On participatory design of home-based healthcare

Participatory design (PD) activities in private homes challenge how we relate to the PD process, compared to PD in professional settings. Grounded in a project related to chronic dizziness among older people, we identified four challenges when performing PD with ill, weak users in their private homes. The challenges are (1) designing for, and negotiating knowledge about, the home, (2) ill, weak users and their participation in PD, (3) divergent interests of participants and (4) usable and sustainable post-project solutions. These challenges have to be carefully addressed, and we use them to reflect upon differences between a home-based PD process with non-workers, such as ours, and work-place projects, such as Utopia. Through this reflection, the paper contributes to a more general discussion on PD in non-work settings with weak users. Indeed, differences do exist between traditional PD projects in work settings, such as Utopia, and home-based PD with weak users especially in relation to knowledge about settings and how to reconcile differences in interests. The home as a place for (technology-assisted) treatment and PD must be carefully analyzed. Diverse interests and roles as well as possibilities for post-project solutions should be negotiated among all stakeholders.     

Needs identification methodology for inclusive design

Identification of user needs is an essential phase in the early stages of every design project. Many needs identification methodologies are described in the literature. When targeting users with special needs, the task becomes more challenging for different reasons (difficulty of retrieving information, performing prototype testing, etc.). This article presents a novel methodology, Needs Identification Methodology for Inclusive Design (NIMID), that guides the process of needs identification in the inclusive design scenario considering users’ physical, sensorial and cognitive capabilities. NIMID is grounded in Abowd and Beale's human–computer interaction framework and uses WHO's International Classification of Functionalities as the taxonomy that provides a common language. We exemplify the application of the methodology in the design of a smart oven for elderly people. We also compare NIMID with other methodologies evidencing its strong points: universality (common international classification of functioning language), systematicity (clearly defined phases and outcomes) and rationality (grounded in well-established interaction theory).     

The different roles of ‘Design Process Champions’ for digital libraries in African higher education

The concept of design stakeholders is central to effective design of digital libraries. We report on research findings that identified the presence of a key subset of stakeholders which we term ‘design process champions’. Our findings have identified that these champions can change interaction patterns and the eventual output of the other stakeholders (project participants) in the design process of digital library projects. This empirical research is based upon 38 interviews with key stakeholders and a review of documentary evidence in 10 innovative digital library design projects (e.g. mobile clinical libraries) located in three African universities in Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. Through a grounded theory approach, two different types of the ‘design process champions’ emerged from the data with varying levels of effectiveness in the design process: (i) domain champions and (ii) multidisciplinary champions. The domain champions assume a ‘siloed’ approach of engagement while the multidisciplinary champions take on a participatory engagement throughout the design process. A discussion of the implications of information specialists functioning as domain champions is highlighted. We conclude by suggesting that the multidisciplinary champions’ approach is particularly useful in supporting sustainability of digital library design projects.     

Designing for human use: Examples of kitchen interiors for persons with disability and elderly people

Around 15% of the global population has a moderate or severe disability. For this reason, a design where the needs of elderly and disabled population are included, should become more common practise and should not be limited only to medical and rehabilitation products. In this study, the inclusive design practices related to the kitchens were applied. All the important stages in a design process, such as market research, planning, concept designing, detailed designing, research (ergonomic assessment), and production preparation were completed. In market research we market research examined the preferences of 216 respondents. Sixty percent of them were either elderly and/or disabled persons (direct users), 40% were caretakers, physiotherapists, and managers of care centres (indirect users). Implementation of obtained results is three kitchen lines with assistive technology solutions, which are the response to the requirements identified as appropriate in meeting the needs of the elderly and disabled kitchen users. The main conclusion of the article is the statement that the needs of seniors can and should be efficiently included in a design process of home interiors. It can be recognised as an important “social” designing criterion which can constitute a good basis for going beyond the traditional design and going toward the sustainable design.     

