Energy Babble

This is the story of a set of computational devices called Energy Babbles. The product of a collaboration between designers and STS researchers, Energy Babbles are like automated talk radios obsessed with energy. Synthesised voices, punctuated by occasional jingles, recount energy policy announcements, remarks about energy conservation made on social media, information about current energy demand and production, and comments entered by other Babble users. Developed for members of UK community groups working to promote sustainable energy practices, the Energy Babbles were designed to reflect the complex situations they navigate, to provide information and encourage communication, and to help shed light on their engagements with energy policy and practice. This book tells the story of the Babbles from a mix of design and STS perspectives, suggesting how design may benefit from the perspectives of STS, and how STS may take an interventionist, design-led approach to the study of emerging technological issues

The Datacatcher at 'The Data Imaginary: Fears and Fantasies'

The exhibition includes artworks and designs that engage audiences in critical, playful and agentic reflections on data and creative technologies. Through the exhibition, workshops, podcast and publication, the audience will be empowered to respond to climate change patterns and future city design, interact with empathy from remote locations, learn about Indigenous cultural knowledges and reflect on everyday habits that secure data privacy

Material Food Probes:Personalized 3D Printed Flavors for Intimate Communication

Interactions with food are complex, integrating rich multisensory experiences within emotionally meaningful social contexts. Yet, the opportunities to explore food as material resource for emotional communication have been less explored. We describe a two-month project with 5 couples centered on the co-design of personalized flavors for intimate communication, which were experienced through an explorative three day study involving a 3D food printer in participants’ homes. We discuss the value of our findings indicating preferences for both remembered and imagined positive flavors and their integration in focal intimacy practices to support emotional coregulation. We also discuss material food probes and their value for exploring and inspiring both design-with and design-around food

Yo–Yo Machines: Self-Build Devices that Support Social Connections During the Pandemic

Yo–Yo Machines are playful communication devices designed to help people feel socially connected while physically separated. We designed them to reach as many people as possible, both to make a positive impact during the COVID-19 pandemic and to assess a self-build approach to circulating research products and the appeal of peripheral and expressive communication devices. A portfolio of four distinct designs, based on over 30 years of research, were made available for people to make by following simple online instructions (yoyomachines.io). Each involves connecting a pair of identical devices over the internet to allow simple communication at a distance. This paper describes our motivation for the project, previous work in the area, the design of the devices, supporting website and publicity, and how users have made and used Yo-Yo Machines. Finally, we reflect on what we learned about peripheral and expressive communication devices and implications for the self-build approach

Yo-yo machines: self-build peripheral awareness communication devices

Yo-Yo Machines are playful communication devices designed to help people feel socially connected while physically separated. Our response to a U.K. call for projects using previous research to create an impact during the pandemic, YoYo Machines make a long line of work on peripheral and emotional awareness available to the public in the form of devices they can build at home. By following simple online instructions (yoyomachines.io), people can make a pair of devices and send one to a friend or loved one—the devices are connected by the Internet, allowing simple communication at a distance

Crafting a Place for Attending to the Things of Design at CHI

Over the past two years, we have organized workshops at the CHI conference that have focused on the “Things of Design Research. The goal of these workshops is simple: to explore and develop a venue at CHI for research through design (RtD) practitioners to materially share their work with each other. RtD often centers on the making of things— artifacts, systems, services, or other knowledge in the interaction-design and human-computer interaction (CHI) research communities. Yet, over the years, we have felt that the things of design research have remained conspicuously overlooked, under-engaged with, and, for the most part, absent from the CHI conference. If RtD is to continue to develop as a research practice in the HCI community—and we want to build a community of designers doing research with and through designed objects—we need more things at CHI

The data hungry home

It's said that the pleasure is in the giving, not the receiving. This belief is validated by how humans interact with their family, friends and society as well as their gardens, homes, and pets. Yet for ubiquitous devices, this dynamic is reversed with devices as the donors and owners as the recipients. This paper explores an alternative paradigm where these devices are elevated, becoming members of Data Hungry Homes, allowing us to build relationships with them using the principles that we apply to family, pets or houseplants. These devices are developed to fit into a new concept of the home, can symbiotically interact with us and possess needs and traits that yield unexpected positive or negative outcomes from interacting with them. Such relationships could enrich our lives through our endeavours to “feed” our Data Hungry Homes, possibly leading us to explore new avenues and interactions outside and inside the home