Advances in Design and Digital Communication IV

The number of hours dedicated to working at a desk and in front of a computer is gradually taking its toll on millions of people. It has drastically increased the number of health issues associated with this study and work habits. The ATOMIC project, presented in this paper, explores the use of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality solutions for training and teaching activities in a diverse array of contexts, such as creating awareness of computer workstation inherent ergonomic issues. The prototype presented is closely concerned with training its users to recognize their poor decisions regarding their desk workstation organization and helping to improve their decisions and behaviour in this context. It includes an augmented reality solution projected onto the desktop, capturing information with a standard webcam, a computer vision solution using OpenCV and Python, or a QR code solution through Unity and Vuforia. The prototype was evaluated during a summer school with the participation of 20 higher education students during a 4-stage test protocol (profiling, pre-test, AR experience, post-test) during which data regarding the user experience and interface usability was collected through 3 questionnaires all answered through an app on the users’ smartphone. The results attained were, in general, positive and showed that the users comprehended the purpose of the application and regarded it as useful for further understanding the benefits of small adjustments in their workstation layouts. Although they did not feel immersed in the experience, the users did see using the application as a better method for learning about ergonomic issues as opposed to more traditional pen-and-paper approaches. Overall, the tests conducted provided a detailed insight into the pertinence of the prototype and its context, as well as a list of suggestions for further improvements regarding its UX strengths and weaknesses.

Nowadays, mobile applications (app) have become allies and indispensable in people’s everyday life. Problems that previously required some time to be solved are now solved with a few taps on, i.e., a smartphone screen. The work presented in this paper is part of a master’s project that consists of developing a user-centered procedure for a mobile application. Thus, this article focuses on studying a methodology for the user-centered interface design of an app, with the aim of making the process based on interaction design principles, considering usability aspects in order to favor the user’s work. Based on the perceived needs of the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, and with the aim to develop a broader Academic Mobility as a Service (AMaaS), this project consists of studying a work methodology for the development of a prototype of an app with the aim of encouraging sustainable and healthy mobility within the academic community and campuses.

The main aim of this study was to understand the brain interaction and behavioral differences of the reading time and level of calmness related to the reading process (paper or screen; Sans Serif typefaces such as Agency, Calibri, or Arial; Serif typefaces such as Times, Bodoni, and Cambria; and levels of text complexity such as scientific or children’s text). Two experiments were conducted with a sample of 29 (20 + 9) participants, to understand which typeface (Serif or Sans Serif) presents a shorter reading time and higher levels of calmness, considering two different complexity texts (children and scientific) in two different forms of interaction (paper reading and screen reading). Signal acquisition was performed using MUSE EEG headphones during the tests we used various sensors, such as the Brain Computer Interface (BCI), to measure brain activity (active, neutral, and calm). The results of the two experiments demonstrate that Sans Serif typeface exhibits shorter reading times and higher levels of calmness than Serif typeface, especially when the text is read on a screen. In sum, different typefaces (Sans Serif and Serif) influenced the participants brain activity.

Anticipation is a concept that allows us to predict and plan for future events. As a tool, it enables us to forecast peoples’ desires or intentions and influences their behaviors and learning regarding digital experiences. This paper delves into the concept of anticipation and its relevance in designing for the future, particularly in the fields of User Experience (UX) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). It explores and defines anticipation concepts, definitions, and manifestations, and explores the various types and applications in various fields and their relationship with intelligent systems. This paper provides an extensive overview of how anticipation can shape the design field. This translates to leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to construct digital experiences that not only resonate with users but also proactively address their evolving needs. By examining the connection between anticipation and designing for the future, this paper offers a valuable resource for scholars and professionals interested in exploring the concept of anticipation and its potential to shape future outcomes.

The rapid evolution of technology has led to significant advancements in the digital interfaces area. In particular, multimodal interfaces have gained popularity as they provide opportunities for incorporating multiple senses in interaction design, enhancing the user experience beyond mere visual engagement. Considering human sensory modalities, auditory mode is processed more quickly than the visual mode because humans have evolved to be particularly sensitive to sound. Extensive research in the English language learning field has established that the development of auditory and oral skills is pivotal to attaining fluency in a foreign language. It has led to the creation of new digital resources and interfaces. In this scenario, audio has emerged as a valuable resource for designing effective multimodal interfaces for English language teaching. The present study aims to identify categories for audio-based multimodal interfaces for English teaching. In order to achieve this objective, we conducted an integrative review of the literature, employing the analysis and synthesis of theoretical findings from traditional and systematic literature reviews. The study identifies two primary aspects, namely multimodal interfaces and language teaching, which are presented in a conceptual model, organized into five categories: (I) multimedia learning, (II) audio typologies, (III) emerging technologies, (IV) teaching strategies, (V) listening strategies. The model results provides guidance for developing effective multimodal interfaces for English learning.

Blockchain technology is opening up new and interesting spaces for creative sectors, redefining the relationship between the artist and the public, enabling the collecting of digital artworks and the incorporation of digital artists into the art market. New artistic formats such as PFPs, 1:1 Art and Generative Art make up what we generically term NFT Art, a wide range of new offerings that is undergoing increasing interest, both for creatives and for collectors.This paper aims to aid understanding of these new paradigms, beginning with a description of the concepts in question and then developing a practical applied generative art project which will enable us to offer a first-person look at all the stages, from conception to public launch. In this way we can offer here a guide we hope will be useful to future artists and designers who wish to approach these new and fascinating art spaces.

In 2022, CIAC - Research Center in Arts and Communication and the Faro Municipal Museum began a cooperation to study, enrich and disseminate a unique poster collection that belonged to the Portuguese scenographer Joaquim António Viegas. It comprises 330 illustrated posters from the cinema, circus and advertising industries. This partnership entails the coproduction of multiple exhibitions about the collection, but also future research of the materials that form this important heritage. One of the objectives/aims of this work is to develop a website which will collect and present the information about the poster collection, while also serving as a platform to show virtual exhibitions of the same collection. In this paper we present the initial stages of the development of a 3D real time exhibition which is intended to open simultaneously with a physical exhibit of the posters dedicated to early Italian cinema - scheduled to be inaugurated in March of 2024. We will describe some of the first steps we have taken so far which covers the exploration of tools devoted to building 3D environments, the tasks we already achieved and lay down a couple ideas for the future of this project. We hope the prototype we present here might function as a model and a proof of concept for digital representations and reinterpretations of future exhibits of this singular legacy.

Interactive whiteboards are used to make classroom teaching and discussion easier and are used in all levels of educational classes, corporate conference rooms, coaching studios, television studios, and the like. Interactive whiteboards need to be usable and user-friendly for the end-users having diverse backgrounds (e.g., education, familiarity with such systems, etc.). Thus, the objectives of this study are to evaluate the interfaces of the whiteboards to reveal their usability problems and to provide possible design guidelines to improve the usability of such embedded systems. To attain these objectives, two interactive whiteboards were evaluated through a heuristic evaluation (HE) and a user study. The HE was carried out with four experts, followed by a user study replicated with seven participants. As outcomes, the studies revealed several usability problems grouped into seven categories; which include, for example, inconsistent use of icons, deep navigation, lack of accelerators, and absence of flexibility. Design guidelines along with the prototypical design were then proposed to solve the revealed problems and to improve the usability of interactive whiteboards.

Shadow Libraries are digital media repositories whose primary goal is to disseminate content inaccessible to users otherwise. As a case study we will delve into Portuguese-Student Shadow Libraries which focus on disseminating study materials and producing new resources that serve as primary aid for peers to study and to be prepared for tests, exams and overall assessment moments. This study aims to contribute to designing and developing a framework to preserve and distribute the sensitive collections assembled by/for informal communities where access is enabled by demanded peer production. We intend to work closely with our target audience to achieve this goal, involving community members across various design processes and decision-making moments. We actively question what characteristics make Portuguese-Student Shadow Library relevant to their public and what speculative features present users envision. This paper summarises the findings from a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews. We sought to present a representative overview of participants’ perspectives, demonstrating that unique disciplines, students, and contexts have different requirements. Presented results collect theoretical approaches to improve Portuguese-Student Shadow Libraries, making them more valuable to their users and reimagining innovative processes to publish and access disseminated study resources. Integrating diverse community members from the preliminary design stage resulted in meaningful contributions and provided knowledgeable insights that will inform the design of our framework.

In today’s fast-paced world, augmented reality (AR) has emerged as a widely accepted and profitable approach for engaging children in interactive learning experiences. However, the rapid development of this technology has left many individuals struggling with even basic interactions due to a lack of prior expertise and usability. While various studies have explored the use of AR functionalities in learning applications, few have addressed the associated usability problems. To integrate AR-based applications into children’s learning platforms effectively, ex- tensive research on user adaptability is needed. The primary goal of this study is to provide a set of heuristics for evaluating the usability of AR-based learning applications for kids and to compare heuristic evaluation and System Usability Scale (SUS) evaluation results to assess their applicability. Seventeen heuristics, including Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics, were employed to evaluate four AR applications designed for children’s learning. The findings revealed significant heuristic problems in all applications, with SUS scores falling below the acceptance thresh- old. Moreover, the study demonstrated that both heuristic evaluation and SUS evaluation methods yield comparable results, confirming the efficacy of the proposed heuristics in assessing the usability of AR-based learning applications for children.

