This page is intentionally left blank. NGANA WUBULKU JUNKURR-JIKU BALKAWAY-KA: THE INTERGENERATIONAL CO-DESIGN OF A TANGIBLE TECHNOLOGY TO KEEP ACTIVE USE OF THE KUKU YALANJI ABORIGINAL LANGUAGE STRONG
Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor BA ANU BInfTech ANU BInfTech(Hons) QUT FHEA
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
School of Computer Science
Science and Engineering Faculty
Queensland University of Technology
in partnership with
Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council
2020 This page is intentionally left blank. Keywords
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, active language use, co-design, community-based participatory design, human-computer interaction, Indigenous languages, intergenerational language transmission, language revitalisation, participatory design, social technologies, tangible user interfaces.
i Message to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Readers
This thesis may contain images and content about people who have passed away.
The names of people involved in the project are listed in the Acknowledgements section, and Figure 3, Figure 6, and Figure 14 contain images of Elders.
Message to All Readers
Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council is the partner for this project. This publication, and quotes from participants included within this publication, should not be reproduced without permission from Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council. This thesis is freely available online on the QUT EPrints website, and the hard copies made available to the Wujal Wujal community are not for sale.
Cover Artwork
The cover artwork for this thesis was painted by Cedric Sam Friday, for this book about the project that will be displayed in the Wujal Wujal Indigenous
Knowledge Centre Library. The Language Reference Group chose the images to appear on the covers. The front cover depicts the Crocodile, important to the Crocodile
Language Friend design. The back cover shows the dukunjulu bird, a nickname given to me by the Language Reference Group, and also expresses the community’s connection to their local environment, and affinity with the Ambient Birdhouse design.
The cover artwork is © Cedric Sam Friday and printed here with permission from the artist.
ii Abstract
Australia has a rich variety of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, many of which continue to be spoken today. However, many Indigenous languages worldwide, including in Australia, are experiencing language shift which is resulting in a diminishing number of speakers. These languages are at risk of falling out of use unless they are passed down to, and actively taken up by, younger generations in their everyday lives.
A range of language revitalisation work is currently being undertaken to document and teach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. Many communities have collections of language materials, and are seeking to present them in engaging ways for young people using digital technologies. Yet, within the field of human-computer interaction, designing for endangered language revitalisation is an under-addressed area of research, and the potential for tangible technologies in particular to foster active language use by children is underexamined.
This PhD project was carried out in partnership with the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal
Shire Council and community with the aim of co-designing a tangible and social technology to foster active use of the Kuku Yalanji Aboriginal language by young children and their families. I worked with a Language Reference Group of Elders and young children through an iterative, participatory design process to co-create the
Crocodile Language Friend, a talking soft toy crocodile embedded with an electronics kit for people to create and experience their own language recordings.
This work makes a number of methodological contributions to human-computer interaction and participatory design, adopting the analytical lens of postcolonial computing. The thesis articulates two novel design practices involving tangible
iii technologies. Firstly, the role of tangible technologies as ‘design non-proposals’ that supported initial relationship building between the research team and Wujal Wujal community, presented through an empirical account of practice. Secondly, the use of existing tangible technologies designs to seed an iterative ‘participatory (re)design’ practice towards a new technology for Kuku Yalanji, as responsive to the design situation and facilitating input and decision making from Elders.
This project uses the ‘field theory’ method to synthesize and communicate the findings from the contextual field research, in order to present a field theory of intergenerational Kuku Yalanji language use that identifies design questions and opportunities. The field theory advances a relational design orientation, recognising that the community’s language practices are enmeshed with family and community relations, and advocates for design that considers language use across longer timescales, and with a sensibility to whole-of-community engagement. This work also articulates ‘active language use’ as a lens for tangible technology design.
This thesis builds on practice perspectives of technology in human-computer interaction and language revitalisation, to argue that participatory design practices involving tangible user interfaces can facilitate endangered language community alignment of resources and efforts through the design process beyond the direct use of the ‘end’ system, presenting new opportunities to grow active language use.
While this project speaks to the area of community-based participatory design, this thesis demonstrates the potential for fruitful interdisciplinary collaborations at the nexus of human-computer interaction and language revitalisation work. The relational language technologies orientation and whole-of-community approach offer new perspectives that can support communities in mobilising their resources for language revitalisation, to keep languages strong into the future.
iv Table of Contents
Keywords ...... i Message to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Readers ...... ii Message to All Readers ...... ii Cover Artwork ...... ii Abstract ...... iii Table of Contents ...... v List of Figures ...... viii Glossary ...... x Terminology ...... xiii Statement of Original Authorship ...... xiv Acknowledgements ...... xv Foreword ...... xviii Chapter 1. Introduction ...... 1 1.1 Introduction ...... 1 1.2 Background ...... 1 1.3 Research Questions ...... 6 1.4 Context ...... 8 1.5 Research Scope ...... 10 1.6 Objectives ...... 12 1.7 Thesis Outline ...... 12 Chapter 2. Literature Review ...... 15 2.1 Introduction ...... 15 2.2 Endangered Language Revitalisation ...... 16 2.3 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages ...... 26 2.4 Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Design ...... 37 2.5 Gaps in Knowledge and Opportunities ...... 51 2.6 Conclusions ...... 55 Chapter 3. Process of Establishing a Relationship with the Community ..... 57 3.1 Introduction ...... 57 3.2 Motivations ...... 58 3.3 Background ...... 59 3.4 Project Partners and Perspectives ...... 67 3.5 Research Phases and Trips ...... 77 3.6 Trip 1 (October 2017, < 1 week) Initial Visit ...... 78
v 3.7 Trip 2 (April 2018, 1 week) ...... 80 3.8 Trip 3 (May 2018, 2 weeks) ...... 85 3.9 Trip 4 (June-July 2018, 4 weeks) ...... 88 3.10 Discussion ...... 91 3.11 Conclusions ...... 98 Chapter 4. Methodology ...... 101 4.1 Introduction ...... 101 4.2 Methodology: Participatory Design ...... 101 4.3 Study Design ...... 109 4.4 Research Methods ...... 113 4.5 Data Analysis ...... 120 4.6 Research Ethics Protocol ...... 124 4.7 Analytical Lens: Postcolonial Computing and Decolonising Methodologies ...... 125 Chapter 5. A Field Theory of Kuku Yalanji Language Use ...... 143 5.1 Introduction ...... 143 5.2 Field Theory Method ...... 144 5.3 Process of Developing the Field Theory ...... 147 5.4 Field Theory Diagram ...... 153 5.5 Field Theory Description ...... 155 5.6 Discussion ...... 171 5.7 Conclusions ...... 183 Chapter 6. An Iterative Participatory (Re)Design Practice ...... 185 6.1 Introduction ...... 185 6.2 Background ...... 186 6.3 Use of Three Existing Designs to Seed an Iterative Design Process ...... 188 6.4 Iteration 1: Talking Language Box ...... 197 6.5 Iteration 2: Language ‘Robot’ ...... 202 6.6 Iteration 3: Wooden Talking Crocodile ...... 207 6.7 Discussion ...... 215 6.8 Conclusions ...... 221 Chapter 7. The Crocodile Language Friend Design and Evaluation ...... 223 7.1 Introduction ...... 223 7.2 Background ...... 224 7.3 Crocodile Language Friend Design ...... 230 7.4 Design Activities with The Crocodile Language Friend ...... 239 7.5 Evaluation of the Crocodile Language Friend ...... 241 7.6 Discussion ...... 259
vi 7.7 Conclusions ...... 264 Chapter 8. Discussion and Conclusions ...... 265 8.1 Introduction ...... 265 8.2 Supporting Ongoing Design and Use Practices Within the Community ...... 266 8.3 Community Alignment through the Co-Design of a Tangible Technology ...... 276 8.4 Further Implications for Community-Based Participatory Design ...... 288 8.5 Responding to the Research Questions ...... 294 8.6 Addressing the Project Objectives ...... 299 8.7 Limitations and Opportunities for Future Work ...... 304 8.8 Concluding Thoughts ...... 310 Bibliography ...... 313 Appendices ...... 349 Appendix A. Letter of Intent and Memorandum of Understanding ...... 349 Appendix B. Wujal Wujal Interview Guide (Elders and Adults) ...... 359 Appendix C. Language Reference Group Materials ...... 363 Appendix D. Kit of Crafting Materials and Electronics for workshops ...... 370 Appendix E. Participatory Design Workshops Undertaken ...... 371 Appendix F. Crocodile Language Friend Family Co-Design Kit ...... 379 Appendix G. Sample Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form ...... 386 Appendix H. Field Theory Comparison with Literature ...... 391 Appendix I. Publications Relating to Wujal Wujal ...... 393
vii List of Figures
Figure 1: Map of Cape York with Wujal Wujal’s location marked...... 68 Figure 2: Some views of the Wujal Wujal township and area...... 69 Figure 3: A sample of Kuku Yalanji language materials available in the IKC...... 71 Figure 4: Research phases and field trips...... 77 Figure 5: The four phases of the research process and resulting outputs...... 109 Figure 6: Language Reference Group meetings...... 116 Figure 7: Ambient Birdhouse and Digital Community Noticeboard (Soro et al., 2018, 2017)...... 118 Figure 8: Structure of code list by prototype, and then by perspective...... 151 Figure 9: Word clouds from the coded data...... 152 Figure 10: List of themes representative of each participant group’s perspective...... 153 Figure 11: Aspects relating to language use applicable to each perspective...... 153 Figure 12: Kuku Yalanji field theory diagram...... 154 Figure 13: Topics for digital content for children in Kuku Yalanji...... 166 Figure 14: Elders in the Language Reference Group interacting with the Ambient Birdhouse...... 189 Figure 15: List of suggested local birds for the Ambient Birdhouse...... 190 Figure 16: Children's and Elders’ interactions with and around the Ambient Birdhouse...... 192 Figure 17: Myself digging for yams and being interviewed by an adult about the experience for the noticeboard story...... 195 Figure 18: Mock-up of a Kuku Yalanji sentence quiz game...... 196 Figure 19: Talking language box prototype with example question...... 199 Figure 20: Language 'robot' design...... 203 Figure 21: List of phrases for the Robot dialogue translated into Kuku Yalanji...... 207 Figure 22: Wooden crocodile prototype...... 208 Figure 23: Prototyping possible interactions to record language on the Crocodile with a record button or a mobile phone...... 209 Figure 24: Drawing outline for the 'Designing My Own Personal Language Crocodile’ workshop activity...... 213 Figure 25: Key feedback and decisions made with each prototype iteration...... 218 Figure 26: (from left to right): Off-the-shelf crocodile used for the initial prototype, fitting hardware into the soft toy, and view of the zip and pouches...... 230 Figure 27: Community-sewn Crocodile Language Friend...... 231 Figure 28: Web interface for recording a custom greeting message...... 231 Figure 29: Collection of recordings in the 'Manage My Recordings' list...... 232
viii Figure 30: Web application pages for editing the Treasure Hunt, and creating and editing clues...... 233 Figure 31: Audio demonstrating play of the treasure hunt (listening to a clue, finding and tapping the card on the chair, 'reward' lights and audio playing)...... 233 Figure 32: Screenshots from the web application that show its functionality...... 235 Figure 33: Hardware kit for the Crocodile Language Friend...... 236 Figure 34: Photographs of Crocodile Language Friend hardware components showing battery shield. The bottom images show the initial plastic container, later replaced with the 3D printed case...... 237 Figure 35: Use of the LED strip for recording in the Repeat or Translate Game (left), and lights incrementing in the strip after each interaction (right)...... 238 Figure 36: Reading the red RFID tag in the Crocodile's mouth...... 238 Figure 37: The challenges of community engagement...... 241 Figure 38: List of children’s tangible interactions observed with the Crocodile...... 248 Figure 39: Creation of the community-sewn Crocodile Language Friend...... 254 Figure 40: A whole-of-community use model for the Crocodile Language Friend...... 255 Figure 41: A model of possible use practices for the Crocodile Language Friend...... 267 Figure 42: Sphere of use for the Crocodile Language Friend...... 284 Figure 43: Revised field theory diagram ...... 288
ix Glossary
Active language The term “active language use” is attributed to work by Oxford and use Burry-Stock (Oxford et al., 1995). My definition of this term in (Taylor et al., 2020) based on the literature is “people’s production of language, in spoken and written forms, in their everyday lives and activities” (Katinskaia et al., 2017; Oxford et al., 1995; Saks et al., 2019).
