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Peter Vistisen

Aalborg University, Department of Communication & Psychology, Adjunct

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Currently working as Assistant Professor at Aalborg University, at the department of Communication, Art and Technology - researching how to facilitate and inform design decision through extended sketching capacities.

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Papers by Peter Vistisen

The Design Fiction Matrix:A synthesis tool for grounding fiction scenarios in facts from reality

The roles of sketching in design: Mapping the tension between functions in design sketches

Nordic Design Research Conference

This paper examines how the role of sketching in design process has been disseminated previously ... more This paper examines how the role of sketching in design process has been disseminated previously through a review of prior perspectives into the field. We identify that the studies of design sketching has been dominated by two perspectives: studies into what is known as 'visual thinking' (Goldschmidt 1991, Schön & Wiggins 1992, Tversky et al. 1999), which examines the designers reflective conversation with the sketch, and a second perspective on sketching as way of 'visual communication' with others in the design process (Lugt 2005, Schütze 2003, Buxton 2010). We raise the question of whether it is reasonable to combine the two different roles of sketching to form a more intertwined relationship-seeing the two as sides of the same coin. Based on the terminology of Olofsson & Sjöflen (2005) four functions are identified as being representative for the different roles sketching can take in the design process: investigative, explorative, communicative, and persuasive. We appropriate these categories into a tension field, reflecting how the role of the same sketch may change over the course of time in the design project, based upon the type of knowledge required to gain from the sketch at a given time.

Bridge Complexity as a Factor in Audience Interaction in Transmedia Storytelling

Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture

To date, the scholarship on transmedia storytelling has focused on analyzing existing properties ... more To date, the scholarship on transmedia storytelling has focused on analyzing existing properties or on establishing holistic approaches to the craft itself. Missing from the scholarship are deep considerations of the individual mechanics at work during the telling of a story across multiple media platforms. We examine state-of-the-art transmedia properties to identify how audience motivations are engineered to ensure that the audience transitions from one media platform to another. Complicated story transitions, or “bridges,” are an effect of the increased complexity of transmedia franchises, challenging the traditional monocentric “tentpole approach” with a broader polycentric approach. With a polycentric model, the complexity is managed not through tie-ins to one tentpole but as a mix of what are labeled here as storylines, storyworlds, and character bridges with varying levels of complexities in their relation to the traditional tentpole medium.

From “bugs” to exploratory exhibition design – transforming design flaws in users’ experiences

Nordes 2021: Matters of Scale, 2021

Video essay on: Social affordances and ethical challenges in mediated collaborative platforms

Ethicomp 2021: [New] Normal Technology Ethics: Moving technology ethics at the forefront of Society, Organisations and Governments, 2021

PBL og Entreprenørskab: Sammenkobling og udvikling af begreber og praksis, der fremmer entreprenante kompetencer på tværs af AAU

Abductive sensemaking through sketching

This paper proposes design sketching as a way to make abductive reasoning manifest and concrete. ... more This paper proposes design sketching as a way to make abductive reasoning manifest and concrete. Through sketching, the abductive sensemaking leaves the domain of abstract logics and becomes part of the researchers or practitioner's reflective practice. This practice is especially evident through incorporating sketching as more than a specific technique, but also as ways of applying design thinking through acting upon the world. The paper presents sketching as an integral part of the design epistemology. Furthermore, a categorization of different dimensions in which sketching can be represented is presented. The main contribution is a discussion of whether this broader view on sketching capacities in design leaves room for further exploration into extended sketching capacities for design.

Design Patterns of Health Animation – Scaling Pattern Languages Into a New Domain

Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, 2022

Abstract to Call for Papers: Struggling with technology. Nordicom Review Submission of abstract: 1 Making media technology our own by learning to fear them: Blind spots in the theory of domestication?

Læring fra forskningssamarbejdet 'Nordsøens Digitale Lag

Animation-based Sketching: An explorative study of how animation-based sketching can support the concept design of non-idiomatic digital technologies

This paper proposes design sketching as a way to make abductive reasoning manifest and concrete. ... more This paper proposes design sketching as a way to make abductive reasoning manifest and concrete. Through sketching, the abductive sensemaking leaves the domain of abstract logics and becomes part of the researchers or practitioner’s relective practice. This practice is especially evident through incorporating sketching as more than a speciic technique, but also as ways of applying design thinking through acting upon the world. The paper presents sketching as an integral part of the design epistemology. Furthermore, a categorization of diferent dimensions in which sketching can be represented is presented. The main contribution is a discussion of whether this broader view on sketching capacities in design leaves room for further exploration into extended sketching capacities for design. Introduction In recent years, the academic ield of design research has had an increasing interest in the role of sensemaking in the creative and constructive process of scientiic inquiry (Krippendorf ...

The Selfish Vision: Addressing the problematic lack of explicit discourse and ethical contract in corporate design fictions

Tent-Poles of the Blockbuster: How Transmedia Storytelling can Spin off a Mainstream Blockbuster

Sketching with animation: using animation to portray fictional realities – aimed at becoming Factual

After receiving his Master in Interactive Digital Media, from Aalborg University he immediately s... more After receiving his Master in Interactive Digital Media, from Aalborg University he immediately started working as a part-time teacher, and researcher at Aalborg University, as well as freelance interaction designer doing digital design work for various clients. His research interest is design thinking, especially in regard to strategic design possibilities with digital technologies based on a user-centred design approach. He publishes on topics like 'strategic design' , 'design epistemology' , ' cross media' , 'interaction design' , and 'sketching' in international journals, and at international conferences. During the past 6 years, Peter has been teaching and supervising bachelor and master students at Aalborg University, and at University College Nordjylland. He has disseminated the contributions of his research for both academic peers and industry stakeholders. In this book, the major findings from his PhD study is presented in a more didactic manner-providing lessons learned for both interaction design students and practitioners interested in using animation as a sketching approach to explore concept designs of non-idiomatic digital technologies.

Nordsøen Movie Maker

Strategisk Designtænkning: Et videnskabeligt essay mod en teoretisk helhedstolkning af koblingen mellem teknologi, menneske og forretning gennem designtænkning

How to design for exploration through emergent narratives

Digital Creativity, 2020

This paper presents emergent narratives from theory on game design as a model for designing cultu... more This paper presents emergent narratives from theory on game design as a model for designing cultural heritage exhibitions and discusses how criteria of emergent narratives can support exploratory user behaviour. We propose that emergent narratives can be transferred to the design of interactive digital exhibitions, thereby removing constraints and allow for more personalized and potentially structure-breaking user experiences. Whereas exhibition design often either focuses on form or content, we propose that by designing for exploration through criteria of emergent narratives, a balance can be found between content and form that encourages explorative behaviour in the exhibition. This adds to the discourse of design principles for using principles from closed digital environments, such as games, in open physical spaces of exhibitions. This paper answers the research question of how theory of emergent narratives can be used to design for exploration.

The Role(s) of Process Models in Design Practice

DRS2018: Catalyst, Jun 28, 2018

This paper investigates how design process models are implemented and used in design-driven organ... more This paper investigates how design process models are implemented and used in design-driven organisations. The archetypical theoretical framing of process models, describe their primary role as guiding the design process, and assign roles and deliverables throughout the process. We hypothesise that the process models also take more communicative roles in practice, both in terms of creating an internal design rationale, as well as demystifying the black box of design thinking to external stakeholders. We investigate this hypothesis through an interview study of four major danish design-driven organisations, and analyse the different roles their archetypical process models take in their organisations. The main contribution is the identification of three, often overlapping roles, which design process models showed to assume in design-driven organisations: process guidance, adding transparency in external communication, and internally as a formal description of an organization's design rationale. We discuss how the mix of these three roles added together can support and catalyse how design-driven organisations define themselves, and position them in practice, as well as how the theoretical discourse of process literature might be recatalysed by these very different roles observed in practice.

Designing for emergent interactions. Strategies for encouraging emergent user behaviour serendipitous research findings

The Design Journal, 2019

In this paper, we discuss emergent interactions as a design strategy in the context of cultural m... more In this paper, we discuss emergent interactions as a design strategy in the context of cultural museum exhibitions, and how we can use these strategies to be more open to serendipitous findings in design research. We propose that emergent narratives can be transferred to the design of interactive exhibitions, and thereby removing the constraints and open use situations for more personalized, and potentially structure-breaking user experiences. Whereas much research in accidental discoveries in design focus on discovery in the design process, we propose the same accidental discoveries might be transferred as design strategies aimed at the end-users themselves making emergent interactions that can inspire serendipitous discoveries in research and design. As such, we ask the research question if we can leverage serendipitous findings from the design process to create the potential for emergent interactions for the user?

The Design Fiction Matrix:A synthesis tool for grounding fiction scenarios in facts from reality

The roles of sketching in design: Mapping the tension between functions in design sketches

Nordic Design Research Conference

This paper examines how the role of sketching in design process has been disseminated previously ... more This paper examines how the role of sketching in design process has been disseminated previously through a review of prior perspectives into the field. We identify that the studies of design sketching has been dominated by two perspectives: studies into what is known as 'visual thinking' (Goldschmidt 1991, Schön & Wiggins 1992, Tversky et al. 1999), which examines the designers reflective conversation with the sketch, and a second perspective on sketching as way of 'visual communication' with others in the design process (Lugt 2005, Schütze 2003, Buxton 2010). We raise the question of whether it is reasonable to combine the two different roles of sketching to form a more intertwined relationship-seeing the two as sides of the same coin. Based on the terminology of Olofsson & Sjöflen (2005) four functions are identified as being representative for the different roles sketching can take in the design process: investigative, explorative, communicative, and persuasive. We appropriate these categories into a tension field, reflecting how the role of the same sketch may change over the course of time in the design project, based upon the type of knowledge required to gain from the sketch at a given time.

