Research Statement

While I hold a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) (and Interaction Design), my interests and expertise do not lie with the technical aspects of computing. Instead it is focused upon people and their experiences during-and-through the use of technology and how we can design future technologies that go beyond simply supporting people's activity effectively and efficiently, but are instead experienced as pleasurable and fulfilling; contributing to people's sense of well being and adding to their sense of self.

Theoretically and methodologically, my research of technology is strongly informed by the Social Sciences, (such as sociology, science & technology studies (STS), anthropology and geography), the Arts (music, performance theatre, voice), Pragmatist philosophy, and Design Theory. As such, I am more akin to a social sciencist working within the intersection HCI and Design. An implicit aim is to use these theoretical lenses to establish a ground-up understanding of particular phenomena in order to surface insights for technology design.

Research background, expertise & interests

EXPERIENCE-CENTERED DESIGN

People's experiences with technology: how this shapes their sense of self and their relationships with others are at the heart of my research activities. This domain is associated with terms such as experience-centered design, experience-based design, experience design, designing for experience, user-experience design – terms that have gained currency in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design. However, great challenges remain when working with experience. This is partly due to the fact that the concept of user experience is associated with a broad range of fuzzy and dynamic concepts, populated with a diverse set of theoretical models and epistemologies (Law et al., 2009). This makes researching, analysing and designing for experience very difficult. There are also methodological hurdles (and complications) to overcome, such as how we might begin to 'capture' and study the fuzzy nature of experience.

To work with experience, I found McCarthy & Wright's humanist-based experiential framework (2004, 2005; 2010) to be compatible to my worldview. Furthermore, I see it as a good foundation from which to build a more robust experience-centered design agenda. As such, I view experience holistically and as being relational and perspectival. Besides being imbued with the lived and felt, it is unfinalized and emergent from people's on-going process of dialogue/interpretation situated in the world.

My research approaches experience in two different ways. They are:

    1. Empirical investigations of experiences in the wild using qualitative research methods, especially ethnography. Besides informing theories of experience, this understanding may also surface insights or inspirations for design. And by deploying such designs (prototypes) back into the wild for further investigations, this extra step can potentially produce a more nuanced understanding of the experience of interest.
    2. Research through design or Design-led Inquiries whereby designed prototypes are deployed in the field studies to elucidate aspects of particular experiences, and how it could be potentially shaped.

RESEARCH AREAS

I will describe my research broadly through key headings that represent the level of my interest, engagement and output. My research has been carried out in three different universities: the University of Melbourne, the Digital Urban Living Group at Aarhus University, Denmark, and the Culture Lab, Newcastle University, UK. To date, a large portion of my research has been directed towards understanding people's experiences of digital media.

1. The experience of digital media - music, photos, news

Having conducted many qualitative studies of people's interactions with digital media, I posses a firm understanding of people's practices with digital music and digital photos, the affective aspects of the experience and the subjective and creative sense making processes that take place. Recently I have worked on explicating the nature of technology-mediated sociality that can arise through music interactions. I have also worked with people's experiences of breaking news through mobile devices. A design-led inquiry was conducted whereby an iPhone app was designed to help probe/understand ways to bridge the affective gap, in other words how news can be made felt and personal to the individual.

2. Coincidence & Serendipity

A substantial output of my work with digital media is the explication of people's experiences of serendipity and coincidence – experiences that can arise during people's interactions with digital music and photos (Leong et al., 2005; Leong et al., 2010; Leong et al., 2011). Given the enigmatic, 'magical' and engaging nature of serendipity, it is a particularly desirable experience to support when designing for experience. By studying people's experiences of iPod listening, I have been able to characterize the nature and quality of this experience, how it arises, and the factors involved. I have also designed a photo display prototype that demonstrates how we can support for serendipity and coincidence through design.

3. Participatory Design (PD) and values

Given that Participatory Design (PD) aligns closely with the goals of experience-centered design, I have established an on-going collaboration with some PD practitioners to examine and reflect upon a series of PD design cases. By deconstructing these cases to examine the key elements of PD and the design decisions, we have identified ways to further understand design thinking and the role of designers in PD. We also explicated the notion of participation and ways we could work with people's values so as to bring about design outcomes that are meaningful to people and respectful of their sense of self and identity. I hope to continue this research to understand how values can be embraced in ways that can enrich experience-centered design.

4. Memory, memorial, remembering and the role of digital media

Current research: Supporting social connections

Working as a Senior Researcher within the SiDE (Social inclusion in the Digital Economy) hub, my research tackles the issue of social inclusion by seeking to understand how we can encourage/foster/support social connections between people through the digital economy. Currently, I am the lead researcher in three different projects.

1. | Music in the Household | - Connecting people through music

The Music in the Household project explores how interactions with music can bring people together. In particular, the research reveals how the current ecology of technology contributes to supporting and affording new means for social connections as well as the potential for more participative and democratic experiences with music. Design explorations are underway to find meaningful approaches to support sociality through awareness, sharing and gifting of digital music.

| The Tingle Factor | - Peak experiences and the synthetic voice

This exploratory project involves researchers from Hull University and Lancaster University to examine various aspects of the Tingle Factor - peak experiences whereby listeners could be thrilled and caught up with the beauty of the moment during a performance. The aim is not only to understand this deeply engaging experience but also to explicate how such experiences might be 'designed' and brought to life in live performance. It is hoped that this understanding can inform design thinking when considering approaches in experience-centered design. Another aspect of this project explores the processes that are involved that might support the listener to connect meaningfully to the voice during a performance. We are hoping that this understanding can be used to inform the development of synthetic voice technologies that are perceived as being more authentic, and expressive.

| Choral Connections | - Participation and participatory process with the marginalized (January 2012)

I am hoping to work with a Newcastle-based community choir that is made up of people from marginalized backgrounds. The aim is to better understand how participation and the use of participatory processes can engender a sense of community, camaraderie, and sense of empowerment amongst its members. It is hoped that this understanding can reveals opportunities for the design of digital technology and means that can better support and strengthen participation. The overall understanding can also inform the general trajectory within HCI to design technologies that can facilitate deeper participation and engagement of individuals within the fabric of society.

Other research interests

I have good knowledge of the following domains. I have been engaged with the literature and have begun planning for ways to include them into my future research agenda. The domains are: