Gordon Robertson
Background
Over the summer of 2020, I was given the opportunity to work on HCI research with the CMU School of Design, focusing on how humans interact and rationalize systems they do not understand or that act unpredictably.
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I lept at the opportunity because I had little experience in that field. The final goal was a book focusing on these 'spooky' interactions, cataloguing them, and writing about them.
The Project
Initially, the scope of the research was rather vague. The two professors leading it wanted to look at technology and our interactions with it in a sense informed by the traditionally spooky and mystical.
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I worked on two sections - the Internet of Things and Ubiquitous Presence,
and the Black Box.
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These areas were especially interesting to me because of their ties to engineering.
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I explored and gathered examples of various pieces of work that had been done in this area, wrote about a few of these in detail, and wrote about why there is a tension when interacting with them
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I interviewed prominent figures who got their work in these areas featured.
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I worked with a design team to turn the work into a polished, publishable piece of writing.
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I found this course interesting and a new experience that pleasantly deviated from how I normally thought about design and technology. I put a lot of work into understanding and tackling my section and I can't wait to see the final product when it's all put together
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Since this project is still on-going and being finalized,
below is a preview of the sections I worked on.