Designing Video Call Spaces with and for Adults with Learning Disabilities

Designing video call spaces with and for adults with learning disabilities

A remote participatory design approach

Benjamin Maus

Interaction Design Master’s Programme (Two-Year) Thesis Project II, 15hp Spring 2021 – Semester 2 Supervisor: Clint Heyer Examiner: Susan Kozel

Abstract Video calls have received growing attention since the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic, accompanied by technological innovations, such as spatial audio or AI for simulating eye contact. The increased use of video calls in personal and professional environments poses opportunities for evaluating and shaping this technology by going beyond the notion of a single user and including people with different cognitive abilities. This study proposes a remote participatory design process with people with learning disabilities (LD), aiming to investigate considerations for the design of video call platforms. In cooperation with NetzStecker, the Office for Inclusive Media Education based in Münster, Germany, a four-stage research through design process is conducted with a group of adults with LD, including online workshops and mobile device-based diary studies. Perceptions and experiences are explored through the lens of phenomenology and lead to a set of design recommendations around the themes of spatiality and communication. Methodological conclusions discuss the challenges of using the medium of study as the principal medium of research and indicate a potential for proximity chats as design spaces.

Table of Content Abstract ...... 2 Table of Content ...... 3 1 Introduction ...... 5 2 Research focus ...... 7 2.1 Research questions ...... 7 2.2 Positioning within interaction design ...... 7 2.3 Cooperation with NetzStecker ...... 8 2.4 Understanding of the term learning disabilities ...... 8 3 Background and theory ...... 10 3.1 Phenomenology ...... 10 3.1.1 Related studies on video calls ...... 10 3.2 Design and disability ...... 11 3.2.1 Disability studies and disability activism ...... 11 3.2.2 Neurodiversity ...... 12 3.3 Video calls ...... 13 3.4 Related work in the field of PD ...... 14 3.4.1 Co-designing interactive applications with adults with intellectual disability ...... 15 3.4.2 That is how I speak nowadays ...... 15 3.4.3 Including intellectual disability in participatory design processes ...... 16 4 Methodological approach ...... 18 4.1 Research through design ...... 18 4.2 Inclusive design ...... 18 4.3 Participatory design ...... 19 5 Methods and process ...... 21 5.1.1 Ethical concerns ...... 21 5.2 Exploration and trust-building workshop ...... 22 5.2.1 Aims ...... 22 5.2.2 Design-before-design ...... 22 5.2.3 Participants ...... 23 5.2.4 Activities ...... 23 5.2.5 Results ...... 28 5.2.6 Analysis ...... 29 5.3 Mobile device-based diary studies ...... 30 5.3.1 Aims ...... 30 5.3.2 Participants ...... 31 5.3.3 Activities ...... 31 5.3.4 Results ...... 34 5.3.5 Analysis ...... 36 5.4 Generative session ...... 38 5.4.1 Aims ...... 38 3

5.4.2 Participants ...... 38 5.4.3 Activity ...... 38 5.4.4 Results ...... 39 5.4.5 Analysis ...... 39 5.5 Proximity chat experiment ...... 40 5.5.1 Aims ...... 41 5.5.2 Participants ...... 41 5.5.3 Activity ...... 41 5.5.4 Results ...... 41 5.5.5 Analysis ...... 43 6 Discussion ...... 45 6.1 Identified design opportunities ...... 45 6.2 Methodological conclusions ...... 47 6.3 Limitations and future work ...... 49 7 Conclusion ...... 51 8 Acknowledgements ...... 52 9 References ...... 53 10 Appendix ...... 59

1 Introduction Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is becoming increasingly important in both personal and professional environments. This development has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and led, for example, to a boom in platforms for video calls (Statista Research Department, 2020) and asynchronous teamwork (Kent, 2020). However, being able to use such media is not always a matter of course. People with some form of disability, according to the World Health Organisation, the world’s largest minority with over one billion people (WHO, 2020), are one user group that faces several obstacles in this context. The so-called “digital divide” (Jaeger, 2011), a term associated with the unequal access and use of internet-based technologies among different groups in society, has multiple facets. For instance, people with disabilities in the US are less likely to access personal internet-enabled devices and a broadband internet connection at home (Anderson & Perrin, 2017). Accessibility problems are also frequent, even with technology that has been implemented decades ago, like screen-readers (Pardes, 2019). Furthermore, the perceived difficulty and complexity of using the internet is the main reason for the absence of people with disabilities who do not use the internet at all (Capgemini, 2020). Even if the reasons for the digital divide are manifold and, by far, not limited to the design of digital services and products, it reminds HCI practitioners and designers of the opportunities and responsibilities to create more inclusive platforms and interactions. There is a need to recognise human diversity regarding impairments “when designing technology to foster digital inclusion” (Johansson et al., 2021) and to go beyond the notion of a single user type (Dalton, 2013), which is often characterised as a neurotypical person who is not affected by any moderate or severe impairment. One form of applying this approach in practice is to include people with special needs into the design process, for instance, by following the tradition of participatory design (PD). In this project, I aim to develop existing PD practices further by seeking to establish an “affective partnership” in the sense of Bennett and Rosner to “destabilize and reimagine imposed boundaries” (Bennett & Rosner, 2019) together with adults with learning disabilities. The project is particular in the way that video calls are the medium of study and, at the same time, the primary medium of research. In other words, design-based research methods are adapted to a remote form of PD, using mainly synchronous and partly asynchronous CMC. This framing leads to one of the two overall aims of the study: analysing the implications and limitations of such an approach. To work towards this goal, I collaborated with NetzStecker, the Office for Inclusive Media Education, based in Münster, Germany. NetzStecker founded in 2017 a working group where adults with learning disabilities meet regularly to learn together or evaluate digital products, for instance, on the legibility of their texts. I had the privilege to conduct the applied methods in this project with the people of NetzStecker’s working group, which enabled a fundamental part of this study’s learning.

The second overall aim of the project is to investigate considerations for the design of video call platforms. Despite being a technology that has been implemented decades ago, video calls are still a young field in terms of accessibility and inclusion. Educational institutions have recently started to communicate early guidelines for accessible remote meetings (University College London, 2020) and researchers began to explore the implications of the video call use for neurodiverse users (Zolyomi et al., 2019). In addition to that, an increasing number of start-ups aims for new forms of video call communication, for instance, by implementing artificial intelligence software that could be used for emotion recognition (Pardes, 2020). The emergence of proximity chat software (McCulloch, 2020), which shows avatars of video calls participants in 2D maps or 3D environments and enables conversations based on proximity, provides new concepts of spatiality for this medium, which should also be considered in this context. Moreover, video calls have received growing attention from a theoretical standpoint during the pandemic, leading, for instance, to a concept of “spatial dynamics as third skins in CMC” (Nadler, 2020). These dynamics are manifold since CMC goes beyond the designation of a call when enabling spaces for remote work, education or leisure time (Lorenz et al., 2020). All in all, the dynamic development of video call platforms poses an opportunity for including neurodiverse perspectives in this process, which is one of the motivations for this study. The project consists of four main stages, which are described and analysed in this report: An initial exploration and trust-building workshop, followed by mobile device-based diary studies, a generative session and a proximity chat experiment. Each stage leads to design opportunities and methodological conclusions, which are discussed subsequently. The results indicate a starting point for design researchers who plan to conduct remote PD processes with people with special needs. They also provide considerations for HCI practitioners when designing video call platforms. Finally, the applied methods and findings might be partly helpful for social workers who adapt meetings of adults with learning disabilities to an online context.

2 Research focus This section describes the research focus, providing the framing for the design process during an eight-week project.

2.1 Research questions Computer-mediated communication (CMC) can be divided into “synchronous CMC, where interaction takes place in real-time, and asynchronous CMC, where participants are not necessarily online simultaneously” (Simpson, 2002). This study focuses on synchronous CMC (SCMC) in the form of video-based communication. The term video call has been used in related literature to describe a form of SCMC, where two or more persons use platforms, such as Skype, Meet or Zoom, to communicate with each other from different locations (e.g. Lancioni et al., 2020; Licoppe & Morel, 2012; Zolyomi et al., 2019). Central research issues that form the study’s base are revealing critical needs for adults with learning disabilities in video calls and suggesting considerations for the design of related platforms. In this connection, I propose as a first research question:

RQ1: What are the considerations for the design of video-based SCMC for adults with learning disabilities?

Furthermore, I aim to focus particularly on the knowledge generated during the design process within the project’s context. Instead of merely focusing on the outcome in terms of generated data or design recommendations, the process and the reflections on different activities are intended to become an essential element of this report. Therefore, I propose the following second research question:

RQ2: What are the implications and limits of using the medium of study as the medium of research in a remote participatory design process?

The medium of study and research refers, in this case, to video calls, through which three of the four project’s stages were conducted. The platform Zoom1 was chosen in this context for two activities due to the participants’ previous experiences with the tool.

2.2 Positioning within interaction design Grounding the project within the intersection of inclusive design and information and communication technology (ICT), I resonate with Löwgren and Stolterman’s sense of thoughtful interaction design, requiring “ethical and aesthetic judgement” and a design vision “closely linked to context and not simply focused on the technology” (Löwgren & Stolterman,

1 https://zoom.us/ 7

2004). SCMC in the form of video calls has been adapted little to the multitude of contexts and the diversity of its users, causing a “talking heads arrangement” as “a default mode of interaction, with the implication that when there is nothing else relevant to show, the participants should show themselves on-screen” (Licoppe & Morel, 2012). Design for dynamic diversity, accounting for diversity and “responding to the day-to-day and hour-by-hour changes in any user’s sensory, motor and cognitive abilities” (Gregor et al., 2002), is a design paradigm, developed initially in the context of interfaces for older people, which seems to be promising in this context. Related methodologies that combine inclusive design with participatory design practices, such as User-sensitive inclusive design (A. F. Newell et al., 2011), provide a framing for ethical and aesthetic judgement in this context.

2.3 Cooperation with NetzStecker NetzStecker is a project of Lebenshilfe Münster e.V., a German non-profit self-help and parents' association providing services for people with intellectual disabilities and their families. The NetzStecker project is funded by Aktion Mensch, a non-governmental organisation that supports inclusion in several hundreds of projects for people with disabilities, children and adolescents. In 2017, NetzStecker founded a working group in which adults with disabilities get involved in both a learning group and a project advisory board. The working group includes 5-10 persons with learning disabilities who are all between 20 and 50 years. After presenting an initial project outline to NetzStecker’s project coordinators, an interest in collaborating in this project was expressed. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the working group had met on several occasions in video calls, trying out different platforms and methods. However, some participants showed lower interest in the meetings since they adapted to the online environment. NetzStecker defined several expectations in the next meeting with all team members. These included developing different forms of activities with the potential to be rewarding for the diverse participants. The project was also seen as a motivation for participants to reexplore video calls and generate new learnings for them. No concrete design outcome was defined at the start of the process. We agreed to have a dynamic design process that enabled us to make decisions based on the results of each project’s stage.

