Visual IHME: Co-designing meaningful places for sustainability

In the context of human-driven design and environmental sustainability, the authors have developed a computer-based platform concept for studying and co-designing places (i.e. socially meaningful locations). The Visual IHME platform provides a photo-based, interactive spherical panorama environment with a set of co-creative interaction tools such as discussion boards, questionnaires, and polls on-screen. All creative content can be pinned to specific spatial spots on the image. In a preliminary end-user evaluation of the concept demonstration, the authors found that the participants valued the co-design platform, though many doubted the role of this kind of social technology in terms of real impact on issues that are important to people. They discuss how co-design platforms like Visual IHME can have an impact on environmental sustainability and the evolving role of human-computer interaction research and design in addressing sustainability problems.