methods by Kristina Andersen
Becoming Travelers
Companion Publication of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 2020
Materially driven research can often feel like a long series of failed experiments, which ends wi... more Materially driven research can often feel like a long series of failed experiments, which ends with us telling only the story of how we succeeded. We propose engaging with the making experience as travelers, losing ourselves in the making while preserving the outcomes of each experiment. In doing so, we might be able to, on one hand document this iterative journey as a research outcome in itself and, on the other, identify the roads not travelled as opportunities and starting points for new projects. We present an open ended exploration that led us to articulating the possibilities of becoming travelers in the design process.
Companion Publication of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
This workshop aims to bring together Research through Design (RtD) practitioners in the DIS commu... more This workshop aims to bring together Research through Design (RtD) practitioners in the DIS community, giving them a space to present, debate, and discuss issues emerging from their work. In particular, our goal is to catalyze a focused conversation on contexts and specific situations of research through design, discussing the ins-and-outs of working in a specific context and with particular issues of consequence. Building on the success of prior RtD and design research workshops at HCI conferences, this workshop will focus on how RtD artifacts operate in these contexts, with the goal of connecting diverse artefacts with broader methods in HCI and Design.
Nordic Human-Computer Interaction Conference
As first-person perspective methods gain popularity in the field of HCI, discussion about methodo... more As first-person perspective methods gain popularity in the field of HCI, discussion about methodologies regarding their documentation has arisen due to the rich, context-dependent data that emerges from these methods. Reflective, multimedia documentation, along with annotation have been widely proposed in design research to address the qualitative and rich properties generated by a design process. In this pictorial, we analyze a workbook employing these practices as design case. It was used to document the design process of Undertone, a device designed for bodily awareness from a first-person perspective. Through identifying a page taxonomy, we reflect on how the practice of annotating supported the design process through continuous reflection practice and emphasizing relations between activities & decisions. We propose layered annotations as an approach to documenting first-person perspective design work that supports traceability of decisions, iterative working, collaboration and documenting the building of a practice.
Lecture notes in mobility, 2023
Co-design is an established method for ensuring a more democratic approach to design and change p... more Co-design is an established method for ensuring a more democratic approach to design and change propositions. It is however not without friction. In this chapter we describe parts of a process aimed at co-designing inclusive transport systems. In response to the friction of putting such theory into practice, we propose a set of coping mechanisms based on participant feedback. We suggest that such mechanisms have the potential to improve the co-design process beyond this particular case.
DIS '20: Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2020, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, July 6-10, 2020, Companion Volume
Companion Publication of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 2020
Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018
This paper reports design strategies for critical and experimental work that remains constructive... more This paper reports design strategies for critical and experimental work that remains constructive. We describe a design workshop that explored the "home hub" space through "imaginary design workbooks". These feature ambiguous images and annotations written in an invented language to suggest a design space without specifying any particular idea. Many of the concepts and narratives which emerged from the workshop focused on extreme situations: some thoughtful, some dystopian, some even mythic. One of the workshop ideas was then developed with a senior social worker who works with young offenders. A "digital social worker" concept was explored and critiqued simultaneously. We draw on Foucault's history of surveillance to "defamiliarise" both the home hub technology and the current youth justice system. We argue that the dichotomy between "constructive" and "critical" design is false because design is never neutral.
Nordes 2013: Experiments in Design Research, 2013
It is hard to imagine a future fundamentally different from what we know, yet increasingly people... more It is hard to imagine a future fundamentally different from what we know, yet increasingly people dream of and agitate for social, cultural and political change. Postcards From a (Better) Future is part of an evolving interrogation into how embodied-thinking-through-making might assist in the imagining of (better) futures that might otherwise elude us. It is a bid to empower people to imagine, through making, so that they may effectuate change. This paper describes the theoretical background and structure of the Postcards From a (Better) Future process. It provides background on the fundamental conceptual shifts; and discusses how and why the process, in and of itself, might constitute making.
Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2021
We present a vision for conversational user interfaces (CUIs) as probes for speculating with, rat... more We present a vision for conversational user interfaces (CUIs) as probes for speculating with, rather than as objects to speculate about. Popular CUIs, e.g., Alexa, are changing the way we converse, narrate, and imagine the world(s) to come. Yet, current conversational interactions normatively may promote non-desirable ends, delivering a restricted range of request-response interactions with sexist and digital colonialist tendencies. Our critical design approach envisions alternatives by considering how future voices can reside in CUIs as enabling probes. We present novel explorations that illustrate the potential of CUIs as critical design material, by critiquing present norms and conversing with imaginary species. As micro-level interventions, we show that conversations with diverse futures through CUIs can persuade us to critically shape our discourse on macro-scale concerns of the present, e.g., sustainability. We refect on how conversational interactions with pluralistic, imagined futures can contribute to how being human stands to change. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → HCI theory, concepts and models; Natural language interfaces.
Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2020
Design is commonly understood as a storytelling practice, yet we have few narratives with which t... more Design is commonly understood as a storytelling practice, yet we have few narratives with which to describe the felt experiences of struggle, pain, and difficulty, beyond treating them as subjects to resolve. This work uses the praxis of embodied design as a way to bring more complex narratives to the community for contemplation-to engage and entangle personal and difficult stories within a public context. We propose the term Design Memoirs for these first-person practices and reflections. Design Memoirs are subjective and corporeal in nature, and provide a direct and observable way to reckon with felt experiences through, and for, design. We demonstrate Design Memoirs by drawing on our own experiences as mothers, caregivers, and corporeal subjects. Following Barad, we propose a practice of diffractive reading to locate resonances between Design Memoirs which render difficult autobiographical material addressable, shareable, and open for new interpretations. We present this strategy as a method for arriving at deeper understandings of difficult experiences.
The deliberate cargo cult
Proceedings of the 2014 conference on Designing interactive systems, 2014
ABSTRACT Taking it's origin from the notion of the cargo cult as an elaborate misundersta... more ABSTRACT Taking it's origin from the notion of the cargo cult as an elaborate misunderstanding, this paper suggests a series of exploratory design methods to support users in generating requirements and scenarios-of-use for technological objects that do not yet exist. Strategies from fields such as art and performance are used to create experiences of user-involvement centered on the making of non-functional mock-ups. These can then act as props through which the participant can express their intuitions and concerns with a given technological notion. The processes described makes use of a broad range of cultural drivers to engage users in playful misunderstandings that facilitate new, out of the ordinary, interpretations of objects. The paper outlines the basis of three projects, discusses the drivers behind each project and suggests guidelines for creating these kinds of exploratory embodied experiences.
Collaborating with Intelligent Machines
Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2015
This workshop brings together researchers, designers and instrument builders to explore how we ca... more This workshop brings together researchers, designers and instrument builders to explore how we can reframe the way we design "machines" for creative expression. For the purpose of this event, we are focussing on the case of music, but the outcomes will be useful to the broader field of instruments and interfaces for creative work. Three opportunities/challenges are presenting themselves: The disappearing computer is putting embodiment back in the center of our concerns; intelligent agents are reaching a level of complexity, where it is feasible for an interface to provide suggestions based on your own work practices; and finally, creative work is increasingly done in collaboration reminiscent of the classic image of musicians playing in a group. Together, this opens up new possibilities to rethink how we "collaborate with machines" in our creative work. The workshop is focussed on charting these new possibilities and constraints.
Making Magic Machines
It is becoming increasingly common to include design methodology into innovation processes, but t... more It is becoming increasingly common to include design methodology into innovation processes, but this is still mostly done to problem-solve or user-test technologies that are already at a late stage of innovation. This paper describes an attempt to use a fine art sculptural process to access unspoken desires and fears of the new and unknown: an exploratory children's workshops aimed at uncovering new technological objects and needs using craft and embodied making. The workshop uses the notion of magic and machine as substitute for technology to allow a broader range of response. We ask questions like: How do we design magic? What is magical to you? If you could make anything at all, what would it be? The responses are low-fi objects built from paper, cardboard, wood, string and plastic. These objects are in turn treated as props in a process of enacting a future scenario-of-use. The paper describes the process itself as well as a small selection of the resulting objects and sugge...
explorative making by Kristina Andersen
Research Through Design 2017 - conference panelist and review committee member
The third biennial Research through Design (RTD) conference was held in Edinburgh, UK, between th... more The third biennial Research through Design (RTD) conference was held in Edinburgh, UK, between the 22nd and 24th of March 2017 and focused on New Disciplines of Making – Shared Knowledge in Doing. RTD supports the dissemination of practice-based research through a novel and experimental conference format, comprising a curated exhibition of design research, accompanied by round-table discussions in ‘Rooms of Interest’. The exhibition will be used as a platform for presenting and demonstrating research processes and outputs, and for generating debate on the role of the design practitioner and their work in a research context. So how do we give value to our research narrative as one that is meaningful to a wider audience? In other words, so what? Our panel of academics and practitioners, Kristina Andersen, Tobie Kerridge, James Auger, Sarah Kettley, chaired by Dr. Craig Martin, will discuss and debate these questions, and more posed by the audience, in what we hope will be an hour of s...
