and festivals of national importance, are an appropriate time to promote a sanctioned version of the ethnic, cultural, social, and historical characteristics of the nation through commemorative stamps, by doing so, strengthening the individual’s loyalty to the community (Hoyo 2012). Augmenting the role of postage stamps in commemorative purposes, and discussing stamp imagery as artefacts of cultural memory, Osmond (2008) interpreted postage stamps as ‘modest monuments. Although an individual postage stamp might be seen as ‘trivial and ephemeral’ due to their miniature size and short window of contact, collectively postage stamps have an enduring impact, as witnessed by the powerful campaigns, mass circulation and their status as collectibles. Although stamps may not seem immediately present, when compared to a photograph, a movie, or a statue, postage stamps have secured their own place in commemorative practices regardless of preconceived ideas of importance (Osmond 2008; Hoyo 2012). With regard to their mass circulation, Child (2005) interpreted postage stamps as the ‘smallest icons of popular culture’ and pointed out that stamps, along with money, are handled by the general public more than any other government instrument, and carry a message directly as well as subconsciously and subtly through repeated encounters. As Scott (1995) argued, stamps pay homage to their subject, and consist of ‘more concentrated ideological density per square centimeter than many other cultural forms’ (Scott 1995). 2.2 Postage Stamps as Artefacts of Culture In its popular use, the term ‘culture’ indicate some characteristic ways of behavior in a category of people (Jahoda 2012), or as a collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another (Hofstede 1984). As summarized by Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952), Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts. Culture systems could be considered as products of action as well as conditioning elements of further action (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952). Cole and Parker (2011), identifies culture as a dynamically changing environment that is transformed by the artefacts created by prior generations. As recognized in the field of sociology and psychology, culture comprises symbols, language, values, norms and artefacts. An artefact is an object of study commonly used in critical and qualitative or interpretive communication research, and can be identified an aspect of the material world that has been modified over the history into goal-directed human thought and action. Artefacts are made by humans rather than the result of natural phenomenon; therefore, they are symbolic, purposeful, and intentional things (Allen 2017). An artefact is simultaneously conceptual and material, whether in the morphology of a spoken, written, or signed word, a ritual, an artistic creation, or as a solid object, and are involved in preserving and transmitting the kinds of social inheritance referred to as ideas, beliefs, norms, conventions, and the like (Cole and Parker 2011). In addition to signifying of its creator, an artefact provides insight into the customs, preferences, styles, special occasions, work and play, of the culture in which it was created. When people in a culture agree on what

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symbolic elements are important to their culture, those become the core elements of the culture (Wan and Chiu 2009). Citing Triandis et al. (1993), Keith (2011) states that, the objective elements of culture are the tangible objects such as architecture, food, manufactured products, whereas subjective culture comprises of intangible elements such as social norms, values and religious practices. Being a product made by humans for an intentional communication, and inherent of purposeful and symbolic qualities, postage stamps demonstrate key features of an artefact. Many studies have elaborated on postage stamp imagery portraying different aspects of culture. Several scholars have justified that postage stamps represent official cultures and national identities, bearing symbolic messages from governments (Reid 1984; Altman 1991; Dobson 2002; Raento and Brunn 2005). As much as coinage, banknotes, flags and national anthems, the postage stamp is produced by a state itself, and as a part of the official national repertoire it carries ideological meanings to audiences (Andreou 2017) and represent the visual narrative envisioned by a state (Scott 1995). Kallen (2002) claimed that postage stamp imagery transfers ‘an idea of the nation’, meaning a perspective of how the nation or country was supposed to be represented during a certain time frame. Postage stamps being interpreted as ‘paper ambassadors’ (Altman 1991), or ‘portraits of the nation’ (Schwarzenbach 1999) or ‘official representations of a nation’ (Kevane 2008), as true ‘windows of the state’ (Brunn 2001) or as pieces of ‘visually imagined communities’ (Covington and Brunn 2006) promote a state-sponsored view of the, history, culture, and identity of a nation (Hoyo 2012). Traditional culture, Aboriginal communities, religious themes are representations of a particular culture, and the practice of visualizing them as stamp imagery is evident. Depiction of traditional culture of states through postage stamps, has been noted by scholars; such as discussing a series of stamps depicting traditional dances issued by Cyprus and India (Kent 2006), representation of ‘Finnishness’ through folk aspects of culture; romanticizing Finnish traditional tales, mythology and language for creation of the country’s national image, during the early twentieth century through Finnish postage stamps (Raento and Brunn 2005). Several other studies examined the representation of cultural heritage such as music, cinema, arts, and architecture on postage stamps. Legendary Hollywood movies in stamps were documented by Migliavacca (2020) while Covington and Brunn (2006) discussed constructing an international community and celebrating a national heritage of music through stamps. Archeological elements visualized on postage stamps from Latin America (Appel 1950) and Architectural Decoration on Gabonese Stamps, were discussed (Levin 2004). Representation of Aboriginal communities in postage stamps is documented in several studies. Canadian Aboriginal heritage was first honored in 1953 and 1955 with individual stamps featuring the totem pole of Canada’s West Coast Indians and an Eskimo hunter in a kayak respectively (Maloney 2013). These depictions served as a means of strengthening Canadian sovereignty in the contested space of the High Arctic. Native Americans were represented on United States Postage Stamps during 1863–1922 as a part of national iconography (Goldblatt and Handler 2017). Religious themes of postage stamps have also gained the attention of researchers. Reeves (2015) explore religious expressions through postage stamps, from 2006 to 2010, in seven Central European countries: Austria, Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Zavos

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(2008) discussed the image of Hinduism in the construction of ethnic identities in Britain, related to the use of Hindu imagery, by the United Kingdom Royal Mail on its Christmas stamp in 2005. Several social groups, who constitute the culture of a nation, such as workers, minorities, young people, and women, have been relatively slow to gain representation on postage stamps. A study on Canadian postage stamps documented the representation of Canadian Laborers on them (Frank 1997). Andreou and the colleagues (2014) discussed Female representation, gender roles and the stereotypes produced in the context of Cypriot society, through their representations on postage stamps issued by the Republic of Cyprus from 1960 to 2013. Female/male portrayals and the gender relevant content on United States postage stamps of the twentieth century are discussed by Ogletree and colleagues (1994). The influence of foreign cultures on several nations, as represented on postage stamps is documented in a number of studies. A study on the colonial post, stamps and the monarchy (Jeffery 2006) documented the ways in which the British Empire as a working world system was underpinned by the Imperial Penny Postage and postage stamps bearing the images of successive British monarchs and other British imperial iconography. Another study discussing colonial stamps from India, Singapore, France and Britain, (Saif) confronts stamps with the colonial picturesque; a design style with a dominant figure of the monarch and an idealistic background representing an estate, crops, animals, or the economic resources that were available to be exploited by the Europeans for their own prosperity. The twentieth century US world’s fairs and the postage stamps that were issued in their honor, celebrating the progress of industrial civilization, partly by anchoring themselves to a historical origin point, Columbus’ voyages, is examined (Handler 2016). A study on the objects, culture, and governance in Late Colonial Hong Kong, (Pang 2022) examines how the Hong Kong government promoted and preserved Chinese culture through postage stamps and coins, and how the colonial officials attempted to utilize these tangible forms of Chinese culture to win popular support from the 1960s on. According to the philatelic code of ethics declared by Universal Postal Union (UPU 2017), a philatelic issue whose theme is a subject totally alien to the culture of the issuing country or territory, and which cannot be considered as contributing to “the dissemination of culture or to maintaining peace” shall be regarded as abusive. 2.3 Vesak Celebration in Sri Lanka When looking at philatelic practices of Sri Lanka, Vesak marks a notable commemoration. Vesak, celebrated on the full moon day of May, is the combined commemoration of the birth, enlightenment and passing away of Buddha. Buddhists gather at temples with flowers and other simple offerings on the day of Vesak. Some commit, for a single day, to hold the eight vows, listen to Dhamma and to meditate. As a result of colonization, and with influence of western culture and religions, during the 1800s the Vesak celebration in Sri Lanka lost its significance as a National level celebration. But after gaining independence from the British in 1848, and the Buddhist revival that took place during the late 19th Century, Vesak celebrations were reinterpreted as a National festival again. To retain the enthusiasm of Buddhists, and draw the attention of non-Buddhists, more

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festive elements such as Vesak lanterns, Vesak Greeting cards & Vesak processions etc. were introduced to the Vesak culture (Peiris 2022). Since 2000, Vesak has been declared an international holiday for United Nations member countries in South-East Asia, and celebrated by an estimated 506 million people worldwide, which is approximately 6% of the world population. Sri Lanka hosted the 14th United Nations Vesak celebration, in the year 2017. By 2022, Theravada Buddhism is the official religion of Sri Lanka, practiced by 82% percent of the population (Pew Forum, 2015). Today Vesak in Sri Lanka is a state sponsored national celebration. Day of Vesak and day after Vesak are declared as public holidays. Celebrating the Buddha’s message of compassion and being of service to humankind, Vesak is spent with charity work and acts of kindness. Liquor shops and slaughter houses are usually closed during the holiday (Lakpura 2022). Food stalls are set up providing free food, ice-cream and drinks to passersby. Vesak is also considered as a festival of Light. Lighting oil lamps, Vesak lanterns, decorative light bulbs and Vesak pandols happen on the Vesak night and throughout the following week. The official state Vesak festival is held at a location of religious and archeological importance. The ministry of religious and cultural affairs of Sri Lanka declares a concept from Buddhist philosophy as the official theme of Vesak celebrations for each year, to be conveyed in Vesak celebrations. Complementing the state Vesak Festival, a commemorative postage stamp is issued each year. A total of 46 Vesak commemorative issues have been done by the Philatelic Bureau of Sri Lanka from 1969 to 2020 and they remain an intrinsic part of Buddhist culture in Sri Lanka.

3 Methods and Definitions When looking at philatelic practices of Sri Lanka, currently there are two cultural events on which a commemorative postage stamp is issued annually in Sri Lanka, namely Vesak and Christmas. Since its inauguration in 1969, the practice of issuing a postage stamp commemorating Vesak annually, have become the longest continuing tradition. At present, the Vesak postage stamp is issued as a part of the state Vesak festival and for each year, a concept from Buddhist philosophy is declared by the Ministry of religious and cultural affairs, as the official theme to be conveyed in national Vesak celebrations. There is a total of 46 issues of Vesak postage stamps issued generally in sets of three or four, by the Philatelic Bureau of Sri Lanka from 1969 to 2021. The sample of this study consists of three sets of Vesak stamps issued in 1969, 1987 and 2020. The sample of Vesak stamp were selected representing three different decades. The method of content analysis is adopted to visually analyze and discuss the postage stamps, addressing the following key areas: a) physical appearance, b) visual representation, c) cultural perspective, d) analysis as an artefact. To investigate the Vesak stamps as an artefact of Buddhist culture, the research observes these stamps as ‘visual text’. Cultural semiotics defines ‘texts’ as the subcategory of artefacts that have a function and are coded signs in a specific culture (Posner 2003). Postage stamps can be viewed as texts of semiotic sense with a culturally specific message, partially textual, partially numeric and predominantly graphic, encoded by the issuing authority.

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In this study we have adopted that an artefact create meaning by semantization through (1) its’ function and connection to the big picture, (2) style, (3) iconic associations, (4) individual experiences of the people, (5) cultural allusions, (6) it’s connection to the social groups, (7) additional meanings acquired in specific contexts (Siefkes, 2016). 3.1 Case Study 1- Vesak 1969

Fig. 1. Vesak 1969 a

Fig. 2. Vesak 1969 b

Fig. 3. Vesak 1969 c

a) Physical appearance Size - 25.5 × 32.5 mm Perforation - 15 No. of stamps in the series - 3 Layout - Portrait, with no border Illustration technique - Hand drawn b) Visual representation Figure 1 represents the six fold Buddha rays, of the colors Blue, Yellow, Red, White, Orange & a combination of those colors, which are said to have emitted from the body of enlightened Buddha. Figure 2 and Fig. 3 represent the Bo tree (ficus religiosa) under which the Buddha is said to have enlightened. The illustration style, of the Bo tree and the seat, is inspired from temple paintings of Sri Lanka. The colors of the stamp series can be identified as Gold, Blue, Yellow, White, Red, Green, Vermillion, Deep Orange and Brown. The color scheme, especially the contrasting background colors of vermillion and deep orange are inspired from temple painting of Sri Lanka. The two stamps (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3) with a similar illustration but different face value of 4 cents and 35 cents, are differentiated from each other, by the use of two different color schemes. The textual

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and numerical information; the name of the country ‘Sri Lanka’, and the unit of currency ‘Cents’, as well as the title of the stamps ‘Wesak’, is given in Sinhala, Tamil and English, representing the three languages commonly used in the island. iii) Cultural perspective As in Buddhist literature, at that time of enlightenment, Buddha’s mind became so serene that six colored rays, blue, yellow, red, white, orange, and the combination of all these five colors emanated from his body, as in, Blue - from hair, Yellow - from skin, Red - from blood, White - from teeth and bones, Orange - from palms, soles and lips of Buddha. The same color scheme is applied for the international Buddhist flag, and other Buddhist decorations. To look at additional meanings that the symbolic illustration on the stamp (Fig. 1) may create within Sri Lankan Buddhist culture, is a specific Vesak decoration, the wheel of Buddha rays. It is a cardboard wheel painted or printed with stripes of the six colors, and mounted behind the head of the Buddha statue and rotated with the aid of a motor and batteries. Figure 2 and Fig. 3 represents the Bo tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment. It is said that Buddha sat under the same tree for seven days as an act of gratitude. Buddhists all over the world consider the Bo tree (ficus religiosa) as a sacred tree. They often offer scented water, flowers, and incense sticks as well as chant verses in hope of receiving positive energy from the Bo tree. iv) Analysis as an artefact The imagery on the above three stamps Fig. 1, Fig. 2, and Fig. 3 are illustrations of two sacred symbols of Buddhist culture; the Buddha, and the Bo tree. Symbols are considered an intrinsic part of a certain culture. According to Cassirer (1953), Cultures such as language, art and religion, are all created by people who use symbols, therefore people are symbolic animals as much as political ones (Cassier 1953). The relationship between symbols and cultures is embodied primarily in two aspects: symbols can create cultures, and symbols can spread cultures. Symbols are the carrier of cultures, while cultures are the content of symbols, which includes both material and conceptual factors. Also Symbols act as a bridge in the process of cultural communication. Under a certain cognitive environment, the transmitter encodes the material culture into its symbolic form to spread cultures to the receiver, and the receiver decodes it by using common symbolic cognition as the transmitter. Once successfully decoded, effective cultural communication can be realized; (Dongxiang 2018; Sigdel 2018) As such, the illustrations on the above stamps Fig. 1, Fig. 2, Fig. 3, is a purposeful materialization of Buddhist symbols of in the format of illustrations on postage stamps and as a result, they can be recognized as materialistic carriers of Buddhist culture.

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3.2 Case Study 2- Vesak 1987

Fig. 4. Vesak 1987 a

Fig. 5. Vesak 1987 b

Fig. 6. Vesak 1987 c

Fig. 7. Vesak 1987 d

a) Physical appearance Size - 40.6 × 29.8 mm Perforation - 12 No. of stamps in the series - 4 Layout - Landscape, with border Illustration technique - Hand drawn Material - 120 gsm stamp paper. PVA gum on the reverse side. b) Visual representation Figure 4, Fig. 5, Fig. 6, Fig. 7, depict four types of Vesak lanterns namely; Lotus lanterns, Octagonal lanterns, Star lanterns, and Gok lanterns. Generally the frame of the Vesak lanterns are made by tying thin bamboo stripes together, and tissue paper or oil paper is pasted over the frame. The Gok lanterns in Fig. 7 are made of Gok leaves (young

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coconut palm leaves). This material quality is visible in the illustrations. The lanterns in Fig. 4, Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 are given color gradients, where the lighter tones in the middle demonstrate a light source, while visualizing the translucent quality of the tissue paper. The Gok lanterns in Fig. 7 are illustrated with relatively less translucent properties and highlights are added as they were lit from outside. The background is almost black, signifying the dark surroundings and creating a high figure - ground contrast for the lanterns to stand out. The four stamps are illustrated in the same style and visual continuity is maintained within the series of stamps. The titles Lotus lanterns, Octagonal lanterns, Star lanterns, and Gok lanterns, respectively given in English, while the name of the country Sri Lanka, and the title ‘Vesak 1987’ is given in Sinhala, Tamil and English, representing the three languages commonly used in the island. The title ‘Vesak 1987’ is in decorative hand drawn letters. The denomination depicts only the numerical values, with a decimal point but no sign of the unit of currency. The four stamps Fig. 4, Fig. 5, Fig, 6, Fig. 7, are of values 50 cents, 75 cents, RS. 5 and RS. 10 respectively. iii) Cultural perspective Vesak is considered as a festival of light. Preparing and lighting Vesak lanterns are considered as an offering of light, similar to the lighting of oil lamps and decorative light bulbs (Philatelic Bureau 1987; Peiris 2022).The Vesak lanterns symbolize the only constant in life; the inconsistency or change. A Vesak lantern takes effort and time in the making but once displayed outside it can get destroyed by the rain, wind or by the candles lit inside it. It can only be expected to be in its full glory for a fraction of time. Buddhist see this as an opportunity for them to accept reality and change with moderation, and to practice resilience. iv) Analysis as an artefact Vesak lanterns are a material aspect of Vesak culture. The decorative Vesak lanterns became popular only after the revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, which occurred during the 1880s. In order to retain the enthusiasm of the Buddhists, and to draw attention of non-Buddhists, it was attempted to portray Vesak as a festive celebration, in addition to a time of spiritual reconciliation, hence the Vesak decorations and Vesak greeting cards came into the Vesak scene of Sri Lanka (Peiris 2022). Vesak lanterns come in many shapes and sizes, hand crafted, often as a collective output of the community, either at the level of family, friend groups or similar social organizations. Vesak lanterns also inscribe ideological meanings, such as the changing nature of life. Being an artistic creation (Cole and Parker 2011) made by humans for intentional communication and expression, and inherent of symbolic qualities (Allen 2017), a Vesak lantern can be identified as a material artefact of Vesak culture itself. As much as an artefact, a Vesak lantern is simultaneously conceptual and material. As such, the imagery of Vesak lanterns on the above stamps Fig. 4, Fig. 5, Fig. 6, can be recognized as a stylized visualization of a tangible artefact of material culture of Vesak, and thereby, an artefact of Sri Lankan Buddhist culture as well.

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3.3 Case Study 3- Vesak 2020

Fig. 8. Vesak 2020 a

Fig. 9. Vesak 2020 b

Fig. 10. Vesak 2020 c

a) Physical appearance Size - 30 × 40 mm Perforation - 13 No. of stamps in the series - 3 Layout - Portrait, with border Material - 120 gsm stamp paper. PVA gum on the reverse side b) Visual representation Figure 8 is titled ‘Listening to Dhamma preaching for mental wellbeing’, represents a Buddhist monk preaching to two men and a woman. The monk is clad in a saffron robe which is a symbolic garment of Buddhist monks worldwide. The listeners are clad in white garments, symbolic of the modest clothing that Buddhists would wear when engaging in religious activities. The monk is sitting on a stool and the listeners sitting on the ground attentively. Figure 9 titled as ‘Preparation of medicine’, depicts two Buddhist monks and a villager preparing a medicinal potion. The monks are clad in saffron robes, the symbolic garment of Buddhist priests and the other person in clothes of a villager. The background depicts a forest or a woodland area with greenery, signifying a forest monastery. Figure 10 titled as ‘Nursing the sick’ consists of a hand drawn illustration of a monk, a sick person and another person assisting them. The sick person is resting on the bed, and the monk is holding a glass for him. The person in the background is fetching some sort of vessel. The titles of each stamp is given in English in uppercase letters, and Other than the title, a circular emblem with the text ‘Vesak 2564’ is shown, commemorating the 2564th year since the enlightenment of Buddha. The name of the country ‘Sri Lanka’ is given

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in three languages Sinhala, Tamil and English, the three languages commonly used in the island. The denomination depicts only the numerical values, with a decimal point but no sign of the unit of currency. The three stamps Fig. 8, Fig. 9, Fig. 10, are of values RS. 10, RS. 15, RS. 45 respectively. The three stamps relate to each other and can be read as three fragments of the same narrative. They are illustrated in the same style and visual consistency in colors, layout, proportion etc. is maintained. The rule of third has been followed to place the significant elements like the preaching monk, the boiling pot of medicine, and the sick person, within the compositions. iii) Cultural perspective The official theme for the 2020 State Vesak festival is a Pali quotation from Buddhist teachings, which is “Arogya parama labha - Santhutti Paramang danang” and translates to, ‘Health is the greatest gift - Contentment is the greatest wealth’ (Philatelic Bureau 2020) Following this, three incidents from a Buddhist monk’s life where he contributes to promote good health, are depicted on the three stamps namely Listening to Dhamma, Preparation of Medicine and Nursing the sick. As represented in Fig. 8, Buddhist philosophy values mental health above all. Buddhism rather not rely on the belief or faith of the followers but encourages frequent listening to Dhamma, logically thinking and understanding. Buddhist teachings provide direction not only for the ascetics who are in search of reality, but to commoners who live a domestic and social life. Meeting the chief monk of the temple and discussing matters, seeking advice and learning to look at things in higher perspective is encouraged. As represented in Fig. 9, it is recorded that many Buddhist monks practiced indigenous medicine, and treated patients free of charge. The indigenous medicine of Sri Lanka involves potions made by boiling parts and sap of various plants, and requires a great effort and time in preparation and treatment. A monk working as hard alongside a villager is illustrated to represent the humbled mindset and the mutual helpfulness of Buddhists. As represented in Fig. 10 Buddhist monks looking after the sick are always encouraged. According to Buddha’s words, looking after sick people is as meritorious as looking after the Buddha. iv) Analysis as an artefact The visual narrations on Fig. 8, Fig. 9, Fig. 10, align with the core values of Buddhist culture, such as compassion and being of service to humankind. As pointed out by Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) a culture system constitutes the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts. Culture systems could be considered as products of action as well as conditioning elements of further action. Within a culture system, artefacts are the carriers involved in preserving and transmitting the kinds of social inheritance such as ideas, beliefs, norms, conventions, and the like. (Cole and Parker 2011) In this case, the illustrations of Fig. 8, Fig. 9, and Fig. 10 is purposeful pictorial depiction, and materialization of the core values of Buddhism, on to postage stamps, in the context of Sri Lanka. The visual content is planned with the intention of propagating the virtues and good values among the Buddhist community, as much as

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an artefact has been modified into goal-directed human thought and action (Cole and Parker 2011), allowing us to identify them as artefacts of Sri Lankan Buddhist culture.

4 Discussion 4.1 Findings The visual content on Vesak stamps demonstrate elements of Buddhist culture such as symbols (E.g. Buddha rays, Bo tree), language (E.g. Sinhala, Tamil and English), norms (E.g. offering high seat for the priest), values (E.g. mutual helpfulness, caring for the needy) and artefacts (E.g. clothing, traditional motifs). The sample of stamps depicted tangible material artefacts (E.g. Lotus lanterns, Star lanterns) as well as intangible conceptual artefacts (E.g. Dhamma or the teachings of Buddha, mental wellbeing, indigenous medicine). Vesak stamps portray both materialistic and ideological aspects of the Vesak culture, such as the display of lanterns, and listening to Dhamma preaching at the temple respectively. Generally a series of three or four Stamps is issued and maintaining visual consistency and harmony throughout the series, as well as visual storytelling within the series is attempted. Vesak stamps are planned to act as carriers of ideological meanings and values in Buddhism, to the audiences. In conclusion, it seems fair to interpret a postage stamp as an artefact that materializes several other material and conceptual artefacts. Produced by a community of people for intentional communication or expression, and inherent of symbolic qualities; the imagery, the typography as well as the subjects of imagery on a postage stamp could be identified as artefacts themselves. In other words, postage stamps are a source of information composed of several layers condensed into a small space. The information in each layer is intrinsic to several subcultures, such as a Vesak stamp is concurrently a piece of evidence of the Vesak culture, Sri Lankan culture, stamp culture, material culture, global visual culture, and human culture. The visual content on postage stamps transfer or at least intended to transfer, ideological messages to audiences. The ways that audiences perceive and understand such messages, are yet to be explored through further research.

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Designing Physical and Virtual Walkshop Methods for Speculative Internet of Things Research Nuri Kwon1(B) , Naomi Jacobs1 , Louise Mullagh1 , Marianna Cavada1 , Milan Markovic2 , Benjamin Wainwright3 , Kirsty Chekansky4 , and Rachel Cooper1 1 Imagination Lancaster, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

[email protected]

2 School of Natural and Computing Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK 3 Health Innovation Campus, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK 4 Lancaster City Council, Lancaster, UK

Abstract. This paper describes a novel method combining speculative design with walking workshops to reveal the ethical and social challenges of connected technology in public spaces for policymaking. In the digitally hyper-connected society, digital technologies such as sensors, the Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial intelligence (AI) enable people, and ordinary objects, to be connected in almost every place. This project tested different methods such as a walking method called walkshop and digital recreation of the physical environment to allow policymakers to explore a future connected place. We introduce a comparative analysis to show the opportunities and challenges of both physical and digital methods. The findings show the value of physical and virtual walkshops to engage communities and place managers on building a connected place in a participatory manner. Keywords: Speculative design · Walkshops · Connected places

1 Introduction Since the breakthroughs in digital technology in the 1950s (WEF 2016), we now live in a digitally hyper-connected society, where the technology enables people and even ordinary objects to be connected in almost every place. It includes smartphones, sensors, Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, and Artificial intelligence (AI). As a result, the world is said to have become more digital and ‘smart’, which has been termed the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Schwab 2017). The widely known concept of the connected place (also known as a smart city) is that deployed sensors around a physical place gather and transmit the data in real-time and analyse and use it for decision making (NCSC 2021). Meanwhile, policy is a vital part of this socio-technical transition because it is influencing the diffusion process of technology (Stoneman and Diederen 1994). However, while research has explored and continues to explore how the life of a city and the activity of those who inhabit them will be changed, less research explores the methods that might © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 392–405, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_34

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be used to examine these changes and support policymaking. This paper describes the ways in which design research can contribute to investigating the transition of society, culture, and environment driven by technology before these changes are established and designing research more effectively considering physical and digital contexts. The main contribution of this research is to explore speculative design in the future of connected public space and examine the opportunities and challenges of combined methods for the future use of physical and digital placemaking. The motivation presented in this paper is to explore potential areas in policymaking through speculative design and design fiction to reveal the ethical and social challenges of the information society and connected technology in public spaces. Ordinary yet fictional objects situated in place can turn into provocations for people to respond to a series of questions, such as what technology is, how it works, and who will be responsible for deploying devices and managing the devices and data. The process of questioning the issues will add to knowledge about the existence and use of such digitally connected systems. The methodological perspective of this project uses mixed methods based on design fiction and speculative design. First, we tested walking methods combined with speculative design to give participants a place-based experience of a future connected place. Later, we built an approximate virtual city centre in a digital platform, Gather Town, to carry out a virtual walk with participants in the distance. The aim of building the virtual city was to recreate the experience of the physical space, engaging a broader audience to overcome Covid-19 related travel restrictions. The literature review explores IoT sensors and connected places, speculative design methods and current practices in digital placemaking. It then addresses explicitly our approach and methods towards walking workshops (or walkshop, a combined method between a workshop and physical walking) in physical and virtual worlds and discusses future use. Next, we offer an overview of the methodological perspectives of two walkshops, the process of designing them and the materials to support them. The findings from the walkshops are then described by reflecting on discussions of the participants. Finally, we conclude with insights from the findings, limitations of the research, and recommendations for further research.

2 Background The meaning of a ‘place’ has broadened its scope from physical and geographic to digital and hybrid space (Kluitenberg 2006). A digital transformation, which is largely invisible, has permeated pre-existing physical and built environments, creating a ‘connected place’ (Greenfield 2017). As people get more digitally connected, the boundary between the digital and physical world becomes blurred (Schwab 2017). The general assumption of the connected place is to help place managers to distribute the civic resources and increase operational efficiency, based on rich data collected from sensing infrastructures around the place (Mohanty et al. 2016). Various data types can be collected, such as traffic flows, weather conditions, parking space occupancy, and human activities in public spaces (Hviid Trier and Jenkins 2020). Furthermore, the cyber-physical system is widely adopted in industrial and public sectors, such as digital shadow and digital twins. These systems can simulate different scenarios almost in real-time in the digital world before

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any modifications are applied in the real world based on the data collected from the physical world (BEIS 2022). The vision of the connected place and the cyber-physical system is to improve the quality of life for people in the place via connected technology (NCSC 2021). However, this vision has been criticized for technology-led and top-down approaches, and it is still unclear how the data can benefit local people (Tomitsch 2016). Thus, it is vital to find ways to create an approach that redistributes power between governments and citizens. In particular, the deployment of IoT sensors in public spaces is controversial, provoking challenges across diverse issues, such as lack of public awareness, lack of understanding or consent, suspicion, mistrust, vandalism, malfunctioning and poor user experience (Mikusz et al. 2018). The possible scenarios of the technology implementations should be examined in association with those they impact, including experts and policymakers before they are deployed on a large scale and become too embedded to be significantly changed. 2.1 Speculative Design and Design Fictions In the late 1950s, the emergence of speculative design began with critical designers questioning and criticizing the mainstream design, industrial design, and the dark side of technology (Malpass 2017). Speculative design is an explorative and experimental approach that does not support conventional commercial design work (Sanders and Stappers 2014). Design fiction is a specific type of speculative design method used to create tangible objects representing speculation. It is also seen as an emerging tool to involve people and provoke questions about the future of technologies and implementation (Coulton et al. 2017; Galloway and Caudwell 2018). Sterling (2005) essentially considers design fiction a kind of science fiction that contains science backgrounds and objects merging with design principles and practices. For Dunne and Raby (2013), design fiction attempts to tackle technology’s cultural, social, and ethical impact but with fewer intentions to provoke debates and promote changes in situations (Galloway and Caudwell 2018). Bleecker (2009) describes design fiction’s distinctive characteristic as making more sense than science fiction by thinking of ‘near’ futures. Blythe (2014) describes design fiction as the assemblage of activities to engage with the imagination of possible futures. It integrates with storytelling, technology, and design, allowing people to imagine how the world will be in the future and consider how making and forming things enables people to think about what is possible and what should be possible. Design fiction is a collage of fact and fiction, science fact and science fiction where ‘ambiguity’ and ‘imaginary abstracts’ have played a significant role in enabling fictional objects to look like everyday designed objects (Lindley and Coulton 2016). The current applications of design fiction have become more comprehensive, from provoking discussions around technologies to involving the public in imagining the futures of policy implications (Blythe 2014; Tsekleves et al. 2017). The broad uses of design fiction indicate the potential for studying future connected places and related policies.

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2.2 Physical and Digital Sensemaking of Place In this work, we consider speculative objects situated in places to capture in-depth insights from people about those places. A place includes tangible attributes, such as the physical location and setting, and intangible attributes, such as human actives and concepts (Canter 1977). In addition, place concepts indicate cognitive elements that enable people to build a long-term relationship with a place, such as meaning and identity (Ahmed and Zeile 2020). To understand and reinforce intangible aspects, walking has emerged as a practice that engages and interrogates a range of technological assemblages within a place. Workshops on the move (‘walkshops’ as named in this research) are understood as a “learning experience that’s equal parts urban walking tour, group discussion, and spontaneous exploration” (Greenfield and Kim 2011). The walkshops are an experiential mode of interrogating various issues relating to technologies and their impacts on people and places. Digital tools and platforms in place contexts form the concept of digital placemaking, increasing a sense of place through digital media. The growth of advanced computational interfaces and material technologies have merged the area between physical and virtual interfaces. Form-making activities with digital technologies have become more interactive and functional (Jung and Stolterman 2012). Based on human-computer interaction (HCI), digital placemaking is a new, playful way of interaction, enabling people to learn about the history and understand the future of a place (Pang et al. 2020). Furthermore, through experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic, people are re-thinking the meaning of public and domestic ‘places’ with the dramatic change in physical mobility with lockdown and quarantine measures. The resections on movement or social gatherings have also led to the shift online and increasing use of digital videotelephony platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams (Hardley and Richardson 2020). However, digital interventions are still challenging in place contexts as digital platforms and stories provide limited spatial experiences. People are not generally familiar with digital platforms in the place context. Therefore, there is a danger that these interventions might misrepresent the dynamic of the public space. Digital divides are a challenge for digital placemaking due to generation gaps and cultural divides (Stokes et al. 2021). The endless combination of digital and physical environments has raised about questions what ‘place’ is and how people can experience the physical place with digital platforms (Halegoua and Polson 2021).

3 Methodological Perspectives: Walkshop and Online Walkshop Previous research (Jacobs et al. 2022) used design fiction methods to create speculative near-future public space IoT deployments explicitly tailored to a local area. These were used in participatory work where residents and service providers can discuss practical considerations relevant to the individuals’ experiences. For example, one set of design fiction objects included a series of mock-ups of local newspaper coverage of a smart bin installation, which had positive and negative reactions commenting on improved efficiencies and potential privacy violations. To develop these fictions, the devices and associated systems portrayed went through an entire design process based on current

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and proposed technologies and similar deployments in other locales to create a setting to link fiction to everyday life. In work reported here, we investigate how such methods, such as design fiction and walkshop, can be used to speculate future connected places specifically to engage policymakers and how digital artefacts and interactions can assist people in thinking about physical spaces. The essential contribution is combining the speculative design approach with the walkshop methods and the innovative use of a virtual walkshop. The two walkshops addressed IoT infrastructure’s ethical and cyber security challenges in public realms. The workshops aimed to gather different stakeholders’ experiential knowledge and expertise by using a mixture of location-based materials, such as a field guide, with speculative design fiction objects. Below we describe the process of developing and running these two events, the first of which was held as an in-person, physical event. 3.1 Speculative Design and Design Fictions The first walkshop was conducted in person with city council officers. The starting point of the design process was to define what IoT, and sensors already exist in Lancaster and where they are located. Existing sensors were identified through prior discussions with council officers. However, this proved challenging since there is no comprehensive list of deployments. These existing deployments and cases were supplemented with several fictional scenarios represented by design fictions to create eight instances of IoT in the city, as listed in Table 1. The process of selecting public places in Lancaster began with observing mundane objects and routines around the public places and matching them with the fictions. For instance, lamp posts and bins in a square turned into smart lighting and smart bins. We also considered additional speculative aspects to allow us to explore challenging but interesting questions, such as an AI monitoring system in a bus station. Sites were selected in the city centre regarding their proximity for carrying out the walk within a two-hour session. For example, river sensors that check water levels were initially considered but were excluded as they were distanced from the city centre. As a result, eight stops were chosen, including four public spaces in the city centre. These IoT deployments have varying levels of transparency. Some of the objects (both real and fictional) display signage that conveys some information about them to passers-by. In some of these signs, the design fiction was supplemented by using different visual typography and graphics, representing various signages around the city designed and placed by diverse stakeholders, such as traffic signs, public advertisements, warnings, etc., as well as speculative iconography developed by Lindley et al. (Lindley et al. 2020) (Fig. 1). The iconography was developed to speculate on the legibility of AI systems, covering the concepts of AI processing location, learning scope, data provenance, training data type, and intrinsic work for AI operators (Lindley et al. 2020).

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Table 1. List of walk stops and types of devices Stop

Type of device

Fiction or real

1

Smart Bin

Fictional (signage)

2

Air quality monitor

Real (no signage)

3

Parking Meter

Fictional (signage)

4

Bollard

Fictional (no signage)

5

Bus Station

Fictional (signage)

6

Coffee shop

Real (signage)

7

AI Monitoring

Fictional (signage)

8

Smart Light

Fictional (no signage)

Fig. 1. Icons for AI legibility (left) and an example of design fiction signages (right) adapted from Lindley et al. (2020)

The final stop on the walk was not an individual design fiction object but a highlighted area that offered the participants the opportunity to speculate on what other uses of IoT may be likely in this space. Design of the Walkshop Materials: Signs, Field Guide and a Map The materials were designed to encourage interaction and engagement with and between the participants (Fig. 2). We drew upon a range of inspiration regarding the physical capture of research data during the walkshop. The physical data capture tool was designed in the form of a field guide. The field guide lists each site alongside six prompt questions: What is it, and how does it work? What data does it collect and why? What are the potential benefits? What are the potential risks? Are there any security challenges? And are there any ethical challenges? Stickers were printed with descriptions of the objects. After answering the initial questions about the object’s purpose, the participants were provided with the correct sticker at each location. The purposes of the stickers include revealing whether an object

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Fig. 2. Workshop materials: a field guide, stickers and a map

is real or fictional and providing more information about design fictions to the participants, what and how they worked. Furthermore, they allow the participants to speculate what the object is and how it works, what data it collects, and why and provide more informed consideration with the supplemental information not revealed by the in-situ object. In addition, to guide the participants safely, a tourist map of Lancaster centre was revised and provided, mapping the nine locations and providing a route. 3.2 Virtual Walkshop: Recreation of Physical Experience in Online Space The virtual walkshop was planned to reach experts on IoT and adapt to travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was an opportunity as well as a challenge in designing research to recruit participants in the distance and conduct a ‘walking’ workshop. We built virtual 2D spaces on the Gather platform based on the tourist map of Lancaster city centre (Fig. 3). Gather is an online conferencing platform that allows users to select an avatar and video chat by proximity between these avatars. In addition, the users can virtually walk around the space to join and leave the conversation with others using direction keys (Jacobs and Lindley 2021). The challenge of this experimental workshop was to recreate the experience of being in physical spaces on a digital platform. This function of Gather enabled us to partially replicate the experience of the walkshop. In the Gather space, photographs of some public spaces were uploaded to form part of the Gather environment and representations of other parts of the route. Since it was impossible to re-create the whole city photo-realistically, the representation of the sites in Gather did not accurately portray all real sites in the city on the route. This limitation leads to abstraction on the 2D map and provides selective experiences of the places. To supplement the absence of spatial experience, the nine stops were video recorded in 360 degrees showing the actual or design fiction objects and any associated signage.

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They were embedded in the Gather space. A further measure to enhance the physical interactions was the provision of physical materials via post to the participants, who were sent a printed field guide, map, and stickers. Participants were asked to send the field guides back post after the workshop. An online version of the field guide was additionally sent as a backup in case delivery of the materials did not arrive on time for the virtual walking workshop.

Fig. 3. Screenshot of Gather Town

4 Comparative Analysis of Walkshop Facilitations The two different platforms used (physical and virtual) required two different approaches to facilitation (Table 2). During the in-person walkshop, a facilitator first asked the participants to walk to a site and observe a design fiction object in a public space. The first walkshop was conducted with city council officers who are experts in integrated approaches to policy and public inquiries. The participants were asked to respond to the prompt questions in the field guide. The facilitator also opened a discussion space to share what they think regarding their own speculations and information they have already known. After the discussion, a research team member handed a sticker out, and the participants were asked to stick it on their field guides. With the information on the stickers, they were encouraged to discuss the benefits, risks and security and ethical challenges. We found that the online workshop added more complexity to the facilitation. For example, while the facilitator guided the participants through each stop on Gather, the facilitator pointed out the right moment to watch the videos and reveal the stickers. With the facilitator’s instruction, the participants had to move their avatar close to a video point and watch it by themselves by pressing a play button. We also found more modes of interaction in the online walk, such as chats, verbal discussions, and keeping notes on the field guide.

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Format

In person

Online

Participants

• Council officers

• Cyber security experts

Materials

• • • •

• Printed map (sent via post) • Printed stickers (sent via post) • Printed field guide and digital field guide (sent via post) • Embedded 360° videos and pictures of the places

Locations

• City centre

• Gather Town based on the map of Lancaster city centre

Interaction & facilitation points

• Walking with the facilitator • Sharing the thoughts by speaking • Filling up the guides

• Virtually walking with the facilitator • Sharing thoughts by speaking • Texting in the chat • Filling up the guides

Participants

• Council officers

• Cyber security experts

Printed map Printed stickers Field guide Signs designed with different visual languages, and icons

The initial settings of both walkshops seem similar in that they use the walking method (even though online ‘walking’), the same design fictions, presenting the same stops and facilitation processes. For the online walkshop, there were additional considerations to the recreation of the digital space and delivery of tangible materials, such as a printed map, field guide and stickers, via post. However, facilitation between in-person and online was still different due to methods of communication and the nature of the environment. In the in-person walkshop, the facilitator had to take into consideration external factors in the public spaces, such as speaking loudly and walking through a crowd. On the other hand, even though there were no noise and crowds in the online space, online participants had to deal with a larger number of communication channels such as using a chat window and turning on the video and microphone.

5 Discussion 5.1 Combining the Speculative Design Method with the Walking Method The combination of speculative design objects and physical walks is a novel approach in both technology and place contexts. While speculative design methods and practices can add a critical perspective of technology to address social and political issues (Lukens and DiSalvo 2011), the walking method can offer a place-based experience of the future connected place and relevant digital technologies. This approach can open the space for discussion about the benefits, risks, and challenges of connected public places even with participants who might not have a deep understanding of IoT (Mullagh et al. 2022). In addition, by combining the fictional objects in actual places to trigger participants’ imagination with actual objects we could provide an immersive environment to think about objects that have yet to exist.

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The process of the place-based experience can be categorized into three stages: observation, speculation, and discussion. First, observation allows people to look at an object in the actual place and walk around the place itself. This stage bridges a gap between fiction and the near future. The participants often asked us if the objects were real or already deployed due to the mix of fictions and everyday contexts. Throughout this process, we found it useful to consider current issues being faced by the public sector. For instance, in the walkshops with the council officers, it was challenging to identify what deployments were being used in public spaces because there is no centralised system to keep the records or control them. One of the participants also revealed that even though sensor bins that can check the fill level of the trash are already used in the public domain, few people knew about existing sensors. In the second stage, speculation, walkers considered how these deployments work associated with their understanding of the technology. The stickers given, as an intervention, offered additional information and new insights to speculate on, such as external partners, systems, and relevant activities. Lastly, during the discussion, the participants were able to articulate their thoughts about potential benefits, risks, and challenges. This last stage provides a mutual learning space to develop a more in-depth understanding of the technology and issues. Throughout discussions, the walkers mentioned that they could understand possible scenarios related to IoT sensors and services and see the landscapes of digital infrastructures and systems in public spaces. A physical walkshop has clear benefits of exposing people to contexts of place and various sensorial activities, which may facilitate social connections and potentially affect place attachment (Lewicka 2011). However, it also poses challenges in terms of facilitation. It was observed that some participants were physically tired after two hours of walking and standing so they had less discussion than at the beginning of the walkshop (the walkshop took place during the summer on a hot day). While the walk was on flat ground and thus wheelchair accessible, this method may not be suitable for those with physical disabilities which impair general mobility. The ambient noise, crowd dynamics, and traffic also made it challenging for the participants to maintain their concentration and may have prevented them from being fully engaged in the discussions of the walkshop. Lastly, we found that the interaction with tools could be redesigned and supplemented further in terms of the practical aspect of combined methods. For instance, even though the field guide presents prompt questions comprehensively, there were few written responses on the field guide. We observed that some participants struggled to write while walking or standing in the public spaces. 5.2 Using Digital Space to Explore Physical Space Although the use of digital platforms to explore physical places is still experimental, digital spaces have been recognized as collaborative creation spaces in placemaking (Foth 2017). Recreation of spatial places provided a remote ‘walking’ experience around the virtual city centre. This experience enabled the participants to interact and feel the city indirectly without the distractions of the physical environment. The digital space also provides controlled but limited experiences of places by an abstract representation of the place.

