NORDES ´09 Engaging Artefacts - Call for submissions

UX Week is the premier user experience conference organised by Adaptive Path, San Francisco. With a mix of inspiring talks from recognized thought leaders and hands-on workshops delivering takeaway skills, the event is thought to deliver for user experience professionals at all levels — directors, managers as well as practitioners.

Design research aims to provide new insights to the ways in which we understand – and do – design. The conference invites contributions from researchers in universities, design schools and industry who share an interest in understanding and developing design as a trans-disciplinary practice that is always in the making. The scope of the conference reaches beyond the traditional design disciplines and
includes other research areas with mutual interest in design research and engaging artefacts. NORDES ‘09 directs its interest towards the diversity, challenges and emerging practices and understandings of design. The conference theme reflects a range of issues that characterize design and design research today.

Confronted with the increasingly complex problems of our times, design should engage in new ways of thinking. Design objects are characterized by their form, aesthetics, functionality, materials as well as social, political and cultural codings. How do and might designers, and educators and researchers of design respond to these different perspectives in design? How can designers respond to the life cycle of artefacts? How can designers be better at designing artefacts for performability and sustainability? How do designers and researchers develop ways of researching knowledges, skills, theories, methods, intuition and passion in design practices?

In addressing these many issues, the Engaging Artefacts conference
includes the following themes:

• Consumption: critical perspectives on the increasing number and diversity of artefacts and their creative design but also use and abuse in global economy
• Production: critical perspectives on the complexity, interrelations and consequences of production
• Technology: new forms given by new materials – and new materials developed to enable new forms
• Interactivity: performance and system oriented thinking regarding the interaction between artefacts, material systems, environments and users

Politics: the role of artefacts in shaping alternative futures especially addressing accessibility, sustainability, poverty and democracy

So as to fully take up the theme Engaging Artefacts, we invite a range of contributions:

• Research papers (full paper - maximum 10 pages)
• Exploratory papers (maximum 4 pages)
• Doctoral consortium (maximum 4 pages proposal)
• Design cases (maximum 2 pages proposals)
• Artefacts for exhibition (maximum 2 page proposals)
• Tutorials (maximum 2 page proposals)
• Workshops (maximum 2 page proposals)

Submitted contributions are subject to an anonymous peer-review
process. Accepted contributions will be published electronically on
the conference website prior to the conference and in the conference
proceedings.

Important dates:

• 1 February 2009: Deadline for all papers (including design cases, artefacts, tutorials, workshops)
• 2 April 2009: Feedback to authors and organisers with suggestions for revision

1 June 2009: Final paper submissions uploaded to website

• 30 August – 1 September 2009: Conference in Oslo

Nordic Design Research Conference is a biannual conference circulated
in the Nordic countries. The NORDES ´09 conference will be hosted by
The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, AHO, in collaboration
with University of Oslo.

General Conference Co-Chairs:
Tone Bratteteig, Dept. of Informatics, U. of Oslo (UiO), Norway
Birger Sevaldson, Inst. of Industrial Design, Oslo School of
Architecture and design, Norway

Programme Co-chairs:
papers
Eva Brandt, Danish Centre for Design Research, Danish School of Design, Denmark
Tuuli Mattelmäki, University of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland
Andrew Morrison, InterMedia, U of Oslo / Oslo School of Architecture and design (AHO), Norway

Programme Co-chairs:
exhibition
Ole Smørdal, InterMedia, University of Oslo (UiO), Norway
Maziar Raein, Oslo Art School, Norway

Programme Co-chairs
design cases
Trond Are Øritsland, Interaction Design. NTNU, Trondheim, Norway
Turkka Keinonen, University of Art and Design Helsinki, Finland

Programme Chair:
tutorials and workshops
Christina Mörtberg, Dept of Informatics, U of Oslo (UiO), Norway

Doctoral Consortium Co-chairs:
Dag Svanæs, Dept of Computer and Information Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway
Ben Matthews, Mads Clausen Institute, University of Southern Denmark Håkan Edeholt, School of Art, Culture and Communication, Malmö University, Sweden
Dagny Stuedahl, InterMedia, University of Oslo (UiO), Norway

to conference website