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

On the Role of In-situ Making and Evaluation in Cross-Cultural Co-design

There is growing interest in designing products and interactions across cultures. In this paper we report on our attempts to use in-situ making and evaluation to facilitate a short co-design process with outside designers in an ethnic and rural community. We found that rapid prototyping in the local context provided a mechanism to quickly engage designers with locals in informing iterative design refinement. Our research suggests that using in-situ making interlaced with evaluation is a feasible approach to drive designers to immerse, exchange and design within a cultural different context in the early stage of design exploration. We found that the rapid nature of our process makes it more suited for cultural product design led by designers than cross-cultural design

Codeveloping a multibehavioural mobile phone app to enhance social and emotional well-being and reduce health risks among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women during preconception and pregnancy: A three-phased mixed-methods study

Objective Describe the development and pretest of a prototype multibehavioural change app MAMA-EMPOWER. Design Mixed-methods study reporting three phases: (1) contextual enquiry included stakeholder engagement and qualitative interviews with Aboriginal women, (2) value specification included user-workshop with an Aboriginal researcher, community members and experts, (3) codesign with Aboriginal researchers and community members, followed by a pretest of the app with Aboriginal women, and feedback from qualitative interviews and the user-Mobile Application Rating Scale (U-MARS) survey tool. Settings Aboriginal women and communities in urban and regional New South Wales, Australia. Participants Phase 1: interviews, 8 Aboriginal women. Phase 2: workshop, 6 Aboriginal women. Phase 3: app trial, 16 Aboriginal women. U-MARS, 5 Aboriginal women. Results Phase 1 interviews revealed three themes: current app use, desired app characteristics and implementation. Phase 2 workshop provided guidance for the user experience. Phase 3 app trial assessed all content areas. The highest ratings were for information (mean score of 3.80 out of 5, SD=0.77) and aesthetics (mean score of 3.87 with SD of 0.74), while functionality, engagement and subjective quality had lower scores. Qualitative interviews revealed the acceptability of the app, however, functionality was problematic. Conclusions Developing a mobile phone app, particularly in an Aboriginal community setting, requires extensive consultation, negotiation and design work. Using a strong theoretical foundation of behavioural change technique’s coupled with the consultative approach has added rigour to this process. Using phone apps to implement behavioural interventions in Aboriginal community settings remains a new area for investigation. In the next iteration of the app, we aim to find better ways to personalise the content to women’s needs, then ensure full functionality before conducting a larger trial. We predict the process of development will be of interest to other health researchers and practitioners

Gaining resolution when creating imagery of aging

In seeking to support healthy aging, designers have struggled to reduce their assumptions and biases toward older adults, been seen to interpret the worlds of later life through unfiltered imagery, as well as engage with stigmas, ultimately diminishing the technologies they construct. This article seeks to critically analyse this state-of-the-art from a design research perspective while engaging with the growing interdisciplinary study of aging and technologies. Toward this, we proposition “resolution” as a concept indicative of the level of detail that seeks to characterize the fidelity that representations of later life have. This concept is explored through a cultural probe study that investigated the sentiments of several older Australians regarding the inequities and social isolation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Providing a diary alongside photovoice and mapping tasks, the study captured perceptions of social technology, practices, networks, and wellbeing, offering a diverse and complex picture of aging and technology. Through reflexive thematic analyses of some of these materials, this case study offers designers pathways to understanding and including older adults in their work. In determining the resolution of these images of aging, we discuss how transparency about the limitations and qualities of such participatory methods through incorporating reflexivity can influence the degree of detail such imagery gains. Ultimately this concept builds on the notion of participation configuration, supporting designers to realize better images of aging and representations of later life

