Phoebe Sengers
Kirsten Boehner
Joseph 'Jofish' Kaye
ABSTRACT
As computing moves into every aspect of our daily lives, the values and assumptions that underlie our technical practices may unwittingly be propagated throughout our culture. Drawing on existing critical approaches in computing, we argue that reflection on unconscious values embedded in computing and the practices that it supports can and should be a core principle of technology design. Building on a growing body of work in critical computing, reflective design combines analysis of the ways in which technologies reflect and perpetuate unconscious cultural assumptions, with design, building, and evaluation of new computing devices that reflect alternative possibilities. We illustrate this approach through two design case studies.
- Agre, P. Computation and Human Experience, Cambridge University Press, 1997.]] Google Scholar
- Asaro, P. M. Transforming society by transforming technology: The science and politics of participatory design. Accounting, Management and Information Technologies, 10, 4 (2000), pp. 257--290.]]Google Scholar
- Bell, G., Blythe, M., and Sengers, P. Making by making strange: Defamiliarization and the design of domestic technology. ACM TOCHI 12(2) June 2005, 149--173.]] Google Scholar
- Blythe, M., Overbeeke, K., Monk, A., Wright, P. (eds). Funology: From Usability to Enjoyment. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003.]] Google Scholar
- Bødker, S. Through the Interface: A Human Activity Approach to User Interface Design. Erlbaum, 1991.]] Google Scholar
- Boeher, K., Gay, G., Sengers, P. Brooke, T., and Chen, X. Technologies for Reflection CHI 2004 workshop, Reflective HCI: Towards a Critical Technical Practice.]]Google Scholar
- Boehner, K., Gay, G., & Larkin, C. Drawing Evaluation into Design for Mobile Computing: A Case Study of the Renwick Gallery's Handheld Education Project. Journal of Digital Libraries, 5(3), May 2005, 219--230.]] Google Scholar
- Boehner, K., Sengers, P., Gay, G. Affective Presence in Museums: Ambient Systems for Creative Expression. Journal of Digital Creativity, 16(2), 2005, 19--89.]]Google Scholar
- Boehner, K., Thom-Santelli, J., Zoss, A., Gay, G., Hall, J., and Barrett, T. Imprints of Place: Creative Expressions of the Museum Experience. Extended Abstracts of CHI 2005, ACM Press, 2005.]] Google Scholar
- Djajadiningrat. J. P., Gaver, W. W., and Fres, J. W. Interaction relabelling and extreme characters: methods for exploring aesthetic interactions. Proceedings of DIS'00, ACM Press, 2000, 66--71.]] Google Scholar
- Dourish, P. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. MIT Press, 2001.]] Google Scholar
- Dunne, A. Hertzian Tales: Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience & Critical Design. Art Books, 2000.]] Google Scholar
- Dunne, A. and Raby, F. Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects. Birkhauser, 2001.]]Google Scholar
- Ehn, P. (1992). Scandinavian design: On participation and skill. In PS Adler & TA Winograd (eds.) Usability: Turning technologies into tools, 96--132. Oxford University Press NY.]] Google Scholar
- Fisher, G. Morch, A., Nakakoji, K., Redmiles, D. Designing for Reflective Practioners: Sharing and Assessing Progress by Diverse Communities. Workshop for CHI 2004.]] Google Scholar
- Friedman, B., Howe, D., and Felten, E. 2002. Informed Consent in the Mozilla Browser: Implementing Value Sensitive Design. Proceedings of HICSS'02 (8) 247-.]] Google Scholar
- Friedman, B., Kahn, P., and Borning, A. Value Sensitive Design and Information Systems. To appear in P. Zhang & D. Galletta, eds., Human-Computer Interaction in Management Information Systems Foundations. M. E. Sharpe, Inc.: NY.]] Google Scholar
- Garfinkel, H. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Prentice Hall, 1967.]]Google Scholar
- Gaver, W., Beaver, J., & Benford, S. Ambiguity as a Resource for Design. Proceedings of CHI 2003, 233--240.]] Google Scholar
- Gaver, W. W., Dunne, T., and Pacenti, E. Cultural Probes. interactions, 6(1) 21--29, 1999.]] Google Scholar
- Gaver, W, Hooker, B., and Dunne, A. The Presence Project. Royal College of Art, 2001.]]Google Scholar
