HCI and design research has turned toward exploring methods, technologies, processes for societal impact, and do so by intervening in the real world and designing for, with and by people and existing citizen initiatives.
Gwen Klerks, Nicolai Brodersen Hansen, Ben Schouten
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Communities & Technologies-Transforming Communities
We present Buur Natuur, a design approach to empowering residents to make their neighbourhood greener by adding for instance wildflowers to verges, or establishing communal gardens. Residents are empowered by the deployment of physical artifacts in urban space offering inspiration and knowledge through a AR interface, as well as an online platform, providing a process and platform that facilitates the creation of temporary alliances for a greener neighborhood between citizens, municipalities, NGOs and businesses in the local area.
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Communities & Technologies-Transforming Communities
Toolkits enable people to create and design their own technologies, and just as many other Do-It-Yourself (DIY) tools they are now widely available and approachable. This development aligns well with recent HCI research agendas, which have emerged around the call for empowerment. The availability of toolkits should present a unique opportunity for realising the potentials of end-user empowerment in the sense of giving people and communities access to tools and approaches for shaping their own lives with their own designs. However, the question remains how toolkits should be designed to serve the diverse needs of different user groups for their respective purposes and practices. Furthermore, there is also value in learning from how users appropriate toolkits for their own (maybe unanticipated) purposes. In this workshop, we aim to identify different ways in which toolkits can empower people in diverse life situations. The workshop brings together researchers, designers, and practitioners with an interest in designing and using toolkits for and with people from diverse backgrounds, for different purposes, and in a variety of contexts. We see a particular potential in discussing how research could unpack toolkits as tools for empowerment and for engaging people in technology design.
Proceedings of the 30th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction
Research-through-design (RtD) has become a well-established research approach within HCI research. In this paper we discuss how research-through-design can be applied as an explicit strategy for teaching interaction design. RtD is productive when teaching interaction design, because it keeps students in a constant loop of doing and reflecting, as well as highlights the value of theoretical concepts for understanding practice. This means that theoretical concepts become a resource that the students can draw on to understand and transform design practice, while at the same time fostering an integrated understanding of theory and practice in design. We base our work on a master’s course series teaching advanced theoretical and practical subjects in interaction design. The main contribution of the paper is a set of principles for RtD-based design teaching, as well as the identification of potential gains of using this approach for teaching interaction design.
Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
Toolkits enable individuals to create and design their own technologies. With more toolkits being commercially available, movements such as the Maker Movements has led to a hype around Do-It-Yourself and Making practices. This development aligns with the recent HCI research agenda, which is calling for user empowerment. Yet, the Maker Movement has been criticised for lacking diversity and practicality in the broader world. The question remains how toolkits can afford and sustain wider participation of different communities in technology design. This workshop aims to identify ways in which toolkits can empower people. By bringing together researchers, designers, and practitioners with an interest in DIY/making toolkits for people from diverse backgrounds, for different purposes, and in a variety of project contexts, we see a particular potential in discussing how HCI research could contribute and unpack toolkits as tools for empowerment and thinking about the role of making in broader practice.
DiGRA 2018 – “The Game is the Message” July 25-28, 2018, Turin, Italy
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction
This Studio offers researchers and designers an opportunity to investigate and discuss prototypes and in-process projects from a perspective that expands beyond material aspects, to also cover social and cultural ones. Participants will bring a project, device, or platform, which will be discussed as sociomaterials that actively participate across multiple social and cultural contexts. This perspective, as well as the prototypes and projects brought by the participants, forms the core of the Studio, where conversation will emerge over several phases: from the demonstration of the individual projects as things, to the generation of speculative fictions as to the role and use of these artifacts in the world. Finally, we end with a discussion of infrastructuring and appropriation of the artefacts and their social roles. The themes that will be examined in this Studio are agency, emerging behaviors, embeddedness and design strategies from a sociomaterial perspective of artifacts.