blogject of interaction

Hi everyone. Its been a week after the workshop and I think I’ve got that ‘conference-itis’ disease (symptoms include repulsion for lanyards, small cakes and small talk). I was wondering whether anybody got anything out of the workshop…? Though that sounds like a scary question to pose, and perhaps for us (workshop organisers) to hear, it might be a good way to begin untangling the discussions that were seeded (or fell on barren soil, even?)

Okay, so I’m (Its Yoko by the way, you know that sexy Japanese girl?) going to start by thinking aloud the things that emerged for me, and thoughts that failed to emerge.

One interesting thread that had emerged was how artefacts were ways to ‘ground’ the design process. This word ‘grounding’ is an interesting choice of words, as if design was seen as a chaotic, random, ether-thing that had no ‘roots’ to solidness… Anyway, I was interested in hearing how artefacts became a focal point for critique; for discussion; for idea generation; for dissemination (amongst team collaborators) that not only ‘grounded’ the design process, but pushed and accellerated it further.

To me, it was a shame we didnt get to review our own projects using those discussion threads as a lens to look through. Looking back at the presentations made, I think there were a diverse range of artefact contexts that could have been unpacked more. Perhaps we could begin doing this here…?

Yoko

Hi all,

Here is a list of the workshop attendees minus email addresses. Full details have been emailed to all instead.

Name Organisation
Miss Yoko Akama RMIT University
Ms Roslyn Cooper University of Queensland
Dr Anni Dugdale University of Canberra
Dr. Daniel Fallman Umeå Institute of Design, Umea University
Miss Kate Freebairn Emu Design
Techn. Dr. Kristina Groth Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
Miss Penny Hagen Digital Eskimo
Researcher Sinna Lindquist KTH, Royal Institute of Technology
Mr Peter Michael Tax Office
Dr. Shane Pinder Auckland University of Technology
Mr Matthew Simpson University of Queensland
Dr Laurene Vaughan RMIT/ACID
Dr Stephen Viller University of Queensland
Ms Svenja Weinmann University of Southern Denmark
Mr Jeremy Yuille ACID / RMIT
Mr Mattijs Siljee Massey University, NZ
Miss Lizzie Muller CCS, UNSW
Miss Ann Morrison IEP/ITEE Unversity of Queensland
Miss ‘Yunni’ (what was your full name?)
19 People Listed

With a complete disregard for doing things in order please find attached the final whiteboard image from our workshop as an outcome of the days activities and discussions.

And in pdf form - courtesy the great Scanr website - www.scanr.com for photo to image conversion of whiteboard shots.

Workshop whiteboard pdf

Matt

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Hi, sorry, this is Yoko

I don’t know whether anyone had the trouble of making a comment to this post like me… whenever I try and leave a comment, it keeps downloading the whiteboard diagram! Isnt technology when its working badly, Annoying! (I should make a ITWIWBA! acronym badge) So I’m taking this priviledged opportunity to make a comment in Matts post, until this problem is sorted out. Or perhaps it never will???
One of the problems with this ‘diagram’ as an ‘outcome of the days acitivities’ is that, I don’t think it does that. One of the reasons why I think this, is because I wasn’t paying attention to the diagram being done as I was intent on listening and looking at what each participant was talking about. So, despite Jeremys fantastic effort, I look back at this digram and it makes no sense to me. I mean, I can pick out certain key words, but its been so abstracted that I’m not able to access the richness of the discussions that were taking place whilst this diagram was being drawn.

So, I don’t want to leave this as just a critique of this digram, as that would leave no space to go anywhere. But, I am thinking of using this as a segue into what role this ‘artefact-as diagram’ plays. I think some people may oppose to calling this an ‘artefact’, which is another interesting thread to discuss?

So to activate the role of what this diagram-artefact plays, I think it needs participants to bring it to life. Perhaps by using it as a catalyst to recall conversations/discussions, or even ‘mis-interpret’ its notations to suggest what it means to them, engage with it emotionally, or even, modify and re-draw it (oooh, thats taking it to another wacky level!)

Any thoughts suggestions?

Yoko

A great collection of thoughts from Nathan Shedroff.
http://www.nathan.com/thoughts/newmethods/index.html

For those who have not found this on the OZCHI conference website the details for the workshop are:

• The Object of Interaction
• 9am till 5pm ( pre conference drinks at 6pm that evening ).
• 21st November at UTS Haymarket Campus building C.
• Venue details: http://www.ozchi.org/index.php?id=venue

The following is a post made to the anthrodesign mailing list which I thought might be interesting for all. It is a discussion about the role of dominant designs in relation to experience and context.

—————

This is a bit of an academically-oriented message but I’d welcome non-academics comments as well.

One concept that has been fairly well-developed in the “technology management” research literature is the concept of a “dominant design.” (See for example Anderson, Phillip and Michael L. Tushman. (1990) “Technological Discontinuities and Dominant Designs: A Cyclical Model of Technological Change.” Administrative Science Quarterly: 35(4), 604-633.)

The basic idea is that when a new market niche opens that a bunch of new designs emerge to fill the niche and that market competition tends to narrow things down to a “dominant design” that fits market expectations and constrains new product development. (Beta versus VHS is a classic example.)

The research tends to be geared toward “technology managers” who have to make “big picture” strategic decisions about technology rather than “designers” per se and tends to equate “design” with “engineering design”(narrowly understood). I suspect that many subscribers to this list deal with people who fit this profile but are not themselves technology managers or engineers. So I’d be really interested in people’s answers to the following (related) questions:

1. Does the concept of a “dominant design” make sense in the context of your experience with design/product development?

2. Can the concept of a “dominant design” be applied to other aspects of design besides engineering design (narrowly understood)?