Developing technology for autism: an interdisciplinary approach

We present an interdisciplinary methodology for designing interactive multi-modal technology for young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). In line with many other researchers in the field, we believe that the key to developing technology in this context is to embrace perspectives from diverse disciplines to arrive at a methodology that delivers satisfactory outcomes for all stakeholders. The ECHOES project provided us with the opportunity to develop a technology-enhanced learning (TEL) environment that facilitates acquisition and exploration of social skills by typically developing (TD) children and children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). ECHOES?? methodology and the learning environment rely crucially on multi-disciplinary expertise including developmental psychology, visual arts, human?Ccomputer interaction, artificial intelligence, education, and several other cognate disciplines. In this article, we reflect on the methods needed to develop a TEL environment for young users with ASDs by identifying key features, benefits, and challenges of this approach.     

Multivariate evaluation of interactive robot systems

In designing robot systems for human interaction, designers draw on aspects of human behavior that help them achieve specific design goals. For instance, the designer of an educational robot system may use speech, gaze, and gesture cues in a way that enhances its student’s learning. But what set of behaviors improve such outcomes? How might designers of such a robot system determine this set of behaviors? Conventional approaches to answering such questions primarily involve designers carrying out a series of experiments in which they manipulate a small number of design variables and measure the effects of these manipulations on specific interaction outcomes. However, these methods become infeasible when the design space is large and when the designer needs to understand the extent to which each variable contributes to achieving the desired effects. In this paper, we present a novel multivariate method for evaluating what behaviors of interactive robot systems improve interaction outcomes. We illustrate the use of this method in a case study in which we explore how different types of narrative gestures of a storytelling robot improve its users’ recall of the robot’s story, their ability to retell the robot’s story, their perceptions of and rapport with the robot, and their overall engagement in the experiment.     

Methodology for materiality: interaction design research through a material lens

Increasingly, human–computer interaction (HCI) is acknowledging the material dimensions of our subject. In doing so, a wide repertoire of methods is currently being explored for conducting interaction design research through a material lens. These methods range from material studies and studies in material cultures to methods borrowed from craft, designerly approaches to interaction design, sketching in hardware approaches, and so on. While we acknowledge these important attempts to approach the material dimensions of interaction design, it should also be noted that there is a lack of more systematic studies of methods that are, can be, or have been applied within HCI and interaction design to specifically explore interaction design through a material lens. So, there is a need for a methodology that acts as a guideline to material-centered interaction design research. In this paper, we address this need. More specifically, this paper contributes to this current state by presenting a methodology for methodological explorations in material-centered interaction design research. The development of this proposed methodology takes a point of departure in the methods available and applied so far. With grounding in design theory, this paper organizes these methods into a four-dimensional structure to guide deliberate choices of methods in different phases of interaction design research projects—that is, it serves as a framework for research design. The organizing structure for the proposed methodology follows the simple dialectic tradition in design to work back and forth between details and wholeness, materials and textures. In this paper, we describe the four dimensions of our framework and how these can be useful to guide research design aimed at advancing our understanding of the material dimensions of HCI. We illustrate how the proposed structure can be practically useful—both in advancing our studies of interaction design through a material lens and show how it brings us back to the roots of our profession—that is, back to a focus on the materials, the fundamental components of any computational composition.     

Interface as Exordium: The Rhetoric of Interactivity

In this article, I outline how the interface of new media functions rhetorically as an exordium to engage users and to dispose them to persuasion. The modular, networked, and interactive nature of new media requires an interface: a central place of interaction for the technological, human, social, and cultural aspects of new media. I propose that the interface functions rhetorically through three modes of interactivity, including multi-directionality, manipulability, and presence. By understanding these modes of interactivity and how they function to create various degrees of interaction and engagement, we can begin to develop the analytic tools needed to increase critical awareness of the interface. A rhetorical understanding of the interface enables us and our students to see that the shape and design of the interface is not natural and inevitable. The design of the interface is a design of human experience and, as such, the interface becomes a locus of power. The modes of interactivity it deploys are capable of enabling empowerment and enacting rhetorical patterns of control.     

Digital twin-based smart assembly process design and application framework for complex products and its case study

With rapid advances in new generation information technologies, digital twin (DT), and cyber-physical system, smart assembly has become a core focus for intelligent manufacturing in the fourth industrial evolution. Deep integration between information and physical worlds is a key phase to develop smart assembly process design that bridge the gap between product assembly design and manufacturing. This paper presents a digital twin reference model for smart assembly process design, and proposes an application framework for DT-based smart assembly with three layers. Product assembly station components are detailed in the physical space layer; two main modules, communication connection and data processing, are introduced in the interaction layer; and we discuss working mechanisms of assembly process planning, simulation, predication, and control management in the virtual space layer in detail. A case study shows the proposed approach application for an experimental simplified satellite assembly case using the DT-based assembly application system (DT-AAS) to verify the proposed application framework and method effectiveness.     

