Aarhus Series on Human Centered Computing

Interacting with an Inferred World: The Challenge of Machine Learning for Humane Computer Interaction

2015-10-18T14:46:08+02:00

Classic theories of user interaction have been framed in relation to symbolic models of planning and problem solving, responding in part to the cognitive theories associated with AI research. However, the behavior of modern machine-learning systems is determined by statistical models of the world rather than explicit symbolic descriptions. Users increasingly interact with the world and with others in ways that are mediated by such models. This paper explores the way in which this new generation of technology raises fresh challenges for the critical evaluation of interactive systems. It closes with some proposed measures for the design of inference-based systems that are more open to humane design and use.

Not The Internet, but This Internet: How Othernets Illuminate Our Feudal Internet

2015-10-18T14:46:50+02:00

What is the Internet like, and how do we know? Less tendentiously, how can we make general statements about the Internet without reference to alternatives that help us to understand what the space of network design possibilities might be? This paper presents a series of cases of network alternatives which provide a vantage point from which to reflect upon the ways that the Internet does or does not uphold both its own design goals and our collective imaginings of what it does and how. The goal is to provide a framework for understanding how technologies embody promises, and how these both come to evolve.

Creating Friction: Infrastructuring Civic Engagement in Everyday Life

2015-10-18T14:46:20+02:00

This paper introduces the theoretical lens of the everyday to intersect and extend the emerging bodies of research on contestational design and infrastructures of civic engagement. Our analysis of social theories of everyday life suggests a design space that distinguishes ‘privileged moments’ of civic engagement from a more holistic understanding of the everyday as ‘product-residue.’ We analyze various efforts that researchers have undertaken to design infrastructures of civic engagement along two axes: the everyday-ness of the engagement fostered (from ‘privileged moments’ to ‘product-residue’) and the underlying paradigm of political participation (from consensus to contestation). Our analysis reveals the dearth and promise of infrastructures that create friction— provoking contestation through use that is embedded in the everyday life of citizens. Ultimately, this paper is a call to action for designers to create friction.

The User Reconfigured: On Subjectivities of Information

2015-10-18T14:48:27+02:00

Foundational to HCI is the notion of “the user.” Whether a cognitive processor, social actor, consumer, or even a non- user, the user in HCI has always been as much a technical construct as actual people using systems. We explore an emerging formulation of the user—the subjectivity of in- formation—by laying out what it means and why research- ers are being drawn to it. We then use it to guide a case study of a relatively marginal use of computing—digitally mediated sexuality—to holistically explore design in rela- tion to embodiment, tactual experience, sociability, power, ideology, selfhood, and activism. We argue that subjectivi- ties of information clarifies the relationships between de- sign choices and embodied experiences, ways that designers design users and not just products, and ways to cultivate and transform, rather than merely support, human agency.

An Anxious Alliance

2015-10-18T14:45:53+02:00

This essay presents a multi-year autoethnographic perspective on the use of personal fitness and self-tracking technologies to lose weight. In doing so, it examines the rich and contradictory relationships with ourselves and our world that are generated around these systems, and argues that the efforts to gain control and understanding of one's self through them need not be read as a capitulation to rationalizing forces, or the embrace of utopian ideals, but as an ongoing negotiation of the boundaries and meanings of self within an anxious alliance of knowledge, bodies, devices, and data. I discuss how my widening inquiry into these tools and practices took me from a solitary practice and into a community of fellow travellers, and from the pursuit of a single body goal into a continually renewing project of personal possibility.

Revisiting the Users Award Programme from a Value Sensitive Design Perspective

2015-10-18T14:50:51+02:00

The goal of the UsersAward (UA) programme is to develop and maintain a strategy for enhancing the quality of workplace software through on-going user-driven quality assessment. Key activities are development of sets of quality criteria, as the USER CERTIFIED 2002 and 2006 instruments, and performing large domain specific user satisfaction surveys building on these quality criteria. In 2005 we performed a first analysis of the values that inform the criteria and procedure making up the 2002 instrument, using the Value Sensitive Design methodology. This paper is a follow-up of that study. We report on new types of stakeholders having engaged with the UA programme and reflect on how the conceptual considerations and explicit values of the programme have shifted as a consequence.

On Creating and Sustaining Alternatives: The case of Danish Telehealth

2015-10-18T14:48:13+02:00

This paper presents and discusses an initiative aimed at creating direct and long lasting influence on the use and development of telemedicine and telehealth by healthcare professionals, patients and citizens. The initiative draws on ideas, insights, and lessons learned from Participatory Design (PD) as well as from innovation theory and software ecosystems. Last, but not least, the ongoing debate on public finances/economy versus tax evasion by major private companies has been an important element in shaping the vision and creating support for the initiative. This vision is about democratic control, about structures for sustaining such control beyond initial design and imple- mentation and about continued development through Participatory Design projects. We see the “middle element”, the structures for sustaining democratic control beyond initial design and implementation as the most important and novel contribution of the paper.

Concordance: A Critical Participatory Alternative in Healthcare IT

2015-10-18T14:50:19+02:00

The healthcare sector is undergoing large changes in which technology is given a more active role in both in-clinic and out-of-clinic care. Authoritative healthcare models such as compliance and adherence which relies on asymmetric patient-doctor relationships are being challenged as society, patient roles and care contexts transforms, for example when care activities move into non-clinical contexts. Concordance is an alternative model proposed by the medical field that favours an equal and collaborative patient-doctor relationship in the negotiation of care. Similarly, HCI researchers have applied diverse models of engagement in IT design ranging from authoritative models (e.g. perceiving people as human factors to design for) to more democratic design processes (e.g. Participatory Design). IT design has also been crafted as on-going processes that are integrated parts of everyday use. Based on the best practice of participation from the medical and the HCI fields, we identify critical alternatives for healthcare design. These alternatives highlight opportunities with ongoing design processes in which the design of care regimens and care IT are perceived as one process.

Computing and the Common. Hints of a new utopia in Participatory Design

2015-10-18T14:51:13+02:00

In this statement, I draw upon the need of Participatory Design to engage with new utopias. I point to contemporary critical theories and to concurrent social conditions that make possible to identify the construction of the common as a possible utopia. In conclusion, I suggest that forms of community-based participatory design could be actual practices supporting such utopia.

OPENKI The platform for open education

2015-10-18T14:51:25+02:00

In this demo we aim to introduce and demonstrate OPENKI, an interactive web-platform designed and developed with the aim of facilitating a barrier-free access to education. In a nutshell, OPENKI is an open-source tool to facilitate self- organized, regionalized and offline knowledge exchange. It provides a basis for mediating non-commercial education op- portunities by means of acting as a meeting point for indi- viduals interested in similar subjects. The platform connects individuals who are interested learning or teaching specific topics, or have a physical space to offer where the coordi- nated events can take place, and gather themselves around interest groups. Through its lightweight interface, all stages of a learning processes are made possible from the selection of topics and the organization and execution of courses up to the documentation of the learning material.

Light is Loud A Sound Driven LED Suit

2015-10-18T14:51:44+02:00

We approach performance as fundamentally a hybrid situ- ation: that performer and technology are united in a post- phenomenological embrace. Light is Loud takes this as a starting point: the form of the performer is subsumed into an array of lights that takes the temporal shape of a self- referential text. The loss of the human form in the piece be- comes a critical statement on the ambiguity of hybridity.

In a completely darkened space, a figure with some strips of LEDs speaks a short poem overtly on the nature of “loud”. While the title of the piece, Light is Loud, suggests “daz- zling”, the effect is a meditation on the nature of quiet.

AmBird: Mediating Intimacy for Long Distance Relationships through an Ambient Awareness System

2015-10-18T14:51:55+02:00

This paper introduces the AmBird concept that explores how to provide alternatives for mediating intimacy for people that are living apart. The initial design and implementation of the AmBird concept is described as well as a preliminary concept validation. Based on the lessons learned, we highlight the opportunities of AmBird to support multiple intimate acts and our future work.

