Living with Drones, Robots, and Young Children: Informing Research through Design with Autoethnography

Supporting the study of child-drone interaction in domestic spaces is a difficult endeavour, but of value to the development of this robotic platform. This paper presents an autoethnographic study, serving as an exploratory first-person method to surface issues and opportunities in this design space. Autoethnography is increasingly popular in HCI, but to further support its application, I combine it with a Sociotechnical Systems (StS) perspective, informing the analysis and development of descriptive narratives with systems theory. This paper is based on a year-long documentation of the interaction between my family and a set of three land robots and one flying robot. I present work in the form of critical incidents and lessons learned, and a set of design opportunities for child-drone interaction to inform a research through design probe development. The combination between StS and autoethnography proved fruitful in understanding how drones may currently be brought or gifted into the home without fully considering the effects and implications of their use. Furthermore, I offer reflections on the use of autoethnography for other researchers when living and involving their family with their research material

Diversity in Computer Science

This is an open access book that covers the complete set of experiences and results of the FemTech.dk research which we have had conducted between 2016-2021 – from initiate idea to societal communication. Diversity in Computer Science: Design Artefacts for Equity and Inclusion presents and documents the principles, results, and learnings behind the research initiative FemTech.dk, which was created in 2016 and continues today as an important part of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen’s strategic development for years to come. FemTech.dk was created in 2016 to engage with research within gender and diversity and to explore the role of gender equity as part of digital technology design and development. FemTech.dk considers how and why computer science as a field and profession in Denmark has such a distinct unbalanced gender representation in the 21st century. This book is also the story of how we (the authors) as computer science researchers embarked on a journey to engage with a new research field – equity and gender in computing – about which we had only sporadic knowledge when we began. We refer here to equity and gender in computing as a research field – but in reality, this research field is a multiplicity of entangled paths, concepts, and directions that forms important and critical insights about society, gender, politics, and infrastructures which are published in different venues and often have very different sets of criteria, values, and assumptions. Thus, part of our journey is also to learn and engage with all these different streams of research, concepts, and theoretical approaches and, through these engagements, to identify and develop our own theoretical platform, which has a foundation in our research backgrounds in Human–Computer Interaction broadly – and Interaction Design & Computer Supported Cooperative Work specifically

Finding what fits: Explorative self-experimentation for health behaviour change

Changing a specific health behaviour can be highly complex and is often influenced by many personal, social, and environmental factors. Therefore, interventions that aim at behaviour change cannot be one-size-fits-all solutions, and no behaviour change technique is effective for everyone. One potential solution could be to support individuals in finding interventions through self-experimentation. This research explored the requirements for an explorative self-experimentation intervention and developed tools that support users in the process, complementing developments in quantitative self-experimentation. Based on a research through design approach, we developed three different prototypes for supporting a change in health-related behaviour, which were used and evaluated by fourteen participants over a four-week period. A thematic analysis of interviews with participants led to seven themes, which can be used as a starting point when designing for explorative self-experimentation

Diversity in Computer Science

This is an open access book that covers the complete set of experiences and results of the FemTech.dk research which we have had conducted between 2016-2021 – from initiate idea to societal communication. Diversity in Computer Science: Design Artefacts for Equity and Inclusion presents and documents the principles, results, and learnings behind the research initiative FemTech.dk, which was created in 2016 and continues today as an important part of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen’s strategic development for years to come. FemTech.dk was created in 2016 to engage with research within gender and diversity and to explore the role of gender equity as part of digital technology design and development. FemTech.dk considers how and why computer science as a field and profession in Denmark has such a distinct unbalanced gender representation in the 21st century. This book is also the story of how we (the authors) as computer science researchers embarked on a journey to engage with a new research field – equity and gender in computing – about which we had only sporadic knowledge when we began. We refer here to equity and gender in computing as a research field – but in reality, this research field is a multiplicity of entangled paths, concepts, and directions that forms important and critical insights about society, gender, politics, and infrastructures which are published in different venues and often have very different sets of criteria, values, and assumptions. Thus, part of our journey is also to learn and engage with all these different streams of research, concepts, and theoretical approaches and, through these engagements, to identify and develop our own theoretical platform, which has a foundation in our research backgrounds in Human–Computer Interaction broadly – and Interaction Design & Computer Supported Cooperative Work specifically

