Infrastructural Speculations: Tactics for Designing and Interrogating Lifeworlds

This paper introduces “infrastructural speculations,” an orientation toward speculative design that considers the complex and long-lived relationships of technologies with broader systems, beyond moments of immediate invention and design. As modes of speculation are increasingly used to interrogate questions of broad societal concern, it is pertinent to develop an orientation that foregrounds the “lifeworld” of artifacts—the social, perceptual, and political environment in which they exist. While speculative designs often imply a lifeworld, infrastructural speculations place lifeworlds at the center of design concern, calling attention to the cultural, regulatory, environmental, and repair conditions that enable and surround particular future visions. By articulating connections and affinities between speculative design and infrastructure studies research, we contribute a set of design tactics for producing infrastructural speculations. These tactics help design researchers interrogate the complex and ongoing entanglements among technologies, institutions, practices, and systems of power when gauging the stakes of alternate lifeworlds

Design rules and guidelines for generic condition-based maintenance software's Graphic User Interface

The task of selecting and developing a method of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) for a Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) system, is investigated in this thesis. Efficiently and accurately communicating machinery health information extracted from Condition Monitoring (CM) equipment, to aid and assist plant and machinery maintenance decisions, is the crux of the problem being researched. Challenges facing this research include: the multitude of different CM techniques, developed for measuring different component and machinery condition parameters; the multitude of different methods of HCI; and the multitude of different ways of communicating machinery health conditions to CBM practitioners. Each challenge will be considered whilst pursuing the objective of identifying a generic set of design and development principles, applicable to the design and development of a CBM system's Human Machine Interface (HMI). [Continues.

Designing as Construction of Representations: A Dynamic Viewpoint in Cognitive Design Research

This article presents a cognitively oriented viewpoint on design. It focuses on cognitive, dynamic aspects of real design, i.e., the actual cognitive activity implemented by designers during their work on professional design projects. Rather than conceiving de-signing as problem solving - Simon's symbolic information processing (SIP) approach - or as a reflective practice or some other form of situated activity - the situativity (SIT) approach - we consider that, from a cognitive viewpoint, designing is most appropriately characterised as a construction of representations. After a critical discussion of the SIP and SIT approaches to design, we present our view-point. This presentation concerns the evolving nature of representations regarding levels of abstraction and degrees of precision, the function of external representations, and specific qualities of representation in collective design. Designing is described at three levels: the organisation of the activity, its strategies, and its design-representation construction activities (different ways to generate, trans-form, and evaluate representations). Even if we adopt a "generic design" stance, we claim that design can take different forms depending on the nature of the artefact, and we propose some candidates for dimensions that allow a distinction to be made between these forms of design. We discuss the potential specificity of HCI design, and the lack of cognitive design research occupied with the quality of design. We close our discussion of representational structures and activities by an outline of some directions regarding their functional linkages

Trends on engineering interactive systems: an overview of works presented in workshops at EICS 2019

Workshops are a great opportunity for identifying innovative topics of research that might require discussion and maturation. This paper summarizes the outcomes of the workshops track of the 11th Engineering Interactive Computing Systems conference (EICS 2019), held in Valencia (Spain) on 18-21 June 2019. The track featured three workshops, one half-day, one full-day and one two-days workshop, each focused on specific topics of the ongoing research in engineering usable and effective interactive computing systems. In particular, the list of discussed topics include novel forms of interaction and emerging themes in HCI related to new application domains, more efficient and enjoyable interaction possibilities associated to smart objects and smart environments, challenges faced in designing, developing and using interactive systems involving multiple stakeholders.- (undefined

Privacy Vulnerabilities in the Practices of Repairing Broken Digital Artifacts in Bangladesh

This paper presents a study on the privacy concerns associated with the practice of repairing broken digital objects in Bangladesh. Historically, repair of old or broken technologies has received less attention in ICTD scholarship than design, development, or use. As a result, the potential privacy risks associated with repair practices have remained mostly unaddressed. This paper describes our three-month long ethnographic study that took place at ten major repair sites in Dhaka, Bangladesh. We show a variety of ways in which the privacy of an individual’s personal data may be compromised during the repair process. We also examine people’s perceptions around privacy in repair, and its connections with their broader social and cultural values. Finally, we discuss the challenges and opportunities for future research to strengthen the repair ecosystem in developing countries. Taken together, our findings contribute to the growing discourse around post-use cycles of technology

Lessons Learned from Applying Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Techniques to the Redesign of a User Interface

This research details the finding on web page design principles focusing on the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) aspect. The focus was derived from the Top Ten (10) Web Page Design Mistakes (2003) by Jakob Nielsen, a well-known guru of HCI and usability. In this technological era, there are thousands and millions of web sites and pages but how many of these pages are properly designed? Web page designers nowadays focus too much on the functionality of a system instead interface design which actually projects an application's uniqueness and key messages that creates the desired emotional response from the users involved The objectives of this research includes investigation of principles applied in HCI for web page interface design, redefinition of the erroneous web pages and formulation of domain-specific rules to ensure the effectiveness, practicality and acceptance of these techniques. Usability lab testing, questionnaires, prototype screens are done to focus on evaluation, based on the usability criteria of web pages identified from many credible sources. This research was done based on the fact that Internet users' preference and ease of browsing plays a vital role in deciding the acceptance of a web page. A powerful system would be left behind by users if it is not user friendly or designed according to the standards, principles and guidelines of HCI. The methodology used concentrates on a problem-specified framework which was developed by the author. There were six (6) processes involved namely Identification of target users, User consultation, Task analysis, Usability and accessibility assurance, Consideration of web design issues and Formulation of user interface design specification. The final result of this study is a domain specific guideline of HCI for web page design customized for profit making organizations and individuals. In conclusion, HCI principles is inseparable when it comes to web designing issues and this will continue to be vital as long as web page exist and is used by many

A survey of cultural aspects in Human Computer Interaction Research

Considering culture in human computer interaction research is an important issue since culture has a strong impact on many cognitive and affective processes, closed related to the design and evaluation of interactive systems. Also, people with different cultural backgrounds develop alternative interpretations and strategies and do not value their environment in the same way, and this reflects in their interactions and satisfaction with interactive technologies. In this survey we summarize some concepts of the cultural aspects related to human computer interaction research. After we discuss how HCI practices could address these cultural issues. Our intention is to establish background and some basic concepts for helping researchers incorporating cultural issues in their design and evaluation processes