Tilting\Plate and Bending\Arches: Shape-Changing Interfaces as Expressive Forms

2015-10-18T14:52:06+02:00

How can designers gain a better sensibility for designing more sensory engaging and aesthetically pleasing objects as well as for the expressive richness and potentials of shape-change? The two exploratory prototypes, Tilting\Plate and Bending\Arches, investigate the visceral, aesthetic dimensions of shape-changing interfaces. While shape-change is currently receiving a lot of attention in Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) and interaction design, less attention has been given to the expressive qualities of such interfaces. The prototypes presented here focus on the immediate, aesthetic potentials of shape-change and illustrate the expressional diversity and richness of actuation. Aesthetic explorations can also help to identify radically new applicational uses of shape-change as a design modality.

The Messaging Kettle: It’s IoTea time

2015-10-18T14:52:15+02:00

It’s time to consider people in designing the Internet of Things (IoT). We demonstrate a working prototype of a Messaging Kettle. It is designed to facilitate asynchronous communication and enable a sense of presence between adult children and their older parents living remotely from them through the familiar comfort routine of boiling the kettle to make a cup of tea. Our goal is to offer a human centred critique of the Internet of Things, which has largely been conceived without consideration of the people who will use the things, and rather has traditionally moved from a technology oriented perspective. In the case of smart homes this approach has produced a wide array of projects focused on monitoring the habits of the elderly, recognizing anomalies and alerting the caregivers. In contrast we propose to focus on engagement and reciprocity, building on the rituals associated with habitually used and cherished objects. We conclude by revisiting the technology-oriented framework for the Internet of Things to include our observations on people’s perspectives on smart communicating objects.

Legere: A Visualizer for Spoken Audio

2015-10-18T14:54:57+02:00

Legere is a work of critical technology-art that examines the intersection between novels and visual media as two different forms of entertainment. It is set to mimic television -- the program, displayed on an old television set, has a set number of channels that the user can flip through with a remote. Each channel concurrently plays a long-running audiobook, and using speech-recognition, the program flashes the book's text at the user in sync with the narration. The exhibit is meant to mock a living room atmosphere by adding a couch, coffee table, and other peripherals like a rug, to the project space.

Unfolding Participation. What do we mean by participation – conceptually and in practice

2015-10-18T14:52:25+02:00

The aim of the Unfolding Participation workshop is to outline an agenda for the next 10 years of participatory design (PD) and participatory human computer interaction (HCI) research. We will do that through a double strategy: 1) by critically interrogating the concept of participation (unfolding the concept itself), while at the same time, 2) reflecting on the way that participation unfolds across different participatory configurations. We invite researchers and practitioners from PD and HCI and fields in which information technology mediated participation is embedded (e.g. in political studies, urban planning, participatory arts, business, science and technology studies) to bring a plurality of perspectives and expertise related to participation.

A critical approach to ICT to support participatory development of people centered smart learning ecosystems and territories

2015-10-18T14:52:37+02:00

This contribution aims at fostering a collaborative effort by relevant stakeholders - policy makers, entrepreneurs, researchers, teachers, students, etc. – to critically explore the role of ICT in supporting a participatory development of people-centered "smart" learning ecosystems, able to produce social capital and to drive social innovation and territorial development. All this assuming that: a) it can help in identifying the driving factors that in the past have produced time and space singularities (eg. Renaissance, Belle Epoque, Big Deal, etc.) capable to attract people to experience a collective state of "flow”; b) the smartness of a learning ecosystems is strongly correlated with that of its region of reference; c) smartness is an emergent property of any entity that interacts with ICT infrastructures but is not fully determined by this latter. Unavoidably, all this also implies a reflection on the interplay between globality and locality and, as well, virtuality and physicality.