Online Learning Management Systems (LMS) have become widely used solutions over the last few years by educational institutions worldwide. Interest in evaluating the quality of these systems has been increasing, and new research to investigate the usability and user experience (UX) of these platforms has increased over the last decade. One of the common evaluation approaches is the heuristic evaluation of the interface based on selected criteria or indicators that describe well-known usability problems. However, this process remains laborious and challenging, requiring considerable effort from evaluators. Adopting automated methods is still uncommon, and approaches based on Artificial Intelligence (AI), for example, are rare. This article presents a study that investigates the potential adoption of usability indicators (Ui) for using artificial intelligence methods as supportive tools for heuristic evaluation of LMS interfaces. In our study, we developed a methodology to investigate some requirements to identify and select a set of Ui to create datasets for AI models to contribute to LMS interface inspection. The methodology allowed us to highlight a set of Ui to be potentially adopted with Machine Learning (ML) to evaluate LMS interfaces. We highlight a set of necessary assumptions to build datasets that can be used with AI models for heuristic evaluation. The methodological approach we propose can be repurposed to study new usability indicators to analyze other complex software contexts.

The evolution of the information and communication ecosystem has led to significant changes in the museum visitor’s behavior and expectations, as they now manifest a desire for participation, collaboration, and sharing – suggesting the corresponding need to readjust the institution’s discourse and communication approaches through digital integration.Despite the inherent qualities of digital media, they can be presented in various platforms, interfaces, and devices, contributing to the lack of consensus and consistency in the terminology used in academia and among designers, technologists, programmers, and developers, resulting in numerous classification proposals. This condition tends to hinder a practical and, most importantly, insightful and critical appropriation of digital technology among museum professionals.Therefore, a three-dimensional taxonomy is proposed. The first dimension – virtualization – is created based on the reality-virtuality continuum and allows assessing possible variations and compositions of real and virtual objects. The second dimension – observation distance – is focused on the formal design contours of video displays, such as the dimension and positioning related to the user. The third dimension – interactivity – classifies, based on types of interaction, the extent to which users actively modify the content in a mediated environment in real-time. Each interdependent dimension is divided into six discrete classes.This tripartite classification system streamlines the main qualitative characteristics within different digital mediation systems, serving as a theoretical framework for digital integration centered on sustainability, accessibility, inclusivity, critical thinking, and individual subjectivity during the museum experience.

This pilot study aimed to evaluate the impact of conventional ISO type safety signs on enhancing hazard-risk behaviours and prompting behavioural compliance, in a non-conspicuous hazardous situation (i.e., a Conveyor belt hazard, void of any visual and/or auditory cues). Using a work-related (i.e., a stereotypical, yet realistic factory setting) virtual reality-based experimental set-up, and a sample of twelve workers (20–65 yrs), the study´s objectives were to assess to what extent the printed static safety signs were effective in prompting compliant behaviours in the given situation, as well as to collect the participants’ hazard-risk perceptions regarding such a context. The study, therefore, addresses topics under the Virtual-reality domain such as: simulator sickness; level of presence; overall virtual environment design; as well as hazard-risk and safety sign perception. Results reveal that in this non-conspicuous hazardous situation, the participants adequately perceived the hazard and adopted safe behaviours, despite being unaware of the presence of such safety signs in the environment.

The way car controls are displayed has been changing over time, as physical controls are being replaced by touchscreens and touch interfaces. This allows the creation of a more clean and aesthetically pleasing interface and reduces costs, but also creates the potential to increase the drivers’ distraction and error as controls may be harder to find and use. This paper presents an evaluation of driver performance in the context of a laboratory simulation of an in-car, on road driving study, that compares driver reaction time and number of errors while using physical buttons versus a touchscreen interface. The study was conducted with 20 participants, performing the same tasks in both simulations but with different interfaces. The results concluded that the type of interface impacts reaction time and greatly impacts the number of errors made by the driver in it, as well as, in the road. The data analysis showed that the reaction time to the touch screen was significantly higher and 80% of the participants commited errors in it, compared to only 20% on the physical buttons. The driving performance of the participants was also substantially impacted by the touchscreen, when compared to the response pad. These results raise important questions about the fact that touchscreens are not the best solution in terms of safety. It is true that in terms of possible configurations, touchscreens give great freedom to car manufacturers, but at the expense of road safety.

This study is part of the “Dep-Project” research project, which aims to provide upper limb amputees with access to low-cost prostheses. The prostheses are 3D printed and are wearable and personalizable. In this sense, the need arose for the present study, to develop an online platform, with an intuitive interface design, which allows this type of disabled user to have easy and pleasant access to information about the prostheses and personalized them, according to their measures and personal taste. This article presents the first phase of the study, which consisted of a literature review on universal design and inclusive design; and a UX benchmarking assessment on the current main references available in the market of online platforms aimed at the personalization and purchasing of prostheses. The heuristic evaluation by Jakob Nielsen (2020) was the base methodology adopted for this study. As a result, there were identified the main requirements that an online platform must have to guarantee the inclusion of users with this type of disability.

This article was developed through descriptive exploratory methodology, on the digitalization to preserve historical costumes in 3D. Without minimizing the work of the conservators who provide physical longevity to artifacts, it considers the difficulties present in the daily life of museums and textile conservation, and the human and virtual interaction practices.Through a bibliographic review on the techniques of capture and reproduction of objects and museum collections, it presents the conections of the technological, museological and conservation areas, and reflects on the possibility of preserving the material and non-material culture, through the identity and symbology present in this type of artifacts, even through their dematerialization into a digital object.This study aims to contribute to the research and reproduction of heritage collections, as well as to collaborate with conservators and increase the possibilities of accessibility and understanding of contents for the public. In this article, it is also proposed that, in the future, a design project will be created, in which the digitization of a historical costume will be developed by two possible methods. It is intended to find a simpler way to digitize clothing and integrate interactive displays through Augmented Reality.

The investigation aimed at an IoT-based social hybrid scenario model for the promotion of psychological and physical well-being amongst older adults. Owing to the ever-increasing elderly population, elderly adults face certain psychological, physical, and social well-being challenges that may lead to mental problems and frailty. Through this research, we seek to create a model that enables caregivers, doctors, and family members to monitor elderly adults’ physical data remotely. Additionally, the model enables environmental influence control to promote intentional communication such as online text, audio, video interactions and picture sharing. Furthermore, the model facilitates outdoor activities in the company of peers and friends. The model aims to involve an extensive array of parties that can contribute towards its development and validation, including government bodies, healthcare service providers, primary and secondary care providers, and pharmaceutical companies. This study results indicate that this model results in a paradigm shift in the healthcare delivery system for elderly adults and serves as a deducible step towards enhancing the quality of their lives by developing well-being and removing social isolation.

This research aims to understand how Augmented Reality (AR) can enhance and enrich the traditional experience of reading an illustrated children’s book. In this context, a children’s book has been developed that explores the digital component of AR, along with the characteristics of a physical book, resulting in a synergy with the printed narrative. The narrative is presented in two layers, a printed one and a digital one, the latter reveals characters that are not seen in the page layout.Thus, after the interactive book prototype was created, tests were conducted with a sample of the target audience. These tests helped to understand that this combination resulted in a captivating experience for the user who demonstrated a positive reaction to the book and the activity. The project revealed that it can bring the user and reading closer together through the use of technology, which has proven to be a relevant and engaging factor among young audiences. These tests also revealed that participants did not have difficulty handling both dimensions, the book and the mobile device, simultaneously. Similarly, the test also focused on information retention about the narrative to assess the ability of AR to improve the understanding of illustrated story reading.

The gradual ageing of the global population has introduced new challenges to healthcare, creating the opportunity to develop new products that might aid the elderly in independently managing their daily health necessities. In this research project, the proposal is the development of a device that combines an automatic pill dispenser with the smart capabilities of modern devices, such as a virtual assistant, remote management capabilities, video calls, among others. This article pertains to the third and final phase of early development of this product, focusing on the CAD modelling, 3D printing, assembly and configuration of electronic and mechanical hardware, prototype assembly, as well as preliminary tests of the pill dispensing mechanism.From this process we were able to identify some shortcomings of the design, a credit to the benefits of rapid prototyping, and the possible corrections to be implemented in future iterations.

The development of mass industrialization slowly and steadily breaks the connection between crafts and design. Step by step, extreme functionalism has come to prevail, which leads to dehumanization of industry, mass production and market consolidation. The result of these tendencies is that the living environment is oversaturated with standard uniform and indistinctive mass products. A consumeristic attitude is encouraged, emphasizing the use of increasing amounts of cheap goods, which quickly become obsolete or discarded simply because new, attractive, but some low-quality articles have arrived. Hence, the consumption circle turns faster, stretching up to formidable proportions. But just as any other tendency, which does not settle for long, consumers and designers got tired of the extreme utilitarianism of industrial production. Design is increasingly taking a new line of limited-edition handmade articles, which demonstrate more freedom, diversity and personalization. This results in creative collaborations between craftsmen, designers and artists, which work together and share experience, techniques and innovations. This study seeks to provoke an active discussion among artistic circles on bringing back crafts into contemporary art and design projects, especially when specific local conditions offer numerous possibilities for successful collaborations. To realize these intentions, we should specify areas where crafts and design overlap and stand apart, in order to define the possibilities for integration of good practices and elimination of the synectic factors. Based on the conclusions drawn, this study will define several starting points for future research.

