The Walking Talking Stick: Understanding Automated Note-Taking in Walking Meetings

While walking meetings offer a healthy alternative to sit-down meetings, they also pose practical challenges. Taking notes is difficult while walking, which limits the potential of walking meetings. To address this, we designed the Walking Talking Stick -- a tangible device with integrated voice recording, transcription, and a physical highlighting button to facilitate note-taking during walking meetings. We investigated our system in a three-condition between-subjects user study with thirty pairs of participants ($N$=60) who conducted 15-minute outdoor walking meetings. Participants either used clip-on microphones, the prototype without the button, or the prototype with the highlighting button. We found that the tangible device increased task focus, and the physical highlighting button facilitated turn-taking and resulted in more useful notes. Our work demonstrates how interactive artifacts can incentivize users to hold meetings in motion and enhance conversation dynamics. We contribute insights for future systems which support conducting work tasks in mobile environments.Comment: In CHI 202

To (B)oldly Go: a study of older people's usage of ICT and its implications for thinking about (digital) identity

The demographic time bomb means that older people will become a major part of tomorrow's society. This has become an increasingly pressing issue for older people and government policy alike. ONS (2009) statistics suggest that past retirement age, the sense of quality of life (QoL) experienced by older people begins to decrease, with the fastest decline occurring after the age of 70. This research therefore began by investigating how ICT could be implicated in the social life of the older person and thus improve their QoL. Literature reviews of the field of older people's involvement with ICT indicated that there was very little research between the more general studies of ICT involvement (which include far more than the purely social aspects) and the very specific (which involve examining the social impact of just one piece of technology). This study therefore aimed to fill the gap between the two extremes. It also aimed to generate theory in an under-theorised area. The study began with a focus group and interviews asking questions around how people thought social life had changed with the advent of new technologies, how they experienced the technology, and how things could be improved in the future. The study was qualitative in nature and adopted a grounded theory approach in order to inductively generate theory. The study of the lived experience of ICT also contributed to a phenomenological approach. Comparative analysis of transcripts obtained in Phase One (Year One) enabled a set of Grounded Theory Categories to be created which accounted for what was happening in the data. A core category of identity was identified which influenced subsequent data collection in Phase Two (Year Two). Phase Two participants were then involved in more focused interviews around identity concepts. Further analysis in Year Two enabled a Schema of Subject Positions to be created concerning (digital) identities which accounted for all of the participants in the study and the ways in which they viewed and interacted with technology. The Categories were also subsumed within a Grounded Theory Model involving a tripartite identity schema aligned with Giddens theory of the reflexive project of the self. Findings suggest that participants are implicated in methods of identity involvement which can be playful or pragmatic; can be viewed in moral, immoral and amoral ways (leading to ideas of the authentic and the inauthentic); and can represent the individual or explore new identities. Identity construction can ultimately be implicated positively with the use of ICT, and may lead to a virtuous cycle of ICT usage which can improve quality of life by affirming better self-views or enabling the testing of new views of selfhood. Positive technology identities can be offered as identity role models for other older people to follow

Greenhead Stories: People, Place and Sharing Authority Across Cultural Lines

The Greenhead Stories project sought to bring a range of voices together to discuss the shared space of Greenhead Park, a Victorian park just a short walk beyond Huddersfield’s town centre. Over the course of its history, the park has been the home of many day-to-day leisure activities, as well as serving as a public gathering place for much larger events including silent marches, charity fundraisers, and a number of cultural festivals. In the last few years, local residents have witnessed huge changes to the park after a multi-million pound restoration grant was donated by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Over the course of the restoration, the project aimed to record public memories surrounding the park during a time at which physical evidence of the park’s past was disrupted. In addition to collecting memories of place, the project employed a ‘shared authority’ methodology through a collaborative recording and contextual documentation process. Beyond the content of what was recorded, the Greenhead Stories project set out to explore the possibilities of building a contextual digital archive as a means of addressing some of the dilemmas currently facing oral history theory and practice. Through building partnerships with local organisations and working with the many different communities who share the space, the project aimed to record a broad history of the park, and explore the ways in which the space is a part of both individual and collective memory in Huddersfield. This dissertation, along with the accompanying digital archive and audiowalk, highlights the project’s historical and methodological findings, and in doing so provides solutions to some of the dilemmas and questions facing oral history theory today

