We have developed a new version of a pervasive system for monitoring and recording subjective pain experiences. The most important service the system offers to its users is real-time delivery of reported pain values from patients to nurses. Pain experiences are expressed on a six-value scale from "no pain" to "worst possible pain". The system was tested in four sessions with 23 test users from Finland and Sweden. The main goal of this study was to evaluate user experience of the patient application and the sounds we designed for the user interface. We tested four sound options; spoken, synthetic, xylophone and mute. The material was collected through group discussions and questionnaires. Familiarity, the extent to which a sound can be identified, and the quality and the pleasantness of the sound were found to have an effect on forming a positive experience. Sounds describing pain levels have to be convincing. The context of use has to be taken into account as a primary design driver in a sound design process.
‘3Ecologies’ makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of consumer products. Including environmental, sociological and psychological factors in production and consumption, 3Ecologies challenges prevalent models of sustainability to emphasize human agency and consequences. Sustainability is mapped over time — as histories and potential futures of products — through lifespan and extended lifecycle(s). Under development as an open-source internet application, graphical eco-labeling scheme and interactive museum installation, 3Ecologies develops novel techniques for dynamic information visualization, interactive story-telling and user interaction. By providing a long view upon the ‘life’ of things we might ordinarily take for granted, the project aims to engage a broad audience in ecological thinking.
‘3Ecologies’ makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of consumer products. Within engineering and economics, there are a variety of models for analyzing and ‘predicting’ the environmental factors such as energy, emissions and waste involved during production, consumption and disposal. We develop an expanded model, which emphasizes human impact and choices as well as potential consequences and futures. Psychological, sociological and environmental factors are mapped over time – throughout the lifespan (production, purchase, use, and disposal) and the extended lifecycle(s) of products. Case studies of familiar products in everyday life are developed to demonstrate the conceptual model, and three applications are proposed to reach designers, consumers and the general public. 3Ecologies uses diagrams and narratives to visualize the history and possible futures of products, including natural disintegration, active recycling and unexpected adaptations – an alternative view upon the ‘life’ of things that we might ordinarily take for granted.
Abstract: Static! is a project investigating interaction and product design as a way of increasing our awareness of how energy is used in everyday life. Revisiting the design of everyday things with focus on issues related to energy use, we have developed a palette of design examples in the form of prototypes, conceptual design proposals and use scenarios, to be used as a basis for communication and discussion with users and designers. With respect to design research and practice, the aim has been to develop a more profound understanding of energy as material in design, including its expressive and aesthetic potential, thus locating issues related to energy use at the centre of the design process.
Today, there is a significant amount of research projects focusing on human health and well-being and the connection between the environment and human psychological responses. Perceived comfortable environments have a strong connection with humans when sensory communication and socio-cultural aspects are included in the design. Here, comfort is seen as an achievement not an attribute. Holistic approaches are emerging to integrate operators, control room communications and well-being with comfortable interiors. This paper illustrates the shifting focus of environmental design to environmental comfort design and discusses the socio-cultural aspects of comfort and the sensory communication aspects of environmental comfort design considerations for future control room interiors.
The evaluation of perceived spatial quality calls for a method that is sensitive to changes in the constituent dimensions of that quality. In order to devise a method accounting for these changes, several processes have to be performed. This paper shows the development of scales by elicitation and structuring of verbal data, followed by validation of the resulting attribute scales.
Symbiots set out to examine values such as ease-of-use, comfort, and rationality assumed within conventions of ‘good design’, in order to expose issues related to energy consumption and current human- (versus eco-) centered design paradigms. Exploring re-interpretations of graphical patterns, architectural configurations and electrical infrastructure typical in Swedish cities, Symbiots takes the form of a photo series in the genre of contemporary hyper-real art photography. Painting a vivid picture of alternatives to current local priorities around energy consumption, the three design concepts depicted are strangely familiar, alternatively humorous and sinister.
