Emotional expression is crucial to feeling close to each other. However, current lifestyles and working situations often reduce the opportunities for "relatedness experiences". The present paper presents the Whisper Pillow, an interactive artifact for mediating emotional expression among couples with different daily routines (e.g., due to shift work). We provide a detailed reflection about how form of and interaction with the pillow create and shape the desired experience. In addition, we present an empirical exploration of the practices and experiences which emerge when using the pillow in daily life. The study showed that experiences can be successfully inscribed into the material. At the same time, it reminds us of the fact that users still need to embark on the experience and always find alternative practices and experiences through appropriation.
"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today!" is easier said than done. Actually doing something we intend to do is often hampered by procrastination. This paper presents ReMind, a calendar/to-do-list-like object to overcome procrastination. An empirical case study of a functional prototype using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) showed that ReMind instilled reflection about procrastination and behavioral change in everyday life.
This paper reflects on the possibilities of embodiment and skilful coping to connect people and to catalyse a constructive (design) "conversation" among people with different backgrounds, during transformative collaboration. We do this by illustrating the process and results of a two-weeks design class with Master students at the Department of Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology. The resulting Engagement Catalyser is a creative tool to engaging people in a (design) discussion more concrete and effective than a discussion or brainstorm session held around a table. The six developed Engagement Catalysers have been used and evaluated in two workshops, in which participants from very different cultural and professional background have used them as a means to engage quickly and ignite the design process. The results show that the Catalysers stimulate engagement, help people to get familiar and connected in a short period of time, and seem to inspire and boost the design process.
This paper reflects on the possibilities of embodiment and skilful coping to connect people and to catalyse a constructive (design) "conversation" among people with different backgrounds, during transformative collaboration. We do this by illustrating the process and results of a two-weeks design class with Master students at the Department of Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology. The resulting Engagement Catalyser is a creative tool to engaging people in a (design) discussion more concrete and effective than a discussion or brainstorm session held around a table. The six developed Engagement Catalysers have been used and evaluated in two workshops, in which participants from very different cultural and professional background have used them as a means to engage quickly and ignite the design process. The results show that the Catalysers stimulate engagement, help people to get familiar and connected in a short period of time, and seem to inspire and boost the design process.
In the context of better understanding and describing the role of modality in data representations, this paper proposes the blending of the Repertory Grid Technique, a proven and tested elicitation method, with focus group methods, thereby offering researchers an efficient method of obtaining subjective perceptions on a defined area of interest. We demonstrate the potential of this blended approach by conducting two empirical studies that investigate the same artifacts, using two different approaches. The first study follows the classic Repertory Grid approach, while the second adapts this by utilizing the RepGrid in a focus group session. In comparing these, we will illustrate how using a blended approach can validate and reveal further meaning about the data collected. Furthermore, we will demonstrate that this can be achieved in a more natural manner than that of a typical RepGrid study, which can be extremely demanding for both the participant and the researcher while the study is being conducted.
The significant role of interpersonal interaction during service production has been pointed out by various scholars. This paper starts with an overview of existing design approaches (scripting, contextual, and meta-design approach) dealing with interpersonal dimension of services, and then examines the applicability of these approaches to the design of collaborative services, the focal area of this study. Compared to standard services, collaborative services are characterized by the high degree of user participation in the production of services, and the blurred boundary between a service provider and recipient. Thus, this paper argues that there is a need for a new approach to design for interactive quality of collaborative services. Different from existing approaches, this paper pays attention on sociability as an essential quality for collaborative services, and proposes a Relational Aesthetic approach, based on Relational Aesthetics as a theoretical foundation. The critical role of sociability in the production of collaborative service is discussed with a case study of a service design project 'Scarsellini - vicini più vicini', which aimed to foster collaborative ways of living among neighbors in an apartment building.
The research presented in this paper aims at increasing our understanding of how tools to rapidly create and manipulate animations can influence the design process in a positive way. We are especially interested in creative activities that are conducted in groups. We present a case study where a tool for sketching animations was introduced in a game-concept-generation workshop that was conducted by an existing design team at a multinational company. The results show that animations can indeed be used productively for real-time exploration, communication and discussion of a wide variety of ideas. Animations are especially beneficial when the concepts under discussion are highly dynamic. The observations also suggest that working with animations contributes to the group dynamics, as the design collaboration becomes more playful, expressive and fun, in comparison to when people are working only with conventional sketches.
