Written by Shuhan (Sisi) Wang

Algorithmic literacy is often framed as a technical skill, the ability to understand how search engines or social media feeds function behind the scenes. Yet algorithms do far more than sort information; they shape what news we encounter, which products we consider, and how we interpret the world around us. For many older adults, the opacity of these systems turns everyday digital interactions — like scrolling through headlines, watching videos or verifying information — into moments of uncertainty. The February 2026 Conversation Series from the Center for Design, titled Algorithmic Literacy and Design for Older Adults, addressed this growing concern by reframing literacy not simply as technical knowledge but as a matter of dignity and design ethics.

The conversation, moderated by Paolo Ciuccarelli, brought together Myojung Chung and Miso Kim to explore how aging intersects with algorithmic systems that increasingly shape everyday digital experiences. Drawing on research in media literacy, the speakers pushed back against deficit-based assumptions that frame older adults as inherently less capable with technology. Instead, they introduced a more nuanced perspective: while younger users often overestimate their understanding of how algorithms work, older adults tend to underestimate their own knowledge. This gap in confidence, rather than ability alone, reframes how we understand digital inequality. From this perspective, algorithmic literacy is not simply about teaching technical skills, but about addressing issues of confidence and participation. It is both an educational concern and a broader ethical design challenge.

The Algorithmic Knowledge Gap and Aging

As algorithmic systems increasingly shape how information is distributed and consumed, a critical gap has emerged in how different age groups understand these systems. Kim and Chung presented existing research that highlights the age is one of the strongest predictors of algorithmic knowledge, revealing a growing divide that extends beyond simple access to technology. While earlier discussions of the “digital divide” focused on whether individuals could access devices or use basic digital tools, this conversation emphasized a deeper layer: the ability to understand how platforms curate and prioritize content.

Focusing on studies in media literacy, Myojung Chung introduced the concept of an algorithmic knowledge gap, where older adults, on average, demonstrate lower familiarity with how algorithms operate in everyday contexts such as social media feeds or search results. However, this gap is not solely about a lack of knowledge. Instead, it is closely tied to differences in confidence and self-perception. Younger users often report high levels of confidence in their understanding of algorithms, even when their actual knowledge is limited. In contrast, older adults tend to underestimate their understanding, leading to hesitation or reduced engagement with digital platforms.

This imbalance between perceived and actual knowledge reframes the issue of digital inequality. Rather than viewing older adults as simply lacking skills, the discussion suggests that the problem lies in calibration — the alignment between what individuals think they know and what they actually know. As a result, addressing the algorithmic knowledge gap requires more than simply providing information. It calls for approaches that build confidence, encourage critical awareness and support older adults in navigating algorithm-driven environments with greater agency.

Why Do We See & What We See?

To understand the significance of algorithmic literacy, it is essential to first examine how algorithmic systems shape our everyday digital experiences. Platforms like social media, search engines and content feeds do not present information neutrally; instead, they rely on algorithms that prioritize content based on user behavior and engagement patterns. What users see is often the result of complex personalization processes designed to maximize attention, rather than to provide a balanced view of information.

As discussed during the conversation, these systems operate largely in the background, making their influence difficult to recognize. Myojung Chung emphasized that many users are aware that algorithms exist, but lack a clear understanding of how they function in practice. For example, content that generates more clicks, likes or shares is more likely to be promoted, regardless of its accuracy or reliability. Over time, this can create highly curated information environments that reinforce existing preferences and limit exposure to diverse perspectives.

This raises important questions about awareness. If users do not fully understand why certain content appears in their feeds, their ability to critically evaluate information becomes constrained. For older adults in particular, this opacity can make it more difficult to distinguish between organic content and algorithmically-promoted material. As a result, developing algorithmic literacy involves not only recognizing that these systems exist, but also understanding the underlying logic that shapes what we see, and just as importantly, what we do not see.

Redefining Independence for Older Adults

Discussions of technology and aging often assume that independence should be the primary goal, that better tools will allow older adults to function with less reliance on others. However, the conversation challenged this assumption by introducing a more nuanced understanding of autonomy. Rather than equating independence with complete self-sufficiency, Miso Kim emphasized the concept of relational autonomy, where individuals make decisions within networks of support, care and social connection.

By sharing examples from service design research, the panelists highlighted how older adults often value guidance and collaboration rather than isolation. Whether navigating digital platforms, managing health-related decisions or participating in community spaces, support systems play a critical role in enabling meaningful engagement. In this context, autonomy is not diminished by assistance; instead, it is strengthened by it. Designing for older adults, therefore, requires moving beyond the idea of “independence at all costs” and toward systems that respect dignity while providing appropriate support.

This perspective has important implications for algorithmic literacy. If algorithms increasingly mediate decision making, from what information to trust to what services to access, then designing for autonomy cannot mean simply leaving individuals to navigate these systems alone. Instead, it calls for thoughtful design that acknowledges interdependence, supports informed decision-making and creates environments where older adults can engage with technology confidently and on their own terms.

Algorithmic Care or Algorithmic Control?

As algorithmic systems become more embedded in our everyday lives, they are often framed as a tool of convenience that recommends content, simplifies decisions and shortens daily tasks. In this case, algorithms can appear to function as a form of “care,” anticipating user needs and reducing effort. However, as discussed during the event, this convenience introduces a critical tension: the same systems that support users can also shape and limit their choices in subtle but powerful ways.

Myojung Chung highlighted that most platforms are designed to maximize engagement, meaning that the content users see is prioritized not for accuracy but for its ability to capture attention. While this can make digital experiences feel personalized and efficient, it can also lead to increasingly narrow information environments. Over time, users may be exposed to a limited range of perspectives without fully realizing how their feeds are being curated.

This raises an important ethical question: when does algorithmic assistance become a form of control? For elders, who may already feel less confident navigating digital systems, this lack of transparency can further complicate their ability to make informed decisions. At the same time, some audiences in the discussion noted that algorithmic recommendations can feel helpful, especially when they reduce cognitive load or provide relevant information quickly. This dual nature highlights the complexity of algorithmic systems — they are neither purely beneficial nor entirely harmful.

Understanding this tension is important to algorithmic literacy. It requires recognizing that algorithms can both support and constrain user agency. Designing for older adults, therefore, is not about removing algorithms altogether, but about creating systems that are more transparent and aligned with users’ long-term well-being rather than short-term engagements.

Co-Designing Algorithmic Literacy for Seniors

As the discussion moved toward solutions, a key takeaway was that algorithmic literacy cannot be effectively addressed through one-size-fits-all interventions. Instead of designing tools for older adults based on assumptions, the speakers emphasized the importance of designing with them through co-design approaches. This shift recognizes older adults not as passive recipients of technology but as active contributors with valuable experiences.

During the research process, a notable finding emerged when participants expressed little interest in using yet another app to improve their digital literacy. This response challenged conventional solution-driven thinking and highlighted the limitations of purely technological fixes. As Miso Kim discussed, effective interventions may instead take the form of community-based learning or interactive workshops that foster both understanding and confidence. These approaches acknowledge that learning is social and contextual, rather than purely individual or technical.

Co-designing algorithmic literacy also aligns with the broader idea of relational autonomy. By involving older adults directly in the design process, these initiatives can better address their needs, preferences and concerns, while also reinforcing a sense of agency. Rather than aiming to create complete technical mastery, the goal becomes helping individuals develop a clearer awareness of how algorithmic systems influence their experiences and how they can navigate those systems more intentionally. In this way, co-design serves not only as a method but also as a framework for building more inclusive and effective approaches to algorithmic literacy.

Interested in learning more? Watch the event recording:

CAMD Moderator:

Paolo Ciuccarelli: Founding Director of the Center for Design; Professor of Art + Design in CAMD

Speakers:

Myojung Chung: Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Innovation in CAMD; Researcher in Digital Media, Misinformation and AI

Miso Kim: Associate Professor of Art + Design in CAMD; Researcher in Service Design, Experience Design, Healthcare Design and Legal Design

Join us! #CenterForDesign

️📩 centerfordesign@northeastern.edu
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Algorithmic Literacy and Design for Older Adults was originally published in Center for Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A panel at Northeastern’s Design Research Week 2026 revealed productive tensions about text interfaces, creative friction, and whether AI even knows what visualization is.

On March 19, 2026, the Center for Design at Northeastern University hosted “Data Visualization in the Age of AI”, a hybrid panel bringing together researchers and practitioners to examine how AI is reshaping visual practice. The event was part of Design Research Week 2026, an annual series exploring how design operates as a research driver across disciplines.

I realized this was the fourth consecutive panel we organized on this topic. In 2023, the conversation was broad, on AI and design methods at large. By 2024, we’d narrowed to ask first where data visualization fits in an AI-driven world (Spring 2024), then we focused on generative AI’s capabilities for visualization (Fall 2024, video recording here) . This year, the framing shifted again: AI not as a tool to master, but as a presence to negotiate. The session aimed to create space for reflecting on how visual practices may be shifting, bending, or resisting this new form of automation and intelligence.

I hosted the panel as director of the Center for Design, with Enrico Bertini, Associate Professor with a joint appointment between Khoury College of Computer Sciences and the College of Arts, Media and Design and author of the FILWD newsletter, moderating and co-organizing.

The panel was deliberately assembled for complementary perspectives, and it worked on that sense:

Richard Brath, Partner at Uncharted Software where he has spent over two decades building interactive analytics and data visualization systems. His background in architecture informs how he thinks about design spaces, and his book Visualizing with Text (2021) argues for treating text as a first-class citizen in visualization, a thesis he’s been extending through intensive experimentation with LLMs on his blog.

Fritz Lekschas, Founding Research Engineer at Ridge AI, building AI-native visualization dashboard tools. Fritz holds a PhD in Computer Science from Harvard, with a background in bioinformatics and a track record of award-winning open-source visualization systems including HiGlass and Jupyter Scatter.

Angie Boggust, PhD candidate at MIT CSAIL in the Visualization Group, advised by Arvind Satyanarayan. Her research focuses on human-AI alignment, not by making models more similar to humans, but by designing interfaces that let people see and negotiate model representations. An Apple Scholar in AI/ML, her work on Shared Interest and Abstraction Alignment has been recognized at CHI and ACL.

Melanie Tory, Director of Human Data Interaction Research at the Roux Institute (Northeastern University, Portland), Professor of the Practice across Khoury and CAMD. Before Northeastern, she managed the applied research team at Tableau Software, where her work on natural language interaction with visualizations became the Ask Data feature. She collaborates with Enrico and Shani Spivak on conversational analytics systems.

Each panelist gave a 10-minute presentation, followed by a moderated discussion and audience Q&A. What follows is a synthesis of the key themes that emerged, biased by my personal interest on the limits of current human (designer)-AI interaction paradigms.

The text-only interface as a fundamental bottleneck

This was one of the sharpest thread running through the panel. I made this point during the discussion: you can sketch a novel visualization, a Frankenstein (yes, not the best term) combination of, say, a flow chart on a map, with some bar charts on top, faster than you can describe it to an AI. The gap between visual imagination and verbal articulation may become a productivity trap.

Melanie picked this up directly, naming the structural problem: we’re collapsing all of our input into a one-dimensional text channel, and that’s limiting. Her proposed direction was multimodal input : sketch something, feed it in, point at the screen and say “change this bit, but leave the rest alone.”

The implication is that the current chat paradigm isn’t just inconvenient, it just doesn’t architecturally match how designers think. Design cognition is spatial, parallel, and compositional. Text is sequential and requires decomposition into descriptions of something that may not yet have a name (that’s me, again).

The center-of-distribution problem

As Richard put it, if you don’t formulate your prompt carefully, the statistical machine goes to the center of the distribution. He noted this creates a paradox: you need domain expertise to push AI toward novelty, but if someone doesn’t come from a visualization background at all, they don’t have the expertise to formulate the question to create something novel.

Fritz seconded this: if you don’t know the details, you don’t know how to ask AI, and then it gives you the statistical average. He added that LLMs still lack a world model, so the novel idea still comes very much from a human. What AI does give you is speed: you can test ideas faster, and by testing ideas faster, you might arrive at something novel faster. But it remains bound to your imagination.

This has direct implications for democratization claims. Fritz demonstrated how Ridge AI generates interactive dashboards in under a minute (!) from a text prompt, and how natural language interfaces dramatically reduce the learning curve for complex tools like genome browsers. The implementation bottleneck collapses. But the design bottleneck, like knowing what to ask for, exercising taste and judgment, becomes the true scarce resource.

AI doesn’t know what it doesn’t know about visualization

I pushed harder than the other panelists on this point: I’ve been trying extensively to extract what AI knows about data visualization by prompting across multiple models, and my experience is that it doesn’t even know all the options that are already available to represent data. Not to mention anything original; it can’t reproduce the existing repertoire of representation techniques.

