Knowing, doing and feeling : communicating with your digital products

Digital products are generally controlled by buttons and icons, an approach which emphasises the user’s cognitive skills. We propose to take respect for the user as a whole as a starting point, including his perceptual-motor and emotional skills. Designers should create a context for experience, rather than a product. Aesthetical interaction becomes the central theme. As a consequence, we believe that design tools should also change. To create a context for experience, the designer needs tools, which allow him to explore beautiful and engaging interactions. In the first section, the theoretical part of this tutorial, we will explain our view on product design and human-computer interaction (HCI). Moreover, we show the possibilities of existing design tools to create contexts for experience and briefly demonstrate our search for new computer aided design tools, especially gestural design tools. The practical part of this tutorial is composed of two design exercises. The exercise that is performed in the second section focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of design tools. How can design tools and techniques help the designer to ‘communicate’, i.e. generate, present, discuss, evaluate, ..., ideas and concepts during the design process? We let the participants experience the differences between the design tools that are discussed in the first section. Using one of these design tools, each team needs to design and present a drinking container. During the second design exercise, we focus on the communication between man and product, with the emphasis on experience and aesthetic interaction. The participants need to design an emotionally-aware vending machine for these drinking containers, that is rich and playful in terms of action. The choice of design tools and techniques is free during this exercise. Sect ion 1: The power of engagement & respect for HCI : theory, tools and techniques In this section we would like to seduce you to criticise some of the prevailing ideas and mechanisms in product design and HCI. Ideas such as: products should make life easier, offer infinite functionality, and human-product interaction should be largely based on cognition. We discuss the difficulties of the prevailing design approach, in particular in the area of technological products. We propose to take respect, engagement and experience as a starting point for design. To highlight the difference, we redefine ‘a product’ as ‘a context for experience’. This new proposal includes an emphasis on the beauty of interaction. To support this new design approach, both designers and users are helped by tools which allow them to explore their unfulfilled needs and preferred experiences. Furthermore, they are helped by tools which allow them to explore the poetry of interaction. Therefore, we scrutinise such tools in two ways: by evaluating existing design tools, especially drawing, making collages and modelling, and by developing new digital tools using basic ideas such as poetry, experience and aesthetics of interaction. 1.1. Less engaging products Everyday, I enjoy the refined details of our Smeg gas cooker. That wee bit of resistance when you turn on the gas by means of the beautiful and functional knobs. That automatic snapping back of the knobs when you turn the gas off. That large cooker for preparing delicious Asian meals. That stainless steel shine, at least when I have cleaned the cooker. But the most excellent and even touching part of our cooker is the sound of the in-built kitchen timer. This sound is so subtle and refined, that it seems as if the cake leaves the oven more beautifully. Despite my passion for our gas cooker, I yielded to the temptation of fast meal preparation several years ago, and extended our kitchen inventory with a microwave. My problem is, that I can not detect the relation between time and the temperature of my meal. I haven’t got a clue how long the microwaves should penetrate my meal to heat it up, without turning it into a dried out, dreary meal. Sure, the microwave has some predefined buttons, but I hardly ever prepare such predefined meals or weights. Furthermore, the pleasure I derive from using my gas cooker, with the refined details on the knobs and the sound of the kitchen timer, is never obtainable with such a white, anonymous and plastic-looking box. Digital technology has brought us many new opportunities, such as fast defrosting of frozen food (microwave), waking up in a pleasantly warm house (programmable thermostat), doing the laundry automatically (programmable washing machine) or bringing overseas friends close to us (internet). However, this technological development changed products both in appearance and interaction, and as a result our relationship with products is a less engaging one (Borgmann, 1987). Smeg gas cooker