Making “World Machines”: Discourse, Design and Global Technologies for Greater-than-self Issues

2015-10-18T14:52:46+02:00

The world machine is a new archetype for a socio-technical system drawing together a group of tools that combine computational powers with a social agenda of cross-world collaboration in resistance to dominant market rhetoric. Specifically, we look at how powers to connect, sense and infer can be combined and turned to crowd-sourcing public engagement with shared world issues - as an alternative to business-as-usual in the context of developing and deploying networked technology. We combine theoretical aspects of world machines, such as what a political entity of this kind might seek to do, and practical exercises that focus on design, with a view to exploring viability and examining what a related research agenda might involve.

Residents’ Democratic engagement in public housing and urban areas – structures, formalities and technologies

2015-10-18T14:53:16+02:00

The workshop gathers people from various sectors inside and outside academia to discuss the current state of, and the prospects for IT in the support of residents’ democratic engagement in, and around, public housing.

Researching for Change in a Globalising Asymmetric World

2015-10-18T14:53:36+02:00

The field of research on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the service of social development (ICTD) is ripe for reframing. The asymmetries of the world are currently mirrored in the aims, practice and outcomes of too much ICTD research. The consequence is that people who might benefit from creative use of current and emerging technologies all over the world are excluded from the social processes and benefits of innovation and knowledge production. The ICTD research community’s widespread dissatisfaction with this situation haunts ICTD gatherings.

In this workshop we want to explore critical alternatives to the current practice. We intend drafting and articulating critical alternatives for future research that is emancipatory, inclusive and oriented towards globally sustainable futures.

To achieve this we first want to acknowledge and expose the vastly different knowledge interests and agendas of the various stakeholders. By examining a series of questions we shall then strive for a responsive reformulation of our approaches in a way that will not easily settle into a new orthodoxy. This will mean that we need to examine not only research and action agendas, transformation, inclusiveness, and power relations, but also our own personal growth and care for ourselves as actors in transformation.

It is fortuitous that the 5th decennial Aarhus conference comes on the target date for the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. What next? We want to ensure that after 2015, the research approaches that are adopted and promoted in ICTD are actually structured in the service of development. An ICT that is for Development cannot be realised by blindly replicating global asymmetries where aims and approaches are defined by the powerful and imposed on those at the margins.

“I’ve had it!” Group therapy for interdisciplinary researchers

2015-10-18T14:53:45+02:00

In this workshop, we reflect on and share the fun and frustrations of working in interdisciplinary research. We ask participants to openly reflect on their experiences of interdisciplinarity. What approaches have worked and what have failed? In addition to identifying phenomena, we aim to sketch out the next decade of interdisciplinary research in computing, especially in HCI. The third paradigm of Human-Computer Interaction focuses on the qualitative aspects of use experience and the situatedness of technologies. This new orientation has drawn in researchers from various other research and arts backgrounds and traditions, including the social sciences, architecture and industrial design among others. Therefore, we consider this third paradigm to be inherently interdisciplinary. Through workshop participants’ reflection of their own experiences, we strive to identify the common problems and pitfalls of interdisciplinary research, and to celebrate successes, as well as share best practices.

The Future of Making: Where Industrial and Personal Fabrication Meet

2015-10-18T14:53:58+02:00

This one-day workshop seeks to reflect on the notion of fab- rication in both personal and industrial contexts. Although these contexts are very distinct in their economical and polit- ical vision, they share important characteristics (e.g., users interacting with specific fabrication equipment and tools). The workshop topic spans from personal fabrication to (au- tomated) production, from applied to theoretical considera- tions, from user requirements to design as a crafting practice. We will address changes in production that affect humans, e.g., from mass production to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) produc- tion, in order to discuss findings and lessons learned for in- dividual and collective production workplaces of the future. We aim to explore the intersections between different dimen- sions and processes of production ranging all the way from hobbyist to professional making. Furthermore, the workshop will critically reflect on current developments and their conse- quences on personal, societal, and economical levels includ- ing questions of the reorganization of work and labor, inno- vation cultures, and politics of participation.

Inviting Participation through IoT: Experiments and Performances in Public Spaces

2015-10-18T14:54:22+02:00

This paper proposes a workshop on the Internet of Things (IoT) for participation in public life. We will bring together artists, designers, practitioners, and academics interested in site-specific projects involving lighting and other ambient technologies intended to serve community interests such as representation and safety. The authors share their current inquiry on stairwells as an example. Discussion of this project and others will help us locate, trace, and develop networked environments.

Multi-Lifespan Information System Design

2015-10-18T14:54:39+02:00

Contemporary information ecosystems evolve at lightening speed. Last year’s cutting edge innovations are this year’s standard fare and next year’s relics. An information innovation can be implemented, made available through the Internet, and appropriated within 24 hours. Yet, significant societal problems engage much longer timeframes. In 2010 Friedman and Nathan pointed to a fundamental disconnect between mainstream design thinking and these longer-term problems. To address this disconnect, they proposed a multi-lifespan information system design framing.

This workshop builds on previous work by the organizers and others to: (1) elaborate and identify new opportunities and challenges in taking up multi-lifespan information system design problems, and (2) generate critical and constructive discussions for further development of multi- lifespan information system design thinking.

Shifting Borderland of Technoscience: Tracing Trajectories of Critical Practice

2015-10-18T14:55:10+02:00

Since the publication of Phil Agre’s [1] seminal work on critical technical practice, the sites of intersection between computation and society have multiplied, and so too have the sociotechnical borderlands we inhabit. Critical methodologies such as “critical design” [8,6,5], “reflective design” [3,4,7,9,15,12], “critical making” [11,6,7], “located accountability” [13, 14], “feminist HCI” [2], and “postcolonial computing” [10] have proliferated and are being taken up in increasingly diverse political, cultural and social contexts. As the sites of critical praxis have multiplied, new regimes like big data and social computing pose new challenges. Given the fluidity of the landscape it is important for us to articulate the specificities of our scholarly borderlands. By bringing together junior and senior scholars we aim to provide a forum for researchers in this area to learn from each other how to navigate changing terrains of technology research and design. To maximize in- depth collaboration between junior and senior scholars, we propose a format that includes in-depth mentoring sessions, panel presentations from junior and senior participants, group activities, and working sessions for steps forward. The goal of the proposed workshop is to foster cohesion and build mentoring relationships within the community by creating a space for open and honest dialogue about the challenges of conducting critical research and design practice. Outcomes from this workshop will be a shared knowledge base about praxis, tracing the trajectories, continuities, traversals and inheritances of critical sociotechnical research over the past decade, as well as strengthening of the critical technical practice community by way of establishing lasting mentorship relations.

Charting the Next Decade for Value Sensitive Design

2015-10-18T14:55:26+02:00

In the 2010’s it is widely recognized by computer and information scientists, social scientists, designers, and philosophers of technology that the design of information systems is not value neutral [5-8,11]. Rather, such systems are value laden in part because societal values are major factors in shaping systems, and at the same time the design of the technology reinforces, restructures or uproots societal value structures. Of the many theories and methods to design for this phenomenon one continues to gain traction for its systematic and overarching consideration of values in the design process: Value Sensitive Design (VSD) [5-7]. The aim of this multidisciplinary workshop is to bring together scholars and practitioners interested in ways values can be made to bear upon design and to help continue to build a community by sharing experiences, insights, and criticism.

Embodying Embodied Design Research Techniques

2015-10-18T14:55:55+02:00

The value of engaging the full gamut of sensory motor skills in the design and use of smart objects and systems is recognized. Yet methods for arriving at robust and reliable outcomes for their development are not fully understood, nor are they easily reported or transferred through typical conference presentations and paper submissions. New forms of knowledge transfer, such as pictorials (e.g., DIS and RTD conferences), and video are enabling enhanced, image-enriched reporting of outcomes. Y et appropriate transfer of embodied research methods remains elusive.

In this workshop we propose to investigate how embodied research techniques may be used as direct and unmediated vehicles for their own reporting. Rather than engaging in oral presentations, participants will lead other participants through a proven embodied method or approach. Small groups will create mash-ups of techniques, exploring ways that the new approaches might coherently be reported. Participants will be encouraged to experiment with different recording techniques, including body-mounted sensing and recording devices, as well as less conventional approaches. The intention is to find appropriate ways of reporting embodied experiments, so that intangible elements are not lost. Participants will be supported to reflect on unfolding discoveries, to share impressions, as well as outcomes, including documentation experiments that aim to tangibly capture and communicate the processes undertaken.

