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Overview

History

Strengths & Challenges

Examples

Presentation

Resources

References

Key Concepts

History

“Critical making goes way back.” – John Zimmerman [5]

Many projects that can be termed ‘research through design’ existed before a model was introduced within HCI, like early work on interaction design for XEROX reprographics machines (as cited in [21], [10]), Phillips Vision of the Future project (as cited in [21], and Apple’s Knowledge Navigator video (as mentioned in [5]). Gaver stated “There’s any number of groups who I think you could make the case were doing research through design before the term was ever invented” [11].

“From my limited point of view I think it was the Computer-Related Design group at the Royal College Art, which I worked in, but was led by Gillian Crampton-Smith, that was the first time that I saw designer-ly designs coming into the HCI community. Until then, a lot of the design in HCI was kind of done as a commercial or practical activity. Gillian’s group was really looking at ways of designer-ly thinking and making as ways to open up new ideas.” – Gaver [9]

Though people have long been doing research through design in HCI, the term “research through design” originates in a 1993 working paper by Christopher Frayling [8] (as cited [21], [14]). At the time, Frayling was the rector of London’s Royal College of Art [14]. Jodi Forlizzi and John Zimmerman, interaction designers before becoming professors at Carnegie Mellon, adopted Frayling’s term in a 2007 CHI paper that brought a model of research through design into HCI [21].

“John and I leveraged that term to formalize what design research was… we need to make a case that design research was important—different than research in the sciences but equally important.” – Jodi Forlizzi [5]

Forlizzi, Zimmerman and colleague Shelley Evenson had set out to understand the relationship between interaction design and HCI, and “to discover methods for interaction design researchers to more effectively participate in HCI research” [21]. The model presented in their primary RtD paper emerged from a 2004 CHI workshop on the relationship between HCI and design, and interviews with leading HCI researchers and interaction designers from both academia and industry. Initially presented as a method “for interaction design researchers to make design research contributions that both integrate with and benefit the HCI research and practice communities” [21], Zimmerman, Forlizzi and Evenson suggest that their model allows design researchers “to collaborate on an equal footing with HCI engineering and behavioral science researchers” [21].

Not limited to HCI venues, the approach was explored further by these authors in 2008 papers in two design journals [6,19]. Here Zimmerman and Forlizzi put forward their idea of ‘grounded RtD’ and ‘philosophical RtD’. This is a categorization of research through design based on the motivation of the work. In grounded RtD, “design researchers focus on real-world problems”, making things that frame both the problem and the ‘preferred state’ [19]. The Sense Chair project is an example of this type of RtD, as explained later [3]. In contrast, philosophical RtD, “researchers begin with a specific philosophical stance that they wish to either investigate or embody through the process of making”. Drift Table and Reverse Alarm Clock are both examples of philosophical RtD. The former investigates and embodies the philosophy of ludic interaction, and the latter is an example of designing for the self. The concepts of ludic interaction, design for the self, and these two examples are detailed below.

Through the last decade, research through design has become an accepted approach in HCI. “Over the last five years or ten years, [research through design] has grown a lot, and there’s a lot more design-oriented work in HCI. And moreover, a kind of basic willingness to engage with that kind of working and thinking” [10]. “Today, CHI has two design committees because there is so much design content submitted” [5]. Now, proponents of this approach are “confident that RtD is here to stay” in HCI [5, 22], and “the larger issues are getting it accepted outside of CHI, in other engineering and science venues, and getting federal funding agencies to recognize it” [5].

Notwithstanding its growth and acceptance within HCI, the approach is continually viewed through a critical lens, with a rising “undercurrent of questioning with the design community itself about the nature and standards of research through design” [9]. A 2012 CHI panel discussed ways to develop “critical discussions of design research within the HCI community” [4]. Zimmerman, Stolterman and Forlizzi suggest that researchers involved in RtD should become “the most aggressive critics of the approach” [22].

