Research at the Centre explores on the one hand playful experiences and leisure, and on the other hand the new opportunities that arise from mobile services exploiting intrinsic properties of mobility, such as access variability, ad-hoc meetings with other devices, context awareness, access to information depending on geographic location, and positioning relative to other users or resources. In this project, we conduct studies of such social properties to provide a social science oriented framework for future research and design in a broad sense. It serves as a shared arena for studies with a strong focus on social interaction, and which the design outcome is framed on a general level.

The project’s work on the interaction between humans and animals and on technology to support such interaction, has inspired a design study for a social media for canines (conducted by Elisa Chiodo who was a guest PhD student in the Centre) as well as the foundation of a special interest group (SIG) at the CHI 2012 conference.