Design in the Absence of Practice

1
Design in the Absence of Practice

• Overview
• Rationale the challenge of contemporary IT
  research and interdisciplinary design
• Responding to the challenge ethnography,
  sociology and the breaching experiment in design
• Performance, provocation and innovation
• A practical example Can You See Me Now?

2
The Challenge of Contemporary IT Research and
Interdisciplinary Design

• Technological innovation and the absence of
  practice
• IT research and understanding practice
• Mixed reality, tangible, ambient, ubiquitous,
  mobile, and wearable computing, etc., have little
  or no grounding in existing practice.
• Instead, these technologies create entirely new
  possibilities, and practices for their use have
  yet to emerge.
• How, then, are disciplines that take practice as
  their object of inquiry and study to proceed in
  the absence of practice and, furthermore, support
  innovation?

3
Responding to the Challenge

• An ethnographic point of view
• An umbrella notion
• EM and situated action
• Situated action and ethnographically-natural
  experiments
• Moving from the lab to experiments in the wild
• Breaching experiments

4
Breaching Experiments

• Sociology and IT research
• Steve Mann public performance as breaching
  experiment
• Harold Garfinkel breaching experiment as aid to
  a sluggish imagination
• Respecifying breaching experiments

5
A Practical Example

• Can You See Me Now?
• A mobile, mixed reality game
• Online players chased by runners on city streets
• Performance co-constructed by artists and IT
  researchers
• Research into new forms of interactive game and
  broader potential of GPS-based and mobile mixed
  reality computing to support collaboration

Images from Flintham, M. et al. (2003) Where
on-line meets on-the-streets, CHI 2003, pp.
569-576, Florida ACM Press.
6
Can You See Me Now?

• Breaching Experiment 1 Sheffield
• Global Positioning Systems are highly inaccurate
• GPS inaccuracy was not a significant problem for
  the runners
• How come?

7
Breaching Experiment 1 Sheffield

• GPS inaccuracy and locational work
• Runner 1 (on walkie-talkie) Ive taken a
  photograph of Sammy Boy.
• Runner 1 puts the camera back in his bag and
  then looks at the PDA.
• He changes his view on the PDA (from local to
  global) and looks to see who is where on the map.
• Runner 1 to other runners (on walkie-talkie)
  OK, Im going to see if I can come and help you
  with Jimbo (another player).
• Runner 1 to other runners (on walkie-talkie)
  See if you can get above Jimbo and drive him down
  towards the roundabout Ill try and cut him of
  at the roundabout.

8
Breaching Experiment 1 Sheffield

• Exploiting working knowledge of the technology
• Ethnographer So your tactics slow down, reel
  them in, and get them?
• Runner If theyre in a place that I know its
  really hard to catch them, I walk around a little
  bit and wait till theyre heading somewhere where
  I can catch them.
• Ethnographer Ambush!
• Runner Yeah, ambush.
• Ethnographer What defines a good place to catch
  them?
• Runner A big open space, with good GPS
  coverage, where you can get quick updates because
  then every move you make is updated when youre
  heading towards them because one of the problems
  is if youre running towards them and youre in a
  place where it slowly updates, you jump past
  them, and thats really frustrating.

9
Breaching Experiment 1 Sheffield

• Exploiting local knowledge of the physical
  environment
• Runner 1 (on walkie-talkie) I need a runner at
  the glowing mushrooms! I need a runner at the
  glowing mushrooms!
• Runner 2 (on walkie-talkie) Im thirty seconds
  away.
• Runner 1 (on walkie-talkie) I need another
  runner to meet me at the glowing mushroom.
• Runner 2 (on walkie-talkie) Im ten seconds
  away.
• Runner 1(on walkie-talkie) Where are you?
• Runner 2 (on walkie-talkie) Im going round to
  your right.
• Runner 1looks to his right and sees Runner 2.
• Runner 1 (on walkie-talkie) OK.

10
Provoking Practice and Propelling Innovation

• Exploiting phenomena seen in the breach
• Plans and situated actions
• The practical gap the work to make the
  technology work
• Identifying topics that the use of FETs turns
  upon or relies on
• Exploring those topics through redesign
• For example, augmenting local knowledge

11
Breaching Experiment 2 Rotterdam

• Enhancing collaboration
• Orienting players to others
• Helping players avoid runners
• Taking evasive action
• Organizing collaborative gameplay
• Finding other players
• Meeting other players

12
Breaching Experiment 2 Rotterdam

• Experiencing uncertainty
• 15. MARCEL Attention. Runner 1 is cheating by
  using his invisible coat
• HBAB Whats an invisible coat?
• MARCEL Never mind what the coat is - he can pop
  out of nowhere
• 16. STEVE Runner 4 keeps seeing me, but I
  dont always see them
• TOBY Runner 1 youre moving very fast
• TRACY Sure youre not roller-skating?
• ADAM Ah! Where did Runner 2 come from?
• 17. MARJOLEIN Anyone seen the runners?
• MELISSA I think they can turn off their signal
• HANNE I only see two runners - are the rest
  taking a coffee?
• BLASTER Runner 1 is just a lazy joke
• HANNE If they can turn off their signal thats
  pretty scary and not really fair
• MELISSA Tell me about it
• MARJOLEIN Well maybe the satellites dont work
  properly

13
Breaching Experiment 2 Rotterdam

• Working with constant interruption
• Runner 2 (on walkie-talkie) Runner 2. Ive just
  lost all players Ive lost all players!
• Runner 2 Looking at PDA. Ive got a
  disconnection here.
• Runner 2 (on walkie-talkie) Runner 2. Heading
  seawards on Otto. I am currently disconnected.
• Runner 2 turns around and starts walking back
  down the street to the last place he had
  connectivity. He arrives at the car park where he
  last checked the PDA.
• Runner 2 (on walkie-talkie) Runner 2. Ive
  connectivity again. Im in Vern.

14
Breaching Experiment 2 Rotterdam

• Diagnostic work
• Runner 1 is walking around the Los Palmas car
  park looking at her PDA. She crosses the road on
  Wilamena, going towards the seafront. She walks
  across Simulation Carpark and then stops.
• Runner 1 (on walkie-talkie) Runner 1. Ive got
  locations on players but I seem to be stuck in
  New York.
• Runner 1 then heads back towards the road.
  Halfway down the street she comes across
  technical support.
• Runner 1 John, my positions gone really
  bizarre as in its not saying where I am.
• John Looks at PDA. The best thing to do is to
  stand out in the middle of the car park and just
  do a reset.
• John Does reset. Weve not got GPS yet. But, I
  think theres only about 3 satellites or
  something.
• Runner 1 I think runner 4s just dropped out of
  GPS.
• They both see Runner 4 across the road, standing
  beneath a WiFi base station (where there should
  be good connectivity).

15
Provoking Practice and Propelling Innovation

• Augmenting the common stock of knowledge

Augmenting the gameplay interface to reflect GPS
coverage at-a-glance
www.blasttheory.co.uk
16
Design in the Absence of Practice

• Conclusion
• The challenge of contemporary IT research and
  interdisciplinary design
• Informing design in the absence of practice
• Breaching experiments from making trouble to
  performance and the provocation of practice