Exploring paper as a medium to store and interact with digital data

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Paper has long been central to preserving and sharing knowledge, but with digital advancements, it has been overshadowed by computers and the Internet. Yet, paper remains valuable for long-term preservation and practical use. In this year’s Coding IxD project, students will explore paper as a medium to store and interact with digital data, combining physical and digital affordances.

Through design-research and hands-on experiments, participants will design neo-analog artifacts that merge the benefits of paper and digital systems. They will create prototypes that enhance cognition and communication using both traditional and digital interaction methods. The project involves interdisciplinary collaboration between students from Computer Science at Freie Universität Berlin and Product Design at weißensee kunsthochschule berlin.

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Like no other medium, paper has contributed to preserving, organizing, and disseminating knowledge, information, and thoughts in human culture for more than 2,000 years. However, since the advent of computers around 1940, paper was increasingly displaced—especially with the rise of the Internet, where electronic data processing enabled the rapid distribution, searching, aggregation, and reconfiguration of information. Nonetheless, paper still proves its uniqueness in high practicality and long-term information preservation. Studies by the BASE (Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management) show that even typical recycling office paper and dry toner can last easily for 500 years.

In this year's Coding IxD research-oriented studio project, we will explore paper as a medium to store and interact with digital data. We will investigate how to design physical machines and digital processes to output, transfer, interact with, store, and read information within a novel explicit use case. We are questioning the primary use of paper in connection with the alphanumeric codes that can only be used to a limited extent for the transmission of information (Flusser, “Die Schrift”). In addition to the interplay of paper as a material and symbol carrier, we will also examine the different human behaviors with paper and code and how these change depending on the context—whether private or public, individual or institutional. How does the writing process change? When do we need printouts, and how should we deal with our paper-based heritage? What possibilities are there for creating new patterns beyond our paper-based knowledge?

This series of research and experiments form the basis for the project's design process. Of particular interest is the question: How can we design human and/or machine-readable patterns and codes?

Paper offers us many affordances, i.e., possibilities of use (Norman, 2013). The materiality of paper is well-known and understood within our society. There are plenty of cultural standards and behaviors that have evolved around paper. Furthermore, paper and printing/writing techniques are sophisticated, and above all, paper and printing techniques are widespread and easily available. Additionally, paper decreases manipulation and protects against data loss since text on paper cannot be as easily altered. Nevertheless, digital documents offer numerous affordances that paper does not. For example, they can be duplicated, searched, shared, modified, or deleted with much less effort (Wimmer, 2018).

Due to these differences, we explore the following questions in this semester's project: How can we combine the advantages of paper and digital systems? How can we synthesize these advantages into physical-digital interaction modalities that benefit human capabilities in information processing, storage, and sharing?

In the sense of “physical-digital affordances” (Wimmer, 2018), we will spark reflection on novel interaction concepts. More specifically, we will systematically investigate which interaction concepts at the interface between the virtual and the real world enable a particular paradigm or new technology. Starting from the aesthetics and rich possibilities of using paper, we stimulate various skills and work practices for processing information through haptic interactions by, for example, grasping, sensing, and manipulating them (Ishii and Ullmer, 1997).

In »Paper:Drive«, we invite students from Computer Science at the Freie Universität Berlin and Product-Design at the weißensee kunsthochschule berlin to collaborate in interdisciplinary teams to develop and design neo-analog artifacts embracing physical and digital affordances toward the medium of paper. Overall, these artifacts enhance cognition, communication, and learning in the semester project's context (Jansen et al., 2015). We support the teams in concept development through, for example, hands-on assignments and physical computing and prototyping workshops, accompanied by input and feedback from supervisors and invited experts.

The main goal of CodingIxD is the development of neo-analog artifacts. To be capable of developing and designing this interplay of digital and physical layers requires the ability to experience and evaluate interactions at every stage of development. To achieve this, we will build prototypes from the very beginning. These prototypes will vary in complexity depending on the stage of the concept and the question being asked — from simple paper prototypes at the beginning to functional and product prototypes as the final result of the project.

Join us in »Paper:Drive« as we embark on a journey to reshape the future of interaction design. Be a part of this innovative endeavor and help us create a more inclusive, perceptive, and empathetic technological landscape.

This year’s episode of Coding IxD is supported by the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE). In addition to its crucial role in supervising the search for a final repository for high-level radioactive waste, it is responsible for licensing and supervising tasks in relation to the disposal, storage, handling and transport of high-level radioactive waste. BASE is also deeply involved in research and development in its subject fields, such as building up a long-term documentation system for all relevant information surrounding the interim and final storage of the state’s radioactive waste. Furthermore, BASE is committed to transparency and organizes and coordinates public participation in the site selection procedure. Additionally, BASE conducts research in the field of nuclear cultural heritage, assessing and analyzing the role of German nuclear cultures and identities as well as their possible contribution to safety in nuclear waste management. Here, we see potential points of connection for our project course to build upon.

Paper-Drive collaborates with the Excellence Cluster „Matters of Activity“ at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. 

Supervised by Prof. Thomas Ness (Produkt-Design, weißensee kunsthochschule berlin), Peter Sörries (Human Centred Computer Sciences FU Berlin) and Hanna Wiesener (Produkt-Design, weißensee kunsthochschule berlin),

Workshops and Suppport:

• Prof. Mark-Jan Bludau

• Simon von Schmude (eLAB),

• Rike Glaser (Design Research)

• Felix Rasehord & Robin Hoske (WINT Design Lab)

• Yolanda Leask

Text-References:

• Ishii, Hiroshi, and Ullmer, Brygg. (1997). Tangible Bits: Towards Seamless Interfaces between People, Bits and Atoms. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 234-241).
• Jansen, Y., et al. (2015). Opportunities and Challenges for Data Physicalization. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 3227-3236).
• Norman Donald, A. (2013). The Design of Everyday Things. MIT Press.
• Wimmer, Raphael (2018). Digitales Papier. Blick in die Wissenschaft, 38, 22-25.
• Flusser, Vilem: “Die Schrift - Hat schreiben eine zukunft?“ 2002

Links:

• https://www.codingixd.org
• https://www.base.bund.de
• https://www.matters-of-activity.de
• https://interaction.kh-berlin.de