“In this view, avatars are not images or characters radically separated from the “real” players; they are aspects of players’ real-life identities played out on virtual stages, not unlike the way the same people might “perform” at frat parties or wedding receptions or in classrooms and restaurants.”

This distinction has profound implications for the design of social software. Designing a social tool following the representation model is a relatively straight-forward, but ultimately limiting approach. Essentially, it involves providing a finite set of fields that users can fill in to describe themselves. However, if we wish to create an application that really resonates with users and becomes part of their social life, it must provide a space for more fluid and dynamic types of identity performance. The choices designers make about the structure of the platform will influence the subjectivities that users develop and experience: “As interaction designers, we might ask how the stages, or interactive ecologies, we create regulate or encourage identity performance.” Since I don’t play many videogames, the only avatar I have much experience with is my Facebook profile. I wonder, in what ways does Facebook enable or constrain different types of identity performance?

A few years ago, Alice Marwick wrote an interesting critique about the model of identity represented in social networking sites (SNS’s) such as Friendster, MySpace and Facebook. Marwick argues that the finite profile options in SNS’s are far too limiting compared to the diverse open-ended ways that people express themselves in everyday life. In her words, “the rigid profile structure encourages the user to present him or herself in a way that is partly constructed by the application, not the user”. Interestingly, Marwick also points out that the type of identity performance available in SNS’s may be related to the sites’ capitalist interests: “The user is portrayed not as a citizen, but as a consumer. [SNS] applications encourage people to define themselves through the entertainment products they consume: music, movies, books, and television show.” The central point of Marwick’s argument is that early SNS’s were following a strictly representational model, which she describes as the “problem of authentiticity”: “Social networking sites overall presume that each user has a single “authentic” identity that can be presented accurately.” This assumption is evidenced by the fact most SNS’s do not allow users to create more than one profile. For instance, Facebook used to require all profiles to be tied to a valid university e-mail address. Friendster even went as far as to remove all profiles that they suspected as being “fake”. This rigid, singular construction of identity is in contradiction with the way we all perform identity in everyday life; we present ourselves in various ways depending on the audience and context.

In my personal experience, I believe Facebook has been guilty of these criticisms, especially in its earliest incarnations. When I first starting using the service in 2005, there were not many features available and so the interface emphasis was mostly on user profiles. I recall that most users would typically fill out almost every field of their profile. The result was a laundry list of interests, favorite books, tv, music, etc. that ultimately conveyed a rather shallow and generic picture of a person. As Facebook’s user base grew, the problem of having a single profile for all audiences also became very apparent. Facebook started out as site for college students only. Once the site opened up to highschool students, alumni, and eventually everyone, many users were surprised or embarrassed at having their “college persona” suddenly visible to the whole world. Privacy options in the site became more robust, but this was often not enough. I recall one friend’s reaction when both his mother and grandmother friended him on Facebook. He quickly adjusted his privacy settings so that they would see his limited profile and not any of his pictures. Unfortunately, this setting did not apply to events. He was shocked to find out that his mom and grandma had received notification that he was attending a theme party titled “Future Sex”; they were even able to view the racy invite and party photos.

Countless stories of embarrassment have been written about SNS’s. What I find surprising is that they are usually framed in terms of issues of security, privacy, morality, etc. The point overlooked is that while SNS’s are attempting to bring identity online, they are failing to support the kinds of robust and fluid performance that people are used to. It’s not just that Facebook needs to provide better privacy options, or that college students need to be more careful with what they post. The larger problem is stated by Marwick: “the awkwardness and difficulty inherent in representing oneself in fixed, codified ways will need to be addressed if social networking applications are to move beyond the current fad to become truly useful services for internet users.” Marwick’s research has found that users develop creative strategies in order to negotiate the awkwardness of SNS profiles: “users may choose particular linguistic styles (irony, sarcasm, satire) when constructing their profiles… Other people identify themselves within SN applications by using aliases … Others create “safe profiles”, where publicly exposed information is carefully chosen to avoid possible problems“. I have personally known many friends on Facebook to use each of these approaches. These examples of user adaptation provide important signals for how the application needs to change to better support user needs.

