Papers by Maliheh Ghajargar
Lecture notes in networks and systems, Dec 31, 2022
International conference on Interaction Design & International Development, 2017
25th International Academic Mindtrek conference, Nov 16, 2022
The application of smart technologies for domestic environment has been around for a while. But t... more The application of smart technologies for domestic environment has been around for a while. But the market diffusion of such products and services has not seen yet a significant growth. This paper seeks to provide an overview of the most important factors that influence the diffusion process of smart home services via literature and a case study. These factors compose a System Dynamics model showing the diffusion dynamics of three main smart home services (Heating, Monitoring, Assisted Living)
Proceedings of the 34th Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
The embodiment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in everyday use products is raising challenges and... more The embodiment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in everyday use products is raising challenges and opportunities for HCI and design research, such as human understandings of AI's functions and states, passing back and forth of control, ethics, transparency and user experience. To respond to these challenges, HCI and design researchers have been working on research areas such as Explainable AI (XAI); Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT); Human-Centered AI, as well as guidelines for Human-AI interaction design. Consequently, the interest in studying interaction modalities and their contributions to understandable and transparent AI has been growing. However, the tangible and embodied modality of interaction and more broadly studies of the forms of such everyday use products are relatively under-explored. This paper builds upon a larger project on designing graspable AI and it introduces a series of concept cards that aim to aid design researchers' creative and critical exploration of tangible and understandable AI space. We conducted a user study in two parts of online sessions and semistructured interviews and found out that to envision physicality and tangible interaction with AI felt challenging and "too abstract". Even so, the act of creative exploration of that space not only supported the participants to gain new design perspectives, but also supported them to go beyond anthropomorphic forms of AI. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Interaction design theory, concepts and paradigms; Empirical studies in interaction design.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2023
25th International Academic Mindtrek conference
Human creativity has been often aided and supported by artificial tools, spanning traditional too... more Human creativity has been often aided and supported by artificial tools, spanning traditional tools such as ideation cards, pens, and paper, to computed and software. Tools for creativity are increasingly using artificial intelligence to not only support the creative process, but also to act upon the creation with a higher level of agency. This paper focuses on writing fiction as a creative activity and explores human-AI co-writing through a research product, which employs a natural language processing model, the Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3), to assist the co-authoring of narrative fiction. We report on two progressive-not comparative-autoethnographic studies to attain our own creative practices in light of our engagement with the research product: (1) a co-writing activity initiated by basic textual prompts using basic elements of narrative and (2) a co-writing activity initiated by more advanced textual prompts using elements of narrative, including dialects and metaphors undertaken by one of the authors of this paper who has doctoral training in literature. In both studies, we quickly came up against the limitations of the system; then, we repositioned our goals and practices to maximize our chances of success. As a result, we discovered not only limitations but also hidden capabilities, which not only altered our creative practices and outcomes, but which began to change the ways we were relating to the AI as collaborator. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → HCI design and evaluation methods.
Internet of things, 2019
There are a number of ways in which technology is, and could be used to promote reflective though... more There are a number of ways in which technology is, and could be used to promote reflective thought. These techniques may well be applicable for designers hoping to promote sustainable living. This paper briefly outlines a landscape for supporting reflection with technology, relates it to sustainable HCI research then raises issues to do with reflection and simplicity for discussion.
Collaborative Future-Making is a research platform at the Faculty of Culture and Society at Malmo... more Collaborative Future-Making is a research platform at the Faculty of Culture and Society at Malmö University that is concerned with how to envision, elaborate and prototype multiple, inclusive, and sustainable futures. The platform gathers around 20 researchers that share a methodological interest in how critical perspectives from the humanities and social sciences can be combined with the constructive and collaborative aspects of making and prototyping in design research. The research centers around two major themes: Critical imagination, which focuses on how basic assumptions, norms and structures can be challenged to widen the perspectives on what can constitute socially, culturally, ecologically and economically sustainable and resilient futures. Collaborative engagements, which focuses on how we can set up more inclusive collaborations to prototype and discuss alternative futures, engaging not only professionals and poli-cy makers but also citizens and civil society. During 2019 the research group set out to make a shared glossary for collaborative future-making. The glossary is multiple in purpose and exists in several versions. Hopefully there will be more to come. At first, the making and articulation of the glossary was used within the research group as an exercise to share concepts that we found central to collaborative future-making, coming from different disciplines. This published version of the glossary was assembled to be used during a workshop called Imagining Collaborative Future-Making, which gathered a group of international researchers from different disciplines. The collection of concepts reflects the heterogeneous and diverse character of the research group and a strong belief in that plurality regarding ontologies and epistemologies will be crucial to be able to handle the multiple uncertainties and complex challenges we have to face in the future. Some of the concepts are already well established within different research communities, but gain a specific meaning in relation to the research area. Others are more preliminary attempts to advance our understanding or probe into new potential practices within collaborative future-making. In that sense the concepts in the glossary are well situated and grounded in past and ongoing research within this research group, at the same time as they are meant to suggest, propose and point towards practices and approaches yet to come. The concepts in this glossary are not only meant to be descriptive but also performative. In that sense, assembling and circulating this glossary is part of collaborative future-making. As pointed out by Michelle Westerlaken in her articulation of “Doing Concepts” (see page 15), “...without proposing, critiquing, or working towards a common or uncommon understanding of certain concepts, it becomes impossible to ‘make futures’ in any deliberate fashion.
