Materialities influencing the design process

Abstract

The use of material artefacts within the design process is a long-standing and continuing characteristic of interaction design. Established methods, such as prototyping, which have been widely adopted by educators and practitioners, are seeing renewed research interest and being reconsidered in light of the evolving needs of the field. Alongside this, the past decade has seen the introduction and adoption of a diverse range of novel design methods into interaction design, such as cultural probes, technology probes, context mapping, and provotypes.Yet, interaction design does not have a cohesive framework for understanding this diverse range of practices. Such a framework would assist practitioners in comparing and choosing between methods across the different stages, contexts and stakeholder relations within a design process. It seems that one fruitful place to start in addressing this lack is to focus in on the common characteristic that these practices share of materialities influencing the design process.

Blind tennis

“…Blomberg et al (1996) encourage designers to engage directly with workers' own materials, using these in processes of 'case-based' prototyping. More recently, Chamberlain notes that "understanding the different states of materiality can offer designers and stakeholders a way to see the design process, and their engagement within that process" (Mathew et al, 2010). Hansen and Dalsgaard's work (2012) attempts to develop a more comprehensive framework for addressing materiality and participation.…”

Art loop open

“…Early stage decision-making is the most critical part of the design process. Engaging prototyping and sketching methods at this stage allows designers to create numerous generative, evaluative and narrative prototypes, each adding to the design process [10]. In our project, prototyping early in the process allowed us to develop and dispose of ideas quickly and without effort.…”

Environmentally Sustainable Offset Prints Exposed to Thermal Aging and NO2

“…The market for packaging products is constantly growing. The attractiveness and selection of the packaging product are greatly influenced by the design, the choice of materials, and the printing technique used [30,31]. When designing a cardboard packaging product, one must think about the environmental conditions that affect the product.…”