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To some extent, it was possible to replicate the physical and unique elements of place in the virtual space, but the digital city centre is not accurate. Because of the limitations in building a digital space on a 2D surface, the digital space looks more like a game space than panorama views of the real world, as found on platforms such as Google Street view. Most of the participants from the online walkshop had never visited the city. Interestingly, the participants of the second walkshop appeared more focused on the place when connecting speculative ideas. For instance, some participants pointed out that one of the currently deployed sensors does not harmonise with the public space’s appearance, a city’s historic site. By watching the short videos providing limited but less distracting contexts, the participants paid close attention to what was happening in the places. A further example of this is the video of the smart light design fiction, which shows a bank near the lamppost. Some participants speculated on possible cyberattack scenarios in the bank through the smart lighting system. This observation highlights how spatial experience can be delivered and expressed on an online platform. Abstract representation in the digital space can maintain the ‘ambiguity’ of design fiction. This ambiguity in digital space becomes an opportunity to imagine the city without the constraints given by the meanings attached to the current physical environment. The abstract digital place can push the boundary of thinking about what the place currently looks like and what the place can be. The platform also offers ‘playful’ experiences for people with game features such as selecting an avatar and moving with direction keys. This approach can be advantageous as a research method because data can be collected through chats, conversations and activities without the crowds and noise in the public spaces. Despite these benefits, we also found some challenges with the virtual walkshop. First, it seemed more demanding for participants in terms of communication. Several channels were open to communicate via audio, chat, and even handwriting in the field guide. The openness of these channels can misdirect participants or distract them from the conversation. Second, participants of the digital walkshop most likely did not experience Table 3. Opportunities and challenges of in-person and online walkshops In-person walkshop Opportunities • Building understanding of place • Sensorial activities of the place

Challenges

Online walkshop • Controlled environment with less distraction • Easy to draw attention • Easy to collect data • Abstract representation of physical place provides space for imagination • Creative and playful activities

• Physical tiredness of participants • Limited experiences of place • Difficulty in facilitation in the public • Confusing interactions including spaces chats, verbal communications, and writing on a physical field guide • Interaction with physical tools • Involving people with constrained internet connectivity

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the same place attachment as the participants of the physical walkshop. Thus, participants of the digital walkshop do not have the opportunity to experience the actual city centre or know what is happening there in real time. Third, there are infrastructural limitations such as access to the internet and digital literacy that segment the participation of certain groups. For instance, this method would exclude people with no access to the internet or sufficient digital literacy and may be challenging for those with visual impairments (Table 3).

6 Conclusion This paper describes research that applied experimental approaches and design methods to unveil the benefits, risks and challenges of sensors, Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, and Artificial intelligence (AI) deployed in public spaces. This study combined a walking method with speculative design and then recreated a place-based experience in the digital space for wider audiences. One of the limitations of this study, as a short research project, was the number of participants. Two groups of stakeholders, council officers and data security experts, were involved. It was limited by being a short pilot study, and future work is planned to involve a wider range of participants and stakeholders including the public. Despite this limitation, the walkshops and design fiction results seem promising for imagining future public spaces and bringing insights and considerations around connected places. It indicates there are still diverse stakeholders who can bring other understanding and perspectives for future policymaking. The combined approach reflects the potential use of the walking method and speculative design in future place research. We observed that the in-person walkshop can add tangible experiences of a future connected place presenting ordinary yet fictional objects. These situated objects enabled the participants to become immersed in design fiction, which helps them to imagine and observe the objects, the built environment, the people, and the content of the place. However, the short pilot study was time-limited, so further research is needed to investigate how to provide better interactive tools to collect the insights of people and engage with a comprehensive range of stakeholders, including the public. The opportunities and challenges of both walkshops imply insights into the future use of digital platforms in building a connected place. To build a better future place, balancing the benefits of physical and digital methods will be beneficial to support community and place managers. Further research is needed to explore possible hybrid approaches that combine digital platforms with physical contexts and activities, as the approaches might bring different but diverse results. It should also be examined how abstraction in digital places can influence people to think about the actual place and speculate about the future and where the methods can be used to explore potential policy areas and engage different groups of people to co-create better places.

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A Look into Fashion Shows During and After the Covid-19 Pandemic: Are Digital Fashion Shows Here to Stay? Clarissa de Carvalho Godim

and Joana Cunha(B)

2C2T - Centre for Textile Science and Technology, University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal [email protected]

Abstract. The Covid-19 pandemic effects spread-out over all areas, and the fashion system was no exception. Within this system, we turn our attention towards the significant changes fashion shows have experienced to adapt to the situation, greatly due to their nature of live audience events. In this process of adaptation fashion shows embraced the digital world, at first with mere live broadcasts but as the pandemic situation evolved so did fashion shows evolve into new digital approaches. This paper presents an overview of the subject by examining how fashion shows took place during the different moments of the pandemic. We present our analysis in two acts: the initial act refers to the first year of the pandemic, when there were still no vaccines and the world experienced more and longer periods of lockdown; and the second act is the “post-vaccination phase”, a period which allowed greater flexibility in fashion events due to less rigid sanitary measures. At the finale we discuss the foreseeable future of fashion shows, based on the analysis of this two years and on how different global brands look at the future regarding this subject. Keywords: Fashion shows · Digital fashion communication · Covid-19

1 The Effects of the Pandemic in the Global Fashion System The Covid-19 pandemic has shown a devastating potential in the socio-economic scenario, and, as a result, fashion, one of the largest and most important sectors of the economy and world production industry, has also been greatly affected. Barua [1] points out that, in general, regarding the fashion sector, the first year of the pandemic was the worst due to the unexpected macroeconomic shock that hit major powers such as the United States, China and Europe in all areas of supply and demand. Namely the supply chain, investment, pricing, stability, risk control and growth, possibilities for inter-company cooperation, etc. The chain effect generated ended up affecting all areas in the fashion market [2]. Many of these socioeconomic impacts were visible in the short term, by the changes that took place almost immediately. Fashion is simultaneously an influencing force in society and a reflection of the society itself [3], and this reflection could be seen for example in the way fashion © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 406–414, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_35

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magazines around the world had the aesthetics of their covers and editorials completely revamped as a reflection of the pandemic. Fashion magazines, such as Marie Claire Mexico or Vogue Portugal, appeared on newsstands in April/May 2020 with covers and editorials that reflected the global situation. In the case of Marie Claire Mexico, the cover of the May issue portrayed a health professional dressed in a protective suit and with her face marked by the hours of wearing the protective mask, with the cover theme “The real influencers – Resilience has the face of a woman”1 . In the April issue of Vogue Portugal, the cover photo showed a man and a woman kissing wearing protective masks, with the theme “Freedom on hold - Covid-19, Fear will not stop us”2 . However, one of the areas of fashion that underwent most changes and innovations was, without a doubt, the fashion shows due to their nature of live audience events, bringing together people to celebrate fashion and discover its novelties and trends. Undoubtedly, all these changes and events were side effects of the main impacts on the fashion economic sector, which, according to Badaró and Brasil [4] and to The Business of Fashion reports [2], began, in a very objective way, with the cancellation of orders, changes in the launch market, changing consumer demands and strengthening digital culture. Gomes [5] says that the world was able to witness the “domino effect”, where significant impacts took place in fashion globally. The lock down periods and the social distancing measures altered completely consumer behavior and media consumption habits, and digital channels became of paramount importance [6]. Also, regarding fashion trends there were changes, as trends traditionally emerge from fashion shows and events that take place in the world’s fashion capitals during the main fashion weeks. Without the presence of the public these events were deprived of a significant part of their influence. To better understand the different moments of the pandemic regarding the fashion communication through the fashion shows, it is interesting to separate them into two phases or acts: the initial act refers to the first year of the pandemic, when there were still no vaccines and the world experienced more and longer periods of lockdown; the second act is the “post-vaccination phase”, which allowed greater flexibility in fashion events due to less rigid sanitary measures.

2 Act 1 – Fashion Shows in the First year of the Pandemic In the early months of 2020, the calendar of the major Fashion Weeks was not changed, rather it was adapted to other possible formats according to the sanitary restrictions of each country. The first signs of problems with the traditional formats appeared during the Milan and Shanghai fashion weeks, where the shows took place without an audience and were broadcasted over the internet. However, there were some cases where fashion shows were canceled such as the São Paulo Fashion Week. Lifestyle and behavior trends that were already shy in small niches or social groups, were anticipated by the pandemic – which has been seen as a kind of catalytic factor that only accelerated events in some situations, namely regarding fashion [6–8]. Other 1 Original cover text: “The real influencers – La resiliência tiene cara de mujer”, available at:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_iwKoil1Ek/. 2 See: https://www.vogue.pt/editorial-freedom-on-hold-de-abril-2020.

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examples are the normalization of the home office, the expansion of distance learning, the greater appreciation of living with nature and the changes in the formats of fashion shows, in addition to the greater use of the internet and digital media for communication between brands and consumer. Giorgio Armani was the first designer to rethink the structure of his brand’s shows after the pandemic alerts. The designer asked his guests not to attend the February show of the Milan Fashion Week and invited them to watch the live broadcast via digital platforms [9]. One of the rare physical events during the first year of the pandemic, the year 2020, was the Jacquemus brand’s Spring/Summer 21 show, where 100 guests witnessed the L’Amour collection show in the middle of a playful cinematographic catwalk full of lyricism, in a wheat field in the Vexin Regional Natural Park, northwest of Paris, France [10]. The event had a strong media repercussion, both for the boldness and beauty of the chosen location, as for the social context in which the world was at that moment where holding any event with agglomeration of people was completely contrary to the guidelines of medical, scientific, and governmental circles, for the world population. The London Fashion Week, which took place in September 2020, had fewer shows, increased care, almost empty audiences for in-person presentations and distancing measures in all rooms. The fashion weeks in Paris, Milan, and New York were also adapted during this period [10]. The new social habits demanded by the moment, as the use of face protection masks, were brought to the physical and digital catwalks, either as fashion concept items or just for composing the fashion look. While in Europe, in mid-September, the world witnessed the daring parade of Jacquemus in French wheat fields, in Brazil, with a more aggravated pandemic situation, the scenario was different. The most important fashion week in the country, São Paulo Fashion Week (SPFW), which was supposed to take place in November 2020 and would be the 25th anniversary edition of the event, ended up happening entirely digitally, thus postponing the celebrations to the following year [11]. The first edition of SPFW digital, featured a digital platform of the event with interventions and interactions in the urban space through art and technology, such as posters and QR codes spread across the city of São Paulo, in addition to image projections and audiovisual installations. At the beginning of the pandemic, adapting the fashion shows to the online format emerged as the most viable option for these events to take place, as this was the most straightforward format that allowed the communication of fashion collections in compliance with WHO3 sanitary measures. Hence, the 100% digital and online broadcast of the fashion shows allowed more people to have access to these events. We witnessed the “deterritorialization” of the catwalk, brands, designers, and collections. The new normality imposed by Covid-19, with its restrictions and prohibitions, rose different reactions among brands and fashion show producers. There were those who felt strange and uncomfortable with online formats, those who fully embraced it and even intending to adopt it in the future, and those who saw the opportunity just as another way of transmitting the physical event (i.e., a kind of “mixed format”, blending the face-to-face with the digital). 3 WHO – World Health Organization.

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Miuccia Prada, the Italian who runs Prada and Miu – in an interview that took place after her first 100% online/digital show, said “It is my first show with Raf Simons and instead of being here with all of our friends in the industry, and all of our community, we are alone. But in fact, what is really exciting is that we are not alone at all. Now we are with so many more people. That is new at least for me.” [12]. As to the importance of technology the designer claimed that prior to the confinement period she tended to ignore it, but during the confinement she realized the importance technology has in our lives [12].

3 Act 2 – Fashion Shows in the Post-vaccine World With the advent of vaccines being applied across the world, social restrictions underwent new changes, and the world is still adapting to this. There are still many uncertainties but every day restrictions are decreasing, and the population seems to be more confident. Consequently, in this post-vaccine period there was, in a general way, a willingness of the fashion market to return to in-person fashion shows with catwalks, audiences and all the spectacle involved. Several in-person fashion shows started to take place in mid 2021, but the first and most impactful of this return took place in one of the most important fashion capitals: Paris. Brands, professionals, and public seemed to miss being able to witness these events – which also has to do with psycho-social factors, since it was such a long period of social isolation and questioning. The Autumn/Winter 21/22 shows of the Paris Haute Couture Week by French brands Chanel and Dior were remarkable for bringing audiences back. However, some differences between these two fashion shows reflect, precisely, the way each of the brands sees the importance of the fashion show in a traditional format. The media reported these shows with some sensationalism, which portrays the importance of the fashion show: “Catwalk is back: Live shows return to Paris Fashion Week”4 ; “Paris Fashion Week roars back to life after pandemic disruption”5 . At this event, which took place in July 2021, Chanel decided to display its haute couture collection in double exposure: live for guests (as the brand already used to do) and through a live online broadcast, open to the public, announced by the brand on its website and social networks. Some authors have called this format that aggregates the physical event and its live transmission in online digital media of “phygital”, from the combination of the words “physical” and “digital” [13]. This first event of Chanel with a physical audience since the beginning of the pandemic, took place outdoors, with sits placed at one meter from each other. The choice for an outdoor venue was a rupture with the traditional Grand Palais, and the new venue was the Palais Galliera, which houses the Paris Fashion Museum. Another novelty was the already referred dual transmission (with live streaming), which brought a new audience that previously did not have access to the full fashion show, following it only through the already filtered opinions of the media, influencers, and guest celebrities. Regarding this new approach to fashion shows, Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion activities at Chanel, said in an interview [14]: “I 4 See:

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210927-catwalk-is-back-live-shows-returnto-paris-fashion-week (accessed 10/02/2022). 5 See: https://www.euronews.com/culture/2021/09/30/paris-fashion-week-roars-back-to-lifeafter-pandemic-disruption (accessed 10/02/2022).

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think we will have both, we will never abandon dual transmission. It is an important moment, and we see that it has interested many of our customers around the world.” On the other hand, Dior took a more traditional approach in the same fashion week. Dior held the show only in physical format, in a closed environment – a room at the Musée Rodin, in Paris. Dior was one of the few brands that held a show in person, indoors and without online broadcast. According to Maria Grazia Chiuri, the creative director of the brand, the traditional format (in person) allows for a greater understanding and contemplation of the collection, compared to a video [14]. The same importance of the physical experienced was mentioned by the French artist Eva Jospin when she commented on the decoration of the walls of the room where the fashion show took place. These were completely covered with embroideries of a design by Eva Jospin, in homage to the Indian embroidery room at the Palace of Colonna, in Rome. The artist highlighted the relationship between the admiration of the physical work and the tactile relation with it, due to the details that cannot be seen or experienced with the same intensity and perception in digital [15]. The Spring/Summer 22 season fashion weeks had differences, as expected, as they were in different cities, and therefore, had to follow the guidance protocols of the local government bodies, which created regulations according to the pandemic situation in each location. New York Fashion Week took place between the 8th and 12th of September 2021 and the main point for this analytical study was a mixed format, where some brands presented their collections in person, others digitally, and others yet, in the two possible formats. Steven Kolb, president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), said that in the face of the reopening of the city with the advancement of vaccination, the use of masks was still necessary and only people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 were able to attend the parades in person. Also in September 2021, other important fashion weeks took place, in London, Milan and Paris. All of them left the participating brands at ease regarding the choice of format for the parades and the “phygital” was widely used. At London Fashion Week, 102 brands participated and there was no requirement to wear masks – following the permissions of the local government. As usual, Paris Fashion Week had great media attention and had the participation of many of the most famous fashion brands in the world. The latest remarkable events of this return to face-to-face and, at the same time, the establishment of digital formats that are added to the physical format in order to reach more people and make fashion information more democratic, concern the Paris Fashion Week in Spring/ Summer 2022, which took place from September 27 to October 5, 2021 and ended the Summer 2022 fashion show season. With sanitary control, ninety-seven brands took part in the event, however, only a third of this number opted for the in-person show, among them: Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy and Hermès. The wait for the return of these events could be witnessed by the careful choice of some of the venues for the shows, as in the case of Louis Vuitton, which scheduled its grandiose presentation of the collection in the iconic setting of the Louvre Museum. However, this was one of the brands that also decided to keep the live broadcast of the show available to the general public.

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4 Analysis Duality is probably the term that best characterizes the effects of the current pandemic on fashion events, since, despite impediments and mishaps, it has launched systemic challenges that have caused the production of innovative proposals and formats. The whole negative part of the pandemic, as aforementioned, forced brands and fashion show producers to be even more creative and to step out of the comfort zone of the already established techniques and formats. Therefore, these obstacles ended up causing a maturation and evolution to be conquered by harnessing and inserting the fast, modern and democratic communicative bias of the online in the, until then, so selective shows of major fashion weeks. Some positive aspects could be perceived in the approach to fashion shows in digital formats, such as sustainability, greater strength of dissemination and the increase in the number of people who had access to fashion collections. Digital is more sustainable as it requires less waste production, lower spending on printed invitations and disposable items, lower energy consumption and consequently lower environmental footprint. The strength of dissemination has to do with the possibility of using various internet platforms as a vehicle for reaching the public - it is important to remember that future consumers and trendsetters are young people who are present and online in applications such as Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. The number of people affected is certainly one of the turning points for the possible permanence of these formats in the future, if not entirely, at least in part. The digital format has allowed fashion enthusiasts from all over the world, who would never have access to invitations or have the financial or geographic possibilities to attend fashion shows, to consume each information and trend in real time – at the same moment as important editors of fashion magazines, celebrities, and the brand’s best customers. The approach taken of broadcasting fashion shows, has also benefited fashion content creators, journalists, magazine websites such as Vogue and Elle, among others – as it ended up providing a richer content creation containing a direct link to watch a fashion show, allowing their audiences to be spectators of an international catwalk. Nevertheless, the view on the official return of in-person fashion shows is not consonant for all brands and other professionals involved. For example, the current stylist responsible for the creative direction of the Celine brand, Hedi Slimane, considers fashion weeks to be obsolete. This was also a subject focused by the media6 that pointed out this “no-return path” for digital formats, noticing that virtual fashion shows sought to become popular at a time when the trend towards increased purchases through the internet consolidates, leading to the belief that this virtual approach to fashion shows is here to stay. It should be noted, therefore, that despite the “possible return to normal”, the opinions of professionals involved in the fashion world on the present and future of fashion shows are far from unanimous. This is notable for the option of certain brands to carry out their shows in a traditional way and for others to continue opting for the digital format.

6 See: https://gazetadasemana.com.br/noticia/28592/conheca-mais-sobre-a-era-dos-desfiles-vir

tuais (accessed 10/02/2022).

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The views on fashion shows (in traditional or physical format) vary according to brands and professionals in the field. Before the pandemic, there were two currents of thought on the subject, according to Hansen et al. [16]: one understands fashion shows as a marketing communication tool, with the aim of impressing and achieving greater brand/creator recognition of an audience; the other understands the fashion shows only as an already worn-out tool whose only objective is the mediatization of the brand/creator.

5 Finale It follows, therefore, that the pandemic effect on fashion weeks acted as a catalyst that forced or hastened huge changes in show formats. Thus, an analysis was carried out on the influence of the pandemic on the fashion shows scenario, seeking prospects for fashion shows in the post-pandemic. Some brands have had more difficulties or even show some rejection of the adoption of formats made possible by the digital world and, therefore, prefer to return to traditional formats, considering that the shows have, in addition to marketing functions, an aura of enchanted spectacle associated with a certain elitism, contributing to the brand’s notoriety and to the establishment of new fashion concepts and trends. Fashion shows gained a new world of possibility with the advent of the “phygital” and the popularization of the use of digital space as a stage. Adapting to this new scenario probably will not be easy, especially when the traditional format feeds so many micro industries in its surroundings, such as street style photography, accommodation, traveling, restaurants, etc. We are still experiencing a time of transitions, where the contemporary is gaining new forms and guises every day. Only with the end of the world pandemic decreed, will it be possible to say what the format of fashion shows will be like in the future. The power of the digital medium is built both in individuality and in the collective sphere of network connections [17], and it is in this interaction that the digital transformation of the society is taking place [18]. Since transiting to online and digital formats ends up democratizing access and allowing fashion ideas and collections to reach those interested more quickly and directly, it already demonstrates its advantages and greater adaptability to the increasingly technological world in which we live. This idea is also aligned with the view of major brands such as Chanel, which recently gave a note stating that this is how it will guide the future of its collection’s exhibitions: without abandoning the face-to-face, but also always contemplating the online/digital format. The digital seems, therefore, to be a path of no return. Once we have joined, we can’t help but work with this medium as well. With the experiences gained, brands and fashion event organizers were able to perceive advantages in this format such as its greater reach, in terms of spectators, the democratization and the faster arrival of information from fashion to the market. The future of fashion shows still seems to oscillate between the three options: traditional/physical, hybrid and completely digital through filmed parades or even other strategies such as Balenciaga’s video game-inspired lookbook7 or the brand plans for the Metaverse [19]. However, the format that reconciles the old with the new, 7 See: https://videogame.balenciaga.com/en/video (accessed 10/02/2022).

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the past with the future, seems to be the most viable and interesting at the moment, even as a transitory phase that should last a few years until it reaches maturity, both in creative and in technical development as well as in market acceptance. Therefore, it is possible that the new revolution in fashion shows will be about creating unprecedented and innovative hybrid models, which respect creativity and the planet, but remain aligned with the technological evolutions towards which humanity is heading. Recently during the Fall/Winter 2022 fashion presentations we witnessed the launching of the Metaverse Fashion Week by the virtual reality platform Decentraland, as well as the presentation of collections in virtual world Second Life such as Jonathan Simkhai that presented is collection in Second Life during the New York Fashion Week8 , these new approaches clearly show that a revolution in fashion shows is taking place. In terms of scientific research, it is necessary to emphasize how much this topic opens up for future discussions and new perspectives on the formats of fashion shows and how brands and society will deal with each novelty that is already being used or that is yet to come – whether in the near or far future. The classic format that began with fashion shows in the maisons in Worth’s time will always have a certain value and “charm”, however, it will no longer be so viable in the future due to the advantages that digital provides for spectators. It is interesting to continue research on the evolution of fashion shows and their formats to assess the performance and acceptance of the “phygital” and other innovations linked to the digital presentation of fashion collections. This association of fashion with technology leads us to reflect on whether the hybrid format adopted by various brands and fashion weeks around the world over the 2020 and 2021 is here to stay or if it was just a strategic trend to survive the Covid-19 pandemic. Acknowledgment. This work is financed by Project UID/CTM/00264/2021 of 2C2T – Centro de Ciência e Tecnologia Têxtil, funded by National Founds through FCT/MCTES.

References 1. Barua, S.: Understanding Coronanomics: The Economic Implications of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic, 1 April 2020. SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3566477 or https:// doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3566477. Accessed 7 Oct 2020 2. BoF and Mckinsey: The State of Fashion 2020 – Coronavirus Update. Report by The Business of Fashion and McKinsey & Company, 08 April 2020. https://www.mckinsey.com. Accessed 8 Jan 2021 3. Lemire, B.: The Force of Fashion in Politics and Society: Global Perspectives from Early Modern to Contemporary Times, 1st edn. Routledge, London (2016). https://doi.org/10.4324/ 9781315239651. Accessed 8 Jan 2021 4. Badaró, M., Brasil, P.: Sistemas de Moda em Tempos de Pandemia: Insights para enfrentamento da crise. Bahia, SENAC (2020). http://www.ba.senac.br/publitao/arquivos/arquivos/ fe8eb02c2f004810b46313d293852b3d.pdf. Accessed 8 Jan 2021 5. Gomes, D.: O reflexo da pandemia no mundo da moda. Revista Cult (2020). https://revist acultnet.com.br/2020/07/11/o-reflexo-da-pandemia-no-mundo-da-moda/. Accessed 11 May 2021 8 See: vogue https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2022-ready-to-wear/jonathan-simkhai

(accessed 01/09/2022).

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6. Faria, A.P., Providência, B., Cunha, J.: The foreseeable future of digital fashion communication after coronavirus: designing for emotions. In: Martins, N., Brandão, D. (eds.) Digicom 2020, pp. 510–515. Springer, Cham (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-616717_47 7. Grilec, A., Vukusic, D., Dujic, D.: Communication strategies of luxury brands during Covid19 crisis. In: Economic and Social Development: Book of Proceedings, pp. 281–290 (2020) 8. Ronchetti, M., Nobile, T.H., Oliveira, N.K., Cantoni, L.: Digital fashion competences: Market practices and needs during COVID19. Institute of Digital Technologies for Communication of USI–Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano (Switzerland) (2020) 9. Hees, L.: Como o Covid-19 está a transformar as Semanas de Moda em todo o mundo. Vogue Portugal, 3 April 2020. https://www.vogue.pt. Accessed 20 Jan 2022 10. Kessler, A.: Tudo o que precisa de saber sobre as semanas de Moda de Setembro. Vogue Portugal, 27 August 2020. https://www.vogue.pt. Accessed 20 Jan 2022 11. SPFW homepage. https://spfw.com.br/. Accessed 11 May 2021 12. @Prada|Spring Summer 2020/2021-Full show & Conversation with Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAw9nYqzAvI. Accessed 20 Jan 2022 13. Pacce, L.: Jacquemus fala de amor e desfila (com plateia e tudo) o verão 2021 num campo de trigo! Portal Lilian Pacce, 18 July 2020. https://www.lilianpacce.com.br/. Accessed 08 Aug 2021 14. Opovo: Chanel e Dior voltam as passarelas na semana de Alta Costura de Paris (2021). https://www.opovo.com.br/vidaearte/2021/07/06/chanel-e-dior-voltam-as-pas sarelas-na-semana-de-alta-costura-de-paris.html. Accessed 08 Aug 2021 15. Freeman, L.: Meet Eva Jospin, the artist behind Dior’s exquisitely embroidered Haute Couture AW21 show space, 06 July 2021. https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/eva-jos pin-dior-couture-aw21-interview. Accessed 20 Jan 2022 16. Hansen, C., Azevedo, E.C., Morelli, G., Behling, H.P., de Brusque, U.C.U., Brusque, S.C.: Comunicação de moda: um breve olhar sobre o desfile como ferramenta na contemporaneidade. Vozes e Diálogo, 11(02) (2012). https://www6.univali.br/seer/index.php/vd/art icle/view/4313. Accessed 8 Jan 2021 17. Flichy, P.: Translated from the French by Liz Carey Libbrecht, «Connected Individualism between Digital Technology and Society», Réseaux 2004/2 (No. 124), pp. 17–51(2004) 18. Guy, J.S.: Digital technology, digital culture and the metric/nonmetric distinction. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Chang. 145, 55–61 (2019) 19. The BoF: Balenciaga’s Cédric Charbit on Moving from Hype to Timelessness, 17 December 2021. https://www.businessoffashion.com/videos/luxury/balenciagas-cedric-charbit-on-mov ing-from-hype-to-timelessness/. Accessed 20 Jan 2022

Different Perceptions of Nature José Gago1(B)

, Ema Rolo2 , Daniel Brandão3 and Sérgio Fereira5

, Leonardo Pereira4

,

1 CIAUD Faculdade de Arquitetura, Universidade de Lisboa, Rua Sá Nogueira, Polo

Universitário, Alto da Ajuda, 1349-055 Lisbon, Portugal [email protected] 2 GOVCOP, Universidade de Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal 3 Communication and Society Research Centre, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal 4 University of Aveiro, DigiMedia, DeCA, Aveiro, Portugal 5 Applied Management Research Unit (UNIAG), School of Hospitality and Tourism, Polytechnic Institute of Cavado and Ave, Barcelos, Portugal

Abstract. The following article describes a study developed in the course of Theory and Practice of Design, School of Applied Arts, Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, Portugal, in the academic year 2020/21. The study follows the methodologies of descriptive case study and thematic analysis. Taking as its starting point the problem of environmental protection and taking as premises that the cultural environment shapes the concept of Nature and that early childhood experiences have the potential to validate a code associated with Nature. The study aimed to study and identify codes referring to the concept of Nature in a target audience between 18 and 22 years old. The thematic analysis developed in the gathered textual descriptions, through the discovered patterns, points out that the first interaction experiences with Nature had older family members as facilitators, and the interactions took place in small cultivated areas. These results provide valuable clues on the complexity of visual communication, challenging the effectiveness of communication codes not adapted to local contexts. Keywords: Thematic analysis · Communication design · Climate change

1 Introduction Anthropogenic climate change (relating to or resulting from the influence of human beings on nature) is everywhere, and it is now. It is difficult to think of a more urgently relevant research topic today than climate change, as it threatens to undermine the conditions of human societies as we know them. Anthropogenic climate change brims with methodological implications and buzzes with theoretical possibilities. Indeed, it may well redefine not only the different fields of research but raises the question of what it entails to be a human being within a new existential and conceptual framework, which will inevitably cause a reckoning with our ecological identity in a new way, [1]. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 415–423, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_36

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Because of climate change challenges, particularly de Nature Heritage Conservation, awareness-raising efforts are needed. In the European context, Portugal is one of the countries with the highest number of wildfires and burnt areas. Most of these events are of human origin, whether caused by accident, negligence, or arson. It is imperative to know the regime of these wildfires for forest and wildfire management activities [2]. The Portuguese government launched several campaigns related to protecting Nature Heritage. From that campaign, the communication “protect the forest” presented several layouts that alerted the population to this alarming situation, focused on the message “Portugal Chama” and “A safe forest depends on us,” Fig. 1 – 2021, Divulgation Brochure [3].

Fig. 1. 2021, Divulgation Brochure [3]

This campaign has a broad focus group, but the issue of “heritage” should justify a campaign directed at a younger audience between 18 and 22. Young people between this age, in the Portuguese context, are either starting a professional practice or studies—the latter group has an essential capacity for action and mobilization. Within the scope of public interest and to make more effective communication with this public is relevant to understand what cultural changes occur in the perception of the concept. First, it is necessary to understand what this public understands by “Nature,” exploring the hypothesis of the perseverance of first memories associated with the interaction with Nature by surveying this specific public to understand what codes the public associates with the concept. This article builds upon the thesis of Clotaire Rapaille, related to first imprints and future impulses related to consumption [4] According to the author, the first memories associated with a product are the most important because they will define our future relationship with the product and its ecosystem. There is a significant correlation between childhood nostalgia, brand loyalty, and early age. Brand exposure has a notable influence on brand loyalty in adulthood, individuals can develop affectionate relationships with

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brands early in childhood, and these bonds are preserved during a lifetime [5]. The connection exists not only delimited to brands but also related to consumption experiences in its broadest sense. People’s earliest and defining experiences have a significant influence on the current and future preferences in predictable ways across the consumer life cycle [6]. The peers, who surround the child, also have great importance and positively influence the awareness about a product and its relationship with it [7]. This study was carried out to contribute to the question, “When communicating the emergence of protecting nature to a young audience. Do we understand what their code on nature is?” To effectively communicate with a public, even a message repeated along generations, the communication design must follow the code associated with the communicated concept in the local temporal context. The code is the design of information by which the concept is identified. Identifying the experience of a concept by a specific audience will identify the code for effective communication. The study was developed with a group of twenty students, aged between 18 and 22 years, originating from various locations in Portugal and abroad, within the course of Theory and Practice of Design, School of Applied Arts, Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, Portugal, in the academic year 2020/21. First, the students were asked to develop a board with references to images related to the concept of Nature. Then, students were asked for an anonymous description of their first Nature experience (Interactions with Nature). With this anonymous survey, the authors wanted to collect information that could be compared with some aesthetics that students portray on their boards. Had the structure of the aesthetics and their first experiences common elements? After the coding and themes identification, the developed themes were presented to the students, followed by a discussion on the concept of nature.

2 Methods The presented research followed a descriptive case study methodology. A descriptive case study is focused and detailed, in which propositions and questions about a phenomenon are carefully scrutinized and articulated at the outset [8]. Descriptive case studies describe the natural phenomena within the data in question. Descriptive case studies may be in a narrative form [9]. The data analysis of text involved coding and thematic analysis. Coding is the creative link between data collection and data analysis, based on data selection. It is the heuristic linking of data to the research question [10]. A code in qualitative inquiry is often a word or short phrase that symbolically assigns a summative, salient, essence-capturing, and/or evocative attribute for a portion of language-based or visual data [11]. When coding by patterns, the same codes are to be repeatedly used throughout the data due to the congruence and coherence of ideas. This coding could be either natural or deliberate. Natural when there are recurring patterns of action and regularities in human affairs. Furthermore, deliberated when the primary goal of the coder is to find recurring patterns of actions and regularity in human affairs [11]. A QDA (Qualitative Data Analysis) was applied to code the data. Advantages of a QDA include a single location for storage that provides easy access to material and the

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ability to handle large amounts of data with consistent coding schemes. Other advantages include improvements in the consistency of approach, assistance with team research, and the ability to help in theory building, [12]. Thematic analysis (T.A.) is a method for identifying and analyzing patterns of meaning (themes) in qualitative data. T.A. involves the generation of codes and then themes from qualitative data in thematic discourse analysis, codes, themes, and discourses “underlying systems of meaning”- having the theoretical flexibility to be used within a wide range of methodological and explanatory frameworks [13]. Within the different theoretical frameworks, T.A. can be applied in the Design framework, helping researchers find functional research patterns in a specific focus group [14]. In this study the (T.A) allowed authors to identify patterns in the text surveys. For exploratory purposes, as a strategy to come up with new ideas and concepts, the authors followed Inductive coding. In this ground-up approach, the codes derive from data without a preconceived notion of what the codes should be and allow the narrative or theory to emerge from the raw data [11].

3 Findings Related to the first request directed to students, in the submitted visual boards, the aesthetic references collected by students relate to ideals. They do not directly convey relations with the descriptions of their first experiences, Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. Example of visual boards submitted by students (due to copyright issues the images cannot be presented with higher resolution).

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After analyzing the textual survey, the authors found a dissonance between what students idealize through their visual boards and the meaning they express through their descriptions, pointing to distinct cultural models [15]. Were identified in the texts referring to the theme of the “first experience with Nature,” many descriptions related to the code of “Grandparents as Nature facilitators,” and curiously, there is an association between “Nature” and a cultivated space organized with a defined function, as a small subsistence garden. The code “Nature as an organized space” with open ridges for irrigation, according to many descriptions, open to an experience of moisture and earth, the sensorial contact with the children’s hands and feet. We chose from the testimonies the following descriptions, which are more representative of the dominant codes: “My first experience with Nature, I remember, I was very small, and it was in the garden of my grandparents, I could have my feet in the mud and play while my grandparents opened the gullies of the garden.” “When I was little, my grandmother would take me to a garden she had, and I liked to play with the plants and the water.” “I remember my parents taking me to my grandparents, and I liked to touch everything in the backyard. I remember the water and how my grandfather diverted it to irrigate the garden.” “When I went to the garden I planted potatoes in the middle of that land, I got all dirty, sowed corn with my grandmother then in the time of watering I went with my grandparents and I was always in the ravines to get wet. At harvest time, I helped my grandparents to take the grapes and saw all that process, from stepping the grapes wine for the wine casks…” Still under the “Grandparents as Nature facilitators”, descriptions also arise referring to “Nature as an organized space” such as gardens. “One day, my grandmother and I went to the garden of the city park, where there were places to play. While there, I could be in contact with the outdoors and nature.” In the course of the perspective of the utilitarian aspect, and still under the “Grandparents as Nature facilitators,” we find descriptions referring to the act of planting a plant. “From this same memory, I remember asking my grandmother if I could also plant something, and she gave me the plants that she thought were supposed to go nowhere, but really what happened is that they grew to like the others.” In many of the descriptions, “Nature” is a concept associated with subsistence. The first experience in their majority refers to “Nature” as something owned by their family, not something public shared with the community. In the collected narratives, “Nature” appears delimited and organized within walls. The promotion of this idea of the primacy of subsistence and a sense of individual ownership, in the long term, may

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create contradictory situations motivated by access to subsistence cultivation areas, in line with structural problems linked to fires, such as the limitations in the use of the soil related to land use [16]. This connotation of Nature as a commodity is in line with previous research [17], as an asset of value that can be traded. In line with this structure of commodity and delimitated area arise two Natures. One the “Organized Nature” related to a structure of commodity and functionality, and the “Disorganized Nature” denominated as “Mato,” a word that in the local lexicon, portrays connotations of deviance that do not invite “pleasant experiences,” Fig. 3

Fig. 3. Two contrasting concepts were inherent to the testimonies. For description purposes, the authors of this study illustrate from the Findings the two contrasting “Natures,” the “Disorganized Nature” (left image) and the “Organized Nature” (right image).

4 Discussion Citizens’ attitudes on environmental issues are shaped by enduring cultural models of environmental problems and human interactions with nature [15]. The fact that the ideal portrayed in the student’s visual boards seems to be manufactured does not mean that its cultural trend could not be naturalized by a particular cultural context, helped by a willingness to be part of a whole. The cultural trend originates in a global structure, present in many collected images, but the local code product is anchored in a “location” (geographically speaking) of a given culture. This overlay of information makes it more difficult, in a communication design, to “highlight” a code associated with a local structure. Local cultures and the forces of globalization are thoroughly interpenetrated and co-shaping; hence, the effects of globalization on everyday cultural life, though consumption, can be more accurately described as a process of “glocalization” [18]. After the presentation of the thematic analysis, there was a discussion with the students, where they reflected on a global trend, how it is “made natural” for consumption, and the naturalization strategies promoted by that trend. The authors presented to the students the findings of this study. They promoted a reflection confronting the representation of idealization and a personal experience of

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Nature. The confrontation with the findings allowed students to understand how communication design based only on an aesthetic trend (the idealization) does not efficiently work in an awareness campaign. Moreover, show how a communication diagnosis is necessary to substantiate the project of communicating a global interest. How the defense of nature that has local complexities, as local understandings shaped by local culture, needs to be redirected to meet a global strategy. Education has powerful, universal effects on environmental attitudes for individuals and nations. Although previous research has recognized the importance of education, its effects have been shrouded in studies that have not distinguished between different types of environmental and cultural models [15]. Students understood the power of distortion of local codes of a global force and how local codes filter information, hiding certain elements and making others visible. Furthermore, how they could test different perceptions of a global influence through their design solutions. Helping design students be self-consciously aware of the experiential knowledge that informs the practice leads students to grow confidence in the decisionmaking process, [19]. The design of the message must undergo a mutation in order to be able to adapt to different receivers shaped by different contexts. It is a challenge to have a single speech for all humanity, so there is not only one nature but several. It is time for government campaigns to follow how global brands adapt their messages to engage in a glocalization effort. How they can communicate a global message while preserving distinctiveness and differences. A process shaped by forms of homogenization and differentiation, by strategies of adaptation or resistance [20]. Even communicating a shared doom following Morin, a “gospel of Doom” related to the Shared Limits of our Planetary and Finite contexts [21], requires a glocalization effort because even the representation of the apocalypse has local interpretations and meanings.

5 Conclusion Related to the question, “When communicating the emergence of protecting nature to a young audience. Are we understanding what their code on nature is?” the answer is that there is a dissonance between following aesthetic ideals and what are the first experience imprints of Nature. Thus, we understand how the “codes” of Institutional communication need to adjust to a perception shaped by familiar agents in the surroundings of the target audience so that communication is more effective in its objectives. Contexts greatly influence the effectiveness of communication, even when it results from a global effort to communicate a message that today and shortly could result in an international breakthrough. The limitations of the study relate to the sample size and the creation of the design of an experience that could facilitate a natural expression of early memories of a particular type of consumption. Based on the cultural specificities of a particular audience. It is essential to note the possibilities that thematic analysis offers at the level of learning experiences in discovering codes associated with consumption. Moreover, this aspect can open expectations

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in the analysis of information through information visualization (coding) in diagnostic phases, thus empowering the exploration that supports the strategy of a communication project.

6 Future Research Future investigations will focus on the development and testing with a focus group of two versions of communication layouts, on the theme of nature, specifically in defense of the forest. One version would depict a local code (Familiar Visual Code Objects Underlay) with the inclusion of aesthetic elements of a global trend (Aesthetic Inclusion Overlay), and a second version based only on a global communication trend (Aesthetic Inclusion Layer), Fig. 4.

Fig. 4. Communication layouts proposed for the experimental design.

The difficulty relates to developing an experience design with this contrasting feedback evaluation, including ecological psychology elements to determine the two versions’ actual impact. The analysis will follow the concept of Multimodal Discourse Analysis (M.D.A), a method that considers multiple modes of communication and how they interact with one another. M.D.A looks at multiple modes of communication such as text, color, and images. It is a method of discursive analysis that looks at not just how individual modes communicate but how they interact with one another to create semiotic meaning. Text, image, and color lend themselves to doing different kinds of semiotic work; each has its distinct potential for meaning. Image may have the edge over writing. Using three modes in one sign brings real benefits, and ‘multimodality’ is the normal state of human communication [22]. Acknowledgements. The authors of this article would like to acknowledge the class of the course Theory and Practice of Design, 2020/21, the researcher grantee Rogério Ribeiro and the coordination of the degree of Design and Audiovisual Communication, School of Applied Arts, Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, Portugal.

