Berlin winters can be notoriously cold dark and depressing (as many other places in the northern hemisphere). Families take their kids to school in the dark, and then go to work in the dark and then by the time school and work are over its dark again.

It was when watching one young family all on bikes, on one of those dark dark journeys to school, we came up with a little idea: a simple, customisable, engaging replacement for these numerous reflectors parents cover their kids with in order to make sure they can be seen by other traffic participants.

On one side the badges would be covered with super bright LEDs, which play simple individualised animations. On the underside the badges are covered with solar cells, charging capacitors.

So during the day, when at school, the badges could be turned over and laid onto the window sill catching light beams.

And once back at home the kids would have the possibility to assemble their very own animations on a PC and play the animation onto the device via a USB connection.

Fancy some navel gazing? Purely in professional terms of course. What became quite obvious during the Potsdam Forum was that the profession of interaction design is still on its very own soul searching trip. Which is definitely a good thing since it brings a lot of excitement with it and sets our minds free, but it can easily appear as a weakness – not only to the outside world.

While the likes of Gesche Joost from Deutsche Telekom Labs is battling Scientists from other disciplines for being taken seriously by using tatoos, Tony Dunne renamed his course at the Royal College of Art from ‘Interaction Design’ to ‘Design Interactions’.

Not such a long time ago, the same course had been renamed by Irene McAra-McWilliam when she took over from Gillian Crampton-Smith: from ‘Computer Related Design’ to ‘Interaction Design’. One could think that her (McAra-McWilliam’s) dismal performance as head of that course prompted Tony Dunne to change the name again.

After years in Computer Related Design Research and teaching on Ron Arad’s course ‘Design Products’ (read not ordinary ‘Product Design’) where he experienced the evolvement of that discipline and by actively contributing to it pushing into the domain of then Computer Related Design, seeing the natural progression of Industrial Design, Tony Dunne obviously took it on him to start a process of redefinition of this prestigious course.

In changing the words around, it becomes an imperative - the focus shifts from design to interaction. In his talk Tony Dunne stressed the importance to pre-empt even the prototype stage of technological advances and developments in finding approaches and designs for potential products.

Not only to reinstate the driving power of design as such but also that only by thinking of how a revolutionising product of the future looks, how it behaves, how it is made usable for us, we enter the state which allows us to understand the implications of these new developments – hence allow us to be critical of those. And there is a strong emphasis on being critical.

While this is a very important point to make, the question remains what the rules of engagement shall be for Interaction Design with emerging technologies.

Works by RCA students Michiko Nitta and Michael Burton the day before, were a perfect example of the dilemma this approach brings with it. While these projects are highly engaging, show interesting thinking paths, are an evidence of strong, individual opinionated minds behind it, the proposals do not convince – they’re not even meant to do that. They are meant mainly to provoke by pointing to real existing problems, like the logistics of information or challenges in the future, like the increasing weakness of our immune system due to over sanitisation.

Tony Dunne with Fiona Raby themselves struggle too to show some more flesh on these bones. One of their latest projects deals with robots, where they follow the Japanese Approach where robots will become own entities in our homes, nevertheless they don’t grant them the multifunctional butler mentality often affiliated. They rather isolate certain behaviours attributed to certain objects (read robots).

In order to make my point I want to pick one of these objects, which was a robot in ring shape, which would identify electromagnetic fields and move to the part of the room where the least intense electromagnetic field would be. One then could step into the ring knowing that one would be exposed to the least intensity.

While the notion of electromagnetic fields is reaching back quite some time in their work, the latest offspring fails to convince. The approach to use an electronic device to protect you from electronic outfall the very device is responsible for as well, is a bitter tasting paradox and stops short of finding solutions much more thrilling – it simply highlights implications which are known for some time.

Of course one needs to be careful not to be overcritical of an approach which needs time and support by discourse, otherwise one might shut off a branch of interaction design which could be very valuable in contributing to interaction design research – or however you wish to name it.

Speaking shortly after her former student Anthony Dunne, the grand dame of interaction design (at least in Europe she is) stated the importance of the discipline and the great potential coming with it – even comparing it with historic shifts prompted by the Bauhaus in the twenties (maybe prompted by the closeness of Weimar). But swiftly she got down to the nitty gritty, by giving a good overview what efforts had been undertaken in order to define the discipline and how the very base of the discipline, how research can be defined.

In her very skilful manner she did not let herself be pinpointed on one approach but made very clear at the same time how important it is to constantly revisit ones approach to design and establish patterns which can be at least the base of an critical discourse and at best lead to theoretical statements which prove valid in their practical use.

Regine from WMMNA collected the key points made by Gillian Crampton-Smith and has far better pictures than my shaky ones – so check her blog for further details.
Important to state, that beyond the quoting of various references and approaches taken, she prompted me to think that it is extremely important to try to formulate and express the process taken for every project in words – in its entirety.
To articulate an entire project in practical terms is hard of course, but it is a very good way of isolating fields of further exploration. For you as a designer, your colleagues, your business and for the discipline interaction design as such.

He was the last and most inspirational speaker of the conference - not only by applying a good portion of wit and irony on the theme of the conference and giving the careful listener a backpack of questions on their way home, but also through the very quality of his speech - the art and precision of the spoken word.

Almost too good, because whenever I hear a speech of his my first thought is: this is turning into a Charles Bukowski Moment – him turning slightly nasty with you being present not knowing how to react: stupidly smiling, being embarrassed or just trying to pretend that you don’t speak nor understand English.

But this feeling, reinforced by the Texan Accent applied with Balkan brutality wit (Bruce Sterling currently lives in Belgrade), disappears once he is sure that he has the full attention of the audience, then he pulls you in his mental loops and excursions into Sci-Fi. It is his artistic use of references and associations which makes you drift and you as a listener start your very own journey – which on part of Bruce Sterling is great - unfortunately I can’t remember clearly what precisely he’s said - only what I’ve made of it.

Beyond the (slightly self-referential) evident role of the (Sci-Fi) authors by creating images and scenarios powering the imagination of scientists, designers and engineers (i.e. the example he used was the invention of (humanoid) robots by Josef Čapek), Bruce Sterling highlighted the need for designers to embrace projected developments, to be extremely critical of technological advances and to find ways to comment on those (and maybe pre-empting negative aspects of those). Hence he singled out Raby and Dunne’s work (in the context of the conference) as a starting point to find ways and methods needed for future sustainable humanistic approaches to life design.

I recommend to watch this interview with Bruce Sterling made earlier this year until the organisers of the Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign Potsdam will put Bruce’s performance online – we will feature the link when they do.
And then there is of course the book of Bruce Sterling “Shaping Things” which we recommend to everybody who wants to engage into a contemporary discussion about design (yes that general).

In reference to Rene Magritte’s Painting, which itself raised back in its days the discussion about perception, the whole conference had been branded through and through with these famous words, only the pipe replaced by modern life artefacts - “service pack” being a personal favorite.

To cut it short discussion and interest in debate was wanted - and that’s what the participants got plenty - mainly through the very fine tuned and sensitive approach to the theme.

Organised by the course Interface Design, FH Potsdam, University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, driven and moderated by Boris Mueller, we had the chance to experience a very colourful mix of keynote speakers covering a wide area of Interaction design.

Hosted in the spanking new Hans Otto Theater at the Potsdam lakeside, the very international mix of speakers revealed how many notions and approaches in particular on the research and educational sides there are and what challenges lay out there to define and re-define the very term interaction design.

Following up are a few comments. For complete reference please check the site of the conference or WMMNA.