Transforming Grounds

I just got in the mail a copy of the new book " Changing Things--the future of objects in a digital world " by my colleagues and friends Johan Redström and Heather Wiltse. I am so excited about this book we are presented with some new exciting concepts and a theoretical approach that has been missing. Anyone who is working on Internet-of-Things and our new connected reality will find grounded and fundamental support in this book. book. It is one of the first books that explore how 'things' are radically changing with the digital transformation and how that effects are ways of thinking about things. It is obvious that a 'thing' is no longer a dead object that only has relevance in a particular location and time. Digital things are connected, they are part of every other thing, they make up an ever ongoing dynamic reality that presents new conceptual and philosophical challenges. How can we or should we think about things? In this

One of the aspects of designing that is not enough reflected upon is the notion of 'measure-of-success'. When we evaluate a design as good or bad, right or wrong, appropriate or adequate, we do that by employing some form of measuring and evaluating (I use 'measuring' as a very broad and inclusive activity). There are many forms of measure-of-success. They can a broad scope, they can be complex or simple, intuitive or well-defined, they can be recognized by many or by one. The most personal and maybe least defined measure-of-success is if you like it, without any further explications of what "like it" is based on when it comes to qualities, variables, impact, etc. The opposite to that is probably the measure-of-success as established in most sciences, that is, a well-defined approach that has to be satisfied in all its details where the process has to show that it lives up to the explicit requirements of the scientific method.  Scientific results are expecte

When I teach design theory or interaction design I often get questions about what is "good" or "better" when it comes to design. After a while, my students realize that the answer they get from me is never anything else than "it depends". There are no universally "good" or "bad" qualities when it comes to any designed product or system. The only way to evaluate quality is in relation to purpose. And the purpose is dependent on the particular situation, time, stakeholders, users, decisionmakers, technology, resources, etc. A specific quality that may be seen as crucially good in one situation, may in another situation be an obvious bad quality. So, good design is only relevant in relation to purpose. It depends... However, we can of course as designers and critics discuss what in general may be good qualities. This means that we are leaving the domain of design and moving into the domain of some sort of science where we try to establ