Ethical values and social care robots for older people : an international qualitative study

Values such as respect for autonomy, safety, enablement, independence, privacy and social connectedness should be reflected in the design of social robots. The same values should affect the process by which robots are introduced into the homes of old people to support independent living. These values may, however, be in tension. We explored what potential users thought about these values, and how the tensions between them could be resolved. With the help of partners in the ACCOMPANY project, 21 focus groups (123 participants) were convened in France, the Netherlands and the UK. These groups consisted of: (i) older people, (ii) informal carers and (iii) formal carers of older people. The participants were asked to discuss scenarios in which there is a conflict between older people and others over how a robot should be used, these conflicts reflecting tensions between values. Participants favoured compromise, persuasion and negotiation as a means of reaching agreement. Roles and related role-norms for the robot were thought relevant to resolving tensions, as were hypothetical agreements between users and robot-providers before the robot is introduced into the home. Participants' understanding of each of the values – autonomy, safety, enablement, independence, privacy and social connectedness – is reported. Participants tended to agree that autonomy often has priority over the other values, with the exception in certain cases of safety. The second part of the paper discusses how the values could be incorporated into the design of social robots and operationalised in line with the views expressed by the participants

Exploring flash fiction for the collaborative interpretation of qualitative data

This paper presents some exploratory reflections on flash fiction as a possible method to spark discussion and collaborative interpretation of qualitative research data. A growing body of work in HCI and CSCW examines the potential of techniques used in creative writing and creative fiction to generate design concepts, and narrative data analysis is adopted by social science using creative writing techniques for qualitative data work. Here we discuss our experience of an exercise where flash fiction was used not as a technique in support of design (which has been done before in human-centred computing), but as a means of probing data and facilitating collaborative data work among researchers. We reflect on the experience and outcomes of the exercise and also discuss exploratory ideas regarding how creative writing techniques could be further explored in human-centred computing as a way to probe findings from empirical data, particularly for collaborative teams

Respect and Obedience in the Culture of Education: A Narrative of Transformative Journey in Viewing a Lifelong Practice in Indonesia.

This self-narrative retells stories that attempt to make sense of my cultural practice called salim—kissing the hand of teachers, the elderly, and powerful people to show respect. The evident purpose is to instill respect, however, I come to an understanding that respect should be a choice, and if there is no choice, it serves the purpose of implanting obedience. In Indonesian schools, students line up every morning to do salim to teachers, much like an assembly line. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) elucidated how narrative inquiries are always strongly autobiographical and unique. These stories are those I have experienced, witnessed, told, and reflected to achieve transformative learning. I narrated how I was the oppressed, the oppressor and in most times, both. The intent of this paper is not to eliminate the practice, but to awaken awareness of educators to see whether they have earned such respect

Accessibility of Health Data Representations for Older Adults: Challenges and Opportunities for Design

Health data of consumer off-the-shelf wearable devices is often conveyed to users through visual data representations and analyses. However, this is not always accessible to people with disabilities or older people due to low vision, cognitive impairments or literacy issues. Due to trade-offs between aesthetics predominance or information overload, real-time user feedback may not be conveyed easily from sensor devices through visual cues like graphs and texts. These difficulties may hinder critical data understanding. Additional auditory and tactile feedback can also provide immediate and accessible cues from these wearable devices, but it is necessary to understand existing data representation limitations initially. To avoid higher cognitive and visual overload, auditory and haptic cues can be designed to complement, replace or reinforce visual cues. In this paper, we outline the challenges in existing data representation and the necessary evidence to enhance the accessibility of health information from personal sensing devices used to monitor health parameters such as blood pressure, sleep, activity, heart rate and more. By creating innovative and inclusive user feedback, users will likely want to engage and interact with new devices and their own data

