Vision on Design
Interaction design is creating relationships between people and their men-made surroundings. Nowadays, we no longer live in a physical living space only. We spent a lot of our time in digital environments. Our living environment becomes more and more connected with the digital, developing towards a hyperconnected society (Eranti 2018). The interaction between this data and us, happens mostly through visual notifications on single user devices through which we navigate by tiny finger movements (for example smartphones). This way of interacting asks for focused attention the whole day, making attention a scarce good (Weiser, 1996).
I believe that we as designers can do better than designing a dystopian society where technology demands people to interact with their surroundings through full-attention-asking, non-intuitive interactions and where people have to fight against the ongoing stream of digital information all the time. I believe we have to redesign relationship between the physical and the digital, in such way that we can intuitively interact with our surroundings, physical as well as digital, in a meaningful and unobtrusive way.
This is where the principles of calm technology (Weiser, 1996) come into practice, and will guide us while designing ambient communication, helping to create a society where the relationbetween the physical and digital world is balanced, and can be accessed in through our connected environment: the merged living environment of cyberphysical space (Rosenius, 2017).
Eranti, V., Koponen, J., Leppänen, J., Lätti, R., Mikkonen, J., Neuvonen, A., Rantanen, K., (2018). The Nordic Digital Promise, four theses on a hyperconnected society. Helsinki, Suomi: Demos Helsinki.
Rosenius, T. (2017, november). Towards dynamic environments [Webinar, Philips Lighting University]. Retrieved on 24 september 2018, from https://www.education.lighting.philips.com/lms/file.php/584/moddata/scorm/54/index_lms.html
Weiser, M., Brown, J., S., (1996) The coming age of calm technology. Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Identity
I grew up in a farmhouse that my dad was (and still is) renovating into a true family home. The slow transformation of the rooms and the difference in atmosphere it brought was always most interesting to me. I think here my interest in living environments and how surroundings influence human behavior is rooted, that now results in the interest in designing a calm and intertwined digital and physical living environment.
As described in my vision, one of the major challenges of today is to design this balanced cyberphysical space.
This multidisciplinary challenge of asks for multidisciplinary teams to tackle it. I would like to work towards the profile of interaction designer in one of those teams, designing the generative content that is brought into spaces. This content can be of different modalities, I believe light and/or sound fit ambient communication best. Therefore a good understanding of light and sound in architecture, human perception and human (and crowd) behavior is important, as the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to successfully run a design process. Herein collaboration with experts of other disciplines is one of the most important skills to possess.
Revised model of cyberphysical space, Rosenius (2017)