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This paper presents a sub-study on participatory design in visual management (VM), bracketed from a larger case study. In this case, VM refers to the recurrent meetings when managers and co-workers use dashboards (VM boards) to continuously organize work activities and performances and contribute to the ongoing development and improvements within the organization. The study focuses on when the managers and co-workers are participating in the process of designing and visualizing work-related information regarding workload for future VM boards. This paper emphasizes collaborative workshops and the creation of moodboards as participatory methods, and the application of theories of metaphorical thinking and conceptual and visual metaphors. The findings show that participants perceive the visual output they create metaphorically, in this case, the moodboards. Such visual outputs represent conceptual and visual metaphors that evoke the participants’ sharing of core concepts and an establishment of stories related to the information to be designed. In turn, the metaphors and the storytelling stress desires, visions, objectives, and themes, besides workplace atmospheres, norms, and values governing the workplace. This understanding translates to shared work experiences where conceptual and visual thinking impact how work teams develop work-related information on VM boards together.

Outdoor office work is an emerging aspect of the concept of ‘new ways of working’, but only sparse data are available about the environmental qualities of the outdoor office space, experiences of office workers, and work-related well-being of outdoor office work. Here, we present an exploratory pilot study on well-being and outdoor office work in a public urban space. An outdoor office was set up in the courtyard of a university campus, and the participants (n = 16) conducted office work outdoors for 30 min and thereafter participated in an eye-tracking session for 11–15 min (n = 8) and subsequently filled out surveys (n = 16). The eye tracker allowed the discovery of natural and built elements in the outdoor environment that caught the participants’ visual attention, whereas the surveys assessed aspects of their subjective experiences of the outdoor office space (its visual and spatial qualities) and the work there. The results are presented as network graphs where correlations are shown regarding different aspects of office work outdoors. The results indicate that outdoor office work in a public urban space may promote work-related well-being in terms of positive outdoor office space experiences. Based on the findings, a preliminary set of outdoor office qualities is proposed. Those qualities relate to the legibility and imageability of the outdoor office space, its focal points, and depth/spaciousness, in addition to attributes of usability and environmental richness, including if the outdoor office space affords natural contact and supports activities, in addition to social and individual interactions and relations.

The style of cognition which is examined by Carina Söderlund & Pete Evans is the participatory or collaborative design (codesign). This “de-signing together”, which is developed through the help of the  immersive virtual reality devices, also permits the co-presence, i.e., to become aware of the presence of the other team members, while collaborating. This tech-nique can be used to exhibit ideas or products. Furthermore, the users can participate in such digital devices or displays in order to view and interact in public spaces ("museum exhibitions").The authors take as starting point the temporal continuity in design and study the connections of design and virtual reality (VR) to a detailed de-gree. The result is quite up-to-date and future-oriented, although the short history of digital simulation is considered. The discussion combines en-vironmental studies in the psycho-social realm. Then the idea of a multi-sensory approach connects visual space with tactile experience. This idea is enlarged up to introspection in general and as a self-reflective study method.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role and function of visuals, visual communication and information design as they relate to management control systems and visual management (VM) in lean-inspired organisations. This paper helps expand knowledge on how visual and design studies can contribute to research on VM as part of a management control system.

Design/methodology/approach

A study is outlined, which was conducted at a multinational manufacturing company to investigate employees' perceptions and use of visual devices on the shop floor, including their related reactions and behaviour. The study is delimited to operation management, lean manufacturing and lean boards (i.e. daily management boards and performance measurement boards).

Findings

The findings point out the persuasive purpose of lean boards, as well as the metaphoric and persuasive functions of the visuals and information design in management control systems.

Originality/value

Visual research and design research are rare within studies of management control systems. There is a need to perform research that takes into account the role and function of visual communication and information design in VM. The proposed areas for future research can provide design principles, as well as insights into the complexity of visual communication and information design in VM and management control studies.

Today, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has seen a technological evolution accelerate at an exponential rate (Schwab, 2016). Due to the development of digital technology, this accelerating trend has been identified around workforce, technology and learning (Richardson, 2012). COVID-19 has exasperated the digitalization in industry, academia and society. In design education, due to the pandemic, design students and teachers are often situated at different locations, at a distance.
 We are now working and studying remotely with a documented detriment to learning. This distance diminishes engagement between peers, instructors and also the important corporeal material in design amongst others. Preparing students to thrive in these distant interactions and then their rapidly advancing professional domains becomes a cornerstone for today’s pedagogical foundations through technological-enabled distant learning. Heidi Hayes Jacobs sees differentiated learning interactions actualized in practice by Rosan Bosch Studio (2018) around metaphors of mountain top, cave, campfire, watering hole and hands-on and movement (Thornby, 2014). These ideas relate to differentiated learning scenarios such as lecture, informal intimate conversations, focus groups, spontaneous meetings, and tacit and embodied interplay. These ideas and metaphors are critical in design education that are at risk of disappearing in our virtual zoom world. Research indicates a need for immersive collaborative learning across educational, design, psychological, and neurological domains to specifically include ideas of inclusion even by way of a literal diversity of thinking that multimodal learning provides.
 Extending this focus in distant learning we believe it is critical to include multimodal embodied options through collaborative virtual environments (CVE). A previous pilot on virtual reality (VR) among design students indicates the potential for divergent thinking and creativity (Lee, Sun, and Yang, 2019). Our aim is to explore co-created learning in immersive VR to study if it supports flexible thinking to move design studio pedagogy forward. Flexible thinking in this case deals with the students’ possibilities to be innovative, creative with divergent thinking.
 This research sets out to answer the question, what are the differences and similarities between the students’ design concepts when co-creating in a multimodal and immersive virtual classroom in VR, compared to previous real classroom experiences.
 The study is conducted in a design class with approximately 30 industrial design students. We will evaluate student project outcomes and surveys in an industrial design course at multiple points, with a design process map over the course to determine any effect on flexible thinking.

21st Century education and professional practice require novel engagement with ideas, technologies and toolsets. Virtual Reality (VR) and similar technologies are advancing rapidly, and protocols to understand, implement and measure the new values for design education which need to be further elaborated on. This paper discusses the impact of VR on craft and design in a university design class. A pilot was conducted to study students’ experiences and opinions around VR in craft and design in an advanced CAD design course. The findings indicate improvement in design and communication from the students’ perspective. This study suggests that VR can be an effective design tool integrated into design education.

This paper deals with the development of participatory methods in visual management (VM) when investigating parts and system/s related to VM devices in organisational contexts. Four theoretical perspectives – sociocultural theory, boundary objects, diagrams, maps and models, and visual rhetoric – have been applied to gain an overall understanding of the participants’ collective investigation of the system/s. Managers and co-workers in five Lean-inspired organisations have used the method Multimodal Origami (MO) to design their VM devices, in this case the VM boards and associated meetings.