R&D in media-related technologies including multimedia, information retrieval, computer vision, and the semantic web is experimenting on a variety of computational tools that, if sufficiently matured, could support many novel activities that are not practiced today. Interactive technology demonstration systems produced typically at the end of their projects show great potential for taking advantage of technological possibilities. These demo systems or “demonstrators” are, even if crude or farfetched, a significant manifestation of the technologists’ visions in transforming emerging technologies into novel usage scenarios and applications. In this paper, we reflect on design processes and crucial design decisions made while designing some successful, web-based interactive demonstrators developed by the authors. We identify methodological issues in applying today’s requirement-driven usability engineering method to designing this type of novel applications and solicit a clearer distinction between designing mainstream applications and designing novel applications. More solution-oriented approaches leveraging design thinking are required, and more pragmatic evaluation criteria is needed that assess the role of the system in exploiting the technological possibilities to provoke further brainstorming and discussion. Such an approach will support a more efficient channelling of the technology-to-application transformation which are becoming increasingly crucial in today’s context of rich technological possibilities. 1. Introduction Technological advancements are at an unprecedented pace. Supported by ever-increasing computing power, storage capacity, network infrastructure, and scalability and further fuelled by the general public’s awareness of technology and their increasing willingness to try new services and the consequent marketing opportunities, many technology research laboratories around the world are fiercely investigating and experimenting on technological possibilities as never before. Multimedia, computer vision, information retrieval, artificial intelligence, and language technology are some examples of computational technology fields that are leading this advancement boom, promising a high-impact outcome that will shape the way we interact with technology as well as how we interact with each other in the coming years. In dominantly technically focused projects that have long been developed in these fields, the end of a project often sees a “demonstrator” or “demo system” that showcases possible end-user interactivity with the developed piece of
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