Sonic presence and spectral technology

We describe a series of experiments in artistic research, each investigating and illustrating aspects of presence phenomena. In each, we utilise digital technologies to invert the prevailing academic approach to presence, with the intention not to teleport a person to another place but to draw attention to unseen phenomena in physical spaces, specifically through the use of sound. Our work is grounded in theories of experience, mediation and context, and we follow a methodology merging artistic strategies with computational thinking. This paper serves to introduce aspects of presence theory into our existing conceptual model in order to develop it further, and to conversely contribute an alternative perspective to the presence research community

How Electronics Knowledge Relates to Industrial Design Education

This study has two purposes: To clarify how industrial design relates to electronics knowledge and to determine whether industrial design education is sufficient for teaching it. As digital product design is frequently focused on the design of virtual interfaces until recently, less attention was paid to the design of physical interactions and electronic interfaces. There is increasing interest in electronics education in industrial design, yet electronics is still a bottleneck for many industrial designers. What electronics knowledge industrial designers should have and whether they know it is debatable. Therefore, the study presents a literature review and thematically analyzed interviews to determine its scope. Then, a survey is planned based on the concepts which interviewees remark on. The survey aims to determine whether senior-grade and fresh-graduate industrial designers use correct reasoning in design cases based on electronics. Findings remark that two-thirds of the participants failed in the critical electronics domains and their reasoning scores are distributed equally depending on whether they took electronics courses. Therefore, it is discussed that there is a need for developing a common understanding of the role of electronics in design education. And it is recommended that the approach may focus more on a hands-on terminology education

Connecting Couples in Long-Distance Relationships : Towards Unconventional Computer-Mediated Emotional Communication Systems

The number of couples who find themselves in a long-distance relationship (LDR) is increasing for a wide range of reasons, such as overseas employment, academic pursuits, military duty, and similar circumstances. With the myriad of communication channels enabled by the low cost and ubiquity of computer-mediated communication technologies, couples in LDRs are able to stay in touch with each other around the globe. However, recent studies have revealed that the mainstream communication tools are inadequate to support the full spectrum of communication needed in intimate relationships. Emotional communication is one of the fundamental needs in close relationships, as it forms an important part of intimacy. This dissertation argues that there is a gap between what is known about LDR couples’ needs in research and what has been implemented for them in practice. The aim of this work is to bridge this gap by mediating emotional communication through unconventional user interfaces that use interaction solutions outside of the scope of their conventional use, with a particular focus on couples who sustain a committed LDR. Here, taking research through design as a core approach, a variety of qualitative methods were employed to seek answers to the research questions. This dissertation includes eight case studies, each of which is dedicated to answering its corresponding research question(s). Study I presents a systematic literature review which explored the current state of the art and identified the design opportunities. Study II introduces a series of co-design activities with five couples in LDRs to reveal the needs and challenges of users in an LDR. Studies III and IV propose two functional prototypes for unconventional communication systems to connect couples in LDRs. Study V showcases 12 design concepts of wearables created by the participants to support their own LDR. Study VI describes how four low-resolution prototypes created for mediating LDRs by the participants in the workshop would be used in real-world contexts. Studies VII and VIII each present a novel design tool to be used as a scaffold when designing communication systems for supporting LDRs: specifically, a conceptual design framework and a card-based design toolkit. This dissertation contributes new knowledge to the field of human-computer interaction through design interventions. It showcases a spectrum of practices which can be seen as a first step towards mediating emotional communication for couples in LDRs using unconventional communication systems. The findings comprise theoretical and empirical insights—derived from the eight case studies in which the author identified design opportunities and design considerations—relating to how couples in LDRs can be better supported by unconventional computer-mediated emotional communication systems

