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Design Av Informationsteknik: Materialet Utan Egenskaper

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... Of course the solution designed can be a subject of discussion in how well it serves the situation and how well it contributes to the new situation that evolves, but that does not mean it is the best possible solution or that it can not be further improved. (Löwgren & Stolterman, 1998) The perhaps most fundamental characteristic of the design process is that the understanding of the situation is gradually developed along with the attempts of finding solutions to it. This has to do with the way that the design process approaches problems. ...
... Abstraction levels Löwgren and Stolterman (1998) identify three abstraction levels in the early stages of the design process; vision, operative image and specification. These three levels are constantly affecting each other throughout the design process. ...
... The vision affects the operative image which affects the design situation and so on. (Löwgren & Stolterman, 1998) This in turn means that the design process has no natural end; since there is no definite answer or solution to a design problem there is always a possibility of improving the design. What normally ends a design project is lack of time or money, or when the designer judges that it is not worth more time to pursue further solutions to the design problem. ...
... It is a two-way street and as well as we shape and act upon artefacts, the artefacts will shape us and change our behaviour, expectations, habits and language. Artefacts are parts of different sociotechnical systems (Löwgren and Stolterman, 1998). This means that as well as humans form social systems, humans and artefacts form systems which share similar attributes such as defined ways of communicating and interacting, expectations on behaviour, habits and acceptable behaviour. ...
... A number of factors constitute what makes design good design. Löwgren and Stolterman (1998) argue that although some aspects of an interface are independent of context, they also describe factors that are context dependent. The artefact must fulfil its purpose in a certain, defined context and situation. ...
... The artefact must also respond to the users' expectations. However, Löwgren and Stolterman (1998) argue that there is no simple short cut that will ensure a design being perceived as good. Although numerous checklists exist in the field of HCI, any designer must develop his own judgement, opinion and feel for the act of designing. ...
... Om man analyserar ett antal olika förebilder ur samma genre kan man skapa sig en bild av hela genren, genom såkallad genreanalys (Lundberg, Arvola, & Holmlid, 2007), och på så sätt identifiera de attribut som förknippas med genren. Löwgren & Stolterman (2004) pekar på vikten av att ha en "repertoar av exempel" i designarbetet. Med detta menar de en uppsättning liknande förebilder som kan matchas mot den aktuella designsituationen. ...
... Att studera förebilder är ett sätt att utforska olika designsituationer och dessutom kunna göra empiriska iakttagelser av vilka följder de olika alternativen medför. Hur man värderar olika alternativ och vilka val man slutligen gör är en av de viktigaste delarna av designprocessen enligt Löwgren & Stolterman (2004). Om designsituationerna redan är utforskade och analyserade för en genre så bör det öka designerns förmåga att göra goda designbeslut. ...
... Detta sker på samma sätt som när man ändrar något i ett invant beteende vilket leder till oförutsedda och eventuellt oönskade händelser. För att undvika detta krävs erfarenhet och en reflektiv förhållning till designprocessen (Löwgren & Stolterman, 2004;Schön & Bennett, 1996). Som designer måste man alltså ha en reflekterande hållning även då man utgår ifrån förebilder och inte enbart förlita sig på tidigare designbeslut. ...
Thesis
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Boverket har huvudansvar för att skapa en portal för samhällsplanering som ska kunna förse kommuner, landsting, företag och privatpersoner med olika typer av kartinformation. Denna portal kallas Planeringsportalen och som ett led i dess utveckling hölls ett designmöte i april 2007. Inför mötet gjordes en analys av diverse förebilder för att beskriva de goda designlösningar som finns i genren WebGIS, enligt förlaga från Lundberg, Holmlid och Arvolas (2007) arbete. Uppsatsen beskriver hur dessa designlösningar kan användas i designen av Planeringsportalen tillsammans med en redogörelse för hur förebilder kan bidra till en bättre designprocess. Genren representeras i arbetet av webbplatserna Eniro, Norge digitalt, RATP samt Mapquest som alla studerats enligt ett formaliserat förfarande. Analysen identifierade ett stort antal goda designlösningar varav en del ansågs passa in i Planeringsportalens designsituation.
... Design är en komplex uppgift. Den är alltid unik och inte en process som kan föreskrivas eller ens beskrivas (Löwgren och Stolterman, 2004). De menar att normativa ansatser för att lösa detta aldrig kan vara tillräckliga. ...
... Det krävs i stället en reflekterande hållning. Att reflektera betyder att använda kritiskt tänkande då man undersöker sin roll som designer (Löwgren och Stolterman, 2004). Man är uppmärksam på sin egen designförmåga och på de resultat som man producerar. ...
... Det krävs ett kritiskt förhållningssätt för att utnyttja befintliga teorier och modeller. Det tidiga designarbetet kan delas in i tre övergripande abstraktionsnivåer (Löwgren och Stolterman, 2004): visionen, den operativa bilden och specifikationen (se Figur Nästa steg är att designern utvecklar en första konkretisering av visionen, en operativ bild. Den utvecklas från diffusa skisser eller bilder till att anta en mer och mer fast form. ...
... Innovation är inte enbart något fysiskt utan kan även innebära en ny idé eller process och ses ofta som produkter och tjänster baserade på informations-och kommunikationsteknik (Eriksson, Niitamo & Kulkki, 2005;Galanakis, 2006). Det finns en allmän oro över den digitala utvecklingens framfart, detta eftersom individer kan ha svårt att hänga med i utvecklingen och ta till sig tekniken (Löwgren & Stolterman, 2004). Detta lyfter dagspress som ett växande problem eftersom ett fungerande samhälle förutsätter att alla individer kan använda sig av de samhälls-och kommersiella tjänster som finns för att underlätta vardagen (Hallandsposten, 2011a). ...
