The prayer companion: openness and specificity, materiality and spirituality

William Gaver; Mark Blythe; Andy Boucher; Nadine Jarvis; John Bowers; Peter Wright

doi:10.1145/1753326.1753640

The prayer companion: openness and specificity, materiality and spirituality

William Gaver, Mark Blythe, Andy Boucher, Nadine Jarvis, John Bowers, Peter Wright

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

109 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this paper we describe the Prayer Companion, a device we developed as a resource for the spiritual activity of a group of cloistered nuns. The device displays a stream of information sourced from RSS news feeds and social networking sites to suggest possible topics for prayers. The nuns have engaged with the device enthusiastically over the first ten months of an ongoing deployment, and, notwithstanding some initial irritation with the balance of content, report that it plays a significant and continuing role in their prayer life. We discuss how we balanced specificity in the design with a degree of openness for interpretation to create a resource that the nuns could both understand and appropriate, describe the importance of materiality to the device's successful adoption, consider its implications as a design for older people, and reflect on the example it provides of how computation may serve spirituality.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	CHI '10
Subtitle of host publication	Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Place of Publication	New York, US
Publisher	ACM
Pages	2055–2064
Number of pages	10
ISBN (Electronic)	9781605589299
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/1753326.1753640
Publication status	Published - 10 Apr 2010
Externally published	Yes
Event	CHI 2010 (ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems) - Atlanta, Georgia Duration: 4 Sept 2010 → …

Conference

Conference	CHI 2010 (ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)
Period	4/09/10 → …

Keywords

Interaction design
research through design
interpretability
materiality
older people
spirituality

Research Group keywords

Interaction Research Studio

Access to Document

10.1145/1753326.1753640

Cite this

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title = "The prayer companion: openness and specificity, materiality and spirituality",

abstract = "In this paper we describe the Prayer Companion, a device we developed as a resource for the spiritual activity of a group of cloistered nuns. The device displays a stream of information sourced from RSS news feeds and social networking sites to suggest possible topics for prayers. The nuns have engaged with the device enthusiastically over the first ten months of an ongoing deployment, and, notwithstanding some initial irritation with the balance of content, report that it plays a significant and continuing role in their prayer life. We discuss how we balanced specificity in the design with a degree of openness for interpretation to create a resource that the nuns could both understand and appropriate, describe the importance of materiality to the device's successful adoption, consider its implications as a design for older people, and reflect on the example it provides of how computation may serve spirituality.",

keywords = "Interaction design, research through design, interpretability, materiality, older people, spirituality",

author = "William Gaver and Mark Blythe and Andy Boucher and Nadine Jarvis and John Bowers and Peter Wright",

note = "Funding information: This work was carried out in The Landscapes of Cross General Engagement project (RES-352-25-0030), which is part of the UK{\textquoteright}s Joint Councils {\textquoteleft}New Dynamics of Ageing{\textquoteright} Research Programme.; CHI 2010 (ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems) ; Conference date: 04-09-2010",

year = "2010",

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doi = "10.1145/1753326.1753640",

language = "English",

pages = "2055–2064",

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Gaver, W , Blythe, M , Boucher, A, Jarvis, N, Bowers, J & Wright, P 2010, The prayer companion: openness and specificity, materiality and spirituality. in CHI '10: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, New York, US, pp. 2055–2064, CHI 2010 (ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems), 4/09/10. https://doi.org/10.1145/1753326.1753640

TY - GEN

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T2 - CHI 2010 (ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)

AU - Gaver, William

AU - Blythe, Mark

AU - Boucher, Andy

AU - Jarvis, Nadine

AU - Bowers, John

AU - Wright, Peter

N1 - Funding information: This work was carried out in The Landscapes of Cross General Engagement project (RES-352-25-0030), which is part of the UK’s Joint Councils ‘New Dynamics of Ageing’ Research Programme.

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N2 - In this paper we describe the Prayer Companion, a device we developed as a resource for the spiritual activity of a group of cloistered nuns. The device displays a stream of information sourced from RSS news feeds and social networking sites to suggest possible topics for prayers. The nuns have engaged with the device enthusiastically over the first ten months of an ongoing deployment, and, notwithstanding some initial irritation with the balance of content, report that it plays a significant and continuing role in their prayer life. We discuss how we balanced specificity in the design with a degree of openness for interpretation to create a resource that the nuns could both understand and appropriate, describe the importance of materiality to the device's successful adoption, consider its implications as a design for older people, and reflect on the example it provides of how computation may serve spirituality.

AB - In this paper we describe the Prayer Companion, a device we developed as a resource for the spiritual activity of a group of cloistered nuns. The device displays a stream of information sourced from RSS news feeds and social networking sites to suggest possible topics for prayers. The nuns have engaged with the device enthusiastically over the first ten months of an ongoing deployment, and, notwithstanding some initial irritation with the balance of content, report that it plays a significant and continuing role in their prayer life. We discuss how we balanced specificity in the design with a degree of openness for interpretation to create a resource that the nuns could both understand and appropriate, describe the importance of materiality to the device's successful adoption, consider its implications as a design for older people, and reflect on the example it provides of how computation may serve spirituality.

KW - Interaction design

KW - research through design

KW - interpretability

KW - materiality

KW - older people

KW - spirituality

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BT - CHI '10

PB - ACM

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