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Homing Interactions Borup Lynggaard, Aviaja
Publication date:
2012
Document Version:
Early version, also known as pre-print
Link to publication
Citation for pulished version (APA):
Borup Lynggaard, A. (2012). Homing Interactions: -Tactics and Concepts for Highly Mobile People.
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Homing Interactions
-Tactics and Concepts for Highly Mobile People
Manuscript for PhD dissertation By Aviaja Borup Lynggaard
Submitted for completion of the PhD degree at Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark, 2012 Supervisors:
Professor Peter Krogh Aarhus School of Architecture
Associate Professor Marianne Graves Petersen University of Aarhus
Senior Experience Designer Sam de Jongh Hepworth Bang & Olufsen
Assessment Committee:
Senior Research Scientist Alex S. Taylor Microsoft Research, Cambridge
Professor Ole Sejer Iversen University of Aarhus
Associate Professor Martin Kofod Ludvigsen Aarhus School of Architecture
ABSTRACT
This dissertation introduces the taxonomy of Homing Interactions, which can be applied as a tool for designing interactive technologies in the era of mobility. The overall objective for this dissertation is to investigate how we can design for a sense of home through interactive products and services when away from the primary home.
The rise of mobility has led to new ways of establishing a sense of home in several locations outside the home. This dissertation builds an understanding of the new premises of mobility and exemplifies ways to meet these needs from a designerly approach.
Research findings from other fields are extracted into a list of home characteristics that can be used for establishing a feeling at home. This dissertation builds upon related work, with emphasis on work by anthropologist Ida Winther (Winther, 2006), suggesting that the sense of home is not dependent on the traditional notion of home as a house, but as an activity of establishing feeling at home in various places through homing. Research from the field of HCI provides a basis for understanding the complexity of home and draws attention to the potential in looking at specific practices in homes.
This dissertation is an example of constructive research (Koskinen, Zimmerman, Binder, Redström, & Wensveen, 2011), where ethnographic studies and qualitative in-‐home interviews have been adapted into the design process of experiments in form of prototypes that are further evaluated. Both the empirical studies and the experiments provide insights that support a new understanding of homing interactions.
Empirical findings from the studies lead to an identification of seven tactics people use in order to establish a sense of home. These tactics are converted into the taxonomy for homing interactions that are met through design sensitivities aimed at establishing a feeling at home. The homing interactions consist of:
Territorializing is a way of taking in more/new territory Bubbling is shutting out context
Artifacting is obtaining a sense of home through artifacts Connecting is staying in touch remotely
Differentiating is contextualizing a sense home Doubling is duplicating things between multiple places Rhythming is continuation beyond physicality
“Connecting interaction” is further explored as an example of conducting a collection of design experiments that are based on the taxonomy. This is achieved through creation and evaluation of digital interactive artifacts that aim to support staying in touch with other people and places.
The main contribution is found in the taxonomy of Homing Interactions. This can be used as a tool to understand mobility in relation to design with sensitivity towards the ethnographical data and characteristics of home. Other contributions concern the findings about connecting interactions and the relevance of studying the lives of the wealthy with heavy travel activities as an inspiration for design.
Lastly, this dissertation invites future work to address the design of information technology that supports Homing Interactions for people leading highly mobile lifestyles.
DANSK RESUME
Denne afhandling introducerer taksonomien for hjemlighedsinteraktioner, der kan anvendes som redskab til at designe interaktive teknologier i den mobile tidsalder. Det er afhandlingens mål at undersøge, hvordan vi kan designe interaktive produkter og tjenester, der hjælper til at opnå en følelse af hjemlighed, når man befinder sig udenfor det primære hjem.
Stigende mobilitet har ført til nye måder at etablere en følelse af hjemlighed udenfor hjemmet. Denne afhandling bringer en forståelse af de nye præmisser, som stigende mobilitet medfører, og eksemplificerer måder, hvorpå disse behov kan imødekommes gennem en designmæssig tilgang til området.
Denne afhandling bringer en liste over hjemlighedskarakteristikaene, der er identificeret gennem litteraturstudier af beslægtede forskningsfelter om hjemlighed. Der kobles til forskningstraditionen indenfor etnografi, med hovedvægt på Ida Winthers arbejde (Winther, 2006) som peger mod, at hjemlighed ikke er afhængig af den traditionelle opfattelse af hjem som et hus, men kan opnås forskellige steder gennem en aktivitet, nemlig at ’hjemme den’ eller gennem ’hjemning’. Forskning fra HCI-‐feltet skaber et grundlag til at forstå kompleksiteten af hjemlighed, og der gøres opmærksom på potentialet i at undersøge specifikke praksisser med hjemmet som genstandsfelt.