Qi2He: A co-design framework inspired by eastern epistemology

The rapid development of rural societies mixed with the infrastructural transformation of emerging economies bring both challenges and opportunities to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) design as illustrated through the emergence of the field of HCI for Development (HCI4D). A key challenge for HCI4D is how local knowledge, expertise, and culture can be constructively combined with global trends in digital innovation and socioeconomic development. Co-design and participatory design practices in HCI offer opportunities to engage diverse communities in design activities which embrace both transition and tradition in constructive ways. We present our co-design framework, Qi2He, which supports designers and local communities engaging in co-design activities. Qi2He is inspired by traditional Chinese epistemology and contributes (i) methods to support cross-cultural co- design engagement, and (ii) post-hoc critique of co-design participation. We illustrate the use of Qi2He through three case studies of HCI design over four years in rural China where local culture and traditions are in a state of flux from waves of migration to cities whilst also being an integral part of the broader national and global transformation. The first case study examines how local rural knowledge can be shared and acquired to create a design system for ethnic brocade production. The second case study explores how the creation of an interactive drama can be used as a driver for rural community engagement. The third case study focusses on the iterative design of cross-cultural interactive product innovation. We conclude by reflecting on lessons we learnt when structuring and restructuring our co-design process and offer suggestions for how our Qi2He framework could be used by others and in different cultural settings

Understanding situated energy values in rural Kenya

Balachowsky Alfred Serge. Nouveau nom de genre pour un Diaspididae de Sao-Tomé [Hom. Coccoidea]. In: Bulletin de la Société entomologique de France, volume 78 (5-6), Mai-juin 1973. p. 225

How Design Researchers Interpret Probes: Understanding the Critical Intentions of a Designerly Approach to Research

Since entering the HCI lexicon in the 1990s, Probes have been interpreted and used in divergent ways as a designerly approach to research. While originally positioned as a critique of dominant user-research methods, literature on Probes rarely reflects on such critical dimensions nor explicitly articulates the intents of using Probes as research artifacts. We conducted interviews with 12 design researchers who have worked with Probes within diverse Research through Design projects, exploring direct accounts of how and why Probes are used in practice. Our interviews brought to the fore the critical concerns behind Probe practices in relation to the language of Probing, relationships with participants, and motivations to challenge normative practices. While the pluralistic interpretations of Probes offered by our participants brings challenges, we discuss how making visible the critical motivations of our research opens up new ways of practicing and disseminating Probes

Designing with community health workers: feedback-integrated multimedia learning for rural community health

Community Health Workers (CHWs) are an integral part of the rural health system, and it is imperative that their voices are accommodated in digital health projects. In the mobile health education project discussed in this thesis (The Bophelo Haeso project), we sought to find ways to amplify CHWs' voices, enabling them to directly influence design and research processes as well as technological outcomes. The Bophelo Haeso (BH) project equips CHWs with health videos on their mobile phones to use for educating and counselling the rural public. We investigated how to best co-design, with CHWs, a feedback mechanism atop the basic BH health education model, thus enabling their voices in the design process and in the process of community education. This thesis chronicles this inclusive design and research process - a 30-month process that spanned three sub-studies: an 18-month process to co-design the feedback mechanism with CHWs, a 12-month deployment study of the feedback mechanism and, overlapping with the feedback deployment study, a 17-month study looking at the consumption patterns of the BH educational videos. This work contributes to the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) in three distinct ways. First, it contributes to the growing knowledge of co-design practice with participants of limited digital experience by introducing a concept we termed co-design readiness. We designed and deployed explorative artefacts and found that by giving CHWs increased technical, contextual, and linguistic capacity to contribute to the design process, they were empowered to unleash their innate creativity, which in turn led to more appropriate and highly-adopted solutions. Secondly, we demonstrate the efficacy of incorporating an effective village-to-clinic feedback mechanism in digital health education programs. We employed two approaches to feedback - asynchronous voice and roleplaying techniques. Both approaches illustrate the combined benefits of implementing creative methods for effective human-to-technology and human-tohuman communication in ways that enable new forms of expression. Finally, based on our longitudinal study of video consumption, we provide empirical evidence of offline video consumption trends in health education settings. We present qualitative and quantitative analyses of video-use patterns as influenced by the CHWs' ways of being and working. Through these analyses, we describe CHWs and their work practices in depth. In addition to the three main contributions, this thesis concludes with critical reflections from the lessons and experiences of the 30-month study. We discuss the introduction of smartphones in rural villages, especially among elderly, low-literate, and non-English-speaking users, and present guidelines for designing relevant and usable smartphones for these populations. The author also reflects on her position as an African-born qualitative researcher in Africa, and how her positionality affected the outcomes of this research