ben matthews
associate professor

mads clausen institute
university of southern denmark
alsion 2
6400 sønderborg
denmark

matthews@mci.sdu.dk
+45 6550 1675 ph
+45 6550 1660 fx


brief CV:
» associate professor, 2007-present, mads clausen institute
» scientific committee, designing pleasurable products and systems DPPI '07, helsinki
» scientific committee, wonderground, design research society international conference 2006, lisbon
» scientific committee, designing pleasurable products and systems DPPI '05, eindhoven
» conference co- organiser/convenor/editor, 2005, student interaction design research conference (SIDER'05)
» assistant professor, 2004-2007, mads clausen institute
» dean's list commendation, 2004, for outstanding quality and innovative nature of PhD research
» PhD awarded, 2004, the university of queensland
» invited panelist on the "what is design?" panel session, OzCHI 2003, brisbane
» scientific committee, OzCHI 2003, brisbane
» product designer/engineer, 2000, danfoss user-centred design group
» PhD candidate, 1999-2003, the university of queensland
» bachelors degree awarded, 1998, mechanical engineering, first class honours
» project engineer, 1997-8, bechtel australia pty ltd
» warman 'design & build' competition, 1996, university winners
» engineering bachelors student, 1994-1998, the university of queensland


research diatribe:
broadly speaking, i'm interested in understanding design in terms of what it is that designers do. it's one of the fascinating truths about research that, generally speaking, the more interesting your topic is, the more difficult it is to study. research questions concerning, for example, emotion, attitudes, creativity or consciousness, things that are all so close to our human experience, are the hardest to pin down and look at. schrödinger doesn't just have a cat in the box; almost everything of significant human interest is in there, too.

along these lines, my phd thesis explored some of the reasons that design research is in the diffuse state that it currently is. while i don't have many answers, i think i have identified a number of important problems with the conduct of design research that partially explain why, after fifty years of focused research activity in the field, there has not been the explosion of knowledge that was often anticipated, nor is there yet much of a 'science of the artificial'.

i have a long-term ambition to write a monograph that collects the reasons that design is so hard to study. i'd be writing it already, but was hoping to couple a discussion of the problems with a discussion of some of their solutions. when i think of some, i'll have a way to end the book.

i have other (professional) interests too, some that relate to my fondness for 20th century philosophy, some that stem from my brief (phd-driven) foray into sociology, some that relate to my scandinavian experiences with participatory design, and some that are motivated by my current position as a design educator. so it seems i'm not short of interesting research topics, only the time to do justice to them.


recent publications:
Djajadiningrat, J. P., Matthews, B. and Stienstra, M. 2007. "Easy doesn't do it: skill and expression in tangible aesthetics." Personal and Ubiquitous Computing (To appear).

Matthews, Ben. 2007. "Locating design phenomena: a methodological excursion." Design Studies 28:369-385.

Matthews, Ben. 2007. "Intersections of social order and brainstorming rules: some aspects of the organisation of collaborative idea generation." in Design Meeting Protocols: proceedings of the seventh design thinking research symposium DTRS7, edited by P. A. Lloyd, J. McDonnell, R. Luck, F. J. M. Reid, and N. Cross. Central St Martins College of Art and Design, London.

Matthews, Ben, Stienstra, M., and Djajadiningrat, J.P. 2007. "Emergent interaction: creating spaces for play." Design Issues (To appear).

Matthews, Ben. 2006. "Grammar, meaning and movement-based interaction." Pp. 405-408 in OzCHI 2006. Sydney, Australia.

Matthews, B. & Buur, J. 2005. "Teaching design research in the studio." Pp. 47-54 in Proceedings of 'In the making', Nordic Design Research Conference, edited by T. Binder. Copenhagen, Denmark: Royal Academy of Fine Arts. [pdf]

Matthews, B. and Clark, B. 2005. "Practical action as inquiry: facilitating appropriation in a design handover meeting" in Proceedings of the 6th International Conference of the European Academy of Design, EAD06, edited by W. Jonas, R. Chow, and N. Verhaag. Bremen, Germany: University of the Arts Bremen. [pdf]

Buur, J. and Matthews, B. 2005. New eyes on interaction design: proceedings of the Student Interaction Design Research conference (SIDER 05). Sønderborg: Mads Clausen Institute, University of Southern Denmark.