References 1. Eriksen, T.H.: Climate change. In: Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology (2021) https:// doi.org/10.29164/21climatechange

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2. Parente, J., Pereira, M.G., Amraoui, M., Tedim, F.: Negligent and intentional fires in Portugal: spatial distribution characterization. Sci. Total Environ. 624, 424–437 (2018). https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.12.013 3. ICNF.pt: Portugal Chama - Folheto Proteja a Floresta (2021) 4. Rapaille, C.: The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do, 2nd edn. Crown Business, New York (2008) 5. Mondragon Ruiz, S.: The Effects of Childhood Nostalgia on Brand Loyalty (2021) 6. Braun-LaTour, K.A., LaTour, M.S., Zinkhan, G.M.: Using childhood memories to gain insight into brand meaning. J. Mark. 71 45–60 (200). https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.71.2.045 7. Marques, A.M.A., Pinho, A.R.R.: Consumo Infantil: A Influência dos Pares na Consciência de Marca, na Relação com a Marca e na Lealdade à Marca. Rev Gestão em Análise 7, 93 (2018). https://doi.org/10.12662/2359-618xregea.v7i2.p93-106.2018 8. Tobin, R.: Descriptive case study. In: Encyclopedia of Case Study Research. Sage Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks (2010) 9. McDonough, J., McDonough, S.: Research Methods for English Language Teachers. Taylor & Francis Group, New York (2016) 10. Jnanathapaswi, S.: Thematic Analysis & Coding: An Overview of the Qualitative Paradigm, pp. 98–105 (2021) 11. Saldaña, J.: The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Sage, Thousand Oaks (2021) 12. Weitzman, E.: Software and qualitative research. In: Denzin, N.K., Lincoln, Y.S. (eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research. II. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks (2002) 13. Braun, V., Clarke, V.: Conceptual and design thinking for thematic analysis. Qual. Psychol. 9, 3–26 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000196 14. Huff, J., Zoltowski, C.B., Oakes, W.C., Adams, R.: Making sense of design: a thematic analysis of alumni perspectives. In: ASEE Annual Conference and Expo Conference Proceedings (2013). https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--22268 15. Ignatow, G.: Cultural models of nature and society. Environ. Behav. 38, 441–461 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916505280791 16. Pereira, J., Carreiras, J., Silva, J., Vasconcelos, M.: Alguns Conceitos Básicos sobre os Fogos Rurais em Portugal, pp 133–161 (2006) 17. Silva, J., Neves, J.: Exploring climate changes through LSP: a learning experience. In: Silva, J., Raposo, D., Neves, J., Pinho, F. (eds.) Perspectives on Design, Springer Series in Design and Innovation, 1st edn. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32415-5_5 18. Thompson, C.J., Arsel, Z.: The starbucks brandscape and consumers’ (anticorporate) experiences of glocalization. J. Consum. Res. 31, 631–642 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1086/ 425098 19. de Freitas, N.: Activating a research context in art and design practice. Int. J. Scholarsh. Teach. Learn. 1 (2007). https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2007.010214 20. Chirico, J.: Globalization and everyday life. In: Globalization: Prospects and Problems, pp. 285–321 (2017). https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452244129.n11 21. Morin, E., Kern, A.B.: Homeland Earth: A Manifesto for the New Millennium. Hampton Press, New York (1999) 22. Kress, G.: Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. Routledge, London (2017)

DID. Value: An Overview of Professional Development and Its Challenges for Students with Disabilities Maria Potes Barbas(B)

and Pedro Matos

Complexo Andaluz, Apartado 279, 2001-904 Santarém, Portugal [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. In this paper, we address some of the main findings of the European project: “DID. Value on internship and job in society.” This project involved a mix of higher education institutions and research centers focusing on experiences, through non-formal training sessions, for young people with disabilities on professional development. Henceforth, we selected 55 participants (15 from Croatia, 15 from Turkey, and 20 from Portugal) with different types of disabilities - from Down syndrome to Autism. Additionally, this target group enrolled in three training programs focused on several skills linked to professional development. Thus, we aim to showcase some of this experience’s main findings. Therefore, to analyze this strategy, we used informal conversational interviews and focus group debates as the main methods to retrieve our data while undergoing a Thematic Analysis methodology. Lastly, the results portrayed the importance of three domains: Professional capacity, Digital capacity, and Emotional capacity, as guiding principles to a successful build of professional development for this target group. Keywords: Social inclusion · Digital literacy · Professional development · European project

1 Introduction In this paper, we address some of the main findings of the European project: “DID.VALUE on internship and job in Society,” led by a mix of higher education institutions and research centers intending to facilitate the entry of young people with disabilities into the labor market. In this project, the most significant aim was to discuss and find innovative methods to promote a specific target group’s social and professional inclusion, encompassing adequate resources and materials that provide a tailored training process on social and digital literacy skills. Regarding this topic, we will start by doing a brief literature review which will allow us to provide a deeper understanding of this project areas and how we outline the different covered priorities. This literature review will focus on the high demand for professionals with efficient social and digital skills and technologies that somehow shape the upcoming progress of individual professional development. In addition, this literature review will also contribute to extending © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 424–434, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_37

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the project’s current and future state-of-art by enriching the existing knowledge on the different areas labeled as priorities to be met and targeted by the project’s actions. Secondly, we will overview the project course by describing its focus group, impacts, actions, and other essential milestones to give the reader a clear context of how this project was met and implemented. This step is significant since it opens a discussion and further analysis of the project outcomes, therefore, turning this into a helpful strategy for others in the sense of valuable insights and good practices, becoming a model that can easily replicate similar actions and turn tangible results with this type of target group. In the following section of this paper, we will cover the methodology and how thematic analysis fits as the adequate approach to this project data analysis. Therefore, thematic analysis allows more flexibility due to the different methods used to retrieve data, such as speech analysis, content analysis, theme analysis, and other forms of linear or non-linear research. In addition, this project mostly interacted with qualitative types of data. However, due to the nature of the target group and the different actions that took a course, some data proved to be scattered and diverse, requiring a more comprehensive approach to its analysis. Hence, thematic analysis is an adequate tool for this project’s research-oriented processes. Furthermore, it provides an entry into a way of doing research that otherwise can seem vague, mystifying, conceptually challenging, and overly complex. It offers a way into qualitative research that teaches the mechanics of coding and systematically analyzing qualitative data connect to broader theoretical or conceptual issues [1]. Lastly, this paper has a section dedicated to the project’s main findings and how some of the results contributed to a more comprehensive approach to how digital society should operate when dealing with sensitive target groups. In addition, some of the main findings help understand how Universal Design is a far more critical concept that extends beyond technology or digital environments. It encompasses a whole educational process in which we must know and consider the barriers our target group faces when learning or developing new professional competencies [2]. Additionally, we will outline the educational process defined to accompany the focus group during their reskilling process on social and digital skills and how we adequate the learning resources to each participant’s need. This way showcases how a holistic approach works from both perspectives. The trainees’ perspective is essential for understanding how to tackle their challenges. From the trainer’s point of view, the crucial part is how to address the different learning curves of each trainee.

2 Literature Review: Contribution to the Project’s State of the Art The demand for individuals showing efficient social and digital skills is increasing, which is most evident when discussing the labor market and its needs. With the growth of the digital society we live in and the course that jobs are taking, requiring more and more digital proficiency, it becomes even more challenging for anyone who seeks to transition to the labor market and start their professional development. According to the “The future of jobs report” by the World Economic Forum, we can relate the project’s priorities with the following key findings [3]:

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– Skills gaps continue to be high as in-demand skills across jobs change in the next five years - the top skills and skill groups that employers see as rising in prominence include critical thinking and analysis as well as problem-solving and skills in self-management such as active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility. – The window of opportunity to reskill and upskill workers has become shorter in the newly constrained labor market. – The public sector must provide more robust support for reskilling and upskilling for at-risk or displaced workers. These key findings state similar challenges that this project intended to tackle, particularly in strengthening the professional development of at-risk target groups. The mission was to shorten the gap between the high demand for digital literacy and social skills and the shortage of reskilling solutions that demonstrate a high degree of adequacy to young people with disabilities. In addition to the stated reviews, in other fundamental works like “The Future of Employment: how susceptible are jobs to computerization?” by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne, we understand that the labor market, jobs, and the professional development follow a very fast-paced track accelerating different fields and markets which breaks the previous traditional and routinely work and transitions to a more creative, technological, and scalable taskforce [4]. However, despite these significant changes impacting how we must tackle digital literacy and social and professional skills, applying these upcoming standards to a specific target group remains challenging. In this case, which model or approach should we follow to reach this target group effectively and provide adequate or tailored training that contributes to their professional development? The answer to this question is not readily achievable. Firstly, there are many factors based on the learner’s perspective. Young people with disabilities are a very diverse target group where each has his dynamic towards learning, communicating, sharing, listening, and other aspects fundamental to professional development and the transition to the labor market. Secondly, despite several initiatives, strategies, and even frameworks with many examples or best practices on digital literacy, and social and professional skills apprenticeship, there is still a considerable gap between information and valuable real-case scenarios that incorporate young people with disabilities. Either the information is scarce or does not mainly cover challenges so specific as this case. However, the “Inclusion of youth with disabilities: The business case” work by the International Labour Organization was a good starting point. Thus, we mainly pinpoint the following valuable insights for employing youth with disabilities [5]: • Focus on the disability: learning the individual disability of each participant is crucial for the success of any reskilling process. A tailored experience for the learner’s needs is an essential step that allows the learner to trace his learning path and curvature. • Outline specific program objectives and timelines: the training programs must have clear and structured objectives for young learners with disabilities to follow. Thus, avoiding any misinformation by defining flexible timelines and different ways of evaluating each participant’s progress. Time can become a complex question for this target group, so providing continuous monitoring and periodic meetings are also factors that effectively contribute to the success of training programs.

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• Define a strategic “buddy” system: this step covers a mentoring program. It can be a person or a network of professionals that follow the person and tackle any social, professional, or emotional needs they may face while undergoing a reskilling process or transitioning to the labour market. Essentially, the “buddy” system is like a tailored manager for young people with disabilities who mentors and supports their daily challenges. • Offer flexible and inclusive training options: this is probably one of the most important aspects of having a strategy that encompasses reskilling, social and digital skills, and strengthening the professional development of young people with disabilities. Thus, providing learners with several models, resources, and tools that facilitate their learning process. We believe in a hybrid model incorporating a robust digital environment in which students can do their daily tasks, participate in forums, and interact with multimedia tools. For this, we primarily use Moodle as the primary LMS. It proved to be the most accessible and with the most features for a good learning process. The other step of the hybrid model is face-to-face sessions that promote discussion, creative thinking, and brainstorming sessions. • Showcase a transparent, inclusive, and fair hiring and managing strategy: make current hiring processes more accessible or consider a twin-track approach: mainstreaming the hiring process and offering disability-specific recruitment. Ensure that youth with disabilities can advance within the company like all other employees and encourage their stay through employment incentives. In short, these were some insights this project took under its spectrum and envisioned as a starting brief. Indeed, this might be a complex strategy to adopt due to the reality of the European labour market, which still falls into an inflexible scenario for most young people with disabilities. Still, the concept is ideal for any organization that wishes to incorporate these strategies into their labour environment and contribute to the professional development of this target group.

3 Project Overview The European project “DID.VALUE on internship and job in Society” engaged in meeting new criteria, which helped to find innovative solutions to close the gap between the complex ratio of transitioning to the labour market and the mismatch of digital and social skills that hinder the professional development of young people with disabilities. Therefore, we decided to establish a robust European consortium focusing on our target group’s needs and seeking to define new models that could facilitate the social and professional inclusion of this target group concerning their professional development approach towards the labour market. In addition, another subject of importance that this project decided to include was studying screening strategies based on job-related skills and job-specific competencies, namely digital literacy, and how these were fundamental for an inclusive and robust professional profile development. Moreover, prior studies indicate that Social Skills Training (SST) can be helpful in several fields related to employment or professional development, requiring dedicated meta-analysis and other specific recommendations based on the degree of disability portrayed by the individual

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[6]. Thus, these scenarios were particularly keen for this type of project and its general aims by endorsing different dimensions: social, digital, and professional, and how these could be combined into one robust strategy that includes adequate training, mentoring, and facilitating tools for the professional development of young people with disabilities. Another crucial aspect that this project decided to include was a diverse focus group. In this case, we selected 55 participants to engage in the project actions and subsequent activities. Therefore, we grouped 15 participants from Croatia, 15 from Turkey, and 20 from Portugal. In addition, all participants’ demonstrated different types of disabilities - from Down syndrome to Autism- focusing on having the most diverse and inclusive working group possible. It is also essential to state that the participants were all over 18 years old due to the project characteristics. Most of them attended Higher Education to showcase their motivation and eagerness to upscale their competencies, knowledge, and sense of opportunity. However, these participants suffered from different disadvantages, primarily economic, geographical, and social. Therefore, these were the criteria for selecting participants, followed by a screening assessment to understand their current competencies. For this assessment, we based an inclusive Instructional strategy to determine students’ readiness or ability level, interests, and learning profiles or preferred methods of approaching learning activities. For example, some learners better use visual, auditory, or blended skills [7]. Therefore, this method allowed trainers a broader range of resources and tools when tackling the training experiences throughout the project, enabling the required adequacy to each learner’s needs. Regarding the project’s actions and milestones, we decided to create three major training programs that could incorporate several skills inherent to professional development. Therefore, the first program targeted the Professional Profile Development focusing on the experience assessment of social, pedagogical, and digital literacy skills. Secondly, we built a Professional Empowerment and Communication Mechanisms program focusing on team building, community building, and communication skills assessment. Lastly, the third training program, Flipped Creative Mechanisms for Professional Effectiveness, focused on creativity, emotional intelligence, conflict management, and cultural awareness skills assessment. Therefore, due to previous research and debating throughout several brainstorming sessions, we decided that these three training programs would consist of an inclusive, robust, and flexible model for students with disabilities. With the help of these programs, learners could achieve soft and hard skills essential to the professional development pathway endorsed by the identified needs of the labour market. As for the milestones, monitoring, and follow-up of each student’s progress, we decided to include an inclusive AGILE methodology for education in which the participants could actively immerse themselves in the learning process through activities and group-based components to reinforce concepts that allow for exploration [8]. In addition, we applied a method of quick “sprints,” which serve as scheduled iterations that allowed the participants to meet with their mentor and discuss their doubts, progress, and expectations about the work. Moreover, these so-called iterations also worked as progressive variations, being self-adaptive [9] to the learner’s needs and following their learning curve.

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4 Project Methodological Approach Seeking a methodological approach for any project is always a challenging step for any team of young researchers. In this case, we had to find and implement a methodological framework that could fit this project’s aims and, consequently, its research. Therefore, we needed a method encompassing our target group’s needs, the project actions, and the techniques used to retrieve data. A lot is in sync with Alan Bryman’s statement in his work “Of methods and methodology,” not just a simple matter of making a technical decision about the most appropriate way to collect data [10]. So, we started by defining which instruments we would use the most to follow up on the research progress and retrieve the most relevant data. Thus, we decided to base our instruments on the following techniques: • Informal conversational interview. • Focus group debates. The informal conversational interview was a solid choice for a dynamic and flexible method of retrieving data from the participant’s point of view. We decided to undergo this technique since our target groups were young people with disabilities. The idea of having a way to perceive their feedback on the different actions portrayed by this project lies in this intuitive method. Despite being an approach that allows some abstraction, we needed a tool that allowed our students to provide honest feedback and demonstrate their emotions during the reskilling process. Essentially, we required an in-depth interview that allowed us some throwbacks and rethinking by being an open and dynamic interview process. These interviews were all produced in an online environment, primarily due to the pandemic context and being non-directive, non-standardized, and open: they, therefore, follow a more inclusive conversation model. Additionally, as for the matter of obtaining successful results, we recommend following the point-of-view of the authors Daniel W. Turner III and Nicole Hagstrom-Schmidt [11]. Essentially, suppose the research follows a similarity to this project. If that is the case, it is critical to understand the need for flexibility and originality in questioning as the key to success. The focus group technique used in this project was primarily to generate small groups for brainstorming sessions. As for the method, we stand alongside the perspective of the authors Helen Finch and Jane Lewis in their work “Focus Groups,” in which data generates from the whole group’s different perspectives [12]. Therefore, each participant presented his view and experience of the several actions they performed during the project while hearing others’ perspectives on the same subject. Additionally, their active listening allows them to reflect on what everyone else is saying and counterpart with new standpoints on the discussed subject. Therefore, this strategy allowed continuous feedback on the discussed theme, providing back-and-forth individual responses to achieve a group consensus and further clarification. In short, these small focus groups were an adequate strategy to engage students with disabilities in a more robust social context where each could feel included and see their feedback as valuable, providing rich insights for the project outcomes. As for the methodology we used to outline these processes and techniques, Thematic Analysis proved to be the most adequate. At the same time, this method holds some

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debate and doubts in the scientific or academic context, namely for being unusual in the canon of qualitative analytic approaches because it offers a method – a tool or technique unbounded by theoretical commitments [13]. Nevertheless, it still proved helpful for this project precisely because it is not tied to a particular theoretical outlook and can be applied using a range of theories and epistemological approaches [14]. Therefore, implementing several data collection techniques and other methods left us with some degree of liberty. Additionally, Thematic Analysis is very flexible, allowing researchers to work with diverse sample sizes, several research questions, and even different topics by providing a somewhat “critical framework,” including multimedia content analysis. Lastly, we needed to identify and select our codes and themes, which follow an intrinsic process of this method. Therefore, good coding is open and inclusive, identifying and labelling all segments of interest and relevance within the dataset and everything relevant within those segments [15]. For this project, we defined the following codes and themes: • Professional capacity - the ability to autonomously define and follow tasks (cognitive or creative). • Digital proficiency- the ability to understand, interpret and use technologies to create content. • Emotional capacity - the ability to understand, respect, and connect with others despite beliefs or credos. We believe these three coding frames simplify the range of this project’s aims, mainly focusing on the professional development framework. The idea was to pinpoint where each participant felt more comfortable belonging and why with the intent of understanding which key competencies they considered more valuable for the labor market.

5 Project Main Findings In this section, we will present the most relevant results of the project. Therefore, after a careful and extensive review of the data collected through the informal conversational interview and focus group debates, we defined three major themes: (i) Professional capacity, (ii) Digital proficiency, and (iii) Emotional capacity. These themes work as a sum of the analyzed data, serving as the coding frame to understand the student’s assessment. Thus, there were two assessment moments before and after the training programs. Furthermore, these assessments served as guidelines for understanding the participant’s position according to their preference and know-how on the project’s main subject: professional development. So, before the training programs, when we asked students which domain they considered the most valuable as a critical competence for the labor market, the results showed that: • 19 out of the 55 students (34,5%) stated that the theme “Professional capacity” was quite considerable due to the ability to be autonomous and efficient in their work and in performing different types of tasks.

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• 12 out of the 55 students (21,8%) identified “Digital capacity” as the least important of the three presented domains. Stating that technological competencies are essential to being a well-rounded professional in the current market, however, being autonomous, efficient, and emotionally sensitive prevailed as priorities. • 24 out of the 55 students (43,7%) expressed the importance of having a wide range of emotional skills to complement your professional profile. The students also mentioned that being comprehensive and knowing how to provide feedback while being assertive and respectable as a professional was also crucial for any career (Table 1).

Table 1. Coding frame of the assessment results on the different domains Theme

Student’s first assessment results

Students last assessment results

Professional capacity

19 (34,5%)

15 (27,3%)

Digital capacity

12 (21,8%)

22 (40%)

Emotional capacity

24 (43,7%)

18 (32,7%)

These were the identified results from the data collected before the training sessions occurred. As for the second assessment period, some results significantly change and prove valuable information for the project outcomes. Therefore, the results showed that: • 15 out of the 55 students (27,3%) said that the “Professional Capacity” was still a solid domain to have as a well-rounded professional in the current market. However, this result presented a slight decrease of 7,2% compared to its first assessment showing that the students considered digital literacy and emotional skills essential to professional development. • 22 out of the 55 students (40%) stated that “Digital Capacity” is a priority skill given the current labour market. After frequenting the training sessions in digital literacy, the trainees understood the importance of having basic, intermediate, or advanced technology skills. The students also interacted with digital tools, such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Genially, Canva, WordPress, and Moodle. Essentially, the trainees raise their awareness of the importance of having digital skills and how essential these are to be a professional that can add value to an organization and showcase, in a creative way, their competencies. As a result, this domain was the one that demonstrated the most significant change, with a difference of 18,2% from the first assessment. • 18 of 55 students (32,7%) kept with the idea that “Emotional capacity” still is a precious domain with a set of skills that enhance any professional and its relation to his peers. Compared with its first assessment, this domain only showed a slight decrease in numbers, with a difference of 11%. Overall, students regard emotional intelligence as a valuable skill to muster and apply in their work routine. In addition, since the technological component showed different yet prominent results, we decided to discuss it in more detail by describing our students’ relations

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with specific technologies. Essentially, and despite this part not being directly related to the project results, it is important to stress it as achieved good practices. Therefore, in terms of general digital literacy, the students interacted with: • Zoom and Microsoft Teams for communication and collaboration. • Genially and Canva for presentations, creating content, and showcasing their ideas. • WordPress and Moodle as platforms to manage their work, publish articles, comment on other colleagues’ accomplishments, and consult multimedia content related to their training programs. Lastly, Moodle was the top choice for our LMS since our training sessions were mainly through remote learning due to the Covid19 pandemic that caught half the project duration. Furthermore, the platform was the most intuitive and accessible for our target group, mainly because it allowed the implementation of a Universal Design Strategy, including some unique features that facilitated the students’ learning process. These features follow the recommendations found in the work of Tanya Elias, “Universal Instructional Design Principles for Moodle,” which outline fair use and flexibility [16] as guidelines to implement in any online learning scenario.

6 Conclusions The project “DID. Value on internship and job in society” was only an embryonic initiative showcasing a particular experience. Despite its European value and contribution to society, it mainly interacted with a small sample size (55 students with disabilities), still far from more significant results or impacts. In our opinion, this project needs to be continued and expanded its target group to other young people that suffer from different types of disabilities. Furthermore, since the project intends to be fully inclusive, it needs to reach other disabilities, such as visual impairment, hearing loss, and even others around the cognitive spectrum, and go beyond Down syndrome or Autism. Still, concerning the project aims, we consider that some of the results were quite valuable and rich, endorsing the importance of having a very diverse skill set regarding professional development. Another interesting point of view was the level of awareness that some students had concerning certain areas or fields related to the labour market and, subsequently, professional development. During the interviews and focus groups, it was clear that some perceptions about specific competencies or skills were off-track. It was interesting to notice this unawareness fading away during their training sessions, mainly regarding digital literacy and emotional skills. Henceforth we also recommend tackling these situations of unawareness with the strategy “Proposed solutions.“ This strategy is essentially a run-up of actions based on keywords like “attitude,” “knowledge,” “resolve,” and “skills,” among others, that quickly relate to any discussed subject [17]. The idea is to trigger a more straightforward learning process for students with disabilities and relate those so-called actions to their own experiences. Regarding the methodology and methods used during the project, we considered Thematic Analysis a significant advantage. It allowed us such diversity and freedom when running our research. In addition, the simple idea of not including any ideas

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or concepts in a specific paradigm or epistemology helped this project run its actions flexibly, openly, and intuitively. Despite having a concrete path in mind that the project followed, many changes occurred during actions, interviews, training sessions, and focus groups. Henceforth, having the liberty to pinpoint these differences and shift towards completely different was something that Thematic Analysis allowed us to do. Therefore, we highly recommend this type of methodology for a team of young researchers with a very diverse target group and with the wit to implement an extensive range of actions that, due to its nature, are very flexible and open to intervention. Additionally, we admit that focusing only on professional development was challenging with this target group. If a similar experience arises, we suggest that creativity and digital art are more present in the curricula designed for the training sessions. We found that this target group has the will and eagerness to express their feelings, emotions, and even more specific aspects like their routine or achievements through a creative and digital way. Hence, combining both competencies in a unique dynamic is proven more practical and results better. In addition, it promotes a broader sense of digital literacy that could be more focused on this project. Lastly, the most significant limitation this project suffered was the Covid19 pandemic that crossed the duration of its activities. As a result, we had to shift our training sessions into a virtual format, which resulted nicely in this case. Firstly, because we were dealing with a European team and participants, facilitating communication, and providing more time to explore specific resources. Therefore, we look at online learning as an opportunity to tailor specific training programs intuitively, flexibly, and adequately to students who need a close approach to technologies. Thus, the pandemic situation gave us the liberty to undergo this experience. There were ups and downs - we had to build new guidelines, specify individual mentors for each group of learners, and create an accessible learning area with specific features, using Moodle as an LMS. The task was not simple, but the results were quite admirable, and we can say that students with disabilities can surprise us and follow up quite quickly. In short, DID. Value started an experience that needs more actions, testing, and validating to become an even greater best practice for sharing with different stakeholders.

References 1. Braun, V., Clarke, V.: Thematic Analysis. American Psychological Association (2012) 2. Jose, C., et al.: Handbook of ICT and Design Practices for Universal Learning Environments. European Union (2020) 3. World Economic Forum: The future of jobs report 2020. Retrieved from Geneva (2020) 4. Frey, C.B., Osborne, M.: The future of employment (2013) 5. International Labour Organization: Inclusion of youth with disabilities: the business case. Retrieved from Geneva (2014) 6. Gresham, F., Sugai, G., Horner, R.: Interpreting outcomes of social skills training for students with high-incidence disabilities. Except. Child. 67, 331–344 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1177/ 001440290106700303 7. Mahoney, J., Hall, C.: Using technology to differentiate and accommodate students with disabilities. E-Learn. Digital Media 14(5), 291–303 (2017)

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8. Salza, P., Musmarra, P., Ferrucci, F.: Agile methodologies in education: a review. In: Parsons, D., MacCallum, K. (eds.) Agile and Lean Concepts for Teaching and Learning, pp. 25–45. Springer, Singapore (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2751-3_2 9. Chun, A.H.W.: The agile teaching/learning methodology and its e-learning platform. In: Liu, W., Shi, Y., Li, Q. (eds.) International Conference on Web-Based Learning. LNCS, vol. 3143, pp. 11–18. Springer, Berlin (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-27859-7_2 10. Bryman, A.: Of methods and methodology. Qual. Res. Organ. Manage. Int. J. 3 (2008) 11. Turner III, D.W., Hagstrom-Schmidt, N.: Qualitative interview design. Howdy or Hello? Technical and Professional Communication (2022) 12. Finch, H., Lewis, J., Turley, C.: Focus groups. Qual. Res. Pract. Guide Soc. Sci. Stud. Res. 2, 211–242 (2003) 13. Clarke, V., Braun, V., Hayfield, N.: Thematic analysis. Qual. Psychol. Pract. Guide Res. Methods 222(2015), 248 (2015) 14. Joffe, H.: Thematic analysis. Qual. Res. Methods Mental Health Psychotherapy 1, 210–223 (2012) 15. Terry, G., Hayfield, N., Clarke, V., Braun, V.: Thematic analysis. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology, vol. 2, pp. 17–37 (2017) 16. Elias, T.: Universal instructional design principles for Moodle. Int. Rev. Res. Open Distrib. Learn. 11(2), 110–124 (2010) 17. Burgstahler, S., Doe, T.: Improving postsecondary outcomes for students with disabilities: designing professional development for faculty. J. Postsecond. Educ. Disab. 5–8, 1988–1989 (2006)

Embroidering Behaviour. The Power of Storytelling in Patient Activation Renata Arezes1,2,3(B) , Joana Quental4 , Anabela Pereira5 and Raquel Guimarães6

,

1 DeCA, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal

[email protected]

2 DeCA, Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture (ID+), University of Aveiro,

Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal 3 FCT Grant Holder, Lisboa, Portugal 4 DeCA, Department of Communication and Art, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal 5 DEP, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal 6 São João Hospital Breast Centre, Alameda Prof. Hernâni Monteiro, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal

Abstract. We live in a world of stories, within a multiplicity of multidimensional narratives. We look upon stories for example, inspiration, guidance, or assurance. It is through stories that we learn as they are a universal source of knowledge, insight, and awareness. In a world made of change and challenges, finding meaning in the apparently random, chaotic, and unpredictable day by day life is the permanent job of our brain, a processor of stories. The confrontation with cancer, as a form of chronic illness, is one of the most challenging events people may came across in life. In Patient-Centred Care, stories and storytelling are regarded as an important tool for practice. We believe that through resonance both can be a valuable resource in behavioural change towards health and contribute to patients’ coping and empowerment. Design can play a fundamental role in this process through Health Design Thinking and its principles. Human-Centred Design means the needs of oncological patients, families, caregivers, and medical staff could be correctly and precisely identified and/or anticipated, and a creative mindset assures they could be addressed through resourceful written and presented stories to carefully embroidery behaviour towards the desired engagement and transformation. Keywords: Patient behaviour · Storytelling · Health design thinking

1 Introduction 1.1 Relations “Life is not a technological ladder; it is more of a cultural wheel.” [1]. We live in a world of relations, within a multiplicity of world-relations. The nature of these relations, either between human actors, objects and acts, or collective products, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 435–444, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_38

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is the foundational element of human existence [2]. In a holistic approach, our relational nature is the core of our being and existence as human beings, both individually and collectively. With this in mind, we can also perceive a relation between humans/patients and the dimension of health/disease/illness/sickness as a higher sphere that is simultaneously within and above them. Understanding this dynamic regarding chronic disease, as in the case of breast cancer, might bring us a refreshed insight in ways of addressing it to contribute to better treatment results. According to the World Health Organization, health is “a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living” [3]. This concept of health emphasizes physical capacities along with social and personal resources as a link between health and participation in society—health is therefore a means to living well. Health is “an ecological understanding of the interaction between individuals and their social and physical environment” [4, p. 39]. To live is to interact. Interaction comprises action and reciprocal influence. More than recognizing the patient as a human being living a multidimensionality experience in health and disease through physical, mental, social, and spiritual dimensions [5–7], this perspective places the patient and his experience at the centre of health care in an active and participative role, favouring empowerment and requesting patients’ autonomy and capability for action [8, 9]. This is the core of Patient-Centred Care (PCC) a health care method with widely studied and demonstrated value and efficacy [4, 9] Within the scope of Health Design, the systemic humane approach and creativity of Human-Centred Design (HCD) [10] it’s the perfect ally to PCC, playing an essential role in dealing with today’s complex care challenges. If the Patient-Centred Approach places dignity and respect as fundamentals to treat a person receiving healthcare, attending to their needs, at the same time as involving them in all decision-making processes about their health (accordingly to their own capability and competence [9]), this approach made along with HCD may allow us to go further. The health design thinking process [11] and its human centred approach of observation, conversation, research, and collaboration can help identify patients’ needs that go beyond treatment. Furthermore, by adopting a creative mindset through questioning, visualizing, prototyping, and storytelling, health design thinking favours exploration which may create new ways to help people cope, facing the challenges and needs that cancer may impose them. Among other methods, observation relies on user interviews. The interviews, except for the necessary questions for quantitative data gathering, relay essentially on questions that allow patients to tell their personal story, either made of small episodes or from a full narrative enriched with precious emotional details for further and deeper understanding. Listening with emphatic resonance [6, 7] the designer has access to the patient’s perspective on the experience of disease, illness, sickness, health, healing, and wholeness [4, 12], that allows the creation of an archive of perception, the fertile ground for creativity and innovation [13].

2 Development 2.1 Stories We live in a world of stories, within a multiplicity of multidimensional narratives. Like the stars in the Universe, stories are shinny dots that belong to different constellations— either relating to the everyday life personal happenings, or to social, political, economic,

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military, cultural or religious/spiritual facts, stories have in common the human experience of life in all its dimensions. Stories belong to a shared collective memory, related through emotion, that connects us and gives us a sense of belonging. We are made of stories, the ones we make for us, and the ones others make about us. We belong to stories in the same way they belong us. We look upon stories for example, inspiration, guidance, or assurance. It is through stories that we learn as they are a universal source of knowledge, insight, and awareness. “There’s simply no way to understand the human world without stories.” [14, p. 12]. Stories either resonate or challenge us, since they always relate to us as human beings through emotion. Stories establish communication relationships, also through emotion. That is why stories have been used in medicine practice and teaching, with a renewed emphasis in recent years since they are considered central to patient-centred care practice [4, p. 23]. Trough patients’ stories we can learn to their particular social-cultural context, the significance health and illness have to each individual and their relation to both, and how their personal goals and health achievements may be compromised by a change in status. Patients’ stories can help us on understanding the four dimensions of the illness experience [4]: the patient’s feelings about their illness and their problems (fear, anxiety, demoralization, distress, among others); their grasp about the situation and what is not right or affecting their systems’ correct functioning; the impact and repercussion illness has in their lives and in both proximal (“family, financial security, education, employment, leisure and social support” [4, p. 107]) and distal (“culture, community, economics, the health care system, socio-historical issues, geography, the media and ecosystem health” [4, p. 107] contexts, either in present and future times; and their expectancy, hope and own commitment degree (of the clinicians, the treatment, their own capability). “The patient experience does not rely solely on the events that occur between themselves and health-care providers; their complex human experiences also influence their perception of the situation.” [5] Hence, once again, we are talking about multidimensional and multifaceted stories, even if concerning a single patient. Living within and surrounded by stories, as previously presented, means that our individual development, as well as our proximal and distal context—also a factor of “impact [on] the individual’s experience of health, disease, and the illness experience.” [4, p. 107])—, are shaped by them. In fact, our brain is a “story processor”, according to psychologist Jonathan Haidt1 , as it is the way our mind turns chaos into order, finding meaningful explanations to reality and our day to day random, challenging, or disruptive experiences. “Seeking an understanding or explanation for worrisome physical or emotional symptoms is a fundamental human need.” [5, p. 173] Stories bring definition, meaning, purpose and a sense of belonging. In healthcare, this may be of enormous value, as stated in Frankl’s words: “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.” [15]. Having a “story processor” brain also means we get easily neurologically wired and connected to stories, since stories unleash emotion (as a deep connector and marker) and present change, that excites the brain (as a trigger: “Almost all perception is based

1 Haidt, J. (2012) The Righteous Mind. Allen Lane p. 281. In Storr, W. (2021) The Science of

Storytelling. Abrams, New York p. 14.

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on the detection of change’ says the neuroscientist Sophie Scott2 ). Emotion and change are rooted on our complex biological nature. As we are ultimately designed to survive and reproduce, our brains are designed to control [14, p. 20]. 2.2 Balance We live in a world of permanent change, within a multiplicity of transformations. “The only constant in life is change”, stated Heraclitus3 . The world, mainly in industrialized countries, changes at an accelerated pace. Life follows this quest to adapt and control, in a permanent attempt to adjust to new and challenging demands, usually of unexpected nature. It’s a paradox that the world we build according to our image, needs, and demands, so that we can live safely ever after, still insists on unpredictably defying us and presenting us the unthinkable. Every system seeks balance. But it’s in the pursuit for balance that life also happens within different dynamics. Change, as a challenging event and the requested adaptation to find control and balance, may represent a new opportunity. It may be a chance to evolve. It may bring hope on transformation. Success may come as a by-product of trying something new. Stories nourish and result from change—even if nothing changes. Stories are a primordial resource for maintaining homeostasis and preserving life. Cancer, one of the biggest life challengers and threats, is changing is deadly condition—due technological advances in cancer care, allowing for earlier detection and more effective treatments, the number of survivors and patients living with chronic disease that take back their lives is increasing by the day [16, p. 21]. Throughout the years, theorical models for optimizing cancer patients and survivors’ adjustment and quality of life have been drawn and adapted, as seen in Lent; Livneh; Lazarus and Folkman; Maes, Leventhal and deRidder; and McCubbin and McCubbin [16, pp. 21–54]. From Lent’s model to restore balance after a stressful situation or the experience of a problematic event like an illness (e. g. oncological illness) we would like to highlight the importance given to the effect of a chronic illness diagnosis and its implications on further treatment through the psychological repercussion on patients. Lent also emphasizes the importance of coping strategies, focusing on the evaluation between threats and resources. The three types of coping strategies sustained by research [16, pp. 23–24] focus on the problem (illness and treatment management); the emotions (problem distance creation and illness’ positive aspects perception) or the significance (finding new significances; acceptation; identity and self-concept; and the positive life changes. Livneh states that psychosocial illness adaptation is a dynamic, complex, continuous, and often unpredictable process. This process depends on two main vectors: the conscious of the self (intrapersonal relationship) and the exercise of the self (interpersonal and extra-personal relationships). Lazarus and Folkman define coping as the compound of cognitive and behavioural efforts designed to manage specific demands perceived as distressing and beyond individual resources. Coping may be focused on emotions’ control or problem resolution— usually both, depending mainly on the person’s evaluation of illness’ effects on quality 2 Scott, S. (2018) In Ibid. p.20. 3 Heraclitus of Ephesus, c. 535 – c. 475 BC.

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of life and wellbeing, and the resources available to the patient. Coping depends mainly on self-action, once the individual poses the question what can I do to deal with the situation? Maes, Leventhal and deRidder enhance Lazarus and Folkman’s model by taking in consideration other factors they consider of uttermost importance for coping with chronic illness, like the external factors (e. g. social support) or the individual’s life objectives and situational exigencies, among others. They propose that the evaluation process and the coping strategy rely not only on the event characteristics per si, but also on the individual’s life objectives and personal values, since they are related with coping behaviours, and moderated by internal and external resources. McCubbin and McCubbin developed a model of family illness adaptation. Facing a stressful event, the family tries to maintain balance by evaluating the situation and using the available resources, applying their own problem solution models, and coping patterns. Families, from their inner interactions, different personalities, and underlying characteristics, are a complex factor for adaptation and coping with chronic illness. Cohesion is a fundamental aspect, since cohesive families value the group above the individual emphasizing the sense of belonging4 , as they possess well defined values, goals, priorities, expectations, and worldview. Coping strategies all have in common the fact of being stories that are made personal by the way each individual rewrites it as their own, self-created coping mechanism. “The world we experience as ‘out there’ is actually a reconstruction of reality that is built inside our heads. It’s an act of creation by the storytelling brain.” [14, p. 28]. 2.3 Storytelling We live in a world of connexions, within a multiplicity of analogies, affinities, links, bonds, and engagements. Storytelling has been a valuable resource for individual and collective survival since ancient times, adapting itself to technological advances, from oral to written tradition, and now also through digital formats, coexisting in all its forms in a peacefully and complementary manner [14, 17, 18]. Through stories, we can survive time, as they represent a legacy and help us connect to past, present and future times, defying finitude and oblivion, and projecting us towards innovation; we can survive challenges, as they help us finding meaning in events and inspire us to act; we can learn, since stories tell us about others as much as ourselves, through emotional connection; we can navigate more easily between physical, psychological, spiritual and moral worlds, through narratives that bring a wider reading and awareness of these realms. This leads us forwarding the hypothesis that storytelling may represent a useful tool to promote cancer patients’ coping and empowerment. If so, when and how could this happen?

4 Weinman, J., Heijmans, M., & Figueiras, M. J. (2003). Carer perceptions of chronic illness.

In L. D. Cameron & H. Leventhal (Eds.), The self-regulation of health and illness behaviour (pp. 207–219). Routledge. In Pereira MG (2016) Caleidoscópio de Olhares em Psicologia Oncológica: Teoria e Intervenção [p. 42].

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Coping models previously exposed all include what is called the adjustment phase where the individual adapts and adjusts to the new reality caused by cancer, ideally with family and social support for better results. This is a phase of reorganization, reintegration, or reorientation, and comprises factors such as cognitive reconciliation of the medical condition, its impact and nature; interiorized and affective self-acceptance, including a new self-concept, renewed life values and permanent search for new significances; active search (behavioural) for purpose, under personal, vocational, and social goals, including negotiating obstacles’ surpassing [16, pp. 21–54]. This is a complex and interactive process that depends on how the individual relates and reacts to their medical condition and its limitations, which by its turn, relies on different variables such as the illness, and the individual’s personality, physical and psychological states, ambience, context, socio-demographic background. By the permanent challenges imposed by a chronic illness, we can say that the individual is called several times to adjust himself to this reality. In this phase, demoralization is a common psychological response [19–22]. “Demoralization is the state of mind of a person deprived of spirit or courage, disheartened, bewildered, and thrown into disorder or confusion.” [23, p. 62] Taking place within the context of a stressful situation occurring in the past, present or anticipated future, it involves “subjective incompetence”5 and symptoms of distress6 , such as depression, anxiety, resentment, and/or anger. Demoralization usually arises when the stressful situation is relevant to the person’s self-esteem, the perceived stress is high and/or social support is weak, amplifying the feelings of disempowerment, helplessness, hopelessness, sense of failure and inability to cope. This means that demoralization involves a disturbing change in the person’s ambient world, through the disruption in the person’s expectations (subjective likelihoods) and assumptions (subjective certainties). The negative impact of emotional distress on the chronic illness patients’ physical and psychological health and treatment results, and also on their family and carers, is being studied for years [16, 24, 23]. Since the medical community started to look at the fine line that distinguishes depression from demoralization on chronic illnesses’ context, the role of meaning in understanding illness experience was gradually enhanced and understood as a “fundamental pathway of adaptation” [24] in coping. Suffering transcendence is achieved through meaning: “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.” [15]. Stories have such a fundamental and structural role in the life and world of human beings, that they are also included in techniques for health management in PCC (in

5 Subjective incompetence: “self-perceived incapacity to perform tasks and express feelings

deemed appropriate in a stressful situation, resulting in pervasive uncertainty and doubts about the future.” In Figueiredo, J.M. de (2013) Distress, demoralization and psychopathology: Diagnostic boundaries. The European Journal of Psychiatry 27:61–73 [p. 62]. 6 Distress: “unpleasant emotional experience of a psychological, social, and/or spiritual nature that may interfere with the ability to cope effectively with a stressful situation. Distress extends along a spectrum, ranging from common non-pathological feelings of vulnerability, sadness, and fears to problems that can become disabling, such as depression, anxiety, panic, social isolation, and spiritual crisis.” In Ibid. [p. 62].

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storytelling, the centre is the person)—psychotherapy uses narrative therapy, for optimizing coping [25–27]. Through stories, patients can find a purpose; reconstruct a strong sense of will; regain control, mastery, and courage; and reconnect with others. With their adverse situation and suffering recognized, and their dignity reinstated, hope rebirths. [24, 28] “Story’s gift is the hope that we might not be quite so alone, in that dark bone vault, after all.” [14, p. 196]. PCC, besides taking the patient’s perspective on illness, requires patient activation as the person that manages their disease (self-care) through the management of their own life—their behaviours. This ultimately means that patients must adopt behaviours, not acting. This requires capability for action or patient agency, that depends essentially in personal and biological autonomy7 , and empowerment 8 , which together build competence—as both the freedom and skills to successfully take action—, and self-efficacy.9 [9] People with self-efficacy are able to use coping strategies and available resources, persisting in problem resolution when confronted with difficult situations [16]. In Bandura’s words, patients “are agents of experience rather than simply undergoers of experience.”10 This means that patients are self-reflexive, and capable of adjusting their plans and actions according to their sense of self, trough desired efficacy and built-in moral. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” [15]. Sullivan claims that “health is experienced by socially connected and functioning biological individuals” [9 p.382] that exercise agency through concrete opportunities created by social resources. Stories can be a fundamental resource in helping patients take action to shape their lives in a personally meaningful way.

3 Conclusion 3.1 Resonance We live in a world of acceleration, within a multiplicity of stimuli. In modern societies, we are no longer just surrounded by stimuli; we now live immersed in a world that is constantly triggering us, trying to make us react. Our existence is validated by the intensity of our response. We are targets aimed to act as expected from us, echoing the standardized and socially accepted ways of acting. Human behaviour is therefore conditioned and becomes closer to acting than taking action. The work of sociologist Hartmut Rosa proposes an answer to this concern: resonance, “a form of world-relation, in which subject and world meet and transform each other”11 7 Autonomy: “patients’ capacity and freedom to make health care decisions.” In Ibid. [p. 192]. 8 Empowerment: “activating patients on their own behalf so they can better meet their own goals.”

