This article repositions strategic design as a relational and situated practice that works with dissensus rather than subordinating it to efficiency or problem-solving. Drawing on Isabelle Stengers' figures of the diplomat and the idiot, we conceptualize strategic design as a practice of composition and symbolic modulation that keeps disagreement public and workable without collapsing it into consensus. We develop this argument through two contrasting practice-based cases. Church of Entrepreneurship is a performative, parodic intervention that saturates entrepreneurial discourse. VentilaDor is a situated digital intervention that mobilizes anonymity, circulation, and harm-reduction ethics to make otherwise unspeakable institutional tensions publicly readable. Read together, the cases show how friction can be strategically sustained across different media and infrastructures of participation. The article contributes a more precise vocabulary for analysing agonistic composition, symbolic modulation, and care as political and relational resources for strategic design under conditions of plurality and uncertainty.
Grounded in the view that emotions significantly shape learning, the study addresses the challenge that students often struggle to articulate their feelings and that instructors often have limited access to these emotional cues. The research introduces Emotional Journey Cards, a reflective tool developed to explore design students' emotional experiences across a semester-long course. Designed within a participatory and longitudinal framework, the cards provide a structured yet flexible means for students to externalize and reflect on emotions related to lectures, in-class exercises, assignments, and teaching approaches. The week-by-week structure of the cards enabled the collection of immediate and authentic emotional reflections. The findings reveal two complementary dimensions. The tool supported students in recognizing and interpreting their emotions as part of reflective learning, while the emotional data informed the instructor's understanding of student engagement and contributed to a more emotionally attuned learning environment.
This paper explores the possibility of combining theories from different subject areas into product design as influences that are not typically seen in this space. The main aim of this research was to discover whether concepts from horror and comedy could be incorporated into a design process in order to create products that influence user reactions in new ways. While this paper only explores one example of incorporating new influences into a design process, it covers some of the key ideas in relation to wider exploration of concepts and how the ideas presented may work with other disciplinary themes. An exploration of user interactions with products in general was also key in understanding how this could affect the way users viewed and interacted with the final products. Finally, this paper proposes these ideas as a way to open new critiques on the design world and the influences used when designing new products. Building on research into horror and humour concepts, this paper explores the integration of these into a product design process. Walking through each stage of a design process drawing from academic perspectives on what makes a product design process successful. This paper demonstrates how a design process can be altered by introducing new influences while still meeting guidelines for what good design is. By then undertaking the design process and thus creating a suite of products demonstrating the concepts that were introduced, the paper determines that products designed with alternative influences can have a space in the design world and can function and interact with users in new ways. The implications of this research open possibilities of successfully using uncommon influences in product design as a way to open new understandings of what good design can be.
Floods have repeatedly threatened the people of Aceh Province. Thousands of families lost their property and lives because the early warning information was delayed. This research designs a flood early warning system prototype based on IoT using renewable energy, which can operate on its own without PLN electricity. The system uses three IP68 float switch sensors to detect water levels at thresholds of 0.5m (normal), 1.0m (alert), and 1.5m (danger) combined with a 2-in-1 audio-visual alarm (strobe and siren) with a coverage distance of 100-150 meters. The energy design uses a solar panel of 50-100W with 12V DC voltage and has a minimum backup for 48 hours without sunlight. Hardware design, sensor accuracy testing, validation of the energy system, and testing the effectiveness of alarms are the research methods in this study which is conducted in Banda Aceh City. The results indicate that this system can run independently at low power consumption because float switch sensors are more effective than ultrasonic sensors under conditions where the water is turbid and full of debris as found in rivers in Aceh Province. This prototype is low-cost (less than Rp 2 million), requires minimal maintenance, and has high reliability; therefore, it can be adopted by communities that do not have many resources. This research provides a technical blueprint for developing an early warning system that fits geographically and climatically with Aceh Province which may be replicated in other flood-prone districts for disaster risk reduction programs.
