HODI - Habitus of Design Inspiration Ozge Subasi Vienna University of Technology Argentinierstrasse 8/187 1040 Vienna subasi@igw.tuwien.ac.at Geraldine Fitzpatrick Vienna University of Technology Argentinierstrasse 8/187 1040 Vienna fitzpatrick@igw.tuwien.ac.at ABSTRACT Despite the need of involving users in design decisions, participants cannot always easily follow and contribute to design. Democratizing design decisions is not easy due to the missing connections between the background information and how this is reflected to design practice. Habitus of design inspiration (HODI) is a design presentation technique, presented with an example use process that deals with this issue. It visually connects design rationale to design artefact. HODI is useful to for both designer - designer and designer - non-designer communications. Making the sources visible and available for reflection can help better communication and co-design of the solutions and support documentation practices in design practices. It can be used for opening up ideas to both designer and non-designer communities, negotiating and debating design decisions and structuring and focussing discussions. Author Keywords Design rationale, design process, design technique, Research Through Design ACM Classification Keywords H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous. General Terms Human Factors; Design; Measurement. INTRODUCTION HCI and design methods combine user and designer insights by using creative techniques (e.g. [4]). Design artefacts are accepted as ways for sharing and reflecting on the design ideas (e.g. sketch, prototypes)[6][3] and they bring user data closer to designers (e.g. [1]). However despite the need for standard documentation practices [5], the connection between the creative process and the initial data is often not documented [6]. The data and context are usually not explicitly visualized in the design artefacts [5]. Various techniques and understanding from participatory design concentrate on this issue, but until now there is no agreed way of capturing both data and design together. This results in a loss of insights gathered from earlier background work, which might feed the design in later steps. In this paper, we introduce HODI, as a representational format for capturing design concepts and decisions and their relations to background (e.g. user data, designer’s own background, technologies). We further show an example use process from our project. This work is intellectually inspired by Bourdieu’s concept of Habitus, on how power relations and individual distinctions define our decisions [2], also creative ones of designers. HODI-HABITUS OF DESIGN INSPIRATION HODI grew out of our work on a senior’s mobility project. From the perspective of the lead designer, we have documented the trajectories of our data (text and visuals from multiple studies, more than 30 seniors, and 6 experts) to their transformation into design artefacts (e.g. as features, functionalities, services or aesthetics components captured in sketches and prototypes of design concepts). A HODI is comprised of a series of pages (HODI-layouts) for designers to share their reflexive process with other designers, experts, non-designers, etc. To our experience a HODI can best work by using 4 HODI-layouts in a series (see figure 1), and used if possible as part of an active discussion. It is still possible to use a single HODI-layout for presenting source data and design concept. The basic elements in a HODI-layout are: HODI-boxes that are used for encapsulating design concept, design rationale and source data. Further we have connection elements e.g.: arrows that emphasize relations between source data, design rationale and concept. Free spaces are for documenting discussions and opinions. A label for each HODI-box indicates the source of information (e.g.: literature box, user research data box, technology box). Information (a keyword, a sentence, an inspiration) in a box can have standard qualitative reference to further documents, if wanted. We propose that this type of distinction between different data sources helps people to match design and design rationale more easily. People also have a common reference point for focused discussion. HODI-Layouts and the process In our example, we make step-wise use of HODI, layouts and their functions as explained in the following (also see figure1): Layout1: In the middle, a design concept is introduced. The sides of the scenario are left free for new data. One can also use a sketch, or a prototype instead of a scenario. We used Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). NordiCHI’12, Oct 14-17 2012, Copenhagen, Denmark. ACM 978-1-4503-1482-4/12/10. 813