The field of interaction design is constantly shifting with the introduction of new technologies that allow individuals the ability to interact with or act upon an environment, such as installations that use motion tracking as an input device, or allowing users to interact with an environment with their mobile device. This shift from the interaction with traditional computers (static machines) to machines that react to people and environments, requires designers to reevaluate how these new platforms can be effectively used to communicate information and have a lasting affect on participants. There is a great challenge in the articulation of new interaction models. Many people tend to hold on to more traditional or familiar methods of interacting with their devices, as these new methods of engagement require the learning of new metaphors for interaction. How do we construct systems that engage and motivate people to use unfamiliar systems? The work presented in this report is my attempt to answer this question by exploring emerging spatial interface technologies. / text

This study explores the human-object relationship through the design of a flowerpot that amplifies object/ human communication. Humans frequently anthropomorphize artifacts in their environment, attributing feelings and features to artifacts, so transforming them into companions. For example people commonly name and ascribe gender to their favorite vehicles. Recent advances in digital and interface design have afforded new possibilities for shaping future human/ object interaction. I have chosen to focus my investigations on possible feedback loops that connect human emotionally to the plant. The Morphological chart was the method used in order to generate a broad range of the concepts. The method provides a structure for a less predictable and more experimental form of ideation. The concepts generated focused on defining new roles for, and ways of seeing houseplants and potential routes for interaction and communication between human and plant. The designs focused on attributing human values and features to both the form of the plant pot and communication system used. / text

Nuclear waste remains radioactive for thousands of years. Burying it underground in an enormous repository, called Onkalo, surrounded and secured by solid rock is the long-term solution Finnish authorities implement right now. Once the repository is filled up, it will be locked up forever and never opened again. At the same time three new nuclear power plants are built. Out of Sight, out of Mind? Ultimately, this raises questions: Can this be the solution for final disposal of nuclear waste? How do we understand a problem clearly exceeding our capabilities as human beings? How do we deal with the dilemmas of uncertainty, invisibility, time, demand, possible contamination, and our individual responsibility as human beings? Understanding Through Interaction I designed three everyday products, a lamp, a toy for children, and a pregnancy test, that afford a familiar everyday action on one hand, while exposing a dilemma related to Onkalo on the other. In doing so, the artifacts make those dilemma tangible and facilitate understanding and critical thinking. Sharing a personal experience, the users can engage in a personal discourse around nuclear waste actively, opposing the distant and highly politicalised discourse spread by the media.

Gravity plays a vital role in our everyday lives. It provides the development of our muscle mass which fuels our brain’s advancement and our ability to complete daily tasks. Yet we often take for granted the things we do not see. From hunting and gathering, chasing after prey, migrating from one place to the next, to growing and harvesting crops to long hours laboring away, we have felt gravity through millions of years in time.  Along with the rise of technology, we are witnessing the fall of our physical selves. Our lives have become busier, more stressful and our days behind a screen much longer. Within the past 30 years, gravity has been intercepted by the chair and the ratio of moving to sitting has been reversed. Instead of feeling this force within our legs and lower limbs, it has now been deferred to our fingers, buttocks and backs.  We spend the bulk of our days in a seated position, often behind a screen. Sitting has become such a norm that daily exercise at the gym is no longer enough to offset all the negative things done to our bodies in a sedentary posture.  We were programmed to move, but we’ve hacked our brains to think otherwise. Prolonged sitting is a serious issue that should not be overlooked. The challenge is to change a habit that we’ve acquired from an early age.  The numbers are staggering, over 1.5 billion people worldwide are obese.(WHO. int, 2013) 5.3 million die each year from heart related diseases and diabetes as indirect result of the chair, .3 million more than smoking. (Thelancet.com, 2012)  It is time to break the norm, adjust our perceptions, expectations and stop living in extremes and move towards moderation. It’s time to stand up and make gravity visible.  10/60: Make Gravity Visible is a social movement to challenge our society to move more, reminding people to be up and moving 10 minutes for every 60 minutes.  The goal is to challenge society to integrate movement within the home, work and societal environments through the support and influence of communal behaviour.  10/60 is facilitated by a website and a smartphone application. The website provides ideas shared by the community to help inspire movement into people’s lives. The app tracks a person’s daily physical activity levels and sends a reminder when he/she has been sitting for too long. How much a person moves is reflected by an avatar’s physical state as well as graphical data by the time of day. Challenges can be submitted within the inner circle of friends to encourage more movement.  The initial strategy around this topic was through the intersections of four subjects: human evolution, philosophy, behavioral psychology, and physiology. This concept was developed based on findings from foundational research, expert interviews, user tests, experiments and behavioral observations - in particular social influences and the underlying principle that motivation is different for everyone.  Awareness alone does not generate action. Motivating people to move more is beyond an individual problem - sitting is a societal and cultural issue and unless that is addressed, no long term changes can be sustained.  This project aims to inspire people to leverage their communities and integrate more physical activity in the home, work and societal environments.  Societal and cultural norms will not change unless we change together.

