Speculative and systemic design are both used by HCI researchers to engage in complex sociotechnical change. However, they are rarely integrated in ways that make their complementary strengths explicit. This paper introduces Systemic Futures Dialogue, a design approach that interleaves speculative and systemic design methods across micro-macro and present-future dimensions. We report on an 18-month case study with the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry, that applied a mixture of methods used in both design disciplines. These included semi-structured interviews, systems mapping, future-based scenarios, speculative probes, and participatory reflection. The resulting design approach generates grounded futures by connecting macro-level system dynamics with micro-level speculative critique, identifying tensions between present-day solutions and desired futures. The final Systemic Futures Dialogue contributes methodological guidance for conducting critical, participatory design work within a sociotechnical system.

How do individuals perceive AI systems as responsible entities in everyday collaborations between humans and AI? Drawing on psychological literature from attribution theory, praise-blame asymmetries and negativity bias, this study investigated the effects of perspective (actor vs observer) and outcome favorability (positive vs negative) on how participants (N=321) attributed responsibility for outcomes resulting from shared human-AI decision-making. Both Bayesian modelling and reflexive thematic analysis of results revealed that, overall, participants were more likely to attribute greater responsibility to the AI systems. When the outcome was positive, participants were more likely to ascribe shared responsibility to both Human and AI systems, rather than either separately. When the outcome was negative, participants were more likely to attribute responsibility to a single entity, but not consistently towards the human or the AI. These results build on the understanding of how individuals cast blame and praise for shared interactions involving AI systems.

This full-day workshop is dedicated to mapping and building a community toward shaping sustainable futures of robot-assisted work, with and for workers. The program encompasses lightning keynotes from HRI experts, talks from selected participants bringing case studies, and a hands-on mapping activity for understanding the landscape of robotics innovation at work - in order to foster knowledge exchange and learning. The workshop culminates in a facilitated conversation with workers and managers from a particular case study, providing real-world insights into the challenges, complexities and opportunities for our HRI community in shaping the future of work. With this rich set of activities, the program aims to bridge the gap between academics and practitioners, and to promote a holistic understanding of our roles in shaping the future of work, with particular attention to systemic challenges and value-driven approaches. The workshop will conclude with a synthesis of key takeaways and potential directions for future research and community building.

In this article, we introduce and evaluate a tool for researchers and practitioners to assess the actionability of information provided to users to support algorithmic recourse. While there are clear benefits of recourse from the user’s perspective, the notion of actionability in explainable AI research remains vague, and claims of ‘actionable’ explainability techniques are based on researchers’ intuitions. Inspired by definitions and instruments for assessing actionability in other domains, we construct a seven-item tool and investigate its effectiveness through two user studies. We show that the tool discriminates actionability across explanation types and that the distinctions align with human judgments. We illustrate the impact of context on actionability assessments, suggesting that domain-specific tool adaptations may foster more human-centred algorithmic systems. This is a valuable step forward for research and practices into actionable explainability and algorithmic recourse, providing the first clear human-centred tool for assessing actionability in explainable AI.

How do individual differences in personal morality affect perceptions and judgments of morally contentious behaviours from AI systems? By applying Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) to the context of AI, this study sought to develop a predictive Bayesian model for assessing moral judgements based on individual differences in moral constitution. Participants (N=240) were asked to assess six different scenarios, carefully designed to elicit reflection on the behaviour of AI systems. Together, with results from the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, we performed both Bayesian modelling and reflexive thematic analysis to investigate the associations between individual differences in moral foundations and judgements of the AI systems. Results revealed a mild association between individual MFT scores and judgments of AI behaviours. Qualitative responses suggested a participant’s technical understanding of AI systems, rather than intrinsic moral values, predominantly influenced their judgments, with those who judged the behaviour as wrong tending to attribute a greater degree of agency to the AI systems.

Volumetric telepresence aims to create a shared space, allowing people in local and remote settings to collaborate seamlessly. Prior telepresence examples typically have asymmetrical designs, with volumetric capture in one location and objects in one format. In this paper, we present a volumetric telepresence mixed reality system that supports real-time, symmetrical, multi-user, partially distributed interactions, using objects in multiple formats, across multiple locations. We align two volumetric environments around a common spatial feature to create a shared workspace for remote and co-located people using objects in three formats: physical, virtual, and volumetric. We conducted a study with 18 participants over 6 sessions, evaluating how telepresence workspaces support spatial coordination and hybrid communication for co-located and remote users undertaking collaborative tasks. Our findings demonstrate the successful integration of remote spaces, effective use of proxemics and deixis to support negotiation, and strategies to manage interactivity in hybrid workspaces.

Mixed-reality telepresence allows local and remote users feel as if they are present together in the same space. In this paper we report on a mixed-reality volumetric telepresence system that is adaptable, multi-user and cross-modal, i.e. combining augmented and virtual reality technologies with face-to-face interactions. The system extends state-of-art by creating full-body and environmental volumetric renderings in real-time over local enterprise networks. We report findings of an evaluation in a training scenario which was adapted for remote delivery and led by an industry professional. Analysis of interviews and observed behaviours identify varying attitudes towards virtually mediated full-body experiences and highlight the impact of volumetric mixed-reality telepresence to facilitate personal experiences of co-presence and to ground communication with interlocutors.

