Projects

Included below are the research projects I have participated in after earning the PhD.

Augmented Reality in Astrid Lindgren's Landscape

Duration: 2010 – 2011
The research project (Swedish title: Datorförstärkta landskap i Astrid Lindgrens bygd) is financed by NCU - National Center for Outdoor Education. Project manager is Mattias Arvola.

The objective for this project is to develop a demonstrator of a computer augmented landscape that make Astrid Lindgren's life and authorship accessible in the landscape that she wrote about and grew up in. It will have an architecture that can be further developed and can be re-used in completely new computer augmented landscapes. A few places in the landscape will be documented and this constitutes the content of the demonstrator. This content can also be used in other contexts such as printed material or on a website. A technical point of departure is to build on easily accessible technology as for exampel mobile phones through which visitors in the landscape can access information about the places they visit.

DKV

Duration: 2008 – 2010
The research project "Appreciation Practices Among Digital Creatives" (abbreviated DKV from the Swedish title of the project "Digitala kreatörers värderingspraktiker") is financed from 2008 through 2010 by The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies (Östersjöstiftelsen). Project manager is Mattias Arvola.

How do creatives in digital media (especially digital art, film and interactive media) negotiate partly shared and partly opposing ways of judging and appreciating their own and others material? The means for production and distribution for digital media are today available to almost each and everyone. This is true for visual art, film, games as well as interactive media (e.g. flash productions and web sites). Non-professional creatives can also reach an audience with their material. The conditions for creative work are changing, and material produced by both professionals and laypersons is shared and transformed by several creatives in interaction and cooperation with each other. There is now an opportunity to multiple interpretations of creations, and it is not obvious that people with professional authority has preferential right of interpretation. This can, however, also lead to a need for professional creatives to fortify and justify their authority and trained professional knowledge. It is likely that creatives from different schools and traditions have different ideals when judging and appreciating a particular material. This leads to a multitude of different appreciation practices among both professionals and laypersons. The variation in Internet usage, design and art training, traditions and conditions in the Baltic region, despite the geographical proximity, makes this region particularly interesting to study. Based on theories of professional vision, this project aims at clarifying variants and invariants in appreciation practices among creatives who work in digital media in the Baltic region. We therefore plan to cover both laypersons and professionals with different backgrounds in training and traditions in the region. The project focuses on three domains of digital creativity: digital art, film and interactive media. Our participants come from several countries in the Baltic region, and this will provide a variation in formal training, traditions, and conditions.

DKV Publications:

Arvola, M., Karsvall, A., & Tholander, J. (2011). Values and qualities in interaction design meetings. In The Endless End: The 9th International European Academy of Design Conference. Porto, Portugal, May 4-7, 2011. [ PDF ]

Manker J., & Arvola, M. (2011). Prototyping in game design: Externalization and internalization of game ideas. In Proceedings of HCI 2011: Health, Wealth & Happiness: The 25th BCS Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK, July 4-8, 2011. [ PDF ]

Arvola, M. (2010). Interaction Design Qualities: Theory and Practice. In Proceedings of the 6th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI 2010). Reykjavik, Iceland, October 16 - 20, 2010. [ PDF ]

Arvola, M., Lundberg, J., & Holmlid, S. (2010). Analysis of Precedent Designs: Competitive Analysis Meets Genre Analysis. In Proceedings of the 6th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI 2010). Reykjavik, Iceland, October 16 - 20, 2010. [ PDF ]

Arvola, M. (2010). Interaction designers' conceptions of design quality for interactive artifacts. In Proceedings of Design Research Society (DRS) 2010, Montreal, July 7-9 2010. [ PDF ]

Arvola, M. (2010). Assessment criteria for interaction design projects: Fostering professional perspectives on the design process. In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (EPDE10), Trondheim, 2-3 September 2010. [ PDF ]

Arvola, M. & Artman, H. (2008). Studio life: The construction of digital design competence. Digital kompetanse / Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 3 (2), 78-96. [ PDF ]

Hernwall, P., & Arvola, M. (2008). Editorial: Interaction design, pedagogical practice, and emancipation. Digital kompetanse / Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 3 (2), 63-77. [ PDF ]

DKV Publications by Other Authors:

Wolrath Söderberg, M., & Manker, J. (2010). Spelets retorik. Rhetorica Scandinavica, 2010 (55), p. 54-71.

Manker, J. (2011). Game Prototyping – The Negotiation of an Idea. In Proceedings of the 2011 Digital Games Research Association Conference (Digra 2011), 14-17 September, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Hagen, U. (2010). Designing for Player Experience: How Professional Game Developers Communicate Design Visions. In Proceedings of DiGRA Nordic 2010: Experiencing Games: Games, Play, and Players. August 16-17, 2010, Stockholm, Sweden. [ Download PDF from Digra.org ]

Hagen, U. (2009). Where do Game Design Ideas Come From? Innovation and Recycling in Games Developed in Sweden. In B. Atkins, H. Kennedy and T. Krzywinska (Eds.), Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory: Proceedings of the 2009 Digital Games Research Association Conference (Digra 2009), September 2009, London, UK. London: Brunel University. [ Download PDF from Digra.org ]

Personas for Elderly Users of New Tools for Health

Duration: 2007
Personas in Hälsans nya verktyg - New tools for health - is a regional initiative for growth with its core in Östergötland, Sweden. The focus is on health and health related business. Its mission is to make the region of Östergötland a prime mover in the development of individually adapted solutions for best possible health. In this project we develop personas for elderly customers to health related businesses. Project manager was Mattias Arvola.

