Article

From Use to Presence: On the Expressions and Aesthetics of Everyday Computational Things

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Abstract

The coming ubiquity of computational things urges us to consider what it means for something to be present in someone's life, in contrast to being just used for something. “Use” and “presence” represent two perspectives on what a thing is. While “use” refers to a general description of a thing in terms of what it is used for, “presence” refers to existential definitions of a thing based on how we invite and accept it as a part of our lifeworld. Searching for a basis on which these existential definitions are formed, we argue that the expressions of things are central for accepting them as present in our lives. We introduce the notion of an expressional, referring to a thing designed to be the bearer of certain expressions, just as an appliance is designed to be the bearer of a certain functionality. Aesthetics, as a logic of expressions, can provide a proper foundation for design for presence. We discuss the expressiveness of computational things as depending both on time structures and space structures. An aesthetical leitmotif for the design of computational things—a leitmotif that may be used to guide a normative design philosophy, or a design style—is described. Finally, we describe a practical example of what designing a mobile phone as an “expressional” might be like.

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... As interactive technology is increasingly becoming part of our lifeworld, several voices have raised the need for broadening our conception of how we understand and design human-computer interaction [27,67]. Our work is particularly triggered by technological trends such as artifcial intelligence, the miniaturization of actuators, emerging materials supporting a materiality approach to HCI [26], and shape-changing interfaces [54], which illustrate how technology increasingly becomes interwoven in our everyday artefacts and environments. ...
... Expressive interaction is seen as supporting the development of a relationship or a better ft between user and product [22] and some see expressive communication as being opposed to goal-oriented and informative communication [66]. Expressive interaction has been related to the wider agenda of broadening the way we understand how interactive technology is part of our life worlds [27,67]. ...
... Finally, some see expressivity as a broader sense of the place things have in people's lives. For example, Hallnäs and Redström argue that "we have to design these computational everyday things in ways that makes it possible for people to give them meaning, to give them a place in their lives, in various ways" [27]. "However, a given thing can be used not only for doing certain things, it can be used also to express various things, such as our lifestyle, the values we believe in, the (sub)cultures we belong to, etc. " [27]. ...
... With the introduction of computers, from the personal computer to the smartphone, companies have always launched products that were easy to use and useful (Black, 2020;Hallnäs & Redström, 2002;Jobs, 2007). At the same time, the same ethos was translated into the design of digital products, and their interfaces, the same ones that enable the collection of the behavioral data of their users. ...
... With friction intended as a concept that shifts the relationship with data from fast to meaningful, time can be considered a constituting variable in interacting with technology (Hallnäs & Redström, 2002). As Hallnäs and Redström argue, interaction with computers (and by extension, data produced through them), happens in short periods of time, however 'dwelling' with these artifacts may span a much longer period of time. ...
Chapter
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... Such aesthetics are not only visual aesthetics, but also a beautiful experience that interface aesthetics brings to users [20]. Hallnas and Redstrom (2002) held that enhancing interface aesthetics for electronic media devices facilitates a wider range of user acceptance [23]. Kim et al. (2003) analyzed website interfaces, and summarized the general common aesthetic design factors and users' emotional responses towards those factors [24]. ...
... Kim et al. (2003) analyzed website interfaces, and summarized the general common aesthetic design factors and users' emotional responses towards those factors [24]. Previous studies indicated that mobile interfaces based on visual aesthetics are a perfect combination of content, function, and aesthetics [23,25]. Mobile interfaces adopt a combination of design elements such as graphics, text, color, etc., to give users an intuitive feeling. ...
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... First, technology is an integral part of our lives -something we live with, not simply something we use (Hallnäs & Redström, 2002). Thus, humanity and technology cannot be treated as two independent systems, but one interwoven socio-technical system (Emery & Trist, 1960) that involves the complex interaction between humans, machines and the environment. ...
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... Peer review was based on the extent to which interacting with the ready-made artefacts reflected the positioning discussed in the previous week (so the situating of the artefact in one of the four quadrants), and on the kind of experience it evoked. The analysis of the artefacts' effectiveness was contextualized by some of the core tactics used by speculative designers: "para-functionality" (Dunne, 2005), ambiguity (Gaver et al., 2003), defamiliarization (Dunne & Raby, 2001), "meaningful presence" (Hällnas & Redström, 2002), and Satire (Malpass, 2017). Based on feedback, students were asked to improve their prototype -add richness and details to the artefacts -but also reconsider what the artefact 'does' in terms of desired effects, communicative qualities, and so forth. ...
