Ron Wakkary

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Ron Wakkary is Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.

My research is about what we need to know to design interactive systems that will have value in our everyday lives. One thread of the research involves projects that prototype systems for play, social experiences, and learning. These include prototypes for mobile computing games, ambient intelligence physical games, and museums as responsive environments. These projects raise design issues related to social, contextual, and embodied experiences with technologies. Along another thread, I have been investigating the idea of everyday design. We all design in the course of living our lives by exploiting materials around us, such as designed artifacts by appropriating them for differentand new uses. The aim of this research is to describe everyday design and how families design in the home in order to reconsider how we might design interactive technologies for the home. These two threads of research intersect in my belief that future interactive systems need to be simple, and open to ongoing design in order to weave themselves meaningfully into our lives.

This year I've been busy helping out a number of ACM conferences. Come join us at ACM Creativity and Cognition 2009 in Berkeley in October, and ACM Tangible Embedded/Embodied Interaction 2010 in Cambridge, Mass. in January 2010.

Current Teaching

IAT 480 Special Topics: Sustainable Interaction Design: Sustainability in interaction design (SID) is a new concern in design that complements sustainable or ecological design by understanding the role and impact that the design of digital artifacts have in supporting people’s actions in respect to environmental sustainability. In relation to design practice, SID explores how the design of digital artifacts is impacted when considering issues of recycling, reuse, and renewal. The aims of the course are to develop an understanding of the role of interaction design in respect to sustainability with particular attention given to design concepts, research problems, design learning, and design practice. The course will aim to research and create research and practice-based resources for sustainable interaction design, explore interaction design projects that are sustainable in concept, and explore design learning strategies for design programs like SIAT. This is an advanced student-led seminar/project course. See course blog at <http://sustainableinteractiondesign.wordpress.com/>

IAT 832 Exploring Interactivity: Interaction design is in many respects the convergence of design practice and thinking, the effect and use of interactive technologies, and the understanding of the experience of interaction mediated through technology. The course is intended as an in-depth exploration of this convergence structured along three lines of inquiry that intersect and weave through the course: 1) What ideas and concepts have emerged to define interaction design? 2) What are the methodological foci in interaction design? 3) What related ideas have informed interaction design? The course is based on a combination of readings, seminar discussions and student presentations. A final paper will be assigned with an emphasis on investigating a topic through a literature review, identification of issues and research questions.

Recent Publications (see publications for a complete list)

Wakkary, R., Anything is a Fridge: The Implications of Everyday Designers, ACM Interactions, Sept-Oct, 2009, pp. 12-17.
Marek Hatala, Karen Tanenbaum, Ron Wakkary, Kevin Muise, Bardia Mohabbati, Greg Corness, Jim Budd, Tom Loughin: Experience Structuring Factors Affecting Learning in Family Visits to Museums. EC-TEL 2009: 37-51
Wakkary, R., Tanenbaum, K., A Sustainable Identity: The Creativity of an Everyday Designer, CHI 2009, Boston, ACM Press, pp. 365-374
Wakkary, R., Hatala, M., Muise, K., Tanenbaum, K., Budd J., Kurio: A Museum Guide for Families, Tangible and Embedded Interaction 2009, Cambridge, UK, ACM Press, pp. 215-222
Kerne, A., Wakkary, R., Nack, F., Steggell, A., Jaimes, A., Candan, S., Del Bimbo, A., Jennings, P., Dulic, A.: Connecting artists and scientists in multimedia research. ACM Multimedia 2008: 1113-1114
Wakkary, R., Muise, K., Tanenbaum, K., Hatala, M., and Kornfeld, L., Situating Approaches to Interactive Museum Guides (2008), Museum Management and Curatorship, Vol. 23, Issue 4, pp. 367-383.
Wakkary, R., “Informing Design Through Ethnography and Informances,” (2008) in Mobile Nation: Creating Methodologies for Mobile Platforms (eds Martha Ladly & Philip Beasley). Toronto: Riverside Architectural Press, pp. 43-46.
Milam, D., Seif El Nasr, M., Wakkary, R., Looking at the Interactive Narrative Experience through the Eyes of the Participants (2008), 1st Joint International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, pp. 96-107.
Muise, K., Tanenbaum, K., Wakkary, R., Hatala, M., A Report on Participatory Workshops for the Design of Adaptive Collaborative Learning (2008), in AH2008 Workshop on Adaptive Collaboration Support in Adaptive Hypermedia 2088, Bonn, Germany, in press, 4 pages.
Droumeva, M., Wakkary, R., Understanding Aural Fluency In Auditory Display Design For Ambient Intelligent Environments (2008), International Conference on Audio Display 2008, Paris, France, in press, 7 pages (awarded Best Poster Prize).
Milam, D., Wakkary, R., Seif El Nasr, M., A Phenomenological Study on User Affect for Façade (2008), Canadian Game Studies Association 2nd Annual Conference 2008, Vancouver, Canada.
Boileau, J., Wakkary, R., A Tangible Computing Game Prototyping Environment (2008), Canadian Game Studies Association 2nd Annual Conference 2008, Vancouver, Canada.
Wakkary, R., Maestri, L., Aspects of Everyday Design: Resourcefulness, Adaptation, and Emergence (2008), International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 24, Issue 5, pp 478-491.
Wakkary, R., Hatala, M., Ying, J., Droumeva M., Hosseini, M., Making Sense of Group Interaction in an Ambient Intelligent Environment for Physical Play (2008), Tangible Embedded Interaction 2008, Bonn, Germany, pp. 179-186.

Current Research

ec(h)o-VUE : ecologies of play, learning and interaction in museums (2007-08) aims to research an adaptive museum guide for families that supports different learning and interaction styles, extensible group play and learning applications. The project is led by Simon Fraser University in partnership with the Surrey Museum and Archives, Ubiquity Interactive and Carleton University. The research is funded by the New Media Research and Development Initiative, Canadian Culture Online Program, Canadian Heritage.

The ec(h)o-VUE project team's system, Kurio was awarded Gold Winner, Concepts Category, 12th Biennial Industrial Designers Society of America's 2009 Northwest Design Invitational (NWDI'09).

Reflective Practice and Complexity in Design is a three-year research program (2004-2007) investigating the idea that everyone is a designer. The aim of the research is to describe everyday design in the home, what are the dynamics and who is involved? To date, we have conducted formal studies comparing the design activity and understanding of professionally trained designers and those not trained in design. We have recently completed ethnographic studies of families in the home analysing and describing everyday design patterns and artifacts. The research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

_Ron Wakkary

recent publications current research

Current Teaching

Recent Publications (see publications for a complete list)

Current Research