Studies on user control in ambient intelligent systems

People have a deeply rooted need to experience control and be effective in interactions with their environments. At present times, we are surrounded by intelligent systems that take decisions and perform actions for us. This should make life easier, but there is a risk that users experience less control and reject the system. The central question in this thesis is whether we can design intelligent systems that have a degree of autonomy, while users maintain a sense of control. We try to achieve this by giving the intelligent system an 'expressive interface’: the part that provides information to the user about the internal state, intentions and actions of the system. We examine this question both in the home and the work environment.We find the notion of a ‘system personality’ useful as a guiding principle for designing interactions with intelligent systems, for domestic robots as well as in building automation. Although the desired system personality varies per application, in both domains a recognizable system personality can be designed through expressive interfaces using motion, light, sound, and social cues. The various studies show that the level of automation and the expressive interface can influence the perceived system personality, the perceived level of control, and user’s satisfaction with the system. This thesis shows the potential of the expressive interface as an instrument to help users understand what is going on inside the system and to experience control, which might be essential for the successful adoption of the intelligent systems of the future.<br/

Animating the Ethical Demand:Exploring user dispositions in industry innovation cases through animation-based sketching

This paper addresses the challenge of attaining ethical user stances during the design process of products and services and proposes animation-based sketching as a design method, which supports elaborating and examining different ethical stances towards the user. The discussion is qualified by an empirical study of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in a Triple Helix constellation. Using a three-week long innovation workshop, UCrAc, involving 16 Danish companies and organisations and 142 students as empirical data, we discuss how animation-based sketching can explore not yet existing user dispositions, as well as create an incentive for ethical conduct in development and innovation processes. The ethical fulcrum evolves around Løgstrup's Ethical Demand and his notion of spontaneous life manifestations. From this, three ethical stances are developed; apathy, sympathy and empathy. By exploring both apathetic and sympathetic views, the ethical reflections are more nuanced as a result of actually seeing the user experience simulated through different user dispositions. Exploring the three ethical stances by visualising real use cases with the technologies simulated as already being implemented makes the life manifestations of the users in context visible. We present and discuss how animation-based sketching can support the elaboration and examination of different ethical stances towards the user in the product and service development process. Finally we present a framework for creating narrative representations of emerging technology use cases, which invite to reflection upon the ethics of the user experience.</jats:p

Electronic performance monitoring : the crossover between self-discipline and emotion management

This thesis studies the crossover between self-discipline and emotion management in an electronic performance monitoring (EPM) setting. The intersection between these two elements is explained in terms of six main themes: control, power and discipline; compliance, conformity and resistance; rationality, performance standards and corrective action; emotional labour and the management of emotions; society, responsibility and accountability; and subjectivity, internalisation and the self. These main themes emerged from interview data and are supported by the literature. A qualitative methodology was adopted to support a social constructionist perspective. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data from a single case study organisation, and thematic coding was used for analysis. EPM systems installed in the case study call centre are used to control agents’ behaviour, embedding in their minds the importance of controlling and disciplining their own behaviour. They are forced by EPM to manage their own emotions and conform to the rules of the system through self-discipline. Nevertheless, some find it difficult constantly to suppress their emotions and may exhibit resistance. There is a preoccupation with self-correction. Agents internalise the call centre's norms of behavior. The technological environment largely determines the way in which they manage their emotions. They fake their emotions when interacting with callers, supervisors and colleagues, and exercise self-discipline and emotion management to satisfy personal and group expectations. They incorporate the cultural values, motives and beliefs of the EPM context through learning, socialisation and identification. This thesis offers significant theoretical contributions which revolve around the relationship between surveillance-induced self-discipline and emotional labour over time. It aims to alert academics and business people to the problems of emotional labour and to prompt them to make changes to the design, implementation and use of EPM

Designing Embodied Interactive Software Agents for E-Learning: Principles, Components, and Roles