'This is the air we breathe ... ' are posters designed for raising awareness. They present continuous feedback on our urban environment and the effects of traffic. Using flock printing, a dirt-absorbing text or pattern is printed on a less dirt-absorbing surface in order to create a slow but direct response to pollution. Drivers are reminded of their impact on the city, which is also visible to others passing by. This project embraces complexity, making a problematic and abstract issue local and tangible.
As a result of development toward ‘smart’ materials, materials now enable an expanding range of aesthetic expressions and user experiences. These materials are fundamentally temporal in their capacity to assume multiple, discrete states of expression that can be repeatedly and minutely controlled. These materials come to be, or become, only over time and in context—they are becoming materials. Thus, in the development and application of such materials, we must engage more extensively with the experience of materials in practices of design and of use. This paper introduces and discusses the concept of becoming materials—as well as the implications for practice—through a series of examples from our own practice-led research within art, design and architecture. Coming to terms with the implications for material practices of design and of use, we suggest, requires the development of new concepts and methods for doing and studying the design of becoming materials.
'Telltale' is a piece of furniture that collects traces of energy (mis)use. Connected remotely to a household’s electricity meter, it responds to increases or decreases in energy consumption. Increases cause its internal structure to become less robust and, when used in weakened states, its textile surface becomes prone to flaking, crackling and wrinkling. Telltale decomposes more or less quickly — users participate in the (de)formation of an object that tells them about themselves, others and the cumulative effect of local actions. A prototype has been built and studied within two households — alterations in household actions as well as family interactions were prompted by Telltale, evolving as the object changed over time in use.
‘Symbiots’ imagines forms in the urban landscape that operate parasitically — emerging and thriving when households or neighborhoods reduce energy consumption. For people, the provision of these as public functions acts as a reward. For Symbiots, it lures people away from their private habitats and energy-consuming habits, thus leaving more power for others in the electricity grid. The project queries increasing competition for natural resources and current human- (versus eco-) centered design paradigms. Symbiots takes the form of a photo series in the genre of contemporary hyperreal art photography. Produced as posters, these have been the basis for raising awareness and discussions with neighborhood residents.
This paper explores how a vocabulary supporting design-related discussions of gameplay preferences can be developed. Using the preference of experiencing camaraderie as an example, we have analyzed four games: the board games Space Alert and Battlestar Galactica, the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft, and the cooperative FPS series Left for Dead. Through a combination of the MDA model on how game mechanics give rise to game aesthetics via game dynamics, and the concept of aesthetic ideals in gameplay, we present gameplay design patterns related to achieving camaraderie. We argue that some of these patterns can be seen as aesthetic gameplay design patterns in that they are closely related to aesthetic ideals. Further, as a consequence, gameplay design pattern collections which include patterns related to all levels of the MDA model can be used as design tools when aiming for certain gameplay aesthetics.
This paper introduces Undercurrents, a computer-based gameplay tool for providing additional communication and media streams during tabletop roleplaying sessions. Based upon a client-server architecture, the system is intended to unobtrusively support secret communication, timing of audio and visual presentations to game events, and real-time documentation of the game session. Potential end users have been involved in the development and the paper provides details on the full design process.
In this paper, we will look at what role a research program and an interventionist research strategy based on design experiments may play for the advancement of knowledge relevant to design and designers. We suggest the notion of exemplary design research driven by programs and experiments and by this we refer to research based on the explicit formulation of design programs that act as a frame and foundation for carrying out series of design experiments. It is 'exemplary' in the sense that it enables critical dissemination primarily by creating examples of what could be done and how, i.e. examples that both express the possibilities and characteristics of the design program as well as more general suggestions about a certain (change to) design practice.
