IMD Ethnography

Introduction

We are extremely fortunate on the MSc in Design Ethnography to have pulled together a vibrant and committed group of academics to teach on the course. Many of the teaching team have industry as well as University experience of systems, product and service design. All of our teaching team are active researchers committed to exploring new approaches to design for the 21st century, and between them they hold numerous awards, patents and publications.

Morna Simpson

Key words:

Design, Design Methods, Screen Design, Communication Design, Web Design,  Service Design, Entertainment Design,  Networked Design, Context aware systems, Mobile Devices, Narrative, Qualitative Research Methods, Nomadic Devices, Migratory Systems, Social Networks

Lecturer People and Technology/ Interactive Media Design

I would describe myself as researcher in communication design and content development for the interactive industries.

I am interested in new paradigms for content creation (development and provision) that are offered by developing technologies. The intersection between mobile, location-sensing computing and social-networking applications offers a particularly rich context for this research.

We are well on our way to establishing the technology and infrastructure to support the seamless integration and interoperability of media systems (services and entertainment) across mobile devices. In the near future we can expect to be able to access both the range of media available through web-based applications and mainstream media anytime, and anyplace. This will include bandwidth heavy media like high definition video and 3D entertainments (like Second Life). In addition, advancements in location-sensing computing mean that mobile devices can roam from one service to another depending on location. This has opened up opportunities to develop new services with "nomadic" characteristics.

The proliferation of social networking tools and services available today have changed the relationship that users have with text enabling them to be both user and author simultaneously and to develop content collaboratively. Many useful, usable services and entertainment sites that use these underlying concepts are now establishing themselves in our virtual world. This type of application will continue to be part of our media culture, however, the form of current applications will necessarily change to adapt to and integrate with the advancements in technology that are about to take place.

Project titles:

DJCAD Beyond Text / The Speaking Land

Contact Details:

Tel Ext 84807
Email: morna@computing.dundee.ac.uk

Jeanette Paul

Key words:

Workplace design, Healthcare design, Privacy, Post-occupancy evaluation

Head of Postgraduate Studies, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design

My research investigates how design can impact on the physical and psychological wellbeing of the users of built environments. Research has focussed on the area of workplace environment and, more recently, healthcare environment with particular emphasis on healthcare staff. Recent research includes an investigation into UK maternity units to establish the effects of the environment on the users, (staff, newly delivered mothers and their partners). This study, titled BESt, was funded by NHS Estates/Department of Health and was a collaborative study with researchers in the School of Nursing & Midwifery. The results will inform the next edition of the NHS Health Building Notes.

A similar study assessed how design may impact on operating theatre suites, in particular OTs in older hospitals. This was a holistic study which sought to identify both the opportunities for design and also the benefits of improving efficiency through design for a wide range of stakeholders. Workplace environment for healthcare staff was a particular interest in both these research projects.

Project Titles

Birth Environment Study (BESt): Investigation into the effect of interior environment on the users of maternity facilities
Assessment of Office Interior Environment from the Users Perspective
Preliminary investigation into the interior environment and ergonomics of operating theatres to understand how design can improve their efficiency 
Scottish Artists’ Book Archive

Contact Details:

Tel Ext   85289
Email   j.m.paul@dundee.ac.uk

Professor Peter Gregor

Key words:

interactive systems design; accessibility; usability; user experience; technology requirements for older people; dyslexia; healthcare technologies

Dean and Head of School
Director, Digital Media Access Group

I get excited about the possibilities for research into the design of computer applications which really make a difference, whatever the field. I currently work with older people, life sciences, healthcare and accessibility but the main interest in each is in trying to improve our ability to develop systems which really do meet user needs (often as opposed to user technical needs – that’s sometimes the easy part). How do you design systems which people trust and which reflect and support the way they work/play; how do you engage people effectively in the design process; how do you provide support where the task is cognitively demanding while still leaving the user in full control; how do you make sure that you take account of the diversity of users and changing abilities when designing systems? I am particularly interested in further developing methodologies derived from design ethnography and theatre to assist with the improvement of interaction design generally. Current research is funded by EPSRC, Diabetes UK, IBM Research and a variety of commercial collaborators.

Project Titles

Usable image; Building Interactive Resources for Diabetes; Open source for older people in the workplace; iDesign2; School of Computing User Centre; Digital Media Access Group

Contact Details:

Tel Ext 84152
Email: pgregor@computing.dundee.ac.uk

Dr. Shaleph O'Neill

Key words:

Culture and Creativity, Creative Practice, Interactive Art, Interaction Design, HCI, Semiotics, Phenomenology, Embodiment, Enactive Psychology, Cognition.