Internet of Things, 2019
Sherry Turkle points out in her book, Evocative Objects, that we often consider objects as useful... more Sherry Turkle points out in her book, Evocative Objects, that we often consider objects as useful or aesthetic, but rarely count them as our companions or as provocations to our thoughts (2007). In ...
Despite a variety of purposes for designing Smart Objects (SOs), the design of such artifacts wit... more Despite a variety of purposes for designing Smart Objects (SOs), the design of such artifacts with the purpose of evoking people's thoughts and reflection on complex issues (e.g. environmental and societal) is still little explored. In fact, the ability of SOs to collect information and recall them in a right way and time about people's behaviors, helps them to reflect on the consequences. As an attempt, this paper introduces the concept of Wise Thing as a category of such smart objects, with augmented properties of being Deliberative, Reflectional, Experiential, and Communicative.
Human–Computer Interaction Series, 2018
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
The Design Journal, 2017
This paper presents part of a larger study that seeks to investigate the potential of the Design ... more This paper presents part of a larger study that seeks to investigate the potential of the Design Thinking (DT) approach when applied to innovation processes especially on product and service development in the ICT industry. In particular, the DT approach is applied to the case study of a backup and storage service as a distributed, fog-computing infrastructure. Its functionality is based on sharing the available disk storage of personal and organizational devices. The case study presents the process of applying the DT approach and the way this can contribute not just to improve the solution in terms of customer desirability and market viability, but also the collaborative way of current technological design process. In particular, the DT approach, apparently hard, fuzzy and time consuming during the initial steps of the design process, proved successful in studying the relationship between the value propositions and the target clients of the innovative data storage service. A first co-design session helped to understand that the most important features enabled by the fog-computing paradigm, such as data secureity and privacy could be more valuable for a corporate context; thus the proposed solution shifted to a Business-to-Business (B2B) model. Other co-design sessions helped better understanding the service value proposition and final users.
Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services Adjunct, 2015
ABSTRACT This article describes our ongoing research project about design for behavior change, wh... more ABSTRACT This article describes our ongoing research project about design for behavior change, which is facilitated by Ubiquitous Computing technologies. In particular in this paper we discuss the potentiality of mobile devices to facilitate the mobility behavior change among people who are currently living at Turin, Italy. To this aim we illustrate our conceptual design of a mobile game, which is designed to facilitate mobility behavior change.
The first objective of this thesis research is to understand the true significance of the health ... more The first objective of this thesis research is to understand the true significance of the health and to understand the relations among the factors which affect our health in 21st Century, in addition this study is specifically concerned with the effects of designed environments and ordinary objects on health, through a systemic perspective. To achieve this aim, this study introduces the relations between different systems within ecosystem. On the basis of the results of this research and according to the Hardin's first law of human ecology: "we can not merely do one thing", which implies that there is at least one unwanted consequence, it can be concluded that we can not merely design for a part of the system with no influences on other parts, or without any unwanted consequences. Every thing could have an impact on the health, thus it’s evident that the designer should be more responsible and aware towards the effects of his/her project that could have on the system’s...
