The psychologist Donald Norman brought Gibson's concept of affordance to the design audience. Semiotics can provide designers with knowledge for the design of interactive products, by showing how "universal" product elements allow for both subjective and objective interpretations of meaning. In the world of product design, natural responses have been capitalized upon in the form of biomimetic, lifelike, anthropomorphic, and zoomorphic product forms and product behaviors. Artists and designers have historically been interested in lifelike form and behavior in three-dimensional artifacts. Theories of natural responses to products and artifacts in the environment offer new ways to understand and categorize action and interaction with designed products. Beyond the concepts of familiarity and liking, they will contribute to new design knowledge about knowledge-for-action. Designers try to understand and predict what effect a new product will have on the individual and society: how it changes the experience of being in the world.

Dematerialization is an ongoing process in today's generation of intelligent, digital products; content becomes disengaged from fixed carriers, and flows freely through networks and devices. We have witnessed how music CDs and cash money have been replaced by MP3 files and digital payments, as well as how dematerialization has entered the field of books. In this study, the process of dematerialization is explored. We define it and focus on its benefits and drawbacks, while trying to find answers to the question of how to design dematerialized products without neglecting the rich values of the physical world. Regarding this, we take a look at the approach of Tangible Interaction, and find it inspirational. Subsequently, in two design cases of an audio system and a payment terminal, we lay the foundations for our own design approach, which is situated in between the Tangible Interaction approach and the approach that is applied in today's generation of digital products. Finally, our approach is placed within the context of the Rich Interaction paradigm.

Aesthetics in product design is commonly related to secondary functionality, i.e. expressing a specific lifestyle. We propose a broader scope for aesthetics in interactive product design, one that ties into a design’s ethical dimension. Products change people’s behaviours and experiences in interaction. Design is not only about incorporating primary or secondary functionality, but also includes ethical considerations about what kind of behaviours and experiences a product should invite. This paper describes an exploration of how to incorporate this ethical dimension through aesthetics. Central is the concept of to kalon as used by Aristotle, expressing the unity of the good (ethics) and the beautiful (aesthetics). In the workshop ‘Ethics and aesthetics in interaction’, designers create products with predefined primary functionality based on specific ethical systems, using aesthetics from related artworks. The results indicate that to kalon is a powerful means to innovate and to incorporate ethics in interactive product design.

This paper explores the concept of peripheral interactions; interactions with technology that take place in the background or periphery of the attention. We present two designs for a classroom setting. CawClock makes selected time frames audible in order to provide teachers with awareness of time. NoteLet is designed to support the teacher in observing children's behavior, by enabling him or her to take pictures of the classroom through straightforward interactions on a bracelet. A qualitative, two-week exploration of both systems in a classroom revealed that the soundscapes of CawClock indeed shifted to the periphery of the attention and supported the teacher's time awareness. The actions with NoteLet did not shift to the periphery. However, the tangible aspects of NoteLet seemed to facilitate the interaction to be quick and simple, which may indicate that it could shift to the periphery with more practice. Tangible interaction therefore seems a promising interaction style for this purpose.

In this paper we describe our research on how to design for perceptual crossing between person and artefact. We present the design-research process, the design and evaluation of the designed artefact PeP+, short for perception pillar plus, and the generated design relevant knowledge. In our previous research we formulated a number of design notions, namely Focus the Senses, Active Behaviour Object, Subtleness, Reaction to External Event, Detecting Active Behaviour Subject, Reflecting Contextual Noise and Course of Perception in Time. These notions are relevant for designing perceptive activity in an artefact to allow for perceptual crossing between a person and this artefact. The person is able to get the feeling of sharing a common space with the artefact: to feel involved. To further investigate these design notions we reconsidered and implemented them in the design of PeP+. We discuss how the different design notions are applied in the artefact and show their relevance in an experiment. In this experiment we compare three behaviours, namely random, following and active, of PeP+ that are the result of the development of the design notions. The experiment gave insights into the development of the design notions and the experience of the person. This research uses phenomenology as a theoretical framework. Theory is used as inspiration and is the basis for synthesis.

