An In-Progress Research through Design Exploration of the Frictions Emerging in Playful Public Expression Systems (and How to Navigate Them)
Ferran Altarriba Bertran, Jordi Márquez Puig, Jur Corominas · 2025
In this paper, we present our in-progress Research through Design around PixelGrid, an interactive display for producing pixel art and showcasing it publicly. What started as an exploration into the design of interactive tech that affords playful expression in public spaces progressively evolved into an inquiry into how to handle the unwanted uses these systems may afford, i.e. the possibility that people use their affordances in ways that might be susceptible of being offensive to others. Here we present the current state of our research: (1) describing the latest version of our prototype; (2) reporting on the iterative process that led to it, as well as on its latest deployment; and (3) sharing the early insights that derived from our in-progress research. We will present both those insights and our prototype at TEI'25, to discuss our in-progress learnings and collectively envision future avenues for our research.