Embodied ideation, communication and collaboration techniques enable enhanced creative engagement and assist creativity [2]. By applying such methods to the problem of their reporting, we hope to deepen understanding of how to move towards enriched, nuanced and repeatable methods for embodied design and knowledge transfer. Crucially, our intention is not simply to find the next form of research reporting. Rather, this workshop will engage participants in an experimental enquiry, so that embodied design research may become an active area of inquiry moving forward.

Criticism – for Computational Alternatives

2015-10-18T14:56:26+02:00

Criticism is a reflection on the dialectical relation between content and technology, a relation that is often political, tied to Marxist dialectics or to other concepts of criticism from aesthetic and literary theory. This workshop will ask how we can bridge between criticism of technology and design. If we are to envision and design critical alternatives, how can critical approaches to technology help? What do we need to take from criticism, which concepts of criticism and how can they be applied?

Foreword: Critical Alternatives

2015-10-18T14:56:35+02:00

1975-1985-1995-2005 — the decennial Aarhus conferences have traditionally been instrumental for setting new agendas for critically engaged thinking about information technology. The conference series is fundamentally interdisciplinary and emphasizes thinking that is firmly anchored in action, intervention, and schol- arly critical practice. With the title Critical Computing – between sense and sen- sibility, the 2005 edition of the conference marked that computing was rapidly seeping into everyday life.

In 2015, we see critical alternatives in alignment with utopian principles—that is, the aspiration that life might not only be different but also radically better. At the same time, radically better alternatives do not emerge out of nowhere: they emerged from contested analyses of the mundane present and demand both commitment and labor to work towards them. Critical alternatives matter and make people reflect.

The fifth decennial Aarhus conference, Critical Alternatives, in 2015 aims to set new agendas for theory and practice in computing for quality of human life. While the early Aarhus conferences, from 1975 and onwards, focused on computing in working life, computing today is influencing most parts of human life (civic life, the welfare state, health, learning, leisure, culture, intimacy, ...), thereby calling for critical alternatives from a general quality of life perspective.

The papers selected for the conference have undergone a meticulous reviewing process looking at methodical soundness as well as potentials for the creating alternatives and provoking debate. Among 71 full and short paper submissions 21 were accepted. The accepted papers span a broad range of positions and concerns ranging from play to politics.

We would like to express great thanks for help and support to the numerous peo- ple who have contributed to making the conference possible. In particular we want to thank Marianne Dammand and Ann Mølhave for secretarial help, including reg- istration and hotel arrangements. We want to thank the center for Participatory IT (PIT) and the Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus for providing resources for the planning and operation of the conference.

We hope that the conference will inspire critical and alternative thinking and action for the next decennium.

Charismatic Technology

2015-10-18T14:46:35+02:00

To explain the uncanny holding power that some technologies seem to have, this paper presents a theory of charisma as attached to technology. It uses the One Laptop per Child project as a case study for exploring the features, benefits, and pitfalls of charisma. It then contextualizes OLPC’s charismatic power in the historical arc of other charismatic technologies, highlighting the enduring nature of charisma and the common themes on which the charisma of a century of technological progress rests. In closing, it discusses how scholars and practitioners in human-computer interaction might use the concept of charismatic technology in their own work.

Designed in Shenzhen: Shanzhai Manufacturing and Maker Entrepreneurs

2015-10-18T14:47:24+02:00

We draw from long-term research in Shenzhen, a manufacturing hub in the South of China, to critically examine the role of participation in the contemporary discourse around maker culture. In lowering the barriers of technological production, “making” is being envisioned as a new site of entrepreneurship, economic growth and innovation. Our research shows how the city of Shenzhen is figuring as a key site in implementing this vision. In this paper, we explore the “making of Shenzhen” as the “Silicon Valley for hardware.” We examine, in particular, how maker-entrepreneurs are drawn to processes of design and open sharing central to the manufacturing culture of Shenzhen, challenging conceptual binaries of design as a creative process versus manufacturing as its numb execution. Drawing from the legacy of participatory design and critical computing, the paper examines the social, material, and economic conditions that underlie the growing relationship between contemporary maker culture and the concomitant remake of Shenzhen.