Richard pushed back, arguing that AI has real power in lateral thinking and transfer learning, connecting, say, physics force diagrams to high-dimensional political concept mapping. It can make those connections across disciplinary boundaries in ways that are genuinely useful for design exploration.

My counter was that AI may help imagine a connection, but not the artifact itself. The general models have a knowledge of data visualization that is biased toward a certain, limited idea of what the field is, and it’s probably not the one a designer has in mind. This mirrors what happens in other design domains: a model trained to classify fashion items by computer science students embeds a particular understanding of fashion that may have little to do with how fashion designers actually think about their work. Something I’ll continue to investigate.

Misalignment as a feature

Angie reframed the whole alignment question: Rather than making AI more similar to humans, she argued that misalignment is productive. The panel itself was her example: we all share a baseline interest in AI and visualization, but different backgrounds and perspectives are precisely what makes the conversation interesting. If everyone gave the same talk, you’d be out of here.

Her research showed that when dermatologists could visually compare their reasoning against an AI model’s feature attribution maps, seeing where a model looked on a skin image versus where they looked, they didn’t want to discard the model. They adapted their interaction strategies and, critically, gained a vocabulary to discuss what they want with their model vendor. Before, they could only say “I want my model to work.” After, they had concrete examples of divergent reasoning and could set tolerance thresholds.

Her more interesting claim: AI representations can reveal flaws not in the model but in our own knowledge systems. Working with the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases, her team found that the most commonly applied medical codes were “unspecified” categories, technically valid in the knowledge graph but guaranteed to trigger insurance claim denials. The model wasn’t doing anything wrong; the human classification system wasn’t reflective of how it was actually being used.

She framed visualization as the communication medium that makes this reconciliation possible, and pushed for interfaces that expose the knowledge and reasoning a model reflects, rather than hiding it behind a chatbot’s text output.

From laborers to supervisors

Melanie historicized the entire discussion. From agriculture to manufacturing to visualization, she argued, the pattern is the same: humans move from being primarily laborers to supervisors of increasingly capable machinery. AI is just one more step along a trajectory we’ve been on for centuries. I’m personally skeptical on comparing AI to any previous technology, but didn’t have the opportunity to argument.

Her key point: being a supervisor demands specific skills we aren’t systematically building, like defining problems, setting goals, giving feedback, maintaining accountability, exercising judgment. The “AI bloopers” at the end of her talk (a double tractor with the guy driving backwards, and a Claude-generated visualization that wasn’t really good, served as her punchline: another job above the supervisor is to recognize when your employee just isn’t cutting it.

For education, this suggests a shift toward more theory, less mechanical practice (with Enrico cheering on that!). If AI handles the coding, then understanding visual variables, human perception, and design principles (the course I’m currently teaching at Northeastern!) becomes more important, not less, because those are the things that enable you to supervise effectively and to push back when the output is mediocre.

Practical strategies

The discussion of tactics for working with AI revealed more divergence than consensus:

Richard advocated asking AI to surface its open questions before implementing anything, getting it to articulate what it sees as underspecified in your request, so you catch misunderstandings before they’re baked into code.

Fritz argued, counterintuitively, for withholding your own preferences to avoid anchoring the model. As soon as you drop a hint, the statistical model narrows toward the most common answer near that hint. If you don’t include your initial options, you often get better, more diverse responses.

Angie cautioned against letting AI generate high-fidelity output too early. You ask for a dog and suddenly you have a full rendering with decided breed, color, background, and lighting, and then you have design fixation, because you’re anchored to that specific realization. She works through her own thinking with AI before ever generating a visualization.

Melanie noted that specialized, pipelined collections of models outperform a single model asked to build the whole visualization pipeline; a finding echoed by Fritz, who said the more you chop your problem into small pieces, the better AI handles them.

On quality assurance, Fritz described a hard architectural constraint at Ridge AI: the system doesn’t write Python analytics code, only queries against existing data, so it technically cannot hallucinate a number. The numbers are derived from queries, and the queries pull from the data source. It could sort incorrectly, but it can’t fabricate values (good to know!).

The underlying tension

AI dramatically accelerates execution, no doubt. On this, there was consensus. Fritz built in two days a tool he’d been trying to build for years. Richard explored design spaces that would have taken months to code. Everyone acknowledged that prototyping with code is now faster than prototyping on paper.

But the current interaction paradigm, predominantly text-based, statistically conservative, opaque in its reasoning, creates friction precisely where design work is most creative and most human. The panel converged on this even from very different positions: the industry practitioners who build tools, the academic researchers who study alignment and interaction, and a designer who keeps testing the boundaries of what these models actually know. Plus, some friends from the visualization empyrean that were following along in the chat (you know who you are ;) : consider this as an open invitation to join the next panel, where the question may not be how AI is changing visualization, but how visualization might change how we interact with AI.

A note on the visualization

Let me be clear: these visualizations are something of a parody. Auto-transcribed speech from a panel discussion is not data you want to visualize quantitatively, word frequencies from a garbled VTT file are a shaky foundation for any serious analytical claim. I knew this going in. The exercise was deliberately playful: what happens if you treat a conversation as a dataset and ask an AI to visualize it, while the conversation itself is about the limits of AI in visualization? The two visualizations accompanying this article were generated by Claude (Opus 4.6); documenting the process became (again!) a small ethnographic exercise in observing how the machine approaches data visualization.

The first visualization, a bubble chart of keywords co-occurring with “AI” in the transcript, sized by frequency, was straightforward to produce and is exactly what the panel would critique: the statistical center of the distribution. The biggest bubbles (“visualization,” “data,” “tools”) tell you what the conversation was about but nothing about what it argued.

Claude identified this limitation unprompted, proposing that a visualization weighted by argumentative novelty rather than repetition would be more revealing, while flagging that this wasn’t easily extracted computationally. I asked it to try anyway. It built a qualitative scoring rubric (surprise, friction, reframing, forward-looking), scored each concept, and was transparent that the scores encode a reading of the transcript, not a computation. Whether that constitutes critical judgment or a learned pattern of self-critique is a question I’ll leave open. But the move, “what I just made is correct and also not very interesting” may complicate the clean narrative that AI purely executes while (only) humans supply judgment.

The resulting scatterplot has evocative axis labels I’ll credit Claude with: “said once, mattered most” and “said often, surprised no one” do some editorial work. But it’s easy to notice that the visualization has a structural weakness its creator didn’t flag: the most novel concepts almost all have a frequency of 1, collapsing into a vertical strip on the left edge. The x-axis loses meaning precisely in the quadrant that “matters most”. You get a scatterplot in principle and a ranked list in practice. I kept it anyway, because the gap between a good idea for a visualization and its formal execution is exactly the kind of problem designers navigate, and it felt right to leave it visible rather than fix it.

The production process had its own frictions: The first layout produced 59 overlapping bubble pairs; the SVG files failed in Illustrator because the generator didn’t escape ampersands in XML. Each required diagnosis and specific instructions to fix, the kind of quality assurance work the panel discussed at length: AI output that looks correct in one context and breaks in another.

This panel was part of Design Research Week 2026 at Northeastern University. The event was organized by the Center for Design in collaboration with the Khoury Visualization Lab.

Data Visualization in the Age of AI was originally published in Center for Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Shuhan (Sisi) Wang

Design for disability is often imagined through the lens of assistive devices or medical technologies, objects which are meant to present a small portion of what accessibility requires in everyday life. Clothing, one of the most fundamental forms of design, plays a critical role in shaping how people move through the world, participate in social spaces, or express their identities. For many disabled individuals, the lack of accessible clothing turns routine activities — like getting dressed, walking in the rain, or even carrying their personal belongings — into persistent challenges. The November 2025 Conversation Series from the Center of Design about Disability x Fashion: Adaptive Clothing for Every Body, addressed this gap by reframing fashion as a key component of accessible design rather than a secondary concern.

Moderated by CAMD professor Sara Hendren, the conversation focused on the work of designer and researcher Grace Jun, whose work spans academia and nonprofit design. Drawing from her 2025 book, Fashion, Disability and Co-Design: A Human-Centered Design Approach, and her role as a founding member of Open Style Lab, Grace presented adaptive clothing as both a design methodology and a political stance. Through her work, Grace demonstrated how attending closely to disabled bodies reveals design opportunities long overlooked by mainstream fashion systems.

Disability as a Design Lens

Throughout the conversation, disability was presented not as a limitation to be solved, but as a critical lens through which design assumptions can be restructured. Grace Jun repeatedly asserted that mainstream fashion is built around an imagined “standard” body — one that stands upright, moves through the world without friction. When designers center disabled lived experience, these assumptions quickly become visible. As Grace noted, “Designing for one case really opens up to a broad range of cases,” which suggests that disability exposes design problems that affect far more people than those formally labeled as disabled.

Rather than framing adaptive clothing as a specialized category, Grace argued that disability reveals where fashion has failed to account for real bodies. She described how everyday design elements such as closures, pocket placement or material durability often become obstacles when designers don’t consider how bodies sit or move differently. When discussing her work with Open Style Lab, Grace explained that disability-centered design begins with close observation, stating that the process is “really determined on looking at someone’s self-expression and how they want to manifest that externally.” This approach reframes disability not as a problem to be fixed, but as a source of insight that challenges designers to rethink what clothing is truly meant to do and for whom it is made.

What is Adaptive Clothing — Really?

Adaptive clothing is often misunderstood as purely functional apparel — for instance, garments modified with Velcro, elastic waistband, or magnetic closures to make dressing easier. While these features are important, the conversation emphasized that adaptive clothing cannot be reduced to utility alone. Grace challenged this narrow framing by positioning adaptive fashion as clothing that responds to the full complexity of disabled life. This includes comfort, aesthetics, identity and self-expression. As she explained through her work, clothing is not simply something to just put on the body; it also can shape how individuals feel in their bodies and how they are perceived in public spaces.

During the conversation, Grace highlighted that many adaptive garments fail because they prioritize function while neglecting desire. Clothing designed solely to solve a problem often carries a medicalized aesthetic, reinforcing the idea that disabled people should accept practicality at the expense of style. In contrast, she argued that adaptive clothing should aspire to the same standards as mainstream fashion: beauty, individuality, and cultural relevance.

The discussion reframed adaptive clothing as a design approach rather than a category. Instead of asking how to adapt an existing garment, Grace’s work begins by asking how clothing can support different ways of moving, sitting and dressing. This shift leads to designs that feel intentional rather than corrective. Examples discussed during the conversation include raincoats designed to withstand elbow abrasion for wheelchair users, backpacks that function while seated, or garments operable with one hand. These demonstrate how adaptive clothing emerges from real use rather than abstract ideals.

Some key ideas that redefine adaptive clothing may include:

• Beyond accommodation: Adaptive clothing is not about fixing bodies, but about redesigning garments to fit diverse bodily experiences.
• Function with dignity: Practical features should enhance independence without signaling difference.
• Aesthetic agency: Adaptive garments should allow users to express taste, identity and personality.
• Everyday relevance: Clothing for daily life — during work, under different temperatures, attending social events — matters as much as specialized apparel.

By expanding the definition of adaptive clothing, the conversation made clear that accessibility in fashion is not an add-on, but a fundamental design concern. Adaptive clothing, when approached thoughtfully, may become a way to question whose needs fashion has historically prioritized and to imagine garments that serve a wider range of bodies without compromise.

Designing With, Not For

A central theme of the conversation between Grace and Sara was the distinction between designing for disabled people and designing with them. She pointed out that many well-intentioned design efforts fail because they position disabled individuals as end users rather than as collaborators with expertise rooted in lived experience. Designing for often reinforces a hierarchy in which designers make assumptions about needs, while designing with requires listening and negotiation. As Grace explained through her work at Open Style Lab, meaningful adaptive fashion emerges only when disabled participants are involved throughout the entire design process, from research and prototyping to testing and refinement.

The event highlighted co-design as both a methodological and ethical commitment. Rather than just approaching disability as a problem to be solved, Grace described co-design as a practice that acknowledges disabled people as authorities on their own bodies and daily realities. This approach challenges traditional design workflows, which often prioritize efficiency or aesthetics over long-term usability. By slowing down the process and engaging in sustained collaboration, designers are able to identify needs that would otherwise remain invisible, such as how garments behave in seated positions or how closures function with limited dexterity. She noted that this work required designers to “dismantle assumptions” and to develop comfort with uncertainty, especially when working across disciplines and experiences.

