Design ideologies of interactive space in digital culture

Abstract

This research project investigates the current situation in interactive space design, in pursuit of a better understanding of this future-oriented practice of environmental design. Digital culture, in its technological and theoretical influences, has transformed the design of the physical environment in unprecedented ways. Among various explorations of post-digital environments, interactive space design is a discipline that resists simple definition as architecture, computer studies or media design subject, as reflected by its practitioners who adopt diverse approaches in design process and execution. The study aims at achieving tools for description and analysis of the current practice and designers' ideologies in digital culture. Reflected by selected interactive space projects, which compose a core framework of reference, the research is positioned on the investigation of embodied interaction by accommodating digital interactivity in physical environment design. With a human-centred research approach, analysis of descriptions of ideologies in interactive space design necessitates two distinct sets of languages and focuses: from users' and designers' points of view, respectively. In the probe of descriptions of interactive space design from the user's point of view, themes around interaction interface, user participation and their experience were examined through observation and case studies, supported by theories on environmental psychology and human-computer interface design. Alternatively, the description of the same subject by designers of the spaces showed another focus that explains the themes of interests and ideologies behind the production of interactive spaces, with data gathered from writings and designer interviews. These descriptions are juxtaposed and reveal a misalignment of perspectives and expectations between designers and users of interactive spaces. This dual description of interactive space design is an analogy to distinctions made in the study of human-computer interfaces between technology-centred and user experience-centred understandings of interaction. A discussion provides an overview of theories on application and theory-oriented ideology, user involvement, and evaluation and development cycles of design products. Research findings are analyzed with the aid of these theories to articulate the current ideologies of environmental design within digital culture, and propose a number of meaningful methods of conceptualization and visualization to describe, analyze and evaluate the practice of the interactive space design.