UX and design culture are beginning to dominate corporate priorities, but despite the current hyp... more UX and design culture are beginning to dominate corporate priorities, but despite the current hype there is often a disconnect between the organizational efficiencies desired by executives and the knowledge of how UX can or should address these issues. This exploratory study addresses this space by reframing the concept of competence in UX to include the flow of competence between individual designers and the companies in which they work. Our reframing resulted in a preliminary schema based on interviews conducted with six design practitioners, which allows this flow to be traced in a performative way on the part of individuals and groups over time. We then trace this flow of individual and organizational competence through three case studies of UX adoption. Opportunities for use of this preliminary schema as a generative, rhetorical tool for HCI researchers to further interrogate UX adoption are considered, including accounting for factors that affect adoption.
Within the design of technology, the notion of the user, and user-centered design, has become a g... more Within the design of technology, the notion of the user, and user-centered design, has become a guiding principal for creating successful products. However, the concept of “user” is a non-trivial notion. HCI has historically viewed “the user” as an abstract concept, that is to say, it has been a reductive definition. As the field has become increasingly transdisciplinary the definition of “the user” has evolved overtime to reflect more breadth and depth. However, this is not always the case within industry practice. In this paper we present a situation and case study where, in industry, the reductive notion of the user posed distinct impediments to progress, how we were able to identify those and blend academic thinking into an industry approach to more success than either alone.
Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, 2016
Documentation of Research through Design (RtD) processes is essential for capturing and translati... more Documentation of Research through Design (RtD) processes is essential for capturing and translating design knowledge into broader academic knowledge. Moreover, it can support both design and research objectives internally in RtD projects, as well as external concerns such as project management, knowledge dissemination, and education. In spite of this, RtD documentation has received little sustained attention in prior work. Building on what prior work there is as well as an in-depth analysis of two markedly different cases, we present a framework for planning and evaluating RtD documentation. The framework addresses three core concerns: the medium of documentation, the performativity of documentation, and providing equal support for both research and design.
Care pervades all interactions between people. Therefore, research that engages with human partic... more Care pervades all interactions between people. Therefore, research that engages with human participants necessarily includes care, both from researchers and participants. These caring relationships are frequently left unaddressed in research reporting, disguising the fact that researchers are also cared for in their interactions with participants. In this paper, we demonstrate how a care ethics perspective helps to bring clarity to the care entanglements that pervade the relationships that develop between researchers and participants. This perspective not only leads to a more complete ability to disclose the position of the researcher in their data, but also provides insights into how we describe the empathic character of these relationships. We analyze the researcher–participant relationships we developed during two separate long-term research engagements—a 19-month ethnography and a 6-month design deployment—using a care ethics perspective. We discuss how researchers and participants navigate a complex set of roles and reflexively engage with interpersonal vulnerabilities and needs for care. We argue that researchers, particularly those who participate in long-term qualitative studies, have to engage authentically with the multiple subject positions they themselves occupy, as well as the multiple subject positions in which their research participants become entangled. This importantly includes researchers’ positions as individuals with human and social needs who participate in reciprocal, caring relationships with their participants. We argue that HCI research can benefit from incorporating a care ethics perspective, particularly in adopting the goals of developing empathic relationships with participants, acknowledging the reflexivity of research and engaging in researcher self-disclosure. Research participants and researchers perform care for each other throughout the research process. This is demonstrated through two long-term research engagements and a care ethics analysis of the relationships that developed between researchers and participants within them. This care ethics perspective enables a more complete form of researcher self-disclosure, and is helpful when attempting to develop an understanding of empathic relationships with participants.
Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction - TEI '14, 2015
Tangible interactions have incorporated new materials into interaction design as well as new pers... more Tangible interactions have incorporated new materials into interaction design as well as new perspectives on how those materials can be made useful. The dissertation research I discuss here examines materials and forms in terms of how they both mediate information but also can represent meanings in their own right. My work emphasizes these meanings as an important aspect of the experience of tangible interactions.
Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces - DPPI '13, 2013
Digital material, the computation and information that makes digital devices function, can be eth... more Digital material, the computation and information that makes digital devices function, can be ethereal and difficult to conceptualize in terms of its material properties. In terms of experience design, this can make it difficult to tap into the expressive capabilities of this unique medium. We investigate the properties of computational material by looking at glitches, errors in functioning, through the lens of medium-specificity. As a specific type of glitch art, we look at datamoshing - a technique where the compression of digital video is altered for creative purposes. By examining the ways that the digital material is revealed by datamoshing, we seek insight into the unique expressive capabilities of digital devices.
ABSTRACT Creativity is an important part of any design process. However, as interaction design be... more ABSTRACT Creativity is an important part of any design process. However, as interaction design becomes more focused on experiential elements, new, tangible, materials for interfaces of the number and complexity of creative decisions required to design an interface has increased. This paper takes the concept of style, from art theory, and applies it to the experiential design of tangible interfaces as a means to understand how creativity is constrained, organized, and interpreted in the design and use of these novel interactions.
Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Communications Technologies and Development Notes - ICTD '13 - volume 2, 2013
As a predominantly social phenomenon, many examinations around issues caused by digital inequalit... more As a predominantly social phenomenon, many examinations around issues caused by digital inequalities appropriately focus on the policies, attitudes, and other cultural elements that pertain to the adoption, use, and proliferation of digital technology. As a compliment to these analyses, this paper will examine the materiality as a component of the digital inequalities in Brazil's urban poor areas, known as favelas. We specifically look at the material aspects of the digital artifacts used in LAN Houses and state-supported Telecenters located inside the favelas in the city of Vitoria, Brazil. This study is driven by qualitative exploration -- using critical ethnographic methods such as observation and interviews -- designed to focus on the perspective of the local users of LAN Houses and Telecenters. We apply critical ethnography to give voices to the locals and allow them to understand the material issues and conflicts on their terms. Through examples from keyboard layout to power unit supplies, we will describe how the materiality of digital artifacts contributes to digital inequalities and how unique social conventions are formed in this context. Shedding light on people's experiences with such materials broadens our view of different ways that technology and internet is used, and perhaps thereby do a better job of developing appropriate technologies for these people.
2012 17th International Conference on Computer Games (CGAMES), 2012
ABSTRACT This paper illustrates the first part of an ultimately more inclusive understanding of t... more ABSTRACT This paper illustrates the first part of an ultimately more inclusive understanding of the social relations manifest in the play of Massive, Multiplayer On-Line Games. This initial part is based on the premise that comparative ethnography should be used to frame automated analysis of the electronic traces of player actions. This part involves first examining the spaces that become key elements in the virtual world of playing the game, and then time elements. The interesting ways in which space and time are combined are described next. Such observations demonstrate the feasibility of interpreting actual game play in terms of three factors: What follows from the physics engine chosen to render the games' virtual spaces, what follows from the deliberate play choices of games' designers, what is subconsciously carried over by players from the real world. This is an example of how ethnography can be used to create an analytical framework for focused, even hypothesis-driven analysis of large data sets captured from actual game play - specifically a basis for deciding what needs to be observed out of what can be observed, and what they might mean. Only after such preliminary work does it make sense to automate for statistically valid sampling.
UX and design culture are beginning to dominate corporate priorities, but despite the current hyp... more UX and design culture are beginning to dominate corporate priorities, but despite the current hype there is often a disconnect between the organizational efficiencies desired by executives and the knowledge of how UX can or should address these issues. This exploratory study addresses this space by reframing the concept of competence in UX to include the flow of competence between individual designers and the companies in which they work. Our reframing resulted in a preliminary schema based on interviews conducted with six design practitioners, which allows this flow to be traced in a performative way on the part of individuals and groups over time. We then trace this flow of individual and organizational competence through three case studies of UX adoption. Opportunities for use of this preliminary schema as a generative, rhetorical tool for HCI researchers to further interrogate UX adoption are considered, including accounting for factors that affect adoption.
Within the design of technology, the notion of the user, and user-centered design, has become a g... more Within the design of technology, the notion of the user, and user-centered design, has become a guiding principal for creating successful products. However, the concept of “user” is a non-trivial notion. HCI has historically viewed “the user” as an abstract concept, that is to say, it has been a reductive definition. As the field has become increasingly transdisciplinary the definition of “the user” has evolved overtime to reflect more breadth and depth. However, this is not always the case within industry practice. In this paper we present a situation and case study where, in industry, the reductive notion of the user posed distinct impediments to progress, how we were able to identify those and blend academic thinking into an industry approach to more success than either alone.
Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, 2016
Documentation of Research through Design (RtD) processes is essential for capturing and translati... more Documentation of Research through Design (RtD) processes is essential for capturing and translating design knowledge into broader academic knowledge. Moreover, it can support both design and research objectives internally in RtD projects, as well as external concerns such as project management, knowledge dissemination, and education. In spite of this, RtD documentation has received little sustained attention in prior work. Building on what prior work there is as well as an in-depth analysis of two markedly different cases, we present a framework for planning and evaluating RtD documentation. The framework addresses three core concerns: the medium of documentation, the performativity of documentation, and providing equal support for both research and design.
