Becoming with

Abstract

In this exploratory paper, we advocate for a way to mitigate the anthropocentrism inherent in interaction-design methodologies. We propose to involve animals that live in anthropic environments as participants in design processes. The current relationships between animals and technology have an inevitable impact on their well-being and raise fundamental ethical questions concerning our design policies. Drawing from the work of Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway, we argue for a situated approach in which we reflect upon concrete design contexts. We explore the notion of becoming with as a conceptual framework for the intuitive and bodily understanding that takes place between humans and animals when they encounter one-another in shared contexts. Adopting a research through design approach, we further explore this notion by reflecting upon two different participatory design projects with two dogs. We found these reflections to offer valuable perspectives for designers to analyse and discuss their iterative processes.

P for Politics D for Dialogue

“…that the visual elements of a canine interface should take into account dogs' dichromatic vision), less obvious usability and user experience requirements may be far more difficult to identify without direct input from the animals in question [24,71]. In this regard, aside from, or in addition to, involving animals by proxy through their care-takers [53], researchers have taken different approaches to enable animals to partake in the design process, including through free exploration [33], play [59,80] or training [11]. These approaches to participatory research with animals vary in terms of activity structure and engagement modality, from research set-ups entailing unstructured activities with which animals can engage entirely freely and fluidly with no interference from human participants or researchers (i.e.…”

“…A different understanding of participatory design with animals is exemplified by the work of Westerlaken and Gualeni [80]. Informed by Haraway's notion of becoming with [30], in the authors' work the interaction between human researchers and animal participants is central to defining multispecies participatory spaces and human influence is an element of a multispecies participatory game.…”

“…Along these dimensions, research set-ups might vary depending on what particular aspect of a design problem is being investigated. In this respect, the work by Hirskyi-Douglas at al [34], Westerlaken and Gualeni [80], Robinson et al [65] and Byrne et al [11] discussed above exemplifies different participatory modalities, each of which addresses a specific design question. For example, in Hirskyi-Douglas at al.…”

Exploring Research through Design in Animal Computer Interaction

“…From a less skeptical position, Westerlaken and Gualeni state that one of their aims is to prevent designers from inadvertently taking an anthropomorphic attitude, and they specifically include animals as participants in their design process [31]. They argue for a "situated approach" to design, directed at the ACI community -taking Haraway's "becoming with" [16] as an inspirational starting point and promoting playing with animals as a way to achieve some non-verbal mutual understanding.…”

“…Although interspecies play would be widely accepted as part of companion animal welfare, ethical questions are raised when it is considered in relation to other animals in different contexts, an issue pointed out by Westerlaken and Gualeni [31]. For example, many zoos aim to offer their animals as normal a life as possible, promoting only species-specific wild behaviours, none of which include playing games, or indeed doing any other activities, with humans.…”