Fatih Kursat Ozenc

My research investigates the role technology plays in people’s relationships with their environment. I propose an experience design framework for understanding and enhancing the emotional and social qualities of people’s relationships and experiences, through designing, building, and evaluating interactive products and services. Specifically, I focus on how people adapt themselves within changing and unchanging contexts, such as in transitions, including the move between environments or from one role to another.

At a high level, the elements of my framework, titled the ‘modes of transitions’, include routine, performance, narrative, and ritual, which addresses the material, manner, function, and form of an experience, respectively. The designer works with performance and routine to design the frame of the product, while people give flesh and soul to the experience, building their own narrative and rituals.

Safe-ride
		Safe-ride aims to understand both the positive and negative aspects of commuting, and to design a new ride-sharing service that facilitates transitions between contexts.
Reverse Alarm Clock
		This project addresses the decrease in felt-life qualities that occur during the morning rush in dual-income families with young children. The RAC explores the role interactive products play in the construction of routines and rituals.
Digital Selves
		Digital Selves addresses the stress and struggle experienced by first-year college students in the transition from high school to college. We develop human-centered design methods to help designers capture the transition stages of the individual.
Exploratory Programming for Interactive Behaviors
		This series of workshops aims develop a novel tool to enable designers to more easily explore interactive behaviors and implement creative designs.