I found a TED talk by Don Norman titled “The three ways that good design makes you happy“ which sparked my curiosity. Norman is famous for his work on emotional design and everyday things. This talk focuses on the importance of fun, beauty, and emotion in how we interact with technology. An interesting connection to some of the things I looked at through my previous blog posts
Norman explains that “pleasant things work better.” He argues that when we are happy or amused, our brains become more creative and better at solving problems. This idea is a perfect fit for my research into “Whimsical UX.” Usually, designers think of “fun” as a decoration or „add-on“ that we add at the end of a project. However, according to Norman, the emotional side of a product and/or interface is just as functional as the technical side. If an “unserious” interface makes a user smile or pause, it actually makes them more relaxed and capable of handling the interaction, even if it is not perfectly efficient.
This connects directly to the post-digital ideas I have been exploring through Florian Cramer’s work. A perfectly clean and “sterile” digital screen often feels cold and boring, which is a major cause of the digital fatigue I want to address. By adding personality or “whimsical” elements, we are not just making a toy, we are making a more human tool. It moves the focus away from the technology itself and puts it back on the quality of the human experience. As Andersen and Pold suggest in their work on interface criticism, we need to move away from interfaces that try to be “invisible” or “seamless.” A design that makes you laugh or look at a quirky detail is an interface that is “visible” and engaging. It forces you to be present in the moment.
Watching this talk helped me see that “whimsy or joy” and “intentional friction” are actually pretty closely related. Both are tools to break the habit of mindless swiping. Whether it is a physical knob that feels satisfying to turn or a digital menu that uses playful language, these elements create a moment of intention and connection. They turn a boring transaction into a meaningful interaction.
I think it could be fun to use Norman’s perspective to prove that “fun” is not a distraction from good design. In a world where everything is being forced into a screen for the sake of efficiency, and economical benefits, reintroducing joy is a radical and necessary act. My approach is to find a way to combine these themes: post-digital skepticism, the need for reflective friction, and the power of joy into a framework for a „post-screen” or „post-digital“ or „post-efficiency“ world. The idea is to design interfaces that do not just treat users like efficient machines, but like humans who value personality and play and experience.
Author: victoria.bremer
Impulse #7 – a paper!
Following up on my talk with Martin Kaltenbrunner, I have looked into the term “post-digital.” I wanted to understand what this means for my research on interfaces found a paper by Florian Cramer [1] which I feel is very helpful here. He describes that post-digital does not mean a time after computers. Instead, it means that in our current world digital and physical things are completely mixed together.
Many people are starting to feel tired of “perfect” digital systems. Cramer calls this a period of disenchantment. Today, digital technology is often seen as something sterile and clean. Because of this, some people choose older, „nostalgic“ tools like typewriters or vinyl records. They are not just being nostalgic, they are making a deliberate choice to reject certain aspects of electronic technology. They are questioning the idea that a screen is always an “upgrade” or “progress”. This fits with my observation that making everything a flat screen blindly and/by default can actually make the experience worse.
A key idea in post-digital theory (according to Cramer) is that we should stop being fascinated by technology just because it is “new”. Since digital tools are everywhere now, they are no longer disruptive. This means we can look at them more critically. This connects to the “whimsical UX” angle I discussed I another post. If we stop trying to make everything super-efficient and high-tech, we can focus on other qualities of the interaction. We can start using digital and physical materials in more playful or unconventional ways.
In my research, I think it could be interesting to use this post-digital framework to move beyond just choosing between a screen or a physical button. The goal is a post-digital decision-making: using the technology most suitable to the job, rather than automatically “defaulting” to the latest innovative medium. This might mean using “intentional friction” to slow a user down and make them think, rather than making everything as fast as possible. This perspective aligns with Post-Digital Interface Criticism [2], which suggests that interfaces should be visible and reflective rather than “seamless” and invisible.
The next step is to find where exactly to start designing and changing. Maybe finding out if the feeling from physical installations can work in the digital world too. By using “unserious” frameworks, playful/emotional design I might find better ways to design everyday interfaces that feel more human and less sterile. Cramer’s idea of a “hacker attitude“ (taking systems apart and using them in ways that subvert their original intention) could also be a great starting point for this.
[1] https://lab404.com/142/cramer.pdf
[2] https://mediacommons.org/tne/pieces/manifesto-post-digital-interface-criticism
Impulse #6 – a talk!
