Designing Familiar Open Surfaces

While participatory design makes end-users part of the design process, we might also want the resulting system to be open for interpretation, appropriation and change over time to reflect its usage. But how can we design for appropriation? We need to strike a good balance between making the user an active co-constructor of system functionality versus making a too strong, interpretative design that does it all for the user thereby inhibiting their own creative use of the system. Through revisiting five systems in which appropriation has happened both within and outside the intended use, we are going to show how it can be possible to design with open surfaces. These open surfaces have to be such that users can fill them with their own interpretation and content, they should be familiar to the user, resonating with their real world practice and understanding, thereby shaping its use

A Surface-based In-House Network Medium for Power, Communication and Interaction

Recent advances in communication and signal processing methodologies have paved the way for a high speed home network Power Line Communication (PLC) system. The development of powerline communications and powerline control as a cost effective and rapid mechanism for delivering communication and control services are becoming attractive in PLC application, to determine the best mix of hard and software to support infrastructure development for particular applications using power line communication. Integrating appliances in the home through a wired network often proves to be impractical: routing cables is usually difficult, changing the network structure afterwards even more so, and portable devices can only be connected at fixed connection points. Wireless networks aren’t the answer either: batteries have to be regularly replaced or changed, and what they add to the device’s size and weight might be disproportionate for smaller appliances. In Pin&Play, we explore a design space in between typical wired and wireless networks, investigating the use of surfaces to network objects that are attached to it. This article gives an overview of the network model, and describes functioning prototypes that were built as a proof of concept. The first phase of the development is already demonstrated both in appropriate conferences and publications. [1] The intention of researchers is to introduce this work to powerline community; as this research enters phase II of the Pin&Play architecture to investigate, develop prototype systems, and conduct studies in two concrete application areas. The first area is user-centric and concerned with support for collaborative work on large surfaces. The second area is focused on exhibition spaces and trade fairs, and concerned with combination of physical media such as movable walls and digital infrastructure for fast deployment of engaging installations. In this paper we have described the functionality of the Pin&Play architecture and introduced the second phase together with future plans. Figure 1 shows technical approach, using a surface with simple layered structure Pushpin connectors, dual pin or coaxial

Interpretation at the controller's edge: designing graphical user interfaces for the digital publication of the excavations at Gabii (Italy)

This paper discusses the authors’ approach to designing an interface for the Gabii Project’s digital volumes that attempts to fuse elements of traditional synthetic publications and site reports with rich digital datasets. Archaeology, and classical archaeology in particular, has long engaged with questions of the formation and lived experience of towns and cities. Such studies might draw on evidence of local topography, the arrangement of the built environment, and the placement of architectural details, monuments and inscriptions (e.g. Johnson and Millett 2012). Fundamental to the continued development of these studies is the growing body of evidence emerging from new excavations. Digital techniques for recording evidence “on the ground,” notably SFM (structure from motion aka close range photogrammetry) for the creation of detailed 3D models and for scene-level modeling in 3D have advanced rapidly in recent years. These parallel developments have opened the door for approaches to the study of the creation and experience of urban space driven by a combination of scene-level reconstruction models (van Roode et al. 2012, Paliou et al. 2011, Paliou 2013) explicitly combined with detailed SFM or scanning based 3D models representing stratigraphic evidence. It is essential to understand the subtle but crucial impact of the design of the user interface on the interpretation of these models. In this paper we focus on the impact of design choices for the user interface, and make connections between design choices and the broader discourse in archaeological theory surrounding the practice of the creation and consumption of archaeological knowledge. As a case in point we take the prototype interface being developed within the Gabii Project for the publication of the Tincu House. In discussing our own evolving practices in engagement with the archaeological record created at Gabii, we highlight some of the challenges of undertaking theoretically-situated user interface design, and their implications for the publication and study of archaeological materials

Engineering design in a different way: cognitive perspective on the contact and channel model approach

Engineering design often involves the integration of new design ideas into existing products, requiring designers to think simultaneously about abstract properties and functions as well as concrete solution constraints. Often designers struggle to reason with functional descriptions, while not fixating on existing solutions. This paper introduces the Contact & Channel Model (C&CM) approach, which combines abstract functional models of technical systems with the concrete geometric descriptions that many designers are familiar with. By locating functions at working surface pairs, they receive a concrete location in mental models. The C&CM approach can be applied to analyze existing product descriptions and synthesize creative new solutions for parts of the system or for entire new systems. At the moment the approach is being developed into an complete modeling and problem solving approach. C&CM has been used for several years in undergraduate engineering teaching at the University of Karlsruhe (TH) and is increasingly being introduced into industry by its use in research and development projects, by its students and its alumni

When the fingers do the talking: A study of group participation for different kinds of shareable surfaces

and other research outputs When the fingers do the talking: A study of group par-ticipation for different kinds of shareable surface

Knowledge-based systems and geological survey

This personal and pragmatic review of the philosophy underpinning methods of geological surveying suggests that important influences of information technology have yet to make their impact. Early approaches took existing systems as metaphors, retaining the separation of maps, map explanations and information archives, organised around map sheets of fixed boundaries, scale and content. But system design should look ahead: a computer-based knowledge system for the same purpose can be built around hierarchies of spatial objects and their relationships, with maps as one means of visualisation, and information types linked as hypermedia and integrated in mark-up languages. The system framework and ontology, derived from the general geoscience model, could support consistent representation of the underlying concepts and maintain reference information on object classes and their behaviour. Models of processes and historical configurations could clarify the reasoning at any level of object detail and introduce new concepts such as complex systems. The up-to-date interpretation might centre on spatial models, constructed with explicit geological reasoning and evaluation of uncertainties. Assuming (at a future time) full computer support, the field survey results could be collected in real time as a multimedia stream, hyperlinked to and interacting with the other parts of the system as appropriate. Throughout, the knowledge is seen as human knowledge, with interactive computer support for recording and storing the information and processing it by such means as interpolating, correlating, browsing, selecting, retrieving, manipulating, calculating, analysing, generalising, filtering, visualising and delivering the results. Responsibilities may have to be reconsidered for various aspects of the system, such as: field surveying; spatial models and interpretation; geological processes, past configurations and reasoning; standard setting, system framework and ontology maintenance; training; storage, preservation, and dissemination of digital records

Criticality meets sustainability: Constructing critical practices in design research for sustainability

Sustainability requires a wider awareness of the changing conditions for design today – rather than focused solely on preserving nature or conserving energy, per se, this opens up for challenging assumptions about relations between design and society and for constructing new forms of critical practice. Tracing tendencies in conceptual and (post)critical design, this paper argues for further developing the critical discourse within design today and design research as an important arena for extending the ideological and artifactual production of such discourse to users and stakeholders. In relation to my own experiences within the Static! and Switch! design research programs, these perspective are anchored in conceptual, operational, and practical examples of critical practices applied in the area of energy awareness

Living Without a Mobile Phone: An Autoethnography

This paper presents an autoethnography of my experiences living without a mobile phone. What started as an experiment motivated by a personal need to reduce stress, has resulted in two voluntary mobile phone breaks spread over nine years (i.e., 2002-2008 and 2014-2017). Conducting this autoethnography is the means to assess if the lack of having a phone has had any real impact in my life. Based on formative and summative analyses, four meaningful units or themes were identified (i.e., social relationships, everyday work, research career, and location and security), and judged using seven criteria for successful ethnography from existing literature. Furthermore, I discuss factors that allow me to make the choice of not having a mobile phone, as well as the relevance that the lessons gained from not having a mobile phone have on the lives of people who are involuntarily disconnected from communication infrastructures.Comment: 12 page