In 2024, I finished my PhD research titled Crafting Worlds: Navigating Fact and Fiction as a Data Futures Designer (defense on January 21st 2025). In my thesis, I detail my 5 years of PhD research. Besides the contents, I also did the cover design and layout myself.
My full thesis can be found here: [link to come after online publication of thesis].
Abstract
Previous work in design and HCI has explored various methods to apply storytelling and speculation techniques to foster critical and societal engagement. Methods like data-enabled design have also brought this approach into the data design domain. Using the principles of data-enabled design as a starting point, my work set out to enrich data design approaches with storytelling to make them (1) more transdisciplinary and (2) more closely entangled with visions of the future.
Through informed explorations with storytelling and speculation in academic and industrial contexts, I developed a framework to shift the weight of data-enabled design to stories and speculation to foster creativity and plurality in data design.
In this thesis, I reflect on the entangled roles of stories and data in a collaboration between Eindhoven University of Technology, Philips Experience Design and Catharina Hospital Eindhoven. The main contribution of this thesis is a modular approach to storytelling and speculation in data design to make the approach scalable to diverse contexts and project configurations. As a recurring theme throughout my thesis, I reflect on how to weave these new approaches to using data and stories into design education to make storytelling approaches part of the toolkit of the data designers of the future.
