Mette Agger Eriksen

Taking design games seriously: re-connecting situated power relations of people and materials

Using design games at Participatory Design (PD) events is well acknowledged as a fruitful way of staging participation. As PD researchers, we have many such experiences, and we have argued that design games connect participants and promote equalizing power relations. However, in this paper, we will (self) critically re-connect and reflect on how people (humans) and materials (non-humans) continually participate and intertwine in various power relations in design game situations. The analysis is of detailed situated actions with one of our recent games, UrbanTransition. Core concepts mainly from Bruno Latours work on Actor-Network-Theory are applied. The aim is to take design games seriously by e.g. exploring how assemblages of humans and non-humans are intertwined in tacitly-but-tactically staging participation, and opening up for or hindering negotiations and decision-making, thus starting to relate research on various PD techniques and power issues more directly.

Explicit interaction for surgical rehabilitation

We discuss the design ideal of explicit interaction, which is a way to approach the dimensions of explicitness versus ambience and explicitness versus obtrusiveness in ubiquitous computing. Explicit interaction refers to interaction techniques designed to make actions and intentions visible, understandable and accountable. We introduce three levels of analysis---usability, materialization, and social performance---and present the design of an explicit interaction assembly of devices for rehabilitation after hand surgery. The assembly, intended to support video recording during patient-therapist consultations, is evaluated and we find that it provides superior usability and the potential to improve rehabilitation outcomes through materialization. Moreover, we find that the design of cues to support the social practice in the rehabilitation ward needs to be improved since the assembly allowed for uses unanticipated during the design.

Opening the digital box for design work: supporting performative interactions, using inspirational materials and configuring of place

We started the work reported on here with the ambition to create inspirational learning environments for design and architecture students in the spirit of Weiser’s vision of taking the computer “out of the box” and making computational resources augment a design studio environment ubiquitously. Computing environments are becoming populated by a rich and diverse set of devices and networks, many of them integrated with the physical landscape of space and artefacts. Early attempts to take the desktop metaphor of graphical interface design back to the real desktops and whiteboards by exploring new semantics of interaction was pioneered by Weiser’s group, as well as by Buxton and others (Weiser 1993; Fitzmaurice 1995; Rekimoto 1997). The idea to have a new and more complex set of physical handles to digital media promised a richer interaction between people and technology, and, in line with Engelbart’s pioneering work on direct manipulation for graphical user interfaces (Engelbart 1962), a new set of generic interface building blocks would open up a new realm for design of interaction technologies.

Co-Design in co-production processes: jointly articulating and appropriating infrastructuring and commoning with civil servants

Abstract The public sector, increasingly acknowledging a need for change but strongly influenced by market logics, is experimenting with new forms of co-production of public services based on collaborations between public providers, citizens and societal actors. At the same time, Co-design researchers, are using approaches of infrastructuring and commoning to navigate questions of participation and collaboration in co-production. By discussing the case of ReTuren, a co-produced service for waste handling and prevention, this article presents how infrastructuring and commoning can offer guidance to civil servants engaging in co-production. In the case, civil servants on an operational level and an ‘embedded’ Co-Design researcher worked side-by-side in the co-production of the service, jointly articulating and appropriating approaches of infrastructuring and commoning. The case reveals that the joint appropriation and articulation of these Co-Design approaches can lead to the development of new ways of operating and perspectives in the public sector. However, it also highlights that this joint effort needs to involve people across organisational levels in order to minimise possible contextual and worldview breakdowns within public organisations.

Experiments all the Way in Programmatic Design Research

This article has been selected for a special issue of the online journal Artifact. Experiments take various forms, have various purposes, and generate various knowledge, depending on how and when they are integrated into a design research study. In this paper, as reflective (co-) design researchers/practitioners, we exemplify and argue ways in which different experiments can be at the core of a research project throughout the study. As former PhD scholars, with design backgrounds, both of us were engaged in the XLab project (2006), proposing a programmatic approach to experimental design research. This paper reflects our experiences of adapting this approach in PhD studies. Furthermore it exemplifies, discusses, and adds to the understanding of different experiments during a design research (PhD) process. In the paper, we also reprint our two modifications of the original XLab ‘working diagram’ and discuss rationales for adapting this as a part of the research process.

The CARE Concept - Holding on to augmentable paper during post surgery rehabilitation

This paper presents our early experiences with the design of digital technology that aims to support the process of collaborative articulation taking place at patient-caregiver consultations during post surgery rehabilitation. Augmentable paper documents (CARE paper) can be powerful resources in this process for caregiver as well as patient. The CARE paper can carry links to digital media. A prototype implementation demonstrating how to create and retrieve links between digital media and the CARE paper is presented. The work presented was carried out and assessed along with studies at a major hand surgery clinic and with the active participation from patients and staff at this clinic

Interaction design as understanding and transforming place

Space becomes place through a rich interplay of actors, actions and associations, and techniques drawn from performance, gaming and architecture are well adapted to helping us understand and design for complex environments. Our experience working with masters-level interaction design students in the ATELIER project has demonstrated that these ‘cross-dressing’ techniques can create a climate of awareness in which inspirational learning and innovative design can occur.