Thinking with Things

As we face growing environmental and societal challenges, it becomes essential to rethink how humans and nonhumans technologies, materials, animals, and plants coexist and influence each others futures. The research project Thinking with Things addresses these challenges from the perspective of the disciplines of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design (IxD), which study how people design and use technologies. The project asks a simple but profound question: What if we started to think with things, not just about them? The project is guided by New Materialism, a school of thought where technologies and materials are not seen as passive tools but as active participants in shaping the world. It provides rich theoretical and methodological starting points, yet what needs to be done is the interpretation and exploration of viable approaches that incorporate the theoretical richness while being practical, applicable, and comprehensible. The goal is to develop a new research methodology called Thinking with Things. It asks: How can New Materialism guide how we study and design technologies? What commitments and sensitivities are needed to better include nonhumans, such as objects, technologies, or natural elements? How can we practically think with things when creating or analyzing digital systems? In order to explore theory-driven empirical and design research methods, we will use a case that is situated in everyday life, and which is characterized by complexity and entanglement between various human and nonhuman actors: relationships between grandparents and grandchildren living apart. We will specifically focus on remote activities that revolve around nature - birds, plants, woods, lakes, mountains, which are, on one hand, often characteristic for such relationships when being outdoors together, collecting leaves, or sharing an interest in animals. On the other hand, they demonstrate the interweaving of humans and other species, animate and inanimate objects and technologies. Through these examples, the project experiments with methods that give equal attention to humans and nonhumans. The results aim to inspire designers and researchers to imagine more inclusive and sustainable digital-physical futures. Ultimately, this work invites us to imagine digital-physical futures that value not only human needs but also the material and ecological worlds we are part of. Thinking with Things reminds us that our relationship with technology is not just about what we do with it its about how we live and think together with the things that surround us.