From matters of fact to matters of concern

I think this transition to matters of concern as an emergent phenomenon can be helpful for recognizing and promoting different forms of agency and formulating the ASD approach.

References to be investigated are mostly by John Law and Bruno Latour.

John Law, After Method: Mess in Social Science Research, Routledge, London, 2004
Bruno Latour, "Where are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts", in Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, edited by Wiebe E. Bijker & John Law, MIT Press, USA, 1992, pp. 225–258.

A philosophical critic of human-centered design by Sha Xin Wei

"Our typical model of interaction has been of humans and their proxies engaging in an action-reaction ping-pong. And interaction design, even in its most enlightened mood has been centered on the human (viz. human-centered design), as if we knew what a human was, and where a human being ends and the rest of the world begins."

Xin Wei Sha. 2007. Poetics of performative space. AI Soc. 21, 4 (June 2007), 607-624

Activity Checklist by Kaptelinin

These are activity checklists created by Kaptelinin et al (1999). I think I can produce a checklist for agency sensitive design in a similar fashion.

Victor Kaptelinin, Bonnie A. Nardi, and Catriona Macaulay. 1999. Methods & tools: The activity checklist: a tool for representing the “space” of context. interactions 6, 4 (July 1999), 27-3

Agency over time

I'll not deal with long term transformations of agency over time, though I think it is important. Kaptelinin et al mentions about these changes over time and their importance:

"All practice is reformed and shaped by historical development. It is important to understand how tools are used not in a single instant of trying them out in a laboratory (for instance) but as usage unfolds over time. In that time, development may occur making the tool more useful and efficient than might be seen in a single observation" (Kaptelinin, 1999).

Thus,  I should at least discuss it at a certain extent to show my consideration of it.


Victor Kaptelinin, Bonnie A. Nardi, and Catriona Macaulay. 1999. Methods & tools: The activity checklist: a tool for representing the \“space\” of context. interactions 6, 4 (July 1999), 27-3

Continue with the concept of assemblage

I'll probably continue with the concept of assemblage and to an extent wearable environments rather than redesign of a totally different system/tool.

The next steps of the study are:
1) Review and assess relevant IXD methods/activities.
2) Assess workshop-1 and workshop-2 production and use phases
3) Analysis framework and suggestions for Lian's workshop
4) Design of workshop-3 (two phases) and Ethics application

Research Questions:
a) What does designing for agency mean?
b) How can we, as designers, assess our own design approach or processes?
c) How can we design for agency? How can we apply Agency Sensitive Design? What skills do I need? What do I need to do differently?

Project aim: Redesign of human-machine-environment assemblage to serve the activity of guiding a human actant over a track. thus it is not redesign of Enactive Coupler devices but relations between humans machines and environment.

Participants will have more choice and authority to configure their relationships. Here are the four things that I'm planning to do in order of priority:
i- customization/re-configurability
ii- increased role of space
iii- focus on a few ASD qualities: relationality, material agency, awareness in different forms( awareness of actors, artifacts, processes and as a designer design and agency relations). Support of tuning and design-in-use, some form of design tensions framework can be integrated.
iv- more AI

Participatory Design DC Diagrams

Two diagrams that were created during doctoral consortium sessions in Participatory Design Conference.

Wearable Environments vs Redesign

There are two options for my research to go forward. The first one is to continue with the wearable environments workshops and apply and test ASD principles and strategies in these workshops.
The second one is to find an existing system or tool and redesign it according to ASD.
The advantage of the former is that it makes the thesis more coherent and and provides more consistent picture about the research. On the other hand, in the latter case we can compare the outcomes of two different design processes and may argue about the connections between ASD and the observed difference or effects. Redesign of an existing system has also the advantage of being familiar to both participants of workshops and larger research community.
An alternative might be to find an existing case which is reasonably closer to the workshops 1 and 2 involving Enactive Coupler devices.