Ambiguity and Open-Endedness in Behavioural Design

Abstract

Design is increasingly concerned with changing people's behaviours. A common characteristic to behavioural design approaches is their directionality: products provide clarity about or guidance towards the designer's intended behavioural outcome. In this paper we propose an alternative perspective that emphasizes ambiguity (i.e. affording multiple interpretations) and open-endedness (i.e. affording multiple courses of action). We build on two design cases in pediatric healthcare in which the aim was to stimulate young children's physical activity during hospitalization. Instead of commonly used exercise-based approaches, our focus was on physical activity in the form of spontaneous and unstructured play. We describe how interactions with ambiguous and open-ended playthings gave rise to intended behavioural outcomes. The findings are explained by drawing on Activity Theory, suggesting products can direct and leave things open on different levels of interaction. With our contribution we open up a new design space for behavioural design that reconciles designer's intentions with end user's appropriation.

Prototyping Inconvenience: A pedagogical experiment on designing for debate in design education

“…Related work in design research and design-oriented HCI links debate to the design of provocations [29], highlighting the importance of provocation and criticality in interaction design [14]. Critical inquiry in design research and design-oriented HCI has become increasingly relevant in practice, as related research has demonstrated how the design of frictions [30,31,32], limitations [27], discomfort [33,34], unconventional functions [35], ambiguity [36,37] or open-endedness [37] can be beneficial for a variety of purposes. Such provocations may intentionally trigger personal dilemmas through use and interaction with the design artefact [38].…”

Making Tactful Objects for Sensitive Settings

“…Through the field study [8], we understood that tactful objects should be designed to collaborate with people [41] by balancing the ways in which they steer towards desired forms of behavior [25] while also allowing freedom in appropriation and openness in use [5]. The collaboration between Mr.V the Spaceman's and Figure 3: Balanced collaboration: a) first prototype [8]: probes given to interact with the first prototype; b) field study [8]: collection of family's activities; c) final prototype [4]: control interface, selected containers and booklet implemented in Mr.V the Spaceman.…”

Shift and Blend

“…Ambiguousness can be an invitation of the object to be experienced and re-experienced through its sensuous or aesthetic properties, from which new explorations can start. Ambiguity has, for instance, been suggested to lead to partnerships that allowed for different types of play [5] and may also lead to different forms of appropriation [3].…”