Four fabulous MDes students have worked tirelessly on their theses over the last year. They will present their work in person on the UW Seattle campus (with a Zoom option), followed by Q&A sessions in June 2nd 2023, 9am.

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Schedule‍

9am, Reimagining Social Innovation Platforms by Melanie Wells

9:30am, Softplane: Information Visualization on MR platforms by Wayne Jiang

10:15am, From Assistants to Companions: Speculating about Futures Scenarios with Conversational Agents at Home by Claire Weizenegger

10:45am, CritBoard: Reimagining online whiteboard tools for design students with diverse personalities by Chen Wei

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‍Location‍

• Hans Rosling Center for Population Health, room 101
• Zoom (please register for the link)

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UnSchool (May 25-26) is pop-up design school formed and offered by the first-year MDes students (as part of the Design Graduate Studio taught by Jayme Yen). Each student has designed their class as both a framework to explore their thesis as well as a way to articulate and test alternative approaches to teaching and learning design. All classes are free and open to the public. No prior experience with design expected or necessary.

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MANIFESTO:

UNSCHOOL is trouble making.

UNSCHOOL is created through collective action.

UNSCHOOL is seriously fun.

UNSCHOOL is about practice, not mastery.

UNSCHOOL is weird, but that’s the point.

UNSCHOOL is for everyone who shows up.

UNSCHOOL is free...and it’s free.

UNSCHOOL is not right nor wrong, just doing.

UNSCHOOL is for those who like to learn, but hate to be taught.

In the winter 2023 graduate studio, taught by Meichun Liu, MDes students conducted behavioral design experiments to examine how artifacts influence human behavior. One team used negative reinforcement strategies to nudge people to put down their phones and go to bed at their preferred time, comparing the effects of various types of friction. The other team focused on promoting cell phone hygiene through timely reminders and increased visibility. Both groups developed functional prototypes using Arduino and sensors to gather quantitative data, and conducted field studies involving interviews and self-report surveys to collect qualitative data.

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The annual MDes Work-in-Progress show (often known as the Poster Show) is happening on Thursday December 8th from 4:30 to 6:30pm, in the Art Building, room 227/229. Please join us! 

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The MDes cohort of 2023 is ready to share some of their thesis work so far!

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Wayne Jiang — Contextual Information Visualization on AR Platforms in Data Centers

While reality is three-dimensional, the rich information we now have to inform our decisions and actions remains trapped on two-dimensional screens. The gulf between the real and digital world limits us from accomplishing complicated tasks with enough information. While information visualization on AR remains challenging, this thesis explores the space by understanding the data center scenario and generating interactive prototypes.

Claire Weizenegger — Maid, Friend or Master? Exploring the Relationship between Ethics, Design, Personification, and Domestic Voice Assistants

My thesis is a critical inquiry centered around the personification of domestic Voice Assistants (e.g., Siri, Alexa, and co). As many scholars observe, the projection of the 24/7 available nursing yet submissive female assistant into technology reinforces hurtful gender biases and contributes to greater inequality while actively shaping moral values. Using a research through design (RtD) approach, I propose different ways of designing and interacting with domestic VAs.

Chen Wei — Promoting Effective Interaction in Critiques through Online Tools

During the pandemic, design education practitioners were creative in seeking solutions for teaching and learning in online classes. Since then, online whiteboard tools such as Figma and Miro have become popular, even after in-person classes have resumed. This phenomenon drives me to consider whether online whiteboard tools provide people with different personality traits an equal opportunity to participate and whether these online tools could ultimately lead to more effective and closer interactions than traditional critiques.

Melanie Wells — Reimagining Social Innovation Platforms

Design for Social Innovation (DSI) aims to make positive social change more probable, effective, long-lasting, and scalable. Social innovation platforms are a promising approach to address collaboration challenges that arise in DSI practice, but host a variety of their own challenges and barriers. This project takes a critical look at these problems and opportunities, and will propose a conceptual model and functionality of a digital platform that addresses them.