... För att uppnå god användarupplevelse är det därmed viktigt att aktivt arbeta med användarinvolvering i innovationsprocesser (Bevan, 1995;Nielsen, 1992;Hlauschek, Panek & Zagler, 2009). Genom att processdeltagare och slutanvändare arbetar tillsammans och drar lärdom av varandras kunskaper och erfarenheter kan det medföra att informations-och kommunikationsteknik lättare förstås och används (Löwgren & Stolterman, 2004). Processdeltagare definieras i denna uppsats vid de aktörer vilka arbetar i innovationsprocesser, exempelvis forskare och projektledare. ...
... Involveras inte slutanvändare kan det medföra att processdeltagare har svårt att förstå deras förutsättningar och behov med den informations-och kommunikationsteknik vilken är tänkt att framtas (Hess & Ogonowski, 2010;Sharp et al., 2007;Svensson et al., 2010). Däremot är det inte tillräckligt att enbart involvera slutanvändare i innovationsprocesser utan det kräver även att de upplever deltagandet som meningsfullt och engagerande för att vilja bidra med erfarenheter och åsikter (Löwgren & Stolterman, 2004). Motivation är därmed essentiellt inom innovationsprocesser, eftersom det har stor betydelse för hur den framtagna informations-och kommunikationstekniken möter slutanvändares behov och förutsättningar (Hess & Ogonowski, 2010;Svensson et al., 2010). ...
... As I will expand upon in chapter 2, capturing, managing, and utilizing design ideas are pivotal skills during a professional design career. Second, their design 'material' (user experience and user interaction) is often difficult to represent and manipulate using existing tools [Löwgren and Stolterman 1998;Dow et al. 2006]. How does an interaction designer represent experiential concepts like 'feeling overwhelmed' or 'sleek performance'? ...
... As we will detail in the background section, capturing, managing, and utilizing design ideas are pivotal skills during a professional design career. Second, their design 'material' (user experience and user interaction) is often difficult to represent and manipulate using existing tools (Löwgren and Stolterman 1998;Dow et al. 2006). How does an interaction designer represent experiential concepts like 'feeling overwhelmed' or 'sleek performance'? ...
Thesis
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This dissertation is the result of my work in the CIBIS project (Creativity In Blended Interaction Spaces), under the broader scope of illuminating what happens when design ideas emerge, as well as how ideas are represented and transformed across devices and spaces. This dissertation contributes to understanding how professional interaction designers use tools and systems to manage design ideas in their private and professional lives. I have gathered an extensive amount of qualitative data from empirical observations, surveys, interviews, and design idea archive walkthroughs, to form a detailed understanding of the complexities and dynamics in play in professional idea management. I have primarily applied a grounded theory approach to the data, developing analyses and frameworks solidly grounded in the field and participant views. The contributions of the dissertation are the following: I identify and analyze definitions of the concept “design idea”, as it has been used in research up until now, and unfold the meaning of the concept by identifying and analyzing externalized instances of design ideas from professional interaction designers’ archives. I identify a theory of the actions involved in idea management of professional interaction designers. Based on this theory, I develop a framework of strategies of tool-use, based on the creative objectives tools fulfill to professional interaction designers. Finally, I identify four design opportunities for novel, digital idea management tools under the headings of ‘utilizing the potential of the design idea archive’, and ‘increasing focus on the creative designer’.
... Designteori består enligt Löwgren & Stolterman (1998) av kunskap som kan frigöra designers från förutfattade meningar och från fastlåsta föreställningar om hur designprocesser kan och bör utföras. Designteori syftar också till att skapa nya förutsättningar för design, skapa nya och annorlunda förebilder, visa på goda exempel och skapa övergripande förståelse för skapandets villkor. ...
... och dialogen mellan designern och uppgiften. En forskare som ofta nämns som en förgrundsgestalt inom denna inriktning, och inom modern designteori i stort, är Donald Schön (se exempelvis Jönsson & Andersson 1999, Löwgren & Stolterman 1998, Gedenryd 1998). ...
... Before continuing on this discussion on motivation, let's make the differentiation between "inner motivation" and "outer motivation" (my translation) [13]. Inner motivation is the will of action that comes from within whilst outer motivation is given by an external force such as your work organization, obliging you to act. ...
... However, in reality it might be the case that many of the most interesting properties and qualities of a product cannot easily be measured. Yet, this mustn't stop the designer from taking these qualities into account [13]. One important premise behind the ISO-standard definition of quality-inuse that tends not to be mentioned is that it is a standard written mainly for office applications. ...
... Enligt Stolterman och Löwgren (1998) har designprocessen tre abstraktionsnivåer, vision, operativbild och specifikation som påverkar varandra i en dynamisk process (se bild 1). Det vill säga att alla delar i processen påverkar de övriga kontinuerligt. ...
... När det var bestämt vilka produkter som skulle produceras till Ungdomsland sattes det igång med brainstormingför att skapa en vision av hela arbetet (Stolterman& Löwgren, 1998). Det började med enskild brainstorming som sedan slogs ihop och jämfördes för att se om visionen var tillräckligt utvecklad för att gå från idé till något mer konkret, den operativa bilden. ...
