Ben Kirman

University of Lincoln · Lincoln Social Computing Research Centre

Gig economy is presented as disruptive, technologically driven, and forward thinking. Design is explicit in this framing, through use of slick apps to reduce friction and simplify experience for customer and worker. However, this framing is often driven by the platforms, and does not fully recognize the actual experience of work. In this paper we r...

Pervasive technologies are already transforming “The Future of Work.” Mobile technologies, IoT, and data promise efficient and convenient work “on-demand.” They are convenient too for platform providers whose clean and efficient interfaces for consumers disrupt marketplaces, offering digitally mediated access to services at a click. These same tech...

Gig economy platforms are having profound impacts on when and how much we work. But it is not just the qualities of work that are changing, as these platforms have also eroded workers' rights in disempowering workers around the world whilst making use of discourses of empowerment (e.g. flexibility, entrepreneurial values) to promote themselves. 'Sw...

This short paper makes an argument about our lack of comfort, as researchers, in developing a science, and a technology, for enacting control over behavior. We present a design fiction about a smart prison, in which behavior change is facilitated via always-on IoT-facilitated monitoring. This fiction may be read simultaneously as a constructive app...

In this article we explore near-future of the pervasive computing, AI, and HCI in the context of the disruptive potential of technologies on workers in the on-demand gig economy. Using fictional abstracts, the authors muse on dystopian case studies of: independent contractors, last-mile couriers, teachers, and creative professionals. This article s...

In this paper, we present a structured report on a dialogue on the Future of Computing and Wisdom. The dialogue consists of a recorded and transcribed discussion between researchers and practitioners in the field of Human–Computer Interaction that was held at workshop in conjunction with the 10th Nordic Conference on Human–Computer Interaction in S...

There has been an increasing interest in discussing the consequences of the technologies we invent and study in HCI. Whether it is climate change, ethical computing, capitalist and neo-liberal models of commerce and society, grassroots movements, big data or alternative paradigms in distributed systems, this workshop will invite participants to exp...

The increasing capability of smart mobile devices to use geolocation and networking has resulted in a proliferation of digital mobile computing services that respond to the social and physical places we visit as we move through the world. This chapter reports and comments on a series of four provocative design projects undertaken in order to better...

Fiction has long been important to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research and practice. Through familiar tools such as personas, scenarios and role-play, fictions can support the exploration and communication of complex psychological, social and technical requirements between diverse collections of designers, developers and end-users. More recen...

We present craft beer as part of an artisan industry case study that demonstrates how the use of social media creates a community narrative that engages both producer and consumer around the artisanal produce and its values. In contrast to mass drinks production, the past decade has seen a resurgence in specialist artisan 'craft beer' producers, ma...

In this paper we investigate how online counter-discourse is designed, deployed and orchestrated by activists to challenge dominant narratives around socio-political issues. We focus on activism related to the UK broadcast media’s negative portrayal of welfare benefit claimants; portrayals characterised as “poverty porn” by critics. Using critical...

We argue that the huge success of Augmented Reality game Pokémon Go has little to do with clever design. Rather, the success is due to the nostalgic branding, with a franchise for which people already have great affection. As exasperated academics, rather than resist, we have decided to sell out. We suggest that a similar nostalgic branding strateg...

Bots are estimated to account for well over half of all web traffic, yet they remain an understudied topic in HCI. In this paper we present the findings of an analysis of 2284 submissions across three discussion groups dedicated to the request, creation and discussion of bots on Reddit. We set out to examine the qualities and functionalities of bot...

Just as lightweight, reliable, affordable computing devices have enabled wearable technology for humans, we are beginning to see similar devices developed for companion animals. But how do we implement design processes that are respectful of the needs and values of all users, when some of these users are not human? The human ability to use language...

User engagement in processes of co-design and co-creation are common practices in Social Network Games (SNGs). Though the interdependency between producer and user is of mutual benefit throughout much of the lifetime of an SNG, there are critical moments where this relationship becomes problematic. We adopt an ethnographic approach, covering the en...

Recent years have seen the massive daily engagement of players with games that are integrated with online social networking sites, such as Facebook. However, few games have successfully created engaging experiences through integration with microblogging websites. In this paper, we explore the opportunities and challenges in using Twitter as a platf...

Uncomfortable interactions are a common aspect of daily life, and have been explored in Human-Computer Interaction; yet little is known about uncomfortable gaming experiences. In this paper, we report on the design and preliminary evaluation of a game in which one player is invited to lie down in a coffin. Results of an exploratory user study sugge...

Although participatory design (PD) is currently the most acceptable and respectful process we have for designing technology, recent discussions suggest that there may be two barriers to the successful application of PD to the design of digital games: First, the involvement of audiences with special needs can introduce new practical and ethical chal...