Digital material, the computation and information that makes digital devices function, can be ethereal and difficult to conceptualize in terms of its material properties. In terms of experience design, this can make it difficult to tap into the expressive capabilities of this unique medium. We investigate the properties of computational material by looking at glitches, errors in functioning, through the lens of medium-specificity. As a specific type of glitch art, we look at datamoshing - a technique where the compression of digital video is altered for creative purposes. By examining the ways that the digital material is revealed by datamoshing, we seek insight into the unique expressive capabilities of digital devices.
In this paper we describe the outcomes from a design exercise in which eight groups of designers designed and built hardware sketches in the form of playful shape-changing prototypes, generatively working with Rasmussen et al's [31] eight unique types of shape change. Seeing that shape-changing interfaces is a growing area in HCI design research and that authors often shy away from articulating the special qualities brought to a design by using changing shape to communicate information, we set out to explore shape changing interfaces through a series of sketching experiments through the support of Danish toy company. Eight design groups redesigned existing tumbling objects for children using electronic sensors and actuators guided only by the request to adhere to the client's design goal to inspire imagination and movement in users. The main contributions of the paper include indications for the further expansion of the design space of shape changing interfaces relating to the perception and understanding of behaviour, causality and the mechanics involved in shape change events, which we call "Imagined Physics." This concept is described along with additional insights into the qualities of shape changing interfaces coined in recent research in the field.
In this paper we introduce two tools and describe a process to design for distinct positive emotions. The tools offer detailed knowledge of three emotions: anticipation, confidence, and inspiration. Eighteen product and interaction designers participated in a design workshop in which they applied the proposed tools and process. Participants evaluated the tools and process with a questionnaire and in a group discussion. They reported that the tools helped them to structure their process when designing for positive emotions: the tools and process had an impact on the way in which they generated ideas, their understanding of the emotions, the way in which they reasoned their design decisions, and how they saw the user.
We experience a drastic increase in post-desktop input devices and interaction techniques but still lack in specific and applicable design principles for these systems. This paper presents a set of design principles for hand gesture based microinteractions. The main concepts from related work are fused together in order to build a clear structure that allows heuristic evaluation. Moreover, a visualization of a gesture phrase helps understanding the relationship of crucial concepts such as feedforward/feedback and a gesture's tension. The applicability of the proposed design principles is then exemplarily shown by the development of a truly ubiquitous interactive system for hand gesture based microinteractions.
Cars play an important role in many individual and social practices, often resulting in positive experiences, such as the freedom of the daily commute, the joys of intensive conversations, or the excitement of a discovered place. In this paper, we use the lens of Experience Design , -- particularly the notion that meaning and positivity is related to the fulfillment of universal psychological needs -- to explore the potential of an experience-oriented approach to design for interactivity in and through cars. Examples of designing for competence, autonomy, relatedness, security, stimulation, and popularity open up a space for novel articulations of cars. We show how each need is already apparent in car-related practices and explore how focusing on a particular need will become apparent in specific conceptual sketches.
Mobile devices and social media are designed primarily to support communication between remote people. However, the sensors in modern smart phones allow also proxemic interactions between the devices and their co-located users. In such interactions, mobile devices can act as smart, social objects -- or Social Devices -- proactively triggering interpersonal interactions. We present the results of our explorative user study about usage scenarios and user perceptions of Social Devices. We conducted three bodystorming sessions and eight laboratory sessions to expose altogether 39 participants to the concept of Social Devices. The bodystorming sessions resulted in a set of novel usage scenarios for Social Devices. The evaluations of the scenarios and prototypes show that participants valued Social Devices offering surprising social effects, such as discovering mutual interest between users. However, participants strongly expressed the need to control the device-initiated interactions. Based on the findings, we suggest five design implications for further development of related concepts.
In this paper a study is described that shows how user perception studies can potentially provide designers with guidance into how to design pleasurable lighting effects using dynamic lighting. The advent of the LED within the lighting industry has been the driving force behind this study since the lighting designer is now faced with many new and often unexplored parameters that this lamp type can offer. One aspect of this complexity is the simple means of including dynamics within a single luminaire. To explore this topic, a luminaire was specially constructed to test with users different lighting dynamics that would represent different moods. The key conclusion from the study is that there are certain lighting dynamics that were perceived as being significantly different from one another and were categorized by the participants as being of a similar mood in the high to low arousal spectrum. These findings showed that there is potential for lighting designers to apply such sequence types and be more confident that their end users will perceive the luminaire as they originally intended.
