Exploring Aesthetic Qualities through Data Materialization: Interview with Young-Woo Park

Abstract

Young-Woo Park is the Director of the Interactive Product Design Laboratory at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in Korea (UNIST). After earning his PhD in Industrial Design from the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, he worked as a NASA-KAIST Postdoc Researcher in the Intelligent Robotics Group at the NASA Ames Research Center. He is currently Assistant Professor of Industrial Design in the School of Design and Human Engineering at UNIST. As Head of the Interactive Product Design Laboratory, he focuses on the design and realization of interactive products which can provide effective, playful, and emotional value to the users. In this interview, Young-Woo Park highlights the significance of 'physical richness' during interaction with technologies and provides examples of unusual materials as a medium for exploring new ways of using and designing everyday artifacts. He also describes the potential of embodiment of ephemerality as a method for designing aesthetic interaction. Finally, he suggests that designers read and merge design-driven methods and theories into their design practice.