Denne afhandling er et eksempel på konstruktiv forskning ("Constructive Research"
introduced in Koskinen, Zimmerman, Binder, Redström, & Wensveen, 2011), hvor etnografiske studier og kvalitative interviews i hjem har informeret designprocessen og skabelsen af fysiske prototyper, der efterfølgende er blevet evalueret. Ny viden og nye indsigter om hjemlighedsinteraktioner er skabt i samspil mellem de empiriske studier og designeksperimenterne.
Resultaterne fra de empiriske studier har ført til identifikation af syv taktikker, som folk benytter for at opnå en hjemlighedsfølelse. Disse taktikker er sidenhen omsat til taksonomien for hjemlighedsinteraktioner, der understøttes af design overvejelser der adresserer etableringen af en hjemlighedsfølelse. Hjemlighedsinteraktionerne består af:
“Territorializing” er en måde, hvorpå man indtager mere/nyt territorium
“Bubbling” er at holde omgivelserne ude
“Artifacting” er hjemning gennem artefakter
“Connecting” er at holde kontakt over afstand
“Differentiating” er at kontekstualisere hjemlighedsfølelsen
” Doubling” er at duplikere ting mellem flere steder
“Rhythming”er kontinuitet ud over fysisk tilstedeværelse
”Connecting” er anvendt som eksempel på udførelse af designeksperimenter på baggrund af taksonomien. Disse leder til en udfoldelse af ”connecting” interaktionen gennem en række prototyper.
Hovedbidraget findes i taksonomien for hjemlighedsinteraktioner. Denne bygger på en forståelse af mobilitet i relation til design, der er behandler de etnografiske data og hjemlighedskarakteristikaene. Ligeledes er der et bidrag i mangfoldigheden af
”Connecting interaction” eksperimenterne, samt i at studere velhavende med høj rejseaktivitet som inspiration for design.
Afslutningsvis peger denne afhandling mod potentialet i at udvikle informationsteknologier, der understøtter hjemlighedsinteraktioner rettet mod folk som lever en meget mobil livsstil.
Acknowledgement
Writing this dissertation is not just the work of one person – many others have been involved and helped me get here. I would like to thank you all.
First of all I would like to thank my mentor and supervisor Peter Gall Krogh, for leading me into the field of interaction design eight years ago. You helped me develop an opinion of what future we want to shape through design and technology, that later led to collaborating in this research project both as colleagues and in a student-‐supervisor relationship. I would like to thank you for providing me with professional support as well as giving me the freedom of making my independent work. It has been good fun!
This would not have been possible if it was not for The Advanced Technology Foundation and Bang & Olufsen who sponsored the research of the Mobile Home Center project. I appreciate the guidance from my changing managers from Christopher Sørensen and Peter Petersen in the initial phase to Flemming Møller Pedersen in the second part.
A special thank goes to all the colleagues in the team, especially Marianne Graves Petersen, for contributing with great energy as the project leader in the MHC group and an inspiring mentor into HCI research, Lyle Clarke for making this matter in B&O, Sam de Jongh Hepworth, for guiding me around in the company and sparring about implementing user insights. Working with Ida Winther has been highly insightful and I wish to thank her for the insights and sparring about the ethnographic field of research.
I send high appreciation to Jeffrey Serio – it was very inspiring to work with you. I also wish to thank Thomas Møller Lassen for great ideation, graphical assistance and continuing the work while I was on maternal leave. I furthermore wish to thank Kaspar Rosengren Nielsen, Rasmus Gude and Morten Mortensen for their patience in regards of specifications and constant changes of the technical requirements. So cool that you can make things work! It has been great working with you.
I also wish to thank the people at Interactive Spaces for including me in the stimulating milieu with Kaj Grønbæk in charge. I would also like to mention Jonas Fritz for his deleuzian sparring and wise inputs. Moreover the school of Architecture has provided an inspiring work context with great colleagues. Thanks to my office buddies Maiken Fogtman and Sofie Kinch for great sparring and enjoyable working nights in the office. I
wish you both the best of luck. Also the good colleagues in Mie Nørgaard and Martin Ludvigsen has made it worth going to the office everyday, knowing that there are always clever minds to ping pong with. A special thanks goes to my friend and colleague Tim Merritt, for taking time (even on vacation) to go through my dissertation and provide feedback. It has been an outstanding help.
I highly appreciate the hospitality that I met at Carnegie Mellon University during my exchange, with special thanks to John Zimmerman for taking time to relate to my research – it was great to get a new view on the work and see it from a new perspective. I admire the work that you do. I also wish to thank William Odom, Scott Davidoff for giving input to my research and helping me on all other matters as well.