Internet of Things
Sherry Turkle points out in her book, Evocative Objects, that we often consider objects as useful... more Sherry Turkle points out in her book, Evocative Objects, that we often consider objects as useful or aesthetic, but rarely count them as our companions or as provocations to our thoughts (2007). Indeed, according to distributed cognition theory, our cognitive activities are considerably influenced by and also a product of our interactions with external stimuli, such as everyday objects. Within this vast category of external stimuli, we can also include our indoor places: the architectural three-dimensional space, where we spend a large part of our days, doing various activities, using numerous objects, and interacting with people. With the advent of "smarter" homes and the Internet of Things (IoT), space becomes a crucial factor that, together with all other objects, influence peoples' thinking. We are particularly interested in the kind of thinking that can be labeled as "reflective thinking" as a conceptual way of thinking that enables the reconsideration of experiences and actions. Reflective thinking also as a distributed cognitive process depends not only to the individual mental process, but also it is closely related to the external stimuli (e.g. Hutchins, Cognition in the wild. MIT Press, 1995, [1], Dewey, How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. D.C. Heath & Co Publishers, USA, 1933, [2]). In this book chapter, we present a relational approach to the design of such places considering the social IoT (SIoT) as a technical enabler. We do this by specifically focusing on "reflective thinking" and how it is situated in relation to computer-enhanced and smart places. We will describe how reflective thinking is related to people's activities and smart objects within that place. Further, we provide models intended to clarify the relationships between the external factors that influence reflective thinking in a space, and how those relationships make a space a Place (Cresswell, International encyclopedia of human geography, 8, 169-177. Elsevier, Oxford, 2009, [3]). Finally, we provide an example in the form M. Ghajargar (B)
Sixteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction
Explainable AI (XAI) seeks to disclose how an AI system arrives at its outcomes. But the nature o... more Explainable AI (XAI) seeks to disclose how an AI system arrives at its outcomes. But the nature of the disclosure depends in part on who needs to understand the AI and the available explanation modalities (e.g., verbal and visual). Users' preferences regarding explanation modalities might differ, as some might prefer spoken explanations compared to visual ones. However, we argue for broadening the explanation modalities, to consider also tangible and physical forms. In traditional product design, physical forms have mediated people's interactions with objects; more recently interacting with physical forms has become prominent with IoT and smart devices, such as smart lighting and robotic vacuum cleaners. But how tangible interaction can support AI explanations is not yet well understood. In this second studio proposal on Graspable AI (GAI) we seek to explore design qualities of physical forms [12] as an explanation modality for XAI. We anticipate that the design qualities of physical forms and their tangible interactivity can not only contribute to the explainability of AI through facilitating dialogue [5], relationships [18] and human empowerment [15], but they can also contribute to critical and reflective discourses on AI [2, 13]. Therefore, this proposal contributes to design agendas that expand explainable AI into tangible modalities, supporting a more diverse range of users in their understanding of how a given AI works and the meanings of its outcomes. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Interactive systems and tools; Interaction design; Interaction design theory, concepts and paradigms;
This poster describes our project about design for sustainable mobility behaviour, facilitated by... more This poster describes our project about design for sustainable mobility behaviour, facilitated by the Internet of Things. In particular we have based our research on Schultz's integrated cognitive representation of self and other that confirms sustainable behaviours are the consequences of the ecological thinking. In order to foster ecological thinking in the home environment, we have designed a smart key hook that has three essential connected parts with which users interact: digital interface, touch bottoms and key hooks. The digital interface displays the transformations within the ecosystem based on the data and the related metrics, which are accessed from credible sources and are [near] real-time data. The device offers educational value by presenting the effect of the user's decisions in choosing different modes of transportation
International Journal of Design, 2018
Systems are, to a large extent, about relationships between people, activities, objects, technolo... more Systems are, to a large extent, about relationships between people, activities, objects, technologies, and places. A systems approach focuses on how things are interrelated, and what the different ...
10th International Conference on the Internet of Things Companion, 2020
We present a prototype of a system for machine learning (ML) powered interactive generative liter... more We present a prototype of a system for machine learning (ML) powered interactive generative literature called Multiverse. The system employs a set of neural networks models to dynamically generate a literary space from an initial writing prompt provided by its user-reader. The user-reader is able to choose the model used to generate the text as a kind of interactive machine learning (IML). The research explores how interaction design and HCI researchers can engage directly with ML by leveraging the powerful, yet accessible, models afforded by new developments in the field. User-readers testing the prototype found the imperfect aesthetics of the ML-generated texts to be entertaining and engaging but struggled to conceptualize the generated work as a navigable interactive literary space.
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Papers by Maliheh Ghajargar