Design theory often stands apart from design practice. Tools offer one means to bridge this divide. Yet how to move from abstract concepts of design theory and principles to specific toolkits that can structure and enable action remains elusive. This pictorial presents a way forward, illustrating the movement from theory to toolkit and concrete action for multi-lifespan design. Our key contributions are three-fold: First, we offer an expansion to an existing design toolkit, the Multi-lifespan Envisioning Cards. We demonstrate the toolkit's use through case studies. Second, we provide insights on the process of constructing a theoretically-informed design toolkit. We pay special attention to the interplay between text, visuals, and embodied actions. Third, we provide a proof-of-concept for how to extend an existing toolkit to account for new theories and perspectives. We reflect on the timeless qualities of the Envisioning Cards and discuss heuristics for designing a robust yet flexible toolkit.

In this pictorial, we investigate how a virtual collection can put down its roots in a physical space and integrate into the local community. We present PLACED, a place-centric digital service that supports participation and community-production of knowledge in library events. We illustrate how PLACED has been deployed and used at a local public library over a six-month period. We examine the community-produced virtual collection that grew out of this library event with a focus on its placeness.

We investigate how to design community technologies for public events. We do so with a focus on technologies that give rise to new forms of participation and knowledge co-production in public libraries. Specifically, we deployed a digital service at a major public library during its four-week creative workshop series. The system offered an alternative way for people to work together as a community, to go beyond achieving individual goals, and to contribute to the achievement of public goals (e.g., building community bookshelves). We report on how the system has reconfigured physical spaces and afforded new social practices in the library. We propose Computational Alternatives as a fruitful approach for gaining situated, nuanced insights into a technology's possible adoption. We offer key insights in the form of computational alternatives vignettes -- grounded stories that encapsulate sociotechnical implications of technology, pointing to plausible alternative futures.

Generative metaphorical design while rich is possibility, is not easy to do. In response, we have developed Metaphor Cards, a toolkit for supporting metaphorical design thinking. In this pictorial, we introduce Metaphor Cards and provide a how-to-guide for design researchers to make and use their own sets. To demonstrate this process, we provide a case study documenting our development of a set of Metaphor Cards for designing information systems for international justice. We conclude with reflections on the benefits and limitations of the Metaphor Card toolkit and suggestions for how to adapt Metaphor Cards to other domains and technologies.

All too often, research partnerships are project-driven and short-lived. Multi-lifespan design and other longer-term approaches offer alternative models. In this paper, we contribute one alternative model for cross-boundary research partnerships spanning longer timeframes and offer one best practice: collaborative reflection. Specifically, we provide an in-depth case study of a multi-lifespan design partnership (over nine years and ongoing) between a Rwandan NGO focused on peacebuilding and a US university research group focused on information design theory and method. First, we document our process for conducting a collaborative reflection that seeks balance among the contributors while navigating differences in culture, discipline, experience, and skills. Next, we reflect on five themes: (1) common ground: sensibilities and commitments; (2) trust; (3) research landscape: crossing nations and institutions; (4) research as a healing mechanism; and (5) multi-lifespan design partnership. We conclude with a discussion of overarching considerations for design researchers who engage in cross-boundary research partnership.

At times, inaction may be a wise course of action. This insight lies at the heart of the design mechanism of pause. In this note, we explore the construct of pause, its rhythms, and nuances of enacting pause. Throughout, we draw on our experience engaging with pause in the multi-lifespan design of information systems for transitional justice. Five rhythms are identified: periodic hiatus, pending future event, responding to the socio-political climate, (temporary) closure, and laying fallow. In addition, we provide heuristics for managing pause and then restarting the design process. We then explore the scalability of pause from longer (e.g., multi-lifespan design) to shorter timeframes. We conclude with reflections on the potential benefits and open questions about pause as a design mechanism.

Human societies face some significant problems—such as those tied to limitations of the human psyche, to tears in the social fabric, and to slow-moving natural processes—that defy rapid solution. Correspondingly, information systems that help to address these problems also develop over long(er) periods of time. Yet contemporary research and industry information system design is held to increasingly ambitious project deadlines. Research that engages with long(er) term design processes from diverse perspectives and theoretical orientations is needed. Early efforts of this ilk in the human–computer interaction community can be found around domains such as conflict and post-conflict situations, crisis informatics, collapse informatics, cultural heritage and sustainability. The work reported here joins this literature—in the context of recovering from genocide and the development of systems of transitional justice—and draws from the theoretical framing of multi-lifespan design. Specifically, we report on the first 8 years of a multi-lifespan information system design project—the Voices from the Rwanda Tribunal—to support aspects of transitional justice in Rwanda. We offer a systematic presentation of the project's design principles and explicate the development of those guiding design principles through our engagement with a set of nine design challenges. We provide design reflections that pertain to information systems for transitional justice, conducting multi-lifespan information system design under shifting socio-political and technical conditions, and engaging with value sensitive design. We conclude with our contributions and open questions.

