HCI as a means to prosociality in the economy

HCI research often involves intervening in the economic lives of people, but researchers only rarely give explicit consideration to what actually constitutes prosociality in the economy. Much has been said previously regarding sustainability but this has largely focused on environmental rather than interpersonal relations. This paper provides an analysis of how prosocial HCI has been discussed and continues to be defined as a research field. Based on a corpus of published works, we describe a variety of genres of work relating to prosocial HCI. Key intellectual differences are explored, including the epistemological and ethical positions involved in designing for prosocial outcomes as well as how HCI researchers posit economic decision-making. Finally, emerging issues and opportunities for further debate and collaboration are discussed in turn

People's Perception of Domestic Service Robots: Same Household, Same Opinion?

The study presented in this paper examined people’s perception of domestic service robots by means of an ethnographic study. We investigated initial reactions of nine households who lived with a Roomba vacuum cleaner robot over a two week period. To explore people’s attitude and how it changed over time, we used a recurring questionnaire that was filled at three different times, integrated in 18 semi-structured qualitative interviews. Our findings suggest that being part of a specific household has an impact how each individual household member perceives the robot. We interpret that, even though individual experiences with the robot might differ from one other, a household shares a specific opinion about the robot. Moreover our findings also indicate that how people perceived Roomba did not change drastically over the two week period

When Ostrom Meets Blockchain: Exploring the Potentials of Blockchain for Commons Governance

Blockchain technologies have generated enthusiasm, yet their potential to enable new forms of governance remains largely unexplored. Two confronting standpoints dominate the emergent debate around blockchain-based governance: discourses characterized by the presence of techno-determinist and market-driven values, which tend to ignore the complexity of social organization; and critical accounts of such discourses which, while contributing to identifying limitations, consider the role of traditional centralized institutions as inherently necessary to enable democratic forms of governance. In this article, we draw on Ostrom’s principles for self-governance of communities to explore the transformative potential of blockchain beyond such standpoints. We approach blockchain through the identification and conceptualization of six affordances that this technology may provide to communities: tokenization, self-enforcement and formalization of rules, autonomous automatization, decentralization of power over the infrastructure, increasing transparency, and codification of trust. For each affordance, we carry out a detailed analysis situating each in the context of Ostrom’s principles, considering both the potentials of algorithmic governance and the importance of incorporating communities’ social practices into blockchain-based tools to foster forms of self-governance. The relationships found between these affordances and Ostrom’s principles allow us to provide a perspective focused on blockchain-based commons governance

The acceptance of domestic technology: TAM as applied to a proposed classification scheme

Information systems researchers have studied technology acceptance for decades. Domestic technologies, such as ambient computing devices or smart homes have more recently begun to show up in scientific literature, mostly in the area of computing design. Such studies often use an ethnographic method, or study the development and potential use of particular gadgets or systems. Consumers have largely not embraced these technologies. In asking why this is the case, a previously proven method to study technology acceptance was sought and found in Davis\u27 Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This study seeks to demonstrate the applicability of TAM to the study of emerging domestic technologies.;In addition, a classification scheme is proposed for domestic technologies, classifying technologies based on task goal and technology type. Participants in the study were exposed to technologies from each of the four classification quadrants. Standard TAM measures, along with measures of gender, sex role attitude, and product class involvement were administered to 113 participants and path analysis was performed to determine the effect on behavioral intention (i.e., the intention to use the technology) of these factors

Beyond Automated Assessment: Building Metacognitive Awareness in Novice Programmers in CS1

