description

 

As HCI researchers, designers, artists, and practitioners we often encounter the landscape of computing, its experiences, and interactions across a wide range of environments beyond the home and office. How will technologies activate public environments such as cities, parks, forests, and suburbs? What experiences will be needed? How will we interact with others, the built, and natural environment? Which methods will best facilitate the exploration of these design spaces? In what form will we discover results and how can we communicate them?

 

Goals of the course:

 

This course is designed to develop proficiency with a set of skills, techniques, and research methods that can be applied to problems within this domain. More specifically, this course introduces several new (and some traditional) research concepts scoped within an HCI framing as applied to the public environment:

 

Urban Computing

Ecological and Environmental HCI

Design Research

Physical Prototyping

Participation, Engagement, and Action

 

Details:

 

Discussion and Mailing List ae2009@living-environments.net

 

 

assignments

The semsester is structured around in-class discussions of readings, 3-5 field activities, and 3 design vignettes.

 

Readings:

 

Each week students are required to read and come prepared to paricipate in an in class discussion of the papers. For each class, two students will be selected to lead the discussion. Your participation in discussions will be one component of your grade for the class.

 

Field Activities:

 

A series of 3-5 small activity based tasks will be assigned based on the readings throughout the semster. These are designed to allow students to develop first hand experience with some of the design techniques.

 

Design Vignettes:

 

Students will develop 3 quick novel design sketches throughout the semester that will be critiqued in class. Students will work in groups or as individuals and are expected to prepare a presentation of their design based on the 3 design vignette briefs over the span of the course. Each design vignette covers a seperate theme across a roughly 4 week period. They span the following topics:

 

Urban

Mobile

Environmental

 

Grading will be based on concept selection, fieldwork, communication of design, and in class presentation. In addition students will be required to upload final assignments and vignettes material for grading.

grading

Attendence 10%
Participation 20%
Field Activities (3-5) 20%
Design Vignette 1 10%
Design Vignette 2 15%
Design Vignette 3 25%

syllabus

Tu 25 Aug

Introduction and Exercises

Assignment:

 

Field Activity 01
Due 01 Sep


The Map is not the Territory

 

Map for use with assigment


  
Th 27 Aug

Urban Computing

Milgram, S, The individual in a social world : essays and experiments, Addison-Wesley Pub. Co, Reading, Mass, 1977. (Chapter 8 "Psycholohgical Maps of Paris", pp. 88-113)

Denzil Ferreira

 

Lynch, K, The Image of the City, Technology Press, Cambridge Mass, 1960. (Chapter 1 "The Image of the Environment" pp 1-13)

Meg Davis

 

The Great Neighborhood Book, (Chapter 1 "Feeling Right at Home: How to Foster a Sense of Community", pp. 9-31) AND (Chapter 2 "Where Everybody Knows Your Name: How to Create Great Places to Hang Out", pp. 34-51, AND Intro pp. 1-6)

Frank Noz

 

OPTIONAL:

 

Jacobs, J, The death and life of great American cities, Random House, New York, 1961. (Chapter 2 "The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety", pp.29-54).

 

Graham, S, The Cybercities Reader, Routledge, 2004. ("The Third Interval" by Paul Virilio, pp. 78-81) AND ("Space of Flows, Space of Places: Materials for the Theory of Urbaism in the Information Age" by Manuel Castells, pp. 82-93)

 

  
 
Tu 01 Sep
 Locative Media, Urban Screens, and Interactivity

 

Snibbe, Scott S. and Raffle, Hayes S., Social immersive media: pursuing best practices for multi-user interactive camera/projector exhibits. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2009 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2009. pp. 1447-1456

Joey Fung

 

Mirjam Struppek: "The social potential of Urban Screens" in: Visual Communication, Volume 5, No. 2, Sage Publications June 2006, p. 173-188.

