Micro-ethics for participatory design with marginalised children

Marginalised children are uniquely vulnerable within western societies. Conducting participatory design research with them comes with particular ethical challenges, some of which we illustrate in this paper. Through several examples across two different participatory design projects (one with autistic children, another with visually impaired children), we reflect on the often overlooked tensions on the level of micro-ethics. We argue we are often required to rely on multiple moral frames of references. We discuss issues that the immediate interaction between researchers and marginalised children in participatory projects can bring and offer an understanding of how micro-ethics manifest in these collaborations. We contribute to a theoretical exploration of ethical encounters based on empirical grounds, which can guide other researchers in their participatory endeavours

Distributed Creativity in Play

International audienceOur objective is to explore distributed forms of creativity that arise in play to help guide and foster supportive research, game design, and technology. This workshop seeks to bring together researchers, game designers, and others to examine theories of creativity and play, game design practices, methods for studying creativity in play, and creative play experiences. Participants will present work, video prototype, discuss topics, and contribute to outcomes

"Es geht um Respekt, nicht um Technologie": Erkenntnisse aus einem Interessensgruppen-\"ubergreifenden Workshop zu genderfairer Sprache und Sprachtechnologie

With the increasing attention non-binary people receive in Western societies, strategies of gender-fair language have started to move away from binary (only female/male) concepts of gender. Nevertheless, hardly any approaches to take these identities into account into machine translation models exist so far. A lack of understanding of the socio-technical implications of such technologies risks further reproducing linguistic mechanisms of oppression and mislabelling. In this paper, we describe the methods and results of a workshop on gender-fair language and language technologies, which was led and organised by ten researchers from TU Wien, St. P\"olten UAS, FH Campus Wien and the University of Vienna and took place in Vienna in autumn 2021. A wide range of interest groups and their representatives were invited to ensure that the topic could be dealt with holistically. Accordingly, we aimed to include translators, machine translation experts and non-binary individuals (as "community experts") on an equal footing. Our analysis shows that gender in machine translation requires a high degree of context sensitivity, that developers of such technologies need to position themselves cautiously in a process still under social negotiation, and that flexible approaches seem most adequate at present. We then illustrate steps that follow from our results for the field of gender-fair language technologies so that technological developments can adequately line up with social advancements. ---- Mit zunehmender gesamtgesellschaftlicher Wahrnehmung nicht-bin\"arer Personen haben sich in den letzten Jahren auch Konzepte von genderfairer Sprache von der bisher verwendeten Binarit\"at (weiblich/m\"annlich) entfernt. Trotzdem gibt es bislang nur wenige Ans\"atze dazu, diese Identit\"aten in maschineller \"Ubersetzung abzubilden. Ein fehlendes Verst\"andnis unterschiedlicher sozio-technischer Implikationen derartiger Technologien birgt in sich die Gefahr, fehlerhafte Ansprachen und Bezeichnungen sowie sprachliche Unterdr\"uckungsmechanismen zu reproduzieren. In diesem Beitrag beschreiben wir die Methoden und Ergebnisse eines Workshops zu genderfairer Sprache in technologischen Zusammenh\"angen, der im Herbst 2021 in Wien stattgefunden hat. Zehn Forscher*innen der TU Wien, FH St. P\"olten, FH Campus Wien und Universit\"at Wien organisierten und leiteten den Workshop. Dabei wurden unterschiedlichste Interessensgruppen und deren Vertreter*innen breit gestreut eingeladen, um sicherzustellen, dass das Thema holistisch behandelt werden kann. Dementsprechend setzten wir uns zum Ziel, Machine-Translation-Entwickler*innen, \"Ubersetzer*innen, und nicht-bin\"are Privatpersonen (als "Lebenswelt-Expert*innen") gleichberechtigt einzubinden. Unsere Analyse zeigt, dass Geschlecht in maschineller \"Ubersetzung eine ma\ss{}geblich kontextsensible Herangehensweise erfordert, die Entwicklung von Sprachtechnologien sich vorsichtig in einem sich noch in Aushandlung befindlichen gesellschaftlichen Prozess positionieren muss, und flexible Ans\"atze derzeit am ad\"aquatesten erscheinen. Wir zeigen auf, welche n\"achsten Schritte im Bereich genderfairer Technologien notwendig sind, damit technische mit sozialen Entwicklungen mithalten k\"onnen.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, in Germa

How can we can create an equitable CHI

This panel aims to generate conversation toward creating a more equitable CHI. In recognizing our community’s hard work thus far, this panel seeks to engage panelists and participants with thought-provoking questions to garner and promote actionable items for the community. We intend to have an open dialogue on allyship, diversity, equity, and inclusion to achieve a CHI for all

Evaluating experiences of autistic children with technologies in co-design

Many technologies available to autistic children functionally focus on the medical characteristics of a diagnosis of autism. These technologies are then also evaluated according to the extrinsic motivations driving their design. Recently, though, more and more Participatory Design (PD) projects create technologies together with autistic children, albeit still mostly remaining in a medicalised view of autism. Hence, there is a lack of research into participatory design with autistic children aiming to develop technologies that reflect their intrinsic interests, holistic well-being and considers the embodied experiences they have with these technologies. Constructive notions of experience in the research field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) rely on empathy as a core component of experience-driven evaluations. However, autistic individuals perceive the world differently and, hence, make sense of it differently than non-autistic researchers. This divide becomes especially pronounced when working with children, whose life worlds vastly differ from those of adult researchers. While empathy is a core requirement for the evaluation of the experience of autistic children, my work shows that researchers cannot rely solely on their empathy. Hence, evalutating these experiences requires a structured process capturing multiple views. My work makes three main contributions: 1. a concept for evaluating experiences of autistic children with technologies 2. a participatory evaluation method tailored specifically to autistic children 3. an in-depth discussion on the micro-ethics of conducting participatory research with autistic children I give a critical overview of current technologies available for autistic children and the ways of evaluating them. The concept of ‘Critical Experience offers a novel way for the evaluation of the experiences of autistic children with technologies that are designed for their holistic well-being and enjoyment. The case studies then show how autistic children experience these technologies and which implications that brings for PD processes involving autistic children. I make a methodological contribution by showing how PEACE (Participatory Evaluation with Autistic ChildrEn) enables researchers to evaluate these technologies together with autistic children. There, the case studies present unique direct insights into what matters to the children. In my discussion I further offer perspectives on the dynamics of making micro-ethical judgements when working with marginalised children more generally. Not only researchers working with users who have very different life worlds, but also a community of developers and designers of assistive technologies in general are the audience for this work. This thesis argues the case for a considerate and critically informed approach when working with marginalised user groups and shows how this can be accomplished successfully.24