- Gaver, W. W., & Martin, H. Alternatives: exploring information appliances through conceptual design proposals. Proceedings of CHI'00, ACM Press, 2000, 209--216.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- Gaver, W. W., Bowers, J., Boucher, A., Gellerson, H., Pennington, S., Schmidt, A., Steed, A., Villars, N. & Walker, B. The drift table: Designing for ludic engagement. In Extended Abstracts of CHI 2004. ACM Press, 2004, 885--900.]] Google Scholar
- Greenbaum, J. & Kyng, M. Design at work. Erlbaum, 1991.]]Google Scholar
- Hallnas, L., & Redstrom, J. Slow Technology - Designing for Reflection. Personal & Ubiquitous Computing, 5(3) 2001.]] Google Scholar
- Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. 1962.]]Google Scholar
- Hutchinson, H., et. al. Technology probe: inspiring design for and with families. Proceedings of CHI'03, ACM Press, 2003, 17--24]] Google Scholar
- Johnston, A., Amitani, S., Edmonds. E. Amplifying reflecting thinking in musical performance. Proceedings of the 5th conference on Creativity and Cognition. ACM Press, 2005.]] Google Scholar
- Kaye, J. 'J.' I just clicked to say I love you: Rich Evaluations of Minimal Communications. Proceedings of the Less is More Conference, Cambridge, UK. May 2005.]]Google Scholar
- Kaye, J. 'J' & Goulding, L. Intimate Objects. Proceedings of DIS'04, ACM Press, 2004.]] Google Scholar
- Kjeldskov, J., Gibbs, M. R., Vetere, F., Howard, S., Pedell, S., Mecoles, K., Bunyan, M.. Using Cultural Probes to Explore Mediated Intimacy. Proceedings of OzCHI, 2004]]Google Scholar
- Louridas, P. & Loucopoulos, P. A Generic Model for Reflective Design. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering & Methodology, 9(2), April 2000 199--237.]] Google Scholar
- McCarthy, J., & Wright, P. Technology as Experience. MIT Press 2004.]] Google Scholar
- Muller, M. and Kuhn, S. (eds). Special Issue on Participatory Design, CACM 36:4, June, 1993.]] Google Scholar
- Nardi, B (ed) Context & Consciousness: Activity Theory & Human Computer Interaction. MIT Press, 1996.]] Google Scholar
- Picard, R. W. Affective Computing. MIT Press, 2000.]] Google Scholar
- Schön, D. The Reflective Practioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books, 1983.]]Google Scholar
- Schuler, D. & Namioka, A. (eds). Participatory Design: Principles & Practices. Lawrence Erlbaum Ass., 1993.]] Google Scholar
- Sengers, P., Boehner, K., Warner, S., & Jenkins, T. Evaluating Affector: Co-Intepreting What 'Works.' CHI 2005 Workshop on Innovative Approaches to Evaluating Affective Interfaces.]]Google Scholar
- Sengers, P., Liesendahl, R., Magar, W., Seibert, C., Müller, B., Joachims, T., Geng, W., Martensson, P., & Hööök, K. The Enigmatics of Affect. Proceedings of DIS'02. London, England, June 2002.]] Google Scholar
- Smith, H., Fitzpatrick, G., and Rogers, Y. Eliciting Reactive and Reflective Feedback for a Social Communication Tool: a Multi-session Approach. Proceedings of DIS'04, ACM Press, 2004, 39--48.]] Google Scholar
- Strong, R. & Gaver, W. W. Feather, Scent & Shaker: Supporting Simple Intimacy in Videos. Proceedings of CSCW'96, ACM Press, 1996, 29--30.]]Google Scholar
- Suchman, L. Plans and Situated Actions. Cambridge University Press, 1987.]]Google Scholar
- Varela, FJ, Thompson, E, & Rosch, E. (eds) The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science & Human Experience. MIT Press, 1997.]]Google Scholar
Recommendations
What is "critical" about critical design?
CHI '13: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsCritical design is a research through design methodology that foregrounds the ethics of design practice, reveals potentially hidden agendas and values, and explores alternative design values. While it seems to be a timely fit for today's socially, ...
Expanding and Refining Design and Criticality in HCI
CHI '15: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsThe term 'critical design' is on the upswing in HCI. We analyze how discourses around 'critical design' are diverging in Design and HCI. We argue that this divergence undermines HCI's ability to learn from and appropriate the design approaches signaled ...
Towards a closer dialogue between policy and practice: responsible design in HCI
CHI '14: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsGiven the potent and pervasive nature of modern technologies, this paper lays out the complexities involved in achieving responsible design. In order to do this we will first compare an emerging policy-oriented programme of research known as RRI (...
Comments