This paper uses a framework of player virtues to perform a theoretical exploration of what is required to make a game good. The choice of player virtues is based upon the view that games can be seen as implements, and that these are good if they support an intended use, and the intended use of games is to support people to be good players. A collection of gameplay design patterns, identified through their relation to the virtues, is presented to provide specific starting points for considering design options for this type of good games. 24 patterns are identified supporting the virtues, including RISK/REWARD, DYNAMIC ALLIANCES, GAME MASTERS, and PLAYER DECIDED RESULTS, as are 7 countering three or more virtues, including ANALYSIS PARALYSIS, EARLY ELIMINATION, and GRINDING. The paper concludes by identifying limitations of the approach as well as by showing how it can be applied using other views of what are preferable features in games.
Computers have lead to a revolution in the games we play, and, following this, an interest for computer-based games has been sparked in research communities. However, this easily leads to the perception of a one-way direction of influence between that the field of game research and computer science. This historical investigation points towards a deep and intertwined relationship between research on games and the development of computers, giving a richer picture of both fields. While doing so, an overview of early game research is presented and an argument made that the distinction between digital games and non-digital games may be counter-productive to game research as a whole.
r(e)flect is a tangible curriculum kit for students age 10-15 to reflect on energy behaviour and make better informed choices about energy use. Along with web-based material, the kit includes a minicomputer, smart plugs (sensors), and an electricity visualization tool especially designed to be used in the classroom to conduct experiments and measurements, perform project work in product development, and increase the understanding of the kWh concept. The curriculum is closely connected to the new Swedish National curriculum and supplies the teachers with appropriate support for assessment of different skills. The project was initiated in 2011 and a first version of the curriculum was tested and evaluated with students and teachers. The feedback from this trial influenced the second iteration of the kit. The new version will be tested in at least 20 schools during the spring of 2014 and this second phase will continue until 2015. The physical r(e)flect material can be borrowed by teachers free of charge, and the web-based platform is open and accessible to anyone.
Electricity consumption has been rising significantly in the western world the last decades and this has affected the environment negatively. Efficient use and more energy conservative usage patterns could be ways to approach this problem. However, electricity has for a long time actively been hidden away and it is rarely thought of unless it ceases to exist. From the perspective of critical design, we have been working to find methods to visualise electricity and electricity consumption in everyday life to promote environmentally positive behavioural change. In this paper, we are looking at how aspects of lifestyles can be used in design as central driving forces that could lead to changed behaviour. Attempts to promote behavioural changes related to energy consumption might be successfully carried out when people are offered desirable alternatives that are engaging and that do not impose a perceived extra burden in their everyday life. This argument is exemplified through two design concepts, the AWARE Laundry Lamp and the Energy Plant, which are examples on how to increase people’s energy awareness and offer them means for reducing their energy consumption in the home. Both prototypes are inspired by current trends in lifestyle as well as actual observed user behaviour.
'Ab|Norm' inquires into the presence and use of energy in public. Many functions and forms of electricity have long been 'naturalized' into our habitual actions and cultural norms. Consider how the lighting in our streets and parks conditions what activities we can do and when, what a neighborhood identity is like or even how safe we feel. We may not always take notice of the electricity present — much less accompanying values and consequences. Ab|Norm sketches urban interventions in order to discuss such issues with stakeholders. A series of concept designs has been produced in the form of cards, which have already been the basis for a participatory workshop with architects, artists and engineers.
Smart electricity meters and home displays are being installed in people’s homes with the assumption that households will make the necessary efforts to reduce their electricity consumption. However, present solutions do not sufficiently account for the social implications of design. There is a potential for greater savings if we can better understand how such designs affect behaviour. In this paper, we describe our design of an energy awareness artefact – the Energy AWARE Clock – and discuss it in relation to behavioural processes in the home. A user study is carried out to study the deployment of the prototype in real domestic contexts for three months. Results indicate that the Energy AWARE Clock played a significant role in drawing households’ attention to their electricity use. It became a natural part of the household and conceptions of electricity became naturalized into informants’ everyday language.
