Supporting Configurability in a tangibly augmented environment for design students (original) (raw)

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing

In many environments the landscape of space and artefacts is evolving and changing with the tasks at hand. Integrating digital media and computation in these environments has to take into account that users will configure space, functions and tools according to the situation, organizing use in unexpected ways. In this article we present and discuss how the issue of configurability is dealt with in a series of field trials with design students. The aim of these trials was to construct for architecture and interaction design students a mixed media environment for inspirational learning. We give examples from two rounds of field trials. In the first round emphasize was given to introduce components integrating dynamic digital media into the design studio practice of the students. One of the important findings from this first round was that integration becomes particularly useful when it facilitates the creation of composite representations called mixed objects blending digital and non-digital media in one design artifact. We did however also find that configurability has to be supported at different levels (infrastructures, artefacts, functions) and across physical and digital realm. From the second round of field trials examples are presented of component assemblies that provide a tangible formatting of the mixed media environment suitable for design work and two different approaches to end-user configuration of these component assemblies are described. Based on the results from the second round of field trials the concluding discussion suggests design principles relevant when integrating digital media and computation in design studios.

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