Twitter: @DrRadzikowska
Web site: milenaradzikowska.com
Since 2005, Radzikowska has collaborated on over 30 design research projects that extended anywhere from 2 to 7 years; 4 of those with budgets in the millions. Her research work is transdisciplinary, marked by a passion to benefit others and informed by 15 years on teams with researchers from over 30 different fields. She’s worked on large, medium, and small, national and international projects, with undergraduate and graduate researchers, industry partners, not-for-profit agencies, and scholars. Her work has been iterative and experimental—meant to challenge existing design conventions and explore unique alternatives to complex problems.
Much of Radzikowska’s efforts have been spent on the intersection of design and DH although, more recently, she has led several teams in digital/material remediation, with exhibition (physical and video-based) components. She is also part of a team examining how to use prototypes in research, first to formulate research questions, then to produce theories, and finally to test them; and using design thinking to examine such “wicked problems” as marginalization through data display, displacement, health and safety, academic freedom, and design thinking itself. This year, she has joined an international team working on design for reconciliation in post-conflict zones, which involved a sometimes uncomfortable number of bullet-proof vests, resulting in the phrase: “there’s always room in the decoy truck.”
Radzikowska has more than 75 publications and presentations on data visualization, aesthetics, interaction design, interaction theory, design methods, and design research. She is the co-author of Visual Interface Design for Digital Cultural Heritage (Routledge Publishing, 2011), two upcoming books, Design + DH and Better Futures: How Prototyping Improves the World (Intellect Books, 2020), and two books in progress, Digital Feminist Activisms and Raising the Bar: The Practice of Intersectional Feminist Design Research. She is a member of the Design Concepts Lab research group, and one of the founding members of the qLab (qcollaborative.com), an Intersectional Feminist Design Research Lab, located at Mount Royal University, University of Waterloo, and University of Illinois.
Keywords: Critical Design, Information Design, Data Visualization, Feminist HCI, Rich-Prospect Browsing, Human-Computer Interaction, Decision Support Systems, User Engagement, Design Strategy, Material Data
Graduate advising
I am currently looking for graduate students to work with me on projects that deal with the theorization, design, prototyping, and testing of experimental information artifacts, interactive tools, and data visualizations.
The main focus of my research activities is in the design and development of interactive systems that enhance human access to information using visual and information design processes and techniques. My efforts are driven by a user-centred approach and the belief that machines should help meet human needs, whether to entertain, educate, collaborate, make decisions, or complete tasks. The subject matter of these projects can potentially cover a wide range, and I welcome students who want to investigate a subject emergent out of their own interests and passions.
Many of the interfaces I have designed are experimental in nature. Experimental interface design typically proceeds iteratively, through a research life cycle that includes three phases: conceptual and theoretical work supported by sketches; prototyping informed by user study; and production and implementation, with further information provided by analysis of logs. The objective of this research is not primarily to implement current best practices, but rather to help invent the next generation of best practices.
I am particularly interested in design as theory reification, in critical design, and in feminist HCI.