In recent years, the HCI community has recognized the need to address long(er) term information system design around on-going societal problems. Yet how to engage stakeholders effectively in multi-lifespan design thinking remains an open challenge. Toward that end, the work reported here extends an established envisioning method by introducing two new design methods, the multi-lifespan timeline and multi-lifespan co-design, with an emphasis on the element of (long) time. The new methods aim to stimulate participants' visions of future information systems by: (a) enhancing participants' understanding of longer timeframes (e.g., 100 years), and (b) guiding participants to effectively project themselves long into the future in their design thinking. We explored these multi-lifespan design methods in work with 51 Africans from Rwanda and the Great Lakes region living in the USA to understand the challenges and opportunities they envision for designing future information systems for transitional justice in Rwanda. Contributions are two-fold: (1) methodological innovation, and (2) a case study of multi-lifespan design thinking generated by diaspora members of post-conflict societies.

Social botnets have become an important phenomenon on social media. There are many ways in which social bots can disrupt or influence online discourse, such as, spam hashtags, scam twitter users, and astroturfing. In this paper we considered one specific social botnet in Twitter to understand how it grows over time, how the content of tweets by the social botnet differ from regular users in the same dataset, and lastly, how the social botnet may have influenced the relevant discussions. Our analysis is based on a qualitative coding for approximately 3000 tweets in Arabic and English from the Syrian social bot that was active for 35 weeks on Twitter before it was shutdown. We find that the growth, behavior and content of this particular botnet did not specifically align with common conceptions of botnets. Further we identify interesting aspects of the botnet that distinguish it from regular users.

We introduce a design method for evolving a co-design space to support stakeholders untrained in design. Specifically, the purpose of the method is to expand and shape a co-design space so that stakeholders, acting as designers, focus not only on the form and function of a tool being envisioned but also on the social context of its use and values that lie with individuals, groups, and societies. The method introduces value sensitive stakeholder prompts and designer prompts into a co-design process, creating a particular kind of reflection-on-action cycle. The prompts provide a means for bringing empirical data on values and theoretical perspective into the co-design process. We present the method in terms of a general model, the Value Sensitive Action-Reflection Model; place the model within discourse on co-design spaces; and illustrate the model with a discussion of its application in a lo-fi prototyping activity around safety for homeless young people. We conclude with reflections on the model and method.

With this research we investigate how to account for multi-generational perspectives in the design of multi-lifespan information systems, particularly in support of long-term peace-building and international justice. We do our work in the context of the publicly available Voices from the Rwanda Tribunal testbed, a historically significant collection of video interviews with personnel from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. In the research reported here, we worked with 109 Rwandan adults and youth from perpetrator and survivor communities in three provincial cities in Rwanda (Byumba, Kibuye, and Gisenyi) to understand the potentials and challenges they envision for the interview collection. Participants envisioned five categories of long-term positive outcomes for individuals and society from a multi-lifespan information system for the interview collection; and eight categories of challenges to realize those potential outcomes. In terms of multi-generational perspectives, while adults and youth tended to share an overall vision for the long-term potential of such a system, adults emphasized actionable tasks while youth educational benefits. Based on the findings, we highlight issues for appropriation of multi-lifespan information systems and reflect on our methods for eliciting multi-generational perspectives on information system design in a post-conflict society.

Social computing provides a new way for citizens to engage with their public service. Our research investigates how social computing might support citizens co-design their transit service. We conducted a field study with public transit riders, exploring the issues and controversies that reveal conflicting communities. Our analyses revealed three insights. First, encourage citizens to share what they see as the rationale for current service offerings. Second, encourage citizens to share the consequences of current services and of proposed changes and new designs. Third, focus on producing a shared citizen and service provider understanding of what the goals and mission of the public service should be.

Crowd-sourcing social computing systems represent a new material for HCI designers. However, these systems are difficult to work with and to prototype, because they require a critical mass of participants to investigate social behavior. Service design is an emerging research area that focuses on how customers co-produce the services that they use, and thus it appears to be a great domain to apply this new material. To investigate this relationship, we developed Tiramisu, a transit information system where commuters share GPS traces and submit problem reports. Tiramisu processes incoming traces and generates real-time arrival time predictions for buses. We conducted a field trial with 28 participants. In this paper we report on the results and reflect on the use of field trials to evaluate crowd-sourcing prototypes and on how crowd sourcing can generate co-production between citizens and public services.

The recent advances in web 2.0 technologies and the rapid adoption of smart phones raises many opportunities for public services to improve their services by engaging their users (who are also owners of the service) in co-design: a dialog where users help design the services they use. To investigate this opportunity, we began a service design project investigating how to create repeated information exchanges between riders and a transit agency in order to create a virtual "place" from which the dialog on services could take place. Through interviews with riders, a workshop with a transit agency, and speed dating of design concepts, we have developed a design direction. Specifically, we propose a service that combines vehicle location and "fullness" ratings provided by riders with dynamic route change information from the transit agency as a foundation for a dialog around riders conveying input for continuous service improvement.