Download - Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Transcript
Page 1: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Elizabeth FitzGerald and Anne AdamsInstitute of Educational Technology, OU

elizabeth.fitzgerald, [email protected]

Page 2: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Our talk today• Introduction• Some jargon/concepts:

– Catwalk technologies– Boundary creatures

• In the wild projects– OTIH– Mobile GIS (Geographic Information Systems) – Hidden Histories

• Modelling researcher design roles: from catwalk technologies (CT) to prêt-à-porter designs

• Summary

Page 3: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

IntroductionOur talk today is about several things:

• Catwalk technologies (and prêt-à-porter)• The role of the researcher (especially when working with

different user groups / “in the wild”)• Case studies of research “in the wild” (wild both in terms

of physical environment and also context/settings)• Technical innovation vs scalable innovation• Responsible innovation and ethical research: what legacy

do we leave behind?

Page 4: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

What does “in the wild” mean?

Photo: mpaskevi (Flickr)

Photo: Kaplan International College(Flickr)

Photo: Fotos Gov/Ba (Flickr)

Rogers, Y. (2011) Interaction design gone wild: striving for wild theory. interactions 18(4), 58-62.

Page 5: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

What are catwalk technologies?

• Fashion design metaphor: technological innovations that represent the most high-tech state-of-the-art and are not easily scalable to mass production or mass usage

• May require special expertise or additional equipment or infrastructure for them to function

• May involve high costs (although not always)• Seeks to change our concepts of an object and also how

we interact with it• Also seeks to change, rather than maintain, practice

Page 7: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Miranda Priestly: [Miranda and some assistants are deciding between two similar belts for an outfit. Andy sniggers because she thinks they look exactly the same] Something funny? 

Andy Sachs: No. No, no. Nothing's... You know, it's just that both those belts look exactly the same to me. You know, I'm still learning about all this stuff and, uh... 

Miranda Priestly: 'This... stuff'? Oh. Okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select... I don't know... that lumpy blue sweater, for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent... wasn't it who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it, uh, filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff. 

“Devil Wears Prada” / “Ugly Betty”

Page 8: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Catwalk design

Vivien Westwood

Ferrero-Regis (2010): catwalk is wearable art NOT ready to wear (prêt-à-porter)

• Previously department store copies were scorned

• NOW ‘creative inspiration’ for high street fashion

Page 9: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

… and prêt-à-porter?

• i.e. ready-to-wear, off-the-shelf solutions• The iphone is a good example • These technologies are sustainable, scalable and can be

mass-produced or deployed to a mass market• Easy to use, accessible, intuitive• Shouldn’t need much technical support in setting up and

using it• May also change practice (but not through technological

innovation) and not radically, but incrementally

Page 10: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

From catwalk to prêt-à-porter

Top Shop

Vivien WestwoodCATWALK

PRÊT-À-PORTER

Page 11: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

From catwalk technology to prêt-à-porter

Vivien Westwood

CATWALK

(thinkgeek.com: $29.99)PRÊT-À-PORTER

(CHI2013 conference)

Page 12: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Growerbot (Arduino-based watering system):kit with wifi $120, or fully assembled $195(http://www.growerbot.com)

Plant Link:$69 for one base station and one link (extra links

$25 each)(http://www.myplantlink.com)

CATWALK

PRÊT-À-PORTER

Page 13: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

prêt-à-porter

Changing current practices

Changing current practices

Innovation led

Interaction practices Interaction practices

Des

ign

C.T.

Enabling/maintaining current practices

Enabling/maintaining current practices

Researcher design roles (RDR) model: mapping expectations from catwalk technologies (CT) to prêt-à-porter designs

Led by scalability and sustainability

Page 14: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Revolutionary and evolutionary design• The iPhone: prêt-à-porter, evolutionary changes through

innovation of our current use of phone technology and practices

• Facebook, Twitter and iPad: could be argued were revolutionary changes to our practice (Adams et al, 2005)

• OUR research innovates, how does this engage or impact? • Few innovations are TOTALLY scaled to transform practice• Incrementally developing change to current practices

Page 15: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Researchers as boundary creatures: managing expectations

• McGinnis (1999) presents a simple definition which is that a ‘boundary creature inhabits more than one world’ (p.61)

• Donna Haraway (1991) ‘boundary creature’ = deviant from the norm, a ‘monster’ (from demonstrate).

• Jones et al (2004) notion of passions back into study of organizations remove idea of knowledge as an ‘objective representation’ or ‘social construction’.

• The researcher moves between practice domains and between/within different communities: what is their role in these transitions?

Page 16: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Our identity as a researcher• As Boud and Solomon (2001) argue, professional and vocational

practice is often multidisciplinary:

Academics working in such programmes can find that the traditional disciplinary and academy-practice boundaries become blurred, challenging their own academic identity or even career progression

…however…

Burt (2005), working within a social capital perspective, argues that brokers accrue benefits from this position – they appear creative, insightful and possessing a genius born out of the import-export of ideas

• Researchers working ‘in the wild’ run the risk of becoming ‘pedlers’ selling a ‘Magic Bullet’

• How can we conceptualise this?

