Chasing the Chatbots: Directions for Interaction and Design Research

Big tech-players have been successful in pushing the chatbots forward. Investments in the technology are growing fast, as well as the number of users and applications available. Instead of driving investments towards a successful diffusion of the technology, user-centred studies are currently chasing the popularity of chatbots. A literature analysis evidences how recent this research topic is, and the predominance of technical challenges rather than understanding users’ perceptions, expectations and contexts of use. Looking for answers to interaction and design questions raised in 2007, when the presence of clever computers in everyday life had been predicted for the year 2020, this paper presents a panorama of the recent literature, revealing gaps and pointing directions for further user-centred research

Reconceptualising Personas Across Cultures: Archetypes, Stereotypes & Collective Personas in Pastoral Namibia

The paucity of projects where persona is the research foci and a lack of consensus on this artefact keep many reticent about its purpose and value. Besides crafting personas is expected to differ across cultures, which contrasts the advancements in Western theory with studies and progress in other sites. We postulate User-Created Personas reveal specific characteristics of situated contexts by allowing laypeople to design persona artefacts in their own terms. Hence analysing four persona sessions with an ethnic group in pastoral Namibia –ovaHerero– brought up a set of fundamental questions around the persona artefact regarding stereotypes, archetypes, and collective persona representations: (1) to what extent user depictions are stereotypical or archetypal? If stereotypes prime (2) to what degree are current personas a useful method to represent end-users in technology design? And, (3) how can we ultimately read accounts not conforming to mainstream individual persona descriptions but to collectives

Investing In Public Life

At the end of the 20th century, civil investing emerged as one of the most important developments in American philanthropy. Not quite a philosophy, not quite a grantmaking strategy, and not quite a type of grant, civil investing can be broadly defined as the use of philanthropic resources for building community and strengthening public life. This is a report of the 2003 -- 2004 Dialogues on Civil Investing, which brought together foundation executives, community leaders, and nonprofit directors to identify common concerns and develop joint strategies for a new and different kind of grantmaking

Democratic Replay: Enhancing TV Election Debates with Interactive Visualisations

This paper presents an online platform for enhancing televised election debates with interactive visualisations. Election debates are one of the highlights of election campaigns worldwide. They are also often criticised as appearing scripted, rehearsed, detached from much of the electorate, and at times too complex. Democratic Replay enhances videos of election debates with a collection of interactive tools aimed at providing a replay experience centred around citizens' needs. We present the system requirements, design and implementation, and report on an evaluation based on the ITV Leaders' Debate from the 2015 UK General Election campaign

How To Cope With The Dynamics Of Urban Sustainability: Urban Experimentation Platforms As Tools For Adaptive Policy-Making

The growing challenges of urban population, congestion, consumption and pollution, prompt cities to respond with policies that progress towards Urban Sustainability. Increasingly, Urban Experimentation (UX) engaging diverse stakeholders for local innovations, is viewed an enabler of iterative progress. Yet, despite various ‘smart city’ initiatives, how to cope with the dynamics underlying local innovation processes for urban sustainability is unclear. In this paper, we consider Urban Experimentation Platforms (UXPs) as a tool for coping with such dynamics. Using case data from the UXP of ‘OrganiCity’, our research considers how this UXP interacts with the dynamics of urban experimentation. We present early insights from our problem analysis using System Dynamics and outline our next steps. We find UXPs as both a tool for policy implementation and for adaptive policymaking, with understanding and utilisation of this latter aspect low. We conclude by discussing how IS research on UXPs contributes towards realising the potential of digital infrastructures for societal good

TAILORING CO-CREATION FOR RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION: A DESIGN ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACH

It is hard to predict the impact of technology on society before it is developed enough. For example, the issue can be attributed to the need for more cross-sectoral collaboration in the design process. However, a solution for anticipating such outcomes has been proposed through the quadruple helix innovation model, which states that the involvement of government, academia, industry, and the public is essential in innovation systems. The question of how this collaboration can successfully be staged to foresee possible impacts is an empirical endeavour. This paper presents an iterative case study of how ethnographic material can be used to ongoingly tailor speculative co-creation to facilitate responsible innovation (RI) principles. The result is reflected through two lenses; the tools developed in the project to facilitate co-creation activities and the stakeholder reflections evoked through these tools

Characterization of End-users’ Engagement and Interaction Experience with Social Media Technologies

People, particularly digital citizens, gain more technological experiences from their frequent usage of social media technologies. Their experience as end-users occurs before, during, and after their engagement and interaction with the technologies and is popularly described using behaviour-related definitions. However, an end-user\u27s experience with technologies goes beyond the \u27click-and-type definition. This prompts the question, what are the user experience elements that define and characterise end-users\u27 engagement and interaction with social media technologies? . Using a case study-based approach, end-users\u27 engagement and interaction with social media technologies were identified. The study\u27s findings indicated that several user experience elements were characterised by emotions, cognitive, and behavioural dimensions. Combining the characteristics of the dimensions resulted in a more holistic view of the engagement and interaction that end-users have with social media technologies

Iterative Prototyping of Urban CoBuilder: Tracking Methods and User Interface of an Outdoor Mobile Augmented Reality Tool for Co‐Designing

This research presents results from a study developing a smartphone app, UrbanCoBuilder, in which citizens can collaboratively create designs for urban environments usingaugmented reality technology and game mechanics. Eight prototypes were developed to refineselected design criteria, including tracking strategies, design elements, user experience and theinterface with game mechanics. The prototypes were developed through an iterative design processwith assessments and incremental improvements. The tracking was especially challenging andusing multiple bitonal markers combined with the smartphone’s gyroscope sensor to average theuser position was identified as the most suitable strategy. Still, portability and stability linked totracking need to be improved. Design elements, here building blocks with urban functions textures,were realistic enough to be recognizable and easy to understand for the users. Future studies willfocus on usability tests with larger user groups