Hello, my name is Katta Spiel and in this video, I will talk about my PhD work which
was awarded a SIGCHI Outstanding Dissertation Award in 2020. Specifically, my thesis was
concerned with Evaluating Experiences of Autistic children with technologies in co-design.
As a core contribution, I claim that I provide conceptual and methodological tools that aid
us in evaluating the experiences autistic children make with technologies in a holistic
and ethically grounded fashion. My work was conducted within the OutsideTheBox
project, in which I worked with Chris Frauenberger as project leader and Julia Makhaeva. We conducted
eight case studies of participatory design processes in which we aimed to design technologies
for the holistic well-being of individual autistic children. We did so over the span
of three years resulting in very different prototypes. Academically situated in the fields
of Human-Computer Interaction and Participatory Design, the project made several contributions
to methods regarding design and evaluation, several technological prototypes illustrating
alternative approaches to classical assistive technology as well as critical reflections
of participatory processes. To evaluate the children’s experiences and
go beyond empathetic approaches I based my framework on Actor-Network Theory and Critical
Discourse Analysis. In my understanding, it allows for a more
holistic picture of the experiences an autistic child has with a technology. There are four
steps to it: First, defining the discourse and the dispositive in which children and
technology interact. This leads to an actor-network of human and non-human actors. Then the gathering
of data to establish the perspectives of these actors. The data is analysed along the sources
and transformed into statements, which can then be contextualised critically within the
actor-network. Critical Discourse Analysis is needed in this context to understand the
differences between agency (which all actors have) and intent (which only human actors
have) and to assign weight to certain actors which are usually left unheard in the workings
of societal power structures. The steps are repeated until no new insights occur or other
reasons that speak against another cycle (such as time and energy resources of participants).
However, this inquiry still centers researchers’ interests in meaning making about a given
technology. Including the children more actively in the
evaluation process comes with two advantages: making space for the agency of the child and,
conveniently, getting more information about the child’s perspective on a given technology.
For this, I came up with a three step process: Setting goals, gathering data and interpreting
results. All three of them are done in a radically participatory fashion.
In setting goals, the children are encouraged to articulate goals. This does not always
have to be verbally and it’s the researcher’s task to offer several options for articulating
goals along the abilities and interests of the child (or even across children). Researchers
can also offer additional goals to invest, but they will only be pursued, if they make
sense to the child and they indicate interest in following it up.
Children also take the lead in gathering the data; there researchers prompt and support
the child where needed. If necessary, researchers then pre-process
the data and meet together with the children to interpret the results together.
In the thesis, I have illustrated a range of case studies showing very different types
of technologies that can be developed with autistic children. I provided a conceptual
framework that captures the multifaceted aspects of technological experience. Further, I developed
the method of participatory evaluation, which leads to radical inclusion of participants
in the meaning making about co-designed technologies and finally, I have further provided a micro-ethical
understanding of in-situ judgements as core part of ethically sound participatory research.
However, I could not have done this alone. It takes a village to raise a child and it
definitely takes a village to finish a PhD. My deepest thanks go to all the people here
for their guidance, their comfort, their kind words, their support and their camaraderie.
Thank you for listening. Feel free to contact me to talk.