Design in the absence of practice: breaching experiments

IT research is often informed by studies of the practices that new technologies are to be embedded in and which they transform in their use. The development of mixed reality, tangible, ambient, ubiquitous, mobile, and wearable computing have seen the emergence of a range of technological innovations that have little or no grounding in current practices, however. Such developments create new practices where none existed before and the challenge for multi-disciplinary research is to adapt to this situation. This paper articulates a novel methodology that treats technological innovations as ‘breaching experiments’, whose situated use beyond the confines of the research lab may be studied ethnographically to support innovation. Keywords Multi-disciplinary design, ethnography, design methodology, breaching experiments, innovation.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: ACMDIS
• Authors: Andy Crabtree
• Keywords: ACMDIS 2004, Current Practices, Keywords Multi-disciplinary Design, Technological Innovations