The first study was an ethnographic fieldwork to explore Domestic Photography. Using semi-structured interviews of 17 individuals and visits to 9 family homes, we studied how people capture, share and use domestic photos. We developed important "Implications" for designing intelligent photo sharing.

Publications related to our results from this field study will be made available soon.

Using the results of our first study, we developed a paper-based prototype to support photo sharing called PhotoBook. PhotoBook contains two concepts to support intelligent interactions between sharing individuals.

We carried out 3 participatory workshops involving different user groups to understnd the usefulness of our prototype and inform Nokia's future developments.

Smart Material Interface (SMI) is the latest generation of user interfaces that makes use of engineered materials and leverages their special properties. SMIs are capable of changing their physical properties such as shape, size and color, and can be controlled under certain conditions.

In a 3-month project, we designed an example of such an SMI in the form of a prototype of a vacuum cleaner. The prototype uses schematic electrochromic polymer at the suction head of the vacuum, which changes its color depending on the dust level on a floor. We emphasize on the new communication language supported by SMIs, which challenges the current metaphors of user interfaces in the field of HCI.

YouTube video.

Related Publications:

• Minuto, A., Vyas, D., Poelman, W., and Nijholt, A. Smart Material Interfaces: A Vision. In Proceedings of 4th International ICST Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment. (INTETAIN '11) LNCS Springer. Genoa, Italy. Download

Part 1. Ethnographic Fieldwork

Examples from the fieldwork

Ethnographic design approach: 
         - Contextual Interviews
         - Naturalistic Observations
         - Video recorded 'live' design sessions

User Group: 
         - Professional designers
         - Industrial Design students                

Goal: Designing an 'awareness system' for supporting ubiquitous design practices in studios

• Vyas, D. Artful Surfaces in Design Practices. In CHI '09 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Boston, MA, USA, April 04 - 9, 2009), ACM SIGCHI. (In Press) Download

• Vyas, D., Heylen, D., Nijholt, A. and van der Veer, G. Collaborative Practices that Support Creativity in Design. In Proceedings of 2009 11th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW’ 09). Vienna, Austria. 7-11 September. (Springer Book) Download

• Vyas, D., Heylen, D., Nijholt, A. and van der Veer, G. Experiential Role of Artefacts in Cooperative Design. In Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Communities and Technologies (C&T 2009). Penn State University, PA, USA. (ACM Press) Download

• Vyas, D., van der Veer, G., Heylen, D. and Nijholt, A. Space as a Resource in Creative Design Practices. In Proceedings of 12th IFIP TC13 Conference in Human-Computer Interaction (INTERACT’ 09). Uppsala, Sweden. 26-28 Aug 2009. LNCS, Springer-Verlag. Download

• Vyas, D., Heylen, D., and Nijholt, A. Physicality and Cooperative Design. In 5th Joint Workshop on Machine Learning and Multimodal Interaction. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, (2008) Springer-Verlag. Download

Part 2. Desinging for ubiquitous design practices

We developed a set of "Implications for Design" from our fieldwork. In this part, we plan to explore technological prossibilities to provide a proof-fo-concept from our fieldwork. As represented in the scenario, we are working towards augmenting everyday design artefacts such as paper-based sketches, collages, posters, physical models and so on to develop an "internet-of-things" -like environment to support Industrial Designers' everyday collaborative work.

Poster in PDF. (11 MB)

I attended 3 courses at the Industrial Design department of Technical University of Eindhoven.

1. Sketching Ideas and Concepts (Mark Baskinger - CMU)
2. Aesthetics of Interaction I (Prof. dr. Kees Overbeeke & dr. Caroline Hummels)
3. Aesthetics of Interaction II (Prof. dr. Kees Overbeeke & dr. Caroline Hummels)

As a result of Aesthetics of Interaction I, course we designed a conceptual table lamp called Wobbly. Wobbly is an adaptive table lamp that adjusts the light focus based on its orientation. The music of Franz Liszt is used as a starting point to aid interactive qualitites to this lamp. See the poster for more information.

See Wobbly on YouTube

I am involved in an ongoing fieldwork of scientists working in the different fields of Biology. The work is currently being carried out at the University of Twente.

