Prototypes and prototyping in design research

In contrast, our focus will be on the roles of prototypes as vehicles for research about, for and through design. We focus on prototyping within research processes that necessarily involve design activities, which we will refer to as constructive design research, i.e. “research that imagines and builds new things and describes and explains these constructions” (Koskinen et al. 2011: 6). Our aim is to present a rough typology of the various ways that designed things appear in design research methods. We do this in order to identify and differentiate the range of possibilities open to design researchers for whom design practice is an essential component of their modes of investigation

Light behavior design: violation of unification principles and the effect on the user experience

\u3cp\u3eTechnological advances increase the possibilities for the aesthetics of interaction and the user experience. This is a growing field in the Human-Computer Interaction community (HCI). However, Lenz et al. [3] show that little is known about the relation between experiences and interaction. The current study explores this relation through the design of an interactive lamp. We compare a direct and a delayed coupling between the user's action and the reaction of the light. The results provide empirical evidence that deliberately violating one of the unification principles (i.e., delayed response) triggers a more positively engaged experience. We discuss the result and further implications for design research.\u3c/p\u3

Augmenting fun and beauty: a pamphlet

In this article we describe how the augmented reality and product design communities, which share the common interest of combining the real and the virtual, might learn from each other. From our side, we would like to share with you some of our ideas about product design which we consider highly relevant for the augmented reality community. In a pamphlet we list 10 sloganesque points for action which challenge the status quo in product design. Finally, we present some projects which show how these points could be implemented. We hope this approach will inspire those involved in augmented reality design and help them to avoid the pitfalls that the product design community is now trying to crawl out of

Craft qualities translated from traditional crafts to smart textile services

In this article we suggest craft and craftsmanship as an inspiration to design more sustainable smart textile services. We look into the opportunities that interactive properties and services bring into the textile and garment life cycle. We use traditional\u3cbr/\u3ecrafts as a source of inspiration for the design and as a reference to analyse emerged smart textile examples with craft experts. We demonstrate the process in the form of a dialogue between the smart textile as material, the designer-researcher and the community of craft experts. The Research through Design activities result in three iterations of the smart textile proposal, suggesting Augmented Reality as an extra layer on the textile material, and a set of design guidelines as craft qualities. We demonstrate two versions of craft qualities found and evaluated in the Muhu skirt as a traditional folk garment, as well as ‘QR-coded Embroidery’, ‘Bedtime Stories’ and ‘Textales’ as smart textile exam ples. The story of defining, evaluating and reflecting on the act of designing as the generator of knowledge illustrates how the community becomes part of the Research through Design process