Bama Kuku Yalanji word for Aboriginal person (Hershberger et al., 1982, p. 171).
Bilngkumu Kuku Yalanji word for crocodile (Hershberger et al., 1982, p. 191).
Clan/Dialect According to the Wujal Wujal Elders, clan or dialect groups are Group defined based on a connection to Country and family relations. There are approximately 45 different clan groups in the Yalanji nation, who all speak the common Kuku Yalanji language and can understand each other, but use their own dialects and slang. The three clan groups residing in the Wujal Wujal area are the Kuku Yalanji, Kuku Nyungul, and Jalunji peoples.
Country Professor Mick Dodson presents the following perspective on the concept of ‘Country’:
When we say country we might mean homeland, or tribal or clan area and we might mean more than just a place on the map. We are not necessarily referring to a geographical place. We’re talking about the whole of the landscape, not just the places in it. For us, country is a word for all the values, places, resources, stories and cultural obligations associated with that area and its features. It describes the entirety of our ancestral domains. All of it is important – we have no wilderness, nor the opposite of wilderness, nor anything in between. Country is country – the whole cosmos. (Dodson, 2009, p. 1).
From the perspective of the Wujal Wujal Elders, every clan group has their traditional root to their Country. People know the area and boundaries of their ancestral grounds, which are interconnected with others.1
1 Examples of further literature that conveys Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives of country include (Rose et al., 2011), (Gay’wu Group of Women, 2019), and (Steffensen, 2020). x Crocodile The tangible and social technology developed through this project, Language Friend consisting of a soft toy crocodile embedded with an electronics kit for creating and experiencing language recordings (Taylor et al., 2020).
Decolonising An design agenda characterised by “efforts to understand Design/ contemporary technological agendas in terms of their historical Postcolonial contexts, including sites of origin, patterns of power and computing influence, and hegemony” (Dourish et al., 2020, p. 418:2).
Elder Senior community members who are “custodians of knowledge and lore” (Muswellbrook Shire Council, 2019). There are Elders for each clan group within the Yalanji nation, but other nations may have different ways.
Kuku Yalanji The language spoken by the Aboriginal people in the Wujal Wujal community. Kuku Yalanji is the name for the overall language, and Kuku Nyungul is a dialect of the language that is in common use in Wujal Wujal. I use the term Kuku Yalanji to refer to both dialects in this thesis unless otherwise specified.
Human- A research field focussing on “the design, evaluation and Computer implementation of interactive computing systems for human use Interaction (HCI) and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them” (Hewett et al., 1992, p. 5).
Intergenerational A term used in language revitalisation work that refers to “the language process involved in […] passing [a] language down to the next transmission generation, either through informal learning or formal teaching, or a combination of both” (Borland, 2006, p. 24).
Language shift A term from socio-linguistics denoting “the gradual or sudden move from the use of one language to another, either by an individual or by a group” (Crystal, 2008, p. 269).
Language Activities that aim to “bring endangered languages back to some revitalisation level of use within their communities (and elsewhere) after a period of reduction in usage” (Hinton, 2011, p. 291).
Language vitality Language vitality is a measure of language use that refers to “the relationship between a language, its speakers, and its wider linguistic, social, and political context” (Roche, 2017, p. 193).
Participatory A design approach defined by Robertson and Simonsen as: Design (PD) a process of investigating, understanding, reflecting upon, establishing, developing, and supporting mutual learning between multiple participants in collective ‘reflection-in-
xi action’. The participants typically undertake the two principal roles of users and designers where the designers strive to learn the realities of the users’ situation while the users strive to articulate their desired aims and learn appropriate technological means to obtain them. (Robertson et al., 2012b). While other terms such as ‘cooperative design’, ‘collaborative design’, and ‘co-design’ are also describe design partnerships with technology users (Sanders et al., 2008), I use ‘participatory design’ to connect this work with the Scandinavian design tradition.
Queensland The university through which this research was carried out. Also University of referred to as ‘The University’ or QUT in this thesis. Technology
Social Social technologies are “the tools and practices that constitute our technologies increased capacity for personal communication, production, publication, distribution and sharing.” (Hagen et al., 2010, p. 31).
Speech A working definition of this term in language revitalisation community literature is “one or more people who identify with a particular language, through heritage” (Hinton et al., 2018a, p. xxvii).
STE(A)M Acronym for Science, Engineering, Technology, and Mathematics. Sometimes the Arts (A) is also included.
Tangible User A type of technology originally conceptualised by Ishii and Ullmer Interfaces (TUIs) (Ishii et al., 1997), but later broadened by Hornecker and Buur to describe technologies with: “tangibility and materiality, physical embodiment of data, embodied interaction and bodily movement as an essential part of interaction, and embeddedness in real space” (Hornecker et al., 2006, p. 437). Also referred to as tangibles or tangible technologies.
Yarning The use of “an Indigenous style of conversation and storytelling also known as narrative as a method for gathering information during the interview process” (Bessarab et al., 2010, p. 37).
Wujal Wujal Local government body who are the formal partners for this project. Aboriginal Shire Also referred to as ‘The Council’ or WWASC. Council
xii Terminology
Using the correct terminology is important when working with Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peoples. I use the word ‘Indigenous’ when talking about First
Peoples in the international context. ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ is the term used to broadly refer to the Indigenous Peoples in Australia in line with QUT guidelines (Queensland University of Technology, 2015, p. 1). The plural form
‘peoples’ has been adopted “as a way of recognizing that there are real differences between different indigenous peoples” (Smith, 2012, p. 7). I acknowledge the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and cultures in Australia in using this word. I use the term ‘Aboriginal’ with respect to the Traditional Owners and
Custodians of the Wujal Wujal area as this reflects the wording of the Wujal Wujal
Aboriginal Shire Council, and name the three dialect groups when making specific reference to them.
The author’s perspective in the writing sometimes changes between ‘I’ and ‘we’.
The default perspective for this thesis is the first person ‘I’ given that this work has been carried out to fulfil the assessment requirements of the PhD program, and is also used when talking about my own experiences in the community. However, since this is a collaborative project, the term ‘we’ is sometimes used to refer to work carried out by the QUT research team, or the QUT research team in collaboration with the Council and community. This is particularly the case when parts of the section have been incorporated from a peer-reviewed publication that has multiple authors as indicated in the footnotes. I clarify who the ‘we’ refers to when there is a change of perspective in the writing.
xiii Statement of Original Authorship
The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due referenceis made. Partsof this thesis are published in the followingpeer-reviewed publications:
Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor, Alessandro Soro, Paul Roe, Anita Lee Hong, and Margot Brereton. 2018. "Debrief O'Clock": Planning, Recording, and Making Sense of a Day in the Field in Design Research. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHIConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). Associationfor Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 308, 1-14. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173882
Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor, Alessandro Soro, and Margot Brereton. 2018. New literacy theories for participatory design: lessons from three design cases with Australian Aboriginal communities. In Proceedings of the 15th Participatory Design Conference: Full Papers - Volume I (PDC '18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 11, 1-13. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3210586.3210588
Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor, Alessandro Soro, Paul Roe, Anita Lee Hong, and Margot Brereton. 2018. Digitising Culture as Supporting Cultural Processes in the Digital Era. In D. S. Jat, J. Sieck, H. Muyingi, H. Winschiers-Theophilus, A. Peters, & S. Nggada (Eds.), Digitisation of Culture:Namibian And InternationalPerspectives. Springer Publishing.
Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor, WujalWujal Aboriginal Shire Council, Alessandro Soro, Paul Roe, and Margot Brereton. 2019. A Relational Approach to Designing Social Technologies that Foster Use of the Kuku Yalanji Language. In Proceedings of the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction (OZCHI'l9). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 161-172. DOI:https://doi.org/1O. l l 45/3369457.3369471
Taylor, J. L., Aboriginal Shire Council, W.W., Soro, A., Esteban, M., Vallino, A., Roe, P., & Brereton, M. (2020). Crocodile Language Friend: Tangibles to Foster Children's Language Use. Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHIEA '20), 1-14. https://doi.org/1O. l l 45/3334480.338303l
Signature: OUT Verified Signature
Date: 10 November 2020
XlV Acknowledgements
Wujal Wujal
I acknowledge the Kuku Yalanji, Kuku Nyungul and Jalunji peoples, who are the Traditional Owners and custodians of the Wujal Wujal area where this work was completed, and pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging. Thank you for granting me this opportunity to work with you, learn from you, and spend time with you in the community over the past three years.
This work was made possible through a partnership with the Wujal Wujal
Aboriginal Shire Council and involvement of people associated with the Council.
Thank you to Eileen Deemal-Hall, Desmond Tayley, Kate Hams, Jason Holt, Stephen
Wilton, Vanessa Kennedy, Billy Harrigan, Marie Shipton, Dawn Harrigan, and
Councillors and other staff who have assisted. Your innovation and dedication to your community is inspiring.
A special thanks to the Wujal Wujal Language Reference Group for contributing your expertise in your language and culture. Your involvement was integral to designing the Crocodile Language Friend. Elders from the community who assisted with the project included Marie Shipton, Billy Harrigan, Sam Friday, Gladys Friday,
Norman Tayley, Francis Walker, Kathleen Walker, Doreen Ball, Lilly Yougie, Bobby
Ball, Jacky Ball, Linda Walker, Carol Toby, Ruby Winkle, Dawn Harrigan, and Lila
Yougie.
Many thanks to everyone from the Wujal Wujal Women’s Centre, Wujal Wujal
Indigenous Knowledge Centre, Wujal Wujal Kindergarten, Jabalbina Rangers, Wujal
Wujal Home and Community Care Centre, and Wujal Wujal Justice Group for your contributions to the project.
xv Thanks to John and Debbie from Bloomfield Escape for your care in accommodating me, as well as Bloomfield Beach Camp and Milkwood Lodge for your assistance. Thank you also to Gladys and Sam Friday for the many cups of tea, damper, and fishing trips which were highlights of my fieldwork experience.
