A Review of Research on Participation in Democratic Decision-Making Presented at SIGCHI Conferences : Toward an Improved Trading Zone Between Political Science and HCI

We present a review of 80 papers representing efforts to support participation in democratic decision-making mostly related to local or national governments. The papers were published in leading human–computer interaction (SIGCHI conferences) venues. Most of this literature represents attempts to support assembly- oriented participation, wherein decisions are made through discussion, although referendum-type participation, involving decision-making based on voting, has gained attention too. Primarily, those papers addressing agenda-setting have examined organization-led forms, in which the agenda is controlled by those issuing the call for participation. Accordingly, the authors call for more research into support for representative models and participant-driven agenda-setting. Furthermore, the literature review pinpoints areas wherein further interdisciplinary engagement may be expected to improve research quality: in political science, HCI-informed methods and new ways of using physical input in participation merit more research, while, from the HCI side, cultivating closer relationships with political science concepts such as democratic innovations and calculus of voting could encourage reconsideration of the research foci. These observations speak to the benefits of a new research agenda for human–computer interaction research, involving different forms of participation, most importantly to address lack of engagement under the representative model of participation. Furthermore, in light of these findings, the paper discusses what type of interdisciplinary research is viable in the HCI field today and how political science and HCI scholars could usefully collaborate.Peer reviewe

Geopolitical issues in human computer interaction

This workshop will explore and discuss geopolitical issues in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) as a field of knowledge and practice. These issues are mainly seen at two levels: (1) on discourses surrounding motivations and value of HCI as a sociotechnical field, and (2) on discourses surrounding concepts of HCI diffusion, maturity and diversity as articulated by global and local knowledge networks. Since the beginning of HCI, discussions of democracy have been around. It may even be fair to say that the key notion of usability aims to support the citizens of a democratic society. Obviously, exactly how HCI should do this remains open for discussion. HCI has several roots deep in military needs from the world wars of the 20th century. It was also born out of the sociotechnical traditions with its emancipatory ambitions, aiming at creating conditions for supporting human agency that facilitates the realization of people’s needs and potential. There’s an inherent contradiction between these traditions. Thus, we’re interested in exploring the following question: how to reconcile such diverse discourses as military power and emancipatory ambitions in a geopolitical analysis of HCI research and associated discourses? Moreover, the diffusion of HCI as field of knowledge and practice is dominated by political and post-colonial discourses that pervade local and global knowledge networks shaping what is considered useful and relevant research and practice. In this workshop we understand these issues as geopolitical in nature and aim to trace the cultural and sociotechnical dynamics that construct the field of HCI

The ethics and politics of design for the common good: a lesson from Alibaug

In this chapter I argue for a socio-technical approach to technology design for the common good that addresses its ethical and political aspects. The background is that the life of marginalized people in contemporary society is challenging and uncertain. The marginalized can face health and cognitive issues as well as a lack of stability in social structures such as family, work and social inclusion. In this context, certain democratic values embedded in technology design can conceal political asymmetries and fail to deliver ethical value exchange, where value extraction is not dominated by one party but equally shared across all stakeholders. I discuss two socio-technical perspectives called human work interaction design (HWID) and Technological Frames (TF) to expose and tackle the challenges of designing technology for the common good. I introduce and evaluate an ongoing case of a digital service delivered through an app to support a fishing community in Alibaug, India. The evaluation of the socio-technical infrastructure surrounding this app is done in two parts: firstly, I use HWID to highlight inwardly and outwardly socio-technical, ethical and power relations between human work and interaction design; secondly, an argument for the use of the concept of TF to understand the constructionist and semiotic power dynamics of different groups in participatory technology design is presented. It is shown how dominant groups’ frames can construct meanings of design decisions in terms of whether they are appropriate or not. The political leverage of the scripts embedded in artefacts used in the process of design is also explained from a semiotic perspective. I conclude by highlighting the value of an ethical and political socio-technical framework for technology design for the common good with people at the margins

TalkFutures: Supporting Qualitative Practices in Distributed Community Engagements

Community engagements are qualitative processes that make use of participants local knowledge for democratic decision-making, but often exclude participants from data analysis and dissemination. This can mean that they are left feeling that their voice is not properly represented in the final output. This paper presents a digital community engagement process, TalkFutures, that actively involves participants in the production, distributed analysis and summarization of qualitative data. The design of TalkFutures was explored through a five-week deployment with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) as part of a consultation designed to inform future strategy. Our analysis of deployment metrics and post-deployment interviews outline how TalkFutures: (i) increased modes of participation across the qualitative workflow; (ii) reduced barriers to participation; and (iii) improved representation in the engagement processes

Designing for the Embedding of Employee Voice

Previous research on employee voice has sought to design technological solutions that address the challenges of speaking up in the workplace. However, effectively embedding employee voice systems in organisations requires designers to engage with the social processes, power relations and contextual factors of individual workplaces. We explore this process within a university workplace through a research project responding to a crisis in educational service delivery arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Within a successful three-month staff-led engagement, we examined the intricacies of embedding employee voice, exploring how the interactions between existing actors impacted the effectiveness of the process. We sought to identify specific actions to promote employee voice and overcome barriers to its successful establishment in organisational decision-making. We highlight design considerations for an effective employee voice system that facilitates embedding employee voice, including assurance, bounded accountability and bias reflexivity

Ensino médio técnico: uma proposta de avaliação participativa

Dado a ausência de uma avaliação sistemática para o ensino médio de nível técnico no Brasil, assim como ocorre na educação de nível superior, propõese a partir do Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia de Roraima, Campus Boa Vista Zona Oeste, a estruturação de uma avaliação contextual que vá ao encontro das diferentes perspectivas dos profissionais da instituição e da sociedade no entendimento do que é a qualidade para esse ciclo de ensino. O presente trabalho, enquadrado no âmbito das políticas públicas, tem como foco a análise da participação de diferentes grupos na avaliação da qualidade pelas lentes teóricas do modelo Advocacy Coalition Framework. Projetado para ser um processo deliberativo orientado, contouse com Logic Model como organizador e estruturador dos parâmetros avaliativos, e do modelo Macbeth Multicriteria Analysis para avaliar o grau de concordância dos participantes. Concluiu-se que os parâmetros escolhidos refletiram os objetivos políticos de inclusão da instituição e que as escolhas individuais referentes às prioridades da avaliação pouco divergiram das escolhas do grupo, entretanto foram suficientes para a formação de duas coligações.Given the absence of a systematic evaluation for secondary education at the technical level in Brazil, as in higher education, it is proposed, from the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Roraima, Campus Boa Vista Zona Oeste, to structuring of a contextual assessment that meets the different perspectives of professionals from the institution and society in understanding what quality is for this teaching cycle. This project, which belongs to the field of public policies and focuses on the analysis of the participation of different groups through the theoretical lens of the Advocacy Coalition Framework model. Designed to be a oriented deliberative process, it also counts for the methodological structuring with the Logic Model and Macbeth Multicriteria Analysis models. As it could not be different, the concepts about quality, performance evaluation and deliberative democracy permeate the theoretical framework.Programa Doutoral em Políticas Pública