Designing for Future Technology

Designing for Future Tech
a research method to understand adoption

Hello!
Adaeze is a user experience researcher
at HARMAN Intl. focused on the IoT
market and future technology...

Hello!
...and a recent graduate from UT Dallas
in May 2018!
Adaeze studied how current technology
impacts human behavior and what it
means to create meaning.

I didn’t start out understanding future
technology… I was thrown into it.

One thing I learned was that future
interactions are moving towards
Zero UI, or UIs without interface.

As someone who spent time building
apps and websites in college, this
became an obvious challenge for me.

I’m still learning, but I learned the most
by taking a step back and reading
about the history of interactions.

Technology was all about the personal
computer.
Basic understanding and research of
the user was is just now budding.
70’s
Susanne Bødker. 2006. When second wave HCI meets third wave challenges. In Proceedings of the 4th
Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: changing roles (NordiCHI '06), Anders Mørch, Konrad
Morgan, Tone Bratteteig, Gautam Ghosh, and Dag Svanaes (Eds.). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1-8.
DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1182475.1182476
Yvonne Rogers. 2012. HCI Theory: Classical, Modern, and Contemporary (1st ed.). Morgan & Claypool
Publishers.

Collection of applications were
situated in groups to work together
while HCI methods turned to
contextual research and social
approaches beyond the desktop.
90’s
Publishers.

Technology has spread to every aspect
of our lives: our home, workplace, daily
lives.
Research follows by focusing on
culture, testing in the wild, and critical
theory.
2010’s
Publishers.

Our focus turns to space. We’re still
within participatory design, but we are
using research to understand spatial
interactions that are multi modal.
Theories are unknown, but budding.
Today and beyond
Publishers.

Now I’m tasked to design/ideate on a
future experience in a car with an
intelligent voice agent.

But interactions that are future
thinking don’t have usability concerns
or needs yet.

Obviously the point isn’t usability.
What about adoption? How do you
conduct testing that is not focused on
usability but rather, adoption?

During this project I learned about
provocation… and it’s helping change
the way I view our future world.

Provocation
To understand what it means to have meaning.

● Started in the early 1990s
● Used to test the adoption of future technologies or new features not yet
created.
● Used to discuss pain points and desirable aspects for the future
● Used as a bridge between investigation and design of new possibilities.
● Not focused on usability or design guidelines, but rather is focused on
adoption.
ProvocationWhat is it?
Laurens Boer and Jared Donovan. 2012. Provotypes for participatory innovation. In
Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference(DIS '12). ACM, New
York, NY, USA, 388-397. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2317956.2318014

Like most research methodologies,
it all starts with a framework.
Geraint Rhys Sethu-Jones, Yvonne Rogers, and Nicolai Marquardt. 2017. Data in the
garden: a framework for exploring provocative prototypes as part of research in the
wild. In Proceedings of the 29th Australian Conference on Computer-Human
Interaction (OZCHI '17), Alessandro Soro, Dhaval Vyas, Bernd Ploderer, Ann Morrison,
Jenny Waycott, and Margot Brereton (Eds.). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 318-327. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1145/3152771.3152805

1. What do you want to
understand and achieve?
2. How provocative should the
prototype be?
Core Questions

1. Selection of technology
2. Modality and representation
3. Spatial and temporal scope
4. Fidelity of prototypes
Core Decisions

Need hypothesis or personas to
build test protocol.
Can be in a usability lab or “in the
wild”.
Prototype Testing

Early adopters of current
technology that is relevant to
future tech with a mixture of the
business’ targeted audience.
Types of
Participants

Examples
Render Lamp prototype by Laurens Boer, Jared
Donovan, and Jacob Buur in situ.
“Sensitive Aunt” prototype by Laurens Boer, Jared
Donovan, and Jacob Buur in situ.

1 Week 1-2 Weeks 1 Week
SETUP
Researching the problem
statement, understanding
current technology and
behaviours, creating
personas, creating hypothesis
of motivations.
TESTING
Building the prototype,
recruiting participants,
building test protocol, testing.
ANALYSIS
Finding patterns in behavior,
creating mental models from
patterns, discovering new
opportunity area for future
research and/or testing.
Testing Timeline

A research report that can tactfully
explain opportunity areas that benefit
the business. Less academia, more
business.

How do we benchmark our success?
I’m unclear of the answer myself.

I’m still not an expert in using
provocation. I’m just winging it based
from the academia I’ve read.

Fortunately, I work at a company who
is willing to listen and consider
research outputs, even when they are
abstract from a method such as this.

Regardless, I am here for anyone who is
willing to try with me.

Thanks for listening!
linkedin.com/in/adaezeokwesa/
Dallas UX Mentors: bit.ly/2MJ3Efw
IG: adaezetula
Youtube: youtube.com/shesjustbrilliant

Designing for Future Technology

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