Sara Colombo

Dynamic Products: Shaping Information to Engage and Persuade

This book explores how dynamic changes inproductssensory features can be used to convey information to the user inaneffective and engaging way. The aim is to supply the reader with a clear understanding of an important emerging area of research and practice in product design, referred to as dynamic products, which is opening up new possibilities for the integration of product design with digital and smart technologies and offering an alternative to the use of digital interfaces. Dynamic products are artifacts displaying sensory characteristics visual, tactile, auditory, or olfactory that change in a proactive and reversible way over time, addressing one or more of the users senses. The reader will learn why and how to communicate by means of such dynamic products. Their potential advantages and limitations are identified and design tools are proposed to support the design activity. It is hoped that the book will stimulate the design community to reflect upon the ever more compelling need to merge the virtual and the material in the information society by exploiting technological possibilities in order to create more meaningful and involving experiences.

Information embodiment: how products communicate through dynamic sensory features

Products are more and more required to communicate messages to users, as ICT is invading the realm of everyday objects. This paper explores the possibility to communicate bits of information to the user through dynamic changes in the product sensory features, as an alternative to digital interfaces. The aim is both to propose a descriptive framework for the analysis of this emerging category of dynamic products, and to investigate the role each sensory modality may assume in the transmission of different kinds of messages. The study was performed through a case study methodology, by collecting products, prototypes and concepts which show dynamic sensory features. Through the analysis of the selected samples, hypotheses about the role of different senses and stimuli in conveying different kinds of information have been extracted. These are going to be used as starting points for further research in this field.

New Design Thinking Tools for the Next Generation of Designer-Entrepreneurs

Abstract This paper analyses a new phenomenon to date poorly researched both in entrepreneurship and Design Thinking literature: Design-Intensive Start-ups (DIS), i.e. start-ups that focus on design as primary source for their development. Two main questions underpin the study: what are the specific features that describe design-intensive start-ups? Which are possible conceptual tools supporting designers in the creation of their own design-based enterprises? A multiple case studies protocol was adopted to investigate the first question. According to our results, DIS diverge from New-Technology Start-ups on several dimensions, and represent an alternative entrepreneurial model, which is not supported by extant literature. Currently, there are no tools helping designers to become entrepreneurs. Therefore, we developed a set of Design Thinking tools addressing the specific traits of DIS in the steps of their creation and evolution. Such tools are intended to support the decision-making process of designers-entrepreneurs in the foundation of their own start-ups.

Exploring Dynamic Products by User Experience

This chapter presents the last research activity, aimed at exploring user’s reactions to dynamic products. Indeed, in analysing the potentialities and limits related to the adoption of this new kind of communication, it is necessary to consider the effects it has on final users. The goal of this study was to perform a preliminary investigation from the user’s point of view, in order to extrapolate insights about users’ impressions and disposals towards this uncommon type of communication. The results highlight potentials and limits of the communication performed by dynamic products, from the user’s perspective.

Communicating by Products: From Sensory Features to Digital Interfaces

This chapter presents a critical literature review of the types of communication performed by products. This is indeed an interesting area to explore, for communication can occur at different levels, with different aims, and can rely on diverse media. The aim of this chapter is to highlight and analyse how objects can act as communicative means able to transmit various types of information. Artefacts’ ability to convey bits of information to users is an issue product design has widely investigated in the last decades. Products can be understood as communication media by different points of view. On the one hand, they are able to convey implicit messages through their mere sensory appearance (shape, colour, texture, weight, etc.). On the other hand, they have acquired the ability to transmit digital information to users thanks to displays or visual interfaces. This chapter focuses on the analysis of products as media, by exploring and describing the ways products convey voluntary or involuntary messages by their physical or digital features. The different levels of product-based communication will be analysed, with a particular attention to their features and their effects on the overall user experience.

The Emerging Area of Dynamic Products

This chapter investigates how technology transforms products and their aesthetics, making it possible to have dynamic sensory features. The chapter also introduces the concept of dynamic aesthetics, which stems from the merging of physical with digital in the field of product design. The relation between the object’s physical and temporal form is explained, as means to create aesthetic experiences. The concept of dynamic products refers to artefacts showing sensory features (visual, tactile, auditory and olfactory) that change in a proactive and reversible way over time. The possibility to use these dynamic changes in the product’s sensory appearance as media to convey dynamic messages is introduced, as an alternative to conventional digital interfaces. At the end of the chapter, the research questions and the methodology followed to explore the field of dynamic products are explained.

Merging Digital and Physical: Tangible Interactions

This chapter analyses how recent research strands in the area of HCI and interaction design have tried to reconnect the digital (immaterial) to the physical (material) world, especially in the areas of Ubiquitous Computing and Tangible Interactions. Three typologies of Tangible Interactions are identified according to their aims, which are: (a) helping users manipulate virtual data existing in computer machines; (b) giving access and control to the digital functions of everyday products (e.g. mp3, music players, washing machines, etc.); (c) conveying information coming from the digital and virtual world (information generated by sensors, controllers, detectors, etc. or user-generated contents). This last category is the one investigated by this work. This review is helpful to understand how disciplines different from design have approached this issue, their aims and results, in order to use them as references and starting points to further direct this investigation.

Exploring Dynamic Products by Case Studies

In recent years, a number of commercial products, prototypes and concepts showing dynamic sensory features have been developed, and the interest in this topic continues to grow. However, research in this field is still at an embryonic stage, and there are no theoretical approaches for the analysis of these new artefacts. This chapter suggests an interpretative model to understand and analyse the category of dynamic products, starting from a preliminary case-study analysis, performed by collecting samples of what has already been developed in design practice. It explores the possibility to communicate dynamic messages to users through changes in the sensory features of products as a possible, and engaging, alternative to the alphanumeric language of interfaces. The main aim is to give an initial reading of this emerging area and to propose a first descriptive framework, by identifying a number of parameters useful for the description and classification of dynamic products.

Exploring Dynamic Products by Design Practice

After generating a theoretical descriptive framework for dynamic products, this chapter presents the investigation of dynamic products by a real design project in the field of sustainability, performed in collaboration with the Energy Design Studio, Interactive Institute-Swedish ICT. By engaging in a research-through-design process, it was possible to identify a number of potentials and weaknesses related to the use of dynamic products as communication means in a specific design context.