Article
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Speculative design is an emerging form of critical material engagement with possible futures. Designers working speculatively call attention to current and future sociotechnical dilemmas, and aim to provoke debate about the moral, political and ethical implications of sociotechnical innovation. Despite the popularity of speculative design and its presence in a variety of domains, there are very few resources that address it as a pedagogical practice. We attempt to fill this gap by presenting the structure, reasoning and outcomes of a graduate course on speculative design we taught during the academic year 2022-3. The article describes class activities and outcomes, discusses the benefits and challenges of teaching speculative design (especially in a design-engineering program), and concludes by identifying the most considerable obstacles awaiting those who want to integrate speculative design into the curriculum. As such, the article provides a useful resource for those interested in understanding the benefits of speculative design as a critical pedagogical practice, and for those who wish to bring that understanding into the classroom.
... Previous authors highlighted features of user interfaces as user involvement, experience, and emotion in design [63]- [72]. Hallnas and Redstrom [73] viewed aesthetics as the logic of expression and a basis for designing presence, defining an expression as an object that is intended to carry a particular expression [74]- [75]. Petersen et al. [76] proposed a framework to differentiate between the aesthetics of use and appearance based on Shusterman's idea of Pragmatist Aesthetics [75]. ...
Article
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... Redström introduces 'tangled interaction' to express the relationship between appearance and functionality in the aesthetics of interaction [57]. Hallnäs & Redström introduce the concept of the 'expressional' as an aesthetic foundation for how computational things can be the bearers of certain expressions, just as appliances are the bearers of functionality [28]. Wright et al. focus on feelings and emotions as aesthetically important facets of interaction, highlighting the importance of sense making [89]. ...
... Although commonly considered a sub-field of HCI, it "recognizes itself as a 'design discipline' in that its ultimate objective is to create new and change existing interactive systems for the better" (Fallman, 2008). This emphasizes an orientation away from instrumental "use" to expressions of "presence" (Hallnäs & Redström, 2002), and towards the ethical and aesthetic judgments of a designer in creating interactive experiences that are appropriate to a situation (Löwgren & Stolterman, 2004). The designerly making of judgments is a "reflective conversation with the situation" whereby through creative experiments, such as sketching, a practitioner generates new understandings of a problem space and experiential possibilities (Schön, 1983). ...
Thesis
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... Interaction aesthetics is surfacing as a strong alternative to mainstream humancomputer interaction theories and methods (Hallnäs and Redström 2002 ;Löwgren 2009 ;Redström 2007 ;Stolterman 2008 ;Udsen and Jørgensen 2005 ). Löwgren ( 2009 ) andStolterman ( 2008 ) propose a shift in focus from task-oriented, utilitarian approaches to human-centered and experience-centered methods, described as a "rational, disciplined, designerly way" (Stolterman 2008 ). ...
Chapter
The paper is based on the BMBF funded research project "MediaArt@Edu" which combines art education approaches and portfolio work to develop artistic processes with digital media technology. A new concept to support digital media literacy of young people is developed, tested and evaluated. It brings together art and technology education accompanied by a specific mentoring concept including portfolios. The project realizes an education-through-art approach to technology in five thematic media modules such as robotics, interactive light installation, smart textile, sound as well as games. The latter will be described in the context of the GamesLab ON/OFF, realized at ZKM with student mentors and young people. The GamesLab ON/OFF approach encourages the participants to develop, design and perform their own game concept using the Web, a variety of media, technologies and the physical learning space of the ZKM media museum.
... Crafting may be understood in opposition to work, but crafters in this study view their practice as a complement to work building on top of professional experiences or of making as a recreative supplement to their work. In a similar way to Hallnäs and Redström's (Hallnäs and Redström, 2002) description of everyday life objects that fade into the background and become subtle parts of our lifeworlds through their meaningful presence, the continuity of crafting also becomes part of the makers' lifeworld. Crafters in their home workshops or offices immerse themselves in their projects, nurture for the details, iterate on designs, and continuously refine their skills for the intrinsic pleasure of the process. ...
Article
Makerspaces have spread to schools, museums, and libraries around the world. These are spaces that make technology construction more accessible and afford practices that situate makers as everyday designers. In this paper, the connection between makerspaces and makers' everyday lives is examined. For this study, thirteen makers were interviewed about the process of their everyday maker projects, and the data material was analyzed for practices, reflections on agency, and relations to places like the makerspace, the home, and beyond. Three distinct practices have been discovered and are described. Crafting is an individual, recreative, skillful, and immersive practice that connects to an individual workspace aside from the makerspace. Connecting is a creative, object-oriented, and interventionist practice that connects to everyday life situations open for inventions. Commoning is a social and communal practice that connects to the makerspace community. The makers' practices inform a discussion of the agency the makerspace enables, and the spatial practices that both enable and constrain actions. Also, because makerspaces are places that intend to make technology construction accessible and inclusive, diversity in maker communities, barriers to inclusion, and strategies to overcome these are discussed.
