Are social media platforms really designed for socializing? In his PhD thesis, Christoffel Kuenen suggests that social media is set up to perform tasks, not for being together.

In the past week, UID presented a new leadership group. Thomas Olofsson is the Head of Department, while Linda Bresäter becomes Deputy Head of Department and Demian Horst is the new Assistant Head of Department.

For the third year in a row, Umeå Institute of Design has retained the number one spot in the Red Dot Design Ranking. The prestigious ranking annually rates product design educations in the Americas & Europe.

During a recent exhibition, PhD students at UID created physical manifestations of their ongoing projects. The task of materializing abstract concepts and ideas turned out to present a real challenge.

In their new book, "Changing Things: The Future of Objects in a Digital World", assistant professor Heather Wiltse and professor Johan Redström explore what the networked, digital products of our time actually do and whom they are really designed for.

In their latest project, Daan Hekking and Marc Saboya ventured into unknown territory. Creating a collaborative robot for microbiologists became their greatest challenge to date.