In this article, we show that explanations of decisions made by machine learning systems can be improved by not only explaining why a decision was made but also explaining how an individual could obtain their desired outcome. We formally define the concept of directive explanations (those that offer specific actions an individual could take to achieve their desired outcome), introduce two forms of directive explanations (directive-specific and directive-generic), and describe how these can be generated computationally. We investigate people’s preference for and perception toward directive explanations through two online studies, one quantitative and the other qualitative, each covering two domains (the credit scoring domain and the employee satisfaction domain). We find a significant preference for both forms of directive explanations compared to non-directive counterfactual explanations. However, we also find that preferences are affected by many aspects, including individual preferences and social factors. We conclude that deciding what type of explanation to provide requires information about the recipients and other contextual information. This reinforces the need for a human-centered and context-specific approach to explainable AI.

While HCI researchers have begun designing personalised VR experiences for older adults, there has been limited research examining the use of social VR - where users interact via avatars in a virtual environment. Avatar-mediated communication (AMC) is a crucial component of the social VR experience, but older users’ experience with AMC is poorly understood. We conducted a five-month study with 16 older adults evaluating a co-designed social VR prototype. Results show that AMC in social VR was seen as medium that supported introverted users to express themselves and was viewed as offering advantages when discussing sensitive topics. Our study provides new insights into how older adults view AMC in social VR as a communication medium and we contribute six design reflections, based on our results, that highlight the steps that can be taken to ensure that AMC in social VR can meet the communication needs of older users.

In creating digital technologies for animals, designers often seek to deploy and adapt human-centred techniques of interaction design. A significant challenge lies in enabling animals to play an active and generative role in the design process. This is of particular concern when the primary design objective is to address the behavioural and psychological needs of animal users. In collaboration with orangutans and human stakeholders at a zoo, we conducted co-design to create an interactive installation to enhance the orangutans' wellbeing. This paper presents the design journey undertaken and reflects on the challenges of designing with animals in a complex real-world setting. From this, we propose ways in which interaction design methods can be better adapted to working with animals by integrating qualitative and quantitative techniques drawn from the animal sciences. These reflections and proposals are relevant to researchers and practitioners investigating the design of animal-centred digital technologies.

Prominent theories in cognitive science propose that humans understand and represent the knowledge of the world through causal relationships. In making sense of the world, we build causal models in our mind to encode cause-effect relations of events and use these to explain why new events happen by referring to counterfactuals — things that did not happen. In this paper, we use causal models to derive causal explanations of the behaviour of model-free reinforcement learning agents. We present an approach that learns a structural causal model during reinforcement learning and encodes causal relationships between variables of interest. This model is then used to generate explanations of behaviour based on counterfactual analysis of the causal model. We computationally evaluate the model in 6 domains and measure performance and task prediction accuracy. We report on a study with 120 participants who observe agents playing a real-time strategy game (Starcraft II) and then receive explanations of the agents' behaviour. We investigate: 1) participants' understanding gained by explanations through task prediction; 2) explanation satisfaction and 3) trust. Our results show that causal model explanations perform better on these measures compared to two other baseline explanation models.

In this paper, we present a foundation for understanding the elements that enable people with visual impairment to engage with digital games. This is defined by the gamer's relation- ships with information and with elements of control provided by the game, and is mediated through in-game metaphors and affordances when gamers interact as users or creators. This work complements previous research exploring the points of view of gamers with visual impairment by focusing on the games they play and prioritising the relationships between the key enablers of access to digital games. Using the framework to examine existing and missing components will enable de- signers to consider broader aspects of accessibility in game design.

Wearable technologies offer potential in supporting assessment of lower limb movements in video consultations, which otherwise are challenging to assess. Yet there remains a limited understanding of how such technologies can be used to improve video consultations in a hospital setting and how they contribute to the clinician-patient interactions over a distance. In this article, we report on the findings of the field evaluation of a wearable technology— SoPhy. SoPhy consists of a pair of sensor embedded socks that capture the lower limb movements of a patient and a web-interface to visualise these movements for the remote physiotherapist. Our study demonstrates that SoPhy helped the physiotherapist in identifying the subtle differences in patients’ movements across all six phases of a consultation. SoPhy increased the confidence of the physiotherapist and guided more accurate assessment of the patients. SoPhy visualisation enhanced the overall clinician-patient communication and offered a better understanding of the therapy goals to the patients. Using the characteristics of the visualisations, patients were able to plan specific goals. We discuss how SoPhy helped in addressing challenges in video consultations experienced by a physiotherapist, and beyond that, how it enabled collective reflection between therapist and patient.

Social virtual reality (social VR) is an emerging technology that has the potential to support unique social experiences for groups of older adults. In this paper we explore the use of social VR to support group reminiscence, an activity that has been shown to have a positive impact on the lives of older adults. We developed School Days, a bespoke social VR application that enables groups of geographically dispersed older adults to meet in a virtual environment to reminisce about their school experiences. We conducted a user study over the course of 5 months with 16 participants aged 70--81 to evaluate how School Days supported reminiscence. In this paper, we focus on how the use of reminiscence scaffolding features in School Days impacted on the older adults' ability to participate more fully in the reminiscence activities. Our results illustrate the value of social VR for connecting older adults over distance, and contribute new knowledge of how virtual environments can be designed to scaffold reminiscence; how techniques such as 3D conversation starters and individual artefacts can be used to scaffold reminiscence; and how pre-recorded holographic stories (Avacasts) can be used to introduce new perspectives and prompt self-reflection. We contribute five design reflections aimed at guiding the design of future reminiscence tools in social VR.

