09.03.20
In this week’s lesson, we got introduced to the concept of defamiliarization as well as the context of «home» and «everyday». We also took a look into the world of Science Fiction and it’s futuristic connection to Interaction Design, presented by Aathmigan Jegatesweran and Andreas Waldburger.
Defamiliarization A concept invented by a Russian formalist in the beginning of the 19th century. The idea is to break down an object on its basic elements, functions, and affordances. Through this method, new perspectives on the object are generated and therefore lead to new problems and/or solutions occurring with the object.As a little group exercise to use and understand this method, we defamiliarized an object brought by our two presenters. It’s possible to defamiliarize basically everything, from apples to pillow sheets.
Defamiliarization of a doorknob Renato Giuseppe Bertelli, Continuous Profile (Head of Mussolini)/, 1933, courtesy of Imperial War Museum
«home» and «everyday» «design for everyday» is an important thought, that should fly around in every designer’s head when it comes to designing. Since our everyday life is already extraordinary enough, so the design of things we use everyday should be easy and clear to use, to not make our everyday life even more extraordinary.
During the presentation, the students were asked to write their own definition of the terms home and everyday on a piece of paper, to share it with the class later-on.
Readings:
Bell, Genevieve, Blythe, M. & Sengers, P. 2005. “Making by Making Strange: Defamiliarization and the Design of Domestic Technologies”. In ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction. 12. 149-173.
Carroll, J. M. (2000). “What is Design?” In Making Use: ScenarioBased Design of HumanComputer Interactions. The MIT Press.
Kirk, David S., Chatting, D. J., Yurman P. & Bichard, J. 2016. “Ritual Machines I & II: Making Technology at Home”. In Proceedings of CHI ‘16.
Marianne de Laet and Annemarie Mol. 2000. The Zimbabwe Bush Pump: Mechanics of a Fluid Technology, In Social Studies of Science. 30/2. 225–63
Donald Norman. 1988. The Design of Everyday Things. 54-80.
Daniela Rosner and Jonathan Bean. “Learning from IKEA Hacking: “Iʼm Not One to Decoupage a Tabletop and Call It a Day.” Proceedings of CHI’ 09.
Shedroff, N. 2012. Make it So. Rosenfeld Media.
Additional readings: