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

No More Angry Birds: Investigating Touchscreen Ergonomics to Improve Tablet-Based Enrichment for Parrots

No abstract available

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

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

Systematic iterative design of interactive devices for animals: guidance and reflections

The numerous systems designed to facilitate animals’ use of computers often are specific to the animals involved, their unique context, and the applications – enrichment among them. Hence, several development methods have arisen in parallel, largely transposed from the human-computer interaction (HCI) domain. In light of that prior work, the paper presents a step-by-step guide for iteratively designing and constructing interactive computers for animals, informed by the rich history of HCI yet applying animal-centred principles, to enrich animal-computer interaction. For each stage in the iterative design (requirements, ideation, prototyping, and testing), the author reflects on real-world experience of building interactive devices for various animals. The paper concludes with overarching considerations vital for future practice of developing interactive computers for animals. Thus, it serves as a valuable reference and information source for researchers designing novel computer systems for animals

Developing Zoo Technology Requirements for White-Faced Saki Monkeys

Publisher Copyright: © 2020 ACM. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.How early technology requirements are formed for animals involves asking humans caring for the animal to give requirements for them. For zoo animals, this is the keeper and other experts who work with the animal. This requirement gathering process is used as a method of forming user-centric designs for systems for animals. Yet little attention has been paid towards how to form these early requirements in zoos or whom to gather these from. Addressing this, we investigate how to construct technology requirements for the zoo housed animals, using white-faced saki monkeys as an instance. Utilizing the method of questionnaires, we gather requirements from zoo keepers and zoo visitors. Comparing and analyzing our results, we reveal how requirements for animal-technology in zoo contexts diverge and intersect. Our data indicates that these vantages mostly align; with the zoo visitors focusing upon the aesthetics and keepers concentrating on practicalities. Overarching these, we note how requirements in proxy for animals often involves a synthesis of complex motivations, user narratives, vantage points, and prior technology and animal experience that is irreparably intertwined within the requirement process. This paper builds upon requirement gathering methods for unconventional users.Peer reviewe