智能家居场景中会话智能体主动交互设计研究

针对智能家居场景中会话智能体的主动交互设计策略,从决策权与沟通方式出发 对主动性的特征进行讨论,并在此基础上构建4 种主动风格(直率的建议者、直率的决策者、委 婉的建议者、委婉的决策者)。通过“绿野仙踪”实验方法探究用户的性别、年龄、使用经验以及 居住状态对主动风格偏好的影响,得出以下结果：①经验用户认为“建议者”风格比“决策者”风 格更满意;家庭用户认为“建议者”风格比“决策者”风格更舒适;②“直率”的沟通方式在满意度 和舒适度方面均优于“委婉”的沟通方式。实验验证了：①用户智能家居产品的使用经验及其居 住状态会显著影响其对会话智能体主动风格的偏好;②智能家居场景下,会话智能体的沟通效 率比礼貌更重要。     

Participatory heritage innovation: designing dialogic sites of engagement

Abstract

Innovations in digital cultural communication for museums challenge us to develop appropriate methods for participation in curatorial processes and to rethink the role of audiences inside exhibitions. The article explores the potentials of scaffolding sites of dialogue and creative engagement through the design process and final exhibition. It draws upon experiences from an interactive exhibition project, Digital Natives, in which we combined principles from Participatory Design with issues of contemporary digital culture to explore possibilities for creating heritage innovation. We suggest three critical stages of the dialogic design process in which engagement between stakeholders, researchers, and audiences can be central to shaping and transforming future conceptions of digital cultural heritage, through process and final exhibition. In this way, we argue that a participatory design anthropological approach to digital culture can expand opportunities for heritage innovation through technological means of engagement in museums.     

The user-centred intelligent environments development process as a guide to co-create smart technology for people with special needs

This paper reports on the lessons learnt during the application of a methodology to develop intelligent environments. One important feature of the methodology is that of being strongly user-centred, and the authors report on how that interaction with users took place and how it continuously shaped our project aspirations and outcomes. The methodology was applied to a project which aimed at helping people with Down’s Syndrome and those with similar conditions and needs, to be more included in society. The project was developed by a consortium of commercial, academic, and end user supporting organizations. The paper elaborates on what type of stakeholders engaging activities were considered and how these were distributed along the lifetime of the project and their impact.

     

Service integration with UPnP agent for an ubiquitous home environment

Consumer electronics and intelligent appliances can be successful and widely used in a smart or ubiquitous home environment. Service integration had become an important issue for system development. In this paper, we present an approach for UPnP devices connecting to outer networks via UPnP aware gateway. We develop service on a smart campus network based on enhanced UPnP technologies as an example. Under such framework, intelligent system provides users individual information at the right place and the right time.     

A trace-based approach to identifying users’ engagement and qualifying their engaged-behaviours in interactive systems: application to a social game

Analysing and monitoring users’ engaged-behaviours continuously and under ecologically valid conditions can reveal valuable information for designers and practitioners, allowing them to analyse, design and monitor the interactive mediated activity, and then to adapt and personalise it. An interactive mediated activity is a human activity supported by digital interactive technologies. While classical metric methods fall within quantitative approaches, this paper proposes a qualitative approach to identifying users’ engagement and qualifying their engaged-behaviours from their traces of interaction. Traces of interaction represent the users’ activities with an interactive environment. The basis of our approach is to transform low-level traces of interaction into meaningful information represented in higher-level traces. For this, our approach combines three theoretical frameworks: the Self-Determination Theory, the Activity Theory and the Trace Theory. Our approach has been implemented and tested in the context of the QUEJANT Projet. QUEJANT targets the development of a system allowing the actors of Social Gaming to analyse players’ engagement from an analysis of their activity traces. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of our approach, we implemented the whole process in a prototype and applied it to 12 players’ interaction data collected over four months. Based on these interaction data, we were able to identify engaged and non-engaged users and to qualify their types of engaged-behaviours. We also conducted a user study based on a validation of our results by experts. The high prediction rate obtained confirms the performance of our approach. We finally discuss the limitations of our approach, the potential fields of application and the implications for digital behavioural interventions.     