In this paper, we describe the Augmented Speed-skate Experience (ASE), a case of movement sonification in professional speed-skating. We designed and developed a system that provides feedback on technique to a professional speed-skater through an extra sense-modality, i.e. sound. Complexity is incorporated directly by the athlete and not through an external system that would feedback representational judgments of improving speed-skating technique. This research-through-design case explores the conditions for mapping information directly to the body. This is done by an evaluation on several sets of continuous parameter mappings in a field-lab setup. Results from this qualitative evaluations show that the movement sonification mappings cause inter-modal convergence, resulting in actual improvement. We designed a movement sonification mapping of speed-skating technique that is informative, motivating, non-coercive, robust and easy to apply. Feedback designed according to existing natural acoustic conventions inherently coupled to the speed-skaters actions, allows for complex information to be assessed and embodied by the athlete thus improving his skating technique.

The last ten years we have helped starting up a new faculty of industrial design. What is the result? Or more importantly, what is the message? The message is threefold. 1. Start from a theoretical basis that is about action. We chose to work from a Gibsonian point of view, not because it is better than other points of view, but it is a theory that fits design (Gibson, 1979). It is a theory about action and design is about creating possibilities to do something. Lately, we turned more attention to phenomenology, in particular Merleau-Ponty (Merleau-Ponty, 1945). Why? Because designers are more and more designing "living entities", i.e., systems that behave, learn about us, that adapt to us. We then get to very fundamental questions about being-in-the-world. How do I perceive that a system is perceiving me and how does the system perceives me perceiving. These questions can only be answered, I believe, by designing and building the system. This leads to my second point. 2. Integrate Much theoretical work in design research is foreign to design. It is about psychology, engineering, sociology, and making. We built a faculty trying to actively integrate these different approaches, Design should take the lead here, I believe: Research through Design. When I say actively, I mean, that projects, both for students and staff, are defined by a team consisting of people of different disciplines. This is not as easy as it seems. And we are not there yet. Every discipline has its own beliefs, paradigms, output and jargon: its own way of looking at the world. But we need to integrate these points of view in order to give our students a chance to become trans-disciplinary, and to give design a place in the academic world. This leads to my third point. 3. Teaching From the start of the faculty, we chose for a competency based teaching method. The students start to design from day one. They are surrounded by experts that can help them if they ask. We want the students to be responsible for the their development and growth as a designer. We challenge them, they can design their own path through the curriculum (Hummels and Frens, 2008). In fact, we do not have a curriculum. A student can chose which projects ad which assignments she chooses. The programme is in English, as to attract an international audience, starting with the bachelors. Industry asks for a new kind of design engineer. We deliver youngsters that are not afraid for challenges but who do have the maturity to dare to rely on their intuition, skills and knowledge to propose innovative approaches. This can only be done by making. The western culture is based on manufacturing, i.e., thinking with your hand. This leads to my conclusion. The Bologna Process aims to standardize academic degrees and make them more comparable and compatible throughout Europe. I do believe the Process has an undesired side effect. All over Europe the professional schools are being "academized". To teach in a design school you need a PhD. Sure, that is important, but we run the risk of killing the profession. The people who know how to teach the design attitude are running away, or even worse, being driven out of the design schools. I do believe that there is no design research without design practice, as there is no medical research without medical practice. In the past I talked about "Dreaming of the impossible". I think the impossible is coming true, slowly but steadily. I think we have been designing dreams.

We present a fully working prototype of NOOT, an interactive tangible system which supports (sharing of) moments of reflection during brainstorms. We discuss the iterative design process, informed by embodied situated cognition theory and by user studies in context using various versions of the prototype. Apart from a potentially useful product, NOOT served as a research-tool showing how physical materials and social interactions scaffold people's sense-making efforts, and how technology might fit in to support this process

In this paper Freed is presented, a system that enables design students to spatially organize their digital collection, define relations between collection content and reflect on it. The system features a force-based layout that allows to explore spatial organizations, and hence to gain new insights. Its main advantage over existing software, is that it empowers the students to create different views of their digital collection. A view is a spatial organization of a selection of the collection content and its relations. It can e.g. be used for a specific design activity or project phase, for organizing work around a specific topic, or for explaining the perspective of a given student or stakeholder. Feedback of design students working with Freed during their design projects, and results from a workshop as measured by a questionnaire, show positive prospects for adoption of the system during the design process.

In this paper, we present the Sensible Alternative, a concept that enables smart-phone users to navigate between applications by accessing action-possibility-depending and personalized-associated applications. A single added touch-sensitive spot on the back-side of the smart-phone provides an alternative layer of interaction between human and machine, on top of hierarchical system architectures. We designed and prototyped this interaction layer that exploits the advantage of the continuous and the discrete powers of man and machine. In our case study, we explore several consequences of a phenomenological approach for designing complex systems, products and related services. Here we present the research-through-design case and our reflections based on qualitative expert confrontations on the heuristics and experience of the use case, the Sensible Alternative. With this work we hope to inspire design thinking to shift from hierarchical, procedural and structured design mechanisms to embodied mechanisms when addressing complexity.