Lecturer/Course Director of Interactive Media Design

My current research interests are focused around Culture, Creativity and Technology. In particular I am interested in understanding how interactive media has affected the creative process of Designers and Artists, with an aim to develop new models of creative practice and to improve the design of interactive technologies for creative practitioners. I am interested in pursuing this research area from both a social/cultural perspective in terms of understanding the semiotics of interactive media and form a phenomenological perspective that concentrates on the individual experience of creating art with interactive technologies.

Project Titles

Interactive Media: The Semiotics of Embodied Interaction

Contact Details:

Email: s.j.oneill@dundee.ac.uk

Graham Pullin

Key Words:

design; interaction design; augmentative and alternative communication; disability; critical design

Job title goes here

Three themes run through my research: provocative design involving disabled people in some way; radical interaction design challenging conventional user interfaces; critical design reflecting on the social role of communication technology.

At the intersection of all three lies the field of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) for people with speech and language impairments. I am collaborating with Andrew Cook, a post-graduate researcher from Interactive Media Design and Alan Newell, Norman Alm and Annalu Waller of the School of Computing. My focus is letting people using communication aids control their tone of voice (in the project '17 ways to say "yes"') and thereby express themselves better, more emotionally.

I have recently returned to academia after 17 years experience in order to contribute techniques pioneered in the design industry to academic design research. Whilst leading a studio at the design consultancy IDEO, I was responsible for client projects inspired by people rather than technology for its own sake, such as Vodafone's Simply, a mobile for people in their 40s and 50s. I also led internal research projects including Social Mobiles with Crispin Jones and Table Talk for the RNID and Blueprint's HearWear exhibition.

I am finishing writing a book, working title 'Design meets disability', that will be published by the MIT Press in Autumn 2008. This challenges the current separation of design for disability as a specialist field, and argues that more collaboration with mainstream design and art school-trained designers would be mutually inspiring and influential.

Project Titles

'17 ways to say "yes"'

Contact Details:

Tel Ext 386531
Email: g.pullin@dundee.ac.uk

Dr Annalu Waller

Key Words

Healthcare Computing, Learning Technology, Augmentative & Alternative Communication (AAC), Accessibility for People with Disabilities, Computer mediated communication, Special Education; Medical Informatics

Lecturer

People with complex communication needs (CCN describes people with severe speech impairment and physical and / or learning disabilities) communicate using low and high technology to interact with others. My research aims to harness a combination of human computer interaction and artificial intelligence to help people with CCN fully express themselves. My current research includes aspects of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) such as graphic communication systems, literacy acquisition, humour and story telling, as well as aspects of health informatics dealing with patient records and the lifestyle of diabetic patients. Research in the pipeline includes using natural language generation for story telling, autism research and the hospital and dental experiences of adults who use AAC. My research depends on techniques such as conversational analysis, qualitative research methodologies for small populations and ethical issues in research with vulnerable populations.

Project Titles

STANDUP – Novel pun creation for children with complex communication needs;

Synthetic Phonics – providing direct access to phonemic speech for  children with complex communication needs;

Sweet Talk – technology support to improve lifestyles of diabetic teenagers;

Exploring e-Learning and Communication Tools for Improving Children's Language Usage in Social Interactions: EChoeS;

Blissymbolics – a semantic written language for non-speaking individuals.

Contact Details:

Tel Ext 8223
Email: awaller@computing.dundee.ac.uk

http://www.computing.dundee.ac.uk/staff/awaller/ 

Dr Catriona Macaulay

Key Words

Design ethnography, user research, user-centered design, user engagement, scenario-based design, anthropology, socio-technical studies, design methods, design methodologies, requirements gathering, usability, interaction design, video ethnography, performance and design, activity theory

Course Director, MSc Design Ethnography

As a design ethnographer Catriona’s theoretical leanings are very firmly rooted in theories of Action, particularly Activity Theory and Pragmatism, which is a fancy way of saying what really interests her is how the ways in which people think about information affect their 'information actions' and vice versa! She enjoys working in interdisciplinary teams - probably because like most ethnographers she is nosy by nature and ‘other worlds’ fascinate her. She has conducted fieldwork in a wide variety of settings: from people’s homes, to newsrooms, to firefighters responding to emergency bio and chemical hazards. She is currently co-investigator and manager of an EPSRC 3 year project to improve the usability of image management systems in molecular cell biology (see http://www.usableimage.org ) and is learning more about molecular cell biology than she ever imagined she would be. She has also recently been publishing in the areas of scenario-based design and the use of performance techniques in interaction design, and continues to be motivated by the question 'how do we make available and use rich ethnographic understandings of the world in design?' Catriona’s principle research motivation is finding better ways to make the results of fieldwork and user studies accessible and actionable within design contexts. It may not make her rich but it makes her happy!

