In July 2008, RISD was one of nine design institutions selected from around the world to present student research at Microsoft Research’s Faculty Summit 2008. Wipop (Bam) Suppipat ’09 ID, Jeanne Cheng ’08 ID and Associate Professor Lorna Ross represented RISD at the Design Expo, one segment of the prestigious annual conference promoting partnerships between academia and the technology industry. Addressing an audience of software engineers and other Microsoft professionals, the students presented prototype interaction design concepts developed in a spring-semester course sponsored by Microsoft Research.

The theme of this year’s student projects was learning and education — a topic that was interpreted differently by each student team, Suppipat explains. The projects developed in Ross’ studio included a proposal to reconfigure classroom furnishings to encourage collaboration and a child-friendly scanner/printer to promote use of technology in elementary schools. The RISD group selected to present at the summit — Suppipat, Cheng, Joe Ko ’08 ID and Albert Kwak ’09 ID – focused on the dynamic at the very core of learning: the parent-child relationship.

“Having a role model is the most important part of learning,” Suppipat says. “And for most people, who is the biggest role model in life? A parent.” Starting from this premise, the team conceived of a range of products to improve the quality of parent-child interaction. Since extensive interviews with kids of all ages had revealed the common complaint that “parents don’t listen,” the devices all include an audio component that emphasizes the importance of listening in communication.

Ross explains that she promoted highly conceptual design in the studio, encouraging the students to reflect not on the current cultural and social meanings of technology but rather to anticipate its possible roles in the future. “Relationships with technology that currently seem highly unlikely may soon be the norm,” she says. “Objects and tools become so embedded in human behavior that the things themselves become transparent to the user. It is what they enable us to do that matters.” Fundamental to design, she says, is understanding the human need to express “ideas through objects and needs through tools.”

The Little Things — the brand Suppipat and the team conceived to market their products — includes four devices that target different age ranges and aim to improve communication in different ways. “I Hear You” is a “domestic robot” programmed to respond to conflict: the small unit rolls on the floor towards the sound of an argument, appearing in the room as a reminder to the quarreling parties to calm down. “Listen,” inspired by old-fashioned cup-and-string telephone games, is a private communication device that requires one person to listen while the other one talks. “Secret” encourages kids to record important messages for their parents, and “Tell Me” fosters creative storytelling at bedtime.

When it came time to prepare the 10-minute presentation for the Design Expo, several additional students pitched in to help complete a series of videos in the days before RISD’s representatives left for the Microsoft campus in Redmond, WA. Suppipat is quick to point out that the project would not have come together successfully without the tremendous contributions of Rose Brauner ’09 FAV, Tino Chow ’09 ID, Arthur Harsuvanakit ’09 ID, Daniel Kang ’09 FAV and Geoff Wilson ’10 FAV. “I’d never seen anything like this before,” Suppipat says. “All these RISD students coming together to help just because they think the project is cool and worth spending time on – that was a big part of the Microsoft experience for me.”

The joint effort paid off in a presentation that went “surprisingly well,” Suppipat says. Soon after the RISD group arrived at the conference, it became apparent that their project was quite different from the research presented by other institutions – in general, the Design Expo emphasized the finer points of gadgetry, rather than concept-driven designs. “This was a different kind of project, and software engineers might not be used to our perspective,” Suppipat recalls thinking. He, Cheng and Ross soon found that there were distinct benefits to the uniquely RISD approach, however: the audience of techy types responded enthusiastically to their humanistic, user-centered designs and emphasis on interpersonal relationships. “This was refreshing for them,” Suppipat explains. “By the end of the day they had seen enough similar technology. We made it a more emotional experience, and people responded well to that.”