Transforming Grounds

One quite common argument used in research papers is made by showing that there is a 'gap' in the field that no one or few have studied or researched. This argument is flawed in many ways. It is built on some assumptions that do not make sense. For instance, it is built on the assumption that the whole 'field' (whatever that means) need to be equally well researched. It also assumes that areas that have been researched do not require the same attention as other areas. We know from the history of science that a field is never researched completely or finished. In the decades before Einstein, there was a growing sense in physics that the field was done, that the world of physics was more or less completely understood. So, if Einstein had followed the advice of only study gaps, his revolutionary theory would probably not have been developed. Instead, he studied the area of physics that was perhaps most developed, most complete, and the most popular. There was no gap for ...

Honored to do the opening keynote at DIS 2018 in June in Hong Kong . Will talk about our new book " Things that keep us busy -- the elements of interaction "

At the end of our book " Things That Keep Us Busy--the elements of interaction " (Janlert and Stolterman, 2017, MIT Press) we spend some time speculating about the future of interaction. One of the ideas we present is to consider three forms of interactive 'species' . We claim that even if our ideas are speculations, they are not pure fantasy, actually, we argue that they are logical consequences of the examination of the nature of interaction that we engaged with throughout the book. So, here are a few pages that present some of these ideas (page 198-202). " 11.1 Things and Beings Any attempt to imagine what may lie ahead easily becomes science fiction or pure fantasy. Not least when it comes to interactivity—a popular topic of futuristic portrayals in science fiction movies. It is exciting to imagine futuristic scenarios where the methods and patterns of interaction have completely changed due to some unknown technology. It is tempting to imagine future fo...

After quite many years I am re-reading an essay by Martha Nussbaum. The title is "The Discernment of Perception: An Aristotelian Conception of Private and Public Rationality" (to be found in the book " Love's Knowledge--essays on philosophy and literature " published in 1990). This essay helped me a lot when it was first published and it has influenced my thinking over the years in so many ways. It is therefore great to re-read it carefully now, many years later and realize that it is even better now. Even though the title of this essay may scare some people with its complexity and reference to Aristotle, the essay is in my view one of the best texts ever written about practical reasoning and judgment. It is an essay that resonates perfectly with anyone who is reflecting on design practice and how designers reason, think and make judgments. Nussman discusses why practical reasoning is not possible to understand with some simplistic (scientific)  form of logi...