There is two things I would like to mention:
1. For the last year I have been teaching interactiondesign at AHO and worked for the design/research project Touch. This is brilliant and I will be working for Touch until September.
2. Last year I also got my PhD proposal accepted at AHO. I will start working fulltime on this project in Semptember. The PhD’s workingtitle is ‘Inhabiting Urban Computing’. I will write much more about this in the near future.
This is a write-up of my diploma project in interaction design from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. The project is entitled ‘Adventures in Urban Computing’ and this weblog post contains a brief project description and a pdf of the diploma report.
This diploma project is an expedition into urban computing, an emerging multi-disciplinary research field that focuses on computing and digital networks in urban contexts and on the cultural and social impact this has on the city. The ‘Adventures in Urban Computing’ is a study of how mobile technology devices can be used as instruments for participatory urban studies. It develops and tests experimental devices that raise urban awareness over time and can facilitate informed discussion.
The project is situated between urbanism and interaction design and works specifically with designing mobile technology devices with the purpose of provoking and gathering opinions about everyday life in cities and towns.
Framework
The first half of the project is a theoretical approach to the field where urban computing is placed, traced and discussed within a framework of current writings on ubiquitous computing, urban studies, technology and design. The framework is made up of critical perspectives from the contemporary urban computing discourse and including among others Anne Galloway, Paul Dourish, Genevieve Bell, Adam Greenfield and Stephen Graham. The central conclusions are these:
These conclusions set a scope within urban computing research that is narrower than the general ‘ubicomp of the city’ interpretation of the field. ‘Adventures in Urban Computing’ is not about everything from security, city maintenance, interactive architecture to sensor networks and spectacular near-future technologies. It is about designing interactions for exploring city usage within the daily practices of today and re-imagining the already mundane network devices of everyday life.
Interruptors
The second part of the diploma is a set of practical explorations that take these reflections as its starting point. These explorations investigates how mobile devices can be used to gather and provoke opinions about the city and how this can raise the awareness of daily urban environments. They focuses on how digital networks and information technologies can be used in collaborative city studies and in strategies/concepts for citizen participation.
The outcome of these studies is the Interruptor experiments. The Interruptors are urban computing prototypes that focuses on the behaviour of mobile devices in relation to the personal urban experience. The Interruptors are a result of experimental device design and fieldwork. The Interruptors are based on an analysis of the behavioral characteristics of the mobile phone. This analysis concludes that the interruptive character of the mobile phone may be an ideal initiator for observation on daily life and the city. This is not a feature of the technological platform, but of the usage of the phone. The interruption is a way for the phone to weave into the daily life.
The Interruptors is a series of devices that interrupts you and asks you to make observations. The Interruptors are networked, location-aware and are meant to be used for long periods of time in order to probe your responses everyday environments. The devices gather observations and opinions and encourage city exploration. The Interrruptor studies conclude in workshops and promotes informed discussions about urban environments. The Interruptors where developed thorough extensive fieldwork and tests and are illustrated though hypothetical case studies of collaborative city analysis and neighbourhood initiatives.
The diploma report can be downloaded here.
More pictures can be found here.
The Bowl/Skål project is exhibited at the Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture (DogA) in Oslo for the next month. Bowl are part of the Unge Talenter 2008 (Young Talent 2008) exhibition that runs until 27 April 2008.
As part of my work on Touch I also made new electronic insides for Sara Johansson’s toydog Sniff. Of course the interactive exhibition prototype crashed a few hours before the opening:
We had to pull off his head to fix some connections and Sara had to re-stitch his neck. Sniff survived and all went well. More on both projects on the Touch weblog.
Yesterday I delivered the diploma. I will do a writeup when I have regenerated my mana. Thanks to all how have been helping me.
I´ve just been out taking scenario-photos of the final Interruptor (camera) prototype. The battery-life is bad and its so shiny that its difficult to take pictures of. Apart from this its an ok experience prototype. Its main function in the diploma is as concept illustration.
I´m building an “Interruptive camera” as a descriptive device. It´s just a dummy: a hacked phone inside a neat wooden shell. I hope it will help with describing some aspects of the concepts. It´s also a nice task to have lying around now that I have to write all day.
I´m in the final phase of my diploma and had the last “mycity” drawing/mapping workshop today. We mapped out nodes, routes, zones, gems, shadows, dragons and rainbows… And located the photos and notes from the interruptive notebooks. Thanks to Una, Ingeborg and Jørn.
I have just returned from DUX 2007 where I presented the paper “Bowl: token based media for children” written by Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen and myself. The DUX conference was an interesting context for presenting this project and I got nice feedback and had inspiring discussions. Here´s a short presentation of the project, the paper and the presentation from DUX:
Bowl is a simple media player that creates playful interactions with media that can be used by people of all ages, particularly young children. A simple bowl sits in front of the TV, and range of physical objects can be placed within it. When an object is placed in the bowl, related media is played back on the TV. For example a Moomin character like Little My will play a sequence from the Moomin cartoon where she is featured. Through this simple interface, Bowl encourages new, engaging and playful activities around the media experience.
Bowl is based on a long history of research into so-called ‘tangible interfaces’ for media. It takes this research and applies it to a very specific context and to a product that is ready for market, without any supporting infrastructure. Through the simple, physically-based interface, Bowl encourages a different approach to media-viewing.
There is great need for products that deal with the context of young children’s access to media. Currently there are very few products which allow access to media in a way that can be used by children aged 2-4. Existing media interfaces are overly complex, may allow access to unsuitable content, and encourage extended, unhealthy viewing habits. With traditional TV interfaces unhealthy extended viewing is encouraged through programming schedules, and unsuitable content may be accessed with only one press of a button. Bowl creates a space for physical and playful activities where screen-media is only a part of the experience.
Bowl provides a platform for users to create and adapt their own physical representations of media. It provides a way of simply linking physical objects to personal or social media like YouTube, Flickr or Facebook as well as home movies from vacations or family photos. This allows for social media to become more present and accessible in family life, instead of hidden in the PC.
Bowl has been developed through an extensive user-driven process where the product was tested and developed in-situ with young children. The interface has been refined and the content re-edited to suit the needs of the audience. The process of choosing the right kind of interactions and suitable content has resulted in a product with a seemingly simple and engaging user-experience.
Bowl has been designed as a durable product that fits within the home context. As a simple interface rather than a ‘gadget’, it doesn’t depend on changing media infrastructures, standards or platforms. We have designed it as a ‘front-end’ that can be adapted to any kind of home-media system, thus its requirements are likely to stay the same over the lifetime of it’s use, and even be adaptable to future technologies.
The paper can be downloaded here: bowl_token-based-media-for-children.pdf
The DUX presentation (with notes) can be downloaded here: bowl_martinussen_dux07_presentation.pdf
With a little help from Jørn I managed to finish the first three working probes before I left for DUX. It´s three interruptive notebooks. You turn it on when you go outdoors, put it in your pocket and it will interrupt you at random intervals. When the notebooks calls for your attention (by vibrating) you have to answere one on the questions (tasks) in the book. The books have different themes (People, Rythm and Sense) and the questions have to be answered within these contexts. As a concept-test Una, Ingeborg and Jørn will be using the probes while I´m away and we will run a workshop as soon as I get back.
Spending a day in the wood workshop is always quite refreshing. The first batch of proper probes is almost done and will be in action while I´m at DUX.