... Måtten kan exempelvis användas i användartester där mått på användbarhet eftersöks. Löwgren & Stolterman (1998) tar upp fyra mått för att mäta just användbarhet som kommer från den experimentella forskningen. Nedan kopplas måtten ihop med Löwgrens fyra element i REAL. ...
... Om användaren får en negativ reaktion kan det resultera i att användaren inte litar på att produkten kan utföra den önskvärda uppgiften. Likaså kan ett gränssnitt som skapar en omedelbar positiv inställning hos användaren vara avgörande för användarens fortsatta inställning till, och användning av systemet (Löwgren & Stolterman, 1998). ...
... In Paper 2, communication is mentioned as a reason for prototyping that refers to this limited meaning. (2005), Stolterman (2004), andHolmlid (2002). My studies gradually changed from interaction design to service design, and my master thesis was about references to services in design communication (Blomkvist & Holmlid, 2009). ...
... The actual interaction is unique and happens in those exchanges. Similarly, the concept of use qualities (Ehn & Löwgren, 1997;Holmlid, 2002;Arvola, 2005;Arvola, 2010;Löwgren & Stolterman, 2004), means that what is important in interaction design is understanding the qualities people experience in use. Use qualities as a theoretical stance thus contains elements of service logic where qualities can be thought of as value. ...
Thesis
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This thesis describes prototyping in service design through the theoretical lens of situated cognition. The research questions are what a service prototype is, what the benefits of service prototyping are, and how prototypes aid in the process of designing services. Four papers are included. Paper one suggests that service prototyping should be considered from the perspectives of purpose, fidelity, audience, position in the process, technique, representation, validity and author. The second paper compares research about how humans use external representations to think, with reasons for using prototypes in service design and service design techniques. The third paper compares two versions of a service prototyping technique called service walkthrough; showing that walkthroughs with pauses provided both more comments in total and more detailed feedback. The fourth paper also contributes to our understanding of how prototypes aid in designing services, by connecting the surrogate situation with the future situation of service. The paper shows how the formative service evaluation technique (F-SET) uses the theory of planned behaviour to add knowledge to service prototype evaluations about the intention to use a service in the future. Taken together the research provides a deeper understanding of what prototypes are, and their roles in service prototyping. This understanding is further deepened by a discussion about service as a design material, suggesting that from a design perspective, a service consists of service concept, process and system. The service prototype acts as a surrogate for the future situation of service. The thesis describes what the benefits of using surrogates are, and shows how prototypes enhance the ability to gain knowledge about future situations. This leads to an understanding of prototyping as a way of thinking in design.
... Designproblem kan sägas vara "wicked problems", vilket är problem som inte kan beskrivas och analyseras innan de löses. Problem där det inte finns någon "rätt" lösning till, utan snarare en samling mer eller minde bra lösningar med tillhörande argument (Löwgren & Stolterman 2004). Alexandra Weilenmann (2003) ägnar en del av sin avhandling "Doing Mobility" åt relationen mellan studier och design. ...
... Istället ligger utmaningen i att i efterhand redovisa idéns ursprung, om svårigheten att postrationalisera kring vår designprocess, speciellt när idéerna utvecklats parallellt med vårt analysarbete. Löwgren ochStolterman (2004) menar samtidigt att designprocessen är fullständigt dynamisk och att förståelsen för problemet utvecklas parallellt med designidéernas framväxt, vilket kan förklara våra svårigheter kring att härleda idéers uppkomst. ...
... Teknisk dokumentation som används i det dagliga arbetet existerar i en social miljö där människor samarbetar eller arbetar individuellt beroende på vilken slags arbetsuppgift de utför. Det är därför viktigt att dessa redskap utformas efter den tänkta miljön, dess användare och arbetet (Löwgren & Stolterman, 1998). Teknisk dokumentation kan behövas som stöd för att skapa ordning och mening i komplexa arbetssituationer. ...
... Även Löwgren diskuterar betydelsen av strukturering av system och dess tillhörande tekniska dokumentation. Han menar att användaren skapar sig en förståelse och kunskap genom att innehållet struktureras, organiseras och kategoriseras (Löwgren, 1998). ...
... In current discourse, fuelled by the advent of applied AI and machine learning systems, we see how these visions of ubiquity not only result in seamless technology to ease our everyday lives, but how underlying algorithms also result in complex conditions that influence the decisions we make, the information we receive and the activities and discourses we engage in (see Bell and Dourish, 2007). Because of or despite the 'intangibility' of the digital, such as the information technology just mentioned, scholars state that these seem to exist in between the material and the immaterial, with properties so flexible they can almost take on any form imaginable (Löwgren and Stolterman, 2004). This makes it difficult to pinpoint materiality in this setting, but might explain in part the fascination for the more tangible emerging materials and resulting physical artifacts. ...
Thesis
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This doctoral thesis explores interaction between humans, materials, and machines, in the context of makerspaces. The concept of making describes a practice that deals with new technologies in combination with craft to create artifacts in physical, digital and hybrid forms. Despite substantial research, there is still a need to examine what practices of making have to offer to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. This particularly concerns investigations of the close relations between the multitudes of different activities, materials, machines and things in such shared spaces. Making is discussed as a practice of importance for interaction design and conceptualised as involving a particular mindset when engaging with materials and machines. Based on this, my work argues that the phenomenon calls for a deeper reflection on recent movements on material interaction and materiality on the one hand, and perspectives on machine interactions on the other. I explore how situated and embodied practices can be revealed in investigations of makerspace activities. Further, my work describes how makers experience and make sense of the materials and machines that populate makerspaces. Finally, I map out how insights on experience and practice with machines and materials can be conceptualised in a way that become useful for contemporary interaction design practices. The presented research builds on four qualitative studies, in which I draw on investigations in the makerspace and combine an ethnographic approach with participant observation, design methods and contextual inquiry. The resulting five collaboratively written papers frame making as an experience in itself and discover particular ways of making sense of materials. Further, we study embodied and situated dimensions of 3D printing, as well as practices concerning modding and the maintenance of machines and explore how practitioners may develop a maker mindset. The papers contribute with a set of conceptualisations such as “material literacy” when taking artifacts apart, “machine sensibility”, which practitioners show in their interaction with 3D printing, and the “pliable machine” that emerged from studying modding of a laser cutter. These conceptualizations highlight new aspects and perspectives of maker activities and interactions previously less accounted for.
