What is it about?
Slow technology design can benefit from more ethnographic methodologies, especially as some people realised they prefer a slower pace of life after the pandemic. This paper presents three pathways for temporal and slow technology designers, and we suggest the designers to work with and around the preferences of the users instead of leading the design by their preferances.
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Why is it important?
This 2-year study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic and presented timely results for life circumstances after the lockdown ended. Our findings highlight the need for more ethnographic research and how the users' voices should be heard during the design and redesign processes for technologies moving forward. In particular, this study gives examples of a path forward for communication technologies, and how the users would like to interact with others in their life after the pandemic.
Perspectives
I hope this article helps to change the way of interaction in communication technologies, and paves the way for more meaningful interactions that suits the needs of the user.
Yasamin Asadi
Queensland University of Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Calming Down in Lockdown: Rethinking Technologies for a Slower Pace of Life, July 2023, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3563657.3596060.
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Resources
Presentation
Calming Down in Lockdown: Rethinking Technologies for a Slower Pace of Life Yasamin Asadi, Margot Brereton, Aloha Hufana Ambe, Alessandro Soro, Mahnoosh Kholghi DIS 2023: ACM Designing Interactive Systems Session: Temporality and Remembering This study investigated Australian older adults' response to the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the adjustments they made to their activities, technology use, and social relations, to inform how technology design could be inspired by these adaptations. Online interviews revealed that some sorely missed social interactions, however, most enjoyed having a greater agency to curate their own activities and slowing down as a result of lockdown. These findings prompted us to rethink the design space of temporal design from the perspective of those craving an ongoing impact of slowness in their lives. We suggest that designing for a slower pace of life can be inspired by people's response to life circumstances in lockdown, complementing the original concept of slow technology which seeks to intervene in a fast-paced life to encourage people to slow down and reflect. We conclude by proposing three new design pathways based on this new standpoint.
Teaser Video
Teaser Video for DIS'23
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