Brisbane and beyond
I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands where QUT now stands, the
Turrbal and Yugara peoples, and wish to pay respect to their Elders past, present and emerging (Queensland University of Technology, 2019a). I recognise that I am a visitor to this place, and am grateful to have studied at beautiful QUT Gardens Point in Brisbane, where teaching and learning has always happened. I wish to acknowledge the Anindilyakwa people of Groote Eylandt, NT, where preliminary work was undertaken, and pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
I am extremely grateful to my wonderful supervision team. Thank you to my
Principal Supervisor Professor Margot Brereton (Queensland University of
Technology), and my Associate Supervisors Professor Paul Roe (Queensland
University of Technology), Professor Heike Winschiers-Theophilus (Namibia
University of Science and Technology), and Professor Paul Dourish (University of
California Irvine) for your support and encouragement through-out the project.
This doctoral research was very much a collaborative endeavour. My sincere gratitude goes to Dr Alessandro Soro for your assistance with the project and the chance to work with you on the Coding on Country program. Many thanks to Michael
Esteban, Andrew Vallino, and Dr Alok Chowdry who were part of the team that designed and implemented the Crocodile Language Friend, Ambient Birdhouse, and
Digital Community Noticeboard systems. Thanks to Anna Kalma for volunteering your sewing skills at short notice. I am grateful to Anita Lee Hong for your mentoring xvi and assistance with the scoping work. Steven Bird’s sage advice from a linguistics perspective at the final stage was also very much appreciated.
This work was generously funded through an Australian Government Research
Training Program Stipend, QUT Excellence Top-Up Scholarship, and by the QUT
Computer-Human Interaction discipline. I was also fortunate to have worked as a sessional tutor, research assistant, and HDR Peer Advisor with the Student Success
Group. Thank you to my friends, colleagues, and students from across these areas for these valuable professional development opportunities. Many thanks in particular to Dr Bernd Ploderer for your generosity, including being able to work with you on developing the field theory method that was used in this project.
The PhD process was challenging on a personal level. This work involved balancing the diverse priorities and outcomes sought by the University,
Council, and community, while at the same time grappling with my own personal circumstances. Thank you to the staff at the QUT Medical Centre, QUT
Counselling Centre, Sue Barnard, and Lynne O'Brien for keeping me well during my candidature.
My completion of this work would not have been possible without the support of my fellow PhD students in the Co-Design lab and my friends from Brisbane and beyond. Cheers to Francisca Rodriguez Leonard for the PhD yarns, cookies, and your kind pet-sitting during my travels. To my family, particularly my parents Jane and
Milton, who have always been there for me at the other end of the phone, thank you for your enduring love and belief in me that has carried me through. I am grateful to my sister Melanie for reading and discussing this work with me. Thanks to Lucy for being my working-from-home buddy and cheerleader, and to Jack, who will always be remembered. Finally, thank you in earnest to Lachlan Hedge, who helped me to see the sun between the clouds.
xvii Foreword
Ngayu Jennyfer. Ngayu Brisbanemun kadan. Ngayu PhD student kadan from
QUT. My name is Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor and I am a PhD student in Human-
Computer Interaction (HCI) from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in
Brisbane. I am proud to have been working in partnership with the Wujal Wujal community from October 2017 – July 2020 to create a talking crocodile soft toy to help young children and their families to learn and use the Kuku Yalanji language.
This thesis is a book about how QUT and the Wujal Wujal community worked together to create the Crocodile Language Friend, and why we designed it in this way.
The University’s partnership with the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council and community started in October 2017. The Council was eager to develop technology to support the preservation and revitalisation of the Kuku Yalanji language. A challenge faced by many communities is finding ways to engage young people with using traditional languages, and the community was keen to bring language together with the technologies that young people enjoy. They invited the University to work with them on this project as HCI designers and researchers, and convened a Language
Reference Group of Elders to guide the project. A range of adults and children from across the community were also involved in the project and contributed to the designs.
I (Jennyfer) spent approximately six months of the project period living in Wujal
Wujal and working with the community. I received a warm welcome from the people of Wujal Wujal, and formed many lasting connections and friendships through-out the project. I did not anticipate that the fieldwork would involve tasting so many excellent scones and dampers! I approached this work with the spirit of doing the right thing, and sometimes I made mistakes too, and I am sorry for these. They taught me tough
xviii and valuable lessons. The community was very patient with me as both a university student, and a student of the Elders.
Since the community resources and language speakers’ time is so precious, a responsibility of designers is to help create technology designs that are useful and used by the community, and do not sit in a corner gathering dust once the project has concluded. During the PhD period, we have been able to develop a design partnership, iteratively co-design a tangible technology up to a certain stage, and conduct some preliminary evaluation activities. This thesis discusses some of the ways that the
Council and University could continue working together in future to grow the designs and their use within the community.
I hope you enjoy reading the story of this project.
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xx Chapter 1. Introduction
“Mayi minya kari bama wulayrikuda. Bama kari milka janay nganawunku kukukunguja kurangmunku.” “Without water and fire we don’t survive. Without respect and culture we are lost.” – Bajabaja Kuku (Blue Tongue Lizard Story) – Wujal Wujal community
1.1 Introduction
This chapter introduces the thesis, and opens with a background to the project and the research problem addressed by this work in Section 1.2.
Section 1.3 presents the research questions, followed by the research context in
Section 1.4: the Wujal Wujal community and Kuku Yalanji Aboriginal language of
Far North Queensland.
The chapter also states the research scope in Section 1.5, and objectives in
Section 1.6. Section 1.7 presents an outline of the thesis structure and chapters.
1.2 Background2
Australia has a rich and diverse array of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, as illustrated in the AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia (Horton, 1996), with more than 250 different languages spoken at the time of European arrival
(Marmion et al., 2014; Walsh, 1993). More than 120 of these languages continue to be spoken today (Marmion et al., 2014), reflecting the resilience and ongoing efforts of their speech communities in light of colonisation, the effects of which continue to impact people and their language use today (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission, 1997). These languages have immense historical significance as part of the “world’s oldest continuing cultures”, and play an important role in the lives of
2 Parts of this section have appeared in (Taylor et al., 2019b).
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and in wider Australian society
(Australian Government, 2019).
Supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s continuing connection to their language has implications for identity (Featherstone, 2016; Verdon et al.,
2015), health and wellbeing (Lohoar et al., 2014; Marmion et al., 2014) and child development (Fogarty et al., 2011). But the value of language to Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander communities extends beyond measurable “economic, social and intrinsic benefits” (Australian Government, 2019, p. 6). Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander languages are interconnected with aspects of life such as relationship to country, culture (including Lore, ceremony, and other practices), kinship relations, and family (Commonwealth of Australia, 2012, p. 12), and reflect the worldviews of their speakers. For the Wujal Wujal community, language and culture are essential to survival, as reflected in the opening quote: “Without respect and culture we are lost”.
Yet, while the world has over 7000 known languages (Hinton et al., 2018b, p. xxi), many of these are critically endangered and are at risk of being lost, with a 2016
UN Forum predicting that 40% of the world’s total languages may disappear unless rapid action is taken (UNESCO, 2019). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language loss is particularly acute in Australia (Forrest, 2018), and many traditional languages are becoming increasingly endangered (Marmion et al., 2014). Language loss occurs through the process of ‘language shift’, where the use of an endangered language changes across generations to more widely spoken languages such as English
(Fishman, 1991). This is often not the choice of speakers but occurs as the consequence of colonisation (Hinton et al., 2018b, p. xxi) and is perpetuated by structural inequalities within society (Truscott et al., 2010). Intergenerational language
2 Chapter 1: Introduction
transmission and use is therefore essential for strengthening the vitality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages into the future (Marmion et al., 2014, p. xiii).
In spite of these challenges, the speech communities of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander languages have been working tirelessly over the years on a range of activities to maintain and revitalise their languages for future generations. This includes establishing language policies and plans, developing programs to support language teaching and learning, documenting their languages and creating resources for the community, and promoting the language through the media (Marmion et al.,
2014, p. 19). The use of technology in these efforts is reflected in the vibrant program of the biennial Puliima Indigenous Languages and Technology Conference (Puliima
Team, 2017). Within the academic community, researchers and practitioners in the field of language revitalisation have been supporting these efforts, with a particular focus on developing language documentation and programs in partnership with communities (Hinton et al., 2018b).
Researchers and communities have been turning to digital technologies to support language revitalisation efforts (Galla, 2016). Multimedia products have been developed for language teaching and learning, and web-based technologies are bringing speech communities together though mailing lists, forums, audio-video conferencing, and social media (Holton, 2011). In the Australian context, mobile application projects have been undertaken to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander language and knowledge practices (Carew et al., 2015), facilitate language recording and annotation (Bird et al., 2014), provide digital repositories of language materials (Mamtora et al., 2017), and deliver language resources such as dictionaries in digital formats (Hill, 2012). In the community sphere, the widespread appropriation and use of existing technologies in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
Chapter 1: Introduction 3
such as mobile phones (Brady et al., 2008) is supporting young people’s engagement with and use of language in new ways (Kral, 2010).
My own research field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is well placed to contribute to language revitalisation work, given its disciplinary focus on “the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them” (Hewett et al., 1992, p. 5). HCI design projects have been undertaken in a range of areas relevant to intergenerational language transmission and use, including family communication, language teaching and learning, and tangible interaction design for children. Collaborative design efforts have taken place in partnership with Indigenous peoples internationally (e.g.
(Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b), and a small number of projects have been carried out with Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia
(Akama et al., 2016; Bidwell et al., 2008; Leong et al., 2019; Peters et al., 2018; Soro et al., 2017).
However, very few HCI projects have specifically addressed Indigenous language revitalisation, or engaged with the lens of ‘active language use’, which refers to people’s production of language, in spoken and written forms, in their everyday lives and activities (Katinskaia et al., 2017; Oxford et al., 1995; Saks et al., 2019)3.
Tangible user interfaces (Ullmer et al., 2000) in particular can promote children’s language use in social activities, through tangible interactions with objects and toys that they can pick up and handle, beyond the affordances of screen-based systems
(Taylor et al., 2020). Yet, only a very small number of HCI projects involving tangible technologies have been carried out with endangered language speech communities
3 Parts of this section have appeared in (Taylor et al., 2019b).
4 Chapter 1: Introduction
(Plimmer et al., 2015). Tangible user interfaces are underrepresented in accounts of technology projects for language revitalisation (e.g. Holton, 2011). Additionally, resources for planning community language activities address collaborations with ICT specialists, by not specifically with HCI designers or from an interaction design perspective (First Languages Australia, 2015b).
This raises key questions that has motivated this work: What can HCI approaches, methods, and novel designs such as tangible user interfaces offer to endangered language communities and language revitalisation work? How should we
(the HCI research community) go about working with Indigenous communities to support their language activities? What can I personally offer as a non-Indigenous
Australian with an HCI skillset, who recognises the value of these languages to
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to all Australians as part of our history and our story? First and foremost, of course, is the need to recognise and support Indigenous self-determination in language work. As Hinton puts it, “what is really important is self-determination: the rights of indigenous peoples to determine their own futures, whether or not they see language survival as an important part of that future.” (Hinton, 2001c, p. 5).
‘Participatory design’ (PD) is a technology design tradition with core commitments and principles that appear to align with this orientation. PD recognises people’s rights to having a voice in technology design, that they are experts about their own lives and their languages, and that design should start from the particular context of technology use and people’s existing practices (Simonsen et al., 2012). PD methods aim to facilitate genuine participation, mutual learning, democracy, and empowerment
(Basballe et al., 2016; Simonsen et al., 2012), with a view to the long term
Chapter 1: Introduction 5
sustainability of design interventions through community capacity building and ownership of design projects (Merkel et al., 2004; Poderi et al., 2018).
