Clara Mancini

The Open University (UK) · Department of Computing and Communications

Understanding how animals might make sense of the interfaces they interact with is important to inform the design of animal-centered interactions. In this regard, biosemiotics provides a useful lens through which to examine animals’ interactions with interfaces and the sensemaking mechanisms that might underpin such interactions. This paper leverag...

Cat Royale is an artist-led exploration of trustworthy autonomous systems created by the TAS Hub's creative ambassadors Blast Theory. A small community of cats inhabits a purpose built `cat utopia' at the centre of which a robot arm tries to enrich their lives by playing with them. We initially present the design of Cat Royale as an autonomous syst...

This Research Topic collects contributions from different perspectives, which highlight possible animal-centered approaches in research and design, as well as challenges that animal-centered approaches might pose and how these might be addressed. Bringing together novel contributions that demonstrate how animal-centered technologies, research metho...

This workshop aims to facilitate human participants to become more aware of other animals' sensory and aesthetic sensibilities, raising points for discussion and future research within ACI. For all animals, being able to make sense of the environment is crucial in order to gain control and make informed choices, as well as to achieve competence in...

Designers and researchers who work with animals need to employ an array of ethical competencies to guarantee the welfare of animals taking part in animal-centered research. The emerging field of Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI), which deals with the design of animal-centered interactive systems, considers ethics a fundamental concern when working...

The last decade has witnessed the expansion of design space to include the epistemologies and methodologies of more-than-human design (MTHD). Design researchers and practitioners have been in- creasingly studying, designing for, and designing with nonhumans. This panel will bring together HCI experts who work on MTHD with different nonhumans as the...

The principles of Replacement, Reduction and Refinement (3Rs) were developed to address the ethical dilemma that arises from the use of animals, without their consent, in procedures that may harm them but that are deemed necessary to achieve a greater good. While aiming to protect animals, the 3Rs are underpinned by a process-centered ethical persp...

Privacy is an essential consideration when designing interactive systems for humans. However, at a time when interactive technologies are increasingly targeted at non-human animals and deployed within multispecies contexts, the question arises as to whether we should extend privacy considerations to other animals. To address this question, we revis...

The aim of this research was to discover if artificial neural networks can be used to classify pressure sensor data generated by medical detection dogs as they sniff biological samples. A detection dog can be trained to recognise the odour emitted by one of a wide range of diseases such as prostate cancer, malaria or, potentially, COVID-19. The dog...

This is a demonstration of how to use a deck of Concept Craft Cards that represent the first iteration of a toolkit for Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI) developers. The cards will be available to share, discuss and deploy online in relation to a series of non-human client briefs. At the top conceptual level, we offer suggestions for ACI developers...

Article in Tierstudien 18/2020: Tiere und/als Medien ed. Jessica Ullrich / Stefan Rieger ISBN: 978-3-95808-315-8 available 31 Oct 2020 https://neofelis-verlag.de/verlagsprogramm/zeitschriften/tierstudien/1014/tiere-und/als-medien

Animals can be negatively affected by wearable tracking devices, even those marketed as 'animal friendly' and increasingly used with companion animals, such as cats. To understand the wearer experience of cats fitted with popular GPS trackers, we measured the behavior of 13 feline participants while they were wearing the devices during a field stud...

Species-specific aesthetics is an important consideration for interaction designers working with animals. The paper explores the concept of species-specific aesthetics with particular reference to elephants. Applying existing aesthetic dimensions and design principles to the challenge of designing interactive enrichment for them, we show how the in...

This paper presents a Wearer-Centered Framework (WCF) developed to support designing for good wearability in animal biotelemetry. Firstly, we describe the framework and the systematic process followed to develop it. Then, we report on how the WCF was evaluated with three teams of designers, who used it collaboratively to design a cat-centered track...

In this paper we present an approach to designing wearer-centered biotelemetry for non-human (and human) animal wearers. Drawing from fundamental values and principles of user-centered design, we describe a wearer-centered framework to heuristically establish design requirements, which was used during a series of workshops to perform a requirements...

Domestic cats are usually allowed to roam freely outside without human supervision, which creates a new market for consumer GPS tracking devices. However, current GPS devices and the supporting interfaces and visualizations are usually created with a focus on dog owners. To acquire more insight into the needs of cat owners in relation to GPS device...

Animal Computer Interaction (ACI) aims to design user-centered interactions between animals and technology. In this regard, a major challenge for researchers is accurately assessing and interpreting animal behavior, in part, due to the invasive nature of data collection techniques and to the individuality of behavior. This paper presents a method t...

Interactive technology has become integral part of daily life for both humans and animals, with animals often interacting with technologized environments on behalf of humans. For some, animals' participation in the design process is essential to design technology that can adequately support their activities. For others, animals' inability to unders...

