Abstract information appliances: methodological exercises in conceptual design of computational things

The decisions we make when designing computational things cannot all be reduced to questions about functionality, usability testing, user requirements, etc. In HCI-related research and design, other fundamental aspects of design, such as the basic aesthetical choices involved, have a tendency to be hidden and seemingly forgotten. To support awareness and understanding of such basic aesthetical choices, we propose two methodological exercises that take the expressions of computational things in use as their starting points: i) to discover functionality in given expressions; and ii) to rediscover "expressionals" in given appliances. The aim with i) is to encourage reflection on the way in which functionality explains the expressions of things. With ii), the aim is to expose the more or less hidden aesthetical choices by means of re-interpreting them in given appliances. We present examples of the exercises and discuss more general issues, such as the central role of temporal gestalts and the art of using computational things.