2.4 Understanding of the term learning disabilities It is essential to emphasise that NetzStecker’s definition of learning disabilities is grounded in the German term Lernbehinderung. According to the German dictionary Duden, a Lernbehinderung is a “[severe and persistent] impairment of the ability to learn” (Duden, n.d.). While this definition varies from the US-American understanding of the term (Opp, 1992), it is close to the definition used in the UK.

The British Department of Health defines that the term learning disabilities includes the presence of:

“A significantly reduced ability to understand new or complex information, to learn new skills (impaired intelligence), with a reduced ability to cope independently (impaired social functioning), which started before adulthood, with a lasting effect on development.” (Department of Health, 2001)

According to this definition, the term learning disabilities includes a wide range of disabilities and is not only determined by the IQ but by communication skills and social functioning. Physical and sensory impairments are frequent among people with learning disabilities (Department of Health, 2001). In the last decade, the term intellectual disability has been used more frequently to describe the term learning disabilities interchangeably (Mackenzie & Watts, 2011). However, there is an ongoing discussion in the UK about the perception of this term, which has not led to a conclusion yet (Cluley, 2018). NetzStecker´s understanding of disabilities on a broader level resonates with the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) model (World Health Organization, 2001). It is primarily a matter of not looking deficit-oriented at what a person cannot do due to potential limitations, but rather at activities and so-called functionings that enable participation in society. In other words, this model goes beyond the medical perspective of deficits towards a holistic view of a person's resources and skills.

3 Background and theory This chapter provides the theoretical framework for this project and the academic state of the art in the chosen subfield within interaction design. Furthermore, related participatory design examples are illustrated to point out references of previous work with a similar methodological approach.

3.1 Phenomenology According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, phenomenology is the “study of the structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view”. It develops a complex account of multiple elements, such as “temporal […] and spatial awareness, […] attention […], self-awareness […], embodied action […], linguistic activity […] or social interaction” (Smith, 2013). In human-computer interaction, phenomenology has become “a productive lens to explore the different roles of technologies as tools” (Frauenberger, 2019). The multitude of elements that it focuses on enables exploring complex user experiences by recognising the importance of embodied perception (Merleau-Ponty, 1982). Based on the theory of the French phenomenological philosopher Merleau-Ponty, fundamental concepts in the intersection of phenomenology and interaction design have been established during the last two decades (Svanæs, 2013). These include Paul Dourish’s theory of embodied interaction (Dourish, 2001), Susan Kozel’s approach of performance “as a catalyst for understanding wider social and cultural uses of digital technology” (Kozel, 2007) and Kristina Höök’s concept of somaesthetic interaction design as a form of designing with the body (Höök, 2018). In this project, a phenomenological approach is used to study video calls as spaces of interaction with “fundamentally embodied” interactions (Benyon et al., 2010). I follow Benyon et al.'s notion, aiming to understand “how people with bodies live in and move” through these spaces (Benyon et al., 2010).

3.1.1 Related studies on video calls Among multiple digital technologies, phenomenological studies have also been applied to research online spaces, for instance, in online games and video calls (Berger, 2020; Friesen, 2014). Friesen focuses on the concept of telepresence and tele-absence in video calls, suggesting that “the disruption of spatial coherence and power of [the] gaze and mutual gaze are all but unavoidable features of this experience” (Friesen, 2014). By describing video calls as “its own source of disruption and distortion of self and body”, Friesen evidences the critical design needs of video conferencing platforms. In recent work, Berger analyses video calls through sociological theories of space and defines them as an “example of how the paramount reality of everyday life expands into the virtual realm.” (Berger, 2020). Berger bases his work on the philosophy of the Austrian philosopher

and social phenomenologist Alfred Schütz, focuses on the spatiality of video calls and points out the lack of transitional spaces in video calls. In other words, Berger describes that video calls provide only the options of being available or unavailable and, thereby, lose the “many subtleties of ‘offline’ availability” (Berger, 2020). Both Friesen and Berger provide relevant concepts for this study. I aim to complement their results with the perspectives obtained in this project. A further theoretical contribution is intended by discussing to what extent participatory design with adults with learning disabilities might enrich this picture.

3.2 Design and disability In the last decades, there has been a growing body of research and publications about the mutual benefits when, as Pullin describes it, “design meets disability” (Pullin, 2009). While the concrete methodological approach of this project is described in chapter 4, this section intends to provide an understanding of the overall framing in this sense, introducing the concepts of disability studies, disability activism and neurodiversity.

3.2.1 Disability studies and disability activism Bennett and Rosner state that the process of building empathy in the initial phase of human- centred design projects that involve people with disabilities should be informed by disability studies and feminist theories (Bennett & Rosner, 2019). Since this project aims to develop a starting point for remote participatory design practices with adults with learning disabilities, I refer to Dan Goodley’s comprehensive work on disability studies as an introduction to the field (Goodley, 2014). Goodley calls disability studies an “orientation that might encourage us to think again about the phenomena of disability and ability”. He defines disablism as “the oppressive practices of contemporary society that threaten to exclude, eradicate and neutralise those individuals, bodies, minds and community practices that fail to fit the capitalist imperative”. Moreover, Goodley claims to go beyond the concept of disability as a “stigmatised social position” towards a “potentiality: a moment, an event a calling and an encounter” and a “signifier: a term that calls out for signifiers or meanings to be attached”. At the same time, this approach implies questioning the concept of ableism by redefining what is meant by “being able” (Goodley, 2014). But what does the focus on disability studies precisely imply for the field of HCI? Das et al. observe a “shift in the accessible computing community conceptualising accessibility as a feature of a system towards understanding access as an emergent phenomenon that is shaped through interaction with other people and one’s material workspace” (Das et al., 2021). Therefore, accessibility has become “inherently political” according to the authors.

Establishing this political framing of design and disability poses the question of whether this project can be positioned as a form of disability activism. Disability activism is related to the social model of disability, which “suggests that a person is disabled by society’s inabilities to adapt to disabled people’s needs” (Berghs, Chataika, Dube, et al., 2019). Consequently, disability activism seeks to “improve all disabled people’s lives by working together to dismantle external barriers they all face, including physical inaccessibility, badly-designed, poorly managed benefits and programs, and ableist attitudes and practices in everyday life” (Pulrang, 2020). I resonate with Berghs et al., who indicate that “independent researcher or community activist […] working on disability issues, often […] [do] not call themselves ‘activist’” (Berghs, Chataika, El-Lahib, et al., 2019). At least in the initial framing of the project, I did not intend nor even question to consider the work of this study as a form of activism. However, I have experienced a shift during the project, recognizing how close a participatory design process can be to disability activism. It is also essential to mention the effect of inclusion for the participants, which is a crucial element of disability activism. Schormans et al. describe that “through participation in inclusive research projects, people labelled with intellectual and developmental disabilities can re-think and re-make themselves” (Schormans et al., 2019). This statement implies that design research in the context of this study goes beyond informing the design of products and can demonstrate inclusion in a designerly way of activism.

3.2.2 Neurodiversity First used by the Australian sociologist and autistic rights advocate Judy Singer (Singer, 1999), the term neurodiversity has become initially popular among people on the autism spectrum and then expanded to a growing community, including conditions such as “Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dyspraxia/DCD, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Asperger’s Syndrome, Tourette’s Syndrome and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)” (Dalton, 2013). Neurodiversity emphasizes the differences of the human brain (Armstrong, 2015), the “extraordinary gifts” (Armstrong, 2010) of neurodiverse people and that individuals with disabilities are categorised as such primarily through the existing barriers in the society according to the previously mentioned social model of disability. The term neurodiversity has also been discussed in HCI and interaction design. Dalton argues for several principles from which the demand that “we must conduct research in a way which is aware, responsive, and critical of what’s considered ‘normal’” (Dalton, 2013) is most relevant for this study. Katie Gaudion, a design researcher at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design in London, is one of the pioneers in designing with neurodivergent people. Based on the learning of several projects with autistic adults with learning disabilities, she concludes that the designer’s “perceptual shift” was essential for the success of the project:

“It was not the design methods but the perceptual shift of the designer that needed to change […]. The perceptual theories […] in combination with the expertise of the support staff aided this shift that encouraged the designer to step outside herself and exercise more flexible ways of perceiving the affordances of the environment.” (Gaudion et al., 2014)

Gaudion highlights that designers should not underestimate the importance of this process, which might require time, reflection and communication with support persons. There is a discussion about whether learning disabilities should be considered part of the neurodiversity paradigm (Mackenzie & Watts, 2011). Recognising that there is a controversy about the scope of the term and the political implications, I am not able to take a clear standpoint in this definition. However, I argue for considering previous learnings from the design community when working as a neurotypical designer together with individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions.

3.3 Video calls Early visions for videotelephony emerged already shortly after the invention of the telephone at the end of the 19th century. First demonstrations of two-way video phones were demonstrated in the 1930s by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) in New York City, followed by the so-called picturephone in the 1960s and 70s, also developed by AT&T (Borth, n.d.). Even if video conferencing had been intended to be established as a form of business communication since then (Egido, 1988), it took until the development of digital phone systems in the 1980s and more sophisticated internet connections in the 1990s to use the technology more frequently, for instance, in conference rooms. Inexpensive webcams, more affordable broadband internet connections and free video conferencing software, such as Skype, enabled desktop video conferencing in the last two decades also among private households (Judge & Neustaedter, 2010). Personal use has further increased since apps like FaceTime became widely available on mobile phones. Furthermore, the technology has become an established form to conduct remote research (Deakin & Wakefield, 2014). In the last years, browser-based real-time communication (WebRTC) has created new possibilities for video calls (Loreto & Romano, 2014). The technology enables real-time peer-to-peer communication via audio and video without the need to install additional plugins. The exponential use of video calls during the COVID-19 pandemic led to an increased awareness of the fatigue that users experience compared to in-person meetings. The “Zoom Exhaustion and Fatigue Scale” (Fauville et al., 2021), which researchers of Stanford University recently published, is one example trying to quantify what has been expressed as a medium that makes many users feel “awkward and unfulfilled” (K. Murphy, 2020). Since then, the design of video call platforms has received growing attention. One example of design 13

interventions is the simulation of eye contact by using neural networks, for instance, by researchers from Intel cooperation (Isikdogan et al., 2020). Wang et al. propose a neural talking-head video synthesis model that creates a simulation of the head, which replaces the actual video in the context of video conferences, aiming for a more straightforward processing of non-verbal communication (Wang et al., 2021). Google goes even a step further with their prototype for the “Project Starline”, a holographic video call system that uses depth sensors, high-resolution cameras, and a light field display. The prototype is able to compress and stream live 3D video but is not likely to be available for the public within the next years (Goode, 2021). However, it is a powerful demonstration, how the technological possibilities for “tele-immersion” (Lanier, 2001) have evolved in the last two decades. Recently, so-called “proximity chat” solutions (McCulloch, 2020), such as Gather.town2 or wonder.me3, are trying to generate experiences where users can decide in which part of the virtual space to go and, thereby, with whom to talk. They provide 2D maps with personalised avatars to simulate movements in a virtual space. Some tools like SpatialWeb4 also use 3D worlds together with spatial audio, where the volume of other participants’ voices depends on the distance in the virtual room. A clear definition of such tools has not yet been established in the academic literature. Apart from the term “proximity chat”, there is also the approach of calling similar platforms “spatialised video conferences” (Latulipe, 2021), “spatial interfaces or software” (Palmer, 2019) or, in the case of 3D approaches, “Social VR” (Li et al., 2021). In the last years, there has also been a growing interest in exploring and understanding the experiences of people with special needs in video calls. A research project at Microsoft investigated the needs of autistic adults in video calls (Zolyomi et al., 2019). Several studies have been conducted to learn more about the telework experience of people with disabilities (Tang, 2021) and neurodiverse adults (Das et al., 2021). Furthermore, Lancioni et al. developed and tested a simplified tablet software to facilitate people with intellectual and other disabilities access to video calls in their leisure time (Lancioni et al., 2020).

3.4 Related work in the field of PD Within the discipline of inclusive design, co-design and participatory design practices that involve people with cognitive, intellectual or learning disabilities have been implemented and evaluated during the last two decades. There are several participatory design processes and resulting frameworks, which include children with disabilities. Examples are projects that involve children with special needs (Frauenberger et al., 2011; Guha et al., 2008) or neurodiverse children (Benton et al., 2014). However, since this study aims for including a

2 http://gather.town/ 3 http://wonder.me/ 4 https://spatialweb.net/ 14

group of adults with learning disabilities, the related work presented in this section focuses on experiences with adults. The following three projects illustrate how adults with cognitive and intellectual disabilities were included in participatory design processes. All of the projects were conducted in person with researchers and participants at the same place. To the best of my knowledge, remote participatory design processes with adults with learning disabilities have not been documented yet.

3.4.1 Co-designing interactive applications with adults with intellectual disability A co-design exercise, where Australian adults with intellectual disabilities participated in the design of a mobile application, showed the potential for engaging participants through prototypes (Sitbon & Farhin, 2017). Aiming to create a solution supporting people with intellectual disabilities when using public transports, Sitbon and Farhin used, for instance, non-finito features as a probe during the ideation. These prototypes with incomplete features “provided opportunities for a deeper understanding of how the users would feel about such a supporting feature” and provided promising results. Sitbon’s and Farhin’s approach of engaging participants with intellectual disabilities through a form of technological probes indicates the potential of the research through design approach in a context similar to this project. Furthermore, their findings regarding using visual tools like the MIT AppInventor indicate possible difficulties related to usability and unexpected behaviour when working in a limited time frame. While communication between researchers and participants is highlighted as a critical element for improving the quality of the outcome, few findings are presented about the role of the researcher in the design process or what kind of effect the diversity of the participants had for the different methods.

3.4.2 That is how I speak nowadays Buchholz et al. explored the experiences of remote communication among persons with communicative and cognitive disabilities in Sweden (Buchholz et al., 2018). In this study, the visual framework Talking Mats (Murphey & Cameron, 2008) was used for interviewing adolescents and adults. The researchers prepared a set of questions and images together with mats for different categories, which covered the topics of communicative functions and situations, reasons for remote communication and services, applications and devices. The participants were encouraged to use different types of verbal and non-verbal communication. Furthermore, they were accompanied by a support person. The results of the study indicate the importance of independence choices regarding different types of remote communication. These include, for instance, the selection of communication form and the determination of whether to include a support person or not. Buchholz et al. also call for improving accessibility through assistive technology.

Even if the work of Buchholz et al. does not explicitly include a participatory design approach, the study is relevant for this project because of two reasons. First, the overall topic of remote communication among persons with communicative and cognitive disabilities included the field of video calls. At the time of the study, most participants did not have experiences with this communication form, but several participants expressed an interest in using a tablet and video calls (Buchholz et al., 2018). Second, using the method, Talking Mats turned out to be a promising form of exploration in the context of remote communication. However, it is necessary to evaluate this method to be applied remotely and adapt it potentially as a group activity to foster further discussion opportunities.

3.4.3 Including intellectual disability in participatory design processes One of the most extensive recent work in the intersection of PD and inclusive research is the study of Spencer González et al., based in Chile (Spencer González et al., 2020). They conducted a series of methods over more than three years, aiming to promote the independent living of adults with intellectual disabilities. The design process included fieldwork, such as design probes and group interviews, ideation and co-design workshops, as well as prototype evaluation through user testing. Spencer González et al. focus on discussing the challenge of inclusive ideation and conclude by stating the importance of adapting traditional co-design methods and practices when working with adults with diverse cognitive disabilities. Figure 1 shows one method from the ideation process, which the researcher evaluated as a promising way of articulating “the interrelationship between material and spatial elements, […] by a fictional narrative activated by the playful and exploratory action of the participants” (Spencer González et al., 2020).

Figure 1: Performative presentation of artefacts created from the ideation toolkit (Spencer González et al., 2020)

The combination of an ideation toolkit with a performative group activity is considered an inspiration for this project of adapting traditional methods into the specific context of the participants. I share the intention of creating a playful and activating atmosphere to foster 16

new forms of observations and discussions. Moreover, using embodied activities like “theatrical relaxation techniques” (Spencer González et al., 2020) as an icebreaker or warming up exercises and adapting them to a video call environment is another similar challenge to this project. Finally, Spencer González et al. provide an equally relevant reflection on the role of the participants by observing a “shifting from research subjects to trainees, to advisors, to experts by experience and finally to creative partners” (Spencer González et al., 2020).

4 Methodological approach The methodological approach chosen for this project follows the concept of research through design (RtD). This chapter grounds the project in RtD and explains, in addition to that, how the design process is based on inclusive design and participatory design (PD).

4.1 Research through design According to Zimmerman et al., RtD is a form of design research aiming for knowledge contribution based on the designers’ “strength in addressing under-constrained problems” (Zimmerman et al., 2010), which are characterised by their complexity. Johan Redström considers this complexity in design and the resulting conflicts as “perhaps its most fascinating feature” (Redström, 2017). Dealing with “wicked problems” (Rittel & Webber, 1973) or, in other words, “problems [that] can never be accurately modeled” (Zimmerman et al., 2007) provides not only a challenging framing for design practitioners but also an opportunity for design research to generate knowledge in its unique, “designerly” (Zimmerman et al., 2010) way, which can complement other disciplines like engineering or social sciences. There has been an ongoing discussion about the questions, how design knowledge should be produced (e.g. Gaver, 2012; Zimmerman et al., 2010) and what kind of knowledge or - juxtaposing even more various standpoints - theory design research should aim to create (e.g. Höök & Löwgren, 2012; Redström, 2017). In the course of this discussion, several researchers have located design knowledge in a spectrum of “intermediate-level knowledge” (Höök & Löwgren, 2012) between particular instances and generalised theories, naming it “strong concepts” (ibid) or proposing “annotated portfolios” (Gaver, 2012) as a form of achieving theoretical contributions by juxtaposing a series of artefacts with annotations. In this project, I resonate with Gaver, aiming to generate a part of the “endless string of design examples” (Gaver, 2012) and complement existing PD practices, including people with learning disabilities or intellectual disabilities. However, the core of this project is not a specific artefact but the interaction within the multiple layers of video calls itself. It is an exploration of the intersection of virtual and physical spaces that includes experiments and the intent of generating knowledge on the perception of these spaces in a designerly way.

4.2 Inclusive design Inclusive design, for example, aiming for accessibility in products and services, has long been implemented in human-computer interaction (Abascal & Nicolle, 2005; Alan F. Newell & Gregor, 2000; Nicolle & Abascal, 2001). Recently, new areas of inclusivity, such as design for neurodiversity, have become emergent fields for interaction designers (Çorlu et al., 2017; Dalton, 2013; Rapp et al., 2019). They come with a critique of “the implicit notion of ‘user’ in the singular” and challenge “assumptions about the cognitive processing abilities of users”

(Dalton, 2013), which I follow in this project. In other words, this study investigates which design considerations emerge for video calls when including neurodiverse perspectives or, more specifically, the observations and experiences of adults with learning disabilities. Graham Pullin’s Design Meets Disability and his approach, how design and disability can inspire each other (Pullin, 2009), complements this notion by emphasising the potential of creating provoking perspectives for mainstream design and, at the same time, avoid complicated accessibility features. I resonate with Das et al. (2021) that inclusive design does not only imply developing products or artefacts with tested accessibility but instead also an inclusion within the design process. A similar call for “a closer collaboration” and the need to “make the design process accessible for people with cognitive impairments” is stated as an implication for design in a recently published report about the disability digital divide in Sweden (Johansson et al., 2021). However, this scenario poses the question of how to conduct such design processes. The following section describes a specific approach to PD, which provides guidance for this project.

4.3 Participatory design Routed in Scandinavia in the 1970s as a part of the workplace democracy movement, participatory design (PD) has “matured as a research discipline and field of design practice” (Simonsen & Robertson, 2012). According to Simonsen and Robertson, PD is a process of mutual learning between participants and designers that is not based on strict rules and definition but a “commitment to core principles of participation in design” (Simonsen & Robertson, 2012). To enable fruitful PD projects, it is necessary to choose and adapt methods, tools and technique to the project’s context. Based on this argumentation, it is evident that there is a need of adapting traditional PD practices when designing with people with disabilities. According to Frauenberger et al., phenomenological approaches can provide a framework for PD in this context by avoiding the pressure of creative responsibility on participants:

“Our approach allows designers to methodologically detach the literal input from the deeper, phenomenological properties and use those to inform the design.” (Frauenberger et al., 2010)

Frauenberger et al. conclude that phenomenological thinking has guided the design team in a PD project with autistic children through the different activities in their design process. “Being-in-the-world” of their participants was a “fundamental starting point for co-creation (Frauenberger et al., 2010). What Frauenberger et al. describe in the context of a specific project is expanded and enriched by a recent publication of Bennett and Rosner, which examines the promise of empathy when working in design processes with people with disabilities (Bennett & Rosner, 2019). Bennett and Rosner build on disability studies, feminist 19

theories and practices of PD and provide a set of commitments to facilitate a shift from, as they call it, “being like” other actors to “being with” them:

“We call for “an undetermined articulation of ‘being with’” that involves learning to be affected and attending to difference without reifying that difference once again. In so doing, we make room for an affective partnership that may help destabilise and reimagine imposed boundaries (e.g., between categories of “disabled” and “designing” or “designer” and “user”).” (Bennett & Rosner, 2019)

On a more concrete level, Bennett and Rosner critique, for instance, the use of disability simulators as a form of empathy-building since they treat the disabled user as a “spectacle” (Bennett & Rosner, 2019). Thereby, the focus is merely on the impairment, while techniques to cope with many daily routines are neglected. In this project, I aim to establish partnerships in the sense of Frauenberger et al. as well as Rosner and Bennett. By using the medium of research video calls in different stages of the design process as the medium of study, I focus on being with the participants and learning throughout various activities about the qualities and challenges related to this technology. The lens of phenomenology is intended to be a tool for discovering design considerations.