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Eason Yang (MDes 2022) has been busy this summer! After finishing his thesis in June, he has continued to push forward the social organization NED: Not Entirely Dead. The project takes a look at the career gaps caused by cancer as the elephant in the room. But fighting cancer is one of the toughest jobs an individual will ever have and it deserves a place on the resume. The competencies cancer survivors cultivate through adversity are Super-Abilities, not disabilities or liabilities, as current workplace biases might suggest. Grit, determination, resilience, ownership, dedication, empathy: these are the important skills companies are looking for in prospective hires.

Since June, you may have caught a glimpse of the project at this year’s Seattle Design Fest or you may have also heard him talk at Creative Mornings.  

Can't wait to see what's next for Eason!

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The MDes class of 2022 will be presenting their thesis presentations on June 6th, 2022! If you missed the presentations, feel free to watch the recordings at https://vimeo.com/uwdesign .

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The thesis cover a range of topics:

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NOT ENTIRELY DEAD by Eason Yang

The Invisible Weight of Cognitive Labor by Stephanie Tang Waldrop

Bespoke and Repetitive: Converging Technologies in the Design of Custom Products by Zerong Yang

Our Grails: Conversations on Our Most Prized Sneakers by Julian Body

Convo by Andy Madrick

My Color: Find your optimal color style by Sooji Kim

Shifting Planes: Envisioning the approach to rock climbing and dynamic movement in Mixed Reality by Rebecca Rhee

Actual Conversations For The Virtual World by Erfan Dastournejad

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Click here for more details on the thesis and presentations.

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The MDes cohort of 2022 successfully installed their thesis projects in the Henry Art Gallery. The show is up from May 28 until June 26 2022.

Two MDes alum teaching design on the UW campus. Taylor Miles Hopkins is teaching in the department of Human Centered Design and Engineering and Vassilissa Semouchkina is teaching in the Master of Human-Computer Interaction + Design program and the Division of Design.

Vassilissa Semouchkina and Karen Cheng with collaborators Yeechi Chen and Kevin Larson present their paper ‘“It Could be Better, But How?” Design Critique in STEM Research Labs’ at the Information+ 2021 Conference.→

Congratulations to Jeremy Barribeau (MDes 2020) and the entire team at the UW Center for Dialysis Innovation! Their backpack-size kidney-dialysis device is one of six winners of a $650,000 prize in an international competition to create components and systems for artificial kidneys. Jeremy is the Concept and Experience Design lead at CDI and has been working on this project for the past year.

Heidi Biggs and Jeremy Viny, two UW MDes alums, are presenting recent works at the ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference. Jeremy is talking about the Desktop Odometer →, a device that allows people to see how far information travels when they surf the web. Heidi discusses the use of animated gifs → as a method for doing design research.

Justin Thoreau Lund (MDes 2020) is hired as an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, College of Design to teach Industrial Design.

The class of 2021 is presenting their thesis projects today on zoom! Their works span a range of topics: Fei Shao envisions the future of remote work, Vassilissa Semouchkina created a toolkit for scientists to better communicate their findings visually, Taylor Miles Hopkins future books from three imagined post-anthropocentric worlds, and Solji Lee designed an accessible autonomous taxi service.

See their projects here. →
Watch their presentations here. →

Samer Fouad (MDes 2020) is hired to teach at the Pacific Lutherian University in Tacoma, WA.

For more, see this interview.  →

The Division of Design hosted: A Symposium on Design Graduate Education →. In this one day zoom event, we invited current students, alumni, and faculty to share ideas and ask questions about the future of graduate design education against the backdrop of current social, political, ecological, and economic change.

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Watch the event here. →

MDes 2018 alum Emma Laukitis Teal, and her sister Claire Neaton, publishes the book “The Salmon Sisters: Feasting, Fishing, and Living in Alaska: A Cookbook with 50 Recipes.”

Find the book here.  →