Stephan Wensveen

Augmenting fun and beauty: a pamphlet

In this article we describe how the augmented reality and product design communities, which share the common interest of combining the real and the virtual, might learn from each other. From our side, we would like to share with you some of our ideas about product design which we consider highly relevant for the augmented reality community. In a pamphlet we list 10 sloganesque points for action which challenge the status quo in product design. Finally, we present some projects which show how these points could be implemented. We hope this approach will inspire those involved in augmented reality design and help them to avoid the pitfalls that the product design community is now trying to crawl out of.

Let's make things engaging

Technology and electronics have given us many positive things, but also changed our ways of interacting and relationships with products, and not always for the better. As humans are emotional beings, why not make interaction a more fun and beautiful experience, based on all human skills? We have explored for several decades how physicality of electronic and digital products could be reinstated to restore engagement. This chapter focuses on those neglected aspects of human-product interaction and potential directions to address them.

From perception to experience, from affordances to irresistibles

What is design doing at universities, and organizing conferences on pleasurable products?

A designerly critique on enchantment

To develop the concept of user experience in HCI, McCarthy et al. introduce the notion of enchantment in interaction design. They describe five sensibilities that support exploration and evaluation in design for enchantment. In this paper, we discuss design for enchantment in light of our approach to design for interaction, called design for meaningful mediation. Based on our experiences from case studies, we argue that ‘considering the whole person with feelings, desires and anxieties’, one of the sensibilities McCarthy et al. formulate, influences the desirability and realisation of the other four sensibilities. By way of case studies, we show how we explored the link between ‘the whole person’ and desired interaction experience in a designerly way. We place enchantment in a context of other interaction experiences and demonstrate possible design techniques relevant to design for interaction experiences, including enchantment.

Designing tangible artefacts for playful interactions and dialogues

This paper reports on the design process and iterative development of two tangible artefacts that aim to encourage and explore playful interactions and dialogues between grandchildren and grandparents living at separate locations. These designed prototypes respond to the Magic Box which is a cultural probe specifically created to explore playful activity at-a-distance in a non-electronic way. This paper reports on the process of project definition, technical design requirements, scenario creation and iterative prototype development. We interpret the ethnographic data from the Magic Box research; we develop activity scenarios to describe potential activities; and we design and develop working interaction prototypes to be tested in the field in future studies.

Tactile Dialogues: Personalization of Vibrotactile Behavior to Trigger Interpersonal Communication

This article describes tests that have been conducted with Tactile Dialogues, a textile pillow that can react to touch with vibrotactile stimuli and haptic sensations. Tactile Dialogues is designed to stimulate movement and interpersonal contact for patients in the late stages of dementia, their family members and their caregivers. The most recent prototype of the pillow has been tested during 15 separate visits of family members or caregivers with patients. The aim of these tests is to find out whether personalization of the vibrotactile stimuli is appreciated over a mirroring vibrotactile behavior. We propose a three-scale measurement to help family members and caregivers examine the responses of the patient: muscular relaxation, physical movement and interpersonal contact. Through the semi-structured interviews we identified that family members and caregivers do appreciate the opportunity to personalize the vibrotactile behavior and that the pillow mainly functions as a way to establish communication with the patient.

Quality control: a panel on the critique and criticism of design research

Design research is an emerging area in design that has increasing relevance to the field of HCI. While we have made advances in integrating design research methods, approaches, and outcomes in HCI, we still have a way to go. This is due to fundamental differences in the development of design knowledge as compared to scientific knowledge and knowledge about human theories of behavior. We call together this panel at CHI 2011, comprised of leading HCIdesign researchers, to explore ways to develop and refine critical discussions of design research within the HCI community.

Growth plan for an inspirational test-bed of smart textile services

In this pictorial we visualize the growth plan for an inspirational test-bed of smart textile product service systems. The goal of the test-bed is to inspire and inform the Dutch creative industries of textile, interaction and service design to combine their strengths and share opportunities. The pictures exemplify the characteristic tools, approaches and prototypes for three phases of growth: Incubation, Nursery and Adoption.

1 – Constructive Design Research

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the “constructive design research,” which refers to design research in which construction—be it product, system, space, or media—takes center place and becomes the key means in constructing knowledge. Typically, this “thing” in the middle is a prototype like iFloor. However, it can also be a scenario, a mock-up, or just a detailed concept that could be constructed. The chapter specifically focuses on leading examples of constructive research but follows empiricist and pragmatist approach rather than offer a definition grounded in logic or theory. Further it builds primarily on work carried out in art and design schools. The art and design tradition has an important message to more technically oriented designers. Above all, designers coming from the art school tradition have many ways to deal with the “halfway” between people and things. Design is a complex category that covers many subjects ranging from paper machines to the conceptual designs. This research work does not try to cover these topics; it mostly builds on work carried out in industrial design and interaction design—the main hubs of constructive design research.

7 – Designing ultra-personalised embodied smart textile services for well-being

Smart textiles are becoming more integrated with service ecosystems that go beyond the current horizontal textile value chain. This will extend the material and tangible properties of smart textiles to intangible properties from services, such as the ability to measure and store data and change the functionality of a material over time. It is thus becoming more urgent for textile developers and service providers to work closer together to develop these types of smart textile services (STSs). This opens up a vast field of opportunities for textile developers, product designers, and service designers to combine their disciplines to develop close-to-the-body applications in the area of well-being. The role of the body, the degree of personalisation, and the prototyping process provide opportunities for ultra-personalisation within these new types of embodied STSs. We present an overview of commercially available STSs based on these three elements. We then analyse three STSs that we have developed in the context of well-being. We advocate that within the exemplified STSs the service interface is strongly connected to the bodily senses of the people using the service. This connection is further specified with three notions of ultra-personalisation: personalisation through the material properties, the design of the garment, and the programming of the interactions with the wearer.