Reflections on theme 5: Design Research

I will write my reflection on Eva-Lotta’s part since I don’t know if I can make it to Haibo’s lecture on Monday due to a mandatory lecture in another course. I had very high expectations on the lecture about collaborative haptics. I regret that I didn’t step up and asked my question in the beginning of class. Perhaps than the lecture would have started out better and therefore get more interesting. 

In the other course I’m studying at the moment we are encouraged to participate and I think I really need that push. My question was basically what made Eva-Lotta interested in her field (i.e. study visually impaired children) and I wasn’t sure if that was a question of too low standard… Anyway, no use of crying over spilt milk or perhaps I should think as they say in German: morgen, morgen, nur nicht heute, sagen alle feulen laute (I’m learning some German because of exchange studies next semester).

I thought the lecture was pretty much a recap of the articles we were to read. I had read the articles and I liked them. However, I felt that the lecture was kind of waste of time because of it. Eva-Lotta was nice to listen to but I had hoped that she would have brought some of the machines (desktop / omni) or that she would do some experiments IRL.

I would like to reflect on HCI instead. The lecture gave me insight on what a fantastic tool HCI is to help people. When I was in sixth grade I remember my natural science teacher (NO-lärare) saying that if we (students) we to remember anything from her was this it: “Teknik är för att underlätta vardagen för oss människor” which in english sort of can be translated to “the aim of technology is to simplify the everyday-life for people”. That sentence actually stucked in my mind and at Ev-Lotta’s lecture I thought that Media Technology and HCI very much simplifies the everyday-life for people.

Eva-Lotta talked about her ongoing project with making playgrounds more interactive. I thought this sounded cool! However, perhaps I should reflect on design research since that is the topic of the week. Hm. I think that if I were to work with Eva-Lotta on her project I would do an internet-based web-survey and distribute them to parents asking questions what they think of playgrounds and their children’s digital knowledge. Than I would visit actual playgrounds and observe/interview parents and children. Additionally, I would read lots of articles on the topic HCI, playgrounds, etcetc. Spontaneously I would think that sound steps like a piano would be cool  and perhaps some material where you can form stuff. I’m thinking that it would be beneficial to try to add more senses to the playgrounds. Audio, visual and touch seems to be the most ‘healthy’. I mean I don’t think children should taste stuff at the playground… Perhaps smell stuff though. Anyway, as you hear I think this sounds like a cool project!