Following my recent discussions about the “screen-as-default” problem, I have also started exploring a different angle. While my previous focus was primarily on the physical tangibility of interfaces, a recent coaching session with Birgit Bachler led me to a new impulse centered on “whimsical UX.” Most modern design focuses on “frictionless” interaction, where every update to an app or system is intended to make things faster and more invisible. This focus on peak efficiency often leads to a loss of joy in digital tools. I am now looking into the concept of whimsical and “unserious” UX to challenge the idea that a UI should only be a tool for a specific task. Instead of only optimizing for speed, this approach considers how an interface can be designed for delight.
I am thinking about how interaction can be intentionally unconventional and how community-driven tools develop a specific “vibe” that standard tools do not center or even consider. Instead of focusing only on the comparison between pre-digital and digital states, I am considering a framework for a different design approach for example “intentional friction” that forces the user to slow down and engage with the process rather than clicking through it mindlessly.
A big part of this research topic is finding out when an approach like this is appropriate. Not every interface should be a playground and we have to keep in mind that efficiency remains necessary in many contexts. However, in some tools or products that contribute to digital fatigue, there is an opportunity to reintroduce personality. Many current design trends prioritize speed above all else, I want to explore alternative directions that prioritize the quality of the experience.
This shift expands my original problem statement. By looking at whimsy and joy, I am still addressing the issues of mindless interaction and digital fatigue, but I am moving beyond just hardware solutions. Whether the interface is a physical object or a screen, the objective in this angle of approach would be to move away from digitizing everything for purely economic reasons and sleek efficiency. I want to find ways to possibly make interaction feel more human/emotional/joyful. The steps to get there involve analyzing some frameworks and ideas that exist on this to see how they can offer better options for everyday interface design. And intersting first approach I found upon doing a quick research was a piece of work called „Interface Criticism: Aesthetics Beyond the Buttons“ by Christian Ulrik Andersen and Søren Bro Pold, where they discuss topics such as moving beyond usability and argue against treating interfaces as tools for efficiency, instead seeing them as complex, artistic, and cultural things.
https://www.academia.edu/78755388/Interface_Criticism_Aesthetics_Beyond_Buttons
Impulse #5 – Final Crit
For my fifth impulse, I have chosen the feedback from my final Crit talk with Martin Kaltenbrunner, who had some interesting insights on the topics I am interested in. My starting point for the thesis is currently a growing frustration with the “screen-as-default” trend. We’ve reached a point where efficiency and friction-less design are the ultimate goals, often leading to mindless interaction and digital fatigue.
In our meeting, we discussed the “blind urge” to digitalize everything, often driven mainly by economic reasons rather than a fulfilling, well-suited user experience. Mr. Kaltenbrunner suggested a specific research process to help me narrow down my scope. Instead of just looking at the “now,” I could compare three states:
Pre-Digital: How did we solve this task physically? What did interfaces used to look like?
Absolute Digitalization: The current state (mostly touchscreens)
Post-Digital / Hybrid: A new solution that doesn’t just “go back” to the old ways but uses the best of both worlds and considers the use case and its requirements. (Not the screen as one-for-all solution)
The goal isn’t nostalgia, but rather finding a “Post-Digital” development that acknowledges the digital but brings back the haptic, tangible quality of the physical.
The main takeaway and my current challenge is that I really need to pin down a specific use case. While my interest in tangible interfaces is broad, we did come to the conclusion to avoid overdone examples like car interfaces and instead find a niche where the shift to screens has genuinely made the experience worse (maybe going back to educational topics and school environments). I’m looking for a situation where losing friction and diversity has led to a loss of focus, and where a hybrid, tangible solution would actually provide more value than just a clean digital one.
I’m now searching for a topic: something specific enough to test but broad enough to help me find more general design principles. The advice from my talk is to go out and explore. This has shifted my focus away from theory and back to the real world. My next step could be to pick a few potential use cases and compare them to how they worked before, how they are digitalized now, and what a post-digital version could look like to see which one has the most potential. Another thing I will of course look into is some literature research about post-digitalization itself. I think it will be really valuable to familiarize myself with theories and terminology like this and find out what the state of research is. I have done a quick research out of curiosity and found a few papers and researchers that sound interesting, such as Florian Cramer who writes about the „Post-digital“ and Löwgren & Stolterman’s Material theory.
Matrix
Impulse #4 – another museum!