In Ibid. [p. 192]. 9 Self-efficacy: “The belief that one is capable of performing the behaviors required to produce

a desired outcome.” In Sullivan, M. (2017) The Patient as Agent of Health and Health Care: Autonomy in Patient-Centered Care for Chronic Conditions. Oxford University Press p. 194. 10 Bandura (1977) Social Learning Theory. In Ibid. [pp. 194–195]. 11 Rosa, H. (2016). Resonanz. Eine Soziologie der Weltbeziehung. Berlin: Suhrkamp p. 298 In Susen, S. (2020) The Resonance of Resonance: Critical Theory as a Sociology of WorldRelations? International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society [p. 311].

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may be the solution to the problem of acceleration. Involving both ‘af ← fection’ and ‘e → motion’12 , experiencing resonance means we are touched and moved (a reverberation on the self) but we also touch and move someone else (a reverberation on the other), on something we could translate as self-efficiency, in an active process that requires a healthy degree of autonomy of all the involved. This, Rosa argues, makes resonance a mutual reinforcing relationship based on response, rather than echo [29, p. 311]. The pursuit of meaning, a quest that is innate to almost any living human being, as both a desire and a need to navigate their lifeworld in its multiple dimensions, places resonanceseeking in the centre of their daily existence. Rosa proposes resonance as the fundamental foundational element of human existence through what he calls “normative monism” [29, p. 334], defending that the human levels of happiness and fulfilment depend on the quality of their resonance experiences. Humans are then essentially resonance-seeking creatures. The growth of chronic illness and the proportional strain caused on healthcare delivery [30] increases the search for PCC approaches that promote patient behaviour with a positive effect both on health and illness. We believe that through resonance, stories can be a resourceful tool in encouraging, developing, and sustaining health behaviours and people/patient action. Aristotle13 , in his book Rhetoric, presents ethos, pathos and logos, as three fundamental elements to persuasive communication. Among them, they form the rhetorical triangle where the dynamic of persuasion occurs, between ethics, emotion, and logic. Ethos is the credibility or trustworthiness, the speaker’s character, the authors’ perspective. Pathos is the emotional appeal, the audience perspective, the emotional context. Logos is the logic or reasoning, the rational argument, the content and structure. A story is also a discourse of rhetoric, a persuasive narrative whose ideas and events are carefully embroidery in the public’s imagination to arise a deep emotional connection. This triangle can then be seen as author/narrator, audience/public, text/narrative. This belongs to the people’s plan or the acting plan. This is where incorporation happens—the narrator tells the story, and the story is incorporated by the public/person. It’s where the story is embodied, and then inclusion and integration happen through horizontal14 and diagonal resonance15 . Resonance is what allows rising above this plan. This is where appropriation happens, as the individual is emotionally connected to the story and takes ownership for it. The frontier between the outer and the inner world is diluted through

12 Ibid. p.755 In Ibid. [p. 332]. 13 Aristotle, 384 – 322 BC. 14 Horizontal axes of resonance are those established between human actors through experiences

of community and meaningful interactional relations (e. g. family, friendship, politics). In Susen, S. (2020) The Resonance of Resonance: Critical Theory as a Sociology of World-Relations? International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society [pp. 316–317]. 15 Diagonal axes of resonance are those established between human actors and the world of things, and relays to the capacity of defining a place in the universe through the (re)construction of the material and the symbolic (e. g. objects, work, school, sport, consumption). In Ibid. [p. 317].

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imagination. Vertical resonance16 allows reaching a fourth vertex, that is above the other three, forming a tetrahedron, and where we propose to place the theme, the moral, the wider subject. This is where recognition happens through truth and trust. This belongs to the great collective plan or the behaviour plan. Rosa defends that resonance contains a “transformative element” [29, p. 333]. This, we believe, embodies the power of stories—and storytelling—to transform patient acting into patient behaviour. This represents an opportunity for future multidisciplinary work between designers and health professionals. Through Health Design Thinking, the needs of oncological patients, families, caregivers, and medical staff could be correctly and precisely identified—even anticipated—and addressed, through stories that could be creatively written and presented to carefully embroidery behaviour towards the desired engagement and transformation. Acknowledgements. FCT – This research is being funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia.

References 1. Fletcher, A.: The Art of Looking Sideways. Phaidon Press (2001) 2. Rosa, H., Wagner, J.: Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World. Wiley (2019) 3. Constitution of the World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/about/governance/con stitution. Accessed 27 June 2022 4. Challenges and Solutions: Narratives of Patient-Centered Care, Judith Belle Brown, Tanya Thornton, Moira Stewart. Radcliffe Publishing, United Kingdom (2012) 5. Oben, P.: Understanding the patient experience: a conceptual framework. J. Patient Exper. 7, 906–910 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1177/2374373520951672 6. Watson, J.C., Greenberg, L.C.: Empathic resonance: a neuroscience perspective. In: The Social Neuroscience of Empathy, pp. 125–137. J. Decety & W. Ickes, MIT Press (2011) 7. Vanaerschot, G.: Empathic resonance and differential experiential processing: an experiential process-directive approach. Am. J. Psychotherapy 61, 313–331 (2007) 8. Mullaney, T., Pettersson, H., Nyholm, T., Stolterman, E.: Thinking beyond the cure: a case for human-centered design in cancer care. Int. J. Des. 6 (2012) 9. Sullivan, M.: The Patient as Agent of Health and Health Care: Autonomy in Patient-Centered Care for Chronic Conditions. Oxford University Press (2017) 10. Melles, M., Albayrak, A., Goossens, R.: Innovating health care: key characteristics of humancentered design. Int. J. Qual. Health Care 33, 37–44 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/ mzaa127 11. Bon, K., Lupton, E.: Health Design Thinking: Creating Products and Services for Better Health. The MIT Press (2020) 12. Boyd, K.M.: Disease, illness, sickness, health, healing and wholeness: exploring some elusive concepts. Med. Humanit. 26, 9–17 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1136/mh.26.1.9 13. Arezes, R., Quental, J., Pereira, A., Guimarães, R.: Building an Archive of Perception: The Role of Observation and Intuition in Design Practice and Research, pp. 179–191 (2021) 16 Vertical axes of resonance are those established between human actors and transcendent spheres

of engagement like God(s), the cosmos, eternity, or time, through the production of behavioural, ideological, or institutional teleological performance, allowing humans to challenge the given reality (e. g. religion, nature, art, history). In Ibid. [p. 317].

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14. Storr, W.: The Science of Storytelling. Abrams, New York (2021) 15. Frankl, V.E.: Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. Beacon Press (Viktor E 1905–1997) (1962) 16. Pereira, M.G.: Caleidoscópio de Olhares em Psicologia Oncológica: Teoria e Intervenção (2016) 17. Hardy, P., Sumner, T.: Cultivating Compassion: How Digital Storytelling is Transforming Healthcare (2018) 18. Fullford, R.: The Triumph of Narrative: Storytelling in the Age of Mass Culture. House of Anansi Press Inc., Toronto (2011) 19. Tecuta, L., Tomba, E., Grandi, S., Fava, G.A.: Demoralization: a systematic review on its clinical characterization. Psychol. Med. 45, 673–691 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1017/S00332 91714001597 20. Tang, P.-L., Wang, H.-H., Chou, F.-H.: A systematic review and meta-analysis of demoralization and depression in patients with cancer. Psychosomatics 56, 634–643 (2015). https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.psym.2015.06.005 21. Kissane, D.W., Clarke, D.M., Street, A.F.: Demoralization syndrome—a relevant psychiatric diagnosis for palliative care. J. Palliative Care 17(1), 12–21 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1177/ 082585970101700103 22. Sansone, R.A., Sansone, L.A.: Demoralization in patients with medical illness. Psychiatry 7, 42–45 (2010) 23. de Figueiredo, J.M.: Distress, demoralization and psychopathology: diagnostic boundaries. Eur. J. Psychiatry 27, 61–73 (2013) 24. Lloyd-Williams, M., Reeve, J., Kissane, D.: Distress in palliative care patients: developing patient-centred approaches to clinical management. Eur. J. Cancer 44, 1133–1138 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejca.2008.02.032 25. Hammel, S.: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling: Stories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision (2018) 26. Herman, D.: Storytelling and the Sciences of Mind. MIT Press (2013) 27. Brewster, A., Zimmerman, R., Fernandopulle, R., Young, R.: The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma, and Loss. North Atlantic Books (2022) 28. Spaulding, A.E.: The Art of Storytelling: Telling Truths Through Telling Stories. Scarecrow Press, Incorporated (2011) 29. Susen, S.: The resonance of resonance: critical theory as a sociology of world-relations? Int. J. Politics Culture Soc. 1–36 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-019-9313-6 30. Wilson, E.V.: Patient-Centered E-Health. Medical Information Science Reference (2008)

The Smartification of Low-Density Territories: The Case of CIM Viseu Dão Lafões Paulo Bruno Alves1(B)

and Lídia Oliveira2

1 Escola Superior de Educação de Viseu, Rua Maximiano Aragão, 3504-501 Viseu, Portugal

[email protected]

2 Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal

[email protected]

Abstract. Intermunicipal Communities (CIM), such as CIM Viseu Dão Lafões, are largely made up of low-density territories, imbued with an unattractive set to settle people and captivate tourists or to attract investment through companies (physical and/or digital). In face of the constraints that arise from this for low-density territories, the smartification of CIM presents itself as a fundamental opportunity to reverse the direction of progress or, at least, to mitigate, in the short term, the effects arising from that reality. The main objective of this text is to expose some content related to the problem of low-density territories and Intermunicipal Communities and their process towards a digitalization of services. In this sense, through the approach to the smartification of CIM, low-density territories should be constituted as instruments of territorial cohesion, functioning as “networked territories”, that is, creative and intelligent. For this, we will exemplify with the case of CIM Viseu Dão Lafões, from its presentation as a low-density territory to the demonstration of three digital projects, which should be understood as a bet on this process of digitization of intercity services. It is intended to demonstrate how these tools give citizens a greater participation in making various decisions, something that should be understood as an asset for the development of the territory. Finally, it is expected to contribute with current data (some in the implementation phase) for a reflection on the digitization of the services of the Intermunicipal Communities, as instruments of territorial cohesion and of valorization of low density territories. Keywords: Smartification · Low density territories · Desertification · Digital technology

1 Introduction: Between a Low-Density Territory and the Impetus of Smartification Low-density territories have aspects that define their unattractiveness, such as, among others: low population density; strong emigration and aging; poor job offer; loss of human capital; critical levels of infrastructure and services; weak entrepreneurship; deficit of mobile endogenous investment in innovative-based activities (Moreira 5: 122–123). In © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 445–456, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_39

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fact, these elements are also reflected in a set of data on low-density territories that the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities defined in 20141 . Indeed, in this process there is a kind of ‘vicious circle’ (Ramos 2014: 12 apud Mota 6: 25) that is based “above all, on demographic, urban, institutional, relational, economic and productive dimensions (…) [and such] multiplicity of structural problems conditions the development of low-density territories” (Mota 6: 25). This reality is admitted by Covas and Covas (3: 34), who point out a set of inappropriate political options for solving problems in the interior of the country and, specifically, in low-density territories. The authors argue that human and financial resources are directed towards the (large) cities on the coast, rather than the interior, which increases the already much accentuated regional asymmetries. On the other hand, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) distinguished, in 2005, three territorial realities: 1) Predominantly Rural; 2) Intermediate Region; 3) Predominantly Urban2 . The Portuguese reality is composed of these three scenarios: the Predominantly Rural Region (in green on the map – Fig. 1) extends from the north to the south interior; the Intermediate Region (in yellow) is defined in the coastal strip between Viana do Castelo and Lisbon and also in the Algarve; the

Fig. 1. Portugal map with the three territorial realities, according to segundo a OECD: Predominantly Rural (green); Intermediate Region (yellow); Predominantly Urban (red) See: https://www.anmp.pt 1 See:

https://www.anmp.pt/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/CriteriosFINAISAPROVADOS.pdf (last accessed 2022/06/13). 2 The three territorial realities are distinguished by the OECD and include the following criteria: a) Predominantly 50% of the population resides in rural areas (with less than 150 inhabitants/km; b) Intermediate Region – When 15% to 50% of the population resides in rural local units. This population includes an urban center with more than 200 thousand inhabitants and if this represents at least 25% of the predominantly rural region; c) Predominantly Urban – When less than 15% of the region’s population resides in rural units. It is part of this determination if there is an urban center with more than 100 thousand inhabitants and representing at least 25% of the population of a region. See: https://www.anmp.pt/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Cri teriosFINAISAPROVADOS.pdf(last accessed 2022/06/13).

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Predominantly Urban Region (in red) is concentrated in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto. The first scenario is the reality of a large part of the national territory and of the 21 Intermunicipal Communities (CIM) existing in the country. Our case study – CIM Viseu Dão Lafões – is part of the Predominantly Rural Region and, of course, suffers from the factors of little attractiveness established in this territorial reality. One of the ways to boost, plan, promote and manage low-density territories involves the implementation of an efficient and proactive territorial marketing plan. According to Barros and Gama (1: 94), territorial marketing works from a dual representation perspective. That is, as a positive answer. “(…) to the needs of people who live in a given territory, intervening in aspects that improve the quality of life and the feeling of identity and belonging to that same territory and, on the other hand, improve the quality and competitiveness of the territory, creating dynamics of promotion and dissemination that allow attracting more individuals [residents and tourists] and companies to the same space”. In view of this reality (and constraints), one of the possibilities for the CIM to leverage itself is to enter a new reality that António Covas, professor at the University of the Algarve, calls the smartification of Intermunicipal Communities (CIM), in order for them to be an effective and lasting instrument of territorial cohesion, functioning as “networked territories”, that is, creative and intelligent (Covas 2). It is in this aspect that the author admits, in an extensive article published in the Observador newspaper3 , that the CIM’s (especially the most recent ones) must “prove their existence”, in two fundamental areas : a ) in the way in which the territory that is deserted with people and services is occupied; b) how to promote and reorganize a labor market that is in difficulties. However, these designs will only be valid in the near future if they are followed by a structured digital transformation in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), in a digital and knowledge economy and in the valorization of individuals and the territory. To make a territory smart, it is necessary to implement a territorial development strategy, so “(…) it is central to rethink the concepts of knowledge territory and smart territory, inserting creativity not as an individualized element, but as an integrated aspect in a possible development model associated with a new global concept of intelligent and creative territory (Fernandes and Gama 4).

3 See:

https://observador.pt/opiniao/a-smartificacao-das-cim-e-a-coesao-territorial/> accessed 2022/06/13).

(last

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Taking this position is all the more relevant when one realizes that the Intermunicipal Communities are heavily ruralized and desertified territories of various technological services, and where their people live in an “environment of proximity”, albeit in a model based on digital illiteracy4 . Therefore, these low-density territories have to capture new markets (preferably digital) in line with the uniqueness of a region that will have to discover something distinct and relevant to offer (sell). From this angle, António Covas listed ten measures to establish a smartification strategy for Intermunicipal Communities5 . Among them are : t he clear delimitation of the region as a “CIM reference territory”; the choice of “distinctive territorial signs” that differentiate one territory from others; the creation of a communication and digital marketing strategy. Not forgetting the other seven measures, we believe that it is precisely in this triangle that the present and future action of the CIM will be sustained. Delimiting a “reference territory”, which goes far beyond its thousands of square kilometers of extension, and finding in it “distinctive marks from which the first wave of mobilization and adhesion can radiate”6 , should work as one of the vertices of the triangle. Then, functioning as a second vertex, it is necessary to choose several “distinctive territorial signs”, that is, a smaller set of clear options of singularity that is capable of bringing to this region new residents, new services and markets, new dynamics and more tourists. Finally, at a third vertex of the triangle, it is necessary to plan and implement a convincing territorial marketing action capable of catapulting the best that is produced and done in that territory. When linked, these aspects should work “(…) to determine

4 According to data from Pordata, under the theme “Science, Technology and the Information

Society” and sub-theme “Information Society and Telecommunications” – Private households with a computer, Internet connection and Internet connection via broadband (%) – in Portugal, in 2021, there was a total of 87.2% of private households with an Internet connection at home. With an Internet connection via broadband, the data dropped to 83.9%. In the Center region (where CIM Viseu Dão Lafões is located) there were 83.6% of private households with an Internet connection at home. This is a significant increase compared to 2009 data, the year in which the number of households with Internet stood at 41.4%. With Internet connection through broadband, the data for 2021 decrease to 80.9%, the same happening for those registered in 2009, which were 39.3%. In the general framework of the country, the data for 2009 were 47.9%, for private households with Internet connection at home, and 46.1%, with Internet connection through broadband. See: https://www.pordata.pt/Subtema/Municipios/Computado res+e+Internet-227 (last accessed 2022/06/13). 5 In general, the ten measures presented by António Covas for the smartification of the territory are: 1) Create a promoting and representative commission; 2) Delimit a starting, reference territory; 3) Elect distinctive territorial signs; 4) Build a mission structure that promotes the CIM strategy; 5) Conceive the iconography of the territory where the CIM’s communication policy will act; 6) Create a CIM collaborative platform that allows the interaction of the various partners; 7) Build a matrix of intelligent communities in the CIM; 8) Develop a CIM network and agglomeration economy that monitors the application of CIM measures; 9) Apply a digital marketing strategy to promote the actions and territorial iconography of the CIM; 10) Elect CIM ambassadors who promote this territory. See: https://observador.pt/opiniao/a-smartific acao-das-cim-e-a-coesao-territorial/ (last accessed 2022/06/13). 6 Idem, ibidem.

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the nature and intelligibility of the CIM territory, that is, the quality of all interaction and digital and subsequent material connection”7 . Low-density territories need to be permanently valued. Decision-making structures have to arouse fantastic en thus iasm in the inhabitants of these territories, giving them a sense of belonging and effective empowerment in their actions (physical and digital), in order to garner and mobilize a truly efficient and lasting phalanx of support. At the same time, the citizens, inhabitants of these territories, will have to feel that their intervention helps to make a difference in a global system of learning and constructive appreciation. Only in this way will these inter-municipal territories be able to demarcate themselves from the rest, in an institutional structure that is still similar to the entire CIM universe and in which the instruments of identification and analysis are also little differentiating.

2 The Viseu Dão Lafões Intermunicipal Community, A Low-Density Territory View from the air, the area of the Intermunicipal Community (CIM) Viseu Dão Lafões8 , which accounts for 3483 km2 , presents the singularity of resembling a human heart (Fig. 2). A fragile heart, in a desertified region in the interior of central Portugal, which is framed in NUT S III (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistical Purposes), and which has been stripping people, year after year. Data from the Portuguese Population Census (National Statistics Institute) show that, in 2021, 252 793 people lived in these almost three thousand five hundred square kilometers. These almost 253 thousand residents were (they are!) spread over 14 municipalities : A guiar da Beira, Carregal do Sal, Castro Daire, Mangualde, Nelas, Oliveira de Frades, Penalva do Castelo, São Pedro do Sul, Santa Comba Dão, Sátão, Tondela, Vila Nova de Paiva, Viseu and Vouzela. Of these, only Viseu (capital of the district with the same name) is not considered a low-density territory, as identified by the Interministerial Coordination Commission (CIC) – Portugal 2020. Even so, according to the same CIC, in its municipality there are six parishes that are considered “low density territories”: C alde, Cavernães, Côta, Ribafeita, São Pedro de France, Union of Parishes of Barreiros and Cepões9 . 7 Idem, ibidem. 8 The region and CIM Viseu Dão Lafões is framed in NUTS III (Nomenclature of Territorial

Units for Statistical Purposes), has around 237 thousand residents, spread over and is made up of 14 municipalities: Aguiar da Beira, Carregal do Sal, Castro Daire, Mangualde, Nelas, Oliveira de Frades, Penalva do Castelo, São Pedro do Sul, Santa Comba Dão, Sátão, Tondela, Vila Nova de Paiva, Viseu and Vouzela. Of these, only the municipality of Viseu is not considered a low-density territory, as identified in the National Program for Territorial Cohesion (PNCT). Even so, according to the Interministerial Coordination Commission – Portugal 2020, in the municipality of Viseu six parishes are identified as being “low density territories”: Calde, Cavernães, Côta, Ribafeita, São Pedro de France, União de Freguesias de Barreiros and Cepões. See: https://poseur.portugal2020.pt/media/37819/delibera%C3%A7%C3%A3o_ cic_pt2020_01072015_territorios_baixa_densidade.pdf (last accessed 2022/06/13). 9 See: https://www.compete2020.gov.pt/admin/images/Deliberacoes_cic_territ%C3%B3rios_ baixa_densidade.pdf (last accessed 2022/06/07).

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Fig. 2. CIM Viseu Dão Lafões location set in Portugal mainland (similar to the human heart) and its symbol See: Wikipédia

If we go back ten years and look at the figures for 2011, the year of the penultimate Census, we can see that there was a huge decrease in the resident population in 13 of the 14 municipalities that make up the CIM Viseu Dão Lafões. The exception was the municipality of Viseu, the most populous, which increased its percentage very slightly (+0.3%). That is, in a decade this intermunicipal region “lost” 14 840 residents who had been registered in the 2011 Census (267 633 residents). The percentage of decline in the resident population was not, of course, the same in all municipalities, with values

County

Aguiar da Beira Carregal do Sal Castro Daire Mangualde Nelas Oliveira de Frades Penalva do Castelo Santa Comba Dão São Pedro do Sul Sátão Tondela Vila Nova de Paiva Viseu Vouzela

Total Area square Kilometers – km² 207 km² 117 km² 379 km² 219 km² 126 km2 145 km2 134 km² 112 km² 349 km² 202 km² 371 km² 176 km² 507 km² 194 km²

2011 Census

2021 Census

Resident Population

Resident Population

Population variations and percentage

5473 9385 15 339 19 880 14 037 10 261 7956 11 597 16 851 12 444 28 946 5176 99 274 10 564

5231 9038 13 736 18 303 13 121 9506 7333 10 641 15 137 11 030 25 914 4662 99 561 9580

-242 Habitantes (-4.4%) -347 Hab. (-8.1%) -1603 Hab. (-10.5%) -1577 Hab. (-7.9%) -916 Hab. (-6.5%) -755 Hab. (-7.4%) -623 Hab. (-7.8%) -956 Hab. (-8.2%) -1714 Hab. (-10.2%) -1414 Hab. (-11.4%) -3032 Hab. (-10.5%) -514 Hab. (-9.9%) +287 Hab. (+0.3%) -984 Hab. (-9.3%)

Fig. 3. Table of the area and population variations of the 14 municipalities of the CIM Viseu Dão Lafões – 2011 and 2021 Censuses See: https://www.pordata.pt/ and home made criation

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ranging from the low −4.4% in Aguiar da Beira, to the expressive −11.4% in Sátão. This, in addition to the singles +0.3%, recorded in Viseu, against the cycle (Fig. 3). If the positive case of Viseu can be explained by the unique attractiveness of being the only municipality with almost one hundred thousand inhabitants, all the other 13 presents negative numbers. Although Sátão recorded the highest negative percentage, it was not in this municipality that the most significant drop in the resident population was recorded. In fact, in 2021 it was found that Sátão had “only” the fourth highest descent, with −1414 inhabitants, after São Pedro do Sul (−1714), Castro Daire (−1603) and Mangualde (−1577). The municipality of Tondela was the one that lost the most resident population: −3032 people, based on a population decrease of −10.5%. This drop is still significant, especially since Tondela is, by far, the second municipality in the CIM with the largest resident population, with 25,914 people, far from Viseu, the first place in the table (99,561 people) and, well away from Mangualde, the third most populous municipality, with 18,303 people, which suffered a population decrease from −7.9% to −1,577 people.

3 Three Digital Projects to Enable CIM Viseu Dão Lafões The digitization of services is one of the good opportunities to train low-density territories, such as the Viseu Dão Lafões Intermunicipal Community. In this context, the presentation of digital projects implemented by CIM must be understood as its commitment to people, companies and the territory, in a perspective of technological evolution, commonly known as “smart”. In a virtual way, these projects constitute a real commitment by CIM Viseu Dão Lafões to the development of a markedly rural region, but where full articulation with nature and the tranquility that exists in these low-density territories coexists. Among the various digital services developed, within the framework of administrative modernization, we selected three: Citizen Portal, more focused on people; Open Data Portal, more dedicated to companies; Integrated Video Surveillance System for the Prevention of Forest Fires, developed more for the territory. 3.1 Citizen Portal The Citizen Portal is, for CIM Viseu Dão Lafões, a bet on the modernization and training of the local public administration. In a process of “digital acceleration”, as it is dubbed by the CIM itself, the service was publicly presented on January 19, 2022 and was only available in six of the 14 municipalities (unspecified), according to a CIM statement sent to local media10 . Its mission is to provide citizens with a new digital platform, which concentrates all means and tools of communication and interaction with the municipality. It is a tool that, according to CIM, is based on transparency, efficiency and the quality of the services provided. Finally, it contributes to promoting the involvement of citizens in the management of territories. The Citizen Portal aims to: a) modernize the interaction between municipalities and citizens; b) strengthen the proximity between people and local management bodies, between the municipality and its citizens; c) encourage the dematerialization of paper processes and exchange them for digital (Fig. 4). 10 See:. https://www.cimvdl.pt/cim-acelera-transformacao-digital/ (last accessed 2022/06/13).

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Fig. 4. Highlight of Online Services on the Carregal do Sal Municipality main page See: https://www.cm-carregal.pt/

Among the features available on the Portal do Munícipe are, among others, Electronic Invoicing, the Urban Process Builder, Participatory Budgeting, GeoPortal and the Municipal Library Catalogue. The device has online services active 24 h a day, seven days a week. 3.2 Open Data Portal The Open Data Portal is a new tool of the Viseu Dão Lafões Intermunicipal Community, which provides companies, citizens, researchers and programmers with information considered relevant in several areas. Launched on February 14, 2022, the new digital device’s mission is to provide citizens and companies with a networked information sharing and management platform, with the ability to gather and process, in a single channel, different types of information. It aims to promote the participation of citizens, encouraging the reuse and sharing of data and, thus, stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation. The Open Data Portal aims to: a) Aggregate, reference and host open data from different bodies and sectors of public administration; b) Avoid the dispersion of information present in the CIM; c) Make available a set of data (open data) developed by the 14 municipalities of CIM Viseu Dão Lafões and different partner entities (Fig. 5). Currently, 90 data sets are created by the 14 municipalities to which the CIM itself joins, in six areas of intervention : E nvironment; Economic activities; Sports Equipment; Hospitality; Educational Network; Social. The Open Data Portal offers four other features : B UPI (Building’s Single Counter) – a free and easy-to-use platform, aimed at owners of rustic and mixed buildings (rustic and urban parts), which aims to “map, understand and value the Portuguese territory”; Investing – directed towards commercial activities and exchanges; Geographical Portal – a Spatial Data infrastructure (Intermunicipal GIS) with thousands of georeferencing in

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Fig. 5. Poster allundig to the Open Data Portal project, within the scope of the app. “Administrative Modernization in Viseu Dão Lafões Region– One model, fourtee municipalities” See: https://www.cimvdl.pt

14 areas11 , in the 14 municipalities and in the CIM itself; Tourism Promotion – provides the “Visit Viseu Dão Lafões” platform12 , which offers many nature tourism experiences. 3.3 Integrated Video Surveillance System for Forest Fire Prevention The Integrated Video Surveillance System for the Prevention of Forest Fires is a project developed for the installation, on the internal borders of the Viseu Dão Lafões and Coimbra Region Intermunicipal Communities (33 municipalities: 14 +19, respectively), of a set of monitoring equipment of the forest area and its surroundings and data acquisition in an integrated video surveillance system for the prevention of forest fires13 . The installation forecast was for 37 Remote Monitoring Towers (RMT), 17 of which in the territory of CIM Viseu Dão Lafões, covering 85% of its total area. The other 20 were destined for the CIM Region of Coimbra. The execution period ran between May 2019 and April 2021. The Integrated Video Surveillance System for the Prevention of Forest Fire’s mission is to provide important support to security and firefighting forces, providing them with technological tools that allow them to better protect communities and the forest (Fig. 6). Among the objectives to be achieved with this integrated system are: a) Create adequate coverage of the territory of the Intermunicipal Communities of the Coimbra and Viseu Dão Lafões Regions: b) Increase efficiency in the detection and prevention of 11 The 14 areas are: Environment; Economic activities; Issuance of Plants; Demography; Sports

Equipment; Urban Equipment; Road Management – SGPavM (artificial intelligence technology); Hospitality; Mobility; Patrimony; Municipal Master Plan; Educational Network; Social; Tourism. See: https://www.cimvdl.pt/ (last accessed 2022/06/14). 12 See: https://www.visitviseudaolafoes.pt/ (last accessed 2022/06/14). 13 See: https://www.cimvdl.pt/cims-viseu-dao-lafoes-e-regiao-de-coimbra-avancam-com-a-imp lementacao-do-sistema-de-videovigilancia-florestal/ (last accessed 2022/06/15).

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Fig. 6. The Integrated System of Video Surveillance for the Prevention of Forest Fires aims to create an eficiente coverage of Viseu Dão Lafões and Coimbra Regions Fonte: https://www.cimvdl.pt

forest fires; c) Strengthen surveillance in areas identified as shadow areas; d) Optimize forest fire management. The installation plan for the Remote Monitoring Towers (RMT) at CIM Viseu Dão Lafões had already two phases. In April 2021, the first three RMTs located in the municipalities of Tondela, Viseu and Vouzela went into operation. Four months later, in September, another three RMT were activated, this time in the municipalities of Carregal do Sal, Mangualde and Nelas. The third installation phase is scheduled to take place next December, in which three more RMTs will be activated in the municipalities of Oliveira de Frades, São Pedro do Sul and Vouzela. In this light, within the internal limits of CIM Viseu Dão Lafões, nine (9) RMT will be operational. In addition to these devices, the two Management and Control Centers created for this purpose are already in operation. One is at the premises of the Territorial Command of the National Republican Guard (GNR) of Viseu, and the other is located in the District Command of Operations and Relief (CDOS) of Viseu. Each of these three projects has its specificity and field of action. A single direction is clearly visible there, towards technological implementation, innovation and process simplification. The cut with a heavy legacy of the Public Administration, crammed with various requirements and models of requests, has been taking place with the “Simplex”. This government program has been implemented in the Intermunicipal Communities, in order to implement new tools here to reduce bureaucracy and facilitate the daily lives of citizens. From a hermeneutic perspective, based on those elements, we can question the sound vectors of change that affect them and what they promote? And what can these three projects really accomplish in people favor? And can they empower the citizens, inhabitants of this inter-municipal territory? It is in a model based on digital illiteracy, of heavily ruralized and desertified territories of various technological services, that CIM Viseu Dão Lafões and, in a certain way, all the other CIM in Portugal are “moved”. It should be noted that data from Pordata, from 2011, on the Portuguese population,

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indicated the existence of 7.1% of illiterates within the internal limits of CIM Viseu Dão Lafões. On the national map, in 2011, there were 5.2% of illiterates14 . When we attended the Basic and Secondary education levels, the numbers within the CIM improved, with a total of 30,981 people in Secondary Education and 26,015 in Higher Education15 . In other words, those issues are of greater importance for CIM Viseu Dão Lafões, when we realize that the degree of digitalization of the Portuguese population is low, not so much because of access to technologies (which exists!) but, above all, because of the low levels of education that exist and which, of course, are obstacles for people to have a greater digital culture. In fact, we believe that, along with the creation of an online service platform, an open data resource and the construction of devices that help forestry prevention, CIM’s actions should also insist on the promotion of learning, knowledge and creativity of citizens, after all, the capital of the region.

4 Conclusions The smartification of Intermunicipal Communities (CIM) implies a domestication of digital technologies so that they are amplifying the value of the territory, cultural heritage, natural resources, the landscape as a capital of tourist enjoyment, people’s loyalty to the development project local and regional. Technologies are just instruments capable of catalyzing processes, but in this catalytic dynamic they add value to people, institutions and companies. In this dynamic, project implementation decision-makers should focus not only on making technology available, but also on promoting citizens’ digital skills, so that they have the ability to appropriate the uses of technologies and digital services, so that naturalize in personal and social practices. With the presentation and analysis of the three digital projects of CIM Viseu Dão Lafões, our main objective was to systematize the contribution of these projects to the socio-territorial dynamics, which were reflected in the attractiveness of the territory. Projects like the ones presented here generate a “seed effect”, which should be boosted by the agents of change in the territory: the people. Now, the promotion of a culture of participation, of valuing intergenerational relationships, of pride in the identity of the place in which one lives, are aspects that, thanks to digital technologies, gain the ability 14 In 2011, according to data from Pordata on Population, there were 7.1% of illiterates within

the limits of the CIM Viseu Dão Lafões, of which 4.5% were men and 9.4% were women. On the national map, in 2011, there were 5.2% of illiterates. Of these, 3.5% were men and 6.8% were women. See: https://www.pordata.pt/Municipios/Taxa+de+analfabetismo+segundo+os+ Censos+total+e+por+sexo-721 (last accessed 2022/06/19). 15 In terms of the different levels of education (Basic, Secondary and Higher), in 2011, the data presented by Pordata for the Viseu Dão Lafões region indicated the existence of 71,993 people with the 1st cycle (in 1960 there were 74,400 people); 29,044 people with the 2nd cycle (no data in 1960); 39,040 people with the 3rd cycle (no data in 1960); 30,981 people with secondary education (in 1960 there were 3,894 people); of 26,015 with Higher Education (in 1960 there were 925 people). See: https://www.pordata.pt/Municipios/Popula%c3%a7%c3% a3o+residente+com+15+e+mais+anos+segundo+os+Censos+total+e+por+n%c3%advel+de+ escolaridade+completo+mais+elevado-69 (last accessed 2022/06/19).

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to become an interscalar place. That is, they move from the local to the regional and the international scale, gaining progressive attractiveness.

References Barros, C., Gama, R.: Marketing territorial como instrumento de valorização dos espaços rurais: uma aplicação na rede das Aldeias do Xisto. In: Cadernos de Geografia, n.º 28/29–2009/10, pp. 93–106. FLUC, Coimbra (2009) Covas, A.: Cidades Inteligentes e Criativas – Smartificação dos Território. Edições Sílabo, Lisboa (2020) Covas, A., Covas, M.: Multiterritorialidades: temas e problemas de governança e desenvolvimento territoriais. Edições Colibri, Lisboa (2015) Fernandes, R., Gama, R.: Territórios Inteligentes e Criativos em Portugal. In VIII Colóquio de Geografia Portuguesa, Repensar a Geografia para novos desafios: Competências, investigação e acção. Lisboa (2013) Moreira, M.: Globalização, Agricultura e Zonas Rurais Desfavorecidas. Celta Editora, Oeiras (2001) Mota, B.: A Problemática dos Territórios de Baixa Densidade: Quatro Estudos de Caso. ISCTEIUL, Lisboa (2019) Ramos, L. : Territórios de baixa densidade, territórios de elevado potencial. Relatório Final, Dossiers Políticos PSD/setembro (2014). https://www.compete2020.gov.pt/admin/images/Deliberacoes_cic_territ%C3%B3rios_baixa_ densidade.pdf. Accessed 7 June 2022 https://www.anmp.pt/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/CriteriosFINAISAPROVADOS.pdf. Accessed 13 June 2022 https://observador.pt/opiniao/a-smartificacao-das-cim-e-a-coesao-territorial/. Accessed 13 June 2022 http://hdl.handle.net/10316/23263. Accessed 13 June 2022 https://www.pordata.pt/Subtema/Municipios/Computadores+e+Internet-227. Accessed 13 June 2022 https://www.cimvdl.pt/cim-acelera-transformacao-digital/. Accessed 13 June 2022 https://www.visitviseudaolafoes.pt/. Accessed 14 June 2022 https://www.cimvdl.pt/cims-viseu-dao-lafoes-e-regiao-de-coimbra-avancam-com-a-implement acao-do-sistema-de-videovigilancia-florestal/. Accessed 15 June 2022

Design Activism and Social Innovations for the Planet Teresa Franqueira(B) Universidade de Aveiro. ID+, Aveiro, Portugal [email protected]

Abstract. This paper reflects on the role of designers in this environmental crisis and how participatory and collaborative methods are crucial to tackle this emergency. Over the past 10 years new social dynamics emerged and design had to catch up with them. In doing so it has facilitated the rise of technological and then social and cultural innovations, which are very much necessary to address problems arising from the planet’s resources’ exhaustion, happening in ever shorter cycle, with the Earth overshoot day arriving earlier each year. Signs of that can be seen in the global climate “weirding”, in the plastic that is infiltrating the food chain, etc. A new wave of social innovations focused in addressing environmental concerns is being led by younger generations, but are designers aligned with this trend? Are designers empowering society and companies to be more active and engaged in actions to defend the planet? Keywords: Design for social innovation · Activism · Sustainability · Environmental crisis · Circular economy

1 Introduction Design has always expressed itself through its cultural intervention in society, accompanying or prompting technological innovation, shifting behaviours and molding the artificial world we live in, infusing it with different meaning and new production of meaning. The recognition of design as a discipline that cuts across several areas of knowledge positions its spectrum of activity at the intersection of the social sciences, humanities, arts, and engineering, and in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary space that crosses several strands: from Communication to Industrial Design, to Service Design, WebDesign, Interior Design, Fashion Design, etc. It is in this wide range of areas of action that design has also found micro spaces of action, often complexifying its own definition and the affirmation of the discipline itself. For a long time, the designer was seen as a “problem-solver”, although his/her activity is much more than that of a “problem-solver”. A designer is a creator of opportunities in order to prevent future problems and, much more importantly, he/she is a cultural © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 457–465, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_40

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mediator, a creator of senses, giving new meanings to things and contributing to the construction of a more beautiful, more pleasant and more sustainable world. Designers are specially equipped to observe the world and anticipate problems, as well as to create opportunities to innovate and find new solutions. They are an inseparable part of the ecosystem that builds our artificial world, so they must fill their work with the drive and determination to design for the common good.

2 Environmental Problems The current environmental emergency is a clear sign of how unsustainable are the behaviours resulting from a production-consumption system based on planned obsolescence and the design of disposable products (Brown 2000). The damage that we inflict on the planet and the depredation of natural resources is immense - 15 years ago it was estimated that for each tonne of products manufactured 30 tonnes of waste were produced, and 98% of these products were discarded after 6 months (Datschefski 2001). It is clear that this system is not sustainable from an environmental, social or even economic perspective. These concerns are not recent and the evidence is even less so. In the 1960s, Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” exposed the impact of pesticides in agriculture; in the 1970s the report “The Limits to Growth” from the Club of Rome and the book “Design for the Real World”, by Victor Papanek, marked a period in which the design community began to be more intervening as environmental issues are concerned; and during the 1990s authors such as Alastair Fuad-Luke and Ezio Manzini began to systematize the design culture on this issue. The principles of environmental sustainability and circular economy are today (or should be) a reference in design training, considering that designers are agents of change and have the opportunity to reverse many of the harmful actions resulting from the profession, improve design training and education, and informing the business world and society about the active role we have in designing a more sustainable planet. Good design is the one that anticipates problems and prevents them from happening. Incremental innovations occur frequently and a lot of them increase our quality of life and our comfort, feed the economy and keeping many jobs. But radical or disruptive innovation is the one that can actually bring change to a system in crisis. It requires a break with the established status quo to make way for innovation that will bring about changes that will have a positive impact on the environment. Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics1 (Fig. 1), argues that 20th century economic thinking is not prepared to deal with the 21st century reality of a planet that is on the brink of climate disruption. Economic growth needs to be seen as a mean to achieve social goals within ecological limits, rather than as an indicator of success in itself, or a goal for rich countries (Raworth 2017). And designers need to step up to the challenge and promote change through design-led innovation processes. 1 The name refers to the visual structure of a doughnut, in which the hole in the middle represents

the social aspects for maintaining a good quality of life, while the outer circle is an analogy to the planetary boundaries.

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Fig. 1. Diagram of doughnut economics Font: https://time.com/5930093/amsterdam-doughnut-economics/.

3 From Social Innovation to Design for Social Innovation Social Innovation as a theme has permeated the public discourse over the last two decades, but it only made its way into the political spotlight in Europe in the last 5 years, either through EU’s financing policies or through the adoption of social innovation strategies by national governments, especially in countries where the system is burdened by the welfare state. It is from the inability of the welfare state to respond adequately to the needs of its citizens, particularly in Europe, that have arisen many citizen-led organizations that collectively and collaboratively tackle challenges that the Government is unable to solve (due to a growing senior population and decreasing birth rates, the financial constraints stemming from economic, military, and migratory crises, including other causes). As per Mulgan (2007), innovation becomes inevitable when problems get exacerbated, when systems stop functioning or when institutions address past instead of present-day problems. Between the many definitions of Social Innovation, we opt for Mulgan’s (2007): “new ideas that work to meet pressing unmet needs and improve peoples’ lives”, or for the DESIS Network2 one: “social innovation can be seen as a process of change emerging from the creative recombination of existing assets (social capital, historical heritage traditional craftsmanship, accessible advanced technology) and aiming at achieving socially recognized goals in new ways”. Innovation that is prompted by social demand, not by the market and/or by independent techno-scientific research and produced by the actors involved, rather than by specialists. 2 http://www.desisnetwork.org/about/.

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These novel ideas have stimulated new means of social organization, more innovative and aligned with sustainable development concerns and social activism. If we observe the modern society, examples of social innovation are constantly rising in the form of different behaviours, innovative forms of organization, new ways of living, which suggests different and encouraging advances. Social innovations are central because they advance behavioural changes, without which it is not possible to tackle the problems society as a whole faces. As an example, it is possible to find technological alternatives to minimise our carbon-foot print, but if peoples’ behaviours do not change technology will eventually run out of options. It can be acknowledged that the best way to manage change is not just through implementing new policies on entire populations but through testing and experiment on a small scale, often involving civil society and social entrepreneurs (Mulgan 2007). This might be a good opportunity for the Design community that is interested in developing innovative sustainable solutions for people’s problems and that wishes to promote, diffuse and replicate those innovative ideas. This new approach can be instrumental in solving many of society’s most complex problems, but its emergence is not without controversy. Some argue that it is not design because it does not look much like design in the familiar sense of the word - its outcomes are not always tangible, and can be adapted and changed by people as they use them (Design Council 2006).

