Publications
Scent & Space: Navigating Smell Interactions in Public, Private, and Virtual Spaces
Anna R L Carter, Ceylan Besevli, Christopher Dawes and Marianna Obrist
INTERACTIONS MAGAZINE NOV/FEB 2025
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Developing adaptable scent devices for different environments can promote wider adoption in HCI and interactive systems.
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Each environment presents unique challenges and opportunities, requiring continued exploration and tailored design approaches.
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Scent's ability to evoke memories and emotions offers opportunities to deepen connections from cultural heritage to urban design.
Anna R L Carter, Kyle Montague, Reem Talhouk, Shaun Lawson, Hugo Nicolau, Ana Cristina Pires, Markus Rohde, Alessio Del Bue and Tiffany Knearem
CHI 2024
The DCitizens SIG aims to navigate ethical dimensions in forthcoming Digital Civics projects, ensuring enduring benefits and community resilience. Additionally, it seeks to shape the future landscape of digital civics for ethical and sustainable interventions. As we dive into these interactive processes, a challenge arises of discerning authentic intentions and validating perspectives. This exploration extends to evaluating the sustainability of future interactions and scrutinising biases impacting engaged communities. The commitment is to ensure future outcomes align with genuine community needs and address the ethical imperative of a considerate departure strategy. This dialogue encourages future researchers and practitioners to integrate ethical considerations and community-centric principles, fostering a more sustainable and responsible approach to technology-driven interventions in future urban regeneration and beyond.
Anna R L Carter, Kyle Montague, Reem Talhouk, Ana O Henriques, Hugo Nicolau, Tiffany Knearem, Ceylan Besevli, Firaz Peer, Clara Crivellaro and Sarah Rüller
PDC 2024
Participatory design initiatives, especially within the realm of digital civics, are often integrated and co-developed with the very citizens and communities they intend to assist. Digital civics research aims to create positive social change using a variety of digital technologies. These research projects commonly adopt various embedded processes, such as commissioning models. Despite the adoption of this process within a range of domains, there isn't currently a framework for best practices and accountability procedures to ensure we engage with citizens ethically and ensure the sustainability of our projects. This workshop aims to provide a space to start collaboratively constructing a dynamic framework of best practices, laying the groundwork for the future of sustainable embedded research processes. The overarching goal is to foster discussions and share insights that contribute to developing effective practices, ensuring the longevity and impact of participatory digital civics projects.
Ana O. Henriques, Hugo Nicolau, Anna R L Carter, Kyle Montague, Reem Talhouk, Angelika Strohmayer, Sarah Rüller, Cayley MacArthur, Shaowen Bardzell, Colin Gray and Eleonore Fournier-Tombs
DIS 2024
This workshop proposal advocates for a dynamic, community-led approach to ethics in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) by integrating principles from feminist HCI and digital civics. Traditional ethics in HCI often overlook interpersonal considerations, resulting in static frameworks ill-equipped to address dynamic social contexts and power dynamics. Drawing from feminist perspectives, the workshop aims to lay the groundwork for developing a meta-toolkit for community-led feminist ethics, fostering collaborative research practices grounded in feminist ethical principles. Through pre-workshop activities, interactive sessions, and post-workshop discussions, participants will engage in dialogue to advance community-led ethical research practices. Additionally, the workshop seeks to strengthen the interdisciplinary community of researchers and practitioners interested in ethics, digital civics, and feminist HCI. By fostering a reflexive approach to ethics, the workshop contributes to the discourse on design's role in shaping future interactions between individuals, communities, and technology.
“And this is where we fu***d up!” Lessons learned from Participatory Design in Digital Civic Initiatives
Clara Rosa Cardoso, Sarah Rüller, Ana O Henriques, Anna R L Carter and Markus Rohde
NORDICHI 2024
Participatory design in digital civics aims to foster mutual learning and co-creation between public services and citizens. However, rarely do we collectively explore the challenges and failures we experience within PD and digital civics, to enable us to grow as a community. This workshop will explore real-world experiences that had to adapt to unforeseen circumstances. Through case presentations and thematic group discussions, participants will reflect on the challenges faced, the causes that led to these challenges, and collaboratively problem-solve effective solutions. Furthermore, we aim to discuss well-being impact on researchers and communities when faced with these obstacles, the strategies participants use to overcome them and how this can be fed back into the digital civics community. By that, the workshop seeks to foster dialogue, reflection, and collective learning, empowering participants with insights to navigate complexities effectively and promote resilient design practices in digital civics.
