Making public things

Abstract

Science studies scholar Bruno Latour suggests that contemporary democracy is shifting from "matters of fact" to "matters of concern": contentious conditions entwined with everyday life. What is the role of human-computer interaction (HCI) design in this shift? In this paper we draw from five design projects to explore how design can express matters of concern by communicating the factors and consequences of issues. In the process, we consider the role of design in contributing to the formation of publics and discuss an emerging orientation to publics in HCI design.

Social Justice-Oriented Interaction Design

“…Grappling with these politics is particularly challenging given the field's historical inclinations towards treating technological development as unquestionably progressive, or approaching research and design in an apolitical and ahistorical manner [see critiques by 9,83,123]. The recent growing interest in research related to large scale social issues underscores the imperative to heed more general calls for HCI researchers and designers to ask not only what is technologically possible, but also how to design ethically, responsibly, and with accountability -and to thoughtfully consider whether design is even an appropriate intervention in a given situation [8,9,12,14,32,33,43,60,83,111,114]. In this paper, we develop social justice-oriented interaction design as one response to these concerns and provocations.…”

Practice-based ontological design for multiplying realities

“…I suggest this practice-based ontological approach is in tune with a broader convergence taking place between STS and design. This can be seen in the emergence of the designer as ethnographer (Wilkie, 2010;Kerridge, 2015), the critical making approach (Ratto et al, 2014) as well as participatory design that is taking place beyond the workplace (Ehn, 2008;Björgvinsson et al, 2012;Le Dantec, 2012;DiSalvo et al, 2014). These designers are using ethnographic observations and aiming to support communities through normative engagement with public controversies.…”

Between Grassroots and the Hierarchy

“…The use of participatory design within HCI has been invaluable to the process of supporting the articulation of civic issues [13,31] and understanding the tensions at play in involving publics around those issues. For example, Bødker et al's [7] work in unpicking notions of participation in municipal collaborations complicate the notion of democracy present in such design spaces, while alerting us to the importance of timing to interventions.…”