... (Bødker m.fl., 1987) , (Sundblad, 2010) Här introducerade projektledaren, Pelle Ehn, idén att se systemutveckling som ett specialfall av design. (Ehn, 1988a) Andra forskare, t.ex Stolterman och Löwgren (Löwgren & Stolterman, 2004), utvecklade design-begreppet vidare och försökte koppla samman traditionell industridesign med design av informationssystem. Lite senare tog sig amerikanska forskare an designvetenskap och skapade den framförallt som en teori bakom forskning och traditionell systemutveckling. ...
Article
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The domain of informatics, was initially development of computer-based information systems based on mathematical/logical perspective. In mid-1970s, some doctoral students stated that use of these systems should also be studied. Hence work content, work environment and power relations at the workplace should be studied. This cannot be done solely with mathematical/logical methods. Based on Ludwik Fleck's concepts of thought style and thought-collective, Kuhn's paradigm theory and Berger & Luckmann's knowledge sociology, some events taking place during the decade 1975-85 are analyzed and the concept of thoughtstruggle is introduced. My problem statement is: 1. How can the conceptual idea within the informatics in Sweden during the period 1970-1985 be understood? 2. Why did this happen just then? 3. How does it fit into the other changes in society? The result is a description of the thought struggle, what triggered it and what it led to, and where the events have been placed within dimensions of time, positivism and philosophy. The article is written in Swedish
... As we will detail in the background section, capturing, managing, and using design ideas are pivotal skills during a professional design career. Second, their design 'material' (user experience and user interaction) is often difficult to represent and manipulate using existing tools (Löwgren and Stolterman 1998;Dow et al. 2006). How does an interaction designer represent experiential concepts like 'feeling overwhelmed' or 'sleek performance'? ...
Article
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This article presents a grounded theory analysis based on a qualitative study of professional interaction designers ( n = 20) with a focus on how they use tools to manage design ideas. Idea management can be understood as a subcategory of the field personal information management, which includes the activities around the capture, organization, retrieval, and use of information. Idea management pertains to the management and use of ideas , a particular type of information, as part of creative activities. The article identifies tool-supported idea management strategies and needs of professional interaction designers, and discusses the context and consequences of these strategies. Based on our analysis, we identify a conceptual framework of 10 strategies which are supported by tools: saving, externalizing, advancing, exploring, archiving, clustering, extracting, browsing, verifying, and collaborating . Finally, we discuss how this framework can be used to characterize and analyze existing and novel idea management tools.
... As we will detail in the background section, capturing, managing, and using design ideas are pivotal skills during a professional design career. Second, their design 'material' (user experience and user interaction) is often difficult to represent and manipulate using existing tools (Löwgren and Stolterman 1998;Dow et al. 2006). How does an interaction designer represent experiential concepts like 'feeling overwhelmed' or 'sleek performance'? ...
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This paper presents a grounded theory-analysis based on a qualitative study of professional interaction designers (n=20) with a focus on how they use tools to manage design ideas. Idea management can be understood as a subcategory of the field Personal Information Management, which includes the activities around the capture, organization, retrieval, and use of information. Idea management pertains then to the management and use of ideas as part of creative activities. The paper identifies tool-supported idea management strategies and needs of professional interaction designers, and discusses the context and consequences of these strategies. Based on our analysis, we identify a conceptual framework of ten strategies which are supported by tools: saving, externalizing, advancing, exploring, archiving, clustering, extracting, browsing, verifying, and collaborating. Finally, we discuss how this framework can be used to characterize and analyze existing and novel idea management tools.
... Digital technology has a material existence without defined tangible qualities, and as such could be adhered to in almost all possible future scenarios. The symbolic logic is translated into a form that is characteristic of the digital artefact, and it is both the acceptance of the symbolic logic and the performed practices themselves that become the object of analysis (see for example: Löwgren and Stolterman 2004). Technology is nothing but a mirroring of hegemonic social concepts (such as rationalization or individualization), but we need to create, update, and recreate tools to analyse its interaction with the distribution of power. ...
Article
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The purpose of this paper is to bring Foucault’s elaboration on ‘the pastoral modalities of power’ into play in order to rethink alienation in digital culture. Pastoral power is not displacing other conceptions of power, but provides another level of analysis involved in the forging of reasonable responsible subjects willing and able to sustain other conceptions of power. We will draw particularly on the early writings of Marx and the more recent poststructuralist developments concerning hegemony and superstructure in relation to technology. Technology as such is analysed in terms of repercussions of ‘design of the machine’ in industrial technological contexts and ‘design of digital culture’ in digital technological contexts. Pastoral power not only directs our focus to the making of technologies, but also to the making of individuals capable of taking on the responsibilities of technologies. This means that it is necessary to take on the notion of effective power of ideologies and their material reality.
