Conference Agenda

Growing concerns have been raised about excessive social media usage among young adults and its adverse effects on mental health. Challenges persist in designing effective strategies to help young adults manage the overuse of social media, especially in the context of short-form video (SFV) products, where the issue is more pronounced. This study explores and discusses design strategies grounded in emotional design principles to assist young adults in managing the excessive use of SFV products, aiming to transform their relationship with social media into a more sustainable one. The study focuses on two main questions: 1) What factors influence young adults’ excessive usage of SFV applications? 2) What emotional design-based strategies can effectively regulate this usage?

An online ethnography was conducted to understand user motivations, behaviours, and the effectiveness of existing methods for managing overuse. The findings indicate that boredom is a significant factor driving the excessive use of SFV products, with users exhibiting varying levels of awareness and ability to control their usage. Integrating emotional and behavioural design principles, the study presents ‘Sustainable Design for User Emotion’ recommendations, highlighting key factors for developing effective design strategies to manage users’ excessive use of digital products and promote healthier usage patterns. A broad survey was conducted with young adults aged between 18 and 35, further investigating the real-world usage patterns of SFV products and assessing the effectiveness of the proposed design strategies. The results offer insights and actionable recommendations for research and practice in sustainable and responsible digital product design.

Global ageing is leading to an increase in cardiac arrest incidents among senior citizens, posing a significant societal challenge. Most out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) incidents occur at home, limiting patients' immediate access to professional help and Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs). In such instances, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) by caregivers, often the patient's family with no expert knowledge of emergency care, becomes crucial. Compared to professional rescuers, caregivers could face challenges in executing effective CPR due to skill gaps and emotional barriers in performing such procedures on family members. This study investigates the emotional experience of caregivers in cardiac arrest scenarios, a critical but often overlooked aspect in the design of emergency care devices.

We aim to understand 1) how emotions affect caregivers' performance and experience during domestic cardiac arrest incidents, and 2) how design can support their practical and emotional needs, enhancing their performance. Semi-structured interviews with professional rescuers and non-expert caregivers reveal the emotional challenges that caregivers might confront before, during, and after cardiac arrest incidents, such as fear of approaching a collapsed person, anxiety about causing harm, lack of confidence, and moral pressure from social ties. These challenges can lead to adverse reactions that further hinder their CPR performance. The study highlights the importance of including emotional support for non-expert rescuers in OHCA incidents. By incorporating human-centred design principles, we propose an inclusive design guideline for emergency care devices and practical design strategies to mitigate emotional barriers and assist operational performance for non-expert rescuers.

Design students face the challenge of presenting their work at university events with little training in designing exhibits. To help design students successfully communicate their projects, they would benefit from studying design exhibits that enhance viewer engagement. Human-centred design is often multisensory and appeals to human emotions, thought patterns, and relatable behaviours. However, "the "lower" senses of smell, taste, and touch are rarely taught in school curricula. This research combines multisensory engagement of six human senses, sight, smell, taste, sound, touch, and spatial awareness, with facets of emotional, cognitive, and physical (ECP) behaviour to explore how sensory stimuli impact a visitor's experience with exhibits. Fourteen undergraduate design students and one design instructor collected sensory and ECP data on 41 exhibits while attending the 2023 Dutch Design Week. Emotionally, the senses of taste and smell had the highest impact on the visitor. Cognitively, the senses of taste and touch scored highest. Physically, the sound, spatial, and smell senses had the most impact. Sight had the lowest variance in ECP scores, while taste had the greatest. Results verify that as the number of senses increases, so does the exhibit impact. Studying exhibit design engagement caused two student researchers to redesign their end-of-year presentations to include more senses. Design exhibitions engage visitors visually, limiting audience proximity and engagement with display content. Exhibits designed to incorporate smell, taste, touch, sound, spatial awareness, and sight, in that order, can transform casually observing visitors into engaged participants consuming an exhibit's content rather than merely viewing it.

Entry-level drawing abilities have significantly declined, a phenomenon that is largely due to the lack of observation of the principles and practices of teaching and learning new designers. This exploratory study examines the self-perceived security, confidence, and motivation of design students who possess Spatial Intelligence (S.I.), by using three well-known brand markers, through three drawing activities (D.A.), students assessed their performance. Initial findings indicate positive effects on motivation, confidence, and security aspects. Our study delves into S.I. possession, drawing experience, and global experience impact on exercises, revealing no statistical difference in motivation but significant disparities in confidence and security. Non-S.I. students exhibit higher confidence and security levels, indicating a correlation between emotional aspects, self-perception, and tool familiarity. The findings open new avenues for investigation on how to approach the student profile, the choice of tools, and the teaching process to improve students' aspects in D.A. for design education (D.E.).