Making everyday things talk: speculative conversations into the future of voice interfaces at home

Anuradha Reddy; A. Baki Kocaballi; Iohanna Nicenboim; Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard; Maria Luce Lupetti; Cayla Key; Chris Speed; Dan Lockton; Elisa Giaccardi; Francisca Grommé; Holly Robbins; Namrata Primlani; Paulina Yurman; Shanti Sumartojo; Thao Phan; Viktor Bedö; Yolande Strengers

doi:10.1145/3411763.3450390

Making everyday things talk: speculative conversations into the future of voice interfaces at home

Anuradha Reddy, A. Baki Kocaballi, Iohanna Nicenboim, Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, Maria Luce Lupetti, Cayla Key, Chris Speed, Dan Lockton, Elisa Giaccardi, Francisca Grommé, Holly Robbins, Namrata Primlani, Paulina Yurman, Shanti Sumartojo, Thao Phan, Viktor Bedö, Yolande Strengers

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference proceeding contribution › peer-review

23 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

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.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2021
Editors	Yoshifumi Kitamura, Aaron Quigley, Katherine Isbister, Takeo Igarashi
Place of Publication	New York, NY
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
Number of pages	16
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450380959
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3450390
Publication status	Published - 8 May 2021
Externally published	Yes
Event	2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths, CHI EA 2021 - Virtual, Online, Japan Duration: 8 May 2021 → 13 May 2021

Publication series

Name	Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

Conference

Conference	2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths, CHI EA 2021
Country/Territory	Japan
City	Virtual, Online
Period	8/05/21 → 13/05/21

Keywords

AI
Conversational Agents
IoT
More-than-human Design
Thing Interviews
Voice Interfaces

Access to Document

10.1145/3411763.3450390

Cite this

Reddy, A., Kocaballi, A. B., Nicenboim, I., Søndergaard, M. L. J., Lupetti, M. L., Key, C., Speed, C., Lockton, D., Giaccardi, E., Grommé, F., Robbins, H., Primlani, N., Yurman, P., Sumartojo, S., Phan, T., Bedö, V., & Strengers, Y. (2021). Making everyday things talk: speculative conversations into the future of voice interfaces at home. In Y. Kitamura, A. Quigley, K. Isbister, & T. Igarashi (Eds.), Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2021 Article 23 (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3450390

Reddy, Anuradha ; Kocaballi, A. Baki ; Nicenboim, Iohanna et al. / Making everyday things talk : speculative conversations into the future of voice interfaces at home. Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2021. editor / Yoshifumi Kitamura ; Aaron Quigley ; Katherine Isbister ; Takeo Igarashi. New York, NY : Association for Computing Machinery, 2021. (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings).

@inproceedings{c7338fc0a9a8414ba6382c16260a502e,

title = "Making everyday things talk: speculative conversations into the future of voice interfaces at home",

abstract = "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.",

keywords = "AI, Conversational Agents, IoT, More-than-human Design, Thing Interviews, Voice Interfaces",

author = "Anuradha Reddy and Kocaballi, {A. Baki} and Iohanna Nicenboim and S{\o}ndergaard, {Marie Louise Juul} and Lupetti, {Maria Luce} and Cayla Key and Chris Speed and Dan Lockton and Elisa Giaccardi and Francisca Gromm{\'e} and Holly Robbins and Namrata Primlani and Paulina Yurman and Shanti Sumartojo and Thao Phan and Viktor Bed{\"o} and Yolande Strengers",

year = "2021",

month = may,

day = "8",

doi = "10.1145/3411763.3450390",

language = "English",

series = "Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings",

publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery",

editor = "Yoshifumi Kitamura and Aaron Quigley and Katherine Isbister and Takeo Igarashi",

booktitle = "Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2021",

note = "2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths, CHI EA 2021 ; Conference date: 08-05-2021 Through 13-05-2021",

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Reddy, A, Kocaballi, AB, Nicenboim, I, Søndergaard, MLJ, Lupetti, ML, Key, C, Speed, C, Lockton, D, Giaccardi, E, Grommé, F, Robbins, H, Primlani, N, Yurman, P, Sumartojo, S, Phan, T, Bedö, V & Strengers, Y 2021, Making everyday things talk: speculative conversations into the future of voice interfaces at home. in Y Kitamura, A Quigley, K Isbister & T Igarashi (eds), Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2021., 23, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths, CHI EA 2021, Virtual, Online, Japan, 8/05/21. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3450390

Making everyday things talk: speculative conversations into the future of voice interfaces at home. / Reddy, Anuradha; Kocaballi, A. Baki; Nicenboim, Iohanna et al.
Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2021. ed. / Yoshifumi Kitamura; Aaron Quigley; Katherine Isbister; Takeo Igarashi. New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery, 2021. 23 (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference proceeding contribution › peer-review

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AU - Reddy, Anuradha

AU - Kocaballi, A. Baki

AU - Nicenboim, Iohanna

AU - Søndergaard, Marie Louise Juul

AU - Lupetti, Maria Luce

AU - Key, Cayla

AU - Speed, Chris

AU - Lockton, Dan

AU - Giaccardi, Elisa

AU - Grommé, Francisca

AU - Robbins, Holly

AU - Primlani, Namrata

AU - Yurman, Paulina

AU - Sumartojo, Shanti

AU - Phan, Thao

AU - Bedö, Viktor

AU - Strengers, Yolande

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AB - 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.

KW - AI

KW - Conversational Agents

KW - IoT

KW - More-than-human Design

KW - Thing Interviews

KW - Voice Interfaces

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M3 - Conference proceeding contribution

AN - SCOPUS:85105813744

T3 - Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

BT - Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2021

A2 - Kitamura, Yoshifumi

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A2 - Igarashi, Takeo

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

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ER -

Reddy A, Kocaballi AB, Nicenboim I, Søndergaard MLJ, Lupetti ML, Key C et al. Making everyday things talk: speculative conversations into the future of voice interfaces at home. In Kitamura Y, Quigley A, Isbister K, Igarashi T, editors, Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2021. New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery. 2021. 23. (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings). doi: 10.1145/3411763.3450390

Making everyday things talk: speculative conversations into the future of voice interfaces at home

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Keywords

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