Theme 5 - Pre Lectures

I have read the paper Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration. It’s about using the vibration technique to communicate what is happening in a live football game. I found this paper very interesting and appealing since I am very fond of football and because I have never heard of this way of communicating sports before. Imaging sitting in a lecture and knowing what is happening on a football field by the vibrations from your phone.

How can media technologies be evaluated?
Media technologies is, in one way or the other, about different forms of communications through time and/or space. The evaluation of media technology can of course differ from case to case but as far as I know media technology is often evaluated by observing how individuals without prior knowledge of the concept behave or perceive whatever is being tested. You chose these people because you want the evaluation to be from an outside perspective. It’s also important to successfully identify your target group (if you have one) and let someone from that group evaluate it. The actual evaluation often looks at user-friendliness, design or efficiency.

What role will prototypes play in research?
The reason for having a prototype is to have a mock-version of your intended product (or what ever you are designing) to evaluate its capabilities while you are still developing it. A prototype is a great way to make your research more realistic and more connected with what you are trying to develop and helps you figure out how to improve your concept.

Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?
A proof-of-content is evidence that the idea for a product, for example, is doable and realistic. A situation where this could be necessary is when trying to convince others that your vision of a product, innovation, etc is even possible.

What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?
The first characteristic of a prototype that pops into my head is that a prototype is often very basic and “low-tech”. Of course this doesn’t have to be the case, a prototype can be an almost finished version of the final product. A software-prototype, like an app for instance, can appear to be a finished product but in reality it’s just a mock-version of the app. This is a great way of testing a prototype since you can come very close to a “real” version very easy. The limitations depends of course how good of a prototype you have. I would think that in the field of industrial design it’s quite hard to come close to what you imagine with a prototype.

I have also read Finding design qualities in a tangible programming space - Fernaeus & Tholander and Differentiated Driving Range - Lundström.

What is the 'empirical data' in these two papers?
The empirical data mainly comes from previous research, qualitative analyses through interviews with experts, early adopters etc and evaluations of prototypes. The quality of the prototypes is both early “low-fi” versions and highly functioning ones.

Can practical design work in itself be considered a 'knowledge contribution?
I believe that the process from an vision to a final product generates knowledge. One can never fully predict how something will behave or be received in the real world and by making the journey between theory and practice, new findings and discoveries will come along the way.

Are there any differences in design intentions within a research project, compared to design in general?
I think that design in a research project does a more thorough investigation that takes more aspects into consideration and the goal is to come to some sort of conclusion that (hopefully) will contribute to whatever field of science the project is about. Design in general focuses on making the design as good as possible based on the end-user and certain conditions.

Is research in tech domains such as these ever replicable? How may we account for aspects such as time/historical setting, skills of the designers, available tools, etc?
I think that research is never entirely replicable, especially in the tech domain like these papers. There are too many factors in play like the exact technology, and their chosen test persons. Aspects like time/historical setting, skills of the designers and available tools are things that are constantly under change.

Are there any important differences with design driven research compared to other research practices?
The main difference between design driven research to other research is that in design research there is always someone or something you are designing for. There is a clear objective with certain needs and conditions that need to be taken into account, when designing in the best possible way.