Materials in Participatory Design processes

PhD DefenseNicolai Brodersen Hansen

Agenda

• Background and research question

• Contributions of the PhD

• Research approach and activities

• Design process perspective on materials

Outset• Challenge to interaction design processes:

• How do we understand methods and their materials?

• New materials challenge existing approaches

• Designing together with users means using materials to involve them

• Research question: How may we conceptualise the role of materials in interaction design processes?

Materials in IxD• The matter from which we craft products (Material

Move)

• New materials means new shapes and forms of products

• Supporting the design process (externalisation etc):

• Sketches, prototypes, post-its, whiteboards, video animations

Contributions of the dissertation

• An review of how materials have been conceptualised in interaction design

• An understanding of the role materials play in design processes when viewed through the lens of pragmatic technology

• An investigation of how participation is described and unfolds in design processes

• Illustrated through a set of research-through-design cases

contributionsskema

Approach and activities

• Research through design

• Experimental systems

Pragmatism• Empiricist attitude to the world

• “Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.” (Peirce, p. 293 of "How to Make Our Ideas Clear", Popular Science Monthly 12 (January 1878) pp. 286–302)

Flow of existence

Problematic situations

“An experience”

“Life itself consists of phases in which the organism falls out of step with the march of the surrounding things and then recovers unison with it – either through effort or by some happy chance. And, in a growing life, the recovery is never mere return to a prior state, for it is enriched by the state of disparity and resistance through which it has successfully passed.” (Dewey 1934, p. 12-13)

Inquiry and transformation

Progressing through“Inquiry is the controlled or directed transformation of an indeterminate situation into one that is so determinate in its constituent distinctions and relations as to convert the elements of the original situation into a unified whole” (Dewey 1938, p. 108)

Inference —> judgement

Transformation and technology

“Inquiry is the controlled or directed transformation of an indeterminate situation into one that is so determinate in its constituent distinctions and relations as to convert the elements of the original situation into a unified whole” (Dewey 1938, p. 108)

Dokk1

Dokk1

Dokk1

“Living blueprint workshop”

“Living blueprint workshop”

“Living blueprint workshop”

“Living blueprint workshop”

“Living blueprint workshop”

“Living blueprint workshop”

Creating cardboard-characters

Creating future scenarios on

blueprint

Presenting future scenarios in

plenum

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

An example of Material design artefacts in use

An example of Material design artefacts in use

Materials are part of the problematic situations

• Setting up specific problematic situations

• Starting from concepts or from craft materials?

Inquiry advances over time, and materials aid this process

• Potential transformations

• Framing wicked problems

• Inquiry evolves through transformations

Inquiry advances over time, and materials aid this process

• Potential transformations

• Framing wicked problems

• Inquiry evolves through transformations

Materials constrain design spaces

• Constraints as a creative role

• Simultaneously framing the problematic situation…

• .. and offering potential transformations

Materials give direction and shape to an inquiry

• Available materials suggest paths that inquiry might take

• Highlight areas of a design space for exploration

Summary• Materials ubiquitous in design work

• A symmetrical view of materials used for crafting products and in design thinking (wiberg methodology for materiality)

• Investigated through research through design

• Pragmatism might frame our understanding of materials in interaction design processes

Thanks toCentre for Participatory Information Technology

Centre for Advanced Visualisation and Interaction

Faculty of ARTS

DOKK1

3XN

BIG

The demoscene