Academic literature on the topic 'Design artefact interactions'

We live in a high tech era of electronic media, which is changing our lives (Giddens, 1999). Apps are examples of technologies that affect our lives. An interesting question in this context is what apps will have for significance; on one hand for the development of technology, and on other hand for humans’ relation to technology. Since the development and change process are central issues in the science of education I will explore the development of applications. The purpose of this paper is to seek knowledge about applications (apps) development from a design and user perspective. This dissertation discusses activity theory as an academic framework for understanding of apps development from two different types of operating systems or practices, to be precise design practice and user practice. To clarify my point, I have defined the following questions: why user apps are designed, how user apps are designed, and what contradictions occur between the design and the use of apps? My research is based on a qualitative approach with an abductive approach. I used multiple case studies as research approach based on three data collection techniques: interviews, observiews (interviews and observations) and observations of social media and an archived document of wireframes about apps. The result shows that apps designed and published either for their function or for promotional purposes. The design process is fast and dynamic process where applications are published before they are ready and constantly updated later. The use of apps characterized by either an active or a passive use operations. In the passive activity apps are tested through trial and error, and when they do not meet the user's expectations they are thrown away. This activity contributes in relation to previous research on technology and social change to the consumer’s throwaway culture. While in the active using, activities becomes part of the development activities where development aspects are communicated through social media – interact active users and designers to develop the app, which is both an artifact and an object of their own development. Activity theory thus contributes to theories of design by considering design not only as production but also as a fully operational system itself with the production, consumption, exchange and distribution.<br>Vi lever i en högmodern tid som präglas av elektroniska medier som förändrar vårt liv enligt Giddens (1999). Appar är exempel på teknik som påverkar vårt liv. En intressant fråga i detta sammanhang är vad appar får för betydelse för – å ena sidan utveckling av teknik å andra sidan människans förhållande till teknik. Eftersom utveckling och förändringsprocesser är centrala i pedagogik vill jag studera utveckling av appar. Syftet med denna uppsats är att söka kunskap om apputveckling ur ett design- och användarperspektiv. I uppsatsen används verksamhetsteori som teoretiskt ramverk för att förstå apputveckling utifrån två olika typer av verksamhetssystem eller praktiker, nämligen designpraktiken och användarpraktiken. För att närmare precisera mitt syfte har jag definierat följande frågeställningar: varför designas respektive används appar, hur designas respektive används appar, och vilka motsättningar uppstår/finns mellan design och användning av appar? Min uppsats bygger på ett kvalitativt tillvägagångssätt med en abduktiv ansats som innebär en pendling mellan teori och empiri. Jag använder flerfallsstudien som forskningsansats, med tre datasamlingstekniker: intervjuer, observjuer och observationer av sociala medier och ett arkiverat dokument med skisser över appar. Resultatet visar att appar designas och publiceras antingen för sin funktion eller i marknadsföringssyfte. Designprocessen är en snabb, dynamisk process där appar publiceras innan de är klara och därefter ständigt uppdateras. Användning av appar kännetecknas av antingen en aktiv eller en passiv användning. I den passiva användningsverksamheten prövas appar genom trial-and-error och när de inte motsvarar användarens förväntningar kastas de bort. Denna verksamhet bidrar i relation till tidigare forskning om teknik och social förändring till konsumtionssamhällets slit och slängkultur. Den aktiva användningsverksamheten blir istället en del av utvecklings­verksamheten där utvecklingsaspekter kommuniceras via sociala medier där aktiva användare och designer samverkar i att utveckla appen som blir både en artefakt och ett objekt för sin egen utveckling. Verksamhetsteori bidrar således till teorier om design genom att betrakta design inte bara som produktion utan som ett helt verksamhetssystem i sig med produktion, konsumtion, utbyte och fördelning.