Yet, critical stances such as ‘postcolonial computing’ highlight the nature of design as “culturally located and power laden” (Irani et al., 2010, p. 1312). This perspective illustrates the potential for uneven relationships with communities, and the imposition of design methods from elsewhere, to re-entrench socio-economic inequalities and overlook local design practices (Irani et al., 2010). PD practices therefore need to be situated with respect to local values, practices, and epistemologies
(Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b). Prior HCI projects with Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people have reported and reflected on the hybrid design practices that have emerged through collaborative design projects (Bidwell et al., 2008; Brereton et al., 2014; Peters et al., 2018). Further work is needed to develop PD practices for designing tangible technologies with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities for their languages.
1.3 Research Questions
This research seeks to answer the main research question: “How can the participatory design of tangible and social technologies support the intergenerational language transmission and active use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages?”
This thesis addresses this main question by responding to the following sub- questions:
1.3.1 RQ1. What types of interactions, activities, and practices facilitate the intergenerational transmission and use of Aboriginal and
6 Chapter 1: Introduction
Torres Strait Islander languages that are experiencing language shift, and what role does technology play?
• 1a) What theoretical frameworks and lens can we draw on to understand and
design for the ‘active language use’ of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
languages experiencing language shift?
• 1b) How is the Kuku Yalanji language currently used by Elders and children
in the Wujal Wujal community, and what role does technology currently
play?
• 1c) What role can tangible technologies play in establishing a shared
understanding of current language use, and identifying design questions and
opportunities?
1.3.2 RQ2. What design methods and approaches can foster relationship building, participation, and engagement, in participatory projects with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities?
• 2a) What values and activities can support HCI design researchers and
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to establish and build
relationships in order for participatory design projects to take place?
• 2b) What methods and practices can facilitate an iterative participatory
design process, and how do they shape participation and engagement in
design?
• 2c) What collaborative methods can support the documentation, analysis,
and presentation of insights from immersive design field research with
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities?
Chapter 1: Introduction 7
1.3.3 RQ3. How can the design and use of tangible user interfaces help to grow active language use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages by children and families?
• 3a) What types of tangible social and technology designs can help to foster
language use by children and their families, and how do their affordances
differ from screen-based interventions?
• 3b) What factors can contribute to community members’ uptake and
rejection of co-designed language technologies and influence their sustained
use over time?
• 3c) How can participatory practices of designing and using tangible
technologies foster whole-of-community engagement in a technology
project for language revitalisation?
1.4 Context4
This work has been undertaken in partnership with the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal
Shire Council and community of Far North Queensland, a small community of approximately 650 people (Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, 2017a). The
Traditional Owners and custodians of the Wujal Wujal area are the Kuku Nyungul,
Kuku Yalanji, and Jalunji peoples, with a rich history of residing in this place since time immemorial (Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, 2020). The community proudly speak their language, and while there are Elders and adults who are fluent speakers, there are challenges in engaging young people with learning and using the language (Taylor et al., 2019b).
The Council invited researchers from Queensland University of Technology to partner with the community on a PD project, with the aim of designing social
4 Parts of this section have appeared in (Taylor et al., 2019b).
8 Chapter 1: Introduction
technologies to support young children and their families to learn and use Kuku
Yalanji in their everyday lives. This thesis has been produced as part of the ongoing project established in 2017 entitled ‘Ngana wubulku junkurr-jiku balkaway-ka (Let’s talk strong in our language): The Let’s Use Our Language Together Social Technology
Project for Kuku Yalanji’. Four pillars underpinning the project are: 1) Reuse and build on existing language resources; 2) Use language in social activities with technology;
3) Grow use of the language through social connections; and 4) Target language use at all ages but start by focusing on young children (aged 3-5) (Taylor et al., 2019b).
Further details about the project partners and researcher positionality is provided in
Chapter 3.
The project resulted in the design of the Crocodile Language Friend, a talking soft toy crocodile with a paired local web application accessible using mobile devices.
The design supports young children and their families to create and experience their own language recordings, including through playful and ambient interactions. The initial contextual research with adult language speakers and resulted in the development of a ‘field theory of intergenerational Kuku Yalanji language use’
(Chapter 5) to inform the technology design.
The Crocodile Language Friend was created through a long-term, iterative co- design process involving the Language Reference Group of Elders, adults and children in Council-run community settings, the Women’s Centre, and at-home trials with families. The design process was undertaken through a ‘participatory (re)design practice’ seeded by the Ambient Birdhouse, and involved collaborative work on a number of different tangible forms and interaction designs before reaching the ‘final’ version (Chapter 6).
Chapter 1: Introduction 9
The resulting Crocodile Language Friend design (Chapter 7) embodies the decision making and design contributions from a range of individuals and groups within the community, including the Women’s Centre who decided to sew the soft toys themselves within the community. This thesis argues that the co-design of tangible technologies, including ongoing practices of appropriation, use, and redesign, can foster community alignment of resources and efforts through a language project and present new opportunities for growing language use (Chapter 8).
1.5 Research Scope
While the geographical boundaries of the Yalanji speaking area extend beyond the Wujal Wujal community (Hill, 2004), this project has specifically involved working with Wujal Wujal to co-design technologies that address the needs and aspirations of Kuku Yalanji speakers in their community and reflect their language situation. Kuku Yalanji is used in this thesis as the umbrella term to refer to both dialects of the language that are spoken in Wujal Wujal, Kuku Yalanji and Kuku
Nyungul.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, cultures, and communities are diverse, and technology designers who are working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people should respect and account for this diversity (Leong et al., 2019).
While the design approaches and products in this project may not be relevant to all communities or even Kuku Yalanji speakers in other places, speech communities with a similar language situation to Wujal Wujal may find some of the insights from this work to be useful.
This project work focussed on technologies to promote language use by young children (aged 3-5 years old) and their families, as chosen by the Council, and the
Language Reference Group of Elders that has overseen this project. While young
10 Chapter 1: Introduction
children have been the target group, the thesis illustrates that the Crocodile Language
Friend design also resonates with other groups in the community such as older primary school-aged children and adults, even when they are not direct users of the technology
(Chapter 8). I also chose to focus on language use at home and in the community as underexamined contexts in design research, rather than language use within the education system.
The project has sought to design a technology that is both a tangible user interface, an object in physical space that children can pick up and physically handle
(Ullmer et al., 2000), and a social technology that enables the community to create and share their own language content (Hagen et al., 2012). While the initial aim of the project was to create a mobile application, the tangible framing was adopted when the
Elders’ affinity for tangible prototypes such as the Ambient Birdhouse (Soro et al.,
2018) became apparent, and the empirical work suggested the value of the tangible form for encouraging young children’s language use (Chapter 5).
I have approached this work from a human-computer interaction design perspective, as distinct from adopting a linguistics or education research lens. The thesis briefly mentions several learning theories and pedagogical frameworks (Papert,
1962; Vygotsky, 1962; Yunkaporta, 2010). However, the purpose of this project was to understand possible interaction models that could encourage language use, and gauge children’s interest in technology for Kuku Yalanji, rather than attending to the details of particular pedagogical theories or frameworks. Additionally, Kuku Yalanji speakers have developed their own pedagogical approaches to teaching children their language, elements of which are reflected in the field theory (Chapter 5). The design intent was to develop simple and flexible technologies with engaging interactions, that
Chapter 1: Introduction 11
could be appropriated into existing practices within a range of settings (e.g. language use at home, at school etc.) rather than being pedagogically prescriptive.
1.6 Objectives
The objectives of this PhD project were to:
1. Undertake an empirical study of Kuku Yalanji language use within the Wujal Wujal community and identify opportunities for design interventions;
2. Articulate the tangible and intangible aspects of establishing and building a relationship with the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council and community;
3. Develop new co-design methods and approaches for working in partnership with Aboriginal communities on design research projects;
4. Co-design a novel tangible and social technology for the Kuku Yalanji language;
5. Map the research space for intergenerational language transmission and active language use within the HCI research community; and
6. Provide resources that are both practically useful to the Wujal Wujal community, and make a knowledge contribution to HCI and PD.
1.7 Thesis Outline
Chapter 2 presents a review of the literature and articulates the gap in knowledge at the intersection of language revitalisation, HCI, and tangible user interfaces for children.
Chapter 3 provides an account of the tangible and intangible aspects of relationship building with the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council and community.
I highlight activities that supported relationship building at different levels, such as the use of tangible technologies as ‘design non-proposals’, and argue for a non- instrumental approach to establishing project partnerships.
12 Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 4 outlines the methodology and research phases for this project. It includes an overview of PD, the research methods adopted in this work, and a consideration of the tensions and challenges in undertaking postcolonial PD research.
This project also contributes the Debrief O’Clock collaborative field note practice for
HCI, developed through earlier scoping work with the Groote Eylandt community
(Taylor et al., 2018c).
Chapter 5 proposes a ‘field theory’ of intergenerational language use of Kuku
Yalanji, based on contextual work undertaken through interviews, Language
Reference Group meetings, and technology demonstrations, and identifies design questions and opportunities. In particular, this chapter illustrates that language use is enmeshed with family and community relations, and proposes a relational approach that takes family communication and intergenerational activities as the starting point for language technology design (Taylor et al., 2019b).
Chapter 6 illustrates the iterative, PD approach that was taken to co-create a tangible technology for Kuku Yalanji in Wujal Wujal. It proposes participatory
(re)design as a practice for reflectively co-designing tangible technologies, in a way that invites decision making and participation by Elders and young children, by seeding the design process using the existing Ambient Birdhouse tangible design (Soro et al., 2018).
Chapter 7 describes the novel design of the Crocodile Language Friend, a tangible social technology in the form of a soft toy Crocodile with an embedded electronics kit, to foster language use by young children and their families. It illustrates the findings from preliminary evaluation activities, including an at-home technology trial, and collaboration with the Wujal Wujal Women’s Centre to sew their own soft toys.
Chapter 1: Introduction 13
Chapter 8 provides a reflection on what work is still to be done to support ongoing design and use practices with the Crocodile. It presents the key argument of this thesis, that participatory design and use practices involving tangible technologies can facilitate community alignment, and present new opportunities for growing active language use. Sub-contributions, limitations, and opportunities for future work are examined, including opportunities for collaboration at the intersection of language revitalisation and HCI research.
14 Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2. Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
This chapter provides a review of the literature that addresses the key theoretical constructs for the project, and establishes gaps in knowledge at the intersection of language revitalisation scholarship, HCI, and tangible user interface design for children.
In Section 2.2, I start by providing an overview of language revitalisation as a research area, presenting a background to key terms such as intergenerational language transmission and active language use, and discussing the role of technology in language revitalisation efforts.
Next, in Section 2.3, I present the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander language revitalisation in Australia, and review past technology design projects for these languages.
In Section 2.4, I introduce the field of HCI and provide an overview of related areas of HCI research including HCI design for family communication, language learning, tangibles for children, and past design projects with Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander communities.
