Design School Kolding

This study presents two factor structures suggesting that the qualities and features that children ascribe to subjectively good and bad play situations can be broken down to a relatively low number of central factors. Attempts to model or quantify play have often focused on behaviors, developmental abilities, and pedagogical functions, rather than situational characteristics seen from the child's perspective. Qualitative studies focused on children's experiences, on the other hand, often fail to draw patterns across large numbers of children and situations. 504 primary school students were recalled a recent good or bad play situation, and were asked to match these with short sample statements detailing similar experiences previously collected using episodic interviews with 104 individuals in the age group. Custers of related situational features were then extracted using principal component analysis (PCA). Clusters consisting of 22 and 7 unique dimensions were identified in the dataset. While some emerging qualities of play like 'being silly' or 'keeping boundaries' appear uniquely related to discrete activities and preferences, more general factors including 'social unity', having 'a role to play', being 'allowed in', and feeling equipped to participate 'well enough', emerge as highly stable dimensions defining good or bad play experiences for children across grades, schools and types of play. and practical application: Findings were combined to propose a seven-dimensional 'Play Qualities Inventory' (PQI) for self-report by children ages five to eleven, while the broader backdrop of smaller unique factors provide a new and grounded understanding for discussing the multidimensionality of 'good' versus 'bad' play as seen through the eyes of children.

The Victoria and Albert Museum's exhibition Design and Disability (June 2025-February 2026) is both humbling and thought-provoking.It demands participation, urging visitors to see design not simply as a matter of aesthetics or function, but as a vital tool for dignity, equity, and belonging.Far from being a passive display of objects, the exhibition creates an active dialogue, drawing audiences from observation into engagement, and ultimately inspiring them to rethink how design touches every life.What becomes quickly apparent is that this exhibition is not a niche concern, nor a special-interest showcase.It is a story about all of us.Design for Disability illuminates the hidden infrastructure of daily life, and once you begin to see it, you cannot unsee it.The way a bus stop is planned, the height of a counter, the logic of a keyboard, the ease with which someone enters a gallery space, these are not neutral or incidental choices, but decisions that determine who belongs, who participates, and who is left out.The exhibition quietly but insistently makes that case.Spanning from the 1940s to today, Design and Disability demonstrate how persistence in the face of difficulty sparks innovation and representation.From self-made functional objects to refined industrial design and bold activism, the displays show that adaptation and creativity are not exceptions but essential human practices.In this way, the exhibition becomes a mirror, challenging us to confront our own biases and to reconsider how easily we take daily functionality and representation for granted.What is ordinary for some is a daily negotiation for others, and in that negotiation lies the spark of ingenuity.Accessibility is central to the exhibition, supported by tactile models, Braille, audio guides, video elements, and resting spaces.Its design underscores that accessibility can be both functional and beautiful.The spatial layout, paired with rich wall colours, from cool blue to warm orange to vibrant green, creates an atmosphere of inclusion and signals hope for a more equitable world.Nothing about the exhibition feels like an afterthought or a compromise.Instead, it quietly models the idea that accessibility enriches the experience for everyone, not only those who need it most.Structured around the themes of visibility, tools, and living, the exhibition makes clear what is at stake: the lives of people who want to be seen beyond their disabilities, to be represented in society, fashion,

Healthcare is a critical component of the infrastructure of a welfare state, with public services at its core. However, its challenges are more complex and intractable than those addressed by service design frameworks. The relational design approach, aligned with participatory design principles, could provide insights for service design that promotes a focus on relationships, networks and situated knowledge generation. This study explores situating tactics in the research process of a large EU project focusing on shared decision making in cancer care. By analysing how topic, timescale and methods are situated across two research sites, we discuss how relational sensitivity has been enacted over time. We conclude that focusing on relational qualities may bridge gaps between system requirements and design participant needs, allowing for more nuanced and culturally sensitive solutions.

