Clara Mancini

Animal-computer interaction: a manifesto

Although we have involved animals in machine and computer interactions for a long time, their perspective has seldom driven the design of interactive technology meant for them and animal-computer interaction is yet to enter mainstream user-computer interaction research. This lack of animal perspective can have negative effects on animal users and on the purposes for which animal technology is developed. Not only could an Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI) agenda mitigate those effects, it could also yield multiple benefits, by enhancing our inter-species relationships with the animals we live or work with, leading to further insights into animal cognition, rendering conservation efforts more effective, improving the economical and ethical sustainability of food production, expanding the horizon of user-computer interaction research altogether and benefiting different groups of human users too. Advances in both our understanding of animal cognition and computing technology make the development of ACI as a discipline both possible and timely, while pressing environmental, economic and cultural changes make it desirable. But what exactly is ACI about and how could we develop such a discipline? This Manifesto describes the scientific aims, methodological approach and ethical principles of ACI and proposes a research agenda for its systematic development.

From spaces to places: emerging contexts in mobile privacy

Mobile privacy concerns are central to Ubicomp and yet remain poorly understood. We advocate a diversified approach, enabling the cross-interpretation of data from complementary methods. However, mobility imposes a number of limitations on the methods that can be effectively employed. We discuss how we addressed this problem in an empirical study of mobile social networking. We report on how, by combining a variation of experience sampling and contextual interviews, we have started focusing on a notion of context in relation to privacy, which is subjectively defined by emerging socio-cultural knowledge, functions, relations and rules. With reference to Gieryns sociological work, we call this place, as opposed to a notion of context that is objectively defined by physical and factual elements, which we call space. We propose that the former better describes the context for mobile privacy.

Modeling naturalistic argumentation in research literatures: Representation and interaction design issues

This article characterizes key weaknesses in the ability of current digital libraries to support scholarly inquiry, and as a way to address these, proposes computational services grounded in semiformal models of the naturalistic argumentation commonly found in research literatures. It is argued that a design priority is to balance formal expressiveness with usability, making it critical to coevolve the modeling scheme with appropriate user interfaces for argument construction and analysis. We specify the requirements for an argument modeling scheme for use by untrained researchers and describe the resulting ontology, contrasting it with other domain modeling and semantic web approaches, before discussing passive and intelligent user interfaces designed to support analysts in the construction, navigation, and analysis of scholarly argument structures in a Web‐based environment.

Canine-centered interface design: supporting the work of diabetes alert dogs

Many people with Diabetes live with the continuous threat of hypoglycemic attacks and the danger of going into coma. Diabetes Alert Dogs are trained to detect the onset of an attack before the condition of the human handler they are paired with deteriorates, giving them time to take action. We investigated requirements for designing an alarm system allowing dogs to remotely call for help when their human falls unconscious before being able to react to an alert. Through a multispecies ethnographic approach we focus on the requirements for a physical canine user interface, involving dogs, their handlers and specialist dog trainers in the design process. We discuss tensions between the requirements for canine and the human users, argue the need for increased sensitivity towards the needs of individual dogs that goes beyond breed specific physical characteristics, and reflect on how we can move from designing for dogs to designing with dogs.

The domestic panopticon: location tracking in families

We present a qualitative study examining Location-Based Service (LBS) usage by families and how it is integrated into everyday life. We establish that LBS, when used for tracking purposes, affords a means of digital nurturing; that said, we discuss how LBS surveillance has the potential to undermine trust and serve as a detriment to nurturing.

From cinematographic to hypertext narrative

This paper argues that cinematographic language may provide insights into the construction of narrative coherence in hypertext. Brief examples of cinematic representation models are mapped onto the hypertext domain.

UbiComp for animal welfare: envisioning smart environments for kenneled dogs

Whilst the ubicomp community has successfully embraced a number of societal challenges for human benefit, including healthcare and sustainability, the well-being of other animals is hitherto underrepresented. We argue that ubicomp technologies, including sensing and monitoring devices as well as tangible and embodied interfaces, could make a valuable contribution to animal welfare. This paper particularly focuses on dogs in kenneled accommodation, as we investigate the opportunities and challenges for a smart kennel aiming to foster canine welfare. We conducted an in-depth ethnographic study of a dog rehoming center over four months; based on our findings, we propose a welfare-centered framework for designing smart environments, integrating monitoring and interaction with information management. We discuss the methodological issues we encountered during the research and propose a smart ethnographic approach for similar projects.

Cognitive coherence relations and hypertext: from cinematic patterns to scholarly discourse

In previous work we argued that cinematic language may provide insights into the construction of narrative coherence in hypertext, and we identified in the shot juxtaposition of rhetorical patterns the source of coherence for cinematic discourse. Here we deepen our analysis, to show how the mechanisms that underpin cinematic rhetorical patterns are the same as those providing coherence in written text. We draw on computational and psycholinguistic analyses of texts which have derived a set of relationships that are termed Cognitive Coherence Relations (CCR). We validate this by re-expressing established cinematic patterns, and relations relevant to scholarly hypertext, in terms of CCR, and with this conceptual bridge in place, present examples to show how cinematic techniques could assist the presentation of scholarly discourse. This theoretical work also informs system design. We describe how an abstract relational layer based on CCR is being implemented as a semantic hypertext system to mediate scholarly discourse.

Designing Interactive Toys for Elephants

This research is investigating the potential for designing digital toys and games as playful cognitive enrichment activities for captive elephants. The new field of Animal Computer Interaction is exploring a range of approaches to the problem of designing user-centred systems for animals and this investigation into devices for elephants aims to directly contribute towards a methodological approach for designing smart and playful enrichment for all species.

Animal-computer interaction (ACI): pushing boundaries beyond 'human'

Through short presentations, collaborative design exercises and plenary discussions, this one-day workshop aims to explore questions and possibilities for the development of ACI as a discipline.