... With the emergence of ubiquitous computing and everyday computational artefacts, designers developed new criteria and working methods [121]. The norms around evaluating use qualities shifted and expanded to include experience, aesthetics, and meaningful presence; the user was no longer imagined as a dis-embodied, un-embedded, information processor [49,100]. This included attempting to understand the user as an embodied being and has led to the consideration of the role that the body plays in interactions with other people and with technological devices. ...
... In many cases this will challenge the central assumptions of seamlessness and fitness-forpurpose that characterize products intended to become a part of productive life. In contrast, in this model, the design process is not working towards a solution, but a context for exploration as part of an expressive life (Hallnäs & Redström 2002). ...
... The person may find new uses, or decline to use any design outcome for their own dwelling in the world. In this way, we shift from a pragmatic to an existential conceptualisation of use value (Hallnäs and Redström 2002). ...
Book
Care, like design, is both a noun and a verb. As a noun, care is defined as the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, or protection of someone or something (e.g. care of the elderly, taking care of business). In this usage, care is concerned with giving serious attention or consideration to doing something correctly or to avoid damage or risk. As a verb, care is to feel concern or interest or attach importance to something. Care can be used negatively (e.g. they don’t care about human life) and positively to attach importance to something (e.g. I care very deeply for him). To care for means to look after and provide for the needs of someone or something (e.g. he has numerous patients to care for). Care is often used in everyday phrases such as: I couldn’t care less… to express complete indifference. For all you care… to indicate that someone feels no interest or concern. Take care… often said to someone on leaving. Take care of… meaning to keep (someone or something) safe and provided for. It is unlikely anyone would dispute the general intention of care as something that expresses our relationship to each other and the world. However, the same general agreement would have to be applied to the overwhelming evidence that we don’t seem to care for much at all. So much design continues to invest energy in what design can do based on the sentimental belief in what-might-become. Does Design Care…? is interested in the more slippery but acute reality of what-might-not-become. And what-might-not-become has to confront the uncomfortable reality that design might not be able to do what it believes it can do. Care, being invisible, is a good example of a gesture that has shaped the world but now is more problem than cure. Does Design Care…? asks design what it can do with this question? This design thought and action workshop seeks to explore what it means to care now and stakes its platform on a general principle of carelessness that we express in the following 10 problems with care (based loosely on Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles of “Good Design”). We seek participation from researchers and practitioners across a wide range of disciplines to attend and contribute to a 2-day workshop at Imagination, Lancaster University, UK on 12 and 13 September 2017. This thinking, making and doing workshop will explore different ways to explore, conceptualise, provoke, contest and disrupt care, and will serve as a venue for synthesising future visions of care. We encourage both inexperienced and experienced researchers, novices and experts, and practitioners involved in and/or interested in care to submit initially a short position paper. In your initial position paper (1 page maximum), we ask you to select and tackle one of these problems with care (see below) and make some sort of careful proposal .
... The term everyday is highly utilized in the design literature (e.g., (Hallnäs & Redström, 2002;Norman, 2013;Saito, 2007;Wakkary & Maestri, 2007). But very little is said about the notion itself. ...
... A move away from human-machine interactions to the design of "interspaces," as described by Winograd (1997), is Human-Centered Computing. Interspaces incorporate people's lifestyles and the system design as present in everyday life of people (Hallnäs & Redström, 2002). In this approach, intelligence is viewed as an attribute of the combination of humanmachine-context (Ford, Hayes, Glymour, & Allen, 2015;Hoffman, Hayes, & Ford, 2001). ...
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... However, the ambient information visualisation has the potential to immerse the museum visitor in a new and highly captivating informational experience. Furthermore, this approach permits visitors to visually engage with virtual artefacts in a less restricted environment that the physical space [21]. A similar study utilising large-scale pinwheels in a Ambient Information Visualisation and Visitors' Technology Acceptance of Mixed Reality in Museums • XX:3 museum installation further supports the ambient information visualisation approach as results advocated high levels of positive user experience during the performance [22]. ...
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The visualisation of historical information and storytelling in museums is a crucial process for transferring knowledge by directly and simplistically engaging the museum audience. Until recently, technological limitations meant museums were limited to 2D and 3D screen-based information displays. However, advancements in Mixed Reality (MR) devices permit the propagation of a virtual overlay that amalgamates both real-world and virtual environments into a single spectrum. These holographical devices project a 3D space around the user which can be augmented with virtual artefacts, thus potentially changing the traditional museum visitor experience. Few research studies focus on utilising this virtual space to generate objects that do not visually inhibit or distract the operator. Therefore, this article aims to introduce the Ambient Information Visualisation Concept (AIVC) as a new form of storytelling, which can enhance the communication and interactivity between museum visitors and exhibits by measuring and sustaining an optimum spatial environment around the user. Furthermore, this article investigates the perceptual influences of AIVC on the users’ level of engagement in the museum. This article utilises the Microsoft HoloLens, which is one of the most cutting-edge imagining technologies available to date, in order to deploy the AIVC in a historical storytelling scene “The Battle” in the Egyptian department at The Manchester Museum. This research further seeks to measure the user acceptance of the MR prototype by adopting the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The operational approaches investigated in this study include personal innovativeness (PI), enjoyment (ENJ), usefulness (USF), ease of use (EOU), and willingness of future use (WFU). The population sampling methodology utilised 47 participants from the museum's daily visitors. Results of this research indicate that the WFU construct is the primary outcome of this study, followed by the usefulness factor. Further findings conclude that the majority of users found this technology highly engaging and easy to use. The combination of the proposed system and AIVC in museum storytelling has extensive applications in museums, galleries, and cultural heritage places to enhance the visitor experience.
