This is a video of the presentation of a research paper on online shopping and sound. The paper was presented at the IADIS WWW/Internet 2006 conference in Murcia, Spain. This conference is so relaxed and accessible that makes it a very nice experience accessible to everybody and not only to the intellectual elite caste.   more »

This essay examines issues of availability, allocation and management of resources at the University of Wolverhampton. Specifically, it explores dissonances for quality and equality created by the provision of courses designed for commercial profit, in the context of a global competitive market of HE.   more »

This essay examines the process of strategic management in the development of a plan to implement a university-wide peer review scheme at the University of Wolverhampton. The failure in implementing such scheme should be attributed to lack of communication, cohesion and planning amongst various executives and senior managers.   more »

Taking human experience rather than commerce as a starting point, sound reveals to be essential (to hearing people) whereas from a commercial perspective, it can be seen as a welcome luxury as long as technological hurdles can be overcome. The lack of sound in so many websites we surveyed is a failing which reveals the influence of commercial interests in making the contemporary World Wide Web a very quite place. Retailers need to do more than exploit techniques for representing the hedonic aspects of products and should be looking at ways of enriching websites with sound to represent products more completely, yet in a way that does more than make purchase decisions easier or more fun, by actually contributing to giving people a means to express and experience for themselves what they think and feel about a product.   more »

This essay explores current strategies for educational improvement at the University of Wolverhampton. Commencing with a very brief ‘macro-analysis’ of the external context in which the University operates, the first three paragraphs explore the purpose of HE today, the prevailing concepts of quality assurance and improvement and the role of strategic management approaches in setting the agenda for educational improvement in a market-driven sector. Here the emphasis is upon exploring how the macro-environment influences and shapes the possibilities for educational improvement within the institution. Further, with a micro analysis, an examination of strategies for educational improvement at the University of Wolverhampton is carried out. Critical examination of some themes within the learning and teaching strategy, particularly widening participation and lifelong learning focuses upon some of the factors impacting upon the achievement of stated aims and the implications such aims can have. Criticisms focus on dynamics created by strategic approaches to quality which may harm the quality of provision.    more »

Through theoretical understanding and a series of conversations with female Vice-Chancellors, this paper highlights the tenuous nature of certain knowledge claims about women, reported throughout the management literature. It further lends support to the assertion that leadership roles held by women are socially constructed rather than intrinsic to the gender. The methodology adopted, a series of semi-structured interviews, has enabled the author to raise issues related to equal opportunities and equality in Higher Education, with regard to leadership and management. Although not statistically documented, the research presents discussions and reflections on themes which are subject to discussion and current debate in educational management and leadership literature. The paper concludes that it is important to discuss further the concept of masculinity and femininity in educational leadership and management, suggesting that femininity is an untapped source of diversity, which should be explored not only by women, but also men in senior management positions within educational organisations.   more »

We describe work in developing an approach to the design of technological artefacts based in pragmatist aesthetics, grounding ideas in a developing case study, representing one possible way in which such a conceptual approach, which we see as essentially empathic, may evolve. From a conception of designer as creative and intersubjective subject, we explore the difficulties and possibilities in designing empathically for blind experience. We propose appropriation as a basis for sighted designers to build empathy with users by understanding blind experience as aesthetic. Various phases of appropriation provide a way of developing empathy and increasing agency in design.   more »

In this paper, a review of some recent advances in thestudy of experience in HCI highlights developments towards an emphasis on the aesthetic and the subjective in design and use of electronic artefacts. A framework for the conceptualisation of user aesthetic experience is then presented, inspired by theorists from disciplines outside the traditional HCI matrix. The framework emphasises the relation between users and designers as co-constructors of experience and allows for physical, emotional and intellectual qualities in aesthetic experiences. The work represents one phase in an ongoing research program to develop a methodology for understanding and designing to support user experience, at a time of change towards humanist concerns in HCI.    more »

Following current developments on the scene of design and research practice for HCI, we have augmented the understanding we may have of our roles as prescribed by society. Seeking a pragmatic way of developing our understanding of what it is to design technology, we argue the role of designers to be more than we perceive of ourselves. In particular, we propose envisaging such roles in a broader context concerning how actions relate to a community, to language and to the vocabularies that constitute the role. Our call is for a greater openness to wider communities and a complete abandonment of the fallacy of objectivity. Most importantly, we try to establish hope for a reweaving of beliefs and a move beyond method to free our roles as agents rather than seeing them directed from external imagined sources.   more »

HCI approaches centering on designing for experience rather than task completion attempt to address a need for computational artefacts that are enjoyable, fun, appealing or meaningful. Tracing historical influences on computer science and user interface design, we highlight some limitations of resulting scientific approaches to design for experience. An example of an information display based on the concepts of ‘informative art’ illustrates a means of overcoming some of the limitations through a more holistic approach.   more »

Current work involves examining the implications and possibilities of adopting a pragmatist aesthetics perspective in HCI. Specifically, emphasis is on pursuing a better understanding of how the practice of designing technological artefacts may be an aesthetic experience resulting in the construction of objects that form the focus for reflection and meaning-making. In this position paper, we discuss the initial phases of a developing case study addressing the challenge for sighted designers of constructing such a technological artefact for blind people. The case study, adopting qualities of a pragmatist aesthetics approach, highlights the implications for design of the inseparability of acts of creating and appropriating objects and emphasises the role of empathy in designing and the search for the aesthetic in design   more »

An approach to Interaction Design emphasising the emotional-volitional construction of experiences with technology as sensual, emotional and embodied, can lead to a betterunderstanding of how to support blind people‘s experiences with interactive technologies ina meaningful way. In this paper we discuss how understanding and interpretation ofautobiographical accounts by people with vision loss, has provided opportunity for reflectionover how people build meaningful experiences without sight. Such critical reflection emphasises the significance of emotion and agency in making artefacts meaningful, rather than just usable, for blind users. An interpretive approach to the texts, supports a notion ofthe designer(s) as creative, empathic subject(s). The research forms a part of a larger project exploring the means and dynamics suggested by a pragmatist aesthetics approachto creating artefacts that help designers understand the world in different ways.   more »

Language connects people. It helps communicate felt meaning and turns otherwise nondescript occurrences into meaningful experiences. Transformation into meaningfulness is the result of language operating through the actions of a community (Dewey, 1958). In this sense, language helps distinguish humans from other animals. For example, humans can not only feel the heat from a radiator and want to be near it out of pure instinct..   more »