Interaction Design, Experience and People - Pietro Desiato’s Blog

Serendipity: an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident (dictionary.com)

I find quite enjoyable searching the web for new contents about interaction design: projects, ideas, methods and even definitions. And I usually do it with good results. This morning I was having a look into youtube. I have found an interesting video by Richard Ziade, where he gives a very clear and direct definition of IxD:

the design of interactions, specifically interactions between people and things. The design thinks about the dialogue and the flow the person is going to have with the products she buys.

Then he makes a good point about marketing, interaction design and the purchase process. People have a relationship with a product. Marketing is about getting you to the purchase point. Once you purchase, you’re gonna interact with product. Interaction design is about the dialogue between the person and the (interactive) product she buys.

// Sketchcasting

While watching this video, I discovered that this guy has been thinking about a new way of blogging. By using a tablet\pc + mic and a screencaster, Ziade is sketchcasting, i.e. drawing sketches while he’s talking (like the whiteboard people use during brainstorming \ meetings). Here is a sketchcast on how to do it:ù

I think it’s a very good way to carry and communicate ideas. The sketch has way more power than images because it’s made real-time and it is unique, like a digital sign: the sketch belongs to the blogger and it is unique.

I feel quite lucky to have the chance of discussing about interesting themes with smart people. The simposium formula Roman people created still works: invite (or get invited) by good people and make sure you have a good bottle of wine (like this Burdese I had with Sergio - thanks!).

I believe that food, good time and creativity are interconnected. When you have good time and maybe express yourself (or you see someone else doing it) through cooking, you are hardly propense to talk. Be with the right people and your conversation can lead you through unexpected fields.

Yesterday, Sergio told me about the work he was doing (he is an Interaction Designer\C# Programmer) on a calendar application. Then, the topic switched to the icons most of windows applications use to indicate the basic actions like saving, loading and so on. He focused on the fact that the most common ’save icon’ is a…floppy disk. He googled the web and found lots of examples and critiques about the anachronism and the validity of it. I was impressed when he quoted a blog saying ‘that’s the heritage of a legacy (microsoft one)’.

We then talked about the meaning of ’save’ that has been translated in Italian as ’salvare’. We were quite sure that we were facing a translation more than a real localisation of the term. We went through the possible images (a lock standing for a strongbox, Jesus Christ or a life jacket, as someone of his colleagues suggested him). The point I liked the most was when we asked ourselves what did ’saving\salvare’ mean to us, and to other people as well. Is it a consistent concept and what is the best metaphor to express it? We also considered the mipossibility to express such a complex concept but we noticed that going for just text would have been highly incoherent with the other icons a standard menu is made of.

After a while, my semiotics studies were screaming at me. Icons are just a specific type of ’sign’ and then they are a structure made of a signified and a signifier (have a look at wikipedia for that - it’s a quite demanding theme). The point I want to make here is that icons are culturally and socially determined as part of a language that evolves in time. In fact, I’d be glad to know how new generations feel the ’save icon’ and the whole save concept. Maybe in a web 2.0 world where applications are going online, the idea of saving somewhere is obsolete and getting replaced by the downloading one: when I’m done, I won’t save my work but I will download it (probably because I am using online photoshop!).

Not more than 5 years ago, Skype and Voip conversations were an opaque reality. Especially here where I am living now: Bella Italia. But habits and interactions change at an increasing pace and you hardly notice how fast your communications “evolve”.
My very first approach to the net has b een chatting and surfing on the web. I still remember my father showing me the potentialities of this new tool that he was not going to understand as I was. But I have never thought of how pervasive MSN would have become just few years later: exchanging msn contacts is the new way to be in touch with people you meet; it works even better than the ‘traditional’ phone number… probably because chatting is still perceived as less invasive.

Today my online conversations are held on MSN and Skype (I have been very impressed by the XMB, read Playstation 3 system interface, especially by the scenarios that online gaming are creating - like contacting friends while they’re playing). As probably most of you, I have my headset (even if I usually use my Ipod headphones - headsets make me feel a little bit…uncomfortable, like having a foreign body on your head) and an integrated webcam on my macbook (how annoying is when you have to plug it in your laptop?). In fact, I like to have video conversations - sometimes they are video+text w/o audio: in this way I preserve the comfort of chatting and an eye contact with your interlocutor.
The problem, or better, the situation I want to reflect on, is the very video-conference, where you see and voice talk with your interlocutor: have you ever tried to look her in the eyes while speaking? I think there is a big issue here ’cause of a separation between the webcam lens (where you have to look in order to make your interlocutor see you looking at her in the eyes) and the window where the image of the other person is represented. Most of conversations become annoying because of it and the communication is poor and lacking of important information (facial expressions, gestures - yeah, it’s a computer mediated communication but it can be richer).