Designing with disabled individuals also reshaped ideas of success and authorship in fashion. Instead of focusing solely on scalable products or market-ready outcomes, Grace stated the importance of relationships and accountability. Co-design acknowledges that accessibility cannot be standardized without losing its relevance to real bodies. Through Open Style Lab’s interdisciplinary model — bringing together designers, engineers and disabled collaborators — the conversation illustrated how designing with produces clothing that is not only functional, but also respectful, expressive and responsive to individual needs. In this framework, adaptive fashion becomes less about inclusion as a gesture and more about participation as a design principle.

Fashion Systems and Structural Barriers

While adaptive clothing addresses individual needs, the conversation also made clear that many barriers faced by disabled people are structural rather than personal. Mainstream fashion systems, which range from design education and manufacturing to retail and marketing, are largely built around able-bodied people. These systems prioritize speed, trend and visual uniformity, leaving little room for bodies that move, sit or dress differently. Grace emphasized that adaptive clothing is often treated as an exception within the industry, framed as charitable rather than a legitimate site of innovation. This marginalization limits both visibility and investment, supporting the idea that accessibility is optional rather than an essential part of life.

Grace and Sara highlighted scalability as a key challenge. Fashion industries often ask whether adaptive garments can be mass-produced or profitably marketed, yet these questions frequently ignore the structural exclusions that make such scaling difficult in the first place. Grace pointed out that designers are repeatedly asked, “What does that look like?” when imagining clothing that is both accessible and desirable, revealing a lack of imagination within existing systems rather than a lack of demand. By contrast, her work with Open Style Lab demonstrates that disability-centered design can inform products suitable for broader markets, challenging the assumption that adaptive clothing must remain bespoke or smaller scale.

The conversation also addressed how fashion’s emphasis on visual spectacle, like advertising and trend forecasting, often sidelines disabled bodies altogether. When disability is absent from representation, it becomes easier for industries to overlook access in design decisions. This absence extends into education, where adaptive fashion is frequently treated as an elective topic rather than a core design concern. Grace’s critique suggested that, without structural change, even well-designed adaptive garments risk being isolated interventions rather than catalysts for broader transformation.

By identifying these systemic barriers, the event reframed adaptive fashion as an issue of design infrastructure rather than individual accommodation. Addressing accessibility in clothing requires more than innovative garments; it demands a reevaluation of how fashion defines value and inclusion. In this sense, disability becomes a lens through which the limitations of existing fashion systems are revealed, opening space for alternative models of design and participation.

Education and the Role of Designers

The conversation with Grace highlighted that lasting change in adaptive fashion must begin in design education. Grace and Sara indicated how traditional design training often prioritizes aesthetics and marketability while overlooking accessibility and lived experience. When disability is excluded from curricula, it becomes framed as a specialization rather than a fundamental design consideration. Grace argued that disability should be understood as a central design condition because it reveals how people truly move, dress, and interact with their environments. Integrating disability into design education challenges students to question normalized assumptions about bodies and to recognize accessibility as a baseline responsibility rather than an optional feature.

The event also reframed the role of the designer as one grounded in collaboration and ethical accountability. Rather than positioning designers as sole problem-solvers, Grace underlined the importance of listening to disabled individuals as experts of their own experiences. This approach expands the designer’s role beyond creating objects to facilitating dialogue, conducting research and advocating for inclusive practices within larger systems. By embedding co-design and disability-centered thinking into the education field, designers are better prepared to challenge industry norms and contribute to fashion practices; they are not only innovative but socially — responsive and equitable.

Designing Toward Every Body

The Conversation Series topic for this month, Disability x Fashion: Adaptive Clothing for Every Body, ultimately reframed adaptive fashion as a question of design values rather than specialized solutions. Throughout the discussion, disability emerged not as an exception to be accommodated, but as a perspective that challenges fashion to reconsider whose bodies it has historically prioritized. By centering lived experience, co-design, and critical reflection, the event demonstrated how clothing can function as both access and expression. Adaptive garments, when designed thoughtfully, not only address physical needs. but also affirm dignity and identity in everyday life.

Designing for everybody requires a shift in how designers, educators and researchers define success. Rather than measuring value solely through scalability or visual impact, the conversation identified responsibility and inclusion as essential design principles. Grace Jun’s work illustrates that accessibility and aesthetics are not opposing goals, but mutually — reinforcing ones when disability is treated as a generative design lens. In this framework, adaptive fashion becomes a model for a more equitable design future — one in which clothing is no longer built for an imagined object, but for the diverse bodies that already exist.

Interested in learning more? Watch the event recording:

CAMD Moderator:

Sara Hendren: Artist, Design Researcher, and Writer on Disability and Design; Associate Professor, Art + Design and Architecture, CAMD

Speakers:

Grace Jun: Researcher, Writer, Designer and Speaker on Accessibility in Graphic Design and Fashion; Associate Professor, University of Georgia; Founding Member, Open Style Lab

Gabby Garcia: Creative Technologies Lab Coordinator, Media Studios Organization, CAMD

Join us! #CenterForDesign

️📩 centerfordesign@northeastern.edu
🔗LinkedIn 🔗Twitter 🔗Instagram 🔗Facebook 🔗Website 🔗Newsletter

Disability x Fashion: Adaptive Clothing for Every Body was originally published in Center for Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This simple idea ultimately defined Longitude 9°, our winning proposal for the MITDesignX + CMPC Salmon Packaging Design Competition, a challenge calling on designers worldwide to rethink how smoked salmon reaches U.S. consumers. The competition asked for aesthetics, sustainability, and manufacturing feasibility — packaging that could elevate Chilean salmon in one of the world’s most competitive food markets.

With the help of Prof. Todd Linkner (CAMD) and Prof. Douglass Scott (CAMD), we decided to go further.

We turned packaging into a modular alphabet of forms. And this is the story of how it came together.

The Brief: Reinventing a Best-Seller

The product in question — Latitude 45’s Smoked Salmon Charcuterie Board — is already a staple in the U.S. market. The challenge was clear:

• Use corrugated cardboard from sustainable sources
• Protect delicate salmon cuts
• Adapt to production line realities
• Enhance point-of-sale visibility
• Integrate personalization and interactive elements
• Appeal to U.S. consumers, especially younger audiences

From the start, we saw a perfect alignment: Latitude 45’s values and ours — sustainability, culture, material responsibility — are the same values shaping Gen Z consumer behavior.

Gen Z wants:

• Quality
• Climate-smart agriculture
• Transparency
• Beautiful, premium aesthetics
• Playful, interactive experiences

So we designed packaging that speaks directly to them.

What Set Us Apart: The Helvetica Philosophy

We knew we couldn’t beat the existing “trio-salmon pack” on pure efficiency. But efficiency alone isn’t what makes Helvetica great.

Helvetica is great because it’s functional and beautiful.

So we embraced both. Our proposal:

• introduces a bold hexagonal form factor unseen in the U.S. salmon market
• uses modularity to create flexible portioning
• blends premium graphic identity with clean Swiss-inspired typographic elegance
• stays technically feasible for production, shipping, and stacking
• expands into a family of packaging, accessories, and merchandising

The Hexagon: A New Geometry for Food Packaging

Who has ever eaten salmon from a hexagonal box? No one. Exactly.

The hexagon offered:

• stackability
• playful modularity
• tear-away individual portions
• space efficiency in production
• a recognizable signature shape

Three salmon filets rarely get eaten at once. So we designed a box that adapts to real habits: tear a unit, take it with you, enjoy, recycle it.

And to ensure technical precision, we used 3D LiDAR scans to model the salmon fillets and fit them perfectly.

A Circularity-First Mindset

Our sustainability philosophy wasn’t an add-on. It was the center of the concept.

We worked on:

• recycled cardboard
• biodegradable glues
• plant-based inks
• a “seeded salmon cutout” that customers can plant
• a material system designed to decompose actively

During research, we discovered a beautiful ecological detail: salmon fertilize riverbanks after spawning. When humans harvest them, that cycle is interrupted. So we designed a way to close the loop. The seeded salmon cutout inside each package allows customers to plant local species — literally reactivating a natural cycle through a small act.

A Packaging System, Not a Single Box

Longitude 9° is modular and expandable:

• It adapts from trio-packs to individual packs
• It supports custom mixes with organic farmers (cheese, berries, herbs)
• It aligns with the entire Latitude 45 product range
• It nests efficiently during shipping
• It folds from a single flat board, minimizing waste

In our tests, we achieved six hexagonal boxes per square meter, compared to five in standard die-cuts — meaning higher yield with the same material footprint. This is where design meets engineering.

Graphic Identity: A Swiss-Chilean Hybrid

To visually unite Latitude 45 and IAMCLIMATE, we used:

• Montecatini Pro as the typographic backbone
• a black-white-gold palette
• bold vertical layouts inspired by Chile’s geography
• natural textures and clean lines recalling Swiss modernism

The design aesthetic is intentionally premium yet grounded, combining nature-inspired graphics with high-end finishes. We also included: branded merchandise, recipe suggestions, wayfinding systems for sales locations, and narrative storytelling embedded inside every box

Because packaging should enhance not only the product experience but also the cultural context around it.

The Story Inside the Box

Every Longitude 9° package includes a printed narrative — a story about a salmon and a willow tree. It mirrors the lifecycle of salmon. It introduces ecological literacy. It gives emotional meaning to sustainability. It transforms the act of eating into a ritual. This story becomes the emotional anchor of the brand and makes the packaging more than a container: it becomes a message.

Why We Won

Because we didn’t design a box. We designed a philosophy. A modular, stackable, adaptable system. A bold aesthetic with deep cultural roots. A sustainability engine disguised as packaging. A narrative object that teaches, engages, and inspires.

Longitude 9° stands as the complementary design to Latitude 45 — a packaging system built for the next generation of environmentally conscious food lovers. And we are incredibly proud that this vision was recognized with the First Prize. This is just the beginning.

IAMCLIMATE will continue to push for a design culture where sustainability, aesthetics, and systemic thinking coexist — not as optional features, but as the new standard.

How We Reinvented Salmon Packaging was originally published in Center for Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Katherine Kim

The Center for Design hosted a conversation moderated by Sylke Meyer between John Wihbey, Jennifer Gradecki, and Derek Curry, who are all researchers working at the intersection of art, design, media, and information ethics, exploring how truth operates in this algorithmic age.

Meyer positioned this discussion around how new technologies enable new forms of deception faster than we can develop ways to verify truth. This discussion was grounded in both social epistemology and media theory, asking how individuals and communities learn, discern, and share information in changing and AI-mediated environments.

Misinformation spreads faster than ever before. Understanding how we navigate truth in these conditions has become crucial. This conversation examined these challenges from multiple perspectives.

Social Epistemology and the Paradoxes of Trust

John Wihbey approached the problem of truth and AI through the lens of content labeling. His research explored whether people notice warning labels on misinformation, how they interpret them, and whether labels actually change behavior and belief formation.

Wihbey explained how labeling systems shape user perception. He referenced research from the pandemic on content labels, asking whether people notice them, how they interpret them, and how they affect sharing behavior and belief formation. His research involved direct collaboration with major platforms, including Meta and Twitter (now X), presenting recommendations to their policy teams.

He proposed a social epistemological framework, meaning truth isn’t learned individually; rather, it is learned through social processes such as networks, communities, and shared belief systems.

“Most of what we learn isn’t from books — it’s socially learned. We have to think about the communities we’re engaging with, not just the content we’re consuming.” — John Wihbey

Wihbey identified several paradoxes of the current AI and misinformation landscape:

• AI saturation paradox: Platforms warn about AI-generated misinformation even as they promote AI creator tools.
• Trust paradox: Users report lots of distrust and anxiety towards AI, yet continue to use it.
• Transparency paradox: More transparency doesn’t always yield more trust. Too much exposure can erode confidence.

He warns of the implied truth effect, which is when misinformation is flagged, unflagged content may seem more trustworthy simply because it’s unmarked. He also describes the “liar’s dividend,” which is when an individual’s hyper-vigilance about truth leads them to start to doubt all of reality.

Given these challenges, Wihbey argued for thinking more systematically about social epistemological goals. He outlined three specific ways platforms could measure social epistemic health:

1. Improving the balance of accurate versus misleading content in users’ feeds.
2. Helping users recognize credible sources and expertise, improving users’ ability to curate their feeds by making better choices in who they follow or unfollow.
3. Encouraging users to seek out a wider range of viewpoints on disputed topics.

Wihbey proposed several tools for measuring these goals. First, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) can be used as a tool for understanding how users evaluate new technologies, measuring ease of use, trust, and perceived usefulness. He also suggested approaching users as learners and incorporating cognitive science education so people can understand how they process information from digital media. Finally, he emphasized the social epistemology theory and the importance of becoming aware of how the communities we engage with are helping or hurting us.

Disinformation, Echo Chambers, and Generative AI

Jennifer Gradecki and Derek Curry approach technology from a critical art practice, creating interactive installations that demonstrate how AI can be used for manipulation and disinformation. Their projects inform viewers about the capabilities of these technologies and create space for reflection.