The current state of concern for the environment and awareness of the climate emergency have become prevalent issues. The environmental impact resulting from the use and expansion of digital infrastructure highlights the need for greater awareness and action on this topic. While the consumption of material resources can often be perceived through the associated financial cost, the energy consumption caused by the use of digital products, services, and systems remains invisible to users. This article proposes to focus on the area of Green Computing, as it is believed that this discipline can contribute to the reduction of the digital carbon footprint.The aim of the study was to conduct a literature review and a critical and informed analysis of Sustainable Online Behaviors. Building upon the guidelines proposed by Elgaaïed-Gambier et al., 2020, we sought to extend their scope in order to derive an expanded set of Green Computing Practices aimed at mitigating the Digital Carbon Footprint.Through the proposed guidelines, we believe that Green Computing practices can be disseminated and reach various layers of society, contributing to digital citizenship that can educate children and young people about the importance of this issue.

This paper is part of a design research and aims to present furniture solutions to create furniture and spaces that support children's well-being. Based on the values ​​of Emotional Design, this paper analyzes five case studies of furniture for children on western context, from the 1920s to current reality. This analysis present singular and common considerations, gathering design principles that guide the creative process and validate the designer as an interpreter of his/her reality, considering time, space, and circumstances. The study is based on a methodology framed in three stages - exploratory, generative, and evaluative. With this idea in mind, the authors want to prove that the theoretical and practical aspects analyzed and linked with Portuguese productive sector, can guide this study to design and develop furniture for children’s well-being. The study highlights the limits, the values and the meanings that characterize children’s universe.

Online aggressions have been widely reported worldwide and referenced as great harm since they bring immeasurable negative repercussions to those involved. Although social media websites’ official policy prohibits hate speech, the literature shows that aggressive content is still noticeable among the comments and disseminated publications in many online social networks. Meanwhile, the aggressive posts’ contents have yet to be explored in detail, including those associated with Portuguese social media groups. This paper aims to provide information on how aggression translates and is expressed online, considering two sources. The first sample is taken from eight transcribed interviews with Portuguese university students who have already been involved in aggressive online situations and shared the exact text content of the attacks. The second source was a series of posts from 151 Portuguese university student open groups on Facebook and Instagram that presented aggressive comments. A content analysis was performed with both samples separated for comparison, seeking similarities and patterns in both aggressive text analyses. Moreover, a thematic analysis was conducted to gather knowledge regarding the most frequent subjects among the aggressive content posted. While communications reported in interviews focus on image and body, death, and gender identity, themes such as immigrants, politics, lack of university support, and academic traditions emerged in the social network. The findings enhance knowledge regarding linguistics on cyberaggression and provide parameters for future research on detecting aggression situations online.

The number of cyclists and bicycles in the urban environment have been increasing substantially in recent years. Bicycle seats, trailers, and cargo bikes allow parents to transport their children on their bicycles switching from the car into greener mobility options. Nevertheless, safety becomes a priority when transporting children by bicycle. Different cities experience different levels of cycling culture and development. Lisbon (Portugal) is a city with poor cycling infrastructure and low cycling modal share, and cyclists find it difficult to ride safely due to the lack of dedicated infrastructure and the constant sharing of the road with reckless drivers. There is a gap in the literature of studies looking at child visibility and safety when transported by bicycle, especially in cities where cycling is starting to grow. The methods used in this study are the survey by questionnaire and the artifact analysis. These methods allowed the understanding of the demographics, cycling characteristics and habits, how children are being transported on the bicycle, and which safety strategies are in use. In addition, the analysis of bicycle rear seats in use provided evidence of which information or visual cues are available for signaling a child on board. This mixed-method study provides a comprehensive understanding of the safety strategies used by parents and the design features of bicycle seats that promote child safety. The results highlight that, although parents feel relatively safe when transporting their children by bicycle, additional safety features to increase visibility are most welcome.

In today's digital society, knowledge is built through relationships with others and the environment. Schools have a vital role in promoting and developing skills in children and youth until they complete compulsory education. The use of technology to access and share information is unavoidable and has led to cyber-plagiarism to become a significant problem faced by educational institutions, particularly among primary, secondary, and high school students. Digital citizenship skills such as researching, selecting, collecting, and processing information through critical thinking are necessary to prevent cyber-plagiarism. Its use raises ethical concerns and undermines the fundamental values of a democratic society. This work reflects on the practice of cyber-plagiarism by students, defines the concepts of plagiarism and cyber-plagiarism, identifies their causes and consequences, and proposes strategies to fight against it in schools. A narrative literature review methodology, which includes national and international research sources and official documents, is used to present guidelines for educational institutions and communities to adopt common strategies to prevent cyberplagiarism. The work also suggests fundamental strategies for the initial and continuous training of teachers to develop skills that promote digital citizenship and prevent cyber-plagiarism.

Despite the fact that ebooks are increasingly more popular, some print cookbooks are still being sold in large numbers. Discussing the cookbook specific nature, this essay reflects on how digital media practices made print books sales decrease in different genres whilst print cookbooks kept thriving. Change in publishing in the digital age appears to show a pattern for other book genres that doesn’t apply to cookbooks in a similar way. Considering some iconic cookbooks published in Portugal in the last 100 years as case studies, the paper navigates both the technical-scientific and narrative nature of cookbooks, whilst also looking at the relationship between form and content, plus how that impacts the reader’s choice regarding print and digital books in food-related contexts. Throughout time the cookbook as an instrument of power, a tool for change and a source of knowledge evolved to accommodate not only the print book but also the digital, keeping its specific nature of being both a handbook with recipes and a book to be read and visually experienced as part of an interplay between different components. We argue that, as food will remain a major contender in digital media landscapes in the near future, phygital becomes the norm for cookbooks and the digital dimension of food will change consumption influenced by an invisible algorithmic logic and culture. The cookbook of the future will certainly also be shaped by AI presence, regarding authorship (recipe choice, diet trends) and cookbook typology (phygital, immersive).

This paper is an opportunity for the business fabric and the performing arts to change. The introduction of creative process in the business world and in the performing arts sector proved to be a response to the effective improvement of the shows produced and business competitiveness. In this study, a territorial network system was developed consisting of professors and design researchers, a lighting company, a raw materials industry, a municipality, and entities related to the entertainment sector. With this work, it was possible to develop a system carrying of new semantic pathways, communication, performance, and interaction with people. The study contributes to the constant analysis of designing products with high efficiency and low environmental impact. The paper shows that the process of cooperation between different areas is a choice that respects and values ​​the project partners, assuming a social commitment.

Disney is well-known for producing entertainment contents that engage equally children and adults. However, some of the messages conveyed in many of Disney’s productions involve a sense-making that young children cannot attain due to a lack of pre-existing knowledge-based structures.This paper presents a semiotic analysis through a brief and synthetic deconstruction of animated film by Disney, Strange World. Social Semiotics is used to speculate on the possible strategies the creators had when having to communicate through a digital medium grounded on moving images. Using concrete examples, it is possible to observe how the content created follows a series of good practices to better communicate through an engaging and attractive narrative with the target audience, both children and adults. However, there is much information at different layers within the movie that children cannot reach, which leads to a discussion on what may prevail and what may be left out in a message that ought to be passed out to the younger generations.

Active participation of women in the world of videogames is still a matter of debate in gender studies. Women have historically been underrepresented and undervalued in the gaming industry, which has led to a lack of diversity and an unwelcoming environment for many women gamers. The practice of live streaming brought this debate to the fore, as gender discrimination and harassment is still prevalent in the gaming community. Women are often subjected to sexist comments, trolling, and other forms of online abuse. This paper presents a systematic literary review using PRISMA methodology, between the years 2017–2023, focusing on the participation and representation of women and in the contemporary phenomenon of live streaming of videogames. This article contributes to the application of the perspectives of methodological approaches with netnography and ethnography through action research Furthermore, this research addresses the current reality of the social inclusion of women in the culture of the videogame community.

The paper presents the findings of an extended research study into the status of the digitisation of items concerning pre-digital typographic techniques and technologies, to be found in Italian museums.The paper explores: (1) the cultural context and the relevance of the topic with regard to the renewed interest in long-neglected typographic forms and sources; (2) what is meant by ‘typographic items’ and their digitisation (archiving and display); (3) what the corpus of typographic museums we have taken into consideration is, namely the Italian Association of Printing and Paper Museums; (4) the methodology that was implemented to define the type of digitisation of items and the accessibility of the digitised files to museum staff and/or external users; (5) the possibility of expanding the research framework, by including other actors – other museums not belonging to the Association and the many printing workshops scattered across the country, which have saved traditional printing equipment and supplies with the intent in part to preserve their historical value, but primarily for their functions and the possibility of bringing them back into use. (6) Some final remarks, including a comparative study of the Italian case studies and others in Europe.

