Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on Computing within Limits
The Internet and digital devices are increasingly embedded in our everyday lives. The hidden envi... more The Internet and digital devices are increasingly embedded in our everyday lives. The hidden environmental impacts of this infrastructure are substantial and quietly growing at an increasing rate. Our collective Internet use is following a 'Cornucopian paradigm', which is unsustainable. And yet, while intentionally limiting our online connectivity might be seen negatively as a retrograde step, in this paper, we offer ways in which users might welcome attempts to moderate their Internet use through improving four aspects of our digitally-mediated lives: relationships, digital wellbeing, productivity at work, and online privacy. Given these areas, we discuss how our research agenda may realistically be facilitated and what challenges we may face in moving from the reinforcement of 'business as usual' trends. By investigating and developing user-centred, moderate Internet use, we can 'break' the Cornucopian paradigm.
Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Sustainable HCI (SHCI) constitutes a relatively new research field within HCI. We have identified... more Sustainable HCI (SHCI) constitutes a relatively new research field within HCI. We have identified four literature reviews of the field conducted between 2009-2014. In this paper, we present and discuss the results of a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed conference and journal articles that have been published in the field during the last ten years (2010-2019). To this end, we apply the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework to classify and discern high-level goals SHCI researchers have worked towards during this period. This paper contributes to HCI by 1) identifying Sustainable Development Goals that SHCI researchers have worked towards, 2) discerning main research trends in the field during the last decade, 3) using the SDG framework generatively to enumerate and reflect on areas that this far have not been covered by SHCI research and 4) presenting takeaways and opportunities for further research by the larger HCI community. CCS CONCEPTS • General and reference → Surveys and overviews; • Social and professional topics → Sustainability; • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI); HCI theory, concepts and models.
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on ICT for Sustainability
In order to fulfill the Paris agreement, we need to drastically reduce carbon emissions globally.... more In order to fulfill the Paris agreement, we need to drastically reduce carbon emissions globally. 2020 is a pivotal year in this endeavour as many projections indicate that emissions need to decrease significantly before 2030. This challenge pertains to all parts of society, including (computer science) researchers. This however clashes with the fact that flying to a large extent has become built-in to the everyday practices of research and of academic life. It is feasible to imagine that computer scientists could fly less than other academics since we ought to be innovators and early adopters of computer-mediated alternatives such as video-conferencing and other forms of digital meeting technologies. It is however also possible that we fly more because conferences might be a more dominant outlet for publications in our field in comparison to other research fields. At KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the researchers at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) fly the most. In this paper, we present initial qualitative results from a survey regarding travel that was answered by computer scientists at EECS. We are in particular analysing the free text answers in order to understand how computer scientists 1 reason about their own flying and about the alternatives. It will be hard to fulfil the Paris agreement without decreasing flying significantly, but this requires us to rethink how we do research, and how we travel (or not) within academia. This paper contributes with knowledge about the perceived barriers and drivers for computer scientists to decrease their flying. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in HCI; Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing; • Social and professional topics → Sustainability.
Introduction -- Making Sense of the (Virtual) World Computer games are never "just games&quo... more Introduction -- Making Sense of the (Virtual) World Computer games are never "just games". Computer games are models of reality and if they were not, we would never be able to understand them. Models serve three functions; they capture important, critical features of that which is to be represented while ignoring the irrelevant, they are appropriate for the person and they are appropriate for the task -- thereby enhancing the ability to make judgements and discover relevant regularities and structures (Norman 1993). Despite the inherently unvisualisable nature of computer code -- the flexible material of which all software constructs are built -- computer code is still the most "salient" ingredient in computer games. Less salient are those assumptions that are "built into" the software. By filtering out those parts of reality that are deemed irrelevant or unnecessary, different sorts of assumptions, different sorts of bias are automatically built into t...
Internet connectivity is seamlessly integrated into many of our everyday habits and activities. D... more Internet connectivity is seamlessly integrated into many of our everyday habits and activities. Despite this, previous research has highlighted that our rather excessive Internet use is not sustainable or even always socially beneficial. In this paper, we carried out an exploratory study on how Internet disconnection affects our everyday lives and whether such disconnection is even possible in today’s society. Through daily surveys, we captured what Internet use means for ten participants and how this varies when they are asked to disconnect by default, and re-connect only when their Internet use is deemed as necessary. From our study, we found that our participants could disconnect from the Internet for certain activities (particularly leisure focused), yet they developed adaptations in their lives to address the necessity of their Internet use. We elicit these adaptations into five themes that encompass how the participants did, or did not, use the Internet based on their necessit...