Through their research, they found that disinformation typically takes two forms: information that is true but presented outside its original context to be weaponized, or value-laden judgments that can’t be proved true or false either way. Both types are difficult to debunk because they require critical thinking from the person receiving the information. This challenge is heightened by systems and algorithms that reward engagement and outrage, creating echo chambers that circulate on social media.

Gradecki and Curry’s artistic practice directly engages with these issues through two interactive installations. “Epic Sock Puppet Theater” uses animatronic sock puppets to present viewers with actual disinformation from real social media campaigns in a playful manner where viewers can reflect on what they’re seeing and hearing rather than just react to it. The project combines disinformation datasets from various sources, with the largest coming from the Russian Internet Research Agency’s 2016 campaign in the US, released as part of the Mueller report.

Their second project, “Generative Persuasion,” allows viewers to use generative AI to create disinformation targeting specific political orientations and personality traits from the OCEAN profile (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, or neuroticism).

Gradecki explained that this project emerged from their research into how generative AI is being used in political disinformation campaigns. In August 2024, OpenAI reported that they had disrupted over 20 disinformation operations that were using ChatGPT, mostly carried out by foreign governments attempting to interfere with democratic elections. These campaigns employed tactics designed to divide and polarize people. For example, an Iranian operation generated content about the US presidential election, and Rwandan accounts generated partisan tweets ahead of elections in their own country. These campaigns often used both sides of an argument to further polarize people.

“Generative Persuasion” is presented as a fictional startup named “Psybernetica,” inspired by the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Cambridge Analytica was the British consulting firm that used five-factor personality quizzes to correlate social media activity with personality traits to psychographically microtarget the public during the 2016 Brexit and Trump campaigns. The project demonstrates how easy it is to generate disinformation and bypass content filtering and safety measures. It uses LM Studio to run models locally, including Meta’s Llama 3, which was trained on social media data and is particularly effective at producing social media content. The installation is presented in a military-style portable computing case to emphasize that it’s a weaponized LLM. The app is not and will not be made available online, so people can’t actually use it to make a disinformation campaign.

Gradecki also addressed potential solutions and their limitations. She outlined two approaches: stopping disinformation from being posted (through negative labeling like flagging, demonetization, and deplatforming) and stopping it from spreading (through fact-checking and content provenance authentication). However, these methods have significant drawbacks. Negative labeling is criticized as undemocratic, and disinformation can still spread if it hasn’t been found. Provenance authentication can be hacked, and fact-checking relies on specific epistemologies that not all communities will accept.

Gradecki illustrated this point with research on Flat Earth conspiracy echo chambers. The study identified three different groups, each with distinct epistemological approaches:

1. Groups that value Bible verses as evidence, creating a polarizing logic between Christians and non-Christians.
2. Groups that trust only personal experiences (“I don’t feel like I’m spinning”), setting up an in-group and out-group of the public versus intellectuals.
3. Conspiracy theorists who felt powerful people were hiding information, positioning themselves as truth-tellers against journalists, scientists, and politicians.

Curry explained that there has been a push within the industry for technological solutions to distinguish truth from non-truth. The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, founded by Adobe, The New York Times, and Twitter in 2019, introduced a C2PA badging system. However, such solutions can be counterproductive. As cybersecurity professionals noted, it functions as an “honesty badge in an ecosystem dominated by bad actors who have no incentive to play by the rules.” Nikon recently revoked its C2PA image authenticity certificates after vulnerabilities were exposed.

Ultimately, Gradecki and Curry’s work underscores a central challenge: without changing the targeted advertising business model that promotes sensational content to hold attention, technological solutions will remain only minimally effective.

The Legal Perspective

Following the presentations, the discussion opened to audience questions, revealing how these issues resonate across different fields and disciplines.

Law professor Dan Jackson raised the issue of evidentiary reliability. In a legal context, before evidence can be presented to a jury, a judge must determine whether it’s sufficiently reliable. Thirty years ago, if a photo were used as evidence, establishing reliability was straightforward. Now with AI-generated images, this process is becoming increasingly challenging.

Jackson asked how close we are to losing the ability to “look under the hood” of technology to determine if content is real or fake. Gradecki responded that it’s an arms race. When they started working with AI-generated images in 2020, it was easy to tell when something was AI-generated. Now, tools are being developed to fix the smaller details, adding texture and grit, or to ensure the correct number of fingers, making generated images increasingly convincing and able to fool the eye. Curry added that although AI-generated images are based on probability rather than physics, unrealistic parts can be fixed with control nets, where an existing image provides the underlying structure. The technology exists today to create fully convincing false images.

Jackson acknowledged that the ability to create false evidence has existed for centuries, and courts have become adept at distinguishing true from false. In the past, a good lawyer could cross-examine a fake photograph by looking at the details. The concern now is reaching a place where those inquiries are no longer possible. Curry noted that artists have even created extra fingers people can wear to maintain plausible deniability if caught on camera committing crimes. The conversation turned to future implications for courts, where visual evidence might one day be deemed too unreliable, with courts relying only on first-person testimony.

Gradecki emphasized that this situation pushes us toward a different version of skepticism where we need to approach everything critically, making media and information literacy more important than ever.

Understanding Belief and Echo Chambers

The discussion then turned to why people believe conspiracies and how to get them out of echo chambers. Gradecki explained that there’s often a “kernel of truth” behind conspiracy theories, as she put it:

“There’s something behind it, meaningful and valuable — people just trying to understand the world.” — Jennifer Gradecki

The root of the issue is people wanting to feel like they understand the world without being exploited by powerful people. She also noted how it feels good to feel confirmed and feel right about something, which is why conspiracy theories can be so compelling.

Meyer raised what she called the paradox of truth: people want to believe that something is true because it gives them information and pleasure. It could also be that believers need a narrative that justifies their actions. The feeling of being right and knowledgeable is powerful.

Wihbey added nuance to this discussion, noting that the big headline issues, such as who won the 2020 election or whether climate change is real, present binary choices. But reality is much messier:

“Most claims online are kind of true and kind of not true… rumors are very important in terms of orienting us in our environment and our world and our community.” — John Wihbey

He suggested we should be cautious about thinking there would be any kind of big solution to the problem of truth online; it’s always going to be shades of gray.

Wihbey also wondered about the disconnect between how people behave online versus in their everyday lives. Online polarization is understood through data and content, but perhaps people are more grounded and truthful in their everyday experiences. The performative nature of online engagement might not reflect how people actually live.

Authority, Transparency, and Declining Trust

The discussion revealed deeper questions about trust and transparency. Dietmar Offenhuber drew parallels to C-SPAN: the idea that broadcasting congressional debates would improve democracy by allowing people to verify what their representatives said. Instead, it generated extreme polarization. As Meyer quipped, “Every dictator was super transparent — you don’t agree, and they kill you.” Transparency alone doesn’t guarantee accountability.

Wihbey added that when Meta first introduced AI labels on content, the creator community complained the most. Creators didn’t want people to think their content was suspicious because it diminished their economic value and audience trust. Well-intended transparency measures can backfire.

A question raised another critical dimension that authority figures, whom we normally trust, are circulating untruthful content. Trump’s weaponization of “fake news” became a way to get people to question what is true, particularly when it’s information someone in power doesn’t want people to know.

Wihbey contextualized this within broader trends. Survey data shows that the decline in trust in institutions (media, science, Congress) has been happening since before the internet, though it’s been accelerated by social media and generative AI. Much of this decline can be explained by political elites themselves criticizing institutions, from Nixon through Clinton and Trump.

Meyer suggested that data overflow might explain why misinformation and rumors are so popular. They feel like privileged information in an ocean of content. Wihbey wondered how younger generations perceive these AI-saturated platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where short-form video platforms have no way of verifying content, and whether this might create a backlash.

Accountability and Solutions

Questions of responsibility and potential solutions emerged as central concerns. One question addressed the ethics of training AI on existing artworks and protecting authorship. Gradecki pointed to Adobe’s recent policy of only using approved artwork in training their AI models as a positive development, while Curry noted that although artists have copied other artists for centuries, current copyright laws are likely behind the technology.

When asked how to hold companies like Meta accountable, Meyer reframed the question: Who is responsible? Companies, developers, users? Gradecki emphasized that responsibility is multilayered. Developers are responsible for how quickly they put technologies into the public. The public is responsible when they share and exacerbate misinformation. Curry raised the character.ai case, where a young boy was told to kill himself by an AI-generated character, asking where liability falls in such situations.

Jackson introduced the concept of strict liability, similar to how industrial revolution companies were held liable for dangerous machinery without having to prove causation. Wihbey mentioned colleague Laura Edelson’s theory that platforms should be regulated as products since many features are patented and could potentially be treated under product liability frameworks.

When asked about best-case scenarios for solving these problems, Gradecki argued that true solutions lie in literacy and critical thinking, especially given that different communities trust different authorities. More fundamentally, the targeted advertising business model must change. As long as platforms promote controversial content to hold attention, other solutions are just band-aids.

Curry suggested that younger generations might develop a healthy level of skepticism where people don’t feel they need to know everything or determine if everything is true. The question becomes: is this particular truth relevant, and if so, how do we decide?

The conversation ultimately reinforced a central tension: we live in an age that demands both greater skepticism and greater media literacy, yet the systems designed to help us navigate truth often create new problems. As the panelists made clear, there are no simple technological fixes to the challenges of misinformation and AI-generated content. The solutions require fundamental changes in business models, in education, and in how we think about responsibility and trust. Understanding how truth operates in this algorithmic age means recognizing that it’s not just about the technology itself, but about the social, economic, and political contexts in which these technologies exist.

Interested in learning more? Watch the event recording:

CAMD Moderator:

Sylke Meyer: Professor, Theatre and Art + Design, CAMD; Co-Founder, Studio206

Speakers:

Derek Curry: Associate Professor, Art + Design, CAMD; Co-Founder, Bankster Games

Jennifer Gradecki: Associate Professor, Art + Design, CAMD; Co-Founder, Bankster Games

John Wihbey: Associate Professor, Journalism, CAMD; Director, AI-Media Strategies (AIMES) Lab; Co-Founder, Institute for Information, the Internet, and Democracy (IIID)

Join us! #CenterForDesign

️📩 centerfordesign@northeastern.edu
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Truth in the Age of Algorithms was originally published in Center for Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Julie Farkas

To close out the Spring 2025 semester and the academic year, CfD core faculty member Mark Sivak invited his brother, Seth Sivak, to join him for a discussion about the game industry. Where is it now, and where could it go in the future? They answer these questions by exploring some of the major topics and trends within the game industry: black hole games, XR, AI, mobile gaming, handhelds and consoles, eSports and more.

Good & Bad News

To prepare for this talk, Mark spent a few weeks researching data about the game industry to identify trends and other notable statistics.

To begin the discussion, he outlines the “bad” news that he discovered during his research:

Though the 2010s were lucrative years for the game industry, game spending and the game industry at large have shrunk since 2021. Overall funding dried up, and many game studios experienced some level of failure and closed, shrunk or froze. This makes the game industry an outlier — books, music and digital video all grew.

This is all due to lower engagement; players have basically stopped playing games. Not only is competition between games steep, but so is competition with other leisure activities.

Now for the good news:

While the game industry is declining in comparison to previous years, the games themselves are better than ever. There are more players overall, and more types of players.

So, knowing the state of the game industry now, what are the biggest trending topics that pop up? Mark identifies this list:

1. Black Hole Games
2. Extended Reality (XR)
3. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
4. Mobile Gaming
5. Handhelds & Consoles
6. eSports

Black Hole Games

A black hole game is what a gamer chooses as their main game. They may stray to other games for a short period of time, but they always end up returning to the black hole game. The name refers to the way these games metaphorically suck players in.

Examples of black hole games: Fortnite, Roblox, Grand Theft Auto, Counter Strike 2, Gorilla Tag, League of Legends, Minecraft, Call of Duty Mobile

Mark identifies a handful of factors that help make a game a black hole game:

1. The price of the game.
2. The number of device types on which the game can be played.
3. How vast the in-game world is.

On this topic, Mark asks Seth what he thinks about the trend of black hole games and its impact on the industry. This trend has emerged seemingly from the 2010s; the industry was not always like this.

Seth compares traditional, premium gaming to the film industry. He says traditional games are viewed as entertainment products, like movies, where half of the revenue is made in the first six weeks. This model lacks predictability. Black hole games, in contrast, monetize consistent and regular engagement. The games themselves are constantly updated in order to ensure that users keep coming back, and it works! These games have effectively become third spaces for large groups of people.

So what is worth noting about the future of black hole games? Seth thinks the most interesting thing is the cost of the games. He explains that there has been a barbell effect in the industry over the last decade. Smaller, single-player, indie games are charging less than $20, while games with big names are charging up to $100. There is no middle ground.