There is growing interest in technologies that allow older adults to socialise across geographic boundaries. An emerging technology in this space is social virtual reality (VR). In this paper we report on a series of participatory design workshops that involved extended in-depth collaboration with 22 older adults (aged 70-81), that aimed to understand their views on the types of social VR experiences that they saw as being of value to older adults. This process culminated in a reminiscence-based social VR concept. Our study identifies: participants' ideas about the types of social VR experiences they found appealing; the potential for social VR as a powerful reminiscence tool; how social VR might be used as a tool to challenge ageing stereotypes and promote healthy ageing. Reflecting on the design process, we discuss how the diverse participant groups and the complexities involved in mediating between designers, the technical team, and participants could inform future design work.

Facial analysis applications are increasingly being applied to inform decision-making processes. However, as global reports of unfairness emerge, governments, academia and industry have recognized the ethical limitations and societal implications of this technology. Alongside initiatives that aim to formulate ethical frameworks, we believe that the public should be invited to participate in the debate. In this paper, we discuss Biometric Mirror, a case study that explored opinions about the ethics of an emerging technology. The interactive application distinguished demographic and psychometric information from people's facial photos and presented speculative scenarios with potential consequences based on their results. We analyzed the interactions with Biometric Mirror and media reports covering the study. Our findings demonstrate the nature of public opinion about the technology's possibilities, reliability, and privacy implications. Our study indicates an opportunity for case study-based digital ethics research, and we provide practical guidelines for designing future studies.

Previous research on games for people with visual impairment (PVI) has focused on co-designing or evaluating specific games - mostly under controlled conditions. In this research, we follow a game-agnostic, "in-the-wild" approach, investigating the habits, opinions and concerns of PVI regarding digital games. To explore these issues, we conducted an online survey and follow-up interviews with gamers with VI (GVI). Dominant themes from our analysis include the particular appeal of digital games to GVI, the importance of social trajectories and histories of gameplay, the need to balance complexity and accessibility in both games targeted to PVI and mainstream games, opinions about the state of the gaming industry, and accessibility concerns around new and emerging technologies such as VR and AR. Our study gives voice to an underrepresented group in the gaming community. Understanding the practices, experiences and motivations of GVI provides a valuable foundation for informing development of more inclusive games.

We present two studies to discuss the design, usability analysis, and educational outcome resulting from our system Augmented Body in physiotherapy classroom. We build on prior user-centric design work that investigates existing teaching methods and discuss opportunities for intervention. We present the design and implementation of a hybrid system for physiotherapy education combining an on-body projection based virtual anatomy supplemented by pen-based tablets to create real-time annotations. We conducted a usability evaluation of this system, comparing with projection only and traditional teaching conditions. Finally, we focus on a comparative study to evaluate learning outcome among students in actual classroom settings. Our studies showed increased usage of visual representation techniques in students'11 note taking behavior and statistically significant improvement in some learning aspects. We discuss challenges for designing augmented reality systems for education, including minimizing attention split, addressing text-entry issues, and digital annotations on a moving physical body.

In HCI, the honeypot effect describes a form of audience engagement in which a person's interaction with a technology stimulates passers-by to observe, approach and engage in an interaction themselves. In this paper we explore the potential for honeypot effects to arise in the use of mobile augmented reality (AR) applications in urban spaces. We present an observational study of Santa's Lil Helper, a mobile AR game that created a Christmas-themed treasure hunt in a metropolitan area. Our study supports a consideration of three factors that may impede the honeypot effect: the presence of people in relation to the game and its interactive components; the visibility of gameplay in urban space; and the extent to which the game permits a shared experience. We consider how these factors can inform the design of future AR experiences that are capable of stimulating honeypot effects in public space.

A growing body of research is examining the way that virtual reality (VR) technology might enrich the lives of older adults. However, no studies have yet examined how this technology---combining head mounted displays, motion tracking, avatars, and virtual environments---might contribute to older adult wellbeing by facilitating greater social participation (social VR). To address this gap, we conducted three workshops in which 25 older adults aged 70 to 81 explored the utility of social VR as a medium for communicating with other older adults. Participants first created embodied avatars that were controlled through natural gestures, and subsequently used these avatars in two high-fidelity social VR prototypes. Findings from the workshops provide insight into older adults' design motivations when creating embodied avatars for social VR; their acceptance of social VR as a communication tool; and their views on how social VR might play a beneficial role in their lives. Outcomes from the workshops also illustrate the critical importance our participants placed onbehavioural anthropomorphism ---the embodied avatars' ability to speak, move, and act in a human-like manner--- alongsidetranslational factors, which encapsulate issues relating to the way physical movements are mapped to the embodied avatar and the way in which errors in these mappings may invoke ageing stereotypes. Findings demonstrate the critical role that these characteristics might play in the success of future social VR applications targeting older users. We translate our findings into a set of design considerations for developing social VR systems for older adults, and we reflect on how our participants' experiences can inform future research on social virtual reality.