Food production and consumption present major sustainability challenges, and finding ways to redu... more Food production and consumption present major sustainability challenges, and finding ways to reduce the environmental impact of food, for example through behavioural changes by consumers, is becoming increasingly important. In recent years, digital interventions have become important tools to change behaviours in many areas. In this review, we evaluate the status of current scientific knowledge of digital behaviour change interventions for sustainable food consumption practices. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist for how to conduct systematic reviews, we searched multiple databases for papers containing terms related to food, sustainability and digital behaviour change interventions. Only studies where the digital interventions were actually implemented and evaluated from a behaviour change perspective were included, resulting in 15 primary studies in the final review. The quality of the studies was evaluated from a be...
This year, at the ACM CHI Conference, we gathered as a group of HCI researchers, designers, and p... more This year, at the ACM CHI Conference, we gathered as a group of HCI researchers, designers, and practitioners, to reflect on our role in designing sustainable food systems [6]. Designing sustainable food systems is a challenge that involves all parts and actors of the food system [5], including: 1) production and agriculture, 2) processing and manufacturing, 3) wholesale and logistics, 4) retail and food services, 5) purchasing and consumption and 6) waste management. Fifteen participants represented and discussed ongoing investigations into designing technologies for food and sustainability [1]. We reconsidered the role of waste, the potential for food to be used as medicine, the repercussions of antibiotic resistance, the pervasiveness of poverty, and the tensions between local and global systems. The workshop culminated in a design session focused on techniques and paradigms for future components of a sustainable food system. Designing sustainable food systems, including the socio-technical systems that work towards that ideal, is key to producing stable climates, societies, and economies. The ongoing and future changes in climate, food security, and socioeconomic issues are further complicated by a tenuous geopolitical context. Given this reality, it is imperative that we are deliberate in our design of food system components and supporting technologies so that we can better contribute to the sustainability of our food system.
Proceedings of the 9th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction - NordiCHI '16, 2016
Despite increasing interest, Sustainable HCI has been critiqued for doing too little, and perhaps... more Despite increasing interest, Sustainable HCI has been critiqued for doing too little, and perhaps also at times for doing the wrong things. Still, a field like Human-Computer Interaction should aim at being part of transforming our society into a more sustainable one. But how do we do that, and, what are we aiming for?
Technological developments in screen technologies pitches the thinner, brighter and energy-stingy... more Technological developments in screen technologies pitches the thinner, brighter and energy-stingy OLED screen as a possible replacement for today's television, computer and smartphone LCD screens. An OLED screen does not consume any energy at all when it displays the color black, but the potentially large energy savings can unfortunately evaporate and instead turn to losses when white is displayed. There is thus a mismatch between on the one hand the energy profiles of OLED screens and on the other hand user habits and current webpage design practices. This example thus raises important questions about system boundaries and about how to evaluate sustainable (or "sustainable") technologies. We conducted a pilot study of user acceptance of alternative, OLED-adapted color schemes for webpages. We briefly discuss the results of the study, but primarily use it as a starting point for discussing the underlying questions of where, or indeed even if it makes sense to work towards realising the OLED screens' potential for energy savings. Moving from LED to OLED screens is not only a matter of choosing between competing screen technologies, but would rather have implications for hardware and software design as well as for the practices of web designers, end users and content providers.
Abstract: The increasing size of messaging communities increases the risk of information overload... more Abstract: The increasing size of messaging communities increases the risk of information overload, especially when group communication tools like mailing lists or asynchronous conferencing systems (like Usenet News) are used Future messaging systems will require more capable filters to aid users in the selection of what to read The increasing use of networks by non - computer professionals requires filters,
ABSTRACT Scenario methods are used and taught in a variety of courses related to sustainable deve... more ABSTRACT Scenario methods are used and taught in a variety of courses related to sustainable development by teachers at KTH – the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. In this article we explore how scenario approaches, understood in a wide sense, can contribute to education for sustainable development. Based on our experiences from these courses, we identify positive outcomes as well as some key challenges. The four courses presented and discussed in the paper include 3rd through 5th year courses from engineering programmes in urban planning, media technology, and industrial design.
Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on Computing within Limits
The Internet and digital devices are increasingly embedded in our everyday lives. The hidden envi... more The Internet and digital devices are increasingly embedded in our everyday lives. The hidden environmental impacts of this infrastructure are substantial and quietly growing at an increasing rate. Our collective Internet use is following a 'Cornucopian paradigm', which is unsustainable. And yet, while intentionally limiting our online connectivity might be seen negatively as a retrograde step, in this paper, we offer ways in which users might welcome attempts to moderate their Internet use through improving four aspects of our digitally-mediated lives: relationships, digital wellbeing, productivity at work, and online privacy. Given these areas, we discuss how our research agenda may realistically be facilitated and what challenges we may face in moving from the reinforcement of 'business as usual' trends. By investigating and developing user-centred, moderate Internet use, we can 'break' the Cornucopian paradigm.
Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Sustainable HCI (SHCI) constitutes a relatively new research field within HCI. We have identified... more Sustainable HCI (SHCI) constitutes a relatively new research field within HCI. We have identified four literature reviews of the field conducted between 2009-2014. In this paper, we present and discuss the results of a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed conference and journal articles that have been published in the field during the last ten years (2010-2019). To this end, we apply the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework to classify and discern high-level goals SHCI researchers have worked towards during this period. This paper contributes to HCI by 1) identifying Sustainable Development Goals that SHCI researchers have worked towards, 2) discerning main research trends in the field during the last decade, 3) using the SDG framework generatively to enumerate and reflect on areas that this far have not been covered by SHCI research and 4) presenting takeaways and opportunities for further research by the larger HCI community. CCS CONCEPTS • General and reference → Surveys and overviews; • Social and professional topics → Sustainability; • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI); HCI theory, concepts and models.
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on ICT for Sustainability
In order to fulfill the Paris agreement, we need to drastically reduce carbon emissions globally.... more In order to fulfill the Paris agreement, we need to drastically reduce carbon emissions globally. 2020 is a pivotal year in this endeavour as many projections indicate that emissions need to decrease significantly before 2030. This challenge pertains to all parts of society, including (computer science) researchers. This however clashes with the fact that flying to a large extent has become built-in to the everyday practices of research and of academic life. It is feasible to imagine that computer scientists could fly less than other academics since we ought to be innovators and early adopters of computer-mediated alternatives such as video-conferencing and other forms of digital meeting technologies. It is however also possible that we fly more because conferences might be a more dominant outlet for publications in our field in comparison to other research fields. At KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the researchers at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) fly the most. In this paper, we present initial qualitative results from a survey regarding travel that was answered by computer scientists at EECS. We are in particular analysing the free text answers in order to understand how computer scientists 1 reason about their own flying and about the alternatives. It will be hard to fulfil the Paris agreement without decreasing flying significantly, but this requires us to rethink how we do research, and how we travel (or not) within academia. This paper contributes with knowledge about the perceived barriers and drivers for computer scientists to decrease their flying. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in HCI; Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing; • Social and professional topics → Sustainability.
Introduction -- Making Sense of the (Virtual) World Computer games are never "just games&quo... more Introduction -- Making Sense of the (Virtual) World Computer games are never "just games". Computer games are models of reality and if they were not, we would never be able to understand them. Models serve three functions; they capture important, critical features of that which is to be represented while ignoring the irrelevant, they are appropriate for the person and they are appropriate for the task -- thereby enhancing the ability to make judgements and discover relevant regularities and structures (Norman 1993). Despite the inherently unvisualisable nature of computer code -- the flexible material of which all software constructs are built -- computer code is still the most "salient" ingredient in computer games. Less salient are those assumptions that are "built into" the software. By filtering out those parts of reality that are deemed irrelevant or unnecessary, different sorts of assumptions, different sorts of bias are automatically built into t...
Internet connectivity is seamlessly integrated into many of our everyday habits and activities. D... more Internet connectivity is seamlessly integrated into many of our everyday habits and activities. Despite this, previous research has highlighted that our rather excessive Internet use is not sustainable or even always socially beneficial. In this paper, we carried out an exploratory study on how Internet disconnection affects our everyday lives and whether such disconnection is even possible in today’s society. Through daily surveys, we captured what Internet use means for ten participants and how this varies when they are asked to disconnect by default, and re-connect only when their Internet use is deemed as necessary. From our study, we found that our participants could disconnect from the Internet for certain activities (particularly leisure focused), yet they developed adaptations in their lives to address the necessity of their Internet use. We elicit these adaptations into five themes that encompass how the participants did, or did not, use the Internet based on their necessit...
Food production and consumption present major sustainability challenges, and finding ways to redu... more Food production and consumption present major sustainability challenges, and finding ways to reduce the environmental impact of food, for example through behavioural changes by consumers, is becoming increasingly important. In recent years, digital interventions have become important tools to change behaviours in many areas. In this review, we evaluate the status of current scientific knowledge of digital behaviour change interventions for sustainable food consumption practices. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist for how to conduct systematic reviews, we searched multiple databases for papers containing terms related to food, sustainability and digital behaviour change interventions. Only studies where the digital interventions were actually implemented and evaluated from a behaviour change perspective were included, resulting in 15 primary studies in the final review. The quality of the studies was evaluated from a be...
This year, at the ACM CHI Conference, we gathered as a group of HCI researchers, designers, and p... more This year, at the ACM CHI Conference, we gathered as a group of HCI researchers, designers, and practitioners, to reflect on our role in designing sustainable food systems [6]. Designing sustainable food systems is a challenge that involves all parts and actors of the food system [5], including: 1) production and agriculture, 2) processing and manufacturing, 3) wholesale and logistics, 4) retail and food services, 5) purchasing and consumption and 6) waste management. Fifteen participants represented and discussed ongoing investigations into designing technologies for food and sustainability [1]. We reconsidered the role of waste, the potential for food to be used as medicine, the repercussions of antibiotic resistance, the pervasiveness of poverty, and the tensions between local and global systems. The workshop culminated in a design session focused on techniques and paradigms for future components of a sustainable food system. Designing sustainable food systems, including the socio-technical systems that work towards that ideal, is key to producing stable climates, societies, and economies. The ongoing and future changes in climate, food security, and socioeconomic issues are further complicated by a tenuous geopolitical context. Given this reality, it is imperative that we are deliberate in our design of food system components and supporting technologies so that we can better contribute to the sustainability of our food system.
Proceedings of the 9th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction - NordiCHI '16, 2016
Despite increasing interest, Sustainable HCI has been critiqued for doing too little, and perhaps... more Despite increasing interest, Sustainable HCI has been critiqued for doing too little, and perhaps also at times for doing the wrong things. Still, a field like Human-Computer Interaction should aim at being part of transforming our society into a more sustainable one. But how do we do that, and, what are we aiming for?
Technological developments in screen technologies pitches the thinner, brighter and energy-stingy... more Technological developments in screen technologies pitches the thinner, brighter and energy-stingy OLED screen as a possible replacement for today's television, computer and smartphone LCD screens. An OLED screen does not consume any energy at all when it displays the color black, but the potentially large energy savings can unfortunately evaporate and instead turn to losses when white is displayed. There is thus a mismatch between on the one hand the energy profiles of OLED screens and on the other hand user habits and current webpage design practices. This example thus raises important questions about system boundaries and about how to evaluate sustainable (or "sustainable") technologies. We conducted a pilot study of user acceptance of alternative, OLED-adapted color schemes for webpages. We briefly discuss the results of the study, but primarily use it as a starting point for discussing the underlying questions of where, or indeed even if it makes sense to work towards realising the OLED screens' potential for energy savings. Moving from LED to OLED screens is not only a matter of choosing between competing screen technologies, but would rather have implications for hardware and software design as well as for the practices of web designers, end users and content providers.
Abstract: The increasing size of messaging communities increases the risk of information overload... more Abstract: The increasing size of messaging communities increases the risk of information overload, especially when group communication tools like mailing lists or asynchronous conferencing systems (like Usenet News) are used Future messaging systems will require more capable filters to aid users in the selection of what to read The increasing use of networks by non - computer professionals requires filters,
ABSTRACT Scenario methods are used and taught in a variety of courses related to sustainable deve... more ABSTRACT Scenario methods are used and taught in a variety of courses related to sustainable development by teachers at KTH – the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. In this article we explore how scenario approaches, understood in a wide sense, can contribute to education for sustainable development. Based on our experiences from these courses, we identify positive outcomes as well as some key challenges. The four courses presented and discussed in the paper include 3rd through 5th year courses from engineering programmes in urban planning, media technology, and industrial design.
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Papers by Daniel Pargman