A durabilidade dos clássicos do design como instrumento de apoio ao processo de conceção de produto: 10 princípios para o projeto

A presente investigação identifica o caminho seguido no estudo que se centrou na durabilidade dos produtos como estratégia para a prevenção/redução dos impactes ambientais provocados pela excessiva produção e consumo das sociedades ocidentais. O trabalho baseou-se primeiramente na reunião de argumentos que justificassem a necessidade da investigação. A partir dos conhecimentos obtidos sobre as consequências do descarte prematuro de produtos, incluindo a produção de resíduos e utilização de recursos naturais, a investigação foi direcionada para as estratégias que motivam a redução do consumo pelo aumento da vida útil do produto. A durabilidade de alguns produtos designados de Clássicos do Design motivou o desenvolvimento da investigação. Depois de definido o universo que se enquadra nesta categoria, foi selecionada uma amostra que se considerou representativa e criou-se uma base de dados onde se sistematizou os conteúdos relevantes a conhecer. Através da análise qualitativa e quantitativa da amostra desses produtos, obteve-se uma matriz operativa composta por 10 princípios que pode ser introduzida no processo de design de novos produtos para aquisição de um tempo de vida útil inicial potencialmente maior. Os resultados da aplicação prática da estratégia desenvolvida, a tese, determinarão no futuro a conceção e produção de artefactos que se pretende apresentar à indústria nacional.

The promotion of digital inclusion through MOOC design and use: a literature review

The use of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is being increasingly equated as a viable option by several educational shareholders in the scope of many scientific areas; nevertheless, research as to its potentialities in terms of digital (and consequently social) inclusion is still sparse and somehow atomised. Thus, this paper aims at putting forward the results of a thorough literature review focussed on the studies that bring together the concepts of MOOC and digital inclusion, published between January 2014 and January 2015. Thus, the main goal was to find out if there is evidence that MOOCS can be an important means for embracing digital inclusion, in particular, by promoting the development of soft skills (e.g., digital skills, communication skills, interaction skills). First and because the concept is becoming more and more polysemic (due to its manifold uses, theoretical frameworks, and application contexts), the MOOC’s main facets are depicted, considering its derivatives (e.g., cMOOC and xMOOC). Moreover, some critical aspects that stand out from the content analysis of the results of the literature review are also highlighted, namely as to: accessibility, employability and lifelong learning promoted through MOOC use. In general, results suggest that there is still a long way to go for MOOCs to fully address the digital inclusion challenge.

Design as a critical research

Historically the imaginary and the hegemonic thinking, in the Western globe north, has been marked by the epistemology and capitalists archetypes. Notwithstanding the design seem as a practice and discipline shielded on a simplistic discourse of functional / communicative efficiency, wandering through by multiple aestheticism apparently neutral in relation to the symbolic, but in fact they never are, because what really hapens is that the aesthetic appearance of the generated forms will always be a review of the powers ruling. We start from the understanding that the act of creating an aesthetic artifact, will also be a movement of inscription in a discursive platform (that precedes it), is in itself an narrative act and that fact represent a certain take place in relation to certain symbolic reality. On reflection shown if it sees design as a discipline and / or an instrument of action, whose operational relevance tends to question and simultaneously rehearsing a response, in which more than why interests answer to why. Apparently the design is a content mediator, but also, it is structure, is body, is idea. We think a design praxis as discipline and enrollment tool of critical thought and social transformation. For guiding research in this text, we propose the following question: Can the Design want for themselves an engagement with the symbolic in order to be an active part in the production of critical thinking in the place where it belongs? Methodologically our argument will be present in two differents moments: 1. a first, exploratory nature where we rescue the draw issues in the practice of design and 2. a second analytical nature concerning the subject issues (graphic and / or utility ) design and how it incorporates formal rites, political events and social practices of contemporary everyday life. We consider the praxis of design as a discipline and critical thinking enrollment tool as agents of social transformation. With this study we seek for contribute phenomenology design by studying the artifacts of configuration as well as the possible messages they convey and what impact they may have on the social network.