Care pervades all interactions between people. Therefore, research that engages with human partic... more Care pervades all interactions between people. Therefore, research that engages with human participants necessarily includes care, both from researchers and participants. These caring relationships are frequently left unaddressed in research reporting, disguising the fact that researchers are also cared for in their interactions with participants. In this paper, we demonstrate how a care ethics perspective helps to bring clarity to the care entanglements that pervade the relationships that develop between researchers and participants. This perspective not only leads to a more complete ability to disclose the position of the researcher in their data, but also provides insights into how we describe the empathic character of these relationships. We analyze the researcher–participant relationships we developed during two separate long-term research engagements—a 19-month ethnography and a 6-month design deployment—using a care ethics perspective. We discuss how researchers and participants navigate a complex set of roles and reflexively engage with interpersonal vulnerabilities and needs for care. We argue that researchers, particularly those who participate in long-term qualitative studies, have to engage authentically with the multiple subject positions they themselves occupy, as well as the multiple subject positions in which their research participants become entangled. This importantly includes researchers’ positions as individuals with human and social needs who participate in reciprocal, caring relationships with their participants. We argue that HCI research can benefit from incorporating a care ethics perspective, particularly in adopting the goals of developing empathic relationships with participants, acknowledging the reflexivity of research and engaging in researcher self-disclosure. Research participants and researchers perform care for each other throughout the research process. This is demonstrated through two long-term research engagements and a care ethics analysis of the relationships that developed between researchers and participants within them. This care ethics perspective enables a more complete form of researcher self-disclosure, and is helpful when attempting to develop an understanding of empathic relationships with participants.
Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction - TEI '14, 2015
Tangible interactions have incorporated new materials into interaction design as well as new pers... more Tangible interactions have incorporated new materials into interaction design as well as new perspectives on how those materials can be made useful. The dissertation research I discuss here examines materials and forms in terms of how they both mediate information but also can represent meanings in their own right. My work emphasizes these meanings as an important aspect of the experience of tangible interactions.
Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces - DPPI '13, 2013
Digital material, the computation and information that makes digital devices function, can be eth... more Digital material, the computation and information that makes digital devices function, can be ethereal and difficult to conceptualize in terms of its material properties. In terms of experience design, this can make it difficult to tap into the expressive capabilities of this unique medium. We investigate the properties of computational material by looking at glitches, errors in functioning, through the lens of medium-specificity. As a specific type of glitch art, we look at datamoshing - a technique where the compression of digital video is altered for creative purposes. By examining the ways that the digital material is revealed by datamoshing, we seek insight into the unique expressive capabilities of digital devices.
ABSTRACT Creativity is an important part of any design process. However, as interaction design be... more ABSTRACT Creativity is an important part of any design process. However, as interaction design becomes more focused on experiential elements, new, tangible, materials for interfaces of the number and complexity of creative decisions required to design an interface has increased. This paper takes the concept of style, from art theory, and applies it to the experiential design of tangible interfaces as a means to understand how creativity is constrained, organized, and interpreted in the design and use of these novel interactions.
Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Communications Technologies and Development Notes - ICTD '13 - volume 2, 2013
As a predominantly social phenomenon, many examinations around issues caused by digital inequalit... more As a predominantly social phenomenon, many examinations around issues caused by digital inequalities appropriately focus on the policies, attitudes, and other cultural elements that pertain to the adoption, use, and proliferation of digital technology. As a compliment to these analyses, this paper will examine the materiality as a component of the digital inequalities in Brazil's urban poor areas, known as favelas. We specifically look at the material aspects of the digital artifacts used in LAN Houses and state-supported Telecenters located inside the favelas in the city of Vitoria, Brazil. This study is driven by qualitative exploration -- using critical ethnographic methods such as observation and interviews -- designed to focus on the perspective of the local users of LAN Houses and Telecenters. We apply critical ethnography to give voices to the locals and allow them to understand the material issues and conflicts on their terms. Through examples from keyboard layout to power unit supplies, we will describe how the materiality of digital artifacts contributes to digital inequalities and how unique social conventions are formed in this context. Shedding light on people's experiences with such materials broadens our view of different ways that technology and internet is used, and perhaps thereby do a better job of developing appropriate technologies for these people.
2012 17th International Conference on Computer Games (CGAMES), 2012
ABSTRACT This paper illustrates the first part of an ultimately more inclusive understanding of t... more ABSTRACT This paper illustrates the first part of an ultimately more inclusive understanding of the social relations manifest in the play of Massive, Multiplayer On-Line Games. This initial part is based on the premise that comparative ethnography should be used to frame automated analysis of the electronic traces of player actions. This part involves first examining the spaces that become key elements in the virtual world of playing the game, and then time elements. The interesting ways in which space and time are combined are described next. Such observations demonstrate the feasibility of interpreting actual game play in terms of three factors: What follows from the physics engine chosen to render the games' virtual spaces, what follows from the deliberate play choices of games' designers, what is subconsciously carried over by players from the real world. This is an example of how ethnography can be used to create an analytical framework for focused, even hypothesis-driven analysis of large data sets captured from actual game play - specifically a basis for deciding what needs to be observed out of what can be observed, and what they might mean. Only after such preliminary work does it make sense to automate for statistically valid sampling.
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