Designing the "Things" of the IoT

Abstract

Building objects that question implicit assumptions of common systems can help to reframe technological artifacts. This work builds on an inexpensive prototyping platform that augments everyday objects in minimal ways as an early move towards engaging with the Internet of Things as a site for contestation in interaction design. These intend to account for a broader understanding of design as generating political objects - design things - that draw from the work of Bruno Latour and Studio Atelier. Finally, it introduces the concept of object ecologies as a way to both analyze existing ecosystems of design objects and generate new, speculative ones.