Through a combination of site changes and shifting user behavior, I believe the Facebook community has recently been evolving towards more sophisticated forms of self-presentation. This is happening in two ways. First, the focus of the application experience has shifted from user profiles to user activity. Users can now express themselves in many ways other than textual self-description. They can write status updates, short notes or blog entries, post links, photos, videos, etc. The landing page for the site displays a news feed with all your friends recent activity where you can comment and respond directly. In this way, users can have lots of conversations and interactions without ever navigating to someone’s profile page. On the profile page itself, the self-descriptive information has been replaced with a news feed of that user’s activity. In parallel, I have noticed that many veteran users have been gradually removing the biographical information from their profiles. In short, the means of self-presentation on Facebook is shifting from that of static representation to more dynamic, contextual action.

A second important trend I’ve seen on Facebook (though one that still needs a lot of work) is an increase the ability to customize identity information for different audiences. When the site first unveiled the news feed feature, many users were outraged to have their every activity suddenly broadcast to their entire network. Facebook defended itself by saying that the information had always been accessible in different places of the site and that users had privacy control for their information. This argument completely missed the point that users want control over exactly how, when, and to whom they present themselves. It’s not enough that privacy controls exist; they need to be integrated into the user experience in an intuitive and transparent way so that every time a user interacts with the system they know who they are communicating with. With the last few redesigns, I believe the application has gotten a little better at this. For example, when you friend someone you can choose to let them see either your full or limited profile. Within privacy settings, users can control the accessibility of each different type of profile data. Still I think Facebook could do more to allow users to share specific information with only specific people. One promising new feature allows users to organize their friends list into different groups. In the future, this may allow users to customize how they present themselves to each group (e.g. work friends, college friends, family, etc.) just like we all do in everyday life.

Overall, I think the concepts introduced by Bardzell & Bardzell can help the designers of Facebook and other social software to create more compelling and valuable services. By thinking about avatars as subjectivities and about interfaces as stages for performance, designers will be more likely to create spaces for creative identity play, as the Bardzell’s describe: “The symbolic possibilities available online, when joined with the capabilities of the interface, amount to a software of the self, a tool that enables users to play with their own subjectivities.” I believe such tools will ultimately allow for more natural, human, and fulfilling online experiences.

References
Intimate Interactions: Online Representation and Software of the Self
Jeffrey Bardzell, Shaowen Bardzell

“I’m a Lot More Interesting than a Friendster Profile”: Identity Presentation, Authenticity and Power in Social Networking Services
Alice Marwick

Specifically, the memo highlights the role of user innovation in continually shaping the nature of the web and its importance to society. According to Horrigan, as late as the 1990’s, the internet was primarily conceived of as a vehicle for one-to-many communication, similar to traditional media systems like television. This shifted dramatically during the 90’s as many users began to actively converse with one another in dial-up online communities. The phenomenon of many-to-many communication was taken to the next level with the emergence of blogs around 2004; millions of users were suddenly broadcasting their own perspectives across the web. Horrigan suggests that the latest evolution of the trend is the mass collaboration enabled by broadband and mobile internet access.

Horrigan argues that the throughout its history, the web has come to be defined by “user co-creation“. In his words, “turning users loose to find ways to use communications capacity is the animating principle for innovation in the digital society“. Coming from the user-centered design tradition, this principle is not new to me. However, I find it interesting to imagine how this consideration might influence the formation of technology policy. In my discipline, we believe strongly in giving users a central role in the design of products and systems through methods such as ethnography, participatory design, and usability evaluation. But of course, every design is constrained and influenced by the organizational, political and economic systems that it inhabits. What would it mean then to apply a user-centered philosophy to the formation of these meta-structures?

Horrigan advocates two possible implications for communications policy in the U.S. First, he suggests that the diversity of mobile internet users is a potentially huge source for creative adaptation. According to results from PEW Internet surveys, “users would appreciate policies for wireless devices and networks that keep the gadgets and their connections open to outside innovation.” Google’s Android is one example of an industry-created platform that provides access to outside developers. Going beyond such voluntary programs, Horrigan suggests that policymakers should to take action to “make sure openness is one of the rules of the wireless road.” While I am unsure how open development models could be mandated by the government, I agree that it would be a great thing for users.

