Jared Donovan

Getting the point: The role of gesture in managing intersubjectivity in a design activity

Abstract This paper illustrates the complexity of pointing as it is employed in a design workshop. Using the method of interaction analysis, we argue that pointing is not merely employed to index, locate, or fix reference to an object. It also constitutes a practice for reestablishing intersubjectivity and solving interactional trouble such as misunderstandings or disagreements by virtue of enlisting something as part of the participants’ shared experience. We use this analysis to discuss implications for how such practices might be supported with computer mediation, arguing for a “bricolage” approach to systems development that emphasizes the provision of resources for users to collaboratively negotiate the accomplishment of intersubjectivity rather than systems that try to support pointing as a specific gestural action.

Materialities influencing the design process

The use of material artefacts within the design process is a long-standing and continuing characteristic of interaction design. Established methods, such as prototyping, which have been widely adopted by educators and practitioners, are seeing renewed research interest and being reconsidered in light of the evolving needs of the field. Alongside this, the past decade has seen the introduction and adoption of a diverse range of novel design methods into interaction design, such as cultural probes, technology probes, context mapping, and provotypes. Yet, interaction design does not have a cohesive framework for understanding this diverse range of practices. Such a framework would assist practitioners in comparing and choosing between methods across the different stages, contexts and stakeholder relations within a design process. It seems that one fruitful place to start in addressing this lack is to focus in on the common characteristic that these practices share of materialities influencing the design process.

Design of a Tangible Data Visualization

In this paper we describe the design of DNA Jewellery, which is a wearable tangible data representation of personal DNA profile data. An iterative design process was followed to develop a 3D form-language that could be mapped to standard DNA profile data, with the aim of retaining readability of data while also producing an aesthetically pleasing and unique result in the area of personalized design. The work explores design issues with the production of data tangibles, contributes to a growing body of research exploring tangible representations of data and highlights the importance of approaches that move between technology, art and design.

Mini-Orb: A Personal Indoor Climate Preference Feedback Interface

The control of environmental factors in open-office environments, such as lighting and temperature is becoming increasingly automated. This development means that office inhabitants are losing the ability to manually adjust environmental conditions according to their needs. In this paper we describe the design, use and evaluation of MiniOrb, a system that employs ambient and tangible interaction mechanisms to allow inhabitants of office environments to maintain awareness of environmental factors, report on their own subjectively perceived office comfort levels and see how these compare to group average preferences. The system is complemented by a mobile application, which enables users to see and set the same sensor values and preferences, but using a screen-based interface. We give an account of the system’s design and outline the results of an in situ trial and user study. Our results show that devices that combine ambient and tangible interaction approaches are well suited to the task of recording indoor climate preferences and afford a rich set of possible interactions that can complement those enabled by more conventional screen-based interfaces.

MiniOrb: a sensor interaction platform for indoor climate preferences

We introduce the MiniOrb platform, a combined sensor and interaction platform built to understand and encourage the gathering of data around personal indoor climate preferences in office environments. The platform consists of a sensor device, gathering localised environmental data and an attached tangible interaction and ambient display device. This device allows users to understand their local environment and record preferences with regards to their preferred level of office comfort. In addition to the tangible device we built a web-based mobile application that allowed users to record comfort preferences through a different interface. This paper describes the design goals and technical setup of the MiniOrb platform.

Evaluating the use of ambient and tangible interaction approaches for personal indoor climate preferences

In this paper we describe the preliminary results of a field study which evaluated the use of MiniOrb, a system that employs ambient and tangible interaction mechanisms to allow inhabitants of office environments to report on subjectively perceived office comfort levels. The purpose of this study was to explore the role of ubiquitous computing in the individual control of indoor climate and specifically answer the question to what extent ambient and tangible interaction mechanisms are suited for the task of capturing individual comfort preferences in a non-obtrusive manner. We outline the preliminary results of an in-situ trial of the system.