Ricardo Sol

 

OPTIONAL:

 

Peltonen, P., Kurvinen, E., Salovaara, A., Jacucci, G., Ilmonen, T., Evans, J., Oulasvirta, A., and Saarikko, P. 2008. It's Mine, Don't Touch!: interactions at a large multi-touch display in a city centre. CHI '08. ACM, New York, NY, 1285-1294.


McDonough, T, Guy Debord and the situationist international: texts and documents, MIT Press, 2002. (Sec "Towards a Situationist International", pp. 44--50)

 

Assignment:

 

Design Vignette 01
Due 22 Sep

20 X 20 X 20 X G20

 

Map of potential sites for Design Vignettes (thanks Joey Fung)

 

  
Th 03 Sep

Reflect

Review: Field Activity 01

 

Urban Examples

 

Video

 

Discuss Design Vignette 01

 

  
 
Tu 08 Sep

Design Research

 

Moggridge, B, Designing interactions, MIT press, 2007. (Chapter "Designing Interactions" pp. 647-662))
Amy Lew

 

Laurel, B, Design research : methods and perspectives, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, 2003. (Preface) AND ("Qualitative Methods: From Boring to Brilliant" by Christopher Ireland, pp. 25-29) AND ("Ethography and Critical Design Practice" by Tim Plowman, pp. 30-38) AND ("The Paradox of Design Research" by Bonnie McDaniel Johnson, pp. 39-40) AND ("Designing for the New Old" by Eric Dishman, pp. 41-48)

Smitha Papolu

 

OPTIONAL:

 

Barkhuus, L., Chalmers, M., Tennent, P., Hall, M., Bell, M., Sherwood, S., and Brown, B. 2005. Picking Pockets on the Lawn: The Development of Tactics and Strategies in a Mobile Game. Proc. Ubicomp 2005 (Tokyo, Japan).

 

  
Th 10 Sep

Maker Day

 

 

  
 
Tu 15 Sep

Probes

 

Bill Gaver, Tony Dunne, & E Pacenti, 'Design: Cultural Probes', ACM Interactions vol. 6, no. 1, 1999, pp. 21-29.

Jonathan Kantrowitz

 

Dunne, A, & F Raby, Design Noir: The secret life of electronic objects, Birkhauser, 2001. (Sec 2 "Hertzian Space" pp. 15-43).
Jesse Venticinque

 

OPTIONAL:

 

Dunne, A, & F Raby, Design Noir: The secret life of electronic objects, Birkhauser, 2001. (Sec 5 "The Secret Life of Electronic Objects" pp. 75-90).

 

  
Th 17 Sep

Maker Day

 

  
 
Tu 22 Sep

Critiques: Design Vignette 01 (part 1)

20 X 20 X 20 X G20

 

Group 5

Jenny Schweers

Cheng Xu

Maria Freitas

Group 3

Jonathan Kantrowitz

Jesse Venticinque

Meg Davis

Group 1

Frank Noz

Joey Fung

Ricardo Jesus

 

  
Th 24 Sep

Critiques: Design Vignette 01 (part2)

20 X 20 X 20 X G20

 

Group 2

Amy Lew

Smitha Papolu

Nate Colker

Group 4

Vaishali Jain

Kevin Tassini

Solomon Bisker

Group 6

Aaron Schwartz

Michael Pennisi

 

Also related: Osman's HeyG20

 

Note:

 

Final Posters Due by noon Friday 25 Sept

 

G20 Summit in Pittsburgh 25-26 Sept

 

Field Activity 02
Due 15 Oct


Assignment Noir

 

  
 
Tu 29 Sep
 Wicked Problems (Guest Lecture: John Zimmerman)

 

Rittel, Horst, and Melvin Webber; "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning," pp. 155-169, Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Inc., Amsterdam, 1973. [Reprinted in N. Cross (ed.), Developments in Design Methodology, J. Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 1984, pp. 135-144.],

Aaron Schwartz

 

  
Th 01 Oct

Maker Day

  
 
Tu 06 Oct
 New Media Rising (Guest Lecture: Golan Levin)

 

  
Th 08 Oct

Citizen Science

Corburn, J, Street science : community knowledge and environmental health justice, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005. (Chapter 6 "Mapping of Local Knowledge" pp.173-199)

Vaishali Jain

 

Irwin, A, Citizen science : a study of people, expertise, and sustainable development, Routledge, London ; New York, 1995.