Ethnographic design approach:
- Contextual interviews
- Laboratory tours & observations

User group: 
- Scientists in the fields of Biology

In collaboration with Prof. dr. Gerrit van der Veer, I researched on different conceptualizations, frameworks and approaches on experience-centered design. The work was partly carried out at Elsevier Science's User-Centered Design Group, Satama Interactive and partly at the Free University Amsterdam (VUA). At VUA conceptual framework of user-experience were developed and applied in these design companies and during teaching sessions at the University.

Related Publications:

• Vyas, D. & van der Veer, G.C. 2006. Experience as Meaning: Some Underlying Concepts and Implications for Design. Proc. of ECCE-13. ACM Press: NY, 81-91. ISBN 978-3-906509-23-5 Download
• Vyas, D. & van der Veer, G. 2006. Rich Evaluations of Entertainment Experience: Bridging the Interpretational Gap. Proc. of ECCE-13. ACM Press: NY, 137-144. ISBN 978-3-906509-23-5 Download
• van der Veer, G.C., Bongers, B., Vyas, D. 2006. DUTCH - Teaching method-based design. EU CONVIVO Faculty Forum. Graz, Austria. Download
• Eliëns, A., Vyas, D. & van der Veer, G.C. A theoretical foundation for the aesthetics of interaction and awareness – making sense of the senses. Draft
• Vyas, D. & van der Veer, G. 2005. APEC: A Framework for Designing Experience. In Space, Place and Experience in Human-Computer Interaction Workshop. Interact-2005, Rome, Italy. Proceedings at, www.infosci.cornell.edu/place/
• Vyas, D. 2005. Aspect-based Model of User-Experience. In Understanding and Designing for Aesthetic Experience workshop at HCI 2005, Edinburgh, The UK. Proceedings at, www.idc.ul.ie/aesthetics

IPTV interface

This project was carried out at Satama Interactive Amsterdam, the Netherlands . In this project, interface of a state-of-the-art IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) set-top box was developed. The system had functionalities such as Electronic Program Guide, Radio, Missed Programs, Recordings, Movie-on-Demand, etc.

Work included evaluating the design and interactions of the interface and suggesting design adjustments in order to support pleasurable & enjoyable experience for its users. A study involving designers, experts and end-users was carried out using co-interpretation strategies.

John (55) Professor

A Persona generated using the coding scheme.

Worked with Elsevier-Science’s User Centered Design group for developing an approach to Qualitative Data Analysis. For the purpose of analyzing qualitative data from different user-studies, I developed an approach that combines conventional qualitative research method and design method. I developed a coding scheme that combines data related to user’s personality, preferences, needs, working patterns/behavior in their own context of work and translates this information into set of “Personas”. Hence, when new qualitative data is fed into the system, personas can be generated automatically using this coding scheme. The most important use of these Personas is that it could be used as a communication tool between all the responsible groups of Elsevier-Science, Amsterdam.

This approach helped the UCD group in conducting qualitative research with special focus on providing value for their innovation process.

• Vyas. D., de Groot, S. & van der Veer, G.C. 2006. Understanding the Academic Environments: From Field Study to Design. Proc. of ECCE-13. ACM Press: NY, 119-120. ISBN 978-3-906509-23-5 Download
• Vyas. D., de Groot, S. & van der Veer, G.C.'Searching and Archiving': Exploring Online Search Behaviors of Researchers. In the Proc. of HCI-International 2007, LNCS, Springer-Heidelberg, 978-3-540-73332-4 Download
• Vyas, D., Kulyk, O., Nijholt, A. & van der Veer, G.C. Structures of Life: The Role of Molecular Structures in Scientists’ Work. In 15th European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics (ECCE-2008), Madeira, Portugal. ACM Press: NY. Download

MSc research project, titled “Investigating Usability Issues in Mobile Applications” at Lancaster University , UK . Project investigated different aspects of Human Computer Interaction for designing ‘usable’ mobile (small-screen device) applications, focusing on the User-Interface issues. It started with data gathering by user requirement analysis and user task-scenarios. It conducted empirical studies using both expert-evaluation and user-testing and gathered rich usability data. After analyzing the gathered data, it developed guidelines for developing applications for small-screen devices.

eRecipe interfaces

A working prototype of a mobile recipe assistant was developed at Lancaster. The e-Recipe system having Bluetooth connectivity was intended to help its users by assisting in their kitchen. It keeps track of the goods in the fridge, generates reports for buying goods twice in a week, maintains individual user’s diet profile (health and calorie constraints) and allows the users from different houses to share their recipes. The project was carried out with other students from the Psychology Department.