... "stable institutions, rituals, and beliefs that take on a life of their own, and become effectively 'objective' for the agents who take them for granted as facts of life" [4,58:22]. Within HCI, the concept of a lifeworld has been drawn on to delineate the seemingly mundane interaction paradigms of the "workaday world" [62,83] and to describe the how the presence of an object affects the material and perceptual experiences of a potential user [38]. In both cases, the lifeworlds are taken as real, operating in the world as experienced by users. ...
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This paper introduces “infrastructural speculations,” an orientation toward speculative design that considers the complex and long-lived relationships of technologies with broader systems, beyond moments of immediate invention and design. As modes of speculation are increasingly used to interrogate questions of broad societal concern, it is pertinent to develop an orientation that foregrounds the “lifeworld” of artifacts—the social, perceptual, and political environment in which they exist. While speculative designs often imply a lifeworld, infrastructural speculations place lifeworlds at the center of design concern, calling attention to the cultural, regulatory, environmental, and repair conditions that enable and surround particular future visions. By articulating connections and affinities between speculative design and infrastructure studies research, we contribute a set of design tactics for producing infrastructural speculations. These tactics help design researchers interrogate the complex and ongoing entanglements among technologies, institutions, practices, and systems of power when gauging the stakes of alternate lifeworlds.
... Though designers are aware of their inability to design or dictate how objects are used and what experience they provide, it is an essential part of the design process to follow some imagined notion of a user in a certain context having a certain experience [46]. Hallnäs and Redström propose that designers consider how objects are "present" in the lives of users through designing with an awareness that objects are the bearer of certain expressions [18]. We believed that putting Ovum to actual use through long-term deployments might help us gain an understanding of the implications of our use of oppositional experiential qualities within the design of fertility tracking devices. ...
... Case II: Prototyping shape-changing interfaces Shape-changing interfaces and semi-flexible materials have been suggested as new alternatives for products to interact with users (Hallnäs and Redström, 2002;Togler et al., 2009;Ende et al., 2011;Alexander and Holman, 2013;Nørgaard et al., 2013;Kwak et al., 2014). However, despite an increased focus on such interactions, the topic has mainly been approached from an implementation perspective, that is how to create such interfaces rather than considering users' emotional responses to them (Rasmussen et al., 2012). ...
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... The discourse surrounding intangible materials in interaction design is often directed toward computational materials [2,9], however, this studio focuses on sonic and electromagnetic fields as intangible materials with distinctive qualities and methods of interaction. Participants explore the notion of extended body by augmenting their natural hearing abilities through body-space-object interactions. ...
... 22,26] who advocate designing rich experiences involving as many senses as possible. Others disagree; there are also suggestions that interaction aesthetics is related to temporality, and the expressions of the object itself [12,13,14,18]. Here we see a slight connection to another group of researchers [16,19,24] who see the notion of "personality" or character as a basis for an aesthetic whole. ...
... The term "everyday" is a central topic in contemporary design, and is often used in design research literature (e.g., (Hallnäs & Redström, 2002;Norman, 2013;Saito, 2007;Wakkary & Maestri, 2007)). It usually refers to a banal context of practice or to what is ordinarily encountered. ...
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The concept of 'everyday' is a central topic in design, and this paper argues for more attention and discussion on the everyday than what is currently done in design research. By elaborating what the everyday is, designers can better formulate a perspective on people’s lives and experiences, and therefore can better contribute to the enchantment of the everyday through designing. To contribute to this effort of clarification and enchantment, we first attempt to clarify the concept of everyday and thereafter suggest notions originating from Japanese philosophy to address the everyday in design. The everyday is described mostly through the process of quotidianisation of the unfamiliar towards the familiar. To support designing for the everyday, we propose to focus on Japanese notions: thusness and irregularity. Thusness invites to consider the experience of the here-and-now as being the active relation with the entirety of the world through interaction. Irregularity invites to keep something unexplained in the design, eliciting possibilities of exploration, openness, change, and the shift of perspective. Finally, three relatively practical design concepts, namely micro-considerations, micro-frictions, and (es)sential details, are proposed to support application of thusness and irregularity through design.
