Engaging contexts to evoke experiences

In this paper I would like to seduce you to criticise some of the prevailing ideas and mechanisms in product design. Ideas such as: products should make life easier and offer infinite functionality, human-product interaction should be largely based on cognition, and the designer knows what is best for the user. I discuss the difficulties of the prevailing design approach, in particular in the area of technological products. These difficulties do not only appear on a product level (use and user), but also manifest themselves in society and the design discipline in general (profession, research and education). As opposed to the market-driven and goal-oriented design approach, I propose to take respect, engagement and experience as a starting point for both society and design. To highlight the difference, I redefine ‘a product’ as ‘a context for experience’. This new proposal includes an emphasis on the beauty of interaction, an active and creative contribution of the user during the design process, and new research and education strategies based on experience and respect. The proposal is summarised in my attempt to define ‘good’ design

Manifesto for educating the designer of the future

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The importance of craftsmanship and cooperation for designing interactive system, product and services

What kind of society do we want technology to support and how to design for this society? In this presentation I'm going to elucidate our answer to this question. Starting with our theoretical foundation of phenomenology, I zoom in on two concepts that are introduced by Sennett about skills to sustain in everyday life: craftsmanship and cooperation. Regarding craftsmanship, we explore the quest to make physical things well. We consider making experienceable prototypes quintessential for design. But how can designers use new technological materials in an intuitive way to evoke experiences? And what kind of frameworks, methods and tools do designers need to design for interactive/intelligent systems, products and services? Regarding cooperation, we address how diversity of expertise can bring a society into existence. What are the consequences for cooperation with the shift from a knowledge to a transformation economy? And how does this shift shape the relationship between academia, more specifically design research, and industry, more specifically Microsoft Research? I will show with examples from education and design research our quest to answer these questions