Robinson, Charlotte L, Mancini, Clara, van der Linden, Janet, Guest, Claire and Harris, Robert (2014) Canine-centered interface design: supporting the work of diabetes alert dogs. SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Toronto Ontario Canada, April, 2014. Published in: CHI '14: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems. 3757-3766. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, United States. ISBN 9781450324731

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Abstract

Many people with Diabetes live with the continuous threat of hypoglycemic attacks and the danger of going into coma. Diabetes Alert Dogs are trained to detect the onset of an attack before the condition of the human handler they are paired with deteriorates, giving them time to take action. We investigated requirements for designing an alarm system allowing dogs to remotely call for help when their human falls unconscious before being able to react to an alert. Through a multispecies ethnographic approach we focus on the requirements for a physical canine user interface, involving dogs, their handlers and specialist dog trainers in the design process. We discuss tensions between the requirements for canine and the human users, argue the need for increased sensitivity towards the needs of individual dogs that goes beyond breed specific physical characteristics, and reflect on how we can move from designing for dogs to designing with dogs.

Item Type:	Conference Proceedings
Schools and Departments:	School of Engineering and Informatics > Engineering and Design
Research Centres and Groups:	Creative Technology
Depositing User:	Thomas Nowotny
Date Deposited:	27 Jan 2020 15:42
Last Modified:	25 Apr 2023 13:39
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/89581

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