This paper announces the "Games Against Health" (GAH) research agenda, a criticism of, and response to, the cultural imperialism of the "Games for Health" paradigm. Committed to player-centric design ethics, GAH seeks to dismantle the "games for health" myth as neo-liberal elitist diktat. We acknowledge the values, tastes and pleasures of billions...

There is growing interest in technology that quantifies aspects of our lives. This paper draws on critical practice and speculative design to explore, question and problematise the ultimate consequences of such technology using the quantification of companion animals (pets) as a case study. We apply the concept of "moving upstream" to study such te...

What if every part of our everyday life was turned into a game? The implications of “gamification.” What if our whole life were turned into a game? What sounds like the premise of a science fiction novel is today becoming reality as “gamification.” As more and more organizations, practices, products, and services are infused with elements from game...

We present a critical evaluation of a locative media application, Fearsquare, which provocatively invites users to engage with personally contextualized risk information drawn from the UK open data crime maps cross-referenced with geo-located user check-ins on Foursquare. Our analysis of user data and a corpus of #Fearsquare discourse on Twitter re...

The pace at which challenges are introduced in a game has long been identified as a key determinant of both the enjoyment and difficulty experienced by game players, and their ability to learn from game play. In order to understand how to best pace challenges in games, there is great value in analysing games already demonstrated as highly engaging....

This paper presents two fingers to the HCI establishment. We reject the status quo that defines what language and forms are appropriate "contributions" for this staid "community" of quasi-scientific poseurs. We argue that CHI in particular is a tool that serves to reinforce the political and ideological status quo, favouring sell-out researchers wi...

This paper presents a critical lens on the nature of the relationship between people and contemporary technology. Specifically, the form and language of erotic BDSM romance fiction, a genre that deals specifically with the nature of power in relationships, and which has proved extremely popular recently, are used as a means for provoking reflection...

Design research and practice within HCI is inherently oriented toward the future. However, the vision of the future described by HCI researchers and practitioners is typically utility-driven and focuses on the short term. It rarely acknowledges the potentially complex social and psychological long-term consequences of the technology artefacts produ...

As robots from the future, we are compelled to present this important historical document which discusses how the systematic investigation of interactive technology facilitated and hastened the enslavement of mankind by robots during the 21st Century. We describe how the CHI community, in general, was largely responsible for this eventuality, as we...

We propose that pervasive games designed with mechanics that are specifically in opposition with, or disruptive of, social rules of the environment in which they are played, have unique potential to provide interesting, provocative experiences for players. We explore this concept through the design and evaluation of an experimental game prototype,...

We present a platform for Intra and Inter Domain Social Information Service (IIDSIS), able to identify, analyse and exploit (complex) relationships emerging from the use of multiple pervasive Internet services, offered in different domains. The computed social information is offered as a service to the domain applications, both to improve their eff...

In this paper, we explore the role of mischief as borderline socially acceptable behaviour within social computing applications. Mischievous activity pushes the boundaries of the implicit social contract present in all online social systems, and, we argue, is of vital importance understanding online social interactions. Using examples from games an...

This paper describes ongoing work in developing social computing systems and services to support serendipitous real life experiences. The paper introduces the location-aware prototype service "GetLostBot", which uses the Foursquare API to longitudinally monitor a user's check-in locations and intervenes when they have fallen into a predictable rout...

This chapter discusses how a focus on establishing the appropriate learning outcomes of an educational programme, and creatively incorporating these learning outcomes within the design of a game, can lead to the development of a useful educational game. Specifically, it demonstrates the process involved in generating game design criteria from a mul...

The attribution of human-like traits to non-human animals, termed anthropomorphism, can lead to misunderstandings of animal behaviour, which can result in risks to both human and animal well being and welfare. In this paper, we, during an inter-disciplinary collaboration between social computing and animal behaviour researchers, investigated whethe...

In this paper, we describe a pervasive game, Blowtooth, in which players use their mobile phones to hide virtual drugs on nearby airline passengers in real airport check-in queues. After passing through airport security, the player must find and recover their drugs from the innocent bystanders, without them ever realising they were involved in the...

"Social games", defined as games played and distributed on Social Networks, have become a digital gaming phenomenon. The most popular games boast tens of millions of users each month, employing simple mechanics to reach a vast new audience that was apparently under-served by traditional digital games. Their enormous success raises important academi...

There has recently been a great deal of interest in the potential of computer games to function as innovative educational tools. However, there is very little evidence of games fulfilling that potential. Indeed, the process of merging the disparate goals of education and games design appears problematic, and there are currently no practical guideli...

This paper reports on the pilot evaluation of "Power Ballads", an evocative social media application which displays aversive feedback based on excessive household energy usage. Work by other researchers in persuasive technologies has previously suggested the use of aversive feedback should be avoided as it leads to a lack of engagement by users. Th...