Kevin Tassini

 

 

  
 
Tu 13 Oct
 Deconstructing Braddock (Guest Lecture: Jill Miller)

 

 

  
Th 15 Oct

Reflect

Review: Field Activity 02

 

Assignment:

 

Design Vignette 02
Due 05 Nov

Telecom Triptych

 

  
 
Tu 20 Oct

Persuasion and Manipulation

Cialdini, RB, "Descriptive social norms as underappreciated sources of social control", Psychometrika vol. 72, no. 2, 2007, pp. 263-268.

Cheng Xu

 

S. Consolvo, P. Klasnja, D. McDonald, D. Avrahami, J. Froehlich, L. LeGrand, R. Libby, K. Mosher, & J.A. Landay. "Flowers or a Robot Army? Encouraging Awareness & Activity with Personal, Mobile Displays," Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing: UbiComp 2008, (Seoul, Korea), New York, NY, USA: ACM Press, (2008).

Mike Pennisi

 

OPTIONAL:

 

BJ Fogg and Dean Eckles, Mobile Persuasion (Chapter 4 "Persuasive Games on Mobile Devices" by Ian Bogost pp. 29-37) AND (Chapter 19 "Redefining Persuasion fopr a Mobile World" by Dean Eckles, pp. 143-149)

 

Rushkoff, D, Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say, Riverhead Trade, 2000. (Selections)

 

Fogg, BJ, 'Persuasive technologies: Introduction', Communications of the ACM vol. 42, no. 5, 1999, pp. 26-29.

 

 

  
Th 22 Oct

Crowd Sourcing: The Power and Challenges of Many

 

Surowiecki, J, The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economies, societies and nations, Doubleday, 2004. (Intro AND Chapter 1 "The Wisdom of Crowds", pp. 3-7) AND (Chapter 8 "Science: Collaboration, Competition, and Reputation", pp. 158-172)

Nate Colker

 

OPTIONAL:

 

Kittur, A, & RE Kraut, 'Harnessing the wisdom of crowds in wikipedia: quality through coordination', Proceedings of the ACM 2008 conference on Computer supported cooperative work 2008, pp. 37-46.

 

Canetti, E, & C Stewart, Crowds and power, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984. (pp. 15-41).

 

Rheingold, H, Smart mobs : the next social revolution, Perseus Pub, Cambridge, MA, 2002. (Chapter 7, "Smart Mobs: The Power of the Mobile Many", pp. 157 -182)

 

  
 
Tu 27 Oct

Maker Day

 

  
Th 29 Oct

Design-X

 

Gaver, W, Designing for Homo Ludens, i3 Magazine 2002, pp. 2-5. and Gaver, W. Curious Things for Curious People, Goldsmiths Technical Report 2006.

Maria Freitas

 

Gaver, W. W., Beaver, J., and Benford, S. 2003. Ambiguity as a resource for design. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, April 05 - 10, 2003). CHI '03. ACM, New York, NY, 233-240

Solomon Bisker

 

OPTIONAL:

 

Dunne, A, & F Raby, Design Noir: The secret life of electronic objects, Birkhauser, 2001. (Sec 3 "Design Noir" pp. 45-56)

 

Aoki, PM, & A Woodruff, 'Making space for stories: ambiguity in the design of personal communication systems', Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems 2005, pp. 181-190.

 

Bell, G, M Blythe, & P Sengers, Making by making strange: Defamiliarization and the design of domestic technologies, ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. vol. 12, no. 2, 2005, pp. 149-173.

 

Hallnäs, L, & J Redström, 'Slow Technology – Designing for Reflection', Personal Ubiquitous Comput. vol. 5, no. 3, 2001, pp. 201-212.

