Buur Natuur – Collaborative Citymaking for Green Neighborhoods

Gwen Klerks, Nicolai Brodersen Hansen, Ben Schouten

Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Communities & Technologies-Transforming Communities

We present Buur Natuur, a design approach to empowering residents to make their neighbourhood greener by adding for instance wildflowers to verges, or establishing communal gardens. Residents are empowered by the deployment of physical artifacts in urban space offering inspiration and knowledge through a AR interface, as well as an online platform, providing a process and platform that facilitates the creation of temporary alliances for a greener neighborhood between citizens,  municipalities, NGOs and businesses in the local area.

 

http://designmaterials.dk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/BUURNATUUR.pdf

Thinking Outside the (Tool) Box: Exploring Empowerment Through the Design and Use of Toolkits

Pradthana Jarusriboonchai, Janis Lena Meissner, Nicolai Brodersen Hansen, Ben Schouten

Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Communities & Technologies-Transforming Communities

Toolkits enable people to create and design their own technologies, and just as many other Do-It-Yourself (DIY) tools they are now widely available and approachable. This development aligns well with recent HCI research agendas, which have emerged around the call for empowerment. The availability of toolkits should present a unique opportunity for realising the potentials of end-user empowerment in the sense of giving people and communities access to tools and approaches for shaping their own lives with their own designs. However, the question remains how toolkits should be designed to serve the diverse needs of different user groups for their respective purposes and practices. Furthermore, there is also value in learning from how users appropriate toolkits for their own (maybe unanticipated) purposes. In this workshop, we aim to identify different ways in which toolkits can empower people in diverse life situations. The workshop brings together researchers, designers, and practitioners with an interest in designing and using toolkits for and with people from diverse backgrounds, for different purposes, and in a variety of contexts. We see a particular potential in discussing how research could unpack toolkits as tools for empowerment and for engaging people in technology design.

 

 

https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3328389

Exploring States Of Mind: Emotion Visualization With Bio-Feedback Sensors In A 3D Environment

Alexandra E. Guriţă, Maria Soliman, Will Neetson-Lemkes, Venus Chung, Nicolai B. Hansen, Genèviéve Korte, Mirjam Vosmeer,

Companion Publication of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2019
Current studies unveil the potential of using new technologies for emotion recognition. However, bio-feedback sensors, which can be a fruitful source of data are not explored in relation to additional stimuli. The following demo explores the opportunity of how dynamic visualization stimuli and bio-feedback sensors might provide insight into mental states that the user is
not aware of. The system design is the result of a project undertaken by the authors to employ the potential of this type of sensors in the context of therapies. Early results suggest a correlation between the visualization and the emotions of users, as well as users’ interest and engagement with the system. Further research can be beneficial for creating a greater
therapy experience, as well as generating new user testing methods and developing game interactions that would make use of those variables.
https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3325150

Teaching Interaction Design by Research through Design

Nicolai B. Hansen, Kim Halskov

Proceedings of the 30th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction

Research-through-design (RtD) has become a well-established research approach within HCI research. In this paper we discuss how research-through-design can be applied as an explicit strategy for teaching interaction design. RtD is productive when teaching interaction design, because it keeps students in a constant loop of doing and reflecting, as well as highlights the value of theoretical concepts for understanding practice. This means that theoretical concepts become a resource that the students can draw on to understand and transform design practice, while at the same time fostering an integrated understanding of theory and practice in design. We base our work on a master’s course series teaching advanced theoretical and practical subjects in interaction design. The main contribution of the paper is a set of principles for RtD-based design teaching, as well as the identification of potential gains of using this approach for teaching interaction design.

https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3292159

Thinking outside the (tool) box: empowering people with toolkits

Pradthana Jarusriboonchai, Janis Lena Meissner, Nicolai Brodersen Hansen, Ben Schouten

Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction

Toolkits enable individuals to create and design their own technologies. With more toolkits being commercially available, movements such as the Maker Movements has led to a hype around Do-It-Yourself and Making practices. This development aligns with the recent HCI research agenda, which is calling for user empowerment. Yet, the Maker Movement has been criticised for lacking diversity and practicality in the broader world. The question remains how toolkits can afford and sustain wider participation of different communities in technology design. This workshop aims to identify ways in which toolkits can empower people. By bringing together researchers, designers, and practitioners with an interest in DIY/making toolkits for people from diverse backgrounds, for different purposes, and in a variety of project contexts, we see a particular potential in discussing how HCI research could contribute and unpack toolkits as tools for empowerment and thinking about the role of making in broader practice.

Design Concepts for Empowerment through Urban Play

Gabriele Ferri, Nicolai Hansen, Adam van Heerden, and Ben Schouten

DiGRA 2018 – “The Game is the Message” July 25-28, 2018, Turin, Italy

Playfulness intertwined with city-related themes, such as participatory planning and civic media are becoming more popular. In the last ten years, game designers have taken up the theme of play in relation to the urban environment. In this paper, we
present a conceptual mapping of “urban play,” through the analysis of eight examples of urban games. Better conceptual tools are necessary to discuss and reflect on how games draw on, or deal with, urban issues. While urban games are diverse in medium, intent, and experience, across the spectrum analyzed in this paper, they hold the potential for various player experiences emerging through play that may be useful to designers. These are: a sense of agency and impact; feelings of relatedness and empathy; an awareness and understanding of complexity, perspective -taking and scenario- building, and either planning or taking action. The conceptual mapping offers scholars and practitioners a more nuanced vocabulary for designing games and playful interventions that might be used to tackle societal issues that either require or could benefit from genuine public involvement as engaged citizens.
http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/DIGRA_2018_paper_229.pdf

Sociomateriality: Infrastructuring and Appropriation of Artifacts

Tom Jenkins, Karey Helms, Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Ludvig Elblaus, Nicolai Brodersen Hansen

Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction

This Studio offers researchers and designers an opportunity to investigate and discuss prototypes and in-process projects from a perspective that expands beyond material aspects, to also cover social and cultural ones. Participants will bring a project, device, or platform, which will be discussed as sociomaterials that actively participate across multiple social and cultural contexts. This perspective, as well as the prototypes and projects brought by the participants, forms the core of the Studio, where conversation will emerge over several phases: from the demonstration of the individual projects as things, to the generation of speculative fictions as to the role and use of these artifacts in the world. Finally, we end with a discussion of infrastructuring and appropriation of the artefacts and their social roles. The themes that will be examined in this Studio are agency, emerging behaviors, embeddedness and design strategies from a sociomaterial perspective of artifacts.

https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3173225.3173330