On the Metaphysical Necessity of Suffering from Natural Evil

Why does God permit suffering in the world? If God is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient, why would He not intervene to prevent us from suffering? These are questions that pertain to the problem of evil: how to reconcile the existence of God with the evil occurrences of this world, without sacrificing any of His divine attributes. The most potent version of the problem of evil is a recent formulation known as the evidential argument from evil. The evidential argument states that while the existence of God is not logically incompatible with the fact that there are evil occurrences, there are particular instances of suffering that lower the probability that God exists altogether. In the most noteworthy formulation of the evidential argument, William Rowe designates these particular instances of suffering as gratuitous suffering: any sort of unnecessary or pointless suffering that a being could undergo and which serves no greater good. Rowe declares that gratuitous suffering counts as evidence against the existence of God. I intend to offer an explanatory defense of God in light of Rowe’s evidential argument from evil. I will contend that no suffering is gratuitous and that Rowe’s argument is unsound

From STEM to STEAM: Toward a Human-Centered Education

The 20th century was based on local linear engineering of complicated systems. We made cars, airplanes and chemical plants for example. The 21st century has opened a new basis for holistic non-linear design of complex systems, such as the Internet, air traffic management and nanotechnologies. Complexity, interconnectivity, interaction and communication are major attributes of our evolving society. But, more interestingly, we have started to understand that chaos theories may be more important than reductionism, to better understand and thrive on our planet. Systems need to be investigated and tested as wholes, which requires a cross-disciplinary approach and new conceptual principles and tools. Consequently, schools cannot continue to teach isolated disciplines based on simple reductionism. Science; Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) should be integrated together with the Arts1 to promote creativity together with rationalization, and move to STEAM (with an "A" for Arts). This new concept emphasizes the possibility of longer-term socio-technical futures instead of short-term financial predictions that currently lead to uncontrolled economies. Human-centered design (HCD) can contribute to improving STEAM education technologies, systems and practices. HCD not only provides tools and techniques to build useful and usable things, but also an integrated approach to learning by doing, expressing and critiquing, exploring possible futures, and understanding complex systems

Assessing the Effectiveness and Usability of Personalized Internet Search through a Longitudinal Evaluation

This paper discusses a longitudinal user evaluation of Prospector, a personalized Internet meta-search engine capable of personalized re-ranking of search results. Twenty-one participants used Prospector as their primary search engine for 12 days, agreed to have their interaction with the system logged, and completed three questionnaires. The data logs show that the personalization provided by Prospector is successful: participants preferred re-ranked results that appeared higher up. However, the questionnaire results indicated that people would prefer to use Google instead (their search engine of choice). Users would, nevertheless, consider employing a personalized search engine to perform searches with terms that require disambiguation and/or contextualization. We conclude the paper with a discussion on the merit of combining system- and user-centered evaluation for the case of personalized systems

Animal-Computer Interaction: a Manifesto (2011) and sections from Towards an Animal-Centred Ethics for Animal-Computer Interaction (2016)

Reprint of journal article "Animal-Computer Interaction: a Manifesto" (2011) and of sections of journal article "Towards an Animal-Centred Ethics for Animal-Computer Interaction" (2016

Metamorphosis: Transforming Non-designers into Designers

In this paper we make the case that there is today a growing number of educational settings experiencing challenges when it comes to transforming non-designers into designers, and in particular, interaction designers. We see this development as a consequence of an increased awareness and recognition of what broadly could be labeled as a design perspective. We examine the transformational process, the metamorphosis, by which non-designer students become interaction designers. We identify and describe the barriers that make it difficult for the students to move through this transformational process. We also propose some pedagogical approaches that can reduce the barriers and improve the possibility for the transformation to occur. The approach that we have developed and describe consists of three parts. Based on a fundamental understanding of the nature of design, we have developed (i) a tentative transformational model of how non-designers become interaction designers; (ii) a special kind of conceptual framework used to support students in the transformational process; and (iii) design assignments based on real-world design problems. We end the paper with two conclusions. First we argue that there is a challenge in transforming non-designers into designers, but that it is possible if the educational effort is based on an understanding of design and on the transformational process with its barriers. Finally we argue that the experience of trying to turn non-designers into interaction designers is in itself a valuable research approach. Dealing with non-designer students reveals deep insights about the nature of the design process and makes it possible to better formulate what constitutes a designerly approach. Keywords Design, Design education, Pedagogy, HCI</p

The Emerging Nature of Participation in Multispecies Interaction Design

Interactive technology has become integral part of daily life for both humans and animals, with animals often interacting with technologized environments on behalf of humans. For some, animals' participation in the design process is essential to design technology that can adequately support their activities. For others, animals' inability to understand and control design activities inevitably stands in the way of multispecies participatory practices. Here, we consider the essential elements of participation within interspecies interactions and illustrate its emergence, in spite of contextual constraints and asymmetries. To move beyond anthropomorphic notions of participation, and consequent anthropocentric practices, we propose a broader participatory model based on indexical semiosis, volition and choice; and we highlight dimensions that could define inclusive participatory practices more resilient to the diversity of understandings and goals among part-taking agents, and better able to account for the contribution of diverse, multispecies agents in interaction design and beyond

Living Innovation Laboratory Model Design and Implementation

Living Innovation Laboratory (LIL) is an open and recyclable way for multidisciplinary researchers to remote control resources and co-develop user centered projects. In the past few years, there were several papers about LIL published and trying to discuss and define the model and architecture of LIL. People all acknowledge about the three characteristics of LIL: user centered, co-creation, and context aware, which make it distinguished from test platform and other innovation approaches. Its existing model consists of five phases: initialization, preparation, formation, development, and evaluation. Goal Net is a goal-oriented methodology to formularize a progress. In this thesis, Goal Net is adopted to subtract a detailed and systemic methodology for LIL. LIL Goal Net Model breaks the five phases of LIL into more detailed steps. Big data, crowd sourcing, crowd funding and crowd testing take place in suitable steps to realize UUI, MCC and PCA throughout the innovation process in LIL 2.0. It would become a guideline for any company or organization to develop a project in the form of an LIL 2.0 project. To prove the feasibility of LIL Goal Net Model, it was applied to two real cases. One project is a Kinect game and the other one is an Internet product. They were both transformed to LIL 2.0 successfully, based on LIL goal net based methodology. The two projects were evaluated by phenomenography, which was a qualitative research method to study human experiences and their relations in hope of finding the better way to improve human experiences. Through phenomenographic study, the positive evaluation results showed that the new generation of LIL had more advantages in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.Comment: This is a book draf

Canine-centered interface design: supporting the work of diabetes alert dogs

Many people with Diabetes live with the continuous threat of hypoglycaemic attacks and the danger of going into coma. Diabetic Alert Dogs are trained to detect the onset of an attack before the human handler they are paired with deteriorates, giving them time to take action. We investigated requirements for designing an alert system allowing dogs to remotely call for help when their human falls unconscious before being able to react to an alert. Through a multispecies ethnographic approach we focus on teasing out the requirements for a physical canine user interface, involving both dogs, their handlers and trainers in the design. We discuss tensions between the requirements for the canine and the human users, argue the need for increased sensitivity towards the needs of individual dogs that goes beyond breed specific physical characteristics and reflect on how we can move from designing for dogs to designing with dogs