Second, Horrigan addresses possible policy solutions for connecting Americans who currently are without access to the internet. Discussion about digital divide has traditionally focused on issues of physical access or education. I find it insightful that Horrigan also implicates poor usability of technology as a barrier to adoption. Despite growing understanding of user-centered approaches in the IT industry, Horrigan correctly reminds us that there is significant room for improvement: “the fact remains that the nature of modern gadgetry is daunting to many people, especially older ones.” How can the government improve this situation? A good starting point would be to focus on improving the usability of government e-services. Personally, I have often been dismayed at some of the extremely unnavigable and poorly designed government websites that exist. Public services, more than anything else, need to be as user-friendly and accessible as possible. Horrigan recommends that the new administration “consider guidelines for contractors serving less tech-oriented population segments,” and thus “play a catalytic role in nudging industry to improve usability and relevance through procurement.”

Consider a more direct approach to influencing the private sector: the government might try to legislate usability requirements for technology products similar to handicap accessibility laws for buildings. That is perhaps too restrictive of a measure to gain much support, but its interesting to consider the potential benefits and damages. In general, I think its a positive thing when user-centered values and approaches transcend the context of interface design to influence larger societal discussions about improving public services and providing equal access for all citizens.

References
Obama’s Online Opportunities: What Our Research Suggests about where President-elect Obama’s Technology Policy May Lead
By John B. Horrigan, Associate Director for Research, Pew Internet & American Life Project

SNS’s are built around the idea of connecting and communicating with “friends”. Some critics, such as Christine Rosen, have argued SNS’s “dilute and debase” the term friendship, because they encourage users to add people to their friends list who are really only casual acquaintances. Ellison et al point out that the ability to maintain connection with acquaintances is fact one of the biggest benefits of using SNS. These acquaintances, also called weak ties, are the former friends, friends-of-friends, and other random people that one meets socially and would generally lose contact with. SNS’s make it easier to keep track of these individuals, since adding someone on Facebook is much easier (i.e. less socially awkward) than approaching them in person and requesting their contact information. In the authors words, SNS’s “lower the barriers to social interaction and thus enable connections between individuals that might not otherwise take place… With minimal effort and the thinnest of information, a profile can be located and a connection created.”

These connections may never develop into close friendships, but that does not mean they are not beneficial. On the contrary, sociologists have found that valuable information, such as a new job opportunity, is more likely to come from a distant acquaintance than a close friend. Maintaining a wide network of diverse acquaintances is thus a key to increased social capital; Robert Putnam calls it “bridging social capital” and Mark Granovetter calls it “the strength of weak ties”. Ellison et al.’s survey of college students found that using Facebook did in fact “allow individuals to manage a wider network of weak ties and thus increase bridging social capital.” In addition to providing an easy way to communicate with weak ties, Ellison et al. points out that Facebook’s news feeds feature helps keeps users peripherally aware of their acquaintances activities: “Through status updates and feeds, SNSs enable individuals to broadcast both major life changes and ephemeral activities to their broad network, allowing others to engage in lightweight social surveillance.” This effortless “social surveillance” can often spark new social opportunities. For example, when one notices that an old friend has suddenly moved to the same town, it can provide an opportunity to reestablish a connection.

These beneficial real-world social interactions that can arise from SNS use are overlooked by Rosen. She views the friends lists on Facebook and MySpace as artificial symbols that are managed for narcissistic purposes. In her words, “The impulse to collect as many friends as possible on a MySpace page is not an expression of the human need for companionship but of… the need for status.” She further argues that most social interactions through SNS are shallow, if not morally corrupt: “the activites that social networking ties promote are precisely the ones weak ties promote, like rumor-mongering, gossip, finding people, and tracking the ever-shifting movements of popular culture and fad.”