Products are more and more required to communicate messages to users, as ICT is invading the realm of everyday objects. This paper explores the possibility to communicate bits of information to the user through dynamic changes in the product sensory features, as an alternative to digital interfaces. The aim is both to propose a descriptive framework for the analysis of this emerging category of dynamic products, and to investigate the role each sensory modality may assume in the transmission of different kinds of messages. The study was performed through a case study methodology, by collecting products, prototypes and concepts which show dynamic sensory features. Through the analysis of the selected samples, hypotheses about the role of different senses and stimuli in conveying different kinds of information have been extracted. These are going to be used as starting points for further research in this field.
Augmented reality (AR) systems enable new user experiences while the user is interacting with virtual objects in the physical space. The virtual objects have mostly been presented visually, overlaid on the physical world. In this paper, we present an explorative user study of a prototype system AHNE with the aim to understand the user experience and usage potential of non-visual audio-tactile augmented reality interactions. The qualitative results reveal that non-visual interaction was experienced confusing at first, but also fun, playful, and exciting. Even though audio feedback clearly dominates the spatial interaction experience, tactile feedback makes the virtual objects feel more concrete. The ideated and evaluated set of 23 usage scenarios includes both game-like and pragmatic application ideas for individual and social usage. The results can be used to inform the design of novel AR applications that utilise human senses beyond vision.
The Playful Experiences (PLEX) framework is a categorization of playful experiences based on previous theoretical work on pleasurable experiences, game experiences, emotions, elements of play, and reasons why people play. While the framework has been successfully employed in design-related activities, its potential as an evaluation tool has not yet been studied. In this paper, we apply the PLEX framework in the evaluation of two game prototypes that explored novel physical interactions between mobile devices using Near-Field Communication, by means of three separate studies. Our results suggest that the PLEX framework provides anchor points for evaluators to reflect during heuristic evaluations. More broadly, the framework categories can be used as a checklist to assess different attributes of playfulness of a product or service.
Not long ago, interaction was predominantly determined by technology itself or adhered to simple principles of efficiency (e.g., only three clicks away). Today interaction has to "feel good" and has to be "beautiful". This poses the question of how to conceptualize this emerging "aesthetics of interaction". In the present paper, we discuss existing approaches and present an own perspective. In our approach, the conscious differentiation between interaction attributes (e.g., slow, mediated, delayed ) and the emerging experience (e.g., experiencing a positive and meaningful moment ) is a crucial, conceptual step. Creating a particular experience (the Why ) requires awareness and the purposeful combination of attributes on the interaction level (the How ). To support this, we developed an Interaction Vocabulary , i.e., a systematically derived set of interaction attributes to describe interaction in a modality- and technology-free way. We then present a study, which explored the relationship between interaction attributes and emerging experience (i.e., feelings, thoughts, meaning). The found relationships serve as first heuristics for the more conscious design of interaction in line with desired experiences.
This paper presents the concept of Embodied Habituation as an architectural approach to designing contextualized technologies. It does so by identifying Middle Ground Experiences acknowledging how spaces are inhabited with ambiguous qualities that affect people emotionally. The research is based on the development and evaluation of Kidkit, which is interactive furniture designed for young children who are going to visit a hospitalized relative with fatal injuries for the first time. Kidkit empowers the child to engage and be present by shaping Middle Ground Experiences in the hospital ward environment that is full of intimidating medical equipment and alarms. The evaluation results indicate collective rewards gained when children succeed in Embodied Habituation. Finally, the paper discusses how Middle Ground Experiences inevitably establish grounds for how we design for spatial experiences within the interaction design community.
Design fiction is an emergent field within HCI and interaction design the understanding of which ultimately relies, so we argue, of an integrative account of poetics and design praxis. In this paper we give such an account. Initially, a precise definition of design fiction is given by drawing on the theory of possible worlds found within poetics. Further, we offer a method of practicing design fiction, which relies on the equal integration of literary practice with design practice. The use of this method is demonstrated by 4 design projects from a workshop set up in collaboration with a Danish author. All of this substantiates our notion of a poetics of practicing design fiction, and through our critical examination of related work we conclude on how our approach contribute to HCI and interaction design.