... These assemblages are not obviously understood as design representations; however, in the long-term, they restrict and frame the scope of our digital future. We are acknowledging the political, ideological, strategic, economical, and other heavily normative practices surrounding IS designers in their professional undertakings in different ways (Löwgren & Stolterman, 2004). At the same time, it is important to make the actors on these levels visible and to make it possible to relate the pre-stages of design to power imbalances. ...
Article
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According to narrative trends, digitalization has the potential to deconstruct both power structures and practices of exclusion in society. What we argue here is that this deconstruction is not the result of digitalization alone, it is dependent on how digitalization is done. On the contrary, digitalization has often resulted in reproduction instead of transformation and deconstruction, i.e. digitalization tend to uphold practices instead of challenging them. Being slightly more provocative, what becomes digitalized is often what we can easily capture and understand. Similarly, when we open up for an increased participation in the creation of digital artifacts (sometimes expressed as demand-driven, citizen-centered, or participatory development), those participating in digitalization are often already known; the use of already established contact channels making them easy to reach and connect with. Such logics raise questions about the intersections of norms and power and the potential transformative character of digitalization. The aim of this paper is to, through a theoretical framework combining critical information systems, policy enactment and norm critical design, introduce a reflexive design method to gently provoke norms. We analyze the need to intervene in the everyday practices of digitalization. This is done in an empirical case study of the making of a regional digital cultural heritage portal. The results indicate that digitalization needs norm critical interventions to change existing practices and prevent norm reproduction. Otherwise, as in this case of the digitalization of cultural heritage, digitalization runs the risk of strengthening existing power structures and excluding practices instead of challenging them.
... As we will detail in the background section, capturing, managing, and using design ideas are pivotal skills during a professional design career. Second, their design 'material' (user experience and user interaction) is often difficult to represent and manipulate using existing tools (Löwgren and Stolterman 1998;Dow et al. 2006). How does an interaction designer represent experiential concepts like 'feeling overwhelmed' or 'sleek performance'? ...
Conference Paper
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In this paper, we present an in-depth survey of how interaction designers use tools to capture, manage and collaborate on ideas. We observe that designers report very unique processes with various tools, and that no dominant tool is present for idea capture and development. Our discoveries are summarized into three key insights, suggesting ways for interaction design research to support these practices.
... There is therefore a knowledge gap in terms of content for a service design education/practice. Löwgren and Stolterman (2004) talked about the importance of having a " repertoire of examples " in interaction design: a set of previous solutions, ideas, interactions etcetera, that improve a designer's design capacity. This in turn requires a language for talking about the goodness of various interactive experiences, to be able to verbalise why they are part of the repertoire. ...
Conference Paper
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This paper makes a contribution to the current conceptualisation of service as a design material from three different perspectives. We use definitions of the term material, the connection with service logic and the techniques that service designers use to discuss ways to understand service from a design perspective. Service designers have tools for working with components, things, locations, actions, procedures, interactions and experiences at their disposal. Service designers work with a meta-material for the most part, which is a material representation of the services they are (redesigning g. Unlike fields where the material is worked into a finished form, the material of service design traverses between the concrete and the abstract throughout the design process.
... What is interesting is then, not to continue searching for 'the right' requirements, but to create a deeper understanding of the nature behind normative constructs in order to design in a more reflective manner [8] [9].The basic assumption is a more inclusive apprehension of design actions in which design actions are seen as stemming from perceptions, notions and ideas of a possible futures and the result of such actions are closely connected to these perceptions. They are co-created in multi-diverse contexts and often non-linear and complex, but still, they are design actions [10]. They are not always deliberative, conscious and elaborated upon, they might hide underneath formal and socially accepted norms with reference to development paths and possible futures, but, they will nevertheless, be unveiled during their creation. ...
Conference Paper
The idea of participation and demand driven development is not unique for the applied area of development of public e-services, it has for long been an issue in development stands and has moved relatively unchecked from the margins to the mainstream of development since mid 1980s. The promise of empowerment and transformative development has though been severely questioned during the past decade in development research and practice in lack of sufficient evidence that the idea is living up to the expected standards. However, in eGovernment, demand driven development of public e-service is on the contrary growing. Expectations such as enhanced use, better services and more efficient resource utilization are expressed in different contexts. In this article the idea of demand driven development of public e-services is analyzed discursively in order to gain a deeper understanding of how the narrative is told, retold and challenged. The results show that from a design perspective it is rewarding to acknowledge both the dominant, hidden and contrasting stories in order to understand challenges in development work.
... My work supports the emerging tradition of seeing materials in a wide perspective that also embraces computational technologies as materials. Such perspectives are taken up by Löwgren and Stolterman (1998), who describe information technology as a material without qualities, and by Redström (2002, 2006), who discuss how computing as material needs to be mediated through some kind of spatial material. ...