Older adults are increasingly engaging in online activities, including games, with other people. Many online environments require the user to create some form of self-representation, ranging from a simple user name through to a full body avatar. These self-representations not only enable access to online activities, but also provide an opportunity for expressing both the real and ideal identity. We wanted to better understand the impacts of later life on the construction of self-representations when playing online games. Our study used gameplay observations and semi-structured interviews with 10 older adult gamers aged from 65 to 95 years. We found they designed their player self-representations to project aspects of their lost (former) self and to embrace their present older selves. This engagement with self-representations as a form of self-expression suggests that designers need to consider older gamers, and their diverse preferences, when creating tools for customizable self-representations in online games.

Human body in HCI is often seen as an actuator for issuing commands and providing input to digital systems. We present the concept of the body as a canvas, in which the body acts as both an actuator and a display for information. Body as a canvas creates an interaction loop where interaction with information causes changes in the body, which in turn changes the display of information. Our qualitative study using an on-body projection system in a public exhibition investigates this concept with regards to body characteristics, types of body input, interactions between multiple bodies, and comparison to other display technologies. Our findings show that body as a canvas create connectedness between the body and information. Finally, we discuss how body characteristics and appearances can complement the information, when the body acts as a canvas.

In competitive co-located gameplay, players use their opponents' gaze to make predictions about their plans while simultaneously managing their own gaze to avoid giving away their plans. This socially competitive dimension is lacking in most online games, where players are out of sight of each other. We conducted a lab study using a strategic online game; finding that (1) players are better at discerning their opponent's plans when shown a live visualisation of the opponent's gaze, and (2) players who are aware that their gaze is tracked will manipulate their gaze to keep their intentions hidden. We describe the strategies that players employed, to various degrees of success, to deceive their opponent through their gaze behaviour. This gaze-based deception adds an effortful and challenging aspect to the competition. Lastly, we discuss the various implications of our findings and its applicability for future game design.

Physiotherapists are increasingly using video conferencing tools for their teleconsultations. Yet, the assessment of subtle differences in body movements remains a challenge. To support lower limb assessment in video consultations, we present SoPhy, a wearable technology consisting of a pair of socks with embedded sensors for patients to wear; and a web interface that displays information about range of weight distribution, foot movement, and foot orientation for physiotherapists in real-time. We conducted a laboratory study of 40 video consultations, in which postgraduate physiotherapy students assessed lower limb function. We compare assessment with and without SoPhy. Findings show that SoPhy increased the confidence in assessing squats exercise and fewer repetitions were required to assess patients when using SoPhy. We discuss the significance of SoPhy to address the challenges of assessing bodily information over video, and present considerations for its integration with clinical practices and tools.

While the idea of "celebratory technologies" during family mealtimes to support positive interactions at the dinner table is promising, there are few studies that investigate how these technologies can be meaningfully integrated into family practices. This paper presents the deployment of Chorus - a mealtime technology that orchestrates the sharing of personal devices and stories during family mealtimes, explores related content from all participants' devices, and supports revisiting previously shared content. A three-week field deployment with seven families shows that Chorus augments family interactions through sharing contents of personal and familial significance, supports togetherness and in-depth discussion by combining resources from multiple devices, helps to broach sensitive topics into familial conversation, and encourages participation from all family members including children. We discuss implications of this research and reflect on design choices and opportunities that can further enhance the family mealtime experience.

Physiotherapy students often struggle to translate anatomical knowledge from textbooks into a dynamic understanding of the mechanics of body movements in real life patients. We present the Augmented Studio, an augmented reality system that uses body tracking to project anatomical structures and annotations over moving bodies for physiotherapy education. Through a user and learner centered design approach, we established an understanding that through augmentation and annotation, augmented reality technology can enhance physiotherapy education. Augmented Studio enables augmentation through projection mapping to display anatomical information such as muscles and skeleton in real time on the body as it moves. We created a technique for annotation to create projected hand-drawing on the moving body, to enable explicit communication of the teacher's clinical reasoning strategies to the students. Findings from our pilot usability study demonstrate a more engaging learning and teaching experience and increased communication between teacher and students when using Augmented Studio.

Animal conservation organisations occasionally harness depictions of animals using digital technology to inspire interest in, and concern for animals. To better understand the forms of empathy experienced by people observing animal-computer interaction, we designed and studied an interactive installation for orangutans at a zoo. Through collaborative design we established an understanding of zoos' objectives and strategies related to empathy in the zoo context. We deployed a prototype installation, and observed and interviewed visitors who watched orangutans use the installation. Analysis of observations and interviews revealed that visitors responded with cognitive, affective and motor empathy for the animals. We propose that these empathetic responses are prompted by the visibility of orangutans' bodily movements, by the "anthropic frame" provided by digital technology, and by prompting reflection on animals' cognitive processes and affective states. This paper contributes new evidence and understanding of people's empathetic responses to observing animal-computer interaction and confirms the value of designing for empathy in its various forms

While exertion games facilitate, and benefit from, social play, most exertion games merely support players acting independently. To help designers explore the richness of social play in exertion games, we present the design dimension “bodily interplay” that gives critical focus to how players’ bodies interact with one another. We offer two broad categories of bodily interplay— parallel and interdependent play —to explain how exertion games can facilitate independent and offensive/defensive-type experiences. These categories can be applied to both the physical and virtual space, and by looking at all permutations of these categories, we articulate four ways of coupling the spaces: comparative, actuated, derived, and projected coupling. This article illustrates the inspirational power of the dimensions by applying them to the analysis of four exertion games. Altogether, we articulate a vocabulary that can guide designers in the creation of social exertion games, helping players profit from the many benefits of exertion.

