Motivation

This particular interest in material culture stemmed from the disproportionate underrepresentation of AfroDiasporic DMIs within the NIME community - a "wicked problem" that "cannot be accurately modeled and cannot be addressed using the reductionist approaches of science and engineering" [28]. This lack of representation is particularly disturbing as 1) I am a person of direct African Ancestry and 2) difference is postulated as an integral component of postmodernism and, consequently, relationality - yet, in DMI design and sonic output, difference (in many ways) is rejected in favor of the proliferation of "community approved" tools, tropes, and strategies. 

A primary concern with contemporary literature regarding Afrodiasporic representation [7, 9, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 25, 27] is that it's primarily dialogic rather than action-oriented; it's comprised mostly of literature reviews, methodologies, and insights taken from workshops. A primary goal of this research project is to offer practical guidance for making the indefinable tangible.

Values in HCI

Although the term appears quite frequently within HCI literature and it is fairly common knowledge within contemporary HCI that technology isn't neutral [11, 20, 22], it's quite difficult to pin down what, exactly, values are. 

20th century sociology professor Franz Adler identified four types of values: absolute values; values innate within objects; values innate within man; and values equated with action. This project concerns itself with value type four, action-based value, due to its ability to be directly observed. According to Adler, action-based values are supported by the following assumptions: an individual's willing participation of any given action; the possibility for contradictory values (i.e. saying one thing and doing another); and, consequently, the identical treatment of both verbal and action-based value statements [2]. 

An example of this framing of values within current literature can be found in Snape and Born's Music and Digital Media [4]. During an investigation of popular music/visual programming language Max/MSP, Snape and Born identify a value, a proclivity toward non-metered time, in experimental music performance, practice, and production as a result of the wide adoption of Max/MSP within music performance and research communities.

What initially started as an aesthetic choice of an individual (the designer/programmer of the software, Miller Puckette), would go on to become an aesthetic preference (perhaps inevitability) of entire communities of musicians, designers, and researchers. Over time, the preferred way of handling time becomes the desired way to handle time - which, in some cases, becomes the only way to handle time; it is at that moment, the moment when the aesthetic preferences of a few become the value judgments of the whole, that values become "matters of concern" [19].

Adler rejects desirability as an integral component of values due to its inherently internal nature. However, within the field of DMI creation, where personal aesthetics and values are deeply embedded within design processes, the exclusion of desirability within the operational definition of values seems reductive. That said, this research project defines values as observable verbal or non-verbal declarations of desirability. 

Problem Statement

This project concerns itself with identifying how meaningful and reflective attention toward difference can generate a more values-oriented and culturally diverse research community. The focus of the project, a framework for a values-oriented design practice, aims to aid design researchers and designers in not only identifying the values embedded within design artifacts and design processes - an integral component of a more deliberate and intentional attentiveness toward difference - but in transforming values into tangible technical specifications that can, in turn, be used to create intentional, values-intentional design artifacts.

Research Questions 

The following research questions frame the current program of study:

• How can an analytical process allow for the identification and extraction of situated values from DMIs and design processes?
• How can extracted values integrate seamlessly into technical specifications that can be easily reproduced by others?
• What is an appropriate way to evaluate values-intentional DMIs?

Although not exhaustive, the aforementioned research questions act as a sort of north star for an inquiry into accountability, cultural diversity, and design-artifact ontological stability within HCI. 

Current Work

The current course of study consists of data collection and analysis, a new DMI, a rebuilding of a previous DMI, the development of a values-accurate design framework and an accompanying user study. The following sections detail each component organized in chronological order.

Data Collection and Analysis

RQ: How can an analytical process allow for the identification and extraction of situated values from DMIs and design processes?

The analytical method selected for the project, situational analysis has been tremendously helpful in isolating community-favored narrative-based values and doing-based strategies. What's missing, and the intended first course of action, is to bridge the gap between narrative values, doing-based strategies, and doing-based values. 

The preliminary phase of analysis, now complete, has led to a wide array of values, both narrative and action-based, that, in some cases, are only marginally attached to design artifacts. "Bridging the gap" between narrative and action values include identifying the ways in which values-intentional designs differ from unintentional designs and moving toward a system which allows for a more closely knit connection between narrative intentions and action-based reality.

Framework Design

RQ: How can extracted values integrate seamlessly into technical specifications that can be easily reproduced by others?

I intend to build upon Carroll and Rosson's "action science" (AS) approach to design, a framework that aims to "develop a proactive understanding of the gap between science and practice, to reify the practical ontology of design so that it can be used more deliberately, interrogated, improved, and applied" [6]. 

The idea, here, is that in order to query the values of a research community, the values (perhaps biases) of the individual must be acknowledged. Throughout the situational analysis process, design researchers learn not only about the shared values of the community, but about how their own value systems are in alignment or disagreement. Ultimately, making processes - with or without designer intent - reinforce and reject community values which incomprehensibly [8] contribute to both community and individual formation and stabilization. The proposed framework builds upon situational analysis: whereby SA reveals community values and offers designers choice to decide who and what to legitimize, the proposed framework, values-intentional design, provides a course of action after analysis, allowing designers and design researchers the tools to create technical specifications in intentional and deliberate alignment with their respective values.

