2016 June Archive | IICloud(s) – Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s)

I&IC design research wrap-up of sketches, towards artifacts

By Patrick Keller Monday, June 20, 2016 Architecture, Design, Interaction Design, Projects, X-Posts Tags: 0134, ABCD, Art direction, Cabinets, Clouds, Data, Datacenter, Devices, Domestic, ECAL, Infrastructure, Object, Open source, Personal, Tools, Wrap-up Permalink 0

Following Nicolas Nova’s wrap-up regarding the ethnographic research about Cloud Computing which came to an end last April (publication to come) in the frame of Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s) (I&IC) and learning from it, it is also time for me to write a midterm status report about the design aspects of this ongoing work. It is the occasion to resume what we’ve been through along the process and highlight the most important elements.

“No-Stop City” (A. Branzi, 1969) used as an illustration in the founding document of the I&IC design research.
Image retrieved from the post “I&IC Preliminary Intentions” (05.09.2014).

We are therefore trying to put in evidence in this article what we’ve learned so far during the process and where this might lead us as design strategies during the last year of this design study. This while knowing that our plans are to produce design artifacts and functional prototypes as results of this research process — among other ones (books, tools, etc.)

I&IC ethnographic research wrap-up

By Nicolas Nova Friday, June 17, 2016 Ethnography, X-Posts Tags: 0133, Behavior, C, Cloud, Data, Documentation, Ethnography, HEAD, Personal, Wrap-up Permalink 0

It is time to wrap things up with the field research we conducted with a series of workshops.

Practically, the material we produced in the first year of the project is based on two main sources. On the one hand, we spent a year and a half collecting messages, discussions, exchanges and arguments online – mostly on forums/on-line platforms related to cloud computing. On the other hand, using this interview guide, we conducted a series of discussions with various profiles of nomadic workers (musicians, VJs, journalists, consultants, third space/fab lab users) to understand how they used cloud computing systems.

Sasha Pohflepp with Nicolas Nova, Patrick Keller and media design students at the end of his workshop at HEAD – Genève.
Image pulled from the post “I&IC workshop #6 with Sasha Pohflepp at HEAD” (15.01.2016)

This material was complemented by a workshop with Media Design students, under the supervision of Sascha Pohflepp, focused on the gestures people adopt with such platforms.

The analysis of this material enabled us to highlight a set of lessons to feed the design of alternative perspectives related to platforms and objects to support the “personal cloud”. These design alternatives are further developed in Patrick Keller’s post about the design research wrap-up.

Inhabiting & Interfacing the Cloud(s): all research workshops results at once (recap about usages, interaction, territory)

By Patrick Keller Monday, June 13, 2016 Architecture, Ethnography, Interaction Design, Schools, Workshops, X-Posts Tags: 0132, ABCD, Clouds, Data, Datacenter, ECAL, EPFL_ECAL_Lab, Experience, HEAD, Installation, Interface, Methodology, Users Permalink 0

Note: the 6 research workshops we organized in the frame of Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s) took place during the “preliminary sketches” phase. A known and common phase that takes place in the course of each design process, during which we could naturally involve peers partners and students so to increase our “trials and errors”.

The outcomes of these experimental workshops were further analyzed in two posts by N. Nova and P. Keller (ethnographic “Lessons” and design “Learnings“), to further develop design proposals as the main results of this research, along with two publications to come.

Introduction to I&IC & field study (10.2014) – no sound :