Dr Loraine Clarke

Dr Loraine Clarke

Lecturer

Researcher profile

Phone
+44 (0)1334 46 1623
Email
lec24@st-andrews.ac.uk

 

Biography

Loraine is a HCI (Human Computer Interaction) design researcher and lecturer at the University of St. Andrews. Her background includes product design, interactive media, museum studies, design-based research and qualitative research methods. Loraine spends a lot of her time in FabLab environments creating interactive prototypes which involve digital fabrication methods like 3D printing and laser cutting, and using various microcontrollers such as Arduino. At the heart of Loraine’s research is the motivation to support meaningful experiences with interactive physical objects and to explore technology which empowers people and communities. Recent projects include: a Global Challenge Research project exploring co-creating alternative narratives for decentralised digital futures with rural communities in India; research with Mozilla’s open IoT studio focusing on the health of the internet including privacy, inclusion and literacy in relation to emerging connected devices; empowering neighbourhood communities to create their own DIY interactive inventions at participatory design hackathon events; and an EU project exploring the physical and material encounters visitors experience with digital cultural heritage. Much of this research has focused on creating alternative narratives to those presented by dominant technology giants regarding future technologies. Tangible interaction, decentralised technology and contextual interactions are core to these narratives.

Loraine completed her PhD at Strathclyde University, researching companions shared interaction at tangible interactive museum exhibits and how digital interactive exhibits support social interactions between companions. With a background in Product Design and interactive media, a central theme throughout Loraine’s work is people’s interaction with interactive physical objects, such as interactive museum exhibits, voice assistants and emerging connected devices.

Inviting Collaborations & PhD Applications

Loraine is interested in collaborations and PhD applications particularly in the area of tangible interaction, design, sustainability and nature.

With a design research and Human Computer Interaction backgrond I welcome collaborations and PhD applications relating to tangible physical interaction, digital fabrication, social interaction, shape changing interfaces, Data Physicalisation, museum  and cultural heritage user experiences, participatory design and design beyond humans for more sustainable futures.

 

Projects

Decentralising Digital 

Decentralising Digital is a 2 year research project involving design researchers from universities across the UK, Quicksand - a design research studio with offices across India, the National Institute of Design, India and a range of community partners including Black Baza Coffee Collective, Buffalo Back Farming Collective and Janastu.

Through the project, we wanted to co-create new narratives that explore how powerful developments in emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things, the voice enabled Internet, machine learning and artificial intelligence might be harnessed to support rural communities in India. Often, these technologies are products of companies far removed from India and the asymmetric relationship between the makers of such technologies and the people that use them is sometimes referred to as Digital Colonialism.

We wanted to challenge existing narratives, telling new stories that reflect the diverse hopes that people and communities from rural areas have for their futures and the roles that emerging technologies might play in supporting and delivering these. These new narratives point to Hopeful Futures. This research uses creative technology and design fiction to explore hopeful futures with farmers and tribal people residing in the Indian region of Karnataka. Farmers and tribal forest people are two groups that are experiencing the most damage from climate change, large-scale agricultural technologies and the politics of an unequal world. In response to this, we co-created a set of creative technology derived narratives and fictional artefacts that represent multiple futures for how emerging digital technologies could support such communities.

A series of interactive prototypes using electronics and digital fabrication were created to explore future narratives with communities. The final futures speculated with the communities were presented in the form of three stories in illustrated comics. 12 artefacts representing future technologies the communities hope for were designed and presented in the comics.

To read more about the project and download the comics see: https://www.decentralising.digital/

Our Friends Electric

Emerging technologies-such as the voice enabled internet-present many opportunities and challenges for HCI research and society as a whole. Advocating for better, healthier implementations of these technologies will require us to communicate abstract values, such as trust, to an audience that ranges from the general public to technologists and even policymakers. In this research, we show how a combination of film-making and product design can help to illustrate these abstract values. Working as part of a wider international advocacy campaign, Our Friends Electric focuses on the voice enabled internet, translating abstract notions of Internet Health into comprehensible digital futures for the relationship between our voice and the internet. We conclude with a call for designers of physical things to be more involved with the development of trust, privacy and security in this powerful emerging technological landscape. This work was in collaboration with Superflux and was funded by the Mozilla Foundation. 

Teaching

CS5041 - Interactive Software and Hardware

This module develops prototype-building skills for a wide range of interactive technologies. Students learn how to create interactive hardware and software using technologies such as coding environments for creative visuals, tangible programming kits and microprocessor kits. There is a strong emphasis on practical assignments.

CS5042: User-Centred Interaction Design

This module studies methodologies in interaction design that are at the core of current practice for user interface engineering and application development. Students work towards creating designs of interactive systems that are based on human, group and organisation needs rather than on technical constraints. The module does not involve a great deal of programming.

PhD supervision

  • Thomas Metcalfe
  • Adamu Habu
  • Kaixuan Wang

Selected publications

 

See more publications