Double Binds and Double Blinds: Evaluation Tactics in Critically Oriented HCI

Critically oriented researchers within Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) have fruitfully intersected design and critical analysis to engage users and designers in reflection on underlying values, assumptions and dominant practices in technology. To successfully integrate this work within the HCI community, critically oriented researchers have tactically engaged with dominant practices within HCI in the design and evaluation of their work. This paper draws attention to the ways that tactical engagement with aspects of HCI evaluation methodology shapes and bears consequences for critically oriented research. We reflect on three of our own experiences evaluating critically oriented designs and trace challenges that we faced to the ways that sensibilities about generalizable knowledge are manifested in HCI evaluation methodology. Drawing from our own experiences, as well as other influential critically oriented design projects in HCI, we articulate some of the trade-offs involved in consciously adopting or not adopting certain normative aspects of HCI evaluation. We argue that some forms of this engagement can hamstring researchers from pursuing their intended research goals and have consequences beyond specific research projects to affect the normative discourse in the field as a whole

Situating network infrastructure with people, practices, and beyond: A community building workshop

Our world is now connected and even entangled in unprecedented ways through networked technologies. Yet pockets of unequal connectivity persist, and technical infrastructures for connectivity remain difficult to design and build even for experts. In this workshop we aim to bring together a global community of multi- and inter-disciplinary researchers and implementers working on infrastructure development and connectivity to explore the existing design challenges and opportunities for bringing technical dimensions of networked infrastructures in conversation with human-computer interaction (HCI) and the social science of infrastructure. We will share, assess and define research problems and resources for rethinking networked infrastructures from human-, community-, and society-centered perspectives, understanding them to be embedded with human values and biases. We particularly intend our collaborative work to support real-world connectivity initiatives, which have grown in critical importance over the pandemic years—especially projects in support of Global South communities. Concrete deliverables from the workshop will include: (1) an initial shared bibliography to help formalize the state of knowledge in our area, (2) an agenda of shared goals, challenges, and intentions in our field, (3) a compilation of resources to support future work, and (4) social and organizing infrastructures for continued communication and academic collaboration

The data hungry home

It's said that the pleasure is in the giving, not the receiving. This belief is validated by how humans interact with their family, friends and society as well as their gardens, homes, and pets. Yet for ubiquitous devices, this dynamic is reversed with devices as the donors and owners as the recipients. This paper explores an alternative paradigm where these devices are elevated, becoming members of Data Hungry Homes, allowing us to build relationships with them using the principles that we apply to family, pets or houseplants. These devices are developed to fit into a new concept of the home, can symbiotically interact with us and possess needs and traits that yield unexpected positive or negative outcomes from interacting with them. Such relationships could enrich our lives through our endeavours to “feed” our Data Hungry Homes, possibly leading us to explore new avenues and interactions outside and inside the home

Expanding modes of reflection in design futuring

Design futuring approaches, such as speculative design, design fiction and others, seek to (re)envision futures and explore alternatives. As design futuring becomes established in HCI design research, there is an opportunity to expand and develop these approaches. To that end, by reflecting on our own research and examining related work, we contribute five modes of reflection. These modes concern formgiving, temporality, researcher positionality, real-world engagement, and knowledge production. We illustrate the value of each mode through careful analysis of selected design exemplars and provide questions to interrogate the practice of design futuring. Each reflective mode offers productive resources for design practitioners and researchers to articulate their work, generate new directions for their work, and analyze their own and others’ work.

“One of the baddies all along” : Moments that challenge a player’s perspective

Reflection has become a core interest for game designers. However, empirical research into the kinds and causes for reflection within games is scarce. We therefore conducted an online questionnaire where participants (n=101) openly reported perspective-challenging moments within games, their causes, experience, and impact. Where past work has emphasised transformative reflection that changes player’s views and behaviour outside the game, we found that players report predominantly moments of ‘endo’-transformative reflection, which is focused on players’ game-related behaviour and concepts. We further identify some causes of perspective-challenging moments relating to narrative, game systems, game-external sources, and player expectations. Narrative reveals emerge as a key cause of perspective challenge

PRACTICES FOR A MACHINE CULTURE: A CASE STUDY OF INTEGRATING CULTURAL THEORY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Prenant en compte les développements technologiques récents, l’auteure défend une intégration des théories de la culture et de la recherche en intelligence artificielle dans ce qu’elle nomme l’informatique culturelle. L’auteure passe en revue l’histoire de la recherche en intelligence artificielle du moment classique aux recherches dites alternatives. Une communauté de chercheurs, encore petite mais dynamique, concentre ses efforts autour de pratiques techniques en intelligence artificielle qui soient critiques; parmi les enjeux que soulèvent ces chercheurs, l’auteure note la modification dans la compréhension de la notion d’agent, la faisant passer d’une notion impliquant des relations purement formelles et logiques à une notion impliquant la corporéité.In taking into account the contemporary development of technology, the author defends an integration of cultural theory and artificial intelligence research into what she calls cultural informatics. The author reviews the history of artificial intelligence from classical to what is now called alternative artificial intelligence research. A small but active community of researchers focusing on critical technical practices has developed in artificial intelligence research; among other items, they have questioned the traditional understanding of an agent as involved in purely logical and formal relations in order to take into account the embodiment of the agent