Seth points out that, on the one hand, the increase in price is not entirely unwarranted. While other media, such as books and movie tickets, were steadily increasing in price due to inflation, games stayed at their pre-existing price level of $60 to $70. However, the challenge of this price hike is that it makes it harder for completely new games — games made from new and original intellectual property — to break into the market.

Existing games will still flourish, especially the black hole games that are free or have globally recognizable names, but new games will struggle.

“I was talking with a friend three or four weeks ago, where he was like, “Hey, if we’re heading into a recession, isn’t that great for games? Like, will we see more investment into game companies?” He was like, games are traditionally seen as recession-proof. But I think that’s games as a whole, not new investment into games, because I actually think it’s just going to flow into these existing games.” — Seth Sivak

Extended Reality

Extended Reality (XR) is an umbrella term that includes Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR). Mark’s findings show a low adoption rate of VR games. The market is still too small to support a wide range of games. VR headsets, for example, are still very expensive, and therefore, the audience for VR games is not a large one.

On the other hand, there seems to be a race for AR, with major companies talking about it and creating technology around it. But Pokémon Go, created by Niantic, is really the only example of a successful game that uses augmented reality. Other games, even ones with highly recognizable IPs, have tried and failed.

Seth and Mark both agree that, while AR technology is inevitable, it currently does not seem to be the best platform for games.

“[Niantic’s] focus for a while has been on trying to establish this location-based AR-type platform that could then lots of games be built on, but they haven’t proven it’s repeatable at all.” — Seth Sivak

For augmented reality to get to that point of being an “ideal” gaming platform, they believe the necessary accessories, such as AR glasses, will need to be cheap and pervasive enough to create a wider audience for the games. The same can be said for XR games as well.

Artificial Intelligence

AI in the game industry is a hefty topic.

Current data shows that game developers do not see a big advantage in using AI. Some developers are using generative AI in the brainstorming stage, and others might use AI to help them code, but for the most part, the AI that is available is not yet good enough to truly help game developers.

But despite the low degree of implementation currently, Mark projects that AI usage will increase significantly in the near future. Its main goal will be to decrease the amount of money and time spent on developing a game. The cost to make games has gone up significantly over the years. If AI could help lower that cost, more companies might be interested in developing and publishing games.

Seth explains that game development in North America is simply too expensive. He compared ballpark estimates to prove the point.

To make a blockbuster game in the past, it would take:

• 80 people
• 3 years
• $60,000,000

To make the same game now, it takes:

• 2,000 people
• 7 years
• $300,000,000

Historically, companies outsourced to other countries because the costs were lower. Now, studios are beginning to turn to AI.

Mark and Seth discuss some applications of AI in game development that can help save time and money: 2-D asset generation, animation, voiceover, bug fixing, quality assurance testing and customization of narrative.

Some other elements — visual effects, 3-D asset generation, the design of a level within the game — are not high enough in quality yet, but could be in the future.

But there is also something to be said about not replacing everything with AI. For example, when using a voiceover feature, having a real actor or even a big-ticket celebrity voicing over the key character of a game is worth the cost. But for randomized Non-Player Characters (NPCs), AI could be the cost-saving solution.

Altogether, AI can help game studios produce games more quickly, at a lower cost, and with less manpower. If budget and team size are not barriers, this could level the playing field and encourage smaller studios to develop more games.

Mobile Games

Mobile games are games on handheld devices, but for this portion of the discussion, Mark focuses only on phones. Other handheld devices come up later.

Unlike the rest of the game industry’s general decline in recent years, mobile gaming was growing. Why was this? Everyone has a smartphone, so the sheer size of the potential audience for mobile games has been the root of its success.

In the near future, however, things will change. Mark notes a few factors that will impact mobile gaming:

• Competition with other ways to spend leisure time
• The scale and profit of a mobile game company

If you had a spare twenty minutes in a doctor’s waiting room or on public transportation, what would you do with it? This is Mark’s point about competition for leisure time. Other platforms like YouTube and TikTok are eating up the time that a person might have spent playing a mobile game. In turn, this negatively affects a mobile game’s value.

“Essentially what seems to be happening with some of these trends is that some of your low-salience gamers who play a random Facebook game or whatever, or could be brought in via network effects to play more games, have essentially just dropped off, and instead of having network effects in games, they now share YouTube memes and Tik Tok videos amongst their friends as a network effect for that platform instead. So, they’re kind of getting more sticky to those uses of their leisure time versus playing games.” — Mark Sivak

Despite the increase in audience, the environment surrounding mobile games does not allow for much growth in the games themselves. The top games and game companies are pretty set in stone because of their IPs and the sizes of their budgets.

Games with recognizable IPs do not need to spend as much money on marketing to acquire users. They have a guaranteed audience to some extent. Unfortunately for other game developers, their budget for marketing and user acquisition needs to be very high.

Consider Apple’s App Store. First of all, it costs money to make a game available on their App Store. Secondly, Apple recently made changes to their privacy, targeting and tracking permissions for advertisers. Ad revenue has dropped and ads have become less effective at reaching the ideal audience. While this may afford more privacy for the individual user, it hurts the game companies. The mobile game industry is driven by user acquisition, but finding those users has become more difficult and costly. Every cent made goes back into the cycle — you have to spend money to make money. So, how do you cross the threshold into making a margin of profit? This is what Mark and Seth think is the real challenge with mobile gaming.

Handhelds & Consoles

Mark’s research shows that game console sales are flat, or have remained steady with no noticeable growth or decline. However, if you count handhelds as consoles, sales have actually grown.

Here are some of the trending devices that Mark and Seth discuss:

• Handhelds: Nintendo Switch, Valve Steam Deck, Lenovo Legion Go
• Consoles: Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox
• Personal Computers (PCs): Valve Steam Machine

Some games are exclusive to their specific console or handheld device, but these days, games are becoming available on many or all platforms. Xbox games are available on PlayStation, or both are available on PC.

The Nintendo Switch is an interesting case because it can be used as a handheld and as a console with controllers. Additionally, people generally just use the Switch to play games with Nintendo-owned IPs. Very few third-party games perform well on the Switch. Because of this, people tend to have a Switch and something else, whether that is another handheld, a console or a PC.

Interestingly, though PC gaming has been dying off, it recently started trending upward again. Why? Streamers.

Desktop PCs are not portable, and laptops are heavy and cumbersome. No matter the form, PCs are missing an element of convenience and ease of use. But now, they are growing in popularity with the younger generation. Kids watch streamers play PC games on platforms such as Twitch and YouTube and decide they want that setup for themselves.

“That’s like a reversal of a trend…For as long as I’ve been in the industry, which is a very long time at this point, PC gaming was dying, right? And now we see very clearly it’s actually growing and I think it’s actually driven off of that content creator side.” — Seth Sivak

The last point of note about handhelds and consoles relates to game distribution. Mark found that game distribution has sped up significantly. For example, Steam released as many games in one month as were released in the whole year of 2016.

Not only has the distribution rate increased, but distribution itself is changing. Traditional retail distribution and sales of games does not lend itself to selling old games; stores do not have the shelf space to hold games for that long, so they focus on the hot new items. But digital distribution has done what retail cannot: old games remain available for purchase and even offer discounts time and time again.

In fact, Seth and Mark find that it is a best practice to put a digital game on sale as much as possible. When a game goes on sale, the digital marketplace is more likely to notify gamers of its existence, which then means it is more likely to be downloaded and played.

Mark thinks this environment is particularly advantageous for contained games, which are games with experiences that last between 10 and 20 hours and have a set ending. People who are loyal to their black hole game might be willing to leave for a short span of time to play a contained game. In fact, Seth and Mark know of examples where members of black hole game communities agree to all take a pause, try out a different game for a while, and return when they have finished. Mark calls this “diversifying their gaming diet.”

Mark and Seth recommend that game companies take advantage of this cycle. The window between updates of popular black hole games is the perfect time to launch an independent game.

“It is pretty known when the major black hole games do their season updates — it’s like every, you know, every 10 to 18 weeks. And so you can try to shoot the curve and go right in the middle and try to be at a time where there is a lull, where there aren’t other games coming out, to see if you can pry some of that audience out.” — Seth Sivak

eSports

Mark identifies gambling as an underlying issue in eSports. eSports is not a very lucrative subsection of gaming, so one of the ways it is staying afloat is by accepting sponsorships from sports betting companies. Not only are people gambling on real-life sports, but now also on eSports. Though this marketing money helps game companies, it is not as beneficial to gamers. Gambling is not something to take lightly.

Another interesting note about eSports is what Mark dubs “the eSportification of sports.” Similar to how streaming has revitalized PC gaming, it is shaping the sports industry as well. Livestreaming a sporting event now includes digital creators or retired players giving their commentary, so younger audiences are experiencing sports in a way that resembles eSports. Thursday Night Football was streamed on Twitch. Nickelodeon aired the Super Bowl LVIII in 2024 with live commentary from animated SpongeBob characters. And after this discussion, Disney+ also began airing animated alternate feeds of sporting events, featuring characters from their owned IPs.

The throughline of these points about eSports seems to be corporate marketing. Though eSports is not growing on its own, it provides a great marketing opportunity for other companies.

Piracy

The subject of video game piracy comes up at the end of the discussion, prompted by a question from the audience. Though not a section that Mark had planned in his outline, he did do some research about it beforehand. Data shows that piracy is not very widespread in the United States, but it is rampant globally. Things like phone and internet security are different in different parts of the world, and therefore so is the frequency of piracy.

The main factor these days is hardware versus software. With many popular games now being run on servers instead of hardware such as discs and cartridges, piracy is more difficult. Even with single-player games, most major companies require an internet connection and a login to launch the game. These types of digital access can prevent piracy more easily. Furthermore, AI can be a helpful tool in preventing piracy. This does not mean that piracy does not still exist, but at least in the United States, it is way less common.

Mark wraps up the discussion on a positive note — though there is a lot of uncertainty ahead in the game industry, he believes there is plenty to look forward to over the next few years. Technology continues to evolve and improve, so the game industry will follow right along with it.

Interested in learning more? Watch the event recording:

CAMD Moderator

Mark Sivak: Teaching Professor, CAMD and the College of Engineering

Guest Speaker:

Seth Sivak: Founder, Entrepreneur and Game Developer

Join us! #CenterForDesign

️📩 centerfordesign@northeastern.edu
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The Future of the Game Industry was originally published in Center for Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In early September, the Conference on Complex Systems ( CCS25) took place in Siena, a historic and picturesque city in the heart of Tuscany, Italy, renowned for its medieval heritage. As part of the plenary session, I presented my Master’s thesis in a lightning talk format, allowing 180 seconds to summarize the core findings of several months of research. What follows is a summary of the context and the work I presented.

From Philosophy to Data Visualization

My path into the world of data — as a graduate student at Northeastern University in Boston, where I am completing a Master of Fine Arts in Information Design and Data Visualization — was anything but linear. Before learning to code and analyze networks, I immersed myself in the humanities at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, studying Philosophy, Art History, and Cinema Aesthetics. This early foundation now informs my approach to information design, blending critical reflection and cultural awareness with the clarity of data-driven storytelling.

I longed to anchor the humanities’ critical framework in something more tangible. Philosophy gave me the tools for critical analysis; art history and cinema showed me how ideas take shape through images — how knowledge can be conveyed visually. That curiosity pointed me toward scientific communication and the intricate world of visual complexity.

Bridging Humanism and Science

Propelled by a Dean’s Scholarship ad honorem, I moved to Boston to explore the intersection of form, function, and communication. Northeastern University quickly became the backdrop for a new experience at the Barabási Lab within the Network Science Institute, where I immersed myself in the language of networks and began experimenting with new ways to make complexity visible.

In Boston, my ideas came into focus: using data to ask humanistic questions and, conversely, letting philosophy shape the way numbers are read. Guided by Albert-László Barabási, Paolo Ciuccarelli, Kim Albrecht, and Nabeel Gillani, I shaped my Master’s thesis into an interdisciplinary journey. “Atlas of the Venice Biennale Complexity” traces the presence of Global South artists from 1895 to 2022, mapping patterns of inclusion and exclusion across more than a century and several million data points. At its core, the project weaves network science with philosophy to explore how fairness and justice play out in the global art world.

A Lightning Talk in Siena

I submitted this work to CCS25 on a summer night with little expectation — and even forgot about it until, to my surprise, I was accepted.

The challenge was daunting: 180 seconds to condense months of reflection, research, emotional struggles, frustrations, and small victories. My goal was to present something different — a perspective bridging data science and philosophy. In fact, I was the only one to present such an interdisciplinary approach. This realization confirmed that I am standing on new ground.