The author of a number of canonical RtD papers, Bill Gaver has done just that. In 2013, he presented an essay contributing to discussion on how research through design should develop. He advocates for embracing the diversity of approaches within RtD. In addition, he suggests that although adhering to “agreed-upon standards and processes” might be a way towards “disciplinary legitimacy within HCI”, such standards might be too restrictive. He tempers ideas of standardization with different expectations for RtD, namely production of theory that is “provisional, contingent and aspirational”. Gaver also explores reasons for lack of convergence within RtD, considering (i) design as pre-paradigmatic research, ii) the invisibility of consensus within RtD, and iii) the many realms of design as potential reasons for lack of convergence [9, 10]. Gaver suggests RtD often does not converge because “it is a generative discipline, able to create multiple new worlds rather than describing a single one” [9, 10].

“In the process of the making you’re producing knowledge. You’re not doing research through design if there’s no constructive part.”

– John Zimmerman [5]

The field of human-computer interaction is broadening in scope, “creat[ing] a growing need for design research” [19]. Forlizzi, Stolterman and Zimmerman characterize three kinds of design research: research on design (understanding the activity of design), research for design (theory that will be applied in the practice of design) and research through design [7]. Research through design (RtD) is an approach to research that employs methods from design practice, rejecting the idea that research and science are synonymous [6]. A comprehensive approach, RtD is used within all stages of the development, evaluation, and research cycle.

“I think as designers we are always using [research through design as an approach,] because we make things. In research, our goal is to make things, as designers do, but to draw out knowledge as an endpoint, rather than a commercial product.” – Jodi Forlizzi [5]

Though practice-based research and critical making have existed for a number of years, a model of research through design was formally introduced to HCI by Forlizzi, Zimmerman, and Evenson in 2007 [21]. It has become “a somewhat common approach in the design research community and is becoming more recognized in the HCI community” [22]. RtD is not yet formalized; it is considered “an emerging and unrefined research approach” [22].

In RtD, design practice is used in situations “chosen for their topical and theoretical potential” [10]. In using this approach, “designers produce novel integrations of HCI [human-computer interaction] research in an attempt to make the right thing: a product that transforms the world from its current state to a preferred state” [21]. This “situates it closer to the humanities and work in action research, which is about societal level change through action, not just writing papers about things” [5]. Using this approach, researchers become constructors of the world they wish to see [9].

Koskinen and colleagues introduce three district practices of research through design they term ‘lab’, ‘field’, and ‘showroom’ [14]. The lab/field/showroom framework can be considered as three different origins of research through design [20].

Research Through Design in HCI - Image from [21]Lab practice, also known as ‘rich interaction design’, combines design with experimental evaluation as found in psychology, focusing on the creation of novel methods of interaction. It originated in Designing Quality Interactions group at the Technical University Eindhoven. Researchers started with “a psychological theory, which the goal of making it actionable through design” [20]. They held workshops with designers to figure out how to do this, then would pick one idea to refine. The researchers would make several versions of a product based on the idea, and then use controlled studies to explore interaction with the product [20]. A specific example of this is Joep Frens’ rich interaction cameras [2], detailed below.

Field practice emerges from participatory and user-centered design; in this practice, research teams identify a problematic situation and design ways to improve it alongside users. This practice merges sociology and anthropology with design. Participatory design emerged in Scandanavian countries as a response to early IT in work environments, as a way of protecting workers and promoting democratic design. In design for the workplace, it involved interdisciplinary teams, including “behavioral scientists, technologists, designers, [… and] workers selected by their peers” [20]. The Maypole project is an early example of this type of practice. It involved field testing of mobile technology with children; more details of this project are mentioned below.

Thirdly, showroom practice, or critical design, involves design of things that change the status quo, inviting people to “reconsider the world they inhabit” [20]. Stemming from critical theory, it is “about making a thing as a social critique of the current state of the world” [4]. Critical design artifacts “force people to think, to notice, to reconsider some aspect of the world” [20]. Bill Gaver’s Drift Table is an example of this type of research through design, detailed below.