This workshop focuses on the use and influence of technology on human-animal bonding, and how to facilitate them with technology. We explore the elements and characteristics of human-animal bonding, and how technology is connected to emotions and bonding between the human and the animal. We are particularly interested in animal's experiences, emoti...

This paper presents a methodological approach used to assess the wearability of biotelemetry devices in animals. A detailed protocol to gather quantitative and qualitative ethological observations was adapted and tested in an experimental study of 13 cat participants wearing two different GPS devices. The aim was twofold: firstly, to ascertain the...

This paper explores Research through Design (RtD) as a potential methodology for developing new interactive experiences for animals. We present an example study from an ongoing project and examine whether RtD offers an appropriate framework for developing knowledge in the context of Animal-Computer Interaction, as well as considering how best to do...

This paper investigates the potential for using technology to support the development of sensory and cognitive enrichment activities for captive elephants. It explores the usefulness of applying conceptual frameworks from interaction design and game design to the problem of developing species-specific smart toys that promote natural behaviours and...

Participatory Design with children strives to broaden the perspective of and increase empathy in design for the needs and desires of children by giving children a voice in the design process. The exact nature of the role played by children in the design process (e.g. user, informant, co-designer) and how much voice they are actually given has been...

Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI) is a new and quickly developing discipline, which is closely related to HCI and is making reference to some of its theoretical frameworks and research methodologies. The first edition of the Workshop on Research Methods in ACI (RM4ACI) was co-located with the Third International Conference on Animal-Computer Intera...

This case study describes our progress towards the goal of providing technology-enhanced enrichment for an Asian elephant so that she can exercise choice and control. We offer guidelines for developers to show how interaction design with a captive elephant might be approached.

In this paper we discuss the role of mobility assistance dogs in human society and the challenges they face when operating in human environments. We present the findings of an ethnographic study at a training facility as well as the findings of early evaluations of canine-friendly switches. We discuss how the species-specific implementation of core...

This research presents a preliminary study conducted on a cat fitted with biotelemetry devices. The aim was to explore the feline's wearability experience of bearing off-the-shelf products. The cat's reactions to the device presence were recorded and findings suggest the need for a design approach centred on the wearer. A wearer-centred framework t...

In this editorial to the IJHCS Special Issue on Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI), we provide an overview of the state-of-the-art in this emerging field, outlining the main scientific interests of its developing community, in a broader cultural context of evolving human-animal relations. We summarise the core aims proposed for the development of AC...

Participatory Design strives to broaden the perspective of and increase empathy in design by giving specific and often under represented user groups, such as children or older people, a voice in the design process. The exact nature of the role played by such participants in the design process (e.g. user, informant, co-designer) and how much voice t...

Animal-computer interaction (ACI) is an emerging discipline concerned with studying the relationship between animals and technology, designing interactive technology to support animals, and developing methodologies that can enable animals to participate in the design process as legitimate stakeholders. By welcoming animals to the design table, ACI...

This case study describes approaches to the challenge of designing interfaces for an elephant that enable her to control playful systems in her enclosure, for the purpose of enriching her environment. Our contribution to the symposium will showcase the progress of the enrichment toys and explain in detail how we have collected feedback during parti...

This workshop will explore research into interactive and digital technologies in zoos, aquariums and wildlife parks. Such sites are making increasing use of technology in their work to foster educational, emotional and entertaining connections between visitors and animals, with the goal of transforming attitudes to wildlife and conservation. Bringi...

This work explores the use of technology to help create different kinds of interfaces for controls aimed at captive elephants, enabling them to interact with digitally enhanced playful systems (smart toys). The focus of the paper is on current participatory design sessions with an elephant and her keepers, giving rise to insights on species-specifi...

The emerging discipline of Animal–Computer Interaction (ACI) aims to take what in Interaction Design is known as a user-centred approach to the design of technology intended for animals, placing them at the centre of the design process as stakeholders, users, and contributors. However, current regulatory frameworks for the involvement of animals in...

Postcard and associated video poster.

We conducted a short study investigating the pressure patterns produced by cancer detection dogs via a canine-centered interface while searching samples of amyl acetate. We advance previous work by providing further insights into the potential of the approach for supporting and partly automating the practice of cancer detection with dogs.

This research is investigating the potential for designing digital toys and games as playful cognitive enrichment activities for captive elephants. The new field of Animal Computer Interaction is exploring a range of approaches to the problem of designing user-centred systems for animals and this investigation into devices for elephants aims to dir...

In this research we developed an alarm system that enables assistance dogs to call for help on behalf of their vulnerable owners in an emergency, involving the end users (both assistance dogs and their owners) directly in the entire design process. Here we present a high-fidelity prototype of a user-friendly canine alarm system. In developing the s...

