Introduction

Design of Future Everyday Interactive Things

  • IPD Lab explores human-centered approaches to apply personal lifelog data for providing tangible interactions with everyday physical artifacts. We are investigating designs for expressing and physically interacting with dematerialized information such as digital schedules, reading activity, and music or audiobook listening data through the form of everyday objects. Our lab mainly uses the case design-development+field study method, and the research results are mostly published in academic societies such as ACM CHI & DIS along with HCI-related journals.
  • 인터랙티브 제품 디자인 연구실은 개인의 라이프로그 데이터, IoT, 제품 디자인, 탠저블 인터랙션 관련 연구를 수행하고 있습니다. 스케줄, 독서량, 음악/오디오북 감상 기록 등과 같이 비물질화된 정보를 일상 오브젝트의 형태를 통해 표현하고, 이와 물리적으로 상호작용하는 기법 및 디자인 대해 탐구하고 있습니다. 저희 연구실은 사례 디자인-개발+필드 스터디를 주된 연구 방법으로 택하고 있으며, ACM CHI, DIS 등의 학회와 HCI 관련 저널에 그 연구 결과들을 게재 합니다.

Type_1_IPD

Primary Lab Activities

  • Design & Realization of Creative Concepts:
    Our lab focuses on thinking and inventing creative products that can provide effective, playful, and emotional value to the users. The key approach for thinking and making creative products are "systematic brainstorming of new ideas" and "iterative prototyping". Our lab members and the director will have weekly meetings to think together about new products and services, along with the continuous investigation of existing products and researches. We will use idea generation cards to generate unexpected and imaginative future product concepts, and we will conduct discussion periodically to select the concept that we will design and implement. During the prototyping process, we will seek for novel materials and devices that we can hack and apply on our development. Once the initial prototype has been produced, we will conduct a pilot study to gather effective user feedback. After iterations of this prototyping process, our goal is to develop complete products that can be used in our everyday life and to provide a feasible bridge to the industry.

 

  • Design-driven HCI Research:
    Methodologies and theories for user-centered design (e.g., Affordances and Conventions, Cultural Probes, and Research through Design) have received attention in design studies. In particular, design cases implemented in the HCI field have received attention and become notable interaction design cases. As the phenomenon of various study approaches in design-driven and technology-driven HCI area, we aim to make interactive design cases in order to produce and complete more products than or with engineers in the HCI field, and to present design cases that can receive high attention. In addition, we aim to improve on the existing design research trends and present solutions by applying and transforming new technologies, as well as implementing concepts into highly finished prototypes.

 

  • Collaboration with Engineers:
    We aim to create final product designs in systematic ways by collaborating and communicating with engineers in the early stages of the design process, in order to derive and develop creative initial design cases. Prior to collaborating, we will endeavor to understand the technologies, implement their concepts, and show them to engineers. The concepts and prototypes from our lab will be a communication tool with engineers and could mean for designers and engineers to understand and respect each other’s roles when driving the concept prototypes until completion.

 

  • Design Research to Practice: 
    Our lab aims to propose methods and design research directions that blend design research with practice. Most of the previous examples of design studies connected to practice are mainly products made by intuitions from stylistic and experienced designers. On the other hand, interactive products in design studies mostly result in academic papers, patents, or exhibitions due to technical and structural design deficiencies. This issue has also remained unsolved in cases developed in many HCI labs in which the interactive future concepts are presented and implemented. It is important not to limit the use of technologies when implementing creative concepts; however, it is also important to find and apply design and technological alternatives to use in-situ through compromising on practice and technological reductions. We aim to complete concepts by presenting designs, structures, and technologies that might be connected to practice, rather than only aiming to present and implement fancy concepts. By maintaining this process, our lab will be able to contribute to design research and practice through new inventions in the process.