Design Interactions in ʔeləw̓ k ̓ʷ — Belongings

Our pictorial visually describes ʔeləw̓ k ̓ʷ — Belongings, an interactive tangible tabletop installed in the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. The tabletop was designed to communicate the continuity of Musqueam culture, convey the complexity of belongings that were excavated from Musqueam’s ancient village site, and […]

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In Search of An Oral Form of Design: Mobilizing Inuit Cultural Heritage

This paper explores the notion of an “oral form of design” in response to questions at the heart of a new major partnership project titled “Mobilizing Inuit Cultural Heritage.” It brings together Inuit and Qallunaat (non-Inuit) who are all engaged in various ways of exploring the cognitive and cultural gap […]

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A Mobile Game World for Māori Language Learning

This project involves the research, development and evaluation of a mobile assisted language learning tool that teaches some aspects of the Maori language within a virtual game world. The Maori language has been going through a process of rejuvenation since the mid-1900s. A wide range of multimedia resources have been […]

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The Wollotuka Project

This case study examines the key design features and methodology required to develop a website that best reflects the culture of an Indigenous Australian community. The study also considers general issues related to the representation and capture of Indigenous knowledge. The Wollotuka project is grounded in previous contextual design work. […]

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Adinkra Mathematics: A Study of Ethnocomputing in Ghana

This paper details the development and evaluation of software that allows middle school students to explore the mathematical aspects of Ghanaian Adinkra symbols. We tested the effectiveness of this simulation in a Ghanaian junior high school by conducting a randomized quasi-experiment. We begin this paper by framing culturally responsive math […]

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Indigenous Logics: Anthropological reflections on Participatory Design in Community Informatics

For anthropologists, the incorporation of local knowledge and experience becomes a fundamental challenge in the practice of participatory design (PD). This is particularly the case in the field of community informatics, in which the introduction of technology in collective spaces further complicates the design activity. The empirical studies to date […]

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Achieving ICT for Development Project Success by Altering Context, Not Technology

When explaining the failure of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) projects, researchers often turn to differences between how designers perceive and users experience the context of technology use. According to these explanations, ICT4D projects fail because designers take an uninformed stance toward context. The ICT4D literature offers four approaches for how […]

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Strangers on the Land: Place and Indigenous Multimedia Knowledge Systems

Leggett and Dyson are non-indigenous Australians interested in the potential of designing new media applications that are sensitive to and productive for indigenous peoples. Their research has focussed on development of new media systems that reflect indigenous world-views, particularly with relation to established knowledge-sharing protocols. They demonstrate that there is […]

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Locally Situated Digital Representation of Indigenous Knowledge: Co-constructing a new digital reality in rural Africa

Digital re-presentation of indigenous knowledge remains an absurdity as long as we fail to deconstruct the prevalent design paradigm and techniques continuously re-framing technology within a western epistemology. This paper discusses key challenges in attempts of co-constructing a digital representation based on experiences from a longitudinal community-centred research project in […]

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Integrating cultural factors in user-interface design: the case of the Nasa Colombian native people

The research context of this thesis is the inter-cultural development of computer tools. The thesis considers as case study the Nasa people, a Colombian native society, which preserves different traditions and cultural particularities. The research questioning emerges from the sociocultural differences between a rural society, such as the Nasa, and […]

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Exploring Respectful Design Directions for Indigenous Communities

Projects focusing on preserving cultural heritage are most usually instigated by a researcher. Yet, the question arises ‘whether such projects are beneficial for the studied communities?’ This paper describes the first part of a co-reflective, design research case study exploring through design the dynamics of the disappearance of culture heritage. […]

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Empathic Negotiations through Material Culture: Co-designing and Making Digital Exhibits

This article introduces a case study undertaken in the indigenous Penan community of Long Lamai, Upper Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia. In this community, there is concern about the negative image other cultural groups hold of the Penan. This case study explores co-design as a means to invite community members, together with […]

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Exploring Culture in a Digital World

