1 Emerging Sites of HCI Innovation: Hackerspaces, Hardware Startups & Incubators Silvia Lindtner 1,2 , Garnet Hertz 2 , Paul Dourish 2 1 School of Computer Science Fudan University Shanghai 201203, China 2 Department of Informatics University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA 92767-3440 USA {lindtner, hertz, jpd}@ics.uci.edu ABSTRACT In this paper, we discuss how a flourishing scene of DIY makers is turning visions of tangible and ubiquitous computing into products. Drawing on long-term multi-sited ethnographic research and active participation in DIY making, we provide insights into the social, material, and economic processes that undergird this transition from prototypes to products. The contribution of this paper is three-fold. First, we show how DIY maker practice is illustrative of a broader “return to” and interest in physical materials. This has implications for HCI research that investigates questions of materiality. Second, we shed light on how hackerspaces and hardware start-ups are experimenting with new models of manufacturing and entrepreneurship. We argue that we have to take seriously these maker practices, not just as hobbyist or leisure practice, but as a professionalizing field functioning in parallel to research and industry labs. Finally, we end with reflections on the role of HCI researchers and designers as DIY making emerges as a site of HCI innovation. We argue that HCI is positioned to provide critical reflection, paired with a sensibility for materials, tools and design methods. Author Keywords Make; making cultures; DIY, hackerspace; materiality; critical making; China; manufacturing; IoT. ACM Classification Keywords H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous. INTRODUCTION Throughout its history, HCI has employed radical envisionment of future technologies as part of its research program. Many of the resulting visions have become landmarks in both research and industry, and have set directions for major research and industry programs [11]. Amongst them, we might count Alan Kay’s writings on the Dynabook [19], Apple’s “Knowledge Navigator” video, Sun’s “Starfire” envisionment, Weiser’s Scientific American article on ubiquitous computing [42], and Ishii and Ullmer’s CHI paper on “tangible bits” [17]. These visions largely arose during a period when interaction design and the user interface were somewhat neglected topics in system design. Indeed, HCI as a discipline and a professional field developed not only a systematic body of knowledge around user interface design and evaluation, but also advocated for the importance of the user within the design process [8]. Today, HCI conceptions of user experience and interaction design are at the heart of product development and the technology transfer process. HCI, then, has been remarkably successful in shaping technological innovation. However, because of this greater prominence of interaction design and user experience in the technology industry and popular consciousness, HCI is no longer the only place where new interactional visions arise. Take, for instance, Weiser’s vision of a world of seamless, embodied experience of digital devices embedded into the fabric of everyday life. While this vision originally might have been devised in the corridors and meeting rooms of Xerox PARC several decades ago, it is a vision that is being extended and developed not just by other companies, but by tinkerers, hackers, and hobbyists. In particular, a flourishing DIY (do-it-yourself) or “maker” community is expanding HCI visions and methods into commercial products. A quick glance at the crowd-sourced funding website Kickstarter makes this clear: it shows products like the Spark Core, an Arduino-compatible Wifi-enabled prototyping platform that raised over 500,000 USD in crowd-sourced funding on Kickstarter earlier this year. What the Spark Core does is seemingly simple: it turns a standard household appliance into a “smart” one. Once embedded, it brings to life what has long been the vision of ubiquitous computing: the coffee machine that brews the morning coffee when your alarm clock on your mobile rings, the refrigerator that emails you the missing ingredient for dinner right when you leave the office, and the lamp that welcomes you with a warmly-lit living room when you arrive at home after a long day of work. 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