Abstract
Since participatory design methodology began to take shape in the 1980s, the prevalent view of experience as something individual has expanded to include the experience of collective creativity – defined as co-design by Sanders (2002) and co-experience by Battarbee (2003). To date, research based on co-experience scenarios has focused on experiences that users create for themselves using products or services that already exist (Battarbee 2003) in spaces that do not appear to be specifically designed for co-experience. Kristensen (2004:7) refers to the limited address of the physical context of creativity. However, there is limited scope for developing knowledge in this field if we fail to attend to or question the design of the environments within which we exercise creativity. The aim of the research was to prototype a co-experience environment and to question how the design of a co-experience environment might contribute to new knowledge in design. The purpose of this paper is to communicate the methods used to create the co-experience environment, prompt co-experience and assess participant use of the coexperience environment. An exploratory exercise, the outcomes offer tentatative proposals that might influence our approach to designing for and engaging participants in future co-experience scenarios.
Keywords
experience, co-design, participatory action research, design experiments. design as scaffolding
Citation
Ivey, M., and Sanders, E. (2006) Designing a Physical Environment for Co-experience and Assessing Participant Use, in Friedman, K., Love, T., Côrte-Real, E. and Rust, C. (eds.), Wonderground - DRS International Conference 2006, 1-4 November, Lisbon, Portugal. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2006/researchpapers/14
Designing a Physical Environment for Co-experience and Assessing Participant Use
Since participatory design methodology began to take shape in the 1980s, the prevalent view of experience as something individual has expanded to include the experience of collective creativity – defined as co-design by Sanders (2002) and co-experience by Battarbee (2003). To date, research based on co-experience scenarios has focused on experiences that users create for themselves using products or services that already exist (Battarbee 2003) in spaces that do not appear to be specifically designed for co-experience. Kristensen (2004:7) refers to the limited address of the physical context of creativity. However, there is limited scope for developing knowledge in this field if we fail to attend to or question the design of the environments within which we exercise creativity. The aim of the research was to prototype a co-experience environment and to question how the design of a co-experience environment might contribute to new knowledge in design. The purpose of this paper is to communicate the methods used to create the co-experience environment, prompt co-experience and assess participant use of the coexperience environment. An exploratory exercise, the outcomes offer tentatative proposals that might influence our approach to designing for and engaging participants in future co-experience scenarios.