Ying Luo
PhD fellow at Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Ying Luo is a PhD candidate at the Department of Design, NTNU. She holds a Master's degree in Industrial Design Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Her research sits at the intersection of design research methodology and digital social inquiry, with a focus on integrating netnography into participatory design practice.
Drawing on Norway's green energy transition as an empirical context, her work explores how naturally occurring online discourse can be translated into design-relevant knowledge and applied within real-world co-creation processes. She is particularly interested in questions of researcher reflexivity, knowledge translation, and ethical responsibility in digitally mediated design research.
Tell us about your project!
My PhD project investigates how netnography—a qualitative methodology for studying online communities—can be integrated into participatory design as a reflective and iterative practice.
As digital platforms increasingly shape public discourse on complex societal challenges, I explore how design researchers can use methodological tools to access and interpret naturally occurring online conversations. Using Norway's green energy transition as an empirical context, I examine public discourse across multiple online communities to generate design-relevant knowledge. Through iterative netnographic case studies, co-reflective workshops with design researchers, and real-world co-creation applications, I am developing a methodological framework for netnography-informed participatory design.
My research contributes to design research methodology by bridging the gap between netnographic inquiry and participatory design practice, addressing questions of knowledge translation, researcher positionality, and ethical responsibility in digitally mediated design research contexts.
“As digital platforms increasingly shape public discourse on complex societal challenges, I explore how design researchers can use methodological tools to access and interpret naturally occurring online conversations. ”
— Ying Luo on her PhD project “From Online Noise to Design Insight: A Netnographic Approach to Co-Creation in Green Energy Transitions”