5 Methods and process This chapter describes how the previously planned and partly iterated methods were applied in the design process of this project. It indicates the results of each part of the design process and provides challenges, limitations, and reflections identified during the project. The design process includes four main stages: An initial exploration and trust-building workshop, mobile device-based diary studies, a generative session and a proximity chat experiment.

5.1.1 Ethical concerns Since I had little experience working together with adults with learning disabilities, my principal ethical considerations were to strive for adequate use of correct and easily accessible language and a level of engaging but not exhausting participants. The responsible project coordinators of NetzStecker, who have several years of experience in accessible media and social work, provided me guidance and support in this process. Since the working group I collaborated with was founded by Netzstecker, the organisation’s knowledge about as well as the experience with the participants was crucial for this project. Moreover, the project was approved by the ethics review of the Faculty of Culture and Society’s ethics council at Malmö University, focusing on agency and consent during the project. In the following, I express some of my considerations for handling data adequately. First, all participants were adults who could only participate in the study after having signed the consent form, which, for some participants, required the signature of the participant's legal guardian. Both the information letter and all activities of the design process were reviewed with the project coordinator of NetzStecker. Second, my research was aimed to be GDPR compliant to the best of my knowledge. Apart from me, only my thesis supervisor and the responsible project coordinators of NetzStecker had temporally access to specific data related to the study. Once the project is completed and approved by Malmö University, all collected materials, including data about the participants, will be destroyed. Third, the information letter (Appendix 1: Invitation letter for the participants of the study (in German)) and consent form (Appendix 2: Consent form (in German)) were written in German, the participants’ native language. Plain language was used to ensure that all participants were able to understand the scope of the project. Additionally, a video message in simple language was sent to the participants. One of the project coordinators of NetzStecker, who works on a daily basis on creating educational material in easily accessible language, assisted in this process and reviewed the letter and the video.

5.2 Exploration and trust-building workshop Collaborating with NetzStecker in this project enabled both access to a working group of adults with learning disabilities and the possibility of iterative method design due to the project coordinators’ feedback in weekly meetings. When evaluating the first research method’s format, we discussed individual approaches, such as cultural probes (Gaver et al., 1999) and collective activities like an online workshop. While cultural probes are a promising tool for gathering the participants’ perceptions and experiences, they also come with the risks like a lack of motivation to complete them individually or an incomplete understanding of the tasks. Furthermore, NetzStecker’s project coordinators emphasised the participants’ need to get to know the designer in a familiar group environment to build trust before proceeding with individual activities (Gilbert, 2004). Therefore, an online group workshop, where participants could voluntarily participate, was chosen as the initial method.

5.2.1 Aims Before planning the workshop methods, we agreed on the following four aims for the activity: 1. Get to know each other and build trust. 2. Create a pleasant atmosphere, e.g., through activities that have a playful approach. 3. Include all participants in the activities and do not overwhelm them. 4. Gaining first knowledge about the participants’ perception of the intersection of physical and virtual spaces in video calls. The first three goals aim for establishing an inclusive environment where the participants feel challenged but also comfortable. By following these goals, knowledge contribution is intended to create a digital space for participatory design processes with people with learning disabilities (RQ2). Special attention was paid to the diversity of the group’s participants with varying communication skills and preferences. The fourth goal is related to RQ1 and the generation of insights related to this user group’s video-call experiences.

5.2.2 Design-before-design In addition to early coordination with the stakeholder, one of the main challenges in the design-before-design phase was creating an invitation for the potential participants to participate in the workshop. Based on NetzStecker’s previous experiences, a video message was suggested to complement the more formal information letter and the consent form that participants were asked to sign. The video message provided a first opportunity for the participants to get to know the designer through verbal and non-verbal communication. It was also a way of practising the use of accessible language with a reduced speed, which was going to be a fundamental challenge for the workshop itself. Furthermore, based on the experiences of NetzStecker and additional literature on guidelines for communication with 22

people with cognitive disabilities (Smeltzer et al., 2017), I learned about the importance of the set-up of video messages. For instance, the camera's position on the same eye level was highlighted as an essential detail to communicate to participants from the beginning their role as an equal actor in the design process.

5.2.3 Participants A total of seven participants took part in the workshop. Two women and five men with an age range from 23 to 50 years participated. All participants formed part of NetzStecker’s network and had known each other already before the workshop. Four of the participants lived with their parents, one in a group home and two independently, supported occasionally during the week by caretakers. All of them worked in practical jobs in the context of workshops, which included activities such as assembling or gardening. None of the participants worked from home, and they all used remote communication, e.g., through video calls, only as a part of their leisure time activities. The participants had previous experiences using video call platforms for meetings with NetzStecker or other organisations. The majority of the participants accessed the video call through a tablet, and some participated utilising a desktop computer. Using tablets as the principal internet-enabled device is frequent among adolescents and adults with intellectual disabilities (Alfredsson Ågren et al., 2020). Some participants were assisted by their caretakers during the set-up of the video call, but all were able to conduct the call on their own afterwards. Communication skills among the group varied, including participants with strong verbal skills as well as communication difficulties. Furthermore, one person with a visual impairment and communication difficulties participated. Two of NetzStecker’s project coordinators supported the workshop's facilitation, who had previously conducted online and offline activities with all of the participants. They acted as mediators in the initial introduction, contributed to the moderation of the workshop and assisted in articulating statements of participants with communication difficulties.

5.2.4 Activities Since the workshop was going to be conducted online, methods had to be adapted to a video call environment. NetzStecker’s working group had previous experience with the video call software Zoom, which was therefore chosen to provide a familiar environment for the first activities. While the participants had experienced screen-sharing by one of the project coordinators in previous meetings, using other applications during a video call had not been tried. However, the complexity of learning another software, such as a whiteboard tool and applying it simultaneously to the conversation, was evaluated to be likely overwhelming and stressful for the participants. Thus, we agreed to prepare activities on a digital whiteboard and apply them by sharing the facilitator’s screen. Before starting with the preparation of the

activities, this process was tested to create elements with a reasonable size for the smaller tablet screen (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Early testing of a Miro board on a tablet

Favourite object As a first step of getting to know each other, both the workshop’s facilitators and participants were asked to introduce themselves with a few sentences about them and present one of their favourite objects. This technique has been used successfully as a conversation enabler in other research contexts, for instance, with young children (Thomson & Hadfield, 2014) and applied in recent online workshop formats with adults (Figure 3). Apart from the potential as a conversation starter, it was also intended to provide insights into how participants perceived their visible camera area and the interaction with physical elements in a digital space. The participants were asked to select one of their favourite objects to prepare before the meeting to avoid a stressful situation during the workshop.

Figure 3: Bringing objects into a videoconference (Mrvova, 2021)

Icebreaker Several playful activities were considered an icebreaker or a bridging activity between activities, which required focusing on specific elements of the video call. The activity “Would you prefer to be…” was chosen in this context. Figure 4 shows an example of the prepared

material, where participants were asked if they preferred to be a dog or a cat. At the same time, the activity was intended to be an experiment on how participants would express their preference. Possibilities, such as raising their physical hand or selecting the reaction “hand emoji”, were given but not established as rules.

Figure 4: Icebreaker activity “Would you prefer to be...”

Pass the pen Inspired by a virtual game demo on the YouTube channel Girlguiding (Figure 5), another playful activity was chosen to learn more about the interaction between the physical and the digital video call space. All participants were asked to bring a pen, and the activity consisted of imitating to pass the pen to another participant in the video call after calling their name. This activity came with a level of uncertainty due to its higher complexity and the fact that the order of the participants’ screens typically varies in software like Zoom. However, this scenario provided a potential to learn more about the participants’ perceptions and tacit knowledge regarding the use of video calls.

Figure 5: Screenshot from the virtual game demo “pass the pen” (girlguiding, 2020)

Adapting the Talking Mats method Talking Mats is a communication resource developed to help people with cognitive disabilities express their views “by increasing both the quantity and quality of information

communicated” (Murphey & Cameron, 2008). The method has been used in participatory design processes with people with cognitive disabilities (Buchholz et al., 2018) and communication difficulties to participate in goal setting (J. Murphy & Boa, 2012). Even if online resources5 exist to conduct the talking mats methods, e.g., on a tablet, there has been, to the best of my knowledge, no investigation about adapting the technique to an online workshop. The original format implies using a physical mat, where participants can place previously prepared cards into three different categories (Figure 6). The top-scale, or in other words, response category, consists of illustrations or combinations of graphical elements and short descriptions. These categories include a positive option, such as “I like it” or “It works well”, a neutral option like “Not sure” or “It sometimes works” and a negative option, for instance, “I don’t like it” or “It doesn’t work well”. The option symbols consist of activities in the form of an image or an illustration and a short description. Apart from placing the option symbols into the different categories, the participants are also asked to explain their choice.

Figure 6: Talking mats as part of a participatory design process with people with cognitive disabilities (Buchholz et al., 2018)

A version of talking mats suitable for an online group context was planned as the main method for gaining implicit knowledge about the participants’ use of video calls and evaluating different activities, skills, and difficulties. In the first iteration, I adapted the method in a similar format to an online whiteboard. (Figure 7). According to the working group’s description, which I received from NetzStecker, the participants were familiar with the use of emojis, and some of them even used them as a preferred way of communication. Therefore, instead of creating illustrations for the response categories, emojis were suggested in combination with the not personalised description “It works well/ It sometimes works / It doesn’t work well”. The option card included both technical tasks, such as “I can start the

5 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/talking-mats/id691104842 26

video call by opening the link or I can turn on and off the microphone”, and skills, such as “I can understand who is talking in the video call or I can tell a story”.

