To enable a truly circular economy in product engineering, the development of products in generations must be considered. Thus, we strive to enable a forward-looking circularity approach, proposing the integration of system generation engineering (SGE) with circular economy principles. By analysing the qualitative interrelations among product generations driven by distinct value preservation strategies on various value creation tiers ("R-strategies"), we extend prior SGE research to advance model theory and support practical application of circular product engineering.

This paper explores the interplay of feedback principles in design and systems science. From their roots in engineering, biology, and economics, it investigates intersections between design, cybernetics and servomechanisms. The synthesis emphasizes the need for considering feedback in anticipating unintended consequences and proposes an integrative view reconciling fundamental assumptions from the different fields through simulation. This holistic approach underscores the pivotal role of feedback in understanding and addressing complex phenomena, such as rebound effects, in design science.

This study presents a three-stage framework to translate user scenarios into engineering specifications. We introduced 'Action Steps' as an intermediate tool to help convert user scenarios into functional requirements and engineering specifications. It facilitates aligning specifications with user needs by filling in the essential product information not revealed in user scenarios. Preliminary testing revealed that the proposed framework improved team understanding and reduced information gaps, showcasing its potential to enhance specification development and process efficiency.

This study conducts design-driven meaning innovation research based on an interpretation of new meaning through qualitative and quantitative research rooted in design practice and builds design-driven theories, methodology, and highly replicable methods. It presents a new design approach to design thinking called ‘design methodology and method of meaningful products’. The design process and framework integrate words, visuals, and functions to interpret and create new meanings. It highlights the importance of design semiotics in overcoming the limitations of traditional approaches.

Design hackathons offer a unique research opportunity to study time-pressured collaborative design. At the same time, research on design hackathons faces unique methodological challenges, prompting the exploration of new research approaches. This paper proposes a new data-collection framework that leverages a virtual format of hackathon events and enables a deeper insight into hackathon dynamics. The framework applicability is presented through a case study of the IDEA challenge hackathon, in which different intrusive and non-intrusive data collection approaches were used.

In recent years, we have observed an increased interest within the field of design research in both the concept of conviviality and playful approaches as a pathway to co-design and participation. While play is often associated with freedom of expression and creativity, the implication of rules and mechanics in games poses questions regarding the tension between player agency and designed gameplay. This paper aims to provide reflection on these topics through a lens of ‘critical play’ and presents a model to explore games’ potential as convivial tools for imagining collective futures.

The overall aim is to assess the superior of human- or design-centric source. This research compares the categories covered in a checklist by pain-points and needs identified individually using human- and design-centric sources. Data from 6 projects of a design course is used. It is found that there is no significant difference in the number of categories covered by pain-points and needs but the categories are not the same. This calls for integrating both sources in comparison to using only one source for designing which can potentially help to identify diverse and relevant outcomes.

In Norway, the housing challenges faced by migrant workers highlight increasing inequality. Designers striving to create more equitable and sustainable futures must adopt system-oriented tools and human-centered approaches. Utilizing giga-mapping and narratives as prototypes helps reframe issues, enhance communication, and simplify complexity into actionable steps. However, successful outcomes demand refined application and careful attention to communication, necessitating significant investment of time, skills, and effort.

Human-centred approaches within the design cycle are crucial to enhance usability and inclusivity of products. However, the qualitative nature of traditional human factors evaluation can create bottle necks, prompting the need for more data driven methods. A framework for data-driven human factors is presented, looking to integrate mixed-method approaches. Case studies illustrate its usage in real-world scenarios and challenges are summarised, calling for robust data collection methods, balancing of mixed methods, a need for explainable systems, and interdisciplinary expertise.

The point has repeatedly been made that validation is a crucial success factor in demonstrating the scientific contribution and ensuring the adoption of results. Still, researchers in design science validate their research findings too infrequently. We must all evaluate our claimed contributions on open benchmarks to improve validation quality and foster cumulative research. In this paper, we propose a meta-model to standardise and operationalise the concept of open scientific benchmarks in design science and to guide communities of researchers in the co-development of scientific benchmarks.

