Introduction to Designing Smart Objects in Everyday Life. Intelligences, Agencies, Ecologies

The increased integration of computation and networking capabilities into physical products is transforming many of our everyday objects into smart ones. Things such as domestic appliances, furniture, clothing and toys are gaining new capabilities and expanding their modes of interaction with their users. This prompts a series of questions concerning their role and agency: the way in which they may be perceived by the users and how their extended capabilities shape and inform the way they are designed. How are smart everyday objects ontologically different from their analogue counterparts? How are their new identities shaped by people’s perceptions, experiences and imaginations? More crucially for the scope of our inquiry, how do we design them? What are the new frameworks, strategies and practices that can inform the design of smart everyday objects?