Bridge Complexity as a Factor in Audience Interaction in Transmedia Storytelling

Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture

To date, the scholarship on transmedia storytelling has focused on analyzing existing properties ... more To date, the scholarship on transmedia storytelling has focused on analyzing existing properties or on establishing holistic approaches to the craft itself. Missing from the scholarship are deep considerations of the individual mechanics at work during the telling of a story across multiple media platforms. We examine state-of-the-art transmedia properties to identify how audience motivations are engineered to ensure that the audience transitions from one media platform to another. Complicated story transitions, or “bridges,” are an effect of the increased complexity of transmedia franchises, challenging the traditional monocentric “tentpole approach” with a broader polycentric approach. With a polycentric model, the complexity is managed not through tie-ins to one tentpole but as a mix of what are labeled here as storylines, storyworlds, and character bridges with varying levels of complexities in their relation to the traditional tentpole medium.

From “bugs” to exploratory exhibition design – transforming design flaws in users’ experiences

Nordes 2021: Matters of Scale, 2021

Video essay on: Social affordances and ethical challenges in mediated collaborative platforms

Ethicomp 2021: [New] Normal Technology Ethics: Moving technology ethics at the forefront of Society, Organisations and Governments, 2021

PBL og Entreprenørskab: Sammenkobling og udvikling af begreber og praksis, der fremmer entreprenante kompetencer på tværs af AAU

Abductive sensemaking through sketching

This paper proposes design sketching as a way to make abductive reasoning manifest and concrete. ... more This paper proposes design sketching as a way to make abductive reasoning manifest and concrete. Through sketching, the abductive sensemaking leaves the domain of abstract logics and becomes part of the researchers or practitioner's reflective practice. This practice is especially evident through incorporating sketching as more than a specific technique, but also as ways of applying design thinking through acting upon the world. The paper presents sketching as an integral part of the design epistemology. Furthermore, a categorization of different dimensions in which sketching can be represented is presented. The main contribution is a discussion of whether this broader view on sketching capacities in design leaves room for further exploration into extended sketching capacities for design.

Design Patterns of Health Animation – Scaling Pattern Languages Into a New Domain

Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, 2022

Abstract to Call for Papers: Struggling with technology. Nordicom Review Submission of abstract: 1 Making media technology our own by learning to fear them: Blind spots in the theory of domestication?

Læring fra forskningssamarbejdet 'Nordsøens Digitale Lag

Animation-based Sketching: An explorative study of how animation-based sketching can support the concept design of non-idiomatic digital technologies

This paper proposes design sketching as a way to make abductive reasoning manifest and concrete. ... more This paper proposes design sketching as a way to make abductive reasoning manifest and concrete. Through sketching, the abductive sensemaking leaves the domain of abstract logics and becomes part of the researchers or practitioner’s relective practice. This practice is especially evident through incorporating sketching as more than a speciic technique, but also as ways of applying design thinking through acting upon the world. The paper presents sketching as an integral part of the design epistemology. Furthermore, a categorization of diferent dimensions in which sketching can be represented is presented. The main contribution is a discussion of whether this broader view on sketching capacities in design leaves room for further exploration into extended sketching capacities for design. Introduction In recent years, the academic ield of design research has had an increasing interest in the role of sensemaking in the creative and constructive process of scientiic inquiry (Krippendorf ...

The Selfish Vision: Addressing the problematic lack of explicit discourse and ethical contract in corporate design fictions

Tent-Poles of the Blockbuster: How Transmedia Storytelling can Spin off a Mainstream Blockbuster

Sketching with animation: using animation to portray fictional realities – aimed at becoming Factual

After receiving his Master in Interactive Digital Media, from Aalborg University he immediately s... more After receiving his Master in Interactive Digital Media, from Aalborg University he immediately started working as a part-time teacher, and researcher at Aalborg University, as well as freelance interaction designer doing digital design work for various clients. His research interest is design thinking, especially in regard to strategic design possibilities with digital technologies based on a user-centred design approach. He publishes on topics like 'strategic design' , 'design epistemology' , ' cross media' , 'interaction design' , and 'sketching' in international journals, and at international conferences. During the past 6 years, Peter has been teaching and supervising bachelor and master students at Aalborg University, and at University College Nordjylland. He has disseminated the contributions of his research for both academic peers and industry stakeholders. In this book, the major findings from his PhD study is presented in a more didactic manner-providing lessons learned for both interaction design students and practitioners interested in using animation as a sketching approach to explore concept designs of non-idiomatic digital technologies.