Finally, in Section 2.5 I articulate key gaps in knowledge that have been addressed by this research project, motivating the research questions and aims in
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2: Literature Review 15
2.2 Endangered Language Revitalisation
2.2.1 Language endangerment and shift This project is concerned with designing technologies that support endangered language revitalisation. A language is considered to be endangered if “speakers cease to use it, use it in an increasingly reduced number of communicative domains, and cease to pass it on from one generation to the next.” (UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages, 2003, p. 2). Many Indigenous languages are endangered, as they are closely bound to a geographical area within a country where their language is not widely used by government, industry, educational institutions, or within broader society (Hinton, 2001a, p. 3).
A key process resulting in language endangerment is ‘language shift’, articulated in seminal work by Fishman (Fishman, 1991, 2001) and defined as “the gradual or sudden move from the use of one language to another, either by an individual or by a group” (Crystal, 2008, p. 269). Language shift can be experienced by the speech communities of Indigenous languages, other types of non-national endangered languages, and immigrants moving to a new place where a different language is spoken to their heritage language (Hinton, 2001c), and can result from colonisation (Hinton et al., 2018b, p. xxi). This can particularly be seen in changes to language use across generations, as younger people may no longer acquire it as their first language, or may use a majority language such as English to a greater extent in their everyday lives
(Fishman, 1991, p. 8).
2.2.2 Assessing language vitality A language’s level of endangerment and effects of language shift can be assessed by evaluating ‘language vitality’. Language vitality is “a description of the relationship between a language, its speakers, and its wider linguistic, social, and political context”
16 Chapter 2: Literature Review
(Roche, 2017, p. 193). Determining language vitality is one of the first steps to identifying what types of interventions can help to address language shift (Grenoble et al., 2005, p. 161), including technology design interventions, as language revitalisation programs should reflect the particular language situation and goals of the speech community (Hinton, 2001a, p. 5). Many studies of language vitality are carried out through surveys, though Lane highlights potential problems of comparing statistics between studies, or studying one metric only in trying to gain a full picture of language shift and revitalisation (Lane, 2020, p. 351).
There are a number of different frameworks that are applied in evaluating language endangerment. Fishman developed the Graded Intergenerational Disruption
Scale (GIDS), with eight stages of language shift along which a language can be classified (Fishman, 1991). Stage 8 denotes the most severe level of endangerment, in which a language is only spoken by a small number of “socially isolated” older people, down to Stage 1 where the language is used “in higher level educational, occupational, governmental and media efforts” (Matiki, 2009, p. 538). However, Fishman’s GIDS
Scale is problematic for understanding the vitality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander languages, for which language shift is a complex phenomenon, and Stage 1 is probably not attainable for any single language given the level of linguistic diversity in Australia (Bianco et al., 2001, pp. 392–393). Additionally, Simpson illustrates a shift towards hybrid or creole by speakers of some Australian languages rather than
English (Simpson, 2013, p. 384), which may not be reflected in this framework.
Alternative frameworks have been developed such as that of UNESCO
(UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages, 2003). Their approaches to assessing the vitality of a language encompasses a number of different measures, including intergenerational language transmission, speaker numbers, language
Chapter 2: Literature Review 17
materials, and language use domains (UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered
Languages, 2003, p. 7). This model is given particular attention here as it formed the basis of the 2005 National Indigenous Languages Survey (Australian Institute of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2005; UNESCO, 2017a). Other commonly-used measures discussed in language revitalisation literature include the
Sustainable Use Model, FAMED (Function, Acquisition, Motivation, Environment, and Differentiation), and the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale
(Tehan et al., 2017).
Strengthening intergenerational language transmission is considered a key strategy for “reversing language shift” ahead of other factors (Acharyya et al., 2019;
Fishman, 2001). Since intergenerational language transmission and active language use are important factors for revitalizing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages (Marmion et al., 2014, p. xiii), I consider these two aspects of language vitality in the following sections.
2.2.3 Intergenerational language transmission ‘Intergenerational language transmission’ refers to “the process involved in […] passing [a] language down to the next generation, either through informal learning or formal teaching, or a combination of both” (Borland, 2006, p. 24). While the home and community context have prominence in key language revitalisation work
(Fishman, 1991; Tsunoda, 2013), this broader definition proposed by Borland reflects the different community settings in which language transmission may take place, including within the home and within the education system. Language transmission may also occur through “vertical” transmission from older to younger speakers,
“horizontal” and more indirect transmission (e.g. between peers or partners), and
18 Chapter 2: Literature Review
“oblique” transmission from sources outside the family such as family friends (Van
Mol et al., 2018, p. 668).
A body of empirical work on intergenerational language transmission focuses on parental language attitudes, activities, and ideologies, and how they impact on children’s language learning and use. These studies identify factors influencing parental actions such as government policy (Curdt-Christiansen, 2016, p. 695), perceived economic and educational outcomes of speaking a language (Curdt-
Christiansen, 2016, p. 695), socio-economic and employment situation (Van Mol et al., 2018, pp. 668–669), role of mothers in language use while raising children (Van
Mol et al., 2018; Velázquez, 2009), and having an awareness of language shift and endangerment (Maseko et al., 2019, p. 295).
However, the relationship between parental actions and successful intergenerational language transmission is not straightforward. Wang highlights the roles and agency of all generations in facilitating language maintenance or shift, including the agency of children (Wang et al., 2020, p. 5). Kircher similarly points out that “parental language choices are not a guarantee that children will eventually become active users of the languages” (Kircher, 2019, p. 5). Some studies also indicate possible differences between parental attitudes and values regarding a language, and their actual language practices with children for various reasons (Curdt-Christiansen,
2016; Simpson, 2013; Velázquez, 2009). Finally, this work shows the influence of a range of internal and external factors on language transmission (Chrisp, 2005;
Simpson, 2013), with Curdt-Christiansen arguing that “internal linguistic mechanisms” and “external social forces” must work together to support intergenerational language transmission and address language shift (Curdt-
Christiansen, 2016, p. 695).
Chapter 2: Literature Review 19
2.2.4 Active language use5 Various aspects of language speaking and use are discussed in language revitalisation literature (Grinevald et al., 2011). I sought a definition for “language use” as a place to work from in this project.
The term “active language use” is mentioned in literature on second language learning (Katinskaia et al., 2017; Oxford et al., 1995; Saks et al., 2019), referencing in particular work by Oxford and Burry Stock on the Strategy Inventory for Language
Learning (SILL) (Oxford et al., 1995, p. 15). In their work on the use of SILL with
Estonian leaners, Saks and colleagues describe active language use as “strategies which express the learner-initiated use of language in real-life situations, and is a combination of cognitive and social strategies” (Saks et al., 2019, p. 6).While active language use is sometimes contrasted with “passive absortion [sic] of language examples or rules” (Katinskaia et al., 2017, p. 29), this ‘active’ vs ‘passive’ framing is disputed by others who contend that it encompasses other language skills that involve a “high degree of mental activity” such as “perceiving, discriminating, understanding, or interpreting” (Ur et al., 2009, pp. 11–12).
For this project, my definition of active language use based on this literature is people’s production of language, in spoken and written forms, in their everyday lives and activities (Katinskaia et al., 2017; Oxford et al., 1995; Saks et al., 2019). This definition relates active language use to the “two major tasks” of language maintenance and revitalisation, which are helping new speakers to initially learn and use a language, as well as encouraging people to use the language that they already know in a variety of ways (Hinton, 2011, p. 293). As Marmion and colleagues point
5 Parts of this section have appeared in (Taylor et al., 2020).
20 Chapter 2: Literature Review
out in the NILS2 report, the goal of community language programs may be broader than achieving fluency in language use, by seeking “to strengthen people’s connection with their language and culture, to build a sense of identity and wellbeing, and to increase language awareness” (Marmion et al., 2014, p. 19).
Language use has not widely been adopted as a lens for HCI design research
(Taylor et al., 2020), but could be studied through the activities and social practices in which language is used (or not), and the role that technology plays. New literacy studies represent one theoretical area of work that can support qualitative studies of active language use in approaching literacy as social practices (Street, 2003). Kathy
Mills articulates six lenses on literacy (Mills, 2016), and their resonances with design theory and design implications are discussed in (Taylor et al., 2018a).
2.2.5 Language revitalisation work ‘Language Revitalisation’ is an area of work closely aligned with linguistics that seeks to address language shift through activities that “bring endangered languages back to some level of use within their communities (and elsewhere) after a period of reduction in usage” (Hinton, 2011, p. 291). While there are many different terms for language work that reflect the different language situations and needs (e.g.
‘maintenance’, ‘reclamation’, ‘revival’) (Hinton, 2011, p. 291), we use ‘language revitalisation’ as the umbrella term as per key works in this area (Hinton, 2001c;
Hobson et al., 2010).
Two key areas of work in language revitalisation are: 1) language documentation and description, facilitating the production of resources such as word lists, dictionaries, and grammars; and 2) language program development to re-establish and grow intergenerational language transmission and use (Romaine, 2007). Both types of activities are extremely valuable, and documentation can serve as an enduring resource
Chapter 2: Literature Review 21
for future generations, and facilitate language revitalisation when there are no speakers remaining (Hinton, 2001a, p. 11). However, this technology design project focuses on the latter area given the disciplinary background of the research team, interests of community, and presence of existing language documentation for Kuku Yalanji.
There are many different types of language programs being carried out for endangered language communities around the world. Some language programs are targeted to particular groups of speakers such as adults and children, language settings such as school, home, or the community, or certain activities such as creating new language materials (Hinton, 2001a, p. 7). After-school and summer school immersion programs are being conducted for children to provide greater opportunities to participate in language activities (Hinton, 2001a, p. 10). An example is the Cochiti people of New Mexico who have developed a summer school program, and run activities such as sports, cultural camps, and crafting workings in the Keres language
(Pecos et al., 2001, p. 80). Home-based initiatives are also equipping older family members with the skills and resources to increase language use with children as part of their regular activities at home (Hinton, 2001a, p. 12).
The home setting is key for language revitalisation in terms of establishing language use in everyday activities (Hinton, 2011, p. 304), where families have a greater degree of influence over language activities than in other settings such as the school (Bommelyn et al., 2018, p. 121). Some examples of home-based programs discussed in language revitalisation literature include programs for the Maori language in New Zealand (O’Regan, 2018) and Gaelic in Scotland (Hinton, 2011, p. 305), through which families were supported to undertake language planning, run language activities at home with the young children, and were provided with language materials and resources. The ‘language nests’ in Hawaii is an example of a community-based
22 Chapter 2: Literature Review
program for kindergarten-aged children, run as full-day sessions in the Hawaiian language only, that also support family members’ language skills development
(Wilson et al., 2001, p. 153).
This background raises two important issues when considering new technology designs that support language revitalisation in the home. Firstly, the potential for technologies to enrich home-based activities, particularly tangible and social technologies is under-examined in these accounts, that focus on the nature of the program rather than describing particular resources in detail. Secondly, the types of language revitalisation activities and technologies that are applicable for a particular language relate to the broader socio-political context and history of that place. While the Maori and Hawaiian examples provide useful insights, these are ‘national heritage languages’ that are the sole Indigenous language in that area, and as such can benefit from the development of larger-scale programs and coordinated efforts (Hinton,
2001b). Given the wide range of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in
Australia (Horton, 1996), smaller community approaches are needed to reflect the local context.
In the next sections, I discuss the role of technology in language revitalisation literature, before discussing the specific context of Australian Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander language revitalisation.