 

Sengers, P, & B Gaver, 'Designing for Interpretation', HCI International 2005,

 

  
 
Tu 03 Nov

Critiques: Design Vignette 2 - Telecom Triptych (PART 1)

 

Group 4

Ricardo Jesus

Meg Davis

Kevin Tassini

Cheng Xu

Michael Pennisi

Group 1

Amy Lew

Jonathan Kantrowitz

Vaishali Jain

Jenny Schweers

 

 
Th 05 Nov

Critiques: Design Vignette 2 - Telecom Triptych (PART 2)

 

Group 3

Joey Fung

Smitha Papolu

Jesse Venticinque

Aaron Schwartz

Group 2

Frank Noz

Nate Colker

Solomon Bisker

Maria Freitas

Note:

 

MOBILE ART AND CODE 6-8 NOV

 

 

  
 
Tu 10 Nov

Cardboard Engineering, Paper Protyping, and Sketching

 

Moggridge, B, Designing interactions, MIT press, 2007. (Chapter "Bill Verplank" pp. 124-134)

 

Hudson, SE, & J Mankoff, 'Rapid construction of functioning physical interfaces from cardboard, thumbtacks, tin foil and masking tape', Proceedings of the 19th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology 2006, pp. 289-298.

 

Cardboard Autonoma

 

Assignment:

 

Field Activity 03
Due 17 Nov

 

Sensory Cardboard

 

Design Vignette 03
Due 03 Dec

Energy Ecosystem

 

  
Th 12 Nov

Maker Day

 


  
 
Tu 17 Nov

Ecological Art, Design, and HCI

 

DiSalvo, C, K Boehner, NA Knouf, & P Sengers, 'Nourishing the ground for sustainable HCI: considerations from ecologically engaged art', Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in computing systems 2009, pp. 385-394.

Joey Fung

 

Blevis, E, 'Sustainable interaction design: invention & disposal, renewal & reuse', Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems 2007, pp. 503-512.

Jenny Schweers

 

 

OPTIONAL:

 

Huang, E. M., Truong, K. N., Breaking the paradigm of disposable technology: Opportunities for sustainable interaction design for mobile phones." Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2008).

 

J. Froehlich, T. Dillahunt, P. Klasnja, J. Mankoff, S. Consolvo, B. Harrison, J. A. Landay, UbiGreen: Investigating a Mobile Tool for Tracking and Supporting Green Transportation Habits. In Proceedings of CHI 2009.

 

Paul Dourish, Points of Persuasion: Strategic Essentialism and Environmental Sustainability, workshop paper in Pervasive Persuasive Technology and Environmental Sustainability Workshop at the 6th International Conference on Pervasive Computing, 2008

 

Beyond Green: Towards a Sustainabile Art (Selections)

 

  
Th 19 Nov

Sustanibility and Our Environment

 

Special Paper

 

 

OPTIONAL:

 

Carson, R, L Darling, & L Darling, Silent spring, Houghton Mifflin Riverside Press, Boston Cambridge, Mass, 1962. (Selections)

 

Walker, S, Sustainable by design : explorations in theory and practice, Earthscan, London ; Sterling, VA, 2006. (Selections)

 

Agrawal, A, Environmentality: technologies of government and the making of subjects, Duke University Press, 2005. (Selections)

 

  
 
Tu 24 Nov

Maker Day

  
 

THANKSGIVING

  
 
Tu 01 Dec

Maker Day

  
Th 03 Dec

Critiques: Design Vignette 3 - Environment

POSTER (PDF)

TIME 9:00am - 12:00pm

ROOM: 6501 Gates-Hillman Center

Group 1

 

Amy Lew

Solomon Bisker

Maria Freitas

Ricardo Jesus

Michael Pennisi

 

Group 2

 

Jonathan Kantrowitz

Frank Noz

Smitha Papolu

Margaret (Meg) Davis

 

Group 3

 

Nate Colker

Joey Fung

Jesse Venticinque

Kevin Tassini

 

Group 4

 

Vaishali Jain

Jenny Schweers

Aaron Schwartz

Cheng Xu