Design and semantics of form and movement : DeSForM 2007

Abstract

A strong theme that has emerged in our previous two conferences in the importance of narrative to the process of generating, developing and communicating new modalities of interaction between people, things and environments. Our researches have identified aspects of importance in the design and have begun to establish orders of, priority of approach and representation for these aspects as components of interaction. We have begun to grapple with the growth in the complexity of the interaction design process for truly ‘animated’ functionality in products, especially where this manifests itself as apparent behavioural characteristics resident in or portrayed by products. The findings and experience of researchers is that this increase in complexity is likely to be exponential compared to the rigours relating to the resolution of static physical product configuration or even system operated product with screen based interfaces. The emerging sense is that narrative in the process is essential to bring meaning and to ‘touch’ our humanity or connect with human experience. ‘The science of the artificial in conversation with the poetics of human experience’! Through this conference we will once again engage in presentations, debate and demonstrations on these issues. In this respect we, the conference co-chairs, have sought to bring together researchers from academia, industry and professional design practice and related disciplines connected with interactive product service and system development to share our latest thinking in the field, to asses its outcomes and to identify further research questions, opportunities and territories for future investigation and exploration