The feedback was encouraging. Some comments focused on the novelty of my research, others on the clarity of my slides. Most importantly, I felt welcomed into an international community deeply engaged with complexity science.

Reflections and Looking Forward

CCS in Siena was an unforgettable experience. It’s hard to estimate exactly how many people the conference brought together, but certainly a few hundred — professors, invited speakers, and PhD students all gathered for talks, classes, discussions, and presentations. Every day I felt overwhelmed — in the best way — by the sheer amount of information and opportunities to engage. It was incredible to discover the many facets of this discipline, the variety of themes explored, and the people working on real-world problems, advancing our scientific understanding of cities, genes, environment, mathematics, physics, and much more.

What stood out to me most at CCS25 was the exciting potential for deeper dialogue between disciplines:

• Data visualization in this field has developed impressive ways to present numbers and networks. I found there is a great opportunity to extend its role by treating visualization not only as an output but as an integral part of the research process — shaping questions as much as illustrating results.
• Network science produces powerful insights with remarkable rigor. Connecting these findings more closely with humanistic perspectives could unlock new dimensions of data relevance, especially for issues such as social justice, policy, and societal impacts.
• Philosophy and art history bring rich critical and cultural perspectives. When integrated with empirical approaches, they can help situate scientific work within broader contexts, adding depth and resonance.

My professional objective is to continue exploring and bridging these worlds. It is in this overlap — between science, design, and humanistic critique — that I see the potential for richer, more responsible ways of understanding and unfolding complexity.

CCS25 was not only a professional milestone but also a personal confirmation: I am in the right place, pursuing the right questions, even if they sit at the margins of established fields. With the continued support of my mentors, Northeastern’s CAMD and GSG funding, and the Barabási Lab, I intend to keep building these bridges.

In Siena, I had just 180 seconds to introduce myself. But those 180 seconds opened up a much longer journey — one that data science and data visualization are only beginning to explore.

Originally published at https://medium.com on November 8, 2025. Written by Jacopo Conti.

Complexity Science, Humanities, and Information Design was originally published in Center for Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Julie Farkas

To kick off the CfD Conversations Series for the Spring 2025 semester, core faculty member Miso Kim highlights her collaborators for the book Legal Design: Dignifying People in Legal Systems. Miso Kim and Jules Rochielle Sievert are two of the co-editors of the book, while Steven Geofrey, Alexander Nally and Gabriel Teninbaum are some of the contributing authors.

The book provides a comprehensive introduction to legal design, covering fundamental concepts, definitions and theories, and promoting dignity, equity and justice in the legal system. Each contributor presents a range of community-driven projects and method-focused case studies that demonstrate the potential of legal design to transform how people experience the law. In total, there are over 30 contributions in the book from around the world.

The book is divided into four sections:

1. Why Legal Design: A Theoretical Value Proposition
2. What Can Legal Design Do: Case Studies Across Sectors
3. How Legal Design Works: Approaches, Methods and Perspectives
4. Where Legal Design Goes: Building a Field Across Disciplines

Collectively, the panelists of this conversation represent each section of the book. Kim and Sievert wrote chapters throughout the book, but especially in section one. Nally’s chapter is in section two, Geofrey’s is in section three and Teninbaum’s is in section four. Throughout this conversation, each panelist discusses their contribution to the book and their perspectives on how to reshape the legal system, making it more accessible, effective and just.

The Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth

Alexander Nally studied graphic design at MassArt as an undergraduate student, but had no interest in following the typical graphic design career trajectory. The program was training him in how to create marketing collateral for companies in order to increase his chances of getting a job after graduation, but he had no desire to follow that path. Based on his own experience growing up and the experiences of his friends, he decided to learn how to use his design skills to make Massachusetts a safer place for LGBTQ+ young people, curating his projects to benefit the community organizations in Boston that were serving LGBTQ+ youth.

Through this work, he learned about the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth, which is the focus of his book chapter. He joined the commission while still in school, so he started working on ways to design policies that reflect and address the needs of his fellow LGBTQ+ students. One of his first projects as a student trustee was the Name and Gender Pronoun Policy at MassArt. This type of policy is fairly commonplace now, but when Nally was a student, no one could choose a name or pronoun that was not reflected on their legal birth certificate, which caused problems for trans or gender nonconforming students.

While in the Commission, Nally was invited to present at the Department of Public Health’s annual conference on suicide prevention. At the conference, he talked about why community-based programming was essential to suicide prevention. Nally’s own experience attending an LGBTQ+ youth group in high school provided him a safe space to grieve a friend and to talk with peers about how the state’s foster care system was failing them.

In terms of legal design, Nally identifies a couple of ways that the state’s system failed him and his friends growing up:

1. The foster care agency’s threshold for how unsafe a young person should be before they move them to a safer home was not good enough.
2. Schools were not training their personnel in how to be supportive of trans students.

“This was all a very long time ago, but it was really essential in this legal design journey for me because it just sort of highlighted early on that, you know, legal structures often are not designed with the intended beneficiaries in mind.” — Alexander Nally

Around the same time as he joined the Commission, Nally was introduced to the NuLawLab. One of his first projects with the NuLawLab was co-designing an app-based interface to help provide legal resources for women veterans. This project included his first experience with co-design sessions. He worked with women veterans to redesign the process of finding and accessing those legal resources in a way that made it less overwhelming and more approachable.

Also while a student trustee at MassArt, Nally was appointed by the Board of Higher Education as a student member of a campus safety and violence prevention task force. This task force developed policy recommendations for colleges in Massachusetts about how to prevent violence against students. Nally focused particularly on preventing violence against LGBTQ students. Being a part of this task force is how Nally met his current boss, Dena Papanikolaou, the Chief Legal Counsel in the Office of the General Counsel for the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education. Knowing that he was going to attend law school at Northeastern University and that he would need to complete a co-op position, he asked that she consider him when the time came.

All of these experiences and more led Nally to his current job as the Deputy General Counsel for the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, a position that provides a significant role in policymaking for college students in the state. But even while working at the state level, he is still involved with the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth, since it is a state agency.

“Our primary purpose was to investigate how to enhance and improve the ability of state agencies to provide services to LGBTQ youth, working in partnership with different agencies. I think this is one of the most novel examples of legal design. Through a simple statute that created this commission…for which its primary purpose is to bring together LGBTQ people and people who support and take care of LGBTQ people every day to — with the seal of the state on its back — tell other entities within the state how to better serve LGBTQ youth.” — Alexander Nally

Nally closes by describing a project he worked on with the Commission that is featured in his book chapter, the LGBTQ Resource Map. This map was created from a spreadsheet that included a running list of current service providers and state agency officials who could help LGBTQ+ youth. The problem with this spreadsheet, however, was its inaccessibility. LGBTQ+ young people could not find it unless they knew someone, such as a teacher or therapist, who could share it with them. It was not a public spreadsheet. So Nally developed a map from the spreadsheet and integrated it into a mobile-friendly website, thereby making it easier to find and use by the people who needed it. This project is one of the examples of how the Commission was able to honor and center the dignity of LGBTQ+ youth in its policies and processes.

Intentionality, Nally believes, is essential to centering dignity in legal design. This is the first of a few points he shares in his list of takeaways from working with the Commission. Another key consideration is that, sometimes, legal design does not look “cool” — not every project translates into a catchy portfolio piece — and that is not a bad thing.

Building Technology With(out) People

Steven Geofrey identifies as a research practitioner in data computation and design. Their chapter, Building technology with(out) people, stems from these questions:

• What happens when you put technology in dialogue with law and legal practice?
• What does that mean for matters of human dignity?
• How do you uphold qualities of personhood like agency, autonomy, self-determination and self-efficacy in legal design, when those same qualities are often at odds with technological development?

This chapter unpacks what it means to think about building technology both with and without people incorporated in the process. Geofrey states that you cannot define one without the other; you cannot know what it means to build technology with people if you do not know what it means to build technology without people. In the context of legal practice, this is particularly poignant because it affects real people and their lives.

Geofrey’s chapter begins by surveying the existing landscape of legal education. They identify a current trend that incorporates programming courses, teaching lawyers how to write code. This type of course is typically justified by the reasoning that learning how to code will make a legal professional’s life easier and more efficient. Geofrey even pulls a quote from a course at Georgetown University:

Though there is nothing intrinsically wrong with incorporating technical skills into legal practice, Geofrey cautions against using words like efficient, impoverished and sophisticated. These words have heavy connotations. They are technological values, but attaching them to legal practice without thinking about their implications on real people can lead to a technosolutionist way of thinking. This mindset sees technology as neutral and disembodied, where there is no inherent value attached to it and advancement is generally thought of as a positive thing. In other words, as a callback to Geofrey’s chapter title, it leads to building technology without people.

However, we know technology is not neutral. Advancements in technology have effects on people. Technology has harmed people, either directly or indirectly by way of neglect. Teaching technical skills in legal education is also not inherently neutral. Any use of technology makes certain goals more attainable than others, and certain values more visible than others. When teaching technical skills in legal education, we need to be wary of presenting them as disembodied and inherently neutral in value, because in contrast, human lives are fundamentally bodied and have value.

“If we want to preserve these dimensions of dignity in the lives of real people, we need to take a moment to think critically about how we’re incorporating these tools into legal education.” — Steven Geofrey

Conversely, we can build technology with people.

If building technology without people means placing value on technical skills, then building technology with people means placing value in technologically-situated skills. In saying this, Geofrey is referring to how human beings are situated and embedded in social, cultural, political and economic systems. Technology is the same way; it is not intrinsically neutral, because it is designed by someone or something that embeds values in it.

Geofrey adopts a value-sensitive design framework, which takes human values into account when designing something. They explain that technology and society interact with and shape each other, and they invite us to apply that to legal practice. What does the interactional relationship between law and technology look like? How do we make sure that we are centering humans in order to preserve human dignity?

Geofrey concludes their chapter with some recommendations to do just that.

First, we can be more critical in our discernment of how, when and why we use technology. Not everyone needs to become a programmer or engineer. It may feel like you need to learn and keep up with the advances in technology, but there are plenty of skills in legal practice that do not need to be replaced by technology.

Second, when teaching technical skills, instead of focusing on the skills themselves, we can adopt a value-sensitive design approach. We can recenter a discussion of values, aims, motivations, and situatedness to understand what it means to use technology in the context of legal practice.

Lastly, in curricula that teach these skills, we can integrate education of other literacies that are required to use technology in thoughtful and intentional ways. This includes data literacy, design literacy, and even literacy about the history of technological development. Together, these literacies help highlight how embedded technology is in the world, providing opportunities for reflection and critical thinking.

Ultimately, Geofrey’s hope is that, rather than training lawyers to program, we instead focus on training literate practitioners of technology in the context of legal practice. The key is to be aware of and sensitive to the situated dimensions of technology, to see how it interacts with our society.

The Peril and Promise of Certificates and Degree Programs in Legal Design

Gabriel Teninbaum is a law professor at Suffolk University Law School and oversees the Legal Innovation and Technology program. Steven Geofrey’s point about getting legal professionals to use technology with care and consideration is the core of Teninbaum’s work in that program.

The program’s broadest goal is to prepare law students for a future that may look very different than the present. Teninbaum and his team think meaningfully about how to create courses and other programming opportunities around that goal. One of the core challenges, which is the challenge that his book chapter addresses, is this: How do you separate the idea of achieving a credential from achieving knowledge and wisdom? Of course, students need the credentials to progress in their careers, but the knowledge and wisdom is what truly make them great.

“As we design tools to teach students things like human-centered design, the question is, how do we get them focused not on the credential but on the learning?” — Gabriel Teninbaum

Teninbaum introduces a few principles he employs that help put this into practice:

1. Show Don’t Tell
2. Downplay Grades
3. Create a Community
4. Build a Space for Informal Exploration

Show Don’t Tell refers to the idea of creating projects together. Rather than just talking about things, go out and do things. Teninbaum describes some projects that have come from this principle, such as a tool to help people report hate crimes. His team had multiple sessions with potential users — such as actual victims of hate crimes, social workers, police officers, and even technologists — to work through what the app should look like. Another example is a tool called Court Forms Online, which is a tool that allows people to guide themselves through legal problems. This tool now applies to eight different states, and if the person is not in one of those states, it directs them to other appropriate resources. The third project Teninbaum references is an online dispute resolution clinic with the goal of designing a process that allows people to use online tools to go through a court process in a way that makes it easier, lower in cost, and more efficient. All of these projects involve teams of students every step of the way.

Downplay Grades: This tenet lessens the sense of stress that often surrounds the grading system. Many opportunities are now pass/fail. If students show up and do their best, they pass. This takes the pressure off their performance so they can create a more freely collaborative environment.