As part of an internship at Ericsson, this report was written to enhance the understanding of how it is to develop a system that is well established at the workplace. To improve an already existing system is not always as easy as many developers may think. In this report the pros and cons of developing an already existing system has been researched and analyzed. Do note that the results are only from one development of a specific system and that comparison of other developments has been made from other reports and not from experiencing it firsthand. It was found that the choices made can have an impact on further developing and it is important to write down what has been done. Writing down why you choose to do something may help you further down the process why you did what you did. / Som en del av ett praktiskt examensarbete, har denna rapport skrivits för att öka förståelsen av hur det är vidareutveckla ett befintligt och etablerat system. Att förbättra ett redan befintligt system är inte alltid så lätt som många systemutvecklare har uppfattning om. I denna rapport har fördelar och nackdelar med utvecklingen av ett redan befintligt system undersökts och analyserat med hjälp av egna upplevelser. Notera att resultatet är framtaget från en enda upplevelse av en specifik utveckling av ett system. Detta betyder att jämförelser endast gjorts med andra rapporteringar av liknande fall och inte med egen erfarenhet då bara ett system utvecklats under denna tid. Resultatet visar att det är viktigt att du antecknar dina tankar kring de val du gör då det kan hjälpa dig med andra val senare i projektets process.

Den här doktorsavhandlingen presenterar ytinteraktion som ett gränssnitts-paradigm för grafiska användargränssnitt inom kreativa tillämpningar. Ytinteraktion utgår ifrån användarnas innehåll och allt innehåll presenteras på en oändligt stor tvådimensionell yta. Ytan är gränssnittet mot en databas som navigeras och zoom, pan och textfilter. Textfilter används för att visa vilka innehållselement som motsvarar en textsträng, ju fler tecken i strängen, desto färre motsvarande element. Ytinteraktion gör att användare kan dela och redigera innehåll tillsammans via synkront samarbete.Ytinteraktion har studerats genom att utveckla en interaktiv prototyp för kollaborativ live multimedia. Prototypen designades tillsammans med musik- och videoartister inom electronica- och klubbmusikgenren. Den kan användas med pekskärm eller med skäm, mus och tangentbord. Design-processens resultat utvärderades genom en fallstudie som omfattade artisternas förberedelse inför och genomförandet av ett framträdande vid en festival. Analysen av data resulterade i fem bruksvärden; instrumentvärde, kommunikationsvärde, förberedelsevärde, livevärde och underhållningsvärde. Det huvudsakliga bruksvärdet var att den interaktiva prototypen uppfattades som ett instrument. Prototypens design underlättade kommunikationen mellan artisterna i flykten på scen. Instrumentvärdet gjorde det lättare att spela live vilket i sin tur medförde att publiken blev underhållen. Kunskap om den interaktiva prototypen och ytinteraktion har formats med forskning genom design där aktionsforskning var det övergripande ramverket i forskningsprocessen. Aktionsforskning är ett kvalitativ förhållningssätt som sätter fokus på praktikers deltagande i forskningsprocessen och att forskningen intervenerar i praktiken med syfte att förbättra den och att inducera kunskap. Som ett resultat av designprocessen presenteras designprinciper för ytinteraktion. Dessa gör resultaten användbara för praktiker inom interaktionsdesign, människa–datorinteraktion och programvaruteknik. / This dissertation presents surface interaction as an interface paradigm for graphical user interfaces of creative applications. The users' content is the basis for surface interaction, and all content is presented on an infinitely large two-dimensional surface. The surface is an interface to a database, and is navigated by zoom, pan, and text filter. Text filter is to display which content elements match a text string, the more characters of the string the less matching element. Surface interaction allows users to share and edit content collaboratively via synchronous collaboration. Surface interaction was examined by developing an interactive prototype for collaborative live multimedia. The prototype was designed in collaboration with music and video artists within the genres of electronica and club music. It can be used either with a touch screen or with a monitor, mouse, and keyboard. The result of the design process was evaluated in a case study which included the artists' preparations for and carrying through of  a live performance at a festival. The analysis of data yielded five utility values; instrument value, communication value, preparation value, live value, and entertainment value. The main utility value of the interactive prototype was that the artists saw it as instrument.  The design of the prototype made communication easier in the live situation on stage. The instrument value made it easier to play live which consequently entertained the audience.Cognition in the interactive prototype and surface interaction has been created with research through design where action research was the overarching framework. Action research is a qualitative method  which focuses on the participating practitioners and on the intervention of the practice with the purpose improving the practitioner’s situation and of increasing the knowledge of the participants. Design principals and guidelines will be presented as a result of the design process. The guidelines make the results of this dissertation applicable to practitioners of interaction design, human computer interaction and software engineering.

