This project explores design as a mode of telling personal stories about how something feels, felt or may be felt differently in the future. It consists of a very personal collaboration between Laura Devendorf, Kristina Andersen, and Aisling Kelliher. We started the project as an attempt to understand the limits of design鈥搘hat does it mean to design if it鈥檚 not about making something 鈥渂etter鈥 or 鈥渆asier.鈥 Specifically, we thought back on our experiences as mothers and tried to develop methods to investigate that experience through design. In this way, we try to make 鈥渕emoirs鈥 with objects that tell of our felt experiences and that bring out practices of witnessing and honoring instead of resolving.

听Unstable Design Lab听 听

Publications

  • Laura Devendorf, Kristina Andersen, and Aisling Kelliher. 2020. Making Design Memoirs: Understanding and Honoring Difficult Experiences. In听Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 鈥20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1鈥12. DOI:听(Honolulu, Hawaii (virtual)鈥揂pril 25-30, 2020)听[Honorable Mention Award]

Other Researchers:
, assistant professor, Future Everyday cluster of the Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology.
, 听associate professor, Computer Science Department, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.