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This Grand Challenge highlights that the HCI field is going through a time when it needs to revisit and find new theoretical and method-ological foundations to account for the phenomena it encompasses. Thus, it addresses philosophical aspects of the field, encompasses studies that aim to inform and enrich the understanding of human-computer interaction, and highlights the need to bring, experiment with, and conceive new ways of understanding HCI and acting in it. In addition to the application of multidisciplinary theories from anthropology, linguistics, psychology, design, sociology, and other areas, this Grand Challenge exposes the need to investigate other philosophical positions that have been little explored until now, such as those of a phenomenological nature, the creation of theoretical models, the application of existing theories in new ways, or the synthesis of several theories from a new perspective aiming to describe, explain, or inform the field. Consequently, it includes new methods and techniques for data collection and analysis, design approaches, or evaluation strategies that can be applied to HCI research and practice. This paper is presented bilingually in English and Portuguese as a testament to its situated and universal implications. * Este artigo está escrito em inglês e português: a versão em português se encontra ao final da versão em inglês a partir da página 14. O título do desafio em português é "GranDIHC-BR 2025-2035-GD1: Novas Abordagens Teóricas e Metodológicas em IHC".
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Bullying is a form of violence that occurs in different situations of our social and physical environment, profoundly affecting people's lives. Digital media can be a facilitator of this misbehavior, but also a supporter in combating it. The literature in computing has shown efforts mainly through web and desktop technologies, with few technologies of Ubiquitous Computing, no exploration of the human values of the interested parties, and few papers exploring bullying's social and physical dimensions. In this study, we use the theory of Socioenactive Systems and the methodology of Socially Aware Design to design a ubiquitous scenario of interaction aiming to raise awareness against bullying. The value-oriented design process was conducted by three researchers to primarily identify stakeholders of the problem domain, anticipate problems, and values associated with them. Through collaborative brainstorming and brainwriting, a technological artifact was devised using narrative scenarios and prototypes. In this paper we present the design process and the technology-based scenario resulting from the process, and discuss its rationale based on the values raised in our process.
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In this paper, I address the interplay between ethics and aesthetics, in the context of everyday interaction with smart systems. This study is the result of a year's time development of my PhD research, whose general aim is to understand how people's beliefs and behaviours come to be shaped by the aesthetic experience with smart things. The expected outcome is a set of design strategies to integrate moral reasoning in the framework of design for behaviour change, relying on aesthetics in interaction. Preliminary results are presented, based on a literature review in the area of aesthetics of interaction. Although basic, these findings are helpful for they suggest that ethics and aesthetics in users-smart systems interaction are interdependent. This insight holds promise for the development of an aesthetics of moral reasoning, in the context of users-smart systems interaction. A research-through-design approach will be adopted in the remaining two years, with the aim of testing assumptions by means of working prototypes.
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Consumers are increasingly attuned to integrated products, packed with myriad functionality for ‘work’ and ‘play.’ Consumers may evaluate these integrated offerings along the dimensions of hedonic versus utilitarian values, and these products’ communication messaging and positioning may emphasize either the hedonic or utilitarian features. The present research examines the role of perceived hedonic vs. utilitarian values of integrated products vis-à-vis self-image congruence and perceived quality on consumers’ willingness to pay a price premium for these integrated offerings. Using empirical data from two studies, the results show that self-image congruence and willingness to pay a price premium exhibit a positive relationship that is mediated by perceived quality, and the strength of the mediated link varies by the levels of perceived hedonic vs. utilitarian value an individual places on an integrated product. The findings contribute to understanding the antecedents of consumers’ willingness to pay premium prices for integrated offerings.
Thesis
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This thesis explores the intricate relationship between design and technological development, focusing on Ubiquitous Computing and the interplay between interfaces and data. Ubiquitous Computing, emerging in the late 1990s, aimed for pervasive computational systems enabling seamless interaction with technology. The study employs Research-through-Design, particularly examining Artificial Intelligence (AI) as one of the current applications of the principles of Ubiquitous Computing. The initial research reveals a dominant paradigm of efficiency, ease-of-use, and invisibility, where AI’s data-interface relationship perpetuates endless loops of interaction, driven by the concept of “humans-in-the-loop.” The thesis introduces the concept of “Designs for friction,” prioritizing values like slowness, intrusiveness, and presence overlooked in traditional design processes. The first section provides background knowledge, detailing ubiquitous computing and its application in AI. Then, the term “friction” is formalized as a design concept contesting dominant narratives in design processes. The third part applies “friction as a design setting” in educational contexts, creating case studies to study how such concept is appropriated by design students. Finally, the fourth part discusses research results in comparison to theoretical frameworks. By proposing “Designs for friction”, the thesis encourages designers to reconsider overlooked values in technology design, offering an alternative perspective on the relationship between data, interfaces, and society. The research contributes to the broader discourse on the impact of design on the development of data-driven digital products, such as AI.