Solutions? Well, if the distance between lens and interlocutor window could be reduced or even disappear, we would look in the eyes and get an immediate feedback of the interlocutor’s look\face expressions. At a concept level, I would think of a different position of the webcam itself: I would think of it as placed in the very display in order to be part of an interactive area where lens\focal point and feeback overlap. In this optic, it would then be connected to an input interface (keyboard?) that would control its position and settings.
The big issue I see here is how do we build a webcam into a display - how do we overcome the need of a sort of ‘hole’ for the placement of the lens. In fact, I immediately thought of a webcam behind the display…but what if we think of an overlapped cam that maybe is not built-in but can be activated only when needed, like a mask that goes on your display, not behind it.

During these days I am working on a new template for this website. It is going to be less blog and more focused on my projects and activities. Anyway, I have been exhibiting my thesis project at frombusinesstobuttons conference and here is its abstract. I am going to update this review asap.

Due to its sensitive nature, the graveyard is often an avoided problem space within the field of design. This becomes evident from the lack of exploration and analysis in this domain. Anyhow, it represents an opportunity to test how design can mediate between sacred places, technology and people. Moreover, as a very specific context, the graveyard encompasses peculiar ways of interacting and experiencing space that deserve to be taken into account.

This work discusses the notions of space and place and how the field of interaction design can benefit from them. In doing so, it investigates the hidden dimensions of the graveyard that make it a complex structure where spatial, personal and socio-cultural dimensions are intertwined.

While the fieldwork aims at analysing the graveyard in its different tones of meaning (identity, memorial, cultural differences, on-site interaction) the focus of the work are the practices of memory and the role that the past has in our relation with the deceased.

The result of the design process is an interactive audio system composed of a playback circuit based on Arduino and boxed into a seashell. The device is designed to be placed on the grave and store audio content. Once activated, the audio seashell allows listening and eventually recording vocal traces related to the deceased’

s past. Taking into account the observed practices, rules and conventions that shape the graveyard, the role of personal and collective rituals and the meanings of all the identified artifacts, the designed system supports the experience of recalling memories in respect to the atmosphere, tempo and rhythm that characterise the graveyard.

I am currently working with Arduino to build the prototype for my thesis project. I have been really surprised by what you can do with it (in some sense, it is the contemporary way of DIY). Arduino is an “open-source physical computing platform based on a simple i/o board, and a development environment for writing Arduino software”.

You can programme it using Processing, which basically is a Java-based programming language, and use LEDs, all kind of sensors, lights, electric engines and so on. Neverending possibilities supported by a large community and a useful website where you can download a manual and have look to people’s projects. You can also ask YouTube for some cool videos like:

The new trend for bloggers seems to be the instant blogging: what are you doing right now. The community of Twitter.com allows you to get an account and share your thoughts by ‘twittering’ them on the net. The challenge is getting harder since I don’t really know how often one can update his thoughts. The risk is that you start twittering about everything is on your mind. The blogging rule though, seems this today: “Don’t have anything to write about? Then you’re not looking hard enough“ (John Chow).

Update: for the vbloggers I’ve just remember something similar: nowthen.com. This use also time to browse the pictures people send. A very interesting view if you consider that sometimes you can find some narrativeness and even plots.

Urban Tapestries is a software platform developed by Proboscis, that combines mobile and Internet technology with geographic information systems to allow people to tag space with stories, pictures, sounds and videos. It aims at supporting the collaborative mapping and the sharing of knowledge in order to build new relationships between space and people.
The system is composed by a client, installed on mobile phone or handheld, and a content server that hosts the maps of the city. The client communicates with the server through the wireless network and is able to tag the location with media content, thanks to the interaction with the GPS system. As result, the different spaces that compose the city are enriched by a set of invisible annotations that can be shared with other people. The platform has been tested in different prototypes and is now part of a research program, called Social Tapestries, whose aim is to investigate the potentialities of the framework as a supporting tool for emerging social practices.