This thesis examines the role of intuition in the way that people operate unfamiliar devices, and the importance of this for designers. Intuition is a type of cognitive processing that is often　non-conscious and utilises stored experiential knowledge. Intuitive interaction involves the use of knowledge gained from other products and/or experiences. Therefore, products that people use intuitively are those with features they have encountered before. This position has been supported by two initial experimental studies, which revealed that prior exposure to products employing similar features helped participants to complete set tasks more quickly and intuitively, and that familiar　features were intuitively used more often than unfamiliar ones. Participants who had a higher level of familiarity with similar technologies were able to use significantly more of the　features intuitively the first time they　encountered them, and were significantly quicker at doing the tasks. Those who were less familiar with relevant technologies required more　assistance. A third experiment was designed to test four different interface designs on a remote control in order to establish which of two variables - a feature's appearance or its location - was more important in making a design intuitive to use. As with the previous experiments, the findings of Experiment 3 suggested that performance is　affected by a person's level of familiarity with similar technologies. Appearance (shape, size and labelling of buttons) seems to be the variable that most affects time spent on a task and intuitive uses. This suggests that the cues that people store in memory about a product's features depend on how the features look, rather than where on the product they are placed. Three principles of intuitive interaction have been developed. A conceptual tool has also been devised to guide designers in their planning for intuitive interaction. Designers can work with these in order to make interfaces intuitive to use, and thus help users to adapt more easily to new products and product types.

Les activités et produits de conception créative sont de plus en plus omniprésents dans notre société. Notre environnement quotidien comprend une multitude d'objets précédemment conçus. La conception de produits industriels complexes intervient dans des domaines professionnels extrêmement variés et nécessite la collaboration de multiples acteurs allant des secteurs hautement techniques aux secteurs artistiques tout au long du processus de conception. Les organisations de conception sont confrontées à des changements importants entraînés par une concurrence extrêmement agressive sur le marché. ils ajoutent constamment de nouvelles fonctionnalités à leurs produits, ce qui nécessite de plus en plus la collaboration d’un nombre croissant d’acteurs divers, possédant différents types de compétences. Par contre, la communication en équipes multidisciplinaires est difficile. Il y a un besoin constant d'adapter les moyens de communication. De plus, la concurrence du marché pousse également les entreprises à suivre des stratégies mondiales. La dernière tendance utilisée dans l'industrie consiste à impliquer les utilisateurs finaux dans le processus de conception. Par conséquent, les concepteurs doivent découvrir, comprendre et échanger des idées et des suggestions avec les utilisateurs finaux afin de pouvoir transformer leurs besoins et exigences en solutions techniques adéquates. et finalement transformé en produits appropriés. Pour surmonter ces difficultés de communication, et compte tenu de l'activité de conception, il est essentiel de pouvoir représenter les idées avec un outil approprié, la réalité augmentée spatiale (SAR) est peut-être la meilleure technologie candidate pour résoudre correctement ces problèmes. Comme elle permet d'intégrer des objets virtuels dans notre environnement réel, cette technologie permet de les manipuler plus naturellement. Dans ce contexte, l’intégration du virtuel dans le monde réel peut induire un certain nombre de questions: «Comment gérer la combinaison réel / virtuel dans un environnement collaboratif?» «L’intégration d’objets de conception mixtes (physiques / numériques) peut-elle être une une valeur ajoutée à l’interaction entre les concepteurs? »L’un des principaux défis abordés au cours de cette thèse consistait à évaluer l’impact de l’intégration d’une plate-forme de réalité augmentée dans l’espace lors de réunions de conception en collaboration. Nous voulions démontrer que la plate-forme SPARK, à travers l'introduction d'un nouveau prototype associant l'aspect tangible à la projection numérique, avait un impact positif sur les sessions de conception co-créative et les interactions de communication globales entre les différentes parties prenantes<br>Creative design activities and products are more and more ubiquitous in our society today. Our daily environment includes a multitude of objects that have previously been designed. The design of complex industrial products takes place in extremely varied professional fields and requires collaboration of multiple actors ranging from highly technical sectors to artistic sectors throughout the design process. Design organisations are facing important changes driven by an extremely aggressive market competition; they are constantly adding new features to their products that requires more and more the collaboration of a growing number of diverse actors with different types of expertise. On the other hand, the communication in multidisciplinary teams is difficult. There is a constant need to adapt means of communication. In addition, market competition is also driving companies to follow global strategies. The most recently used trend in industry is to involve end-users within the design process.Therefore, designers need to discover, understand and exchange ideas and suggestions with end-users in order to be able to transform their needs and requirements into adequate technical solutions and eventually turned it into proper products. To overcome these communication difficulties, and considering that in design activity, it is essential to be able to represent ideas with a suitable tool, Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR) is perhaps the best candidate technology that could properly address these problems. As it allows integrating virtual objects in our real environment, this technology allows to manipulate them more naturally. In this context, incorporating the virtual into the real world can induce a certain number of questions: “How to manage the real / virtual combination in a collaborative setting?” “Does the integration of mixed (physical/digital) design artefacts can be an added value to interaction between design participants?” One important challenge addressed during this thesis was to evaluate the impact of integration of a spatial augmented reality platform in collaborative design meetings. We wanted to demonstrate that the SPARK platform, through the introduction of new prototype mixing the tangible aspect with digital projection, positively impacts the co-creative design sessions and the overall communication interactions between the different stakeholders

