Transforming Grounds

The growth of intelligent assistants of different kinds is leading to more faceless interactions as we have defined it in our book " Things That Keep Us Busy-the elements of interaction " (Janlert & Stolterman, MIT Press 2017). Below is an excerpt from the book that touches on what this change could mean when it comes to interaction richness and precision. "Faceless interaction may seem to open up for smooth or analog interaction more than surface-bound interaction does, but perhaps that is a false impression. Spoken natural language has a dominant digital component in the phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, sentences, and so on, although there remains an analog component as well in the form of intonation and prosody (but note that tone in itself can be used for digital communication as well, as in Mandarin where there are four distinctive, semantically significant “tones”). There are also important examples of analog surface- bound forms of expression, such as...

There is a lot of research aimed at 'exploring', 'dissecting' and 'examining'  important human activities with the purpose to 'reveal' and 'unpack' its inner structure and mechanisms.  For instance, creativity, learning, and designing are all human activities that are constantly examined. This ambition is easy to understand.  Humans want to improve their activities and to be able to improve they have to understand how things work. For instance, to improve designing, first, we need to have a good understanding of what it can do, how it is done, how it can be done, and maybe how it should be done, etc. So we need more research on the process of designing. We can formulate abstract theories and philosophies about designing as a human activity. We can study what designers are actually doing when they design. We can produce infinite amounts of data on different design processes, in different areas, with different designers, with different purposes...

There are many different kinds of books about design and designing. The way they differ is diverse. It is fascinating to see the breadth and scope of books trying to describe, prescribe, define, advocate, or change design. A simple list (far from comprehensive) would include design-related books that engage with: -- "how to" practical aspects of the design process (approaches, methods, tools, skills, etc), --  how to relate design to other approaches, such as art or science, --  the history of design, --  designed artifacts and systems in a particular field (buildings, chairs, systems, pens, etc.) --  philosophical and theoretical thoughts on design --  ___________ There are of course others too. For instance, there is a category of design books that engage with design and designing form the perspective of what to achieve with design. These treatments of design are usually a bit more philosophical and definitely more ideological and political. In this ...

I saw this headline today "Want to think like a designer? Try these 4 simple exercises Even simple drawing exercises can get your creative juices flowing." Why is it that thinking like a designer seems to be so easy to do and to learn. We do not very often see headlines like "Want to think like a heart surgeon? Try these 4 simple exercises Even simple cutting exercises can get your surgical skills flowing." Of course, there is a difference. We cannot train as surgeons by cutting in people, but all of us can make drawings without any dangerous outcomes. But that does not necessarily make us good designers or help us think like designers. To do good design is difficult. It requires a lot of knowledge and expertise and experience.