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1. Thinking transdisciplinarily: Question-Collaboration Workshop to ideate across disciplines

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1773669  

   Boguslav, Mayla R; de_la_Haye, Kayla; Cross, Jennifer E (May 2026, Frontiers in Psychology)

   IntroductionAddressing “wicked problems—complex societal challenges without clear boundaries or solutions—requires deep integration of knowledge across disciplines and sectors (transdisciplinary collaboration). While existing frameworks and toolkits support transdisciplinary collaboration, most interventions focus on established teams rather than the ideation stage. Methods and materialsThis study introduces the Question-Collaboration Workshop, designed to stimulate transdisciplinary thinking and foster new research teams through collaborative question generation. The workshop includes four activities: (i) the Knowledge Creation Framework to make the scientific processes explicit; (ii) Buzzword Networking to build trust and a shared language; (iii) Four Layers of Questions to iteratively combine research questions across disciplines; and (iv) the Known-Unknown Matrix to identify knowledge gaps and actionable next steps. Two workshops were implemented at U.S. land-grant universities with researchers from diverse fields. Pre- and post workshop surveys and facilitator observations were analyzed qualitatively. ResultsBoth workshops seemed to successfully generate novel transdisciplinary questions and initiate new collaborations. Participants reported greater awareness of disciplinary perspectives and enthusiasm for future engagement. Challenges included time constraints, scaling activities for larger groups, and clarifying the Known-Unknown Matrix. Feedback emphasized the need for extended sessions, broader disciplinary representation, and follow-up activities to operationalize ideas. DiscussionFindings suggest that research questions can serve as a powerful catalyst for transdisciplinary collaboration. The workshop supports team science competencies such as trust-building, shared language, and co-creation of ideas. Limitations include small sample size and lack of longitudinal follow-up. Future work should refine activities, assess scalability, and evaluate long-term impacts on team formation and knowledge production. ConclusionThe Question-Collaboration Workshop demonstrates promise as an intervention to foster transdisciplinary thinking at the ideation stage. By leveraging researchers' intrinsic curiosity, this approach can help assemble diverse teams to address complex societal challenges. 

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2. Insights from Youth Co-designers on Remote Multimodal Prototyping with Paper Playground

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3628516.3659400  

   Fiedler, Brett L; Smith, Taliesin L; Greenberg, Jesse; Eisenberg, Ann; Moore, Emily B (June 2024, ACM)

   Paper prototyping presents a low-entry barrier method to engaging youth in interaction design. Purely paper-based designs leave a large gap between ideation and implementation. Paper Playground is a prototyping tool that connects physical and virtual papers with JavaScript programs, enabling the creation of multimodal prototypes in both face-to-face and virtual settings. Paper Playground is being designed and developed through iterative co-design activities including youth and adults. Here we present findings from remote co-design sessions with youth, investigating what affordances the participants requested from a multimodal prototyping tool. We reflect on the co-designers desires and remarks on paper use for interactive project design, remote collaborative use, and extensibility for physical computing. 

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3. Co-adapting a Design Thinking Activity to Engage Students with Learning Disabilities: Insights and Lessons Learned

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3311927.3325316  

   Harden, E. Lynne; Moore, Emily Brooke (January 2019, Interaction Design and Children)

   Teaching students with learning disabilities about design thinking can prepare them to be active co-designers of learning tools and resources that will ultimately benefit them and their peers. In this paper, we outline an introductory design thinking activity conducted with students with learning disabilities and share two specific and contrasting student interactions that occurred during the activity. The two interactions highlight how being able to engage in open, respectful, and constructive idea sharing can lead to a more sophisticated and evolved design prototype. Student collaboration observed also provides insight into improved ways to scaffold learners in introductions to design thinking. We share lessons learned and ideas for how to modify this activity to better support a positive introduction to design thinking experience. 

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4. From Information to Ideas: How Designers Structure Information to Support Idea Generation

   https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2020-22527  

   Damen, Nicole B.; Toh, Christine A. (August 2020, International Design Engineering Technical Conferences)

   null (Ed.)

   Design can be seen as a series of decisions that are informed by information that the designer has gathered from the environment and transformed into actionable knowledge. The sheer volume and variety of available information compels designers to impose structure upon the desired information, which in turn may affect subsequent design activities. To better understand how information may inform design decisions, this study investigates the relationship between designers’ information organization behaviors and their generated ideas by recruiting eight professionals (four from software design and four from graphic design) for individual 3-hour design sessions. They were asked to generate ideas for a design problem (reducing pedestrian accidents in Nebraska) using the provided information. Results reveal that designers structured the information in three different ways (Clusters, Relations, and Nests), and both designer background and organizational strategy display different roles in the features generated in their ideas. 

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5. Toward Automated Functional Modeling: An Association Rules Approach for Mining the Relationship between Product Components and Function

   https://doi.org/10.1017/dsi.2019.177  

   Tensa, Melissa; Edmonds, Katherine; Ferrero, Vincenzo; Mikes, Alex; Soria Zurita, Nicolas; Stone, Rob; DuPont, Bryony (July 2019, Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering Design)

   Abstract The objective of this research is to support DfX considerations in the early phases of design. In order to do conduct DfX, designers need access to pertinent downstream knowledge that is keyed to early stage design activities and problem knowledge. Product functionality is one such “key” connection between early understanding of the design problem and component choices which dictate product performance and impact, and repositories of design knowledge are one way to archive such design knowledge. However, curation of design knowledge is often a time-consuming activity requiring expertise in product modeling. In this paper, we explore a method to automate the populating of design repositories to support the overall goal of having up-to-date repositories of product design knowledge. To do this, we mine information from an existing repository to better understand the relationships between the components, functions, and flows of products. The resulting knowledge can be applied to automate functional decompositions once a product's components have been entered and thus reliably provide that “key” between early design activities and the later, component dependent characteristics. 

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