Concept-driven interaction design research

Today I carefully read an article that I wrote with Mikael Wiberg and published in 2010 in the HCI journal. The article is titled "Concept-driven interaction design research". It is not always fun to read something you have written a while back, but in this case I was pleasantly surprised. I really liked it!

One reason why I liked it is that since we published the article the field of HCI research has developed and it seems as if the article and its contributions are better suited for today than when it was published.

I also really like the basic idea in the article, that is, that it is possible to use a concept-driven design approach with the purpose of theoretical advancements.   (I think you can download the paper here)

Here is the abstract of the paper:

"In this article, we explore a concept-driven approach to interaction design research with a specific focus on theoretical advancements. We introduce this approach as a complementary approach to more traditional, and well-known, user-centered interaction design approaches. A concept-driven approach aims at manifesting theoretical concepts in concrete designs. A good concept design is both conceptually and historically grounded, bearing signs of the intended theoretical considerations. In the area of human–computer interaction and interaction design research, this approach has been quite popular but not necessarily explicitly recognized and developed as a proper research methodology. In this article, we demonstrate how a concept-driven approach can coexist, and be integrated with, common user-centered approaches to interaction design through the development of a model that makes explicit the existing cycle of prototyping, theory development, and user studies. We also present a set of basic principles that could constitute a foundation for concept driven interaction research, and we have considered and described the methodological implications given these principles. For the field of interaction design research we find this as an important point of departure for taking the next step toward the construction and verification of theoretical constructs that can help inform and guide future design research projects on novel interaction technologies."