Underdogs and superheroes: Designing for new players in public space

We are exploring methods for participatory and public involvement of new 'players' in the design space. Underdogs & Superheroes involves a game-based methodology – a series of creative activities or games – in order to engage people experientially, creatively, and personally throughout the design process. We have found that games help engage users’ imaginations by representing reality without limiting expectations to what's possible here and now; engaging experiential and personal perspectives (the 'whole' person); and opening the creative process to hands-on user participation through low/no-tech materials and a widely-understood approach. The methods are currently being applied in the project Underdogs & Superheroes, which aims to evolve technological interventions for personal and community presence in local public spaces

DIY networking as a facilitator for interdisciplinary research on the hybrid city

DIY networking is a technology with special characteristics compared to the public Internet, which holds a unique potential for empowering citizens to shape their hybrid urban space toward conviviality and collective awareness. It can also play the role of a “boundary object” for facilitating interdisciplinary interactions and participatory processes between different actors: researchers, engineers, practitioners, artists, designers, local authorities, and activists. This position paper presents a social learning framework, the DIY networking paradigm, that we aim to put in the centre of the hybrid space design process. We first introduce our individual views on the role of design as discussed in the fields of engineering, urban planning, urban interaction design, design research, and community informatics. We then introduce a simple methodology for combining these diverse perspectives into a meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration, through a series of related events with different structure and framing. We conclude with a short summary of a selection of these events, which serves also as an introduction to the CONTACT workshop on facilitating information sharing between strangers, in the context of the Hybrid City III conference

Exploring historical, social and natural heritage: challenges for tangible interaction design at Sheffied General Cemetery

This paper presents current research on the design, deployment and evaluation of tangible interaction concepts for an outdoor heritage space, the Sheffield General Cemetery. The Cemetery is an area of historical and natural importance managed and maintained by a community group. Following a co-design approach, we have conducted a series of activities at the Cemetery with the goal of developing novel physical/digital installations to support visitor experiences at the site. In this paper, we describe our work so far, particularly focusing on the “Companion Novel” – a fully operational prototype installation we have evaluated on and off site. We reflect on the challenges posed by such a complex site when developing novel tangible interactions for heritage interpretation

Design fiction for mixed-reality performances

Designing for mixed-reality performances is challenging both in terms of technology design, and in terms of understanding the interplay between technology, narration, and (the outcomes of) audience interactions. This complexity also stems from the variety of roles in the creative team often entailing technology designers, artists, directors, producers, set-designers and performers. In this multidisciplinary, one-day workshop, we seek to bring together HCI scholars, designers, artists, and curators to explore the potential provided by Design Fiction as a method to generate ideas for Mixed-Reality Performance (MRP) through various archetypes including scripts, programs, and posters. By drawing attention to novel interactive technologies, such as bio-sensors and environmental IoT, we seek to generate design fiction scenarios capturing the aesthetic and interactive potential for mixed-reality performances, as well as the challenges to gain access to audience members’ data – i.e. physiological states, daily routines, conversations, etc

Noted: Musical affordances for collective exploratory music-making

Noted is a product system that allows for exploration of musical ideas and collaboration through an integrated tangible user interface (TUI). It combines a mobile app and physical controller accessories that attach to the phone. This interaction of digital app functionality and tangible controls highlights the role of musical haptics as the primary channel of interaction between a musician and an instrument. This design concept is structured around four main themes: Exploratory Workflows, Musical Haptics, Musical Affordances and Collective Action

Exploring historical, social and natural heritage: challenges for tangible interaction design at Sheffield General Cemetery

This paper presents current research on the design, deployment and evaluation of tangible interaction concepts for an outdoor heritage space, the Sheffield General Cemetery. The Cemetery is an area of historical and natural importance managed and maintained by a community group. Following a co-design approach, we have conducted a series of activities at the Cemetery with the goal of developing novel physical/digital installations to support visitor experiences at the site. In this paper, we describe our work so far, particularly focusing on the “Companion Novel” – a fully operational prototype installation we have evaluated on and off site. We reflect on the challenges posed by such a complex site when developing novel tangible interactions for heritage interpretation

Interaction platform-orientated perspective in designing novel applications

The lack of HCI offerings in the invention of novel software applications and the bias of design knowledge towards desktop GUI make it difficult for us to design for novel scenarios and applications that leverage emerging computational technologies. These include new media platforms such as mobiles, interactive TV, tabletops and large multi-touch walls on which many of our future applications will operate. We argue that novel application design should come not from user-centred requirements engineering as in developing a conventional application, but from understanding the interaction characteristics of the new platforms. Ensuring general usability for a particular interaction platform without rigorously specifying envisaged usage contexts helps us to design an artifact that does not restrict the possible application contexts and yet is usable enough to help brainstorm its more exact place for future exploitation

When conventional procedures are no longer the rule for application: design as a discipline opens up to new possibilities

This paper discusses the development of the prototype application ‘LabanAssist’. It looks at the design rationale used for the creation of what is fundamentally a system for recording dance knowledge on a score, as identifiable and replicable signs and symbols. A system made necessary because the conventions of other established disciplines, such as engineering and computer science practices, were no longer considered to be effective alone, in facilitating the production of well-designed cultural artefacts (Calvert, Fox, Ryman, & Wilke, 2005; Ebenreuter, 2005). It is important to ask how can we understand design as a discipline amongst other fields of study with longstanding conventions and traditions and if the discipline of design offers effective ways of thinking about the creation and art of making products or services for the enhancement of the human experience? Is design a discipline because it adheres to existing and established rules of interdisciplinary knowledge from which it draws, or is it a discipline in its own right that as a significant field of intellectual development utilizes interdisciplinary knowledge as a basis for creativity and invention?” While there is no simple answer to these questions, the design approach adopted for the development of the prototype application ‘LabanAssist’ offers a working example in which the central theme of grammar, or more particularly the rules of a language, depart from the conventional use for its practical application. This application is one in which a literal understanding of grammar is no longer seen as an adequate basis for the generation of dance knowledge expressed via symbolic writing systems. Instead, this research focuses on the way in which the figurative aspects of language can be represented in the design of an interface to orient user thinking and facilitate the generation of diverse movement compositions. Keywords: Labanotation; Grammar; Literal; Figurative; Tropes; Poetic Constructs; Broad Terms; Interface.</p

Social Software, Groups, and Governance

Formal groups play an important role in the law. Informal groups largely lie outside it. Should the law be more attentive to informal groups? The paper argues that this and related questions are appearing more frequently as a number of computer technologies, which I collect under the heading social software, increase the salience of groups. In turn, that salience raises important questions about both the significance and the benefits of informal groups. The paper suggests that there may be important social benefits associated with informal groups, and that the law should move towards a framework for encouraging and recognizing them. Such a framework may be organized along three dimensions by which groups arise and sustain themselves: regulating places, things, and stories