Computer technology for animals is typically oriented toward isolated individuals, seldom attending to such group-living factors as accommodating differences between individuals. To address this shortcoming of research and practice, the authors designed and developed an audio-based system that lets lemurs in group accommodation voluntarily trigger audio via a novel device dubbed LemurLounge and listen to it on their own. This interactive system was deployed for 14 lemurs, of three species (black-and-white, brown, and ring-tailed), in their normal habitat. The device’s presence clearly influenced lemurs’ visits to the relevant portion of the enclosure. Alongside a general preference for audio over silence, assessment of individual- and species-level differences revealed significant differences at both levels, though no particular sound type (rainfall, traffic, either upbeat or relaxing music, or white noise) was favoured. The findings and design work highlight the need for customisable and adaptive computer technology for animals living in group settings, with important implications for lemurs and other primates, humans included.

Although much work has focused on designing touch interfaces for primates, little is known about how physical computer buttons for monkeys would look. Here, we employ the rapid prototyping method commonly used in human–computer interaction to design tangible buttons for monkeys allowing them to interact with computer enrichment. Our findings reflect on the process of altering rapid prototyping from humans to animals and how computer buttons for monkeys might look. On this basis, we make suggestions for monkey buttons, highlighting colour and pull/swing over push/touch interactions. We also reflect on lessons learned from transferring prototyping across species, such as the need to iterate on a few variables and for initial prototypes to be varied, and speculate on how to balance the designer (human) and user (animals) needs. More broadly, this paper builds upon HCI prototyping techniques for unconventional users, creating a method for rapid iterative prototyping with animals.

Though computer systems have entered widespread use for animals' enrichment in zoos, no interactive computer systems suited to giraffes have yet been developed. Hence, which input modes or audio stimuli giraffes might best utilise remains unknown. To address this issue and probe development of such systems alongside the animals themselves and zookeepers, researchers gathered requirements from the keepers and from prototyping with giraffes, then created two interfaces -- one touch-based and one proximity-based -- that play giraffe-humming audio or white noise when activated. Over two months of observation, giraffes utilised the proximity-based system more frequently than the touch-based one but in shorter episodes. Secondly, the study highlighted the significance of considering user-specific needs in computer systems' development: the lack of preference shown for any specific audio type indicates that the audio stimuli chosen were inappropriate for these giraffes. In addition, the paper articulates several lessons that can be drawn from human--computer interaction when one develops systems for animals and, in turn, what the findings presented mean for humans.

Interactive systems were built to give monkeys a choice over when and where to trigger stimuli as a way to control their environment to improve their welfare indices. Typically, systems only support the triggering of one stimulus – either audio or visual. In this study, a system was developed for monkeys that allowed them to choose between multiple auditory and visual stimuli. Utilising this system over several weeks, we found that monkeys would interact and choose between different stimuli, though not significantly, and that sakis triggered audio stimuli twice as much as visual stimuli. The monkeys interacted with audio and visual stimuli differently over time, spotlighting how we can define and measure the interactivity and user experience for monkey–computer interfaces. Furthermore, the monkeys’ interactions, while initially increasing, declined over the study period, which indicated a novelty effect. This paper builds upon computer systems for primates by uncovering answers to key questions regarding creating and defining interactive systems according to a user’s choices.