Historically, tattoos have a negative connotation, being mainly associated with underground culture, while contemporary tattoos carry a different status, presenting themselves as culturally more open and professional. By distancing itself from the marginal phenomenon that characterized ancient tattoos and becoming a socially immersive medium, it is necessary to look at tattooing in the present from a different perspective in order to understand how the media are greatly responsible for this practice. Initially the mass media, mostly magazines and television channels such as MTV, and currently social digital platforms, both have enabled and promoted interaction between geographically distant people with common interests. Social media became popular for tattoo artists by bringing them closer to the public, making interaction and holding international conventions and meetings easier. Instagram is a network where it is easy to share the work done with a more diverse audience and has been one of the great drivers of contemporary tattoo. This paper looks for the relationship between tattoo and media and seeks to understand how Instagram has expanded the world of tattooing and allowed tattoo artists to get closer to the public by showing their work and being in contact with the audience.

Dementia affects around 50 million people worldwide, and that number is expected to rise to 152 million by 2050. Around 40% of dementia cases arise from risk factors that could be avoided. It is crucial to bring prevention factors into public discourse, as well as the importance of timely diagnosis. Awareness-raising campaigns are a means of informing the public so that people can detect symptoms early, as well as tackle stigma and discrimination. This article is a preliminary study aimed at analyzing initiatives in dementia awareness and prevention. For the purpose of the research, documents were analyzed, and an analysis of case studies was made through web platforms and scientific articles. It was found that in Portugal, dementia awareness initiatives are limited to awareness campaigns, with a small number of projects in this area. Design as a means to raise awareness is an asset both in bringing dementia to the public discourse and in destigmatizing it. Hence, greater design investment in the area of dementia is considered essential.

Engaged students have more chances to achieve personal e academic success. Schools have the challenge of promoting student engagement, which uses several pedagogical tools. A podcast is a potential tool to promote academic engagement. Listening to podcasts is an innovative way to consume didactic content, but developing podcasts transforms students into the constructor of their knowledge. This paper presents a methodological proposal for the creation of a podcast development framework, focused on pedagogical use as a classroom didact activity in technical and vocational schools, using the theories of student engagement as pedagogical structures. Design-Based Research (DBR) is the methodological approach chosen for this investigation. DBR structure shows cyclical e iterative steps to develop a solution for a pedagogical problem in the following structure: (a) Literature analysis to understand the problem context; (b) Professors and students of the technical and vocational schools were indicated as stakeholders of this investigation; (c) Initial study applied to understand how academic engagement occur in technical and vocational schools; (d) Prototypes built, tested and refined; (e) A full version of the framework was analyzed; (f) Surveys, interviews, documental research, and logbooks used as collect data tools, and; (f) the data analyzed and used for a refining step of the podcast development framework. This study offers relevant discussions on the process of developing a pedagogical intervention and, in addition, designs an investigation to understand students’ engagement in technical and vocational schools.

Data communication and visualization play a significant role in contemporary society in which the amount of information available is constantly growing. The paper focuses on the importance of communicating and visualizing data clearly and effectively, with a focus on industrial manufacturing contexts.Data visualization is a crucial element in enabling users to understand complex information sets through visual representations that make them easily accessible and interpretable. It is the process by which objects, numbers and concepts are transformed into an easily understood form.Within production processes, where information flows are numerous and complex, dashboards are used for rapid monitoring of metrics and performance indicators. To ensure the effectiveness of a dashboard, it must be adapted to the specific needs of the intended user and be consistent with its original purpose. The paper proposes an iterative process for designing the interaction between the user and the dashboard, based on the analysis of theoretical models related to visual perception, visual communication, and information visualization. From the collection of heuristics in the literature, requirements for evaluating the usability of information visualization systems were identified. The set of heuristics has been and are going to be a valuable resource for defining and implementing evaluation tests useful in designing new dashboard systems that make information easily accessible.

This paper aims to investigate structural and social elements aimed at settling or exposing individuals to digital risks and vulnerabilities through Instagram policies and guidelines. We focus on content management, especially image, such as filters of face editing and modification that are available on these platforms, in the Brazilian context. Therefore, we seek to understand how these elements can contribute to the wider discussion on the use of filters and their relationship with mental disorders, such as Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). Such idealization rely on the relationship between the beautiful and the desirable and can be maximized by the dissemination of augmented reality (AR) resources. The research follows a methodological approach based on Bardin’s Content Analysis, consisting of three phases: pre-analysis and material exploitation, development of analysis categories, and treatment of results. Our corpus of analysis is composed of the documents shared by the platforms: terms of use, community guidelines, data/privacy policies, and policy on cookies. The main contributions of this paper include: i) Emphasizes the importance of considering content in platform studies, an often-neglected dimension; ii) Explores interoperability between platforms and the balance between centralization and decentralization; iii) Recognizes the significant role of content in attracting users and understanding consumption trends; iv) Systematically analyzes the policies and guidelines of platforms such Instagram, Spark AR, and Facebook, to understand user-platform dynamics; v) Highlights the need for further research and best practices in content practices, particularly in appearance-related features like filters, with potential impacts on body image and self-esteem.

Service design emerged in the last decades as the design practice that creates the conditions of interactions in the context of services. Contemporary business models involve interactions between users and the service and between end-users, where personal information is exchanged and processed. Hence, in a world labelable as ‘surveillance society’ or ‘surveillance capitalism’, the privacy and confidentiality of users’ information, image, and identity face serious threats. Building upon the human-centered design paradigm, service design is called to take an ethical stance to design services that do not jeopardize users’ privacy. First, however, service design should build its own comprehensive designerly understanding of privacy, based on input from other disciplines and on research, through design ethnography, to meaningfully tackle privacy challenges. Then, service designers should develop a designerly, project-based approach to protect informational privacy. Through tests and the solution to speculative and thought problems, service designers develop a service design thinking for privacy to design privacy-oriented services. We argue that a culture of designerly understanding of privacy shared across the service design community leads to a better service design.

With the constant development of software technologies, it has become increasingly difficult for universities to design curricula that provide students with technical skills that stay relevant by the time they join the workforce; this is particularly true for design. This paper proposes an approach for training students in design software. We aim to understand whether alternative methods for teaching Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign to undergraduate students could effectively replace traditional approaches. We conducted a comparative study with first-semester students: two groups underwent training following traditional methods (lectures followed by in-class exercises), whereas two groups learned using the eduScrum methodology. For the latter approach, students were given 15 assignments to be developed during the semester, with complete freedom on where and how to research the necessary knowledge to achieve the required results. During this process, the instructor acted as a facilitator rather than an instructor, as the Scrum methodology advocates. As we foresaw, some of the tools studied during the semester were surpassed by software updates Adobe introduced, thus adding to our initial argument for developing the methodology in the first place. While we firmly believe that the eduScrum methodology can become a successful approach for teaching design software, further studies are necessary to investigate whether a hybrid methodology might be a better solution to help students transition to a more independent way of learning.

This article documents the research work developed by the “Oficina de Tipo”, an academic project aimed at producing wood types to equip a letterpress workshop at the School of Fine Arts and Design (ESAD.CR), contributing to the development of experimental practices, new pedagogical approaches, and to establish an academic and professional network for the study of typography.The research aims to study, recover, and adapt old technologies of movable wood type production for the reproduction of display typefaces created at the academy or identified in private collections to study, preserve, and print with them. This is done through analogical (pantograph) and digital (CNC) means.Based on a literature review of industrial technologies to produce movable wood types, and on expert inquiries, were analysed and reproduced two grotesque uppercase types. The results of the pantograph reproduction showed significant differences in the use of pine, mahogany and ash wood. Mahogany offered better resistance to milling, requiring less finishing and presenting a lower risk of fracture due to its greater resistance to the pressure of the press. In handling the equipment, was observed that letters with concave angles maintain the integral design of the type, while the convex angles are rounded by the cutter. Therefore, it is necessary to adjust the drill bits to letters with convex angles of reduced amplitude.The results of the production of characters by CNC presented a uniform cut and recess. At sharper vertices, some letters show a slight curvature compared to letters with concave angles and open counters. Regarding the formal differences between types produced by CNC and pantograph, it is possible to state that the types produced by CNC present a more regular contour and, therefore, require less post-finishing.

This research tackles a current tendency towards scientific mistrust among segments of the population: we posit that channels traditionally employed by scientists and policy-makers may not be sufficient to reach skeptical individuals and communities, as exponentially and pervasively evident in social media circles. We thus propose to explore informal online channels and formats such as memes, short videos, and forums, where the involved demographics tend to obtain information they deem reliable and relatable: in fact, formal channels of scientific communication are often regarded by skeptics as authoritarian and driven by obscure agendas. In this research, we focus on health policy behavior as a locus of conflict in recent years due to the pandemic, with Portugal as a case study. Informed by both online field work and in-person interviews with health policy skeptics, the project has so far produced a collection of visual artifacts for social media circulation. Validated specimens aim to become templates for the adoption of health policies.