Article
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Non-Representational Theory (NRT) emphasizes the significance of routine experience in shaping human geography. In doing so, the theory largely eschews traditional approaches that have offered area-based, longitudinal, and synoptic formalisms for geographic inquiry. Instead, NRT prioritizes the roles of individualized and often dynamic lived geographies as they unfold in the moment. To date, NRT has drawn significant inspiration from the synergies that it shares with philosophy, critical geography, and self-referential ethnography. These activities have been tremendous in advancing NRT as a concept, but the theory’s strong ties to encounter and experience invariably call for practical exposition. Alas, applications of NRT to concrete examples at scales beyond small case studies often prove challenging, which we argue artificially constrains further development of the theory. In this paper, we examine some of the thorny problems that present in applying NRT in practical terms. Specifically, we identify ten traps that NRT can fall into when moving from theory to actuality. These traps include conundrums of small geographies, circularity in representation, cognitive traps, issues of mustering and grappling with detail, access issues, limitations with empiricism, problems of subjectivity, methodological challenges, thorny issues of translation, and the unwieldy nature of process dynamics. We briefly demonstrate a novel observational instrument that can sidestep some, but not all, of these traps.
Conference Paper
As interaction design has advanced, increased attention has been directed to the role that aesthetics play in shaping factors of user experience. Historically stemming from philosophy and the arts, aesthetics in interaction design has gravitated towards visual aspects of interface design thus far, with sonic aesthetics being underrepresented. This article defines and describes key dimensions of sonic aesthetics by drawing upon the literature and the authors’ experiences as practitioners and researchers. A framework is presented for discussion and evaluation, which incorporates aspects of classical and expressive aesthetics. These aspects of aesthetics are linked to low-level audio features, contextual factors, and user-centred experiences. It is intended that this initial framework will serve as a lens for the design, and appraisal, of sounds in interaction scenarios and that it can be iterated upon in the future through experience and empirical research.
Chapter
The aesthetics of digital product is what attracts us to it. Aesthetics, it has been observed, may work like affordances as we respond to their invitations.
Article
We are surrounded by objects that have been designed and made for a wide range of purposes. Alongside the development of specialized electronic devices, we can look to these objects as a functional resource for tangible computing. By deconstructing such everyday objects and uncovering their structures, they become a material that can be remade into new physical interactive systems.
Article
The article considers the experience of application in historical and cultural research of two key concepts of the concept of critical design by Anthony Dunne: “post-optimality”, which is used to describe aesthetics or poetics of the social process or phenomenon, and “para-functionality” characterizing not the essence of the social process, but its semantics. It has been argued that the notion of critical design applied in the field of IT-technologies can be transferred to the field of social and political design, where critical design can develop as a form of discourse — beyond the design of traditional consumer products, to model social communications. As an example, the history of coffee consumption in the USSR was chosen as a political and cultural tool that shapes the development of society at the level of behavioral patterns. The loss of critical social design in Soviet society by the culture of coffee consumption occurred in the 1980s and preceded the political collapse of the entire Soviet “project”, which allows to analyze it as a complete and complete experience of transformation of the design object.
Article
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Abstract Interdisciplinary design thinking and methods are developed based on interdisciplinary research backgrounds. Through cross-integration with other disciplines, it can realize the design’s interdisciplinary collaborative innovation and development. At the same time, with the increasing interdisciplinary research interest in programmable mechanical metamaterials, design urgently needs to produce an interdisciplinary design thinking and method model to guide the development of related design research activities. Based on this, this research uses interdisciplinary research methods (mainly grafts method) to transplant the construction methods and related contents of programmable mechanical metamaterials into the research of design thinking and methods to propose a set of interdisciplinary design thinking based on programmable mechanical metamaterials (IDTPMMs). At the same time, under the guidance of IDTPMM, an interdisciplinary design method based on programmable mechanical metamaterials (IDMPMMs) is proposed. The thinking and method take the IDTPMM and IDMPMM process models as the concrete manifestation forms. Subsequently, this study selected two architecture design cases to analyze the rationality of IDTPMM and IDMPMM. This study believes that the proposal of IDTPMM and IDMPMM can narrow the focus of design research from the traditional macro scale to the micro scale of material research and development, which can drive design innovation with material innovation. Meanwhile, it can also change the design research from passive use of existing material mechanical properties to active programming control of material mechanical properties according to demand, which will greatly enhance the programmability, adjustability, controllability, and flexibility of design research with materials as carriers and objects. Additionally, this will have an essential impact on broadening the field of design interdisciplinary research and innovating design thinking and methods. In addition, IDTPMM and IDMPMM will also provide systematic theoretical guidance for designers to conduct interdisciplinary research on design a
Chapter
This chapter provides an overview of critical design and extends key notions from the critical design tradition to tourism design. Critical design opposes design’s naturalised association with the creation of viable and profitable artefacts or services, and instead emphasises how design can be used as a means for crafting questions and doing social critique. By proving examples and detailing a number of key characteristics of the critical design approach, the chapter suggests research opportunities associated with the turn towards design as a form of inquiry.
