Designing with Dignity: Research Reflections on Inclusive Communication and Gamification
Design research often unfolds through iterative reflection and critical dialogue. My research process was significantly shaped by ongoing conversations with Dr. Maaike Harbers, lector of Artificial Intelligence & Society at the Kenniscentrum Creating 010 and senior lecturer at the Creative Media and Game Technologies programme at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. Her expertise in the intersection of ethics, artificial intelligence, and design provided essential guidance as I navigated the complexities of socially engaged design focused on illiteracy and public communication.
Our discussions helped crystallize my research direction. Initially, my objective was to develop a universally accessible visual language to aid communication for people with low literacy. While ambitious, this approach proved too technically and contextually complex to realize within the timeframe of a Master’s programme. Through reflective conversations, I learned to reframe the research in a more grounded, human-centred direction—one that emphasized awareness-raising among public sector professionals rather than system design for the illiterate themselves.
This shift was not simply pragmatic; it was ethical. Harbers’ work (2021) on ethical design emphasizes the centrality of human dignity and the situated realities of stakeholders. Her guidance prompted me to ask not only what I was designing, but for whom, with whom, and why. These questions are critical in a field increasingly attentive to the social implications of technology and design (Van Dijk, 2020).
A key moment in this reframing was my introduction, via Harbers, to the Clear Language team of the Municipality of Rotterdam. An interview with communication specialist Fenny Brandsma deepened my understanding of how municipal communication often inadvertently excludes those with limited literacy. This insight informed my pivot towards gamification as a method for engaging public servants and civil society actors in critical reflection on accessibility.
Gamification became not just a method but a means of inclusive communication. I drew on earlier research I conducted in 2007 for the Digital World Lectorate at Inholland University of Applied Sciences, where I developed a co-created educational game that helped increase pass rates in the ‘Introduction to Law’ course. The success of that serious game demonstrated the potential of gamified tools to render complex or “uninteresting” topics both engaging and educational—a principle I now applied to the subject of literacy exclusion.
The resulting design prioritized ethical and inclusive aesthetics: diverse figure representations in terms of color, eye shape, and body type subtly reinforced the message of inclusivity. This aligns closely with Harbers’ vision that design should uphold the dignity and lived experiences of vulnerable users—not just meet technical requirements. It also resonates with broader European design research movements that foreground participatory, ethical, and speculative practices (Manzini, 2015; Binder et al., 2011).
Through this process, I discovered that design choices are not merely functional; they are ethical statements. Whether in visual style, communication strategy, or methodological framing, each decision carries implications for whom we include, whom we ignore, and how we shape the social reality through design. Working with Harbers highlighted how design research is not just about solving problems—it is about constructing values in practice.
References
Ozkaramanli, D., Smits, M., Harbers, M., Ferri, G., Nagenborg,M. Poel,I., van de, Navigating ethics-informed methods at the intersection of design and philosophy of technology, Knowledge Centre Creating010, (2024).
Manzini, E., Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation, MIT Press, (2015).
Van Dijk, D., Digital Inequality in the Netherlands: A Multi-Level Analysis of the Impact of Skills and Attitudes, European Journal of Communication, (2020).
Binder, T., Brandt, E., Ehn, P., & Halse, J., Design Things, MIT Press, (2011).
Leave a Reply