they exercise their natural and creative urges for interpretation. To make sense of this, they draw upon their own biographies and histories—they consider their hopes, fears, and expectations in order to bridge and complete the work and to finalize the experience. This is particularly relevant in shuffle listening because music is a powerful auditory mnemonic device, which can evoke memories lucidly.

Shuffle listening also resonates with McCarthy and Wright’s approach toward designing for experience. They draw upon Bakhtin’s commitment to unfinalizability—valuing “ supris-ingness, potentiality, freedom and creativity [ 7],” which invites us to see technology as always becoming. Thus, harnessing randomness this way—designing it as a feature in an interactive device through which users can discover, create, and modulate their encounters with unfamiliar content—is an example of an “unfinalized digital device.” An unfinalized device is not one that is poorly designed or half-finished, but instead is a device that allows the person to finalize it through use. In designing an unfinalized device, we treat each person as a source of creative potential coming to the interaction with a rich history of experience that engages with the technology in a dialogue about what the technology is and could be, and what the person is and could be. Such a device allows people to play into their potential and fits into recent calls for design and evaluation that are open to multiple interpretations.

In determining where (and how) such a random feature can be used, considerations should

include the types of content, the domain, and contexts where these digital devices are used. While further investigations will reveal the full extent of its fit, it is apparent that suitable content is often evocative, can be imbued with meaning, is “malleable,” and can withstand multiple inscriptions such as music and photographs or content that is familiar and meaningful to the consumer.

Harnessing randomness in the design of an unfinalized device has many implications. Theoretically, the concept of randomness in design flies in the face of traditional design activity, which is usually purposeful and goal-oriented, aimed at transforming requirements that embody the expectations of the purposes of the resulting device into design descriptions [ 8]. Any analysis that is too heavily goal-or intention-oriented will miss or fit uneasily with the essence of the random experience, uncertainty, or unpredictability. While this echoes a call for theories of experience that don’t anchor so strongly to goals, it also hints at a need to broaden our current theoretical conceptualisation of experience to include such notions as randomness.

Clearly, randomness has limits on its design utility. There are obvious domains in which such an approach would not be applicable, such as in safety-critical systems of an aircraft or missile guidance. There is a boundary of applicability around the idea of randomness in designs and in application. However, domains that appear to immediately benefit (and grow) from such surprising and unexpected encounters and discoveries include that of entertainment, creativity, educa-

tion, social networking, and self-awareness.

Designing for an unfinalized, random-rich device also blurs the boundary between the designer and consumer. This calls for a reexamination of the role of the designer, especially the act of professional design. To design for an unfinalized device requires the designer to share their act of design with the consumer. In an unfinalized design that exploits randomness as a resource, the final product is discovered in use through finalization by the consumer.

[ 7] McCarthy, J. and P. Wright. Technology as Experience. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Tuck Leong is a doctoral student at The University of Melbourne, with a background in immunology, music, and multimedia. The focus of his thesis is non-instrumental interactions with interactive technologies— exploring approaches to support richer user experiences and engagement such as serendipity. This is carried out via close examination of listeners’ experience of shuffle listening when using an iPod. His previously published works examine the experience of serendipity and the role randomness plays in supporting richer and more meaningful user experiences. Steve Howard has worked in many areas of HCI, including usability engineering, use-centered innovation, and “post-usability” interpretations of user experience. Steve’s current primary focus is “IT in the wild,” mostly mobile and pervasive computing applied to problems of real social need. Frank Vetere is a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne. After working as a secondary school teacher and briefly as a usability consultant, Frank now leads the interaction design group at the University of Melbourne. He has a Ph.D. in HCI and research interests in tools and theories for use-base innovation, especially in non-work settings.

[ 8] Gero, J. S. “Design Prototypes: A knowledge representation schema for design.” AI magazine 11, no. 4 (1990): 26-36.

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May + June 2008

DOI 10.1145/1353782.1353787