Between the Tag and the Screen: Redesigning Short-Range RFID as Design Material

Industrial and interaction designers are increasingly faced with new computational technologies that may be used as materials in designing. Such materials are important in design practices because they offer conditions for conceptualisation and production of new designs. However, new computational technologies are often very complex and not presented with the intention of supporting design practices.

This study explores such a problem by way of a study of Short-Range RFID (SR-RFID) as design material. SR-RFID is a new computational technology that enables a transaction of information between a radio transmitter and an RFID tag when the two are within a very short range (2-5 cm). As a design material, SR-RFID crosses the traditional boundaries between industrial and interaction design by offering temporal and spatial properties that may be shaped by both disciplines.

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