Designing for empowering people

Complex digital technologies are increasingly shaping our everyday lives and societies. For better and for worse. Part of what drives this development are visions. Visions of how we will interact with computers and how this will shape our lives. But what are preferred futures and for who? and how do we counter futures where people are trapped in manipulative digital environments? and how can design researchers contribute to empowering people living in complex digitized societies?

This talk presents two examples of recent research exploring possible futures. I showcase how we design flexible, adaptive and interactive interiors taking advantage of both digital and physical qualities. And secondly, how we design tangible learning tools for children in schools to understand, critically reflect on and co-design future uses of machine learning. The examples highlight the need for designing digital technologies that empower people and finally, the talk discusses opportunities and challenges for doing this.

Marianne Graves Petersen is Associate Professor at Aarhus University Department of Computer Science and a visiting researcher at Politecnico di Milano, Design Department in the fall of 2022. Her research happens at the intersection between computer science and design, and her research interest include the design of novel tangible user interfaces and shape-changing interfaces and how such interfaces can leverage novel user experiences, support collaboration and bring computing into the hands of people without a technical background.