While these activities surely take place on SNS’s, I do not believe that Rosen’s comments accurately describe the phenomena of online social networking in general. Her arguments have very little relevance to my personal experience using Facebook. For example, I do not feel a desire to collect as many friends as possible; my motivation for growing my network has nothing to do with status. Each of individuals in my Facebook friends list is someone that I have at met and interacted with face-to-face at least once. I always ignore friend requests from people that I haven’t met personally, because I realize that there is very little chance that we will ever communicate on or offline. Instead, I “friend” individuals with whom I’ve had positive off-line interactions at some point in my life. It is true that most of these people are not close friends. I may even go years without speaking to some. But Facebook makes it easy for me to remember them, and I enjoy receiving updates on their activities. Every once in a while, circumstances or just a whim might prompt me to send a message and get back in touch. The ease of this interaction can lead to all sorts of positive experiences, new information, opportunities and even renewed relationships. In short, my Facebook “friends” may not all be close friends in the traditional sense, but they are important and valuable to me in a very real (as opposed to symbolic) way.

Of course, not all online social networking happens the same way. But I do believe that there is a common dynamic which is responsible for the continued and growing popularity of sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. Facebook’s user population has grown exponentially since it launched 2004. They now claim over 175 million active users, and the largest growing demographic is age 30 and above. Clearly SNS’s are not a passing fad. They provide some real and tangible value to their users that can not be explained as simply exploiting the narcissistic tendencies of teenagers. Ellison and her colleagues do a nice job of summarizing some of important values driving the phenomenon.

References
Social Network Sites and Society: Current Trends and Future Possibilities
Nicole B. Ellison, Cliff Lampe, Charles Steinfiel

Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism
Christine Rosen

After being stranded in the Detroit Airport, we finally arrived in Paris a day late and arrived at the venue already fifteen minutes into our 24 hour competition. While we were selected to the finals based on our long-term design project, the IU Energy Challenge, the final round was a bit different. Each of the six teams were given a design challenge and had only 24 hours to work through the problem and prepare a presentation. The problem was complex; we were given a description of an information system for monitoring air quality that involved multiple stakeholders and multiple technology components. Our task was to ensure the projects success by redesigning the end-to-end user experience.

We got off to a slow start, having already been up for two days straight. But after a short power-nap we started to gain some momentum and proceeded to break down the problem by articulating goals of the interconnecting stakeholders. Our work space provided some surreal inspiration: it was right on the boardwalk of the Seine with a superb view of the Eiffel tower at night. We also had some tough competition as all of the finalists teams were extremely focused. All of the teams worked through the night, right up until the 2pm deadline. Here’s a photo of Will and I having just finished the marathon design session:

A few days later, we presented our design to a distinguished panel of judges including Surya Vanka of Microsoft, Tom Chi of Yahoo and Ok/Cancel fame, and Neil Churcher of Orange. Interacting with these experienced design professionals was probably the most valuable part of the event. They provided excellent comments and criticism on our design rationale and even took the time to give us personal feedback after. Overall the final round was an amazing learning experience. I think our first place success is really a testament to the quality of design education that we have received at Indiana.

Below is a pic snapped from the stage of the super-over-the-top award ceremony at the Louvre.

And here we are really enjoying our over-sized cardboard check:)

With our new flight departing this afternoon, we’re set to arrive in Paris at 9:30am tomorrow. At 1pm the Interface Design finals will commence, and we will be given a brand new challenge with 24 hours to design, build, and present our solution. No rest for the wicked, I suppose. Nevertheless, we are psyched to be competing in the world’s biggest technology competition, all under the theme of environmental sustainability. And we’re optimistic: maybe sleep deprivation is just the stimulus we need for some out-of the box thinking ;)

I’ll try to post some more updates once we land in Paris. If you are interested you can also check out the Imagine Cup details on the website or follow frequent updates on their blog.

In addition to the project work, all the interns will be meeting in a weekly seminar, where we have open-ended discussions, guest speakers, and occasional trips to green networking events in the state. Its basically a high-energy think tank for campus sustainability. We will be blogging about our discussion here. All in all, it promises to be a very engaging and productive summer.