Smart homes have revolutionized the way we live, with new technologies connecting users’ devices with everyday objects. However, these advancements have also led to the emergence of unexpected dangers relating to technology-facilitated abuse. Domestic abusers can now maintain control beyond previous spatial boundaries, making it impossible for victims to recognize that they suffer from abuse. This paper is part of an ongoing MA project that aims to prevent smart products from being used as tools for domestic violence. The paper demonstrates the methodological value of mapping speculative scenarios during the ideation phase in the design process. The scenarios aim to encourage reflection, speculation, and debate about the potential consequences and ethical implications of emerging technologies. The paper proposes potential solutions that reimagine how applications can support healthy relationships by emphasizing transparency, consent, and trust-building. It highlights the need for awareness, empathy, and ethical design practices to ensure that smart homes promote the well-being and privacy of their occupants.

The aim of this paper is to explore how design can contribute to fostering the well-being of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in their home environment. We report on a single case study that involved an in-depth study of the lived experiences of a child with ASD and their family at home. This qualitative and exploratory research followed the principles of design ethnography, favouring naturalistic data collection that occurred in real-world settings. The results show that technical standards, guidelines, and best practices for interior spaces are important and often appropriate for general purpose. However, ASD manifests differently for different people and this means customised solutions are required. Designers do not always have the tools and time needed to devise solutions that are not only functional, but also suited to the individual needs of a person with ASD. The research described here thus contributes to informing best practices for designing home environments that are appropriate, safe, comfortable and, above all, that respect the privacy, individuality, and preferences of children with ASD and of their families.

The ever-changing digitally enabled world we live in requires preparing young creatives and entrepreneurs with more suitable abilities and set of skills to face the challenges of ongoing digital transformations. The Erasmus + funded project DC4DM aims to implement a human-centered educational model to train Digital Maturity Enablers. This new type of professionals would be able to drive small and medium organizations towards their digital maturity: owning specific creative digital skills, they would be able to extract value from what the technological landscape offers and respond to the human needs through the principles of ethics and sustainability.This paper aims to describe the DC4DM educational model and reflect on the experience of three testing sessions, called DM Learning Labs, 10-days design-led workshops involving a great diversity of university students, diverse for country of origin and study background, start-ups, and several local mentors and stakeholders to co-design compelling future tech-scenarios. The paper will present the results from a preliminary study which aims to understand how attending a DM Learning Lab has impacted on the participants. Particularly, to understand which Digital Creative Ability had developed thanks to the LLab experience and which learnings were consequently applied in new creative and co-design contexts. The paper tries to highlight how much the DC4DM methodology has the potential to change the way to educate future professionals through cross-disciplinary and collaborative learning opportunities.

Competitiveness has intensified among online retailers, leading organizations to seek new ways to maintain competitive advantage in products and services. The quality of customer service is considered a critical aspect for organizations, due to the impacts that have on the relationship with consumers, so it is important to study the antecedents and consequences of customer service quality. Therefore, this study identified customer service customization and customer service advertising as antecedents of customer service quality. As consequences of customer service quality, this research identified satisfaction, trust and loyalty. In this sense, this research collected a sample of 176 consumers of online shops of electronic products that sought to test the research hypotheses through the methodology PLS-PM (partial least squares - path model). In this context, this study identified that the quality of customer service promotes satisfaction and confinement of individuals leading them to have loyalty to the online shop. Moreover, brands should customize the service according to customer preferences and also advertisement.

The paper is relevant to the scope of design for wellness and the medical field. Specifically, the research presents a critical analysis of existing case studies, with and without patent, and the identification of minimum requirements for sports prosthetic systems suitable for amateur children’s swimming. Traditional design responds to the “standard user” concept, which penalizes and excludes part of the population. Instead, this research uses the Design for All approach: systemic, holistic, and necessarily multidisciplinary. Methodologically, the principles of Human-Centered Design (HCD) are adopted, focusing on the real users, directly involving them in the design process.Paper’s structure provides an overview of the research area and, in line with the chosen methodological approach, proceeds with the identification of end users, their needs, and requirements through a participatory process. Subsequently, the analysis of the relevant state of art and the ensuing deductions are conducted. State of art research has identified a deficiency in experimenting with devices for aquatic sports: non-performing and expensive, but functional for taking the initial step, particularly in swimming practice. Specifically, in light of the need for children with trans-radial agenesis to undergo water-based hydrotherapy, and recognizing that a suitable device can yield more significant physiotherapy’s results and a shorter acclimatization period in water, the necessity to design new prosthetic systems has been identified.

The changing demographic structure of the population has sparked increased interest in geriatric programs and industries. Among these concerns, the pressing matter of mitigating the cognitive load among the seniors within medical environments and guaranteeing their seamless and secure access to medical services through signage systems has emerged as an exigent issue. This study focuses on three comprehensive hospitals in Shanghai and is grounded in the cognitive load theory and the cognitive characteristics of the seniors. It employs literature analysis and qualitative research methods to investigate the design issues and improvement directions of medical signage systems for the seniors. The research findings reveal that the senior’s population generally experiences a higher cognitive load when using medical signage systems. This is primarily evidenced by difficulties in comprehending signage information and swiftly recognizing crucial details, highlighting deficiencies in signage system design. Accordingly, this study presents recommendations tailored to the senior’s population to reduce their cognitive load, enhance the overall usability, and improve the accuracy of medical signage systems. Additionally, this research offers insights and discussions regarding the application of cognitive load theory in the field of design.

Industrialisation and the rapid progression in automation and digitalization have supported the common use of tools and machines in everyday life and workplaces, especially in industrial environments. The paper proposes a critical-analytical investigation aimed at fostering reflections on Human Factors and Neuroergonomics concepts and approaches to improve human-machine interactions in the workplace and with the support of Neuroimaging technologies and metrics used to track the cognitive state of the user-operator. The primary objective was to identify the industrial sectors most exposed to psychosocial risks, in order to prefigure specifically adapted and highly contextualized solutions. Particular attention was given to the integration of wearable and smart devices, designed to amplify operator safety and to accurately monitor the user’s psychophysical state. By exploring and analysing the state of the art of existing wearable and intelligent devices, critical factors, functionalities, performance, innovative architectures and technologies from different industries emerged. The results of this work have allowed critical factors and opportunities to emerge that are useful in designing and developing work environments that are safe, efficient and focused on the well-being of operators.

Science communication is recognized as an increasingly relevant field within society because it allows for the communication of research results to non-specialized audiences, nurturing scientific literacy among citizens. In this landscape, the field of Design, especially design thinking, has been making valuable contributions by enhancing communication across various academic disciplines, making research findings more accessible to the wider public. The question is whether design can help to communicate academic design research within its own community, reaching out to design educators, students, and practitioners? Our paper explores this question through the description of an example in which two hallmarks of designerly ways of thinking - analogies and visual representation - are applied to communicate a scientific argument arising from academic design research. The selected example revolves around the concept of design research categories. Consequently, a secondary objective of our paper is to investigate the use of analogies and illustrations a means to elucidate the distinctions and subtleties among various categories of research in the field of design. The process itself allowed the authors to reflect not only on the utility of such tools to develop a new way of communication, but also to assist the work of multidisciplinary teams in communicating science.

Fashion and gender are two concepts that are deeply associated in today’s western societies. The idea that one can stand without the other seems preposterous but it might be closer to the norm than we think. We can say that gender(less) is still a counterculture within fashion, but what we argue is that fashion, in its essence, should be genderless. In the sense that, everyone should be able to wear whatever they identify with. Sadly, that’s not the case. Through imposed social and cultural norms, people are made to wear garments and accessories that quickly set them apart within the male/female binary. There is this assumption that we must be one or the other, and cross-dressing can be seen as an attempt to question our sexuality, which has nothing to do with gender nor gender identity or expression. In this paper, we are deconstructing what it means to go beyond the binary and challenge the norm with fashion as the catalyst.

Voting Advice Applications (VAA) are tools designed to help voters with their decision in an electoral process. These applications are generally based on a questionnaire structure and user responses. As a result, they provide a ranked list of parties or candidates that are closer to the voter’s political positions. In this paper we identify the two most used design methodologies for this kind of applications and discuss their limitations. Namely, the dependence that these approaches have on the prior existence and specialized analysis of proposals and manifestos of political candidates or parties. We conclude that these methodologies, focusing on future projections made by political agents, discard their past performance and, as such, are not suitable for countries where there are inconsistencies between political practice and the ideology propagated in electoral programs and manifestos. Therefore, this paper presents a VAA, Bom Partido (“Good Party”), which follows a retrospective methodological approach which is easy and accessible to replicate. Aimed at the Brazilian party-political context, this project is based on replacing the question “Which party/candidate proposals best correspond to my political positions?” by the question “Which party/candidate acted politically in the way that best corresponds to my political positions?”. Likewise, in addition to contributing to the critical study of VAA design methodologies, this project suggests a new design approach for these applications that potentially increases the reliability of its results and whose development method can be replicated step by step.