4 From Social Innovation to the Planet As far as design for social innovation concerns, there is currently a new wave of ecosocial innovations concerned with the environment, with younger generations taking the lead and taking action. There is also the perception that society and companies are more active and participative in actions to defend the planet. But are designers following these changes? Given the unpredictability of events and the speed of change, designers must be more proactive than ever. Designers have the aptitude to observe the world and find solutions to problems, to anticipate others and to devise opportunities to innovate and prevent future problems. As Saint-Simon3 phrased it, “history consists of a succession of social orders and the movement from one order to the next is triggered by the rise of a new class. Different ideas fit different periods of history”. The first of the leading peculiarities of the present age is that it is an era of accelerated transition. Mankind has outgrown old institutions and old doctrines and has not acquired new ones yet. What we are seeing is that society is trying to acquire new ones, and this is possible through the rise of new ways of doing things. The new generations, and in particular Generation Z4 , have a different view of the world from the generations that succeeded them and believe they will have a decisive 3 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/518228/Henri-de-Saint-Simon. 4 https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/05/26/gen-z-millennials-stand-out-for-climate-

change-activism-social-media-engagement-with-issue/.

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role in fighting climate change. In 2019 Time magazine5 elected Greta Thunberg (Fig. 2) as personality of the year, in an affirmation and recognition of the activism of these new generations and the power that civil society has in political decisions. It was visible during COP 26 (Fig. 3) the power of the masses with daily demonstrations in the streets of Glasgow.

Fig. 2. Time magazine. Person of the Year Font: https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/

5 https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/.

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Fig. 3. COP generation Z Manif at COP26 Font: https://news.Sky.com/story/cop26-tens-of-thousands-expected-to-march-in-glasgow-alo ngside-millions-more-around-the-world-in-global-day-of-action-for-the-climate-

Manzini’s text “Social Innovation for the Planet” (DESIS Network 2019) issued the challenge to the Design community, putting climate and environmental sustainability at the centre of our academic and research practice. The need and urgency to reorient design teaching and research activities is inevitable at a time when we are experiencing an unprecedented environmental crisis. Design for social innovation and design for sustainability are closely intertwined. However, their approaches to the intervention and construction of the artificial world are different: the first tends to have a more “liquid” intervention, focused in influencing the way people organize themselves and are called to act on behalf of a common well-being; the latter tends to have a more technical approach. Analyzing some case studies of social innovation by Desis Labs (Fig. 4) and other communities, the positive and enduring side effects, and even a regenerative principle at its core, mainly in urban areas, are evident. In the case of the city of Helsinki, it is piloting an initiative called Think Sustainably, which is an innovative sustainable city guide6 to tackle the climate change with the collaboration of all citizens. Cities are responsible for the consumption of most available natural resources, therefore it is imperative that the design community is challenged to design systems based on social innovations for a Regenerative City, not only to design “quick fixes”. The real test is to innovate by creating regenerative and renewed solutions for urban life, based in a circular flow of local and natural resources and collaboration. The design community must support the emerging grassroots climate change movements with the same enthusiasm that steered their interventions in the areas of social innovation. Designers must assume a leadership role, both through theory and practice, in developing solutions to help regenerate the planet. 6 https://www.myhelsinki.fi/en/think-sustainably.

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Regenerative and healing actions need to occur in parallel: on one track, designers’ work is to reduce the ecological footprint in production and the excesses of consumption; the main driver should be to use finite natural resources wisely and recycle, reuse and repair, instead of creating new “future” waste; and on a second track, designers must support and design appropriate processes to back groups of self-organized citizens in their efforts to renew the planet.

5 From Active Citizenship to Design Activism This kind of actions start from responsible citizens who play an important role in civil society. And they are not very different from active citizenship interventions by some design professionals. “Design activism”, in fact, is at the core of design itself, in the sense that good design must be design for the common good. Design centered on people and respect for the planet helps to create a positive impact on society in general by the power it has to change behaviour; and in particular on the designer, who helps to build the artificial world around us, and who should have in his essence this motivation and will to design for the good, for the common good. Design Activism is about being proactive and not reactive. And, has referred before, designers have this capacity and ability. Design culture has always introduced changes in people’s lives, even if it has sometimes produced unintended negative consequences in the way people relate to themselves through objects and with objects (Baudrillard 1997). Thus, the quality of being proactive means, in this context, introducing positive change by solving complex problems, anticipating emerging problems. However, it would be naive to think that designers can do all this alone, since it is recognised that complex problems cannot be approached from a single point of view. This requires collaboration, and the ability to be collaborative and to enable collaboration.

6 From Anthropocene to Post-anthropocene Tim Brown7 and IDEO8 made Design Thinking notable for its human-centred approach to innovation during the creative process. In just a decade, new social realities have emerged and design has sought to keep up with them. In this context, it has enabled the emergence of technological and then social and cultural innovations. It has become clear that the actions taken by one individual affect the rest of the community and society as a whole, and today the debate centres on the need for human beings no longer to be (or should no longer be) at the centre of design activities, but rather the planet and all its life forms, human and non-human. The planet should be at the centre of our research and design activities, putting environmental sustainability, climate emergency and the post-disaster condition on the agenda of design schools, but also in professional practice. 7 https://designthinking.ideo.com. 8 https://www.ideo.com/post/design-kit.

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This is an urgent need when we witness the planet showing signs of depletion in ever shorter cycles (the earth overshoot day happens earlier every year), illustrated by the frequent global climate disasters, floods and fires, plastic islands in the middle of the oceans and starting to infiltrate the food chain, etc. These phenomena are nothing new to those who have been working and researching on this topic for the past 40 years. The main difference is the necessity of intervening immediately, and the way people are self-organizing to solve these challenges. There are signs that jointly is possible not only to “fix” it, but also to regenerate the planet. Even if some interventions are but a palliative (treating the consequences and not its root causes), they emphasize a collective aspiration to tackle and fix it. Likewise, to other social innovations that have their main driver in the absence of governmental response to social, economic or environmental problems that people face in their daily lives, so these self-organized movements to remove plastic from beaches, reforest depleted areas, etc., stem also from the understanding that political leaders are failing to deliver the required change with the appropriate celerity.

7 Conclusions For these strategies to have a timely impact, it is crucial that design schools rethink curricula and teach the unconventional, so that future designers can influence the “web of life” and move towards community innovation (Escobar 2018). Designers need to be able to recognise complexity and navigate it, adopting a non-anthropocentric approach and contribute to the construction of a more-than-human and sustainable world. This construction implies that designers have the ability to function as mediators in the processes of creation and innovation. Designers must foster participative projects where it is possible to conceive and develop contexts favourable to participation, cooperation and collaboration among all actors involved in a solution. This is not an easy task, as designers must be open to the visions and opinions of others, able to transform and adapt them to desirable outcomes - and merging the needs and aspirations of people with the goals of local authorities and other institutional actors is not a simple task, as most of the time they may seem opposed and disconnected. But to counter this apparent disconnection and opposition, design has its own way “designerly”: through scenario building, the ability to make problems and ideas visible, creating structures to give visual meaning to complex information, and sharing this work in progress with others, even intangible concepts can be visualised creating a common platform for strategic discussion, building a shared, participatory and collective vision. Designers must be versatile and able to work in transdisciplinary teams, to work and collaborate with other professionals and with the people who will be part of a solution. In other words, designers must act as an interface between different actors, as facilitators of ideas and interrelationships, able to mediate diverse points of view and make them intelligible, thus facilitating collaboration between diverse actors who are intuitively and spontaneously involved in the “diffuse design” that characterises modernity.

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References 1. Baudrillard, J.: O Sistema dos Objectos, 3a Edição, S. Paulo, Editora Perspectiva S.A (1997) 2. Brown, L.: Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth. W.W. Norton & Co, New York (2000) 3. Cross, N.: Designerly ways of knowing: design discipline versus design science. Des. Issues 17(3), 49–55 (2001) 4. DatschefskI, E.: The Total Beauty of Sustainable Products. Switzerland, Rotovision (2001) 5. Design Council: RED paper Trasnformation Design (2006). https://www.designcouncil.org. uk/sites/default/files/asset/document/red-paper-transformation-design.pd 6. Desis Network (2019). https://www.desisnetwork.org/2019/09/02/social-innovation-for-theplanet/ 7. Escobar, A.: Designs for the Pluriverse. Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Duke University Press, Durham (2018) 8. Mulgan, G.: Social Innovation: What Is It, Why It Matters, How It Can Be Accelerated. Basingstoke Press, The Young Foundation Report, The Young Foundation, London (2007) 9. Papanek, V.: Design for the Real World: Human Ecology And Social Change, 3rd edn. Van Nostrand Reinhold Co, New York (1984) 10. Rams, D.: There must be an extended ethics of design in Designing design Education. In: Böninger, C., Frenkler, F., Schmidhuber, S. (eds.) White book on the future of design education. avedition (2021) 11. Raworth, K.: Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like A 21st-Century Economist. Random House, New York, United States (2017) 12. https://wdo.org/about/definition/industrial-design-definition-history/ 13. https://wdo.org/about/definition/ 14. https://www.theicod.org/en 15. https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/05/26/gen-z-millennials-stand-out-for-climatechange-activism-social-media-engagement-with-issue/ 16. https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/ 17. https://www.myhelsinki.fi/en/think-sustainably 18. https://designthinking.ideo.com 19. https://www.ideo.com/post/design-kit 20. https://www.overshootday.org 21. https://time.com/5930093/amsterdam-doughnut-economics/ 22. https://eco.sapo.pt/2021/04/17/em-vez-do-pib-ja-ha-cidades-europeias-que-preferem-a-eco nomia-donut/ 23. https://ec.europa.eu/environment/topics/waste-and-recycling_en 24. Author, F., Author, S.: Title of a proceedings paper. In: Editor, F., Editor, S. (eds.) CONFERENCE 2016, LNCS, vol. 9999, pp. 1–13. Springer, Heidelberg (2016) 25. Author, F., Author, S., Author, T.: Book title, 2nd edn. Publisher, Location (1999) 26. Author, F.: Contribution title. In: 9th International Proceedings on Proceedings, pp. 1–2. Publisher, Location (2010) 27. LNCS Homepage. http://www.springer.com/lncs. Accessed 21 Nov 2016

Learning from Nature, Design Tools to Understand Natural Environments Susana Gonzaga(B) ID+ Instituto de Investigação em Design, Media e Cultura –Researcher, University of Madeira, Campus Universitário da Penteada, 9020-105 Funchal, Portugal [email protected]

Abstract. This paper intends to show a set of Design tools designed by an interdisciplinary group of designers, biologists, and botanists, that help designers and non-informed people on how to analyze, study and interrelate natural landscapes, ecosystems and organisms’ environments and phenomena. The tools have been tested for the first time within the international summer school Atlantic Wonder in 2019 in Madeira Island, prior to the pandemic, with an international group of young designers. Divided in three major groups, they refer to redefining the criteria and making a friendly and easy visual setting that allow users to have a set of guiding aspects during the field work. The tools serve the purpose of shifting from a Human Centered Design approach to a Natured Centered Design one. Keywords: Nature · Nature centered design · Design · Spatial and natural environments · Design methods and processes

1 Introduction Saving a forest is not just about planting trees, but about introducing living organisms and stimulating biodiversity, which turn systems into vital organisms. Jane Goodall Man has always been attracted to Nature in its most varied forms. The first artistic manifestations of the Paleolithic Era prove this fascination, which has remained relevant in the Arts until the present day, we can verify this on men’s desire to search for diverse pictorial approaches, the representation of artificial nature through photography or in a most performative, interventive and social-political way, through Art installations, that call our attention for the decline of the qualitative and environmental state of the planet. We tend to think of Nature and Humanity as separate entities from each other. Human arrogance has led us to the stage of decline of several species, the climate, ecosystems, and the water cycle, and consequently to the age of the Anthropocene. Yet, the oldest national park/nature reserve in the world, Yellowstone Park in the United States, was opened on March 1, 1872. It is a milestone in the history of protected © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 466–478, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_41

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areas, and to this day covers an area of 8 980 km2 . Their foundations stand on the preservation of not only the natural heritage, but also the human heritage of the Indian ethnic cultures living there. I have brought up this example as the Human paradox, in which if, on one hand, Man destroys, he has, on the other hand, the need to try to conserve and preserve the element that keeps us all alive: the complexity of the Natural world. If Art, from early on, fed on this universe, Design in turn, rooted in industry, lives the same paradox as Humanity. On the one hand, it corresponds to a practice dedicated to the design of artefacts that feed consumption and planned obsolescence, on the other hand, it has diverged and developed critical and theoretical mass that triggered new methods and approaches more ethically, socially and ecologically sustainable. We speak, for example, of Dieter Rams’ 10 principles of Good Design of 1970 brought, to the world of Industrial Design, as an appeal to sustainability and planned obsolescence, highlighting the ethical responsibility of the designer in the production of more artefacts. Although EcoDesign was the first movement in the discipline to call for reuse, product life cycle and the choice of more sustainable materials, the idea of production still underpinned design and industry. Papanek’s 1971 best seller, Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change, came bringing an important switch in design processes and methodologies. Its politics of social design, anti-corporatism and environmental sustainability have found renewed pertinence in the twenty-first century and have dominated the agendas of design schools till today. The shift from an economics-centered to a human-centered design methodology has brought a new approach to the discipline, which allowed the development of new design tools, brought out in 1978 by Tim Brown and IDEO. Design and creation of systems that allowed co-creation and the development of design thinking methods for complex problem-solving and systems. They placed the user at the centre of the problem, as well as in the core of the design solution. The inclusion of the communities with whom we work with in the creative process, endowing them with new capabilities such as autonomy, creativity, and pro-activity, has equipped them with a new freedom. This has, in turn, made them more empowered and responsible. Not only socially, but also environmentally. In the middle of the 20th century, the idea that new technologies could benefit from biological knowledge pervaded the scientific community and began to consolidate as a distinct domain of research application known as Biomimicry. The discipline is an intended emulation of nature life solutions for solving contemporary challenges. The authors claim that in this discipline, Nature serves as a model, mentor, and measure for promoting sustainable innovation design, rather than only a source of materials. The importance of this area was without a doubt fundamental for project fields like Engineering and Design, as it calls for Nature interpretation through its own characteristics, instigating the development of science in trying to reach its perfection. The design manifestations in this field were somehow very straightly connected with industrial production or the aesthetics of highly technical artifacts. So instead of designing new infrastructures or products, even if they are nature centered designed, shouldn’t Design, as a discipline, re-think its role regarding Nature and ecosystems? How can Designers start to look closely to what we have around us and

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how can we help experts address these complex problems? How can Design engage larger groups of citizens, enhance awareness, and put them to assume a worldview approach, contrary to the mainstream? To find some answers to these questions, the Atlantic Wonder project was born, not only to connect people from interdisciplinary fields to raise up the problem, but also to try to find out some tools that could help designers face the complexity of Nature.

2 The Atlantic Wonder Research Project When we started the Atlantic Wonder project, Vezzani et al. (2019) the group of researchers intended to explore a new territory under the gaze of design: Nature. Because we live in a context like Madeira Island, where natural spaces involve daily life with great presence, the problems of their degradation are also very present. Our initial concern had to do with the knowledge of the natural territory, its multiple and complex ecosystems and how a designer could interpret and get to know them. This group, which already had experience in the practice of Human Centered Design, began to wonder about the natural context where we worked and the consequences of human impact on the environment in two situations. First the impact of natural transformations on the life of local communities, and secondly the impact of human activities on the native forest, agriculture, the sea, and water cycles. This translated into a primary question: How can, or should, Design intervene in the restructuring of a healthy balance in the Nature-Human relationship? As this is an extremely complex area, and as it is a long-term project, it seemed important to us to first establish an interdisciplinary group dedicated to the topic, and to set priorities in the study and analysis of these phenomena. Over the last four years (2018–22) our research has focused on establishing the objectives, methodology and possible outcomes. Thus, we have established the following objectives: – to create a research frame with a large scientific group, having a design leadership nature centered. – to study old practices related with interaction with nature which can be embraced, restored and improved, to engage younger generations and present ones to implement new practices towards the preservation of ecosystems and immaterial culture (Vezzani and Bertolotti 2021). – to establish new Design tools and design processes provided by the study and collaboration of scientists from nature sciences (Biology; Agronomy; Sociology), designers and local communities. – to study other realities similar/opposite to Madeira context to understand and discover a larger implication of the analysis tools (Vezzani and Bertolotti 2021). The followed methodology intended to: – Identify nature sciences practices that could be integrated on a design process and practice. – Have an interdisciplinary approach between the cross-fertilization of Biology and botanic tools with service Design tools.

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– Field work with interdisciplinary researchers. The expected outcomes resumed in: – Delineating a new Design methodology or design process Natured centered. – Defining analysis and comprehensive design tools, that allow to study a natural ecosystem. – Put in practice the tools in Co-design activities with communities and local experts.

3 Design Tools to Understand Nature The group, composed of 3 designers, 2 biologists and 1 agronomist from Madeira Island, started the process trying to reach an understanding of what Nature means and the complexity that makes it up. Knowing how to identify up to where we can act and up to where the natural system itself overlaps and continues its course is our challenge. Approaching design challenges centered on nature is extremely complex and difficult for designers. We have neither technical-scientific knowledge nor tools with a language of our own to guide us through this study. With this difficulty in mind, and to establish equal and easy way to understand and to put into practice the defined criteria, we decided to create a set of instruments to study and analyze the natural landscape, plants, organisms and ecosystems present in a sample of preserved natural territory in terms of fauna and flora. To conceive them we used botanical and biologic analysis tools and adapted analysis tools from Service Design and from the typological study of artefacts. These were presented and tested at the 2nd edition of the International Summer School Atlantic Wonder - Madeira in 2019. The tools presented in the toolkit represent three main phases of analysis, study and interpretation of a given ecosystem, as shown in the table below (Table 1). Table 1. Research phases and the respective tools Phases

Observing and analyzing the presence and distribution of plants and organisms

Studying the Migratory routes and fluxes

Interpreting nature interrelationships

Tools

My landscape analysis

Typologies map

My plants collection

The journey of an organism

My organism collection

Migration map

Organism map

Distribution grid

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3.1 Observe and Analyze the Presence and Distribution of Plants and Organisms – 1st Phase This group of tools serves the need of collecting data about living organisms and mapping their presence in a pre-defined area or landscape. They were inspired by existing field biologists’ tools and techniques for observation, collecting and analysis for an environmental study. They allow to document and record both vegetal and animal species.

Fig. 1. My landscape analysis – Atlantic Wonder Toolkit 2019

My Landscape Analysis This tool allows you to learn how to observe, document and collect a variety of plant species present in specific and pre-defined areas. Divided in 4 sessions, as can be seen in Fig. 1, the My landscape analysis can be used in a fun and interactive way. The first step should be to fill in the location, the geographic coordinates, and the date of the observation. These elements are fundamental to validate the possible collection that you are taking and observing. After this, one can follow as it goes. The idea of this template is to give clear indications to the users about what to observe, register and to look for in a specific area, following the defined criteria. As well as to try to understand what possible threats could exist in that area. This tool, designed in a simple way, is nevertheless complex. One must know in advance what the terms mean and how to recognize them, while being present in a natural environment. This tool also allows to draw and take some species to further analysis (Fig. 2). My Plants Collection This tool is meant for you to get to know and understand a specific plant. Inspired

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Fig. 2. My plants collection – Atlantic Wonder Toolkit 2019

by botanic and biology techniques for observation and cataloging plants, this tool is divided in six sessions, one should, as the other first tool, register where you find the plant, geo coordinates and date. The sessions can be filled in, as one wishes, writing down the number of the collected items, to what kind of family plant it belongs, as well as the scientific name, local common name, and origin. Another session allows you to analyze in detail the dimensions, the sun exposition and soil quality, as well as if the plant has flowers, when it’s blooming time. In the drawing area, one can simply draw or attach the plant itself, draw some parts, etc. One can fill it with the elements that serves best the study of each selected plant. The description session gives time to understand more complex items that demand a further thinking and systemic understanding of the environment in study. One’s having to relate the peculiarities of the plant as a species as well as to relate it to the plant survival strategies and what does contribute to it or what does the specie itself contribute to in that specific ecosystem. One can use as many templates for this analysis as needed (Figs. 3 and 4). My Organisms Collection Identical in colors, design, and sessions, the My organisms collection can be done during a walk or in the same predefined area. The only difference between this tool and the My plants collection is the characterization of the organism’s habitat and reproduction season (Fig. 5). The tool can be reproduced as many times as needed. Organisms or Species Distribution Grid This tool was readapted mainly from the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), a data Center in NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS)—Hosted by CIESIN at Columbia University and other non-digital natural sciences tools of mapping species. The main objective of this template is to try

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Fig. 3. Observation in classroom of the plants Fig. 4. Field work during the Atlantic Wonder collection Summer School 2019 (Pictures credits to the author)

Fig. 5. My organisms collection – Atlantic Wonder Toolkit 2019

to add another layer to the study about the area, putting the findings into a larger scale. It can be the region, country, or other countries (Fig. 6).

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Fig. 6. Distribution Grid – Atlantic Wonder Toolkit 2019

3.2 Studying the Migratory Routes and Fluxes – 2nd Phase If the previous tools were inspired mainly in biology and botanic techniques, the second phase joins both Service Design and natural sciences tools. It was thought to bring awareness about the journeys that all organisms, either vegetal or animal, undertake in the course of time. For journeys we mean both physical dislocation and gradual evolution changes (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7. The journey of an organism – Atlantic Wonder Toolkit 2019

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The Journey of an Organism This tool was inspired by the Journey Map, a tool from Design Service methodology, which is a synthetic representation that describes step-by-step how a user interacts with a service (Service Design Tools 2009). In this case, there is no user and no service, but there is an organism that undertakes a journey : i t evolves, encounters other organisms, as well as threats and critical stages. The tool requires to shift the point of view and see both actions and results from the perspective of the selected organism. In the first line of boxes, the sequence of events or actions must be drawn; then, on the second line, notes on critical events and observations can be written. The last line is dedicated to tracking the health status of the organisms to highlight when and where the organism thrives or suffers. The journey of an organism aims to start exploring the concept of cause-effect that explains how each organism is interconnected with others and contributes either to the natural balance within an ecosystem or, on the contrary, to a specific equilibrium disruption. (Vezzani and Bertolotti 2021). The Migration Map Mapping animal or plants migration is an important way to understand more about their movement pattern and their global relationship. Additionally, creating and reading maps are important skills, and help us simplify complex patterns and gain new perspectives about the complex system that is Nature. Inspired by several examples on how to define a migration map, this tool intends to give users a more expanded idea on how the species migrate to a specific region, country, or globe wide. It’s of special importance to understand these movements when studying a place like an island (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8. Migration map – Atlantic Wonder Toolkit 2019

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3.3 Interpreting Nature Relationships – 3rd Phase This last group of tools was designed to better reflect on the complexity of existing interrelations between organisms and between organisms and their habitat, as well as their evolution. Both tools were inspired in Design approaches and tools. Organism Map The Organisms map takes inspiration from an Ecosystem or Stakeholders map. This layout allows one to visualize a natural ecosystem from the perspective of a chosen organism – put at the center of the scheme – while connecting it with other organisms and specific habitat characteristics. An Ecosystem Map usually captures all the key roles that have an influence on the user, organization, and service environment. First, all the entities must be displayed, then the connections between them representing the type of value they exchange must be traced (Service Design Tools 2009) (Vezzani and Bertolotti 2021) (Fig. 9).

Fig. 9. Organism map – Atlantic Wonder Toolkit 2019

The Typology Analysis When studying species, either animal or botanic, it is important to organize them in typologies or families. When dealing with design, to understand the archetype of an artifact or to characterize it in terms of design variables, we can generate a matrix to position the different types (Fig. 10). According to Britannica science1 , Typology is a system of groupings usually called types, the members of which are identified by postulating specified attributes that are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive—groupings set up to aid demonstration or inquiry by establishing a limited relationship among phenomena. A type may represent 1 Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/science/typology, last accessed 2022/07/10.

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Fig. 10. Typologies analysis – Atlantic Wonder toolkit 2019

one kind of attribute or several and need to include only those features that are significant to the problem at hand. Some typologies go beyond the problem of order and help to show the importance of factors. Comparisons among examples of a single type rely on the postulated constancy of the type to focus on variable factors and to suggest explanations of those variations. Two sequences of identical types may show differences in proportions or in rates of change, leading to additional inferences, such as the assumption of a causal relation. This kind of comparison is very interesting when we put the species into focus, according to three axes: its evolution, its origin and its ability to adapt (Fig. 11).

Fig. 11. Typologies analysis – Atlantic Wonder toolkit 2019

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In this tool we give the possibility to correlate data that has been collected during the other phases. When choosing some collected item, we can understand its evolution in terms of the type it corresponds to. Each one of the items should be analyzed according to their stage of Evolution, Adaptation and Origin (Table 2). Table 2. Characterization according to organisms’ stage of existence Evolution

Adaptation

Origin

Original species

No adaptation

Endemic

Sub-species

Medium adaptation

Natural or migration phenomena

New Species

High adaptation

Man’s intervention

4 Conclusions The set of tools presented in this article, are part of a toolkit that was created to help designers, students or anyone interested in understanding nature and its complex systems and interrelationships, exploring new senses and new territories through field work. These tools have already been tested by a group of international designers in different occasions. The first one during the II Atlantic Wonder - International Summer School in 2019, and in two small workshops with design master students and with botanists. We’ve understood that they are not easy to follow in the beginning, due to the complexity of the information one need to interpretate and collect. Specially if one doesn’t have a background or experience in analyzing natural ecosystems, it can be very hard. Being in complex space as a forest, its challenging, and it requires professional guidance. The botanist’s team, on another hand, struggle with the design’s point of view. The final feedback was quite interesting as they claim that was too innovative regarding their traditional methods. We also notice the different approach between professionals and Design students. The lasts seam to adapt more easily to a nature-centered approach than the design professionals. The shift between processes and methods can be challenging. Concluding, the novelty of the intersection between Design and Biology tools generated a new territory to both disciplines. It still requires adjustments and further testing. In the format that they already have, it can be used in an educational environment, choosing the tool (s) and use the one’s that serves more the scope of the project in hands, as they can act as a starting point to establish criteria of observation and further studies. The tools can assist on design projects that address interventions involving natural species or natural landscapes. As more, they can be used among interdisciplinary teams. During their use, the tools can be improved and implemented in the Design process that intents to put Nature in the center of the process.

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References Arendt, H.: The Human Condition. University of Chicago Press (1998) Braidotti, R.: Posthuman Knowledge. Polity Press, Cambridge (2019) Clément, G.: Manifesto del Terzo Paesaggio. Quodlibet (2005) Gaziulusoy, ˙I., et al.: Design for sustainability transformations: a deep leverage points research agenda for the (Post-)pandemic Context. Strategic Des. Res. J. 14(01), 19–31 (2019) Fletcher, F.: Design and Nature: A Partnership. Taylor & Francis Group (2019) Latour, B.: Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime. Polity Press, England (2018) Mancuso, S.: La Nazione delle Piante. Laterza, Roma (2019a) Mancuso, S.: A Plant Revolution. Roma, Giunti (2019b) Manzini, E.: Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2015). Thackara, J.: How to Thrive in the Next Economy: Designing Tomorrow’s World Today. Thames & Hudson (2017) Vezzani, V., Gonzaga, S., Bertolotti, E.: Atlantic wonder. exploring nature and design in Madeira Island. Design J. 22(sup1), 1603–1617 (2019) Vezzani, V., Bertolotti, E.: Walk, talk and draw: fieldwork in nature to unpack the complexities of sustainability. In: The proceedings of 14th EAD Conference (2021) Wulf, A.: The Invention of Nature: How Alexander Von Humboldt Revolutionized Our World. Hodder and Stoughton Limited (2015)

Cyberjournalism: The Influence of Design on Public Participation Sara Alves1(B)

and Andreia Pinto de Sousa1,2

1 Universidade Lusófona do Porto, Porto, Portugal

[email protected] 2 HEI-Lab, Porto, Portugal

Abstract. Journalism plays a fundamental role in the history of society and, above all, in the history of democracy. In this sense, since journalism is a product of the informative domain, which is crucial, the truth is that journalism is, at the same time, also a product of the visual realm. And this is precisely where visual communication comes in, namely, design. This article seeks to understand how the design adopted by online media can affect public participation in cyberjournalism itself, resorting to a literature review and a methodological proposal for the present theme. The analysis corpus is divided into five moments that address the themes of cyberjournalism, participation, design, and how it affects the public. The data demonstrate that design has an enormous potential to motivate or de-motivate participation through several parameters explored in this study. These data are highly relevant not only for the public but, mainly, for the news producers. This article aims to encourage quality consumption and, above all, informed participation in increasing digital literacy. Keywords: Design · Participation · Cyberjournalism

1 Cyberjournalism, Participation, and Design Known as a “Fourth Power”, journalism plays, from an early age, a fundamental role in the history of society and, mainly, in the history of democracy. They have social responsibility insofar as they actively participate in the construction of reality, but it is also an indispensable area for the proper functioning of democratic societies (Bastos 2012; Traquina 2000). The work carried out by social media presents a series of contributions to society, among them: the organisation of individuals’ perception of reality, works as a resource for the community to talk about itself, and allows the creation of sense and meaning; it influences people’s quality of life, thoughts, culture, favouring the acquisition of knowledge necessary for citizens to know how to act (Correia 2004; Kovach and Rosenstiel 2014). On the other hand, citizens, who were previously seen as passive elements, start to play an increasingly active role within the journalistic area, which leads to them being seen as an engaged public, which is not only the receiver but also is producer and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 479–494, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_42

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participant. This circumstance leads to this public being called, currently, as a “Fifth Power” (Kovach and Rosenstiel 2014, p. 24). In turn, citizens, who were previously seen as passive elements, start to play an increasingly active role within the journalistic area, leading to them being seen as an engaged audience, not only the receiver but also the producer and participant. This circumstance leads to this public being called, currently, as a “Fifth Power” (Kovach and Rosenstiel 2014, p. 24). The internet and web 2.0 potentiated a transformation on two levels: the first, in the journalism sector that sought to vindicate itself in the face of a new reality, to attract audiences that, consequently, leads to a new way of doing journalism – cyberjournalism; the second transformation takes place at the level of participation, not only in the sector itself but also, in the relationship of these professionals with the public (Rost 2014; Silva and Brites 2021). In the field of participation, it is essential to clarify that, in this case, participation in a journalistic context encompasses three distinct aspects: sharing news, making comments, and, finally, reading the news content. In the latter case, it is understood that reading content is a form of participation because, according to Correia (2004, p. 216) and Babo (2013, p. 221), in the act of reception, there is interpretation and action. Therefore, reading means action, even if it is not visible, precisely because there is an interpretation of the contents. Since journalism is a product of the informative domain, which is essential, the truth is that journalism is, at the same time, also a product of the visual domain. And this is precisely where visual communication comes in, namely, design. Present in all aspects of everyday life, as Nakilcio˘glu (2013, p. 38) mentions, before someone learns to speak, they first learn to look and recognize the world, and, therefore, it can be said that seeing comes before talking. This means that the effects of visual communication appear before people are aware of or even reflect on them, and the area of participation, especially in the case of cyberjournalism, is no exception. Therefore, it is essential to study the impacts of visual language, thus contributing to the increase in media literacy. When accessing a particular news platform, even unconsciously, we will be influenced by different design elements. These elements include website organisation, colours, images, typography, amount of information, the layout of the sections, advertisements, balance, how the platform responds, comments, and news sharing. Furthermore, visual communication also represents the extraction of considerations and knowledge (Munari 1968, pp. 81–82). Literature has confirmed the influence of design and visual communication at different levels, such as: (i) motivating varied emotional and behavioural experiences; (ii) an increase in the public’s ability to engage with information, as well as more significant attraction, attention, and involvement; (iii) influence the understanding of the contents; among other aspects that will be gradually explored in this article (Wang 2008; Kelly 2015). Above all, individuals are influenced by the adopted design, but not only “design and aesthetics have a thoughtful impact on how users perceive information, learn, judge reliability and usability, and eventually attach value to the subjects promoted” (Tilak 2020, p. 969). And although there is a greater consumption of news, it does not mean that this consumption is of quality because it is not. What is at stake is the knowledge

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that citizens derive from the news and the fact that they become participants (Dunaway et al. 2018, p. 116). Even though several studies have been carried out in journalism, the investigation of design in journalism has received little attention (Palomo 2014, p. 164). Therefore, and considering the relevance of the presented theme, this article seeks to understand how the design adopted by online media can affect public participation in cyberjournalism. The main objectives of this study are divided into three nuclei: (i) to produce knowledge in the areas of journalism and participation; (ii) to contribute to the news producers themselves; (iii) and, finally, to contribute to the public fostering participation but, above all, informed participation.

2 Visual Elements: The Influence on the Public Understanding how the design adopted by online media can affect public participation in cyberjournalism itself implies, from the outset, analysing the different visual elements that make up the design of news platforms and understanding how these elements can influence - create and affect the public. Therefore, the following five sub-sections – typography, colours, images, dimension of elements and composition – seek to explore these same elements. 2.1 Typography Suppose it is true that the graphic design of news media, whether printed or online, has great relevance in attracting the public and, mainly, facilitates the reading of information (Pektas 2012, p. 271). In that case, it is also true that a crucial aspect of this task is to adopt a suitable typography orientation successfully (e.g., “the typography of an online newspaper must be simple, effective and profound” (Pektas 2012, p. 271). As journalism is a field associated with information, it is understood that these online news platforms must be easy to use for information to reach the public in its splendour. Notably, in this field, ease of use is directly associated with readability—the ease with which the reader can read and understand the information. In this sense, there is a clear connection with the typography used by the brands, and text is one of the most critical components in interfaces and presents a huge potential not only to confuse or complicate users’ tasks but also to lead or take away the success of a website or an application Cooper et al. (2014). This aspect is particularly relevant because nowadays, written language is still more than 90% (Patrick 2022, Reichenstein 2006). Previous studies (Palomo 2014) carried out in several online newspapers show an overall consistency: italics and underlining are avoided; font sizes are similar; the text is left-aligned; combinations between serif and sans serif fonts, when used, are primarily visible on the home pages of news platforms; one or two fonts; in the background, there is a clean and simple design. It is also important to mention that although specific fonts are more readable to communicate information and, consequently, are better for obtaining a greater understanding of the contents; each font communicates an identity, a personality.

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2.2 Colours Within visual communication, one of the most significant visual elements of greater impact and influence on the user is the colours adopted by online news platforms. This predominant role is recognised by several researchers MacDonald (1999), Sasidharan (2010), Wright (2010), Ahmetaj (2014) Cyr (2013). They agree that colour represents an of the most efficient means to reinforce the basis of a message. Still, they also argue that this is one of the most valued aspects compared to sound, smell or even texture. Furthermore, as this is a determining factor in the users’ visual experience, it can increase the success of the message. However, on the other hand, when misused, it can impair that same effectiveness and may lead to content rejection (MacDonald 1999, p. 20). The various studies carried out show that colours influence and affect people in numerous ways, namely: they provoke emotions and behaviours, they have an impact on individual reactions and perceptions, they affect trust, satisfaction, and the way users navigate websites and retain information (Cyr 2013); they can lead to more significant learning and motivation (Dooley and Harkins 1970, p. 851); cause a positive or negative psychological impact (Wright 2010, p. 3); they can affect mood and feelings (Ahmetaj 2014, p. 2); and have repercussions on the formation of beliefs and actions (Sasidharan 2010, p. 3). In terms of design, the following benefits can be highlighted: (i) they improve spatial relationships, (ii) they create relationships between text and image; (iii) they can increase the perception of spatial depth; and, finally, (iv) they can trigger blocks of information (Samara 2007; Tondreau 2009). Observing the journalistic panorama and referring again to the study by Palomo (2014, p. 152) shows that most media use a combination of cold and warm colours. In terms of text colour, black and grey colours were predominant, always on a white background. As for more distinct colours, the researcher realised that these were only used in certain sections to guide the user. Along the same lines, Snell (2008) shows that most news sites use blue, red, dark grey, and black, and in some cases, there is a mixture of colours in the navigation of these sites. Since it is a critical element in the design, Sasidharan (2010, p. 11) warns that website designers work on the issue of colours not so much in an aesthetic aspect focused on the general visual appeal but also for greater attention to the effects that each of these shades provokes in the user. However, considering one of Wright’s main contributions (2010, pp. 2–3), it is necessary to consider that there are no wrong colours. The human being does not react only to colour but to combinations that are performed, and these combinations can be decisive in moments when the user has to observe or make decisions. Authors such as Cyr (2013), Alnasuan (2016, p. 2) or Ahmetaj (2014, p. 3) explain that cold colours are generally described as calm but can also raise feelings associated with sadness or indifference. On the other hand, in the case of warm colours, they are typically seen as energising, evoking feelings of comfort, but they can also refer to anger and hostility. This generally leads to cold colours being seen more favourably than warm colours Cyr (2013). Research conducted by Cyr (2013) and Sasidharan (2010, p. 1) shows that website colours substantially impact users’ trust and promote satisfaction and loyalty. The colour with the most impact in this aspect is blue, which is associated with trust, security, serenity, and credibility. Regarding the influence of colours on users’ perception, some

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of the tests carried out with groups of participants, and web designers show that blue is assumed as the preferred colour and grey is the least preferred Cyr (2013). Another essential data for the journalistic case is that studies reveal that colours can effectively increase motivation and learning. In this sense, Sasidharan (2010, p. 3) adds that research has shown that certain shades promote motivation up to about 80%, and an increase in the desire to read, also standing at 80%. However, it is also necessary to consider that the way each individual interprets a colour is highly personal because there is a relationship between culture and this symbology. As Eva mentions, “the symbology is culture-dependent, as different cultures mean different ways of life. Asking ‘what is the meaning of green?’ means, at the same time, asking about the conditions in which we live” (Heller 2012, p. 202). 2.3 Images The incorporation of images in news content appeared significantly in the 19th century, and they began, from an early age, to play a fundamental role in the complementarity of the information conveyed by journalistic articles. And as Palomo (2014, p. 139) indicates, in the case of the main pages of online newspapers, photographs are one of the visual elements that have the most remarkable significance to the user. The use of this visual element impacts the reader in several ways, namely: (i) it contributes to the processes of the meaning of discourse and expands the possibilities of linguistic meaning in written texts, (ii) portrays human experience and constructs meanings interpersonal (Knox 2009, pp. 147–153); (iii) influences user satisfaction, trust, loyalty and attention (Cyr 2013); (iv) they offer a visual counterpoint to the text and help the public engage with the content (Samara 2007, p. 166). In this sense, eye tracking studies when viewing these main pages of news sites demonstrate that “there is value in including thumbnail images on pages” (Knox 2009, p. 146). Images in this context convey additional and complementary information to the text. Still, the size of the images may indicate the importance of the news or topic in question. It is also added that “it is possible to signal the importance of an image by the amount of space it occupies” (Tondreau 2009, p. 15). This variation in the size of the images is also a way of keeping the reader involved with the content. Visual aesthetics and website images “resulted in entertainment for the user, leading to intentions to return to the site in the future” (Cyr 2013). The results comparing text and images show that experiences with images can be more positive and effective. One of the discoveries made in this area is that images that contain people positively influence users by increasing the aesthetics and playfulness of the site (Cyr 2013). The location where this element appears in the interface is also relevant, and the investigation carried out by Djamasbi et al. (2012, as cited in Cyr 2013) demonstrates this. Viewing is more dispersed when faces are present. Images with faces placed above the midpoint of the page led to longer fixations, which negatively affected the user’s performance in that task since it resulted in a deviation of attention from important information such as the title or texts.

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2.4 Dimensions of Elements One component that directly connects with the visual elements is precisely the dimension of these same elements. And this aspect is particularly relevant if we think the same news brand projects the same content for entirely different devices. This means “smartphonesized screens that support multi-touch interactions require objects on the screen to be large enough to be activated easily with their fingers, without the user accidentally triggering other interactions while doing so” (Cooper et al. 2014, p. 509). Again, this question is valid for different devices, from smartphones to tablets or personal computers. The dimension of the elements can also be dictated by the visibility component, namely by attributing the visual focus to the visual elements that are intended to stand out for different reasons. The visibility can be attributed to the prominence of the elements; that is, the larger elements will always have greater visibility (Lowdermilk (2013, p. 65) and capture the attention of individuals more effectively. But, when an object has a very large or tiny dimension, it can become difficult for the user to understand other variables such as shape (Cooper et al. 2014, p. 407). In addition, the dimension of the elements present in the interface proves extremely useful in proceeding with the information hierarchy. 2.5 Composition Composition proves to be one of the crucial concepts in terms of design. It can be classified as the union of all elements - colours, images, typography, graphics, and dimensions - within a layout and how they relate and communicate. Furthermore, this composition must convey a sense of coherence, aesthetics and, above all, balance. This composition presents the need to be harmonious that news brands such as Expresso, Diário de Notícias da Madeira and Público were awarded the European Newspaper Award. This award distinguishes news brands for their printed and digital graphics. Observing the case of the news media, Palomo (2014) notes that since 2000 and 2001, there has been a homogenisation of design. As he explains, “the media started to develop design conventions becoming like each other. Periodic changes in the design and structure of newspapers reflected publishers’ efforts to explore a more effective way of providing news information to the public” (Palomo 2014, p. 134). The researcher adds that the main trends in online media were created in 2006 and include: grid-based sites; dark text on a white background and combinations with blue or red; top horizontal navigation, tabbed content areas based on a grid layout, social media integration, aggregation, and distribution. Still, in the same segment, the contents are centralised inside windows, and the information is presented in several columns. The grid design allows “normally to start with two columns and increase the number of columns as the relevance of the news decreases” (Palomo 2014, p. 139). The author adds that this is a trendy choice in this area for two reasons: it creates a clear appearance and is an effective way to manage and organise a large amount of content and information. At the same time, “this use of space facilitates the digitisation of the text, as the eyes do not need to travel large distances horizontally. Home pages start with recognisable images to allow reading, and less important content is placed in less visible areas” (Palomo 2014, p. 139).

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Talking about composition also implies approaching the notion of the grid. Samara (2007, p. 203) explains that grids are an approach to solving problems in the visual and organisational field, joining images, text, titles, and data. According to him, the advantages of this use are numerous, including clarity, efficiency, continuity, and systematic order that helps distinguish various types of information, facilitates navigation, and uses large amounts of information quickly. There are several types of grids with their anatomies: single-column grids, two-column grids, multi-column grids, modular grids, hierarchical grids, and responsive grids. The journalistic case is described by Samara (2007, p. 207) using modular grids mainly because they allow quick and varied changes in the content layout. The text appears in several columns, and the size of these varies according to the importance of the story. It is also added that the lengths and widths can contribute favourably to creating the sensation of movement and flow, and using colour images in the right measure can promote a sense of rest.

