Designing for Engaged Experience

I’m an Assistant Professor at the Copenhagen Business School. I got my PhD from the IT-University in Copenhagen, and my MA from Film and Media Studies at the Copenhagen University. So I’ve been around a bit. I work, research, and teach issues that has to do with HCI, Interaction Design and such, and I’m very interested in methodological issues and how we understand users and data from e.g. participative workshops or observations.

I live in central Copenhagen, but I love to get out on the seas a bit in my sea kayak – I’m particularly fond of the quiet, zen like qualities of being on the seas, the ways in which everything you do is about staying afloat in that sorry excuse for a boat that the kayak is. So nimble, so fragile on those big, black waves. Surfing big waves is of course much fun (if it’s safe), but other than that, I mostly get to paddle around the relative quiet of Copenhagen harbour and Amager (an Island that is part of Copenhagen) where I live…

I hope to get into fruitful discussions about such things as: what is it we mean when we talk about experience, how can we usefully capture and report experience (with users), and how can we understand the ways in which e.g. mobile devices begin to penetrate everything, everywhere, and everyone? Oh, and that concept of “the user” – I find it immensely interesting to discuss such things as discourses in design, what it is we do when we design, and how having…people…participate in design is helpful. I believe these are core challenges all around, and I hope we get time to discuss such things. Also, I’m very interested in experiences from other people and how they treat (even talk about) experience-related issues, engagement and so on. So all in all, see you in Cairns, looking forward to this!…

Associate Professor, Research and Postgraduate Studies Director
Auckland School of Design
College of Creative Arts
Massey University Auckland Campus
Private Bag 102 904, North Shore Mail Centre, Auckland New Zealand
Tel +64 9 414 0800 ext 41165
Fax +64 9 4140840

Email
Web site

Erik Champion is an Associate Professor and Director of Research and Postgraduate Studies at the Auckland School of Design, Massey University. His most recent supervising and research was on Mac OS-based game design, intermedia/hybrid tactile panorama tables, biofeedback for immersive gameplay, evaluation critique of Virtual Heritage, thematic interfaces, history-based game environments, and warping for projection onto 3D surfaces. A summary of this work will be presented in the Educators’ session at SIGGRAPH Asia in December.
Grants and awards include an Australian Competitive Staff Scholarship to WWDC 2008, Massey University International Visitor Research Fund in 2008 (group application), UNSW Asia Group Seed Funding Scheme 2007 (group application), University of Queensland New Staff Research Grant in 2006, Dean’s Prize for best-published postgraduate work in 2005, selection of work for exhibition at Supercomputing 2004, and best paper in Virtual Heritage at VSMM 2003.
He was an invited speaker at Learning in Cyberspace 2006, State of Play V, Digital Applications of Cultural Heritage 2007, and VSMM 2007, and edited or co-edited special issues of Techné, International Journal of Heritage Studies, and Leonardo Electronic Almanac. He is a member of ICIP ICOMOS, a CAADRIA paper selection committee member, and on the editorial boards of Games & Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media, Gaming and Virtual Worlds, International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations (Book Review Co-editor), and Loading.
Erik taught multimedia and games design in the Information Environments program at the University of Queensland, Australia. He previously worked as lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology in Multimedia and User Experience Design. He has also worked for DEC, Compaq, and Hansen. His PhD (part of a Lonely Planet/ARC research grant) evaluated ‘cultural presence’ in virtual heritage environments using game-style interaction. Erik also has a Masters in philosophy and a Masters in architectural history and theory, with publications in aesthetics, architectural theory, Nordic architectural history, and theories of the sublime.

I’m a student at James Cook University in Townsville, North Queensland, Australia, in the 3rd year of my PhD.

I love wandering around in the bush, in deserts, in just about anywhere that is not too built up. So I’m interested in how making-meaning occurs in natural places and why natural places seem particularly special to some people. A key part of my research was to design a method of gathering data about people’s experience in popular outdoor locations, in the moment of those experiences occuring. My hope is that understanding this might inspire the design of technologies that mediate our experiences of such places.

I’m going to bring some of the material I have accumulated during my research, including some of the tools I use and some of the egocentric point of view video I have of people explaining why particular sites are special to them.

During the workshop I hope that we’ll explore ways of collecting data from participants that allow us, as researchers, to get a bit closer to what it feels like to experience a place. I very much hope that we’ll discuss ways of making use of such data and the artefacts that result from analysis of that data and interaction with it. That discussion probably will also involve exploring ways of supporting the design process. I also expect we’ll try to develop some prototypes that make our thoughts more concrete and allow further discussion.