How Do UX Practitioners Communicate AI as a Design Material? Artifacts, Conceptions, and Propositions

UX practitioners (UXPs) face novel challenges when working with and communicating artificial intelligence (AI) as a design material. We explore how UXPs communicate AI concepts when given hands-on experience training and experimenting with AI models. To do so, we conducted a task-based design study with 27 UXPs in which they prototyped and created a design presentation for a AI-enabled interface while having access to a simple AI model training tool. Through analyzing UXPs' design presentations and post-activity interviews, we found that although UXPs struggled to clearly communicate some AI concepts, tinkering with AI broadened common ground when communicating with technical stakeholders. UXPs also identified key risks and benefits of AI in their designs, and proposed concrete next steps for both UX and AI work. We conclude with a sensitizing concept and recommendations for design and AI tools to enhance multi-stakeholder communication and collaboration when crafting human-centered AI experiences

Eye-candy or practical: Designing with user-interaction (UI) patterns

Usability and functionality, communicated through a software product interface, share a synergistic relationship. Both contribute substantially to Quality-in-Use of the product. While it’s important to ensure the User-Interface delivers necessary functionality, it’s crucial that the interface is also usable. Software- Requirements engineering and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) each offer their expertise in addressing such demands. But, lack of design language or vocabulary impedes communication between the two synergistic communities. In order to share interaction design knowledge, HCI design community has proposed User-interaction (UI) Patterns as a suitable boundary object or language, which could be understood both by HCI and SE communities. It has been argued that UI patterns are sufficiently richer than User-Interface guidelines conveying—what, how and when a particular UI-Pattern is used. In spite of a growing interest in UI-Patterns, questions about the usability and usefulness of UI-Patterns are still unanswered. Our study empirically evaluates the suitability of UIPatterns as a boundary object between HCI and SE by comparing: - how UI Patterns are interpreted and applied by the two communities; - what is the role played by UI-Patterns in communication; - if UI-patterns help rationalize and resolve design decisions. In doing so, we evaluate the usability—do other communities understand UI-patterns well enough to use them, and usefulness—what are the benefits of using UI-Patterns in design

Using a Boundary Object Framework to Analyze Interorganizational Collaboration

The U.S. military is facing a plethora of challenges as a result of tightening procurement budgets and the need to acquire new capabilities to operate in modern war environments. This requires integrating legacy systems with developing technologies in what is loosely defined to be a System of Systems. Most Systems of Systems require some integrator to manage and operate the system interfaces. In addition to technical integration challenges, these system integrators have the difficult undertaking of integrating various organizations. The boundary object framework proposed by this paper provides a tool for systems integrators working in System of Systems or any type of complex system to identify and categorize communication, coordination, and collaboration interfaces and address possible failures

Translations and Boundaries in the Gap Between HCI Theory and Design Practice

The gap between research and design practice has long been a concern for the HCI community. In this article, we explore how different translations of HCI knowledge might bridge this gap. A literature review characterizes the gap as having two key dimensions - one between general theory and particular artefacts and a second between academic HCI research and professional UX design practice. We report on a 5-year engagement between HCI researchers and a major media company to explore how a particular piece of HCI research, the trajectories conceptual framework, might be translated for and with UX practitioners. We present various translations of this framework and fit them into the gap we previously identified. This leads us to refine the idea of translations, suggesting that they may be led by researchers, by practitioners or co-produced by both as boundary objects. We consider the benefits of each approach

Selection as Design: Seeking Central Dogmas in the IS Discipline

For much of its history, IS has lacked enduring agreement about core theories uniting the IS discipline and its work. This paper borrows from biology the idea of a “central dogma” to propose a way to frame both thought and conversations about broadly diverse but related work within a discipline, to amplify the value of existing research through systematic synthesis, and to identify and guide new research and applications. From several IS and non-IS perspectives, it develops the novel idea of “selection as design” as a common thread by which to frame IS research and practice, and as an approach having some expected features of a disciplinary central dogma. It then uses a case study to operationalize selection as design through “selection bridges” which enable us to both examine connections among silicon and human information systems, and to leverage our findings across is theories and contexts

Of catwalk technologies and boundary creatures

Researchers designing and deploying technologies in the wild can find it difficult to balance pure innovation with scalable solutions. We propose a catwalk technology metaphor where researchers as boundary creatures focus on innovation whilst providing links to prêt-a-porter (ready to wear) developments. Evidence from three ‘in-the-wild’ field-based learning case studies with 140 geosciences and history learners are used to conceptualise the researchers’ ‘boundary creature’ role in managing these design process tensions, specifically for e-learning using mobile systems, distributed collaboration, sensors and augmented reality in quarries, up mountains and in the city. The analysis details the researcher issues of spatial/temporal acuity and socio-political astuteness in an adapted practitioner inquiry approach. Ultimately, a researcher design role (RDR) model reveals how researchers establish expectations with the design team, stakeholders and users around what is to be innovated (e.g. technology, activities) and how the system will change or enable current practices

Gender differences in navigation dialogues with computer systems

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Gender is among the most influential of the factors underlying differences in spatial abilities, human communication and interactions with and through computers. Past research has offered important insights into gender differences in navigation and language use. Yet, given the multidimensionality of these domains, many issues remain contentious while others unexplored. Moreover, having been derived from non-interactive, and often artificial, studies, the generalisability of this research to interactive contexts of use, particularly in the practical domain of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), may be problematic. At the same time, little is known about how gender strategies, behaviours and preferences interact with the features of technology in various domains of HCI, including collaborative systems and systems with natural language interfaces. Targeting these knowledge gaps, the thesis aims to address the central question of how gender differences emerge and operate in spatial navigation dialogues with computer systems. To this end, an empirical study is undertaken, in which, mixed-gender and same-gender pairs communicate to complete an urban navigation task, with one of the participants being under the impression that he/she interacts with a robot. Performance and dialogue data were collected using a custom system that supported synchronous navigation and communication between the user and the robot. Based on this empirical data, the thesis describes the key role of the interaction of gender in navigation performance and communication processes, which outweighed the effect of individual gender, moderating gender differences and reversing predicted patterns of performance and language use. This thesis has produced several contributions; theoretical, methodological and practical. From a theoretical perspective, it offers novel findings in gender differences in navigation and communication. The methodological contribution concerns the successful application of dialogue as a naturalistic, and yet experimentally sound, research paradigm to study gender and spatial language. The practical contributions include concrete design guidelines for natural language systems and implications for the development of gender-neutral interfaces in specific domains of HCI