Peter Vistisen

Adopting the Unknown through the Known: Supporting user interaction of non-idiomatic technologies in exhibitions through known idioms of conventional technologies

Abstract When designing for the next wave of technologies, a challenge is how to culturally appropriate the semantic idioms of new technology to users with little experiential knowledge about the technology. This is especially a challenge, when more and more attractions are becoming unmanned, with little possibility for guidance. In this paper, we hypothesise that non-idiomatic technologies can be supported by leveraging existing idiomatic knowledge on more conventional technologies and thus lower the participation barrier. In two cases collected with several Danish attractions we experimented with supporting design with traditional technology, such as video signs, social media and physical signs to assess how idiomatic formats could facilitate the use of the non-idiomatic technology. We contribute with a set of lessons learned for how non-idiomatic design situations can be facilitated through using the users existing knowledge with more conventional technological practices.

Is Design a Plus?: A dilemma of disciplines when implementing design into academic education

Abstract Universities are increasingly implementing design into their education programmes across the humanities, social science, natural sciences and business schools. Through design, it can therefore be argued that academic education is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, implementing design along with the given academic discipline’s traditional curriculum. With design moving into other disciplines and schools of thought, the question arises as to what types of knowledge contribution can be identified and how can the established schools of thought comprehend a new type of knowledge contribution. In this paper, we will discuss an epistemological dilemma that occurred when implementing design into established humanistic education at Aalborg University, which is a problems-based learning (PBL) university. From our empirical observations, having implemented design into the humanistic curriculum, a series of educational dilemmas arose. We therefore pose, and later discuss, the following question: Can interdisciplinary universities with any fair claim expect their students to both create a constructive design contribution as well as a ‘classic’ academic contribution – or should the constructive design itself be acknowledged as a knowledge contribution?

Animating the ethical demand: exploring user dispositions in industry innovation cases through animation-based sketching

This paper addresses the challenge of attaining ethical user stances during the design process of products and services and proposes animation-based sketching as a design method, which supports elaborating and examining different ethical stances towards the user. The discussion is qualified by an empirical study of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in a Triple Helix constellation. Using a three-week long innovation workshop, UCrAc, involving 16 Danish companies and organisations and 142 students as empirical data, we discuss how animation-based sketching can explore not yet existing user dispositions, as well as create an incentive for ethical conduct in development and innovation processes. The ethical fulcrum evolves around Løgstrups Ethical Demand and his notion of spontaneous life manifestations. From this, three ethical stances are developed; apathy, sympathy and empathy. By exploring both apathetic and sympathetic views, the ethical reflections are more nuanced as a result of actually seeing the user experience simulated through different user dispositions. Exploring the three ethical stances by visualising real use cases with the technologies simulated as already being implemented makes the life manifestations of the users in context visible. We present and discuss how animation-based sketching can support the elaboration and examination of different ethical stances towards the user in the product and service development process. Finally we present a framework for creating narrative representations of emerging technology use cases, which invite to reflection upon the ethics of the user experience.