Research through design output “takes the form, primarily, of artifacts and systems” [9] or a prototype [14], however, it can also be “a scenario, a mock-up, or just a detailed concept that could be constructed” [14]. Results of this approach exemplify the designers’ view of a way to address the problem [9], and reflection on results “allow[s] a range of topical, procedural pragmatic and conceptual insights to be articulated” [9]. RtD produces a variety of different types of design theory—“conceptual frameworks for design... methods… new problem framings… new product forms” [7], “identification of gaps in current theories … and indication of new technologies that would be especially valuable to invent” [22, 19]. Research through design goes beyond typical design practice in that it creates new knowledge. Research through design is thought to be potentially “the greatest contribution of the design research community to other research communities” [8, 9].

Overview

Strengths & Challenges

Research through design has multiple strengths—it can be used to approach wicked problems, it considers multiple variables simultaneously, it allows the researcher great freedom, and it focuses research on the future. But the approach also has several challenges, among them its lack of formalization. The following section details both strengths and challenges of this approach.

One particular strength of research through design is that it can be used to approach problems difficult to solve with traditional science and engineering methods. Specifically, RtD is well suited for engaging with ‘wicked’ problems [5, 19, 21]. Wicked problems involve complex interdependencies, many stakeholders and conflicting priorities; solving a portion of a wicked problem often worsens another portion. “With the transition of computing technology from the office to many different social contexts in which people live, HCI has shifted its focus from a narrow view on usability […] to more broadly consider the human experience” [19]. With this shift come many complex problems that research through design is suited to address.

Research through design lends itself to such problems because of “its holistic approach of integrating knowledge and theories from across many disciplines, and its iterative approach to reframing the problematic situation and the preferred state as the desired outcome of the research” [22].

“Design tends to be deeply interdisciplinary. In fact it’s sort of so interdisciplinary, it’s not even particularly being aware of being interdisciplinary. It doesn’t have to think of itself as interdisciplinary, it’s just how it is.” – Gaver [11]

Relatedly, RtD does not require isolation of a single variable, but rather “allows for development of a solution that considers relationships between multiple phenomena in the design space” [17].

Another strength of RtD is the freedom it allows the research. Gaver sums it up nicely [11]:

“I think design has more methodological freedom compared to scientifically-based forms of research. In traditional science, a lot of the way science works is sort of this form of methodological accountability, where in order to make it a scientific statement you have to show that the methods you used to produce that statements are justified and make sense and clear and logical and all that stuff.

In design, I believe very strongly, you don’t have to do that. In design, what really counts is what you produce at the end. And if you use crazy methods to get there, that doesn’t matter, if it works, that’s fine. It doesn’t mean using crazy methods always works, but the point is you don’t have to justify your design by your methods.

A lot of people, in HCI particularly, I think there’s a kind of push to try to argue that designers should justify their designs by their methods. And I think that’s a disservice. That kind of methodological freedom allows us to explore all kinds approach to, you know, whatever—understanding people, generating new ideas, testing new ideas. It allows all kinds of ways to experiment with that that other fields find much harder to do.“

Another strength of this approach is that it is future-focused. This is held as one of the most critical aspects of RtD [5, 8, 12]. To quote Zimmerman, “It’s all about gaining insight into how the world is and could be” [5]. In contrast with non-design methods, RtD “forces researchers to focus on the research of the future, instead of on the present or the past”, and allows “the research community to engage in discourse on what the preferred state might be as an intentional outcome of the research” [22]. To quote John Zimmerman: “You engage in research through design as a way of probing the possible preferred states through a process of making things that are trying to bring a vision of a future. So you can critically reflect on it” [5]. Within HCI, this is especially pertinent, as RtD allows one to explore how new technology might be employed [19].

Alongside the strengths of its ability to address multiple variables, engage with wicked problems and focus researchers on the future, research through design comes with challenges. One challenge is that the approach is lacking formalization, namely criteria and guidelines for practice, evaluation and documentation. “[W]ithout an agreed form of practice, evaluation, and outcome, it is hard to consistently develop design theory” [19]. The community does not yet have criteria for “specifying appropriate approaches” and “evaluating the quality of contributions”. In addition, “there is no agreed upon method to document the knowledge —methods, theories, and insights — that emerge from this type of research”; more rigorous documentation is called for [21]. Further, Zimmerman and Forlizzi have brought up the need for “more examples where the intentional choice and use of the RtD approach as a methodology and process is both described and critically examined” [22]. Work in [21] is a step towards formalization.

