Living in Digital Worlds ― Designing the Digital Public Space

Digital public space is a term that originated with the BBC. The term defines a conceptual space of interaction with digital information and culture - that is, information that is stored at some point in the process through digital technology and available to anyone. Naomi Jacobs and Rachel Cooper’s Living in Digital Worlds explores the definition of this concept which basically describes how everyone, from digital natives to those who only interact minimally online, experiences, responds to and is changed by the digital world. The authors use the perspective of design to place the digital public space in the context of humans and our historical relationship with technology; how our culture and behaviours are influenced by it over time; the risks of the space being hijacked for commercial or other purposes; the concepts of co-creation and co-ownership of the activities we engage in and the things we produce; along with the value it has in enabling collaboration and interdependency. They close with a view of the future.

Naomi Jacobs is a Senior Research Associate in ImaginationLancaster (a centre for research in to products, places and systems for the future). Her general research interests include knowledge exchange, interdisciplinarity, and experimental psychology; the latter area being the field of her PhD which looked at the role of hand gestures in conversational speech. She is currently working as part of the The Creative Exchange, a A￡4 million AHRC Knowledge Exchange Hub in the Creative Economy, facilitating engagement between arts and humanities academics, and professionals and businesses in the creative economy. Before joining Lancaster University, Naomi was Project-Co-ordinator for an EPSRC funded ’Bridging the Gaps’ project to facilitate interdisciplinary research. Rachel Cooper is Professor of Design Management at the University of Lancaster, where she is Chair of Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts and also ImaginationLancaster. She has authored several books in the field including The Design Agenda (1995), The Design Experience (2003), Designing Sustainable Cities (2009), Constructing Futures (2010) The Handbook of Design Management (2011) and is currently commissioning editor for a Gower series on Socially Responsible Design. Professor Cooper is President of the European Academy of Design.