With the rise of chronic diseases as the number one cause of death and disability among urban populations, it has become increasingly important to design for healthy environments. There is, however, a lack of interdisciplinary approaches and solutions to improve health and well-being through urban planning and design. This case study offers an HCI solution and approach to design for healthy urban structures and dynamics in existing neighborhoods. We discuss the design process and design of ROOT, an interactive lighting system that aims to stimulate walking and running through supportive, collaborative and social interaction.
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‘Creating the Difference’ is the theme of the 2014 edition of the Chi Sparks conference. It is also the challenge that the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community is facing today. HCI is a creative field where practitioners engage in design, production, and evaluation of interactions between people and digital technology. Creating excellent interfaces for people, they make a difference in media and systems that people are eager to use. Usability and user experience are fundamental for achieving this, as are abilities at the forefront of technology, but key to a successful difference is getting the right concepts, addressing genuine, intrinsic, human needs. Researchers and practitioners contribute to this area from theory as well as practice by sharing, discussing, and demonstrating new ideas and developments. This is how HCI creates a difference for society, for individuals, businesses, education, and organizations. The difference that an interactive product or service makes might lie in the concept of it but also in the making, the creation of details and the realisation. It is through powerful concepts and exceptional quality of realisation that innovation is truly achieved. At the Chi Sparks 2014 conference, researchers and practitioners in the HCI community convene to share and discuss their efforts on researching and developing methods, techniques, products, and services that enable people to have better interactions with systems and other people. The conference is hosted at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, and proudly built upon the previous conferences in Arnhem (2011) and Leiden (2009). Copyright van de individuele papers ligt bij de betreffende auteurs.
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Abundant HCI research exists on the many assistive technologies that provide help with everyday physical and cognitive tasks. However, while a purely assistive approach often casts aging people in passive roles, recent studies suggest that adults may be ‘flourishing’ way into advanced age, even though implicit ageist prejudices are difficult to eradicate. Negative age-related stereotypes are the hidden and yet urgent issue we address in this study. There is a clear opportunity for an anti-ageist perspective in HCI, an approach that we propose as complementary to assistive technologies: in addition to providing solutions for the aging population, we urgently call for designs about aging, to spark a conversation on age, raise awareness and ultimately contrast ageist stereotypes. We point at empathy as a key element to reconceptualize, at least in part, HCI’s contribution to research on aging. We present a design critique of two interactive pieces that, although not without flaws, suggest how future empathy-raising artifacts might be. Our analysis combines pragmatist aesthetics, interaction criticism and ludology, and yields four design tactics (recurring configurations of significant elements) that are generative in bringing about broader design implications towards a different, empathy-based concept of aging in HCI.
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Abstract: Embodied embedded cognition (EEC) has gained support in cognitive science as well as in human–computer interaction (HCI). EEC can be characterized both by its action-centeredness as well as its roots in phenomenology. The phenomenological aspects of EEC could be seen as support for trends in design emphasizing the user experience. Meanwhile, usability issues often are still approached using traditional methods based on cognitivist assumptions. In this paper, I argue for a renewed focus on improving usability from an EEC perspective. I draw mainly on a behavior-oriented interpretation of the theory, the key aspects of which are reviewed. A tentative sketch for an embodied embedded usability is proposed, doing justice to the embodied embedded nature of interaction while retaining the goal of developing technology that is easy to use in everyday practice.
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The concept of human-computer integration (HInt) is entering a new evolutionary phase, that leads to a paradigm shift from interaction to the integration of computing devices with the human body (Farooq & Grudin, 2017). This embodied integration, where a computer tightly integrates with the human body (Mueller, Maes & Grudin, 2019), engages the human being in mutual give-and-take relationships with computational systems. The paradigm shift in human-computer integration might have more to do with ‘becoming-in-the-world’ (Shildrick, 2022) than with ‘being-in-the-world’ requires a rethinking in the philosophy on the human body and its technological intertwining. Our research project starts from the belief that new insight and meanings on bodily understanding in the context of Human-Computer Integration can only be achieved through a creative and artistic exploration of the ‘lived experience’ of disabled bodies. In this project, research activities will be grounded in feminist philosophy and performed into the context of disability, yet the methodological approach of exploring the ‘felt sense’ and ‘kinaesthetics’ of the disability materiality takes place through performative design practice at the intersection of the HCI-related research fields of Soma Design (Höök, 2018) and Somaesthetics (Shusterman, 2008), as well as artistic disciplines, such as Musicology and Music Therapy, Dance and Dance Movement Therapy, Disability Arts and Critical Disability Studies. This paper starts with an explanation of the current research situation, and then provides background information on the different schools of thought that are present in the project. It continues with describing the research goals, methods, and research questions. The final part of the paper consists of an overview of three preliminary studies which explore human-computer relationships through the combination of performative practice and cyber-physical demonstrators, created by bachelor-students ‘Communication and Multimedia Design’ at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands and master-students ‘Web, Communication, and Information Systems’ at the Fachhochschule Kufstein in Austria. The takeaway message of this paper is that to advance our understandings of human-computer integration, we must consider a perspectivist viewpoint to develop alternative ways for exploring the bodily complexities of human-computer integration. We further argue that disability can be a catalyst for innovation and life-changing design in health and well-being, as it automatically emphasises the need for engaging with ‘being human’ in the context of the human-computer relationship. This PhD-project is productively looking for new forms of studying the context of disability, to unveil, excavate and expose knowledge for human- computer integration (HInt) that would otherwise be overlooked in the HCI-community.
