Abstract Technological artifacts designed by individuals from developing nations often do not flourish in developing regions. Many authors conducting work in these regions have therefore called on researchers to make use of co-design in order to mitigate power imbalances, include the voices of communities in the design of technology intended for them, and design and build more contextually situated technology. Many of these authors also refer to the need for co-design readiness in their work. However, little is known about how co-design readiness can be articulated and achieved, especially when working with rural communities. In this paper, we make use of qualitative meta-analysis to interrogate the data from three distinct case studies in order to investigate co-design readiness. We found that co-design readiness comprises three forms, namely: (1) emotional readiness built through trust, relationship building, and empathy; (2) cultural readiness, which requires that researchers and participants have an awareness and respect for each other’s cultural values and beliefs; and, finally, (3) readiness in terms of confidence and familiarity with the technologies used which can be achieved through careful and strategic methodological decisions. We found that researchers should explicitly plan for readiness and should not assume that readiness will grow organically and that co-design, if planned well is a lengthy process. Finally, we provide learnings from our work to how co-design readiness can be achieved through planning and methodological decisions.

Abstract Social distancing is one of the key measures to lower infections during a pandemic. Pedestrian signage is one way to achieve this by managing the flow of people to reduce crowdedness. However, visual signs can clutter the environment and might not be noticed by pedestrians. In this paper, we propose auditory displays for managing pedestrian flow. We developed implicit and explicit sound signs, evaluated them in a user study with 16 participants and compared our results to those reported for visual signage. Our results show that auditory signs are as effective as visual signs in managing the flow of people. Although using explicit sounds tends to be more effective than using implicit sounds, our findings indicate a tendency for implicit sounds to be preferred by participants with respect to environmental comfort. Our work contributes to the understanding of auditory displays and facilitates investigating further uses beyond pedestrian flow management during a pandemic.

Abstract This paper reflects on participatory design practices within the child–computer interaction (CCI) community, which has a long tradition of advocating the inclusion of children in the design process. The benefits of involving children are widely cited in the CCI literature. However, through a critical analysis of children’s current technology usage, research and industry practice, this paper offers three provocations relating to participatory design and children. The first focuses on what constitutes participatory design, suggesting that the use of children in a single design activity to generate ideas is very distant from traditional participatory design (PD) and thus should not be referred to as PD. the second is that there needs to be a shift toward researching and developing methods to enable children to participate in design activities that align with industry timelines. The final provocation suggests that unless there are some tangible benefits of including children in PD of technology or impact can be demonstrated from the work, then an ethical debate is needed about their role and inclusion. These three provocations are designed to question and stimulate the debate around the benefits and values of including children in the design process. Without a critical reflection on current practices and processes, current trends may continue and design practices within the industry may not evolve.

Abstract Formalized literature reviews are crucial in human–computer interaction (HCI) because they synthesize research and identify unsolved problems. However, current practices lack transparency when reporting details of a literature search. This restricts replicability. This paper introduces the INSPIRE framework for HCI research. It focuses on the search stage in literature reviews to support a search that prioritizes transparency and quality-of-fit to a research question. It was developed based on guiding principles for successful searches and precautions advised by librarian experts in HCI (n=8) for search strategies in (primarily systematic) literature reviews. We discuss how their advice aligns with the HCI field and their concerns about computational AI tools assisting or automating these reviews. Based on their advice, the framework outlines pivotal stages in conducting a literature search. These essential stages are: (1) defining research goals, (2) navigating relevant databases and (3) using searching techniques (like divergent and convergent searching) to identify a set of relevant studies. The framework also emphasizes the importance of team involvement, transparent reporting, and a flexible, iterative approach to refining the search terms.

