Inspirational Bits - Towards a Shared Understanding of the Digital Material

In any design process, a medium’s properties need to be considered. This is nothing new in design. Still we find that in HCI and interactive systems design the properties of a technology are often glossed over. That is, technologies are black-boxed without much thought given to how their distinctive properties open up design possibilities. In this paper we describe what we call inspirational bits as a way to become more familiar with the design material in HCI, the digital material. We describe inspirational bits as quick and dirty but fully working systems in both hardware and software built with the aim of exposing one or several of the dynamic properties of a digital material. We also show how they provide a means of sharing design knowledge across the members of a multi-disciplined design team

Facilitating Creativity in Collaborative Work with Computational Intelligence Software

The use of computational intelligence for leveraging social creativity is a relatively new approach that allows organizations to find creative solutions to complex problems in which the interaction between stakeholders is crucial. The creative solutions that come from joint thinking-from the combined knowledge and abilities of people with diverse perspectives-contrast with traditional views of creativity that focus primarily on the individual as the main contributor of creativity. In an effort to support social creativity in organizations, in this paper we present computational intelligence software tools for that aim and an architecture for creating software mashups based on the concept of affinity space. The affinity space defines a digital setting to facilitate specific scenarios in collaborative business environments. The solution presented includes a set of free and open source software tools ranging from newly developed brainstorming applications to an expertise recommender for enhancing social creativity in the enterprise. The current paper addresses software design issues and presents reflections on the research work undertaken in the COLLAGE project between 2012 and 2015

Cognitive Designers Activity Study, Formalization, Modelling, and Computation

This study aims to explore how designers mentally categorise design information during the early sketching performed in the generative phase. An action research approach is particularly appropriate for identifying the various sorts of design information and the cognitive operations involved in this phase. Thus, we conducted a protocol study with eight product designers based on a descriptive model derived from cognitive psychological memory theories. Subsequent protocol analysis yielded a cognitive model depicting the mental categorisation of design information processing performed by designers. This cognitive model included a structure for design information (high, middle, and low levels) and linked cognitive operations (association and transformation). Finally, this paper concludes by discussing directions for future research on the development of new computational tools for designers

Religious Politicians and Creative Photographers: Automatic User Categorization in Twitter

Finding the ''right people'' is a central aspect of social media systems. Twitter has millions of users who have varied interests, professions and personalities. For those in fields such as advertising and marketing, it is important to identify certain characteristics of users to target. However, Twitter users do not generally provide sufficient information about themselves on their profile which makes this task difficult. In response, this work sets out to automatically infer professions (e.g., musicians, health sector workers, technicians) and personality related attributes (e.g., creative, innovative, funny) for Twitter users based on features extracted from their content, their interaction networks, attributes of their friends and their activity patterns. We develop a comprehensive set of latent features that are then employed to perform efficient classification of users along these two dimensions (profession and personality). Our experiments on a large sample of Twitter users demonstrate both a high overall accuracy in detecting profession and personality related attributes as well as highlighting the benefits and pitfalls of various types of features for particular categories of users

A user-centred collective system design approach for Smart Product-Service Systems:A case study on fitness product design

Emerging technologies have significantly contributed to the evolution of traditional product-service systems (PSS) into smart PSS. This transformation demands a fresh perspective and a more inventive design approach. In response, this study proposes a new User-Centred Collective System Design (CSD) framework and process for Smart PSS design, aiming to enhance stakeholder engagement during the entire design process, thus promoting highly effective and creative design solutions. A case study, titled ‘Next-G Smart Fitness PSS Design’, was carried out to test and implement this approach, contrasting the results of the CSD method with a designer-centred method. The outcomes showed a marked improvement in product novelty and user desirability of the design outcomes when using the proposed design framework. The proposed CSD framework could offer beneficial insights and user-centric viewpoints for practitioners dealing with complex challenges linked to smart PSS design

Dreams of Gain Without Pain : The Affective Allure of Pinterest’s Studyinspo Phenomenon

Studyinspo – a portmanteau of the words “studying” and “inspiration” – is a name for a loose online community wherein users on different social media platforms document and share their academic pursuits in photographic form and access the content created by others, all in order to inspire and draw inspiration from one another. One of the most peculiar characteristics of the phenomenon is the distinctive visual look of the content associated with it. Not only is Studyinspo imagery easily recognisable due to its focus on certain subject matters – most notably, study-related everyday items such as books, note pads, and writing utensils – but the feeling one is imparted with when encountering these images is that of an almost overwhelming pleasure. In these photographs, typically quite unremarkable objects are portrayed in a highly attractive manner, and the harmonised compositions they form evoke a deep sense of satisfaction within the viewer. Even when cluttered writing desks or pages after pages of hand-written notes are depicted, the content circulating within the community remains inexplicably pleasant to look at. Studyinspo imagery’s peculiar effect on us poses various questions to those interested in the relationships between people and digital media. Why do these images make us feel this way, and why has a community like this formed in the first place – especially around studying? In this master’s thesis, these questions will be answered through phenomenological media analysis, drawing dominantly from the insights of French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. By examining Studyinspo imagery as it exists on image-centric social media platform Pinterest, it will be demonstrated that the phenomenon’s appeal is based on the haptic dimensions of individual photographs – particularly their smoothness and orderliness – which the viewer experiences both as a visual fact and as a deeply pleasurable tactile affect. Furthermore, as an exploration of the neoliberal realities of contemporary education systems in the USA and Europe reveals, engaging with virtual content that depicts studying as a deeply pleasurable activity serves a clearly defined purpose. In a world where the mental wellbeing of students is at all-time low, the pleasure emanating from Studyinspo images relieves the community member’s mental anguish and encourages them to continue their pursuits in hopes of attaining the same sense of enjoyment in their personal lives. Ultimately, it will be argued that what Studyinspo content on Pinterest provides are dreams of gain without pain – attractive glimpses into a world which, for as long as the realities dictating the Studyinspo enthusiasts’ lives remain the same, will unfortunately remain out of reach

La estructura retórica del resumen (abstract) en las disciplinas arte y diseño : un estudio descriptivo

Maestría en Inglés con Orientación en Lingüística AplicadaAs an effective means of representing the research article, the abstract has increasingly become an essential part of this genre. For that reason, understanding the rhetorical conventions that govern abstract writing in their respective fields may help students and novice researchers acquire reading and writing skills in their fields of specialization. Recent research on the rhetorical features of abstracts has revealed broad patterns of regularity as well as disciplinary variation. Although several investigations have focused their analysis on a variety of disciplines, no study appears to have explored the rhetorical structure of abstracts in the fields of Art and Design. The present research, therefore, examines the rhetorical moves and main linguistic features of Art and Design abstracts, and proposes a schema for the abstract genre in each of these disciplinary domains. To conduct the study, a corpus of 30 abstracts from four high-impact journals was compiled, and subjected to a move analysis (Swales, 1981, 1990) using the analytical framework proposed by Pho (2008), and the methodology suggested by Dudley-Evans (1994) and Holmes (1997). The results reveal that although Art and Design abstracts bear some similarities, they also show some differences that result in distinct emerging patterns. Based on these findings, two models are proposed of the rhetorical elements that are constitutive of each discipline. The outcome of this research has pedagogical implications for students, novice researchers and teachers within ESP (English for Specific Purposes) contexts.Fil: Caturegli, Alicia. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Lenguas; Argentina

Design and radical innovation: a strategic perspective based upon a comparative case study between emergent and traditional industries in Portugal

The survival challenge faced by the Portuguese companies nowadays has promoted Innovation as the main management strategy to be applied. This research reveals the importance and the role of Design as the basic and integrative tool for the success of this strategy, focused on Radical or Breakthrough Innovation. The main contribution of this paper is the proposal of a conceptual model developed from a comparative case study research, made among Portuguese companies from the emergent sectors connected to new technologies and Portuguese companies from the traditional sectors. That work allowed the definition of the Success Critical Factors to consider for the development of radical new products: integrating new technologies (Science Knowledge), market sensibility (Marketing Knowledge), forecasting new needs or user interfaces and disruptive creativity (Design Knowledge)

“Kind and Grateful”: A Context-Sensitive Smartphone App Utilizing Inspirational Content to Promote Gratitude

Background Previous research has shown that gratitude positively influences psychological wellbeing and physical health. Grateful people are reported to feel more optimistic and happy, to better mitigate aversive experiences, and to have stronger interpersonal bonds. Gratitude interventions have been shown to result in improved sleep, more frequent exercise and stronger cardiovascular and immune systems. These findings call for the development of technologies that would inspire gratitude. This paper presents a novel system designed toward this end. Methods We leverage pervasive technologies to naturally embed inspiration to express gratitude in everyday life. Novel to this work, mobile sensor data is utilized to infer optimal moments for stimulating contextually relevant thankfulness and appreciation. Sporadic mood measurements are inventively obtained through the smartphone lock screen, investigating their interplay with grateful expressions. Both momentary thankful emotion and dispositional gratitude are measured. To evaluate our system, we ran two rounds of randomized control trials (RCT), including a pilot study (N = 15, 2 weeks) and a main study (N = 27, 5 weeks). Studies’ participants were provided with a newly developed smartphone app through which they were asked to express gratitude; the app displayed inspirational content to only the intervention group, while measuring contextual cues for all users. Results In both rounds of the RCT, the intervention was associated with improved thankful behavior. Significant increase was observed in multiple facets of practicing gratitude in the intervention groups. The average frequency of practicing thankfulness increased by more than 120 %, comparing the baseline weeks with the intervention weeks of the main study. In contrast, the control group of the same study exhibited a decrease of 90 % in the frequency of thankful expressions. In the course of the study’s 5 weeks, increases in dispositional gratitude and in psychological wellbeing were also apparent. Analyzing the relation between mood and gratitude expressions, our data suggest that practicing gratitude increases the probability of going up in terms of emotional valence and down in terms of emotional arousal. The influences of inspirational content and contextual cues on promoting thankful behavior were also analyzed: We present data suggesting that the more successful times for eliciting expressions of gratitude tend to be shortly after a social experience, shortly after location change, and shortly after physical activity. Conclusions The results support our intervention as an impactful method to promote grateful affect and behavior. Moreover, they provide insights into design and evaluation of general behavioral intervention technologies.Robert Wood Johnson FoundationMIT Media Lab Consortiu