However, not all practitioners of RtD see this formalization as a step forward [c.f. 8]. Gaver suggests that a lack of convergence “need not be seen as a sign of inadequate standards or a lack of cumulative progress in the field, but may be natural for a generative endeavor” [8]. The nature of research through design makes it “likely to produce theories that are provisional, contingent and aspirational” [9]. Though standards might lead to “disciplinary legitimacy within HCI”, Gaver suggests they might be “overly restrictive of a form of research value[d] for its ability to continually and creatively challenge status quo thinking” [10].

An additional challenge with this approach is the tension between design and research or between design and development of theory. The goal of theory development is to create a unifying whole, whereas the goal of design practice is to create “the ultimate particular” ([17] as cited in [20]). Design aims towards the non-existing, focusing on the future, research towards the pre-existing, focusing on the present and past [20]. Research must be novel, but not necessarily good, design contributions good, but not necessarily novel ([1] as cited in [20]). The problem is two-fold: “not just that theory underspecifies design, so that practitioners will be faced by innumerable decisions whatever theory they use, but that theory is underspecified by design, in the sense that many aspects of a successful design will not be captured by a given theory” [9].

Another challenge related to its acceptance, “it is often difficult to recognize this kind of work [RtD] as research, because in looking at a single example, it is difficult to tell what the contribution is” [7]. Zimmerman puts it simply: “A whole bunch of things have to exist before you can begin to draw the deeper meaning out of it... to some degree the thing has to proceed the theory of the thing” [5].

Think of something like direct manipulation, which is the transition from where we had command line interfaces to where we have icons and pointers. There were 20 years of work of the development of sketchpad and all of these other things that were all parts of that. But it took a whole bunch of possibilities before Schniederman could really write about what direct manipulation is. A whole bunch of things have to exist before you can begin to draw the deeper meaning out of it. Now we can articulate the actual advantages, even though these other things just sort of felt right before we didn’t know why.

So—to some degree—the thing has to precede the theory of the thing. And we don’t make ‘the right thing’ from a theoretical perspective, because it’s always in the space where there is no theory to describe how it should be. – Zimmerman [5]

When the approach is used many times within a particular area, then theory can be generated; “Theoretical payoffs come after a project or design is finished, allowed for refection on a project with backward thinking” [7].

Theory developed from research through design “tends to be generative and suggestive, rather than verifiable through falsification.” [9]. “It makes it very different from science, which is very focused on producing generalizable knowledge, which has a ‘last forever’, a hopefulness to it [5].” This difference is especially a challenge in HCI, a field prone to scientism [9]. In their paper calling for formalization, Forlizzi and Zimmerman suggest that RtD contributions be made to be extensible and verifiable [17].

Examples

Jodi Forlizzi

William Gaver

John Zimmerman

Key Concepts

Ludic Design

Ludic activities are “motivated by curiosity, exploration and reflection, rather than externally-defined tasks” [12]. Gaver suggests these playful activities “can be a mechanism for developing new values and goals, for learning new things, and for achieving new understandings” [12], and uses this principal in design, termed ‘ludic design’. One might call ludic design a philosophical stance towards design. This stance is embodied in Gaver’s Drift Table [12], detailed in the examples section. This interview provides an excellent overview of the concept of ludic design.

Designing for the Self

Like ludic design, designing for the self is a philosophical stance towards design. This approach involves “making products that more explicitly participate in identity construction” [19], specifically, “designing products intended to help people move closer to their idealized sense of self” [18]. An example of designing for the self is the Reverse Alarm Clock, detailed in the examples section [16].

Participatory Design

Participatory design is an approach to design in which users are involved throughout the design process. The roots of participatory design come from Scandinavian countries, “as a reaction to the disruptive force of information technology as it entered the workplace and caused breakdowns in traditional roles” [20]. Participatory design involves the user in the problem definition as well as the evaluation of solutions. The Maypole project is an example of participatory design [13, 15]. Alongside user-centered design, participatory design is part of the ‘field’ component of Koskinen et al.’s lab/field/showroom framework [14].

