The theme firstly selected : User-centered design based on digital interaction design

Digital interaction design (DID) refers to the idea of “creating good designs that realize proper human-oriented interactions in the technology-driven digital environment.” When DID was selected as the research theme in the early 2000s, the Design Institute published the Journal of Digital Interaction Design for the first time. Around that time, the terms of ‘digital’ and ‘interaction’ were not commonly used in the design industry. However, these days design environments surrounding us have been increasingly focused on these two terms. In line with this newly emerged and user-centered paradigms based on interaction designs, the Design Institute has expanded the scope of its research and is striving to gain notable performance with sub-themes of u-healthcare design, u-public urban design, and information & communication technology (ICT) convergence design which refers to interdisciplinary areas combining information technology (IT) and communication technology (CT).

The theme secondly selected : Integrated u-healthcare design

The Design Institute has conducted research with the convergent concept of ‘user-centered interaction’ and involves foundational studies in healthcare design; the main ideas include the integration of treatment-prevention-management, the integration of patients-medical staff-care givers, the integration of facilities-equipment-information, and the integration of interdisciplinary approaches. Such integrated healthcare design research can produce the concept of u-healthcare which involves user-centered, ubiquitous, and universal.
The Design Institute is a cultural touch point to spread cultural changes into the off-line setting of our campus, reflecting the results of sentiment-based research in virtual reality and convergent research with neighboring disciplines to the university education. By pursuing a practical application of the results in the industrial environment, the institute is ultimately looking forward to promoting the creation of human-centered virtual reality and the development of related industries.

The theme fourthly selected : In an Era of Crisis, an Ecological Turn in Design: A Study on the Bioecological Care Design Model

This study is based on the awareness of the need to develop the limitations and voids of the traditional health care field into an advanced community care (CC) system, and discovers the methodology of effective care from a design point of view. It aims to build a design (u+uCCD) diversification model.
This is based on the research achievements of healthcare design accumulated by the institute, and the research results of integrated u healthcare design based on user-centered, universal design, and ubiquitous concepts, and future medical care. We came to the conclusion that the welfare and security environment can be most effectively implemented in an information environment based on daily life and local communities.

The theme thirdly selected : Diversification of u+u Community Care Design Model

This study aims to go beyond existing human-centered and institution-centered models of care by establishing a new care design model that embraces humans, non-humans, ecosystems, and technology, in an era of compounding crises marked by a super-aged society, the persistence of infectious diseases, climate disasters, and the proliferation of AI. The proposed Bioecological Care Design (BeCD) integrates three elements: Bio-Ecological, which is grounded in the interdependence of life and ecosystems; Care, which pursues continuous, relational care rooted in local communities; and Design, a methodology for visualizing, structuring, implementing, and evaluating such care.
BeCD reframes care not as a supplementary domain of health and welfare services, but as an ecological systems-design challenge in which individuals, communities, nature, technology, and institutions interact. To this end, the study conducts four sub-studies (R-BeCD, C-BeCD, T-BeCD, and I-BeCD) organized around four dimensions: Relationality, Contextuality, Temporality, and Implementability. Drawing on human intelligence (HI), artificial intelligence (AI), and public intelligence (PI) as its research foundation, and combining information design (I.D.), service design (S.D.), and environmental design (E.D.) as its execution axes, the study will deliver a community-applicable BeCD model, evaluation indicators, design prototypes, and a practice manual.