SpinRadar: a spontaneous service provision middleware for place-aware social interactions

With the advancements of mobile phones and the integration of multiple communication interfaces, online social interaction between users is no longer restricted to a specific place with connectivity to the Internet but can happen anywhere and at any time. This has promoted the development of mobile social applications to enable opportunistic interactions with co-located users. One of the challenging problems in such interactions is to discover interaction opportunities with nearby users. Existing works focus on properties related to mobile users in order to find similar users in the surrounding area; these works depend on predefined logic such as conditional statements to recommend spontaneous social interaction opportunities. However, the social implications of the place in which the interaction is taking place are an important factor for recommendations, as those implications provide hints about the most plausible types of interactions among co-located users. In this work, we present a middleware called SpinRadar which is designed to support spontaneous interactions between co-located users by taking into account the semantics of a place, which we call ‘placeness.’ Our evaluation shows that the proposed scheme satisfies users much more than existing schemes.     

Dialogue Design-With Mutual Learning as Guiding Principle

This article describes a large European research and development project on Multimedia and Network in Co-operative Research and Learning (MANICORAL) from the point of view of participating human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers. The project developed the methodology of dialogue design, drawing on two sources: participatory design (PD) and dialogue research (DR). Action research is understood as the historical basis for the two strands, where PD has focused on research in working life, and DR has focused on living conditions. However, dialogue design as a methodology differs in a number of aspects. In dialogue design, the carrying principal is mutual learning, focus is on working life of high resource groups, and users are themselves developing parts of the technologies. The techniques applied and the role of HCI researcher as mediator creating dialogues are introduced and reflected upon. Dialogue design is discussed within the theoretical concepts of communication and learning.     

Activity-Aware Computing for Healthcare

In this article, we introduce activity-aware computing, which uses activity-based computing to enhance pervasive environments in two ways: to help users associate resources and services with activities, resulting in seamless interaction with those resources and services, and to enable pervasive environments to automatically infer activities and thus opportunistically offer services that support the user's current goal. Thus, activity-aware applications persuade users to commit themselves to the technology, moving from a paradigm of activity-based ";interaction"; toward one of activity-aware ";engagement"; with a computationally augmented environment. We present a set of tools for developing activity-aware applications, including a computational representation of human activities that we defined using data from a hospital case study we conducted. We also used the data to create an activity recognition approach and a set of design principles for developing activity-aware applications. The mobile activity monitor we designed to create a wearable connection between patients and nurses exemplifies our design principles.     

User interface analysis for groupware applications in the TOUCHE process model

Groupware applications require a special attention during the first development stages since, in addition to interactions of the users with the system, interactions among the users through the system should be considered. The methodological approach we present in this paper is part of a complete process model called TOUCHE. The proposal is based on several models to perform the analysis of CSCW systems. The methodology presented to address the analysis stage provides the mechanisms to specify the organization of the participants of a system, the roles they play, the interaction of the users within the system and the interaction among the different participants through the system, i.e., person–computer–person interaction. The integration within the process model is also slightly depicted. The artefacts of the whole process are robustly connected, what facilitates the inter and the intra-stage traceability. Finally, a case study is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposal.     

Participatory design in OSS development: interpretive case studies in company and community OSS development contexts

This article examines distributed participatory design in open source software (OSS) development. User participation is becoming a relevant topic of research in the OSS development context. Though it has not been examined much to date, the OSS development context has been argued to advocate a particular type of participatory design, which can now be scrutinised in its natural setting as it evolves. Two interpretive case studies on user participation in OSS development are included in this article. The first examines a traditional community OSS development project; the second concentrates on the company OSS development context, the case being a software development unit of a global corporation involved in OSS development. Through analysis of the cases, different forms of participatory design (PD), especially of distributed PD, are identified. Distributed PD is interpreted to include gaining an understanding of users' current practices, redesigning them together with users and gathering feedback from users related to the solutions. Different kinds of roles are available to users, as well as to for intermediaries ‘representing users’. Especially, the importance of online forum-based and intermediary-driven PD is emphasised in this article. Implications for PD and OSS research and practice are considered.