This paper reflects on the role of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research and practice both in addressing and exacerbating current environmental crises. Observing a discrepancy between the urgency of these crises and the attention they receive in HCI, we generated and analysed twelve fictional narratives that speculate about what it could mean if HCI prioritized environmental sustainability. This exercise helped us identify possible strategies towards this aim through addressing HCI practices such as conferencing, teaching and research. These strategies include building on existing meso-level initiatives in the community, reorienting reviewing processes, practising prefiguration, being mindful of diverse perspectives, and adding a touch of humour. Publishing our set of narratives in the form of a book of fairy tales alongside this paper is one step in that direction. We hope the book and the paper contribute to raising and nuancing the topic of (un)sustainability in HCI.

IntroductionPoor usability1,2,3 (‘the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use’) of Electronic Health Records (EHR) worsens patient outomes4 and causes clinician burnout5. Clinical usability (CU) focuses specifically and explicitly on supporting clinical practice.MethodsFollowing a pilot survey6, a mixed methods national CU survey of Integrated Sexual Health (ISH) clinicians was iterated and distributed online to British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) members in 2018. Respondents rated 14 novel CU statements on a 7-point Likert scale, which were analysed with Tableau™.ResultsFrom 118 completed surveys (Figure 1), four ISH-specific and several ’Other’ EHRs elicited predominantly negative (86%) Net Favourability Scores (NFS), suggesting common and widespread CU challenges. Positive NFS (10%) were limited to EHR2, EHR4 and ‘Other’ EHR, and related to: conversation flow, repeated questions, fatigue and meaningfulness. More granular analysis explored the ranges, means, medians and modes for Likert response categories, and identified specific CU statements where response frequencies went beyond a normal distribution. EHR1 and EHR3 elicited the highest number of unfavourable and (as expected) the lowest number of favourable responses. However, EHR4 and ‘Other EHR’ elicited both strongly unfavourable and strongly favourable responses. EHR2 elicited more neutral responses.DiscussionQuantitative findings from this first ever CU-specific survey (of any clinical speciality, globally) reveals all EHRs to be biased towards unfavourable. EHR1 and EHR3 performed worst. EHR4 and ‘Other EHR’ performed best, with the polarisation of responses suggesting some CU features are not always accessible to some users (or clinics). Clinicians face difficulties, beyond generic usability and interoperability, when EHR interfaces do not specifically support their clinical practice. A companion paper explores how qualitative data from this survey can inform the design of an EHR interface with improved CU.ReferencesISO (1998). Ergonomic requirements for paper. Office work with visual display terminals (VDTs): guidance on usability specifications and measures, in 9241–11. Bloom BM, et al. Usability of electronic health record systems in UK EDs. Emergency Medicine Journal 2021;38:410–415. Storey , Clune C. NHS acute supplier presentation: the KLAS NHS EPR usability survey. Available at: https://pixl8-cloud-techuk.s3.eu-west-2.amzonaws.com/prod/public/a7291891-62c7-436d-b909ce30b16f579e/NHS-Acute-Supplier-6-30-22-Presentation.pdf [Download 21 March 2023]. Kutney-Lee A, et al. Electronic health record usability: associations with nurse and patient outcomes in hospitals. Medical Care 2021;59:625–631. Menick ER, et al. The association between perceived electronic health record usability and professional burnout among US physicians. Mayo Clinical Proceedings 2020;95:476–487. Pao D, et al. Together in electronic screams: the frustrations of GUM electronic patient records. Sexually Transmitted Infections 2017;93:A34–A35.

Artificial moral agents – systems that engage in explicit moral reasoning on their own and with users – present a potential new paradigm for behavior and system change for social and environmental sustainability. Moral agents could replace current individualist, prescriptive, inflexible, and opaque interventions with systems that transparently state their values and then openly deliberate and contest these with users, or agents that represent human and non-human stakeholders such as future generations, species, or ecosystems. Indeed, moral agents could mark a genuine new form of more-than-human interactions and human-technology relation, where we relate to artificial systems as a counterpart. To jointly articulate key questions and possible futures around moral agents, this workshop convenes HCI, AI, behaviour change, and critical and speculative design researchers and practitioners.

IntroductionPoor usability1,2,3 (‘the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use’) of Electronic Health Records (EHR) worsens patient outomes4 and causes clinician burnout5. Clinical usability (CU) focuses specifically and explicitly on supporting clinical practice.MethodsFollowing a pilot survey6, a mixed methods national CU survey of Integrated Sexual Health (ISH) clinicians was distributed online to British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) members in 2018. Free text responses were analysed by Thematic Analysis, using MaxQDA2022™.Results‘If online shopping sites relied on this many clicks and windows opening from scratch, they would not have a business!’ From 118 completed surveys, identifying four ISH-specific and several ’Other’ EHRs, 6912 words were coded into 264 segments relevant to CU (Figure 1). ‘Likes’ were expressed in 56 (21%) segments, with half describing inherent benefits of the digital medium: legibility, no lost records, remote access and search. Other ‘Likes’ included data entry templates, non-complex patients and procedure documentation. ‘Frustrations/Suggestions for improvement’ (Table 1) were expressed in 208 (79%) segments, coded into four main themes: (1) Overview of data; (2) Reasoning with data; (3) Input of data; (4) Digital affordances (generic and clinical). Common needs expressed within these themes were: general overview; navigation of data silos; simultaneous data input and review; and deeper clinical relevance through digital affordances and augmented intelligence. Specific clinical scenarios included: Contraception, MDT collaboration, Partner Notification, Prescribing, Results review, Safeguarding, STIs (e.g., PrEP) and Vaccinations.DiscussionQualitative findings from this first ever CU-specific survey (of any clinical speciality, globally) provide a clear strategy for improving CU. This expression of the ISH clinician voice is a valuable contribution to building a collaborative relationship with EHR vendors. A companion paper explores quantitative data from this survey.ReferencesISO (1998). Ergonomic requirements for paper. Office work with visual display terminals (VDTs): guidance on usability specifications and measures, in 9241–11. Bloom BM, et al. Usability of electronic health record systems in UK EDs. Emergency Medicine Journal 2021;38:410–415. Storey , Clune C. NHS acute supplier presentation: the KLAS NHS EPR usability survey. Available at: https://pixl8-cloud-techuk.s3.eu-west-2.amzonaws.com/prod/public/a7291891-62c7-436d-b909ce30b16f579e/NHS-Acute-Supplier-6-30-22-Presentation.pdf [Download 21 March 2023]. Kutney-Lee A, et al. Electronic health record usability: associations with nurse and patient outcomes in hospitals. Medical Care 2021;59:625–631. Menick ER, et al. The association between perceived electronic health record usability and professional burnout among US physicians. Mayo Clinical Proceedings 2020;95:476–487. Pao D, et al. Together in electronic screams: the frustrations of GUM electronic patient records. Sexually Transmitted Infections 2017;93:A34–A35.

Our everyday technologies could have appeared terrifying to our ancestors: instantaneous disembodied communication, access to knowledge, objects with 'intelligence' that talk to us (and each other). Black boxes and intangible entities are omnipresent in our homes and lives without our necessarily understanding the hidden flows of data, unknown agendas, imaginary clouds, and mysterious rules that govern them. Have humanity's ways of relating to the unknown throughout history gone away, or have they perhaps transmuted into new forms? In an ongoing project, we have inventoried examples, encounters and reflections on contemporary technology, framed through the perspective of the haunted, spectral and otherworldly. In this paper, we excerpt this collection to illustrate the value and opportunity of an unfamiliar, disquieting perspective in helping to frame the frictions, beliefs and myths that are emerging around interactions with everyday technologies. We posit and demonstrate 'spooky technology' as an accessible framework to reflect and respond to our increasingly entangled relationships with technology.

Our everyday technologies could have appeared terrifying to our ancestors: instantaneous disembodied communication, access to knowledge, objects with 'intelligence' that talk to us (and each other). Black boxes and intangible entities are omnipresent in our homes and lives without our necessarily understanding the hidden flows of data, unknown agendas, imaginary clouds, and mysterious rules that govern them. Have humanity's ways of relating to the unknown throughout history gone away, or have they perhaps transmuted into new forms? In an ongoing project, we have inventoried examples, encounters and reflections on contemporary technology, framed through the perspective of the haunted, spectral and otherworldly. In this paper, we excerpt this collection to illustrate the value and opportunity of an unfamiliar, disquieting perspective in helping to frame the frictions, beliefs and myths that are emerging around interactions with everyday technologies. We posit and demonstrate 'spooky technology' as an accessible framework to reflect and respond to our increasingly entangled relationships with technology.

There have been recent calls for Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) to expand its reach and focus to address larger scale societal and global issues. An area of growing awareness is the issue of the gender data gap, whereby women are under-represented in research data, leading to inequitable outcomes when research findings are used to design real world technologies, products, environments, processes, and policies. The aim of this paper is to showcase how structured HFE methods can be used to address the gender data gap. We applied the Sociotechnical Systems Design Toolkit which involved using causal loop diagrams and abstraction hierarchy modelling from Cognitive Work Analysis to understand the system in which the issue occurs and key pain points, followed by the application of the Design with Intent Toolkit to generate design ideas. A total of 43 ideas were developed that could be implemented by universities to address the research data gap. The application demonstrates the utility of HFE methods in tackling complex issues and offers an opportunity for the HFE community to reflect upon the importance of gender sensitive research practices and gender equity more broadly.

Interaction designers tend to use quantification as a default to present information and a way to enable interactions with technologies. There is a notion that quantification is valued to be the most actionable and legitimate form of presentation, while our actual experiences of the world are largely qualitative. But can we design ‘qualitative interfaces’? What would they be like? In this paper, we explore insights and experiences from four years of applying the notion of qualitative interfaces in interaction design student projects in two countries. We introduce, review, and compare projects across different application areas ranging from running training schemes to electricity use, and discuss questions around the relationships between the underlying phenomena and links to the ways in which they are displayed or represented, around the variety of ways in which students arrived at their designs, and suggest considerations for others interested in this kind of approach.

In this paper, we explore the use of metaphors for people working with artificial intelligence, in particular those that support designers in thinking about the creation of AI systems. Metaphors both illuminate and hide, simplifying and connecting to existing knowledge, centring particular ideas, marginalising others, and shaping fields of practice. The practices of machine learning and artificial intelligence draw heavily on metaphors, whether black boxes, or the idea of learn-ing and training, but at the edges of the field, as design engages with computational practices, it is not always apparent which terms are used metaphorically, and which associations can be safely drawn on. In this paper, we look at some of the ways metaphors are deployed around machine learning and ask about where they might lead us astray. We then develop some qualities of useful metaphors, and finally explore a small collection of helpful metaphors and practices that illuminate different aspects of machine learning in a way that can support design thinking.

The DRS 2022 track ‘Valuing the Qualitative in Design and Data’ features eleven accepted papers on topics including visualisation and physicalisation of qualitative data, the use of materials in this context, practical applications in design and education, and applications in personal informatics. In this editorial, the track chairs introduce the track, and the reasoning behind it, together with a short introduction to the papers.

The word “robot” frequently conjures unrealistic expectations of utilitarian perfection: tireless, efficient and flawless agents. However, real-world robots are far from perfect—they fail and make mistakes. Thus, roboticists should consider altering their current assumptions and cultivating new perspectives that account for a more complete range of robot roles, behaviors, and interactions. To encourage this, we explore the use of metaphors for generating novel ideas and reframing existing problems, eliciting new perspectives of human-robot interaction. Our work makes two contributions. We (1) surface current assumptions that accompany the term “robots,” and (2) present a collection of alternative perspectives of interaction with robots through metaphors. By identifying assumptions, we provide a comprehensible list of aspects to reconsider regarding robots’ physicality, roles, and behaviors. Through metaphors, we propose new ways of examining how we can use, relate to, and co-exist with the robots that will share our future.

What if things had a voice? What if we could talk directly to things instead of using a mediating voice interface such as an Alexa or a Google Assistant? In this paper, we share our insights from talking to a pair of boots, a tampon, a perfume bottle, and toilet paper among other everyday things to explore their conversational capabilities. We conducted Thing Interviews using a more-than-human design approach to discover a thing's perspectives, worldviews and its relations to other humans and nonhumans. Based on our analysis of the speculative conversations, we identified some themes characterizing the emergent qualities of people's relationships with everyday things. We believe the themes presented in the paper may inspire future research on designing everyday things with conversational capabilities at home.

Contemporary WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) design software utilizes digital Artboards which are finite graphics frames that sit atop a scrollable zooming canvas; where many graphics frames can be arbitrarily arranged, scaled and duplicated to explore and juxtapose design ideas. Despite creative practitioners increasingly writing code to explore design spaces, programming environments for Creative Coding regularly only display one graphics frame per program. This hinders the non-linear nature of the creative process where seeing a trail of process work can spark new ideas. We propose bridging this gap and introduce Stamper, an Artboard-Oriented authoring environment for the popular creative coding library p5.js.

There is much work in the CHI community about the 'industry-academia divide', and how to bridge it. One key crossover between HCI/UX scientists and practitioners is the development and use of tools and methods-boundary objects between academia and practice. Among other forms of collaboration, there is an underdeveloped opportunity for academics to make use of industry events (conferences, meetups, design jams) as a research venue in the context of tool and method development. This paper describes three cases from work in academia-industry engagement over the last decade, in which workshops or experiments have been run at industry events as a way of trialling and developing tools directly with practitioners. We discuss advantages of this approach and extract key insights and practical implications, highlighting how the CHI community might use this method more widely, gathering relevant research outcomes while contributing to knowledge exchange between academia and practice.

Autoethnographic and other first-person research methods are a topic of increasing interest in design and HCI. This focus parallels the boom in self-tracking and personal informatics, perhaps most intriguingly in the intersection of quantitative and qualitative data and the noticing of patterns in one's own life and everyday wellbeing. But how can design support this? One opportunity is for research probes, or tools, which enable forms of self-inquiry, by design researchers themselves, or others. In this paper-with the broad scope of healthier student sleep as a domain-we present a series of artifacts designed by undergraduates as tools to enable autoethnographic exploration, and detail how they have been used to investigate bedtime routines, personal scheduling of time, focus, sleep data, and sleeping in nontraditional places. We also reflect on the notion of combination autoethnographic `kits' as a way forward for forms of self-inquiry.