It is vitally important to Create a Community. Teninbaum’s team wants to ensure people who are interested in a certain thing have contact with others outside of traditional classroom settings. Some of these communities are for the whole world, and some are on a smaller scale. Learning design and learning how to be innovative is not just for the scope of a course but can happen outside of class.

Build a Space for Informal Exploration: Having classes and projects is a good thing in and of itself, but when someone has an idea, how do they find people to work with, a space to work in, technology to do the work on, and so on? Teninbaum’s team sets aside rooms for legal innovation and collaborative technology work. They also build events around the concept, such as legal design challenges. Students come together to learn about the basic skills of human-centered design, listen to facilitators, and try to solve a problem with their peers.

With all of these changes in the curriculum, someone still has to “keep score.” That is effectively Teninbaum’s job. While the students focus on learning, experimenting and experiencing, he looks for results that suggest the program is viable.

What he finds most exciting is seeing a feedback loop of opportunity. As more alumni take nontraditional roles, or take traditional associate roles and apply their human-centered design skills or data analytics skills, it transforms the industry. That transformation brings more people and opportunities back to the school, which then leads to more opportunities for the next cohort of students.

“The idea is that we want to continually create positive results in such a way that more students and more participants have the opportunity to do likewise.” — Gabriel Teninbaum

Legal Design in the Present and the Future

For those who may not be familiar with legal design in general, moderator Miso Kim defines the concept and why it is important. She begins the panel discussion by posing a few questions. First, she asks, “What is legal design to you?”

To Jules Rochielle Sievert, legal design breathes imagination into the legal system. It includes people in the process of designing the legal system to work better for them.

For Alexander Nally, legal design thinks about what people need and how they advocate for themselves in the legal process, reimagining that process to make it easier to navigate.

Gabriel Teninbaum sees legal design as a set of tools to help create an alignment between processes and outcomes. Historically, the legal process has not always had that alignment; legislators create rules that people must follow, but they do not always have an understanding of the outcome. Legal design does not only ask what the rule is, but also asks how that rule will play out, and then adapts it to make it more valuable and meaningful.

Steven Geofrey thinks about the law as a design artifact. That opens possibilities for changing legal processes to improve people’s lives.

Then Kim continues the discussion by looking toward the future. How does interdisciplinary collaboration shape the future of legal design, and is there any discipline or industry that we should be engaging with?

Sievert believes there can always be more perspectives and positionalities involved in the space of law. The ideal situation exposes people who have legal training to different ways of thinking or doing.

Geofrey sees the necessity of participatory approaches to legal design. Allowing diverse voices to be a part of how something is shaped is important. As for the future, they believe we need to lean into the legal equivalent of minimal computing — that is, using the least amount of resources to make dramatic changes in experience — to change how we encounter legal design. As Nally said in his presentation, legal design work does not need to look cool in order to be effective. Similarly, Geofrey believes this work does not have to be complicated and time-consuming; lean into the simple changes.

Teninbaum sees a need for merging medical and public health fields with legal services. Some medical problems stem from non-medical issues; in the same vein, some legal problems are not actually legal problems, they just manifest themselves through the law. The future calls for working together with all industries that deal with caring for others. We can not simply solve the issue in front of us, but must think of the underlying issues that brought this one to the forefront.

Nally sees government institutions as an important space for legal design to enter, despite the irony. The conversation around policy ideas within the government is starkly removed from discussions of human dignity in navigating legal processes. The institution could benefit from redesigning its processes.

Expanding on the idea of collaborating to shape the field of legal design, an audience member asks the panelists to expand on how they work with potential users of a tool in the process of designing that tool. How do they figure out who those potential users are? It seems like a big barrier to overcome in the development process.

Teninbaum’s team uses a plus-one approach. They start by identifying people who will either be end users of the tool or people who will be impacted by the tool. They then ask those people to bring along one other person. This helps expand their network and also brings in very valuable people whom the team might not have considered otherwise.

For Nally’s work in the government, he is often told who to work with by the law itself. But outside of that, he relies on coalitions around certain issues or communities to figure out who to invite.

At the NuLawLab, Sievert explains, they work with people who have deep roots in different communities and movements. Their long-term engagement with those communities builds a deeper connection and trust, which is important and necessary for their work. Plus, they can count on those individuals’ knowledge of their community members when the time comes.

Interested in learning more? Watch the event recording:

CAMD Moderator

Miso Kim: Associate Professor, Art + Design, CAMD; Director, Masters Programs, CAMD

Panelists

Jules Rochielle Sievert: Creative Director, NuLawLab; Interdisciplinary PhD, CAMD

Steven Geofrey: Associate Teaching Professor and Coordinator of Creative Coding, CAMD

Alexander A. Nally: Deputy General Counsel, MA Department of Higher Education

Gabriel Teninbaum: Assistant Dean of Innovation, Strategic Initiatives, & Distance Education, Suffolk University Law School

Join us! #CenterForDesign

️📩 centerfordesign@northeastern.edu
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Legal Design: Dignifying People in Legal Systems was originally published in Center for Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Julie Farkas

The Center for Design often highlights its Bridges Fellowships through the Conversations Series. This conversation features two of the current fellows, strategically connecting their different research areas and disciplines. Beth E. Molnar, one of the 2023–2024 fellows, shares updates on her healthcare and tech project after spending over a year in action. CfD core faculty member Michael Arnold Mages joins the discussion as Molnar’s Co-Principal Investigator. Sofía Bosch Gómez, the 2024–2025 fellow, introduces herself and her civic design project with the help of her research assistant, Tina Rosado. CfD core faculty member Laura Forlano rounds out the panel to act as moderator.

Design Research in Mental Health

Beth E. Molnar and Michael Arnold Mages have presented their fellowship project in the CfD Conversations Series once before, during the previous fall semester. Their project is called “TEAM Health: Technology-Enhanced Approaches to Mental Health Navigation in Families with Young Children.”

Molnar has been working in collaboration with the Boston Public Health Commission for many years. Her role began by evaluating the LAUNCH/MYCHILD Model for helping young children with social, emotional and behavioral difficulties. The timeline of her work on this project over the past 13 years looks like this:

1. Evaluated the model for its effectiveness in pediatric primary care community health centers
2. Expanded the model to other cities in Massachusetts
3. Brought the model to the child welfare department, engaging foster parents in addition to biological caregivers

This model creates a case management approach to children’s existing medical home care. It adds a family partner, a person with experience taking care of a child with special healthcare needs, to work closely with a mental health clinician who specializes in the disorders of very young children. The two-person team works with the pediatricians, mental health providers or child welfare workers to identify kids who need this extra service.

“It’s really a holistic service delivery model, very family-centered and very focused on prevention of future problems.” — Beth E. Molnar

With the funding from the Center for Design, the next step is to enhance this intervention with the addition of technology. This is the point at which Michael Arnold Mages joins the project. Throughout the last year of their fellowship, the team has been trying to understand the needs of the population they serve before figuring out how those needs can be served through a mobile health intervention. Employing design research strategies, they conducted interviews, identifying three major topics of conversation:

1. Current communication strategies between the family partners and the clients
   Examples of results from the interviews: Method of communication (calls, texts, in-person, etc.), frequency of communication, language barriers or lack thereof
2. Issues that arise within the families
   Examples of results from the interviews: Having tangible resources, assistance with housing applications, receiving referrals for healthcare and mental health services
3. Potential features for a mobile app
   Examples of results from the interviews: Ensuring confidentiality, hosting group chats or forums, facilitating translation, implementing goal setting, accessing knowledge bases

“This app can provide a really supportive and beneficial scaffolding to help support some of these families as they work together with the staff of this program towards better mental health.” — Michael Arnold Mages

The next step in this project is to build a prototype of the app, addressing the needs they uncovered in the interviews, before sharing the prototype in order to receive feedback about its usability.

Design Research in Public Policy

Sofía Bosch Gómez is joined by one of her research assistants, Tina Rosado, to introduce her fellowship project called “Co-designing a network of public sector design scholars and practitioners in Latin America.” Her main research focus is design for policy, especially in developing policy in Latin America. This fellowship project asks a two-part research question:

1. How is design being applied within public sector innovation units across Latin America?
2. What opportunities exist to bridge gaps between academic research and practical implementation?

So far, the team has found an abundance of literature on how to apply design methods for innovation in government in different areas of the world like Europe, Australia and the United Kingdom. However, due to its more volatile political processes, Latin America does not have the same amount of informational resources available. In terms of volatility, Bosch Gómez explains, though innovation units often record their work and publish reports online, the reports are usually taken down with each new electoral term, thereby disappearing from any future reference.

Therefore, the team hypothesizes that the use of design practices within public sector innovation units in Latin America is under-documented and varies widely between regions. They believe a participatory research approach can illustrate those operational practices, as well as simplify the connection between academic theory and practical reporting. As a result, the team plans to design a repository to act as an archive of the information that otherwise gets removed, providing a reference for innovation units to avoid starting from scratch each cycle.

“Our main goal through this fellowship is to document the work of innovation units — that, again, they’re vulnerable to electoral cycles — and preserve their contributions to foster stronger and more informed connections for future research and practical work. So, really, to have a place for people to go to in order to understand what has been done and what can be done.” — Sofía Bosch Gómez

Their design research methods include:

1. Literature Review
2. Identify Key Actors
3. Data Collection
4. Analysis and Repository Creation

Tina Rosado’s main role so far has been within the literature review process. The team decided they wanted to include literature in four different languages that are widely spoken in Latin America: Spanish, English, Portuguese and French. But to manually do this review in four languages would take a long time, so they are creating a custom programming script and integrating other technology into their process. The technology scrapes Google Scholar for specific keywords in the four languages, and then the team reviews the results. The trickiest part is to find literature that is relevant to both the public sector and Latin America. For example, of the filtered results for literature that is published in English, the literature is often only relevant for the public sector, but not for Latin America.

The next steps in this project are in the umbrella of Data Collection: to conduct interviews and surveys with experts and practitioners in every Latin American country and to lead a workshop to identify ways to bridge the gap between research and practice. Then they will wrap up the project by analyzing the data, writing an academic paper and publishing their visual network.

Interdisciplinary Design Research

What do these two projects have in common? Other than the key element of design research, what overlap could childhood mental healthcare and Latin American public policy possibly have? As moderator, Laura Forlano connects the projects in two key ways: designing for diversity of language and navigating data systems and infrastructures.

Designing for Diversity of Language

Forlano begins the inter-project discussion by asking both teams about designing for diversity, specifically in terms of diversity of language. How is each group thinking about the multi-linguistic nature of their research?

Choosing to conduct their work in multiple languages was a decision made very early on during the planning stages with the Boston Public Health Commission, Beth E. Molnar explains. They realized their research would be vastly more informative if they hired research assistants who spoke Spanish or Haitian Creole, the commission’s two most popular languages other than English. Though it took longer to get set up, because they had to find the right people and take the time to train them, she says it was worth it.

Michael Arnold Mages adds that, when working with people of different cultural backgrounds, you encounter different perspectives. In the case of TEAM Health, there are different perspectives on how to raise children. Dissolving the language barrier helps open them up to learning the participants’ perspectives. Tina Rosado, as a bilingual mother, has lived experience that backs up his point. She taps into her native language, Spanish, when she needs to truly and authentically express herself.

Rosado and Bosch Gómez’s project is based in multiple languages, but they made sure to bring experts in to help with any languages that aren’t native to either of them. For example, the director of one of the biggest innovation labs in France helped validate their choices for the French keywords. He also provided them with nuances to look for, which the translation technology they used did not give.

Navigating Data Systems and Infrastructures

Both projects also have to deal with the long-term maintenance and upkeep of their technological platforms. How are they making sure their work is available and accessible in the years to come?

Arnold Mages recognizes that this is a common problem. In practice-based innovation, he explains, a common issue arises when transferring out of a research context and into the context of everyday life. Too often, practice innovation ends when the research study ends, regardless of the quality of the outcome for the patients. The new, more effective practice that came from the study, unless constantly upkept and maintained, may not continue in perpetuity. He agrees that the maintenance and durability of a practice or a resource are key to its success and effectiveness.

However, there might be outside factors, like budget and manpower, that influence the accessibility and longevity of a research team’s work, despite their best efforts. As Bosch Gómez previously mentioned, part of the reason she started this project is because of the transient nature of pre-existing resources within Latin American governments — any published work gets taken down with each electoral cycle. Making sure their repository is accessible and sustainable in the long run is an important element of her project, something she and her team have been thinking about since the beginning. Bosch Gómez is also a fellow at the Burnes Center for Social Change, whose GovLab has been active for over 10 years, so she is planning to learn from that team’s success and implement their advice into this project.

