Materials in Participatory Design Processes

TL;DR

This dissertation explores the role of physical and digital materials in participatory and interaction design, developing conceptual tools based on pragmatism to understand how materials facilitate design reflection and inquiry.

Contribution

It introduces a pragmatist-inspired framework for understanding how materials support design processes, validated through experimental design cases.

Findings

Materials structure design inquiry and problem framing.

Materials inspire solutions and facilitate practical testing.

Pragmatist perspective enhances understanding of material roles in design.

Abstract

This dissertation presents three years of academic inquiry into the question of what role materials play in interaction design and participatory design processes. The dissertation aims at developing conceptual tools, based on Deweys pragmatism, for understanding how materials aid design reflection. It has been developed using a research-through-design approach in which the author has conducted practical design work in order to investigate and experiment with using materials to scaffold design inquiry. The results of the PhD work is submitted as seven separate papers, submitted to esteemed journals and conferences within the field of interaction design and HCI. The work is motivated both by the growing interest in materials in interaction design and HCI and the interest in design processes and collaboration within those fields. At the core of the dissertation lies an interest in the many different materials used during the design process: sketches, prototypes as well as the materials we shape products out of: physical and digital materials now form a unity of computation and physical materials that has given rise to a new research interest in design and materiality. The main results from the dissertation are an understanding of design materials that draws on pragmatist philosophy. The papers and overview article highlights how materials in a pragmatist perspective are more than the matter out of which we shape an idea. Rather they structure the entire process of inquiry, helping us frame problems, inspire solutions and try out these solutions in practice. This framework, developed in several of the submitted papers, is tested and illustrated through a series of experimental design cases.