There are so many more that I wish to thank, being all the informants and people who let me into their homes, the participants in the evaluations and everybody who contributed during this trip. I want to thank my friends and my family –I did not expect it to be so demanding in the end of the process. I am looking forward to spend time with you all again.
My mother has been an amazing help during the whole process in regards of taking care of my precious children, but also in providing feedback on my texts.
Most importantly, I am grateful to my loving husband, Anders, for supporting me and being such an amazing father for our boys even when you are in the middle of a big change in work life. Congratulations and thank you. I love you and all three of you are tremendously important to me!
Thank you.
Aviaja, Aarhus July 2012
Table of Content
1. Introduction...1
1.1.
Motivation ... 1
1.1.
Context... 2
1.2.
The paradox between home and mobility... 4
1.2.1.
Role of the primary home ...4
1.2.2.
When Work becomes Home...7
1.2.3.
When Home becomes Work...8
1.2.4.
When Hotel becomes Home ...9
1.2.5.
Where do people make homely places?...10
1.3.
An industrial PhD...11
1.3.1.
Open Innovation...12
1.3.2.
The model as a tool ...13
1.3.3.
Industry outcome ...15
1.3.4.
Differences from a traditional PhD ...17
1.4.
Summary...17
2. Related Work... 18
2.1.
Homing and Mobility ...18
2.1.1.
Home ...19
2.1.2.
When home is not a house...24
2.1.3.
Nomadism...26
2.1.4.
Homing ...29
2.2.
Home and mobility in relation to HCI ...33
2.2.1.
Designing for the complexity of home...34
2.2.2.
Information Technology for travel...37
2.2.3.
Communicating remotely...38
2.3.
Summary...40
3. Homing Interactions ... 41
3.1.
Description...41
3.2.
Boundaries between Tactics...44
3.3.
Homing Interactions ...47
3.4.
Summary...49
4. Methodology... 50
4.1.
Research approach... 50
4.2.
Qualitative interviews and analysis ... 53
4.3.
From ethnography to design... 56
4.4.
Design methods... 59
4.5.
Summary... 62
5. Ethnographic findings about Homing while Mobile ... 64
5.1.
Presentation of the study... 64
5.2.
People in the study... 66
5.3.
Tactics identified ... 67
5.3.1.
Territorializing ... 68
5.3.2.
Bubbling... 71
5.3.3.
Artifacting ... 74
5.3.4.
Connecting... 76
5.3.5.
Differentiating... 80
5.3.6.
Doubling ... 83
5.3.7.
Rythming... 86
5.3.8.
Summary ... 90
6. Design Experiments... 93
6.1.
Connecting to a place... 93
6.1.1.
Background for HOMEinTOUCH ... 93
6.1.2.
My role in HOMEinTOUCH... 94
6.1.3.
The HOMEinTOUCH prototype... 94
6.1.4.
Evaluating HOMEinTOUCH ... 97
6.1.5.
Summary of HOMEinTOUCH ... 99
6.1.6.
Next step -‐ HomeAwareness... 99
6.1.1.
My role regarding HomeAwareness... 100
6.1.2.
The HomeAwareness prototype ... 100
6.1.3.
Evaluation of HomeAwareness... 101
6.1.4.
Conclusion ... 102
6.2.
Connected Experience... 103
6.2.1.
Background ... 103
6.2.1.
Ambient Live Connection... 104
6.2.1.
My role in Ambient Live Connection... 105
6.2.1.
The Ambient Live Connection prototype ... 105
6.2.1.
Evaluation of ALC... 106
6.2.2.
Next step -‐MusicLink... 109
6.2.3.
My role with MusicLink... 110
6.2.4.
The prototype – MusicLink... 111
6.2.5.
Evaluation and themes within MusicLink... 112
6.2.6.
Conclusion about Connected Experience... 117
6.3.
Negotiating a connection... 119
6.3.1.
Collective Interaction... 119
6.3.2.
My role in CI ... 121
6.3.3.
Next step – ALC Awareness Ball... 121
6.3.4.
My role with the Awareness Ball ... 122
6.3.5.
Next step –Ball in a Bowl... 123
6.3.6.
The prototype BiaB... 124
6.3.7.
Evaluation of BiaB ... 126
6.3.8.
My role with BiaB ... 127
6.3.9.
Conclusion on negotiation of a connection... 127
6.4.
Summary of the experiments... 128
7. Reflections ...130
7.1.
Connecting Interactions ... 130
7.2.
Mapping of the tactics... 132
7.3.
Methodology... 133
7.4.
Implications for design? ... 134
7.1.
Summary... 136
8. Conclusions ...137
8.1.
Contributions to the research community ... 137
8.2.
