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This open access book takes a fresh look at the nature of the digital travel experience, at a time when more and more people are engaged in online social interaction, games, and other virtual experiences essentially involving online visits to other places. It examines whether these experiences can seem real to the virtual traveller and, if so, under what conditions and on what grounds. The book unpacks philosophical theories relevant to the feeling of being somewhere, emphasising the importance of perception and being-in-the-world. Notions of place are outlined, based on work in tourism studies, human geography, and other applied social fields, with an aim to investigate how and when different experiences of place arise for the traveller and how these relate to telepresence – the sense of being there in another place through digital media. Findings from recent empirical studies of digital travel are presented, including a survey from which the characteristics of "digital travellers" are identified. A review of selected interactive design trends and possibilities leads to the conclusion, which draws these strands together and looks to the future of this topical and expanding field.

Emotion plays an important role in life, both in personal and work life. In fact, it is part of almost everything we do, including artwork, decision-making and interpreting reality in general. Recently developed information technology may create emotionally-arousing sensations in the user, producing motivation and interest, but on the other hand too much emotion can impede use of devices, everyday creativity and learning. In this paper, we discuss how emotion can be used in design in order both to increase engagement and support creative learning. The idea is based on the notion of Perceptually-Seductive Technology (PST, outlined in Waterworth, 2001) and how PST can be applied to support creative learning in classrooms and other settings. Creative learning is characterised as the intersection of creativity (the production of novel and adaptive ideas) and learning (change persisting over time). Sensational in(ter)⇒action alludes to the need for frequent switches between presence and absence, action and inaction, and between the real and virtual worlds according to a design space defined by the three-dimensional Focus, Locus and Sensus model (Waterworth and Waterworth, 2001a).

We discuss key psychological factors relevant to the design of interactive experiences with intended specific emotional impacts: the sense of presence, reality judgement, and awareness of the need for embodied responses. The extent to which a participant experiences a sense of presence (the feeling of being there) within an external environment is particularly important, but is complicated by the fact that mediated experiences are influenced by many other factors, including mental media schemata, which vary across cultures, across historical timescales, and within and between individuals. We expand on these factors in relation to three example interactive environments, each designed to invoke specific emotional responses and types of experience.

Western societies are confronted with a number of challenges caused by the increasing number of older citizens. One important aspect is the need and wish of older people to live as long as possible in their own home and maintain an independent life. As people grew older, their social networks disperse, with friends and families moving to other parts of town, other cities or even countries. Additionally, people become less mobile with age, leading to less active participation in societal life. Combined, this normal, age-related development leads to increased loneliness and social isolation of older people, with negative effects on mental and physical health of those people. In the AGNES project, a home-based system has been developed that allows connecting elderly with their families, friends and other significant people over the Internet. As most older people have limited experience with computers and often special requirements on technology, one focus of AGNES was to develop with the users novel technological means for interacting with their social network. The resulting system uses ambient displays, tangible interfaces and wearable devices providing ubiquitous options for interaction with the network, and secondary sensors for additionally generating carefully chosen information on the person to be relayed to significant persons. Evaluations show that the chosen modalities for interaction are well adopted by the users. Further it was found that use of the AGNES system had positive effects on the mental state of the users, compared to the control group without the technology. Refereed/Peer-reviewed