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

Designing technologies for playful interspecies communication

This one-day workshop examines how we might use technologies to support design for playful interspecies communication and considers some of the potential implications. Here we explore aspects of playful technology and reflect on what opportunities computers can provide for facilitating communication between species. The workshop's focal activity will be the co-creation of some theoretical systems designed for specific multi-species scenarios. Through our activities, we aim to pave the way for designing technology that promotes interspecies communication, drawing input not only from ACI practitioners but also from those of the broader HCI and animal science community, who may be stakeholders in facilitating, expanding, and/or redefining playful technology

Prototyping with Monkeys: Uncovering What Buttons for Monkeys Look Like

Although much work has focused on designing touch interfaces for primates, little is known about how physical computer buttons for monkeys would look. Here, we employ the rapid prototyping method commonly used in human–computer interaction to design tangible buttons for monkeys allowing them to interact with computer enrichment. Our findings reflect on the process of altering rapid prototyping from humans to animals and how computer buttons for monkeys might look. On this basis, we make suggestions for monkey buttons, highlighting colour and pull/swing over push/touch interactions. We also reflect on lessons learned from transferring prototyping across species, such as the need to iterate on a few variables and for initial prototypes to be varied, and speculate on how to balance the designer (human) and user (animals) needs. More broadly, this paper builds upon HCI prototyping techniques for unconventional users, creating a method for rapid iterative prototyping with animals

DoggyVision: Examining how Dogs (Canis familiaris) Interact with Media using a Dog-Driven Proximity Tracker Device

With screen technology becoming ubiquitously embedded into our homes, these screens are often in places where they can be viewed by domestic dogs (Canis familiaris); however, there is a lack of research showing to what extent, and for how long, dogs attend to media on screens. One pressing question is to understand if a dog, given the opportunity, would or could control its own viewing. This paper describes a prototype system (DoggyVision) that gives control to a dog in regard to the turning on and off of a TV screen in order to study activation with screen media in home settings. The system is used with two dogs to explore the interaction modalities between machine and dog. DoggyVision is shown to be non-invasive for the dog and easy to use in the home. Recordings show that dogs did attend to the screen but did not appear, in this study, to change their activation behaviors around the TV screen between being in no control (week 1), and in some control (week 2), of the TV media presentation. The study builds on ‘dog-centered’ methods to examine a dog’s behavior non-invasively demonstrating that useful data can be yielded from dog-driven devices within the home. For the Animal Computer Interaction community, this is the first system that allows the dog to trigger the activation of the device as the system records the activation automatically

Everyday Space as an Interface for Health Data Engagement: Designing Tangible Displays of Stress Data

Health data user engagement, particularly with stress data, remains a challenge despite the widespread use of self-tracking products, like smartwatches and smart bracelets. Stress data engagement is crucial to the early detection and intervention of long-term stress which could cause harmful health effects. This paper explores the design of tangible displays to enhance engagement with self-tracked stress data. We conducted two co-design workshops in which participants were invited to design and draw sketches of stress displays for three different contexts. The workshops revealed many innovative ideas for using everyday spaces and materials as an interface to structure user interactions with the data, aimed at increasing awareness of stress data and management strategies while addressing various concerns associated with how the data is displayed. By focusing on stress data, this study highlights important opportunities to use everyday spaces as an interface for health data engagement

Birds of a Feather Video-Flock Together: Design and Evaluation of an Agency-Based Parrot-to-Parrot Video-Calling System for Interspecies Ethical Enrichment

Over 20 million parrots are kept as pets in the US, often lacking appropriate stimuli to meet their high social, cognitive, and emotional needs. After reviewing bird perception and agency literature, we developed an approach to allow parrots to engage in video-calling other parrots. Following a pilot experiment and expert survey, we ran a three-month study with 18 pet birds to evaluate the potential value and usability of a parrot-parrot video-calling system. We assessed the system in terms of perception, agency, engagement, and overall perceived benefits. With 147 bird-triggered calls, our results show that 1) every bird used the system, 2) most birds exhibited high motivation and intentionality, and 3) all caretakers reported perceived benefits, some arguably life-transformative, such as learning to forage or even to fly by watching others. We report on individual insights and propose considerations regarding ethics and the potential of parrot video-calling for enrichment

