Abstract

This thesis explores the conditions under which humour can emerge through a designer’s playful and reflexive engagement with code, context, and digital tools. While humour is often researched in interaction design for its effects on users, less attention is paid to how it takes shape during the design process. Using a research-through-design approach grounded in reflective and grounded theory, I analyze the design of two original web-based projects, Inner Birdsong and Are You Alone?, built with MediaPipe and Matter.js. Through journals, versioned commits, and open coding, I trace how humour was both discovered and actively shaped through misalignments, surprises, and intentional, playful interventions with digital materials. Guided by Donald Schön’s reflection-in-action, I treat design as a conversation with materials. Humour emerged through this dialogue, responding to system behaviour, appropriating tool affordances, and tuning interactions toward the comedic. Traditional humour theories (incongruity, superiority, relief), alongside interaction design and play theory, are used to interpret these moments. I identify four conditions that supported humour’s emergence: adopting a playful stance, letting materials lead, embracing ambiguity, and practicing attunement to the emotional dynamics of the process. This thesis argues for an open, experimental, care-driven approach, where humour is shaped through a designer’s situated, responsive, and intentional engagement with making.