Abstract Executive function operations (Formulate a Goal, Plan, Carry out the task and Verify goal attainment) are important for supporting independence, and are often impacted early in dementia, yet are seldom considered in the design of assistive technologies for cognition for older adults with dementia. This article introduces personas, i.e., fictitious, specific, concrete representations of target users, to support the design of assistive technologies for cognition from the perspective of executive dysfunction. We first categorized the assistance most appropriate to provide, based on a quantitative secondary analysis of annotated videos of 16 older adults who received assistance during a functional assessment. The annotations of the videos classified the assistance required for task completion into categories. We then designed the personas based on this quantitative secondary analysis. A persona was designed for each of the first three executive function operations: Formulate a goal, Plan and Carry out the task. No persona was designed for Verify goal attainment because assistance was seldom provided for this operation. Stimulate the thought process and clarification of instructions were the categories of assistance most frequently identified overall. Each persona is illustrated with examples of assistance. Stimulate the thought process was the category of assistance most frequently provided for goal formulation and plan, and motivational assistance for carry out the task. We defined several design recommendations to support the design of assistive technologies for cognition for older adults on the dementia continuum, including 1) stimulate the person to reason and act by themselves first; 2) design context-aware assistive technologies; 3) consider “goal formulation” and “plan” executive operation dysfunctions; 4) personalize assistive technologies to the specific needs of each individual; 5) do not rely only on personas to take individual needs into account. Personas created from real situations can serve as a tool to better understand the assistance this population requires in order to develop assistive technologies for cognition.

Abstract Visual data is an integral part of qualitative research, yet it is not always clear to researchers how to use or interpret it once gathered. Existing methods for qualitative data analysis largely rely on textual approaches such as thematic analysis, or grounded theory. Open coding is a term that is frequently used to describe a analysis that follows a logical—yet undocumented—process, but these can often be applied ad hoc, and are necessarily created after the fact of data collection. Researchers often develop their own ways of interrogating visual data, but can struggle to prove the legitimacy of not employing an existing approach. This article outlines a proven and replicable process for the analysis of static visual imagery that has been developed by the author and utilised together with research collaborators over a seven year period. The approach, which I call Annotated Visual Analysis (AVA), can be used for sketched or artistic data from participants or in first person, subjective research, in order to generate insight, gather requirements or confirm hypotheses. Here, I outline five case studies using the approach in differing contexts, in order to demonstrate its applicability, and outline the process and guidelines so that other researchers might employ the method. I also discuss the need for other researchers using visual methods to share and consolidate their forms of analysis to develop knowledge for use by others in the field.

Abstract Voice-based interaction is experiencing a second wind through the advent of machine learning (ML) techniques, affordable consumer products and renewed work on natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs). A growing body of work is exploring how users perceive new forms of computer-generated voices from qualitative and quantitative angles. However, critical voices have called for greater rigour, especially in confirming the voice as a manipulated variable, i.e. manipulation checks. We present three case studies that highlight the value of investing in rigorous manipulation checks for HCI researchers and designers. We demonstrate the importance of testing assumptions, the need for care and reflection in the design of response options and measurement and the advantages of more exploratory approaches to understanding user perceptions of and user experiences (UX) with voice phenomena. Through these case studies, we raise awareness, empirically justify and critically assess the value of manipulation checks for voice UX research and beyond.

Abstract In Virtual Reality (VR), locomotion methods allow users to adjust their location in the virtual environment. These methods are sometimes used in 3D-VR medical image manipulation, which has gained interest in VR in the medical field due to the immersive environment and increased number of possible interaction techniques. However, the medical 3D-VR image manipulation context differs from typical VR locomotion, as the focus is not on the navigation of the VR space, but rather on the point of view of the user to the 3D image. For this study, we recruited 24 participants to find and observe easy targets from simplified medical images. We compared whether the three VR locomotion methods, Diving, Grabbing and Teleporting, were suitable for medical 3D image manipulation tasks. Diving was found to be significantly more successful than Teleporting while being an equally fast method. Locomotion method preferences varied. Therefore, a VR system is suggested to provide various manipulation methods for the user. However, the methods need development before they can be used with radiologists for actual medical image analysis tasks. We fill a research gap from the VR medical image manipulation context, where even though VR locomotion methods, such as Teleporting have been sometimes used, there has been a lack of interaction technique studies of these methods. Therefore, we provide necessary data on locomotion methods for the designers and developers of 3D-VR medical image applications. This is an initial study to validate different techniques for medical image analysis tasks in VR.