Chief among them is the notion of design as service. In their book, the Design Way, Nelson and Stolterman write that design is about creating intentional change in the real world. As such, a designer must always work within limited time, resources and knowledge. And furthermore, design is never solitary, but is rather defined by dynamic relationships, working in service of others.

This is related to the idea of service learning, a method in which a student learns experientially by engaging in community service. I consider my capstone a service learning project in that my primary objective was to create a tangible result for the benefit of the IU community; any intellectual goals came secondary. Committing to this outcome put significant constraints on the project: technical, organizational and temporal. But by negotiating these constraints, I feel that I have learned a great deal about professional design practice.

For instance, I now have much deeper appreciation for the role of prototyping and strategy in design. In the HCI/d program, we use the PRICPS framework (Predispositions, Research, Insights, Concepts, Prototype and Strategy) as way to practice the essential components of a design argument. Most of the projects I’ve worked on in school have consisted of thorough exploration of PRIC, but usually stop short, leaving the PS as an afterthought at best. In contrast, this capstone was a great opportunity to immerse myself in prototyping and strategy.

Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO wrote a nice article about the core role of prototyping in design:

“Design thinking is inherently a prototyping process. Once you spot a promising idea, you build it… the goal is to elicit feedback that helps us work through the problem we’re trying to solve. In a sense, we build to think.”

I remember what my advisor, Eli Blevis, said when I first approached him about the energy contest: “Sounds great! Now go build it. ” I remember being a bit taken back. I suppose I am a person who tends to over-think and over-research details before acting, which is why I like to explore as many alternatives as possible in the early stages of design. However, in retrospect, it was the perfect advice. I already had the basic concept; what I needed to do was refine it, and the best way to refine is by prototyping.

Implementing a hi-fidelity, production prototype also gave me the opportunity to work though strategic elements of my design in a way that could not have happened otherwise. In putting on the Energy Challenge, the interactive component was really only one piece of the puzzle. I spent as much time, if not more, coordinating various stakeholders, planning the event, designing the promo poster and publicity, etc.

For a design to achieve success in the real world, social, technical, business and organizational contexts are as essential as user experience. The ability to integrate all these elements into a long-term strategic plan is an invaluable design skill that I hope to continue to develop throughout my career. Of all my experience in grad school, I am most proud to know that the IU Energy Challenge will endure so that this year’s modest successes might be improved on from year to year.

“From March 20 to April 17 2008, more than 9,000 students living in Indiana University dormitories competed to reduce their energy and water consumption in IU’s first-ever Campus Energy Challenge. Throughout the competition, the Energy Challenge Website provided frequent updates on consumption data, competition standings, and conservation tips. This dynamic web-application evokes a sense of fun and motivation by giving students helpful feedback that supports and encourages their conservation efforts. At the end of four weeks, students conserved an estimated 446,139 KWh of electricity and 613,919 gallons of water. Remarkably, the students’ conservation efforts resulted in an estimated $26,000 in avoided utility costs and 801,454 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, which is equivalent to taking 67 passenger cars off the road for one year.

The site design features dynamic, interactive data graphics, which allow students to easily compare their consumption with other dorms and track changes over time. The site also includes a list of suggested conservation actions and educational information to raise awareness about climate change and other environmental consequences of resource use. While many information visualization tools exist, rarely has this type of interface been designed for non-experts in mind, and for the purpose of motivating environmental action. Through competition and an engaging user experience, the Energy Challenge Website seeks to transform perception of the basic resources on which we depend—and so often take for granted—and make them visible, valuable and meaningful.”

To begin, what impact does HCI have on the environment and what is the role and responsibility of the designer in this situation? The environmental problems stemming from producing, using, and discarding electronic products are well-documented. These may include the depletion of natural resources, emission of greenhouse gases, and release of toxic chemicals. However, design theory often overlooks the material circumstances of the production-consumption cycle by focusing solely on the intellectual process of creating and documenting ideas. This is especially the case in interaction design when the output of design–computer software–is made of digital rather than physical material. This in no way exempts interaction design from environmental concerns, however, because all software is closely connected and dependent on the use of physical computer hardware. Software products do have immense environmental impact, but indirectly through their interaction with hardware products [1].