The primary task of learning to program in introductory computer science courses (CS1) cognitively overloads novices and must be better supported. Several recent studies have attempted to address this problem by understanding the role of metacognitive awareness in novices learning programming. These studies have focused on teaching metacognitive awareness to students by helping them understand the six stages of learning so students can know where they are in the problem-solving process, but these approaches are not scalable. One way to address scalability is to implement features in an automated assessment tool (AAT) that build metacognitive awareness in novice programmers. Currently, AATs that provide feedback messages to students can be said to implement the fifth and sixth learning stages integral to metacognitive awareness: implement solution (compilation) and evaluate implemented solution (test cases). The computer science education (CSed) community is actively engaged in research on the efficacy of compile error messages (CEMs) and how best to enhance them to maximize student learning and it is currently heavily disputed whether or not enhanced compile error messages (ECEMs) in AATs actually improve student learning. The discussion on the effectiveness of ECEMs in AATs remains focused on only one learning stage critical to metacognitive awareness in novices: implement solution. This research carries out an ethnomethodologically-informed study of CS1 students via think-aloud studies and interviews in order to propose a framework for designing an AAT that builds metacognitive awareness by supporting novices through all six stages of learning. The results of this study provide two important contributions. The first is the confirmation that ECEMs that are designed from a human-factors approach are more helpful for students than standard compiler error messages. The second important contribution is that the results from the observations and post-assessment interviews revealed the difficulties novice programmers often face to developing metacognitive awareness when using an AAT. Understanding these barriers revealed concrete ways to help novice programmers through all six stages of the problem-solving process. This was presented above as a framework of features, which when implemented properly, provides a scalable way to implicitly produce metacognitive awareness in novice programmers

The Influence of Designers' Culture on the Design and Design Process for Familiar and Unfamiliar User Cultures

Recent years have seen an increased demand for designers to be able to design for users in different and unfamiliar cultures. This demand has resulted in a recent research focus on culture and design. However, a state of the art review revealed limited focus thus far on the influence of designers’ and users’ cultures on both individual designs and the design process as a whole. The key research questions to examine the influence of the designers’ and users’ cultures on designs and the design process were addressed via 1:1 design studies with German and Indian design students, where the results of the design process (design concepts) were evaluated with the help of experts. The 1:1 design studies indicated little difference in the steps in the design process followed between designers from the two cultures or when designing for different cultures, except for variations in strategy based on the target culture/persona. The expert evaluation of the designs showed clear influences of designers’ culture on the design, along with the fact that intimate knowledge of target user/user’s culture played an important role in the success of designing for the unfamiliar. In order to help better design for unfamiliar cultures, a modified design process was suggested, with an explicit call to understand the difference in perceptions between the designer and the target user/culture. The suggested modified design process was validated through multiphase design activity with design students in Germany and India. The validation studies showed the modified design process and the perception studies had a positive impact on designing for both familiar and unfamiliar cultures. However, qualitative analysis and feedback revealed the need to develop a simpler tool to understand perceptions. One envisioned consequence of this thesis is the formal sensitisation of students to aspects of culture and its influence on design, which in turn would help students be better prepared to design for different and unfamiliar users/cultures. Finally, the future scope of research based on this thesis could include the development of formal methods and parameters to measure cultural engagement of various products and product categories, and research into the mapping of popularly used cultural dimensions onto product design and design process. From a larger perspective, this thesis makes an original contribution to research in the area of culture and design by addressing the identified gap in research through a study of the influence of culture (designers’ and users’) on both individuals designs and the design process as a whole, thereby building on and complementing the work done by Razzaghi (2007). The methodology used to examine the identified research questions establishes an initial framework to compare designs and design processes across cultures. The suggestion of the modified design process along with the perception studies adds to the body of work in the area of methods and tools to design for different cultures. Furthermore, a preliminary idea about a mixed card sort method is made in response to one of the findings, in an attempt to develop simpler tools for designers to understand perceptions

