This research addresses the perceptual conflict wherein consumers place greater trust in independent repair providers than in brand-led initiatives. Positioned within design for sustainability discourse, this paper, firstly examines repair service providers’ perspectives, revealing their challenges & systemic complexities. Secondly it presents their role in shaping the industry through skill transfer, community building etc. Lastly, design interventions are analyzed using systemic leverage points framework to expose varying depths of repair services to bring systemic change of fashion sector.

A parametric framework for personalised hand-wearable cooling devices is presented to optimise fluid and thermal performance using patient-specific anthropometrics. Iterative prototyping phases validated improved uniformity and efficacy. The approach bridges ergonomic customisation and thermal optimisation, enabling scalable, clinically effective wearable heat-exchangers for diverse patient populations. This study builds on prior work on personalised scalp cooling with Paxman, applying parametric principles to limb cooling for Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy prevention.

This paper explores how design fiction and generative AI (GAI) were used in a master’s course addressing food consumption issues. Data from two course iterations include student outputs, reflections, and prompt records. GAI expanded speculative exploration, supporting rich, detailed futures. Two approaches emerged, exploratory and goal-oriented, highlighting the value of prompt literacy, iteration, and critical curation to sustain creative control and adaptability.

Retrofit is often seen as a technical fix to boost efficiency and cut emissions, yet it also reshapes social relations, skills, and material flows. This paper reframes retrofit as participatory design cultivating ecological citizenship, the shared capacity to learn, make, and care for ecological relations through the built environment. Drawing on three cases, The Wild House, Ag. Lab, and the Retrofit Community Champion project, we propose a framework and design implications to scale equitable, circular, neighbourhood-based retrofit.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) enables the local adjustment of material properties using multi-material strategies, especially with Material Extrusion (MEX). Electrically conductive structures like conductors, Joule heating structures, and their transitions can be realised with conductive polymer composites (CPC). However, specific Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) guidelines for the afore mentioned structures are still missing. This work uses experimental data by thermography and the measurement of resistivity to derive twelve design rules. The rules are applied to an application example.

Conformal prediction (CP) can yield statistically valid prediction intervals for any regression model, with no model modifications and small computational costs. To assess its practical value, we apply conformal methods to quantify uncertainty in machine learning emulators of six microphysical process rates (MPRs). MPRs describe small-scale processes in atmospheric clouds such as precipitation formation and aerosol–cloud interactions and help understand weather and climate. The emulators are trained on simulation output from the ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic (ICON) model in a limited-area numerical weather prediction configuration. We compare split CP for deterministic emulators with conformalized quantile regression (CQR) for quantile regression (QR) emulators. Both CP methods yield well-calibrated and sharp prediction intervals on average, but CQR provides more consistent intervals across several orders of magnitude, making it preferable for the uncertainty quantification of climate variables.

While Immersive Reality (XR) design tools continue to emerge, the industry perspective on their value is unclear. This paper presents outputs of a workshop with 16 design experts testing a wide range of XR design tools. Value exceeding that of traditional tools was reported, driven by human-centric affordances like flexibility, interactivity, and response rate. Perceived detriments were linked to implementation challenges, such as fidelity and skill. Findings validate XR’s potential in design and direct future work towards overcoming key technical hurdles to unlock its value.

Foresight prototyping uses speculative artifacts to explore futures and support anticipatory design thinking. This study develops and validates an evaluation framework for HCI design education to support studio critique and assessment. Based on a literature review, author interviews, and quantitative analyses of perceptual ratings, four dimensions are identified: Functional Visibility, Sensory Experience, Future Adaptability, and Creative Divergence. The resulting FPEF supports consistent, evidence-based evaluation and feedback, and motivates future validation in design reviews.

Bridging the intention-action gap is key to driving sustainable consumer behavior. In this paper, we introduce the Change Factory, a methodology that applies behavioral science to design sustainable product experiences. We detail its four-step CODE framework – Change, Obstacles, Design, and Experimentation – and illustrate its application on fragrance refill. After identifying behavioral barriers, 33 gentle intervention ideas were generated to promote refill adoption, validating the method’s efficacy in translating behavioral insights into concrete, behavior-driven design solutions.

There is an increasing need to understand how rising environmental pressures and the EU’s PPWR (Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulations), which requires more sustainable and standardised packaging, affect brand identity. This paper evaluates how standardisation alters brand recognition and the extent to which visual and verbal cues can preserve brand identity and heritage. Mixed-method case studies show that coherent cues can maintain authenticity, brand meaning, and consumer acceptance emphasising the importance for brands seeking to balance sustainability with consumer perception.