Krippendorf [3] pays special attention to the material consequences of design in his theory on the “context of genesis. ” Following the laws of thermodynamics, he points out that the creation of any product necessarily consumes energy and produces waste: “all production requires work but irreversibly increases entropy and pollution. ” He further observes that “all artifacts are ultimately retired, recycled or decomposed and collectively influence the environment in unintended and barely understood ways. ” Unfortunately, in the case of interactive technology this process happens all too quickly and at huge cost. Computers require great amounts of energy and resources to produce, but are quickly discarded as new models render them obsolete.

This ecological cost can be considered as one example of, in the language of Nelson and Stolterman [5], “the evil of design. “ According to the authors, design is evil whenever undesired consequences are brought into the world or when balance and harmony are disrupted. Environmental degradation certainly qualifies as evil under this definition. Nelson and Stolterman point out that evil can occur even when a design is considered good in many other ways. They also classify three different forms of evil, all of which can be found contributing to unsustainability. Natural evil refers to the necessary and unavoidable loss that occurs anytime something new is created. Whenever a new interactive technology is designed something older will be obsolesced and possibly discarded as waste, a dynamic that Blevis has described as “linking invention and disposal. ” Accidental evil happens as a result of “ignorance, carelessness or inattention. ” This is perhaps the most common reason for unsustainable design as designers fail to consider the complex material consequences of production and consumption. Finally, willful evil refers to intentionally harmful acts of design such as when a designer knowingly creates environmentally destructive products in the pursuit of personal profit.

Considering entropy and the various potential evils of design, avoiding ecological harm seems a difficult if not impossible task for interaction designers. To minimize environmental impact, a designer must anticipate wide-reaching, systemic interactions that are not typically considered within the scope of the average design project. Nelson and Stolterman describe the many ways that designers often try relieve themselves of moral responsibility for the broad emergent consequences of design action. However, because there are no absolutes to rely on, they argue that “designers must learn to accept design responsibility as something integral to each designer’s character. ” Thus, because even small design acts can have far-reaching destructive consequences for humanity and the biosphere, all interaction designers are ethically responsible to make a conscious effort towards sustainability.

If the issue of sustainability is by definition long-term, wide-reaching, systemic, and complex, how can we ensure that it is integrated and adequately addressed in the design process? An ecological approach to design requires reflection on such disparate factors as the type and sourcing of materials, the process of manufacture and distribution, intended and possibly unintended uses, the longevity of use, potential for recycling or disposal, etc. In contrast, current HCI methods are rather narrowly focused on a single user interacting with a system in a predefined context. True, a few approaches such as Activity Theory and Situated Action seek to understand more emergent, social aspects of the design situation. However, they are still confined primarily to immediate work settings, and have reportedly been too complex to easily integrate into practice [6].

To avoid potentially disastrous ecological effects, interaction designers need practical design-oriented methods that help them understand and anticipate systemic interactions. One promising approach is Blevis’s Sustainable Interaction Design framework, in which he provides a rubric of possible material effects and several design principles to be used in both design criticism and critical design [1]. Another promising framework is currently being developed by Nathan et al [4] called Value Scenarios. It involves the use of scenarios to consider possible long-term outcomes, indirect stakeholders, pervasiveness, and value implications that may arise from new technologies. The benefit of both of these methods is that they can be flexibly applied in practice to generate design insights and do not require an over-burdening amount of theoretical knowledge.

Ultimately, no method or theory can be relied to guarantee a benign and sustainable outcome: “there are no theories, methods, techniques, or tools that can calculate, predict or envision the truly best future reality” [5]. Instead, designers must rely on their character–their personal beliefs, values and skills, cultivated through reflective practice [7]. A strong adherence to values can be compromised by an organizational system which places a designer in a limited role with predefined desiderata. A consideration of values can also be compromised when an engineering approach to design is taken that assumes a narrow, a priori criterion for success like functionalism or usability. Nevertheless, a designer must cultivate a strong character of leadership in order to work within organizational constraints and affect change.

