This is a PhD by practice that explores how people’s experiences of digital systems can be made physically and visually apparent using models and activities I have designed. The theoretical context for this PhD centres on internal and external models of people’s experiences with digital systems. This is an AHRC funded PhD written as part of the Creative Exchange, which supports collaborative research projects conducted with industry and academic partners. The way people experience digital systems can be dif cult to observe, and is experienced via complex, fragmented interfaces with hidden effects. We often nd that digital systems have a attening effect, and are frustrating and confusing to use, while our actions and behaviours are invisibly tracked and analysed. There is thus a need for people to gain awareness of the ways they experience digital systems. My primary research question focuses on the design characteristics of visual and physical models that externalise individual and group experiences of digital systems. Secondary questions include: What effects do the material properties of externalising models have on how digital systems are represented? and What types of activities externalise representations of digital systems? These questions are explored through case studies that focus on a set of digital systems identi ed through the research including web browsing, digital social networks, and image metadata. The first two case studies are exploratory, the third is applied. I completed these case studies in three collaborative settings, employing qualitative data collection methods including drawing, physical modelling and semi-structured interviews. I draw on theories of representation and cognition, and Dix and Gongora’s theory of externalisation in design, and apply them to new contexts and situations. My units of analysis are the externalising models and participants’ spoken accounts of making them. The ndings include: externalising experiences of digital systems using diverse materials is a way of countering attening effects; deploying new non-linguistic metaphors to represent experiences of digital systems is an important way of understanding and communicating them; and designing situations where people can create self-constructed representations of their experiences of digital systems enables narrative sequences, tangible expressions, and shared descriptions. My research is useful for the insight it provides participants into their own experiences with everyday digital systems, giving them better ways of understanding how digital systems shape their lives. It is also useful for designers working with people to nd out about their experiences of digital systems, and design researchers who are developing novel elicitation methods. My original contributions to knowledge include new contexts for externalising models, applying externalisation to experiences of digital systems, and recommendations for how designers can create objects and activities to externalise the experiences of digital systems of non- designers.

This practice-based research investigates how projection mapping develops a distinctive relationship between screen, moving image, and space in projected moving-image art. Despite projection mapping’s growing popularity, little in-depth research has been conducted on this medium. This lack of research and the superficial nature of many projects have led artists and researchers to regard the medium as a mere technique that serves only to decorate three-dimensional surfaces. Rather than view projection mapping simply as a digital technique, my research situates it in the continuum of projected moving-image installation artwork. To do this, I examine projection mapping’s screen, narrative, and surrounding space—the constituents of all projected moving-image installation art—through the lenses of surface and depth. In addition to considering cinematic frames, I analyse these traits through artistic lenses such as painting, site-specific art, and architecture to investigate how projection mapping reconfigures the constituents that comprise all screen-based projected moving-image works. In so doing, I define the ways which projection mapping develops its distinctive relationship among these constituents. I conducted three projects in a cyclical developmental process using a reflective methodology derived from case study research: defining the question, recording the process, analysing, and reflecting. My practices as case studies are integral parts of this thesis investigation of how projection mapping generates a distinctive relationship. This study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge about an under-researched area, projection mapping, by providing an in-depth conceptual and practical analysis of this medium. The knowledge resulting from the research is embodied in findings from contextual reviews and original artworks produced as case studies.

Autistic adults with limited speech and additional learning disabilities are people whose perceptions and interactions with their environment are unique, but whose experiences are under-explored in design research. This PhD by Practice investigates how people with autism experience their home environment through a collaboration with the autism charity Kingwood Trust, which gave the designer extensive access to a community of autistic adults that it supports. The PhD reflects upon a neurotypical designer’s approach to working with autistic adults to investigate their relationship with the environment. It identifies and develops collaborative design tools for autistic adults, their support staff and family members to be involved. The PhD presents three design studies that explore a person’s interaction with three environmental contexts of the home i.e. garden, everyday objects and interiors. A strengths-based rather than a deficit-based approach is adopted which draws upon an autistic person’s sensory preferences, special interests and action capabilities, to unravel what discomfort and delight might mean for an autistic person; this approach is translated into three design solutions to enhance their experience at home. By working beyond the boundaries of a neurotypical culture, the PhD bridges the autistic and neurotypical worlds of experience and draws upon what the mainstream design field can learn from designing with autistic people with additional learning disabilities. It also provides insights into the subjective experiences of people who have very different ways of seeing, doing and being in the environment.

This PhD research by project is for designers investigating relations between culture and design through an experiential perspective of Chi- nese culture in terms of developing a new understanding of ‘Chineseness’. ‘Chineseness’ in my work, can be re-mapped as a form of communication that deals with Chinese culture in design. It is not just along with historical stereotypes, nor a remote copy of other countries’ successful cultural trans- fers, but rather should be inseparable from the radical social phenomena and design culture already emerging within contemporary China. Through a series of design projects, my research is ultimately allowing Chineseness to be less implied and instead, to be made manifest, in terms of what behav- iours over symbolism and decoration. New knowledge is articulated through exploring my understanding and its shifts during my approach to re-map Chinese cultural elements in design and search for the meaning of ‘Chineseness’. This research remarks the stereotypes, generalisations and categorisations when designers deal with cross-cultural design from both non-Chinese and Chinese angles. The thesis comprises three parts. The first part is a contextual review of cultural elements and appropriate methods. The second part explores a systematic approach to reflecting Chineseness from various cultural an- gles. These action-research method-led projects describe three ways of ex- ploring the transfer of Chinese culture into design: symbolic, behavioural and political/philosophical. They culminate in an enabling developmental structure through which designers can deal with Chinese cultural com- plexity in design. The third part sees two final projects that reflect back and re-evaluate what Chineseness could be. The thesis contributes a three-layer structure that reflects Chinese cultural elements into design through meth- ods and analysis of values in practice. Additionally, for the readers sympa- thetic with a systematic design approach or cultural identitarianism, this work addresses a view of critical understanding for facing Chinese culture in design.

This thesis is an example of creative practice that uses contemporary transmedia storytelling techniques to build a fictional environment that content creators can collaborate in and contribute to with their own fictional works. Within this thesis, I refine my methodology and identify new methods and processes that apply to the context of the creative project example – the fictional world of Chaos Reborn. The most notable of these are 1) making use of invented and real mythology to project depth into the work 2) presenting information to other contributors so they can switch roles as creators and consumers of the franchise content and 3) Identifying the ways in which my creative work interacts with other elements of the transmedia narrative of Chaos Reborn. This thesis also identifies issues around continuance of production for this franchise after an initial raft of publications and suggests a consistent way to approach further development of content. The main creative component of this thesis is a novel set in the world of Chaos Reborn. This is Dreams of Chaos (2016), the first of a planned trilogy entitled The Death of Gods, which tells the story of how the world of Chaos Reborn came about from its alternative history root in Earth’s 14th century. This operates as the background to the game world and anchors the fantasy genre context to a version of our own history. This work is only a part of the writing undertaken to build the world of Chaos Reborn. There is additional material in appendices which contain the other associated writing from this work and from my previous science fiction case study on Elite Dangerous to illustrate the progression and development of my methodology across the genres of science fiction and fantasy.