Contributions to the industry ... 139
8.3.
Future work ... 140
Papers
1: Pushing Firm Boundaries through Research and Open Innovation …...163
2: “I had a Dream and I Built it”:
A Case Study of Ubiquitous High-End Homes ...175
3: Tactics for Homing in Mobile Life
– A Fieldwalk Study of Extremely Mobile People ...189
4: HOMEinTOUCH Designing two-way Ambient Communication ...217
5: Home Awareness –Connecting People Sensuously to Places ...237
STRUCTURE OF THE DISSERTATION
This is the general overview of the three year industrial PhD where peer-‐reviewed papers are gathered during the process of working with the themes of home and mobility in context of an Audio/Video company through user studies, creative processes and design inquiries. The papers are attached in the second half of the dissertation but will be referenced through 8 chapters of the journey.
Chapter 1: Introduction
This PhD work is cultivated through the interdisciplinary research project Mobile Home Center. The overall motivation is introduced and related to the context of mobility and sense of home in the western world. A paradox of where the sense of home feeling is complex in the times of mobility, which is introduced through data from qualitative interviews with wealthy and highly mobile informants. The study shows that the boundaries between home, work and hotel are very blurry for this group of informants.
This is a brief introduction towards the type of people that have informed this dissertation work. The last part of this chapter is a positioning PhD in the research project and within the context of an industrial PhD. This is done through the Paper #1: Pushing Firm Boundaries through Research and Open Innovation, where the potentials of university-‐industry collaboration are unfolded and the industry outcome is explored.
Chapter 2: Related work
This chapter starts with related work from other research fields, mainly cultural geography and ethnography to understand the paradox between the traditionally sense of home and the rise in mobility that we experience today. I start by looking at the foundation for establishing a feeling at home and move towards an illustration of the rise in mobility and the impact this has of our perception of home. Due to this change of conditions, home can be experienced in many other ways than just in one specific house.
The rise of mobility leads to a nomadic feeling that becomes present when we travel more and more. This is then related back to home and work done by Winther (Winther, 2006) and her notion of homing. According to Winther, a feeling at home is not something you automatically get, but you have to do an act of ‘homing’ in order to get the feeling.
Second part of this chapter concerns related work in the field of design and HCI. Many researchers have investigated the home as domain for HCI and design, and many have
investigated mobility as a design field. But very few have crossed the two fields and tried to understand the conditions for feeling at home when away from home. There are multiple examples of research in the field of CSCW concerning people that are remotely connected, which is also relevant in the field of home and mobility.
Chapter 3: Homing Interactions
This chapter presents the taxonomy of homing interactions consisting of seven homing interactions that are supplemented with a set of design sensitivities for each, that are based on empirical studies of highly mobile people. The Homing Interactions are developed through the identification of the homing tactics that people perform to cope with mobility. These tactics are described through the characteristics that are identified in the literature review about home.
The chapter is divided in three parts: A presentation of the tactics for homing, details about the boundaries between the tactics and their internal relations, and lastly the transformation of the tactics into taxonomy of homing interactions that becomes a tool for the designer.
Chapter 4: Methodology
The research approach is introduced in this chapter as a synthesis of merging a wide collection of well-‐established methods from the field of design practice, design research, social sciences and ethnography.
The PhD is positioned in the field of constructive research where experiments play an important role together with theory. The process of the research is visualized in two models that illustrate how different elements in the process have led to the other. The first model shows the overall structure of the research, whereas the second model is more complex, illustrating how the different experiments have influenced the findings and the program in a dialectic structure that leads to new iterations and thus talk into the completion of the dissertation work. This chapter also provides a positioning of the role of the designer and the user, as well as describing how ethnography can be applied in design. The relevance of looking at wealthy people as informants is demonstrated in the alt.CHI Paper #2: “I had a dream and I built it ” – Power and self-‐staging in Ubiquitous High-‐End Homes.
Chapter 5: Ethnographic findings about Homing while mobile
We conducted research with the anthropologist Ida Winther, where she followed 5 extremely mobile people and reported back to the research group where we developed the Paper #3: Tactics for Homing in Mobile Life – A Fieldwalk study of Extremely Mobile People. The tactics identified in the paper is then elaborated in this dissertation as I have conducted home visits and qualitative interviews with customers from the company, who travel extensively. The tactics are described through the characteristics of home.
Chapter 6: Design Experiments
This chapter is an example of designing towards the Connecting Interaction from multiple angles. The design sensitivities treated in this homing interaction concern continuity, relationships and Nostalgia & Dreams.