Anna R L Carter
PhD Thesis
The integration of interactive public displays into urban regeneration is a dynamic research area, extending beyond traditional screens to offer accessible, alternative interactions in outdoor settings. These displays not only provide users with a wealth of information but also provide in depth emotionally charged interactions, evoking nostalgia and re-engaging people with a space. In the ever-evolving urban landscape, this thesis addresses the challenges posed by adapting spaces and the effect this can have on the way people engage with these spaces, highlighting a need for innovative interventions to help communities to remain engaged with their local spaces. This work centres on integrating interactive public displays into urban environments, with a primary focus on evoking nostalgia (an affectionate feeling for the past) and topophilia (emotional connections to a space). This thesis embarks on a journey, engaging a diverse range of users, including designers, children, regeneration experts, and community members. It commences with a nine-month deployment of a tangible embedded interface into a dynamic urban context, receiving over 10,000 session interactions. This real-world experience shows the importance of incorporating aspects of cultural heritage and immersive content into informative designs. Subsequently, the journey explores uncharted territories, navigating the landscape of cocreation methods and collaborative efforts, culminating in the development of a multisensory installation, that integrates olfactory, auditory, and visual elements. This exploration delves into the intricacies of community engagement, technology integration, nostalgia, and the dynamics of urban regeneration. As these chapters unfold, valuablelessons are drawn from field experiences, guiding a reflective journey through the design process with an aim to advance interactive public display creation by addressing gaps in design tools and methodologies. Resulting in feature requirements for an overarching master design suite, this contribution advances the field of HCI within urban regeneration. It brings together valuable lessons learned and recommendations for integrating novel multimodal installations of the future, while also addressing the need for adaptable tools to facilitate their design. This holistic approach underscores the transformative potential of technology in shaping urban environments and community engagement.
Anna R L Carter, Marianna Obrist, Christopher Dawes, Alan Dix, Jennifer Pearson, Matt Jones, Dimitrios Zampelis and Ceylan BeÅŸevli
DIS 2023
Scent based interactions have been evaluated within a number of research settings, from Virtual Reality (VR) to art galleries to city centres. Olfactory technology is reaching new advances with the ability to incorporate it more readily into a variety of environments, e.g. classrooms. However, there is little knowledge on the code of practice for using these olfactory devices. Within this workshop we aim to gather a multidisciplinary group of researchers to co-create a set of recommendations for the incorporation of olfactory devices into everyday life. In particular, we will focus on the use of scent within three contexts; Public, Private and Digital.
Anna R L Carter, Miriam Sturdee, Alan Dix
AVI 2022
The technologies we use in everyday contexts are designed and tested, using existing standards of usability. As technology advances standards are still based on planar displays and simple screen-based interactions. End-user digital devices need to consider context and physicality as additional influences on design. Additionally, accessibility and multi-modal interaction must be considered as we build technologies with interactions such as soundscapes to support user experience. When considering the tools we use to design existing interactions, we can evaluate new ways of working with software to support the development of the changing face of interactive devices. This paper presents two prototypes which explore the space of user experience design tools, first in the space of contextual cues when looking at multi device interaction, and second, in the space of physical prototyping. These prototypes are starting points for a wider discussion around the changing face of usability. We also discuss extending the scope of existing user experience design tools and rethinking what ”user experience” means when the devices we own are becoming ’aware’ of their surroundings, context, and have increasing agency.
Anna R L Carter, Miriam Sturdee, Alan Dix, Dani Kalarikalayil Raju, Martha Aldridge, Eunice Sari, Wendy Mackay, Elizabeth Churchill.
CHI 2022
Technology is changing, which means the design processes supporting it must also change. Digital tools for user experience and interaction design are vital in enabling designers to create appropriate, enjoyable and functional human-computer experiences, and so will necessarily evolve alongside our technological development. This workshop aims to support the futuring of user experience and user interfaces, and will engage with stakeholders, practicing designers, researchers, students and educators in order to understand better the needs for next-generation design tools. We will envisage new forms of design tools that encourage best practice, for example, linking representations, analysis tools, just-in-time evidence, physicality, experience, and crucially, put context at the centre of design
Anna R L Carter, Gavin Bailey, Jennifer Pearson, Matt Jones, Simon Robinson, Dani Kalarikalayil Raju, Jonathan Hicks, Spencer Winter.