I’ll leave things at that. I’d welcome a group discussion but if anyone prefers to write me directly, that is fine as well.

Thanks!
Best, Bill Kaghan

Hi all

Thank you very much for your prompt delivery of your final camera ready papers - much appreciated. More details about the workshop format shall be posted shortly.

Fina proceedings shall be linked off the workshop website: http://hdm.acid.net.au/workshop.html

Hi all,

I thought I would start the ball rolling in our fledgling community by seeing if we can talk definitions and terminology. From the abstracts I have put up you will notice that the perspectives of those participating in the workshop are wide and varied.

Would people please be able to give insight into their perspectives on:
- the key terminology they use in their experience papers
- the relationships of key terms and definitions

I would be good to start with perspectives so that we may compare and contrast.

Matt

A quick post to let people see the list of papers which will form part of workshop sessions.

Experience Workshops
This position statement describes a method called “Experience Workshops”, developed by the authors for working with expert audiences in the design of an interactive artwork. Based around the participants’ experience of a high-fidelity prototype, the workshop aims to generate descriptive language, draw together the artist’s goals and the participants’ experiential actualities and provide a way to reflect together on the gaps and connections
between them. We describe the research principles and needs which led to the development of the method and the models it draws from. We show how the method has been used, and reflect upon its effectivenessThe Experience Workshop method was created as part of a human-centred design process developed for the artwork

Cognitive Artifacts in Refrigeration System Configuration?
“In watching people thinking in the wild, we learn about their environment for thinking not what is inside them. But the environments of human thinking are not ‘natural’ environments. They are artificial. Humans create their cognitive power by creating the environments in which they exercise those powers.” - Hutchins, 1995: 169

This paper deals with cognitive artifacts and their relevance forconfiguration practice in industrial refrigeration. It will explore the role and significance of cognitive artifacts in such a context.

To what extend and when are cognitive artifacts used in refrigeration system configuration? This paper will give examples of relevant cognitive artifacts and illustrate their use in the studied context. How can the researcher approach the wish to analyze those in a context as complex as that of configuration practice? Does such analysis actually help a designer in understanding the context to be able to design technological solutions for it? This paper will introduce the method ‘video collage’ as a tool to analyze cognitive artifacts in configuration practice.

In order to do this, the author will firstly start out with introducing and framing the theory of ‘distributed cognition’, from which the term ‘cognitive artifacts’ evolved, its advantages for analyzing a well- structured cognitive system as well as its shortcomings for general practical use context analysis, and, secondly, the author will end with discussing particularly ‘cognitive artifacts’ with regard to the practice of refrigeration system configuration.

The role of artefacts in client-user centred design
As a design agency we have transitioned from a methodical or engineering influenced approach to one that enables us to better respond to the situation and needs of each project environment. The methods we use, and propose to use are shaped by the particular situation of the client. In this paper we present some of the creative and generative artefacts that are incorporated into our design process, and introduce work in progress exploring mobile devices as design tools.

HU U?
In 2005 H&M sought collaboration with Massey’s Institute of Information Sciences and Technology and external electronics experts to explore the bodily relationship between between people and their electronic gadgets. This resulted in an exhibition titled ‘Colon Dash Closing Bracket’ which was part of the project ‘Jewellery Out of Context’, held in The Muse, Sydney, February 2006. This exhibition will travel to NZ, Canada and EU in 2007/2008.

This text describes two aspects of this project:
1) Events from the ‘lived world’ that instigated this project
2) Differences between members of ‘creative’ and ‘engineering’ disciplines in expectations of a design process

To explore strange new worlds: experience design in 3 dimensional immersive environments - role and place
This discussion paper looks at some human dimensions of designing worlds within the screen, the 3 dimensional immersive worlds typical of computer games. It presents some typical game world design practices and examines them through two case studies, the first is an Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) project called Digital Songlines, the second a design research project called Tabernacle. The business of (video and) computer games has much to offer the field of human-computer interaction in general with its essential requirements of engagement and satisfaction on the part of the player. This discussion focuses on the nature of the worlds we create when we design rich immersive environments for purposes other than the task world; it is not about playing games or analyzing such spaces as ludic spaces except where such design demands determine the shape of the digital space
itself.

Artefact and Iteration: circular entanglements
In this workshop proposal I discuss a case study physical computing environment named Talk2Me. This work was exhibited in February 2006 at The Block, Brisbane as an interactive installation in the early stages of its development. The major artefact in this work is a 10 metre wide X 3 metre high light- permeable white dome. There are other technologies and artefacts contained within the dome that make up this interactive environment.
The dome artefact has impacted heavily on the design process, including shaping the types of interactions involved, the kinds of technologies employed, and the choice of other artefacts. Housed within the dome are various familiar-enough technologies designed to act as playful triggers that engage and elicit active participant interaction from audience members. Feedback from the participants was generous, largely supportive, with much curiosity exhibited about the kind of artefacts in use, and the underlying infrastructures and influences that supported these choices. Future iterations of the work will explicitly take suggestions from this feedback into account.

The Object of Interaction workshop team is pleased to announce acceptance of 6 papers for the OZCHI workshop session on the 21st November in Sydney. Authors shall be mailed shortly with details and reviewer comments.

Authors will also be invited to request an account on this community website to begin the workshop theme discussion.