This project encompasses a lot of interesting and challenging themes for design and connects to the discussion on the difference between space and place and how human experience affects the physical contexts. Human Geography, a branch of the traditional Geography, studied how space becomes place and what are its constitutional dimensions. According to this approach, place is a lived space composed not only by a physical dimension but a personal and socio-cultural one as well. Urban Tapestries explores the importance of affecting the spaces we live with our experiences and memories. It allows people to claim their places, transforming the territory into an interface, in a “container for traces and fragmentary personal histories” (Thackara, 2005:84). These annotation are not just information but play an important role in the very definition of the contexts they are attached to: they are “new way of enhancing the ability of all citizens to engage in meaningful dialogue about their environment” (Thackara, 2005:81).
The possible scenarios of use for these annotations are different. We could think of the possibility of attaching personal content, like the memories or feelings that place evokes in us, but we can also reflect about the social and culture opportunities this platform would open: for instance, the possibility of leaving a text or a video about the history of the area, its traditions and social habits. Urban Tapestries allows people to claim back their own spaces and it reckons the importance of what Thackara calls locality, that is the influence context has on every process contained into it.Another important point this project addresses is what Proboscis developers call public authoring. They underline that these annotations are not the result of a single author but the fruit of a creative collaboration of different people.The role of the author in the production of a text has been widely investigated by Semiotics (Eco, 1990), for which even a place constitutes a text that can be analysed in its structure and communicative aims. In the contemporary society, we are assisting at a gradual changing of the production of texts. Thanks to the new media the role of the author is not exclusive anymore. With blogs, commenting and web communities, everybody can produce her own text. Urban Tapestries goes beyond the break with the broadcasting system: individuals not only produce their own content, they link it to the very physical environment.
The whole idea of public authoring is based on the possibilities of a collaborative production where we cannot identify a single author but a network of different producers. This collaborative creation is then a reaction to a media-driven fruition and underlines the active role of the individual. In this sense, Urban Tapestries adopts a critical approach to the narrative production, questioning the actual values and looking at a radical alternative:
“We contrast the concept of a publicly authored knowledge and experience commons to the traditional way in which information is passed from a centre to the margins – the broadcast model of newspapers, television and radio” (urbantapestries.net)
Another important point about Urban Tapestries is the one addressed by Jonas Löwgren in his exploration of the use qualities of digital products and services. The quality involved here is the social actability, the property of generating platforms and digital structures capable of supporting the development of arenas and forums of discussion, open to different possibilities and uses (Löwgren, 2006). As support for knowledge production and sharing, Urban Tapestries promote the social actability by creating a network of narrations everyone can participate to. It also underlines that a powerful and versatile platform is not enough until everyone is granted the same opportunities. In this sense, Urban Tapestries makes a hidden statement underlining the importance of participation and in the end of democracy.
On one hand, Urban Tapestries is a piece of experimental design that show how human habits can be supported and enriched by mobile technologies; but on the other, it contests the authority of the author and implicitly the whole establishment of media systems. In doing so, it is able to create new scenarios of participation that are not located in the cyberspace but in places where people daily live and interact.
REFERENCES
Eco, U., 1990. I limiti dell’interpretazione. Milano: Bompiani.
Löwgren, J., 2006. Articulating the use qualities of digital designs. In Fishwick, P. (ed.) Aesthetic computing, pp. 383–403. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Thackara, J. 2005. In the Bubble. Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press.

Did you like the conversation jacket? Good. Now we’re offering Y-O-U the chance to build your own one and try it. You can refer to the related post to see how it works.

What you need:

- mp3 player with shuffle\random function

- a loud enough speaker

- mp3 of the openers (you can download them here)

You can download the ones with my voice and the one by andrew’s. Build your jacket and let me know what happens!

A couple of weeks ago I had a conversation with a friend of mine. He was complaining about how loudly his girlfriend speaks while on the phone. So, what if the volume of your phone’s speaker is proportional to the one of your own voice? Sometimes it is really annoying because people cannot modulate their voice. This often happens also in face2face conversations: have you ever find someone who was whispering more than speaking? I think so. Let’s punish these bad habits!

