A Pattern-Based, Design Framework for Designing Collaborative Environments
Yixiao Wang, Keith Evan Green · 2019
Communication theory suggests that people tend to interact with interactive artifacts as if these were human. For decades, this understanding has been applied to designing singular, embedded artifacts at a small physical scale. In this paper, we extend the same theory and practice to the dimension of space-to designing interactive, physical environments and their components. A conceptual ground for this is found in a "pattern language" developed by Alexander et al. for designing static physical environments. Upon this ground, we construct a systematic framework for designing "collaborative environments" shaped, as well, by our own concepts, Direct Mapping, Conveyed Mapping, and Space Agency, to strive for more human-human-like interactions between human beings and their physical surroundings. Our lab-based study generates a hypothetical design as qualitative validation of the framework, which has significance for designing tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction as it extends, inevitably, to the dimension of space, entertaining, serving, and augmenting us.