CHI 2022
Due to public concerns over touch-based disease transmission, tangible and embedded interfaces are perhaps the most unsuited technology during a pandemic. Even so, this case study documents the development and evaluation of such a system from early 2020 when people were told to avoid actions that might spread the virus (e.g., touch). Adding to the challenge, the Lookout was installed outside in a city centre for widespread public use. Despite these challenges, a COVID-safe touchable device was embedded and extensively used. This Case Study reports the co-creation of the device noting COVID restriction adaptations over a nine-month deployment. Our contributions are twofold: the study acts as a case-point of the impact of the unique COVID design context, with lessons for future pandemic scenarios; and, given we had over 10,000 users at a time when people were cautious about using shared devices or services, we surface some design characteristics that can promote the use of public technology.
Brian O’Keefe, Tom Flint, Miriam Sturdee, Andrea Resmini, Anna R L Carter, Mike Mastermaker, Andrea Chirico
IMX 2023
Interaction between, across, and through digital technologies integrated into everyday activities can be stilted, clumsy, awkward, and hard to navigate, much like a complicated dance performance. What does it take to choreograph these experiences so that they seamfully blend digital and physical space to make complex interactions as easy and graceful as dancing with an experienced ballroom dancer? When designing complex interactions in these environments, there is a tendency to lean toward a linear causal understanding of experience. This workshop urges us to consider experience as a dance with technology.
Colin. M. Gray, Craig. M. MacDonald, Carine Lallemand, Alannah Oleson, Anna R L Carter, Olivier St-Cyr, Caroline Pitt
CHI 2023
EduCHI 2023 will bring together an international community of scholars, practitioners, and researchers to shape the future of Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) education. Held as part of the CHI 2023 conference, the one-day symposium will feature interactive discussions about HCI educational research, pedagogical innovations, teaching practices, and current and future challenges facing HCI educators. In addition to providing a platform to share pedagogical strategies and continue to build a scholarly knowledge base for HCI education, EduCHI 2023 will also provide opportunities for HCI educators to learn new instructional strategies and deepen their pedagogical knowledge.
Jennifer Pearson, Gavin Bailey, Simon Robinson, Tom Owen, Chi Zhang, Thomas Reitmaier, Cameron Steer, Anna R L Carter, Matt Jones, Deepak Ranjan Sahoo, Dani Kalarikalayil Raju
CHI 2022
What do pedestrian crossings, ATMs, elevators and ticket machines have in common? These are just a few of the ubiquitous yet essential elements of public-space infrastructure that rely on physical buttons or touchscreens; common interactions that, until recently, were considered perfectly safe to perform. This work investigates how we might integrate touchless technologies into public-space infrastructure in order to minimise physical interaction with shared devices in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on an ethnographic exploration into how public utilities are being used, adapted or avoided, we developed and evaluated a suite of technology probes that can be either retrofitted into, or replace, these services. In-situ community deployments of our probes demonstrate strong uptake and provide insight into how hands-free technologies can be adapted and utilised for the public domain; and, in turn, used to inform the future of walk-up-and use public technologies.
Craig MacDonald, Olivier St-Cyr, Colin. M. Gray, Leigh Ellen Potter, Carine Lallemand, Anna Vasilchenko, Jaisie Sin, Anna R L Carter, Caroline Pitt, Eunice Sari, Deepak Ranjan Padhi, Ajit. G. Pillai
CHI 2022
EduCHI 2022 will bring together an international community of scholars, practitioners, and researchers to shape the future of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) education. Held as part of the CHI 2022 conference, the two-day symposium will feature interactive discussions about trends, curricula, pedagogies, teaching practices, and current and future challenges facing HCI educators. In addition to providing a platform to share curriculum plans and teaching materials, EduCHI 2022 will also provide opportunities for HCI educators to learn new instructional strategies and deepen their pedagogical knowledge.
Alan Dix, Anna R L Carter, Miriam Sturdee
We need to teach our students 360-degree design, taking into ac- count the physical and social context in which their designs are placed in addition to the screens or aural interactions users have with them. Unfortunately, despite 40 years of HCI, UI and UX meth- ods that have emphasised the importance of this wider view, the dominant tools in current UX practice are focused almost entirely on the screen. We want to understand the requirements for next generation design tools, and to take steps to fill the void. This snap- shot of work in progress presents some examples that are driving our thinking, early prototypes of tool concepts, and our current work engaging with designers, developers and other stakeholders.