This book contains several representative cases in which Local Strategies Research (LSR) was employed to investigate user experiences with digital media. Our aim is to illustrate the ways this set of methods can be fruitfully employed to enhance design work. Following Aakhus (2007), we begin from the premise that designers revere the values of creation, innovation, invention, intervention, redesign and reflection. Two features of extant research in design suggest a prominent role to be played by communication scholarship in design: 1) empirical examinations of design process from a communication perspective often conclude calling for a recalibration of the way in which interaction analysis between products/services and people occur, and 2) there is tremendous potential for design that is much more responsive to local, cultural contexts. Rather than simply trying to alter a product s design to alleviate the trouble caused by cultural differences across digital media, designers can use this information to learn more about the how such trouble fits into a larger set of expectations regarding the everyday practices of uses. By considering the cultural norms that both inform and are enacted within interaction, we hope to provide a useful methodology that shifts design (particularly HCI) research from a focus on emotional, subjective user experiences to the everyday practices involved in interacting with one another in and through technologically enhanced devices and interfaces. The reports include several different situations and contexts including those between persons and digital interfaces (such those installed in cars), between dyads via mobile phones and online interfaces, and interaction among members of groups."