The thesis explores how interactive technologies and digital media can be used as transformative mediators and tools. They have the potential to strengthen and enrich the experience of different transformations that are discussed as being important for practices of creativity and learning, where the engagement and relationship to processes of change is fundamental. The flexibility of digital media and forms for tangible interaction constitutes major elements in the design experiments described in the thesis.Material artefacts and physical space play a central role in how people make sense of the world. Looking closely at practices where creativity, learning and communication are important for collaborative work it becomes clear that this insight implies that the concepts of objects and space carry quite a portion of multiplicity. They are used differently and with different intentions, they are understood differently from different perspectives and the look and feel of them appears differently even if they can be described as “one” thing or “one” space.Dealing with these heterogeneities challenges the way we use objects and spaces. It becomes a matter of connecting the multiplicities and how we configure them in relation each other. The research discusses how the discipline of interaction design can support dealing with multiplicity, configuring and mixing of objects and spaces. They are not only used or inhabited; they are performed and enacted.In exploring these issues the thesis discusses the development and experiments with a couple of design prototypes that rests upon basically the same technology, which is a combination of technologies for tracking and/or tagging. Studies and experiments have been performed in three different domains; design work, patient learning while undergoing lengthy rehabilitation and artistic work and performances. The diversity of studied domains provides a way of talking about design that focus on use and users’ appropriation of technology rather than reflecting the technology itself. From a methodological perspective issues of participatory design have been foundational to the research.Some design consequences refers to how we can not only regard interactive artefacts as bundles of functionality. We must also look into issues of giving form to them as material things and the thesis especially reflect how we can override a distinction of things being either material or virtual.Another consequence is how digital technologies often does not replace “analogue” media and material things, but instead are used in parallel and must find a place in an already existing ecology of artefacts, devices and services. In the thesis there is a strong focus on how human action is co-shaped together with artefacts and technology as we perform specific tasks or simply go on about our living and making sense of the world.

This dissertation focuses on design sessions in which users and stakeholders participate. It demonstrates how material from field studies can be used in exploratory design sessions. The emphasis is on the staging and realization of experiments with ‘possible futures’.Using a design perspective I have worked with how field studies can contribute to design processes in which many parties collaborate. With a starting point in collaborative ‘sketching’ and creation of scenarios I have striven to create a meaningful way for design teams to adopt a practice perspective. The dissertation shows that there need not be any opposition between exploring ‘what is’ and envisioning ‘what can be’.The increase of computer technology in everyday life and the development making information technology become an integrated part of more and more everyday products has given rise to a need to find new ways of working in the process of designing. If it was ever possible to work in an isolated way on either digital or physical technology, this is no longer the case since development requires collaboration over these borders. In the same way, IT plays an increasing significant role in people’s everyday lives. User focus and user involvement have become commonplace. This calls for new ways of organizing the design process. The present dissertation meets this problem. I have participated in four projects in which exploring users everyday practices has become a meaningfuldesign activity and a foundation for collaboration.The purpose of this dissertation is to shed light on the possibilities and the advantages offered by working design oriented with material from field studies. Furthermore, it strives to show how design sessions can be organized and carried out on a practical level and exemplifies with concrete projects. Special emphasis is given to the creation of and the inquiry into design material and the development and use of design games.