Unfortunately, as Molnar points out, many of the research systems in this country, including public health systems, might face hardships and budget cuts in the future. Organizations like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been supported for decades, but that may change. Maybe we can learn from places with more tumultuous administrations, such as the ones Bosch Gómez is researching. Molnar also looks for inspiration from her colleagues in environmental health, such as those who work for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and have created strategies for continuing their work over the next few years.

Both teams are prepared to revisit their platforms after their project is “complete.” But for now, the TEAM Health app is still in development, and while the Public Design Collective repository has been created, their data is still in the final stages of being collected and processed. Keep an eye out for further updates about both fellowship projects!

Interested in learning more? Watch the event recording:

CAMD Moderator

Laura Forlano: Professor, Art + Design and Communication Studies, CAMD; Distinguished Senior Fellow, The Burnes Center for Social Change; Affiliated Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School

Panelists

Michael Arnold Mages: Assistant Professor, Art + Design, CAMD

Sofía Bosch Gómez: Assistant Professor, Art + Design, CAMD; Bridges Fellow, Center for Design; Fellow, Burnes Center for Social Change & The GovLab

Beth E. Molnar: Professor, Department of Health Sciences, Bouvé College of Health Sciences; Director, PhD Program in Population Health, Bouvé College of Health Sciences; 2023–2024 Bridges Fellow, Center for Design; CAMD

Tina Rosado: Graduate Student, MFA in Information Design & Data Visualization, CAMD

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Design Research in Mental Health and Public Policy was originally published in Center for Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written by Julie Farkas.

To kick off Arts, Humanities, and Tech Weeks at Northeastern University, the Center for Design hosted a conversation between Kenneth Bailey, Sara Hendren, Judith Leemann, and Kris Manjapra. Manjapra is the Director of the Arts and Humanities Social Action Lab within the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. Bailey and Leemann are the AHALab’s Visiting Fellows in October 2024. Their residency is titled “For the Vibrancy of Needs: Body, Form, Justice in the Shadow of Emergency.” It encompasses StudyLabs and other public events in an inquiry into theories and embodiments of justice rooted in experiences of common need. For the conversation, Bailey and Leemann invite Hendren to join them and tie the topic to each of their fields of study.

Kris Manjapra begins the conversation by asking each panelist three questions relating to the idea of needs:

1. Can you tell us how you think about need?
2. How do you understand what a need is?
3. Can you ground that in an example?

Sara Hendren is interested in needfulness as a human’s natural state. She recites Alasdair MacIntyre’s description of human beings as dependent, rational animals, singling out the aspect of dependency as the part that ties us to each other. To her, needfulness is a type of dependency. It is a social, civic, and political notion–something we have toward others, and others have toward us.

“What claims do strangers have upon us, and what kinds of needs then become a kind of collective matter? How do we design a world in which needfulness is actually acknowledged as part of life, is mitigated when unwanted or egregious, but also, again, is part of a vibrancy–I love this term–because it is a mixed phenomenon.” — Sara Hendren

Engineering at Home

Hendren sees disability as a subset within the question of dependency. To illustrate how needfulness is made evident in design, she shares a project called Engineering at Home. This project centers around a local woman named Cindy, who became a quadruple amputee at the age of 60. In a professional lab environment, her needs presented an opportunity to create a $90,000 myoelectric arm. But Cindy rarely used it; it did not fully satisfy her needs. Instead, she preferred other objects, such as a silicone cap with a notch cut out to hold a pen. It allowed her to write in her own handwriting, which was important to her.

That is not to say that the $90,000 myoelectric arm would not have suited someone else’s needs. To Hendren, Cindy’s story shows that expertise is found in both professional and nonprofessional people, and that makers come in all shapes and sizes. It proves the vibrancy of needfulness.

“So in the biggest sense, I’m trying to philosophically raise a kind of question that whether needfulness is all loss in definition–that is the popular story–or whether, in fact, needfulness is a site of generativity, of creativity, of sociality and reinvention that’s happening over the lifespan.” — Sara Hendren

Public Kitchen

Kenneth Bailey introduces the project called Public Kitchen from his organization, The Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI). This project asks one main question: If kitchens were public social spaces (like how libraries and schools are public social spaces), how would it change social life? He describes an interesting way that public kitchens meet our needs. The more obvious and immediate need is our need for sustenance. Theoretically, any and all kitchens can meet this need. But by making kitchens public, they also meet the needs for sociality, collaboration, stewardship, and community.

“What Public Kitchen and these other gestures we’re trying to create hopefully make possible is for people to see the entire ecology…you aren’t just interested in eating but you also participate in the cleaning, you also participate in the trash, you also participate in the entire ecology that surrounds making that space vibrant.” — Kenneth Bailey

Judith Leemann is an artist and educator who incorporates studio teaching methodologies into other contexts, aided by her enduring collaboration with DS4SI. Similarly to Bailey, Leeman often finds that people start working with her while thinking only of their more immediate, basic needs, but then they end up discovering a new need as it is being met. She related this to Bailey’s Public Kitchen; perhaps people are drawn in from the smell of the food, which is an easier need to recognize, but discover their need for sociality along the way.

Reframing Emergencies

Referencing the title of the StudyLab as he begins the group discussion, Kris Manjapra asks, “If we are in the shadow of emergency, what is that emergency? And why does asking questions about needs within that context feel important now?” In response, the panelists highlight the necessity of reframing emergencies. Three key metaphors arise: lenses, gardens, and shadows.

Sara Hendren describes her theory of change: Needfulness is first and foremost a wondrous thing, but in order to avoid burnout, you have to make use of your imagination and sense of wonder. Letting the element of emergency cloud your vision is not sustainable long-term. If you look at the emergency without any of that wonder, Judith Leemann adds, you can go so far as to perpetuate that emergency and the negative feelings it elicits. Therefore, reframing the emergency is necessary for our mental well-being. Unfortunately, they believe reframing is becoming more and more important now due to advances in technology. Kris Manjapra points out that technology can lead us to feel alienated, which directly endangers his personal need to encounter and connect with other beings.

Viewing Through a New Lens

Everyone’s experiences are personal to them; everyone sees things through their own lenses. Kenneth Bailey points out that his studio tends to view the world through an analysis of power and policy; therefore, they have been trying to bring in more people and open themselves up to other ways of knowing. This ties into Leemann’s work and experience: as an artist who works with activists, she has felt the inclination to also become an activist. But being an artist gives her a different lens from the activist through which to view things.

“Both of us are looking at form, but you’re looking at it through your trainings and your studies, and I’m looking at form through my trainings and my studies…and as you describe what you see, my vision can change; as I describe what I’m seeing, yours can change.” — Judith Leemann

Tending to the Garden

Hendren had a similar experience during the aforementioned Engineering at Home project. She felt it was important to share Cindy’s humble objects with the world. Cindy, however, thought that no one would care. Hendren believes it is the designer or artist’s role to suggest other ways of seeing things. Sharing your point of view helps others reframe theirs.

Consequently, Bailey finds it important to have people intentionally and routinely share these points of wonder in order to keep them top of mind and not fall into a state of emergency. He refers to this as tending the garden. There is some element of discomfort that people may have to push past in order to share their thoughts and feelings, but we all must decide to put aside individualism–or recalibrate individualism, as Hendren puts it–to meet our relational needs.

Circumventing the Shadow

The StudyLab alludes to the metaphor of a social emergency as a shadow. Toward the end of the discussion, an audience member points out that a shadow is something we can both see and feel — it casts things in darkness, and it causes a drop in temperature. If the emergency is represented by something blocking the sun, or something standing between us and the sun, then the work we need to do is identify what that obstacle is and shift our perspective, moving the obstacle away from the center of our field of vision.

While discussing examples of shadows in our current social context, Kris Manjapra asks Kenneth Bailey what his thoughts are regarding the limitations that an institution like an academic university might have. Bailey, as a scholar and activist working outside of the academic world, has a unique perspective than that of the other three panelists.

Bailey proposes that an institution itself can be a shadow. As the co-founder of a small studio trying to be recognized on a larger scale, he finds it difficult due to the shadows being cast upon his studio by such large institutions. This is especially true in a city such as Boston that has so many large institutions, both literally and symbolically. He notes that so many of those institutions have people within them who are exactly the type of people he wants to work with, but that is not always enough to lessen the shadow of the institution as a whole.

Design, AI, and Latent Needs

Center for Design Founding Director Paolo Ciuccarelli brings up a research project, LUCID Framework. The goal of the project is to design a tailor-made AI model and train it to understand the latent needs of users and consumers by scanning digital sources like social media, forums, and online reviews. It then translates the findings into concept recommendations for designers.

Latent needs are needs that people are not able to articulate–or that they did not even know they had–until the solution becomes available. Kenneth Bailey’s earlier description of the Public Kitchen touched on the discovery of latent needs. Designers create things that reveal and solve latent needs, Ciuccarelli believes, so if AI is going to be entering the design field, we should try to create a better relationship between designers and the AI tools.

In response, Sara Hendren provides a few examples in her experience of technology solving latent needs:

• FaceTime provides a way to be more present with family members, even though you are still virtual. It is more immersive but just as convenient as a phone call. People did not realize they wanted more than a phone call until it was possible.
• AI, AR, and Robotics might be the perfect tools to assist in extended memory care for older adults. People who have a parent with dementia and get frustrated by answering the same question repeatedly might find that having a machine respond in their stead can preserve their precious relationship with that parent.

However, Hendren is cautious about how accurately AI can meet our needs. If it is gauging our needs from our communication online, are those needs going to improve our relationships and sociality, or are they going to enhance our individuality? People present themselves differently from one social media platform to the next, and may not always be sharing their truest selves on any platform at all. How much of what they are sharing online is edited to perfection, and how much is spontaneous and unscripted? The information that AI is gathering from the internet may not be the right information to work from. Perhaps only the spontaneous and unscripted information reveals our true needs.

The StudyLab

A few weeks after the group conversation, Bailey, Leemann, and Manjapra took over the Center for Design for three days to run their StudyLab. They brought sculptural objects, displayed videos and essays of their work, and redesigned the room to create multiple stations for activities. Guests visited throughout the day to interact with the exhibit. Professors from different universities brought their classes en masse, or smaller groups trickled in with interest.

Judith Leemann set up an explanation station. In exchange for one dollar, she asked participants to explain something using only gestures and the objects provided on the table–no words allowed. The explanation could be as simple as how the participant got to campus that day, or more detailed, like the plot of a movie. No matter how concrete or abstract the concept, the act of the explanation was what Leemann was looking for. Different people could have explained the same thing in completely different ways. This activity was a form of play and a way to form personal connections.

Kenneth Bailey acted as Minister of the Present. He had a variety of cards meant to facilitate conversation and creative thinking. Participants sat with him and received their assignment from a card, such as, “get out of your comfort zone and do something to the extreme, and then do that same thing at a more manageable level,” or “be fully in the present moment for 10 minutes.”

At other stations, there was an activity called Dragging Seeing. Participants chose an object from a display in the room. In Dragging Seeing I, they were asked to draw the object with a paper and pencil without looking away from the object. They could not look down at their paper as they worked.

In Dragging Seeing II, there was a box with holes cut out of the sides. An object was hidden in the box, and participants put their hands through the holes, feeling around the object without being able to see it. They described what their hands could and could not tell them about the mystery object.

Part of the goal of these activities was to ground the participants in the current moment. They could only focus on what they were seeing or feeling right then and there. This prevented their minds from wandering and stopped any preconceived expectations of the objects from influencing their work.

Another station had a blank white board with the prompt, “I need someone to explain to me:” written across the top. Using markers, participants wrote things they wondered about. Some examples:

• Why can’t Boston support artists like it supports biotech?
• How do I choose what type of design I want to focus on when I’m fascinated by everything?
• Why is creative compromise so difficult?
• Why do people forget that we owe each other empathy?

Next to the white board, a large-scale printout of an essay by Kris Manjapra was taped to the wall. Participants annotated the text, circling and underlining words and phrases that held meaning for them.

Overall, the StudyLab transformed the Center for Design into a hive of collective activity. It was an exploration of need, expression, interaction, connection and critical thought. It also provided the Center for Design with a chance to enact our mission to be a space for collaboration and to share knowledge and practices.

Interested in learning more? Watch the event recording:

Moderator

Kris Manjapra: Stearns Trustee Professor of History and Global Studies, College of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSSH); Founder, Black History in Action; Director, Arts and Humanities Social Action Lab, CSSH

Panelists

Kenneth Bailey: Founder and Co-Director, The Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI)

Sara Hendren: Associate Professor, Art + Design and Architecture, College of Arts, Media and Design (CAMD); Resident Artist, Boston Center for the Arts

Judith Leemann: Associate Professor, Fibers, MassArt; Ecologies of Thought Lead, The Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI)

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For the Vibrancy of Needs was originally published in Center for Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.