3 Behavioural Postures in News Consumption When designing a product or service, whatever it may be, it is essential to understand the contexts of use and the respective environments in which this product or service will act. In this case, when we talk about digital news platforms, we refer to online journalistic sites and their respective mobile applications. Choosing the right platform is not a simple act but a “balancing act” (Cooper et al. 2014, p. 206), precisely because different platforms lead to other behavioural postures on the user’s part. This issue is also proven by the Entidade Reguladora para a Comunicação (ERC) reports. In this segment, the latest report shows that the primary device used to access news is the smartphone (57.1%), followed by the computer (28.9%) and, finally, the tablet (5.2%) (OberCom 2021, p. 67). However, even though in the space of five years, the use of smartphones has more than doubled, when it comes to reading news content in full, the podium is occupied by the computer (94.4%) and not by the smartphone (36.2%) (Cardoso et al. 2015, p. 20). The problem with this question is observed by authors such as Dunaway et al. (2018) or Molyneux (2017). They recognise that the attention given to news on devices such as smartphones or tablets is deficient compared to those accessed via computer. In addition to the characteristics of users differing depending on the device used, the influence of visual communication and design is highlighted, which also varies depending on the device used. The indicators that lead to these discrepancies and directly affect the understanding of the content are varied, including the size of the screens influences reading, as well as cognitive and affective perceptions, with the smartphone understanding and reading speed is lower because they have to access a greater volume of information (Dunaway et al. 2018, p. 110). In addition, people who use smartphones tend to read words from the top of the screen rather than the bottom more often (Oh et al. 2014, p. 2320). Aspects such as these demonstrate that the design adopted by digital news platforms, which also differs according to the device used, directly influences the public in terms of participation (sharing, comments and reading). Therefore, it should be noted that this perspective is relevant for information-producing brands since understanding these

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behavioural postures may allow the adoption of content adapted to each circumstance, as well as greater awareness of the effects of this use.

4 Methodological Proposal Since this article presents as motivation to understand how the design adopted by online media can affect public participation in cyberjournalism, two lines of investigation are proposed. The first one encompasses elaborating a literature review on the subject, as carried out throughout this article and proves that the design adopted by online media can affect audience participation in several ways. The second line of investigation implies, in this case, a methodological proposal based on parameters that stood out throughout the literature review. The following Table 1 demonstrates, in a global way, how the methodological proposal was conceived and constructed. Table 1. Design of the methodological proposal. 1

2

3

Understand and evaluate people’s perceptions of selected news media

Evaluate audience participation in selected media

Understand how the design adopted by online platforms affects participation

Number of visits to mobile applications + Number of comments + Number of shares + Legibility and Readability (font, font size, text alignment, line length)

Grid position + Highlighted news + Highlight type + Image presence + Image size + Colours + Font used + Font size used + Text alignment + Leading and length of the line

Observation grids Ratings and reviews on the App Store and Google Play + Number of followers and likes on Facebook + Number of followers on Instagram

In this logic, we created two observation moments the first moment of observation will analyse General Parameters (Table 2) and will be done once. The second moment of observation will look at what we call Particular Parameters (Table 3) and will be done once a week for seven weeks, which gives a total of seven days of examination. In this second moment of observation, in the Particular Parameters (Appendix 2), there are elements of analysis repeated from the General Parameters (Appendix 1) because we want to understand if there is a pattern. Also, to achieve the best results, we will conduct a comparative analysis of two different platforms. Therefore, the first observation moment, present in General Parameters (Appendix 1), unfolds into six types of analysis, namely: the ratings and evaluations of selected platforms in the App Store and Google Play; Facebook likes and followers, as well as Instagram followers; general analysis with the survey of the predominant colours used by newspapers; survey of general metrics about the typography used, the maximum and minimum size of each newspaper; and, finally, the survey of the grids, that is, of the front pages of the newspapers through the days of analysis. Table 2 contains the parameters mentioned above with due justification and explanation.

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Table 2. Analysis parameters of the first moment of observation and respective explanation and justification of the pertinence of the proposed elements referring to General Parameters (Appendix 1). (1) Analysis of ratings and evaluations Ratings and reviews on the App Store and Google Play

Although the design has a significant influence on the user, it was considered that they present a pre-conceived image regarding the media, which means that this factor may be decisive. To initially understand these perceptions, it is deemed to be pertinent to evaluate the ratings and evaluations in the Apple Store and Google Play of the news brands to be analysed. This aspect allows for more reliable and complete results

(2) Instagram and Facebook analysis Number of followers and likes on Facebook + The Facebook analysis counting the number Number of followers on Instagram of followers and likes on the page, and the analysis of the number of followers on Instagram follow the last parameter’s line. Understanding the individual’s perceptions and the brand’s position in digital social networks. Here, too, there is a possibility that the results will be more reliable and complete (3) Analysis of general metrics - colour Colours used

The literature review demonstrates that colours directly influence on the public on several levels. Therefore, the objective is to conduct a survey of the colours used by the newspapers and cross this same information with the literature review

(4) Analysis of general metrics - typography Typography used + Legibility and Readability The literature review shows that typography is crucial for the understanding of news content, and, in addition, the data show a certain trend in this area. Therefore, the objective is to analyse the parameters related to legibility and readability such as: size, font family, text alignment, leading and line length (5) Analysis of general metrics - images (continued)

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Maximum and minimum size

The literature review also proves the importance of images in the news context, especially about their size with the significance of the theme and respective highlights. Therefore, the objective is to generally identify the maximum and minimum size to understand these parameters

(6) Identification of grids Home pages

The literature review proves the relevance of the different grids used and how they impact the user. The objective is to capture home pages analysed and understand the use of the grids and identify patterns

The second observation moment, present in Particular Parameters (Appendix 2) on the other hand, unfolds into two types of analysis, namely: the collection of general metrics regarding the number of visits to the website in question and the application of the respective website, again also with the comparative aspect with another news medium; and, finally, an analysis grid of the participation (number of comments, number of shares) and of the visual elements of the home pages of the newspapers (position in the grid, highlighted news, type of highlight, image, image size, font used and the font size used – these parameters are duplicated for the website via the web and mobile app). Table 3 contains the parameters mentioned above with due justification and explanation. Once the present methodological proposal is exposed, it is essential to point out that the parameters raised for this theme are relevant for three reasons: (i) they reflect the data and information obtained in the literature review; (ii) before these analysis grids were formulated, several studies were carried out on similar themes in some way, not only to understand the added value of the approaches but also to detect some gaps and try to fill them; (iii) the parameters reflect not only the design aspect and how it can influence public participation but also issues related to each person’s individual perceptions of news platforms since it was considered that these end up influencing individuals before the design even creates any effect. By way of example, a person may consider a news brand to be unreliable. Therefore, that brand’s visual communication and design will not impact the individual because there is already a previous image of that same brand.

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Table 3. Analysis parameters of the second moment of observation and respective explanation and justification of the pertinence of the proposed elements referring to Particular Parameters (Appendix 2). (1) Analysis of general metrics - participation Number of visits to the website and mobile application

One element that makes it possible to understand participation is the number of visits to the website and the application. Because it is understood that it is relevant to observe the number of daily visits on the days of analysis. It is possible to obtain a higher quality perception of the analysed elements in this way

(2) Analysis of participation and design – site and app Identification news

The proposed methodology goes through the analysis of the home pages of online newspapers, so it is crucial to identify the news that are present on these home pages. In addition, this identification is also relevant because the following parameter will evaluate the participation in this news, allowing not only to identify the news with greater participation, but also perceiving design characteristics and relationship with this participation

Number of comments + Number of shares

Identifying the number of comments and shares is necessary to understand and quantify participation. Therefore, the news with the highest numbers in this analysis will be the ones that will receive more attention at the design level, trying to understand the possible connections

Position on the grid (website + app)

The grids are also one parameter to be analysed, and the objective here is to identify the position of the news in the grid. This analysis will be done on the website and the mobile application because the literature indicates that behavioural postures are also different due to design

Highlighted news (website + app)

Here, the aim is to understand in a general way (yes/no) whether the news under analysis has a visual highlight. Also, in this case the analysis must be done via the web and mobile application

Highlight type (website + app)

This parameter follows the last line. If the news is highlighted, it must be properly identified. E.g., colour, bold, size, image (continued)

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Has image (website + app)

As was made evident in explaining General Parameters, the literature review confirms the importance of images in the news context. Therefore, the objective here is to identify the presence (yes/no) of the news image in question on the homepage

Image size (website + app)

As already mentioned, the sizes of the images dictate the relevance of the theme and its prominence; it is important to understand this size because it may indicate greater visibility in the news. Again, this parameter must be analysed in web and mobile applications for the reasons already mentioned

Font used (website + app) + Legibility and Readability (website + app)

Although the general parameters are identified (General Parameters, Appendix 1), this observation allows the identification of patterns

Observation

This parameter appears so that it can be identified in case unforeseen parameters arise in the same way

5 Final Considerations Returning to the primary objective that motivates this article – to understand how the design adopted by online media can affect public participation in cyberjournalism itself – it is clear that design has the potential to influence public participation through the most varied forms. In this sense, the literature review carried out raises questions of extreme relevance for the cyberjournalistic case, namely: (i) design can contribute positively or negatively to cognitive and emotional processes; (ii) it helps to increase the reader’s motivation and attention; (iii) directly affects the understanding of news content; (iv) it can foster more significant levels of trust in the public or, on the contrary, encourage feelings of mistrust; (v) a direct influence on the way readers browse the platforms themselves; (vi) and, in addition, the design that varies according to the device used can affect the knowledge that individuals obtain from news content. All the aspects mentioned so far demonstrate an enormous potential to motivate or discourage the public’s participation. That said, even though the literature review confirms the influence of design on public participation, there is a need to conduct investigations in this area so we can understand the dimension of this influence and arrive at new results. Thus, it is believed that the methodology proposed in this segment proves to be an asset in every way. Not only to understand the impact of design and visual communication on participation in the journalistic environment but also because the results are relevant to the news brands and the public. Ultimately, the aim is to encourage quality consumption and informed participation in increasing digital literacy.

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Appendix 1 General Parameters – Analysis Grids See Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Methodological proposal, first moment of observation with six analysis parameters.

Appendix 2 Particular Parameters – Analysis Grids See Fig. 2.

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Fig. 2. Methodological proposal, second moment of observation with two analysis parameters.

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Dooley, R.P., Harkins, L.E.: Functional and attention-getting effects of color on graphic communications. Percept. Mot. Skills 31(3), 851–854 (1970). https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1970.31. 3.851 Dunaway, J., Searles, K., Sui, M., Paul, N.: News attention in a mobile era. J. Comput. Mediat. Commun. 23(2), 107–124 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmy004 de Groen, M.: Typography, Which Typefaces and Fonts Are Used Online and Offline? (2017). https://www.marcodegroen.com/typography-which-typefaces-and-fonts-are-used-onl ine-and-offline/ Kelly, M.: Visual communication design as a form of public pedagogy. Aust. J. Adult Learn. 55(3), 390–407 (2015) Knox, J.S.: Punctuating the home page: image as language in an online newspaper. Discourse Commun. 3(2), 145–172 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481309102450 Kovach, B., Rosenstiel, T.: The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect, 3rd edn. Three Rivers Press (2014). https://play.google.com/books/rea der?id=SxyOaH25-NoC&hl=pt_PT Lowdermilk, T.: User-Centered Design (2013) MacDonald, L.W.: Using color effectively in computer graphics. IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl. 19(4), 20–35 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1109/38.773961 Molyneux, L.: Mobile news consumption: a habit of snacking. Digit. J. 6(5), 634–650 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1334567 Munari, B.: Design e Comunicação Visual. Edições 70 (1968) Nakilcio˘glu, ˙IH.: The effects of font type choosing on visual perception and visual communication. Online J. Art Des. 1(3), 35–54 (2013) OberCom: Digital News Report - Portugal 2021. Publicações OberCom, 112 (2021). https://www. digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2020/portugal-2020/ Oh, J.H., Nam, S.J., Lee, J.: Generating highlights automatically from text-reading behaviors on mobile devices. In: Proceedings of Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 2317–2322 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1145/2559206.2581176 Palomo, B.: International criteria in editorial web design. In: Shaping The News Online: A Comparative Research on International Quality Media, p. 348. Livros LabCom (2014). http://www. labcom-ifp.ubi.pt/ficheiros/20141114-201403_atous_shappingnewsonline.pdf Patrick, M.F.: The UX Designer’s Guide to Typography (2022). https://www.interaction-design. org/literature/article/the-ux-designer-s-guide-to-typography Pektas, P.H.: A typographic analysis of Turkish newspapers ‘ websites. J. Acad. Mark. Mysticism Online 5(2), 1–9 (2012) Reichenstein, O.: Web Design is 95% Typography: How to Use Type on the Web (2006) Rost, A.: Interatividade: Defenições, estudos e tendências. In: Webjornalismo: 7 característicoas que marcam a diferença. Livros LabCom (2014) Samara, T.: Design Elements: A Graphic Style Manual. Rockport (2007) Sasidharan, S.: The Impact of Color and Product Congruency on User Trust in B2C E-Commerce. Banking, 2 (2010) da Silva, M.T., Brites, M.J.: Audiências e jornalismo, uma relação difícil? In: De que falamos quando dizemos jornalismo? Livros LabCom (2021). https://play.google.com/books/reader? id=jrJFEAAAQBAJ&pg=GBS.PA1&hl=pt-PT&printsec=frontcover Snell, S.: Newspaper Website Design: Trends and Examples (2008). https://www.smashingmaga zine.com/2008/11/newspaper-website-design-trends-and-examples/ de Sousa, A.P.: A interface na e-Health: proposta de princípios de design para a credibilidade e a confiança (2017). https://ria.ua.pt/handle/10773/21059 Tilak, G.: Usage of visual communication design on consumer behaviour. Gedrag Organisatie Rev. 33(02), 963–971 (2020). https://doi.org/10.37896/gor33.02/103

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Tondreau, B.: Layout essentials: 100 design principles for using grids. In: Technical Communication, vol. 56, issue 3. Rockport (2009). http://search.proquest.com/docview/221007736?acc ountid=15533 Traquina, N.: Quem vigia o “Quarto Poder”? Anais Do IX Encontro Anual Da Compós, 10 (2000). http://www.compos.org.br/data/biblioteca_1431.pdf Wang, J.: Visual language in visual communication. Asian Soc. Sci. 4(8), 140–141 (2008). https:// doi.org/10.5539/ass.v4n8p140 Wright, A.: Color psychology (the “Colour Affects” system). Color Psychol. 05, 1–10 (2010). http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html

Critical Digital: Digital Integration in the Museum Fernando Sousa(B)

and Francisco Providência

Department of Communication and Art, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal {fernando.sousa,fprovidencia}@ua.pt

Abstract. The history of museology is marked by the cyclical discussion about the effective contribution of the museum institution to society. Currently, dialogue relations with the public are privileged in a museum configured at the service of society, stimulating a desire for action in each community and seeking to deepen the critical awareness of each of its members. The evolution of the information and communication ecosystem has caused significant changes in the visitor’s behavior and expectations – who now manifest desires for participation, collaboration, sharing, and personal representation – suggesting the corresponding need to adapt the museum’s discourse and communication approaches. In this interpretation – of an institution configured at the service of its society – current information and communication technologies find a creative opportunity as essential support systems for cultural mediation: in the conception, construction, and dissemination of knowledge, for the proposition of new meanings. This article focuses on the testimony of five expert specialists (professionals related to museography), collected in semi-structured interviews, and seeks to identify essential structures and contours for designing technologically mediated experiences in the museum domain. Keywords: Design · Museography · Digital media · Phenomenology

1 Introduction The 20th century is marked by a departure of the museum from its more traditional configuration of “showcase museum” – a designation proposed by Derrick de Kerckhove [1, p. 178] – centered on the heritage conservation of collections of objects identified as having significant cultural value [2, p. 1], [3, p. 11]. In the 1970s, under the observation of the museum and its practices by sociology, namely through the analysis of the museum as a societal constructor, monitoring its ideological, political, and educational declinations, the traditional values of custodianship, preservation, and interpretation were gradually undervalued. The institution focuses on the educational role of its audiences and the performance of the curator, responsible for constructing a social and political narrative [4, p. 4]. Derrick de Kerckhove [1, p. 179] will designate this model as a “point of view museum” – anticipating its mobilizing role – in which the museum is responsible for © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 495–506, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_43

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disseminating knowledge and seeks to constitute itself as an agent of intervention and social change through its communication to the community. John Falk and Lynn Dierking [5] emphasize the need for reconnection with the public through strategies that aim to expand the relationship between individuals and museum artifacts – to create meaningful museum experiences adapted to new behaviors and participation, collaboration, and personal identification needs and desires [6]. In this interpretation – of an institution devoted to society – the museum will seek to keep up with the latest technological mediation trends [3, p. 15]. Suppose Design is characterized by the Design of objects, devices, and cultural mediation services. Beyond the mere appropriation and use of technology, it will depend on the understanding and critical questioning about the future consequences of their contributions [7, p. 13].

2 Methodology This qualitative (exploratory) research is based on inductive principles and follows a phenomenological approach since it is based on the perception and judgment of expert specialists – museum professionals – around digital integration and the technologicallymediated experience in the museum context – contributions collected in semi-structured interviews. The convenience sample (purposive sampling) comprises five specialists – covering design practice, curation, coordination, installation, and research applied to museography and museology – from different generations, countries of origin, and recognized professional backgrounds. Deliberately opting for expert specialists is justified since they are considered information-rich informants, concentrating knowledge and insights that converge with the research objective. As suggested by Gray [8, p. 398], Fig. 1 summarizes the profile of each expert specialist:

Fig. 1. Table with the (simplified) profile of each expert specialist interviewed.

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The interviews were carried out remotely by videoconference on the Zoom Cloud Meetings platform [9], given the pandemic situation [10], and conducted with relative freedom, given its semi-structured nature. The interviews were based on questions focused on three main intentions (I): (I1) Knowing the specialist’s understanding of the meaning, assumptions, and consequences of digital integration in the museum context; (I2) Knowing the specialist’s perspective regarding the role and responsibilities of the museum, today and in the future, as a cultural institution; (I3) Delimit axes of problematization regarding digital integration in the museum. The interviews lasted, on average, one hour. The shortest interview is 45 min and 55 s, and the most extended interview is 1 h, 4 min, and 59 s. Each expert specialist authorized the interview recording (video and audio), expressing their consent (verbally) to reference their names to the testimony, publication, and dissemination of the data collected. Connectivity issues resulting from latency (sporadic) were duly identified in the transcript, aiming at clarification (by the specialist) of imperceptible words in the recording. Only one of the interviews was interrupted due to a connection failure and was resumed 15 min later, and the event was duly flagged. 2.1 Coding Process A qualitative approach implies exploring and analyzing structures that generate the specific and unique content of each personal representation of the world. Part of this process is the interpretation of meanings (hermeneutics). Qualitative research studies symbolic mediation and rescues the space of subjectivity by capturing the specific dimension in which the human being is typified as such [11]. For this purpose, interviews with experienced museography and museology professionals were conducted to gather data regarding the museum’s digitization. In this perspective, Gray [8, p. 604] sets out a set of methodological principles inherent to the data coding process in qualitative analysis. The first step concerns the organization and preparation of the information collected for analysis – the transcription of the interviews. The interviews were partially transcribed, and the statements and contributions considered relevant within the scope of the investigation were selected. In this process, repeated words or phrases were omitted. The second step focuses on the coding process itself. The data coding process implies the iterative reading of the transcribed text (after validation by the specialist) and the respective indexing and categorization of information into codes – to build a structure of thematic ideas by identifying concepts and possible relationships between phenomena [12]. Within the scope of this research, one might consider adopting a structural (deductive) coding approach in the sense that the semi-structured nature of the interview indicates the existence of a framework of predefined concepts (or codes) deemed relevant for analysis – as in the case of the meaning of digital and the notions of memory, subjectivity, and temporality.

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However, the coding approach adopted is considered predominantly inductive (exploratory). The emergence of codes based on the data allows new impressions to shape interpretation in directions not initially foreseen – thematic content analysis. For coding, we used NVivo 12 [13] – qualitative analysis software – which allows for a faster review and coding process, a necessary step to analyze the data collected during the interviews after its transcription and validation by the experts. The main goal of the analysis will be to condense information and identify essential structures underlying the lived experience of the phenomenon, trying to answer the main research objective.

3 Meaning of Digital Francisco Providência defines digital as “opposition by alterity to the analog – anything technically mediated by an electronic system based on algorithmic communication processes and always implies a complex system of coding and decoding of information, often hidden, but interceded by a (cultural) mediation platform.” Sara Barriga Brighenti shares the definition, relating digital to what “is not physical nor tangible,” corroborating this binary opposition in her characterization of the “museum universe” that is, in general, “made of tangible artifacts.” Miguel Palmeiro states that digital emerges in his personal and professional life “naturally as a tool” and that it should be understood “not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end”; an instrument for solving a given problem. Francisco Providência explains that, from a superficial perspective, “digital can be understood as a neutral medium – depending on its programming and integration in the exhibition. However, a more profound and critical thought reveals radical differences between digital and analog: “digital is always a means of simulation – a simulacrum.” Helena Barranha recognizes the possibility of these two approaches. Still, she proposes a look at digital “from the point of view of contemporary culture”: beyond its technological dimension, “quite pragmatic and operative,” to consider processes that “often anticipate the emergence of new technologies” and even “reconfigure them in society and culture.” It is imperative to consider digital integration with a “holistic sense”: considering this “abstract, coded and mediated” human-computer relationship. The specialist considers that “it makes less and less sense” this “alleged dichotomy” between digital and the “so-called analog sphere,” a perspective that advocates, in the cultural context, a functioning of things in a logic of “direct transposition” which puts aside structural problems associated with inclusion and literacy, for example. Similarly, Pablo von Frankenberg considers that these processes based on binary coding, usually hidden, significantly (re)direct society towards a “binary” approach to thinking and being in the world: “Digital (…) is a state of mind more than a technique/technology that existed much before the digital revolution. If we look at how machines work – it is primarily binary – 0 or 1. That is how we work with computers nowadays, and that is something that is embossed in our lives”.

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4 Playfulness and the Digital Museum Sara Barriga Brighenti recalls that: “what is expected of the museum today is that it provokes a reaction, active thinking, curiosity, the idea that there is always a discovery behind what is being shown to me; the expectation of action-reaction, surprise, and exploration of something unknown.” These elements of play can be explored through digital media. The cross between the offer of knowledge and recreation (leisure), in a museum context, provides the “creation of a very desirable product,” she adds. Nevertheless, Francisco Providência and Helena Barranha warn of the frequent temptation to attribute playful behavior to digital technology. Elements of play sometimes acquire an excessive protagonism, which does not always contribute effectively to the exhibition, and may even constitute “a distracting factor.” Playfulness can be considered a “moment of relaxation” during the museum visit. Still, this excessive prevalence of play – through gamification strategies (Helena Barranha) – is often associated with AR or VR technologies and activities that privilege both the speed of response and reactive, cyclical, and mechanical behaviors that diminish the intellectual and critical awareness of the user (Francisco Providência). Helena Barranha also sees interference in visitors’ subjectivity – emotional conditioning – and reinforces the importance and responsibility of preparing audiences (especially younger ones) for “the experience of knowledge” by exploring “deeper emotions of discovery and empathy” and raising awareness of aesthetic experience. In their reflection, the three specialists recognize both the difficulty and the (unavoidable) need to guarantee a balance between playfulness – the superficial fun inherent to the relationship with digital media – and “the ability to escape alienation.” The result is the supplanting of the information to be communicated in favor of a physical and mental occupation that does not contribute to the production of knowledge or aim to promote the visitor’s critical awareness, conditioning him emotionally.

5 Temporality, Subjectivity, and Memory All expert specialists recognize the influence of digital mediation systems in reconfiguring the notions of temporality, subjectivity, and memory. Some specialists even establish links and correlations between the different phenomena. The growing difficulty of clearly separating the digital dimension inherent to human activity – personal and professional – and the “so-called analog sphere” becomes evident; the dilution of barriers between the natural and the artificial; the symbiosis between “the human and the robotic.” “The world in which we move is increasingly hybrid.” 5.1 Temporality In their reflection on the notion of temporality, Helena Barranha and Pablo von Frankenberg introduce the concept of simultaneity. Helena Barranha describes the phenomenon as “a kind of double-time” – the overlapping of the visit time with the time dedicated to the relationship with technological

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devices. The permanence in this logic of temporality could mean “the loss of the notion of the present” and the meaning of the museum experience: “how this moment differs from other moments” of everyday life. This phenomenon is, in part, accentuated by the “technological autonomy” of the visitor, who carries digital devices into the museum space – even when only confronted with physical or analog exhibitions. Pablo von Frankenberg defines simultaneity as the museum’s ability to support discursive multiplicity: producing and communicating multiple layers of meaning and knowledge dynamically and flexibly. Through digital technology, simultaneity means the visitor’s perception can be dynamically framed to specific (detailed) layers of information or extended in a panoramic view, enabling global (holistic) observation and easing the interpretation of multiple meanings in an exhibition. Still, he emphasizes that this condition is not an inherent quality of digital media. Sara Barriga Brighenti recalls the contributions of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and the possibility of entering a “state of suspension of reality.” The expert specialist addresses one of the fundamental characteristics of being in the flow – the distortion of time perception – pointing to its relationship with memory and subjective experience. The phenomenon is often characterized by the “distortion of time perception” and fed by the visitor’s re-encounter with “a whole universe of references” (evoked by memory) when confronted with cultural artifacts. However, the expert also describes temporality extension scenarios – in which “5 min feel like 5 h”. These often occur among children or when exhibiting more complex collections, suggesting the corresponding need to adapt the communication strategies to those specific audiences. This “distortion of time perception” is also addressed by Francisco Providência, and he suggests a greater propensity for the phenomenon in the direct interaction experience with technical devices. 5.2 Subjectivity Helena Barranha considers that simultaneity, associated with digital technology, affects and conditions the visitor’s subjective experience by privileging an emotional involvement with the content. On the one hand, “by pushing the visitor towards an experience of superficial fun,” making it difficult to trigger “deeper emotions of discovery and empathy, something that requires time”; on the other hand, by creating experiences with significant emotional impact, as in the case of immersive VR experiences. Francisco Providência reflects on the Human’s relationship with Human simulation, a process that “will imply its gradual contamination,” “technological dependence and technical reification.” The result is the progressive and irrational conditioning of their “individual exercise,” their “representation and perception as an individual,” and “their subjectivity.” “This intimate relationship with digital media creates, in theory, time and space in the brain for other acquisitions and accomplishments; but what happens is that the brain is not occupied with other things – we simply lose autonomy and

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start transferring our previous skill or competence to the machine” – Francisco Providência This process of technical reification is evidenced in countless everyday scenarios in which “it is no longer Humans using the machine, but the machine using Humans” – a condition that perpetuates and advocates “repetitive and uncritical reactions.” Pablo von Frankenberg suggests that excessive technological apparatus sometimes characterize digital media, and this condition makes them, tendentially and paradoxically, indubitable and highly persuasive. This characteristic of digital media – associated, for example, with AR or VR – may have repercussions on reducing the visitor’s critical awareness: their ability to doubt and question the (actual) content presented – precisely because of the apparent (obvious) evidence of mediation. “Because media sometimes seems to be so obvious; it appears to be beyond doubt and question” – Pablo von Frankenberg Many technical devices we interact with daily are designed to promote technological dependence. The perception of specific equipment as a human extension – technological embodiment – provides this dependency relationship and reduces critical awareness – affecting subjectivity – concludes. Sara Barriga Brighenti considers this condition particularly dangerous, given the capacity of digital media to construct and generate narratives, which can constitute a “highly seductive propaganda weapon to tell a unique story” – “the illusion of truth.” Given this situation, the specialist recalls that “museums are places of subjectivity” and that this condition, “thinking about digital integration, is almost as if we were adding another layer of possibilities to the museum.” Pablo von Frankenberg addresses and clarifies the issue as follows: “If you have a media guide, for example, this guide shouldn’t destroy the multitude of meanings but (in fact) add another layer. Yeah, sure, an explanatory, didactic layer. But it should be, I would say, artsy enough to make people think”. 5.3 Memory The “loss of autonomy” and “the subsequent transfer of human skills to the machine” become evident at the moment of reflection on the influence of digital technology on the memory of visiting the museum. “The ease with which we come to relate with a technical device translates into the inability, or simply the lack of the need to evoke memory since ‘reality’ is now available in the machine” – Francisco Providência Sara Barriga Brighenti, in her reflection, establishes the relationship between subjectivity and memory – “perfectly interconnected” dimensions – based on impact studies carried out by John Falk and Lynn Dierking. The studies show that the narrative constructed by memory, in the long term, will not correspond to (objective) reality (or a description given immediately after the experience) but will be “completely entwined with emotional meanings” of this same museum visit experience.

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Pablo von Frankenberg establishes the same relationship, suggesting that the retention of the museum experience in memory will depend on direct contact with the objects on display: on the confrontation with physicality, the presence and direct perception of works of art and cultural artifacts, which capture the visitor’s attention. Miguel Palmeiro and Sara Barriga Brighenti justify this phenomenon by considering the difficulty of replicating the experience of direct contact with these cultural artifacts outside the museum space. The latter also points out that: “the fact that I see and feel the physicality of a certain object does not mean that I understand its message.” In this sense, Pablo von Frankenberg sees that this contact can be used as a mechanism to obtain the visitor’s attention. Digital technology (integrated with a logic of complementarity) can provide additional information to the visitor about the exhibited artifacts, guaranteeing higher retention of content in long-term memory. Miguel Palmeiro considers this physical confrontation with objects – direct contact (perception) and sensory-motor experience (action) – essential for understanding the content and apprehending its meaning. “Something I try to do is precisely design digital experiences with physical, mechanical, or analog interactions. It is often surprising; it causes a smile, and above all, these interactions ease the understanding of the information” – Miguel Palmeiro Helena Barranha reports the scientific evidence that shows, “in a less ambiguous way,” the influence of digital technologies on the memory of the museum visit. Brendan Ciecko’s study [14] compares four types of experience of enjoying the same work of art (painting): direct perception (without digital mediation) of the work of art; viewing a two-dimensional digital reproduction; visualization in Augmented Reality (AR); and visualization in a fully synthesized Virtual Reality (VR) environment. The study’s findings indicate a higher prevalence in long-term memory and a significant increase in brain activity and information processing in the AR viewing experience. In his reflection on the same study, Pablo von Frankenberg points out a possible fragility of this declination towards the visualization of a singular work of art, remembering that the museum visit is generally characterized by discreet contact with multiple and distinct cultural artifacts. Nevertheless, Helena Barranha reinforces the importance of considering these indicators as clues for critical thinking regarding digital integration in the museum, “precisely due to the evolution of hybridity.”

6 The Optimal Museum Experience The optimal museum experience “would be one that would allow the acquisition of awareness about one’s existence from the objects preserved and communicated in the museum,” offering “an opportunity to question reality, the world, and the present time” aiming to promote the visitor’s ability to “produce their own discourse”; the reflection and interpretation of objects “from their own existential experience” – “making them useful in useful time of their existence,” thus preserving the subjectivity of the visitor as an individual destined for freedom and self-determination (Francisco Providência).

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“This means that each visitor is not only a presence but an active thought in this space,” and the museum is stripped of an authoritarian and prescriptive modus operandi in favor of “listening, horizontality and sharing” (Sara Barriga Brighenti). This (cultural) mediation process should guarantee “freedom and access to various layers of knowledge and meaning in a non-impositional way,” enabling the construction of a unique path. This includes the control of the flow and temporality of the museum visit; the choice associated with the existence of various media and mediation resources complementary integrated – ultimately aiming at autonomy, flexibility, and personalization of the museum experience (Helena Barranha; Sara Barriga Brighenti). Helena Barranha reinforces the importance of “giving the visitor enough time”: prolonging direct contact with the artifacts, providing conditions for reflection on their meaning, and constructing their own questions “before immediately providing the answers.” “Time is increasingly a scarce resource, and museums give us time, even if only for a few seconds, to look at an object or a work of art and ask ourselves about what we are seeing: its period; its geography; its context; the reason for a certain object to be next to another” – Helena Barranha Miguel Palmeiro considers that the museum is, above all, a “place of doubts.” He underlines the importance of designing and implementing “tools” that make it possible to question the content presented. These “tools” should promote interest, critical thinking, and awareness of the meaning and implications of each unique experience. This “opportunity to question reality, the world, and the present time”; the “possibility of difference” – responsibility attributable to the museum – transcends its space. The museum prepares and exercises the visitor’s critical thinking for places and contexts outside its domain (Pablo von Frankenberg). The critical awareness of the visitor will develop through the recognition and revelation – on the part of the curator (and other museum professionals) – that the museum is a fragile, ever-changing institution, constantly under the critical and reflective observation of its practices, values, and meaning. Therefore, Pablo von Frankenberg recognizes the need to open this condition to the public, hoping that this dynamism will culminate in awareness and perspective-taking to recognize the contingencies and relativity of things and the world. In his description of the optimal museum experience, he adds: “You know that you don’t know where you are, but you have this feeling where you open your perception for things you’ve never searched for. And maybe, at some point, you will find something new, a new perspective. When you leave the museum, you have this feeling like you were on vacation, in a land you never knew before”. Encountering something new; a new perspective – “the so-called epiphany” – is not only about learning new things.“It is finding myself in a completely new situation in my life, and knowing that it is a safe place”; it is to see “that a new world is added to the world I already knew” (Sara Barriga Brighenti).

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Miguel Palmeiro describes the optimal museum experience as “the one to be surprised.” This surprise could be an aesthetic experience, apprehending knowledge (or meaning), unfolding all knowledge once taken for granted, or an autotelic experience. In their description, Francisco Providência, Pablo von Frankenberg, and Sara Barriga Brighenti emphasize the importance of plurality and multidimensionality: the communication of multiple interpretations of reality. The museum should not communicate a single message; “it should not be a prescriptive, authoritarian space with unique stories, as cultural artifacts are.” “We live in a world where we value freedom: freedom in how we interpret, see, and tell a story. The world we live in is plural, multidimensional, diverse, and museums must be aware that, on each object, there are many ways of telling a story” – Sara Barriga Brighenti For Francisco Providência, the idea of a “museum” is inexorably related to promoting specific values. “The most culturally valuable things we have is what we keep in museums, from the type of objects we preserve to the discourses we construct to select and exhibit them.” The museographic discourse, as a narrative about “reality, the world, and the present time,” should communicate the existence of multiple interpretations and promote the construction and dissemination of new understandings and perspectives on this same reality, “as many as the individuals who visit it.” “Since it is impossible to achieve neutrality, we should support the proliferation and discursive multiplicity, allowing each citizen to find himself through the museum and deepen the perspective that arises from his conscience, as an individual, founded on his own autobiographical existential experience” – Francisco Providência

7 Conclusion and Future Work The thematic content analysis expressed in this article, which results from semistructured interviews with five experts – museum professionals – makes it possible to outline a set of recommendations (R) for digital integration focused on sustainability, accessibility, and preservation of the subjectivity of the museum visitor. The Design of digital (and cultural) mediation, given the museum’s social role and responsibilities, should: (R1) be integrated with a holistic perspective, sustainable, and tailored to each particular institution, program, mission, and collection; (R2) guarantee access to multiple media resources (beyond digital media only) in a non-imposing way, offering the possibility of building one’s path by controlling the circulation flow and the exhibition temporality – aiming at autonomy, flexibility, and personalization of the experience; (R3) promote creativity and critical thinking of the visitor for the production of his own discursivity, pointing to the two-way dialogue, grounded in the idea of “horizontality, listening, and sharing” of the institution as a place to better question reality

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and the present time. In the participatory (and interactive) domain, manifest the ability to respond meaningfully to the visitor’s actions and contributions during and after the visiting experience; (R4) ensure equilibrium between playfulness – the superficial fun inherent to the relationship with digital media; the opportunity for decompression and interactivity in a logic of action-reaction – and the moments of (practical) transfer and production of information and knowledge, respectively; (R5) promote the proliferation and multiplicity of discourse - the possibility of difference - ensuring access to multiple layers of knowledge and meaning (R3). Despite the importance of personalization of the museum experience mentioned in (R2), personalization may favor a preferential and selective contact, given each visitor’s personal context – expectations, motivations, and previous knowledge. Multidimensionality means facilitating and promoting the encounter with new perspectives and different (re)presentations of the world – aiming to create a heterogeneous space (as are the audiences), as opposed to preferential cultivation (of the visitor) and canonical knowledge (of the institution). We consider that the digital integration in the museum amplifies not only the need to solve structural problems but, above all, the urgency to preserve the museum as a place of subjectivity: so that those who visit it can distance themselves from things and themselves so that they can find the knowledge that transcends banality and allows a clear understanding of the essence of each content (enlightenment), thus distinguishing the moment of a visit from other moments of everyday life. Acknowledgments. The study reported in this publication was supported by ID+ Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture.

Ethical Concerns. As mentioned in this paper, each expert specialist authorized the interview recording (video and audio), expressing their consent (verbally) at the beginning of the interview to reference their names to the testimony, publication, and dissemination of the data collected. The present research follows the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of May 25, 2018.

References 1. de Kerckhove, D.: Inteligência Conectiva: a emergência da cibersociedade (translated by Ana Viseu). Lisboa: Fundação para a divulgação das Tecnologias de Informação (1998) 2. Hein, H.: Institutional blessing: the museum as canon-maker. In: Gould, C.C., Cohen, R.S. (eds.) Artifacts, Representations and Social Practice, 1st edn., pp. 1–19. Springer, Dordrecht, Boston (1994) 3. Moutinho, M.C.: Museus e Sociedade: reflexões sobre a função social do museu. Monte Redondo: Cadernos de Património – ULHT (1989) 4. Brown, K., Mairesse, F.: The definition of the museum through its social role. Curator Museum J. 61(4), 525–539 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12276 5. Falk, J.H., Dierking, L.D.: The Museum Experience. Taylor and Francis (2016) 6. Simon, N.: The Participatory Museum, 1st ed. Santa Cruz, California: Museum 2.0 (2010)

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7. Providência, F.: Sobre a incrição do visitante no museu interativo. In: Branco, V., Dias, N., Raposo, R., (eds.) Possibilidades: MUX - Museus em Experiência, Aveiro: UA Editora (2015) 8. Gray, D.E.: Doing Research in the Real World, 3rd edn. Sage Publications, London (2014) 9. Zoom Video Communications. Zoom Cloud Meetings. Zoom Video Communications (2021). https://zoom.us/ 10. Presidência do Conselho de Ministros. Diário da República Electrónico n.o9/2021, 1oSuplemento, Série I de 2021–01–14, Decreto n.o3-A/2021. pp. 13–(5)–13–(29) (2021). https://bit. ly/3cM7HX9. Accessed 03 Apr 2021 11. Flick, U.: An Introduction to Qualitative Research, 1st edn. Sage Publications, London (1998) 12. Gibbs, G.R.: Analyzing Qualitative Data, 1st edn. Sage Publications, London (2007) 13. QSR International. NVivo QSR International (2021). https://www.qsrinternational.com/ nvivo-qualitative-data-analysis-software/home/ 14. Ciecko, B.: Neurological Perceptions of Art through Augmented & Virtual Reality White Pap. (2019). https://bit.ly/3eWvWSR

Can Visual Artists Regulate Designs to Manipulate Viewers’ Gaze Patterns? an Exploration with Eye-Tracker Pinaki Gayen1(B)

, Archi Banerjee2 , Junmoni Borgohain3 , Gobinda Banik4 , and Priyadarshi Patnaik2,3

1 Department of Design, Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati University, West Bengal, India

[email protected]

2 Rekhi Centre of Excellence for the Science of Happiness, Indian Institute of Technology,

Kharagpur, India 3 Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur,

India 4 Basirhat College, West Bengal State University, West Bengal, India

Abstract. Artists and designers use visual strategies like leading lines, perspective, brightness of colors, shapes, relative size, as well as line strengths to regulate the overall viewing experience by controlling where the viewer would look first and then next, the duration of their gaze fixation (or attention) at different parts of the image etc. These strategies can be different for figurative and non-figurative artworks. This study attempts to understand this regulation process using nonfigurative and figurative paintings. First, a team of ten artists were asked to create either a figurative or a non-figurative painting each. Next, they were asked to write down their predictions about the sequence and priorities of viewing different visual elements and indicate the visual strategies they consciously used to regulate the gazing behavior. Finally, an eye-tracker study was conducted where thirty participants viewed the ten images and their gaze fixations were analyzed for each image. Results of the study revealed presence of significant relationship between artists’ predictions and actual gaze patterns of the viewers for both non-figurative and figurative paintings, indicating that, to an extent, artists can control the viewers’ perceptual experience of the paintings. However, findings also indicated that sequential gaze fixation is a myth with viewers rapidly moving back and forth among elements, and coexisting visual strategies either compete or complement, with complementary visual strategies leading to better prediction. Findings of this study throw light to the intrinsic relationship between specific visual strategies, eye movements and common perceptual strategies used both by artists and viewers. Keywords: Eye-tracking · Figurative painting · Non-figurative painting · Perception · Regulation

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 507–522, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_44

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1 Introduction: the Contribution of Eye-Tracking Study to Understand Art, Artist and Viewer Visual artists live in a visual dominated world in which the visual qualities of images, objects, scenes, patterns, colors, and spatial relationships among different visual objects play a significant role in terms of representation of their visual experiences through drawings and paintings. Artists devote a huge amount of time in compare to other professionals to acquire specific categories of skills which help them to develop special kind of knowledge and understanding about visual representation [1]. Often, artists make their own strategy or methodology to communicate certain visual information and experience. Even, artists strategize of the way an artwork would be viewed by viewers, but that strategies remain untold in the art work. How a composition of an image should guide the viewer’s eye has been predicted many years before by American artist Andrew Loomis with demonstrations in the book titled Creative illustration [2]. After many years, using Loomis’ diagrams and images, a study was conducted to examine whether viewers follow the suggested cues, and the study found that Loomis’ suggested elements of composition do not strongly influence viewers’ eye movements [3] Yarbus [4] investigated the principles followed by human eyes when they scrutinize any complex object. He suggested that when we look at a picture, the eyes more or less uniformly scan the whole surface of the picture. Wallraven et al. [5] suggested that by looking at a work of art, a spectator enters into a dialogue. Their study attempted to analyze this dialogue with both behavioral and computational tools. In order to examine the visual complexity or aesthetic appeal in work of art, viewers’ eye movements were recorded. Findings showed clear preferences for certain artistic styles and were based on both low-level and high-level criteria. Eye movements revealed the time course of the aesthetic dialogue as observers tried to interpret and understand the painting. Santella & DeCarlo [6] discovered a new approach for the creation of painterly renderings that draws on a model of human perception and is driven by eye-tracking data. The approach can perform meaningful abstraction using the eye-tracking data, with the minimum interaction possible: the user needs only to look at the image for several seconds. In the mid 20th century, art historians and critics considered abstract art as a “world language” or universal language [7]. This notion was not only acknowledged by art historians such as Haftmann, the leading theorist of documenta, or Clement Greenberg, but also by artists like Barnett Newman. In this regard, an eye-tracking research by Brinkmann et al. [8] provided empirical evidence that the idea of abstract art as a universal language needs to be revised. The authors suggested that abstract art was considered as universally comprehensible and independent of cultural, political or historical contexts. However, this was never explicitly tested empirically. According to the authors [8] if these assumptions were true, there should be higher inter-subjective coherence in perceiving abstract paintings compared to representational art. The results of their study revealed that there are no differences between abstract and representational artworks concerning the coherence of cognitive and emotional response. Moreover, eye-movement patterns clearly were more heterogeneous for abstract paintings compared to representational paintings.