Figure 7: First iteration of talking mats online version in the digital whiteboard platform Miro

When evaluating the first iteration, it seemed clear on a visual level but implied some disadvantages for the group activity. Within the given format, participants could express their opinion but, in the end, would have to agree on one of the three response categories. Therefore, a second iteration was developed, aiming for a format where each participant could have the chance to express their opinion and make it visible through selecting one of the three options (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Second iteration of the talking mats online version

5.2.5 Results

Favourite object Depending on the camera’s angle, it took participants occasionally time to identify the object. When, for instance, a backpack was introduced, some participants first saw only a part of it and guessed what it could be (“It might be a small bag…oh no… it’s bigger!”). Participants perceived it as a challenge to find out what the object was going to be. Some participants could not decide which object to choose but talked about several personal objects, which facilitated getting to know each other.

Icebreaker Due to the modality of the activity, participants were not always able to express their preferences. Some interacted with the emojis, some others raised their hands, and others did not react at all. The use of the emoji was intentionally not defined before the activity. Participants did not foster the creation of a rule and interpreted emojis on their own. Some participants who seemed more reserved did not participate in the activity or answered only sporadically.

Pass the pen The activity enabled all participants to engage in a focused and experimental way. Many participants smiled or laughed during the exercise and used the expression “It’s like magic.” several times. During the activity, both facilitators and participants introduced variations while passing the pen. These variants included: - Pretending to throw the pen and pretending to catch the thrown pen. - Varying the speed and direction for handing over the pen. - The “swimming” pen: A specific movement associated with a swimming subject. - A delay, referring the actual physical distance of some of the participants Some participants needed some time to understand when the pen would leave the visible part of their video. This embodied practice enabled, therefore, an exploration of the virtual space that the participants had joined.

Talking mats During this activity, there were discrepancies between the participants’ self-assessment and their previous experiences in video calls in several cases. One example was the activity “I use emojis as a reaction in video calls”, where several participants stated that it worked well for them but who were in practice recently exploring this function. Furthermore, the engagement in the activity was shaped by the participants’ communication skills. Participants with

stronger verbal communication abilities talked for a longer time and provided reasons for their answers, while other participants often categorised the activity without further explanation. However, also the statements of participants with stronger verbal communication skills often went beyond the scope of the discussed activity to describe other experiences that were not related to the activity. For instance, in many cases, the internet connection was included in the reasoning, converting external factors into the main determinants of how well certain activities worked. Another difficulty was the size of the group in the workshop. The time that passed until all participants had answered was causing that some participants became less focused. However, several insights on the preparation of the physical space for the video call could be generated. Participants indicated that they chose the place based on different reasons, such as how comfortable it was or how much it showed from their private room. A strategy, which two participants mentioned, was showing as little private space as possible, for instance, by sitting close to a wall or a door.

5.2.6 Analysis Among the aims of this workshop was the initial trust-building and motivation of participants to participate in the ongoing design process. I entered as a facilitator into an unknown, previously established, digital space. Initially, when participants joined the virtual room, I introduced myself briefly and tried to observe some of the room’s implicit rules. For instance, unlike in other virtual rooms I had joined previously, the participants did not mute themselves when not being the active speaker. Instead of a small talk situation, the first minutes of checking in were used by many participants to explore who had entered the virtual room. This process was particularly challenging for one of the participants with a visual impairment who held his tablet close to his eyes and welcomed each familiar person after identifying them by saying “Hi…[name of the identified participant]”. The same participant acted during the workshop as a mediator when one of the participants had to start with an activity and suggested names of the facilitators or participants. Since turn-taking in video calls can be challenging due to the latency (Seuren et al., 2021), this type of mediation was beneficial for the workshop. According to NetzStecker’s project coordinators, this participant used to take a similar role in in-person meetings but showed more self-confidence in the video call environment. It was also remarkable that this participant decided to take breaks, left the virtual room independently, and returned after a few minutes. In terms of workshop facilitation, these individual breaks might have been more challenging to handle in a physical space because of the resulting duties of supervisions. However, the participant did not announce when he decided to take a break, which caused the other participants to be unsure if he was present or not during several occasions in the video call.

While it was challenging to build a relationship with the participants through an initial, more formal presentation, I experienced the icebreaker and embodied activities as a way of building trust and interest in the project. After some time, participants became more proactive and suggested presenting previous projects of the working group. As a way of showing interest, one participant asked, for instance, after the pen activity, where my city of residence, Malmö, was located and whether it was possible to show it on a map. For me, as a facilitator, the participation of the project coordinators was helpful both on a relational level and a practical level since they were able to understand one of the participants with communication difficulties better because of their previous experience with the group. The project coordinators supported some of the participants by repeating their statements or asking them if they referred to a specific statement after identifying keywords. One example was when a participant showed headphones as a favourite object and then expressed the word “radio”. In this case, one of the project coordinators asked if he meant that he used his headphones to listen to the radio frequently, which the participant confirmed. This meta- observation poses design opportunities for video calls, where mediators like the project coordinators are not present. For instance, a system that provides suggestions of phrases or visual elements based on identified keywords could support participants with weaker verbal communication abilities.

5.3 Mobile device-based diary studies As a form of generative research, mobile device-based diary studies (Sun et al., 2013) address the limitations of traditional paper-based diary studies by including different media forms and enabling more frequent communications and reminders. Earlier projects used voice-mail diary studies to generate a similar format (Palen & Salzman, 2002). The method was adopted and modified to send participants for four days short daily tasks through audio messages. This communication form had been evaluated as a promising tool for the initial contact. The tasks included different activities, such as sending an audio message or drawing a simple map of their room.

5.3.1 Aims The initial workshop had shown a potential for embodied activities to explore virtual spaces and revealed different strategies for choosing physical spaces. However, little individual data had been generated regarding the choice and preferences of physical and virtual spaces in video calls. The following aims were established before planning the activities: 1. Create a form of diary studies, which enabled all participants to take part in a digital environment they were familiar with.

2. Learn more about how participants choose physical and virtual spaces and get a better understanding of the reasoning behind these decisions. The first aim is related to RQ2 and the overall aim of enriching a remote participatory design process together with people with disabilities. Goal number two aimed to generate further knowledge, contributing to RQ1.

5.3.2 Participants The participants from NetzStecker’s working group could sign up for taking part in the diary studies. After the video message invite, five participants expressed their interest in taking part in the activities. However, one of them did not respond to the messages. The four active participants were two women and two men with an age range from 23 to 50. All of them had participated in the first workshop.

5.3.3 Activities After discussing the format with NetzStecker’s project coordinators, we agreed on using either the non-profit open-source encrypted messaging service Signal6 or the popular messaging service WhatsApp to conduct the activities. All participants had used one or both of the messengers before and were familiar with the tool through which they were contacted. I proposed the activities to NetzStecker, and they were evaluated and iterated collectively to meet an adequate level of simple language and, partly, different media forms to participating. Similar to the design-before design before the workshop, a video message was sent to the participants as an invite to take part in the mobile device-based diary studies. The following activities were planned:

Day 1: My virtual background One element of video calls that had not been explored in the workshop were virtual backgrounds that provide a form of modifying the participants’ virtual space. This activity aimed to learn which reasons participants gave for adjusting the space that they exposed. I selected different types of photos before the activity to provide a range of possibilities for virtual backgrounds. These included generic landscapes, homes or meeting rooms but also elements related to the participants, such as a photo of a famous street in the city, a football stadium since several participants enjoyed this sport and a picture of NetzSteckers logo. Apart from the logo, all other photos were downloaded from the open-source photo platform Unsplash7. The following indications were sent to each of the participants through WhatsApp or Signal:

6 https://signal.org/ 7 https://unsplash.com/ 31

1. You will receive several pictures (Figure 9).

2. Would you use any of these images as your background on a video call? Or would you rather take another one?

3. Why do you think that? Send an audio message.

Figure 9: Selection of virtual background, which was sent to the participants

Day 2: My favourite place for video calls While some strategies were named during the workshop for choosing a physical space to take part in a video call, the answers remained incomplete, and not all participants provided a reason for their choice. To investigate other strategies and understand the participants’ choices better, the participants were asked to take a photo of their favourite place for video calls. Sharing a drawing was provided as an option for participants who were not comfortable sharing a photo of their home. The following indications were sent to each of the participants through WhatsApp or Signal:

1. You have two options. You can either take a photo of the place where you most like to have video calls or, if you don’t feel comfortable sharing a photo, draw a simple drawing of your room or apartment and mark the place.

2. Send me the photo or a photo of your drawing.

3. Can you explain why this is your favourite place for video calls? Send an audio message.

Day 3: How was it before Corona? Several participants expressed in the workshop their desire to meet the other participants in person soon again. However, the understanding of the participants’ reasons remained incomplete. To learn more about the qualities of the physical space, where NetzStecker’s working group used to meet, I asked the participants to remember the room and express their thoughts about it. The following indications were sent to each of the participants through WhatsApp or Signal:

1. Think of the meetings with the NetzStecker group that you had before Corona. Here is a simple drawing of the room that might help you (Figure 10):

2. Try to remember. Think about the room and where you sat. Did you have a favourite place? Why was it your favourite place? Share a bit about it in an audio message.

Figure 10: Drawing of NetzStecker’s office/meeting room in 2019

Day 4: Where would you like to be? The final task focused on exploring the perceptions of a feature, which had been recently introduced in different variations by popular video conferencing apps such as Zoom, Skype or Teams. The so-called “immersive views” (Ball, 2021) or “together mode” (Prabhu, 2020) crop the participants’ head or sometimes the upper body and place them in a virtual room, which the call’s host can select. This activity aimed to learn more about the participants’ perception of designed virtual spaces beyond the traditional rectangular layout. The following indications were sent to each of the participants through Signal:

1. You will receive a picture. In the photo, you can see a room (Figure 11).

2. Imagine that you could choose a place. Which place would you choose? Why? Send an audio message.

Figure 11: Reference of an immersive scene/” together mode” in video calls, cropping the participants’ faces and placing them in a virtual room (Source: Own modification of an image provided by Zoom; participants’ faces were blurred for the report)

Day 5 (optional): Rebuild the Zoom space As an experiment for a generative method, the participants were given an optional task on the fifth day. They were asked first to find physical elements of their choice, such as Legos, pieces of board games or elements from the kitchen, e.g., a saltshaker. These objects were then intended to be used for mapping the Zoom space and potentially moving, adding or removing elements, according to the participants’ preferences. The aim was to evaluate how participants would abstract the virtual space into physical elements.

