On the Role of External Representations in Designing for Participatory Sensemaking

Public issues demand highly complex collaborations in which different (public, private) stakeholders, each with their own complementary or conflicting interests, expertise and experiences, work toward public good. Typically, collaborative technological applications function to represent people’s ideas and to enable the exchange of representational messages between people. By contrast, we designed [X]Changing Perspectives ([X]CP): an interactive table-system for multi-stakeholder collaboration around public issues. The system aims, not to represent views but rather, to scaffold the emergence of situated meaningful couplings in face-to-face interactions. It helps people to align their visual attention, materialises their input and provokes associations. However, [X]CP does contain representations, such as symbols, tangibles and an interactive visualisation. In reflecting on its design and use, we analyse what these representations do, as seen from the perspective of embodied, participatory sensemaking. We explain how representations are not the foundational building blocks of the system, and how they do not have fixed meanings. Rather, as scaffolds, our representations add a layer of artificial structure that guides the ongoing interactive couplings between people, contributing to participatory sensemaking. Applying this approach to the design of mediating technologies for multi-stakeholder collaborations can open up new ways of interacting and understanding between stakeholders without disrupting their collaboration

Physiological measurements of drawing and forming activities

Proceeding volume: Volume 7Peer reviewe

Embodied Design Ideation Methods: Analysing the Power of Estrangement

Embodied design ideation practices work with relationships between body, material and context to enliven design and research potential. Methods are often idiosyncratic and - due to their physical nature - not easily transferred. This presents challenges for designers wishing to develop and share techniques or contribute to research. We present a framework that enables designers to understand, describe and contextualise their embodied design ideation practices in ways that can be understood by peers, as well as those new to embodied ideation. Our framework - developed over two conference workshops - provides a frame for discussion of embodied design actions that leverage the power of estrangement. We apply our framework to eight embodied design ideation methods. Our contribution is thus twofold: (1) a framework to understand and leverage the power of estrangement in embodied design ideation, and (2) an inspirational catalogue demonstrating the diversity of ideas that embodied design ideation methods can foster. Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM

The wearable co-design domino: A user-centered methodology to co-design and co-evaluate wearables

This paper presents a user-centered methodology to co-design and co-evaluate wearables that has been developed following a research-through design methodology. It has been based on the principles of human–computer interaction and on an empirical case entitled “Design and Development of a Low-Cost Wearable Glove to Track Forces Exerted by Workers in Car Assembly Lines” published in Sensors. Insights from both studies have been used to develop the wearable co-design domino presented in this study. The methodology consists of different design stages composed of an ideation stage, digital service development and test stages, hardware development and test stage, and a final test stage. The main conclusions state that it is necessary to maintain a close relationship between human factors and technical factors when designing wearable. Additionally, through the several studies, it has been concluded that there is need of different field experts that should co-design and co-evaluate wearable iteratively and involving users from the beginning of the process

Sensibility, narcissism and affect: using immersive practices in design for embodied experience

‘Embodiment’ need not focus on isolated individuals or group interactions. This article articulates the potential for designs that prompt participants to bring relationships with other people to mind. These can be fleeting relationships between participants and unknown others, or remembered relationships with romantic partners, family members, or close friends who are not physically co-present or digitally represented. In either case, it is possible to generate affective responses that profoundly shape participants’ emotional and physical reactions to, and co-creation of, the designed interaction. This article presents existing practices of immersive theatre to frame our exploration of this phenomenon. It introduces three theories—mise-en-sensibilité, narcissistic spectatorship and affect—through which we illuminate both the internally felt and the externally designed experience, whether or not it is explicitly framed as theatrical performance. Through analysis of two immersive performances (one-on-one interactions that could easily be understood in terms of experience design) and two designs of our own, we argue that the affect generated by personal relationships in immersive experiences can both shape and drive participation, and we offer a three-point guideline by which one can design for the affective consequences of bringing relationships to mind