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The above mentioned empirical investigations indicate that there is a lack of research exploration which unfolds artists’ visual strategies to control over viewers’ looking behaviors in figurative and non-figurative art. This crucial research gap also makes us question whether artists can actually predict viewers’ major attention areas/objects within the paintings and their comparative viewing priority. This study explores the same using eye-tracking data of 30 participants and the findings may help us to understand effective visual communication and perceptual strategies in the context of figurative and nonfigurative paintings. We hypothesize that using specific visual strategies viewers’ gazing behavior can be controlled by the artists; even gazing homogeneity among different viewers can be achieved.

2 Research Questions 1) Can artists regulate viewers’ gazing behavior while viewing a figurative or nonfigurative painting – both in terms of the primary visual elements present in the paintings and their sequential viewing priority? 2) Do the artists use certain visual strategies to regulate the viewers’ gazing behavior? 3) Do these strategies actually play key roles in regulating viewers’ gazing behavior?

3 Experiment Design In order to explore the aforementioned objectives, an experimental study was conducted with artists and viewers. Followings are the details of the experimentation. 3.1 Method: Participants and the Tasks All participants of this study were associated with the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (India). Each participant gave consent before taking part in the experiment. There were two tasks (1) Painting task and (2) Viewing task. In case of the (1) Painting task, the participants (artists) were trained by visual art and communication course. There were a team of 10 visual artists (7 male and 3 female aged between 20 to 26 years, mean age 24.8 years, SD 2.85 years) depicted 10 paintings (5 figurative and 5 nonfigurative paintings) where each artist depicted a single image. The artists were also asked to separately write down their predictions about the sequence in which the viewers may prioritize to look at different visual elements within their paintings. They also qualitatively described about the visual strategies they consciously used to regulate those priorities. In the second task, the (2) Viewing task, a group of 30 participants participated (17 males and 13 females; age range from 21–31 years, mean age 23.6 years, SD 3.29 years). For this viewing task, an eye tracker study was conducted where the 30 participants were asked to look at the ten images depicted by the 10 artists and share their interpretations. The paintings were shown in digital version on a computer screen where an eye-tracker was installed. None of participants reported any visual impairment, color blindness or any other psychological, neurological disorders. The entire experiment was conducted following the ethical guidelines of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (India).

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3.2 Apparatus and Software For this experimentation, eye-movement data were recorded using a Tobii X2–30 compact eye-tracking system. The eye tracker was attached in a computer (resolution 1920 × 1080 pixel where the 10 paintings were shown. The OGAMA (Open Gaze and Mouse Analyzer) software was used of collecting the eye-movement data. The size of the painting on the monitor was 30 × 22 cm, and the viewing distance was fixed at 50 cm. Prior to every recording, the gaze of each participant was calibrated in the eye-tracking software.

4 Results and Discussion The experiments of this study were done in two steps. In the first step, which was a painting task, each of the 10 artists created a figurative/non-figurative painting and then predicted the sequence in which the viewers may prioritize to look (or focus their attention) at different visual objects within the painting. The artists also qualitatively wrote down about the reason behind such predictions or to be precise, the visual strategies they used to regulate viewers’ attention in that way. Table 1 explains how each of the artists predicted about the sequential prioritization of different visual elements in each of the 10 images using different visual strategies. Analyzing Table 1 in details, we observe that a few strategies are used very commonly by the artists in an attempt to regulate the viewers’ gazing behavior while viewing their artworks. Some of these strategies are common for both figurative and non-figurative paintings like size variations while depicting objects (mostly the artists predicted that bigger objects will get greater viewing priority compared to smaller objects), color variation (artists predicted that brighter colors will catch more attention compared to dull colors), leading lines - front to backward (objects in frontline were predicted to gain greater priority compared to objects in backlines) etc. In non-figurative paintings, the visual strategies commonly used by the artists primarily included variation in line pattern, color, size, shape and position variation, whereas in the case of figurative paintings, conscious use of human figures or human body parts were found very frequently in order to prioritize viewers’ attention at those parts of images, texts have been used also in some specific cases. In the second part of the experiment, we tried to cross-validate the artists’ predictions with the actual gazing behavior of the viewers measured using an eye-tracker. The predictions will be validated at two levels – first at the level of primary visual elements or primary attention drawing areas in each painting and second viewing priority. Analyzing the data obtained from the eye-tracker study done with 30 participants we observed that irrespective of the painting being figurative or non-figurative, the artists almost always could accurately predict about the main attention drawing areas/ visual elements within a painting; whereas while predicting their comparative viewing priority, in most cases they could partially predict the gazing behavior of the viewers. For some specific paintings (like Image 1, Image 6) the predictions turned out to be exactly accurate, whereas in a few other cases (like Image 3, Image 7) the artists completely failed to predict the viewers’ attention priority sequence. Table 2 and Table 3 give the comparative results of the artists’ predicted sequence and the actual viewers’ observed attention distribution

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Table 1. Primary visual elements of the 10 paintings along with visual strategies used

Non-figurative painting

Figurative painting

Primary visual elements

Visual strategies used

Predicted order

Image 1

Spiral, cloud, spikes, ladder, letters, connecting line

Big to small size objects, bright and pale colors, connecting lines between objects, letters

Spiral > Cloud > Letters

Image 2

Star, abstract shape, light source (sun)

Light and dark colored objects and varying known & unknown shapes

Star > Blue nebula > Sun

Image 3

Squares of varying sizes and gradually fading color

Red color, Big square > Medium Varying size of square > Small square the squares, Front to backward, Leading lines

Image 4

Circle and half circles of varying colors

Varying Size, color and shapes

Red circle > Orange circle > Light orange circle

Image 5

Three circles of varying colors

Varying colors against a black background

Yellow circle > Red circle > Blue circle

Image 6

Painting, indoor Human figure, space, stool, Perspective door

Painting > Stool > Door

Image 7

Man, kite, plane Human figure, Leading line

Man > Kite > Plane

Image 8

Smiling face, devil eye, normal eye, Boxes, lines

Facial gestures, Smiling face > Devil eye Leading line, Big > Normal eye to small size

Image 9

Singer and musician, lights and logo, crowd, stage

Human figure, Singer and musician > Front to Lights and logo > Crowd backward, leading line, letters and details

Image 10

Face and body, legs, stage text

Human figure, From top to bottom

Face > Body > Legs

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sequence (based on complete gaze fixation time at these points) for the non-figurative and figurative paintings respectively. Table 2. Artist predicted vs. Viewers’ observed sequence of primary attention areas in nonfigurative paintings Non-figurative paintings

Image 1 Image 2 Image 3

Image 4

Image 5

Major attention area

Moderate attention area

Minor attention area

Artist predicted order

Spiral

Cloud

Letters

Viewer observed order

Spiral

Cloud

Letters

Artist predicted order

Star

Blue nebula

Sun

Viewer observed order

Blue nebula

Star

Sun

Artist predicted order

Big square

Medium square

Small square

Viewer observed order

Medium square

Small square

Artist predicted order

Red circle

Orange circle

Big square Light orange circle

Viewer observed order

Light orange circle

Orange circle

Red circle

Artist predicted order

Yellow circle

Red circle

Blue circle

Viewer observed order

Yellow circle

Blue circle

Red circle

Average matching percentage

Prediction vs. Reality Percentage Percentage of visual of viewing elements priority matching matching 100

100

100

33.33

100

0

100

33.33

100

33.33

100

40

Table 3. Artist predicted vs. Viewers’ observed sequence of primary attention areas in figurative paintings Figurative paintings

Image 6 Image 7 Image 8 Image 9 Image 10

Major attention area

Moderate attention area

Minor attention area

Artist predicted order

Painting

Stool

Door

Viewer observed order

Painting

Stool

Door

Artist predicted order

Man

Kite

Plane

Viewer observed order

Plane

Man

Kite

Artist predicted order

Smiling face

Devil eye

Normal eye

Viewer observed order

Devil eye

Smiling face

Normal eye

Artist predicted order

Singer and Musician

Lights and logo

Crowd

Viewer observed order

Musician

Singer

Logo

Artist predicted order

Face

Body

Legs

Viewer observed order

Face and body

Text

Legs

Average matching percentage

Prediction vs. Reality Percentag Percentage e of visual of viewing elements priority matching matching 100

100

100

0

100

33.33

66.67

33.33

66.67

66.67

86.67

46.67

A comparative study of Table 2 and Table 3 suggests that for all the five non-figurative paintings, the artists could predict the primary attention drawing areas 100% accurately, whereas among five figurative paintings the artists’ prediction accuracy were 100% for three paintings (Image 6, 7 and 8) but, for the other two paintings they either predicted some extra elements (“crowd” in Image 9) or failed to predict all the crucial visual

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elements (“text” in Image 10). In terms of predicting the primary visual elements or primary attention focusing areas within a painting, the average matching rate between artists’ prediction and viewers’ observation was 100% and 86.67% for non-figurative and figurative paintings respectively. Next, we look at the comparative viewing priorities of the primary attention areas within these ten paintings. While viewing Image 1 (which is a non-figurative painting), the artist predicted order of attention focusing areas (Spiral > Cloud > Letters) were indeed followed by the gazing behavior of the viewers in reality. The same trend happened for the figurative Image 6 also, where the artistpredicted attention priority order (Painting > Stool > Door) was accurately followed by the viewers. Among the other four non-figurative paintings, for Image 2, Image 4 and Image 5 the respective artists could correctly predict the viewing priority order for only one of the primary attention areas (viz. Major attention area for Image 5; moderate for Image 4 and minor for Image 2), whereas in Image 3 the artist failed to predict the sequence completely. Similarly, in the case of figurative paintings, the respective artists could correctly predict only the minor attention area in Image 8, the major attention area in Image 9 whereas in Image 10, the artist correctly predicted both the major and minor attention areas but failed to predict the moderate attention area. In Image 7, the artist completely failed to predict the viewers’ attention priority sequence. Among five nonfigurative paintings, the respective artists could predict each of the major, moderate and minor attention areas only twice, whereas out of five figurative paintings, the artists correctly predicted the major and minor attention areas thrice each, but failed to correctly predict the moderate attention areas more than once. On an average, the artists were able to predict the attention priority sequence correctly 40% times for non-figurative paintings and 46.67% times for figurative paintings. The detailed complete fixation time plots and heat maps (obtained from analysis of eye tracker data of 30 participants) corresponding to three sample non-figurative paintings and three sample figurative paintings are given in Fig. 1. While studying the gazing behavior of the spectators using an eye-tracker, a number of parameters can be extracted, out of which a few most important and relevant parameters for this work are the complete gaze fixation time at the artist predicted area of interests in these images and their vicinities (measures the total attention span at these areas), the total number of gaze fixations at these areas (indicating the attractiveness of the visual elements present there), and the average fixation duration at these areas (indicating the presence of detailed, unusual, confusing or cognitive meaning making visual elements which require longer attention spans to be perceived). In Table 2 and Table 3 of our study, only the total attention span at any area or complete gaze fixation time is considered while comparing the original viewing priorities of the elements with their artist predicted priority orders. But, an in depth comparative look at the above mentioned three parameters can throw light to many new intricacies of the human gazing behavior which were previously unexplored. Table 4 and Table 5 give the detailed attention priority distribution of the viewers while viewing each of the five non-figurative and five figurative paintings respectively. Analyzing the gazing trend of the viewers for each of the non-figurative paintings (Table 4), we observed that while looking at Image 1, the complete gaze fixation time was highest at the spiral, followed by cloud and letters in order of the gradually decreasing

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Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

Image 5

Fig. 1. Complete fixation time plots and Heat maps corresponding to the sample non-figurative and figurative paintings

Can Visual Artists Regulate Designs to Manipulate Viewers’ Gaze Patterns?

Image 6

Image 7

Image 8

Image 9

Image 10

Fig. 1. (continued)

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Table 4. Viewers’ complete fixation time, number of fixation and average fixation duration at the primary attention areas in each non-figurative painting Non-figurative paintings Complete fixation time (ms)

Number of fixation

Spiral

Cloud

Letters

Spiral

Cloud

Letters Spiral

Cloud

Letters

Image 91512 1 Star

41669

31511

273

184

100

335

226

315

Blue nebula

Sun

Star

Blue nebula

Sun

Star

Blue nebula

Sun

Image 46060 2 Big square

66373

36111

155

234

122

297

284

297

Medium Small Square square

Big square

Medium Small Square square

Big Medium Small square square square

Image 44029 3 Red circle

61131

59865

131

218

180

336

Orange circle

Light Red orange circle circle

Orange circle

Image 21322 25861 4 Yellow Red circle circle

108388 54

80

Blue circle

Yellow Red circle circle

Image 86127 5

52950

218

36164

105

Average fixation duration (ms)

280

333

Light Red orange circle circle

Orange circle

Light orange circle

243

395

323

446

Blue circle

Yellow Red circle circle

Blue circle

165

395

321

344

size of the visual elements. As evident from the results of the eye-tracker study, the big size and bright blue spikes on the edge of the spiral is attracting viewers’ eyes, hence both number of fixation and average fixation duration are highest at the spiral among the three primary visual elements. Among the other two elements (the light blue cloud like structure with orange and green outline; and the abstract black letter like scribbles on the pale orange background), the viewers’ total gaze fixation time and number of gaze fixation were higher for the cloud like shape, because of the larger size and brighter color usage but the average fixation duration was higher for abstract letter like scribble, because the viewers were trying to decipher the letters in an attempt to generate a meaning out of them. In this case the artist’s prediction was exactly replicated in the viewers’ gazing behavior. While viewing Image 2, the viewers’ complete fixation time and the number of gaze fixation were highest at the blue nebula like structure, followed by star and sun, in contradiction to the artist-predicted order. Rather than the size variance of the elements, here the bright blue color and unfamiliar and complex shape of the nebula has attracted the viewers’ eyes the most, but interestingly, because of their colors, the yellow star like shape and the bright orange sun like radiating shape contributed to higher average fixation duration at these areas compared to the blue nebula. In Image 3, again contradicting the artist’s prediction, the viewers’ complete gaze fixation time and number of fixation were highest at the medium sized squares, because they were located at the central part of the image. But the complete fixation time at the farthest small squares were very close to that

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of the medium squares, further followed by the red big squares in the frontline, whereas the average fixation duration was highest at the big red square, very closely followed by the small squares and further followed by medium squares, indicating a strong influence of the leading line strategy used by the artist. In Image 4, against the artist’s anticipation, among the tri-colored circles and semi circles, the light orange circles contributed to the highest complete fixation time, number of fixations as well as average fixation duration, which indicates that beyond the influence of colors, central position of the light orange circles played a significant role in attracting the viewers’ attention. Similarly, in Image 5, the central location and bright yellow color contributed in determining the highest complete fixation time, number of fixation and average fixation duration, followed by the blue and red circles respectively. Table 5. Viewers’ complete fixation time, number of fixation and average fixation duration at the primary attention areas in each figurative painting Figurative paintings Complete fixation time (ms)

Number of fixation

Painting Stool

Average fixation duration (ms)

Door

Painting Stool

Door

Painting Stool

Door

Image 100966 6 Man

31943

9212

191

78

27

529

410

341

Kite

Plane

Man

Kite

Plane

Man

Kite

Plane

Image 30012 7 Smiling face

13912

38125

110

42

98

273

331

389

Devil eye

Normal Smiling eye face

Devil eye

Normal Smiling eye face

Devil eye

Normal eye

Image 44908 8 Singer

70172

33557

168

254

70

290

276

479

Musician Logo

Singer

Musician Logo

Singer

Musician Logo

Image 40581 9

43116

20614

125

132

87

325

327

Image Face 10 and body

Texts

Legs

Face and body

Texts

Legs

Face and Texts body

Legs

23512

17680

311

84

58

285

305

88599

288

237

Analyzing the gazing trend of the viewers we observed that in most of the figurative paintings (Table 5), human body or parts of it played significant role in drawing major attention from the spectators. While looking at Image 6, in synchrony with the artist’s prediction, the complete fixation time, number of fixation and average fixation duration were highest at the painting, followed by stool and door respectively. Along with the human figure in the wall painting, leading lines also played important role in determining the viewing priority in this image. In Image 7, the unusual presence of a plane in the same line with the man’s hand and the kite (again creating a leading line) contributed in highest average fixation duration and complete fixation time at that point, but the number of fixation was highest for the human figure. In Image 8, again contradicting the artist’s prediction, the medium sized but unique devil eye contributed in highest number of fixation and complete fixation time, compared to the big smiling face or small normal eye, but due to the presence of intended leading lines, the average fixation duration

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at the farthest small box with normal eye was highest among the three primary visual elements. In Image 9, deferring from the artist’s prediction, the viewers observed the centrally located musician and the frontline singer with different attention priority, with the musician receiving slightly higher number of fixations, average fixation duration and complete fixation time compared to the singer, further followed by the textual logo. Interestingly, contradicting the artist’s anticipation, the viewers did not pay significant attention to the lights or crowd. On the other hand, in Image 10, beyond the artist’s prediction, the viewers looked at the outlined face (details of face were missing) and body of the central human figure simultaneously with highest number of fixation and complete fixation time, but the average fixation duration was highest for the detailed legs and overall, the unanticipated moderate attention area in this image was focused around the texts in background. Eye-tracking data indicated that in actual viewing, there was viewing priority among the elements but no specific viewing order. The brain cognizes sequentially, but in actual practice scanning is much more complex, first and repetitive. Locher et al. [9] suggested that perceptual-cognitive processing of an art stimulus begins with the “rapid generation of a gist reaction followed by scrutiny of pictorial features directed in a top-down fashion by cognitively-based evaluative processes”. But one may argue that that for figurative and non-figurative paintings the processes may be different. While this may need a separate future investigation, our findings suggest that in abstract paintings shapes, sizes, leading lines, etc., are the sole decider of the logic of viewing, whereas in figurative paintings, along with the basic visual elements, the semantic logic becomes a strong contending force and often influence more than fundamental perceptual principles in regulating eye gaze. When the two are compatible, chances of successful prediction is higher (For further details see Table 6 and Table 7). According to Lee & Ahn [10] the directing of viewers gazing behavior or the attention is influenced by both bottom-up and top-down factors. In the behavioral and eye-tracking study of Massaro et al. [11], revealed that content related top-down processes prevailed over low-level visually-driven bottom-up processes when a human subject is represented in the painting. On the contrary, bottomup processes, mediated by low-level visual features, particularly affected gazing behavior when looking at nature-content images. The findings of our study are harmonious with many of the suggestions claimed by these earlier literatures and still look for the unique possibility of an artist controlling the gazing behavior of the spectators using specific strategies and contribute new knowledge in this domain. A detailed look at the findings of Table 4 and Table 5 reveal that across the ten figurative and non-figurative paintings certain visual strategies used by the artists dominantly contributed in the gazing behavior regulation of the viewers, whereas some other strategies were the controlling factors only in some specific cases. In the case of non-figurative paintings, the variations in basic visual elements like colors, lines, shapes, perspectives were the major contributing factors in gaze regulation, but even within these factors, some were more dominant than others. On the other hand, while viewing figurative paintings, cognitive meaning making strategies (like presence of human figures, leading lines etc.) dominated over the variations in only the basic visual elements in determining the viewing priority. When multiple gaze regulating factors were present in harmony i.e., in a complementary relationship, the predictions made by the artists featured a higher

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success rate, but when they factors were present in a conflicting or competitive manner, they featured a tendency of overriding each other, making the prediction of viewing priority more difficult. Table 6 analyzes the different gaze regulating factors used in the ten figurative and non-figurative paintings and Table 7 gives their relative dominance. Table 6. Prominent visual strategies responsible for controlling viewers’ gazing behavior in the 10 paintings Visual strategies

Non- figurative paintings

Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 Image 4 Image 5

Figurative paintings

Image 6 Image 7 Image 8 Image 9 Image 10

Expected viewing priority Used by artist Attention regulator Used by artist Attention regulator Used by artist Attention regulator Used by artist Attention regulator Used by artist Attention regulator Used by artist Attention regulator Used by artist Attention regulator Used by artist Attention regulator Used by artist Attention regulator Used by artist Attention regulator

Size variation of objects

Bigger to smaller object √ *

Color variation

Bright to pale colors

Shape variation

Unusual to usual shapes

Perspective variation

Closer to further

Leading lines

Human figure or body parts

Letters or letter like scribbles

Along the line path

Human figures to draw more attention than other objects

Letters likely to draw attention for getting deciphered

√

Positioning of visual elements

Connecting lines

Centralized objects to outwards (corners)

Gaze will follow one object from another along the connected lines

√

*

√

*

√

√

*

*

√

√

√

√

√

√

√ *

*

* √ *

* √

√

* √ * √

√

*

*

√

√

*

*

√

√

√

*

*

√

√

√

* √

√

*

* √

*

*

√

√

*

*

*

*

Analysis of Table 6 and Table 7 clearly reveals that for non-figurative paintings, among all the visual strategies used, color variation was the most dominant in controlling the viewing priorities, whereas for figurative painting it was the presence of human figure or body parts – both of which were successfully anticipated by the visual artists. Other than that, in figurative paintings, resonating with the artists’ anticipation, conscious use of leading lines and letters or texts also played an important role in determining the viewers’ gaze behavior. But, contradicting the artists’ predictions, factors like size variations of objects or perspective variation did not contribute significantly in controlling the viewers’ attention. On the other hand, going beyond the artistic expectations, both in the case of

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Table 7. Frequency of different visual strategies dominantly controlling viewers’ gazing behavior Non-figurative paintings

Visual strategies

Number of times used by artist

Number of times acted as attention determining factor

Figurative paintings

Number of times used by artist

Number of times acted as attention determining factor

3

1

1

0

Color variation

5

3

2

0

Shape variation

1

1

1

2

2

0

3

1

1

1

4

4

0

0

5

5

Letters or letter like scribbles

1

1

2

2

Positioning of visual elements

0

3

0

3

Connecting lines

1

0

0

0

Size variation of objects

Perspective variation Leading lines Human figure or body parts

figurative and non-figurative paintings, the positioning of the visual elements – especially the objects placed at a centralized location – played a significant role in drawing viewers’ attention to these points. These general findings, though validated only for the figurative and non-figurative paintings as well as the pool of participants chosen for this study, contribute new knowledge to the domain of visual cognition and are expected to open the door for many future studies where the reasons behind the relative dominance of specific visual strategies in determining the gazing behavior while viewing figurative and non-figurative paintings will be explored.

5 Conclusion The present study proved that artists can successfully regulate viewers’ gazing behavior by using certain visual strategies in the figurative and non-figurative paintings. The visual strategy includes using familiar-unfamiliar shapes, bright-dull colors, perspectives, leading lines, size variations of the objects in the paintings. In figurative paintings, human figure or body parts are widely used to draw attention.

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Findings of our study suggest that the artists were almost accurate in predicting the primary attention drawing areas in the paintings but while predicting about their comparative viewing priority, in most cases, they were partially successful, with complete success or failure observed in a few specific cases. Visual strategies used by the artists to regulate viewers’ gazing behavior can be either complementary or competitive. When competitive strategies operate, one overrides the other (say, leading lines as opposed to size). Expectancy and fulfillment also play a key role. Leading lines lead to expectancy but unless an interesting element is at the end of the lines, gaze goes back repeatedly without a sense of fulfillment. Also, there is a tendency to go back and fixate at the central space. Finally, ambiguous objects and texts draw repeated attention, in order to make sense of things. The findings of the present study extended the existing knowledge of Brinkmann, Commare, Leder & Rosenberg’s [8] study by indicating that proper usage of certain visual strategies, even in abstract paintings, can enhance viewers gazing homogeneity to a great extent. Another interesting thing is that the findings of our study strongly support some of the Gestalt principals. We know that there are five Gestalt principals of visual perception such as - Principle One: Figure-Ground, Principle Two: Proximity, Principle Three: Similarity, Principle Four: Continuity, Principle Five: Closure [12]. In the Gestalt Principles of Visual Perception, one of most significant principle is “Figure-Ground” which tells that when we perceive a visual field, some objects or aspects of objects seem prominent, and others recede into the background. In our study, the participating viewers were untrained in visual arts, due to their limited background knowledge; often they were in no position to distinguish between what is important and what is irrelevant. It could be one of the reasons which caused some gaze fixations in the backgrounds as well (in both figurative and non-figurative paintings). In the results of this eye-tracker study, we observed similarity with the Gestalt’s principle “Proximity” which suggests that whenever we see an assortment of objects, we tend to see objects that are close to each other as forming a group, and objects that are farther from the group as being immaterial or unrelated. The results of our study reveal that there is dominant pattern of looking continuously from one object to other objects, in both figurative and non-figurative painting contexts. This finding reminds the Gestalt’s principle of “Continuity”. In Gestalt principal of “Continuity” it was mentioned that people tend to perceive smoothly flowing or continuous forms rather than disrupted or discontinuous ones. Therefore, we believe that the present study has significant relevance with Gestalt theory and further studies can be done on this context using eye-tracker. Similarly, future studies would attempt to analyze meaning-making strategies, elements like ambiguity, text, closure, etc. for more in depth knowledge.

6 Limitations and Future Research Scopes: Although this study presents some unique results in the domain from a robust scientific perspective, the sample size of the participants was not very big. If we look at the perspective of the viewers, both participant groups were mainly in their twenties, and this may introduce a particular bias in the way the visual compositions were viewed. A future study can be conducted with the same paintings with a larger pool of participants coming

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from a more diversified age groups to understand if younger and older people would look at these compositions differently. Also, this experiment needs to be conducted with people from different countries, socio-cultural, and educational backgrounds, each of which can influence them to look at these works in alternative ways. If we look at the perspective of the artists/creators, regarding the expression of thoughts through figurative and non-figurative paintings, there could have been lack of work experience among the very young professional artists who willingly participated in our study. This may also introduce a bias in the results, mainly in foreseeing how viewers would gaze their artworks. This experiment should be repeated with older, eminent artists to understand if (and how) with age, and more experience artists can better predict the viewers’ gazing patterns. The same also applies regarding their culture and country, which may influence their line color preferences or associations with different emotions and their representations through figurative or non-figurative artworks.

References 1. Kozbelt, A.: Artists as experts in visual cognition. Vis. Cogn. 8(6), 705–723 (2001) 2. Loomis, A.: Creative Illustration, p. 300. Viking Press (1947) 3. Kirtley, C.: How images draw the eye: an eye-tracking study of composition. Empir. Stud. Arts 36(1), 41–70 (2018) 4. Yarbus, A.L.: Eye movements during perception of complex objects. In Eye Movements and Vision, pp. 171–211. Springer, Boston, MA (1967) 5. Wallraven, C., Cunningham, D.W., Rigau, J., Feixas, M., Sbert, M.: . Aesthetic appraisal of art: from eye movements to computers. In: Computational Aesthetics 2009: Eurographics Workshop on Computational Aesthetics in Graphics, Visualization and Imaging, pp. 137–144. Eurographics, May 2009 6. Santella, A., DeCarlo, D.: Abstracted painterly renderings using eye-tracking data. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Non-photorealistic Animation and Rendering, pp. 75–ff, June 2002 7. Poensgen, G., Zahn, L., Hofmann, W.: Abstrakte Kunst, eine Weltsprache: Mit einem Beitrag von Werner Hofmann: Quellen zur abstrakten Kunst. Klein (1958) 8. Brinkmann, H., Commare, L., Leder, H., Rosenberg, R.: Abstract art as a universal language? Leonardo 47(3), 256–257 (2014) 9. Locher, P., Krupinski, E.A., Mello-Thoms, C., Nodine, C.F.: Visual interest in pictorial art during an aesthetic experience. Spat. Vis. 21(1), 55 (2008) 10. Lee, J., Ahn, J.H.: Attention to banner ads and their effectiveness: an eye-tracking approach. Int. J. Electron. Commer. 17(1), 119–137 (2012) 11. Massaro, D., et al.: When art moves the eyes: a behavioral and eye-tracking study. PLoS One 7(5), e37285 (2012) 12. Condly, S.: The psychologies of gestalt principles of visual perception and domain expertise: interactions and implications for instructional practice. Florida Assoc. Teach. Educ. J. 1(3), 1–17 (2003)

Design Culture Ladder: Creation of a Diagnosis Tool to Evolve Industry Hugo Palmares1(B)

, Miguel Terroso2

, and Emília Costa1

1 ID+ Research Institute in Design, Media and Culture, Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, 4049-021 Porto, Portugal [email protected], [email protected] 2 ID+ Research Institute in Design, Media and Culture, School of Design, IPCA Campus, 4750-810 Barcelos, Portugal [email protected]

Abstract. This article focuses on design culture perception at industrial context, in the recognition of companies employees on the evolution of design mindset that promotes a design culture in organizations. This, in turn, promotes change – or innovation – within a company, which should be understood as a process and not an end. The article intends to contribute to: i) the understanding of the meaning of culture, culture evolution, design culture, and organizational culture, contextualized to the industry; ii) introducing the creation of a diagnosis tool on the design culture in the organizations – using the Design Culture Ladder (DCL) model – that will allow companies to carry out a self-diagnosis of design cultural evolution. The remote interviews via Zoom and the tested tool were applied in the context of the Portuguese footwear industry, which intends to be applied in the future to other industrial sectors, comparing results and validate the DCL model across the widest range of industries. Keywords: Industry · Design culture · Design ladder · Diagnosis tool · Cultural evolution

1 Introduction The design mindset incorporated by a group of collaborators of an organization in a social, business or industrial context, was investigated and argued by researchers who published and disseminated concepts, methods or models, through Design Management (Farr 1966; Gorb 1990; Mozota 2003; Best 2006; Buchanan 2015), Design Thinking (Rittel and Webber 1973; Kelley and Littman 2001; Brown 2008; Martin 2009; Junginger 2009; Cross 2011), Danish Design Ladder (Kretzschmar 2003; Doherty et al. 2014), Design-Driven Innovation (Utterback 2006; Verganti 2009), Design Strategy (Manzini 1999; Lockwood 2010), or Design Led Innovation (Dorst 2015; Bucolo 2016). In this sense, and more prevalent over the last two decades, these methods and models have been applied and widely spread among schools, organizations, companies or industries. The perspective and mindset of design went from being an exclusive point of designers to being understood and incorporated by all employees of an organization. Although © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 523–535, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_45

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the lexicons referenced here are still, nowadays, liable to be confused with each other, even if the definitions are quite explicit and argued by their authors, there is nevertheless a unanimous understanding about the evolutionary process of a design mindset that promotes a design culture in any organization. According to Bucolo (2016, p. 161), “leading by design isn’t a destination, but a complete renewal of a firm’s culture and mindset, which in turn changes how and what it innovates”. The design culture that this article intends to clarify and contribute is focused on the business and industrial context, where there is an analysis of the employees belonging to a certain organization and how they perceive the cultural context that surrounds them. A definition of culture can run the risk of appearing vague and abstract if we don’t contextualize it. The culture that the present chapter of the article intends to clarify and explore is focused on the business and industrial context, where the disciplines of anthropology, art, design, communication and technology are related. The next chapter is divided by: culture definition, culture evolution, design culture, organizational culture.

2 Literature Review 2.1 Culture Definition Introducing the topic of culture, and according to the words of Bonsiepe (1975, p. 52), “it’s not done with rapture or devout admiration for spirituality, but in the sense of the daily practice carried out and made possible by artifacts”. For the author, projected artifacts are the expression and identity of a culture of its own, in the anthropological sense, of the formal character of a culture. Hall (1959, p. 43) argued about an anthropological perspective on the definition of culture, that “for anthropologists culture has long stood for the way of life of a people, for the sum of their learned behavior patterns, attitudes, and material things. Though they subscribe to this general view, most anthropologists tend to disagree however, on what the precise substance of culture is”. Some authors tend to agree on the definition of culture as the behavior of a certain group of people, defining that culture refers to the values, beliefs and behaviours common to the various sets of professionals involved in the process (Jolly et al. 2005). In the same sense of collective belonging, Manzini (1989, p. 58) states it well, “the creation of a group practice and culture (and the respective worldview) is the natural response to discovering the meaning and motivations of all who are part of that group”. Interestingly in a historical context, according to Rittel and Webber (1973, p. 167) there is a cultural difference in practices and behaviors between groups at different times, thus comparing “if the industrial age greatly expanded cultural diversity, then post-industrial society is likely to be far more differentiated than any in all of past history”. Throughout industrial age there was a culture of productive efficiency related to the collective expectations and inherent conditions, “during the industrial age, the idea of planning, in common with the idea of professionalism, was dominated by the pervasive idea of efficiency. Drawn from 18th century physics, classical economics and the principle of least-means, efficiency was seen as a condition in which a specified task could be performed with low inputs of resources. That has been a powerful idea” (Rittel and Webber 1973, p. 158).

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2.2 Culture Evolution Understanding the evolutionary phenomenon of knowledge passed on by the person, group and society, makes us question the context in which it’s inserted, through perspectives from philosophy to biology. Viniegra (2011, p. 192) argued that “human culture is a dynamic, evolutionary and complex system. As such, it must change its configuration in time to absorb variations in its performing conditions”. According to the author, this understanding should focus on observing the forms of individuals to generate negentropy in its surrounding environment, as a function for the balance and organizational development: “Exactly like genetic evolution, cultural evolution generates negentropy through the use of energy exchanged for higher levels of information expressed in knowledge, art and technology. Furthermore, just as it happens on genetic evolution, new levels of information [knowledge] generate new possibilities to access energy sources and for new ways to make use of the environment [technology]” (p. 181). The environmental context for evolution and change are strictly linked to the organizational factors in which the professionals could be agents of change. Filson and Lewis (2000, p. 149) argued that the culture of an organization is related to “cultural characteristics” into the workplace – environment and the relationship of the professionals who work there thus reflecting on the productivity of that organization – however, with time there be created resistance to change in ecosystems and, therefore, resistance to any culture change. The cultural characteristics of an organization can directly influence the change process by accepting new working methods – although there is still the possibility these improvements are not achieved – “the need for a review of mindset models is, therefore, not just a basic cultural need, but also the need to produce, in a stricter sense, better working instruments” (Manzini 1989, p. 58). The cultural evolution is shared through the instruments and the communication between stakeholders, in this sense, the importance of sharing information is highlighted here, by Hall’s statement: “culture is communication and communication is culture” (1959, p. 218). 2.3 Design Culture Introducing the design meaning, Papanek (1972, p. 3) argued that “all men [sic] are designers. All that we do, almost all the time, is design, for design is basic to all human activity. The planning and patterning of any act toward a desired, foreseeable end constitutes the design process. Any attempt to separate design to make it a thing by itself, works counter to the fact that design is the primary underlying matrix of life”. According to Viniegra (2011, p. 1), “human culture is the accumulation and evolution of results produced by countless design exercises. However, the process from which such design emerges lacks a solid scientifific theory.” In that regard, according to Julier (2000, p. 3), “design culture is not fixed, homogeneous or homogenizing; rather it embraces a complex matrix of human activities, perceptions and articulations. Careful analysis of its visual, material, spatial and textual manifestations provide routes into this complexity”. The design work has entered in industry as a correlative department with the engineering and marketing departments. This triangulation is still nowadays interrelated for the traditional process of developing an industrial product. Buchanan (2015, p. 11) argued

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that “the beginning of industrial design is often linked to engineering and evolving into what we call product design and then product development, with a growing emphasis on the close relationship among design, engineering and marketing. Both professions found important places in organizations”. The culture referred here encompasses technical and organizational dimensions, between product design and product developement departments. Pacey (1983, p. 178) introduced a meaning – coming from other discipline and perspective – of cultural aspects of “technology practice” in a direct correlation to the industrial organizations investigated here. If we hear from organizations that design is everywhere and that everyone should participate in design process, then it can be corrected that “design culture is the totality of the values, knowledges and behaviours that surround the act of design. That is, we are concerned to describe how design gets done, but this necessitates including consideration of all those things that are not design but which impact on design performance in regular ways” (Jolly et al. 2005, p. 3). The meaning of design culture in organizations must include and communicate from each employee to the other, in different situations and contexts. According to Manzini (2016, p. 54), “design culture encompasses the knowledge, values, visions and quality criteria that emerge from the tangle of conversations occurring during design activities [the ones that are open to interaction with a variety of actors and cultures] and the conversations that take place in various design arenas. Such arenas include the multiplicity of physical and virtual places […] in which design, its meaning, and the quality of its results are discussed”. Understand what designers do inside of organizations is essential for reading the design mindset – to be an accessible practice for all employees who want to learn and evolve through design tools – to achieve an critical, comprehensive and visionary thinking. “The pattern of meanings in the ecology of design culture is a useful guide in the new movement of cultural reform, because each meaning captures an important aspect of design in organizations and reflects an idea with strong roots in design theory as well as practice. In one meaning, design mindset refers to an imaginative act of the mind” (Buchanan 2015, p. 13). Any form of change must take place in the organization in a holistic and systematic way, making stakeholder’s inclusion involves all employees in a close relationship with corporate culture. Translating the design scope in a corporate culture, Deserti and Rizzo (2014, p. 44) writes that “design culture as a specific system of knowledge, competences and skills that operates in a specific context to develop new products and services; that mediates between the world of production and consumption; and that coordinates multiple factors related to technology, market, and society”. Design culture can be defined as “the meaningful context in which a new project is conceived and developed and in which new meanings are produced – meanings that, in some cases, can influence the very culture from which they grew” (Manzini 2016, p. 32). Furthermore, design culture as a process – “can generate significant innovation through trial and error, accepts that constraints can be overcome by continuously discovering new micro-solutions” (Deserti and Rizzo 2014, p. 52). Learning by doing, promotes new approaches and territories, and “design culture has gained ground as a promoter of

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innovation by helping various stakeholders in a process to function better as a system” (Brown and Martin 2015). 2.4 Organizational Culture Defining the concept of organizational culture or corporate culture, Freire (2020, p. 141) argued that “each company has a distinct culture. In fact, organizational culture consists of the set of values, beliefs, expectations and practices that is adopted by most company employees, allowing the creation of a unique and common sense of identity”. Authors underlined requirements that an organization should have to make itself understood and share an organization’s own culture, as Badding and Leigh (2015, p. 3) writes that “organizational change requires a cocktail of flexibility, adaptability, effective leadership and strategic thinking”. About flexibility, adaptability and changing in an organization, Gilley et al. (2001, p. 43) defends that “anchoring change into the culture, it’s critical to have a long-term plan in place to ensure success of the change initiative. Employees should be reminded regularly about the purpose and goal of the change, and encouraged to consider the cost of not changing”. In this redefinition of the business, authors speak about a anticipation culture to avoid any decline in the business. Freire (2020, p. 84) writes that “in the business context, an additional strategic option for companies operating in declining sectors is to redefine the business, giving rise to new emerging industries”. According to Barauna (2021, p. 19) for “an innovation ecosystem it’s necessary to foster a culture of anticipation of change” by organizations, through the sum of the knowledge of their stakeholders – in a holistic point of view of the organization – “by the collective mental capacity of an organization to continuously create and innovate” (Santos 2001, p. 44) in systems, processes, products and services. In the framework of this article, it’s important to clarify and segment the nature and classes of innovation in the industrial context, that nature of the innovation can be the product/service, process, marketing method or organizational method; and about the class of innovation that can be incremental or radical. On the one hand, is more easily identify innovations focused on the product and on the process, attributes and methods internal to the organization, explained in Mozota (2003, p. 96) and Kootstra’s (2009, p. 13) work; on the other hand, it’s external factors such as stakeholders that imply the design somewhere in the organizational innovation process, defended in Hernández’s et al. (2018, p. 261) work. Also authors conclude that it’s vital to create a thriving environment and necessary conditions for innovation – Turner (2004, p. 15), Norman and Verganti (2014, p. 82) – these previous authors identifying two types of innovation, incremental and radical, with radical or disruptive innovation being many crucial to the success of a business. In recent years, companies have adopted the co-creation method as a challenge for innovation in the organization, however there are different positions regarding its use. On the one hand, a design-led perspective that enhances design thinking for significant innovations but does not value the participation of final consumers as participants in the beginning of the process; on the other hand, the “co-creation perspective that puts design thinking tools and methods in the hands of the people who will be the future consumers at the beginning of the product development process” (Liem and Sanders 2011, p. 113).

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According to the four roles of Junginger’s design model, for an increased “awareness of design in organizations […] as few organizations know at any given time when, where and how they are making use of design” (2009, p. 26), to shape organizational qualities by understanding the organization’s design mindset. Understand how an organization can see itself, making a self-diagnosis, through design models, thus using tools developed by a design mindset, to be used by any professional in an organization. The purpose of this chapter was to present notions and perspectives on design culture from various experts and authors, to introduce the next level of this study.

3 Discussion and Results 3.1 Referenced Design Ladder This article aims to demonstrate how companies can use a diagnosis tool to evolve at the cultural level, contributing to a multidisciplinary business management as an interface for processes, products and/or organizations. In this sense, was used as a reference the original model of the Danish Design Ladder (DDL), developed by the Danish Design Centre, published by Kretzschmar (2003, p. 28). This model was created for the purpose of companies using the ladder to map how a firm currently perceives design, which is often not well understood by everyone inside of the organisation. A tool to measure the level of design activity in businesses. This ladder model was used initially as a framework for a survey on how Danish firms were adopting design. In the framework of the DDL model there are four levels: No Design, Design as Styling, Design as Process and Design as Strategy. If, on the one hand – there are operational integration levels proposed by Kretzschmar – on the other hand – the progression to the next operational level only takes place with the accumulation of requirements or cultural elements with the integration of design argued by Doherty et al. (2014, p. 2592). Requirements are proposed for companies to evolve culturally in the levels of the DDL model, for example “cultural requirements” for moving up from the Design as Styling level to the Design as Process level are – Design Thinking, Design as Value Creation and Design as Intangible. With the integration and accumulation of these requirements and to move up from the Design as Process level to the Design as Strategy level, cultural requirements proposed are – Design as Relationships and Design as Management. Bucolo (2016, p. 88) suggests an “extended” version of the original model, adding two new levels at the top of the ladder – Design as Community and Organisational Transformation – and, at the top – Design as National Competitive Strategy. Prior to Bucolo’s extended version, Hoedemaeckers, Director at Deloitte in Australia, advocates two additional steps to the ladder, Systemic Change and, at the top, Culture. This model still appears today as a reference for worldwide companies to situate themselves in terms of design maturity level – even created nearly two decades ago. In a master’s dissertation in Management and Industrial Strategy, the main conclusion of the use of the DDL model is that the data from the interviewed Portuguese companies suggest that – there is a “difference between the company’s perception and the real importance and use of the role of design in their business […] revealing some lack of knowledge and experience in its application” (Silva 2014, p. 35).