5.3.4 Results

Day 1: My virtual background The participants had different preferences regarding the pictures for their virtual background in Zoom. One chose the photo of the city where they lived and referred to the aesthetics (“because it just looks great and because it is a nice picture.”). Another participant preferred the forest as a “relaxing and calming” picture, and a third participant the stadium because of a routine of going to the stadium with a family member. The fourth participant preferred a personal photo of him with a famous actor. None of the participants chose the logo of the organisation or a generic home or office space.

Day 2: My favourite place for video calls All participants took part in this exercise by sending photos of the favourite places. However, they used different perspectives. In some cases, they took a photo of the empty space, like a garden or a desk and in others, they decided to include themselves in the picture. None of the participants focused on which elements were visible behind them. Furthermore, one participant mentioned the discrepancy between the favourite place, in this case, the town’s harbour and the actual location, which was a desktop computer that the participant could not move.

Day 3: How was it before Corona? All participants mentioned strategic positions when expressing where they used to sit in NetzStecker’s physical room. While two of them mentioned the window to be able to observe what was happening on the street (“I like to observe everything, for example, how the buses at the station arrive”), two others focused on having a good overview of the room. One participant also mentioned a balance between not too close to the door and not in the middle of the room, which was perceived as uncomfortable. All participants answered by sending an audio message, and one participant additionally sent a drawing on top of the room’s sketch (Figure 12). One person highlighted that she enjoyed sitting next to one specific person in the group. Another participant emphasised that she respected all participants of the group and, therefore, did not care who was sitting next to her.

Figure 12: Drawing on the sketch that one participant created using the phone

Day 4: Where would you like to be? None of the participants referred to the room as a virtual space. Instead, all participants mentioned similar preferences to the previous activity, such as a good overview and proximity to the window or a specific person. One participant associated the first row as a place with the best view. Another participant preferred having enough space around her (“I am an individualistic person, and I like to have a lot of space around me, especially if I do not know the persons around me”). The same person also mentioned that she chose the place to leave whenever she wanted.

Day 5: Rebuild the Zoom room Even if the indications of the task pointed out that participants should look for physical elements, such as Legos, parts of a board game of elements from the kitchen, e.g., a saltshaker, the two participants who handed in this last and optional task decided independently to send a drawing (Figure 13). One participant tried to copy the Zoom interface and added smileys to

represent the different participants in the call. The other participant made the drawing on his phone and included the device, which was, in this case, supposed to be a computer.

Figure 13: Drawings of the participants (the participants’ names in the left drawing are blurred)

5.3.5 Analysis One of the activity aims was to create a form of diary studies engaging and challenging for the participants. Audio messages turned out to be a promising tool for this type of research. Participants received the messages in the morning and sometimes waited until the afternoon to respond to them after finishing their workday. The participants’ answers were more detailed compared to some text messages that they sent. Two participants thanked several times for being part of the activity and expressed that they were looking forward to the next exercise. In one case, one participant used a written message (“Hello”) as a form of checking in and wanting to know more about the next exercise (Figure 14). The same participant used emojis as another preferred communication form. Three of the four participants perceived the tasks as challenges and analysed the difficulty level as part of their audio messages. One participant expected more challenging tasks and was asking actively about further tasks. Another acknowledged that especially the task with the virtual room was a cognitive challenge and not easy for her. There was a sense of wanting to “get the tasks right”, even if I intended to provide exercises open enough for individual interpretations. This notion was also expressed by another participant who mentioned that the tasks were “fairly simple and could have been more difficult”. I, as a facilitator, experienced the exercises as a way of continuing to build a relationship with the participants and a form of being with the participants in the process. The asynchronous communication and the resulting time gaps fostered reflection between sending different tasks and audio messages. The first answers of the participants were often very concise, but the format of the method enabled them to ask further questions for a deeper understanding of the participants' argumentation.

Figure 14: Chat history of one of the participants (participant permitted to publish screenshot)

The findings regarding the selection of spaces suggest similarities between the pattern in the physical and virtual space. One participant who highlighted the need of having an overview of the space in the physical room also commented in the first workshop that he appreciated less than ten people in the video conferences because of the well-arranged overview. Another participant emphasised being close to one specific person, which she also expressed in the video call by calling this person’s name first. While the choice of physical spaces was indicated to be taken consciously, the understanding of the video call’s virtual space seemed incomplete. Video calls were perceived as “being connected”, but no qualities of the virtual space were indicated in any of the activities. The results of the optional generative exercise, which were sent in the forms of drawing instead of mapping the space with physical elements, also suggest a hypothesis about the perception of video call spaces. Rather than seeing video calls as spaces, which can be designed or modified, it seems that they are perceived as static interfaces, fully controlled by the platform. These findings pose opportunities for the design of video call spaces. First, different forms of entering video call spaces could be probed, allowing participants to have a dedicated interaction for this process. Second, software that combines video calls with spatial elements could be explored and compared with traditional grid gallery video conference tools to investigate how this different format of CMC shapes the perceived virtual space.

5.4 Generative session Based on the findings of the exploration workshop and the diary studies, a remote co-creation workshop was organised. The workshop was intended to be a generative session to explore the participants’ tacit and latent knowledge (Sanders & Stappers, 2012) and, thereby, complement the explicit and observative knowledge from the two previous stages of the project.

5.4.1 Aims The previous activities indicated an incomplete understanding of the virtual space among the participants. Both observations in the first workshop and statements from the participants showed a potential design opportunity for this step. The following aims were defined for the generative session: 1. Generate ideas of how to enter virtual spaces more consciously. 2. Create and evaluate a generative design method, which can be conducted in a remote group workshop. Generative sessions, which are conducted in-person, often use methods that are based on physical toolkits, such as Lego serious play or Velcro modelling (Martin & Hanington, 2012). These situations are challenging to reproduce in remote online environments, especially when focusing on techniques, which could be conducted without merely imitating in-person methods through sending toolkits previously to the participants and creating a specific camera perspective during the workshop to demonstrate the outcomes. Based on the methodological learnings of the first workshop, I decided to focus on evaluating other generative methods, such as bodystorming or role-playing (Martin & Hanington, 2012), to carefully adapt them to an online format, using the virtual spaces’ elements consciously.

5.4.2 Participants Three participants with an age range from 23 to 30 took part in the generative session. In this case, two of them participated from the same physical space, which was a new scenario compared to the first workshop. Apart from the participants, one of NetzStecker’s project coordinators took part as a supporting facilitator in the activity.

5.4.3 Activity

Open Sesame A virtual door experience was simulated as a generative method, aiming to let participants create ways, how they would enter a virtual space. The name Open Sesame is based on the magical phrase in the story of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” in Antoine Galland’s version 38

of One Thousand and One Nights (Galland, 1846). In this case, the phrase “Open Sesame” enables one to open the mouth of a cave, where a treasure is hidden. For the method, an empty immersive view was generated through the related Zoom function (Figure 15). Initially, none of the participants was placed in the immersive view, and the task was explained. The participants were asked to think about how they could enter this space, to which they were introduced for the first time. A playful approach was chosen to foster the participants’ creativity, allowing the participants to take turns and use any technique only once. I used the Wizard of Oz technique (Salber & Coutaz, 1993) to bring participants into the immersive view after applying a specific technique of their choice. No concrete examples were given to the participants as ways how to enter the spaces. However, it was mentioned that they could use their body, objects of their room, but also control elements in Zoom.

Figure 15: Immersive View in Zoom, which was used for the open sesame activity

5.4.4 Results The participants started with embodied techniques to try to enter the space. Clapping, drumming and knocking on the desk were three of the first variations. In the case of the two participants in the same physical space, they tried to apply the technique simultaneously, e.g., drumming at the same time. Furthermore, one participant used the sound of a bell played from his smartphone. In the second round, other techniques were applied, which also used elements of the tool and device. One participant looked for the bell emoji, and another used the keyword to type in a combination of numbers to enter the space. In addition to that, another form of embodied practice was tried out when two participants stood up and moved out of the visible part of their camera and expected to appear in the digital space when entering the visible part shortly after.

5.4.5 Analysis The method, which combined elements of bodystorming and role-playing with the Wizard of Oz technique, seemed promising from two perspectives. First, it enabled participants with different communication abilities to participate in a generative session and contribute to

developing design ideas. Applying techniques of the participants’ choice without limiting them to a specific format fostered an active and creative environment. Second, engaging participants in a playful way caused excitement and joy when a new technique led to entering the virtual room. Participants expressed happiness when finding a new technique through clapping as well as laughing and were pleased when other participants also managed to come up with a new technique through expressions, such as “Yes, he also made it and is in the room now.” Zoom’s immersive view was helpful for enabling the Wizard of Oz technique. It provided control for the facilitator for establishing a common interface for all participants, while, for example, in a classic gallery view, the order of camera views varies for each participant. Thereby, the perception of a shared virtual space was strengthened. However, it made participants also reflect on the image’s dimension of each participant. Some participants wondered why others appeared to be much bigger and explored how proximity to the camera affected their size on the screen. Furthermore, since some of Zoom’s immersive view images use a function that crops the participants' faces and upper bodies, visualising two persons in the same physical room becomes problematic. The current technology focuses mainly on the person closest to the camera, while the second person disappears in the background. Participants were surprised about this effect but also used this feature to indicate how active their participation was in different moments of the call. One of the participants decided to stay in the invisible space, and the other participant in the room commented: “Oh, he has to tidy up his desk now. That’s why he is not here”. This observation poses design opportunities for exploring the visual appearance of participants in the video call space. I, as a facilitator, experienced the Wizard of Oz role as an enriching element during the generative session. By relying on a simple “drag and drop” technology, it did not limit me to focus on the moderation of the activity. Nevertheless, this role required judging, which of the applied techniques would enable participants to enter the room. I tried to challenge participants by not accepting all of the used techniques or sometimes only when adapting them a bit, e.g., knocking loud enough to be hearable through the sound of the video call. Thereby, I intended to provide the participant with an implicit motivation to vary the selected techniques.

5.5 Proximity chat experiment Several results of the previous design process stages indicated a potential for using proximity chats as platforms to enrich video calls regarding the concept of spatiality. In this experiment, the participants were invited to a group session in Gather.town8, a proximity chat tool, where users can navigate on a 2D map with an avatar of their choice. GatherTown enables

8 http://gather.town/ 40

conversations with other participants only if the participants’ avatars in the virtual room are close enough. Thereby, it also generates the possibility of having conversations in smaller groups without manually setting up other links or breakout-rooms.

5.5.1 Aims While the previous stages of the design process focused on spacing in traditional video call platforms, the goal of this activity was to complement the findings by including a first observation on proximity chat tools. The following aims were defined for the experiment: 1. Explore how proximity chat tools can support virtual presence. 2. Find further opportunities for remote generative design methods by using proximity chat tools. Virtual presence in this context refers to Berger’s description, which “suggests that spacing and synthesis, the very acts of constituting space, are not only possible in material spaces, but also in virtual environments (Berger, 2020). This process of spacing could lead to opportunities for design activities, as expressed in the second aim.