Seven Years after the Manifesto: Literature Review and Research Directions for Technologies in Animal Computer Interaction

As technologies diversify and become embedded in everyday lives, the technologies we expose to animals, and the new technologies being developed for animals within the field of Animal Computer Interaction (ACI) are increasing. As we approach seven years since the ACI manifesto, which grounded the field within Human Computer Interaction and Computer Science, this thematic literature review looks at the technologies developed for (non-human) animals. Technologies that are analysed include tangible and physical, haptic and wearable, olfactory, screen technology and tracking systems. The conversation explores what exactly ACI is whilst questioning what it means to be animal by considering the impact and loop between machine and animal interactivity. The findings of this review are expected to form the first grounding foundation of ACI technologies informing future research in animal computing as well as suggesting future areas for exploratio

Remote interspecies interactions: Improving humans and animals wellbeing through mobile playful spaces

[EN] Play is an essential activity for both humans and animals as it provides stimulation and favors cognitive, physical and social development. This paper proposes a novel pervasive playful environment that allows hospitalized children to participate in remote interspecies play with dogs in a dog daycare facility, while it also allows the dogs to play by themselves with the pervasive system. The aim of this playful interactive space is to help improving both children¿s and animal¿s wellbeing and their relationships by means of technologically mediated play, while creating a solid knowledge base to define the future of pervasive interactive environments for animals.This work is supported by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER), Spain and Spanish MINECO (TIN2014-60077-R). The work of Patricia Pons is supported by the Spanish MECD (FPU13/03831). Special thanks to the dogs and children who participated in our study, the dogs' owners and the children's families. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the teachers of the Unidad Pedagogica Hospitalaria La Fe and Oncologia Pediatrica La Fe and also Olga and Astrid from Buma's Doggy Daycare facility, for their invaluable support, collaboration and dedication.Pons Tomás, P.; Carrion-Plaza, A.; Jaén Martínez, FJ. (2019). Remote interspecies interactions: Improving humans and animals wellbeing through mobile playful spaces. Pervasive and Mobile Computing. 52:113-130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmcj.2018.12.003S1131305

P for Politics D for Dialogue: Reflections on Participatory Design with Children and Animals

Participatory Design strives to open up the decision-making process and empower all those who may be affected by design. This is opposed to Design as a non-participatory process, in which the power to make decisions is vested in the hands of one group to the possible detriment of others. In this paper we interrogate the nature, possibilities and limitations of Participatory Design through the perspective of Child Computer Interaction (CCI) and Animal Computer Interaction (ACI). Due to the cognitive and communication characteristics, and to the social and legal status of their participants, researchers in these communities have to contend with and challenge existing notions of participation and design. Thus, their theories and practices provide a lens through which the nature and goals of Participatory Design can be examined with a view to facilitating the development of more inclusive participatory models and practices

Ethics and Power Dynamics in Playful Technology for Animals: Using speculative design to provoke reflection

Technology (digital or otherwise) is a great enabler; it bridges gaps and opens doors and, in the process, alters the reality within which it and its users exist. As technology aimed at non-human animals is becoming commonplace, questions about its efficacy and the ethical implications of its use are becoming ever more pertinent. To explore these issues, we conducted a workshop in which speculative design was used as a means of debating ways through which play, a widespread phenomenon across animal species, can be used as a tool for enabling interspecies communication. We describe the context for this discussion, the methods used, and present a set of speculative designs that illustrate aspects of ethics, equality, and appropriate play in order to provoke further reflection and discussion