This paper explores the concept of the “social architecture ” of games, and tests the theory that it is possible to analyse game mechanics based on the effect they have on the social behaviour of the players. Using tools from Social Network Analysis, these studies confirm that social activity in games reliably follows a power distribution: a few pl...

Social Games, built and played on social networks such as Facebook, have rapidly become a major force in the world of game development, and the top social games today claim more players than any other online game on any format. As social games begin to mature from their roots as simple playful social toys and into the products of big business, the...

Previous research has suggested that social and competitive interaction over online social networking sites could be harnessed in order to motivate behaviour change in users. This paper presents the design and in-the-wild evaluation of StepMatron, a Facebook application designed to provide social and competitive context for daily pedometer readings...

This paper describes the design and initial evaluation of Tag-liatelle, a collaborative tagging application for encouraging healthier eating. Users photograph their own meals and upload these photos to a website, where fellow users anonymously tag them for content. Initial results suggest that tagging of food content is a popular activity. However,...

In this paper we argue that "persuasive technologies," developed to motivate behaviour change in users, have so far failed to exploit the established body of empirical research within behavioural science. We propose that persuasive technologies may benefit from both adapting to individual preferences, and a constructive use of aversive, in addition...

In this paper we describe the results of a controlled study of a social game, Magpies, which was built on the Facebook Online Social Network (OSN) and enhanced with contextual social information in the form of a variety of social network indices. Through comparison with a concurrent control trial using an identical game without the enhanced social...

This paper describes Blowtooth, a Bluetooth-implemented pervasive game where players smuggle virtual drugs through real airport security with the help of unknowing bystanders. The game explores the nature of pervasive game playing in environments that are not generally regarded as playful or "fun," and where people are subject to particularly high...

This paper is an experience report based on challenges encountered when designing scalable mobile persuasive HCI applications to help users make informed choices over their food consumption. We recently developed Tagliatelle, a social tagging system to help users to accurately monitor and assess their dietary behaviour and to promote healthier food...

In this paper, we describe the design and development of a social game called Familiars. Inspired by the daemons in Pullman's "Dark Material" trilogy, Familiars are animal companions that sit on your Facebook profile and change into different animal forms based on your social activity within the social network of Facebook. Familiars takes advantage...

In this paper, we explore the structure of a social community built in an online game that was released in two languages, specifically examining the behaviours of players involved in inter-lingual interaction. This asynchronous social game was released simultaneously in Italian and English. The player base was seeded with English and Italian player...

The current paper describes the building of a serious game designed to teach group decision making skills to a unique audience; people who co-ordinate responses to real-world emergencies such as floods, fires, volcanoes and chemical spills. Eighteen participants were recruited and videotaped while playing a paper prototype of the game. Players' act...

Games built on Online Social Networks (OSNs) have become a phenomenon since 3rd party developer tools were released by OSNs such as Facebook. However, apart from their explosive popularity, little is known about the nature of the social networks that are built during play. In this paper, we present the findings of a network analysis study carried o...

In the social network of a web-based online game, all players are not equal. Through network analysis, we show that the community of players in a online social game is an example of a scale free small world network and that the growth of the player-base obeys a power law. The community is centred around a minority group of “hardcore” players who d...

Serious games are games that are designed to educate rather than entertain. The game outlined and evaluated here was commissioned and designed as a tool to improve the group decision making skills of people who manage real-world emergencies such as floods, fires, volcanoes and chemical spills. The game design exploits research on decision making gr...

This paper describes the current state of our ongoing work developing tools for tracking player enjoyment in traditional face-to-face tabletop gaming situations. The challenge presented is that of quantifying game enjoyment whilst minimising the effects of the measurement techniques on the validity of the study. This paper presents the development...

This paper introduces 'Gophers', a social game for mobile devices that utilises task oriented gameplay to create a novel entertainment experience. The study combines a number of key research themes: mobile social gaming, acquiring useful data through gameplay and content sharing in mobile settings. The experience of trialling the game in the real w...

This paper presents the mobile multiplayer gaming application Familiars. Familiars leverages social networking and locative technologies to create a reactive social experience for the game's participants over extended periods of time. The game is based around the concept of each player owning a Familiar –a virtual sprite or creature somewhat simila...

This paper describes how user-generated content can be harnessed to create compelling games for research purposes. We show that by entrusting the complicated processes of asset creation and management to the players themselves, research based games can still allow for rich, deep and unique experiences -experiences that would be impossible to create...

The PASION (Psychologically Augmented Social Interaction Over Networks) project is designed to research social presence technologies and their effect on individual and group behaviour within mediated collaborative environments. A mobile multiplayer social game called Familiars is being designed, where the success and rank of a player within the gam...

Playing online games is a social pastime, one in which today's players can share their gaming experiences with millions of strangers from all over the world. In this melting pot, people with different cultural and social values are brought together in an environment where normal social rules may be fuzzy and not clearly defined. In this environment...