5.5.2 Participants Two of the three participants of the generative session took part in the experiment. One of the participants was accompanied by a support person who first wanted to leave after the initial set-up but was so intrigued by the platform that he decided to stay during the activity. Apart from the participants, two of NetzStecker’s project coordinators took part as supporting facilitators in the activity.

5.5.3 Activity The activity was intentionally open and without a defined set of structure or rules. Participants were only guided by an initial explanation about the platform and different functions, such as following a person automatically, going into private rooms or adding elements, such as furniture to the room. This type of participant observation (Martin & Hanington, 2012) was intended to enable the participants' possibilities to appropriate the space and co-create activities based on the existing elements and functions of the platform.

5.5.4 Results The participants enjoyed exploring the space that Gather.town provided and commented partly, where they were going. Apart from the actual actions that the platform provided, there was another level of imagination that participants added. For instance, one participant moved

her avatar to the kitchen area in the map and commented, “Oh, now I am in the kitchen, and I’m going to prepare some coffee for everyone.” After a short time of getting used to the need to be close to other avatars to speak with the respective participant, these dynamics became an active part of the meeting. Participants followed others either manually or by selecting the “follow option” and associated the process with the mechanics from playing hide-and-seek. Conversations in smaller groups happened only occasionally, and participants tried to stay close to the group during the entire time. After telling the participants about the possibility of adding elements to the room, such as furniture, one participant chose the area around the NetzStecker logo to build a space similar to a meeting room with a whiteboard and several chairs (Figure 16).

Figure 16: Setup of the room after the activity (the participants added a whiteboard and several red chairs close to the Netzstecker logo)

This setup resulted in a spontaneous collective drawing session since the whiteboard attracted all participants and the access (by pressing a single key on the keyboard when being close) seemed an intuitive function, which did not cause accessibility problems. Drawing and conversations took place simultaneously and created an interplay of commenting on the drawings and drawing based on the comments. Having anonymous descriptions of the participants provided by the system such as “Dynamic Camel” caused curiosity among the participants who drew which part of the drawing (Figure 17).

Figure 17: Collective drawing on the previously added whiteboard

5.5.5 Analysis The experiment indicated a high potential for using proximity chats with adults with learning disabilities both from a user perspective and as a design space. One hypothesis for adapting quickly to the tool could be that the interface of gather.town is similar to a game, which was also expressed by a participant who compared the style to the board game Labyrinth. In a recent study based in Sweden, the only internet-based activity which is, according to the results, performed by more adolescents with intellectual disabilities than the reference group are online games (Alfredsson Ågren et al., 2020). However, it is crucial to mention that both of the experiment’s participants were adults younger than 30 years. Further evaluation with participants from other age groups will be necessary to evaluate the potential on a more holistic level. The spatiality of gather.town seemed to provide several opportunities for remote PD processes. Switching between different applications, such as a video call tool and an additional online whiteboard, can cause both usability problems and a lack of understanding of where the activity happens. When proximity chats implement such apps for collaboration by providing visual clues in the virtual room, such as an illustration of a whiteboard, they can be more accessible. Observing the location of the avatars of other participants can also be less stressful than the abstract level of a tool without this spatial interface. Furthermore, the avatar on the screen generates a form of self-presence (Berger, 2020) and provides, thereby, a higher level of independence for the participants. Taking part in an activity is an active decision and not as forced as, for instance, through a shared screen, might strengthen the participants' confidence.

I, as a facilitator, perceived the experiment as a way of overcoming the “narrow formalized definition of a[n online] meeting as structured precisely by agendas, minutes, rules and orders” (Friesen, 2014). To a certain extent, I lost control over the participants and their actions since they moved their avatars and changed the virtual space independently. I could only see and hear them when their avatars were close to mine. Precisely this loss of control enabled a design space in SCMC that I had not experienced before. It left more room for generative activities and helped me to have a fluent interplay between personal and group conversations.

6 Discussion The discussion provides a summary of the previously identified results across the different activities of the design process and interprets them. Based on the two research questions, the identified design opportunities are first discussed and, subsequently, the methodological conclusions. The section closes with the project’s limitations and opportunities for future work.

6.1 Identified design opportunities Through affinity mapping (Martin & Hanington, 2012) of the different results of the project’s stages, the themes of spatiality and communication emerged and are presented and discussed through several different directions. While existing work with adults with intellectual disabilities focuses either on the comparison of various forms of remote communication (Buchholz et al., 2018) or the initial access to video calls (Lancioni et al., 2020), the recommendations presented here focus more specifically on the design of and the interactions in the platform.

Spatiality: Towards transitional spaces in video calls One of the findings across the first two stages of the design process was that participants indicated a vague understanding when they and others had entered or left the video call space. The missing spatiality and divalent availability of either “being connected or not” seemed to create uncertainty about the participants’ presence in the video call space. Berger’s description of this phenomenon is helpful to conceptualize this observation:

“Communicative availability in face-to-face situations is not divalent: it constitutes a scale between the two opposite poles (availability or unavailability). Conversely, in video conferences, one is either available or not (being part of the conversation or not), losing many subtleties of ‘offline’ availability.” (Berger, 2020)

This finding opens up a space for several design directions, such as creating a more conscious way of entering and leaving the virtual space, as ideated during the generative session. The current stage of the idea could be further developed to develop precisely transitional spaces that are, from a phenomenological perspective, “seen to offer a wide flexibility for communication and cooperation” (Friesen, 2014). One technique could be using spatial audio and dedicated interactions to enter the video call space. For instance, HighFidelity provides a spatial audio API (High Fidelity, n.d.), which could be used in this context for prototyping.

Spatiality: Exploring self-presentation in an embodied way Two of the activities during the design process, Pass the pen and Open sesame, enabled the participants to explore their self-presentation differently. It allowed reflecting on the

“distortions of space and of the body” in video calls (Friesen, 2014). While Pass the pen facilitated the exploration of the visible part of the participants’ cameras, Open sesame made the participants question the size of their virtual bodies on the screen and experiment by coming closer and further away from the camera. This form of spacing, which does not always happen intentionally (Berger, 2020), could be facilitated to users by applying playful embodied activities, for instance, before entering a video call. Thereby, the understanding for users with different cognitive abilities of the visible elements in the virtual space could be strengthened, also mitigating the risk of unintentionally sharing parts of their private spaces they would not like to expose.

Spatiality: Respecting patterns for the choice of place The participants seemed to perceive the choice of place as a meaningful act both in physical and virtual environments. Similar patterns for offline and online spaces could be observed through analysing the participants' statements and actions, for instance, by comparing the observations in the first workshop and the results of the diary studies. However, video call tools often do not enable participants to choose a space actively and tend to randomise the participants’ order in the typical conference grid. These default settings provide few independent choices and can lead to a lack of understanding, who is present in the call. While the spatiality of proximity chats seems to be helpful in this context, traditional video call platforms could provide more options for choosing a place.

Communication: Mitigate the users’ bias against the technical abilities of others During the mobile device-based diary studies activities, one participant expressed that the other participants were insecure with the technology. He associated the troubles that the group had experienced not with external factors, such as the internet connection but with the abilities of others. On the other hand, during the first workshop, one participant self-blamed on several occasions, stating that her “technical abilities” might hinder her participation. Both of these assumptions were likely strengthened by the lack of information that video call platforms currently provide about the status of other participants. This observation leads to design opportunities regarding the system’s communication with the participants. For instance, informing users in straightforward language about why they suddenly were thrown out of the call could mitigate self-blaming and blaming others.

Communication: Provide alternatives to verbal and written communication Two observations in the first workshop indicated how little advantage video call platforms take so far from the participants' constant video and audio streams. First, one of the participants with weaker communication skills depended on expressing his statements with the support of NetzStecker´s project coordinators. While this process seemed like an established part of the group dynamics, it poses the question to what extend video call

platforms could support independent participation and go beyond current technologies like live captioning (Tang, 2021). Suggesting phrases or visual elements based on identified keywords could be one design opportunity in this context. Second, one participant used tickling as a gesture to try to make others laugh. This observation and the results from the generative session show potential for gestured-based controls, which could provide meaningful alternatives to verbal and written communication for participants with weaker communication skills. These gestures could be explored using Wizard of Oz techniques like in Shamma et al.’s study that focuses on smart consumer cameras (Shamma et al., 2019). Moreover, the current development of VR meeting rooms like Spatial (Takahashi, 2021) opens up further possibilities for gesture-based interactions.

6.2 Methodological conclusions Using the medium of study as the primary medium of research combined with a phenomenological approach turned out to be a challenging but promising concept when working with adults with learning disabilities. Each method was complemented by a layer of subjective observations, which helped to understand the complexity of video calls “not in technical or material terms, but as they are perceived or experienced” (Friesen, 2014). Nevertheless, I can only speculate how a design process with in-person encounters might have changed or complemented the outcome of this study. Especially the means for exploring the participants’ tacit and latent knowledge, which is typically based on generative sessions including toolkits with a rich set of materials (Sanders & Stappers, 2012), seemed limited in this process. The study led to several learnings regarding adapting existing research methods. Transforming activities to an online format that had been applied successfully in in-person formats, such as Talking Mats in this project, should be evaluated carefully. In this study, the iterated online version resulted to seem slightly monotonous for the participants. Using screen-sharing during this method might have contributed to a further extension of the perceived formality of the medium (Berger, 2020) and, even if not pointed out by the participants, might have been accompanied by accessibility problems (Tang, 2021). On the other side, methods that focused on the qualities of video call environments, using, for example, embodied activities or interactions with the virtual space, showed higher engagement. Especially in a group with diverse abilities, these methods also enabled participants with communication difficulties to contribute. Using mobile device-based diary studies, mainly in the form of audio messages and photos, can be a challenging and rich format for adults with learning disabilities. It enables monitoring the results and, if necessary, adapting the tasks instead of relying on a single probe. This flexibility can be beneficial in a group with learning disabilities, where the phrasing of tasks might require additional explications or simply be more or less explicit