The experiments are grouped according to three areas, being ‘Connected to a place’,
‘connected experience’ and ‘negotiating a connection’. The prototypes in each category are developed to various degrees of completion and evaluated in different ways to investigate diverse aspects of the prototypes. The prototypes concerning HOMEinTOUCH and HomeAwareness are further investigated in the papers Paper #4: HOMEinTOUCH – Designing Two-‐way Ambient Communication and Paper #5: Home Awareness – Connecting People Sensuously to Places.
Chapter 7: Reflections
This chapter provides critical reflections on the choices made along the way. Findings across the design experiments are pulled forward in order to investigate the insights about connecting. This section is furthermore an inquiry of the mapping of the tactics in relation to whether the seven tactics cover the whole field or if there still are some unidentified tactics that we are not aware of? Lastly this chapter provides considerations in regards of how others can apply the Homing Interactions into their practice. I point towards the importance of persistently relating to the richness of the ethnographic studies when addressing the design sensitivities towards Homing Interactions.
Chapter 8: Conclusions
This chapter is a sum up on the contributions that this PhD provides the research community and the industry in general. The main contribution is found in the taxonomy
of homing interactions. This is found to be a tool for understanding mobility in relation to design with sensitivity towards the ethnographical data and the characteristics that can lead to establishing a feeling at home. Other contributions concern the findings about connecting interactions and the relevance of studying the lives of the wealthy with heavy travel activities as inspiration for design. Lastly I point towards future work to investigate the tactics further, in particular the Artifacting tactic as well as diving into studies of luxury interactions, potentially developed into eccentric interaction.
(Short)Paper# 1: Pushing Firm Boundaries through Research and Open Innovation
Authors: Lynggaard, A. B.
Year: 2011
Conference: Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces, Italy 2011.
Publicer: ACM digital Library
(alt.CHI) Paper# 2: I had a Dream and I Built it” -Power and Self- Staging in Ubiquitous High-End Homes
Authors: Lynggaard, A. B., Petersen, M. G. & Hepworth, S. de J.
Year: 2012
Conference: Computer Human Interaction 2012, Austin, Texas Publicer: ACM digital Library
Paper# 3: Tactics for Homing in Mobile Life – A Fieldwalk Study of Extremely Mobile People
Authors: Petersen, M. G., Lynggaard, A. B., Winther, I. W. & Krogh, P.
Year: 2010
Conference: MobileHCI 2010, Portugal Publicer: ACM digital Library
Paper# 4: HOMEinTOUCH Designing two-way Ambient Communication Authors: Petersen, M. G., Lynggaard, A. B., Nielsen, K. R. & Gude, R.
Year: 2008
Conference: European Conference on Ambient Intelligence 2008, Nürnberg, Germany.
Publicer: Springer Verlag.
(Demo)Paper# 5: Home Awareness –Connecting People Sensuously to Places
Authors: Petersen, M. G., Lynggaard, A. B., Mortensen, M. & Gude, R.
Year: 2008
Conference: Design Interactive Systems 2010, Aarhus, Denmark.
Publicer: Springer Verlag.
Other submitted and peer-‐reviewed work beyond presented in this dissertation (Former name: Hansen, A.B.):
Workshops:
Lynggaard, A. B. & Mortensen, D. H. (2012) BeoMagic: Analysis of BeoSound 9000. Position paper for “I just love this product” Looking into wow products from analysis to heuristics.
CHI 2012, Austin, Texas. ACM digital Library
Hansen, A. B. (2008) Social Television for the modern nomads. Position paper for workshop on uxTV 2008 -‐ First International Conference on Designing Interactive User Experiences for TV and Video, San Francisco 2008
Lynggaard, A. B. (2011) Home Making for the Modern Nomad. Workshop on Transnational HCI at CHI’11, Vancouver, Canada
Doctoral consortiums:
Hansen, A. B. (2008) Making home where you are. Position paper for doctoral consortium at uxTV 2008 -‐ First International Conference on Designing Interactive User Experiences for TV and Video, San Francisco October 2008
Hansen, A. B. (2009) Home Making for the Modern Nomads. NORDES’09
Hansen, A. B. (2009) Research-through-design in an industrial PhD project. Symposium on Models of practice based research in Architecture and Design, held at DKAD 2009
Lynggaard, A. B. (2010) ON THE MOVE Creating domesticity through experience design.
MobileHCI 2010, Portugal. ACM digital Library
Lynggaard, A. B. (2010) ON THE MOVE Creating domesticity through experience design.
