Decoraction: a Catalogue for Interactive Home Decor of the Nearest-Future
Sara Nabil, David Kirk
Abstract
Home decor defines how people experience and share spaces, with the decorative elements forming the ‘interface’ to the home. Despite the opportunities of embedding technology within these elements, research to date has not explored this fully. This paper brings home decor to interaction design utilizing decorative elements as a vehicle to incorporate tangible interaction in domestic spaces. In an IKEA-like format, we designed a product catalogue of our own prototypes that illustrate the possibilities of the nearest future. These design illustrations should offer inspiration to those who wish to work with interactive materials (e.g. appearance-changing and soft-sensing), particularly in the context of interactive spaces. Through making, situating, and speculating, we show how designing interactive decor can be a promising area in Research-though-Design.