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Design Futures, Ecological Citizenship and Public Interest Technologies = HCI Regenerative Interaction Opportunities …?

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Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2024)

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Abstract

Design practice(s) improve circumstances applying foresight, instigating creative Human Computer Interaction (HCI) proposals within systems. HCI physically and digitally embodies technologies through human touchpoints. We refer to HCI points as Public-Interest Technology (PITs), a growing field comprising expertise working to ensure technology is created, deployed, and used responsibly. This article reports on design-led opportunities combining Design Futures (Domain 1) and Ecological Citizenship (Domain 2), questioning Public-Interest Technologies (Domain 3).

Design Futures navigates ‘preferable futures’ based on real-world, tangible situations within the context of climate futures and stewardship of environment(s) we rely upon for ‘all life’. Ecological Citizen(s) catalyzes empowered agents, informing Public-Interest Technologies as (at this point in history) the people of the UK have never been so excluded, disconnected, and deprived from our natural world(s). Interested parties do both actions; calling out where technologies improve the public good, and questioning whether certain technologies should be created. Insights are appropriate to the HCI community as they cultivate design and community-led opportunities for technologies in the field, through design practice-led approaches.

We report on a Regenerative Design Field Kit with Smithery consultancy, deployment with Royal College of Art MDes Design Futures students. We highlight the toolkit’s development, precedents, leading to a Field Kit. The parts: a viewing frame, (teaching tool) facilitating the examination of worlds and 40 core questions based on The Design Council’s systemic design framework and the RSA’s 10 core capabilities. Work yields valuable insights from Domains (1–3), mapping HCI opportunities for Ecological Citizenship within PITs.

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Disclosure of Interests

The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

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Acknowledgements

Rights Retention Statement: This work was funded by UKRI grant (EP/W020610/1). For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising. We thank the students of the Design Futures (MDes) programme at the Royal College of Art particularly; Arushi, Feng, Fliss, Ibrahim, Lin, Maria, Martha, Mehek, Qingyi, Qiqi, Rafael, Shaivi, Tanushree, Trisha who shared their imagery. The Ecological Citizen(s) is a cross-RCA research network led by Dr. Rob Phillips, with Professor Sharon Baurley, and Tom Simmonds, in partnership with Professor Sarah West of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of York, and Professor Alec Shepley of the Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology at Wrexham Glyndŵr University, and partners from industry, third sector, NGO. Ecological Citizens is a Digital Economy Network+ project funded by the UKRI Digital Economy Programme, that is focused on digital interventions that would create ‘the conditions to make change’ towards a sustainable post-industrial society. The work was supported by the EPSRC Network+ award (EP/W020610/1). We acknowledge the proofing work of colleague Dan Price.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Royal College of Art, Design Futures, 1 Hester Road, London, SW11 4AY, UK

    Robert Phillips, John V. Wilshire, Elise Hodson, Sharon Baurley, Emily Boxall, Charlotte Nordmoen & Tom Simmons

  2. Stockholm Environmental Institute, Environment Building Department of Environment and Geography University of York, York, YO10 5NG GB, UK

    Luke Gooding

  3. School of Arts, Wrexham University, 49 Regent Street, Wrexham, LL11 1PF, UK

    Daniel Knox, Alec Shepley & Tracy Simpson

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  1. Robert Phillips
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  1. The Open University of Japan, Chiba, Japan

    Masaaki Kurosu

  2. Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan

    Ayako Hashizume

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Phillips, R. et al. (2024). Design Futures, Ecological Citizenship and Public Interest Technologies = HCI Regenerative Interaction Opportunities …?. In: Kurosu, M., Hashizume, A. (eds) Human-Computer Interaction. HCII 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14687. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60441-6_8

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