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

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

    23 Citations (Scopus)
    261 Downloads (Pure)

    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 languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationCHI EA '21: Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    Subtitle of host publicationMay 8-13, 2021, Online Virtual Conference (originally Yokohama, Japan)
    EditorsYoshifumi Kitamura, Aaron Quigley, Katherine Isbister, Takeo Igarashi
    Place of PublicationNew York, US
    PublisherACM
    Pages1-16
    Number of pages16
    ISBN (Electronic)9781450380959
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 8 May 2021
    EventACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2021) - Online, Yokohama, Japan
    Duration: 8 May 202113 May 2021
    https://chi2021.acm.org/
    https://chi2021.acm.org

    Publication series

    NameConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

    Conference

    ConferenceACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2021)
    Abbreviated titleCHI 2021
    Country/TerritoryJapan
    CityYokohama
    Period8/05/2113/05/21
    Internet address

    Keywords

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

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Making Everyday Things Talk: Speculative Conversations into the Future of Voice Interfaces at Home'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this