Connected seeds and sensors: co-designing internet of things for sustainable smart cities with urban food-growing communities.

We present a case study of a participatory design project in the space of sustainable smart cities and Internet of Things. We describe our design process that led to the development of an interactive seed library that tells the stories of culturally diverse urban food growers, and networked environmental sensors from their gardens, as a way to support more sustainable food practices in the city. This paper contributes to an emerging body of empirical work within participatory design that seeks to involve citizens in the design of smart cities and Internet of Things, particularly in the context of marginalised and culturally diverse urban communities. It also contributes empirical work towards non-utilitarian approaches to sustainable smart cities through a discussion of designing for urban diversity and slowness

The Future of Human-Food Interaction

There is an increasing interest in food within the HCI discipline, with many interactive prototypes emerging that augment, extend and challenge the various ways people engage with food, ranging from growing plants, cooking ingredients, serving dishes and eating together. Grounding theory is also emerging that in particular draws from embodied interactions, highlighting the need to consider not only instrumental, but also experiential factors specific to human-food interactions. Considering this, we are provided with an opportunity to extend human-food interactions through knowledge gained from designing novel systems emerging through technical advances. This workshop aims to explore the possibility of bringing practitioners, researchers and theorists together to discuss the future of human-food interaction with a particular highlight on the design of experiential aspects of human-food interactions beyond the instrumental. This workshop extends prior community building efforts in this area and hence explicitly invites submissions concerning the empirically-informed knowledge of how technologies can enrich eating experiences. In doing so, people will benefit not only from new technologies around food, but also incorporate the many rich benefits that are associated with eating, especially when eating with others

Visions, Values, and Videos: Revisiting Envisionings in Service of UbiComp Design for the Home

UbiComp has been envisioned to bring about a future dominated by calm computing technologies making our everyday lives ever more convenient. Yet the same vision has also attracted criticism for encouraging a solitary and passive lifestyle. The aim of this paper is to explore and elaborate these tensions further by examining the human values surrounding future domestic UbiComp solutions. Drawing on envisioning and contravisioning, we probe members of the public (N=28) through the presentation and focus group discussion of two contrasting animated video scenarios, where one is inspired by "calm" and the other by "engaging" visions of future UbiComp technology. By analysing the reasoning of our participants, we identify and elaborate a number of relevant values involved in balancing the two perspectives. In conclusion, we articulate practically applicable takeaways in the form of a set of key design questions and challenges.Comment: DIS'20, July 6-10, 2020, Eindhoven, Netherland

The Right to the Sustainable Smart City

Environmental concerns have driven an interest in sustainable smart cities, through the monitoring and optimisation of networked infrastructures. At the same time, there are concerns about who these interventions and services are for, and who benefits. HCI researchers and designers interested in civic life have started to call for the democratisation of urban space through resistance and political action to challenge state and corporate claims. This paper contributes to an emerging body of work that seeks to involve citizens in the design of sustainable smart cities, particularly in the context of marginalised and culturally diverse urban communities. We present a study involving co- designing Internet of Things with urban agricultural communities and discuss three ways in which design can participate in the right to the sustainable smart city through designing for the commons, care, and biocultural diversity

Mapping FoodHCI Futures

Recognizing the significant potential impact that HCI has on food practices and experiences, researchers and practitioners are undertaking a growing number of explorations of novel computing technology and food combinations. These explorations have so far primarily emphasized technology-driven systems and taken a human-centric perspective. We propose a Special Interest Group (SIG) in "foodHCI futures"that creates a space for researchers to discuss the boundaries of food incorporating HCI, and with the simultaneous aims of reconciling food with technology and extending our visions for human-food interactions towards anthropocentrism. Specifically, the SIG will be a beginning of developing a structured conceptual map of the possibilities for future technology interventions in food systems. In developing this map, we hope to encourage democratized debate, provoke new and divergent thoughts on the opportunities for foodHCI, and ultimately gain unique insights that contribute to preferable food futures

Afterschool for the Global Age

Summarizes discussions from a July 2006 convening on model afterschool programs and best practices for enhancing global literacy, including innovative uses of community and international connections, project-based learning, and educational technology

Software literacy in shaping what we know in a software-saturated society

Today’s modern societies are increasingly dependent on digital technologies and the software underpinning these technologies in almost every sphere of professional and personal life. These technologies and software are poorly understood as tools that shape our engagement with knowledge, culture and society in the 21st century. None of these tools are ‘neutral.’ They embody social and cultural assumptions about their use and all have particular values embedded in their interfaces and affordances. This paper draws from a funded research project investigating the notion of software literacy (Khoo, Hight, Torrens, & Cowie, 2017). In the project software literacy is defined as the expertise involved in understanding, applying, problem solving and critiquing software when it is used to achieve particular goals. The project team hypothesised there exists three progressive tiers of development towards software literacy in professional contexts. We conducted case studies of engineering and media studies students’ learning of an ubiquitous software such as PowerPoint as well as proprietary discipline-specific software to examine how software literacy is understood, developed and applied in a tertiary teaching-learning context. In this contribution we outline the project findings then use the notion of software literacy as the lens to unpack and illustrate through three everyday examples how software literacy would seem to be an essential part of learning and living in the 21st century

Software literacy in shaping what we know in a software-saturated society

Today’s modern societies are increasingly dependent on digital technologies and the software underpinning these technologies in almost every sphere of professional and personal life. These technologies and software are poorly understood as tools that shape our engagement with knowledge, culture and society in the 21st century. None of these tools are ‘neutral.’ They embody social and cultural assumptions about their use and all have particular values embedded in their interfaces and affordances. This paper draws from a funded research project investigating the notion of software literacy (Khoo, Hight, Torrens, & Cowie, 2017). In the project software literacy is defined as the expertise involved in understanding, applying, problem solving and critiquing software when it is used to achieve particular goals. The project team hypothesised there exists three progressive tiers of development towards software literacy in professional contexts. We conducted case studies of engineering and media studies students’ learning of an ubiquitous software such as PowerPoint as well as proprietary discipline-specific software to examine how software literacy is understood, developed and applied in a tertiary teaching-learning context. In this contribution we outline the project findings then use the notion of software literacy as the lens to unpack and illustrate through three everyday examples how software literacy would seem to be an essential part of learning and living in the 21st century

Include 2011 : The role of inclusive design in making social innovation happen.

Include is the biennial conference held at the RCA and hosted by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. The event is directed by Jo-Anne Bichard and attracts an international delegation