Digital patination

Abstract

In the field of art, a patina has been considered a time-dependent painting element. Artists and designers have noticed several values of patinas in terms of aesthetical appearance, historicity, authenticity, and uniqueness. Inspired by the patina’s value, this research aimed to investigate the use of digitally generated patinas for enhancing product attachment. To meet this goal, I reviewed the literature and relevant cases and analyzed how traces and patinas have been valued and used in art, product design, and human-computer interaction fields. I also investigated the impact of traces on people’s everyday context, including why some people consider traces valuable while others hate them as artifacts. Then, as an alternative way of using patinas for enhancing product attachment, I proposed digital patination, a design technique that induces an accumulation of patina-like patterns based on digitally recorded histories during the product use stage. Four design aspects of digital patination were identified based on the preliminary studies and on the literature review: the source of the patina, the tracing moment, the form of the patina, and user participation in patterning. I primarily advanced the research by applying digital patination to different target domains: digital devices and analog artifacts. While applying digital patination to each domain, I developed two prototype systems to construct an understanding of the overall design space and to cover various combinations of the digital patination design aspects. First, I concentrated on the applicability of digital patination for digital devices, focusing on activity trackers. By developing the Patina Engraving System, the design technique was concretized, and I explored how participants’ activity-tracking experiences could be affected through digital patination. During the field trial, I found that patination motivated the participants to exercise more in order to engrave aesthetic patinas. A tracker with patina triggered spontaneous social interactions in face-to-face situations. The participants also cherished the trackers that held their own history. Subsequently, I explored the applicability of digital patination for analog artifacts. The traditional way of using patinas for analog artifacts has some limitations regarding uncontrollable and unpredictable patination mechanisms and a lack of information. Thus, I investigated improvements on the traditional patination of analog artifacts by combining digital technologies. Based on the results of the study with the Patina Engraver, I combined computational designs to give a more refined shape to the patinas

I also devised a patination system that allows active user participation from designing patina patterns to tracing them. Focusing on the context of bicycling, I presented Trace-Marker. From the field trial, I found that digital patination based on the history of the bicycle journey helped participants add personal stories and identities to their bags. Participants embraced the patination process as a part of their product use. Based on the results, I discussed the impacts of digital patination by comparing the study results with the value of natural patinas and previously suggested design strategies for product attachment. I then explained what should be considered further in order to apply digital patination in diverse design contexts. This research will make several contributions. First, it will detail a design approach by applying the concept of patina. Second, it will show the design cases as examples of digital patination. The process and rationale behind the system design will be presented as design knowledge. Third, it will improve understanding on whether or not digitally generated patinas enhance product attachment. Finally, it will guide the design of future artifacts and services by suggesting design issues and opportunities.