The experience of enchantment in human-computer interaction

Improving user experience is becoming something of a rallying call in human–computer interaction but experience is not a unitary thing. There are varieties of experiences, good and bad, and we need to characterise these varieties if we are to improve user experience. In this paper we argue that enchantment is a useful concept to facilitate closer relationships between people and technology. But enchantment is a complex concept in need of some clarification. So we explore how enchantment has been used in the discussions of technology and examine experiences of film and cell phones to see how enchantment with technology is possible. Based on these cases, we identify the sensibilities that help designers design for enchantment, including the specific sensuousness of a thing, senses of play, paradox and openness, and the potential for transformation. We use these to analyse digital jewellery in order to suggest how it can be made more enchanting. We conclude by relating enchantment to varieties of experience.</p

”Life is a fake. All that is real are the stock prices” - Simulating Authenticity in Financial Markets

Technology has contributed to what Max Weber termed the disenchantment of the world. Re-enchantment is a broad tendency than has hitherto been described. This overlooked movement within post-industrial business stretches into financial markets. Presently, we observe magic, morality and narrative being allowed to enter business. Re-enchantment helps us to understand the evolution of post-modern markets, as it partly forms the present exit from industrial society. This piece of research takes a micro-sociological interest with the mentality and culture of financial markets. It also has a macro-sociological character in dealing with the process of rationalisation in society. The article gives a contribution to theory about the evolving entertainment economy under the heading of re-enchantment. The experience of meaning or alternatively deprivation of meaning is decisive for behaviour and interaction at work. Technology in work is vital for this. I study four important aspects of a desired re-enchantment; sense of community, expression, myth and magic, and morality.re-enchantment; financial markets; morality; meaning

Evocative computing – creating meaningful lasting experiences in connecting with the past

We present an approach – evocative computing – that demonstrates how ‘at hand’ technologies can be ‘picked up’ and used by people to create meaningful and lasting experiences, through connecting and interacting with the past. The approach is instantiated here through a suite of interactive technologies configured for an indoor-outdoor setting that enables groups to explore, discover and research the history and background of a public cemetery. We report on a two-part study where different groups visited the cemetery and interacted with the digital tools and resources. During their activities serendipitous uses of the technology led to connections being made between personal memo-ries and ongoing activities. Furthermore, these experiences were found to be long-lasting; a follow-up study, one year later, showed them to be highly memorable, and in some cases leading participants to take up new directions in their work. We discuss the value of evocative computing for enriching user experiences and engagement with heritage practices

Imagining a digital future: how could we design for enchantment within the special education curriculum?

The implementation of the new “Successful Futures” curriculum in the UK, means that learners between the ages of 3 to 16 will be challenged to use digital media to develop their life skills, personal confidence, work skills, career planning, health and well-being (Donaldson, 2015). Teaching staff, responsible for delivering this multi-faceted programme for learners with profound disabilities, have reported that the perceived benefits of technology are misaligned to individual needs and capabilities. This is particularly evident when combined with a developmental approach that favours the achievement of milestones rather than discovery-led, task free, interaction (Simmons, 2019). The work reported here aims to directly address these gaps. We describe a series of Digital Imagining workshops, which set out to encourage creative and co-productive relationships between teaching professionals, academic artists, makers and computer scientists. During the activities, we experimented with digital fabrication tools as a means to envision contingent, imaginative interactions between learners with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities (PMLD), other people and their environment. In collectively critiquing the ideas developed during the workshops participants recognized the benefit of simple contingent, cause and effect actions for drawing attention to the material properties of objects. Almost seamlessly, these sensory explorations became the trigger for more complex ideas for integrating the demands of the digital curriculum into more natural daily scenarios. The shared process of ideation and tinkering was reported to be vital in generating a shift toward inclusion as a creative, imaginative and expressive counterpoint to the pervasive emphasis on utility and function

Visuality and the haptic qualities of the line in generative art

The line has an important and particular relationship with the generative artwork distinct from other elements such as the ‘pixel’, ‘voxel’ or the ‘points’ that make up point clouds. The line has a dual nature as both continuous and discrete which makes it perhaps uniquely placed to straddle the analog and digital worlds. It has a haptic or felt quality as well as an inherent ambiguity that promotes a relatively active interpretive role for the audience. There is an extensive history of the line in generative systems and artworks, taking both analog and digital forms. That it continues to play an important role, alongside other more photographically inspired ‘perceptual schemas’, may be a testament to its enduring usefulness and unique character. This paper considers the particular affordances and the ‘visuality’ of the line in relation to generative artworks. This includes asking how we might account for the felt quality of lines and the socially and culturally constructed aspects that shape our relationship with them. It asks whether, in what has been described as a ‘post digital’ or even ‘post post digital’ world, the line may offer a way to re-emphasise a more human scale and a materiality that can push back, gently, against other more dominant perceptual schemas. It also asks what generative art can learn from drawing theory, many of the concerns of which parallel and intersect with those of generative art

VIF: Virtual Interactive Fiction (with a twist)

Nowadays computer science can create digital worlds that deeply immerse users; it can also process in real time brain activity to infer their inner states. What marvels can we achieve with such technologies? Go back to displaying text. And unfold a story that follows and molds users as never before.Comment: Pervasive Play - CHI '16 Workshop, May 2016, San Jose, United State

CHI and the future robot enslavement of humankind: a retrospective

As robots from the future, we are compelled to present this important historical document which discusses how the systematic investigation of interactive technology facilitated and hastened the enslavement of mankind by robots during the 21st Century. We describe how the CHI community, in general, was largely responsible for this eventuality, as well as how specific strands of interaction design work were key to the enslavement. We also mention the futility of some reactionary work emergent in your time that sought to challenge the inevitable subjugation. We conclude by congratulating the CHI community for your tireless work in promoting and supporting our evil robot agenda

The Digital Enchantment of Drottningholm

How can we relate to a historical playing culture? In this essay, a counter-factual visit to thepalaces and parks of Drottningholm outside Stockholm is presented. By means of digitaltechnologies, this World Heritage Site could be animated with historical figures from theeighteenth century, thus giving a living picture of past playing. Even though such an encounterwith the past is fully possible from a technical point of view, the realization of this projectposes a number of practical and theoretical questions: How can the picture ofeighteenth-century court life be broadened to include social perspectives of class, gender andethnicity? What artistic decisions have to be taken to visualize the activities around the parkand in the palace? What forms of interactions provided by the technology are suitable forvarious groups of visitors? Some answers to these questions are hinted at in this essay, but thegeneral question of a poetics of playing remains in the abyss between the historical period andthe contemporary access to it. Neither Friedrich von Schiller's treatise on the aestheticeducation of man nor Emanuel Kant's rational view of judgment bridge the gap of historicaldistance. Could Hans-Georg Gadamer's idea of the melting of historical horizons ever becomea reality in the experiences of future visitors? Eventually, this project might only provide somepleasures of a poetry of playing