Designing for diversity in Aboriginal Australia

Abstract

Aboriginal Australians have been colonized for over 230 years. As a result, many have been disconnected from their communities and identity. This paper reports on a national-scale HCI project that aims to design technology that allows Aboriginal Australians to reconnect with their communities and to reaf-�irm their Aboriginal identity. Our project faces signi�icant challenges, some due to the effects of colonization and some due to the great (and under-recognized) diversity of Aboriginal Australia. In this paper, we report the design phase of our project, and discuss some of these challenges we faced. Through this, we offer insights for HCI designers and researchers undertaking similar work.

Yarning about e-mental health tools: First Nations Australian youth perspectives of well-being and e-health

“…Yarning, understood as a technique aiming to form trusting, reciprocal relationships, allows the researcher and participant to share knowledge through storytelling of memories, experiences, and perspectives (Shay et al, 2021). With over 150 First Nations language groups still spoken today (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2021), it is important to acknowledge Australia’s First Nations communities are vastly diverse and each comprise their own languages, cultural structures, and belief systems (Leong et al, 2019; Mawson, 2021). The current study was undertaken by a Warumungu (a First Nations people, Northern Territory, Australia) woman with participants, herein referred to as knowledge-holders (Murrup-Stewart et al, 2021), from a range of First Nations communities.…”