HCI and the "material turn"

One of the major changes we are experiencing today in the field of HCI might be called the "material turn". This turn has been predicted and explored by concepts such as pervasive and ubiquitous computing, tangible computing, ambient computing, and very recently with the term "Everyware" by Adam Greefield. One aspect of this material turn is that digital material is literally everywhere, the other aspect is the fusion and blending of materials. Physical materials become dynamic materials or transmaterials with the capacity of changing form, shape, color, and texture. Some of these materials will have the characteristics of being both digital and physical. This is not really something to be surprised about, but it seems as if HCI has not fully grasped this change. The prevaling idea that interaction with digital material is through "windows" on screens is so dominating that the common notion is even that these "windows" reside on our desks in the form of personal computers. To be in the field of HCI is right now more exciting than ever. The changes and challenges to come with the material turn are extraordinary and intriguing. And the fun part is that the interaction design space suddenly and radically grows and we have the opportunity to design our environments in a new and hopefully more human way.

A new foundation for design

In his new book "The Semantic Turn -- a new foundation for design" Klaus Krippendorff presents a new understanding of design. I am still reading the book but I am already sure that this is one of the best theoretical books on design today. The author is consistent in his perspective based in language. He convincingly argues for a turn to the meaning of designs. This turn is in his perspective a semantic turn. Design as a meaning making process.

It is fascinating to see the way Krippendorff comes to so many conclusions on the nature of design that are similar to what I together with Harold Nelson present in our book "The Design Way--intentional change in an unpredictable world", even though we come from very different backgrounds and perspectives.

I am quite convinced that we are slowly seeing a new and foundational understanding of design develop and grow into existence. Our own book, the new book by Krippendorff, the books by Donald Schon, and some others, are in a way all converging in a promising way. I think we are entering the time when design will in a serious way develop its own theoretical and philosophical foundation. There are of course many differences and controversies but the overall intention and aim is that design is its own tradition, fully worthy and in need of a theoretical and philosophical treatment that parallels our other major intellectual traditions, such as science and art. It is a promising development!

Daniel Dennett

I have had the opportunity to listen to two lectures by Daniell Dennett this week. He has been invited by Indiana University's most prestigous seminar series. The titles of his lectures were "Freedom evolves" and "Religion as a natural phenomenon".

I will not here address the content of the lectures, but I realized during both talks that this kind of experience is what attracted me and made me choose academia. During both talks I felt like when I was in the beginning of my PhD. My mind was challenged, not by intrinsic, complex, and superficial details (like many we encounter in everyday academic practices), but by mind blowing ideas -- ideas that changes the big picture, alters intrenched thought structures... I miss having those experiences, today they are too few.

Listening to Dennett is also an experience similar to listen to good music performance. With an extraordinary skillfull muscisian any music can sound good. You don't have to agree with everything Dennett says, but you can still enjoy the clarity, the logic, and the reasoning. Well, enough of praise.

Understanding Experience

There is a strong movement today in HCI and interaction design towards "experience". The way experience is defined is diffuse and diverse. This is of course not strange, since experience is one of the "big" concepts that have been at the center of philosophical investigations for centuries. The argument behind this movement is in many cases that our earlier ways of describing and understanding interaction have been too focused on functionality, usability, and other concepts that does not embrace the way people seem to relate to their lifeworld. This movement is in many ways all good and well. It does increase our understanding of artifacts and widens our appreciation of what matters in design. We have to acknowledge and accept the "whole" human experience of interacting with artifacts and systems in our environment.

But, at the same time it seems as if the struggle to find, define, explain and operationalize "experience" ends up in either one of two "places". Sometimes the explanation of experience becomes an abstract and philosophical enterprise, which is necessary and important from a research perspective. But most of the times we end up with really simplistic and flat understandings of experience meant to inform design. This latter way is not by any means "practical" or useful, it floats around in the vast space between theoretical discourse and real design practice. This means that the large majority of "experience" oriented thinking is neither interesting as a theoretical attempt or as giving practical guidance. I think it is time to view experience approaches as needed as a theoretical analytical tool, but from the perspective of practice there are other more useful approaches.

Why Things Break

In the book "Why Things Break -- understanding the world by the way it comes apart", the author Mark E. Eberhart tells the story about how he became obsessed with the search for why things break. He is a professor of chemistry and geochemistry with a strong interest in material sciences. Eberhart makes the difference between the questions "when things break" and "why things break". We have always known when things break, at least more or less. People have figured out how much a rock or a copper sword can take. We can measure this by trying over and over again with different weights or forces. But this does not tell us "why" they break.

The book gives many interesting examples of the history of materials and how humans have learnt to use these materials, such as stone and later on bronze and iron. I like the way he describes the intimate relation between humans and their materials. It is clear from his way of telling history that knowledge about the material have in so many case been at the core of a society.

For me this leads to the issue of our contemporary material -- the digital material. What do we about it? When does it break? Are we enough close and intimate with the material to really get an authentic understanding of its qualities and character. I am not sure we are. At least not at a general level that it can inform our way of choosing our future.

To some extent, Eberhart's question can be related to the famous statement of the philosopher Virilio, that every technology carries its own disaster. Virilio also states that we do understand the disaster of most technologies (airplanes fall down, cars crashes, etc), but what is the disaster of digital technology? Maybe the most dangerous technologies are those where the disaster is not visible! So, maybe Eberhart's ambition of finding out core qualities of materials is precisely what we have to do when it comes to digital technology!

Expanding the Design Space

To continue a theme on this blog -- a really good example of the importance of material in design is to be found in the field of cameras. In an article on CNET this is shown clearly. The article is about how our understanding of what a camera is and how it looks and how it is used, is challenged. And the cause is of course that new cameras use digital material as carrier of content. The article mention several examples of how the change of material transform a whole industry.

For instance, when a camera offer wireless networking, the notion of a camera changes. Maybe it is not a tool for capturing a place in time, instead maybe it is a tool that connects two places in real time -- whatever that means.

So, the camera article shows that the change of material really expands the space of possible designs. We are not witnessing any kind of stabilizing of products or services in the field of digital technology, instead we are only in the very beginning and the design space is still growing rapidly. This is, of course, a huge challenge for designers (in all design disciplines) since it is difficult to develop a (field specific) repertoire of design experiences and competence that over time can create a stable foundation for future design tasks. But, this is the way it will be for a long time.

60 second TV series episodes

The TV networks are struggling to find ways to adapt to the new digital reality. One of the newest initiatives by CBS is to launch a TV-series with 60 second episodes! The idea is that short episodes fits the new distribution channels like iPods and cell phones. This is of course an attempt to experiment with the digital material. The networks understand that when their content transforms into being carried by digital material, it is not only a change of some underlying technology. It is a fundamental change. It is a new material that changes everything, in this case even how the content is created and formatted. It also changes how the content is written and directed. It even changes the basic rules and principles in dramaturgy and story telling.

The transformation to digital material will not only change the way people interact with the content, but also the way they appreciate and distinguish good quality from bad. This will of course have impact on the way content will be presented in the traditional technological setting, such as the TV at home in the living room.

The ongoing transformation to digital material is maybe the most important societal change today. It happens everywhere, in all aspects of our reality, with consequences we can not grasp or understand.