Designing Smart Objects in Everyday Life, 2021
A machine is a thing. It is on the object side of things. Yet a machine is an anomalous kind of t... more A machine is a thing. It is on the object side of things. Yet a machine is an anomalous kind of thing, an object that seems to exceed its objecthood in certain ways, through its quality of being automatic… Machines do not work for us, and so a machine is always a kind of substitute for a subject.' (Connor, 2017, p.50) Machines are as much imagined as they are technical propositions. Several authors, not least Giles Deleuze have noted that 'machines are social before being technical' (Deleuze, 1988, p.39) and as social objects machines are bound up in the social imaginaries we create for, through, with and about them. The nexus of the imaginary, the technical and the non-human have always been complicated and ever-shifting, riddled with apparent paradoxes. James C. Scott, David Graeber and others have written extensively on the way that machines reproduce humancentric reductionism; attempting to reduce and simulate natural phenomenon to technical processes and then reinscribing these simulations on the non-machine world. (Graeber, 2016; Scott, 1998) Conversely, many others show how machines create reflexive opportunities to reconsider the relationship of the human and non-human through almost transcendental machine experiences. (Pohflepp, 2016; Levitt, 2018) We imagine them to be simple tools of 'innovation,' testament to human skills of exploiting natural phenomenon (Singleton, 2014) while simultaneously being rhetorical partners and meaning makers. (Losh, 2016; Hayles 2019).
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2013
This paper outlines a set of experiments designed to explore how we can embed memories in objects... more This paper outlines a set of experiments designed to explore how we can embed memories in objects augmented with non-discernable nanotechnological interfaces. It explores whether the object can successfully embody a wish or fear and how the participant experiences living with a physical reminder of these secrets. As such the experiments draw on more traditional paper-prototyping and body-storming techniques. The goal is to assess if the introduction of nanotechnology as a magical unknown can be used to seed and affect our relationships to objects and archived memories.
We are still far from achieving the ambitions of ensuring independent living and providing equal ... more We are still far from achieving the ambitions of ensuring independent living and providing equal opportunities to enjoy seamless, accessible, and independent trave1 for persons with special access needs. The goal of the project TRIPS (TRansport Innovation for vulnerable-to-exclusion People needs Satisfaction) is to empower people with different access needs to play a central role in the design of inclusive future mobility solutions. For this reason, a participatory approach is developed and applied to co-product knowledge on existing barriers, co-create solutions and co-evaluate the resulting prototypes and services. The project thereby engages seven European cities in the open innovation process. The paper introduces the first phase of the project, the user requirements analysis by illuminating the methodological approach and reflecting on first results of the co-production of knowledge. Special emphasis is placed on the building of the local working groups and their involvement in...
Hair forms an evolving boundary between the inside and the outside of the body, it is both separa... more Hair forms an evolving boundary between the inside and the outside of the body, it is both separate from us and a part of us. At the same time it is strongly directed by culture and norms. With this project, we disturb and shift these norms by describing a set of speculative design explorations on hair. We describe these explorations and outline the practices and techniques that are emerging. As such this paper constitutes a report of a set of explorations and points towards the possibility of hair as an arena for designerly work.
CHI '19 Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Paper No. 112, 2019
New technologies emerge into an increasingly complex everyday life. How can we engage users furth... more New technologies emerge into an increasingly complex everyday life. How can we engage users further into material practices that explore ideas and notions of these new things? This paper proposes a set of qualities for short, intense , workshop-like experiences, created to generate strong individual commitments, and expose underlying personal desires as drivers for ideas. By making use of open-ended making to engage participants in the imagination of new things, we aim to allow a broad range of knowledge to materialise, focused on the making of work that is about technology, rather than of technology. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Participatory design; HCI theory, concepts and models; Interaction design theory, concepts and paradigms.
This paper describes the Crackle exhibition, an interactive exhibition presented at the Stedelijk... more This paper describes the Crackle exhibition, an interactive exhibition presented at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1975. We propose that it can be seen as a foreshadowing of aspects of the current state of the art of TEI avant la lettre; and that there might not only be value in examining historical work to construct a longer historical framework for TEI, but that the methods used in the construction of this exhibition might be useful in constructing new visions that foreshadow into the future from our current technological position. We present a detailed description of the exhibition based on documentation and interviews with the people who built it, and suggest that the current state of disappearing computers and embedded computational ability in everyday devices form an opportunity to imagine novel interaction paradigms that may transcend the digital in a similar way as the Crackle exhibition in 1975 transcended the electrical.
Much of the academic and commercial work that seeks to innovate around technology has been dismis... more Much of the academic and commercial work that seeks to innovate around technology has been dismissed as " solutionist " because it solves problems that don't exist or ignores the complexity of personal, political and environmental issues. This paper traces the " solutionism " critique to its origins in city planning and highlights the original concern with imaging and representation in the design process. It is increasingly cheap and easy to create compelling and seductive images of concept designs, which sell solutions and presume problems. We consider a range of strategies, which explicitly reject the search for " solutions ". These include design fiction and critical design but also less well-known techniques, which aim for unuseless, questionable and silly designs. We present two examples of " magic machine " workshops where participants are encouraged to reject realistic premises for possible technological interventions and create absurd propositions from lo-fi materials. We argue that such practices may help researchers resist the impulse towards solutionism and suggest that attention to representation during the ideation process is a key strategy for this.
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methods by Kristina Andersen
explorative making by Kristina Andersen