In this post I want to discuss the relation that occurs between the concepts of experience and design. I argue that even if we are more and more talking about designing experience, it is not clear how they are related and what is the right design approach. In doing so, I will explore the meaning of experience and interaction and what a design process is. This paper will also discuss what I think are the potentialities of the novel field of interaction design and how it can provide better perspectives for the design of experiences.ARTICULATING THE CONCEPT OF EXPERIENCEI have always found quite hard to understand what experience is. Even if, as a student, I have been through different approaches that dealt with it, I have never had a clear understanding of its meaning. It is quite clear that experience is the outcome of our contacts with the world and that it is related to the perception and sensuousness. But most of definitions of such a complex concept seem to me too coded or too vague and superficial.When dealing with something I cannot define well enough, I am used to analyse its etymology. The term experience originates from the Greek and specifically from the verb peiro, which means ‘going through’, and the term peira, which means ‘attempt, experiment’. If we look at its sense in Latin, we can find something else: ‘ex-perior’ implies the notion of danger and test (Gattinara, 1998). Gathering these findings let us understand that experience implies a passage, a test and some sort of danger. I would argue that it implies also the unknown and the novelty. Having an experience, then, is passing through unknown territories where we have never been before. Experience is then something that excites and has to be lived actively. As a consequence, we will never have the feeling of having an experience while doing activities that have become automatic: the first times we ride a bike, we focus most of our attentive resources on doing it, it is something new; but once one knows and learns how to, riding becomes an automatism and is not an experience anymore, unless one explores new way of riding it (with a higher level of danger).We have an experience, then, when our existence is subtracted to the repetitive everyday world. Even if we can locate where an experience happened, its most important feature is temporalness: it is located in time with its own timeline, like an event. Since it is a passage implying changing, it has a starting and an ending point. And since it is a passage between two states, it changes the actor leaving traces. Memories of an experience can scar body and mind, past and future.Sometimes we can decide to have an experience, others it just happens to us. In both cases, it is a chance that can be caught or not. Its temporal dimension makes it an event in time that passes like a train. An experience is a door in the dimension of time that hides unknown things, positive or not. Opening the doors of experience means making a passage to a different room, where everything is possible. In this sense, experience has obviously a link with the dimension of space but we cannot repeat it by trespassing the same physical door: every experience is unique because unique is the moment and the actor in that moment. In fact, the passage implies a changing and after that, we are not the same.EXPERIENCE AND DESIGNI will keep the metaphor of the door to explain what I think the role of design should be in this discussion. In the physical world we use artifacts and interfaces to accomplish goals and perform tasks. Most of them let us perform automatism in a faster and more efficient way. Once we know how to use the interfaces, there is not experience anymore (Dourish, 2002). However, our life is still full of experiences since we cannot refuse or flee away from them, most of the experience just happens to us.Only recently, design fields are getting aware of the role experiences play in our life and that it is not only a matter of goals and tasks. The interfaces that have been designed since now have just become part of one or more automatisms and designers want to design things that are able to deal with experiences. The failures of unproper approaches and interfaces have made the design field aware that this shift ferequires a completely new paradigm that looks at things from a different perspective.The problem with designing experiences is that experience and design belong to different domains. Experience is an analog concept in the sense that is something continuous and not measurable with quantitative tools, it is a flow. Design is a digital concept, it is discrete and more certain because it implies a project and a set of activities with one or more goals. In this sense, design is a process .Designing experience, then, is dealing with a flow: you can design the starting and the ending point but you will never be able to predict the variations in the middle just because they are based on possibilities that do not follow a clear line. Anyway, if it wants to deal with experience, design has to focus on the spectrum of possibilities generated through the entire interaction, aiming at designing supports for unending possibilities, not at designing the experiences: designers should start to think about platforms (Löwgren, 2006) capable of adapting to whatever situations human actors will generate since they cannot foresee what they are going to do.THE ROLE OF INTERACTIONThe interaction is the key to the door of experience. It is through the interaction that people have experience of something and it is on the interaction that this new paradigm should be focused on. If designing experience is not possible, we can design for the possibilities generated by the interactions human actors will be performing (Wright et al., 2003).This new stance towards the experience has led to a new design field that is interaction design. Even if there is no agreement upon its definition, it is quite clear that this field deals with interactive systems and digital materials (Löwgren, 2006). What is not evident, is that under this label relies a crucial shift in the way designers look at problems and solutions. Interaction design is an approach that is trying to build a new paradigm that takes into account all the previous ones but that also wants to consider the world of emotions and of imperfections that characterise the human actors; it looks at the interactions as a complex but open dialogue that can be supported by technology; it imagines systems, environments and services that are open to different possibilities and to the contingent intentions and feelings of the persons (Giovannella, 2005).An approach that lead design to the development of open solutions that are adaptable to the situations, to the contexts and, especially, to the persons is the only way in which design can deal with experiences. I think that these are the keys that design should provide human actors in order to let them open the doors of experience in a technologically supported way.REFERENCESDourish, P., 2002. Where the Action is. The Foundations of EmbodiedInteraction. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.Gattinara, E. C., 1998. Con esperienza…, in Aperture n.5 - http://digilander.libero.it/aperture/ Giovannella, C. ,2005. Interaction Design or Designing Imperfection, inID&A_magazine N.0, p. 37-42.Krippendorf K., 2006. The Semantic Turn. A New Foundation for Design. BocaRaton: Taylor & Francis Group.Löwgren, J., 2006. Articulating the use qualities of digital designs.In Fishwick, P. (ed.) Aesthetic computing, pp. 383–403. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Wright, P., McCarthy, J. and L. Meekison, 2003. “Making Sense of Experience”. In Funology: From Usability to Enjoyment, Blythe, M., Monk, A., Overbeeke, K. and P. Wright (eds). Dordrecht: Kluwer.