The K-12 Maker Studio: Towards Teaching and Development of Design Literacy in Educational Maker Settings

This dissertation presents three years of research into the introduction of maker settings into formal education for students in Denmark aged 11– 15. The dissertation is concerned with design literacy as a possible path to prepare students for a world which is and will be radically changed by digital technologies. It is based on six publications: five papers and one report. In the dissertation, I provide an overview of my research, which has explored the possibilities of developing design literacy in the context of maker settings in formal education, guided by the following question: How can activities with maker technologies in formal educational settings contribute to the development of design literacy among adolescents? The answer to this question derives from observational and intervention studies in schools, a professional development course for teachers, two large-scale surveys, and post-project interviews with students. In total, three intertwined and overlapping research programs produced contributions to the emerging research field of making in education. This field explores the introduction of maker technologies (such as 3D printers and programmable electronics) and maker practices known from makerspaces to informal and formal education. The research presented here, contributes to the field of making in education in four perspectives: From a conceptual perspective, I have contributed to a turn towards design in the field of making in education by investigating design process knowledge, design judgment, and stance towards inquiry as aspects of design literacy. From a pedagogical perspective, I have studied the K-12 maker studio as an approach to teaching as well as teachers who implement such an approach. By unfolding challenges for teachers and development of competences, I have contributed to a focus on teachers in the field. From an assessment perspective, I have contributed knowledge on how to sustain and scale development of design literacy through K-12 maker settings by investigating tools for assessing larger-scale implementations of such maker settings in education. From an exemplar perspective, I have contributed exemplars of K-12 maker studio activities with in a design literacy perspective, of professional development of teachers, as well as of ways to research maker settings in education through such exemplars

Research through Design of Bendable Interactive Playing Cards

Ph.D

Organic User Interfaces for InteractiveInterior Design

PhD ThesisOrganic User Interfaces (OUIs) are flexible, actuated, digital interfaces characterized by being aesthetically pleasing, physically manipulated and ubiquitously embedded within real-world environments. I postulate that OUIs have specific qualities that offer great potential to realize the vision of smart spaces and ubiquitous computing environments. This thesis makes the case for embedding OUI interaction into architectural spaces, interior elements and decorative artefacts using smart materials – a concept I term ‘OUI Interiors’. Through this thesis, I investigate: 1) What interactive materials and making techniques can be used to design and build OUIs? 2) What OUI decorative artefacts and interior elements can we create? and 3) What can we learn for design by situating OUI interiors? These key research questions form the basis of this PhD and guide all stages of inquiry, analysis, and reporting. Grounded by the state-of-the-art of Interactive Interiors in both research and practice, I developed new techniques of seamlessly embedding smart materials into interior finishing materials via research through design exploration (in the form of a Swatchbook). I also prototyped a number of interactive decorative objects that change shape and colour as a form of organicactuation, in response to seamless soft-sensing (presented in a Product Catalogue). These inspirational artefacts include table-runners, wall-art, pattern-changing wall-tiles, furry-throw, vase, cushion and matching painting, rug, objets d’art and tasselled curtain. Moreover, my situated studies of how people interact idiosyncratically with interactive decorative objects provide insights and reflections on the overall material experience. Through multi-disciplinary collaboration, I have also put these materials in the hands of designers to realize the potentials and limitations of such a paradigm and design three interactive spaces. The results of my research are materialized in a tangible outcome (a Manifesto) exploring design opportunities of OUI Interior Design, and critically considering new aesthetic possibilities