Making Everyday Things Talk
Speculative Conversations into the Future of Voice Interfaces at Home
A.V. Reddy (Malmö University)
A. Baki Kocaballi (University of Technology Sydney)
I. Nicenboim (TU Delft - Human Technology Relations)
Marie Louise Juul (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
M.L. Lupetti (TU Delft - Form and Experience)
Cayla Key (University of Northumbria)
C Speed (The University of Edinburgh)
D Lockton (Eindhoven University of Technology)
Elisa Giaccardi (TU Delft - Human Technology Relations)
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Abstract
What if things had a voice? What if we could talk directly to things instead of using a mediating voice interface such as an Alexa or a Google Assistant? In this paper, we share our insights from talking to a pair of boots, a tampon, a perfume bottle, and toilet paper among other everyday things to explore their conversational capabilities. We conducted Thing Interviews using a more-than-human design approach to discover a thing’s perspectives, worldviews and its relations to other humans and nonhumans. Based on our analysis of the speculative conversations, we identified some themes characterizing the emergent qualities of people’s relationships with everyday things. We believe the themes presented in the paper may inspire future research on designing everyday things with conversational capabilities at home.