Circular economy strategies like refurbishing and upgrading are gaining insterest in healthcare, but their adoption depends on several factors linked to social acceptance, technical and economic feasibility. The study examines these factors through a survey among medical practitioners in a French hospital. Results show that technical reliability, long-term performance, and access to new functionalities are key factors, while environmental, cost benefits and physical appereance are secondary. The study offers insights for designers to enhance sustainability of circular medical devices.

Design automation (DA) frameworks are often too specialized to be broadly evaluated. This paper proposes the use of deliberately simple, accessible implementations to facilitate the collection of user feedback. The evaluation of a DA framework is demonstrated through the Bike Connector Tool, which automates the design of personalized bicycle accessory connectors. A case study yields valuable insights, including the need for spatial guidance, manual intervention and expanded design options. The results indicate that simple demonstrators can effectively support the evaluation of DA approaches.

Design is transitioning modalities, from participation to deep engagement, creating active citizen(s). Authors define, communicate, and navigate post-participatory sustainable design, (interviewing 50+ project leaders), catalysing sustainable activities. Engaging Design, enables creative individuals, communities & collective action(s) to craft/design synergies: motivated by mutual respect, designing ‘with’ not for, shifts understandings’ of public engagement, transcending disciplines, providing sustainable value. Analysis and insights, yield recipes to cultivate sustainable active citizen(s).

Large railway projects suffer from major cost overruns and delays, partly due to project complexity. This study explores how such complexity emerges in the early design stages and affects the project outcomes. Data from 14 interviews were compared with four project complexity frameworks. The results indicate that complexity is mainly institutional rather than structural. Optimism bias, fragmented requirement governance, and weak coordination create self-reinforcing loops of cost growth, showing that governance and decision processes, not technical uncertainty, drive early-stage complexity.

The search for effective strategies to support mental well-being has become increasingly pressing in contemporary societies, where stress, anxiety, and cognitive overload are widespread. In this paper, we present a wearable-supported VR system designed to enhance mindfulness through the integration of visual, auditory, and respiratory cues. Drawing on evidence from color therapy, binaural beats, and biofeedback, the system delivers a multisensory environment that supports emotional regulation. We describe the system’s design and discuss its potential to improve technology-mediated well-being.

Agile teams often encounter obstacles in systematically identifying the underlying root causes of collaboration challenges and deriving effective countermeasures. Grounded in the Design Research Methodology, this study investigates a hybrid AI-human approach for targeted generation of problem-specific reference and impact models to enhance systematic improvement in agile product development. A structured workflow integrates AI capabilities (e.g. scaffolding, consistency) and expert knowledge (causality, context), while a three-stage review ensures methodological rigor and result reliability.

This study diagnoses Circular Economy practices in Brazil’s food-away-from-home sector using survey data (n=1,002) interpreted through the Design for Sustainability framework. Results show fragmented, technocentric actions and weak collaboration, with minimal regenerative practices. Mapping gaps across DfS levels reveals leverage points for redesign in governance, services, value-chain relations, and ecological loops, highlighting the need for systemic, design-led transitions.

A technology-oriented approach to AI predominates in research and practice, yet despite a high level of technological readiness, projects often fail due to poor domain-specific problem framing and data quality in early-stage AI system development. This contribution conducts an analysis of existing AI-related readiness models, to identify gaps in addressing these factors. The use case-centered AI readiness level framework is proposed on the basis of these findings – a unified, evidence-based model that links problem, data, and technology readiness across planning and implementation stages.

Collaboration is crucial in design and management, fostering innovation, problem-solving, and decision-making. We explore the use of vision-language models (VLMs) for analyzing collaboration, focusing on detecting social behavior and group affect. By fusing multimodal cues, VLMs enable more context-aware reasoning beyond surface-level perception. We develop a pipeline, a structured prompt and an interactive visualization for integrating VLMs into the analysis workflow. Comparing VLM and human analysis results, we discuss how VLMs can advance collaboration analysis and the remaining challenges.

This research describes a tool based on subjective well-being, value, and practical design. We present a Value-Driven Ladder Canvas and 78 Value Insight Cards to support SWB-oriented practice. Studies 1 and 2 focus on discovering insights based on the user’s product experience and converting them into toolkits. Study 3 evaluates and verifies toolkits with SUS, UEQ, PANAS, etc. This research highlights the connection between Needs and positive experiences, providing actionable guidance. Our findings demonstrate that Canvas and Insight cards are designed to improve SWB sufficiently to be useful.