The course FINT is cancelled spring semester 2012

(FINT - Design for Affective Interaction)

Requirements

90 hp Computer and Systems Sciences with at least:

• 7,5 hp human-computer interaction
• 7,5 hp programming

Aim

Upon the completion of the course, the student should be able to:

• Design, implement and evaluate systems that address, relate to or influence user emotions & bodily movement, focusing on the users’ experiences (not only on usability metrics)

• Explain relevant emotion and body theories and apply them to the design of interactive systems

• Reflect upon and provide a coherent argument on how existing IT-application addressing body & emotion (as well as other media, such as arts, cinema, music) address and influence user experiences

• Be aware of and be able to apply practical design knowledge and methods specifically aimed at interactive systems touching upon body & emotion & user experience

• Reflect on the implications of IT-application addressing body & emotion on human values, such as privacy, autonomy and equity, as well as on attitudes and behaviours in society

• Scientifically describe a designed affective interactive functionality and relate it to relevant literature and theories in the area

Syllabus

The course will start with a set of lectures (some by invited guest lecturers) laying out the foundations in:

• Theories of emotion & body (Sheets-Johnstone, Shusterman, Boehner et al., Russell, Picard, Ekman, Scherer)

• IT-applications addressing emotion as affective computing and affective interaction (e.g. Höök et al., Sundström et al., Boehner et al., Sengers et al., Kaye, Gaver et al.)
• IT-applications addressing bodily interaction, movement and relating it to (emotional) experiences (Schiphorst, Isbister and Höök, Overbeeke et al.)
• Design methods relevant when designing for emotional and bodily interactions, such as Laban-analysis, bodystorming, improv dance, autobiographical design (Laban, Oulasvirtta, Schiphorst, Moens, Overbeeke et al., Sengers et al.)
• Evaluation methods capturing user experience, such as cultural commentators, Sensual Evaluation Instrument, Repertory Grid Technique (Gaver, Isbister et al., Laaksolahti)
• How to design for experiential qualities such as suppleness (Laaksolahti)
• Improv dance and how to understand movement based on physical meaning-making processes (Johansson)

After the lectures, the student will be asked to write an essay (~3 pages) describing theories on some particular aspect of bodily or emotional ways of being in the world, and how this has been picked up in one or several IT-applications or design methods. After this theoretical part of the project, rendering 3 ECTS-credits, students will work in groups to design, implement and evaluate an interactive application touching upon our emotional and bodily ways of being in the world. In this project work, the students will work in close collaboration with an interdisciplinary teacher team (interaction designers, HMI-experts, and software developers). The project will require lightweight user studies, workshops for interaction design and independent programming/simulation work. The project will be examined from all three perspectives, rendering another 4 credits. Typical methods for these three phases of the project will be:

• user-centred design, such as Contextual Design(Beyer and Holzblatt) providing real-life (light-weight ethnography) input to the specific scenarios or into specific settings, such as the home (Gaver and Dunne),
• early (drama and paper-based) development of ideas for user-testing, such as Prototyping with Tiny Fingers (Rettig) or drama (Iacucci et al.),
• design approaches, such as making use of ambiguity for open interpretation of affective expressions (Gaver et al.), designing for suppleness (Isbister and Höök) or interactional empowerment (Höök et al.)
• fake system testing for end-user interaction, such as the Wizard-of-Oz method (Dahlbäck, Andersson et al.)

The student project will be presented both as a demonstrable system with a user evaluation and as a short research paper. The later will be presented at a “mini-conference” at the end of the course (where a best-paper award will be handed out). Finally, the course ends with a written exam.