Many vulnerable individuals own an assistance dog. Previous work has shown that a domestic alarm, Ringsel, allows assistance dogs to "call for help" via a canine interface that they interact with by pulling a detachment off with their mouths. Here we discuss the potential for systems like the Ringsel to leverage distinct behavioral patterns exhibit...

Position paper for ACI@BHCI (Animal Computer Interaction Workshop) 13 July 2015, at British HCI 2015, Lincoln, UK.

We report on participatory design research where interaction designers, and canine behavioral specialists, together with their cancer detection dogs, teamed up to better support the dogs' life-saving work. We discuss interspecies communication challenges in cancer detection training, requiring the dogs to use human signaling conventions that pertur...

We report on participatory design research where interaction designers, and canine behavioral specialists, together with their cancer detection dogs, teamed up to better support the dogs’ life-saving work. We discuss interspecies communication challenges in cancer detection training, requiring the dogs to use human signaling conventions that pertur...

Through short presentations, collaborative design exercises and plenary discussions, this one-day workshop aims to explore questions and possibilities for the development of ACI as a discipline.

Whilst the ubicomp community has successfully embraced a number of societal challenges for human benefit, including healthcare and sustainability, the well-being of other animals is hitherto underrepresented. We argue that ubicomp technologies, including sensing and monitoring devices as well as tangible and embodied interfaces, could make a valuab...

Many people with Diabetes live with the continuous threat of hypoglycemic attacks and the danger of going into coma. Diabetes Alert Dogs are trained to detect the onset of an attack before the condition of the human handler they are paired with deteriorates, giving them time to take action. We investigated requirements for designing an alarm system...

This project investigates the potential for designing playful cognitive enrichment activities for captive elephants. We explore the usefulness of applying conceptual frameworks from HCI and game design to the problem of developing species-specific smart toys that promote natural behaviour and provide stimulation. Available: doc.gold.ac.uk/aisb50/A...

This paper explores the intersection of assistance dog welfare and intelligent systems with a technological intervention in the form of an emergency canine alert system. We make the case that assistance dog welfare can be affected by the welfare of their human handlers, and examine the need for a canine alert system that enables the dog to take con...

We present the findings of an early requirements elicitation study for a smart kennel supporting canine welfare. We discuss unique challenges posed by the kennel environment in terms of design outcomes and research processes.

In introducing the First Symposium of Intelligent Systems for Animal Welfare, we share our vision for a new multidisciplinary field of animal welfare informatics, in which scholars from artificial intelligence, computer science, animal science, veterinary medicine and other fields join efforts to exploit state-of-the-art technologies for the improv...

We present the findings of an early requirements elicitation study for a smart kennel supporting canine welfare. We discuss unique challenges posed by the kennel environment in terms of design outcomes and research processes.

In the spirit of this year’s conference theme ‘changing perspectives’, this paper invites the CHI community to glance at interaction design through the lense of Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI). In particular, I argue that such a perspective could have at least three benefits: strengthening HCI as a discipline; broadening participation in Interact...

The domestic use of tracking technology with pets is on the rise, yet is under-researched. We investigate how tracking practices reconfigure human-dog relationships changing both humans and dogs. We question the sensemaking mechanisms by which both humans and dogs engage in context-based meaningful exchanges via the technology’s mediation. We show...

User-computer interaction research is demonstrating growing interest in the relation between animals and technology (e.g., computer-mediated interspecies interactions and animal-computer interfaces). However, as a research area, this topic is still underexplored and fragmented, and researchers lack opportunities to exchange ideas, identify resource...

The first International workshop on Privacy Management in Mobile Applications (PriMo 2011) was held on the 27th of June, 2011 in Copenhagen, Denmark in conjunction with the Fifth International Conference on Trust Management (IFIPTM) conference. The workshop drew leading international researchers from universities in the UK, Europe, North America an...

Advances in an understanding of animal and comparative cognition, and those in computing technology, make the development of animal-computer interaction (ACI) as a discipline both possible as well as timely, supported by environmental, economic, and cultural changes. ACI aims to understand the interaction between animals and computing technology wi...

A growing body of research has been exploring the use of control mechanisms to address the privacy concerns raised by location-tracking technology. We report on a qualitative study of two family groups who used a custom-built tracking application for an extended period of time. Akin to sociological breaching experiments, the study focuses on the in...

We present a qualitative study examining Location-Based Service (LBS) usage by families and how it is integrated into everyday life. We establish that LBS, when used for tracking purposes, affords a means of digital nurturing; that said, we discuss how LBS surveillance has the potential to undermine trust and serve as a detriment to nurturing.

peer-reviewed How can we best explore the range of users’ reactions when developing future technologies that may be controversial, such as personal healthcare systems? Our approach in ContraVision uses futuristic videos, or other narrative forms, that convey both negative and positive aspects of the proposed technology for the same scenarios. This...

