Supporting affective experiences of place through interaction design

In this paper we present design work aimed at augmenting people's experiences of place within an international airport through a public interactive installation, ‘The Portal’. This design intervention had the aim of providing passengers located in the airport's transit lounge with novel possibilities for playful interaction, as well as allowing them to recount their journeys and visits around Ireland. This exhibit is part of the ‘Shared Worlds’ project, focused on studying people's behaviour and experience in public settings. The project's goal is exploring how a physical locale—which is shared and lived in by a number of inhabitants—could be augmented through digital technology in order to engage people. Our vision of interaction design is centred on the core notions of activity and place. Both include dimensions of affect and emotion as fundamentally linked with people's lived experiences of technology. In the paper we show how this approach has guided us through the design and deployment of the ‘Portal’, and how the affective dimension of people's interactions with technology has emerged around this particular installation.