Engaging computer games can be used to change energy consumption patterns in the home. PowerAgent is a pervasive game for Java-enabled mobile phones that is designed to influence everyday activities and use of electricity in the domestic setting. PowerAgent is connected to the household’s automatic electricity meter reading equipment via the cell network, and this setup makes it possible to use actual consumption data in the game. In this paper, we present a two-level model for cognitive and behavior learning, and we discuss the properties of PowerAgent in relation to the underlying situated learning, social learning, and persuasive technology components that we have included in the game.
Pervasive gaming has the potential of transforming the home into a persuasive environment in which the user can learn about appliances and their electricity consumption. Power Explorer is a mobile game with a special sensing approach that provides real-time electricity measurements and feedback when the user switches on and off devices in the home. The game was developed based on persuasive principles to provide an engaging means to learn about energy with positive and negative feedback and social feedback from peers on real energy actions in the home. We present the design and rationale of this game and discuss how pervasive games can be viewed from a persuasive and learning point of view.
This paper develops the argument that framing participatory activities as design rituals, with the facilitator as ritual leader, researchers and practitioners can plan and analyze activities in relation to the reorganization of symbols of meaning and social relationships, and the work these reorganizations perform. This contribution arises in the search for analytic tools that help increase the effectiveness and relevance of participatory practices in a variety of activities and settings throughout the span of design projects (i.e. meetings, presentations, workshops). The paper analyzes the role of the facilitator during a boardroom role-play activity in a company setting, through the lens of structure and anti-structure during the three stages of the ritual process: separation, liminality, and re-incorporation. The dual framework (ritual frame and play frame) of the example illuminates how symbols of power are leveraged to make available certain possibilities, while discouraging other possibilities, as well as the central role the facilitator plays in the production of the process.
This paper elevates the negotiation of project resources with stakeholders as a critical topic for analysis and site for action research experimentation. The ability of researchers and practitioners to engage in Participatory Design projects and introduce collaborative methods and practices is inherently linked to their ability to negotiate project resources with multiple stakeholders and to gain access to worthy contexts. Based on a design research case as part of a collaboration between a university-based design research group and the local municipality, the paper proposes that viewing stakeholder engagements through a 'performative lens' initiates an interactional view of the Participatory Design practitioner / stakeholder relationship that paves the way for exploring various modes of developing roles as a resource for action.
Research regarding physical and cognitive aspects of product development usually relies on inquiry methods that focus on the collection of data from the practice studied (e.g. anthropometric) and the creation of design solutions (e.g. better grips). This paper suggests that design inquiry into social practices can benefit from moving beyond the data collection / data application focus, into a two-way flow of accountability between the “practice space” and the “design space”. To bring focus to the social and organizational issues in designing for the inclusion of marginalized people or practices, we introduce the notion of “contributive performance” as a short-term goal within the overall design process. Contributive performances are efforts to contribute to the ongoing practice of another in a way that can be assessed by the intended audience, even contributions that may appear trivial or peripheral to the main design agenda. The paper draws on a design case working with Somali and Arabic mother tongue teachers and their students in Sweden to develop interactive technologies to support their teaching and learning.
Clients of consultancy services are expected to be able to incorporate the output of collaborative efforts (the weave of experiences, knowledge and potential of consumers, stakeholders, and experts) into their professional activities. The goal of consultancy work, therefore, is to impart to others the ability to act in new ways with once foreign material. This is inherently a learning process that implies identity change (Lave & Wenger 1991; Brown & Duguid 1991). Coming from outside of an organization, the question remains: How can consultants provide services to an organization in a way that sets them up for success? In this paper we explore a shift in practice from a “delivery mode” of working from outside of a company, to organizing project environments and activities in a “collaborative mode” of working with company stakeholders, consumers, and other expertise. Through a recent project example we highlight how the shift challenges stakeholders to make sense of working with unfinished material in order to appreciate their own role in the process, whilst at the same time challenge the consults to renegotiate the way they use their skills and how they deliver value.
