Attending to Slowness and Temporality with Olly and Slow Game: A Design Inquiry Into Supporting Longer-Term Relations with Everyday Computational Objects

ABSTRACT

Slowness has emerged as a rich lens to frame HCI investigations into supporting longer-term human-technology relations. Yet, there is a need to further address how we design for slowness on conceptual and practical levels. Drawing on the concepts of unawareness, intersections, and ensembles, we contribute an investigation into designing for slowness and temporality grounded in design practice through two cases: Olly and Slow Game. We designed these artifacts over two and a half years with careful attention to how the set of concepts influenced key design decisions in terms of their form, materials, and computational qualities. Our designer-researcher approach revealed that, when put into practice, the concepts helped generatively grapple with slowness and temporality, but are in need of further development to be mobilized for design. We critically reflect on insights emerging across our practice-based research to reflexively refine the concepts and better support future HCI research and practice.

References

1. Jeffrey Bardzell, Shaowen Bardzell, Peter Dalsgaard, Shad Gross, and Kim Halskov. 2016. Documenting the Research Through Design Process. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 96107.
2. Jeffrey Bardzell, Shaowen Bardzell, and Lone Koefoed Hansen. 2015. Immodest Proposals: Research Through Design and Knowledge. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2093--2102.
3. Steve Benford and Gabriella Giannachi. 2008. Temporal trajectories in shared interactive narratives. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 73--82.
4. Peter Bennet and Mike Fraser. 2012. Slow Technology is Inefficient but Resilient. In workshop proceedings of Slow Technology: Critical Reflection and Future Directions held at the 2012 conference on Designing Interactive Systems.
5. Ishac Bertran. 2015. Retrieved from ishback.com/slowgames/
6. Kevin Birth. 2012. Objects of time: How things shape temporality. Springer.
7. Justin Cheng, Akshay Bapat, Gregory Thomas, Kevin Tse, Nikhil Nawathe, Jeremy Crockett, and Gilly Leshed. 2011. GoSlow: designing for slowness, reflection and solitude. In CHI'11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 429--438.
8. Tanja Döring, Axel Sylvester, and Albrecht Schmidt. 2013. A design space for ephemeral user interfaces. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, 75--82.
9. Daniel Fallman. 2003. Design-oriented humancomputer interaction. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, 225--232.
10. Haakon Faste. 2017. Intuition in Design: Reflections on the Iterative Aesthetics of Form. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 3403--3413.
11. John Fass. 2012. Design for Slow Technology: Intent and Interaction. In workshop proceedings of Slow Technology: Critical Reflection and Future Directions held at the 2012 conference on Designing Interactive Systems.
12. Batya Friedman and Lisa P. Nathan. 2010. Multilifespan information system design: a research initiative for the hci community. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2243--2246.
13. Batya Friedman and Daisy Yoo. 2017. Pause: A Multilifespan Design Mechanism. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 460--464.
14. Alastair Fuad-Luke. 2008. Slow design. In Design Dictionary. Springer, 361--363.
15. Ben Fullerton. 2010. Designing for solitude. interactions 17, 6: 6--9.
16. Bill Gaver and Kia Höök. 2017. In search of the elusive CHI design paper. interactions 24, 2: 22--23.
17. William W. Gaver, John Bowers, Kirsten Boehner, Andy Boucher, David WT Cameron, Mark Hauenstein, Nadine Jarvis, and Sarah Pennington. 2013. Indoor weather stations: investigating a ludic approach to environmental HCI through batch prototyping. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 3451--3460.
18. Barbara Grosse-Hering, Jon Mason, Dzmitry Aliakseyeu, Conny Bakker, and Pieter Desmet. 2013. Slow design for meaningful interactions. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 3431--3440.
19. Martti Häikiö. 2002. Nokia: The Inside Story. Financial Times Prentice Hall.
20. Lars Hallnäs and Johan Redström. 2001. Slow technology--designing for reflection. Personal and ubiquitous computing 5, 3: 201--212.
21. Dan Hawkins, Jason Procyk, and Carman Neustaedter. 2014. Postulater: slowing the pace of media sharing. In Proceedings of the 2014 companion publication on Designing interactive systems, 89--92.