2.2.6 Role of technology in language revitalisation Prior work has considered Indigenous peoples’ engagement with information technology across a range of areas (Dyson et al., 2007), with a number of studies in the Australian context related to mobile phone appropriation and use (Brady et al.,
2016; Dyson et al., 2009; Shaw et al., 2014). While the technological landscape has shifted since the publication of Dyson and colleagues’ edited volume (Dyson et al.,
Chapter 2: Literature Review 23
2007), a number of themes are still salient when co-designing technology for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. These include: providing communities with access to materials about their languages and cultures in useful formats (Dyson et al., 2007, p. xvi); overcoming barriers to implementing new technologies in remote communities (Dyson et al., 2007, p. xxi); addressing the
“digital divide” and issues of both digital and cultural inclusion (Salazar, 2007, p. 15); reflecting Indigenous pedagogies in the design of educational technologies (Donovan,
2007); and designing to “value everyday social practices and language” within communities (Auld, 2007a, p. 199).
Technology can support Indigenous self-determination, and enables Indigenous peoples worldwide to “revitalize their cultures and redefine themselves in the 21st century” (Dyson et al., 2007, p. 315). Speakers of endangered languages are looking to digital technologies to support language revitalisation activities (Galla, 2016). As such, technology is a common theme running through language revitalisation literature.
Some language revitalisation works have dedicated sections for technology projects and use (Hinton, 2001c; Hinton et al., 2018b; Hobson et al., 2010). These chapters address the use of different forms of media for language revitalisation such as radio, television and film subtitling, computer programs, language documentation with audio-visual material, online dictionaries, digital databases and archives, and teaching and learning tools. In other works, technology use is subsumed within chapters about language documentation activities and language programs (Bradley et al., 2013; Grenoble et al., 2005; Tsunoda, 2013). Technologies for endangered languages have been discussed with respect to geographical locations such as Hawai’i
(Galla, 2018), Canada (Littell et al., 2018), and Australia (Hobson et al., 2010; Smith
24 Chapter 2: Literature Review
et al., 2018). Begay has examined mobile applications for Indigenous language revitalisation, with a particular focus on the Navajo language (Begay, 2013). Begay identified key considerations for language application design such as usability, accuracy, and creating a “purposeful learning environment” (Begay, 2013, p. 7), though this work was not undertaken from a HCI design perspective.
In language revitalisation work, technology is broadly presented as a ‘resource’ or tool for language activities and programs (Holton, 2011). While there are some calls to regard “technology as practice” rather than as an end product (Auld, 2007b; Holton,
2011), reviews of technology for language revitalisation emphasize their form and functionality (Grenoble et al., 2005; Holton, 2011). For example, Holton presents their technology review in describing “products” (e.g. websites, electronic dictionaries, different forms of multimedia) and “online technologies” (e.g. mailing lists, podcasts, video conference) for language revitalisation (Holton, 2011). Published work about technology projects for language revitalisation, and resources developed to support community technology projects (First Languages Australia, 2015a), do not focus on
HCI design practices or considerations in detail.
The intent of this discussion is not to critique this work, as these are incredibly valuable efforts, and it is understandable that research areas and community projects outside of the field of HCI do not take HCI design to be part of their core business6.
The core business of language revitalisation is about growing language use by supporting efforts to build and strengthen language communities (Austin et al., 2011).
As Romaine points out: “Languages can only exist where there is a community to speak and transmit them” (Romaine, 2007, p. 1127). These works illustrate that the
6 It is possible that there are other publications about these projects beyond the edited volumes that unpack the design aspects in further detail.
Chapter 2: Literature Review 25
use of online technologies can help grow communities of endangered language speakers, particularly when they are geographically disparate (Grenoble et al., 2005;
Holton, 2011). However, by focussing on technology as a resource and its applications in use, the potential for the technology design process itself, and ongoing practices design-in-use (Ehn, 2008) to enrich intergenerational language transmission and active language use and support community building is potentially overlooked.
In the following section, I provide background about the context of the
Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language revitalisation work, as well as discussing technologies specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, before turning attention to the field of HCI.
2.3 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages
2.3.1 Status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages There were over 250 distinct Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages spoken in Australia at the time of European invasion, along with a large number of additional dialects (Walsh, 1993, p. 1), representing a rich history of oral cultural traditions.
Studies of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages vitality have both been undertaken at a number of levels including studies of individual languages, research spanning a number of languages (Forrest, 2018), through to the National
Indigenous Languages Survey (NILS) carried out by AIATSIS in 2005, 2014, and
2019 (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2020). The report of the 2019 survey has not yet been made available, however, the website for the project (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2020) indicates the range of factors considered in the survey (e.g. speaker demographics, patterns of language use, language programs, availability of resources), similar to those
26 Chapter 2: Literature Review
in the UNESCO approach (UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered
Languages, 2003). Technology use has been mentioned in the NILS reports but has not been a core focus of the survey instruments.
The Second National Indigenous Languages Survey (NILS2) was conducted through two paper-based questionnaires, completed by 75 organisations and 288
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (Marmion et al., 2014, p. 3). It found that of these languages that have historically been spoken, only 120 Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander languages are still spoken today (Marmion et al., 2014). The survey identified that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages represent a variety of language speaker situations. This ranges from people of all generations being fluent in the language and using it in a wide range of contexts, to languages that are only spoken by parents or grandparents, through to languages that are no longer spoken, and some that are building up the number of speakers through dedicated revitalisation programs
(Marmion et al., 2014). Hybrid and creole forms of languages are also emerging that blend together Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages with one another and/or with English (Marmion et al., 2014), and are perceived by some to heighten the shift away from traditional languages (Forrest, 2018; Marmion et al., 2014).
There are a wide range of revitalisation efforts being undertaken in Australia, some of which address intergenerational language transmission and use as their core focus. These include language policy and planning, language documentation, creating language materials and resources, facilitating language teaching and learning programs, operating language centres, language promotion and recognition activities, and designing and using technology for language activities (Hobson et al., 2010;
Marmion et al., 2014). Language revitalisation activities are being undertaken by individual language speakers, as well as by communities, researchers, government
Chapter 2: Literature Review 27
agencies, industry, and non-government organisations, often through collaborative projects.
There are diverse motivations driving language activities in Australia, including the benefits that a connection to language brings for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples themselves and wider Australian society (Australian Government,
2019). Firstly, these languages are a vital aspect of individual and community identity
(Marmion et al., 2014), and is one aspect that motivates some Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people to teach their language to their young children (Featherstone,
2016). Secondly, language is a form of intangible cultural heritage (UNESCO, 2017b, p. 145), and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages encode history, knowledge, and practices that risk disappearing with language loss (Forrest, 2018, p.
304). Thirdly, participating in language activities can support health and wellbeing
(Marmion et al., 2014) and child development (Fogarty et al., 2011). These are all factors that are driving this project, and build an argument for a greater attentiveness to language revitalisation within the HCI research community.
2.3.2 Legacy of colonisation and missionisation Many Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander speech communities are experiencing an ongoing legacy of colonisation and missionisation, which is affecting language transmission and use today. There are two types of language loss that are threatening Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language survival: “an abrupt, dislocative and extreme form and a slower, generational, attrition” (Bianco et al., 2001, p. 394). The former refers to events such as the “Stolen Generation”, in which
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were taken from their families and communities (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997). Many children who were removed experienced a “totality of separation” from their family
28 Chapter 2: Literature Review
and community, and were forbidden to speak their language or engage in cultural practices (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997, p. n.p.). There has also been a complex history of interactions between Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander communities and missionaries that shaped language activities and use in a variety of ways (Rademaker, 2014).
The stolen generation and other effects of colonisation have resulted in continuing trauma and “intergenerational disadvantage” for some Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people (Higgins, 2010, p. 4), who may associate their language with pain and feelings of “shame” (Bell, 2013, p. 407). The term “shame” in
Aboriginal English has particular cultural connotations beyond the English word, and the feeling can “[…] totally overwhelm and disempower a person” (Charles Darwin
University, 2011). Stigmatisation of the language or a sense of dispossession of it can contribute to feelings of shame (Bell, 2013, p. 407). During social interactions, shame can arise from “looking bad” by not knowing the language or speaking incorrectly, or
“big noting” oneself and standing out for speaking well (Riley, 2015, p. 47). This contextual understanding is important in order to engage in technology design with a sensitivity to these issues and care for participants.
2.3.3 Attitudes to language and language use at home The NILS2 survey results indicate that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities that responded generally have an “overwhelming desire to strengthen traditional languages”, with an aspiration for language recognition and greater role for traditional languages in the education system (Marmion et al., 2014, p. xii). Similarly, a majority of South Australian families in Næssan et al.’s study stated that they “want their and other children to be speakers of the ancestral language in question” (Næssan et al., 2010, p. 99). Understanding children’s attitudes towards their
Chapter 2: Literature Review 29
language is important in terms of designing technology for children. While the NILS2 results reflect young people’s positive connection to the language, the perspective of children themselves is less apparent in the study by Næssan and colleagues, in which approximately half of participants answered that children “don’t know enough language and they don’t want to speak language” (Næssan et al., 2010, p. 61).
Language use at home is critical for supporting intergenerational language transmission and use. Forrest concludes that parental proficiency and language use is key for intergenerational language transmission, as well as other factors such as community language activities, and argues for language programs that are “family- focussed” (Forrest, 2018, pp. 316–3). While older generations may know the language, they may not actively use it (Næssan et al., 2010). Reasons for this are complex and may relate to the effects of colonisation and missionisation, which are by no means the fault of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. While the number of people identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander on the census is increasing, less people are reporting the use of these languages at home (Karidakis et al., 2018, p. 123), further building the argument for technology designs for the home setting.
2.3.4 Government policy and role of language in school There have been a range of different state and federal government programs addressing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages (Australian National
University, 2017). While it is not possible to provide a comprehensive overview, a key policy turning point was the National Policy on Languages (1986), that explicitly valued Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and language revitalisation activities (Mckay, 2017; Truscott et al., 2010). Other significant events and activities include the following: a discussion in 2009 of a National Indigenous Languages Policy
(Mckay, 2017); initiatives such as the National Indigenous Language Survey; reports
30 Chapter 2: Literature Review
such as Our Land, Our Languages (Commonwealth of Australia, 2012); funding programs for language activities (Department of Communications and the Arts, 2019); and the Australian Government Action Plan for the 2019 International Year of
Indigenous Languages (Australian Government, 2019).
While these recent activities have been focussed, there is also concern that
“invisible language policy” is promoting monolingualism and English over Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages (Truscott et al., 2010, p. 7). Since 2018, there have been efforts directed at “Closing the Gap” between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
Australians across a number of areas including literacy levels and educational attainment (Australian Government et al., 2017). While this has made some progress towards tackling socio-economic disadvantage, it has also been critiqued for its underlying deficit logics and focus on English rather than Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander languages (Fforde et al., 2013, p. 166).
There have also been a number of shifts in education policy that have influenced the extent to which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are represented in the schooling system (Mckay, 2017). 95% of participants in the NILS2 survey held the opinion that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages should be taught in schools (Marmion et al., 2014, p. 33). There are frameworks for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages at school within the Australian Curriculum
(Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2015). In the state of
Queensland where this project was carried out, schools were teaching more than 22
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in 2018 (O’Neill, 2019, p. 14).