Thesis
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Industrial and interaction designers are increasingly faced with new computational technologies that may be used as materials in designing. Such materials are important in design practices because they offer conditions for conceptualisation and production of new designs. However, new computational technologies are often very complex and not presented with the intention of supporting design practices. This study explores such a problem by way of a study of Short-Range RFID (SR-RFID) as design material. SR-RFID is a new computational technology that enables a transaction of information between a radio transmitter and an RFID tag when the two are within a very short range (2-5 cm). As a design material, SR-RFID crosses the traditional boundaries between industrial and interaction design by offering temporal and spatial properties that may be shaped by both disciplines. In investigating SR-RFID as a design material, we are faced with two important challenges. First, the available information concerning SR-RFID in relation to industrial and interaction design is limited and often oriented toward finished solutions rather than exposing potentials for designing. Second, it is difficult to find frameworks that show how to analyse such a technology so as to present it as a material specifically oriented toward industrial and interaction design. I meet this challenge by applying a process of research by design. In this process, a series of explorative design probes has been carried out with the purpose of exposing design-related properties of SR-RFID. The design research has been conducted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers and designers as part of a larger research project called Touch. Central to my study is the use of activity theory in building a conceptual framework that allows the analysis of computational technology as design material. This framework has been applied to SR-RFID in order to reconceptualise it for designing. The study has found that in order to understand SR-RFID in relation to industrial and interaction design it is useful to reinterpret it as a design material. I offer three main reflections on SR-RFID as design material. First, I argue that SR-RFID may be seen as near-field material. This material is specifically oriented toward industrial and interaction designers' formmaking. Second, I present how SR-RFID may be seen as a conceptual material that helps us focus on material properties that have special significance in the creation of forms. Third, I argue that when creating design materials for industrial and interaction design, we should pay particular attention to the concept of motive. Motives may help us understand what SRRFID means in designers' activity. The results of this study offer one example of how activity theory could be used in interaction and industrial design research to understand materials. Furthermore, it expands upon current research that investigates computational technology as materials. In addition, new insights into the makeup of SR-RFID are offered that may be further appropriated and used in design and design teaching.
... The technology may thus be interpreted in the activity of design and its web of motives. Similar interpretation is taken up in HCI research where computational technology or information technology has been addressed as design material (Blevis, Lim, & Stolterman, 2006; Hallnäs, Melin, & Redström, 2002; Löwgren, 2007; Löwgren & Stolterman, 1998). These works draw connections between interaction design and the traditional design practices dealing with physical materials, but do not focus on motive. ...
Article
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Short-Range Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an emerging technology that interaction designers are currently embracing. There are, however, few systematic efforts to utilize the technology as a tool for the development of new design concepts. This article focuses on technology as a design material and its role in the formative process of conceptual design. My approach involves the use of activity theory and the concept of motives, used to analyze short-range RFID technology when considering the field of design. I employ practice-based research where qualitative design and research methods are used to scrutinize the use of this technology in design. A design material perspective frames the short-range RFID technology as a composite consisting of near-fields and the computational. This material is coined near-field material and is further described through six form-making qualities: Tap and Hold, Multi-Field Relations, Multi-Field Distribution, Field Shape, Context Sharing and Mediation Type. I propose that the near-field material and thus the six form-making qualities cited above, offer designers engaged in creating user-oriented experiences, a morphology of form types. I argue that by synthesizing and analyzing emerging technology in relation to designers' motives for using them, we may further support research and practice by placing technology inside design discourse and culture.
... Staging involved artifacts such as the design brief, fashion magazines, mood-boards, stylesheets, scenarios, paper, plastic foam (for model making), etc. The organisation with rotation is a method inspired by the 635 method, which is a structured variant of brainstorming (see, for example, Löwgren & Stolterman, 1998). The following section deals with experience from the design weeks. ...
... […] the form of a system expresses the experience of using the system." Löwgren & Stolterman (1998), modifies this model, using four quality perspectives: structural, functional, ethical, and aesthetical. The structural quality denotes the construction of an IT artifact, the functional quality denotes how the system works for specified users in a specified use context, the ethical quality denotes the wider effects of the use or misuse of the system, and the aesthetical quality denotes the aesthetical experience of the system. ...
... Det är ändå inte god design. Det som är avgörande för god design är hur väl gränssnittet motsvarar användaren syften, förväntningar och behov (Löwgren, 1993;Löwgren & Stolterman, 1998). Detta är en av aspekterna i Löwgrens (1993) REAL-modell, som beskriver användbarheten av ett system. ...
... När det gäller IT specifikt finns det andra kvalitetsfaktorer. Löwgren & Stolterman (1998) menar att betydelsen av en produkt inte är entydigt och dessutom svår att mäta. Vissa egenskaper hos en produkt är många överens och eniga om hur man kan och bör mäta. ...
... vid design av nya produkter och system. Det går ut på att försöka skapa sig en bild av "den verkliga arbetssituationen" genom exempelvis intervjuer och observationer (Stolterman, 2004). För att få en uppfattning om belysning inom hemsjukvården och hur frågan hanteras gjordes en utforskning före studiens start där inspektionsmeddelanden från Arbetsmiljöverket lästes, frågor ställdes till representanter från den avancerade hemsjukvården i Stockholm och studiebesök genomfördes i några enskilda hem. ...
... The creative design could be seen as an exploration of the design space in a divergence phase and in a convergence phase [14]. There are different ways of involving the users in this process. ...
Article
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Involving the users in the design process in order to understand their current situation and to generate new ideas for the development of future products and services is highly relevant to achieve a good result. There are several Participatory Design activities available for generating new ideas and concepts. There are also several activities available for the development of specific concepts and ideas. However, there are few if any activities available that address the choice of which concepts and ideas that should be further developed when there are several alternatives. In this paper we present an activity designed for this purpose: Contextual Workshop. The activity uses visual presentations of ideas and concepts as a basis for focus group meetings with presumptive users. Furthermore the focus groups consist of members who already know each other and the workshops are conducted in the context of use for the presented ideas and concepts. Several advantages but also drawbacks with the activity Contextual Workshops are possible to identify and these are also discussed in this paper.
