
Associate Professor, Interaction Design
Fields of Interest
Education
Biography
Using a critical lens, Audrey Desjardins' research investigates experiences of living with technology in the home. She has spent the last several years using research-through-design, speculative design, and participatory design as approaches to investigate how to critique current visions of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, which are too often grounded in homogeneous and detached views of the home. Her current projects touch on ways to inquire and reclaim IoT data through crafting and materializing ways of living with that data. She is also interested in using first-person research methods (autobiographical design, for example) to examine experiences with technology from within.
She is the director of Studio Tilt, a space where she works with students to question and reimagine familiar encounters between humans and things.
Dr. Desjardins has published her work in scholarly venues such as ACM CHI (Human Factors in Computing Systems), ACM DIS (Designing Interactive Systems), ACM C&C (Creativity and Cognition), and ACM CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work). She was the assistant to the editors-in-chief for ACM Interactions from 2012 to 2016. She has served on more than ten conference program committees as an Associate Chair, including the ACM CHI, ACM DIS, ACM C&C, and ACM TEI (Tangible and Embedded Interaction). See a full list of her publications.
Before joining University of Washington at the beginning of 2017, she studied in the Everyday Design Studio at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, where she obtained a PhD and Master of Arts. She also holds a bachelor's degree in industrial design from University of Montreal.
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Creative Work
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Audrey Desjardins. (In)Visible Data: a project that investigates the human-data entanglements that happen around IoT devices in the home
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Audrey Desjardins. Bespoke Booklets: created to collaboratively and speculatively investigate alternative avenues for domestic IoT
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Audrey Desjardins with Slip Rabbit Studio. ListeningCups: materializing data from everyday ambient soundscapes using ceramic 3D printing
Selected Research
- Audrey Desjardins and Timea Tihanyi. "ListeningCups: A Case of Data Tactility." In DIS '19: Proceedings of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference, pp. 147–160. New York: ACM Press, 2019.
- Carla Key and Audrey Desjardins. "REP(AIR): An Olfactory Interface for Bike Maintenance and Care." In Proceeding of the 4th Biennial Research Through Design Conference, Method & Critique: Frictions and Shifts in RTD, article 9, pp. 1–16. RTD Conference, 2019.
- Dhruv Jain, Audrey Desjardins et al. "Autoethnography of a Hard of Hearing Traveler." In ASSETS '19: The 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, pp. 236–248. New York, ACM Press, 2019.
- Audrey Desjardins et al. "Bespoke Booklets: A Method for Situated Co-Speculation." In DIS '19: Proceedings of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference, pp. 697-709. New York, ACM Press, 2019.
- Audrey Desjardins et al. "Alternative Avenues for IoT: Designing with Non-Stereotypical Homes." In CHI'19: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, paper no. 351, pp. 1–13. New York, ACM Press. 2019.
- Audrey Desjardins and Ron Wakkary. "Living In A Prototype: A Reconfigured Space." In CHI '16: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 5274-5285. New York: ACM Press, 2016.
- Audrey Desjardins et al. "Behind the Lens: A Visual Exploration of Epistemological Commitments in HCI Research on the Home." In DIS '16: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, pp. 360-376. New York: ACM Press, 2016.
- Audrey Desjardins et al. "Avalanche Beacon Parks: Skill Development and Team Coordination in a Technological Training Ground." In CSCW '16: Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing, pp. 872-886. New York: ACM Press, 2016.
Research Advised
- Claire Florence Weizenegger. "Polyphonic & Ecoverse", University of Washington, 2023.
- Stephanie Tang Waldrop. "The Invisible Weight of Cognitive Labor." MDes Thesis, University of Washington, 2022.
- Jeremy Viny. "Investigating Opaque Infrastructures with Discursive Design." MDes Thesis, University of Washington, 2020.
- Phillip Carpenter. "Mixed Reality and Tactility: The Space Between Two Perceptions." MDes Thesis, University of Washington, 2019.
- Heidi Biggs. "Feeling Climate Change: Intersections of Climate Change and Everyday Cycling." MDes Thesis, University of Washington, 2019.
- Kelsey Aschenbeck. "Mourning Small Spaces." MDes Thesis, University of Washington, 2019.
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Autumn 2024
Spring 2024
Spring 2023
Winter 2023
Autumn 2022
Spring 2022
Winter 2022
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