dcc12
Neurophysiological Measures and Biometric Analyses in Design Research
Important Dates
May 25 Submissions due
June 8 Notification of acceptance
1 July 2:00pm-5:30pm Workshop

Workshop Aim:

Design research increasingly recognizes the importance of improving our understanding of cognitive and behavioral aspects. Both designers and users are studied insightfully because their interactions, behaviors and emotions affect the quality and outcomes of design activities. In this sense, a considerable diffusion of the leveraging of physiological measures and related elaborations is expected, despite some early attempts resulted in sceptical reactions. Actually, the number of research groups exploiting biometric systems is growing, with an uneven distribution of tools and post-processing techniques. Probably due to the relevance of graphical and spatial dimensions of design, as well as to the maturity of the technology, eye tracking results as the most diffused technology. It allows researchers to study areas of interest in real products, representations and virtual prototypes together with attention of people they are interacting with different models. In addition, technologies exploiting Electroencephalography (EEG), Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), Electrocardiogram (ECG), functional Near-Infra-red Spectrosscopy (fNIRS) and face expression recognition are seen as promising. One of the challenges is bringing new knowledge from other disciplines into design and design cognition from psychology to neurology and, to same extent, marketing and consumerism. The goal of the workshop is to practically understand how different biometric systems can be integrated in design experiments. Experts and practitioners will focus on underlying features, functions, limitations and unique benefits inferred from their expertise or previous applications.

Workshop Chairs
Yuri Borgianni (yuri.borgianni@unibz.it)
Gaetano Cascini (gaetano.cascini@polimi.it)
Program Committee
 
  • Mirko Meboldt, ETH Zurich
  • Margherita Pillan, Politecnico di Milano
  • Sonia Vieira, University of Porto
  • Yong Zeng, Concordia University
Workshop Notes
Workshop Notes (link)

Submission information:
Participants do not need to submit anything to attend the workshop. 

Presentations will be delivered by invited and submitted speakers. If you wish to present please submit an extended abstract (1000-2000 words) by May 25th, 2018 to one of the workshaop chairs.

Workshop format:

The workshop will be held in a tutorial-like format with considerable time for discussion and Q/A - all presentations will be followed by 10 minutes for discussion. Experts and practitioners will focus on specific technologies and underline their usefulness or their potential application within the design domain. Subsequent discussions will be about the possibility of extending the neurophysiological measures from other research studies. Discussion will cover the maturity and spread of different technologies in design research and the human resources needed for a proficient deployment.

Currently scheduled talks with tentative titles
Introduction “Why the design (creativity) community is interested in physiological measures”, Gaetano Cascini, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
“From biomarketing to design research: instruments and techniques at the PHEEL Lab”, Margherita Pillan, Design Department, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
“Research, potential and fields of application for eye-tracking”, Iyad Aldaqre, SR Labs, Milan, Italy
“Design research supported by eye tracking and other biometric analyses”, Julian Wolf and Kerrin Weiss, Product Development and Engineering Design at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland
“What EEG tells us about activities of designers from different backgrounds”, Sonia Vieira, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal
“Metrics that matter: the support of EEG in understanding designers’ behaviour during conceptual phases”, Yong Zeng, Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
Concluding speech “Final remarks and personal experience in design research supported by biometric data”, Yuri Borgianni, Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy

All attendees at the workshop need to register either as an addition to the DCC'18 conference registration at a cost of €30, or if not registered for the conference at a cost of €60. Please go the DCC'18 Registration page to add this workshop to your registration.