Interactive design and the story on structuring human experience

Matt Wade and Kevin Palmer are the founders of Kin Design, a research led, interactive design studio. In the three years since it was established, the studio carried out about 170 projects, including Third City identity agency, Wallpaper magazine’s iPad application and the web sites of Natalia Vodianova’s Naked Heart Foundation and Thrum music studio. Matt and Kevin actively teach and run workshops at different British and European schools, including London’s Camberwell Institute of Arts, Barlett University College London’s Faculty of the Built Environment, and the Dublin Institute of Technology. In Moscow, they will hold a workshop together with Strelka Institute to develop a  concept for a new site of the Polytechnologic Museum.

At this lecture, Matt and Kevin will talk about their research in interactive design. They will look at the relationships between people and the things and space that surround them, at their feelings during this interaction and at their narrative as a way to structure experience. The lecture will discuss how Kin Design uses stories to create and improve the objects with which people interact.

Matt Wade and Kevin Palmer: «We are fascinated by the way narrative helps us structure experience. We’re interested in what our senses tell our brain when we touch or interact with something and what connections that makes to past histories, previous experiences or existing knowledge. As designers we want to find ways to twist those connections and develop new ways of understanding what things do and what they tell us. Our talk will examine how we use narrative to create objects that create relationships with users and enhance the experience of use through narrative».