I just returned from my (first ever!) trip to Scotland, to present our research on Thinga.Me to attendees at Research Through Design 2017, hosted at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Since the paper, “Presenting Physical Things Digitally: New Collecting Practices”, is already online, you can have a read of it here if you’re interested. To help demonstrate the app, and give people something interesting to look at, I took along the app and some friends:
Just finished setting up our table to present @thingameapp at @RTD2017 ! #rtd2017 cc/ @hxd_group @rbanks @dumbledad @Martgrayson pic.twitter.com/7jOQNZgfEW
— Danny Harrison (@dbpharrison) March 21, 2017
If you’d like to have a play with Thinga.Me at #rtd2017 come and grab me 🙂 cc/ @RTD2017 pic.twitter.com/KcmAH0nK5h
— Danny Harrison (@dbpharrison) March 22, 2017
I think our work was well-received, the presentation and panel discussion (which I was a little nervous I might have been out of my depths in – I really can’t consider myself a designer!) went pretty well too, and I generally had a great time.
It was particularly interesting seeing HCI from different angles that I might not usually consider – events such as these make me realise just how pragmatic I tend to be – taking a different approach can be really rewarding and provide insights that might otherwise be missed.
One particularly interesting part of the conference was the opportunity to have a guided tour of the National Museums Collections Centre – a sort-of archive for the National Museum of Scotland. This centre isn’t generally open to the public, instead requiring an appointment to access a specific part of the collection, or attendance at one of the monthly tours.
Since this was my first time in Edinburgh, I took the opportunity to be a tourist. I didn’t have too much free time, but I managed to get my bearings in the city, visit a couple of bike shops, squeeze in a trip to the Edinburgh Gin distillery (shop) and even I bought myself a bottle of Buckfast (turns out, I’m not a fan…). You can view some more of my photos from the trip below.