Emerging Technology Adoption and Use : Consolidated Assignments from Spring 2020

Digitalization changes the world. Information systems, software applications and other technologies are in a central role in this change. They enable new work practices and processes, new business models and opportunities, initiate changes in how technologies are used, perceived and interpreted, and ultimately force individuals, organizations, and even societies at large to respond to those changes. Individuals, organizations, and societies have to somehow transform and adjust their old ways of doing things. Yet, not only technologies drive digital transformation. Increasing amounts of data that is produced by numerous sensors, applications, and systems account for the transformation as well. Such data is gathered and collected, merged together, and analyzed by different methods and tools; by using artificial intelligence, data analytics, or data science. The sense-making of such versatile data is of importance because not only can it be used to improve decision-making at workplaces but also, it can be utilized for the benefit of individuals and societies, in organizational and non-work settings. These views, transformation and smartness, pose several questions for information system (IS) research. In general, we might ask what actually is the smartness of individuals, organizations, or a society. We can even ask whether stakeholders possess the required abilities, skills and competences to enable and support the change. These, and other related questions arise due to fast evolving landscape of information technology, and information and technology. The nuanced understanding of Smart Transformation in IS has become even more critical due to governmental and organizational programs that foster smartness. This report summarizes research reports of students attending “Emerging Technology Adoption and Use” course in Tampere University. During the course, we focused on three emerging technologies. Extended Reality Blockchain Artificial Intelligence Each group collaborated on finding a common topic of interest. They focused on the adoption and/or use of a particular emerging technology in a setting of their own choosing. As you are about to see, the findings of each group emphasize different perspectives. These range from the negative effects of technology use to the opportunities and delights of information systems

Smart Tray: Speculating The Future New Zealand Dining Experience

This research proposes a design solution that embraces New Zealander’s proclivity for pervasive digital technology and that aims to meet the needs and desires of the future Kiwi dining experience. This research proposition is directed by an approach that situates itself between future forecasting and speculative design, whereby the design output is viable while simultaneously capable of provoking critical reflection about the future of design as it relates to domestic dining appliances. The development of a design solution, the Smart Tray, encapsulates these aims and has been guided by a comprehensive investigation into the points of connection that exist between culture, technology, design and social behaviour. The Smart Tray seeks to acknowledge New Zealand’s history while embodying its contemporary domestic dining culture in proposing an appliance-device that embraces digital technology as part of the everyday dining experience. This research has been supported by the application of various methodologies inclusive of the critical review of academic literature that has functioned to frame and support the scope of the research proposition; case studies in which a selection of Kiwi households have been interviewed, observed, and their behaviours analysed in order to gain a greater understanding of contemporary dining habits and their relationship with pervasive digital technologies at home; and iterative design development inclusive of concept sketching, sketch modelling, experience prototyping, and user feedback. Although this research is contextualised within New Zealand, the general research outcomes are applicable to a wide market. The outputs produced as a result of this research, including the exegesis and design of the final Smart Tray, are intended to offer a valuable critical perspective and viable future design solution that will aid in furthering the professional field of dining design

Obstacles to wearable computing

In the year 2021, wearable technology could look beautiful and feel magical, but instead is exemplified by a plain wristband that looks suspiciously like a prison monitor. How can we make wearable technology that respects our privacy, enhances our daily lives, integrates with our other connected devices without leashing us to a smartphone, and visually expresses who we are? This study uses a novel method of participatory design fiction (PDFi) to understand potential users of everyday wearable technology through storytelling. I recruited participants from the general public and gave them a five-point prompt to create a design fiction (DF), which inspired the user-centred design of an everyday connected wearable device. The participants each received a technology probe to wear in the wild for a year. They then updated their DFs as a way to reflect on the implications of the technology. For the purposes of privacy, augmenting device functionality through interoperability, and integration into an Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem, I used the Hub-of-All-Things personal data store to provide the software infrastructure. By listening to their stories, we can elicit design concepts directly from the users, to help us create wearable IoT devices that put the wearer at the centre of the design process, and are satisfying both functionally and emotionally.The Alan Turing Institute Doctoral Scheme, University of Cambridge Department of Computer Science and Technology, The Kenneth Hayter Memorial Fun

COVID-19 Vaccines as Global Public Goods

Vulnerable: The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19 confronts the vulnerabilities that have been revealed by the pandemic and its consequences. It examines vulnerabilities for people who have been harmed or will be harmed by the virus directly and those harmed by measures taken to slow its relentless march; vulnerabilities exposed in our institutions, governance, and legal structures; and vulnerabilities in other countries and at the global level where persistent injustices affect us all. COVID-19 has forced us to not only reflect on how we govern and how we set policy priorities, but also to ensure that pandemic preparedness, precautions, and recovery include all individuals, not just some

Interactive Security: The Rhetorical Constitution Of Algorithmic Citizenship In War On Terror Discourse

This dissertation traces algorithmic citizenship as it is constituted through war on terror discourse. Utilizing Ron Greene’s rhetorical materialism, this project analyzes corporate discourse along with presidential address and policy to map how they interpellate citizens’ subjectivity. Specifically, the dissertation follows George Bush’s presidential rhetoric as he defines the war on terror and invites the public to participate. Then the dissertation examines how the political discourse associated with government 2.0 is also an economic discourse that works to articulate citizenship alongside consumerism. The next chapter follows the presidential rhetoric of Barack Obama as he intensifies the surveillance and war fighting rhetoric identified with George Bush and IBM. Finally, the dissertation maps the communicative function and role played by whistleblowers and theorizes how the interactive values of government 2.0 and algorithmic citizenship offer the potential for rhetorical agency