Interactive Media Design

Dr. Catriona Macaulay

Senior Lecturer, Interactive Media Design
Director, MSc Design Ethnography

As a design ethnographer Catriona’s theoretical leanings are very firmly rooted in theories of Action, particularly Activity Theory and Pragmatism, which is a fancy way of saying what really interests her is how the ways in which people think about information affect their 'information actions' and vice versa! She enjoys working in interdisciplinary teams - probably because like most ethnographers she is nosy by nature and ‘other worlds’ fascinate her. She has conducted fieldwork in a wide variety of settings: from people’s homes, to newsrooms, to firefighters responding to emergency bio and chemical hazards. She is currently co-investigator and manager of an EPSRC 3 year project to improve the usability of image management systems in molecular cell biology (see http://www.usableimage.org ) and is learning more about molecular cell biology than she ever imagined she would be. She has also recently been publishing in the areas of scenario-based design and the use of performance techniques in interaction design, and continues to be motivated by the question 'how do we make available and use rich ethnographic understandings of the world in design?' Catriona’s principle research motivation is finding better ways to make the results of fieldwork and user studies accessible and actionable within design contexts. It may not make her rich but it makes her happy!

Project Titles

And So the Circle Closed (pre-production and research for an interactive narrative on Sophie Taeuber-Arp)

Inside the Palimpsest: A study of information gathering by journalists.

Communication needs of first responders to emergency bio/chemical hazard situations.

Navigation design for an ontology-oriented user interface to an online medical school.

Usable Image: improving the usability of imaging software systems in the Life Sciences.

Contact Details

Tel Ext 86522
Email: c.macaulay@dundee.ac.uk

Ali Napier

Studio Manager, Interactive Media Design

Ali has been our Studio Manager since the course began and is the brains and the brawn behind our wonderful resources. Ali has a background in computing and networking and is also a professional musician.

Contact Details

Tel Ext 85242
Email: ali@computing.dundee.ac.uk

Dr. Shaleph O'Neill

Lecturer, Interactive Media Design

My current research interests are focused around Culture, Creativity and Technology. In particular I am interested in understanding how interactive media has affected the creative process of Designers and Artists, with an aim to develop new models of creative practice and to improve the design of interactive technologies for creative practitioners. I am interested in pursuing this research area from both a social/cultural perspective in terms of understanding the semiotics of interactive media and form a phenomenological perspective that concentrates on the individual experience of creating art with interactive technologies.

Project Titles

Interactive Media: The Semiotics of Embodied Interaction.

BENOGO (being there but not going) presence and place in virtual worlds.

Website

http://imd.dundee.ac.uk/~shaleph/

Contact Details

Tel Ext 86533

Email: s.j.oneill@dundee.ac.uk

Graham Pullin

Lecturer/Course Director, Interactive Media Design

Three themes run through my research: provocative design involving disabled people in some way; radical interaction design challenging conventional user interfaces; critical design reflecting on the social role of communication technology.

At the intersection of all three lies the field of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) for people with speech and language impairments. I am collaborating with Andrew Cook, a post-graduate researcher from Interactive Media Design and Alan Newell, Norman Alm and Annalu Waller of the School of Computing. My focus is letting people using communication aids control their tone of voice (in the project '17 ways to say "yes"') and thereby express themselves better, more emotionally.

I have recently returned to academia after 17 years experience in order to contribute techniques pioneered in the design industry to academic design research. Whilst leading a studio at the design consultancy IDEO, I was responsible for client projects inspired by people rather than technology for its own sake, such as Vodafone's Simply, a mobile for people in their 40s and 50s. I also led internal research projects including Social Mobiles with Crispin Jones and Table Talk for the RNID and Blueprint's HearWear exhibition.

I am finishing writing a book, working title 'Design meets disability', that will be published by the MIT Press in Autumn 2008. This challenges the current separation of design for disability as a specialist field, and argues that more collaboration with mainstream design and art school-trained designers would be mutually inspiring and influential.

Project Titles

'17 ways to say "yes"'

Contact Details

Tel Ext 86531
Email: g.pullin@dundee.ac.uk

Ewan Steel

Lecturer, Graphic Design

After graduating, Ewan worked for many years as an illustrator, political cartoonist and graphic designer. He has worked in publishing, editorial, advertising, film and exhibition design and has continued to develop personal work for exhibition. In recent years he has become interested in web-based media and has concentrated on working in web and multimedia design. Ewan has been involved in developing screen-based design, animation, interactive games and sound design for web and CD/DVD. He currently lectures in the School of Design teaching life drawing, multimedia design, and history, theory and practice of media and design. Ewan’s research is focussed on the relationship between traditional and digital art practice and theory. It investigates ways in which ‘traditional’ artists and designers can utilise advanced software functions and programming structures in their work. Collaborations with sculptor/photographer Professor Calum Colvin and jeweller Hazel White have provided opportunities to develop practice methodologies that extend traditional/analogue craft into the digital field.

Ewan is involved in teaching multimedia design at undergraduate level to Graphic Design students. His role is to introduce students to design concepts and practice methodologies that relate specifically to web media. He also teaches Life Drawing to 2nd Year Design students and is a dissertation tutor in the Department of History, Theory and Practice of Media and Design. Teaching across disciplines affords a broader understanding of course content and student experience.

Contact Details

Tel Ext 85296
Email: e.r.steel@dundee.ac.uk