The Shifting Sands of Labour: Changes in Shared Care Work with a Smart Home Health System

Whilst the use of smart home systems has shown promise in recent years supporting older people's activities at home, there is more evidence needed to understand how these systems impact the type and the amount of shared care in the home. It is important to understand care recipients and caregivers' labour is changed with the introduction of a smart home system to efficiently and effectively support an increasingly aging population with technology. Five older households (8 participants) were interviewed before, immediately after and three months after receiving a Smart Home Health System (SHHS). We provide an identification and documentation of critical incidents and barriers that increased inter-household care work and prevented the SHHS from being successfully accepted within homes. Findings are framed within the growing body of work on smart homes for health and care, and we provide implications for designing future systems for shared home care needs

Artful Systems: Investigating everyday practices of family life to inform the design of information technology for the home

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The research in this thesis was motivated by an interest in understanding the work and effort that goes into organising family homes, with the aim of informing the design of novel information technology for the home. It was undertaken to address a notable absence of in-depth research into domestic information and communication technology in the fields of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). To that end, this thesis presents an ethnographic study of everyday routines in thirteen family homes. Following an established tradition within HCI and CSCW, the study applies qualitative fieldwork methods as a means to investigate and interpret the empirical materials. Periods of extended observation and semi-structured interviews with the thirteen families over a three-year period form the basis of the empirical material. The materials are analysed using a hybrid perspective composed of a combination of influences from the study of material culture, to interaction analysis and ethnography. The hybrid analytical perspective draws out insights regarding the families’ mundane practices and the artfully devised solutions they use to organise daily life. Four household activities and artefacts are given specific focus: (i) household list making, (ii) the display qualities of refrigerator doors, (iii) the organisation of household clutter, and (iv) the devising of bespoke solutions in organising home life. Broader findings include the observations that people tailor solutions to meet their needs, that optimum efficiency is not the pre-eminent determinant in what method or artefact people choose to organise themselves and their homes, and that homes determine their individual characters in part by how everyday tasks and organisation are accomplished. In short, the personal qualities of these mundane practices are part of what makes a home a home. These findings are used to elicit implications for information technology design, with the aim of encouraging designers of domestic technology to be aware of and respectful towards the idiosyncratic nature of the home, and, wherever possible, to design in such a way as to allow the technology to be appropriated for families’ bespoke tailoring. To evaluate and address this point, two design projects, one on augmented magnets and another on a “media bowl”, are used to develop and test out this approach. Both projects are critically examined to reflect on the efficacy of the design approach and what lessons might be learnt for future studies and design exercises. The combination of detailed ethnographic fieldwork on family homes combined with the development of experimental design projects is intended to deepen the understanding of the mundane behaviours and everyday routines of family homes, in order to better inform the design of information technology for the home

Creating emotional durability: surface, narrative, and ritual

The concept of emotional durability seeks to connect users and objects through a deeper and evolving relationship. Products that engage the user and allow them to create a dialog and history between each other have a better chance of staying in the home and out of the landfill. This thesis aims to uncover ways to develop products that embody principles of emotional durability. The thesis work itself evolved over time into four basic divisions. The first seeks to develop products that include a historical narrative and a surface that can evolve or develop a patina over time. During the second division understating the material properties of porcelain leads to the development that the mark of the maker’s hand is instrumental in creating a dialogue with a user and invites them to develop their own history. The final division focuses on distilling forms to their simplest attributes allowing the mark of the maker to shine through, including the development of glaze techniques that create unique surfaces that encourage a user to develop a relationship with the product. Kitchenware objects involved in the ritual of dining were chosen to explore the concept of emotional durability in product design. Products were created in porcelain, glass, and aluminum. Each showcases different attributes that can contribute to a product being emotionally durable

Beyond Japanese minimalistic versatility

Due to advances in industrial development, we are now living in an extremely consumeristic world. Every day, large volumes of products are purchased while others are thrown away. At the same time, consumers expect products to add value to their lives beyond mere aesthetics and basic functionality. In particular, the market for mass-produced furniture has grown oversaturated in recent decades. Thus, it is very difficult for designers to make a product that is sufficiently different from what already exists. However, regardless of this state of excess, superficial novelty designs are cast into the limelight every year in Milan and throughout the world. Whenever I visit design fairs I have to question whether people truly need new chairs that appear only nominally different from what already exists. Are these products really improving the quality of our lives and do we still need new chair designs? This Master’s thesis approaches this question by studying the context rather than only looking at the problem from an aesthetic angle, applying the minimalistic thinking of Japanese product design. The methodology investigates the shared values in Japanese and Finnish culture in order to create a new seating product that is both relevant and meaningful in the context of contemporary furniture design. The thesis first delves into the changing lifestyle in Japan over time and how this affected the development of modern furniture. In many cases, the Japanese brand of minimalistic design thinking is an effective method of finding solutions, because simplification is one way to improve user experience. This thesis aims to discover ways that neutrality in design can be utilised to create new value within product design in general and chair typologies in particular. This thesis project attempts to find a new relationship between a chair and its end user. Furthermore, my intention is to make a product possessing characteristics that makes the user want to keep it for longer and with greater intimacy. Thus, this thesis explores the simplicity that comes from Japanese tradition, and its application to today’s world and its myriad challenges. Even though the results may not be a perfectly formulated innovative design, the entire project can be seen as an experiment for a new chair typology rooted in the principles of Japanese minimalism

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities