Alternatives: exploring information appliances through conceptual design proposals

By William W. Gaver, Heather Martin. International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2000

346 citations recorded by the source corpus.

As a way of mapping a design space for a project on information appliances, we produced a workbook describing about twenty conceptual design proposals. On the one hand, they serve as suggestions that digital devices might embody values apart from those traditionally associated with functionality and usefulness. On the other, they are examples of research through design, balancing concreteness with openness to spur the imagination, and using multiplicity to allow the emergence of a new design space. Here we describe them both in terms of content and process, discussing first the values they address and then how they were crafted to encourage a broad discussion with our partners that could inform future stages of design.

Subfields: Human-Computer Interaction

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3db82e2a2ddace1a295ffd1e31a9e2f67993a559

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Citations in the corpus

Reflective design (2005, methodology): “The Dawn Chorus, a speculative design by Bill Gaver and Heather Martin inspired by the critical design approach [22], illustrates the principles of critical design within the HCI context.”
The Interplay of Beauty, Goodness, and Usability in Interactive Products (2004, background): “Nevertheless, in the last 2 decades several attempts were made to incorporate nonutilitarian aspects, such as beauty, enjoyment, or fun, into HCI in general and usability engineering specifically (e.g., Draper, 1999; Gaver & Martin, 2000; Hassenzahl, 2002; Jordan, 2000; Monk & Frohlich, 1999).”
Ambiguity as a resource for design (2003, background): “Another example, the Dawn Chorus, is a proposal for an artificially-intelligent feeder that uses operant conditioning principles to teach local birds new songs [10].”
Human-centered Explainable AI: Towards a Reflective Sociotechnical Approach (2020, methodology): “To operationalize the CTP perspective, we can incorporate rich strategies from other methodological traditions rooted in HCI, critical studies, and philosophy such as participatory design [11,18], value-sensitive design [24,23], reflection-inaction [35,40,15], and ludic design [26,27].”
Needs, affect, and interactive products - Facets of user experience (2010, background): “Gaver and Martin (2000) compiled a list of needs, such as novelty, surprise, diversion, to influence the environment, to extend knowledge and control, intimacy, to understand and change one’s self, and mystery.”
User experience - a research agenda (2006, background): “Gaver and Martin (2000) argued for the importance of a whole range of speciﬁc non-instrumental needs, such as surprise, diversion, or intimacy, to be addressed by technology.”
Aesthetic interaction: a pragmatist's aesthetics of interactive systems (2004, neutral): “[7], [17], [25],[30]).”
An analysis and critique of Research through Design: towards a formalization of a research approach (2010, background): “The resulting artifact can be seen as a proposition for a preferred state [36, 45] or as a placeholder that opens a new space for design, allowing other designers to make artifacts that then better define the relevant phenomena in the new space [18].”
Service robots in the domestic environment: a study of the roomba vacuum in the home (2006, background): “This work has ranged from comprehensive empirical studies that describe the experience of technology use [19], to the generative work focused on the conceptual design of information appliances [9].”