Page 17: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Boundary objects• Technology as boundary objects: cross knowledge

domains and social structures• Support collaboration and communication by acting as a

shared interface• May act as barriers too: embedded in specific jargon or

unfamiliar practices• Technology probes can help explore user-friendly and

potentially scalable technical innovations

• Need to take into accountcultural social and political issues

Video probes (see Hutchinson et al 2003)

Page 18: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Case studies: in the wild research

• Out There, In Here (OTIH)• Mobile GIS (Geographic Information Systems)• Hidden Histories

Page 19: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Out There & In Here

“this time I felt you looked at the whole picture.”

“and you heard what was being said by the people in here and you

thought, Ah, nice little point, nice bit of direction and let’s go

and have a look at that particular aspect.”

• Technology enabling current practices and (BETWEEN locations) changing practices

Page 20: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Mobile GIS

"I don’t want to carry so much electronic devices

with me."

“But, I mean, all these things just take more time and like

more knowledge of how to use the thing.”

• Technology changing or supporting current practice in context

“the acetate was actually so effective, because … [ ] … it was very easy to sort of place yourself in the right position and then it’s just there in front of you”

Page 21: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Hidden Histories• Technology as boundary objects – context

“It was interesting and high-tech. Looked nice. Wouldn't have been

good to be mugged.”

“The tech was too high-tech”

“English Heritage have a very simple system - just

press buttons.

Page 22: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

From prêt-à-porter to catwalk and back again…

Page 23: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

HH

prêt-à-porter

Changing current practices

Changing current practices

Mobile GIS

OTIH

Innovation led

Led by scalability and sustainability

Interaction practices Interaction practices

Des

ign

C.T.

Enabling/maintaining current practices

Enabling/maintaining current practices

Expectation influences

Change in expectations

Expectation cycle

KEY:

Researcher design roles (RDR) model: mapping expectations from catwalk

technologies (CT) to prêt-à-porter designs

Page 24: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Why does all this matter?• IMPACT: do catwalk technologies have greater impact than

prêt-à-porter solutions? How can you tell?• Gives us a language to frame discussions:

“I’ve often had to deal with these tensions but never had the appropriate language to articulate it or legitimise it; this gives me a starting point for managing expectations within the research process.”

• Makes the ‘in the wild’ researcher more aware of their role in research projects and across user groups…… and how this can change dynamically (depending on context, stakeholders, socio-political/cultural factors etc.)

• RDR model articulates researchers’ narratives with the design team, stakeholders and users around what is innovated (e.g. technology, activities) and how the intervention changes or sustains current practices

Page 25: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

One more thing… responsible design• Should we consider the ethics of how sustainable our

designs are after we finish the project?

http://gizmodo.com/human-and-animal-powered/

Copyright © 2012 EuroAfrica-P8 EU ProjectWhat is the role of catwalk technologies or prêt-à-porter designs here?

Page 26: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Summary

• What ‘in the wild’ research really means• Concepts of catwalk technologies and boundary creatures• How these combine to inform the role of the researcher • Case studies of research ‘in the wild’• RDR model enables us to consider design processes, user

groups and both technology and/or practice-based innovations

Page 27: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

Thanks for listening: any questions?

Thanks and acknowledgements to:

Gary Priestnall, Yvonne Rogers, Sarah Davies, Trevor Collins, Tim Coughlan, Claire Taylor, Mike Craven, Gemma Polmear, Andy Burton and Sam Meek,

also to all the participants who took part in user trials.

Projects were funded by EPSRC and HEFCE.

Page 28: Catwalk technologies and researching in the wild

ReferencesAdams, A., FitzGerald, E. and Priestnall, G. (2013) Of Catwalk Technologies and Boundary Creatures. ACM Transactions of Computer-Human Interaction (In Press).

Adams, A.; Blandford, A. and Lunt, P. (2005) Social empowerment and exclusion: A case study on digital libraries. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 12(2), pp. 174–200.

Boud, D, and Solomon, N. (2001) Work-Based Learning: A New Higher Education (eds.) Buckingham: SRHE & Open University Press.

Burt, R. S. (2005) Brokerage and Closure: An Introduction to Social Capital, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Ferrero-Regis, T. (2010) Reframing fashion: from original and copy to adaptation. In Proceedings of the 2nd Global Conference, Fashion: Exploring Critical Issues, Oxford, UK, September 23-26, 2010.

Harraway, D.J. (1985) A manifesto for cyborgs: science, technology and socialist feminism in the 1980s” Socialist review 15 (2): 64-107

Haraway, D. (1991) Simians, Cyborgs and Women: the reinvention of nature. London. Free Association Books

Hutchinson, H., Mackay, W., Westerlund, B., Bederson, B. B., Druin, A., Plaisant, C., Beaudouin-Lafon, M., Conversy, S., Evans, H., Hansen, H., Roussel, N. and Eiderbäck, B. Technology probes: inspiring design for and with families. In Proc. the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '03), ACM, New York, NY, USA (2003), 17-24.

Jones, G., McLean, C. and Quattrone, P. (2004) ‘Spacing and Timing’, Journal of Organisation, Vol. 11 (6), pp. 723–741.

McAdams D.P. (1993) The stories we live by. New York: Harper Collins.

McGinnis, M.V. (1999) ‘Bioregionalism’. Chapter 4. Boundary creatures and Bounded spaces