Exceptional Norms: Marginalised Bodies in Interaction Design

Computers become part of our everyday life more and more. Where previously they were only part of work environments, in Europe and North America, were now generally surrounded by multiple devices with tremendous computing power. Recently, we have also started putting computers on our bodies in the form of so called wearables, for example with fitness trackers, smart watches or, so far mostly in research, intelligent clothes, and jewelry. Where the human body was initially understood as a disruptive element in computing, it slowly became conceptualised as a human factor in interaction, another cog to consider. To stay with the example of fitness trackers, it has been established that the ideal person who uses them appears to be white, able-bodied, mentally stable, reasonably young, already fit, and slim. Even if we assume that these categories cover the majority of people engaging with fitness trackers (they do not), only designing for these creates exclusions that are ultimately inconsistent with the proclaimed motivational and health-related benefits fitness trackers are presumed to introduce. After all, if people are to be encouraged to exercise more, why are fitness trackers then largely designed for those who are already fit? Hence, the development of wearable technologies is largely driven by assumptions on how bodies look like, excluding those who do not fit normative expectations. Women and non-binary people have been systematically excluded and are often only represented as an afterthought of technology design concerning human bodies. This project makes three contributions to current research and design: 1) provide a critique on body assumptions in technological research, which helps to identify gaps in research driving not just this, but potential future projects; 2) together with marginalised people, identify the potential of wearables from their perspective; 3) develop a public and a private technology addressing those potentials. By fulfilling these goals, it will add to an understanding of how technological design can be more equitable and effectively meet the complex challenges it aims to address.

When technologies take up space, everyone gets a little less In the FWF-Hertha Firnberg project 'Extraordinary Norms - Marginalized Bodies in Interaction Design', which recently came to an end, Dr.x Katta Spiel was able to show in various contexts how digitization and new technologies not only make new things possible, but can equally have restrictive effects. This is significantly the case for groups of people who tend to be on the margins of the general population, such as minority genders or people with disabilities. However, as prejudices become more entrenched in technological infrastructures and projects, this can come with general implications for democracies. The various studies that have led to these results are distinguished not only by their content but also by their innovative methodology. For example, more visually oriented analyses were used to gain theoretically profound insights. Among other things, the technical approach to disability, which has so far been dominantly defined in medical terms, was expanded to an understanding of difference as a potential in which the design of new interaction mechanisms and contexts of experience can be connected. By combining an autoethnography of Spiel with survey analyses in collaboration with the University of Colorado, Boulder, it was possible to show the material and psychological burdens intersex, trans* and non-binary persons are exposed to due to a lack of flexibility in database programming. Here, additional insights could be taken into the fragile foundation upon which many of our technical infrastructures are built. For the field of human-machine interaction, analyses and tools were developed together with Sabrina Burtscher, which should allow computer scientists without a background in gender theory or gender studies to acquire basics that are expected from them in funding contexts and from the general society as well as to reflect on the technical responsibility with regard to society at large.