This policy landscape provides some necessary context that can guide technology design for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language revitalisation.
Technology can support language use as part of existing programs, such as in the
Chapter 2: Literature Review 31
school setting. Design interventions could also enrich language activities in settings that may not be so well represented and resourced through government programs. This formed part of the reason that the home was chosen as a core setting for this project.
The availability of funding for language activities is considered in the discussion about the sustainability of technology design interventions in Chapter 8. Additionally, it highlights the importance of context in shaping the design and use of language technologies, with Hinton pointing out that the success of some language revitalisation efforts can be attributed to politics rather than methodology (Hinton, 2001a, p. 4).
2.3.5 Technology for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages There are a large number of projects that are exploring applications of technology for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language activities. It is difficult to gain an overall perspective of this from academic literature alone, as many
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are developing technologies for their language, but are not publishing this work in academic research venues.
In light of this, I have examined technology projects and platforms relating to
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages presented in academic publications, the Puliima National Indigenous Language and Technology Conference Program from
2015-2019 (Puliima Team, 2017), and a review of applications available on mobile devices. This section presents a broad summary of the purpose, form, and interaction design of existing technologies, and focuses on projects published outside of the HCI field as these are specifically addressed in the next section.
Purpose of technology for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages This review has identified three key purposes for technology projects and uses involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, though these are not mutually exclusive categories, and have been classified on the basis of their
32 Chapter 2: Literature Review
functionality rather than use. Some of these purposes resonate with the categories identified in Begay’s international review of mobile applications for Indigenous languages (Begay, 2013). A similar review was also undertaken by First Languages
Australia and partners for the Yaale project (First Languages Australia, n.d.).
A first key purpose of technology for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages is language archiving and documentation activities. There have been a number of digital databases and repositories developed to house collections of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages materials for communities to access.
These include the Living Archive of Australian Languages (Mamtora et al., 2017), the
Limba digital library project by the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages
(Healy et al., 2019), and the Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics (CALL)
Collection (Klesch, 2017). Some software and applications have been developed to facilitate language recording and preservation activities, such as the Miromaa databasing platform (Miromaa Aboriginal Language and Technology Centre, 2019),
Aikuma app for creating audio recordings (Bird et al., 2014), and Wunderkammer dictionary creation software (Hill, 2012). Many of the mobile phone applications present digital forms of language materials such as dictionary applications and digital storybooks, for example Yugambeh Museum application (Kombumerri Aboriginal
Corporation for Culture, 2020).
A second purpose of these technologies is supporting language teaching and learning activities. Projects in this category include Kutay and colleagues’ development of a digital worksheet generator, grammatical parser, and an online dictionary for classroom use (Kutay et al., 2010), the Living Archive of Aboriginal
Languages online collection of digitised language resource (Bow et al., 2019), and tools that support self-study such as the Anindilyakwa Flashcard app (Disparity
Chapter 2: Literature Review 33
Games, 2020). Some projects have developed dedicated technology for a particular language, and others are using free and open source platforms online (Smith et al.,
2018). A number of technology designs are incorporating gamification, which may make them particularly appealing for children. For example, the Opie Robot is a platform with language learning games for children using language content populated by the community (Mounter, 2017).
A third purpose of technology for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages is communication and content creation in language. For example, the Hitnet project has developed digital kiosks to deliver health information and other community content to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities (Smith et al., 2016).
Tools such as the iTalk Studios app (iTalk Studios, 2018) and Apple iBooks Author
(Apple Inc., 2017) are being utilised by communities to create their own digital stories in language. Tools such as the FirstVoices Keyboards application facilitate Indigenous language use on mobile devices, by providing keyboards with characters that may be common for an Indigenous language but do not appear in English alphabet (e.g. ŋ)
(First Peoples’ Cultural Council, 2020). Kral’s work illustrates the use of digital and mobile technologies for multimedia production and SMS messaging by young people that incorporates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and new or hybrid language forms (Kral, 2010).
The NILS2 survey contends that intergenerational language transmission and active language use are “the key to strengthening or maintaining traditional languages”
(Marmion et al., 2014, p. xiii). Yet, the limited information available about the use of technologies for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, and lack of in-depth evaluation studies (Bow, 2017), means that it is difficult to determine how technology
34 Chapter 2: Literature Review
is being taken up and supporting language use in people’s everyday lives, particularly by young children who are the focal point of this project.
Forms of technology for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages Many published and publicly available technologies for Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander languages take the form of screen-based systems and mobile applications. This is understandable given the existing ownership of screen-based devices in communities, and availability of resources to support language app development. Many dictionary applications have been built using common frameworks, such as the Ma! Application that was leveraged to develop the Iwaidja dictionary app among others (Carew et al., 2015, p. 314), following the principle of
“build once, use often” for effective resource use (Carew et al., 2015; First Language
Australia, 2014, p. 8).
A small number of projects are also pursuing other tangible technology forms for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language revitalisation. Storytelling systems such as the CALL talking books system consist of a physical picture book and smart pen that plays audio associated with the printed pages (Centre for Australian
Languages and Linguistics, n.d.), with similar functionality also achieved with QR codes and mobile phones (Meakins, 2015). Some platforms are combining apps with tangible objects, such as Indigital augmented reality storytelling application that can interact with printed cards and tee-shirts (Indigital, 2017).
Several social robotics projects have been undertaken for Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander languages. Key examples are the Opie Robot, with a wooden form that can be assembled and customised by the community (Mounter, 2017), and the use of the Nao robot to help school students to learn and use the Narungga language through programming the robot (Keane et al., 2019). Yet, few technology projects have
Chapter 2: Literature Review 35
considered the use of soft toy forms to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language transmission and use.
HCI design of technology for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages I surveyed 40 technologies available for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in 2018 to compare their interaction and user experience design. Most applications allowed users to review existing content in Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander languages. Examples of key types of interactions and experiences afforded by these applications were as follows:
• Reviewing multimodal content, such as dictionary entries with
combinations of written words, audio, and images in the Wiradjuri
Language Dictionary app (Wiradjuri Condobolin Corporation Limited,
2020);
• Playing an interactive game, such as bird word matching games in the
Thangkerne app for the Kaytetye language (Foley, 2020);
• Bookmarking and curating personal collections of materials, e.g.
downloading books on the Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages app to
the user’s personal “bookshelf” (Charles Darwin University, 2020);
• Creating and managing dictionary and database entries about a language,
such as the Miromaa software (Miromaa Aboriginal Language and
Technology Centre, 2019); and
• Authoring stories e.g. using the iTalk Studios application (iTalk Studios,
2018).
Few applications that were specific to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages functioned as social technologies (Hagen et al., 2012) that enabled people
36 Chapter 2: Literature Review
to create and share their own content in language, and were particularly targeted to young children at the kindergarten age. However, there are studies illustrating the use of popular social media sites by Indigenous peoples internationally for teaching, learning, and using their languages (Outakoski et al., 2018).
2.3.6 Considerations This literature and technology review has suggested several gaps and considerations in designing technology for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. While the literature describes the functionality of technology for language revitalisation in detail, less emphasis is given in the literature to the technology process itself, and uptake and use of the technologies that have been designed.
Many projects focus on mobile apps and screen-based systems, and there are opportunities for further tangible and social technology projects to support intergenerational language transmission and use, particularly by young children. There are very few existing technologies or digital resources dedicated to the Kuku Yalanji language. The field of HCI may therefore have something to offer language revitalisation for communities such as Wujal Wujal, as discussed in the following section.
2.4 Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Design
HCI is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the “design, evaluation, and implementation of interactive computing systems” (Hewett et al., 1992, p. 5). Given that this project makes a knowledge contribution to HCI, the final part of this literature review considers HCI work relevant to the intergenerational transmission and use of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages.
Very few HCI projects have been undertaken with Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples, or with endangered language speech communities for the purpose of
Chapter 2: Literature Review 37
language revitalisation. In light of this, I consider several related areas of work in turn:
HCI design for intergenerational communication; HCI design for language teaching and learning; HCI design of tangible technologies for children; HCI design for
Indigenous and endangered languages; and finally, HCI design with Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peoples.
2.4.1 HCI design for intergenerational communication7 A range of projects have considered technology design to support intergenerational communication, particularly between grandparents and grandchildren (Bentley et al., 2011; Fuchsberger et al., 2011; Vutborg et al., 2010,
2011; Wallbaum et al., 2018) or adult children and their parents (Binda et al., 2017;
Brereton et al., 2015; Kow et al., 2012; Muñoz et al., 2018). These projects have addressed synchronous communication through video-calls (Follmer et al., 2010), asynchronous communication through Internet-of-Things devices (Brereton et al.,
2015), or a mixture of both to address issues such as time zone differences and different communication practices (Muñoz et al., 2013; Vutborg et al., 2011). Many of these design projects have sought to identify and address barriers to communication, such as social and cognitive when communicating with young children (Ballagas et al., 2009;
Vutborg et al., 2011), and an “asymmetry” between parents’ and adult children’s communication patterns and technology uses (Muñoz et al., 2013).
HCI projects for intergenerational communication have considered both collocated communication within the home (Durrant et al., 2009) and over a distance, with the latter taking place between different countries such as Denmark and Australia
(Vutborg et al., 2011), and China and the United States (Kow et al., 2012). HCI
7 Parts of this section and the following have been published in (Taylor et al., 2019b).
38 Chapter 2: Literature Review
projects with a focus on family communication have not been undertaken with
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Yet, projects such as the #ThisMyMob app (Leong et al., 2019) and the Digital Community Noticeboard project (Soro et al.,
2017) have involved designing for communication within and between communities, of which family networks are a key component.
A key focus of a number of projects in this area is on designing to preserve and communicate family stories and memories (Cheng et al., 2019; Jones et al., 2017,
2018; Li et al., 2019; Wallbaum et al., 2018). Studies have identified people’s valuing of audio recordings containing people’s voices in generating a sense of connectedness and memory making (Heshmat et al., 2020; Jones et al., 2017). For example, the
StoryBox system by Wallbaum and colleagues provides a tangible interface for young children to share stories with grandparents remotely, by creating physical objects that are captured by the camera and spark communication (Wallbaum et al., 2018).
Similarly, Li and colleagues’ Slot-Story machine is a tangible wooden device that provides an interface for older people to create audio recordings of their life stories, with questions to stimulate their storytelling (Li et al., 2018). A small number of projects have considered soft toy forms as used in the Crocodile Language Friend design. For example, Jones et al. developed the Kidkeeper system as a soft toy frog for children to create their own recordings that also serve as a momento for parents (Jones et al., 2017).
Yet, these studies illustrate that intergenerational communication is not about transmitting information or creating static multimedia recordings. Jones and colleagues highlight the performative practices involved to “discover, decipher, and reconstruct” family memories and stories (Jones et al., 2018, p. 424:1). The experiential and emotional aspects of intergenerational communication are also
Chapter 2: Literature Review 39
emphasized, with creating strong bonds between family members serving as both a goal and challenge for design (Forghani et al., 2018; Vezzoli et al., 2020). Some work has highlighted a need to generate a “greater sense of family togetherness” over a distance (Ballagas et al., 2009, p. 321), and emphasized the emotional dimensions of communication (Bentley et al., 2011; Heshmat et al., 2020; Mayasari et al., 2016). This suggests that designing to enrich family communication and relations between people who are connected through Indigenous languages may be an important consideration in designing for endangered language transmission and use.
