Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) have been celebrated for promoting transparency, trust, and efficiency in several domains. However, recent research has also pointed out the potential of these technologies to increase power asymmetries and deepen social inequality. In this paper, we contribute to this discussion by reporting on a collective effort of academics, development partners, local authorities, businesses, and farming groups to look at the potential of DLTs, particularly Blockchains, to support socio-economic development in rural communities in the Caribbean. We present a series of design concepts resulting from this effort and reflect on a method to facilitate stakeholders' experience of possible implementations and enable them to voice concerns, preferences, and expectations. Results from workshops with different groups of stakeholders contribute insights into opportunities and limitations of these applications to enable social development and to level the playing field in agricultural exchanges in developing countries.
Using existing social media technologies as a resource for design offers significant potential for sustainable and scalable ways of coordinating participation. We look at three exemplar projects in three distinct domains that have successfully coordinated participation through the configuration and augmentation of existing social media technologies: participatory future forecasting, participatory health research, and connectivist learning. In this paper we conceptualise social media technologies as material for design, that is, as the raw material with which coordinated participation is realized. From this we develop a model that proposes four material qualities of social media technologies, morphology, role, representation of activity and permeability, and point to how they can be productively employed in the design of coordination of participation.
At its best, public art can promote moral learning in individuals and societies, and digital technology can help achieve this value. As a first step in creating such systems, this paper presents a probe study exploring the design space of reflective engagement with public art. The probe took the form of a mural journal, which was distributed to participants in Philadelphia. The findings show how public art journaling can be integrated into one's life, both logistically and psychologically, and the value of art journaling for introspection, cultivating attention and having fun. This study surfaces a number of tensions in the design space that designers must navigate, such as the question of reflecting with public art on site (now) versus at home (later). This work provides designers with the grounds for informed inspiration to ideate systems that deepen people's experiences with public art.
This paper discusses how characteristics of experience-centred and collaborative design can be translated to larger scales. We describe Metro Futures, a region-wide public consultation on the design of new light rail trains, where we followed an experience-centred co-design approach supported by digital media and tools to develop findings with a core group of 20 'co-researchers' and ~4000 public participants. The paper discusses how the characteristics of a focus on experience, and collaborative design exploration were achieved with co-researchers and, at scale, through online and face-to-face interactions using various digital media and tools. Whilst not at the depth of smaller scales, there are opportunities to retain characteristics of experience-centred co-design at scale to produce findings that can usefully inform ensuing design work, and avoid the averaging of public contributions often evident in large scale public consultations.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376885
There is much work in the CHI community about the 'industry-academia divide', and how to bridge it. One key crossover between HCI/UX scientists and practitioners is the development and use of tools and methods—boundary objects between academia and practice. Among other forms of collaboration, there is an underdeveloped opportunity for academics to make use of industry events (conferences, meetups, design jams) as a research venue in the context of tool and method development. This paper describes three cases from work in academia-industry engagement over the last decade, in which workshops or experiments have been run at industry events as a way of trialling and developing tools directly with practitioners. We discuss advantages of this approach and extract key insights and practical implications, highlighting how the CHI community might use this method more widely, gathering relevant research outcomes while contributing to knowledge exchange between academia and practice.