In innovation work that spans various professional contexts, there is an overreliance upon verbal explanations and one-way presentations, as opposed to demonstrating, trying and performing. Organizing project teams across organizations and professional competencies relies upon creating active collaborative activities that allow participants to both move forward with the project, while reflecting upon how they work together. Innovation work involves not only discovering what could be possible, but also bringing novel solutions into practice, and driving the business to get them there. This contribution seeks to explore how staged role-play activities can raise practice-specific issues. The authors argue that by staging prospective project trajectories, especially at the outset of a project, the partner team members have the opportunity to orient their future actions according to potential desired and undesired futures.
Teaching second languages behind closed classroom doors means to ignore one of the most powerful resources available: language use in everyday social interactions in the surrounding society. Although modern language teaching methodology since the beginning of the 20th century has centered on language use (model dialogs, communicative tasks, role plays and needs analysis) the ‘wild’ and unplanable life in Language Two has rarely been employed as a systematic resource for the acquisition of the new language. This paper introduces a Swedish language design project that explores introducing temporary material and conceptual structures to support turning everyday encounters between Swedish learners and speakers into learning situations. Appreciating the social and situated nature of language learning opens for a whole range of actors, tools and environments to support the learning endeavor. We introduce pillars for extending learning support beyond the classroom setting into the interactions of private and public sphere.
In the changing climate of design education, programs attempt to prepare their students for professional practice in an uncertain job market. Educators attempt to equo their students with the skill sets and the development model to effectively contribute to innovative work practice wherever they may end up. Here we revisit Habraken´s ´concept design games´ to explore the value of the ´developing/playing combination´ of design games, and how that tradition has been mixed with participatory design traditions. Through an example of a student-managed design project developing a board game for a client, we explore the role design games and designing games play in extending the value of design games into industrial practice. We conclude that the structure provided by games and the ´ in-play development´ that occurs, enables the student to invite multiple stakeholders into the design process in a way that provides valuable insights of their practice as well as her own.
An efficient and sustainable energy system is an important factor when minimising the environmental impact caused by the cities. We have worked with questions on how to construct a more direct connection between customers-‐citizens and a provider of district heating for negotiating notions of comfort in relation to heating and hot tap water use. In this paper we present visualisation concepts of such connections and reflect on the outcomes in terms of the type of data needed for sustainability assessment, as well as the methods explored for channelling information on individual consumption and environmental impact between customers and the provider of district heating. We have defined challenges in sustainable design for consumer behaviour change in the case of reducing heat and hot water consumption in individual households: (1) The problematic relation between individual behaviour steering and system level district heating, (2) The complexity of environmental impact as indicator for behaviour change, and (3) Ethical considerations concerning the role of the designer.
Within user-centred design and topics such as persuasive design, pleasurable products, and design for sustainable behaviour, there is a danger of over-determining, pacifying or reducing people’s diversity. Taking the case of sustainable food, we have looked into the social aspects of cooking at home, in specific related to the type of food that is purchased. This paper describes what it means for people to make more sustainable choices in food shopping and how that can be mediated while taking different ‘food values’ that household members have into account. In a design experiment, we developed a service for selecting daily dinner meals while supporting choices of sustainable food which reported on environmental impact, health and nutrition values, and purchase data. Through visualizations of alternative food choices, the experiment provided a space for households to negotiate food values, while opening up possibilities for changing cooking practices.