22. Jina Huh, Mark S. Ackerman, Thomas Erickson, Steve Harrison, and Phoebe Sengers. 2007. Beyond usability: taking social, situational, cultural, and other contextual factors into account. In CHI'07 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2113--2116.
23. Hiroshi Ishii, Craig Wisneski, Scott Brave, Andrew Dahley, Matt Gorbet, Brygg Ullmer, and Paul Yarin. 1998. ambientROOM: integrating ambient media with architectural space. In CHI 98 conference summary on Human factors in computing systems, 173--174.
24. Nadine Jarvis, David Cameron, and Andy Boucher. 2012. Attention to detail: annotations of a design process. In Proceedings of the 7th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Making Sense Through Design (NordiCHI '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 11--20.
25. Simon King and Jodi Forlizzi. 2007. Slow messaging: intimate communication for couples living at a distance. In Proceedings of the 2007 conference on Designing pleasurable products and interfaces, 451-- 454.
26. David S. Kirk, David Chatting, Paulina Yurman, and Jo-Anne Bichard. 2016. Ritual Machines I & II: Making Technology at Home. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2474--2486.
27. Stacey Kuznetsov, Alex S. Taylor, Tim Regan, Nicolas Villar, and Eric Paulos. 2012. At the seams: DIYbio and opportunities for HCI. In Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 258--267.
28. Tuck Wah Leong, Frank Vetere, and Steve Howard. 2006. Randomness as a resource for design. In Proceedings of the 6th conference on Designing Interactive systems (DIS '06). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 132--139.
29. Gilly Leshed. 2012. Slowing down with personal productivity tools. interactions 19, 1: 58--63.
30. Youn-kyung Lim, Daesung Kim, Jaesung Jo, and Jongbum Woo. 2013. Discovery-driven prototyping for user-driven creativity. IEEE Pervasive Computing 12, 3: 74--80.
31. Siân E. Lindley. 2015. Making time. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing, 1442--1452.
32. Vivian Lo. 2013. Pausitive: Designing for digital downtime and reflection in the homespace. Retrieved from http://www.divaportal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:631888
33. Sus Lundgren. 2013. Toying with time: considering temporal themes in interactive artifacts. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1639--1648.
34. Jennifer Mankoff, Anind K. Dey, Gary Hsieh, Julie Kientz, Scott Lederer, and Morgan Ames. (2003). Heuristic evaluation of ambient displays. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 169--176.
35. Ramia Mazé and Johan Redström. 2005. Form and the computational object. Digital creativity 16, 1: 7--18.
36. Hugh McIntyre 2015. One Trillion Songs Have Been Streamed In 2015. How Much Larger Can This Get? Forbes Magazine. Published on August 13 2015. http://onforb.es/1J1Lbjz ?
37. Harold Nelson and Erik Stolterman. (2012). The Design Way: foundations and fundamentals of design competence. 2nd Edition. MIT Press.
38. Helga Nowotny. 1996. Time: The Modern and Postmodern Experience. Wiley.
39. William Odom, Richard Banks, Abigail Durrant, David Kirk, and James Pierce. 2012. Slow technology: critical reflection and future directions. In Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 816--817.
40. William Odom, Mark Selby, Abigail Sellen, David Kirk, Richard Banks, and Tim Regan. 2012. Photobox: on the design of a slow technology. In Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 665-- 668.
41. William Odom, Abigail J. Sellen, Richard Banks, David S. Kirk, Tim Regan, Mark Selby, Jodi L. Forlizzi, and John Zimmerman. 2014. Designing for slowness, anticipation and re-visitation: a long term field study of the photobox. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1961--1970.
42. William Odom and Ron Wakkary. 2015. Intersecting with unaware objects. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Creativity and Cognition, 33-- 42.
43. William Odom. 2015. Understanding Long-Term Interactions with a Slow Technology: an Investigation of Experiences with FutureMe. In Proceedings of the 2015 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 575--584.
44. William Odom, Ron Wakkary, Youn-kyung Lim, Audrey Desjardins, Bart Hengeveld, and Richard Banks. 2016. From research prototype to research product. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2549--2561.
45. William Odom, Tom Jenkins, Kristina Andersen, Bill Gaver, James Pierce, Anna Vallgårda, Andy Boucher, David Chatting, Janne van Kollenburg, and Kevin Lefeuvre. 2017. Crafting a place for attending to the things of design at CHI. interactions 25, 1 (December 2017), 52--57.
46. William Odom, John Zimmerman, and Jodi Forlizzi. 2014. Placelessness, spacelessness, and formlessness: experiential qualities of virtual possessions. In Proceedings of the 2014 conference on Designing interactive systems, 985--994.