This thesis explores new approaches to making and playing with programming materials, especially the forms provided with screen-based digital media. Designing with these media expressions can be very attractive to children, but they are usually not made available to them in the same degree as are physical materials. Inspired by children's play with physical materials, this work includes design explorations of how different resources alter, scaffold and support children in activities of making dynamic, screen-based systems. How tangibles turn the activity of programming into a more physical, social and collaborative activity is emphasised. A specific outcome concerns the importance of considering 'offline' and socially oriented action when designing tangible technologies. The work includes the design of a tangible programming system, Patcher, with which groups of children can program systems displayed on a large screen surface. The character of children's programming is conceptualised through the notion of a digital patchwork, emphasising (1) children's programming as media-sensitive design, (2) making programming more concrete by combining and reusing readily available programming constructs, and (3) the use of tangibles for social interaction.

The elderly experience their health getting significantly deteriorated as they age. They suffer not only from chronic diseases but from various geriatric diseases such as high blood pressure, arthritis and cardiovascular disease. Their mental health also retreats creating challenges for the elderly from the loss of short term memory to dementia. Furthermore, after they retire, the elderly’s social network decreases as their social activities are inevitably limited to a small group of people like families and friends. With the face of such impairments in their physical, mental and social health, many elderly cannot help but are being institutionalized or sent to specialized places like nursing homes, which provide them professional care. However, a study indicates that most Americans prefer to stay in their homes as they get older since they can maintain their social connections to neighbors and friends, be close to their medical caregivers in town as well as attain emotional comfort and security with familiar surrounding and environments. On top of that, Americans of all ages value on keeping their ability of independence and autonomy by controlling their lives in general. Various health care-aid devices and services appear to offer specific support to health care activities for the elderly in their homes. However, such aids have more focused only on when the elderly’s health is degraded or on very specific areas such as tracking health data like blood pressure, blood sugar and calorie intakes. The elderly need comprehensive understanding about their health problems, healthy daily habits and timely interactions with their families and caregivers, in order to keep independent living safely in their places. Smart Home technology has much potential to support the elderly’s independent living as well as interactions with others. To better understand this, we conducted a user-centered design project which looks at the management of the elderly’s health enabled by Smart Home technology.

Computers are used in sociable situations, for example during customer meetings. This is seldom recognized in design, which means that computers often become a hindrance in the meeting. Based on empirical studies and socio-cultural theory, this thesis provides perspectives on sociable use and identifies appropriate units of analysis that serve as critical tools for understanding and solving interaction design problems. Three sociable situations have been studied: customer meetings, design studios and domestic environments. In total, 49 informants were met with during 41 observation and interview sessions and 17 workshops; in addition, three multimedia platforms were also designed. The empirical results show that people need to perform individual actions while participating in joint action, in a spontaneous fashion and in consideration of each other. The consequence for design is that people must be able to use computers in different manners to control who has what information. Based on the empirical results, five design patterns were developed to guide interaction design for sociable use. The thesis demonstrates that field studies can be used to identify desirable use qualities that in turn can be used as design objectives and forces in design patterns. Re-considering instrumental, communicational, aesthetical, constructional and ethical aspects can furthermore enrich the understanding of identified use qualities. Witha foundation in the field studies, it is argued that the deliberation of ynamic characters and use qualities is an essential component of interaction design. Designers of interaction are required to work on three levels: the user interface, the mediating artefact and the activity of use. It is concluded that doing interaction design is to provide users with perspectives, resources and constraints on their space for actions; the complete design is not finalized until the users engage in action. This is where the fine distinctions and, what I call 'shades of use' appear.

Denna uppsats redovisar en studie av normer i interaktionsdesignen av svt.se, som ett exempel på en nyhetssida av public service-karaktär. Uppsatsen syftar till att undersöka och belysa sociala normer och hur de bäddas in i designen. Vi ville också undersöka och utvärdera metoder och ramverk för att studera webbplatser och dess interaktionsdesign som kulturella uttryck och bärare av sociala normer. För att belysa studiens syfte har vi använt oss av de riktlinjer för tillgänglighet i webbgränssnitt som SVT förhåller sig till i designen. Studien utgick från en multimodal analysmetod för webbplatser och grounded theory. Studien visade att svt.se erbjuder ett tillgängligt gränssnitt som följer de riktlinjer webbplatsen sägs förhålla sig till. Vi såg att det fanns en tydlig aktualitetsnorm där innehåll och design samverkar för att lyfta en aktuell händelse. Studien visade även att könsfördelningen på bilder på svt.se var jämn, men att bilder på icke-vita personer samt personer med funktionsvarianter var mindre förekommande. / In this essay we present a study of norms within interaction design. We have analyzied svt.se as an example of a news site with a public service duty. The essay aims so explore and highlight social norms and how they are embedded in the design. We also wanted to examine and evaluate methods and frameworks for studying websites as cultural expressions and carriers of social norms. To illustrate the purpose of the study, we have used guidelines for accessibility on web interfaces that SVT relate to in their website design. The study was based on a multimodal framework for analyzing websites and grounded theory. The study showed that svt.se provides an accessible interface that follows the guidelines the interface is said to relate to. We also saw a clear convention regarding how current events where depicted where both content and design interacted. The study also showed that the gender distribution on images on svt.se was even, but the images of non-white people and people with functional variants were less common.