User-Centered Design

User-centered design is similar to participatory design in that it focuses heavily on the user. User-centered design is “set of methods clustered around the idea that design teams need to deeply understand the needs of users in order to make better things for them” [4]. In contrast with participatory design, users—though consulted—are not making decisions nor using the tools of experts. Alongside participatory design, user-centered is part of the ‘field’ component of Koskinen et al.’s lab/field/showroom framework [14]. The Prayer Companion [11] might be considered an example of user-centered design.

Critical Design

Critical design is another approach to research through design. Stemming from critical theory, it is “about making a thing as a social critique of the current state of the world” [4]. Critical design artifacts “force people to think, to notice, to reconsider some aspect of the world” [20]. The Prayer Companion [11] is an example of critical design [20]. Koskinen et al. refer to critical design as ‘showroom’ in their lab/field/showroom framework [14].

Drift Table

Drift Table - Image from [12]The Drift Table is a coffee table that displays aerial photography, controlled by where the weight is distributed on the top of the table. The coffee table has a small hole through which the image can be seen. The aerial photograph changes in distance from ground, direction, and speed of travel, in response to the weight distribution on the table. Designed by Gaver and colleagues, initial research on this project consisted of a domestic (cultural) probe, conducted to discover potential types of interactivity and content for the table [12]. The design process involved many iterations of the table concept. One principal decision centered around how the surface of the table should look. The eventual decision was to use a viewport instead of the entire table as a screen, in order to prevent the table from becoming a distraction in the home. This project is an example of ludic design; the interface is ‘inherently playful’ [12]. Observing use of the table in volunteers’ homes “gave greater insight into how playful exploration is practically achieved and the issues involved in designing for ludic engagement” [12].

Prayer Companion

Another example from Bill Gaver’s group, the Prayer Companion is a small device that was created to act as a reference for a group of cloistered nuns. The device has a small display of headlines of RSS news feeds from social networking and news sites around the world. The headlines inform nuns about what is happening in the world that might possibly be relevant to their prayers. Interviews were conducted to learn more about the Poor Clares sisters’ everyday lives throughout the eighteen months over which this project took place. Designers learned the nuns must remove themselves from the world, but their prayers must be relevant to the outside world [10].

Prayer Companion - Image from [11]The process of designing started by focusing on “providing resources for new engagements with the world that they might find meaningful and compelling” [10]. The idea that stood out was to create a non-biased source of news, generating prayer ideas for the nuns. The initial design process focused the form of the device and source of information. A mock-up was created of a large display that pulled news from RSS feeds of various social networking sites. These mock-ups were brought to the sisters, and there was a strong positive response to the concept, though the display was thought to be too imposing. Next, less obtrusive 3D prototypes were created and taken to the nuns to pick the final device shape. After exploring the proper device form, the new sources had to be chosen. In the end, 25 websites fed the device through RSS feeds; from these, ten headlines were selected for a given period, based on “if [the text…] serve[s] as an effective digest of the news item and would read well scrolled across the Prayer Companion” [7]. The device was then installed in the convent and below was a book and pen for the nuns to write comments on how to improve the device [10].

The Maypole Project

Maypole Project (1999) - Image from [13]Another example of research through design, the Maypole Project was created to learn more about long distance communication through pictures. The device that was created in this project was a wireless device that sends digital pictures. The device was field tested in a three-week prototype and a second four-week prototype involving two families. The two families consisted of young children and a grandmother that did not live with the children. Throughout the prototype, researchers used interviews and studied the pictures that were sent to learn more about the users and desired functionality. This project is an example of user-centered design, as examination of the practices of users “allowed the researchers to begin to investigate how new technology might create new practices around image making and messaged” [13, 15].

The SenseChair

The SenseChair - Image from [3]The SenseChair is “an armchair with pressure sensors in the seat, back arms, and legs” [3]. The goal of the SenseChair is to assist elders, making it easier from them to stay in their homes as they age. The chair “monitor[s] and learn[s] the behavioral patterns of the owner”, and “provide[s] multi-modal interaction”, and “receive[s] data from beyond the immediate environment so as to function as an embodied social awareness system” [3]. This is an example of Koskinen’s ‘field’ practice, and participatory design. The process of developing this chair started with an ethnographic study of elders and their caregivers. The end-user was also brought in to explore how they felt about having a dominant chair in their home, what they normally do from the chair and what they would like to be able to do from the chair [3]. The SenseChair “serves as a research platform to understand how we can help elders stay independently in their homes, and offer them physical, social, and emotional support” [3].

