Welcome to our presentation on meaningful human-computer interaction.
My name is Quynh Nguyen from the Center for Technology Experience of the AIT Austrian
Institute of Technology.
My colleague Julia Himmelsbach, also from the AIT, is here with me today.
According to existential philosopher and psychotherapist Viktor Frankl,
Humans are beings that struggle for the concrete meaning in their individual lives.
At the same time, the concern for meaning in and of their existence is one of the main
characteristics of humans.
Users of technology, as humans, are therefore also meaning-seeking entities.
With the evolving relationship between people and technology, it is thus necessary for human-computer
interaction to reflect the fundamental aspect of meaningfulness.
However, HCI hasn't come to a conclusion of what "meaningfulness" actually entails.
With few exceptions, such as the work of Kaptelinin or Mekler & Hornbaek, there is not much research
on meaning in the field.
To address this, we explore HCI through the lens of Viktor Frankl's work in existential
philosophy and psychotherapy.
We take up three concepts that Frankl calls the 'existentials of being human' - responsibility,
freedom, and noos - and we explore how they interact with technology.
Before we begin with this exploration , a short definition of each of these existentials.
Freedom and responsibility are viewed by Frankl as two sides of the same coin: On the one
hand, humans are free to take critical distance and choose their attitude towards any (outer,
physical, or psychological) circumstances.
You are not only free from something, but also free to do something – to seek meaning.
On the other hand, responsibility focuses on the things we are free to do.
In other words, we are responsible – based on our situation and context – to do something
with the freedom that we're freedom given.
With the term noos, Frankl aimed to emphasize a 'spiritual' dimension of humans while purposely
foregoing religious connotations of the term 'spirit'.
According to Frankl, the noetic dimension acts as the human foundation and is inextricable
from the body and psyche.
Noos can be found in a person’s creativity, humor and ability to look outward, to seek
self-transcendence.
Against this background, we explore what meaningful HCI is.
We take up Frankl’s concepts of responsibility, freedom, and noos and explore how they interact
with technology.
By investigating the existentials’ role in HCI, we provide a theoretical lens to better
understand meaningful interaction and design.
We aim to provoke a discussion to create a foundation to incorporate meaning in HCI on
four levels: first, the presented theoretical concepts
provide an in-depth understanding of meaning; second, the existentials enable critical design
reflections and evaluations; third, it contributes to HCI epistemology
by understanding users as meaning-seeking subjects.
And fourth, Frankl's theory draws our attention to the designer's role and responsibility.
We present a theoretical examination conducted through the reflections of the authors.
In addition, we also conducted two expert workshops including experts on Frankl’s
theories, social science, and interdisciplinary technology research.
The workshop results served as input to revise and extend our initial concept application.
By that, we identified four dimensions of each existential: The existential as an outcome,
embedded in technology, in interaction, and of (non)usage.
Freedom as an outcome of technology usage refers to opening up new possibilities, life
choices and experiences for the user Furthermore, the technology and design becomes
an artifact of the designer’s ideas.
In other words, the designer’s notions of meaningful tasks and related freedom are reflected
in the design.
This includes, for example, the designer’s ideas of how, when, where and for what purpose
users should use a technology.
In HCI, freedom in interaction typically relates to aspects of user control.
Frankl’s ideas go beyond that.
The freedom of choices includes all interaction decisions as well as shaping environments
and virtual worlds, such as in open world concepts in games.
Users also have the freedom to use technologies in unplanned or unintended ways or not at all.
(Non)usage is thus on a continuum.
Notably, non-freedom of non-usage does not originate from the technology itself but emerges
from the entanglement of technology with society and culture.
Frankl points out that all individuals have the responsibility to seek for a meaningful life.
Responsibility as an outcome strongly relates to the individual’s realization of values.
Because of that, responsibility is bound to human beings, not artifacts.
Nevertheless, there is a responsibility embedded in technology: the responsibility of the designers.
Hence, this responsibility is interwoven with the design process.
For example, questions arise such as: Do the designers consider social power structures,
like in the case of marginalized user groups, and do they explicitly aim to reduce such
social inequalities?
Do they hold themselves accountable even if a system does not meet that goal?
In line, responsibility in interaction is a second-order responsibility.
Is it a means to fulfil humanist values and ethical goals through the usage of technology.
And also the responsibility of not using a system concerns these consequences.
However, we want to point out that this responsibility is based of the freedom of non-usage and thus,
the relevance of the social, organizational and technological context enabling such decisions.
With the help of technologies, noos can also be achieved as an outcome.
Technologies can support our search for meaning, for example by bringing people closer together
despite physical distance, as we have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
And it can enable us to be creative or funny.
As such, technology has become an inherent part of our societal life, of our strive for
meaning and connectivity to other members of society.
In this sense, technologies co-shape society.
The noetic dimension therefore goes beyond the situative use of technologies:
they shape our social life, work, and our relationships.
Next, the noos embedded in technology is a manifestation of the noos of the users envisioned
by the designer or -- more generally -- her notions and images of the user.
We can thus ask ourselves: Does the technology reflect the user’s strive
for meaning and self-fulfillment, does it allow for meaningful and creative practices
– or is the user reduced to a ‘machine’, merely providing input to the technology’s output?
Noetic interaction includes creative and playful interaction but also possibilities of inscribing
the self within the technology.
For example, choosing a personal desktop image or other personalization options might enable
the users to make the self in technologies explicit.
The relationships a user enters with technologies could also be shaped by dimensions like trust.
Lastly, noos of nonusage comes to bear when using technology has a direct or indirect influence
on our notions of humanity.
The invention of visualization technologies such as ultrasound permanently changed the
notion of ’unborn life’ and the experience of pregnancy, for example.
Similarly, the transhumanist idea describes such as shift: Underneath the goal of enhancing
human intelligence and thus, our noos, might be the implication that transhumans are better humans.
We now want to take the example of the existentials in interaction to show that the existentials
are highly interwoven.
Noos in interaction needs freedom as the users need choices and options to be creative in
their interaction.
Further, noos needs responsibility by ensuring understandable, controllable, and reliable
interaction to enable a positive relationship with the technology.
Therefore, it seems that freedom and responsibility in interaction enable noos.
However, sometimes freedom also has to be carefully balanced against responsibility
and noos, as more choices also increase the complexity of the interaction and may lower
the ease of use.
Hence, noos and responsibility in interaction open up questions of how much freedom is needed
to allow the user's responsibility and noos to come true.
With our examinations, we aimed to present a framework of what meaningful HCI is.
By that, we want to enable design for meaningful lives.
Especially the existentials as an outcome show high potential.
Further, Frankl's understanding of humans can improve HCI's epistemology.
Especially the existentials embedded in technology as well as noos could guide future work.
Lastly, the existentials put a spotlight on the values and notions of users
that are inscribed into the technology and help to unveil
hidden power structures in technology design.
In line with that, we hope to provoke a discussion on meaning in HCI.
For example, we ask for further work based on non-Western philosophies.
We also see promising opportunities for explicit references to more current theories, such
as the actor-network theory or feminist posthumanism,
which target the relationships between humans and technology.
We propose to relate our initial reflections with genuine HCI theories such as value sensitive design.
Further, we aim at translating our work into meaningful participatory design as well
as evaluation methods.
Thank you!
We are looking forward to participating in such a discussion about meaningful HCI.