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The framework of the DDL model is here in this study the starting point for the reformulation and contextualization of a ladder model, based on the design culture of organizations, as a diagnosis tool from the context of Portuguese industry. 3.2 Design Culture Ladder Creation of a Diagnosis Tool. This article purposes a diagnosis tool for companies to map themselves in terms of the level of design culture maturity in their organizations. Based on a ladder structure and by evolutionary way as the DDL model – in which for the new model presented here – the levels represent the evolution of the design culture and where companies can see where to improve themselves and their organization – through a questionnaire divided by these levels in which the perception of each participant has on those themes is evaluated. The framework of the Design Culture Ladder (DCL) model intends facilitate the organizations to identify what the design maturity they have and where they need to improve to complete entirety each level. The DCL model exposes the determining factors for the maturity of the design culture to emerge, and which in turn, the framework of this ladder model – in an increasing and evolving way – require the domain of the following levels: Technical Skills, Business Skills, Social Factors and Cultural Factors (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Design culture ladder model.

The factors associated with design culture, presented in this diagram above, are correlated to the perspective of the human being – individual axis – and their relationship with the community to which they belong – collective axis. The theoretical framework is based on Geels’ analysis (2002, p. 1257), in a “multi-level perspective”, on the axis relationship between individual – family – community – society, we bring this reference to the context of this investigation on the design culture in the industry. From a perspective as an individual, focusing on individual professional talent belonging to an organization – tools and technical skills of each professional – worked

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on rules for creating and producing new products, are evaluated here as technical skills of the DCL model. If we think of an organization as a family, focusing on the relationship of professional talents with each other in a given organization – in collective processes that determine the proper functioning of a work team – respecting the rules of procedural organization and the professional role of each one in the development, are evaluated here as business skills of the DCL model. From a perspective as a community experience, the relationship between an individual who works in an organization and who interacts with other co-workers – from the point of view of social relationships, belonging and sharing a certain collective mentality regarding an organization – respecting the rules of collaboration and inclusion of professionals, evaluated here as social factors of the DCL model. The climb ends with the prospect of an opening to the inclusion and incorporation of values shared by a large number of people representing a society – in the valorization of the personal component as a member of values shared by a better and ambitious society – with awareness and appreciation for the social, political, environmental and cultural impact of each, are evaluated here as cultural factors of the DCL model. Methods and Interview Framework. For each of these levels, a guide of 35 questions was created, and the interviews followed a structured and open ended based questions, with quantitative and qualitative analysis. In this stage of the article we will analyze only the quantitative data and it’s analysis visualization from the DCL model. These questions, were previously tested in three pilot interviews (interviewees were designers with experience in the footwear industry, accessories or leather goods, and textile industry); and which have been applied in 9 interviews with professionals in the footwear industry in Portugal. The interviewees’s positions are from designers, creative directors, marketing directors, engineers and CEO’s. Of the 30 invitations sent to the researchers’ networking and recommendations by respondents, 30% of the guests agreed to participate in this study. Of the 89% of those interviewed, they have a higher education degree (Bachelor’s degree), and of these, 50% have a postgraduation (Master’s degree or MBA) in the areas of Management, Economics, Engineering, Marketing, Design and Arts. Participants were asked to sign a consent form, were explained of the risks and benefits of participating in this academic study. The interviews were recorded via video conferencing platform Zoom with the recording function, in which the duration of each interview varied between 40 min and 90 min. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed, both individually and at the level of comparison. The script of the interview is divided by the below levels: Technical Skills. In the first level of the DCL model, it’s argued that the essential and the base of the employees – which in this case is focused on the industry context – it’s the domain of technical skills. The questions are directed towards the first perception of: 1) if there is an internal design department; 2) if they usually hire outside services; 3) whether there is design work on most products; 4) whether aesthetics is the most important factor in new products development; 5) if they usually do benchmarking; 6) if they usually develop products that are different from the competition.

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Business Skills. In the second level of the DCL model, the relevance of this level is in terms of the internal perception at the organizational level, or at the external level regarding the requirements of the current consumer’s market. The questions focus on: 1) if they work with a rigorous product development schedule; 2) if they request a briefing with the requirements for the development of a new product; 3) if there is an investment in external communication; 4) if there is in your products features competitive differentiators; 5) if they know the current needs and problems of consumers; 6) if they do interviews to consumers and retailers in order to find out what they want to buy; 7) if all developments are focused on consumer needs; 8) if all products are tested and comments are frequently received about products/services; 9) in a internal organization, if they feel the need to change creative or productive processes; 10) if there is a need to adapt to new production processes according to a new design; 11) if one of the main objectives is the development of innovative products. Social Factors. At this level of the DCL model, with concern for the organization’s social issues, the questions focus on: 1 & 2) if there is a collaborative mindset of (the whole) team in the development of new (innovative) products; 3) if there is a mindset of change among employees; 4) if there is more cooperation than competition between departments; 5) if the important decisions are always taken in meetings with employees; 6) if the team meetings are held to discuss global issues without addressing specific problem solving; 7) if the communication flows in an accessible, up-to-date and understandable way among stakeholders. Cultural Factors. At the top level of the DCL model, regarding the cultural values that differentiate one organization from another, it’s in relation to the level of perception of employees that will most strive to achieve. Due to there being few delicate and personal questions in the script – it was decided after the pilot tests – reserve these questions under the anonymity of the interviewee – to achieve answers without any restrictions. The questions focus on employee’s perception: 1) about their knowledge of the company’s vision, mission and values; 2) if successful managers are the ones who do things differently than usual; 3) if the company promotes a balance between the personal life and professional life; 4) whether experimentation and innovation are encouraged; 5) if there is an preparation of employees to adapt to changes or situation of the market; 6) if there is an opening for the application of design mindset methodologies (workshops) to improve the business; 7) if they seek to develop products influenced by environmental or cultural issues; 8) if there is a differentiating position of the companies and clearly understood by the consumers regarding climate, political or social changes; 9) whether collaboration between local suppliers is promoted; 10) if they work for the sustainability of raw materials or manufacturers with territorial proximity; 11) if there is any partnership work with competitors. Results of Diagnosis Tool. The interview guide analyzed in the previous topic served as a basis for the quantitative analysis, where Likert scale was used. A scale as a type of psychometric response, where respondents specify their level of agreement with each question. The scale was divided into 5 possible answers: a) total agreement, b) agreement, c) neither agree nor disagree, d) disagreement, e) total disagreement.

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In this way, 9 interviews carried out with 35 responses according to the Likert scale, it’s possible to visualize spots of more or less dominant color, blue more dominant in the answers and red less dominant (see Fig. 2). This model in this visual form will serve to better communicate to the interviewee their perception of the domain of design culture that represents their own company. The visual analysis of the diagnosis tool can be done as an indicator for the interviewee to realize where the steps to be filled are; thus, focus on these gaps to work and improve in the future, according to the existence of the red or orange color in the corresponding bars.

Fig. 2. Design culture average from 9 interviews, applied by likert scale.

In reading the final average obtained, it’s possible to perceive that there is a tendency for less dominance – with more responses of disagreement and less of agreement – in cultural and social factors than in technical and organizational skills. The total of the 9 interviews with professionals from 8 footwear companies, with different responsibilities in each organization, are now summarized – with comparisons between the perception of each interviewee about the diagnosis of their organization – in relation to the four levels exposed by the DCL model introduced in this article. The number of occurrences in 9 interviews on some questions – on the one hand, which may be of greater expression and unanimity – on the other hand, with less dominance or non-existence in their organizations. As for the analysis of Technical Skills level, the average percentage in the global domain at this level is large (70%), with a total agreement of 66% of the interviewees total agree that: (i) in their organization there is design work in most of the products developed; (ii) tend to develop differentiated products from the competitors. Regarding the level of Business Skills, the average percentage in the global domain at this level is wide median (65%), with the majority of the interviewees total agree with that: (i) in their organization there is investment in communication and marketing; (ii) there is a feeling of the need to change creative or productive processes. As for the level of Social Factors, the average percentage in the global domain at this level is median (60%), with the majority of the respondents total agree that: (i) the important decisions are always taken in meetings with employees; (ii) there is a mindset of change among employees. Regarding the level of Cultural Factors, the average percentage in the global domain at this level is the lowest (52%), with the majority of the respondents total agree that: (i)

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there is a knowledge of the company’s vision, mission and values; (ii) experimentation and innovation are encouraged. It should be noted that in these data from the answers given by the interviewees, there is no unanimity response on any of the 35 questions, gives the perception of diversity of the sector and the size of the companies interviewed.

4 Conclusions Compared with the previous analysis of the use and perception of the original DDL model – even today shows the original model has more visibility and widespread in academic presentations – and shows not to be efficient in the perception and practical use of some companies, as mentioned in this article. Creating a DCL model we intend to help companies by providing a tool to selfdiagnose and emancipate themselves, in relation to the level of design culture in which their organization is on map and where it needs to improve. More than a survey, the provided questions indicate clues for organizations reflect on the need of design culture evolution, in other words – a culture of anticipation – and a change to be made. Through the DCL model it’s intended that in closest future be used autonomously by companies and be able to carry out as a self-diagnosis. In this sense, it will be necessary to continue the interviews in the portuguese industry, to improve this model and then work on a device – physical or digital – as a tool to be used by any professional in this industry. Although the DCL model has been tested, in an initial validation through interviews, with the Portuguese footwear industry, the purpose of this new model does not end with a particular industrial sector – taking into account the specifications of these questions are not specific to a particular industry – as well the presented diagnosis tool can be tested and applied in the future to different national and international industries. The limitations of this study are due to the representative number of interviews until this paper – therefore in a future work – we have fixed more 16 companies in another sectors of Portuguese industry, to compare results and validate the DCL model across the widest range of industries. On this article, also wasn´t possible to achieve the qualitative data we have in hands, by this reason will be writing another paper to provide that data analysis. Acknowledgements. Research funded by Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) - Grant: 2020.08088.BD, hosted by the ID+ Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture. The authors thanks to Adriana Mano, Ana Moreno, André Amorim, João Alberto Azevedo, Jorge Pinto, Marita Setas Ferro, Nelson Amorim, Orlando Andrade, Pedro Castro, Pedro Maçana, Vítor Costa.

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Corporate Disinformation: Concept and Typology of Forms of Corporate Disinformation Fernando Olivares-Delgado1(B) , Mayte Benlloch-Osuna2 Daniel Rodríguez-Valero1 , and Eva Breva-Franch2

,

1 Universidad de Alicante, 03680 Alicante, Spain

[email protected] 2 Universitat Jaume I, 12071 Castelló, Spain

Abstract. This paper deals with the links between disinformation and business. It starts from the premise that companies are important players in the post-truth era, not merely as “victims” of fake news and other forms of disinformation. Companies can also be an active source of disinformation and deception. Our work seeks to move forward in two directions: finding the link between the practice of disinformation by companies and, secondly, offering a proposed typology of eight possible current types of disinformation practiced in the business world. Keywords: Disinformation · Misinformation · Deceptive · Fake news · Brand management · Greenwashing

1 Introduction In 2018, the European Commission designed a plan to combat disinformation (European Commission 2018a, b, c), which it defined as “an ecosystem of production, propagation and consumption of false, inaccurate or misleading information that is profit-driven or seeks to cause public harm.” Disinformation and infoxication (information overload), “infodemia” (as referred to by the World Health Organization, WHO), and “infopollution” spoken of by Bennet and Livingston (2018) are a threat to the normal operation of the democratic order. Information has become a kind of garbage; it is indiscriminate, useless and uncontrollable (Lasn 1999). Companies are a target for fake news and disinformation, but they are also the “subject” or source of deception, falsehoods, false beliefs and half-truths. When referring to the business world, much of the literature on fake news and disinformation focuses on the first role: the company as a “victim” of disinformation, suffering the consequences of lies, hoaxes and falsehoods which almost always distort the perception of economic, commercial and business affairs (Rapoza 2017). Of course, actions involving disinformation can alter the commercial and reputational results of the affected brands (Olivares 2018, 2019; Rodríguez-Fernández 2019). However, there are few contributions looking at the second role: the company as an active source of disinformation, whether it occurs © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 536–550, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_46

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deliberately and consciously or involuntarily and unintentionally. This has an influence on the reputational aspect, which also remains to be explored. Fetzer (2004) and Wardle and Derakhshan (2017) refer to “disinformation” as false information, created and disseminated deliberately with specific intentions. Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) define fake news as news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false and likely to mislead readers. Fake news intentionally presents misleading or false information, with the desire to mislead the audience (Bakir and McStay 2018; Horne and Adali 2017; Kumar and Shah 2018). For other authors such as Tandoc et al. (2018), the term “fake news” also refers to satirical news, parody news, news fabrication, photo manipulation, advertising and public relations, and propaganda. Others, such as Hannah et al. (2015), use the term disinformation to cover this same definition. We will call disinformation arising within a company and disinformation issued by a company “corporate disinformation” or business disinformation. Following from this, corporate fake news would be only one of the possible forms of corporate disinformation, as there are other forms of information beyond corporate news through which falsehood or deception can flow.

2 Literature Review 2.1 What Do the Studies of Fake News and Disinformation Cover? Throughout history, the strategic dissemination and publication of false information has been practiced in the form of manipulation and propaganda by political and ideological powers (Arendt 1968; Burkhardt 2017), and military and religious authorities (Allcott and Gentzkow 2017; Park et al. 2020). More recently, it has also been practiced by economic, financial and corporate powers (Lasn 1999; Bakan 2005). McLuhan (1970) predicted that World War III would be an “information guerrilla war”; or rather, as we are seeing, a “disinformation guerrilla war.” McLuhan (1970) predicted that “the next war will be fought not in the sky or in the streets; not in the forests or around the international fishing frontiers of the high seas (…) but in newspapers and magazines, on radio, television and cyberspace.” It will be a dirty, unrestricted propaganda war in which different world views and alternative views of the world will be pitted against each other. We are witnessing a war between unreality and reality (Lasn 1999), with intangibles such as credibility, trust and reputation on the line. The post-truth era, and disinformation and fake news as its most obvious manifestations, are being researched from different epistemological points of view using different frames of reference in information and communication studies; sociology; politics; humanities; economics and management; the sciences of behavior and influence; cybernetic technologies, digitalization and artificial intelligence; and health science. There is an interest in knowing the origins of fake news (Allcott and Gentzkow 2017) and the link between propaganda and disinformation (Darnton 2017; Goldstein 2021; Erlick 2021). There is also an interest in advancing its conceptualization (Jack 2017; Wardle and Derakhshan 2017; Nemr and Gangware 2019), and in deception and lying from philosophical (Turri and Turri 2015) or ethical perspectives. Another significant development is on the subject of the impact of disinformation (Spiegelhalter 2017) or its different types and forms (Tandoc et al. 2018; Park et al. 2020; Brennen et. al. 2021).

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Other works focus on the sources of fake news broadcasting (Waisbord 2018) and possible social causes and triggers (Lewandowsky et al. 2017). There is also interest in learning about the processes and structures of “organized lying,” in which “disinformation farms” in Veles, North Macedonia are particularly prominent (Silverman 2016; Kirby 2016; Allcott and Gentzkow 2017; Subramanian 2017; Millet 2021; Bendiksen 2021). Another open front involves research on the role of social media in making fake news go viral (Allcott and Gentzkow 2017) and the crystallization of post-truth, as well as the use of artificial intelligence, algorithms and deepfakes (Paschen 2020; Di Resta 2020). In response, an entrepreneurial ecosystem is emerging to combat fake news and misinformation (Annenberg School for Communication 2017; Vosoughi et al. 2018), including the identification (Ladeira, et al. 2021) and factchecking of news and competitive intelligence and security consultancies, such as Blackbird.AI. Another recurring aspect discussed is the health of the journalistic profession (Martens et. al. 2018) and the associated ethics and deontology. In psychology, there have been studies of the motivation for sharing and spreading false news (Nelson and Taneja 2018; Talwar et al. 2019); confirmation biases, the social influence of lies (Ekman 2009); media and information literacy (Roozenbeek and Linden 2019; Kajimoto and Fleming 2019; Valverde-Berrocoso et al. 2022); the impact of misinformation or “infodemia” in false social beliefs concerned with refusal to vaccinate (Lewandowsky et al. 2012); and conspiratorial states in public opinion, especially in the COVID-19 pandemic (Guan et al. 2021). 2.2 The Company as a Target or Victim of Fake News and Disinformation Given the clear scarcity of literature on disinformation and the economic, financial, commercial and business world, another question arises: how can we improve our knowledge of the disinformation arising within and issued by companies themselves? How much of the progress in theories of disinformation in news consumption is valid when we are talking about to disinformation concerned with product consumption? To provide answers, we have to identify the part of the literature on fake news and disinformation that alludes in one way or another to the business world. Then we can explore and make progress on corporate disinformation, for which companies are the active and conscious source. This is our focus of interest in this study. We reviewed the literature on fake news, disinformation and business, especially that published in the last five years (2017–2021), finding 235 articles mentioning a combination of the following keywords: fake news, brand communication, corporate misinformation, reputation, greenwashing, brand management, corporate disinformation, false advertising, information transparency, deepfakes, lies, deception, post-truth, hoaxes and culture jam. In addition, 15 reports on this topic including at least two of these terms were reviewed. They came from international institutions (European Commission 2021) and global consulting firms (Gartner, Deloitte, PWC, McKinsey or EY), as well as news or columns in prestigious global media outlets (NYT, WSJ, TWP, The Times, The Guardian etc.). The different papers come from various scientific fields. The most abundant are in marketing (Domenico and Visentin 2020; Flostrand et al. 2021); business and management, corporate communication and public relations (Edwards 2021); and journalism and computer languages, artificial intelligence and deepfakes (Chesney

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and Citron 2019; Di Resta 2020). The texts mentioning companies as a source of disinformation in any of their practices were then explored. On this basis, a non-definitive typology of seven possible forms of corporate disinformation has been proposed. One of these forms is specifically focused on the food sector, due to its particular propensity for misleading information, especially in corporate and product advertising and packaging labels. Work on the Implications of Disinformation on Communication Professionals and Company Brands Within the topic of disinformation and business, the most common studies deal with the professional consequences and implications of post-truth for business and corporate communication and marketing managers (Mills and Robson 2020; Domenico and Visentin 2020; Flostrand et al. 2021; Berthon and Pitt (2018). Dreger (1981) stated that disinformation poses an ethical dilemma for managers who practice it. In particular, Borges-Tiago et al. (2020) suggest the need for brand managers to adapt the brand’s presence on social networks depending on users’ degree of media literacy and predisposition to consume fake news. Domenico and Visentin (2020) offer notes on consumer behavior, strategies and marketing ethics in the context of fake news. Mills et al. (2019) consider that, beyond the ethical conflict, there is a potential loss of credibility for brands. As brand managers are increasingly losing control of digital media planning, there are consequences resulting from a digital media presence that is awkward or not aligned with brand values, as Kellogg’s argued when pulling its advertising from Breitbart News (Tode 2016; Helmore 2016). Breitbart News is blacklisted for encouraging hate speech on the basis of race, gender and religion. Visentin et al. (2019) issue a reassuring message to brand managers, because, according to their analysis, the brand does not suffer even if it appears in the spatial context of a fake news story, provided the media or the source are credible. However, the situation is not the same when algorithms and artificial intelligence “decide” to take the advertisement to dark or fake media with zero reputation and credibility. Brand managers should be more vigilant about identity theft in their brand advertisements (Grigsby 2020). Petrov and Fehon (2021) state that combating disinformation requires a concerted effort by executives in charge of customer relations, brand protection, crisis management, and security and privacy monitoring. Peterson (2020) suggests “slow” brand management, which would be more thoughtful, to combat the speed inherent in the VUCA context. Another of the issues of interest studied has to do with lies outsourced to other organizations working in the disinformation business. According to Fisher (2021), this a booming industry that produces even more unreal situations, with clandestine companies propagating falsehoods. There is increasing interest worldwide in the on-demand production and dissemination of disinformation and fake news from these fake news hubs, such as Veles in North Macedonia (Amorós 2018, 2020; Millet 2021; Bendiksen 2021).

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Studies on the Effect on Corporate Reputation of Clickbait and Presence on Fake News Ites From the perspective of fake news and brands, we measure how advertising or sponsorship presence on the internet via clickbait in media that spread fake news and inflammatory information influences the brand’s credibility and reputation (Tode 2016; Nicas 2016; Flostrand et al. 2021; Visentin et al. 2019). Berthon and Pitt (2018) establish links between fake news and corporate brands: false information from outside the company and advertising or sponsorship of the company in fake media. Chen and Cheng (2020) find that trust in the medium can determine the credibility of fake news and brand impact. Social media such as Facebook are under suspicion for favoring these practices that promote disinformation and post-truth (Kirkpatrick 2016; Stevenson 2019). According to a report by Cohan (2016), Facebook makes considerable financial profits from advertising revenue under fake news.

3 Companies as a Source of Disinformation After reviewing the current literature, we find that there is an area that has hardly been addressed: disinformation with its source or origin in the company. Deceptive practices by the corporate world have almost always been revealed by critical voices such as Baudrillard (1970), Lasn (1999), Klein (2000) or Bakan (2005). Shell (1992) and Dishman and Nitse (2001) consider that disinformation in corporate communication is unjustified, and they warn those who practice it of the risks. Jackson (2017) believes that deception should be strictly prohibited in strategic communication and that the use of disinformation should never come under the heading of strategic communication. Oreskes and Conway (2010) consider that the first corporate providers of disinformation were operators in the tobacco and oil industries. Chelliah and Swamy (2018) explore the sources of corporate deception.Durandin (1983) considers that in both propaganda and advertising it is in advisable to lie as little as possible “because in general it is easier to tell the truth than to construct a lie.” Dishman and Nitse (2001) review several works on the internal sources of corporate disinformation, concluding that there is no single source of disinformation in organizations, but that it may originate in various departments, such as corporate communications, advertising or public relations (Cook 1990; Cranberg 1987; Shell 1992), sales (Dreger 1981), financial publications (Weiner 1992) or competitive information and security (Vella and McGonagle 1986). In Fake & Business (2019 and 2021), a biennial forum on fake news, disinformation and transparency in the FMCG sector, one of the conclusions was that there are companies interested in generating noise or adulterated or misleading information to distort the course of the markets for their own benefit. Dreger (1981) states that misinformation “sells.” Amorós (2018 and 2020) thinks fake news exists because a benefit is obtained from it, ideological and economic benefits being among the most frequent kinds. Along these lines, Petrov and Fehon (2021) consider that sometimes the aim is to disrupt the natural dynamics of competition, alter market values or promote certain self-interested narratives. In the mid-1990s, it was noted that Microsoft practiced disinformation to differentiate itself from its competitors (Novak et al. 1995) (see Table 1). Guess and Lyons (2020) see disinformation as “a statement that contradicts or distorts the common understanding of verifiable facts.” Wardle and Derakhshan (2017)

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Table 1. Disinformation and business topics identified in the literature. Disinformation and business The company as recipient of disinformation

The company as source of disinformation

Impact of fake news and disinformation on management and on corporate reputation Dreger (1981) Berthon and Pitt (2018) Berthon et al. (2018) Domenico and Visentin (2020) Flostrand et al. (2021) Mills et al. (2019) Visentin et al. (2019) Borges-Tiago et al. (2020) Grigsby (2020) Petrov and Fehon (2021) Paterson (2020) Rodríguez-Fernández (2019)

– Propaganda and manipulation – Growing business interlocution in prestige press – Greenwashing and other image washing – Corporate opacity (lack of transparency) – Typified misleading advertising – Deception in corporate information (tendentious data) – Misleading omission of fundamental aspects (black brands) – Infoxication (saturation with information or arguments) – Decontextualization or illegibility (small print) – Ambiguity, vagueness and half-truths in narratives – Unfounded visual imagination supplanting reality Baudrillard (1970), Lasn (1999), Klein (2000), Bakan (2005) Shell (1992), Dishman and Nitse (2001) Oreskes and Conway (2010), Olivares (2018, 2019) Durandin (1983). Drager (1981). Amorós (2018 and 2020) Bezbaruah et al. (2021). Berthon et al. (2018) Chelliah and Swamy (2018)

Reputational consequences of clickbait and brand presence in “fake” media Tode (2016) Nicas (2016) Flostrand et al. (2019) Visentin et al. (2019) Berthon and Pitt (2018) Chen and Cheng (2020) Kirkpatrick (2016) Cohan (2016) Berthon et al. (2018)

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define “disinformation” as false information, deliberately created and disseminated, to generate harm, confuse and misrepresent. Based on Guess and Lyons (2020) and Wardle and Derakhshan (2017) we could define “corporate disinformation” as the process of issuing verbal or visual messages with an intent to inform or persuade, including false, inaccurate, imprecise or misleading content, created by the company or on its behalf. The messages may be disseminated by the company itself or by others on its behalf and the disinformation contradicts or distorts the common understanding of verifiable facts affecting the company in order to obtain a benefit. This benefit normally promotes the perception of the company or its reputation, but may also harm competitors. Some companies and brands practice certain forms of deception in sectors as important for our health as food (Olivares 2018, 2019; Alonso 2019; Flostrand et al. 2021). A recent paper by Bezbaruah et al. (2021) studies the relationship between consumer values and fake news risk and trust in the media context of natural food and concludes that brand trust is negatively associated with fake news risk. One of the first contributions on disinformation was made by Watzlawick (1976), when he mentioned the concept of misinformation to refer to unintentional or involuntary disinformation. The intention to deceive has to do with the deliberateness of the act (Lazer et al. 2018; Paschen 2020), both in terms of production (writing, design, composition, etc.), and the promotion, propagation or dissemination of falsehoods, far from the true facts. And such an act seeks to achieve benefits for the company or to erode or harm the reputation of others, usually rivals, opponents or competitors. Park et al. (2020) conducted a study on “the faces of fake news” and proposed a typology based on two variables: “intent to lie” and “intent to harm” a) Misinformation, false content without intent to deceive; b) Disinformation, false content with intent to deceive and harm; c) Mal-information, content that is not false but with intent to harm and damage and d) Non-information, with a high intent to deceive, but low intent to cause harm – irrelevant information that hides or masks the real or true information sought by the audience. Apart from involuntary errors, mistakes, ignorance, negligence, or lack of control, a large proportion of corporate communications, whether they be internal and external, institutional or commercial, informative or persuasive, are almost always intentional, conscious and deliberate – strategic, in other words. This means there is virtually no room in companies for disinformation as understood by Park et al. (2020). Although we find the diagram put forward by Park et al. (2020) useful, we would add that in the provision of truthful content there may also be an intention to hinder understanding or perception, as in the case of infoxication, illegibility or out-of-context data, which for us are also assumed to be forms of corporate disinformation. For us, these three “informational dysfunctions” (infoxication, decontextualization and illegibility), which can occur with or without intentionality or awareness, would be types of what might be described as subtle or weak corporate disinformation.

4 The Eight Types of Corporate Disinformation (1) Corporate fake news. Based on Allcott and Gentzkow’s (2017) definition of “fake news,” corporate fake news would be false corporate news officially issued by a company. This refers to news articles that are intentionally, knowingly and verifiably false and that may mislead stakeholders, including consumers (e.g., the

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false information issued by Volkswagen conditioned the response of several of its stakeholders, including shareholders and consumers). (2) Greenwashing. The Oxford English dictionary defines “greenwashing” as “the creation or propagation of an unfounded or misleading environmentalist image.” Even companies that claim to be committed to sustainable development are unlikely to come close to this illusory goal, so commitment to environmental policy can often be a form of greenwashing (Ramus and Montiel 2005). Becker-Olsen et al. (2013) refer to greenwashing as “environmental disinformation.” In food, for example, consumer expectations when consuming products with differentiated quality attributes must be adjusted to what these actually provide (AECOC 2019). We propose the term “foodwashing” for the transmission of false, uncertain or confusing information, not based on empirical evidence, which may mislead about certain principal characteristics of a food product involving the way it is made, its origin or its nutritional or health attributes or benefits. This compromises the perception of the product, as well as the economic behavior of an average, attentive and discerning consumer. (3) Deceitful Advertising. We follow Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 11, 2005, concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market in order to look at deception as an unfair practice. Article 6 (Deceptive actions) specifies: a commercial practice shall be regarded as misleading if it contains false information and is therefore untruthful or in any way, including overall presentation, deceives or is likely to deceive the average consumer, even if the information is factually correct, in relation to one or more of the following elements, and in either case causes or is likely to cause him to take a transactional decision that he would not have taken otherwise. The “average consumer” is assumed to be aware that advertising encourages exaggeration and is not always literally true. This is tolerated, considering that the consumer possesses reasonable levels of perspicacity and is capable of decoding the doses of unreality, exaggeration, verisimilitude or simulacra inherent in advertising. This is not advertising deception, as the advertising is easily identified and there are therefore defense mechanisms. Bakan (2020) states that advertisements distort the truth and Lasn (1999) believes that the news tells only part of the story. According to this author, companies lie, steal and kill without remorse or hesitation when it serves the interests of their shareholders. Lasn (1999) points out that advertisements are the most widespread and toxic mental pollutant – “psycho-waste,” or anti-language that can annihilate truth or meaning whenever it finds it. (4) Misleading Omission. According to the same regulatory framework, there is misleading omission when essential or important information about a product is concealed or is offered in a manner that is unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous, confusing, or at an inappropriate time, or fails to disclose the commercial purpose of the commercial practice in question; if it is not clear from the context; and if, in any of these cases, it causes or is likely to cause the average consumer to make a decision about a transaction that they would not otherwise have made. “Black brands” as misleading omission concerning the true manufacturer of the product:

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Olivares (2018, 2019) proposes the term “black brand” to refer to corporate brands or companies that deliberately omit the identity of the real manufacturer of their branded products in their communications, causing confusion over the real origin or provenance of the product. This can be understood as an unfair practice because, through such an omission, the economic behavior of the average consumer is compromised and the proper operation of the market is altered. The main falsehood of black brands is, according to Olivares (2018, 2019), that well-known companies present themselves in society as manufacturers, receiving social recognition for this, when in fact they are not because they secretly subcontract production. Al Ries (2019) sees black brands and transparency, alongside privacy, as the two most important corporate issues at the moment. (5) Opacity. Trifts and Häubl (2003) and Hung and Wyer (2009) defined information transparency as “a firm’s willingness to provide customers with information about the product, service, or the firm as a whole…”. Transparency has to do with the disclosure or communication of information that is clear and comprehensible (Bushman et al. 2004), precise and accurate (Bloomfield and O’Hara 1999; Madhavan et al. 2005; Pagano and Roell 1996) and timely (Granados et al. 2005). (6) Infoxication or Information Overload. Transmission of information which, although truthful, is incomprehensible and difficult to assimilate because it is overwhelming. There is often a degree of infoxication in texts about legal terms and conditions of use of products or services. Many contractual legal texts resort to providing full information, which is more likely to amount to disinformation than information. (7) Decontextualized Information and Data. Transmission of ambiguous or clear but untrue information or messages, or messages not based on data or empirical evidence, which may mislead about certain features of the product or company concerning the way it is made or its origin. Such information compromises the perception of the product and the economic behavior of an average, attentive and perspicacious consumer. There can also be misrepresentation in advertising or product packaging labels (Polonsky et al. 1998), using inaccurate or misleading, out-of-context or ambiguous data, as well as unintelligible, overwhelming or false data. Accessibility barriers are a way of interfering in correct perception, for example the use of illegible body text and difficulties in the usability of digital spaces. (8) Illegibility and Inaccessibility. Sometimes, important information is illegible or unclear due to type size, font, contrast, or the fact that important information is kept in a remote or awkward location. (For example: drug package inserts, the small print of financial and insurance service contracts, legal information on telephone services, and so on). Comprehension is directly related to linguistic readability. Accessible design is one of the trends in inclusive design aimed at improving the average individual’s ability to read texts. This does not include inaccessibility or legibility problems due to people’s visual dysfunctions. 71% of consumers interviewed indicate that the font size is poor, with small print being the main reason for not reading the label or legal text of a digital contract. According to the study by the Spanish Confederation of Organizations of Housewives, Consumers and Users (CEACCU). A minimum font size of 1.2 mm (body 4) is established for mandatory information. However, if the maximum surface area of a container is less than

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80 cm2 , the minimum size is reduced to 0.9 mm. Mandatory food information must be prominently displayed so it is easily visible, clearly legible and, where appropriate, indelible. It must in no way be concealed, covered or separated by any other indication or image, or by any other intervening material (EU Regulation 2011).

5 Conclusions and Future Agenda The business world is an active player in the post-truth era. A growing proliferation of works in the literature on fake news and disinformation allude in one way or another to companies. However, it should be noted that most of these studies deal with the company as an object or recipient of disinformation, mainly because of its impact on the reputation of companies. There are very few works like ours, focused on companies as a subjects or issuers of disinformation, and this makes our study an important one. We propose a typology of eight forms of corporate disinformation: corporate fake news, greenwashing, deceptive advertising, misleading omission, opacity, infoxication, decontextualization, illegibility and inaccessibility. Another professional implication of our work is to encourage companies’ selfdiagnosis of disinformation, perhaps within the perspective of reputational risks. This should take place in a context that encourages quality information so that all stakeholders can make free, unadulterated decisions, particularly consumers or end users, but also others. The aim of our study is to lay the foundations for further reflection, to encourage future research, and to measure, for example, the frequency of each of these types of misinformation in different productive sectors, the credibility or prestige of the company concerned, and other structural variables, such as size or country of origin. Another future avenue of research consists of analyzing the types of misinformation depending on the information medium used by the company to get its messages to its stakeholders: corporate websites, social media and apps, advertising and the packaging and labeling of the company’s brands under analysis. Finally, another possible area for future research would be to measure whether there are significant differences in reputation if the company practices disinformation consciously or unconsciously. Of course, the real difficulty would be, as always, identifying or demonstrating deliberateness, intentionality or consciousness in any corporate misrepresentation and deceit. It would be convenient to delve into the role of design in each of the proposed forms of disinformation and deception. Who designs falsehood? What working conditions do those who knowingly work to design scenarios of deception and questionable ethics have? What academic profile and skills do these professionals have? Is the designer co-responsible for deception and corporate misinformation?

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Graphic Design and Branding

Video Ad Informativeness and Narrative Structure and Transportation as Antecedents of Brand Choice: A Portuguese Brand Case Study Sara Santos1(B) , Pedro Espírito Santo2 , and Sónia Ferreira3 1 Research Centre in Digital Services (CISeD), Polytechnic of Viseu, Viseu, Portugal

[email protected]

2 School of Technology and Management of Oliveira do Hospital, Polytechnic of Coimbra,

Coimbra, Portugal [email protected] 3 Center for Studies in Education and Innovation, School of Education, Polytechnic of Viseu, Viseu, Portugal [email protected]

Abstract. The massification of the use of the internet for advertising purposes and the growth of Youtube as a platform for disseminating brand content has channeled the investments of brand managers to digital media. In this scope, more and more advertisements are being shared on Youtube. The success of an ad depends on its contents and the narrative presented. Thus, this research identified that the informativeness of advertisements and the narrative structure stimulate consumers and, consequently, influence brand choice. It is a case study analysis based on the Portuguese brand “Gallo” Through 244 consumer responses, we identified the antecedents of brand choice by estimating the model through SMART-PLS. This study found relevant evidence that brand managers can use. Keywords: Informativeness · Narrative structure · Narrative transportation · Brand choice · Advertising stimulation

1 Introduction The use of video advertising on different online platforms is increasing. In Portugal, in 2021, investment in digital advertising experienced a 30% increase, and the report of the intelligence unit of the IPG Mediabrands group predicts that growth should remain strong in 2022, led by video (22%) and social networks (19%) [1]. It is thus essential to understand whether advertisers will respond to consumer demands, and features such as informativeness, structure, and immersion in the video advertising narrative should be considered. Thus, the main objective of this study is to analyze the antecedents of a brand choice after viewing an advertising video. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Martins and D. Brandão (Eds.): DIGICOM 2022, SSDI 27, pp. 553–565, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0_47

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To this goal, we identified narrative transportation, narrative structure, and informativeness as antecedents of the advertising experience, which, in turn, influences brand choice. First, we analyzed the literature on the main variables studied (video ad informativeness, structure, narrative transportation, advertising stimulation, and brand choice). The conceptual model and hypothesis are presented at the end of the literature review. In topic three, we present the methods (survey instrument, data collection, and sample). In topic four, we analyze the results and explain the hypothesis test. Finally, we present the discussion and conclusions.

2 Theoretical Background 2.1 Video Ad: Informativeness, Structure, and Narrative Transportation According to Ducoffe [2], advertising consumers’ primary objective is obtaining information about the product. As such, marketers should prioritize providing information to increase audience satisfaction. Informativeness thus concerns the capacity of the advertisement to provide this information. An ad that includes information about a product reduces the need for research by the audience and makes it more trustworthy [3]. Kim and Han’s [4] studies reinforce that informativeness significantly affects the effectiveness of internet and social media advertising via smartphones. The results reveal that customers perceive advertisements nicely when they are credible and pleasant and when relevant product information is provided on time. Dehghani et al. [5], in their study on the influence of Youtube advertising on younger audiences, found a high degree of acceptance of informativeness from 315 participants, helping to increase brand recognition and form purchase intent. It is also essential to understand that video marketing is just as important as the production of the video itself [5] - in the case of this topic, the structure of the narrative. Traditional definitions of structure assume that narratives present a chronological organization of events - with beginning, middle, and end, and are based on causality - the character has goals; these generate actions and originate outcomes [6–8]. According to Brechman and Purvis [8], narratives are structured by elements that contextualize them - physical, social, and temporal, and the story is further enriched through images that guide consumers’ imagination and create engagement or transportation to the story and create engagement or transportation to the story. Gren and Brock [9] help to understand the transportation phenomenon in the advertising narrative in the light of a multidisciplinary framework that includes cognitive psychology and theories of communication, culture, and consumption. According to the authors, the process of transportation to fiction, created from a narrative, affects consumers’ beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Now, in transportation, individuals lose the connection with the real world and experience the emotions caused by the story. Perosanz [10] emphasizes empathy. The author starts from the premise that the consumer enters the world provoked by the narrative through his empathy for the characters and the imagination he applies in interpreting the plot. According to this perspective, identification with the characters and the narrative includes three characteristics: 1) the receivers process the stories; 2) they are transported through empathy and mental images.

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In the process of empathy, the receivers tend to place themselves in the character’s experience to feel and know the character’s world in the same way. This phenomenon seems to explain the state of distancing the receiver concerning the real world and justifies the context of narrative transport. Through mental images, the receivers generate images experienced in the story plot, as if they were living the events; and 3) when story receivers are transported, they lose their sense of reality. Van Laer et al. [11] present a more updated and comprehensive version of the narrative transportation model, including the empathy notion, advanced by Perosanz in 2007 [10]. According to the authors, narrative transportation is more effective than cognitive, which always induces persuasive effects in growth and persistence. This happens because, according to them, the receiver sympathizes with the narrative characters, and the plot stimulates the imagination to create a kind of “pause” in the actual context during the moment of reception of the story - the narrative transportation. 2.2 Advertising Stimulation Advertising is essential to the success of products and services. With advertisements, it is possible to improve consumer awareness [12], as well as their attitudes and purchase intention [13]. Purchase intent is influenced by the memory of the advertising campaign, as people do not buy immediately after watching the ad [14]. With the advancement of technology, advertising stimulation to capture consumer interest is essential. With multi-screening and the ability to process information by the user limited, what becomes crucial to brand and ad recall or recognition [15]. Consequently, effective advertising generates brand attitude and purchase intention [16]. Some studies show a relationship between visual attention and brand memory [17, 18]. However, low attention [19], or avoidance of advertising as with online advertisement blockers, have been frequent behaviors [20]. Thus, it is vital to stimulate advertising and use factors that attract consumers’ attention. Among these factors, novelty, creativity, pictorial, format, color, size, and motion are the most relevant [21, 22]. 2.3 Brand Choice Currently, advertising is one of the most used tools for promoting products. Through it, consumers have access to information and benefits of products/services that lead or not to buy [23]. Regardless of the format, consumers consider that advertising gives them relevant information [24]. This way, advertising directly affects companies’ profits and sales [25]. With the wide dissemination of brands, consumers also began to avoid advertising, which has become one of the biggest challenges in this area [26]. Emotions began to assume a prominent role in the choice of brands. Choosing a product or service is based on emotions [27], and the consumer is emotionally attached to the brand, products, or services [28]. Consumer self-brand connection influences brand loyalty [29]. As with brand equity, reached through advertising can lead consumers to choose one brand over another [30]. According to Andrews and Srinivasan [31], media advertising affects brand consideration and choice.

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In advertising, it is crucial to influence perceptions and brand choice [32]. Some studies in television advertising show that ads are a strong predictor of consumers’ brand choice [33]. According to Phung et al. [34], a brand choice highlights customers’ willingness to choose a specific brand among other brands. The consumer is increasingly stimulated with information from several brands simultaneously, and with so much on offer, the decision becomes more complex [35]. Brands compete for attention [36], and choice is facilitated when they become familiar. Brand associations affect brand equity, which relates to consumer consideration in brand choice development [30]. Studies by Ketelaar et al. [37] show that ad attention positively impacts brand choice. Likewise, the location of ads results in more favorable consumer behaviors, such as brand choice [38]. Chi, Yeh, and Yang [39] demonstrated that brand awareness and brand loyalty influence brand choice. Also, Foroudi et al. [40] show that brand choice intentions can determine brand loyalty. Conversely, advertising messages with a medium level of complexity influence attitude towards the brand and increase brand choice [41]. Through analysis of the literature review, it was constructed the following research hypotheses: H1: Informativeness has positive effects on narrative transportation; H2: Narrative structure has positive effects on narrative transportation; H3: Informativeness has positive effects on advertising stimulation; H4: Narrative structure has positive effects on advertising stimulation; H5: Narrative transportation has positive effects on advertising stimulation; H6: advertising stimulation has positive effects on brand choice. From the research hypotheses, it was built the following conceptual model (Fig. 1):

Fig. 1. Conceptual model

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3 Methods 3.1 Survey Instrument We structured our research through a self-administered questionnaire consisting of 17 items. The questionnaire was composed of three parts. The first part included a video advertisement of the Gallo brand, which is available on youtube at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd09954cJsM. The second part included the items adapted from previous studies and was measured using 5-point Likert scales ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree. The third part included demographic questions. The articles used to measure informativeness were adapted from Lee and Hong [42]. To measure narrative transportation, we adapted four items from Solja’s research [43]. The measurement of advertising stimulation followed the four items of Solja [43]. The scale used for brand choice was adapted from Bianchi, Milberg, and Cúneo’s research [3, 44]. Finally, we added three items to measure narrative structure adapted from Santos, Santo, and Augusto [43, 44]. 3.2 Data Collection In collecting data, we presented the video advertisement to the participants, and after viewing the questionnaire, we introduced the questionnaire link. Participants completed the questionnaire through their equipment (smartphones, tablets, or laptops). 3.3 Sample For this research, 244 observations were collected from individuals between 18 and 75 years old who, in most cases, know the Gallo brand (97.9%). Most participants are between 18 and 29 years old (Table 1). Table 1. Sample Variable

Dimension

N

%

Gender

Male

Age

169

69.3

Female

75

30.7