This impulse is a continuation (or part 2) of my first post about my visit to the Children’s museum FRida & FreD. For the Gamification Course this semester we visited CoSA and looked at different parts of their exhibition. I talked to a staff member there and was able to find out that they actually work together with the Children’s museum FRida & FreD but have a slightly older target group. It was interesting to see how they approached the same concept of making complex topics tangible through interactive installations for different age groups. This exhibition gave me further insights into tangible information and learning. What was great is that I was able to see and test examples from many different subject areas such as finance, medicine, microbiology, tech (specifically the automotive industry) and STEM topics in general. Especially the STEM topics were something that really peaked my interest. Last semester I made a small prototype about tangible chemistry experiments without needing the actual laboratory.
Looking into more exhibitions was equally inspiring and insightful as I was also able to discover some approaches I didn’t enjoy so much, or thought weren’t conceptually great. The entire finance section for example I found quite boring and upon talking to some of my colleagues I discovered that they felt the same way. While some principles and ideas might have seemed nice on paper and were technically interactive, I felt that the way the content itself was displayed was not very creative or clever. The topics were still not always easy to understand and most „storylines“/games/stations took way too long. This was a helpful reminder that its not just the form that matters but its also the content itself that has to be adjusted. Simply placing it into a new medium, making it interactive by adding screens, buttons, voice control or an avatar does not make a topic easier to grasp or more fun. This highlighted for me that designing for engagement requires an alignment of content, format, and interaction method, not just “gamification”.
This was something the other part of the exhibition did much better. The stations were way more digestible in terms of length and information structure. An approach I found really great was the medical area that allowed kids to use actual operation and laboratory tools on fake scenarios and substances. I know this would have been something I would have loved as a child (and still really enjoyed now to be honest). From what I could see the kids there also enjoyed this immensely and stayed engaged throughout the whole process. Additionally what was executed nicely here, I think, was the storytelling. Apart from the cool interactions and real tools, the lengthy process never got boring. Diagnosing a patient and building a race-car were the two areas that did this best because there were constantly new steps and aspects to discover.
Both museum visits really reinforced my interest in tangible learning environments. However what I am still wondering is whether I can really find a new angle or topic that hasn’t been done yet. The setting of a museum is really interesting and it might also be fun to look into other target groups. Another interactive museum space I enjoyed was the exhibition on democracy in the Graz Museum. I feel like with these three I have a broad spectrum of target groups and topics to draw inspiration from and it might be worth looking into more.
Impulse #3 – a book!
This impulse comes from a book I was reading: “Beschleunigung und Entfremdung” by Hartmut Rosa, a German sociologist whose work revolves around the concept of social acceleration. According to Rosa, advancements in communication, transport, and production have made things increasingly fast, creating expectations of efficiency and speed in almost every area of life. This ongoing acceleration, he argues, ultimately leads to alienation, distancing us from the world rather than connecting us to it.
In the book, he raises two key questions: What constitutes a good life? And why is it that we so often fail to lead one? Since the first is almost impossible to answer universally, he focuses on the second. Rosa says that both our individual and collective ways of living are in need of reform. He identifies time as the central issue, claiming that modern society is governed, coordinated, and controlled by an “intense and rigid regime of time.”
This phenomenon isn’t entirely new. Others have written about similar concerns (James Gleick, Peter Conrad, Douglas Coupland), but Rosa examines the idea more structurally. He asks whether we should talk about “social acceleration” (singular) or rather a sequence of accelerations occurring across various areas: sports, fashion cycles, video editing speeds, transportation, job markets, and so on. Fast food, speed dating, power naps, drive-through culture all show how speed has become a central part of every day activities and aspects of life.
Rosa categorises acceleration into three types:
Technological acceleration: the intentional increase of speed in transport, communication, and production processes, reinforced by new types of organisation and administration. Our perception of space and time has been reshaped. With space and time, space used to take precedence (due to our senses like sight, gravitation, etc.) this has now switched with „shapeless“ places like the internet taking over, shrinking space down or eliminating it entirely. For example the distance between London and New York, has shrunk to a fraction within the timespan of sailboats to the invention of planes, reinforcing the sense that time conquers space.
Acceleration of social change: not just the processes, but society itself speeds up: values, lifestyles, relationships, group dynamics, habits, even our social language. In the past, sons followed their fathers professions across multiple generations. Later, choosing their own career path for life became the norm. Now, it’s common for people to change professions several times within a single lifetime.
Acceleration of the pace of life: this one is paradoxical. Technical acceleration should, in theory, free up time. Yet people in western cultures increasingly report the feeling that time is slipping away. Time is perceived as a resource. What actually happens is that the quantity of tasks and experiences per unit of time rises. Instead of using speed and technological advance to create space, we fill the newly freed time with more activity.
All in all, this is a really complex topic and definitely too broad to tackle in its entirety. From a design perspective, I think it becomes important to set a small framework and pick one very specific aspect to focus on, whether that’s something like food, relationships, mobility, or another everyday field. I’ve briefly looked into Slow Design before, and I feel like it could offer an interesting approach to this idea of acceleration. Not in the sense of rejecting technology altogether, but more as a way of rethinking how we work with it (considering timing, intention and presence as design qualities). I think that could be an exciting angle to explore further.
Book: https://books.google.de/books?hl=de&lr=&id=QLY7CgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT4&dq=hartmut+rosa+theorie&ots=PVM4doUUVA&sig=A1RGw7OgClYj0LTPHh_Jais49ew&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=hartmut%20rosa%20theorie&f=false
Disclaimer: I used AI to translate this since the book and my notes on it are in german.
Impulse #2 – a talk!
The event that inspired this impulse was a talk I saw during the world Usability Congress Graz called „Don’t design me out“ by Kausik Surendran. I have chosen to include this even though its isn’t my focus topic. I still think its highly relevant because the talk discussed the issue of inclusivity very nicely, which is something I sometimes tend to forget, even though I like to think that I try to consider everything and design with empathy. It reminded me of how important and complex the job of a designer can be and how much though and consideration sometimes has to go into the simplest of systems. No matter what topic I choose for my thesis in the end or which direction I go in, the principles of inclusive and empathetic design are something I will try to apply for all designs, whether it’s a product or a system or something else entirely.
An example that stuck with me was when Surendran described living in a smart home fully controlled by voice interfaces but having no voice. This moment made me reconsider how easily technology, even when intended to improve life, can unintentionally exclude. One thing I found especially interesting was the idea that a universal experience (like growing old) can still be so different for every person due to a bunch of factors like personal attitude, cultural factors, gender and identity, health and ability, socioeconomic situation.
With the topic of tangible interfaces especially, I’ve been coming from a place of what I’d call “screen fatigue.” As technology becomes increasingly integrated into all areas of our lives, there’s also a kind of screenification happening. It often feels like every problem is approached with the mindset of “if we can attach a screen to it, we will.” I find this somewhat exhausting, and the talk’s examination of the digital divide reminded me of this frustration that I and many others feel [1]. I think there is real value in questioning this approach. While technology has definitely had a positive impact on our lives, I believe it’s worth exploring how its integration can be made more accessible, not just more digital. Tangible interfaces, for example, could offer meaningful alternatives, especially for older people who are being left behind by overly screen-based solutions. Instead of digitalising everything and calling it progressive and innovative, perhaps we should consider how interaction can be made more human, intuitive, and inclusive.
Of course this is only one aspect. Simply removing the screen and claiming that this fixes a digital divide isn’t enough. The systems that take the screens place have to equally consider the users abilities and knowledge. I often approach tangible interfaces from the angle of curiosity, learning through making, or playful exploration. But what if physical engagement is not always possible or equally accessible? How could I design with adaptability, varying levels of mobility, or sensory capabilities in mind? How can interaction be designed so that it adapts to different users rather than requiring users to adapt to it? The concept of designing with empathy was one of the core messages. Surendran framed empathy not as a “nice to have” but as a strategic tool to design a better future for oneself and others. He emphasized that „technology is no longer a luxury, it is a tool, and therefore, its accessibility becomes a matter of equity“. For design to be truly inclusive, inclusion must begin at the core, not as an afterthought.
[1] Book: Technology vs. humanity p.38-39
Tangibility: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/258549.258715
Adaptive user interfaces: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1574013721000034?via%3Dihub
Impulse #1 – a museum!
For my first Impulse-Post I have chosen my visit to the Children’s Museum FRida & FreD in Graz. One of the topics I am considering for my masters thesis is tangible interfaces and embodied interaction. I already looked into this topic last semester and have considered children and the setting of learning and (STEM Education) as an interesting target group and subject. Tangible Interfaces allows for a many different approaches, angles which I have been finding hard to narrow down. I visited the museum with two friends of mine that had come to visit. Both of them worked on the exhibition as interaction and graphic designers so it was really interesting to get their perspective on the production and development of such an installation. The Exhibition was about Data Security and designed in a medieval aesthetic. This setting created many fun metaphors for otherwise abstract and (especially for children) hard-to-grasp topics. Choosing a medieval theme for a modern issue is a really interesting approach in my opinion but although I was skeptical at first and wasn’t sure if it would translate well, I really liked the outcome. I found the analogies surprisingly clear, the only thing I can’t say for sure is that kids fully understood the meaning, as I wasn’t able to talk to any (we went just before closing hours). I was however able to ask the staff and they had mostly positive feedback!
I think „play“, learning through making and exploration/curiosity are additional interesting keywords here, and have prompted me to look into this a bit further. What I will say is that in some parts the exhibition did rely on screens, which is something I would consider removing, if possible as I felt this sometimes took away from the immersive „magical“ feeling that was created. Another interesting part that sparked my interest was the storytelling. While the different stations alone were interesting I really liked the fact that there was an overall „quest“ and a companion that appeared at every station. This gave the whole experience a slightly more structured and guided feeling.
The biggest take-away for me (apart from the inspiring and creative interactions I got to try out), is that I have two options on how to approach this topic. I either need to pin down a very specific topic to explore in this thesis or I could go in a more general direction with an explorative thesis-approach where I ask a research question that is something along the lines of „how can interactive installations be designed to be more tangible for children?“. From there I could experiment with creating design guidelines or principles that can be generally applied to tangible interfaces/interaction. With the other option would have to pick a really specific topic and focus on making this tangible through existing methods. So I could either focus on the system and methods themselves or on the topic (like Data Security in the case of the exhibition).
Exhibition PDF: https://fridaundfred.at/wp-content/uploads/Ff_Damals-1410_Paedagogisches-Handbuch.pdf
tangible interfaces (a cool example): https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3490149.3502252
learning through making: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11528-017-0172-6
Evaluation Masters Thesis – Task 3
The Masters Thesis „Exploring Slow Technology in the Home“ by Martin Krogh from from the Interaction Design Program at Malmö University (2015) is a new approach to interaction design in the context of (smart) technology in homes. The work is divided into two parts consisting of a first theoretical research, ending with research questions and a methodological chapter and a second practical part including field work, design making, user testing, reflections and a conclusion.
Overall presentation quality
Besides very few and minor formatting issues the thesis is is laid-out nicely with a clear, logical and comprehensible structure. Text is nicely supported with sketches and images especially in the practical part.
Degree of innovation
The thesis generally explores an under-researched and relatively new topic that hasn’t been studied much. Therefor it raises interesting new questions and aims to explore them in a playful, curious way while considering the little research and prevailing ideas that do exist in the field. It even introduces a semi-new methodology of slow provotyping. Although nothing entirely new is discovered or innovated, the design experiments that are conducted are very thought-provoking and offer a new perspective on current design approaches.
Independence
The underlying motivation for the thesis clearly has a strong tie to the authors own life and personal experience. Besides a literature research to better understand the current state of research on the topic ideas, interviews experiments and user-testings were entirely unique to the thesis and conducted by the author himself.
Structure and Organization
The thesis follows a very clear and logical structure which is especially well done considering how messy an explorative a design process such as this one can be. Dividing the work into two parts (theoretical and practical) makes it easy to follow the thought-process and understand how the ideas and findings came to be.
Communication
The writing is personal and engaging as well as academic and professional, which makes for an informative read, which at the same time doesn’t feel boring or dry. The visual documentation perfectly supports the practical part and makes the experimental ideas and somewhat abstract concepts understandable. I feel like even someone who isn’t well-versed in the design world could follow the thought-process of the experiments.
Scope
The scope of the masters thesis seems appropriate and well balanced in terms of research and practical experiments. Creating three prototypes is quite a lot, which makes up for the fact that there is no „final Product“. Given that this is an experimental project that aimed to explore, rather than develop, this fits the scope and fulfills the goal of the thesis.
Accuracy and attention to detail
The language is easy to understand, mostly correct, conscience, clear and scientifically accurate. The experiments are nicely described and supported with photos and sketches. As already mentioned the structure is logical and detailed but not repetitive.
Literature
The thesis uses a good amount and range of literature aas well as own research and seems to be cited fairly correctly with clickable links which make deeper research more easy.
Overall I really enjoyed reading this thesis. It was interesting as well as informative and really nicely thought out. Especially considering that this is an under explored field the theoretical research felt thorough and gave a good understanding of the current state of research. Also considering this was written in 2015 it is quite impressive how well the situation and development of future smart technology was assessed. It also had a clear goal leading through the thesis despite being explorative and experimental.