In line with the Next Generation EU recovery plan and with the Italian National Research Program (PNR) 21–27, the issue of inclusiveness in response to social inequalities and social exclusion is currently a topic of central importance, in addition and transversal to the issue of digital sustainability, because it is not possible to imagine a more sustainable world without asking the question of the knowledge necessary for the double sustainable and digital transition and their access. The topic of inclusiveness has roots that arise in the post-war period, as far as the West is concerned, and it is also a theme in continuous change and definition. Methodologies such as Design for All, Universal Design and Inclusive Design, that deal with the issue of inclusion, have undoubtedly provided the tools to address the issues of access to the knowledge-based society.This essay reports the experimentation, within the National PHD Course in “Design for Made in Italy: Identity, Innovation and Sustainability”, of a Cyber Physical System that connects knowledge and instruments in the key of open innovation matured and / or present in the Doctorate. In this context, the creation of a collaborative knowledge chain dedicated to Made in Italy represents a useful tool for strengthening the resilience and sustainability of the production system.

The contribution deals with the theme of the design of wearable and active devices, capable of communicating with the end user, mediators of the health condition and perceived and effective well-being of individuals.The state of the art on the subject highlights how the use of wearable devices in the field of e-health, capable of monitoring the biometric data of individuals, has grown. Nonetheless, these devices are used for limited periods of time, becoming – in fact – a sort of fad, or in any case a passing phenomenon. One therefore wonders whether it is possible to intervene on the design of this type of artefact, in such a way as to trigger a relational link between the object and the user, in order to increase the latter’s awareness of his/her health condition, with an impact relevant, with respect to the widespread quality of life, especially in cases in which one is confronted with more fragile sections of the population, in the presence of some pathological conditions, and for which monitoring of this type is therefore relevant.The approach used will make use of the analysis of the scientific literature and the state of the art of reference, useful for understanding the interest and relevance of the contribution, especially after a hybridization between knowledge and between different disciplinary areas of the design culture, namely that of digital design, communication design and data visualization, used to outline an innovative approach described in the contribution.

A mobile digital app development project involves several phases. This research developed in Learning Setting promoted an exploratory phase intending to promote greater reflexivity among students, where they can iteratively explore various codes and patterns of information. This research focuses on identifying design literacy elements that can guide the future development of a design proposal. In a design course learning setting, this paper focuses on developing an exploratory phase of a project for an app for the future Central Hospital of Alentejo (Portugal) . This Study aims to answer how a strategy combining a thematic analysis and an exploratory mapping contributes to reflexivity on solutions to explore in a project. The Study follows the methodologies of descriptive case study and thematic analysis. The results allowed the researchers to verify that using different mappings in the exploratory phases allows the students to exercise Reasoning in the context of the broader find patterns that surprise them and increase their Engagement with the project.

The Western diagrammatic system for musical notation, which represents notes and melodies through graphic forms on a five-line structure—the pentagram—is considered a universal language and is respected and followed by both formal music education and musicians around the world. It evolved from oral heritage into an intentional figurative system by which melodies could be sung and played for centuries. However, when we look at the accessibility of formal music education for children in first grade, between five (5) to seven (7) years of age—before reading age—it is easy to find gaps.We have analysed the main symbols of formal musical notation and conducted a comparative study of their structure and the relationship of musical graphic symbols to Design Principles, Sign Types and Peircean Semiotics. We also deconstructed a sheet of music to identify this graphic language’s positive and negative features in terms of Design Principles and its understanding by children up to seven years of age. When we consider children’s learning, we must additionally take into account the complexity of what is offered to the cognitive structure acquired up to that point. It can be concluded that formal music notation is quite complex and does not meet the need for simplicity that would promote children’s learning.By acknowledging children’s development stage and matching it with Design Principles, the results show that an adapted symbolic language can help the children to better understand the meaning of the musical symbols and make their translation easier and more effective.

The cultural heritage of rural communities is at risk as their populations age and their social and economic structures deteriorate. That is the case of Amiais, a small rural Portuguese village, in which only 15 inhabitants remain, mostly older adults. Therefore, the preservation of both tangible and intangible cultural heritage of these rural regions, such as Amiais, has become an urgent concern. ICT, and particularly virtual 3D worlds or metaverses, such as Second Life® (SL), have been playing an important role in this matter, offering new possibilities for enhancing and preserving culture and allowing people to learn about and experience culture in new and exciting ways. This paper describes the design and development of a simulation of Amiais village in SL (Amiais@SL), in which visitors can engage in gamified immersive cultural experiences, learn about the village and its cultural heritage, interact with virtual agents, and participate in cultural activities through different virtual tours and challenges.

We live in a time marked by significant changes brought about by the development of the Internet and digital publications, and, in this context, the newspaper is a medium that has undergone profound transformations. In a context marked by the speed of production and dissemination of news content, in which “news no longer sells newspapers”, we seek, through bibliographic research, to understand the evolution of the commercialisation of the Portuguese press – using statistical studies on the number of newspapers in circulation –, understand the differences and synergies between printed and digital newspapers, and lead a reflection on the role of the newspaper, in particular, the regional newspaper. Portugal is strongly marked by migratory dynamics from the interior to abroad and the country’s coast, which have determined the demographic depression of a large part of the territory. It is, above all, in these regions, where substantial slices of their communities depart, that regional newspapers assume a decisive role in the preservation of ties between the resident and migrant communities and in the perpetuation of their identity culture beyond the primary function of informing in an unbiased way.

Related research reports the occurrence of several million deaths annually due to the harmful effects of air pollution, whether environmental or domestic. To reduce the impact, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) investigation is increasingly a subject of utmost importance for mankind nowadays, since people spend most of their time indoors, where the pollution level is higher than outdoors. This work presents the design and development of an Internet-of-Things (IoT) based product for online IAQ assessment and mitigation, which included the design of three modular devices for IAQ management, where the following characteristics are studied and combined: (i) IAQ, (ii) energy efficiency, and (iii) human occupation. Based on the challenge of using IoT technologies, the design of a product case was put forward by taking advantage of the possibilities offered by these solutions as well as improving the relationship between a product function and its form. This article aims to explore a design thinking methodology to develop an organized product idea with the engineering area for an IoT device to monitor IAQ. With the interconnection of these technologies with the design, the goal is to respond to the user needs by applying a methodology able to support and sustain the design research focused on user requirements specified based upon the user perspective and highlighting the importance of multidisciplinary teams to establish a conceptual methodology.

This paper presents a case study aimed to explore the importance of chat GPT training in higher education sector. This paper introduces the definition of what is chat GPT and the role of this tool in education, especially in higher education. A training of the chat GPT tool was conducted in Santarém Politecnis by Nathan Hunter for the academic public. The training was part of the Erasmus Plus project “Predict: jobs of the future with ai 4 vet inclusion” that intends to tackle current and upcoming challenges related to the next generation workforce, mainly those finishing VET programs or found in other similar training scenarios. After the training a survey was distributed around the participants. Despite the limitations posed by the incomplete responses, the case study offers findings that contribute to understand participants preferences. The survey methodology encountered challenges that led to its incomplete status. These challenges included limited respondent engagement and time constraints. Future research can build upon this study by conducting a more comprehensive survey to validate and expand upon the findings presented here.

This article invites reflections on the design fieldwork practice as a process for connecting, relating and understanding complex social, natural, cultural and political systems, non-linear and interdependent visions about change at the root of many ecological issues. Through walking and talking with natural scientists in Madeira Island, we conducted a place-based inquiry that aimed to understand site-specific problems and opportunities to recount biological and cultural aspects of its peculiar forests. We used a fieldwork approach as embodied contextual analysis for amplifying the unique aspects, connecting ecological controversies, and bridging local efforts that cross both natural science and design. This contribution wants to present the place-based research project we conducted and specifically the walking interview process method we used to outline collaborative visions of development.

As the economy and culture continue to evolve, the fusion of culture and tourism has given rise to innovative cultural experiential destinations, offering consumers abundant cultural contact and aesthetic experiences. This study centers on the Songdu Huangcheng Cultural Tourism Resort as its focal point and seeks to delve into the concept of regional culture, propose a structural framework for regional culture, and explore the relationship between regional culture and guide. Using the methods of K-means clustering for color extraction, CIE 1931 XYZ color difference calculations, as well as observational and graphical techniques, this paper analyzes the regional culture of cultural tourism areas in different places and the color, graphics, and typeface of the wayfinding signs, and draws a conclusion that the wayfinding signs show the law of regional culture mainly through material culture and spiritual culture. Subsequently, this framework is applied to the analysis of guide signage within the Song Dynasty Imperial City Tourist Resort, considering the distinctive regional cultural characteristics of Kaifeng city, recommendations for improvements to the guide signage are presented. Through the optimization of wayfinding sign designs, regional cultural characteristics can be better conveyed, and tourists’ guiding experience and cultural awareness can be enhanced. This endeavor holds profound implications for the sustainable development of tourist resorts and serves as a valuable reference for other comparable cultural tourism destinations.

Innovative primary education structures and teaching strategies are in high demand in order to develop children’s critical thinking and it is provoked by the importance of applicable and sustainable solutions. Therefore, an advanced children’s book design is an impactful tool for improving some aspects of building a harmonious and well-balanced child with high social standards. The non-linear narrative technique is increasingly popular in primary education but can be challenging for young readers to understand and engage with. While non-linear storytelling could offer children more advanced experiences, such as emotional impact, or stimulate their creativity and imagination, it is unclear how such interventions would be perceived by children. This study is to explore how children react and respond to books with non-linear narratives.Using an inductive research method, we conducted a tentative storytelling session with the experimental book ‘Chandra-Padma’ to evaluate and identify a set of themes and patterns and the impact of a child’s engagement and response to a non-linear storybook. A pilot test (n = 20) was carried out in a selected primary school with ages 8–10 children, and we collected preference data with the ‘Chandra-Padma’ book. A thematic analysis was adopted to identify significant relationships and their meanings. Results indicate that while the familiar narrative structure- linear book structure is well-rated, the non-linear narrative structure is a viable alternative. Yet, our findings of the research suggest that the use of a non-linear narrative structure can significantly improve children’s motivation to engage and react to the book in different ways. With this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of the non-linear narrative structure in ‘Chandra-Padma’ book and serve procedures for future non-linear content creators on how to understand and apply non-linear narrative strategies to children’s stories and think outside of the traditional structure of children’s books.

Kimchi is a food made by picking and fermenting vegetables such as cabbage and radish using a variety of seasonings, such as chili powder, green onion, garlic, ginger and fish sauce. In order to increase the sales of kimchi products in the New York market, as well as to meet the consumer preferences of New York consumers. Therefore, this study investigates consumer preferences for kimchi packaging design in the New York market and proposes a design strategy for target consumers in New York, USA. The study used both literature and empirical research methods. It investigated the package design of 10 kimchi brands and empirically analyzed package design factors such as color, font, size and layout of kimchi products sold in the New York market to 100 New York men and women aged 10–50. Finally, the study analyzed the differences in consumer preferences and suggested corresponding design strategies. Manufacturers and designers should first focus on package color and package format. Small, irregular packages of 350g and 80g, and package formats such as glass bottles and plastic tubs are key points. Low-saturation and soft beige colors are preferred, followed by product-identifying reds. Mixed language typography is best suited to the needs of New York consumers. And realistic images should be the main focus in package design. We believe that kimchi products are going global. Packaging kimchi products requires adapting to local market requirements. Designers should pay attention to the localization of kimchi products and develop design strategies accordingly.

Established business houses, start-ups, government agencies, etc., in the modern commercial world rely heavily upon their advertisement content for their brand imaging and subsequent commercial success. Advertisement content helps them to connect with their potential customers. A good advertisement must convey the intended message to the user and be exciting, engaging, and immersive. Effective use of visual metaphors in advertisement creation plays a vital role in this direction. Well-thought and rigorously imbibed visual metaphors in an advertisement enhance its usability and comprehensibility. Visual Metaphor Studies (VMS) are employed to identify and assess the visual metaphors used and their associated cognitive human response that depicts the engaging power of the advertisement under observance. While conducting VMS, there lie several challenges with respect to having access to choose proper advertisement for further study purposes, viz. Copyright issues, paucity of adequate advertisement material, etc. As such, there lies a dire need to design and develop one’s own advertisement based on various visual metaphors in several unique combinations. Such proxy/mock advertisements can help the researcher to have adequate cognitive human responses from the intended user population to the stimulus used within those. Such responses help the researcher assess the advertisement’s usability and comprehensibility. In this paper, the researchers have demonstrated ‘how to design and create a mock advertisement for cognitive response evaluation for prospective VMS.’ This paper thus can act as a ready reckoner for visual creators, graphic designers, and researchers to design mock advertisements and predict their usability by conducting VMS.

This article focuses on the development of an internship that took place in the master’s degree in design at the School of Media Arts and Design of the Poly-technic Institute of Porto with the company Sika, which is focused on the construction market.The objective of this internship was to create visual solutions for innovative purposes, including 3D design and communication design projects.In this essay, we examine part of the visual results of this Master in Design internship, attempting to debate them within the context of visual identity standards’ constraints as means to, not only guide and push further the creativity of an internship design student but also, as a means to reflect on the process of broadening the academic capabilities of a design student into the professional realm. The design internship served to rethink the company’s internal functions and self-image. Methodologically, an experimental and empirical study was carried out utilizing design methodologies. Following that, visuals were created to clarify the functions and locations inside the departments of this global corporation’s main building in Portugal. The results, which have a cohesive language, respecting Sika’s visual identity, were well received by the corporate team and respond in a unified manner and as a method of grasping the intricacy of the company’s structure while offering a larger sense of connection to the full in-house workforce.

In the early stages of teaching graphic design, in addition to the typographic rules, it is essential to train for the mastery of spatial composition and typographic expressivity. In this context – using the methodology of critical literature review – it seems vital to focus on the various manifestations that, throughout the history of graphic design, assumed the word as expressive matter – namely, visual poetry, Futurism, Dadaism, and Postmodernism. Furthermore, besides establishing this historical compilation, we also reflect on the factors that influence the expressive character of typography, trying to identify a set of fundamental principles to transmit in initial education in graphic design. Finally, we also seek to critically reflect on an exercise of an initial training course in graphic design that addresses the topics mentioned, pointing out suggestions for improvement to enhance the applicability of the knowledge extracted from the exercise to works of greater complexity.

In today’s digital age, consumers are inundated with an overwhelming amount of brand information. Effective visual identity design that can convey a brand’s value and information to its audience and promote interaction between consumers and the brand is crucial. Image schema in cognitive psychology are a type of analogical or metaphorical thinking pattern that can help people understand complex concepts and information, making them valuable for design research. This article aims to explore the relationship between image schema and visual identity design, with the goal of opening up new directions for research in the field. The paper argues that by understanding the image schema that support people’s perceptions of the world and incorporating them into visual identity design, designers can create visual metaphors that resonate with people’s underlying cognitive frameworks, resulting in more attractive and memorable brand identities. To verify this viewpoint, test experiments were conducted in this study. The test results have shown that, compared with designs that do not conform to the image schema theory, designs that conform to this theory are more effective in conveying information to consumers. This proves that using image schema in visual identity design can convey certain abstract information and have a positive effect on attracting audiences.

The constant metamorphoses and challenges created by new media and its language led to visual identities playing a crucial role in creating emotions and establishing strong bonds with the audiences. Therefore, a brand’s visual identity is increasingly imperative for its communication and strategic success. To better understand the current implications of new media in visual identities, a systematic literature review was carried out via SCOPUS database and grounded on PRISMA as method. As a result, this analysis highlights scientific contributions with origin in Anglo-Saxon countries and China. Four main themes were identified: user experience, user behaviour, visual/sensorial communication, and globalisation. It was also found that the term “multi” was often present (e.g., multi-experiences and multi-channels). In conclusion, it became clear that research on this topic is very limited and that there is room for much to be done. Understanding the value of the new media in a brand's visual identity (namely artificial intelligence) may open new avenues of research, creation, and development of digital and dynamic identities, and of emotional relationships—which may arguably become crucial for the sustainability and future of brands in the hybrid spheres of reality that lie ahead.

There has been an exponential growth in supermarket e-commerce services in recent years. Delivery services, due to their peculiarities and requirements, are causing a significant increase in single-use plastics. Given the pollution caused by excessive plastic waste, solutions must be created to minimize the consumption of single-use plastics.The main goal of this case study is to propose a new stage in the supermarket e-commerce services, replacing single-use plastic used for transporting orders with reusable products with high longevity.Mixed methods were applied for this research including analysis of packaging methods in Portuguese supermarkets, analysis of effective delivery solutions from supermarkets worldwide as well as participant observation of the picking process in one of the Continente warehouses. Intrinsic problems were identified that compromise the service effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability.A set of components was designed to adapt to the equipment used by Continente and other national and international supermarkets and stores. This set is capable of reconciling, organizing, and protecting the ordered products, eliminating the need for plastic transport bags and other single-use elements used for preservation purposes. The conjunction of designers, engineers, and specialists in the elastomers and thermoplastics industry, as well as the support from experienced operations employees of the e-commerce service, make this proposal evidence of an adequate solution, capable of being mass-produced at low costs, providing significant improvements to the service.

Modular stencil systems have long been an important part of the typographer’s toolset and, more recently, have experienced a resurgence as part of typography teaching toolkits. Constant advances in fast prototyping and manufacturing technologies, combined with ongoing research on their history and development, may further popularize these tools on educational and creative settings.Their classification, for evaluation and comparison purposes, is paramount to their successful implementation on those settings, and the complexity and variety of their corpus, on account of their modules being tailored to typography and lettering and offering levels of flexibility comparable to those found in cutting-edge variable typefaces, necessarily follows that of the contemporary typographic corpus.As such, we propose the repurposing of extant advanced typographic taxonomy systems, namely those especially tailored for modular, geometric and variable typography. These are already based on a fine-grained understanding of typographic anatomy, and include categories, such as those related to grids and to module variety and shapes, also particularly relevant to stencil systems.In order to tackle the complexity of these stencil systems, we follow a theoretical approach, through a non-interventionist methodology of qualitative research, via literature review and case study analysis, selecting these cases based on their current and immediate commercial availability and/or potential licensing options, and their grounding on ongoing or recently published research.