This is a technical paper describing the pedagogical and technological requirements for the Wondervision Project. It examines how digital technologies can be used to connect cultures in a way that is respectful and results in deeper understanding of culture. The Indigenous culture of Australia is the learning context, with the […]

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Journal of Interactive Humanities

The humanities have begun to embrace digital technology as a means of expressing scholarship and thought. However, it has become apparent that humanities content cannot simply be transferred into these new media. The humanities may be making the mistake it has observed of other fields: “Part of the problem seems […]

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Information to Iteration: Using information and communication technologies [ICT] in design for remote regions

Remote design comes with significant challenges. A major barrier to designing in remote regions is the lack of communication between designers and users. As a result, the lack of information flow leads to assumptions about the community’s needs- an inherent weakness in the design process. This study examines the role […]

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Subversion, Conversion, Development: Cross-Cultural Knowledge Exchange and the Politics of Design

This book explores alternative cultural encounters with and around information technologies. These encounters are alternative because they counter dominant, Western-oriented notions of media consumption; they include media practices as forms of cultural resistance and subversion, “DIY cultures,” and other nonmainstream models of technology production. The contributors — leading thinkers in […]

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Appropriate Technologies in the Globalized World: FAQs

Technological innovation over the past century has revolutionized our society’s ability to solve problems. A byproduct of this movement is the advent of appropriate technology, an approach to address challenges in the developing world through creative and people focused product development. Appropriate technology (AT) recognizes that social, environmental, cultural, political, […]

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Activity Situated Semiotics in Human-Computer Interaction: Digitally Augmenting Museum Experiences

In the digital age, the museum experience can be enhanced using digital technologies and expanded beyond the time and space of the visit. Instead of being just passive viewers in the exhibition, visitors can be engaged in creating and sharing digital artefacts and stories as a result of augmented museum […]

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A Participatory Approach to Define User Requirements of a Platform for Intangible Cultural Heritage Education

In the last years the protection and safeguarding of cultural heritage has become a key issue of European cultural policy and this applies not only to tangible artefacts (monuments, sites, etc.), but also to intangible cultural expressions. The i-Treasures project focuses on some Intangible Cultural Heritages (ICH) and investigates whether […]

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Ngan’gi Seasons Calendar

Use the button above to download the PDF of the calendar. The Ngan’gi Seasons calendar was developed by key knowledge-holders of the Ngan’gi language from Nauiyu Nambiyu and CSIRO as part of a Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge project on Indigenous socio-economic values and rivers flows in northern Australia. The […]

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Designing User Interfaces for Novice and Low-Literacy Users

One of the greatest challenges in developing Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for global development is that 41% of the population in the least developed countries is non-literate and even the literate among the poor are only novice users of technology. I will describe work we have done over the […]

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Catapult Design

The majority of our world’s population lacks access to life’s basic needs. We develop and implement human-centered products to help them thrive. Technology can empower and liberate. A single, effective product has more potential for worldwide impact – by providing clean water, food, shelter, or income – than any other […]

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IDEO.org

IDEO has been working in the social sector for more than ten years. Recently, it became clear that launching a nonprofit organization focused solely on social innovation would allow IDEO to make an even bigger impact on global poverty. Enter, IDEO.org! Through Human-Centered Design projects, we’re bringing stability, hope, and […]

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Building Human-Centered Design into ICT4D Projects

An interview with Danny Alexander and Sean Hewens of IDEO.org Originally published on the Best Practice in ICT4D: A Conversation blog Sean Hewens is knowledge manager and in-house counsel at IDEO.org. He oversees IDEO.org’s mission to spread human-centered design throughout the social sector. In his role as Knowledge Manager, Sean […]

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Comprehensive Initiative for Technology Evaluation (CITE)

MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning will lead the CITE effort in developing a rigorous methodology for evaluating technological solutions to challenges in the developing world; this methodology will help donors and policy-makers identify and invest in the best of these solutions. “Right now there is no shortage of […]

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