This thesis presents a collection of experimental designs that approach the problem of growing electricity consumption in homes. From the perspective of design, the intention has been to critically explore the design space of energy awareness artefacts to reinstate awareness of energy use in everyday practice. The design experiments were used as vehicles for thinking about the relationship between physical form, interaction, and social practice. The rationale behind the concepts was based on a small-scale ethnography, situated interviews, and design experience. Moreover, the thesis compares designer intention and actual user experiences of a prototype that was installed in nine homes in a residential area in Stockholm for three months. This was done in order to elicit tacit knowledge about how the concept was used in real-world domestic settings, to challenge everyday routines, and to enable both users and designers to critically reflect on artefacts and practices. From a design perspective, contributions include design approaches to communicating energy use: visualizations for showing relationships between behaviour and electricity consumption, shapes and forms to direct action, means for turning restrictions caused by energy conservation into central parts of the product experience, and ways to promote sustainable behaviour with positive driving forces based on user lifestyles. The general results indicate that inclusion is of great importance when designing energy awareness artefacts; all members of the household should be able to access, interact with, and reflect on their energy use. Therefore, design-related aspects such as placement and visibility, as well as how the artefact might affect the social interactions in the home,  become central. Additionally, the thesis argues that these types of artefacts can potentially create awareness accompanied by negative results such as stress. A challenge for the designer is to create artefacts that communicate and direct energy use in ways that are attractive and can be accepted by all household members as a possible way of life.<br><p>In the electronic version of the thesis the references in some of the chapters has been corrected.</p>

In this thesis I investigate the mediating role of playful technological artefacts designed for animals and humans through theory and practice with the over-all aim to explore how we can design meaningful artefacts both for and with animals in order to better understand them and enrich or improve their lives.Starting from Bruno Latour’s Actor Network Theory, which offers a valuable starting point for the inclusion of both humans and nonhumans as actors in a shared network that is constantly being made and remade, I suggest adopting a more informed form of inevitable anthropomorphism in interaction design with animals. Drawing from the work of Donna Haraway I argue for an approach in which we aim to experiment with actual situated design contexts through playful interactions. In this setting we can explore ‘becoming with’ as the worldly embodied interpretations of both human and animal and the meaningful bodily relationships that are developed within the course of the interactions that take place. Instead of focusing on animals and humans as users, as is often the case in ACI and HCI practices, I propose to visualise what happens between the actors, as the dynamic process of playful interaction unfolds. Using the basic outlines of a programmatic research approach, I reflect upon a total of six prototypes that I have developed and tested. My aim is to visualise and reflect upon the dynamic relationships between the animal, human, and design artefact that can be observed within the course of the interaction. To build a design repertoire, these six artefacts are presented in the form of a design gallery in which the design concept and experiments are described for each artefact, supported with visualisations and explanations of the prototypes and testing. Subsequently, I concretely visualise the notion of becoming with between animals, humans, and artefacts, and explore the relationships between the involved actors as the interaction unfolds through annotated videos in which I aim to visually map the interactions that can be observed. For each prototype, I reflect upon these annotated videos together with the involved designers with the aim to better understand the mediating role of the technological artefact that we designed. For the first four prototypes the reflection is focused on the becoming with of the humans and animals that participate in the interaction with the artefact with the goal to evaluate the design of the prototypes. The last two prototypes specifically focus on the reflection on becoming with the animal as a human designer during the design process. Through visualising these dynamic interaction networks, the relationships between the animal, human, and artefact becomes more abstract and results in a better understanding of the mediating role of the technological artefact. Each prototype has major differences in the way the interaction network is visualised and the annotated videos show to be a valuable tool for the designer to discuss new design iterations that could be explored further. The knowledge contributions and takeaways of this thesis project include a new theoretical argument, a method that can be used for the visualisation of the dynamic interaction networks as a tool for designers to better understand the relationships between animal, human and artefact, a design repertoire with six different prototypes, and the annotated videos as concrete takeaways that provide a deeper insight into the experimentation, testing, and reflections of the six different prototypes.