Article
This paper describes a case study exploring how critical design and public exhibition could be consolidated into an inclusive qualitative creative research method to engage participants in conversations about community. Past literature has acknowledged the ability of physical objects and creative methods in research to activate different lines of thinking and elicit thoughtful, in-depth responses from participants that may not have arisen through more ‘traditional’ methods of enquiry. Critical design, by nature, is intended to be a tool for starting discussion and debate. We employed this approach to inform the design of critical artefacts on the topic of community. These were then displayed at pop-up exhibitions in public spaces to engage members of the public in conversations on community. Responses informed future artefacts, which were exhibited again in an iterative cycle. We explored the potential of this research approach to both elicit and disseminate knowledge.
Chapter
This chapter is concerned with the use of wearable devices for disabled and extreme sports. These sporting disciplines offer unique challenges for sports scientists and engineers. Disabled athletes often rely on and utilize more specialist equipment than able-bodied athletes. Wearable devices could be particularly useful for monitoring athlete-equipment interactions in disability sport, with a view to improving comfort and performance, while increasing accessibility and reducing injury risks. Equipment also tends to be key for so called “extreme” sports, such as skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, bicycle motocross, rock climbing, surfing, and white-water kayaking. These sports are often practiced outdoors in remote and challenging environments, with athletes placing heavy demands on themselves and their equipment. Extreme sports also encompass disability sports, like sit skiing and adaptive mountain biking, and the popularity and diversity of such activities is likely to increase with improvements in technology and training, as well as with the support of organizations like the High Fives Foundation (highfivesfoundation.org) and Disability Snowsport, United Kingdom (disabilitysnowsport.org.uk). Within this chapter in these two sporting contexts, wearable devices are broadly associated with those that can be used to monitor the kinetics and kinematics of an athlete and their equipment. This chapter will first consider image-based alternatives and then focus on wearable sensors, in three main sections covering, (1) sports wearables, (2) disability sport and the use of wearables, and (3) extreme sport and the use of wearables, as well as making recommendations for the future.
Chapter
Wearables are often ergonomically skin deep, and while technologically proficient, may lack the spectrum of user needs to be truly effective. To discuss the extent of this problem, this chapter situates design and health paradigms in relation with each other, and discusses conceptualizations of wearability as a criterion for wearable technologies. It describes key practices in the landscape of design approaches (philosophies), and presents two innovation case studies to illustrate the key points made. Finally, it summarizes the relationship between design and health as informed by proposals for a “fifth wave” in public health.
Thesis
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Childhood cancer is a disruptive life event that creates high levels of stress and anxiety in families. It turns everyday routines up-side-down, and can block the child’s psychosocial development when families have difficulties to emotionally cope with this potentially traumatic event. D’Olivo developed three interactive objects aimed at preserving space for quality time and stimulate interpersonal communication between family members. These objects were deployed in the homes of children who are receiving cancer treatment in order to better understand how families responded to them, and whether they were appropriate to support their situation. The broader question addressed by the work is ‘how can vulnerable users be empowered by design in sensitive settings?’. Tactfulness was found to be a critical expressive design quality of such objects, leading to the idea of Tactful Objects as a design perspective on interactive artefacts that function in sensitive settings. According to this perspective, designing tactful objects for sensitive settings means to design objects that behave like sensitive partners, establish a balanced collaboration with people, resemble familiar characters and maintain a discreet presence in the context where they are introduced. The thesis discusses the practical value of Tactful Objects in healthcare as well as the methodological implications of conducting Research-through-Design in sensitive settings.
Chapter
The idea of man’s ‘mastery over nature’ is ubiquitous in western philosophy and in western thinking. Technology has been widely used in support of this end. Given the growing interaction design opportunities for personal digital technologies in supporting outdoor and recreational nature activities such as mountaineering, it is timely to unpack the role that technology can play in such activities. In doing so, it is important to consider the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations at play for the individual and the accepted social norms or ‘rules’ that are associated with the activity through its community and passed on through its community of practice. Technologies that may be considered as a form of ‘cheating’ when first introduced (such as handheld GPS) can later become accepted through common practice, although the rules are often nuanced. For example, it is widely regarded that GPS should not replace the skill of map reading and navigation. In this chapter, we consider different forms of mastery over nature that technology can support and reflect on the design sensitivities that these provide.
Conference Paper
This paper investigates the issue of trust mediation in ebanking. It proposes an analysis of trust factors based grounded in semiotic de-constructional analysis. The card sorting technique was used to probe affective and rational factors influencing user attitudes to alternative home page designs at the point of initial contact. The data seems to suggest that both affective and rational factors influence initial consumer trust formation. The study also revealed that trust formation is deeply embedded within a consumer’s normative user-experience.
