Here you can find a summary of the thesis, as well as have access to a pdf version of the thesis. To order a full-color physical copy of the thesis, please contact me: Visiokatu 1, 33720 Tampere, Finland email: moodboards@gmail.com phone: +358 (0)50 486 7058     People have different ways of communicating with each other and building an understanding in the context of professional work (e.g. face-to-face meetings, phone calls, email, videoconference, etc.). Designers use mood boards as means to communicate and reach agreements with their clients (or within a design team) in the beginning of the design process. Mood boarding helps explore the available design space or range of possibilities that emerge from the design brief. It does so by visualizing rough and undefined ideas using mostly visual materials (i.e. images from books or magazines). A mood board defines and communicates the direction for a design project. Human-computer interaction researchers have already identified the potential behind interactive vertical and horizontal surfaces as a more natural and familiar setting to design (collaborative) interactions. Traditionally, research in this area has been mostly driven by technology. As a result, one fundamental facet has been missing: the user. For sure, following a technology push approach is one good way of doing research and fostering innovation. However, it is not the only one. In this thesis a user-centered design approach is followed, leading to user-driven innovation. Basically, it implies conducting a series of user studies (i.e. cultural probes, workshops, contextual inquiries, interviews, video observations) to first explore the work (i.e. design practice) of professional users, then identify a relevant task for these professional users (i.e. industrial designers), and finally try to understand the essence of this task before making any attempt of providing support for it with new technologies. Finally, the results of these studies are fed into co-design sessions in which end-users actively create sensible solutions and tools that support their work and in their real context. This thesis explores why and how designers use mood boards in the early stages of the design process, and how augmented reality can support mood boarding by following a user-centered design approach. In this thesis a research through design approach is followed, in which the design process is used as a form of research to contribute to a design activity. Working prototypes are created from a clear research question and thus can express a hypothesis. The prototypes are put to test in real-life contexts so users can experience them. Knowledge is generated by designing the artifact, by the artifact itself, and by the evaluations of use. The knowledge gained can later be generalized as design recommendations, theories or frameworks. In this research through design process the knowledge gained in field observations (chapters 2 and 3) is integrated with the co-designed concepts or funky-design-spaces (chapter 4) into experiential tools (chapter 5). The Funky Coffee Table and Funky Wall prototypes are created and later tested to express the funky-design-spaces hypothesis and to try to provide answers to the research questions on how and why designers create mood boards and how augmented reality tools can provide support for this activity. In chapter 2, design practice is studied by means of three studies to provide designers with a sensible augmented reality support tool for their work. The chapter starts with the probes study where design activities are examined from a general perspective. From the probes study a set of important ideas and possible research directions are deduced. The findings are connected to supporting creativity and finding inspiration in the early stages of the design process. Mood boarding is identified as a relevant task for designers and potentially becomes the central activity to support with augmented reality. The chapter continues with the second study, workshops, where probes results are discussed with designers who are also confronted with an augmented reality tool. In the workshops designers see the potential of supporting mood boarding with augmented reality and encourage us to do so. Finally, a student project is presented where the actual making of mood boards is observed using different techniques such as traditional, digital and augmented reality mood boards. The concept of intuitive interaction begins to shape up. Chapter 3 explores mood boarding in depth. An understanding of the essence of mood boards is created by means of two studies. The results of both contextual inquiries with Dutch industrial designers and of mood-board interviews with Finnish textile and fashion designers are introduced. Based on these two studies, the following definition of mood boards is proposed: × Mood boards are an idea development tool used by designers and their clients to communicate, think, and share their different views that emerge from the design brief while defining future products, services or trends. Although different types of media can be used, they mostly consist of images used in different levels of abstraction to tell a story about the company, product, or audience, and setting a direction for design. There is no right or unique interpretation of a mood board. Based on the results of the two studies with Dutch and Finnish designers, a detailed description of the mood-board making process and a summary of the five main stages of the mood-board making process are also presented. These studies also led to six considerations for a mood-board making tool for designers: × Support idea development. Supporting the complete process of making mood boards, the before and after the actual act of building the mood board. × Encourage two-way communication. Encourage communication between the client and the mood-board maker needed for successful mood-board design. × Involving the senses. Mood-board creation on computers is currently heavily restricted to the visual nature of the activity. Other senses should be involved. × Holistic interactive space. Several interconnected tools that support the rich diversity of the activities along the mood-board making process. × Merging with the real context. Carefully addressing the specific context of the activity (e.g. relaxed versus formal activities). × Flexible and intuitive interaction. Allowing designers to perform tasks as naturally as they do now by interacting through hand movements as well as other modalities. Chapter 3 ends by formulating the funky-design-spaces research hypothesis. In chapter 4, the data from the previous two chapters is fed into co-design sessions with Dutch and Finnish designers. The general idea behind the funky-design-spaces hypothesis is tested in the dialogue-labs where researchers and people (i.e. designers) collaboratively come up with new concrete ideas that support mood-board making with augmented reality. The idea for the Funky Wall comes directly from the co-design sessions and is explained in the next chapter. The funky-design-spaces hypothesis is initially proved true by designers and is put to the test with experiential tools in the next chapter. Chapter 5 looks at augmented reality tools and technology to further explore the funky-design-spaces hypothesis. Two tools, the Funky Coffee Table and Funky Wall are designed, implemented, and evaluated. The knowledge and experience from the previous three chapters are integrated into these two working tools. The results of the evaluation prove the funky-design-spaces hypothesis true. The chapter ends by proposing intuitive interaction as a perspective on providing augmented reality support for professional users in their work. The four main aspects behind intuitive interaction are: × Builds on people’s current skills and knowledge on the supported task × Uses hands as main input mechanism for tasks involving creation × Tools must merge with the real context × Use of the orthogonal distance from the interactive surface as cue for interaction Finally, chapter 6 rounds off this thesis by reflecting to what extent the activities described in this thesis contribute to our understanding of the research questions, identifying aspects that could also be valuable to other researchers working in similar and different context than mine.