Research
The Human Centred Design (HCD) group initiates and stimulates the development of knowledge, methods, and tools that support the active participation of all relevant stakeholders in design and change processes. Our methods and tools focus on:
- Actively involving all relevant stakeholders in a project through stimulating dialogue, making constructive use of potential conflicts, and helping reframe key challenges collaboratively
- Empowering stakeholders to engage with the design process and share their experiences and professional expertise
- Facilitating stakeholders to experience the social and ethical dimensions of their goals and decisions
Through research-based methods, we elicit stakeholder values and needs, create commitment and dialogue, and help negotiate power dynamics to design products, services and systems that meet needs and expectations at both stakeholder and societal levels. In addressing socio-technical challenges (e.g. smart city projects), we explore how design can foster ethical reflection, public engagement and citizen participation.
Most of our methods are participatory and scenario based, such as design workshops, gaming, virtual reality and collaborative prototyping. We embed our methods in theory and also ensure that they are pragmatic and actionable in professional practices. We work in a diverse set of application fields, which range from supporting drivers in their interaction with autonomous vehicles to co-designing health(care) and co-designing responsible smart cities. To ensure the impact of our research, we closely collaborate with societal and industrial organisations.
The chair currently has three main research themes: