Fragile and magical interaction forms: an approach to interaction design aesthetics

Licentiate thesis, 2006

This thesis deals with overlooked and perhaps undesired characteristics that may be induced when designing objects that contain computational technology. Aspects such as trust, dependency and anxiety have been explored through the development of a conceptual framework and through experimental design work, where theoretical and practical work have influenced each other, and affected each other’s result. The purpose is to broaden the design knowledge within interaction design with a more aesthetics-of-interaction oriented approach. A research program has therefore been formulated, which in combination with the experimental design examples aims to contribute to the development of conceptual tools for interaction designers. The program introduces the notions of fragile and magical interaction forms and the notion of expressions of interaction as a suggestion of a way to handle and look at aesthetic issues of interaction in the design process. Interaction form is a notion that relates spatial and temporal form as well as function and interaction to each other with an emphasis on intended use. Expressions of interaction refer to the way in which the interaction form presents itself during use. It is a matter of a design language similar to the conceptual framework of product semiotics where for example ‘speed’ can be used to describe the actual physical form of a car. Corresponding notions in interaction design could for instance be trust, dependence or anxiety.