Material Speculation: Actual Artifacts for Critical Inquiry

2015-10-18T14:48:44+02:00

Speculative and fictional approaches have long been implemented in human-computer interaction and design techniques through scenarios, prototypes, forecasting, and envisionments. Recently, speculative and critical design approaches have reflectively explored and questioned possible, and preferable futures in HCI research. We propose a complementary concept – material speculation – that utilizes actual and situated design artifacts in the everyday as a site of critical inquiry. We see the literary theory of possible worlds and the related concept of the counterfactual as informative to this work. We present five examples of interaction design artifacts that can be viewed as material speculations. We conclude with a discussion of characteristics of material speculations and their implications for future design-oriented research.

Why Play? Examining the Roles of Play in ICTD

2015-10-18T14:47:00+02:00

The role of technology in socio-economic development is at the heart of ICTD (ICTs for development). Yet, as with much Human Centered technology research, playful inter- actions with technology are predominantly framed around their instrumental roles, such as education, rather than their intrinsic value. This obscures playful activities and under- mines play as a basic freedom. Within ICTD an apparent conflict is reinforced, opposing socio-economic goals with play, often dismissed as trivial or unaffordable. Recently a slow emergence of studies around play has led us to pro- pose a framing of it as a capability, according to Amartya Sen, recognizing and examining its instrumental, construc- tive, and constitutive roles. We discuss how play unleashes a more honest and fair approach within ICTD, but most importantly, we argue how it is essentially a basic human need, not antithetical to others. We propose ways for the recognition and legitimization of the play activity in ICTD.

Double Binds and Double Blinds: Evaluation Tactics in Critically Oriented HCI

2015-10-18T14:47:34+02:00

Critically oriented researchers within Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) have fruitfully intersected design and critical analysis to engage users and designers in reflection on underlying values, assumptions and dominant practices in technology. To successfully integrate this work within the HCI community, critically oriented researchers have tactically engaged with dominant practices within HCI in the design and evaluation of their work. This paper draws attention to the ways that tactical engagement with aspects of HCI evaluation methodology shapes and bears consequences for critically oriented research. We reflect on three of our own experiences evaluating critically oriented designs and trace challenges that we faced to the ways that sensibilities about generalizable knowledge are manifested in HCI evaluation methodology. Drawing from our own experiences, as well as other influential critically oriented design projects in HCI, we articulate some of the trade-offs involved in consciously adopting or not adopting certain normative aspects of HCI evaluation. We argue that some forms of this engagement can hamstring researchers from pursuing their intended research goals and have consequences beyond specific research projects to affect the normative discourse in the field as a whole.

In Search of Fairness: Critical Design Alternatives for Sustainability

2015-10-18T14:49:23+02:00

Does fairness as an ideal fit within the broader quest for sustainability? In this paper we consider alternative ways of framing the wicked problem of sustainability. One that moves away from the established preference within HCI, towards technological quick-fixes. We adopt a critical lens to challenge the belief that by merely changing practices at an individual level one can do away with unsustainability. This thinking, we argue, is flawed for many reasons, but mostly because of the wickedness of the sustainability problem. By analyzing the case of Fairphone, we illustrate how it is possible to imagine and design change at a broader level of community engagement, when it comes to concerns of fairness and sustainability. We contribute to a deeper understanding of how social value laden enterprises along with open technological design can shape sustainable relationships between our environment and us.