Elderly Users Publications:

Arvola, M., Holmlid, S., Nygard, S., Segelström, F., & Wentzel, J. (2008). Greta & Torsten: Två personas för äldre användare av hälsans nya verktyg (Greta & Torsten: Two personas for elderly users of new tools for health). Project report. Linköping: Santa Anna IT Research Institute AB and Hälsans Nya Verktyg. In Swedish. [ PDF ]

Elderly Users Publications by Other Authors:

Segelström, F., Raijmakers, B. & Holmlid, S. (2009). Thinking and Doing Ethnography in Service Design. In Proceedings of IASDR 2009, Rigor and Relevance in Design, Special Session on Rigor in Service Design Research. Seoul, South Korea. [ PDF ]

The Planning Portal

Duration: 2006 – 2008
Planeringsportalen (The Planning Portal) is a project for creating a web service that will support urban and regional planning and development, as well as localisation and authorization of buildings and constructions. In this project we explore how methods for setting design objectives can be used in the design of government web services. Project manager was Pål Karlsson at Boverket.

Planning Portal Publication:

Arvola, M. (2010). Interaction Design Qualities: Theory and Practice. In Proceedings of the 6th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI 2010). Reykjavik, Iceland, October 16 - 20, 2010. [ PDF ]

IxD for Nature Experience

Duration: 2006 – 2008
Interaction design for nature experience is a project funded by Naturvårdsverket (the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency) and Östersjöstiftelsen (The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies that aims at answering the question of how interaction design can be used to advance information design, interactive services, and increase the tourist attraction at nature reserves and national parks. Johan Bornebusch was project manager for the first half of the project and Mattias Arvola was project manager for the second half.

Nature Experience Publications:

Maijala, M., Nygard, S., & Arvola, M. (2010). The stone age trail: A mobile outdoors computer game for nature experience. In P. Hernwall (Ed.), The Virtual: Interaction, A Conference 2007. Man | Medium | Machine, Nr. 4:2007, pp. 30-43. September 20-22, 2007, Haninge, Sweden. Huddinge, Sweden: Media Technology, Södertörn University. ISSN 1653-5677. [ PDF ]

Maijala, Markus & Nygard, Stefan. (2007). Stenåldersslingan: Ett mobilt spel för upplevelser vid naturbesök [The Stone Age trail: A mobile outdoors computer game for nature experience]. Master thesis (one year). School of Communication, Technology and Design, Södertörns högskola (University College).

Arvola, M., Bornebusch, J., Tholander, J., Hagen, U., Dahlström, K., & Johansson, B. (2007). Early explorations of interaction design for nature experience. In CMID ´07, The 1st international conference on Cross-Media Interaction Design, Hemavan, March 22-25, 2007. [ PDF ]

DeKaL

Duration: 2004 – 2006
DeKaL: Shared representations and collaborative learning of interaction design (Delade representationer och kollaborativt lärande av interaktionsdesign) was a research project funded by the Swedish research council (Vetenskapsrådet - utbildningsvetenskap). The project aimed to investigate how interactive artifacts can be used to support and strengthen shared use of representations in learning of interaction design. Project Manager: Prof. Dr. Robert Ramberg, Stockholm university.

DeKaL Publications:

Arvola, M., & Artman, H. (2007). Enactments in interaction design: How designers make sketches behave. Artifact, 1 (2), 106-119. [ PDF ]

Johansson, M., & Arvola, M. (2007). A case study of how user interface sketches, scenarios and computer prototypes structure stakeholder meetings. In L. J. Ball, M. A. Sasse, C. Sas, T. C. Ormerod, A. Dix, P. Bagnall & T. McEwan (Eds.), People and Computers XXI: HCI... but not as we know it, Proceedings of HCI 2007, The 21st British HCI Group Annual Conference, Volume 1, pp. 177-184. University of Lancaster, UK., 3 - 7 September 2007. Swindon, UK: The British Computer Society. [ Download from BCS ]

Lundberg, J., & Arvola, M. (2007). Lessons learned from facilitation in collaborative design. In W. Piekarski and B. Plimmer (Eds.), CRPIT, Vol. 64. Proceedings of the Eighth Australasian User Interface Conference (AUIC2007), pp. 51-54. January 30 - February 02, 2007. Ballarat, Australia. The Austrailian Computer Society Inc. [ PDF ]

Arvola, M. (2007). A Use-qualities approach: Judgements in interactive media design. In P. Hernwall (Ed.), The Virtual: Designing Digital Experience, A Conference 2006. Man | Medium | Machine, Nr. 4:2007, pp. 102-118. September 14-16, 2006, Rosenön, Dalarö, Sweden. Haninge, Sweden: M3 Research Platform, Södertörns högskola. ISSN 1653-5677. [ PDF ]

Arvola, M., & Artman, H. (2007). Studio Life: The Construction of Interaction Design. The 2007 Workshop on Interaction Design in Pedagogical Practice. November 1-2, 2007, Haninge, Sweden.

Arvola, M., & Artman, H. (2006). Interaction walkthroughs and improvised role play. In Proceedings of DeSForM 2006, Design & Semantics of Form and Movement. Eindhoven, The Netherlands, October 26-27, 2006. [ PDF ]