New deployments of foundational AI models in digital products have expanded public engagement with synthetic...
Tag: automation
Empowered, Confident, and Prepared: Driving Chatbot Product Vision through User Research
This case study explores how a series of customer site visits to two international service centers drove design recommendations for a chatbot building platform that could encourage positive agent-chatbot collaboration. The first part of the case focuses on the research undertaken by a team of user...
Designing AI to Think With Us, Not For Us
This paper establishes a framework and toolkit for designing Generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) that...
Reconfiguring Work in the Age of AI
What is the nature of expertise and work? How are they redefined, practiced, and personified as waves of...
Boundary Crossings: Collaborative Robots and Human Workers
Agency and automation is explored through three case studies of the use of Cobots – collaborative robots – in three different auto production firms. The business challenges faced by these firms include labor shortages, quality control and reduction of waste. The Cobot solution resulted in...
Automating Inequality
Virginia Eubanks is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, SUNY. Her most recent book is Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor, which dana boyd calls “the first [book] that I’ve read that really pulls you into the world of...
Can Any Hairdresser Fix a Car?: Mechanics Seeking Agency in Automated Car Diagnostic Contexts, and How Observing Agency Can Help Designing a Car Diagnostic Tool
As part of an international research conducted for a French car manufacturer, a team of anthropologists and designers were asked to analyze the use of a car diagnostic tool by mechanics in their garages, in order to recommend ways of improving it. A single glance at the diagnostic tool’s interface...
The Adaptation of Everyday Work in an Age of Automation
Recent debates around the future of work have largely focused on how automated technologies are contributing to job loss or decline. However, in this paper, we draw from original ethnographic research with four types of automation-affected workers – insurance agents, pharmaceutical...
Increasing Perceived Agency in Human-AI Interactions: Learnings from Piloting a Voice User Interface with Drivers on Uber
This case study seeks to increase understanding of how agency is fostered in human-AI interaction by providing insight from Uber’s development of a conversational voice-user-interface (VUI) for its driver application. Additionally, it provides user researchers with insight on how to identify...
Automate Yourself to Work on What You Love
Behind every great research session is multiple hours and weeks spent recruiting, sharing...