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While I was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia I also had the pleasure to work with Liisa Holsti and Karon MacLean as well as other project collaborators on the project Calmer.
Calmer is a technology that simulates key aspects of maternal skin-to-skin holding for prematurely born infants. Developing Calmer has been a 10-year project by several researchers and clinicians; and it is an ongoing project. While I came in late, my work was about objectively discovering and describing what this 10-year design process and the deployment studies entailed including its inspiration, approach, physical design, and introduction into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I lead this discovery research exercise (through several interviews, conversations, and reviewing all materials) and as a result also lead the writing of an article for a top-tier publication aimed for the design research community. This was a greatly valuable exercise for me. The submission is currently under review.
There is a project website and a news video about Calmer.
The publication received a Best Paper award.
Hauser, S., Suto, M.J., Holsti, L., Ranger, M., & MacLean, K.E., (2020). Designing and Evaluating Calmer, a Device for Simulating Maternal Skin-to-Skin Holding for Premature Infants. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’20). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Paper 201, 13 pages.
Simon Fraser University, SIAT, Everyday Design Studio.
The Morse Things project investigates the nature of relations between people and computational things in the making of everyday life. Specifically, Morse Things explores the notion of the Internet of Things, in addition to connectivity, sensing and data, the project aims to understand the materiality, temporality and human relationships that constitute and potentially undermine the current concept of the Internet of Things.
At the center of the Morse Things project are multiple sets of three networked ceramic cups and bowls. The cups and bowls digitally communicate between themselves as they progress over time toward an “awareness” of their potential group and networked existence. The data communication between the Morse Things is expressed through sound by each cup or bowl in Morse code; and over the Internet on Twitter.
The Morse Things are continuously being deployed in several long-term (several months) studies in peoples’ homes and apartments. The aim of the project is to make material and visible the non-human to non-human communication among digital things. Our goal is to understand the long-term and lived with experiences these create and unexpected opportunities that are constructed through our daily lives with such artifacts.
The Morse Things were made with the assistance of Material Matters (ECUAD) with funding support by 4TU.Federation – Design United, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), NSERC and SSHRC.
As I would like to teach more in the future I have been thinking about some topics of courses that would be really interesting to me to teach. This site serves as a repository of sketches of courses I have been thinking about, but does not mean I wouldn’t teach other courses.
Philosophy of Technology and Design
Philosophy of Technology, how it relates to design, and how we can make use of it in design is an interesting intersection. A framework for this is presented by contemporary philosopher Peter-Paul Verbeek, who has taken a turn towards design in his philosophical investigations proposing an interesting perspective that designers could benefit from.
A course could involve an introduction to design students about PofT and Verbeeks work, following a design approach that will foster the design of more engaging artefacts. This relates to my PhD thesis work.
Designing with human involvement
A studio course that focuses on and embraces the design of artefacts that rely on human interaction to function. An example are human-powered artefacts like bikes, wind-up flashlights, or the rocking chairs that either shine light, knit or unknit when a person is rocking. This relates to my PhD thesis research.
Purposeful Purposeless Design
A studio course that engages in a Purposeful Purposeless Design approach. The idea is to design an interactive artefact without a particular use goal (purpose), but still design it in a designerly manner (purposeful). In other words, purposeful purposeless designs can be understood as interaction design artifacts that are designed with non-existent or weak use goals while being designed in purposeful matter (designerly). The result is a highly ‘finished’ looking artefact, which challenges people to find uses for.
Practice-oriented Design.
My current idea of a studio course involving research and design parts targets practice-oriented design. The idea would be to look at a practice that humans do (for instance Green DIY), analyzing elements of that practice (material, competences, and meaning [this framework comes from Shove, Pantzar, and Watson’s book ‘The Dynamics of Social Practice – Everyday Life and how it Changes’] and then designing towards that practice or an element of that practice.
This approach is inspired by our Green DIY study, in which as a result from our studies and theoretical advancements using a practice lens, we propose a practice-oriented design approach. Images below are from the paper we wrote on the study.