2025: Visual Methodologies in Design Research: Potentials and Pitfalls

Photo credit: Matt Ramey

Friday, August 15, 9:00 AM to 1:30 PM

The primary goal of this symposium is to explore the value of visual research methods in design fields, addressing both methods and data analysis, as well as the more philosophical questions surrounding the importance of visual data and its positioning in the broader research realm.

Agenda

9:00 am – 9:15 am: Welcome and Opening Remarks
Newton D’souza, Director of Doctoral Programs, NC State College of Design

9:15 am – 10:20 am: Panel 1: Visual Data Collection Methods 

Moderator: Victoria Gallagher, Distinguished University Professor of Communication, NC State College of Humanities and Social Sciences

10:20 am – 10:35 am: Q&A

Break (15 minutes)

10:50 am – 11:55 am: Panel 2: Visual Mapping and Data Analysis 

Moderator: Todd Berreth, Assistant Professor of Media Arts, Design, and Technology, NC State College of Design 

11:55 am – 12:10 pm: Q&A

Break (15 minutes)

12:25 pm – 1:15 pm: Keynote Address and Q&A

Dr. Molly Briggs, Assistant Professor of Graphic Design & Design for Responsible Innovation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

1:15 pm – 1:30 pm: Closing Remarks
Dr. Elen Deming, Graduate Programs Coordinator for the Doctor of Design program, NC State College of Design

Panel 1: Visual Data Collection Methods

Panelists

Tony Liao

Associate Professor of Digital Media
University of Houston

Talk topic: Theorizing and Designing Augmented Reality Applications for Visual Research

Tony Laio is the founding director of the CougAR Lab (www.uhcougarlab.com), which studies the development of augmented and virtual reality technologies, their effects on human perception/behavior, and how it changes people’s relationship to space/place. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation

Bio

Anjali Joseph

Professor of Architecture
Clemson University

Dr. Joseph’s research focuses on multi-disciplinary systems approaches to improving patient safety and quality in high-stress healthcare settings through the development of tools and built environment solutions. She has served as principal investigator on multiple grant-funded projects from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Kresge Foundation, the California HealthCare Foundation and the US Green Building Council. She currently serves as PI on a multi-year patient safety learning lab funded by AHRQ focused on designing safer and more ergonomic operating rooms.

Bio

Nilda Cosco and Robin Moore

Natural Learning Initiative
NC State University College of Design
[Behavior mapping]

Professor Cosco’s research focuses on the impact of outdoor environments on health outcomes such as obesity, sedentary lifestyles, attention functioning, and well-being. Her current research is supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health (NIEHS), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Buffalo Hospital Foundation.

In January 2000, Dr. Cosco and Dr. Moore co-founded the Natural Learning Initiative (NLI), with responsibilities for design programming and research of outdoor areas for children with and without disabilities.

Dr. Robin Moore is an international authority on the design of children’s play and learning environments, user needs research, and participatory public open space design. His designs for children’s spaces in the USA include the well-known Environmental Yard, in Berkeley, California (recipient in 1988 of the Outstanding Contribution to the Practice of Design Research by the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA).

Bio

Moderator: Victoria Gallagher

Distinguished University Professor of Communications
NC State University

Dr. Victoria Gallagher is a Distinguished University Professor of Communication here at North Carolina State University. Dr. Gallagher’s work interprets, theorizes and assesses civil rights-related discourses and commemorative projects, as well as public art and urban communication through a visual and material rhetoric lens. She is the co-editor and contributing author of the book, Communicative Cities in the 21st Century. Gallagher is also the principal investigator of the award-winning Virtual Martin Luther King project, a significant long-term digital humanities project for the public, supported in part by major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies.

Bio

Panel 2: Visual Mapping and Data Analysis

Panelists

Bo Zhang

Associate Professor of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture Oklahoma State University

Talk topic: Visualizing Publicity of Open Space: Aesthetics and Insights

Dr. Bo Zhang is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at Oklahoma State University. While keeping an active practice, he is enthusiastic about applying new technologies in the research and teaching of landscape architecture. He is a recipient of more than 20 teaching, design, and research awards, including the ASLA National Honor Award in Research, the CELA Award of Excellence in Teaching, the EDRA Place Award in Research, and the UK Landscape Institute (LI) Landscape Innovation Shortlist Award. He is the author of the encyclopedic book Research Methods in Architecture, Urban Planning, and Landscape Architecture.

Bio

Sara Queen

Associate Professor of Architecture NC State University College of Design

Talk topic: Making the Invisible Visible

Sara Queen, AIA is a licensed Architect and Associate Professor at NC State’s College of Design where she serves as Director of Undergraduate Programs in Architecture and the Director of the First Year Experience in Design in addition to teaching studios and research seminars. Sara’s research investigates mapping methodologies with the goal of facilitating deeper, more diverse understandings of urban systems and the processes which shape physical place, cultural space, and social territory. She is the co-director, along with Tania Allen, of the design research group Co-Lab, which focuses on critical mapping as a participatory design research tool.

Bio

Lucas Noldus

Noldus Information Technology

Lucas Noldus is founder and chief scientist of Noldus Information Technology, a developer of software tools and integrated measurement systems for the study of human behavior and human-system interaction, headquartered in the Netherlands, with branches across Europe, North America and China. Noldus’ systems have found their way into thousands of academic and industrial research labs around the world.

Bio

Moderator: Todd Berreth

Assistant Teaching Professor of Media Arts, Design and Technology
NC State University College of Design

His research focused on developing open design toolkits and projects which make cutting-edge human-computer interaction research accessible, to enable and enrich digital humanities communities and their efforts. He was interested in how emerging technologies, mixed and virtual reality, gaming environments, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other advances can help us see our world in new ways.

Bio

Keynote Speaker

Molly C. Briggs, PhD, MFA, BFA
Assistant Professor of Graphic Design & Design for Responsible Innovation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Molly Briggs is a landscape and media historian, design theorist, visual artist and master printer who combines traditional and makerly research methods to delineate the role of printed matter in shaping built and social space—past, present, and possible. She is currently writing a cultural history of immersive graphic overviews in chorographic mapping and articles on the role of makerly methods in place-based inquiry. She teaches core courses and special electives in design tools, methods, theory, and research for undergraduates in Graphic Design and graduate students in Design for Responsible Innovation at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.