Magic-Mirror-Spiral: Looking into the Role of 'Design Ideal' in Interaction Design Research Projects

There is an ongoing discourse arguing for Interaction Design Research to contribute to theory-about-interaction on one hand, and advancement of particular situation on the other. While there is an acknowledgement of the dialectic relation between theory and situation, however, pointers to embrace the dialectic during a research practice are missing. In order to embrace this dialectic, in this article we suggest the formulation of a Design Ideal as the interface between theoretical concept and situation. We support our suggestion by a retrospection of our ongoing exploration of MagicMirrorSpiral, explicating the relation between theory, concept, design ideal, design artefact, and situation. We propose this formulation of ‘design-ideal-as-part-of-the-compositional-whole’ as a step towards an Interaction Design Research process that embraces the ‘theory-situation’ dialectic, and aims to contribute to, both, theorizing and advancement of situation.