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Situational When: Designing for Time Across Cultures

Published: 02 May 2017 Publication History

Abstract

We propose the concept of "Situational When", an approach to understanding time in interface design not as a point on a calendar or clock, but as a set of converging circumstances that constitute "the time" for happenings to take place. Time is encoded both explicitly and implicitly in designed products. However, many technologies propagate business-centric, modernist values such as scheduling and efficiency, and marginalize broader socio-cultural aspects on which many activities are nonetheless contingent, e.g. the right people, the right weather conditions, and the right vibe. We derive our reflections from a case study of a cross-cultural digital noticeboard designed with an Australian Aboriginal community. Attention to the situational when opens up new possibilities for design that put greater emphasis on the social and relational aspects of time, the situational insights embodied in local narratives, and the tangible (e.g. people) and intangible (e.g. energy) circumstances that together make up the "right" time.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    May 2017
    7138 pages
    ISBN:9781450346559
    DOI:10.1145/3025453
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    Published: 02 May 2017

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    Author Tags

    1. aboriginal
    2. breaching experiments
    3. calendar
    4. cross-cultural
    5. noticeboard
    6. storytelling
    7. temporality
    8. time

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    • (2023)Timeline Navigators: User Interface Design Patterns for TimeProceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting10.1177/2169506723119245167:1(1464-1471)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2023
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