Tag: digital technology

  • The BAD Conference

    The BAD Conference

    I recently had the opportunity to attend The Bad Conference, part of Product Design Week #PDW23, organised by Tech Circus in London. The turnout for the in-person event was impressive, with 250 individuals joining in person. Networking, an essential part of such gatherings, felt notably different post-Covid. Rather than the fluid mingling of the past, […]

  • Ethical Decisions in Digital Product Design

    Ethical Decisions in Digital Product Design

    Throughout my career, I have been deeply fascinated by the human experience and how people interact with the technology around them. Over the years, I have been lucky enough to work on various design projects, allowing me to explore this topic in depth. From designing user interfaces for software programs to developing new prototypes, my […]

  • Designing Intelligent Mobility

    Designing Intelligent Mobility

      This week I received a long-awaited early Christmas present. My Design Group colleagues, Matthew Cook, Miguel Valdez, James Warren and I had written a chapter entitled Towards an Intelligent Mobility Regime in the second edition of the Elsevier book Intelligent Environments.  As often happens for a major internationally co-authored publication, this has been almost […]

  • Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) become a creative friend?

    Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) become a creative friend?

    Blog Post by Lisa Bowers & Elouise Huxor In his article ‘Crafting an Artificial Intelligence I‘, Yatharth argues that there are parallels to be drawn between the craft process and the development of machine learning through engagement with the data as material. The word technology has its roots as a Greek word roughly translated as ‘a […]

  • Transformative Transport design

    Transformative Transport design

    Sometimes something happens that represents the tipping point between simply enhancing the design of an existing product or service and when a transformative redesign happens. I am wondering if we are about to hit this for urban transport systems. The modern tram is frequently seen as a core high quality public transport system, but its […]

  • Design dreams of digital worlds – but is digitech sympathetic?

    Design dreams of digital worlds – but is digitech sympathetic?

    The architectural collective Assemble– winners of the Turner Prize – continue to explore the designed and manufactured world in the second part of BBC Radio 4’s series, The Sympathy of Things inspired by John Ruskin’s views on aesthetics and the central role of sympathy. With Amica Dall and Giles Smith, the BBC state “The series is an argument […]

  • Taste some Raspberry Pi? Yes please!

    Taste some Raspberry Pi? Yes please!

    Raspberry Pis are a key smart technology at the heart of the Internet of Things (IoT) and are central to the design of our future smart cities. At the Open University, there is interest in the way smart technologies can help build and manage the world we live in, and in their role in helping […]

  • Design dreams of the material world – but is it sympathetic?

    Design dreams of the material world – but is it sympathetic?

    Have a listen to BBC Radio 4’s two-part series, The Sympathy of Things in which the architectural collective  ‘Assemble’ – winners of the Turner Prize – explore the designed and manufactured world, arguing that just as mass production has disrupted and changed our relationship to the material world, so digital technologies will also disrupt these relationships […]

  • Smart Cities in the Making

    Smart Cities in the Making

    Many cities across the world are being reconfigured by digital technologies and reframed as ‘smart cities’. However, cities are far from passive contexts in which digital technologies are simply implemented. How smart reworks the social in cities and specifically how it maintains and generates social difference is a key matter of concern. However, social difference […]