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Office well-being aims to explore and support a healthy, balanced and active work style in office environments. Recent work on tangible user interfaces has started to explore the role of physical, tangible interfaces as active interventions to explore how to tackle problems such as inactive work and lifestyles, and increasingly sedentary behaviours. We identify a fragmented research landscape on tangible Office well-being interventions, missing the relationship between interventions, data, design strategies, and outcomes, and behaviour change techniques. Based on the analysis of 40 papers, we identify 7 classifications in tangible Office well-being interventions and analyse the intervention based on their role and foundation in behaviour change. Based on the analysis, we present design considerations for the development of future tangible Office well-being design interventions and present an overview of the current field and future research into tangible Office well-being interventions to design for a healthier and active office environment.
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To improve people’s lives, human-computer interaction researchers are increasingly designing technological solutions based on behavior change theory, such as social comparison theory (SCT). However, how researchers operationalize such a theory as a design remains largely unclear. One way to clarify this methodological step is to clearly state which functional elements of a design are aimed at operationalizing a specific behavior change theory construct to evaluate if such aims were successful. In this article, we investigate how the operationalization of functional elements of theories and designs can be more easily conveyed. First, we present a scoping review of the literature to determine the state of operationalizations of SCT as behavior change designs. Second, we introduce a new tool to facilitate the operationalization process. We term the tool blueprints. A blueprint explicates essential functional elements of a behavior change theory by describing it in relation to necessary and sufficient building blocks incorporated in a design. We describe the process of developing a blueprint for SCT. Last, we illustrate how the blueprint can be used during the design refinement and reflection process.
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Participating in physical activity (PA) is beneficial for adolescents' physical and mental development. Therefore, many studies have been conducted to design and evaluate interactive interventions to facilitate adolescents' PA. Despite the knowledge produced by this large number of studies, the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) still lacks a comprehensive set of guidelines to guide our design processes, help us make informed design decisions, as well as provide niche for innovation. This paper reports a systematic literature review of studies on technology-supported interventions in adolescents' PA. We reviewed 25 design related studies in HCI over the past 10 years, analyzing 1) the process phases of design practice, 2) the design requirements and related design decisions, and 3) how these phases and requirements are internally related to each other and what are their influence on design value. Our findings suggest four design phases with seven design requirements and its corresponding design decisions emerged in the process of design. Furthermore, we outline a framework to demonstrate the internal relations of design requirements. We generalize opportunities and challenges for supporting the aforementioned design decisions making, and implementing the findings for future design and research on technology-supported adolescents' PA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3311927.3323130
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In today's world, understanding different viewpoints is key for societal cohesion and progress. Robots have the potential to provide aid in discussing tough topics like ethnicity and gender. However, comparably to humans, the appearance of a robot can trigger inherent prejudices. This study delves into the interplay between robot appearance and decision-making in ethical dilemmas. Employing a Furhat robot that can change faces in an instant, we looked at how robot appearance affects decision-making and the perception of the robot itself. Pairs of participants were invited to discuss a dilemma presented by a robot, covering sensitive topics of ethnicity or gender. The robot either adopted a first-person or third-person perspective and altered its appearance accordingly. Following the explanation, participants were encouraged to discuss their choice of action in the dilemma situation. We did not find significant influences of robot appearance or dilemma topic on perceived anthropomorphism, animacy, likeability, or intelligence of the robot, partly in line with previous research. However, several participants hearing the dilemma from a first-person perspective changed their opinion because of the robot's appearance. Future work can expand with different measures such as engagement, in order to shed light on the intricate dynamics of human-robot interaction, emphasizing the need for thoughtful consideration in designing robot appearances to promote unbiased engagement in discussions of societal significance
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Aim: There is often a gap between the ideal of involving older persons iteratively throughout the design process of digital technology, and actual practice. Until now, the lens of ageism has not been applied to address this gap. The goals of this study were: to voice the perspectives and experiences of older persons who participated in co-designing regarding the design process; their perceived role in co-designing and intergenerational interaction with the designers; and apparent manifestations of ageism that potentially influence the design of digital technology. Methods: Twenty-one older persons participated in three focus groups. Five themes were identified using thematic analysis which combined a critical ageism ‘lens’ deductive approach and an inductive approach. Results: Ageism was experienced by participants in their daily lives and interactions with the designers during the design process. Negative images of ageing were pointed out as a potential influencing factor on design decisions. Nevertheless, positive experiences of inclusive design pointed out the importance of “partnership” in the design process. Participants defined the “ultimate partnership” in co-designing as processes in which they were involved from the beginning, iteratively, in a participatory approach. Such processes were perceived as leading to successful design outcomes, which they would like to use, and reduced intergenerational tension. Conclusions: This study highlights the potential role of ageism as a detrimental factor in how digital technologies are designed. Viewing older persons as partners in co-designing and aspiring to more inclusive design processes may promote designing technologies that are needed, wanted and used.
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