This paper investigates the challenges of bodily communication during video-based clinical consultations. While previous works describe the lack of eye contact and gestures over video, it is unclear how these limitations impact the course of a clinical consultation, particularly in a domain like physiotherapy where the focus is on improving body movements and functioning. To contribute to this understanding, we conducted observations of 10 naturally occurring video and face-to-face consultations for physiotherapy. We found that clinicians rely on a variety of incidental bodily cues and fine-details of body movements to assess and examine the patient. These bodily cues were noticeable during face-to-face consultations; however, a variety of bodily cues got missed over video. Consequently, video consultations became conversational where the clinicians used verbal conduct to get a fair understanding of the patient's health. To guide design of future video consultation systems, we reflect on our understanding as 4 design sensitivities: Visual Acuity, Field-of-view, Clinical Asymmetries, and Time Sequence.

This paper describes the design of "ArmSleeve", a patient monitoring system to support occupational therapists in their upper limb rehabilitation work with stroke patients. Occupational therapists can provide rehabilitation in clinics, but they have limited insights into how much their patients use their affected arm and hand in daily life, which is critical for effective recovery to occur. Our work addresses this problem through three interrelated studies: (1) interviews with therapists to examine their current rehabilitation practices; (2) the design of the "ArmSleeve Sensor" to monitor a patient's upper limb movement; and (3) the design and evaluation of the "ArmSleeve Dashboard" to visualize this information for therapists. The findings show the importance of collecting objective data to assess exercise and activities outside therapy, but also a lack of contextual information to interpret this data. We discuss considerations for how to address this issue through patient engagement as well as considerations for designing wearable sensor technology that is usable in everyday life.

In HCI, the honeypot effect describes how people interacting with a system passively stimulate passers-by to observe, approach and engage in an interaction. Previous research has revealed the successive engagement phases and zones of the honeypot effect. However, there is little insight into: 1) how people are stimulated to transition between phases; 2) what aspects drive the honeypot effect apart from watching others; and 3) what constraints affect its self-reinforcing performance. In this paper, we discuss the honeypot effect as a spatiotemporal model of trajectories and influences. We introduce the Honeypot Model based on the analysis of observations and interaction logs from Encounters, a public installation that interactively translated bodily movements into a dynamic visual and sonic output. In providing a model that describes trajectories and influences of audience engagement in public interactive systems, our paper seeks to inform researchers and designers to consider contextual, spatial and social factors that influence audience engagement.

In this paper, we present PathSync, a novel, distal and multi-user mid-air gestural technique based on the principle of rhythmic path mimicry; by replicating the movement of a screen-represented pattern with their hand, users can intuitively interact with digital objects quickly, and with a high level of accuracy. We present three studies that each contribute (1) improvements to how correlation is calculated in path-mimicry techniques necessary for touchless interaction, (2) a validation of its efficiency in comparison to existing techniques, and (3) a demonstration of its intuitiveness and multi-user capacity 'in the wild'. Our studies consequently demonstrate PathSync's potential as an immediately legitimate alternative to existing techniques, with key advantages for public display and multi-user applications.

The human body has emerged as more than a canvas for wearable electronic devices. Devices too go within the body, such as internal medical devices. Within the last decade, individual hobbyists have begun voluntarily inserting non-medical devices in, through and underneath their skin. This paper investigates the current use of insertable devices. Through interviews we report on the types of devices people are inserting into their bodies. We classify the use of insertables and the reasons individuals choose insertables over more traditional wearable or luggable devices. These classifications facilitate understanding of insertables as a legitimate category of device for hardware designers that present new challenges for interaction designers.

This paper considers what we can learn from the experiences of people who choose not to participate in technology-based social interventions. We conducted ethnographically-informed field studies with socially isolated older adults, who used and evaluated a new iPad application designed to help build new social connections. In this paper we reflect on how the values and assumptions guiding the technological intervention were not always shared by those participating in the evaluation. Drawing on our field notes and interviews with the older adults who chose to discontinue participation, we use personas to illustrate the complexities and tensions involved in individual decisions to not participate. This analysis contributes to HCI research calling for a more critical perspective on technological interventions. We provide detailed examples highlighting the complex circumstances of our non-participants' lives, present a framework that outlines the socio-technical context of non-participation, and use our findings to promote reflective practice in HCI research that aims to address complex social issues.