This article focuses on collaborative practice 2022 between the academy, with a 3rd-year un-dergraduate student in Communication Design from Porto Lusófona University (UL), his De-sign professor and a publishing company – Book Cover.The author of the selected illustrations and student, Joel Maia, was asked to design illustrations for 14 book covers in the Jules Verne Collection. The covers were featured in two Portuguese newspapers, Jornal de Notícias in Porto and Diário de Notícias in Lisbon, over 14 weekends. Later, the covers were available in bookstores and at the Lisbon and Porto Book Fair.The article is divided into four main parts: introduction, literature review, collaborative practice methodology and final considerations. This pedagogical practice proved to be a valuable opportunity for several reasons, – financial support to the selected student and strong motivation for them to continue and complete their studies within a supervised and supportive framework; an opportunity to keep the student engaged and provide valuable skills for the job market, enhance his portfolio, offer an opportunity for recognition, visibility and foster creativity and innovation. Moreover, allows a close relationship between teacher, student and client, nurturing a collaborative learning environment like a design studio to learn through real-life projects. The publisher capitalized on the student's availability within the specified timeframe and obtained 14 highly creative illustrations, significantly reducing their workload. This partnership proved to be a great example of a co-creation initiative that resulted in successful outcomes. Finally, it benefits everyone involved and demonstrates the potential for collaboration to equip students and promote participation in innovative practices by creating a dynamic, vibrant, and enriching learning environment.

This study employs a research approach that combines qualitative and quantitative methods, utilizing the three dimensions of emotional design as analytical tools to analyzes the packaging design of melatonin gummies from ten prominent brands available in the United States, Australia, and Brazil. Subsequently, delves into the exploration section, aiming to comprehend, evaluate, and quantify the dimensions of design. Specific recommendations are provided for various aspects of melatonin gummy packaging design, including color schemes, element selection, and opening mechanisms. The aim of this paper is to offer novel design foundations and an evaluation framework for melatonin gummy packaging. Based on the analysis and research findings, it identifies patterns in the graphical and color elements of current melatonin gummy packaging designs. The analysis illustrates how brands leverage emotional design across three dimensions to evoke associations with sleep, providing a suitable emotional experience. This paper aims to underscore the empathy embedded in design and guide the direction of future iterations of melatonin gummy packaging.

Alcântaras, as the name suggests (bridge, in Arabic), proposes the creation of bridges that connect dispersed temporalities and technologies, but with the same matrix: territoriality and shared ethnicity. A certain State of Nature of living matters that demands, more than an opposition to the Rule of Law, a certain Ecology of Knowledge. A palm tree in the wind, music that spreads in the tidal breeze, by connecting image and sound, ancestral and emerging technologies, nature and culture, body and sound, we want to show the sound that emerges from the wind and the images heard by light, both in ethereal vibrational movement. Alcântara, in Maranhão, Brazil, which was once the scene of the commercial development of cotton crops, today pulses with reggae sound systems and Creole drums coming from the quilombola communities that were created during and after the end of the colonial era. Such communities are spaces of resistance and maintenance of very refined practices of a cultural framework that involves religiosity, art and life, and body politics.This essay reflects on the process that permeates this artistic investigation, by revealing sparkling/sound excerpts from a strong amalgam of black culture, hidden in a recess on the coast of Maranhão, which find in the reunion of the visions of a collective of artists and at the intersection of their practices, a unique and unrepeatable synthesis.

Performance has changed from a transgressive function to an artistic genre among others. This happened not only because the socio-cultural environment changed but also because conceptions of the body changed with contact with the technology itself.As a result, performance has become a crossroads of artistic disciplines, where unconventional dialogues converge in the desire to embark on an experiment that integrates the performer with an intertextual, multisensory, technological and experiential approach to the event. In this context, audio-visual performances are characterised by the incorporation of alternative aesthetics and technological advances, moving away from the traditional focus on the performer's body and expanding into other media, especially sound and images.In addition to this expansion into other media, live performance is co-constructed by the physical presence of performers and spectators. The performative moments can have a transformative effect as spectators experience the materiality of a live performance as an ephemeral event. This materiality of the ephemeral can also be achieved by incorporating technological means during the performative moment, thus reinforcing a performativity of sound and image in which sound and image negotiate their meaning.In this essay, therefore, we will explore how live audio-visual performances have the capacity to stimulate new interpretations of artworks and generate a sense of presence through technological mediation, based on a series of artistic practices and audio-visual performative moments.

As society advances and changes, so do its perceptions and behaviours. The quality of a product or service and its price are no longer the only determining factors in the purchase decision. It is increasingly evident in the consumer's search for brands that match their values. Thus, storytelling emerges as a persuasive technique that excels in the transmission of emotional narratives that arouse feelings in the consumer. In this sense, this study aims to understand the influence of audiovisual storytelling on the behavior of higher education students: in their consumption practices and their perceptions of brand awareness. The study of a quantitative nature made use of a questionnaire survey that obtained answers from 92 students at the School of Education of Viseu, belonging to the 3 years of the Degree in Advertising and Public Relations, the Degree in Social Communication and the Degree in Plastic Arts and Multimedia. The results obtained allow us to understand that, in its generality, audiovisual storytelling exerts a positive influence on the young consumer, having a relevant role in their consumption practices and generating trust and identification with the brands. The analysed data seem to indicate that the use of this technique leads to the attribution of meaning to the brand, leading, consequently, to an increase of notoriety in the consumer's perception.

Bilingual videos in Brazilian Sign Language/Portuguese are intended to provide access to information for deaf users through accessibility features such as captions and simultaneous translation. However, recent research has highlighted the potential benefits of incorporating visual stimuli and strategies, such as symbols, illustrations, icons, pictograms, and animations, to enhance information representation and facilitate content understanding for this user group. Accordingly, this study aims to analyze a bilingual video with a user-centered focus on accessibility features for deaf users. The methodological procedures involved a thorough literature review on user-centered design for the deaf, followed by a field analysis on YouTube to identify the most suitable video for investigation. The selected video was evaluated by the researchers using a model for assessing the design of bilingual educational resources, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with two deaf users to elicit their perceptions of the video’s accessibility features. The results revealed that the accessibility features, such as captions and simultaneous translation, were deemed sufficient for users to comprehend the information presented. However, feedback from the participants suggested potential areas for improvement in the layout and organization of the video to enhance its accessibility. The findings of this study have implications for the design of bilingual educational resources and the development of user-centered approaches to enhance accessibility for the deaf community.

There has been an increasing number, development, and availability of platforms choices to prototype electroacoustic instruments in the last decade. This demonstrates a growing interest in physical computing among the “technological-music” community. Bela and Daisy are nowadays among the most popular and widespread platforms specifically developed for out-of-the-box music technology purposes. Each of these platforms has its own unique features, capabilities, and community, providing options for different preferences and requirements and exhibiting an increasing adaptability in terms of computer music languages. This raises the question: which one is the ideal to develop an electroacoustic instrument? In this article, we present an overview of these platforms, among others that have been used since 2000, from the viewpoint of the performer-luthier at the development stage for an electroacoustic instrument to perform music in the wilderness. In addition, based on a specific project the authors are developing, we propose some design guidelines which considers the musical and technological possibilities and implications of these platforms.

The co-streaming technique is emerging as a new form of digital consumption in e-sports. Its latest major appearance corresponds to the development of the technique in the League of Legends World Cup 2022, through different content creators selected by language. In fact, its importance is beginning to expand to other entertainment industries such as in the premiere of the animated series ‘Arcane’, or in the audiovisual exploitation of the novel and media phenomenon of the ‘Kings League’. The positioning of content creators as a key figure in simultaneous and parallel retransmissions to the main ones, has become a strategy for generating and exploiting audiences. Given its success and expansion, this article aims to relate this novel form of consumption with its first manifestations, which had been developed with a community character and which were produced in a rudimentary way, without showing images and only providing synchronization tools to the community of viewers. In this way, a concrete classification of these manifestations can be established, in order to delimit, differentiate and rename the co-streaming phenomenon.

The widespread adoption of electric vehicles presents an opportunity to reduce the contribution of road traffic to noise pollution. However, concerns have been raised about the increased danger that quieter vehicles pose to other road users, as they may be less detectable. To address these concerns, Acoustic Vehicle Alerting Systems (AVAS) are currently legally mandatory in many parts of the U.S. and Europe. However, the addition of noise from AVAS has sparked controversy regarding missed opportunities for a quieter environment. To mitigate this, various researchers have developed and evaluated concepts for a directional sound source to be used in AVAS, which could address the issue of detectability while minimizing noise pollution. This work reviews the existing literature on vehicle directional alerting concepts and evaluate their effectiveness in the particularly concerning case of a shared zone closed car park, using an acoustic simulation model. Sound levels are measured for scenarios with directional AVAS and conventional AVAS (non-directional).