Situational when: Designing for time across cultures

We propose the concept of “Situational When”, an approach to understanding time in interface design not as a point on a calendar or clock, but as a set of converging circumstances that constitute “the time” for happenings to take place. Time is encoded both explicitly and implicitly in designed products. However, many technologies propagate business-centric, modernist values such as scheduling and efficiency, and marginalize broader socio-cultural aspects on which many activities are nonetheless contingent, e.g. the right people, the right weather conditions, and the right vibe. We derive our reflections from a case study of a cross- cultural digital noticeboard designed with an Australian Aboriginal community. Attention to the situational when opens up new possibilities for design that put greater emphasis on the social and relational aspects of time, the situational insights embodied in local narratives, and the tangible (e.g. people) and intangible (e.g. energy) circumstances that together make up the “right” time

A noticeboard in 'both worlds' unsurprising interfaces supporting easy bi-cultural content publication

We describe the design of a digital noticeboard to support communication within a remote Aboriginal community whose aspiration is to live in "both worlds", nurturing and extending their Aboriginal culture and actively participating in Western society and economy. Three bi-cultural aspects have emerged and are presented here: the need for a bi-lingual noticeboard to span both oral and written language traditions, the tension between perfunctory information exchange and social, embodied protocols of telling in person and the different ways in which time is represented in both cultures. The design approach, developed iteratively through consultation, demonstration and testing led to an "unsurprising interface", aimed at maximizing use and appropriation across cultures by unifying visual, text and spoken contents in both passive and interactive displays in a modeless manner