Definition and exploitation of trends of evolution about interaction

In the last decades, there have been researches on development processes that focused on technological evolutions, aiming at anticipating future product releases. The information obtained has been formalized in trends of evolution, and systems to manage and exploit these have appeared on the market. One of the most important examples comes from the TRIZ theory. It uses a set of technological trends of evolution to suggest innovative engineering solution concepts. The research described in this paper analyzes the TRIZ approach to trend discovery and exploitation and applies it in the interaction design domain. A set of trends of evolution about interaction is highlighted first; a method for their effective exploitation is then developed. This is followed by an integration of this method in an existing interaction design framework, and an early validation in the field represents the current state of the research.