Design Interactive Systems 2010. ACM digital Library
Business Report (not public):
Lynggaard, A. B. (2010). Mobile Home Center –An Open Innovation Project
1. Introduction
The research work for this dissertation started in 2008, when the first iPhone was recently launched and smartphones emerged. Globalism had been rising for years, but these phones radically changed the perception of the internet, and made it mobile at hand. Hotspots were hot and laptops were becoming common possessions in the western world. The Economist published a special edition report on mobility (Special report:
Nomads at last.2008), where they claimed that it was finally possible to use the term
“digital nomad”, “urban nomads” or “modern nomads” now that it has become possible to leave things behind like Bedouin and get connected on the move. This change of the premises for being mobile was something that we wanted to address as we identified a huge potential in this emerging area. That became the basis for the formation of the Mobile Home Center (MHC) project, being the context for this dissertation. The scope for the group was to design technology for global media experiences across changing contexts that can lead to an experience of “home is where you are”. Making concepts and experiments for customers with multiple homes and extensive travel activity was made to examine this field. The objective was to develop B&O products and services to support a global sense of home while in different homes or away from home.
This chapter is an introduction to the change of premises that rise in mobility has led to. It is furthermore an introduction to the domain in which the research has taken place, the homes of highly mobile people. The context of the PhD is then described and positioned in relation to the overall research project that it is part of as well as the company that it belongs to.
1.1. Motivation
Mobility has become a condition in the contemporary world, as all social entities are related to some sort of actual or potential movement (Urry, 2007). We eat our imported food, commute to work in global companies, communicate through the phone and Internet with distant people, travel to other countries to attend meetings and vacate in far-‐away parts of the world. The number of cars on the roads has tripled in the EU during the past 30 years (Ledoux, 2005) and people go further and further. The same tendency is seen on the number of international tourist travels that have almost doubled from 1995-‐
2008 from 536 millions to 924 millions (UNWTO world tourism barometer.). These are all
indications towards a rise in mobility that needs to be addressed by researchers and the producers of tomorrow’s technologies.
The rise in mobility influences the way people act in the world. Though not on the move at all times, there is a change of the premises for how we perceive the notion of home and distance. There is seen an increase in owning more than one home; from the holiday home to the commuter apartment to owning a place in the cities frequently attended.
Establishing a feeling at home was in the past related to one home –The home, whereof today, people are more inclined to establish a sense of home in different residences and places rather than just the one specific place.
The research presented here is based on work from the MHC project that originally was based on an interest in making media accessible wherever situated and in that way supporting a global lifestyle. This was the idea in 2008, when the project was kicked off and cloud computing was a distant vision. The purpose for the MHC project was obtain a better understanding of the lifestyles of people who travel frequently and who own multiple homes in order to design for a society where mobility has become a condition for the contemporary society.
The thesis of this PhD project is that it is possible to create a sense of home through interactive products and services, when away from the primary home. This dissertation is an investigation of the qualities, emotions and experiences that is needed to be present in order to create a sense of feeling at home in mobile life. These factors will be elaborated and translated into concepts and prototypes that can help the modern man to create a sense of home when not at home.
1.2. Context
Mobile Home Center (MHC) was a collaborative research project operating from October 2007 to January 2011. The project was financed by the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation and the Danish high-‐end audio/video company Bang & Olufsen. It is a highly interdisciplinary project with researchers in the project from the fields of Computer Science, Marketing and Interaction Design working closely with designers and engineers from Bang & Olufsen. This PhD project is an embodied part of the MHC project working around the same theme. I as a PhD student have been assigned to the project by
Bang & Olufsen while enlisted at the Design Department at Aarhus School of Architecture.
The MHC group consisted of ten people in average, where some have left the group and others have entered during the three years.
Bang & Olufsen (B&O) is an A/V company that was founded in 1925 in Struer, North of Jutland. The two founders worked by the principle “to persistently find new ways of improvement” (Bang & Olufsen official website.) challenging what was technologically possible at that time for radios. This ability to push the limits is still an ambition for the company and they have achieved a well-‐known brand worldwide. The brand also has a reputation of distinctive and exclusive design where the company has prioritized design highly and hired external designers since the 1950’s. One of the main values is excellence being a high level of caring for details through craftsmanship and technological expertise.
The products are exclusive and the customers are “those who discuss taste and quality before price” (Bang & Olufsen official website.)
The main domain for the products is the home and in recent years the audio has also expanded to include the cars sound systems.
Bang & Olufsen started out in this project with a primary interests concerning the mobile products, as they were new on the mobile phone market and trying to find a ground on the portable digital music market. This changed a few months after the projects beginning as the company changed strategy completely in this area and decided not to develop any more products for the mobile media market. We then decided to look more into 2nd homes as we discovered that most of the customers owned a 2nd home or more and many lived a global lifestyle that we didn’t know much about. The company found that there was a good business model in getting products into second homes and understanding how their customers lived a global lifestyle. I found this domain to be very relevant for conducting research and decided to look more into the act of home making in relation to design.
There is a tradition of having engineers doing research in the company, where the technological findings and patents are tangible and easy to transfer into the business.
Lately there have also been a few psychologists doing research in relation to Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and user experience (UX). This PhD is the first to be conducted from a design research field. The goal has not been to make direct design proposals to the company, as this is done by external designers and doesn’t meet the goals of research, but to explore the area of mobility and feeling at home through
proposals for future areas of services and products and to investigate the notion of home through design inquiries.
The dissertation is based on qualitative studies of people living extremely mobile lifestyles. In order to tune in on this group, I provide insights about the premises of living a highly mobile lifestyle. This is done in the next section, where a paradox of blurry boundaries between home, work and hotel is exemplified.
1.3. The paradox between home and mobility
The forthcoming section is a result of analyzing interviews with 9 Bang & Olufsen consumer who live an extremely mobile lifestyle and consequently deal with the paradox of establishing a feeling at home even though spending a limited time at home.
The lives of extremely mobile people and extremely large homes led to a new indication:
The tendency of home becoming a work place, due to the spacious sizes and thus the increased management it takes to run such house. It also becomes a workplace because the people interviewed work around 70 hours/weekly and spare time blends with numerous corporate social events in the home. Furthermore there is a tendency that hotels take over for the home, as it becomes a place for relaxation, which is habitually the role of the home for others. Lastly, to end the circle, there is a tendency that, due to the amount of time spent at work, work takes over and to some degree becomes home.
1.3.1. Role of the primary home
All informants own more than one home. Some occasionally rent out their holiday cottage, others keep their places empty when absent. The most extreme of the interviewed own 10 homes and a yacht:
“I have homes all over the world, New York, London, two in fact, two in Dubai (…) and Spain, and Paris and I have a home in South France. I’m buying a home shortly in Mauritius, where I’m building a project, so I like to keep a place where I work.” -
Burhaan
Though owning several places it seems that there is always one place that is the most important. Sean and his wife explicate they have kept their old house where they have lived for many years. Though they moved to a new place six or seven years ago and a
transition occurred, the old house is now becoming the secondary home rather than the primary:
“The other one can be a more hotel, we not care for, or we sort of after six years here, you tend to be flying in, like a hotel really, and back out again.” -Sean
The primary home is very important to all the informants. An informant explains that he has created a dream house in his mind over many years and he was inspired by different inputs, e.g. a movie that he has seen 20 years ago. When showing us around he tells us:
“I had a dream and I built it” –Ibrahim
An other informant, Frank, supports the idea of the home as a dream come true. He says about his new home:
Figure 1: Entrance hall in an informant's home
”I have built a large underground parking lot with a capacity of 8-9 cars that can be elevated to the ground level. It is a dream come true and I spent a lot of money on it.
[…] I often think of my home and I miss it when I’m gone.” -Frank
The informants are aware of not spending endless amounts of money, but in case of building a home it seems to have no limits. One informant has just moved into his new home explaining that the house is built without economic limits:
“My sister is an interior designer, so she helped me with the interior design. (…) She wanted to know the budget, I said I don’t know what the budget is, it’s just what I want.” –Ibrahim
A similar attitude is seen as another informant who explains:
“There has been no budget. We are using this villa as a show model to do other projects.”-Burhaan
Whereas the secondary homes are not of the same quality:
“We are not focusing on the high end of sound because we have to compromise in England” –Burhaan
The findings about the passions and experiences for living in smart homes are presented in the alt.CHI paper: “I had a Dream and I Built it”: Power and Self-‐Staging in Ubiquitous High-‐End Homes. Based on studies of wealthy customers, it is described how people use technology to stage themselves and illustrate their power.
Ibrahim is highly aware of staging himself in his home. The home is used for inviting corporate relations and consequently must reflect the owner’s values:
“Invite somebody to the house and they know. It shows the success. It is the identity of the person.” –Ibrahim
The houses contain more rooms, which are dedicated to specific functions, as the houses of the affluent exceed middle class houses in all ways. There are numerous examples of domestic fitness rooms, as they are convenient to bring home in order to optimize the day. One home have a swimming pool that met the Olympic specification of 25m in length, with an adjacent fitness room with music and TV making it possible to watch TV while exercising on the machines. Many of the informants report that working out in the morning is part of their daily routine:
“Gym, swim, pool, steam, sauna and ready to go to work at 11 or twelve o’clock.” -
Ibrahim
There seem to be a trend towards spending more square meters on wellness area. There are also numerous examples of rooms dedicated to a home cinema experience:
“I love to get as much of a cinema experience as I can, but in a homely environment.”