47. James Pierce. 2014. On the presentation and production of design research artifacts in HCI. In Proceedings of the 2014 conference on Designing interactive systems, 735--744.
48. James Pierce and Eric Paulos. 2015. Making multiple uses of the obscura 1C digital camera: reflecting on the design, production, packaging and distribution of a counterfunctional device. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2103--2112.
49. Larissa Pschetz. 2015. Isn't it time to change the way we think about time? interactions 22, 5: 58--61.
50. Larissa Pschetz and Richard Banks. 2013. Long living chair. In CHI'13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2983--2986.
51. Larissa Pschetz, Michelle Bastian, and Chris Speed. 2016. Temporal design: looking at time as social coordination. In Proceedings of the Design Research Society Conference (RTD'16).
52. Tim Regan. 2012. Engineering Slow Technologies. In workshop proceedings of Slow Technology: Critical Reflection and Future Directions held at the 2012 conference on Designing Interactive Systems.
53. Phoebe Sengers. 2011. What I learned on Change Islands: reflections on IT and pace of life. Interactions 18, 2: 40--48.
54. Phoebe Sengers, Kirsten Boehner, Shay David, and Joseph'Jofish' Kaye. 2005. Reflective design. In Proceedings of the 4th decennial conference on Critical computing: between sense and sensibility, 49-- 58.
55. Jin-min Seok, Jong-bum Woo, and Youn-kyung Lim. 2014. Non-finito products: a new design space of user creativity for personal user experience. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 693--702.
56. Erik Stolterman and Mikael Wiberg. 2010. Conceptdriven interaction design research. Human-Computer Interaction 25, 2: 95--118.
57. Axel Sylvester, Tanja Döring, and Albrecht Schmidt. 2010. Liquids, smoke, and soap bubbles: reflections on materials for ephemeral user interfaces. In Proceedings of the fourth international conference on Tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction, 269--270.
58. Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor, Alessandro Soro, Paul Roe, Anita Lee Hong, and Margot Brereton. 2017. Situational When: Designing for Time Across Cultures. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 6461--6474.
59. Alex S. Taylor and Laurel Swan. 2005. Artful systems in the home. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '05). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 641--650.
60. Anja Thieme, Jayne Wallace, James Thomas, Ko Le Chen, Nicole Krämer, and Patrick Olivier. 2011. Lovers' box: Designing for reflection within romantic relationships. International Journal of HumanComputer Studies 69, 5: 283--297.
61. Wenn-Chieh Tsai, Amy Yo Sue Chen, Sheng-Yang Hsu, and Rung-Huei Liang. 2015. CrescendoMessage: interacting with slow messaging. IASDR 2015.
62. Wenn-Chieh Tsai, Po-Hao Wang, Hung-Chi Lee, Rung-Huei Liang, and Jane Hsu. 2014. The reflexive printer: toward making sense of perceived drawbacks in technology-mediated reminiscence. In Proceedings of the 2014 conference on Designing interactive systems, 995--1004.
63. Vasiliki Tsaknaki and Ylva Fernaeus. 2016. Expanding on Wabi-Sabi as a design resource in HCI. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 5970--5983.
64. Anna Vallgärda. 2014. Giving form to computational things: developing a practice of interaction design. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 18, 3: 577--592.
65. Anna Vallgärda, Morten Winther, Nina Mørch, and Edit E. Vizer. 2015. Temporal form in interaction design. International Journal of Design 9, 3.
66. Jay Vidyarthi, Bernhard E. Riecke, and Diane Gromala. 2012. Sonic Cradle: designing for an immersive experience of meditation by connecting respiration to music. In Proceedings of the designing interactive systems conference, 408--417.
67. Ron Wakkary, Audrey Desjardins, and Sabrina Hauser. 2016. Unselfconscious interaction: a conceptual construct. Interacting with Computers 28, 4: 501--520
68. Ron Wakkary, William Odom, Sabrina Hauser, Garnet Hertz, and Henry Lin. 2015. Material speculation: Actual artifacts for critical inquiry. In Proceedings of The Fifth Decennial Aarhus Conference on Critical Alternatives, 97--108.
69. Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown. 1997. The coming age of calm technology. In Beyond calculation. Springer, 75--85.
70. John Zimmerman, Jodi Forlizzi, and Shelley Evenson. 2007. Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, 493--502.
71. Last.FM. 2017. Retrieved from https://www.last.fm/home

Index Terms

• Human-centered computing