In our research, we have been expanding our conceptual and methodological frames of reference as designers, in order to explore the complexity of factors involved in environmental sustainability and the consequent challenges posed for design research. In this paper, we discuss some of these issues in user-centered and sustainable design, drawing out and developing relations to concepts from other fields of study, such as the sociology of consumption and material culture. In order to better understand the role that (sustainable) design products might play within people’s everyday lives and lifestyles, we interpret and discuss notions of ‘socio-cultural practices’ of consumption and frame an approach to studying people’s ‘ways of doing’ with artifacts. We point to two examples from our previous research on designing for energy awareness and for sustainable bathing practices. A current study is presented in depth, in which families and singles, resident in The Netherlands but originating from different countries, have been observed and interviewed during preparation of a meal, eating and clearing up afterwards. Through studying and reflecting on the different ‘ways of doing’ cooking, we gained insights into how cooking and a range of associated practices and artifacts are deeply embedded in traditions, meanings and aspirations. Issues of environmental consumption, such as water, energy and waste, are at stake in such design research but, as we argue, so is attention and sensitivity to how these are interwoven in meaningful socio-cultural practices. The setup and findings are presented, as a point of departure for raising conceptual and methodological questions to be developed in future work.
A changed media landscape challenges public service broadcast companies to search for new ways to get lost audience groups back and to attract new and/or younger audiences. One common remedy is to make more ‘interactive’ media productions, where the audience can take more active part in various parts of the production. Lack of financial resources and competition in the media field furthermore forces public service media to search for new partners. The production Sanningen om Marika (The Truth About Marika) is one of a very small number of experiments to marry traditional broadcast culture with the participation culture fostered in the Nordic countries, primarily within the live action role-playing community. Swedish television (SVT) collaborated with The company P, a competent actor in the field of pervasive games. Together they designed and produced a trans reality multiplatform media production during 2006 and 2007. One of the aims with Sanningen om Marika was to involve the audience in new ways using broadcasted television and radio, the Internet, mobile applications and a fictional universe that blurred fiction and reality. The result was a spectacular and controversial production offering online and live action role-playing experiences in parallel with traditional TV viewing. Through participatory studies, interviews with participants as well as organizers, and an online survey I am in the process of creating a picture of how this production came about, what its aims were, and how this came through in the final result. The results show that the differing production cultures and methods created conflicts with implications for the possibilities for the audience to interact in the production partly due to the differing views -mental concepts - of the audience. The broadcaster used processes and methods that resulted in ‘interaction for spectators’ while the games company created more, and different possibilities, for the audience to participate – ‘co production with participants’.
Media convergence has mainly been defined and explained as a technological and industrial phenomenon; as the process where new technologies are accommodated by existing media and communication industries and their cultures of production. One consequence of convergence in today’s hybrid media landscape is that the previously distinct borders between production and consumption have become blurred. This means that convergence also takes place as a bottom-up social process initiated by media users that move almost anywhere and everywhere in search of entertainment experiences of their liking. This thesis sheds light on the different types of media convergence that took place in the process of making the transmedia storytelling production Sanningen om Marika. The Swedish public service provider, SVT, and the pervasive games upstart company, The company P, combined their expertise in broadcasting and games development to craft this ‘participation drama’. During five months in 2007, the production offered Swedes nationwide rich possibilities to interact and participate, or just to watch or lurk on the production’s various platforms. Using an ethnographic approach, field studies were conducted throughout the design, implementation and production phases. The analysis shows that even if instances of convergence could be identified, the collaboration did not proceed smoothly. The companies’ different media logics with their differing cultures of production created tensions and frictions. The different logics of television, internet and games - different in quality demands and with different audience participation models - made it difficult to create a hybrid production. Television genres blurred fiction and facts, and the ordinary was blurred with activities of games and play in the production, making the audience reception and interpretations differ extensively. Lastly, the designed audience participation did not remove the asymmetrical relationship between producers and users in media, but instead highlighted issues of hierarchies, lack of participant empowerment and inequality between participants.
The production "Sanningen om Marika" is a rare example of a production that combines traditional broadcast culture with the participative culture fostered primarily within the larp community in the Nordic countries. Swedish television collaborated with The Company P to produce this alternate reality multiplatform media production. The result was a spectacular and controversial production offering online and live action role-playing experiences in parallel with traditional TV drama. This article focuses on the differences between the production cultures of two companies, and how it affected the experience they produced together.