Choreographic buttons

Ecological Psychology, 1996

In this article, I explore an ecological approach to social interaction, using the concept of affordances to describe material properties of the environment that affect how people interact. My examples come mainly from the design of technologies that support collaboration. The physical properties of paper and electronic media-for instance electronic mail or video communication system-affects how they can be used and how people can use them to interact. Many of these effects are due to differences in the degree to which the media afford prediction and exploration. Because they are based on material properties, these affordances run deep, and trying to design against their grain is not easy. Difficulties of design, however, can shed light on subtleties of interaction that might otherwise be overlooked. Thus design is both guided by, and can guide, an ecological approach to social interaction. Nonetheless, design is only one example of the wide range of issues an ecological approach to social behaviour might address. Such an approach may provide as fundamental a challenge to existing perspectives on social interaction as it has to traditional theories of perception.

Psychology, 1996

In this article, I explore an ecological approach to social interaction, using the concept of affordances to describe material properties of the environment that affect how people interact. My examples come mainly from the design of technologies that support collaboration. The physical properties of paper and electronic media-for instance electronic mail or video communication system-affects how they can be used and how people can use them to interact. Many of these effects are due to differences in the degree to which the media afford prediction and exploration. Because they are based on material properties, these affordances run deep, and trying to design against their grain is not easy. Difficulties of design, however, can shed light on subtleties of interaction that might otherwise be overlooked. Thus design is both guided by, and can guide, an ecological approach to social interaction. Nonetheless, design is only one example of the wide range of issues an ecological approach to social behaviour might address. Such an approach may provide as fundamental a challenge to existing perspectives on social interaction as it has to traditional theories of perception.

2015

The design community has growing familiarity with the concept of affordances and with the utility of this concept in any areas of design. Less emphasis has been placed on natural processes by which people acquire knowledge about affordances. Consequently, little is known about how design might be optimized to enable users to detect the actions that are available in a given human-machine system. We review scientific research about what people do to obtain information about affordances. We discuss implications of this research for design.

Even though aesthetics and affordances are two important factors based on which designers provide effective ways of interaction through their artifacts, there is no study or theoretical model that relates these two aspects of design. We suggest a theoretical explanation that relates the underlying functionality of aesthetics, in particular, of interaction aesthetics and of affordances in the design process. Our claim is that interaction aesthetics are one among other factors that allow users to enhance the detection of action possibilities and consequently, the detection of affordances. Our aim is first to discuss the role of interaction aesthetics in the design process, and second to suggest an explanation for their role in the detection of affordances when users interact with artifacts.

The paper discusses the psychological implications of codesign techniques. From conceiving innovation in design as the result of the meeting of users' and designers' representations around the future concept, the authors argue that this meeting is only possible when interobjectivity is developed among actors through the use of concrete design tools. Excerpts from a codesign project devoted to the development of sharing services for older people are shown to describe how visualization techniques and tools make it possible to create mutual understanding among participants and agreement on the creation of relevant affordances.

Proceeding of the 3rd ACM …, 2008

2008

This paper reports on a study that explored ways of inventing and devising movement for use in the design of movementbased interaction with video-based, motion-sensing technologies. Methods that dancers, trained in movement improvisation and performance-making, used to choreograph movement were examined as sources of potential methods for technology designers. The findings enabled us to develop methods and tools for creating and structuring new movements, based on felt experience and the creative potential of the moving body. These methods and tools contribute to the ongoing development of a design methodology underpinned by the principle of making strange. By making strange, we mean ways of unsettling habitual perceptions and conceptions of the moving body to arrive at fresh appreciations and perspectives for design that are anchored in the sensing, feeling and moving body.

In the traditional use-oriented approach, only a fraction of gestures are taken as relevant to interaction. In this paper we argue that gestures should not be handled only as isolated objects of application use, but they should rather be understood as dynamic moments of embodied presence belonging to an experiential chain of different movements which has its own significance as a whole. In the current study, we call the embodied, experiential continuum of human action choreography. We assume that choreography is a fruitful theoretical concept in understanding interaction design because by choreography we can understand gestures as building up a chain of a bigger whole. The dynamic formulation of this chain of embodied gestures is what ultimately makes users' experience of digital devices meaningful in their everyday life.

2005

The aim of the present position paper is to raise issues concerning aesthetic experience in relation to an ongoing work of designing an artefact encouraging video reporting of personal experiences. The work serves as an example of a design experiment where aesthetic qualities are emphasized, but where the resulting interactions have not yet been analyzed in relation to these qualities. Our position is that the aesthetics of an interactive artefact evolves in the interactive zone between people who use it and the artefact itself. The aesthetic qualities are, thus, crystallized in the use of the artefact – whether it ranks high on a usability scale or not. Just as usability qualities, the aesthetic qualities contain contextual factors of its users, such as their pre-comprehension of the artefact, their cultural background and their emotional states. Furthermore, they include the context of the artefact, such as its physical design and the environment of its use. Our standpoint is cons...

This research integrated ideas regarding affordance into a method for creative design, including five major steps: 1) Observe behavior; 2) Note down events happening or issues; 3) Figure out pattern; 4) Obtain messages of behavior perception; and 5) Reinforce message and naming. In this research, an "Another Hand" plate was designed to demonstrate the applicability of this method. In the application process, first, the researchers observe the dining environment, and discovered that it was difficult for people to scoop up the last few bits of food on the plate; therefore, they need the aid of extra tableware to finish their food. Then, observing users, we discovered that the spoon might turn around the plate. Next, we transform the idea into the design of the wedge to stop the food from moving. So the diner can finish the last bits of food using a natural eating motion. Lastly, with "Another Hand" plate as an example, we observed the process of 10 people eating with this plate. It was discovered that users could use this wedge to help scoop the food at 64.2% of the dining time. Hence, this invention won the final list design award of I.D.E.A. held in the USA in 2008. This research intends to review and revise this design method for better design for the reference of other inventors.