This paper joins the ubiquitous computing scholarship that investigates the use of technologies in collocated shared settings like family mealtime. Family mealtimes are an important site for fostering togetherness, sharing everyday experiences, and nurturing familial ties. While technologies, especially television and personal devices are often criticized for disrupting the social aspects of mealtimes, they are widely available and commonly used nevertheless. In this paper, we explore this tension and present a novel system TableTalk, which transforms personal devices into a communal shared display on the table to enrich mealtime interactions and experience. Our field study shows that TableTalk does not undermine togetherness, but supports familial expectations and experiences by stimulating conversation, reminiscing, bonding, education, and socializing. We discuss how technology that is sensitive to the needs of family interactions can augment the commensal experience and reflect on design choices and opportunities that contribute, rather than disrupt, family mealtimes.

Eye tracking is a promising input modality for interactive tabletops. However, issues such as eyelid occlusion and the viewing angle at distant positions present significant challenges for remote gaze tracking in this setting. We present the results of two studies that explore the way gaze interaction can be enabled. Our first study contributes the results from an empirical investigation of gaze accuracy on a large horizontal surface, finding gaze to be unusable close to the user (due to eyelid occlusion), accurate at arm's length, and only precise horizontally at large distances. In consideration of these results, we propose two solutions for the design of interactive systems that utilise remote gaze-tracking on the tabletop; multimodal segmentation and the use of X-Gaze-our novel technique-to interact with out-of-reach objects. Our second study evaluates and validates both these solutions in a Video-on-Demand application, presenting immediate opportunities for remote-gaze interaction on horizontal surfaces.

This article examines familial interactions, which are mediated through information and communication technologies, during domestic mealtimes. We seek to understand how technologies are used and negotiated among family members and the influence of technology on commensality. We conducted an observational study of six families. The findings showed how technologies are integrated into the mealtime activities. Our study identifies domestic circumstances where background technologies are raised to the foreground, visible devices are hidden, unwanted distractions become desired, and ordinary technologies are integrated into mealtime experiences. We identify four patterns of arrangement between technologies and family members during mealtimes, and we discuss how technologies contribute to mealtime satiety and commensality. Finally, we present implications of our findings and directions for technological advancements focusing on the social and celebratory nature of family mealtimes.

Our paper investigates how current digital technologies are sufficient, or insufficient, in supporting Kenyan transnationals in practising indigenous knowledge. We first outline a view of indigenous knowledge, and then apply it to a study of diaspora Kenyans living in Australia. The findings are framed as nine techniques for sustaining displaced practising of indigenous knowledge. These appropriations suggest directions for technology innovation, providing design considerations for technologies that translate, formulate and support indigenous knowledge in transnational contexts.

In this paper we contribute to the growing body of research into the use and design of technology in the kitchen. This research aims to identify opportunities for designing technologies that may augment existing cooking traditions and in particular familial recipe sharing practices. Using ethnographic techniques, we identify the homemade cookbook as a significant material and cultural artifact in the family kitchen. We report on findings from our study by providing descriptive accounts of various homemade cookbooks, and offer design considerations for digitally augmenting homemade cookbooks.

Videogames are often played socially with both co-players and audiences. Audience members' experiences are not well understood, nor are the factors of videogaming sessions that influence their experience. We conducted a study to examine the effects of game physicality and turn anticipation on audience members' experiences in social videogaming sessions. Pairs of participants played games under three conditions of physicality (controller-based, Wii, and Kinect) and their expectation of turn-taking was manipulated. Their enjoyment, game engagement, social engagement and sense of participation were measured. We found that the introduction of turn-taking into the session had positive effects for audience members -- both anticipated and residual play effects -- and that Kinect gameplay resulted in a more enjoyable experience for audience members. We argue that audience members' experience changes as they become more active within a session, and suggest there are design opportunities between purely active 'players' and passive 'audience members'.

Advances in sensing technologies have led to research into exertion games that support physically effortful experiences. Despite the existence of theoretical frameworks that can be used to analyze such exertion experiences, there are few tools to support the hands-on practice of exertion game design. To address this, we present a set of design cards based on the "Exertion Framework", grounded in our experience of creating exertion games for over a decade. We present results demonstrating the value and utility of these Exertion Cards based on our studies of their use in three workshops held over seven sessions with 134 design students and experts. We also articulate lessons learned from transforming a theoretical framework into a design tool that aims to support designers in their practice.

Within HCI, aging is often viewed in terms of designing assistive technologies to improve the lives of older people, such as those who are suffering from frailty or memory loss. Our research adopts a very different approach, reframing the relationship in terms of wisdom, creativity and invention. We ran a series of workshops where groups of retirees, aged between early 60s and late 80s, used the MaKey MaKey inventor's toolkit. We asked them to think about inventing the future and suggest ideas for new technologies. Our findings showed that they not only rose to the challenge but also mastered the technology, collaborated intensely together while using it and freely and at length discussed their own, their family's and others' relationship with technology. We discuss the value of empowering people in this way and consider what else could be invented to enable more people to be involved in the design and use of creative technologies.

The advent of the Internet of Things creates an interest in how people might interrelate through and with networks of internet enabled objects. With an emphasis on fostering social connection and physical activity among older people, this preliminary study investigated objects that people over the age of 65 years viewed as significant to them. We conducted contextual interviews in people's homes about their significant objects in order to understand the role of the objects in their lives, the extent to which they fostered emotional and social connections and physical activity, and how they might be augmented through internet connection.

