Interactive Arts and Technology, School of (SIAT)

In this article, we argue that an approach informed by practice theory coupled with design fiction provides useful insights into the role of interaction design with respect to environmental sustainability.We argue that a practice-oriented approach can help interaction designers step away from models of individual behavior and studies of artifacts towards seeing sustainable behaviors as part of multidimensional and interrelated practices and practice elements. We analyze two previously conducted studies. The first study of everyday repair focuses on how people repair their broken objects. The second study of green-DIY examines how green enthusiasts facilitate their practices of making sustainable DIY (do-it-yourself ) projects. We describe the practices of everyday repairers and green enthusiasts in terms of materials, competences, and meanings, and the interrelations among those elements, using the framework of Shove et al. [2012]. We argue that understanding the dynamics of practice and their unique configurations is a starting point to redefine the roles of sustainable interaction design (SID). We propose that designers design towards resources and tools in ways that reflect on the challenges of intelligibility of their design interventions in practices. In addition to considering SID in the light of practice theories, we reveal how design fictions are readily incorporated into green practices in ways that transform those practices and hold implications for transformations of design as well. We bring forward opportunities for designers to co-design with DIY enthusiasts, targeted as practitioners in their own right, designing toward or within a design fiction. As a result, we conclude with the possibility for sustainable interaction designers to become practice-oriented designers who design with transparent open strategies and accessible materials and competences.

Grounded in investigations of everyday design, this study explores the appropriative, creative, and adaptive practice of skateboarding as a way to reveal a new perspective on mobile technology and their influence on mobility. We describe how skateboarding, a technology seen as an embodied practice, encourages practitioners to engage with the environment and thereby changes their mobility, even though the technology requires extensive practice and is not easy to use. Comparing these aspects to other mobile technologies offers new directions for the design of mobility and the influence of technologies.

Thermal sensations have potential for use in technology for information and interactive systems. Experiences correlating to temperature structure our understanding of many abstract concepts that could be useful in such systems. In this study, the experiential nature of conceptual metaphors was analyzed, and an experiment was conducted in which participants were presented with six thermal conceptual metaphors for interpretation. The validity of the metaphors was assessed, and the results of the experiment provided examples of both consistent and inconsistent patterns of experience when the concepts were interpreted in terms of temperature. Recommendations for furthering the identification of thermal conceptual metaphors with potential were discussed.

In HCI, design activism has been practiced but has not been well articulated or discussed. There are examples of activism in the HCI classroom, opening a new avenue of discussion and investigation for the role of design activism in HCI. We present two case studies that show design activism in the classroom as examples from which to learn. We highlight themes and observations to encourage future articulation and practice of design activism in HCI and HCI education.

This paper explores the relationship between goals, materials and competences in the practice of everyday design. Appropriations and creative uses of design artifacts are often reported in terms of outcomes and goals; however, we observe a gap in understanding how materials, tools, and competences are also involved in these processes. We conduct a multiple case study of three groups of everyday designers: families, hobbyist jewelers, and steampunk enthusiasts. We provide a description of the aspects of meaning, materials, and competences, as well as how they are interrelated, for each case. Our findings show that amongst these three aspects of the practice of everyday designers, it is the meaning of the practice that acts as the strongest motivator for practitioners. Materials, tools, and competences are hence largely determined accordingly. The implications of this study propose ways to design for practices with different types of meaning: foundational, aesthetic, and aspirational goals.

This studio provides participants with an opportunity to engage in a hands-on exploration of the use of "design fictions" as a strategy for producing physical artifacts. The idea of design fictions blurs the boundaries between traditional design practices and narrative explorations of potential futures. If the goal of design is to devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones, then the goal of design fiction is to use speculations, metaphors, and explorations of desired futurities to explicate and inform material design practices. Participants will have a chance to discuss these ideas, as well as to design and build their own "diegetic prototypes" out of materials sourced from local antique shops, thrift stores, and other nearby sources of inspiration. Through this hands-on exploration of the constraints and affordances of fictional scenarios and scavenged materials, we hope to collectively explore a compelling new design space for tangibles.

In this paper, we describe memory-storming, a design technique that combines oral storytelling with sketching to externalize designers’ personal experiences. The proposition behind developing this method is that designers’ personal experiences are a potential design resource that can trigger new design insights and ideas. This paper provides a description of our use of this method, shows how it helped us in our design research, and presents lessons learned. We claim that memory-storming is a design technique that focuses on designers’ personal experiences yet complements the user focus of user-centered design.

This workshop focuses on exploring the centrality of visual literacy and visual thinking to HCI. Drawing on emerging critical perspectives, the workshop will address visual literacy and visual thinking from an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary design-orientation [2, 8], foregrounding the notion that imagery is a primary form of visual thinking. Imagery—which subsumes digital imagery—goes well beyond sketching and beyond storyboards, screenshots and wireframes. We will address how a broader framework for visual thinking and imagery in HCI can play a role in raising the visual standards of HCI research and practice. Workshop participants will investigate possibilities for developing a culture of curatorial gaze in HCI, in order to (i) promote collection of digital images as a method appropriate for a design-oriented discipline, (ii) invite others to contribute to a genre of working and corpus of imagery unique to HCI, and (iii) to expand the approaches that design-oriented HCI may productively and creatively draw upon.

in this paper we look at the Steampunk movement and consider its relevance as a design strategy for HCI and interaction design. Based on a study of online practices of Steampunk, we consider how, as a design fiction, Steampunk provides an explicit model for how to physically realize an ideological and imagined world through design practice. We contend that the practices of DIY and appropriation that are evident in Steampunk design provide a useful set of design strategies and implications for HCI.

Inspired by the Surrealist technique known as exquisite corpse, we investigated a novel method for exploring low-level interactions. By creating a video collection of input actions and output reactions, we created a tool that allows quick video sketching of interactions. Designers can mix and match different actions, and quickly see the results. We present three examples and conclude with our lessons learned from using this technique.