Francesco Ermanno Guida

Background: The social compensation hypothesis posits that computer-mediated communication can offset psychosocial vulnerabilities among users who face barriers to face-to-face interaction, thereby enhancing well-being. Yet, there is no validated instrument to assess which design features of digital systems enable such compensation. Objective: To develop and validate a Social Compensation Design Scale (SCDS) for urban older adults living alone, situated within smart-home social media as part of home-based, health-enabling environments. Methods: We conducted a three-phase study from an information systems design perspective: item generation and expert review via a Delphi process, followed by two questionnaire surveys. Valid responses were obtained from 340 and 357 urban older adults, respectively. Psychometric analyses (reliability and validity testing) were conducted across two independent samples. Results: The SCDS comprises four dimensions—User Interface Quality, Interaction Quality, Content Quality, and Service Quality—with 16 items overall. Across samples, the scale demonstrated strong internal consistency and construct validity. Conclusions: The SCDS offers a concise, user-centred measure for evaluating how smart-home social media design supports psychosocial well-being in older adults aging in place. The scale provides researchers and designers with a structured toolkit for assessing user experience in health-related home environments and for informing design decisions that promote acceptance and sustained use of digital health applications among older populations.

This paper aims to present and discuss how the teaching of visual identity and experience design in Communication Design education may be developed within a speculative design framework. By adopting this approach, students can experience the ethics of design practice and explore alternative design values, forms, and representations. They become familiar with design as a problem-seeking and problem-finding practice, which encourages the development of concepts, scenarios, and results without any predetermined function. Assuming an open approach to final results and learning more about a design field to be intended as an open context with blurred borders.They base the project’s development on the principle of learning by doing, which consists of thinkering, making mistakes and repeatedly trying to improve the results and acquiring competencies and skills. This method pushes the students to experiment with visual expressions and user experiences between two and three dimensions. They could range among many techniques and technologies, from analog to digital ones. Consequently, each design had to be theoretically discussed and physically verified by making prototypes.By defining a design process and discussing the implications of an anti-disciplinary approach, the aim is to inquire how such framing may destabilise conservative methods and consolidate new practices into Communication Design learning.

Brands tell stories to affirm their values, positioning, and identity. They tell stories that allow people to recognise themselves in them, to share them, to feel part of them. That occurs in the real world as in the world of fiction. The term fictional branding refers to the design and use of brands that do not refer to any existing service, product, company or organisation. They can include any brand referring to products or commercial services, political institutions, military organisations, and more. This paper aims to offer a comprehensive look at the topic through historical and theoretical research and analyse the state of the art of the practice. Specifically, we will deepen fictional brands’ role in building engaging, believable and memorable stories and narratives. In order to carry out a more precise and in-depth analysis, we defined a specific field of investigation: that of long-form narrative audiovisual works, thus including films, TV series and video games. The result of the research is currently merged into the Fictional Brands Archive. This website allows users to consult an extensive collection of fictional brands accompanied by information and visual material.

What if the brand is a place? In specialist literature, the brand interacts through a series of tangible and intangible touchpoints with its interlocutors. When we buy items, use services, or come into contact with any expression of a brand, we come into contact with its being. Whether these are points of sale, events, websites, packaging and products, touchpoints help the interlocutor enter the world of the brand and experience it. These elements play an essential role in building a long-term engagement with it. However, in an ever-changing environment where brands must be flexible and agile to remain market relevant, they must also be able to adapt their behaviours and modulate their identity and expressions based on conditions and context. It is, therefore, necessary to underline the transition from touchpoints to touchplaces in the system of relations between the brand and the audience. The concept of place, as that of the brand, contemplates spirit, personality and character. Each place, like each brand, has its own particular identity and moral character, making both emotional and relational hubs. An interpretation model will allow highlighting this evolution from touchpoints to touchplaces and how these places of exchange and meeting are key elements in offering relevant experiences to the interlocutors.

What if the brand is a place? In specialist literature, the brand interacts through a series of tangible and intangible touchpoints with its interlocutors. Whether it is points of sale, events, websites, packaging and products, the interlocutor enters the world of the brand and experiences it through these touchpoints. However, a brand must adapt its behaviours and modulate its identity and expressions based on conditions and context. In this article, we propose a transition from the definition of touchpoint to touchplace in the system of relations between the brand and the audience. The concept of place, like that of the brand, contemplates spirit, personality and character. Like each brand, each place has its own identity and moral character. An original interpretation model will highlight the evolution of brands’ behaviours and how these places of exchange and meeting are key elements in offering relevant experiences to their interlocutors.

This paper aims to present and discuss how the teaching of visual identity and experience design in Communication Design education may be developed within a speculative design framework. By assuming this approach, students can experience the ethics of design practice and explore alternative design values, forms, and representations. They can acquire the idea of design as a problem-seeking and problem-finding practice, and that encourages the development of concepts, scenarios and results without any predetermined function. The development of each project is based on the principle of learning by doing, which consists of tinkering, making mistakes and trying over and over again to improve the results and acquire competencies and skills. By the analysis of selected students’ work, tested design process and implications of an anti-disciplinary approach, the aim is to inquire how such framing may both highlight the critical issues of conservative methods and the benefits of non-regulatory practices.