... Vilka handlingsutrymmen har möjliggjort strategier för att härska? Det vill säga, vilka möjligheter och begräsningar till handling följer av en viss teknik (Löwgren & Stolterman 2004). Dessa frågor ska vi nu ägna vår uppmärksamhet. ...
Article
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Recently, online hate has been much debated as a phenomenon in social media. It involves explicit forms of bullying, designations and black painting of individuals and groups. Online hate can be seen as an extreme form of attempts to create power asymmetries between people, it may also be seen as an extension of master suppression techniques. In our research, we have directed our attention to a related, but much more subtle way of exercising social power and positioning games online, for example by making invisible, ridicule, withholding information, double punishment, imposition of guilt and shame, violence and threats about violence as well as objectification. More specific, we focus the opportunities to exercise power made possible when these classic suppression techniques are moving into social media. The central issues in this article are: what forms does the classic master suppression techniques takes in social media, and what counter-strategies emerge in the quest to relate to these? Our research is based on a qualitative interview study on people's use and experience of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and blogs. In light of this study, we show how social media action spaces allow various forms of domination techniques, and we also discuss the importance of the internet and social media's potential network effects in this context. Furthermore, we identify 11 counter-strategies that have been formed in order to address the practice of domination techniques in social media. Finally, we discuss what media training for social media could mean in the light of power and positioning games that unfolds on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and in the blogosphere today.
... Service-dominant logic is a perspective in service research, suggested by Lusch (2004, 2008), contrasting the former goods-dominant logic, where the value was seen as intrinsic in products, with a view of goods as mediators in value co-creation between service providers and customers. Another similar view is expressed by interaction design researchers (Arvola, 2010;Löwgren and Stolterman, 2004), who also attempt to shift focus from intrinsic values of software and products (goods) in themselves towards a focus on value-in-use, or use qualities. ...
Article
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To evaluate and develop a service supported by an IT (information technology) system the intention to use the future service should be in focus. The technology acceptance model (TAM) and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) can both provide knowledge about users’ intention to use a service, making them good models to base formative decisions on. Unlike TAM, TPB is concerned with specific information related to the service context, and provide knowledge about what makes IT useable.We used an adapted version of the TPB as the foundation for a formative service evaluation technique called F-SET.We applied the F-SET to a case where two subsequent versions of a service prototype were evaluated. The first prototype was a description of the service supported by Hi-Fi design sketches showing what a web-based meal planning tool could look like. The second prototype consisted of both service processes and the web-based meal planning tool.To find relevant factors that influence future use of such a service, a survey of 28 informants was conducted with the first prototype. The second prototype involved five families who used the service for two weeks.The feedback provided by the families, based on the factors identified in the pre-test, influenced the future direction of the service development. Feedback from the informants was distributed between the service and the IT system, and the most common factors that influence the intention to use the service were time, price, usefulness and availability. Feedback included both positive and negative comments, as well as bugs and suggestions for improvements.We discuss potential improvements and what kind of information to expect from the different constructs of the TPB.
Chapter
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has provided user experience (UX) designers with a richer toolset. To use technologies such as Machine Learning (ML) that can expand their creative capacity to design intelligent services. ML has the capability to enhance the user experience, for example, by improving efficiency, personalization, and context-aware adaptation. However, research suggests ML as a challenging design material in UX practice, such as difficulties in comprehending data dependencies when prototyping, or the lack of tools and methods for evaluating adaptive user experiences. Previous research indicates that lack of knowledge transfer into the UX design practice may hamper innovative potential. This work aims to provide new insights on how designers think about – and experience – design for AI-powered services. It is important to make ML-powered services beneficial and sustainable for end-users, organizations, and society. Therefore, we explore UX designers’ reflections and experiences of using ML in a design context. We have performed nine deep explorative interviews with professional designers that work with ML. The respondents have different backgrounds, seniority, and work in different sectors. The collected interview material was qualitatively analyzed and resulted in five conceptual themes for how UX designers experience the design context surrounding AI-powered services: 1) Absence of competence, 2) Lack of incentive for competence development, 3) Challenges in articulating design criteria, 4) Mature vs. Immature clients, and 5) Lack of support for ethical concerns. We provide implications for how these themes affect the design context and practice.KeywordsMachine learningDesign materialUX design practiceInteraction design
Thesis
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In our daily lives we communicate emotions not only in face-to-face situations, but also in the digital world. When communicating emotions to other people we are not always aware of exactly what we are expressing. Emotions are communicated not only by the actual words we say, but through physical expressions like gestures, body posture and tone of voice.Designing for emotional expressivity requires a design that can capture the characteristics of emotions as well as the subjective experiences. This design should also mirror the com-municative reality that we live in and open up for personality, context and situation to be expressed. In order to explore emotional communication in the digital world we have designed, imple-mented and evaluated eMoto, a mobile service for sending text messages that can be en-hanced with emotional content. In this thesis we will present a detailed description of the design process, including user studies, leading to the design of the emotional expressivity in the eMoto prototype. Through the use of a body movement analysis and a dimensional model of emotion experi-ences, we arrived at the final design. The service makes use of the sub-symbolic expressions; colours, shapes and animations, for expressing emotions in an open-ended way.The results from the user studies show that the use of these sub-symbolic expressions can work as a foundation to use as a creative tool, but still allowing for the communication to be situated. The inspiration taken from body movements proved to be very useful as a design input.From the design process and the user studied we have extracted four desirable qualities when designing for emotional expressivity: to consider the media specific qualities, to provide cues of emotional expressivity building on familiarity, to be aware of contradictions between the modalities, and to open for personal expressivity. Incorporating these open up for more expressivity when designing within this area. The actual design process is itself another ex-ample that can be used as inspiration in future designs aiming at emotional expressivity. (PDF) DESIGNING FOR EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIVITY. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341509278_DESIGNING_FOR_EMOTIONAL_EXPRESSIVITY [accessed May 20 2020].