Resources

The prayer companion: openness and specificity, materiality and spirituality

The project detailed in this paper is an excellent example of research through design The article details the design of the ‘Prayer Companion’, a device to provide nuns in a convent with news in the outside world. The design focuses on four themes: design for older people, the potential for computation to serve spirituality, balancing openness with specificity, and the importance of materiality. The latter two are concerns relevant to interaction design in general. The work is considered research through design because it employs design practice in a situation chosen for it’s “topical and theoretical potential”.

The paper was written by William Gaver and colleagues; Gaver has done many other projects that are considered research through design (e.g. Drift Table, History Tablecloth, Video Window, among many others).

Research Through Design in HCI

This recently-published chapter provides an introduction to research through design within the field of HCI. Zimmerman and Forlizzi go into detail about the history of RtD outside and inside HCI, and differentiate between research into design, research for design, and research through design. The chapter outlines three types of RtD: lab (rich interaction design), field (participatory and user-centered design) and showroom (critical design). Zimmerman and Forlizzi discuss their model of RtD in HCI, as well as four types of research output it can produce. Two concrete examples of RtD are discussed: SnackBot, and Reverse Alarm Clock. The chapter finishes with a ‘how-to’ section.

This chapter is an excellent first read—it is accessible for someone without previous knowledge of research through design, and concisely summarizes a significant amount of relevant content.

Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI

Zimmerman, Forlizzi and Evenson’s paper introduces to HCI a model of research through design which evolved out of a CHI workshop and interviews with leading HCI researchers and interaction designers from both academia and industry. The authors describe their process in developing the model, and the role of design in the early days of HCI. They also detail examples of interaction design research in HCI, and criteria for its evaluation.

An analysis and critique of research through design: Towards a formalization of a research approach

Another piece by Forlizzi and Zimmerman (this time with Stolterman), this appeared after their introduction-of-RtD-to-HCI paper. This paper moves towards formalizing the approach of RtD. Again based on interviews with HCI design researchers, they identify different types of design research, of which RtD is one. They suggest that RtD “ one of the most important contributions of design researchers to the large research community”. They give several concrete examples of research through design, and critique it’s current development. Though four years old, alongside William Gaver’s “What should we expect from research through design?” essay [9], it gives a rough idea of the current state of RtD within HCI.

References

[1] Blackwell, A. (2004). Accessible abstractions from homes, schools and offices. Seminar, September 8, 2004. Carnegie Mellon HCI Institute.

[2] Frens, J. (2006). A rich user interface for a digital camera. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 10(2-3), 177-180.

[3] Forlizzi, J., DiSalvo, C., Zimmerman, J., Mutlu, B., & Hurst, A. (2005). The SenseChair: The lounge chair as an intelligent assistive device for elders. In Proc of Designing for User eXperience ’05. American Institute of Graphic Arts.

[4] Forlizzi, J., Koskinen, I., DiSalva, C., Wansveen, S. & Bardzell, J. (2011). Quality Control: A Panel on the Critique and Criticism of Design Research. In Proc of CHI ‘11.

[5] Forlizzi, J., & Zimmerman, J., personal communication, October 17, 2014.

[6] Forlizzi, J., Zimmerman, J., & Evenson, S. (2008). Crafting a place for interaction design research in HCI. Design Issues, 24(3), 19-29.

[7] Forlizzi, J., Zimmerman, J., & Stolterman, E. (2009). From design research to theory: Evidence of a maturing field. In Proc. of IASDR, 9, 2889-2898.

[8] Frayling, C. Research in Art and Design. Royal College of Art Research Papers 1, 1 (1993), 1-5.

[9] Gaver, W. (2012, May). What should we expect from research through design? In Proc of CHI ‘12, 937-946.

[10] Gaver, W., personal communication, October 23, 2014.