Chapter
While recent years have witnessed an “aesthetic turn” in HCI, we are still awaiting the arrival of an agreed “digital aesthetics”. However, it is widely recognised that aesthetics have an important role in the overall experience of digital technology and that they may also be the single most important factor in deciding which (say) mobile phone to buy. While this may seem a very specific example, phones have proved to be the most ubiquitous of all digital artefacts, and we buy on them on basis of how they look. Yet despite the importance of aesthetics, no one (inevitably) can agree quite what they are, why we seem to be geared towards them (why, for example, 17,000 years ago were the good people of Lascaux painting the walls of caves rather than inventing the wheel?). Aesthetics have attracted a great number of musings, “slogans” and even factor analytic treatments, for example, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote that the imagination provides for ‘free play’ with aesthetics to create an affective state with a positive valence (that is, and I paraphrase, attractive things make us feel good); Norman has proposed that “attractive things are easy to use” while Hassenzahl has argued that the aesthetics enable us to identify with them and/or be stimulated by them (“we find attractive things, attractive”). We are very good (that is, both quick and accurate) at judging the attractiveness of people (their faces in particular) and this ability may be in play when we make judgements about digital technology. And of course, our interest here is again confined to the interplay between imagination and aesthetics. Our approach in this chapter is to treat imagination as seeing-as, that is, by adopting an aesthetic perspective rather than our usual veridical view of the world, we see artefacts, people, and events as attractive (or not) and consequently, a source of pleasure, easy to use or attractive. This is not and cannot be anything like a complete description of aesthetics but it does allow us to introduce imagination to the discussion in a coherent fashion. This is aesthetics, for example, as a source of appropriation; and aesthetics as a prop; and so forth.
Article
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Information privacy and disclosure have been prominent issues revolving around social media. By adopting communication privacy management theory, the persuasion knowledge model and the technology acceptance model, we conducted a survey with 526 subjects and examined their privacy management on Facebook and the conditions on which their decision to reveal or withhold private information was contingent. The results showed that consumers set up different privacy boundaries for different types of personal information. Social identity information and daily life and entertainment information tended to be shared more freely, while personal contact information was mostly withheld. Knowledge of and concern regarding technology ubiquity and companies’ business strategies involving big data were the strongest predictors of privacy protection behavior and privacy settings on Facebook. Online trust and Facebook intensity also interacted and jointly predicted privacy concerns. This study brought to researchers’ attention how big data is being used by marketers to target consumers.
Article
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People, as well as things, appear to have character—high-level attributes that help us understand and relate to them. A character is a coherent set of characteristics and attributes that apply to appearance and behaviour alike, cutting across different functions, situations and value systems—esthetical, technical, ethical—providing support for anticipation, interpretation and interaction. Consistency in character may become more important than ever in the increasingly complex artifacts of our computer-supported future.
Article
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As computers are increasingly woven into the fabric of everyday life, interaction design may have to change - from creating only fast and efficient tools to be used during a limited time in specific situations, to creating technology that surrounds us and therefore is a part of our activities for long periods of time. We present slow technology: a design agenda for technology aimed at reflection and moments of mental rest rather than efficiency in performance. The aim of this paper is to develop a design philosophy for slow technology, to discuss general design principles and to revisit some basic issues in interaction design from a more philosophical point of view. We discuss examples of soniture and informative art as instances of slow technology and as examples of how the design principles can be applied in practice.
Article
A lot has been written about the Internet and where it is leading. We will say only a little. The Internet is deeply influencing the business and practice of technology. Millions of new people and their information have become interconnected. Late at night, around 6am while falling asleep after twenty hours at the keyboard, the sensitive technologist can sometimes hear those 35 million web pages, 300 thousand hosts, and 90 million users shouting "pay attention to me!" The important waves of technological change are those that fundamentally alter the place of technology in our lives. What matters is not technology itself, but its relationship to us.
Article
This is an article on the 'user interface' to a computer and the 'computer interface' to one or more users. After noting the further distinction of user interfaces to their work, the work that a computer is to support, it concludes with a discussion of the concepts of the 'designer' and designer's 'models of users'. The goal is to show that the way we use these words conceals important changes in our field. The article details the possibilities for confusion and misdirection in our use of 'user interface' and related terms in the changing environments of computer design and use.
Hertzian Tales; Electronic Products Aesthetic Experience and Critical Design
  • A Dunne
Design for Product Understanding; The Aesthetics of Design from a Semiotic Approach
  • R Monö
Design Methods 2nd ed
  • J C Jones
Tingens bruk och prägel. Kooperativa förbundets förlag Stockholm Sweden
  • G Paulsson
  • N Paulsson