Gibson used "affordance" to describe how animals perceive and interact with their environment. Since the term was coined, many studies, both theoretical as well as empirical, have been done. We conducted a review of the 56 most cited works on physical affordances to answer: (1) What methods have been used to study affordances, and how have they changed with time? (2) How has the definition of affordances evolved over time? We went through papers decade-wise and compare their key contributions. Finally, we discuss how the definition and research on affordances has evolved in the last 40 years.

This paper examines the replicability of studies in design research triggered by the replication crisis in psychology. It highlights the importance of replicating studies to ensure the robustness of research results and examines whether the description in a publication is sufficient to replicate. Therefore, the publication of a reference study was analysed and a replication study was conducted. The design of the replication study appears similar to the reference study, but the results differ. Possible reasons for the differences and implications for replication studies are discussed.

As design evolves, language serves as a bridge between envisioned futures and the ontological elements of design that shape them. This manuscript presents an alternative glossary that gathers words from diverse disciplines and practices intersected by a decolonial lens that challenges hegemonical narratives. The glossary of the world to come results from a three-day workshop that focused on language as a formal, normative, and subversive tool capable of defining future behaviour and destabilizing the present. The terms are some among the many that exist to form this decolonial world.

This work presents a Set-Based Design inspired approach for generation, evaluation and reduction of a solution space of alternative product concepts. Also, the aspect of how to implement the process in an industrial environment was investigated. The hypothesis, confirmed by case studies, is that it can be done using existing methods like Enhanced functional modelling, brainwriting, the Gallery method, Axiomatic Design, causal diagrams and Pugh matrices. The method can be successfully introduced in a timeframe of a few working days and support development engineers in the concept design phase.

This paper presents a mapping of theory use in the design discipline based on the corpus of the published ICED and DESIGN conference papers since 2010. We searched the resulting 4,451 papers for occurrences of theories and compared them with an existing ontology of named theories through natural language processing (NLP). The results yielded a variety of analyses, illustrating, for example, the most-used theories and which disciplines these theories stem from. This paper presents a rich overview of the theories relevant to the design discipline and a novel approach to bibliometric analyses.

This paper describes the creation of a tool named Shame Cues, a card deck consisting of 64 cards describing sociocultural concepts related to shame. The tool arose as an experiment to articulate an entanglement of diverse shame discourses into something relevant for designers. Building on the experience of using Shame Cues, the paper discusses how Shame Cues can support exploring the role of shame as given implicitly, through cultural manifestations, and in a practical sense, and how such an investigative lens can inform designers with more critical perspectives.

This paper introduces a method to derive variation shares in engineering design, merging the Contact & Channel Approach (C&C²) with the model of PGE - Product Generation Engineering. It focuses on one-piece parts, enhancing precision in identifying component variations. The integration allows for detailed qualitative modeling and subcomponent analysis, improving design efficiency and innovation, illustrated with bottle examples. This research advances engineering design by enabling more accurate categorization of system variations.

The spatial arrangement of objects in residential environments is a crucial indicator of occupant behavior, shedding light on the complex dynamics of their interaction with the interior. This study introduces an object-based graph method for decoding urban home interiors, examining the co-presence of objects to uncover domestic behavioral patterns through indoor imagery analysis. By integrating centrality metrics with objects in graphs, we gain deeper insights into household behaviors, which provide empirical evidence for future interior design.

This paper presents a collaborative solution developed to enable people without prior Internet of Things (IoT) knowledge to ideate, conceptualise, role-play and prototype potential improvements to their work processes and environments. The solution, called the Karakuri IoT toolkit and method, was tested in two workshops with eight production leaders at a Swedish manufacturing company. Outcomes were analysed from the perspectives of materials interaction and instruments of inquiry. Results indicate the solution can help people conceive and prototype improvement ideas at early design stages.

Product development is multidisciplinary with high uncertainties necessitating coordinated decision-making between design and production. This paper presents a method to work with production requirements to support production preparation during product development aligned with different product and production maturities. The work was conducted in collaboration with two global manufacturing firms. The method supports identification, definition, and structuring of production requirements and the collaboration between design and production engineers for requirement prioritization and follow-up.