Assuming that a designer is able to effectively integrate sustainability into practice, what insights and concepts have potential for creating sustainable interactions? If transformation towards entropy is an inevitable process, then the goal for sustainable design is to pursue strategies that “slow down the inevitable processes of decay. “ Krippendorf suggests several recommendations to this end, including designing products that can adapt to user’s changing needs, can direct their own recycling, and that prevent the needless decay of other artifacts [3]. Similarly, Verbeek [8] suggest four different approaches to ecodesign: lifecycle analysis, shifting from products to services, recycling, and extending the service life of products. This last aim of extending service life is an important strategy for slowing down the process of decay by designing products which are culturally durable, in the sense that they inspire care-taking and longevity of use. There are many different ideas and approaches expressing the qualities that make a design culturally durable. Some of these include beauty, meaning, symbolism, value, wholeness, and ensoulment [5].

One particularly well-developed theory for designing products that inspire care is Verbeek’s notion of a material aesthetics. Verbeek is primarily concerned with the way technologies mediate our actions and experience with the world in a sensorial way. He argues that the “psychological lifetime ” of products can best be extended not by symbolism, but by directly involving people in their functioning. He advocates for products that are transparent, such that they invite renewal and repair and that are moreover engaging in that they allow the person to relate to the product as a material, rather than purely functional or symbolic object.

These are promising strategies, however extending the psychological lifetime of products is not a sufficient solution to sustainability by itself. All interactive technology will eventually lose its functionality and be recycled, decomposed or else become pollution. More importantly, culture is dynamic and ever-changing. Humans, at least in recent history, are predisposed towards constant improvement of existing technology [2]. Culture evolves, and over time, people come to prefer newer designs and ideas. At some point, older patterns in design will no longer fit into the cultural ecology and will be retired. Sustainable design can effectively slow down this process of decay and obsolescence, but it cannot stop it. Thus, we must design for graceful decomposition as well as longevity of use.

Blevis’ principle of learning from natural systems is informative in this case. In natural ecosystems, energy is constantly in flux as matter is transforming from one state to another in a complex system. No individual organism endures forever, but no energy or matter is effectively wasted either. Everything is used to its maximum efficiency and reused in cycles of successive destruction and creation. Following this model, we can say that the challenge of sustainability is not so much to ensoul objects as it to ensoul material in the most universal sense. Objects will necessarily come and go, but if people are inspired with respect and appreciation for the basic resources of matter and energy, then perhaps they will invest care and maintenances of their world as a whole, using everything to its maximal efficiency and preventing harmful waste and destruction. To me, this notion of appreciating all matter is synonymous with the design vision of connecting each detail to the larger whole: “To see the world holistically, as a divine wholeness, where every single aspect of the totality of experience is also seen as a member of, or even the same thing as, the divine” [5]. This is the vision which inspires my design philosophy and character.

References
1. Blevis, E. (2007). Sustainable interaction design: invention & disposal, renewal & reuse. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems:503-512.
2. Friedel, R. (2007). The Culture of Improvement — Technology and the Western Millennium. The MIT Press. Friedman, K. (2003). Theory construction in design research: criteria: approaches, and methods. In Design Studies 24 (2003) 507-522.
3. Krippendorff, K. (1989). On the Essential Contexts of Artifacts or on the Proposition That “Design Is Making Sense (Of Things)” Design Issues, Vol. 5, No. 2. (Spring, 1989), pp. 9-39.
4. Nathan, Lisa P., Predrag V. Klasnja, and Batya Friedman.(2007). Value scenarios: a technique for envisioning systemic effects of new technologies. CHI ‘07 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems.
5. Nelson, H. & Stolterman, E. (2003). The Design Way: Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World. Educational Technology Publications.
6. Rogers, Yvonne, (2005) New Theoretical Approaches for HCI, ARIST: Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, no 38, 2004. http://www.slis.indiana.edu/faculty/yrogers/papers/ARIST_Rogers.pdf
7. Schön, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner. New York, NY. Basic Books.
8. Verbeek, P-P, (2005). What Things Do — Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design. The Pennsylvania State University Press.