SummerPIT talk by Michel Beaudouin-Lafon

Participatory design is famous for informing design based upon a deep understanding of how users' goals and actions are situated in their physical, organizational and cultural contexts. Unfortunately, users tend to reproduce interaction styles and techniques that they already know, which can limit the potential for true innovation. A key challenge is how to enhance participatory design by incorporating theories and models to help us collaboratively invent novel forms of interaction.  Over the past 15 years, we have been exploring the concept of instrumental interaction which, makes explicit the interaction between the user and the object of interest through the familiar notion of an instrument (or tool or device). This talk will describe our experiences using instrumental interaction in a variety of participatory design projects, including CPN2000 and WILD, and will discuss how explicitly applying instrumental interaction to participatory design can help both users and designers to generate more innovative forms of interaction.