–Burhaan
However, it seems that these cinemas are only rarely used. One informant commented on the way out of the room that he was unsure whether they will actually end up using the home cinema they were currently establishing with massage chairs. Another person only uses his home cinema on New Years Eve to experience the moment when the new year enters. Every year he contacts the dealer to get informed on how to turn the cinema system on.
Two of the homes contained a gaming room, whether for the children or adults or both is unclear. There was one house where it was apparent that the children mainly used the gaming room.
Other examples of dedicated rooms were seen in frequent exemplars of home offices and in one house there is a room dedicated to praying.
Our informants have strong emotional relationships to their primary homes in particular.
One describes how he misses it when he is gone. Another points to the role of the home as a site for exposing his success in life to others, and of how the home reflects the identity of the person living there. The homes are extensive with many dedicated rooms.
1.3.2. When Work becomes Home
All interviewed work 60-‐80 hours a week except for the ones who are retired. They used to work in a similar way. Hard work and dedication is the reason for the wealth according to interviews of the American financial elite (J. Taylor 1947-‐, Harrison, & Kraus, 2009).
These are also statements expressed in the interviews:
“I work 70-80 hours a week and when you do that and put time and effort into that, sometimes people you know, there’s a reason why you have what you have” –Scott Another informant also expresses a thrill of being hard working:
“If you work hard you can play hard, enjoy the fun things in life and just you know, go with the flow sometimes.” –Scott
All informants travel heavily due to their work. Ibrahim travels weekly and when asked if he preferred to be at home, he replies:
“No I prefer to be anywhere, if I have to be anywhere [his phone rings]. I have to go there, it’s not a preferential. If I preferred it, I’d go and take a nine to five job, but this is the way life is, that’s the way business is, so I travel. That’s part of the life. So I do these kinds of things in life and you have to do whatever it takes. I enjoy this kind of lifestyle”
An informant states that home should be his primary base but he currently feels that work has moved to this place. Work is where he spends most time and he feels comfortable there. He and his family find this problematic and he claims that he would like to work less and spend more time with them.
The informants have chosen a lifestyle with many hours of work, lots of travelling and do what they can to fulfill their careers. Accordingly work becomes the primary drive and takes over on some aspects of home. Several of the informants perform homing tactics at work to cope with being away from home. To some extent it can be said that work becomes home.
1.3.3. When Home becomes Work
It seems that the boundaries between home, work and hotel all are very fuzzy. In general the informants live a very social life as a consequence of entertaining clients as part of their work. This often leads to homes that are expected to be presentable and host many guests. In one home everything is doubled according to either belonging to host area or the private area. There is a living room for guests containing many seating areas and a smaller television and furthermore there is a private living room for the family with a large TV, rugs and comfortable seating. The majority of their meals are in the open kitchen area, whereas formal dinner takes place in the dining room. Another informant describes the private cocoon:
“It’s got its privacy, we have our own kind of cocoon bedroom suites. No one can enter there, it’s our own world. That’s only a small part of the house, maybe 1/10.”
These two places are very clear about the boundaries according to the presentable home and to the private home. The majority of the informants have domestic staff to maintain the chores. It seems like they do not notice the staff, while we walk around. One of the informants compares it with the service at a hotel:
”It has been arranged so that I live almost as if I am checking into a hotel when I am at home. Being at home is mainly about self-enjoyment and then I don’t want to waste time on these kinds of things (chores, edited). I get my house cleaned professionally twice a week, having my garden maintained weekly and my clothes is being washed and ironed once a week.” –Frank
This extensive outsourcing of domestic chores leads to a feeling of running a house like a company, as one states it. The scale of the homes were magnificent larger than an average middleclass home thus called for more maintenance. One of the homes required 6 full time staff members to maintain the domestic chores. Multiple of the informants had a personal programmer to setup the house system and adjust it along the way:
“I run my house as a business. (…) I’ve got a programmer in London, that did all the work for us, and I worked with many programmers, I got one in London who understands what I mean literally on a piece of paper” – Sean
Experts are hired to maintain the smart home, as it frequently requires for some sort of tweaking and adjusting according to the lived life.
The dualistic side to the homes, being the homely part on one hand and the public home on the other hand makes it a complex environment to live in. It is home but at the same time it is work. It is so large that there is a need for private zones. The domestic chores are highly outsourced and there is a sense of effort in running the house that can be compared to running a company.
1.3.4. When Hotel becomes Home
The fact that home becomes work to some extent has resulted in escaping to hotels to relax. This was seen for several informants while they enjoyed attending a hotel in their home city. Not the business hotels, but more of the wellness and well treating kinds, in a way it is a differentiating tactic of experiencing something extraordinary. There are several examples of people escaping from home to relax at hotels:
