Thank you for showing interest in our paper about feminist Living Labs as
research infrastructures for HCI
So, we know that the IT-field remains male dominated and design teams still tend to be comprised of
young, white, educated men. In terms of technology production, such as e.g. video games, this is actually problematic
because the absence of diverse perspectives can contribute to fundamental design flaws.
In response to this, studies examining the gendered nature of technology and
following this, explicit feminist agendas in HCI design research have gained traction in recent years
How to best conceptualize and act upon the problem of integrating gender awareness into design practice
yet remains a matter of debate! Putative solutions embraced
co-production approaches, such as Participatory Design or Participatory Action Research Approaches which, of course, require a certain degree of co-production with research participants
We propose Living Labs as a such a participatory methodology for feminist HCI
Living Labs with their long-term co-design research infrastructures in real-life environments
and their ambition to share diverse perspectives arguably take the aforementioned approaches a step further
via the integration of diverse stakeholders from several sectors who then form a network of excellence
and this provides all involved parties with a more holistic picture of a problem situation which in turn supports mutual learning. Research in such labs
usually takes place in iterative cycles. It is important to note that, historically, Living Lab research
has involved technological interventions, but this is not a necessary
feature. The infrastructure can be used to design any kind of innovative idea or measure for
intervention in a social system (e.g. experience sharing, case studies,
opportunities for learning etc.). Having said that, a LL research infrastructure is not per se feminist. The main aim of our paper then is to offer a methodological contribution, reporting how our
explicit commitments to feminist HCI influenced our Living Lab process
We do so by presenting a detailed case study of the collaboration with one stakeholder of our Lab,
a video game company from Germany. Our case study is based upon 2.5 years of an ongoing three-year
Gender and IT Living Lab project in Germany. Scientific knowledge transfers and exchange amongst
stakeholders into real life environments is at the core of the project. The shared goal of all
stakeholders is to strengthen the role of female talent in IT organizations. Our lab was informed by
Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) which aims at giving marginalized groups a voice. Our approach to the fieldwork then was in the tradition of
‘institutional ethnography’ which especially aims “to make the viewpoint of the researched women central to the research” and
focuses on ‘everyday experiences.’
Our stakeholder pool consisted of eleven gender-mixed HCI and business
informatics students from our local university whom we interviewed about their
expectations around future employment, data which was then cross-referenced with insights from other stakeholders
We also organized five symposia across Germany for dissemination purposes with approximately 50 to 80 participants. Attendees of these symposia were diverse, e.g. company representatives, consultants, students and trainees from IT-related areas as well as researchers (including us). Symposia were established as a ground for stakeholder interactions where workshops were organized
A vital element of the lab are six organizations with whom we aimed to collaborate closely via extensive fieldwork. As you can see, those organizations come from different sectors and deal with their individual research questions based upon real life, gender related problem situations.
This allows us both, collecting different cases for each organization as well cross-cutting comparisons across several industries.
The video game company is then the specific focus of this paper
Here you can see some information about said company. The occupations of our female and male participants ranged from project manger with lead responsibility
to artist, quality management, HR,
communication, UX etc. To our knowledge, our gender mixed participants identify as cisgender,
were in their 20s or 30s and some had a migratory
or international background.
Throughout the time frame described in this paper, we went through two iterative cycles (figure 1). The first phase took place in
2018 and the second one in 2019. Work with this company involved
observations, interviews, two focus groups as well as the organization of
workshops at three symposia. Our methodological toolobox for
Living Lab research consisted in mainly qualitative approaches. Data came from
interview transcripts, fieldnotes, notes about informal talks and documented workshop results
During the evaluation phase of the first cycle, we relied on interviews and observations to collected data
in the company. This helped us to gain a richer understanding of the context and give voice to personal
sentiments of our participants. Following the first months in the field, after collecting and
analyzing this data, we were able to identify critical “building blocks”
(as desired by an HR participant at one of the initial meetings) which cover the ‘lifetime’ of an employee
within the company (figure 2). It became clear, that women are confronted with gendered practices at all stages of their career
progression. And those areas became then instructive for the continuation of our research process. What followed was a symposium workshop
in collaboration with two company representatives, offering the company and additional
stakeholders a creative space for brainstorming and reflection.
The topics of the workshops, in the main, emerged from topics of concern identified through fieldwork.
Throughout the first cycle, additional parallel activities in our Living Lab involved interviews with students from our local university with the view to obtaining a picture of initial expectations and this data was used as well
for designing branding policies. After analyzing this initial data, we organized
a focus group and this activity finalized the first cycle. The second cycle started with
another symposium workshop. Later that year, a 60-minute presentation was held within the
company where we discussed our insights with a broader
audience. After this, a second focus group followed. Crucially, we also broadened up the participants:
Our contact person encouraged participants
with the ‘right mindset’ and as a result, two women and three
men joined the second focus group. The second cycle was concluded by a third symposium workshop.
We identified four themes which shaped our feminist Living Lab work with the video game company.
Participation process, experiencing common standpoints, understanding contexts and giving access to
resources and the creative space. In our paper we then discuss several lessons learned
and we would be happy if we triggered your interest in taking a look at them
The value of the Living Lab lies in its marriage between ideological orientation,
understanding of practice and pragmatic, cooperative policy making. We hope that our case study of a
methodological approach will be helpful for other researchers to integrate the broad commitments
of feminist HCI into HCI research