Can't touch this: Rethinking public technology in a COVID-19 era

Pearson, Jennifer; Bailey, Gavin; Robinson, Simon; Jones, Matt; Owen, Tom; Zhang, Chi; Reitmaier, Thomas; Steer, Cameron; Carter, Anna; Sahoo, Deepak Ranjan; Raju, Dani Kalarikalayil

Abstract

What do pedestrian crossings, ATMs, elevators and ticket machines have in common? These are just a few of the ubiquitous yet essential elements of public-space infrastructure that rely on physical buttons or touchscreens; common interactions that, until recently, were considered perfectly safe to perform. This work investigates how we might integrate touchless technologies into public-space infrastructure in order to minimise physical interaction with shared devices in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on an ethnographic exploration into how public utilities are being used, adapted or avoided, we developed and evaluated a suite of technology probes that can be either retrofitted into, or replace, these services. In-situ community deployments of our probes demonstrate strong uptake and provide insight into how hands-free technologies can be adapted and utilised for the public domain; and, in turn, used to inform the future of walk-up-and use public technologies.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
• Acceptance Date: Feb 10, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Apr 29, 2022
• Publication Date: Apr 29, 2022
• Deposit Date: Oct 5, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 5, 2023
• Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Pages: 1-14
• Book Title: CHI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
• ISBN: 9781450391573
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3501980
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/11128832