Tangible participation - Engaging designs and design engagements in pedagogical praxes

Abstract: This dissertation contributes to three fields within design research: - Explorations of a design space related to aesthetics of Tangible Interaction, which have led to a set of design imaginations as well as perspectives on salient design qualities. - Views on and a designerly example of knowledge construction related to Research through Design as well as to programmatic approaches to design research. - Rich and reflected examples of how to co-develop design and pedagogy in the field of profound disabilities. Through the programme Tangible Participation the research seeks and expresses alternatives by critical questioning and imaginations of change. Such alternatives are articu¬lated in a set of designs making the possible present. These designs have been part of collaborative question¬ing and imaginations in a long-term engagement with pedagogical praxes. Through this engagement, design and pedagogy have co-developed; and from this, the programme has matured and collaborative ways of criticality has been developed. The matured programme presented in this dissertation entails seven designs built and used in the pedagogical praxes as well as evolved framings able to generatively address a design space: a tangible interaction designer’s palette, a sensuous perspective, a compositional principle and potentials of tangibles for participation.