With the advent of novel digital interfaces such as augmented, mixed and virtual reality, the way we interact with digital artefacts is changing at a nearly reckless pace. The adoption rate within enterprise applications is racing, with mass adoption among consumers soon to follow. This paper aims to iterate a key question sometimes hidden within these rapid developments; are the practices used to develop these artefacts properly tested and evaluated as the best possible ones? In order to answer this, we will explore and evaluate how existing best practices adhere to empirical evidence, but also to experiment with potential avenues of alternative design methodologies. Once adequate conclusions are reached, they will be utilized to design a prototype/proof of concept to showcase just how aninterface/interaction made with the new considerations in mind can differ from those made with contemporary design principles. Upon evaluation of thi sexperimental prototype which utilized the user’s hands as physical, tactile feedback for interactions, respondents were overall positive to this method of interaction, despite some discomfort from the limitations imposed by this specific technical approach. Due to this, it is strongly suggested that development of XR artefacts might often be designed around these technical limitations instead of a truly best practice. This is why we heavily implore both further testing and experimentation as time goes on, since emergent technologies might lack these limitations and therefore enable richer, better interaction methods and experiences within XR.

This dissertation explores value-creation in interaction design through practical collaborations with studio craftspersons. A focus is on the meaning of “preciousness” from a design perspective – what I refer to as Making Preciousness –  which highlights aspects of material properties, design processes, and the attitude to the design space. Theoretically, the work takes inspiration from the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi, which is based on the fact that things are impermanent, incomplete, and imperfect. This reflects a view of preciousness beyond notions of practical use, luxury or monetary cost. In addition to theoretical studies, I engaged in practice-based research at the intersection of interaction design and studio crafts, in the domains of leather, silversmith and textile crafting. Through an approach that blends these practices with the making of interactive artefacts, preciousness for interaction design was explored. Through this work, I extract three qualities, all of which are closely linked to attributes and values ​​embedded in the craft practices examined. I refer to these as resourceful composition, material sensuality and the aiming for mattering artefacts. Resourceful composition refers to approaching a design space “resourcefully”, meaning that the designer actively values and uses the specific qualities of materials and tools consciously, for what they are suitable for. Material sensuality is about appreciating the sensory experience of interacting with materials, arriving through particular material qualities, such as texture, temperature or smell, but also interactive qualities. Aiming for mattering artefacts involves actively designing for impermanence, incompleteness and imperfection, and through that contributing to notions of preciousness through use, care, ownership and interaction between users and artefacts over time. The attitude of making preciousness can be seen as tying together materials and making with user experiences of computational artefacts. For interaction design, this points towards making processes in which computation and material knowledge, craftsmanship and aesthetic intentions are placed at the core. These values ​​relate to cultural, but also sensual experiences, which can be seen as under-explored in the design of interactive products.<br><p>QC 20171213</p>

Det har blivit allt vanligare att vi idag använder våra mobila enheter till att besöka webben. I detta examensarbete undersöks vilka centrala designprinciper en designer bör eftersträva när avsikten är att förenkla användningen av en webbplats i en statisk och en rörlig situation via den mobila enheten. Examensarbetet innefattar en litteraturgenomgång, observationsintervjuer vid två tillfällen och en prototyputveckling. Det första intervjutillfället identifierade de grundläggande designprinciperna som sedan stod till grund för prototypen. Det andra intervjutillfället genomfördes mot prototypen med samma individer. Det som undersöktes var om de grundläggande designprinciperna förenklade användningen av en webbplats via den mobila enheten. En jämförelse mellan båda intervjutillfällena genomfördes för att sammanställa de centrala designprinciperna.<br>It has become increasingly common that we now use our mobile devices to visit the web. This thesis examines the central design principles a designer should strive for when it is intended to simplify the use of a website in a static and variable situation trough a mobile device. The thesis includes a literature review, interviews on two occasions and a prototype development. The first interviews identified the fundamental design principles which then became the basis for the prototype. The second interviews were conducted towards the prototype with the same individuals. It examined if the fundamental design principles simplified the use of a website trough the mobile device. A comparison of the two interviews was conducted to compile the central design principles.