Embodied interactive software agents are complex autonomous, adaptive, and social software systems with a digital embodiment that enables them to act on and react to other entities (users, objects, and other agents) in their environment through bodily actions, which include the use of verbal and non-verbal communicative behaviors in face-to-face interactions with the user. These agents have been developed for various roles in different application domains, in which they perform tasks that have been assigned to them by their developers or delegated to them by their users or by other agents. In computer-assisted learning, embodied interactive pedagogical software agents have the general task to promote human learning by working with students (and other agents) in computer-based learning environments, among them e-learning platforms based on Internet technologies, such as the Virtual Linguistics Campus (www.linguistics-online.com). In these environments, pedagogical agents provide contextualized, qualified, personalized, and timely assistance, cooperation, instruction, motivation, and services for both individual learners and groups of learners. This thesis develops a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and user-oriented view of the design of embodied interactive pedagogical software agents, which integrates theoretical and practical insights from various academic and other fields. The research intends to contribute to the scientific understanding of issues, methods, theories, and technologies that are involved in the design, implementation, and evaluation of embodied interactive software agents for different roles in e-learning and other areas. For developers, the thesis provides sixteen basic principles (Added Value, Perceptible Qualities, Balanced Design, Coherence, Consistency, Completeness, Comprehensibility, Individuality, Variability, Communicative Ability, Modularity, Teamwork, Participatory Design, Role Awareness, Cultural Awareness, and Relationship Building) plus a large number of specific guidelines for the design of embodied interactive software agents and their components. Furthermore, it offers critical reviews of theories, concepts, approaches, and technologies from different areas and disciplines that are relevant to agent design. Finally, it discusses three pedagogical agent roles (virtual native speaker, coach, and peer) in the scenario of the linguistic fieldwork classes on the Virtual Linguistics Campus and presents detailed considerations for the design of an agent for one of these roles (the virtual native speaker)

Intercultural communication: the perceptions of university students learning Chinese as a foreign language in China

This study investigates the ways learners of Chinese as a foreign language experience intercultural communication in China. The Chinese context and diversity of participants’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds have provided a unique setting while filling a gap in the research around intercultural experience in a Chinese university setting. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, aiming to understand participants’ perceptions of intercultural communicative competence and identity. This study found that participants were motivated to study Chinese and to engage in intercultural communication through their desire to improve career prospects and/or to integrate into the host Chinese community. These motivations developed, interacted and changed over time as documented in this thesis. Four main challenges arising from intercultural communication emerged from the study are: language issues, unfamiliarity with cultural practices, nonverbal communication and stereotypes. According to participants’ accounts, the success of intercultural communication and the development of intercultural communicative competence were influenced by their willingness to communicate and motivation, attitudes towards intercultural communication, language proficiency and the skill of discovery. Participants experienced intercultural communication as a process of negotiation and transformation in identity, during which they moved from positioning themselves or being positioned as an ‘outsider’ to gradually becoming an ‘insider’. This change was significantly influenced by their developing intercultural communicative competence. By focusing on the experiences and perceptions of this under-researched group, international students of Chinese as a foreign language in China, this study contributes to the literature on intercultural communication and offers practical implications for educational institutions, foreign language education, and individuals in the context of China

A study of the importance of cultural factors in the user interaction with, and the design of, interactive science and technology exhibits in museums

This research investigates the cultural factors affecting the use of interactive science exhibits including interactive science and technology exhibits (ISTEs) by visitors to science museums worldwide. Visitors bring differing characteristics and experiences to bear upon the task of using these exhibits. These affect the nature and quality of their interaction with the exhibits. This research has focused on the cultural issues, and has defined them using 10 distinct and coherent ‘dimensions’. This has been achieved by extensive review of relevant earlier research work and building on this with experimental studies with visitors and interviews with science museum experts in the UK and Thailand. Interactive science exhibits now take many forms, and therefore for scientific investigation of their use it is essential to classify them in a form which promotes research validity and reliability. This research has developed a new classification of interactive science exhibits into four classes based upon the user’s perception, cognition and the nature of the interaction. The classes are: (1) simple interaction with direct understanding; (2) simple interaction with complex understanding; (3) multiple interactions with direct understanding; and (4) multiple interactions with complex understanding. This classification was used in experimental studies of interaction with exhibits at science museums. The research methods used mixed methods of quantitative and qualitative research through three separate studies. The data collection methods were: interviews, questionnaires, and video recording observation. The findings were that not only language issues and conceptual understanding are important factors, but other cultural factors were also inter-related and affect visitors’ learning through ISTEs