Research Colloquium at SFU’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology in Surrey presents

Ron Wakkary

Wednesday April 4, 2007 at 1:30 pm

Room 14-400, SFU Surrey Campus, 14th floor Central City Tower

Ron Wakkary

Title: The Resourceful Creativity of Everyday Design

Abstract:

The promise of ubiquitous computing has led to recent design interest in interactions in the home. Our study and other design ethnography studies suggest the home is a set of organizational systems and routines in which designers should consider evolutionary solutions. Artifacts and actions in the home are utilized by being made visible or pliable – they are seen as resources for further action. Contributing further to this research, we argue that this view strongly suggests the ongoing presence of designers in the home. We see home dwellers as a type of everyday designer who remakes or modifies systems, and who uses design artifacts and actions around them as design and creative resources.

In our study of everyday design, we ask if families are designers, how do they design? In answering this question, we recently focused on the role of creativity in everyday design. Here, we examine a form of creativity that we all take part in and one that helps us negotiate our daily lives. We describe creativity as resourceful, adaptive actions that lead to unique design situations and systems.

In this presentation, I will discuss our study that looks at family members as everyday designers. We explain the design actions of family members to be creative, as evidenced by the resourceful appropriation of artifacts and surroundings, the ongoing adaptation of systems and routines through design-in-use that allows emergent properties to arise and address individual needs, and how implicit understanding and explicit tests occur for judging quality. I will present a preliminary analysis of design implications in the area of interaction design in the home.

Wakkary, R., Maestri, L., The Resourcefulness of Everyday Design (2007), Creativity and Cognition 2007, Washington, D.C., in press - 10 pages. <http://www.sfu.ca/~rwakkary/papers/Resourcefulness_of_Everyday_Design_SUBMISSION.pdf>

Bio:

My research is about what we need to know to design interactive systems that will have everyday value. One thread of the research involves projects that prototype systems for play, social experiences, and learning. These include prototypes for mobile computing games, ambient intelligence physical games, and museums as responsive environments. These experiences are social, contextual, and embodied. Along another thread, I have been carrying out basic research into what I refer to as everyday design . The idea is that we all design in the course of living our lives. We exploit the materials around us, such as designed artifacts by appropriating them for different and new uses. At the moment, the aim of this research is to describe everyday design and how families design in the home. These two threads of research intersect in my belief that future interactive systems need to be pliable, simple, and open to ongoing design in order to weave themselves meaningfully into our lives.

Ron Wakkary is Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. His primary research is in design of interactive systems in the area of ubiquitous computing including responsive environments, personal technologies and tangible user interfaces, and the study of interaction design related methods and practice. He has led design and technology research projects for the Canadian Nature Museum, Nokia Research, Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and Electronic Arts Intermix. He is is currently researching the concept of everyday design, a project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and is the co-leader of the Interactivity Theme in the Canadian Design Research Network . He led the Am-I-able Network for Responsive and Mobile Environments , a research network in wearable and ambient intelligence computing, funded by Canadian Heritage. He has served on the College of Reviewers for the Canada Research Chair Program, the Banff New Media Institute Research Advisory Board, the Canadian Culture Online Advisory Board to advise the Minister of Canadian Heritage among other committees and boards.

For further information visit http://www.sfu.ca/~rwakkary