In this paper we examine the use of a novel social technology to support the provision of formal aged care services to clients who live in their own homes. Social technologies offer enormous potential for enhancing aged care, but research on their use in aged care has largely focused on institutional or informal care settings, rather than formal care in the home. Meanwhile, technologies for aging in place typically focus on monitoring and security, rather than psychosocial support. We conducted a field study in which aged care managers used a photo and message-sharing tool to communicate with clients living in their own homes. Our findings demonstrate that visual and social forms of communication are valuable for supporting psychosocial care-giving, but there are barriers to effectively adopting new communication tools in this setting. Time constraints inhibited care managers' use of the technology, which was also influenced by their efforts to carefully maintain boundaries between their personal and professional lives.

Supporting physical exertion is a growing trend in digital technology design. However, most experiences focus on bodily actions in which participants act independently of each other. In contrast, we focus on virtual body-to-body interactions between multiple participants, inspired by combat-oriented sports such as boxing that highlight the need to act while avoiding reciprocal bodily action. Mediating such body-to-body interactions with technology is challenging, particularly when participants are not co-located. Prior systems have often involved a mixture of novel physical interfaces and interactions through virtual avatars. This paper charts a design space for virtual combat play experiences and offers a set of design dimensions and recommendations for future systems. We draw on our experiences of designing and evaluating Remote Impact - a boxing-style exertion game involving aggressive bodily interaction with a large force-sensing projection surface. By expanding our knowledge of mediated exertion with an understanding of combat interactions we extend the social experience space of exertion play.

We explore relationships between habits and technology interaction by reporting on older people's experience of the Kinect for Xbox. We contribute to theoretical and empirical understandings of habits in the use of technology to inform understanding of the habitual qualities of our interactions with computing technologies, particularly systems exploiting natural user interfaces. We situate ideas of habit in relation to user experience and usefulness in interaction design, and draw on critical approaches to the concept of habit from cultural theory to understand the embedded, embodied, and situated contexts in our interactions with technologies. We argue that understanding technology habits as a process of reciprocal habituation in which people and technologies adapt to each other over time through design, adoption, and appropriation offers opportunities for research on user experience and interaction design within human-computer interaction, especially as newer gestural and motion control interfaces promise to reshape the ways in which we interact with computers.

Older adults are normally characterized as consumers, rather than producers, of digital content. Current research concerning the design of technologies for older adults typically focuses on providing access to digital resources. Access is important, but is often insufficient, especially when establishing new social relationships. This paper investigates the nature and role of digital content that has been created by older adults, for the purpose of forging new relationships. We present a unique field study in which seven older adults (aged 71-92 years), who did not know each other, used a prototype iPad application (Enmesh) to create and share photographs and messages. The findings demonstrate that older adults, even those in the \'1c"oldest old\'1d" age group, embraced opportunities to express themselves creatively through digital content production. We show that self-expression and social engagement with peers can be realized when socio-technical systems are suitably designed to allow older adults to create and share their own digital content.

Reunion is one of the most important facets in the lives of periodically transitioning families - families who experience repeated transitions between being together and apart due to work-related or personal reasons. Even though the role of technology in mediating essential family interactions has been a longstanding focus within HCI and CSCW, the experience of periodic family reunion and its relationship with technology use while apart is little explored. To address this gap, we conducted a field study with nine families from two different professional backgrounds - defence and academic. Through a comparison between the two cohorts, our findings generate a qualitative understanding of the experience of reunion and describe specific aspects of this experience that are influenced by technology-use while apart. We discuss the complexity of this relationship and reflect on the role of technology in shaping the experience of periodic family reunion.

Exercising with others, such as jogging in pairs, can be socially engaging. However, if exercise partners have different fitness levels then the activity can be too strenuous for one and not challenging enough for the other, compromising engagement and health benefits. Our system, Jogging over a Distance, uses heart rate data and spatialized sound to create an equitable, balanced experience between joggers of different fitness levels who are geographically distributed. We extend this prior work by analyzing the experience of 32 joggers to detail how specific design features facilitated, and hindered, an engaging and balanced exertion experience. With this knowledge, we derive four dimensions that describe a design space for balancing exertion experiences: Measurement, Adjustment, Presentation and Control. We also present six design tactics for creating balanced exertion experiences described by these dimensions. By aiding designers in supporting participants of different physical abilities, we hope to increase participation and engagement with physical activity and facilitate the many benefits it brings about.

People have reported encountering coincidences when using particular technologies to interact with personal digital content. However, to date, there is a paucity of research to understand these experiences. This article applies McCarthy and Wright's [2004; 2005] experiential framework to analyze these kinds of technology-mediated coincidences. By focusing upon encounters of coincidence during people's digital music listening, we identified the elements at play, elucidated the properties of the individual elements, their inter-relationships, and an understanding of how coincidences can arise. We also reveal how, under particular conditions, such elements provide people with opportunities to encounter coincidence. This understanding of coincidence demonstrates how McCarthy and Wright's [2004; 2005] framework can be usefully applied to an empirical investigation of user experience.

Exertion games require investing physical effort. The fact that such games can support physical health is tempered by our limited understanding of how to design for engaging exertion experiences. This paper introduces the Exertion Framework as a way to think and talk about Exertion Games, both for their formative design and summative analysis. Our Exertion Framework is based on the ways in which we can conceive of the body investing in game-directed exertion, supported by four perspectives on the body (the Responding Body, Moving Body, Sensing Body and Relating Body) and three perspectives on gaming (rules, play and context). The paper illustrates how this framework was derived from prior systems and theory, and presents a case study of how it has been used to inspire novel exertion interactions.