regarding different participants. The format also provides opportunities for establishing trust between the researcher and the participants and foster further engagement as I experienced it in this project. However, there is a risk of fading the boundaries between research activities and personal communication when participants contact the researcher beyond the project’s scope. It might lead to moments when researchers have to decide to what extent they feel comfortable continuing the communication in a design-after-design scenario. As Gibson observes, using messengers in research may change the “traditional power relations between researchers and participants” (Gibson, 2020). Participants decide how and when to answer and what form of communication or media they want to use. In this study, for example, emoji communication was used by one participant who did not feel comfortable with written communication to complement audio messages. Thereby, the participant influenced the activity based on their own preferences. I perceived the Wizard of Oz technique as a powerful method for remote generative sessions or prototyping. As a technique based on the participants’ illusion, the latency in SCMC (Seuren et al., 2021) poses the question for participants whether specific actions are a part of the experience or a consequence of the material. Conducting the method at a point of the project when I, as a facilitator, already had had several encounters with each participant, helped estimate which elements might be grasped in such an activity. However, the Wizard of Oz technique comes also with additional challenges for the designer. In this project, I took the role of the “wizard” during a generative method without clearly defined rules. It resulted in the act of improvised performance, which in this case provoked a stimulating environment for creating ideas but could have also led to a scenario of constant questioning or missing acceptance of the technique. The final experiment indicated the potential of proximity chat tools as a part of design processes. Compared to traditional video call environments, they seem to enable more independent actions of participants regarding the design of the space and the participation in conversations and activities. While I experienced grid interfaces that Zoom, Meet or Skype typically provide, as rigid bricks, that can only be moved occasionally, for example, through functions like immersive views, spatial software might be associated with flexible clay for designing online sessions. Platforms that use a 2D map for video calls like gather.town are recently explored in the literature (Latulipe, 2021; Li et al., 2021) and are on a broader level competing with so-called Social VR platforms like Mozilla Hub that use 3D spaces (McVeigh- Schultz et al., 2019). Even if 3D tools seem promising from a design perspective, they also come with higher entry requirements regarding the devices, internet connection and onboarding process. Therefore, a 2D platform for spatialized video calls was chosen in this project to mitigate accessibility problems. At this point, I can only contribute with first observations from one online session, and I acknowledge that extensive research would be necessary further to explore the use of such platforms in design processes. However, these first observations indicated that approaches of tools like gather.town could lead to a discussion

of important design choices, such as affordances (Norman, 2013), in video calls with groups. Having visual clues for certain actions instead of abstract links of options hidden in the menu seemed to have enriched the collaboration with the participants. Finally, the remote design process also presented several challenges for the design-after- design process. I perceived the act of easing out of the project as a more complex task. Despite the spatial distance to the participants, the online workshops and mobile device-based diary studies created a strong connection. The participants enabled me to enter into their personal digital space, which also comes with responsibilities and expectations. I aim to present the findings of this study to the participants to create a final official milestone in our process, striving for reflection, acknowledgements and a potential outlook, how the results of this project might complement the work of NetzStecker in the future.

6.3 Limitations and future work Apart from the challenges with the medium video calls, the project also revealed several implications of the digital divide mentioned in the introduction. Some of the limitations in this context were unevenly distributed access requirements such as outdated devices, slow internet connection in residential facilities, or insufficient assistance so that people with a higher need for support could constantly participate in all activities. Buchholz et al. emphasise the responsibilities and challenges that support persons face in this context (Buchholz et al., 2020). Likely, these circumstances contributed partly to the fact that the participation of the participants with more severe impairments declined towards the end of the project. If I were to speculate on other reasons, a lower interest in the project or a perceived high effort for contribution might have led to limited participation. A lack of digital competencies or self- confidence related to digital skills could equally have provoked these dropouts. The study can only be seen as a starting point for remote participatory design processes with adults with learning disabilities. Validation with other groups would be necessary to go beyond the established group dynamics and learn how some activities might be experienced in different contexts. Another limitation of the study was the short time frame of eight weeks. Primarily when people with a greater need for support or people who are not yet known to the researcher participate in a design process, additional time is needed for trust-building. Planification and iteration of the activities are also time-consuming when designing for encounters in an online space, where few references in the literature exist so far. The findings of the study present several opportunities for future work. First, there is a need for more extensive exploration and initial validation of the identified considerations for the design of video calls. Each of the design recommendations could lead to a series of sketches, prototypes and testing to go beyond the scope of this study. Second, using SCMC as the medium of study and the principal medium of research could be further disaggregated. All activities in this project were based on existing tools like Zoom or Gather.town. Taking design

decisions more consciously could be enabled by prototyping the video call itself using webRTC or a spatial audio API. This scenario would leave room for additional phenomenological research.

7 Conclusion Participatory design implies adapting methods, tools and techniques to the specific context of a design project. In this study, I conducted a remote research through design process with adults with learning disabilities to investigate considerations for the design of video call platforms. Synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) in this project represented not only the medium of study but in several activities also the medium of research, focusing on perceptions and experiences through the lens of phenomenology. The project was enabled by collaborating with NetzStecker, the Office for Inclusive Media Educations based in Münster, Germany. In the sense of Bennett and Rosner (2019), I aimed for an affective partnership with the participants with learning disabilities of NetzStecker´s working group. The design process consisted of four stages: An initial trust-building and exploration workshop, mobile device-based diary studies, a generative session and a proximity chat experiment. Each phase included one or more activities, carefully constructed and based on related work, experiences from previous stages and discussions with NetzStecker´s project coordinators who have a background as social workers. The results present a set of design recommendations for video call platforms among the emerging themes of spatiality and communication. Furthermore, methodological conclusions are drawn based on the experiences with the novel approach regarding remote participatory design with adults with learning disabilities. In addition to the findings concerning diverse groups in traditional video call platforms, they also indicate a potential for spatialised video call tools as design spaces. One of the limitations of this study was that the engagement of participants with more severe impairments declined towards the end of the project. More extensive research will be necessary to analyse in detail which role played access requirements, lack of support and missing digital competencies or self-confidence in this context. Moreover, future work should also consider taking the identified design opportunities a step further through sketching, prototyping and testing.

8 Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful for all the support, feedback, positive atmosphere and learnings I have experienced when working with NetzStecker. The expertise and the initiative of the project coordinators Johannes Benedix, Lisa Eiynck und David Krützkamp were fundamental for this study. Having had the privilege to collaborate with the people of NetzStecker´s working group was an enriching experience, and I would like to thank every participant for their kindness, engagement, time and patience. Furthermore, I am thankful for the inspiring supervisions, ideas and guidance through the project I have received from my supervisor Clint Heyer. I would also like to thank Susan Kozel for the helpful feedback on my thesis plan and for examining my work. Last but not least, I want to express special thanks to my classmates Marsali Miller, Valentina Ustinova and Valeria Iezzi for all the discussions, feedback and support during the thesis project and Elizabeth Matkevits for the fruitful comments on my draft.

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10 Appendix

Appendix 1: Invitation letter for the participants of the study (in German)

Einladung zur Teilnahme an einem Forschungsprojekt

Titel des Projektes: Datum: Entwicklung eines Konzeptes für inklusive 08.04.2021 Videoanruftechnologie mit und für Menschen mit Behinderungen mittels eines partizipativen Designansatzes

Verantwortlich für die Studie: Student an der Universität Malmö Benjamin Maus Fakultät für Kultur und Gesellschaft S-205 06 Malmö, Telefon +46 40 665 70 00

Kontakt: Studiengang: [email protected] Master in Interaktionsdesign (MSc)

Mein Name ist Benjamin Maus und mit diesem Schreiben würde ich dich gerne einladen, an einem Forschungsprojekt im Rahmen meiner Masterarbeit teilzunehmen. Ich bin Student des zweijährigen Masterstudiengangs Interaktionsdesign an der Universität Malmö in Schweden. Bei diesem Projekt arbeite ich mit NetzStecker, dem Büro für inklusive Medienbildung in Münster, zusammen. Ziel der Studie ist es, Wissen darüber zu generieren, wie Videoanruftechnologie (mittels Plattformen wie z.B. Zoom oder Skype) für Menschen mit Behinderungen inklusiver gestaltet werden kann. Als Teilnehmer wirst du gebeten, an einem Online-Workshop teilzunehmen, der ungefähr 1-1,5 Stunden dauern wird. Alle Teilnehmer sind eingeladen, mittels ihres Tablets an der Aktivität teilzunehmen. Ziel ist es, sich gemeinsam über bisherige Erfahrungen, Präferenzen und Schwierigkeiten bei der Nutzung von Videoanrufen auszutauschen. Dieser Workshop wird von mir vorbereitet und geleitet. Bei der Planung und Durchführung erhalte ich Empfehlungen, Ratschläge und Unterstützung von den Projektkoordinatoren NetzSteckers Johannes Benedix, Lisa Eiynck und David Krützkamp. Deine Teilnahme an der Studie ist freiwillig. Du kannst jederzeit die Teilnahme beenden, ohne eine Erklärung dafür vorlegen zu müssen. Mit dem Ziel, den Workshop für die Auswertung zu transkribieren, würde ich gerne während der Aktivitäten und Diskussionen eine Audioaufnahme erstellen. Diese Aufnahme dient lediglich der internen Auswertung und wird nach Abschluss der Studie gelöscht. Ich trage die Verantwortung, die Vertraulichkeit der Studie zu gewährleisten, indem keine unbefugten Personen Zugriff auf das Material des Workshops haben. Das Material wird so gespeichert, dass es nur für die Personen, die die Studie leiten, zugänglich ist. Bei der Berichterstattung über die Ergebnisse in Form eines Studienprojekts an der Universität Malmö werden die Teilnehmer nicht identifizierbar sein und es wird nicht möglich sein, die Ergebnisse mit Einzelpersonen zu verknüpfen. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studie werden im Rahmen der Masterarbeit über die Datenbank der Universität Malmö mit dem Namen MUEP veröffentlicht. Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Benjamin Maus

Appendix 2: Consent form (in German)

Einverständniserklärung

Titel des Projektes: Datum: Entwicklung eines Konzeptes für inklusive 08.04.2021 Videoanruftechnologie mit und für Menschen mit Behinderungen mittels eines partizipativen Designansatzes

Verantwortlich für die Studie: Student an der Universität Malmö Benjamin Maus Fakultät für Kultur und Gesellschaft S-205 06 Malmö, Telefon +46 40 665 70 00

Kontakt: Studiengang: [email protected] Master in Interaktionsdesign (MSc)

Ich wurde über die Studie informiert und habe die dazugehörigen schriftlichen Informationen gelesen. Mir ist bewusst, dass meine Teilnahme freiwillig ist und ich jederzeit und ohne Erklärung meine Teilnahme widerrufen kann. Die Person, die die Studie leitet, steht in der Verantwortung, die Vertraulichkeit zu gewährleisten, damit keine unbefugte Person Zugriff auf das Material erlangt. Das gesammelte Material wird ordnungsgemäß aufbewahrt und nur zu Forschungszwecken verwendet.

Hiermit erkläre ich mich mit der Teilnahme an der oben genannten Studie einverstanden:

Datum: …………………………………………………………

Name der teilnehmenden Person: …………………………………………………………

Unterschrift…………………………………………………………