Project Titles

And So the Circle Closed (pre-production and research for an interactive narrative on Sophie Taeuber-Arp)

Inside the Palimpsest: A study of information gathering by journalists.

Communication needs of first responders to emergency bio/chemical hazard situations.

Navigation design for an ontology-oriented user interface to an online medical school.

Usable Image: improving the usability of imaging software systems in the Life Sciences.

Contact Details:

Tel Ext 86522
Email: c.macaulay@dundee.ac.uk

Professor Mike Press

Key Words

Innovation, design management, design against crime, craft

Head of The School of Design

Mike's research interests span a number of areas across design:

Design Against Crime - as joint director of the Home Office / Design Council project, he has published widely on this subject, presenting at conferences in the UK and overseas, and has made short films for Channel 4 and the Association for Chief Police Officers. He is currently principal investigator of a major EPSRC project on design and counter terror.

Design management - authorship of two books and numerous papers in this field. Current research interests include processes of co-creation and co-design, which has resulted in a review piece for The Design Journal.

Craft - His research on craft has continued for over a decade, including being commissioned by the Crafts Council to undertake research for the Learning Through Making project, which examined the value of craft in an information society. He has published more recently on craft and digital process, and was joint director of the Pixel Raiders conference. Chair of the Challenging Craft conference in 2004, he has also supervised and examined a number of PhDs in craft disciplines including textiles, jewellery, metalwork and ceramics.

As an external advisor for research strategy in art and design, Mike has worked with University of Salford (2007), University of Newcastle (2005), University of Northumbia (1999 and 2003), Nottingham Trent University (2002) and Wolverhampton University (1997).

Project Titles

Design Against Crime

Contact Details:

Email: M.Press@dundee.ac.uk

Dr Nick Hine

Key Words

Human dialogue mediated by technology

Lecturer in Applied Computing

I have a background in telecommunications engineering and biomedical engineering, with an emphasis in rehabilitation technology.

My current research interest centres on computer-mediated human dialogue in the areas of education and independent living (The dialogue of care for older people and AAC systems for non-speaking people). The communication dialogue that I am most interested in is the that of stories, as a vehicle for education, the long term story of activity as a predictor of care needs and the personal voice with which to tell stories for disabled (non-speaking) people.

I am concerned to extend the portfolio of expertise in computing research beyond the traditional computing and cognitive psychology to more comprehensively embrace sociology and design as technology becomes increasingly pervasive.

Project Titles

2006-2008: MATLIDAH (The use, application and role of advanced technologies in the lives of disabled people). UK Economic and Social Science Research Council funded project

2007-2008: EduWear (Children designing tangible and wearable computing for playful educational purposes). European Union funded project

2006-2008: AT Commands for Assistive Mobile Device Interfaces. European Telecoms Standards Institute funded project

2005-2009: MATCH (Mobilising Advanced Technologies for Care at Home). Scottish Funding Council funded project

2006-2009: SAPHE (Smart and Aware Pervasive Healthcare Environment). UK Department of Trade and Industry funded project.

2004- : Young People’s Creative Story Sharing Forum; Our Digital Culture. University of Dundee personal research

2006-2008: Digital Literacy in Schools: Hyepermedial Narratives. Colombian National Research Council funded project

Contact Details:

Tel Ext 88826
Email: nhine@computing.dundee.ac.uk

Professor Rosaline Barbour

Key Words

Qualitative Research; Focus groups

Chair of Health and Social Care, School of Nursing & Midwifery 

I am interested in the intersection of the social and the clinical; Professional practice; User views of health and social care. Special expertise in qualitative methods with an interest in rigour and qualitative research and mixed methods approaches.

Two 2007 books: Doing Focus Groups, Sage: London
Introduction to Qualitative Research: A Student Guide to the Craft of Qualitative Research; Sage: London.

Project Titles

Staff views of providing oral health care for people who have experienced a stroke; Reasons for non-uptake of folic acid in pregnancy  

Contact Details

Tel Ext  88557

Email  r.barbour@dundee.ac.uk