A list of the projects our research group is currently involved with
A list of the projects our research group is currently involved with
Città Educante project aims at developing and implementing new models of social integration starting from the education system. In particular, it is based on the strengthening of constructivist models of education able to provide people in education (students, teachers, administration) with the opportunities to collaboratively enhance their skills. interAction group is focusing on the University level and on the relations between the University and the local social groups, in a process of public design of digital commons.
The general aim of INF@NZIA DIGI.tales 3.6 is to reconsider the role of technology on a population of children aged 3-6. In particular, interAction researchers will design and develop an interactive playground intended to offer children multi-sensorial experiences that foster a creative approach to game, with a particular focus on musical applications. To this end, a number of interactive devices will be designed, prototyped and developed. Such devices are meant to enhance children’s lifelong learning activities in a school-family-city setting.
In the European Union, more than 122 million people are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. The PIE News project aims at improving life conditions for precarious workers, the working poor, people unprotected by safety nets, and NEETs, by building a Collective Awareness Platform, commonfare.net, that will enable people in Europe to access information about existing welfare measures, to share good practices, and to be engaged in networking activities. These are three components of the *Commonfare*, a new concept of welfare provision based on commonality and grassroots initiatives.
Full title – COST Action From Sharing to Caring: Examining Socio-Technical Aspects of the Collaborative Economy (CA16121)
The terms “Sharing Economy” or “Collaborative Economy” have been commonly used in recent years to refer to a proliferation of initiatives, business models and forms of work. The main objective of this action is to develop a European network of actors (including scholars, practitioners, communities and policy-makers) focusing on the development of collaborative economy models and platforms, and on social and technological implications of the collaborative economy through a practice-focused approach.
Chiara Bassetti – chiara.bassetti@unitn.it
The research is part of a larger project, including didactic activities as well, which is led by an interdisciplinary team of sociologists, musicologists and musicians. The project is carried out by the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Trento within the course and the laboratory of Qualitative Methods (Giolo Fele, Chiara Bassetti), in collaboration with the Music Conservatory of Trento (Fabio Cifariello Ciardi) and the Department of Philosophy and Literature of the University of Trento (Marco Russo).
Chiara Bassetti – chiara.bassetti@unitn.it
Radiant2 is a custom augmented game board designed to explore new forms of interaction. The motivation behind this work is to explore the benefits of tangible interaction on the video game experience. The Radiant2 has been applied to OHR, a puzzle/platform game powered by Unity3D. OHR describes the tale of Spark, an electronic being, who is controlled by the player to solve puzzles a number of game elements that are represented as physical electronic components on the Radiant2.
Zeno Menestrina – zeno.menestrina@unitn.it
The Music Room is an interactive installation designed to offering new experiences of music making to the general public. Couples entering The Music Room can create original piano music by moving throughout the space. The metaphor of emotion mediates the interaction between people’s behaviour and an algorithmic composer. Specifically, distance between people influences the pleasantness of the music, while their average speed influences the intensity.
Fabio Morreale – fabio.morreale@unitn.it
“The Think DigiTank project aims at designing new means of communication for a group of Italian think tanks by the means of Participatory Design, enabling cooperation, communication and information sharing. The project goal is to co-develop a platform within a consortium of foundations and research centers in a participatory way, encouraging self-awareness and allowing autonomous mapping of requirements and needs within these organizations.”
Vincenzo D’Andrea – vincenzo.dandrea@unitn.it
tLight is a software system of instant feedback on interface designs. “tLight” stands for the traffic lights. We analyze the look&feel of graphical user interfaces (e.g., of websites or mobile apps) and classify them in three categories: red (the interface has issues), yellow (the interface can still do better), and green (the interface is likely to impress). Interface developers and (non-professional) designers use the feedback to quickly iterate their interface designs.
Aliaksei Miniukovich – miniukovich@disi.unitn.it
Smart Campus project built a collaborative platform where university students, researchers, technical and administrative staff participated in the design and development of ICT services aimed at supporting their daily lives. Smart Campus represented a scaled-down, but complete, model of a smart city based in Trentino. To achieve this goal, both a social and a technical infrastructure able to seed and nurturing a participating community was created.
SUITCASE aims at developing innovative services for the welfare of citizens in their own homes, with a focus on older adults in the Trentino province. The project involves a group of volunteers interested in participating in the development and testing of services mediated by networked technologies. Co-design is the main interAction’s research activity to engage older users, while applying an inclusive approach. Overall, the project intends to involve a sample of 120 elders (40 per year).
DALi aimed at extending the people’s autonomous navigation outside the home in environments that user would otherwise perceive as unsafe. The goal has been achieved by means of a walker companion (the C-Walker) that could function reliably in unstructured environments even in the absence of other technologies. The focus of interAction has been the observation of individuals while sharing a common space with the aim to extract a set of behaviuoral rules. The experience and knowledge acquired in DALi laid the foundations for the prosecution in ACANTO.
CIVIS focuses on the individuals and collectives’ innovation potential related to energy consumpiton and prosumption. CIVIS directly involves the local communities and stakeholders of two test beds in the Trentino region and two test beds located in the area of Stockholm. Linking energy, ICT and society, CIVIS aims at achieving significant impacts in terms of CO2 reduction and new forms of social innovation. interAction group will be responsible of the interventions in Trentino pilot sites. In particular, will work at different levels related to people engagement: from co-design workshops for CIVIS App’s features and interface to focus groups and interviews related to energy practices.
This project aims to provide people affected by visual deficit with a rehabilitation paradigm that can be used at home.The paradigm exploits the acoustic modality and the well-established audio-visual multi-sensory enhancement. By using a large LCD TV screen, a device with an ad-hoc verbal interface (e.g., a PC) and four speakers placed on the screen’s corners the goal is to let the patients undergo the visual rehabilitation autonomously. The focus of interAction on the design of the UI and to test the efficancy of the rehabilitation.
Stefano Targher – stefano.targher@unitn.it
ConstellACTION is a participatory artwork for stimulating and fostering civic participation. The leitmotif of this project is related to the public design agenda, with the intention to connect off-line activities with an online counterpart. Thus, the ambition of the artwork is to build spaces and opportunities for asynchronous communication and for enabling conversation between people with different perspectives and different needs in order to find common perspectives and interests.
Teresa Macchia – teresa.macchia@unitn.it
This research project aims to unveil and understand collective dynamics for making knowledge through – or not – the introduction of interactive technologies. The work, based on ethnographic observations at the Museum of Science in Trento and on an active participation to a design project at the Finnish National Gallery, focuses on the ongoing and relational co-involvement between people in the process of sharing and creating knowledge.
Teresa Macchia – teresa.macchia@unitn.it