We
The Design Research Lab is a network of people, organisations, and non-human agents engaged at the intersection of technologies, materials, and social practices. Our aim is to design socially and ecologically sustainable tools, spaces, and knowledge that support people’s participation in a digital society – based on common principles of inclusiveness and respect for the planet. This puts the basic democratic right to take part in the digital sphere into practice. We start our research from individual lifeworlds and the needs of minoritized groups, beyond consumer majorities.
We are an interdisciplinary team of designers, researchers, tech-enthusiasts and critical thinkers from Berlin University of the Arts, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, as well as Einsteincenter Digital Future (ECDF).
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ID MiniFab
The ID MiniFab which contains robots, conveyor belts, suction systems, rolls and milling machines is able to produce high-quality ID documents in single pieces ‘on-demand’. The design researchers supported the development process of the industrial machine with user research and design concepts.
We used a prop technique with which machine workers could simulate complex processes in a lab setting using artefacts and create visions around a tangible model and paper prototypes.
We also involved managers to understand the challenges of the conventional process in comparison to the processes of the ID MiniFab using a small sized machine model. After the analysis of the activities, we developed a wide range of interaction concepts like different wearables, (tangible) displays, mixed reality and mobile apps for the maintenance workers that were partly transferred to patents.