Direct End-User Interaction with and Through IoT Devices

Research addressing the Internet of Things (IoT) has been predominantly concerned with the interconnection of physical devices. However, increasingly complex application scenarios require us to further investigate the interface between IoT devices and users. In this book chapter, we explore the possibilities of direct end-user interaction with and through IoT devices. We do this by examining the increasing automation of environmental factors, such as temperature and lighting, in open-office environments. Increasing automation offers many benefits around responsiveness of buildings to environmental conditions and improved energy efficiency, but can result in a reduction in office inhabitants’ options for manual control of their environment. To inquire into this issue, we designed and evaluated an IoT device called the MiniOrb. The device employs tangible and ambient interaction and feedback mechanisms to support office environment inhabitants in maintaining awareness about environmental conditions. It reports on their subjective perceptions and opinions around comfort levels in the office and receives feedback on how their individual preferences compare with their colleagues’. A mobile-device-based version of the application was also created. Employing screen and touch interactions, this version of the interface enables users to access the same information as the tangible device, but with different degrees of input precision and ambient interaction. We describe the design of the system along with the results of a trial of the device with real users, including a post-trial interview. The results shed light on how IoT devices can support direct end-user interaction by combining ambient and tangible interaction approaches. Such devices can mediate the interpretation of sensed data by end-users, as well as help collect crowd-sourced data that directly relate to sensed data.

Unlocking the Value of Literature in Health Co-Design: Transforming Patient Experience Publications into a Creative and Accessible Card Tool

BackgroundA wealth of peer-reviewed data exists regarding people’s health experience, yet practical ways of using the data to understand patients’ experiences and to inform health co-design are needed.ObjectiveThis study aims to develop an applied and pragmatic method for using patient experience literature in co-design by transforming it into an accessible and creative co-design tool.MethodA scoping literature review of the CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and PubMed electronic databases was conducted from January 2011 through August 2016. Qualitative publications regarding the experience of living with diabetes in Australia were selected. The Results section of each paper was extracted and affinity analysis was applied to identify insights into the health experience. These insights were developed into a card tool for use in health co-design activities.ResultsThirteen relevant papers were identified from the review, and affinity analysis of the Results sections of these papers lead to the identification of 85 insights, from ‘Shock of diagnosis’ (Insight 1), to ‘Delay seeking care’ (Insight 9), to ‘Assess the quality of care’ (Insight 28), to ‘Avoid or adapt habits’ (Insight 78). Each insight was developed into an individual card, which included a high-level theme, insight, quote and a link back to the literature, together making up the Health Experience Insight Cards, Living with Diabetes Edition.ConclusionsThis was the first study to develop a method for transforming existing patient experience literature into a creative tool for health improvement. The Health Experience Insight Cards collate the diverse experiences of over 300 people living with diabetes in Australia, from 13 studies. Health improvement teams can use the ‘Living with Diabetes Edition’ cards or they can follow this pragmatic method to create their own cards focused on other health experiences to facilitate person-focused health improvements.

Gestural, Emergent and Expressive: Three Research Themes for Haptic Interaction

Drawing on three case studies of work in the fields of participatory design, interaction design and electronic arts, we reflect on the implications of these studies for haptic interface research. We propose three themes: gestural; emergent; and expressive; as signposts for a program of research into haptic interaction that could point the way towards novel approaches to haptic interaction and move us from optic to haptic ways of seeing.

Interactive lounge: an interdisciplinary approach to the design of a gestural interaction device

Among the many new opportunities that digital technologies are enabling are an increased capacity for viewers to interact not only with the program content, but with an increasingly wide array of other digital applications. Within this context this project has developed a new interaction device (incorporating gestural platform technology) and user interfaces to facilitate interactive access to digital media in a lounge room setting. This paper provides an overview of an interdisciplinary design process applied by Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) researchers—in order to develop the device and present in detail its unique features.