My theory is that there is an increasing amount of boredom and depression in comfort focused western society today and I believe that our obsession with commodities and technology is a major contributor to this. By eliminating small daily challenges with the help of technology is proving in many ways to be disastrous for our experience of life. By researching our motifs in interaction design a bit deeper with the help of psychological and philosophical theories we can produce projects that will assist us in life in a truly rewarding way. I will try to shine light on some key issues in this subject with the help of physicists, psychologists, philosophers, designers, popular entertainment and history to possibly map out some pitfalls in the way we approach interaction design today.
As this paper is primarily focused on inventions that are supposed to aid us in our lives in a greater context it’s not so much a questioning of the graphical interface, engineering and usability part of HCI which seem to deal on a micro level. This paper is about why we design artefacts, interactive technology and system in the first place. My paper questions many projects existence and discuss some general views and conclusions about designers and technology that are prevalent in the interaction design community today.
The report is written in English.
Keywords
Interaction Design, HCI, FLOW, boredom, comfort, pacification, Donald Norman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Fight Club, Maslow, Bodil Jönsson
Complete Thesis as PDF
List of Master Theses in Interaction Design
interaction design | chalmers