Student experiences with instructional videos in online learning environments

Drawing upon qualitative methods of semi-structured interviews and observational talk-through interviews, this qualitative dissertation investigates the ways in which graduate students in an online course context experience online instructional videos. A conceptual framework of user experience and multimodality, as well as the framework of sense-making developed by McCarthy and Wright (2004) guided this study and data analysis. The findings of this dissertation have implications for how students are participating in, interacting with, and making sense of online learning environments. Some of the findings of this research include: (a) students do not necessarily experience course videos as discrete elements (or differentiate them with other aspects of the course); (b) the times and contexts in which students view instructional videos shifts (e.g., between home and commuting); (c) student motivations and expectations shape how they approach and orient themselves towards watching online course videos; and (d) multimodal design elements influence students’ meaning-making of online instructional videos. These data findings are all in support of the overarching conclusion of this dissertation, which is that students have significant agency in these online environments, and their meaning-making of online videos may not align with designers’ intentions. This conclusion argues against deterministic views of design. The emerging findings have design implications related to the creation of learning environments in online spaces, such as: (a) fully integrating videos within the broader instructional design of a course; (b) foregrounding the embedded context of instructional videos; and (c) accounting for the shifting times, places, and contexts in which viewers watch instructional videos. This dissertation is situated in the growing field of online education, in particular higher education, where significant money and resources are increasingly dedicated towards the development of online spaces while still much is unknown in relation to the design, experiences, and impact of these online learning environments

Digitization and Lean Customer Experience Management: success factors and conditions, pitfalls and failures

In recent years, the use of Lean Customer Experience Management (CEM) by companies and practitioners has been increasingly encountered, but with abstracted and incomprehensible approaches. Lean CEM is hardly rooted in academic literature, providing an excellent opportunity to further investigate the term’s theoretical and practical validity. The “Lean CEM”, principles, best practices, success factors and conditions, pitfalls and failures among Digitization, enhanced by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Lean Management and CEM are discussed. This work is a first step of a design science research, consisting of literature and practice review and provides insights for design propositions for application instructions for a Digitized Lean CEM

Embedding Intelligence. Designerly reflections on AI-infused products

Artificial intelligence is more-or-less covertly entering our lives and houses, embedded into products and services that are acquiring novel roles and agency on users. Products such as virtual assistants represent the first wave of materializa- tion of artificial intelligence in the domestic realm and beyond. They are new interlocutors in an emerging redefined relationship between humans and computers. They are agents, with miscommunicated or unclear proper- ties, performing actions to reach human-set goals. They embed capabilities that industrial products never had. They can learn users’ preferences and accordingly adapt their responses, but they are also powerful means to shape people’s behavior and build new practices and habits. Nevertheless, the way these products are used is not fully exploiting their potential, and frequently they entail poor user experiences, relegating their role to gadgets or toys. Furthermore, AI-infused products need vast amounts of personal data to work accurately, and the gathering and processing of this data are often obscure to end-users. As well, how, whether, and when it is preferable to implement AI in products and services is still an open debate. This condition raises critical ethical issues about their usage and may dramatically impact users’ trust and, ultimately, the quality of user experience. The design discipline and the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field are just beginning to explore the wicked relationship between Design and AI, looking for a definition of its borders, still blurred and ever-changing. The book approaches this issue from a human-centered standpoint, proposing designerly reflections on AI-infused products. It addresses one main guiding question: what are the design implications of embedding intelligence into everyday objects

ICS Materials

This present book covers a series of outstanding reputation researchers’ contributions on the topic of ICS Materials: a new class of emerging materials with properties and qualities concerning interactivity, connectivity and intelligence. In the general framework of ICS Materials’ domain, each chapter deals with a specific aspect following the characteristic perspective of each researcher. As result, methods, tools, guidelines emerged that are relevant and applicable to several contexts such as product, interaction design, materials science and many more

ICS Materials

This present book covers a series of outstanding reputation researchers’ contributions on the topic of ICS Materials: a new class of emerging materials with properties and qualities concerning interactivity, connectivity and intelligence. In the general framework of ICS Materials’ domain, each chapter deals with a specific aspect following the characteristic perspective of each researcher. As result, methods, tools, guidelines emerged that are relevant and applicable to several contexts such as product, interaction design, materials science and many more