Kirsikka Vaajakallio | Researcher | MA in industrial design | tel. + 358 9 7563 0378 | tel. +358 50 585 3289 | kirsikka.vaajakallio(at)taik.fi
My research interests grow from my background, which is in industrial design and user centered design, concerning how designers can facilitate co-design with other stakeholders and particularly with users. The focus lies on user-designer interaction emphasizing the design games both as metaphor and as specific approach. The study aims to explore how tangible and playful design elements / representations such as Make Tools and design games can amplify people’s creativity and work as designerly way of doing user research. One aspect is to speed up the process by studying people’s normal practice and in parallel make designerly interventions using the playful approaches. I will develop and evaluate design games in different case studies and based on that make some guidelines or models about how to apply those into the design process.
Between 1.9.2008 – 31.5.2010 I shall be working as a project leader in a Tekes funded service design project called eXtremeDesign (see link below).