PhD

DARTS offers the following research areas to PhD candidates:

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Critical Interaction Design, Artifacts and Interactive Art

This research proposal focuses on critical interaction design in order to explore functional, non-functional, aesthetic, cultural, speculative and political dimensions of interfaces.

Speculative, critical and discursive design constitute the methodological approaches to explore critical interaction design. The research in this area includes discursive, contextual and analytical research and also prototyping, development and building artifacts as means to test ideas and validate hypotheses.

This research topic includes interactive media archaeology; interaction for social good and justice vs. dark patterns and surveillance capitalism; measuring agency on interactive artifacts and/or conversational interfaces; user-centered interaction design in interactive media art.

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User-centered interaction design

Human-computer interaction (HCI) is organized around three main elements: design, technology and people. It mainly focuses on the definition, design and evaluation of interactive products, tools and systems from a user-centered perspective. Interaction design researchers explore, design, build and test interactive products and systems with user-experience goals in mind. HCI provides a set of models, methods and techniques to user centered interaction design research that take into account the design process and key activities such as user research, ideation, interaction definition, prototyping and user testing. This line explores research around interaction design processes and methods, interaction co-design, conversational interfaces, gesture interfaces or tangible interaction.

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Human-Computer Interaction and e-Learning

This research proposal is focused on the relationship between HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) and TEL (Technology-Enhanced Learning): how design and technology impact students and their learning. Interaction design and human-centered design can transform learning experiences and provide e-learning environments, learning resources and educational tools that take into account learners’ needs, wants and limitations. Therefore, this research proposal focuses on design, technology and learning in order to provide interactive and user-centered technology-enhanced learning.

This research topic includes:

  • Learning Toolkits. The Design Toolkit (design-toolkit.uoc.edu, 2017) is an open educational repository presented as a toolkit -a set of tools for designers to learn and practice. This research focuses on design toolkits, aiming to define, assess and optimize “expert workflows”  in order to address the needs of both student and professional (expert) designers.
  • Interactive learning tools. Folio.uoc.edu (2018) is a social network learning platform that integrates Learning Management Systems with Content Management Systems, creating a tecno-pedagogical model based on self-identification, social learning and professional development. This research line delves into the use of personal e-portafolios in rich networked environments with a focus on the implications and potentialities of its interfaces and interactions.
  • Interactive learning tools. CodeLab.uoc.edu (2020) is an ongoing project that provides a laboratory-based learning tool for non-STEM students to learn to code through a hands-on approach. Students learn by doing, following learning itinerary, exploring how to solve problems, completing activities and engaging in discussions with peers and/or teachers to address challenges.
  • Embodied interaction in technology enhanced learning. How to design embodied interactive learning experiences in the context of e-learning and asynchronous and distance learning?

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Artistic Research: Post-Media Languages and Transdisciplinary Practices in Context

Contemporary artistic practices are characterized by transcending the limitations and classifications of compartmentalized artistic languages. Adopting a post-media perspective allows the integration of both traditional techniques and digital technologies or more process-oriented and relational mediums. This doctoral thesis proposal promotes artistic research projects that do not center on the media themselves but rather on the implications of one form of materialization over another.

  • Artistic production with formalization in a work.
  • Theoretical, historical, and/or practical studies on new media.
  • Curatorial processes, social practices, and relational practices.

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Artistic Research in Interactive and Immersive Media

Digital art is not only ideally placed to explore these new spaces, but very necessary in order to have approaches, strategies and responses to it that go beyond established and commodified practices, and offer alternatives that aim at pushing these possibilities not for commercial profit but for creativity and towards a more positive impact on society. Currently focusing on the liminal territory between the virtual and the real created by digital technologies, the DARTS research group is invested, through this research line, in looking at the potential of practice-based and artistic research.

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Research Through Design: The Intrinsic Value of Making

Research through design is a research approach where design practice becomes a way of inquiry, a method to explore and generate knowledge. It focuses on the creation and reflection on design artifacts, using these artifacts to explore ideas and generate insights.
This research proposal invites PhD candidates to engage in transdisciplinary and applied research addressing current social, cultural, and technological challenges through the intrinsic value of making. From a broad perspective, candidates can work on:

  • Design as inquiry, creating artifacts not only as functional products but also to generate knowledge, concepts, or critiques.
  • Emphasizing artifacts that are not only practical solutions but also essential parts of research that provide insights and generate wisdom depending on how they are designed.
  • Producing knowledge not limited to individual cases; this intermediate-level knowledge includes robust concepts, patterns, or design frameworks

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