Simon Bowen

simon.bowen@newcastle.ac.uk

I am a ‘designer-researcher’ – a designer who also researches design and its application. Since 2009, I have coordinated and participated in design research projects in health and social care services, the creative economy, cultural heritage, personal media, and urban transport.

Through this work, I have developed research on the value of making in collaborative projects, and the participatory and human-centred design of interactive technology. This research combines specific interests in:

• The opportunities and challenges for collaboration through making in complex multi-disciplinary and cross-sector projects
• The potential for participatory innovation through speculative/critical design and design fiction
• How interactive technology can be designed as a medium for personal and social activity, not a distraction from them (e.g. family celebrations, personal remembering, mindfulness-awareness)

I am also a published photographer and my work includes landscape, architecture and travel. In 2015 I began exploring the interactive potential of spherical panoramic photography for public engagement in cultural heritage and urban planning.