Making ubicomp acceptable in the home

This thesis is concerned with the uses of ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) technologies in everyday domestic settings. In contrast to goal-oriented technology adoption (e.g. in the workplace), the integration of pervasive technology in the home faces not only social but also physical and technical constraints. We propose a design framework for the introduction of ubicomp technology into today’s homes that, firstly, considers a holistic approach to integrating pervasive technology; secondly, takes into account social factors and domestic activity when defining the nature of the system’s interaction; and thirdly, allows the user to adapt the system’s interaction and collaboration. Most of the work to date on domestic ubicomp takes the customization of domestic spaces for granted, presuming that the integration of sensing technologies can be accomplished to any required degree and usually assuming that context-aware systems have to be proactive, limiting users to the role of consumers of the system’s actions rather than allowing them a more participative or cooperative role. We have applied our framework to design a domestic ubicomp system to support parents with childcare in the home. The “Context-Aware Room” and the “The Parent-Child Companion Tool” prototypes are built to take account of the interaction between the social and physical and the social and digital contexts in order to address issues of integration of sensing technology, socially respectful collaboration and system adaptation. Two studies explore the potential social acceptance of the PChCT. The panel study considers parents’ overall perceptions of whether these kinds of ubicomp tools might help with parental tasks. The usability study considers the usefulness and usability of the PChCT. The results of the study reflect a positive attitude to the PChCT. Parents liked the collaborative resources and facilities to tailor collaboration. Further work might be done to assess how the system’s adaptation might fit within a wider context of user needs. Nevertheless, we argue that the use of our framework can lead to more socially acceptable ubicomp experiences in the home

Artefactos tangíveis e adaptáveis no ambiente doméstico

Doutoramento em Informação e Comunicação em Plataformas DigitaisRecentemente assistimos a uma evolução da relação do Homem com a tecnologia, em larga medida acompanhada por novos modelos de interacção que modificam a forma de conceber os artefactos e constroem novos contextos de uso. Procuramos investigar, na presente tese, uma das abordagens emergentes, o universo dos media tangíveis, articulando a perspectiva do design da tecnologia orientada para a Human-Computer Interation (HCI), com a dimensão social, cultural e estética no uso da tecnologia. Os media tangíveis, ao contrário do que sucede com os conteúdos digitais convencionais, têm espessura e expressão física e, porque são dotados de um corpo que habita o espaço das disposições físicas, estão sujeitos à acção do mundo cultural e das práticas sociais que regem os demais objectos físicos que podemos encontrar no nosso quotidiano. Esta nova relação com a tecnologia digital obrigará as disciplinas que se encontram mais próximas do desenvolvimento tecnológico, tais como o Design de Interacção e a HCI, a abrirem-se aos contributos e abordagens das ciências humanas. Admitindo que a natureza subjacente ao processo da adaptabilidade no ambiente doméstico altera o equilíbrio da relação entre o design e o uso da tecnologia, julgamos ser essencial o desenvolvimento de uma fenomenologia da interação. Por outro lado, a adaptabilidade dos media tangíveis apresenta um conjunto de dificuldades, não apenas de ordem técnica, mas também de natureza conceptual, que têm dificultado o desenvolvimento e a implementação no terreno de tecnologias personalizáveis. Um dos objectivos da presente tese consiste em investigar um quadro conceptual capaz de enquadrar o fenómeno da adaptabilidade dos media tangíveis, e desenvolver uma tecnologia que possa servir de objecto a um estudo empírico com base numa abordagem etnográfica.The present thesis will research the phenomenon of an emerging approach, the universe of Tangible Media, in the home environment, articulating the perspective of design of technology-oriented Human-Computer interation with the social, cultural and aesthetic use of technology. For this, it presents a model of interaction - Adaptable Tangible Artifacts (ATA) - based on three structuring concepts: the tangibility of interface, the adaptability at level of use and the discretionarity of the interaction context. The tangible media, unlike what happens with conventional digital content, have physical expression and they are endowed with a body. This one inhabits the space of physical dispositions and are subject to the action of the cultural and social practices which rules other physical objects present in our everyday lives. This new relationship with digital technology oblige the fileds that are related to the technological development , such as Interaction Design and HCI , to open themselves to the contributions and approaches of the social sciences. Assuming that the underlying process of adaptability in home environment changes the equilibrium of the relationship between design and use of technology, we believe it is essential to develop a phenomenology of interaction.Moreover, the adaptability of the tangible medium presents a number of difficulties, not only technical but also conceptual nature, which have hindered the development and implementation of technologies in the pratical field. One objective of this thesis is to investigate a conceptual framework for the phenomenon of adaptability of tangible media and develop a technology that can serve as an empirical ethnographic study