Embracing first-person perspectives in soma-based design

This article belongs to the Special Issue Tangible and Embodied InteractionA set of prominent designers embarked on a research journey to explore aesthetics in movement-based design. Here we unpack one of the design sensitivities unique to our practice: A strong first person perspective-where the movements, somatics and aesthetic sensibilities of the designer, design researcher and user are at the forefront. We present an annotated portfolio of design exemplars and a brief introduction to some of the design methods and theory we use, together substantiating and explaining the first-person perspective. At the same time, we show how this felt dimension, despite its subjective nature, is what provides rigor and structure to our design research. Our aim is to assist researchers in soma-based design and designers wanting to consider the multiple facets when designing for the aesthetics of movement. The applications span a large field of designs, including slow introspective, contemplative interactions, arts, dance, health applications, games, work applications and many others

Integrating social scientific perspectives on the quantified employee self

A key technological trend in big data science is that of the quantified self, whereby individuals can self-track their health and well-being using various sources of information. The aim of this article was to integrate multidimensional views on the positive and negative implications of the quantified self for employees and workplaces. Relevant human and social scientific literature on the quantified (employee) self and self-tracking were drawn upon and organized into three main influential perspectives. Specifically, the article identified (1) psychological perspectives on quantified attitudes and behaviors, (2) sociological perspectives on sociomaterial user construction, and (3) critical theoretical perspectives on digital power and control. This article suggests that the three perspectives are complementary and can be usefully integrated into an embodied sensemaking perspective. Embodied sensemaking views the employee as a self-conscious user of big data seeking to make sense of their embeddedness in wider digital and organizational environments. This article concludes with implications for protecting employee agency in tension with employers’ big data strategies for governing and managing the performance of quantified digital employee selves

Interfaces tangíveis em simuladores veiculares: componentes para um protocolo de avaliação de usabilidade

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Design e Expressão Gráfica, Florianópolis, 2016.A partir do final dos anos 1990, inovações tecnológicas relacionadas à interação de usuários e sistemas digitais proporcionaram o advento de um novo campo de estudos em Design. Trata-se das Interfaces Tangíveis, que podem ser definidas como o uso de objetos e ambientes físicos para emissão de comandos e feedback em interações digitais, onde a usabilidade possui parâmetros distintos das interfaces gráficas. Nesse contexto, esta pesquisa teve por objetivo a identificação de componentes para um protocolo de avaliação de usabilidade de Interfaces Tangíveis naturais e de incorporação ambiental, isto é, que consistem no design de todo um ambiente para promover uma interação intuitiva. A abordagem metodológica utilizada é de natureza qualitativa e exploratória, consistindo em: a) Revisão sistemática na literatura relativa a Interfaces Tangíveis e b) Testes de usabilidade de um produto que proporciona interação tangível ambiental (um simulador de motocicleta). Como resultados foram identificados componentes para um protocolo de avaliação: seis dimensões gerais de análise de usabilidade identificadas pela literatura especializada (Usuário, Instrutor, Ambiente Físico, Artefato Real, Cenário Intangível e Relação Real-Virtual), sendo cada dimensão constituída por fatores específicos oriundos dos testes de usabilidade realizados.Abstract : With the emergence, from the late 1990s, of technological innovations related to the interaction of users and systems, it has been the advent of a new field of study in Design: the tangible user interfaces. Such interfaces can be defined as the use of objects and physical environments for issuing commands and feedback in digital interactions where usability has different parameters of the graphical interfaces. This research aims to stablish components for a protocol for assessment of tangible interface, specially those of the environmental type, ie, consisting of the design of an entire physical environment with the purpose digital interaction. The methodological approach for this research is qualitative and exploratory, consisting of: a) Systematic reviewing of the literature on tangible interfaces; b) Usability testing of a product that provides tangible environmental interaction (a motorcycle simulator). As result is had been identified components for a protocol for assessment which includes general criteria for usability described in the specialized literature and specific items identified by tests