Onsdag 22. desember forsvarer stipendiat Jon Olav Husabø Eikenes avhandling si Navimation. A sociocultural exploration of kinetic interface design for ph.d-graden ved Arkitektur- og designhøgskolen i Oslo. Eikenes har i avhandlinga utforska korleis visuell bevegelse kan nyttast på nettsider og på skjermane til mobiltelefonar og lesebrett. Prosjektet har kombinert analysar av eksisterande nettsider og digitale produkt med eigne designeksperiment.

Kandidaten gjer også ei prøveforelesing relatert til avhandlinga sitt tema, med tittelen ”Examples of double mediation as instrumental and semiotic tool”.

Disputasen finn stad onsdag 22. desember. Prøveforelesninga tar til kl 10.00, medan disputasen starter kl 12.00.

Stad: Store auditorium, Arkitektur- og designhøgskolen i Oslo.

Komité:
Førsteamanuensis Cheryl E. Ball, Illinois State University (førsteopponent)
Førsteamanuensis Anders Fagerjord, Universitetet i Oslo (annenopponent)
Dr. Martina Maria Keitsch, Arkitektur- og designhøgskolen i Oslo (koordinator)

Jon Olav Husabø Eikenes (1980) er master i industridesign frå Arkitektur- og designhøgskolen i Oslo (2006), med fordjuping i fagfeltet interaksjonsdesign. Han har vore stipendiat ved Institutt for design sidan 2007. Eikenes er no tilsett som interaksjonsdesignar i designkonsulentfirmaet Halogen i Oslo.

The history of Participatory design (PD) may be interpreted as one of rise (80′es and early 90′es) and decline (mid 90′es ->). The source of PD is the Scandinavian tradition, where the development and implementation of interactive systems at the workplace was seen as a political activity requiring the democratic involvement of the  workers. As Pelle Ehn states it in a chapter in the classic  Participatory design: “Every human should have the right to participate equally in decisions concerning his or her life”. Early PD successes, as the project with the Norwegian Iron and metal workers union in the 70′es and UTOPIA in the 80′es, typically saw system development as a cooperative activity between skilled workers and their unions,  system owners and system developers. In order to facilitate user involvement, pioneering use of methods was applied – such as the use of mock-ups, role-play, future workshops, and co-operative prototyping.

Gradually, user involvement in PD processes were seen more as a pragmatic approach to improve system usability, and less as an activity with the political aim of industrial democracy. As Bergvall-Kåreborn and Ståhlbröst found in their survey of the PD conference articles of 2006, only one in the 15 conference papers that year presented a study with a democratic motive for participation.  This shift towards pragmatic motivation for PD is parallel in time to what I find to be declining awareness of PD among usability researchers and practitioners. Possibly, this pragmatic shift makes it difficult to differentiate PD from other user-oriented traditions, such as user-centred design.

Also, the world of system development has changed dramatically since the golden days of PD. For the majority of IT solutions being developed, it is no longer feasible to involve the intended user base in a democratic fashion. One obvious reason for this is the size and distributed nature of the user base for most interactive systems of today; it is either impractical or impossible to involve a fair share of the intended users in the development process.

The distributed nature the user base and the shift towards pragmatic motivation may be seen as important causes for the decline of PD. However, social media may possibly change the game back in favor for PD.  At least when it comes to overcoming the challenge of a large and distributed user base.

The growth of social media has made clear to the world something that PD researchers and practitioners have known all along: Users are (at their best) engaged, knowledgeable, and creative.   Social media also provide an opportunity to involve users in innovation and development. For ideation, such as Starbucks and Dell has done for some years already, or for feedback in development processes as we have done in the RECORD project.

In RECORD we have run several cases where users are invited to provide design feedback through a social media environment. Designs have been presented to users, who in turn have provided feedback as comments and ratings. Different cases have covered feedback on ideas, concepts, visual prototypes and beta-versions. We have learnt that the feedback provide insight in (a) the users general experience of the design, (b) aspects of the design that are particularly well liked,  (c) problems, (d) design suggestions, and (e) context information (such as situations for use). Also, through social media it is possible to (a) gather user feedback on a larger amount of ideas, concepts or solutions and (b) gather user feedback in the early phases of ideation and concept design. We have for example run cases where users provide feedback on >20 ideas for new solutions – which enables user involvement in a phase of development typically reserved for the designers and the core project team.

Not all the design feedback we get through social media is  gold – some of it is actually quite non-constructive.  But some is good and valuable. We are currently in the process of analyzing data to find out whether some types of users provide better feedback in others. In particular we investigate whether users with lead user characteristics (as defined by von Hippel)  provide better feedback.

In conclusion, social media seem to represent renewed attention to the users as a source of knowledge and creativity in system development. If so, social media used for PD purposes – Participatory design 2.0 – may represent the potential for a renewal in the interest also for PD. When involving users in development processes through social media, we for sure have lots to learn from the PD tradition.

Currently, the involvement of users in innovation and development is mainly pragmatic. However, it is conceivable that future uses of social media for such purposes also may be motivated politically. This remains to be seen. Maybe we have a new golden age of PD ahead of us.

Etter seminaret deltok drøyt 20 stykker på workshop med Leadbeater der vi tok for oss ulike problemstillinger knyttet til “design with and by people”. Vi legger pekere til presentasjonene i programmet så snart de blir gjort tilgjengelige.

Program og påmelding finner du her. Hold av plass i kalenderen.

På seminaret presenteres resultater fra RECORD. I tillegg kommer Nina Nordbø (NRK) og Heidi Nordby Lunde (VamPus og ABC Nyheter) for å fortelle om sine synspunkt på morgendagens sosiale medier. Og Espen Andersen setter sosiale medier i perspektiv av disruptiv innovasjon. Leadbeater holder en key-note. Kanskje vi også får til en workshop.

Samtidig med seminaret arrangeres en utstilling om sosiale medier. Det hele på AHO. Endelig program og påmelding kommer tidlig i august. Du finner litt mer om seminarets kontekst på Opinion-bloggen. Tror dette blir kjempemoro!

Seminaret vil hete  Fremtidens sosiale medier. Vi ønsker oss visjonære meningsbærere, etablerte løsningsleverandører og de nye fremadstormende, i tillegg til ulike tilnærminger til det å tenke om fremtidens sosiale medier.

Sammen med seminaret planlegger vi også en utstilling med samme tema som seminaret. Mer om dette senere.

Har du gode forslag til interessante foredragsholdere, lokale så vel som internasjonale, er det supert om du legger igjen en kommentar.  Budsjettet for seminaret er begrenset, så de store internasjonale kanonene er nok utelukket. Forøvrig er det fritt frem.

Bilder: Foredragsholdere på RECORD-seminaret i 2009 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/eirikso/ / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Les også Aftenposten-oppslaget om rapporten. Du kan kanskje også være interessert i å følge den relaterte diskusjonen om personvern på Origo.

Keynote var Russel Davies, som tok for seg hva som skjer når innhold på internett materialiseres i den fysiske verden.  Eirik Solheim, Yngvar Kjus og Jørn Knutsen snakket om sosiale medier i underholdningsøyemed. Bente Kalsnes, Sunneva Kilsti og Stine Sem, og Petter Bae Brandtzæg snakket om nytteaspekter ved sosiale medier.

Presentasjonene legges ut på programsiden fortløpende. Eirik Solheim har lagt ut bilder.

Tid: 2. oktober, 08:15-12:00 – med frokost
Sted: AHO, Maridalsveien 29, Oslo

Se program og påmelding.

Om du vil. kan du kikke nærmere på presentasjonen, eller lese om det hele i Opinionbloggen.