Nordsøen Movie Maker

Strategisk Designtænkning: Et videnskabeligt essay mod en teoretisk helhedstolkning af koblingen mellem teknologi, menneske og forretning gennem designtænkning

How to design for exploration through emergent narratives

Digital Creativity, 2020

This paper presents emergent narratives from theory on game design as a model for designing cultu... more This paper presents emergent narratives from theory on game design as a model for designing cultural heritage exhibitions and discusses how criteria of emergent narratives can support exploratory user behaviour. We propose that emergent narratives can be transferred to the design of interactive digital exhibitions, thereby removing constraints and allow for more personalized and potentially structure-breaking user experiences. Whereas exhibition design often either focuses on form or content, we propose that by designing for exploration through criteria of emergent narratives, a balance can be found between content and form that encourages explorative behaviour in the exhibition. This adds to the discourse of design principles for using principles from closed digital environments, such as games, in open physical spaces of exhibitions. This paper answers the research question of how theory of emergent narratives can be used to design for exploration.

The Role(s) of Process Models in Design Practice

DRS2018: Catalyst, Jun 28, 2018

This paper investigates how design process models are implemented and used in design-driven organ... more This paper investigates how design process models are implemented and used in design-driven organisations. The archetypical theoretical framing of process models, describe their primary role as guiding the design process, and assign roles and deliverables throughout the process. We hypothesise that the process models also take more communicative roles in practice, both in terms of creating an internal design rationale, as well as demystifying the black box of design thinking to external stakeholders. We investigate this hypothesis through an interview study of four major danish design-driven organisations, and analyse the different roles their archetypical process models take in their organisations. The main contribution is the identification of three, often overlapping roles, which design process models showed to assume in design-driven organisations: process guidance, adding transparency in external communication, and internally as a formal description of an organization's design rationale. We discuss how the mix of these three roles added together can support and catalyse how design-driven organisations define themselves, and position them in practice, as well as how the theoretical discourse of process literature might be recatalysed by these very different roles observed in practice.

Designing for emergent interactions. Strategies for encouraging emergent user behaviour serendipitous research findings

The Design Journal, 2019

In this paper, we discuss emergent interactions as a design strategy in the context of cultural m... more In this paper, we discuss emergent interactions as a design strategy in the context of cultural museum exhibitions, and how we can use these strategies to be more open to serendipitous findings in design research. We propose that emergent narratives can be transferred to the design of interactive exhibitions, and thereby removing the constraints and open use situations for more personalized, and potentially structure-breaking user experiences. Whereas much research in accidental discoveries in design focus on discovery in the design process, we propose the same accidental discoveries might be transferred as design strategies aimed at the end-users themselves making emergent interactions that can inspire serendipitous discoveries in research and design. As such, we ask the research question if we can leverage serendipitous findings from the design process to create the potential for emergent interactions for the user?

SKETCHING WITH ANIMATION: USING ANIMATION TO PORTRAY FICTIONAL REALITIES AIMED AT BECOMING FACTUAL

This book offers a contribution to the theory, method and techniques involved in the use of anima... more This book offers a contribution to the theory, method and techniques involved in the use of animation as a tool for temporal design sketching. Lifted from its traditional role as a genre of entertainment and art and reframed in the design domain, animation offers support during the early phases of exploring and assessing the potential of new and emerging digital technologies. This approach is relatively new and has been touched upon by few academic contributions in the past. Thus, the aim of the text is not to promote a claim that sketching with animation is an inherently new phenomenon. Instead, the aim is to present a range of analytical arguments and experimental results that indicate the need for a systematic approach to realising the potential of animation within design sketching. This will establish the foundation for what we label animation-based sketching.

Bridge Complexity as a Factor in Audience Interaction in Transmedia Storytelling

by Daniel Binns, Peter Vistisen, and Vashanth Selvadurai

Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture, 2022

To date, the scholarship on transmedia storytelling has focused on analyzing existing properties ... more To date, the scholarship on transmedia storytelling has focused on analyzing existing properties or on establishing holistic approaches to the craft itself. Missing from the scholarship are deep considerations of the individual mechanics at work during the telling of a story across multiple media platforms. We examine state-of-the-art transmedia properties to identify how audience motivations are engineered to ensure that the audience transitions from one media platform to another. Complicated story transitions, or "bridges," are an effect of the increased complexity of transmedia franchises, challenging the traditional monocentric "tentpole approach" with a broader polycentric approach. With a polycentric model, the complexity is managed not through tie-ins to one tentpole but as a mix of what are labeled here as storylines, storyworlds, and character bridges with varying levels of complexities in their relation to the traditional tentpole medium.