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Dear Colleagues, The About, With, and For conference cycle at the Illinois Institute of Technology School of Design will interest those active in research in participatory design and advancing the practice of design research in human-centered research methods. This year's keynote speakers include Liz Sanders of SonicRim and Tony Salvador of Intel. Ken Friedman -- Involving, Engaging & Educating Others What are your strategies for involving the client in the design process? Do you have a creative, infallible or interesting method for engaging and educating end users or management in design research? About, With and For 2004 would like to invite you to share your theories, principles and ideas in a professional conference committed to advancing the practice of design research. http://www.aboutwithandfor.com -- About, With and For Conference Advancing the practice of design research October 22nd & 23rd, 2004 Courtyard Marriott, Chicago, IL CALL FOR ABSTRACTS 2004: "Involving, Engaging & Educating Others" -- DUE AUG. 18 2004 AWF 2004 Conference Theme As human-centered research continues to grow in popularity and presence, we as social scientists, researchers, designers, educators, consultants, and project managers are responsible for moving our discipline past simple story-telling and obvious solutions. Creating rich and insightful data often requires involving and engaging others in the process of design research, analysis and synthesis. But this isn't easy. Effective research lies in the ability to work together to uncover insights; good analysis rests in the ability to communicate the value of sound methods to others; and successful synthesis (ending in successful products & services) results in a common understanding of user and business needs. This year's About, With and For conference will focus on how to involve, engage, and educate a third party audience, be it clients, colleagues, students, research participants, or executive decision-makers. Liz Sanders, President of SonicRim, and Tony Salvador, Design Ethnographer at Intel Research, will deliver keynote addresses on this subject. Liz is a pioneer in the use of participatory methods in the design and branding of consumer and office products, systems, interfaces, and spaces. She will lead additional workshops at the conference to give people hands-on experiences with some new participatory design methods and tools for the generative phase of the design process. Tony's relevant recent work has been in the "emerging part of emerging markets" examining the benefits of information & communication technologies for development while taking a critical look at the role large multinational corporations can appropriately adopt. Conference Topics We are inviting presentation and workshop abstracts related to involving, engaging, and educating others in the process of design research. 1. Presentations Presentations can range from academic to professional. We are specifically looking for abstracts, relevant to the theme of the conference, that focus on case studies, tools and methods. Presentations should last no longer than 45 minutes, and should include time for Q&A and discussion. The ideal length should be around 25-30 minutes. Topic areas for presentations include, but are not limited to: - Effective ways to work with client design teams - Presenting design directions to executive decision-makers - Creating learning environments for students and/or clients - Incorporating end users into the design process - Constructing brainstorming or design work sessions - Communicating the value of design within corporations - Effective research presentation methods - Training new hires on research methods - Making data manageable - Managing project expectations Here is a brief abstract from one of our keynote speakers to give you an idea of the focus of the conference. Liz Sanders - Inspiring and Informing Others In the early front end of the design development process, design research aims to provide insight into the unmet needs and dreams of people, provide inspiration to the development team and to identify new product opportunities. New tools and methods for generative research are emerging continually and can be seen to fall along a continuum from inspiration to information. I will present new participatory tools and methods (for example, primes, probes and "make tools") from across this continuum and show how they are being applied in practice today. 2. Workshops Workshops are intended as interactive hands-on sessions where attendees can experience participatory tools and methods first-hand. It is, in fact, the participatory part of our conference, and should be dynamic, fun, and educational. Workshops are allocated an hour and a half and will host 15-20 people each. AWF will cover the costs of workshop materials as well as a small stipend for the organizer. Potential workshop ideas could have conference participants involved in: - Tailoring a presentation for a specific audience - Preparing work session kits for a client team - Creating a user case useful to brainstorming/ideation - Creating take-away kits for your audience - Involving the client in analysis/synthesis of data - Including participants in the design process - Researching from remote locations SonicRim will also be coordinating two workshops for the conference, below are abstracts for those to give you further ideas. Workshop #1: Participatory Tools for Individuals Each workshop participant will have a hands-on experience with a participatory "make tool" for an experience domain of current relevance such as communication, security, mobility, etc. After presenting their creations, the workshop participants will decide collectively what to do in the time remaining. Discussion topics might include: "make tool" construction, "make tool" analysis, toolkits for exploring emotional experience, etc. Individual participatory design tools are very useful for understanding the needs and dreams of potential end-users in order to be able to drive the design development process from a human-centered perspective. Workshop #2: Participatory Tools for Groups Workshop participants will work in teams for a hands-on experience with participatory "make tools" for collective thinking and imagining. Team-based toolkits based on an experience domain of current relevance such as communication, security, mobility, etc. will be available for each team to use. After the collective "make session", the workshop participants will decide how best to utilize the rest of the session. Topics might include: times and situations in which the use of group tools would be most effective, constructing toolkits for group decision-making, constructing toolkits for collective creativity, etc. Group participatory design tools are often used internally and can be very effective for collective ideation as well as for decision-making with multidisciplinary teams. 3. BOTH! You may also consider submitting an abstract for BOTH a presentation and a workshop, where the content of the workshop is based on the presentation. Submission Details Please submit the following to [log in to unmask] by August 18, 2004: - A title - A two-sentence summary of your presentation or workshop - A detailed description of your topic (no more than 250 words) - A brief author biography (no more than 150 words) You may submit as many individual abstracts as you wish. A panel of external advisors and professionals will review your submission. We will notify accepted speakers by September 15th. Registration and Fees Registration began on June 1st, 2004. We expect between 150 and 200 attendees, based on last year' attendance, as well as current registration numbers. The conference takes place on Friday, October 22 and Saturday, October 23 at the Courtyard Marriott in downtown Chicago. Prices for attending About, With and For are as follows: Before September 1st: Professionals - $290 ID Alumni - $40 Non-IIT Students - $20 IIT Students (including ID) - Free After September 1st: Professionals - $320 ID Alumni - $60 Non-IIT Students - $30 IIT Students (including ID) - $10 AWF will cover registration and one-night hotel accommodation for all confirmed speakers. About the Conference About, With and For is a collaborative forum offered by the Institute of Design to address issues within Design Research. It is targeted at those who develop ideas based on insights into people's behaviors, perceptions, beliefs and attitudes. Within this forum, we explore a range of methods to uncover insights and translate them into meaningful systems, products, organizations, services and communications. Our goal is to attract people (students, educators and professionals) from a wide variety of fields. Now in our third year, we are growing and continually striving to provide more useful content. Creating an environment for learning together will help us to extend our tools and methods beyond their current boundaries and advance the practice of Design Research.