In the COVID-19 pandemic, digital technologies (DT) supported the design and implementation of solutions addressing new needs and living conditions. We describe Design for Emergency, a digital open design platform developed to ideate solutions for people's fast-changing needs in the pandemic, to analyze how DT can affect human-centered design processes during emergencies. We illustrate how DT: i) helped quickly collect and analyse people's needs in different countries, visualize such data, and identify design directions and problem spaces; ii) facilitated the creation of a virtual network of stakeholders and an open-innovation digital platform; iii) inspired the ideation of solutions responding to people's changing needs and affected their implementation. We discuss the implications of adopting DT in designing for and during emergencies, as well as their current and future potential to promptly respond to emergency situations through a human-centered approach.@en

Data sonification is a practice for conducting scientific analysis through the use of sound to represent data. It is now transitioning to a practice for communicating and reaching wider publics by expanding the range of languages and senses for understanding complexity in data-intensive societies. Communicating to wider publics, though, requires that authors intentionally shape sonification in ways that consider the goals and contexts in which publics relate. It requires a specific set of knowledge and skills that design as a discipline could provide. In this article, we interpret five recent sonification projects and locate them on a scale of intentionality in how authors communicate socially relevant issues to publics.@en

In recent years, efforts to frame sound-related areas of research such as sonification, sonic interaction design and product sound design in terms of design methodologies became more common. Sound designers seem to be willing to structure a field traditionally characterised by tacit knowledge in terms of explicit design processes, tools and methods, to increase the reach and impact of the field. In this paper, we describe the first two stages of a commercial sonification project for the design of sounds for Electric Vehicles. The project was developed applying a design methodology that integrates a specific tool (the sonification canvas), which we describe in detail. We approach the creation of sounds for Electric Vehicles as a designerly endeavour with the goal of contributing to the transition of sound design from a heterogenous, practice-based field to a structured discipline that can enrich the creation of fulfilling experiences.@en

Water distribution systems are undergoing a process of intensive digitalization, adopting networked devices for monitoring and control. While this transition improves efficiency and reliability, these infrastructures are increasingly exposed to cyber-attacks. Cyber-attacks engender anomalous system behaviors which can be detected by data-driven algorithms monitoring sensors readings to disclose the presence of potential threats. At the same time, the use of sonification in real time process monitoring has grown in importance as a valid alternative to avoid information overload and allowing peripheral monitoring. Our project aims to design a sonification system allowing human operators to take better decisions on anomalous behavior while occupied in other (mainly visual) tasks. Using a state-of-the-art detection algorithm and data sets from the Battle of the Attack Detection Algorithms, a series of sonification prototypes were designed and tested in the real world. This paper illustrates the design process and the experimental data collected, as well results and plans for future steps.@en