This paper explores the design of speculative probes as a situated, exploratory, and critical practice for engaging with intimate and stigmatized topics in specific socio-cultural contexts. It examines how designers navigate cultural sensitivities with care, demonstrating how speculative design can foster alternative spaces for dialogue rather than directly confronting taboos. Drawing on a case study in Tunisia, which addresses cultural stigmas around menstruation among young men and women, the paper highlights the importance of narrative-driven and culturally sensitive speculative design in fostering non-judgmental spaces for dialogue and mutual learning, thereby supporting systemic and cultural transformation. This paper advocates for design research practices that are deeply contextualized, and culturally sensitive, demonstrating how speculative design can contribute to more inclusive and sustainable futures.

This paper is an entry into the recent discussion (Miltiadis, 2023; Perez, 2023) within game studies about the apparent disconnect between the theory and practice of game design. In response to a call for the field to embrace a research through design methodology to strengthen the dialog between game scholars and designers this paper explores the potential of autoethnography for examining the practice of game design in terms of the ability to reflect on game design from a perspective more immediately relatable to game design practitioners. The paper demonstrates how the autoethnographic method and style of writing may provide new types of productive encounters between the theory and practice of game design.

ABSTRACT This paper argues for play experiments as a method for promoting children’s participation in research and acknowledges their meaning-making and knowledge. The paper is based on two dress-up doll codesign experiments with children. We draw on the perspectives of play order and play practices together with Schön’s concept of ‘on-the-spot experiments’ and his ideas of naming and framing in a process of selecting ‘things’ to attend to. From this position, we discuss drifting in design research with children. To enhance children’s knowledge in design research, this paper suggests extending an existing typology of design experiments to include a sixth typology, namely the ‘exceeding typology’, which can be described by the keywords ‘transboundary’, ‘transcendent’, and ‘extending’. The main contribution is showing how children’s play knowledge can contribute to core meaning-making through codesign experiments in ways that challenge and transcend adults’ expertise. By pointing at play as an open space for meaning-making where children’s expertise rules, we demonstrate the value of play experiments in design research in general.

Denne artikel undersøger beskrivelser af didaktiske designs, som undervisere på pædagog- og læreruddannelsen i Danmark har lavet som led i deres arbejde med legende tilgange til deres undervisning. Datamaterialet består af 36 beskrivelser af didaktiske designs, hvor undervisere skal overveje mål, intentioner og legekvaliteter i deres planlægning, gennemførelse og evaluering. Analysen viser, at underviserne ofte designer med de samme legekvaliteter, og ofte er disse legekvaliteter dem, som vi forventer. Analysen viser også, at hvis vi arbejder med at tydeliggøre legekvaliteterne ved at have en fornemmelse for diversitet, åbner vi for et større spekter af legekvaliteter. Og tydelighed og diversitet vil også have betydning for, i hvilket omfang det faglige er centralt i de didaktiske designs, og hvordan legekvaliteterne er relevante for det faglige. Artiklens centrale bidrag er at vise, at begrebet legekvaliteter er en relevant og virkningsfuld måde at udvikle legende tilgange til læring og undervisning i højere uddannelse på. ENGLISH ABSTRACT Play and the playful in higher education. A play quality analysis of 36 didactic designs in social education and teacher training programs This study aims to investigate the didactic designs that educators in social education and teacher training in Denmark create when adopting a playful approach to teaching. The data consist of 36 descriptions of the didactic designs, where teachers are asked to consider goals, intentions, and play qualities in their planning, realization, and evaluation processes. The analysis reveals that teachers often design for the same play qualities, which tend to be the expected ones. The analysis also indicates that working transparently with play qualities and exploring the diversity of these qualities hold potential for broadening the scope of diversity in didactics within teacher education and social education. Moreover, transparency and diversity influence the extent to which the subject matter is integrated and the relevance of play qualities to the subject matter. The main contribution of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of the concept of play qualities in developing playful approaches to learning in higher education.