Deconstructivist Interaction Design: Interrogating Expression and Form

2015-10-18T14:49:46+02:00

In this paper, we propose deconstructivist interaction design in order to facilitate the differentiation of an expressional vo- cabulary in interaction design. Based on examples that illus- trate how interaction design critically explores (i.e., decon- structs) its own expressional repertoire, we argue that there are commonalities with deconstructivist phases in related de- sign disciplines to learn from. Therefore, we draw on the role and characteristics of deconstructivism in the history of archi- tecture, graphic design, and fashion. Afterwards, we reflect on how interaction design is already a means of deconstruc- tion (e.g., in critical design). Finally, we discuss the potential of deconstructivism for form-giving practices, resulting in a proposal to extend interaction design’s expressional vocabu- lary of giving form to computational material by substantiat- ing a deconstructivist perspective.

Human-computer interaction as science

2015-10-18T14:47:52+02:00

The human-computer interaction (HCI) has had a long and troublesome relationship to the role of ‘science’. HCI’s status as an academic object in terms of coherence and adequacy is often in question—leading to desires for establishing a true scientific discipline. In this paper I explore formative cognitive science influences on HCI, through the impact of early work on the design of input devices. The paper discusses a core idea that I argue has animated much HCI research since: the notion of scientific design spaces. In evaluating this concept, I disassemble the broader ‘picture of science’ in HCI and its role in constructing a disciplinary order for the increasingly diverse and overlapping research communities that contribute in some way to what we call ‘HCI’. In concluding I explore notions of rigour and debates around how we might reassess HCI’s disciplinarity.

Gaza Everywhere: exploring the applicability of a rhetorical lens in HCI

2015-10-18T14:50:01+02:00

By examining application software as a type of rhetorical artifact, it is possible to highlight its social, ethical and moral implications. In this paper, we explore one possibility for such a lens: application software functioning as a visual enthymeme. To explore the applicability of that concept in HCI, we analyze one web application as a first step. In our analysis, we observe that interaction and usability are two features that support an application in functioning as a visu- al enthymeme. Also, online sharing could help the user take the role of the arguer. Our analysis allows us to outline the elements of a user-centric persuasive experience and shows promise for further explorations regarding the applicability of rhetoric in HCI.

Note to Self: Stop Calling Interfaces “Natural”

2015-10-18T14:50:36+02:00

The term “natural” is employed to describe a wide range of novel interactive products and systems, ranging from ges- ture-based interaction to brain-computer interfaces and in marketing as well as in research. However, this terminology is problematic. It establishes an untenable dichotomy be- tween forms of interaction that are natural and those that are not; it draws upon the positive connotations of the term and conflates the language of research with marketing lingo, often without a clear explanation of why novel interfaces can be considered natural; and it obscures the examination of the details of interaction that ought to be the concern of HCI researchers. We are primarily concerned with identify- ing the problem, but also propose two steps to remedy it: recognising that the terminology we employ in research has consequences, and unfolding and articulating in more detail the qualities of interfaces that we have hitherto labelled “natural”.

Networked Privacy Beyond the Individual: Four Perspectives to ‘Sharing’

2015-10-18T14:49:01+02:00

Synthesizing prior work, this paper provides conceptual grounding for understanding the dialectic of challenges and opportunities that social network sites present to social life. With the help of the framework of interpersonal boundary regulation, this paper casts privacy as something people do, together, instead of depicting it as a characteristic or a possession. I illustrate interpersonal aspects of networked privacy by outlining four perspectives to ‘sharing’. These perspectives call for a rethink of networked privacy beyond an individual’s online endeavors.

Personal Data: Thinking Inside the Box

2015-10-18T14:49:34+02:00

We are in a ‘personal data gold rush’ driven by advertising being the primary revenue source for most online companies. These companies accumulate extensive personal data about individuals with minimal concern for us, the subjects of this process. This can cause many harms: privacy infringement, personal and professional embarrassment, restricted access to labour markets, restricted access to highest value pricing, and many others. There is a critical need to provide technologies that enable alternative practices, so that individuals can par- ticipate in the collection, management and consumption of their personal data. In this paper we discuss the Databox, a personal networked device (and associated services) that col- lates and mediates access to personal data, allowing us to re- cover control of our online lives. We hope the Databox is a first step to re-balancing power between us, the data subjects, and the corporations that collect and use our data.