Perceptually-seductive technology designing computer support for everyday creativity

Abstract: Perceptually-seductive technology (PST) is introduced as a way of designing IT environments that can help support everyday creativity. This is done in part by using sensory stimulation, seclusion and other perceptual components to seduce an individual towards creative insights that would not occur on the basis of conceptual thought alone.Everyday creativity is characterised as the combination of novel solutions in addressing everyday problems, and learning, indicating endurance over time. Everyday creativity is sometimes referred to as personal creativity, since it concerns what is novel to an individual, not to society as a whole. As in exceptional or historical creativity, in everyday creativity the novelty arises from the individual concerned, not from outside. Literature reviews of learning and memory, emotion and creativity set the scene and provide the basis for introducing PST. The relation of the individual to the technology, and with the world through the technology, is also considered.A model of the design space for PST is proposed and related to a proposed view of the creative process. It is suggested that to stimulate and support the creative process, IT environments should encourage both presence (perceptual or experiential mental activity) and absence (conceptual or reflective mental activity), which are seen as end points of a continuum comprising the Focus dimension. Similarly, the importance of both conscious and unconscious activity (the Sensus dimension) is emphasised, as is the role of emotion in mediating the balance between the two. The Locus dimension refers to the real-virtual distinction. In PST, virtual realisations are used to represent real world things and events and in so doing support the memorisation and reflection that are essential to everyday creativity.Four different examples of designing and implementing PST are presented. The first is a media production within a novel environment called the Interactive Tent, and is a demonstration and validation of theoretical ideas behind the PST concept. Three educational PST environments and their formative evaluations are then presented. These are first steps towards designing PST for particular kinds of application, in this case as environments for memorisation. Taken together, these examples lead to design recommendations and suggestions for future work, including the application of PST in education, stress management and for the elderly and disabled.