[11] Gaver, W., Blythe, M., Boucher, A., Jarvis, N., Bowers, J., & Wright, P. (2010). The prayer companion: openness and specificity, materiality and spirituality. In Proc of CHI ‘10, 2055-2064.

[12] Gaver, W., Bowers, J., Boucher, A., Gellerson, H., Pennington, S., Schmidt, A., & Walker, B. (2004). The drift table: designing for ludic engagement. In Proc CHI'04, 885-900.

[13] Giller, V., Tscheligi, M., Sefelin, R., Makela, A., Puskala, A. & Karvonen, K. (1999). Maypole highlights: image makers. In Interactions, 12-15.

[14] Koskinen, I., Zimmerman, J., Binder, T., Redstrom, J. & Wensveen, S. (2011). Design Research Through Practice: From the Lab, Field, and Showroom. Elsevier.

[15] Mäkelä, A., Giller, V., Tscheligi, M., & Sefelin, R. (2000). Joking, storytelling, artsharing, expressing affection: a field trial of how children and their social network communicate with digital images in leisure time. In Proc of CHI ’00. 548-555.

[16] Ozenc, K. F., Brommer, J. P., Jeong, B. K., Shih, N., Au, K., & Zimmerman, J. (2007). Reverse alarm clock: a research through design example of designing for the self. In Proc of Designing pleasurable products and interfaces ’07. 392-406.

[17] Stolterman, E. (2008). The nature of design practice and implications for interaction design research. International Journal of Design, 2(1), 55-65.

[18] Zimmerman, J. (2009). Designing for the Self: Making Products That Help People Become the Person They Desire to Be. In Proc of CHI ‘09.

[19] Zimmerman, J., & Forlizzi, J. (2008). The role of design artifacts in design theory construction. Artifact, 2(1), 41-45.

[20] Zimmerman, J., & Forlizzi, J. (2014). Research Through Design in HCI. In Ways of Knowing in HCI. Springer, 167-189.

[21] Zimmerman, J., Forlizzi, J., & Evenson, S. (2007). Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI. In Proc of CHI ’07, 493-502.

[22] Zimmerman, J., Stolterman, E., & Forlizzi, J. (2010). An analysis and critique of research through design: towards a formalization of a research approach. In Proc of DIS ‘10, 310-319.

A Rich User Interface for a Digital Camera

Digital Camera Prototypes - Image from [2]Rich user interfaces (RUIs) demonstrate “the notion that form, interaction and function are strongly related to each other and should be designed simultaneously” [2]. To demonstrate this idea, Joep Frens created digital cameras that embodied this concept. Throughout the process there were many physical prototypes made to find the best possible RUI for a digital camera. Frens created four interfaces which varied along two dimensions—whether they reflected the mode of use, and whether they had mode-relevant action possibilities. Reflection of mode of use is when the camera changes shape depending on what mode it is in. Mode-relevant action possibilities are functions that are only visible when the user is in the appropriate mode. After deciding on the four RUIs along these dimensions, a working prototype was made of each, so functionality could be tested in controlled lab studies. In the lab studies, participants received instructions and then took photographs with the camera; a questionnaire was used to evaluate user experience [2]. Rich interaction cameras are an example of Koskinen’s ‘lab’ practice, because they combine design with an exploration of interaction through controlled lab studies.

Video Examples

The Drift Table

SnackBot

Plane Tracker

Knowledge Navigator

The SenseChair

The Reverse Alarm Clock

The Reverse Alarm Clock - Image from [16]The Reverse Alarm Clock is a device that has two primary purposes: i) to help parents “feel like better parents” [16] and ii) to encourage young children to remain in bed during the night. The clock was formed of four parts, a display of the moon and sun, a bedside treasure box, a controller and a bed sensor. The clock displays a lit-up moon and stars when it is night-time, and a sun when it is daytime. The children is supposed to remain in bed when the moon is up, can choose to get out of bed if the moon has set, and should get up if the sun has risen. This project is an example of design for self in several ways. The display illustrates time in an understandable manner for children who cannot yet understand a clock. The product “gives parents more control over their lives”, and helps them to teach their young children [16].

Rich Interaction Camera

Presentation

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Authors: Jennifer Payne, Anna Witcraft

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