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About Homes and Design – an interview with Marianne Graves
By Therese Hansen | September 30, 2008
Marianne Graves is a researcher at the computer science department at the University of Aarhus. She is part of the new track on End User Experience on JAOO this year. Her talk “How cool do users feel when interacting with your software?” is Tuesday at 10.30.
What are you working on right now?
I have a project where I collaborate with designers and people from Bang & Olufsen to design a Mobile Home Center. In this project we seek to develop tools for people to make a home where they are. As part of this we have collaborated with an ethnographer who have followed people who travel a lot and move between different homes to learn from the tactics they have developed. Currently we are developing new technology concepts based on this study.
What is your favorite programming language?
Why not start asking computer scientists what is their favorite interaction design? Mine include iPhone, and Squeeze which is an oversized sack-chair that allows families to collectively play with digital photos in the home. It is kind of hard to explain it – it has to be seen… This concept was recently developed in the research center on interactive spaces where I work.
What is your favorite spoken language?
Circus – language… you know imitating the way a clown speaks – this can take the seriousness out of many situations…
Which research project that you have participated in was your favorite and why?
I recently did a project sponsored by Microsoft Research in Cambridge called Everyday Special. In this project we looked into supporting more playful ways of living in the home, than what prevalent future
home visions projects does. As a result we developed the sack chair (Squeeze) described above and also did a small investigation into designing for erotic life. In this project we had a lot of freedom to explore new directions.
Which every day problem, that you have, would you rather see solved with technology?
Integration of calendars… and I would like to see new types of interaction design that would make me less prisoned by the laptop…
What are your hobbies?
Currently, I don’t have time for a hobby… Most of my sparetime I spend time with my three sons. These days we are into making homemade weapons for roleplaying. That is quite fun 
What is the most exciting thing in your research area?
Currently interactive technology is spreading into more and more aspects of peoples lives. This introduces a multitude of great research questions both in terms of developing interaction design for
non-work situations, investigating ways that interactive technology can merge with physical space and also addressing biq questions like how can the technology we develop make a difference for people in terms of improved quality of life and what does this mean to people… No technology is neutral and the way we design it influences what people can do with it, so there is a huge responsibility involved in developing future technology design. These are truly interesting times..
