Henrik Korsgaard

City bug report: urban prototyping as participatory process and practice

This paper explores the wider contexts of digital policy, transparency, digitisation and how this changes city administration and the role of the (digital) publics, using City Bug Report as a design case. Employing a mix between design research and action research, the authors exemplify and analyse elements of both the design process, the organizational, the political and technological contexts. They point to the role of researchers and designers in exploring and understanding digital elements of public space as not merely registering structures but also actively engaging in public discourse, providing critique and alternatives as much as solutions. Further research and challenges are discussed.

Odenplan: a media façade design process

In this paper we present an example of how to work with the challenges inherent in media façade design processes. We base the paper on our experiences from the creation of a series of design proposals for a media façade on the Odenplan subway station in Stockholm, Sweden. We approach the question of how to design for media façades by discussing how we have structured our design process to address specific sets of challenges outlined in previous literature in the field of media architecture. In our view, such research is valuable in that it helps establish common ground for researchers and practitioners in a developing field by building a repertoire of approaches, as well as highlight important issues that need to be addressed in this emergent field.

'A Farmer, a Place and at least 20 Members': The Development of Artifact Ecologies in Volunteer-based Communities

In this paper, we present a case study of an urban organic food community and examine the way the community shapes its artifact ecology through a combination of appropriation of freely or cheaply available tools, and the long-term effort of building the communitys own website. Based on participatory observation, content analysis of communication documents, and a series of interviews, we see how the collection of artifacts that a community uses to support their practice form what we refer to as their community artifact ecology. A community artifact ecology is multifaceted, dynamic and pending on what the members bring to the table, as well as on particular situations of use. The community artifact ecology concept is important for CSCW as it enables framing of the relationship between communities and technologies beyond the single artifact and beyond a static view of a dedicated technology.

Proxemic Transitions: Designing Shape-Changing Furniture for Informal Meetings

The field of Shape-Changing Interfaces explores the qualities of physically dynamic artifacts. At furniture-scale, such artifacts have the potential of changing the ways we collaborate and engage with interiors and physical spaces. Informed by theories of proxemics, empirical studies of informal meetings and design work with shape-changing furniture, we develop the notion of proxemic transitions. We present three design aspects of proxemic transitions: transition speed, stepwise reconfiguration, and radical shifts. The design aspects focus on how to balance between physical and digital transformations in designing for proxemic transitions. Our contribution is three-fold: 1) the notion of proxemic transitions, 2) three design aspects to consider in designing for proxemic transitions, and 3) initial exploration of how these design aspects might generate designs of dynamic furniture. These contributions outline important aspects to consider when designing shape-changing furniture for informal workplace meetings.

Happenstance, Strategies and Tactics: Intrinsic Design in a Volunteer-based Community

This paper presents the study of a volunteer community, its technologies, and the processes in and through which it develops, sustains and makes its community artifact ecology work. Based on previous work proposing the concept of community artifact ecology as a way of understanding the constellation of technologies a community owns, has access to and uses in their practices, we examine the dynamics and development of such a community artifact ecology in detail. The findings indicate that in volunteer communities developing a working community artifact ecology is a process mixing happenstance, community strategies and everyday tailoring and appropriation tactics. Additionally, much of the design and infrastructuring work in shaping the community artifact ecology and making it work both blurs with use and can be considered as intrinsic design as it is conducted by members of the community, with no input from the outside. Based on the empirical findings we expand on multiple positions within the theoretical space of design-in-use and intrinsic practice transformation mediated by technology and conclude with a more multi-faceted understanding of the shaping of technology in volunteer-based communities.

Computational alternatives in participatory design: putting the t back in socio-technical research

This paper takes its starting point in a concern that Participatory Design (PD) and PD research have lost interest in innovating and reshaping technologies. We examine decades of projects and the current state of affairs and propose computational alternatives as a means of questioning the state of affairs and reintroducing a technical research interest into PD. Computational alternatives are used to systematically question the technological status quo and peak into a possible future; they are material manifestations of our focus and curiosity and can aid us in inquiring into possible socio-technical alternatives. Ultimately we focus on whether (and how) it is possible to maintain a technological research agenda in participatory and user-centered design, without giving up on pursuit of strong conceptual and theoretical insights.

Cross-Surface: Challenges and Opportunities for 'bring your own device' in the wild

In this workshop, we will review and discuss challenges and opportunities for HCI in relation to cross-surface interaction in the wild based on the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) practice. We aim to bring together researchers and practitioners working on technical infra-structures for cross-surface computing, studies of cross-surface computing in particular domains as well as interaction challenges for introducing cross-surface computing in the wild, all with a particular focus on BYOD. Examples of application domains are: cultural institutions, work places, public libraries, schools and education.

PARTICIPATE: Capturing Knowledge in Public Library Activities

We present PARTICIPATE, a technology probe exploring how to strengthen the connection between activities taking place at public libraries and their collections, both in the digital realm and in the physical space. Based on ethnographic studies and participatory design activities, we derive three core implications for place- and activity centric library services. These implications led us to design PARTICIPATE in collaboration with library staff from three European countries. The probe is a mean to investigate how place- and activity-centric digital services in the library space can engage participants in co-creating knowledge, and enable libraries to integrate activities with library collections.

Integrating laboratory paradigms and ethnographic field studies for advancing analyses of creative processes

This symposium responds to calls for an integration of in-vivo and in-vitro methods when studying how people tackle complex, open-ended issues in the areas of creativity, design, and innovation. Bringing together expertise from multiple perspectives and methodological backgrounds we explore fruitful ways towards integrative approaches to analyzing creative processes and practices. The theme is addressed from theoretical and practical viewpoints.

Labyrinth within: emergence through documentation

This paper outlines our design proposal for the OZCHI 24 hour design challenge. The design brief challenged us to identify an unused space and revitalise it through a design proposal. Through a series of inquires we conceived a design concept, introducing a labyrinthine experience into a linear urban space. Our argument in this paper is that documentation and externalisation serves both as a way of communicating the process, as well as creating an understanding of the design situation.