Participatory Academic Design-Research Project at Design Dim Sum 2025

Presented works
1) Interactive Research Poster: The poster serves as a data-collection method. Poster description: "It is commonly recognized that academic research aims at establishing new knowledge. Academic Design-Research aims at the same goal by employing the design process. There are many models of design processes, such as the Human-Centered Design approach that focuses on bringing value to people in a given context, the Sustainable Design approach that aims to benefit our planet by focusing on achieving sustainability goals, and the Speculative Design model that explores preferred futures of a given business, technology, lifestyle, and more.
Being a design researcher, I am interested in bringing the value of design to the real world through collaboration with industries and private companies, big or small. However, as Design Research remains a matter of discussion among academics, it has obtained a fleur of unknown and exclusive activity, which opens room for exploring its perceived and expected value for the industry. For the Design Dim Sum 2025, I, together with Tatiana Aleksandrova, a Senior Lecturer at St Petersburg University, with whom we collaborate on several research projects, have prepared a mini-research project for engaging the participants of the exhibition:
Please share your opinion by interacting with the posters and the stickers. Express your feelings on the design students and industry engagement, the application of academic design research to the industry’s needs, and future designer competencies.
The video shares our experience and vision of the design research applied to real-world cases."

2) Video: Showing the design projects in collaboration with industry led by Mariia Zolotova (XJTLU) and Tatiana Aleksandrova (SPbU). The projects shown support the themes of the posters.