Children bring a distinct and underexplored perspective to questions about how robots could add meaning to everyday life. We report on a participatory design workshop with 14 children, from Innovators for Purpose (iFp), an afterschool program primarily catering to underrepresented groups in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). We used personal photo probes and a scaffolded speculative design process to elicit and capture how children imagine robots adding value to their everyday lives. Introducing the concept of robots only after participants had articulated their values and challenges, we captured their robot concepts grounded in their everyday experiences. The imagined robots concepts fell within four categories: (1) automating tasks associated with hobbies, (2) fostering environmental stewardship, (3) enhancing educational experiences, and (4) enforcing digital well-being. We illustrate the process of constructing these themes and uncover the values animating these designs. We discuss how the values may conflict and be negotiated, and the reflexive nature of imagining robots as part of everyday life. We contribute a methodology for eliciting value-based speculative design with children and discuss how children imagine future technology.

Dataset documentation is widely recognized as essential for the responsible development of automated systems. Despite growing efforts to support documentation through different kinds of artifacts, little is known about the motivations shaping documentation tool design or the factors hindering their adoption. We present a systematic review supported by mixed-methods analysis of 59 dataset documentation publications to examine the motivations behind building documentation tools, how authors conceptualize documentation practices, and how these tools connect to existing systems, regulations, and cultural norms. Our analysis shows four persistent patterns in dataset documentation conceptualization that potentially impede adoption and standardization: unclear operationalizations of documentation’s value, decontextualized designs, unaddressed labor demands, and a tendency to treat integration as future work. Building on these findings, we propose a shift in Responsible AI tool design toward institutional rather than individual solutions, and outline actions the HCI community can take to enable sustainable documentation practices.

In robotics, the concept of “dull, dirty, and dangerous” (DDD) work has been used to motivate where robots might be useful. In this paper, we conduct an empirical analysis of robotics publications between 1980 and 2024 that mention DDD, and find that only 2.7% of publications define DDD and 8.7% of publications provide concrete examples of tasks or jobs that are DDD. We then review the social science literature on “dull,” “dirty,” and “dangerous” work to provide definitions and guidance on how to conceptualize DDD for robotics. Finally, we propose a framework that helps the robotics community consider the job context for our technology, encouraging a more informed perspective on how robotics may impact human labor.

The Human-computer Interaction (HCI) community has the opportunity to foster the integration of research practices across the Global South and North to begin overcoming colonial relationships. In this paper, we focus on the case of Latin America (LATAM), where initiatives to increase the representation of HCI practitioners lack a consolidated understanding of the practices they employ, the factors that influence them, and the challenges that practitioners face. To address this knowledge gap, we employ a mixed-methods approach, comprising a survey (66 respondents) and in-depth interviews (19 interviewees). Our analyses characterize a set of research perspectives on how HCI is practiced in/about LATAM; a set of driving forces and tensions with a heavy reliance on diasporic dynamics; and a set of professional demands and associated structural limitations. We also offer a roadmap towards building connections across HCI communities, in an attempt to rebuild HCI as a pluriverse.

The word “robot” frequently conjures unrealistic expectations of utilitarian perfection: tireless, efficient and flawless agents. However, real-world robots are far from perfect—they fail and make mistakes. Thus, roboticists should consider altering their current assumptions and cultivating new perspectives that account for a more complete range of robot roles, behaviors, and interactions. To encourage this, we explore the use of metaphors for generating novel ideas and reframing existing problems, eliciting new perspectives of human-robot interaction. Our work makes two contributions. We (1) surface current assumptions that accompany the term “robots,” and (2) present a collection of alternative perspectives of interaction with robots through metaphors. By identifying assumptions, we provide a comprehensible list of aspects to reconsider regarding robots’ physicality, roles, and behaviors. Through metaphors, we propose new ways of examining how we can use, relate to, and co-exist with the robots that will share our future.

In this paper, we present an account of how FARC-EP ex-combatants are using digital technology in the process of reincorporating into Colombian society. We report findings showing how this technology mediates the difficult task of transitioning from a culture of opposition to civilian members and active political actors. Using the concept of social capital as a framework, we investigate the intersection between the use of digital tools and developing cultural and economic practices among these groups during this transitional period. Reflecting on the bonding and bridging aspects of social capital, we describe how ex-combatants draw on substantial social capital from their former lives as a guerrilla army in order to strengthen their position in these new circumstances, and their cautious and difficult creation of new social ties with wider Colombian society. We contribute to the CSCW discourse by discussing the crucial role digital tools, previously not available to these groups, play in sustaining, re-growing and building social capital of communities in post-conflict periods.

In recent decades, engineering education within universities in the United States has shifted towards engaging learners through various forms of applied learning. These models provide an opportunity to connect academia with real-world environments. One connection of particular importance is the one linking engineering education and society: how can engineering education connect learning with some of the most pressing global sustainability challenges we currently face?As a result, universities are turning to communities globally in search for opportunities to connect students with sustainability related issues. The appearance of academic offerings including international courses, global exchanges and fellowships abroad among others, are a testament to the efforts within higher institutions to create these bridges. From a scholarly perspective, literature describing these kinds of community-based programs has been on the rise. However, the majority of these programs, and the research surrounding them, are almost exclusively focused on the potential transformation this connection brings to learners, much less on what community-based interaction means for engineering education transformation. This paper is an effort in bridging that gap.The "Technology Design for Coffee Production: A Co-Design Experience", is a community-based course on technology design and engineering offered to an interdisciplinary group of graduate students, primarily from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The course was facilitated directly from within coffee farms in Colombia in collaboration with local groups over the course of a month. We conclude that three principles are promising for future community-based engineering education offerings: 1) community immersion; 2) positioning local community members as learning instructors; 3) thick contextualization of the engineering design process. We discuss how each of these principles is reflected in the curriculum of the course, and how they were implemented.Future work includes further examining lessons and expanding them into other engineering education offerings at MIT including a revised second edition of the course to graduate students from all five schools at MIT.