Rethinking Representation in Design: Towards Constructing Parameters for Representation Tools in More-than-Human Design

Abstract

Understanding and representing user perspectives is essential for designing user-centered products, services, and systems. The emergence of More-than-Human Design (MTHD) expands the scope of "user"to include nonhumans, challenging the usefulness of existing user representation tools for MTHD and thus motivating design researchers to devise new tools or adapt existing ones to MTHD contexts. This paper reviews 40 design research studies to investigate representation tools in MTHD, analyzing represented nonhumans, modalities, and contexts. The paper contributes to the literature by identifying six parameters of user representation tools in MTHD: transferability, depth of representation, transcendentality, multi-perspective integration, scalability and flexibility, and resource investment. We discuss the implications for defining and conceptualizing user representations in MTHD and designing new tools by balancing didactic and interpretative representation techniques. © 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).