Exertion activities, such as jogging, require users to invest intense physical effort and are associated with physical and social health benefits. Despite the benefits, our understanding of exertion activities is limited, especially when it comes to social experiences. In order to begin understanding how to design for technologically augmented social exertion experiences, we present "Jogging over a Distance", a system in which spatialized audio based on heart rate allowed runners as far apart as Europe and Australia to run together. Our analysis revealed how certain aspects of the design facilitated a social experience, and consequently we describe a framework for designing augmented exertion activities. We make recommendations as to how designers could use this framework to aid the development of future social systems that aim to utilize the benefits of exertion.

Exertion games are an emerging form of interactive games that require players to invest significant physical effort as part of the gameplay, rather than just pressing buttons. These exertion games have potential health benefits by promoting exercise. It is also believed that they can facilitate social play between players and that social play can improve participation in exertion games. However, there is currently a lack of understanding of how to design games to support these effects. In this paper, we present a qualitative case study that illustrates how networked environments support social play in exertion games and how this can help to gain an understanding of existing games and support the design of future games. This work offers a preliminary analytical and descriptive account of the relationship between exertion and social play in such a game and highlights the influence of design with the aim of utilizing the attributed benefits of exertion and social play.

Many people today have access to enormous libraries of digital content. Increasingly these libraries contain personal content, consumed in support of people's non-instrumental needs. If current trends persist, these repositories will only increase. Having to choose from so much could be unpleasant especially in the absence of strong preferences. This raises some concerns for user experience (UX) design. Approaches for such interactions should not only be optimized for UX but must also support users' non-instrumental needs. People face this predicament during digital music listening and yet report positive experiences when listening in shuffle. Through an empirical study of digital music listening and close examination of people's listening practices and experiences, we argue that a shuffle-based approach--whereby people can abdicate choice to a random process while being able to modulate the randomness--not only mitigates the unpleasantness of choosing but also supports their non-instrumental needs while fostering desirable experiential outcomes.

Randomness is being harnessed in the design of some interactive systems. This is observed in random blogs, random web searching, and in particular Apple's iPod Shuffle. Yet the role of randomness in design of interactive systems in not well understood. This paper reports on an empirical study examining the influence of randomness on the user experience of music listening. 113 instances of self-reporting were collected and analysed according to four themes: listening mode, content organisation, activities during listening, and affective outcomes. The analysis provides insights into how randomness is used to engender certain affective responses (such as feeling refreshed) by using various constraining techniques (such as playlists) whilst engaging in everyday activities (such as driving a car). The paper argues that randomness can be used as an innovative design resource for supporting rich and novel user experiences.

This paper describes the involvement of teachers as facilitators in user-based evaluation of educational software. Findings from a case study that compare the behaviour of teachers and designers during the evaluation indicate that there is no strong evidence to support the current practice of teachers' tangential participation in the evaluation of educational software. Further research is needed to better understand the role teachers can play in this type of evaluation so that their knowledge and experience can positively contribute to the evaluation process and outcomes, whilst retaining the children's valuable contribution.

Intimacy is a crucial element of domestic life, and many interactive technologies designed for other purposes have been appropriated for use within intimate relationships. However, there is a deficit in current understandings of how technologies are used within intimate relationships, and how to design technologies to support intimate acts. In this paper we report on work that has addressed these deficits. We used cultural probes and contextual interviews and other ethnographically informed techniques to investigate how interactive technologies are used within intimate relationships. From this empirical work we generated a thematic understanding of intimacy and the use of interactional technologies to support intimate acts. We used this understanding to inform the design of intimate technologies. A selection of our design concepts is also presented.

The context in which a device is used has a major impact on mobile device design. Despite this, there are few system design methods that assist user interface designers to represent use context in a useful and systematic manner throughout the whole design process. Current scenario-based design approaches are able to represent context, but still present a challenge to support a shared understanding of the rich context in which activities take place and in encoding dynamic use context due to time issues such as sequential and parallel actions. This paper reports on a method called Picture Scenarios. The method was used by four design teams whilst designing mobile information devices for use in a public square. Results show that picture scenarios provide an effective way of communicating and debating use context with design partners. The suggested format of the picture scenarios facilitates to represent use context during design activities in a systematic way. These scenarios are easy to create, easy to use, and capture important contextual details about activity that is difficult to represent otherwise.

When designing a usability evaluation, choices must be made regarding methods and techniques for data collection and analysis. Mobile guides raise new concerns and challenges to established usability evaluation approaches. Not only are they typically closely related to objects and activities in the user's immediate surroundings, they are often used while the user is ambulating. This paper presents results from an extensive, multi-method evaluation of a mobile guide designed to support the use of public transport in Melbourne, Australia. In evaluating the guide, we applied four different techniques; field-evaluation, laboratory evaluation, heuristic walkthrough and rapid reflection. This paper describes these four approaches and their respective outcomes, and discusses their relative strengths and weaknesses for evaluating the usability of mobile guides.