Emerging sites of HCI innovation: hackerspaces, hardware startups & incubators

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss how a flourishing scene of DIY makers is turning visions of tangible and ubiquitous computing into products. Drawing on long-term multi-sited ethnographic research and active participation in DIY making, we provide insights into the social, material, and economic processes that undergird this transition from prototypes to products. The contribution of this paper is three-fold. First, we show how DIY maker practice is illustrative of a broader "return to" and interest in physical materials. This has implications for HCI research that investigates questions of materiality. Second, we shed light on how hackerspaces and hardware start-ups are experimenting with new models of manufacturing and entrepreneurship. We argue that we have to take seriously these maker practices, not just as hobbyist or leisure practice, but as a professionalizing field functioning in parallel to research and industry labs. Finally, we end with reflections on the role of HCI researchers and designers as DIY making emerges as a site of HCI innovation. We argue that HCI is positioned to provide critical reflection, paired with a sensibility for materials, tools and design methods.