The framework is as follows:

•     Analysis + user-based scenario collection
•     Scenario-based design typology: what do users want or expect from a design?
•     Claim construction: what are the use-cases (scenarios) a design affords?
•     Claim generation: how can the designer support the intended use of a design?
•     Claim justification: what are the potential causal links between known theory and generated claims?
•     Claim implementation: design fabrication

LOOM-toolkit

RQ: How can extracted values integrate seamlessly into technical specifications that can be easily reproduced by others?

LOOM is a design probe experiment that emphasizes craft [26], physicality [5], and material exploration [24]. This project is interested in seeking alternative forms of design not reliant upon convention approaches. In alignment with Beuchley et al., it looks toward making practices outside of HCI that not only have histories lasting millennia, but that allow practitioners to "pursue approaches that initially seem impractical, strange, or objectionable" [5]. To that end, this project engages with tapestry weaving as the primary site of DMI design.

In order to aid in the rapid prototyping of soft DMIs, the LOOM toolkit will consist of a simple sampler, a breadboard style patch bay for patching conductive thread into various ins and outs, and an interface consisting of logic gates and clocks for interaction design.

Although rudimentary in capability, the toolkit aims to capitalize on the simplicity of buttons and switches alongside combinatorial logic gates to create complex, material-driven, values-intentional interactions and DMIs. While understanding the complex values associated with a primary component of this project - push button adjacent sensors - the aim of this project is to create ecologies of musical expression within each design (inclusive of uniquely suited sound designed, pictorial/aesthetic and material communication of values via tapestry weaving and interaction design, and negotiation with non-traditional engineering materials and diy sensors). Over time, the efforts of intentional practitioners may, at worst, create alternative forms of interaction with familiar technologies and, at best, redefine the latent values associated with technologies we falsely believe to be neutral. 

Design Probes

RQ: How can extracted values integrate seamlessly into technical specifications that can be easily reproduced by others?

After the completion of the LOOM-toolkit, a study will be conducted whereby participants will be instructed to create simple DMI prototypes representative of assigned values (using the toolkit as a control). Participants will be paired; each pair receiving a single value to embody. As the goal is to recruit participants from varying backgrounds, the study aims to understand how different communities of practice approach values-intentionality within interaction design. During the making process, participants will be asked to "justify" their decision-making processes via written notes, bulleted lists, voice memos, etc. in order to gain a holistic view of values and design intentionality.

Once the individual phase of the study has completed, the paired participants will work together to build a prototype using the same value that was assigned at the onset of the study. The directive will remain the same, however, participants with different strengths and backgrounds will have the ability to work together to develop a prototype - the goal, here, is to see how and why their "justifications" change as a result of working with another designer.

The study will culminate in an activity where participants will receive images and sound recordings of each prototype alongside any relevant narrative information, and will be asked to match the prototypes to their respective values. Analysis of the prototypes will further inform the design of the values-intentional framework.

BRAIDS_ Rebuild

RQ: How can extracted values integrate seamlessly into technical specifications that can be easily reproduced by others?

The rebuilding of a previously designed DMI, BRAIDS_ - an instrument inspired by the black American hair braiding tradition - will serve as the final case study to rigorously test the intended framework. Upon revisiting the project, reviewing works of critical and feminist theory within HCI, and reflecting on my personal goals for the instrument, I'd come to the conclusion that BRAIDS_ is not values-intentional. Armed with "expert" knowledge of values-intentional design, I intend to revisit and rebuild the project following the values-intentional framework (the intention is for the framework to have been evaluated and complete before the rebuild occurs). At this late stage of the project, no further modification will be made to the framework. 

External Analysis

RQ: What is an appropriate way to evaluate values-accurate DMIs?

Upon the completion of BRAIDS_ v2, I will outsource the evaluation of the values-intentionality of the project to an HCI researcher not associated with Imperial. Rather than being the sole arbiter of values-intentionality and claiming my DMI as such, I'd like to allow the community to be the judge (or, at the very least, a single, knowledgeable community member whose work is in alignment with my own). Although the DMI will have been completed by the time feedback/critique has been given, the external critique will reveal any biases and blind spots that can be accounted for when embarking on a future project. Additionally, assuming the critique is good-natured, it can be used as learning material for other researches in the event it's included in any subsequently published research papers. The ultimate goal is to outsource values-intentional evaluation to willing and available community members to make a fairly large job (deliberately identifying values and embedding them within technical specifications) a bit more palatable to researchers who are sympathetic to values-intentionality, but are either uninformed or simply don't have the incredible amount of time required to earnestly adopt values-intentional design.

External analysis also serves as the final evaluation method of the framework. Similarly to LOOM, BRAIDS_ v2 will undergo a values-accurate self analysis; if successful, BRAIDS_ contributes to the success of the framework. Likewise, if an external evaluator deems the research product values-intentional, the effectiveness of the values-accurate framework will be further solidified.

Conclusion

The intended research of this PhD project aims to develop a novel approach to DMI ideation, creation, and dissemination that is in alignment with the diverse cultural commitments and values of designers and design researchers. Although this research is singularly focused on DMI design, the resultant methodology, in its flexibility, will find a wide array of applications with the greater human computer interaction, design researcher, and RtD practitioner communities writ large.

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