In this video we show PeR, short for 'Perception Rug'. The design is created as part of our research on how to design for perceptive qualities in objects. This research is conducted around the educational and research theme 'Wearable Senses' and has a theoretical departure in the 'phenomenology of perception' and 'ecological psychology'. The integration of conductive and optic fibers, respectively enable PeR to sense the touch of a person and to let a body of light behave within the surface of the rug. The design can be used as a platform for the exploration of perceptive behavior. Different design characteristics, like the size of the light body, the speed by which the body moves, its shape, focus and direction, can be adjusted in order to design behavior.

Light through Culture is an international design school which explores the theme of complexity in learning environments. The aim of the school is to weave the newest technologies and the rich existing culture into a new canvas for making and thinking. Learning is meant as a way to (re) incorporate culture and making into thinking. The school has been hosted by the Museum Complex Santa Maria della Scala, Siena, Italy. Being immersed in a rich historical-cultural context, the students had to design an experiential path along the Via Francigena, the ancient pilgrimage route developing in the middle age from Canterbury to Rome, passing through England, France, Switzerland and finally Italy. Traveling along the route, the pilgrims stopped at the Santa Maria della Scala, that was an hospital at that time, where they could be given shelter and care on their way. Pilgrims started a long trip toward the enlightenment, the hope, the alleviation. Are contemporary visitors new pilgrims? The design school tried to answer this question exploring history and culture by means of innovative light technologies. Learning developed while building a real path in the Museum underground crossed by the ancient Via Francigena, opening the results of the design activity to the experience of real visitors and reflecting on how people feel, perceive and make sense of their experience. Learning confronts with the whole complexity of a real environment: the results of the school were not only texts but also physical, virtual and mixed new realities consisting of new ways of presenting and adding new dimensionalities to the existing world.

April 01 2010 Aesthetic Interaction: A Framework Paul Locher, Paul Locher Department of Psychology, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA 07043. 1 Email: locherp@mail.montclair.edu. Address correspondence to this author. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Kees Overbeeke, Kees Overbeeke Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Stephan Wensveen Stephan Wensveen Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Paul Locher Department of Psychology, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA 07043. Kees Overbeeke Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology. Stephan Wensveen Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology. 1 Email: locherp@mail.montclair.edu. Address correspondence to this author. Online ISSN: 1531-4790 Print ISSN: 0747-9360 © 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology2010 Design Issues (2010) 26 (2): 70–79. https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00017 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Paul Locher, Kees Overbeeke, Stephan Wensveen; Aesthetic Interaction: A Framework. Design Issues 2010; 26 (2): 70–79. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00017 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsDesign Issues Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology2010 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Here we present LinguaBytes, a modular, tangible play-and-learning system developed to stimulate the language and communication skills of toddlers (with a developmental age between 1 and 4 years) with multiple disabilities. The typical characteristics of these children and their common learning environment call for intelligent systems that are quickly and easily adaptable, or, even better, adjust themselves proactively. Over the last two and a half years we have designed and tested such a system within LinguaBytes. In this paper we will outline starting points, indicate the opportunities of Tangible Interaction and finally give an overview of the current LinguaBytes prototype.

The field of tangible interaction currently studies how the user interaction with physical products can be improved through physical feedback, as a more direct experience. Here we explore this subject further with particular emphasis on the elements of visual attraction of illuminated surfaces as an early factor in the interaction process. Richard Appleby is an experienced industrial designer who has developed many consumer products where the surface definition and visual language has had a significant impact on the perceived values and tangibility of the product. These changing surface interactions should not be difficult or challenging, but intuitive and enjoyable to live with. The systems may be complex, but the way they reveal and offer their actions can heighten our awareness and sensitivity in new and unique ways. It is a question of subtlety and detail. As the surfaces we interact with have the intelligence to appreciate a much wider range of human conditions and user feedback, their response can be attuned more closely to our different senses and feelings, particularly as this leads to more subjective and sensorial types of interaction, with varying dimensions and magnitude. These surfaces change through colour and form that attract the user we coin ‘tangible light interaction’. Particularly within the field of intelligent technologies, project examples show design concepts that support social interaction and remote communications in new ways.