Spring 2024
Inaugurating the 20th year of IxD&A journal.
(https://doi.org/10.55612/s-5002-060-001f) download
Twenty years of Interaction Design and Architecture(s) – IxD&A, i.e. of a hyperidea that slowly, year after year, has taken shape; of a dream that issue after issue has turned into a consolidated reality. A dream sustained by a vision aiming at realising a think-tank free of academic and cultural conditioning, financial burdens for authors and readers, and of any conditioning by publishing majors; a think-tank that was able to integrate scientific thinking with design thinking, an integration that, of course, is expected to be supported by computational thinking. A place in which such integrated thinking would make it possible to identify and address ill-defined problems, as are all problems affecting the human experience; to describe the participatory processes put in place to identify optimal and sustainable solutions; to design nature-centred (i.e. beyond human) technosystems capable of assisting the development of meaningful experiences for all living beings.
Over the years, particular attention has been paid to educational processes because they are at the root of the formation of those who will inhabit this planet in the future, assuming the burden and honour of its preservation and flourishing. Equal attention was paid to the places of everyday living and working – largely shaped by man’s actions and the techno-systems he produces – in order to grasp their smartness, their ability to foster the wellbeing of their inhabitants, to bring out their level of digital maturity in the integration and use of such techno-systems. Within these frameworks, the frontiers of human cultural production were explored, always keeping in mind the human capacity to imagine and realise architectures, not only physical, not only virtual, but also and above all conceptual; architectures capable to augment and renew our cultural DNA, on which “artificial intelligences” (AIs) are trained.
An openness towards exploration and experimentation has also affected the journal’s very ways of being and communicating. IxD&A has been and continues to be a protagonist in the search for new forms of communication – for example, through the creation of videos recorded during meetings, albeit virtual, with the authors. Videos have also been produced in an attempt to bring students closer to scientific communication and to broaden the community of people interested in embracing the journal’s vision.
All this in absolute compliance with the rigour required of a scientific journal, a rigour that in the case of IxD&A is easy to respect, thanks to the economic independence that allows us to avoid any kind of conditioning.
The above has been the result of a slow, laborious, and constant building of a community formed by the authors who choose to submit their work to IxD&A because they appreciate its vision, the co-guest editors who entrust to IxD&A the topics that represent the core of their research activity, the reviewers to whom we ask a commitment of utmost seriousness and without whom it would not be possible to maintain and further develop the credibility of the journal. These are colleagues who must be acknowledged for their ability to work behind the scenes and to put their time and expertise at the disposal of the vision that characterises the journal and, above all, to render an invaluable service to the community of authors, without asking for any kind of return. We will never stop thanking them because it is also thanks to their contribution that it is possible to support the diamond open access road to the journal’s published content!
Reifying a vision and keeping it intact over such a large number of years also requires finding fellow travellers with whom to share it and who, over time, were capable of engaging themselves to make the think-thank grow. These include (https://ixdea.org/people/) the members of the Associated Scientific boards and the Scientific Editor Assistants who take on the editorial management of the journal on a daily basis for the community; the Associated Scientific Editors and the Scientific Editor Assistants of the Video section who allowed us to experience a multimodal communication of the scientific content of the journal; the Technical editors who are fundamental for the management of an electronic journal, as well as the University of Rome Tor Vergata which hosted the IxD&A’s web server until 2022 and the National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest which took over from 2023. The ASLERD (http://www.aslerd.org – Association for Smart Learning Ecosystems and Regional Development), has recently taken over the role of publisher and makes it possible to cover the expenses that a journal has to meet the needs of its authors (e.g., trivially, the allocation of DOIs). It is also thanks to the contribution of this association – in the absence of voluntary contributions from members of the IxD&A community (we encourage to use the donate button on the homepage of IxD&A, https://doi.org/10.55612/s-5002-000) – that it is possible to avoid advertising on the journal website. Last but not least, the many colleagues who have been and still are members of the Editorial and Scientific Board and who, by their participation, have wished to testify their adherence to the vision of the journal.
Editing a journal that such a large community relies on is certainly a great responsibility, but I feel I can assure all members of such a community, both on my own behalf and on behalf of the companions with whom we have shared this twenty-years journey, that we will do our utmost to keep the rudder as straight as possible for as long as possible and that we will invest all our energies in ensuring that the IxD&A project can remain independent, amplify and improve with the help of all members of a community. A community that we hope could grow further and will co-participate in this journey by providing us with useful suggestions and, perhaps, actively contributing to the development of the editorial project.
Carlo Giovannella
(IxD&A Scientific Editor)