Chapter
A common problem with implementation of new communications hardware is that it is difficult to predict their effects on the information flow in an organisation. This leads to hardware investments, which are at best based on qualified guesses that they will improve the situation, and at worst based on half-pronounced promises from the local computer salesman. To help this problem it would be desirable to be able to simulate the information flow in an organisation in such a way that the effects of new hardware implementations could be studied. As the information flow in an organisation can be said to be a complex system, a Cellular Automata (CA) approach is appropriate to build such a simulation. CA approaches have been used for several simulations of complex situations before, as an example, models of combat (Dockery, and Woodcock, 1993) and models of traffic flow (Wahle, et al, 1999). In order to create a simulation, behaviour and information flows must be analysed and formalised using a computer-parsable notation language.
Conference Paper
How to attend experiential values of a design throughout the implementation is still an open issue. The interplay between experience design and software engineering is problematic because of the different epistemologies of design and engineering. Interaction design is a design practice, whereas software engineering describes itself as engineering and science. There is a long tradition in design of discussing materials and the craft of making artefacts. Thus, if we have a material, it is reasonable to say that we have a craft. If programming language code is a design material, then, making a finished artefact is the shaping of material. The development process can thus continue as a design process up to version 1.0. This paper presents a design case up to version 1.0 of a music creativity app, utilising design through programming. The app design validity was evaluated in a field study at an electronica music festival. Material consciousness of code, and an open-ended, and quality-driven design process allow attention to the experiential qualities of the design.
Article
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This paper advocates re-focusing interaction design towards aesthetics and compositions. Inspired by current movements within human-computer interaction, product design, materials science, and architecture, we argue that a central problematic concerned with reconciling the digital and physical has always shaped the field. Rather than bridging atoms and bits, an approach that systematically keeps the digital and physical apart, we advocate thinking of design as composition. Doing so will require articulating an aesthetic vocabulary that formally relates diverse materials whether digital or physical. Texture, a word that applies across materials, substrates, and scales, is advanced as a candidate term within our approach. We provide a model for thinking about texture as a relation and then ground the model through a design project, Icehotel X, rendered in ice and digital displays. Texture guided the quality of composition achieved in the final design executed by a team of diverse experts. This approach opens new avenues for the analysis and practice of interaction design.
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Thesis
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To date, service prototyping has been discussed academically as an unproblematic add-on to existing prototyping techniques, or as methods for prototyping social interaction. In fact, most of the knowledge on how services are prototyped comes from organisations and practicing design consultants. Some attempts to define service prototyping have been made but generally without concern about how complete service experiences should or could be represented. Building on existing knowledge about prototyping, a draft of a service prototyping conceptualisation is generated. Based on the draft, the question of how to prototype holistic service experiences is raised and in total, 5 studies have been conducted that contribute knowledge to that overarching question. In addition, each study has its own research question. Study 1 conceptualises prototypes and prototyping in a framework while study 2 and 3 looks at what practicing service designers say they do to prototype services and how they involve different stakeholders in the process. Study 4 examines aspects of design communication and how service experiences are communicated and used during design meetings, and study 5 finally, attempts to generate a process that can be used to evaluate the impact of location oriented service prototypes in e.g. healthcare settings. A number of challenges for service prototyping are identified in the studies, along with the issue of who authors prototypes. The conceptualisation of prototyping is adjusted based on the studies and a framework is constructed that support the conceptualisation. Little evidence for holistic approaches to prototyping services is found in the interviews and service designers involve their clients primarily when prototyping. Service experiences are introduced in communication using a format termed micro-narratives. This format and the purpose of using references to previous experiences are discussed. The thesis is concluded with a suggestion of a process for service prototyping. This process is specific for service design and attempts to support service designers in making holistic service representations when prototyping. Service prototyping requires further research.
Thesis
To date, service prototyping has been discussed academically as an unproblematic add-on to existing prototyping techniques, or as methods for prototyping social interaction. In fact, most of the knowledge on how services are prototyped comes from organisations and practicing design consultants. Some attempts to define service prototyping have been made but generally without concern about how complete service experiences should or could be represented. Building on existing knowledge about prototyping, a draft of a service prototyping conceptualisation is generated. Based on the draft, the question of how to prototype holistic service experiences is raised and in total, 5 studies have been conducted that contribute knowledge to that overarching question. In addition, each study has its own research question. Study 1 conceptualises prototypes and prototyping in a framework while study 2 and 3 looks at what practicing service designers say they do to prototype services and how they involve different stakeholders in the process. Study 4 examines aspects of design communication and how service experiences are communicated and used during design meetings, and study 5 finally, attempts to generate a process that can be used to evaluate the impact of location oriented service prototypes in e.g. healthcare settings. A number of challenges for service prototyping are identified in the studies, along with the issue of who authors prototypes. The conceptualisation of prototyping is adjusted based on the studies and a framework is constructed that support the conceptualisation. Little evidence for holistic approaches to prototyping services is found in the interviews and service designers involve their clients primarily when prototyping. Service experiences are introduced in communication using a format termed micro-narratives. This format and the purpose of using references to previous experiences are discussed. The thesis is concluded with a suggestion of a process for service prototyping. This process is specific for service design and attempts to support service designers in making holistic service representations when prototyping. Service prototyping requires further research.
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