How can we best explore the range of users' reactions when developing future technologies that maybe controversial, such as personal healthcare systems? Our approach – Contravision – uses futuristic videos, or other narrative forms, that convey either negative or positive aspects of the proposed technology for the same scenarios. We conducted a use...

Mobile privacy concerns are central to Ubicomp and yet remain poorly understood. We advocate a diversified approach, enabling the cross-interpretation of data from complementary methods. However, mobility imposes a number of limitations on the methods that can be effectively employed. We discuss how we addressed this problem in an empirical study o...

The Windows Vista personal firewall provides its diverse users with a basic interface that hides many operational details. However, concealing the impact of network context on the security state of the firewall may result in users developing an incorrect ...

Mapping scholarly debates is an important genre of what can be called Knowledge Domain Analytics (KDA) technology – i.e. technology which combines both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysing specialist knowledge domains. However, current KDA technology research has emerged from diverse traditions and thus lacks a common conceptual founda...

To produce coherent linear documents, Natural Language Generation systems have traditionally exploited the structuring role of textual discourse markers such as relational and referential phrases. These coherence markers of the traditional notion of text, however, do not work in non-linear documents: a new set of graphical devices is needed togethe...

In this paper we introduce a method for generating interactive documents which exploits the visual features of hypertext to represent discourse structure. We explore the consistent and principled use of graphics and animation to support navigation and comprehension of non-linear text, where textual discourse markers do not always work effectively.

This article characterizes key weaknesses in the ability of current digital libraries to support scholarly inquiry, and as a way to address these, proposes computational services grounded in semiformal models of the naturalistic argumentation commonly found in research literatures. It is argued that a design priority is to balance formal expressive...

There are long and well-established literatures on textual devices that signal the coherence structure of a discourse to the reader, within theoretical, computational and psycholinguistics. Most of the work so far has addressed the traditional conceptualization of text as a two dimensional array on a physical page, traversed in a set pattern (e.g.,...

This paper examines the representational requirements for interactive, collaborative systems intended to support sensemaking and argumentation over contested issues. We argue that a perspective supported by semiotic and cognitively oriented discourse analyses offers both theoretical insights and motivates representational requirements for the seman...

This paper introduces the memetic toolkit for recording meetings held over Internet-based video conferencing technologies, and making these navigable in linear and nonlinear ways. We introduce the tools and technologies that form the toolkit and discuss the semantics of the information they capture

This paper introduces the Memetic toolkit for recording the normally ephemeral interactions conducted via internet video conferencing, and making these navigable and manipulable in linear and non-linear ways. We introduce two complementary interaction visualizations: argumentation-based concept maps to elucidate the conceptual structure of the disc...

This paper characterises key weaknesses in the ability of current digital libraries to support scholarly inquiry, and as a way to address these, proposes computational services grounded in semiformal models of the naturalistic argumentation commonly found in research lteratures. It is argued that a design priority is to balance formal expressivenes...

This paper proposes the paradigm of 'Cinematic' Hypertext (CH), in which discourse form is represented following principles that underpin the expression of narrative patterns in cinema. Primarily tackling hypertext discourse coherence in the non-linear medium, CH is conceived as a way of thinking the hypertext medium that is consistent with its cha...

This paper characterises weaknesses,in the ability of current digital libraries to support scholarly inquiry, andas a way to address these, proposes,services grounded,in semiformal,models,of the naturalistic argumentation commonly,found in research literatures. It is argued that a design priority is to balance formal expressiveness with usability....

Hypertext’s non-linearity has critical implications for scholarly discourse and argumentation, where it is commonly considered important to control the reader’s exposure to the line of reasoning in order to communicate complex ideas and maximise rhetorical impact. Hypertext’s non-linearity has been seen to threaten authors ’ control over discourse...

We discuss issues arising from the design, implementation and first use of a prototype infrastructure for distributed collective practice (IDCP), and reflect upon their intersection with some of the themes emerging from the Paris 2000 IDCP workshop. The problem of maintaining coherence in a distributed system is of central interest to us. We focus...

In previous work we argued that cinematic language may provide insights into the construction of narrative coherence in hypertext, and we identified in the shot juxtaposition of rhetorical patterns the source of coherence for cinematic discourse. Here we deepen our analysis, to show how the mechanisms that underpin cinematic rhetorical patterns are...

In previous work we argued that cinematic language may provide insights into the construction of narrative coherence in hypertext, and we identified in the shot juxtaposition of rhetorical patterns the source of coherence for cinematic discourse. Here we deepen our analysis, to show how the mechanisms that underpin cinematic rhetorical patterns are...

This paper argues that cinematographic language may pro- vide insights into the construction of narrative coherence in hypertext. Brief examples of cinematic representation mod- els are mapped onto the hypertext domain.