Designing qualitative interfaces: Experiences from studio education

Lockton, Dan, Lallemand, Carine and Menheere, Daphne (2022) Designing qualitative interfaces: Experiences from studio education. In: DRS2022: Bilbao, 25 June - 3 July, Bilbao, Spain.

Abstract

Interaction designers tend to use quantification as a default to present information and a way to enable interactions with technologies. There is a notion that quantification is valued to be the most actionable and legitimate form of presentation, while our actual experiences of the world are largely qualitative. But can we design ‘qualitative interfaces’? What would they be like? In this paper, we explore insights and experiences from four years of applying the notion of qualitative interfaces in interaction design student projects in two countries. We introduce, review, and compare projects across different application areas ranging from running training schemes to electricity use, and discuss questions around the relationships between the underlying phenomena and links to the ways in which they are displayed or represented, around the variety of ways in which students arrived at their designs, and suggest considerations for others interested in this kind of approach.

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