Abstract

This paper aims to learn from existing design research literature on taboo topics to inform the development of a research project about sexual health in later life. Participatory design approaches can play a role to better understand the complexities of researching taboos and navigate in sensitive situations. A rapid literature review focused on taboos related to people’s individual sexual experiences of the body, resulted in identifying five actionable design considerations: 1) make taboos visible and interactive for people to respond to, 2) use humor to overcome the awkwardness of taboos, 3) design together on taboo subjects for more inclusive futures, 4) stimulate learnings about the taboo for researchers and participants, and 5) include moments of reflection during the design research process. The design considerations provide an initial step for a four-year study exploring the taboo of intimacy in skilled nursing facilities together with residents and staff.

Keywords

Design Research, Taboo, Intimacy, Sexuality, Participatory Design

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Conference Track

shortpapers

Share

COinS
 
Oct 9th, 9:00 AM

We’ve never learned to talk about it’: Considerations for design researchers to address intimacy and sexuality.

This paper aims to learn from existing design research literature on taboo topics to inform the development of a research project about sexual health in later life. Participatory design approaches can play a role to better understand the complexities of researching taboos and navigate in sensitive situations. A rapid literature review focused on taboos related to people’s individual sexual experiences of the body, resulted in identifying five actionable design considerations: 1) make taboos visible and interactive for people to respond to, 2) use humor to overcome the awkwardness of taboos, 3) design together on taboo subjects for more inclusive futures, 4) stimulate learnings about the taboo for researchers and participants, and 5) include moments of reflection during the design research process. The design considerations provide an initial step for a four-year study exploring the taboo of intimacy in skilled nursing facilities together with residents and staff.

 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.