Designing Interdisciplinary Research

Greetings from the Research School of Computer Science (RSCS) at the ANU in Canberra.I have taken time out from the Linux Conferecne to attend Stephen Jia Wan's seminar on "A Case Study for Interdisciplinary Innovative Design Research Approach: SeRe-IV". Stephen is from the Department of Design at Monash University and so has a very different background to the average computer science speaker, having worked on industrial  and architectural design. He talked today about how to carry out  Interdisciplinary Research. He argued for industrial design in projects, not only to produce products look good, but also work well. He works on "Interaction Design", giving the example of a computerized toy designed to aid the recovery of young patients. This appeared to be closely related to Human–computer interaction (HCI), but perhaps having more emphasis on the change the interface brings about for the user, rather than just their direct interaction with the computer.