These HCI projects show that facilitating hands-on play and shared activities can help to maintain communication particularly when young children are involved
(Raffle et al., 2010). Examples of this include a digital dress-up and hide-and-seek games through a video conference platform (Follmer et al., 2010), a system for collaborative storytelling and collage making over a distance (Vutborg et al., 2011), and the collaborative MeteorQuest game for physical play within families (Rosenqvist et al., 2018). Establishing routines can also assist in increasing communication over a distance, such as creating new moments of communication with the Messaging Kettle while making tea (Brereton et al., 2015), or sharing activities on a daily basis with the
G2G calendar and video messaging platform (Forghani et al., 2018). A number of studies reflect on young children’s agency in these activities and use of technology without the support of their parents, such as children choosing the books to read
(Vezzoli et al., 2020), selecting music to play and share (Tibau et al., 2019), and making and crafting their own tangible stories (Wallbaum et al., 2018), and audio recording their own play (Jones et al., 2017). While one study has proposed a game engine for transmitting Indigenous languages and Indigenous Knowledges in Uganda
40 Chapter 2: Literature Review
(Byamugisha et al., 2014), further work is needed to understand how these activities with technology can be harnessed for Indigenous language transmission and use.
In the following section, I take up this focus on language to consider past HCI projects for language teaching and learning.
2.4.2 HCI design for language learning There have been a range of HCI projects that have considered the interactive technology design for language teaching and learning, particularly for second language learning. These technologies and user studies have addressed a range of languages including English (as a foreign language) (Zhang et al., 2018; Zhu et al., 2017),
Japanese (Cheng et al., 2017; Kovacs et al., 2013; Plecher et al., 2018; Stubbs, 2003),
Mandarin Chinese (Edge et al., 2013), French (Hooper et al., 2012; Robertson et al.,
2018), German (Berns et al., 2018), and a mixture of target languages within the same study (Dingler et al., 2017). Unlike research areas such as Computer-Assisted
Language Learning (CALL) that focus on designing systems for particular language skills and with a strong pedagogical focus (Holton, 2011, p. 381), many HCI projects often do not position themselves as primary teaching and learning tools, but are intended to enrich existing teaching practices and learning activities (Dingler et al.,
2017; Randall, 2020; Vazquez et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2018).
Prior work has sought to facilitate students’ active language use to promote language learning and communication skills development, beyond a focus on learning vocabulary and grammar. For example, design projects have targeted interpersonal skills such as “pragmatics”, which is a “sensitivity to meanings expressed by tone and word choice” (Culbertson et al., 2017b, p. 1431), “communicative competence” as the skill of “knowing what to say, when to say it and how to say it” through a mobile game design (Rankin et al., 2017, p. 908), and the ability to “use language creatively” in
Chapter 2: Literature Review 41
Zhang and colleagues’ collaborative storytelling game (Zhang et al., 2018, p. 197:1).
While this work illustrates the role of technology in enriching communication skills development, these areas may be challenging for learners of endangered languages if they lack opportunities to converse with other speakers, even with the help of technology.
HCI projects have addressed applications of new and emerging technologies to facilitate immersive and social learning experiences (Cheng et al., 2017; Culbertson et al., 2016). For example, Cheng and colleagues’ virtual reality game that teaches the
Japanese language and embodied bowing practices by locating users in a virtual teahouse (Cheng et al., 2017). In the domain of ubiquitous computing, Hooper et al. created a “task-based learning” system for people to learn French while cooking a
French recipe together with a smart kitchen environment and augmented utensils
(Hooper et al., 2012). Platforms such as the Microsoft Kinect have been appropriated by Edge at al. for learning of Chinese characters through hand gestures (Edge et al.,
2012), and Vazquez et al.’s mixed reality system uses the Microsoft HoloLens to detect and leverage objects located around the user for language learning (Vazquez et al.,
2017). While many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language technologies are mobile applications, this shows that other forms of technology may be more conducive for social learning and active language use but may also create additional complexity that can detract from the learning experience (Culbertson et al., 2016, p. 637).
However, leveraging people’s existing devices also addresses resource considerations when working with endangered language speech communities (Ward et al., 2003), and language learning in settings outside of formal education. For example, Dingler et al.’s system for “micro-learning” a language through mobile phone notifications was often used by participants while they were “in-transit”
42 Chapter 2: Literature Review
between places (Dingler et al., 2017). Vazquez et al. developed a framework for
“serendipitous language learning” with mixed reality systems, evoking users’ curiosity about objects that they see around them (Vazquez et al., 2017). Hu and colleagues’ designed for “casual language learning” through watching videos using the Kalgan video players’ navigation and subtitling features (Hu et al., 2018), one of several recent video annotation and subtitling projects (Culbertson et al., 2017a, 2017b; Ma et al.,
2018; Zhu et al., 2017). This work is particularly relevant for endangered languages, as they may not be taught in schools or have nascent language revitalisation programs.
More recent HCI projects are beginning to incorporate some aspects of automation and intelligence. This can be seen in Hou et al.’s smart watch and mobile application that automatically translates sign language to spoken word (Hou et al.,
2019), Culbertson et al.’s application of speech recognition in a video system to promote oral language skills (Culbertson et al., 2017b), Robertson et al.’s error recognition platform for use in collaborative speaking activities in French (Robertson et al., 2018), and Zhang et al.’s speech tutoring system that automatically adapts the level to the user’s level of proficiency (Zhang et al., 2020). Proposed applications of adaptive systems beyond the user’s language skills include targeting content and style of learning to the user’s level of motivation, environment, and level of attention
(Schneegass et al., 2018, p. 233). While widely spoken languages may have a large amount of language materials available for designing and training such systems, endangered languages such as Indigenous languages may only have a small amount of written resources or recordings that present barriers to creating intelligent systems
(Littell et al., 2018, p. 2621).
Chapter 2: Literature Review 43
In this next section, I unpack the area of HCI design of tangible user interfaces for children in more detail, as this closely relates to the Crocodile Language Friend technology developed through this project.
2.4.3 HCI design of tangible user interfaces for children’s language use8 Tangible user interfaces are a type of technology originally conceptualised by
Ishii and Ullmer (Ishii et al., 1997), but later broadened by Hornecker and Buur to describe technologies and associated interactions with the following attributes:
“tangibility and materiality, physical embodiment of data, embodied interaction and bodily movement as an essential part of interaction, and embeddedness in real space”
(Hornecker et al., 2006, p. 437). Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) can help foster children’s language use given the role that interactions with physical tools and objects plays in supporting children’s learning (Papert, 1962; Piaget, 1962; Shaer et al., 2010).
In this review, I consider tangible technologies that have been designed with and for young children as the target group for this project. Since active language use has not been explicitly engaged with as a lens in designing tangible technologies for children in HCI (Taylor et al., 2020), I have considered projects that foster children’s language use in three areas.
The first area is tangibles for learning language and concepts. Tangibles for children’s language learning have addressed particular skills such as learning letters of the alphabet and spelling (Asselborn et al., 2018; Dekel et al., 2007; Maldonado et al.,
2019), vocabulary (Huang et al., 2008), and sentence construction (Fan et al., 2018;
Hengeveld et al., 2013), or learning particular concepts such as time (Hayashi et al.,
2012), nature (Soro et al., 2018), money (Mittal et al., 2015), and colours (Shen et al.,
8 Parts of this section have appeared in (Taylor et al., 2020).
44 Chapter 2: Literature Review
2013). Designs that target children’s second language learning (Jeong et al., 2015;
Kadomura et al., 2012) can support language immersion (Jeong et al., 2015). Opie the
Robot is an example of a tangible system for Aboriginal languages, with games for children and a flat-pack, transportable form (Mounter, 2017).
The physical qualities of these systems afford different types of tangible interactions, such as arranging toy blocks (Almukadi et al., 2015; Dekel et al., 2007;
Fan et al., 2018), tiles (Hengeveld et al., 2013), and letter pieces (Maldonado et al.,
2019; Pandey et al., 2011) into words, sentences and stories, and receiving feedback.
Children can explore associations between language and objects through TUIs that can read RFID or NFC tagged objects, such as a tabletop surface (Papadopoulos et al.,
2013), smart box (Kadomura et al., 2012), robot (Garcia-Sanjuan et al., 2015), or soft toy (Huang et al., 2008; Jeong et al., 2015). Tangibles can facilitate informal language learning through play for pre-school aged children (Jeong et al., 2015), can be carried around with children for language use across different settings (e.g. the iSign bear
(Huang et al., 2008)), and can be flexibly incorporated into children’s games and stories (Wallbaum et al., 2017).
Secondly, tangibles for communication and social play. TUI projects have addressed children’s communication and social play with family members (Follmer et al., 2010; Li et al., 2019; Sun et al., 2016; Wallbaum et al., 2018; Zhao et al., 2016), and peers (e.g. Bonanni et al., 2006; Cheok et al., 2009; Gennari et al., 2018; Ryokai et al., 2009) collocated or over a distance. These systems can help to maintain family relationships and connectedness (Wallbaum et al., 2018), support social skills development such as turn-taking (Gennari et al., 2018), provide a platform for self- expression (Ryokai et al., 2009), and facilitate “high-quality social play” (Pantoja et al., 2019). TUIs for children can enable naturalistic language use as they are targeted
Chapter 2: Literature Review 45
to their communication styles and motor skills (Pantoja et al., 2019). For some systems, language use is a means to an end through play, while for others, creating and sharing language recordings is an end in itself.
Children use language through diverse activities with tangibles. Examples from prior work include the following: producing recordings of themselves by manipulating the Tangible Message Bubbles accordion and balloon devices (Ryokai et al., 2009); sharing and talking about physical items and drawings with grandparents over a distance using StoryBox (Wallbaum et al., 2018); and engaging in naturalistic play using paired dolls (Bonanni et al., 2006) and dollhouses (Freed, 2010) with voice communication. The physical forms can enrich language use by providing conversational prompts and props (Wallbaum et al., 2018). They can also facilitate social practices around the technology, such as users of the Sprock-It trading their
RFID tags (Burleson et al., 2007, p. 127).
Thirdly, tangibles for storytelling and creative expression. Tangibles for storytelling address literacy skills development through structured and unstructured activities. Some storytelling interfaces spark engagement with existing stories through lighting effects (Downey et al., 2016), audio-visual displays (Schafer et al., 2013), or novel delivery forms (Zhou et al., 2004). Other tools and kits support language use through children’s embodied creation and performance of their own stories (e.g. Budd et al., 2007; Huang et al., 2015; Krzywinski et al., 2015; Williams, 2010). Examples of these focus on individual senses such as sound (e.g. Huang et al., 2015) or specific toys such as puppets (e.g. Ahearn et al., 2013; Williams, 2010), or provide a broader kit with characters, scenes, props etc. (e.g. Budd et al., 2007). Interactions with TUIs can support oral uses of language (Glos et al., 1997), and thus the performance of oral
46 Chapter 2: Literature Review
cultural traditions (Taylor et al., 2018b). Additionally, objects develop their own histories and stories that can be retold across generations (Glos et al., 1997).
While tangible technologies can encourage children’s active language use through a number of different activities and practices, the lens of active language use has particular implications when designing for endangered languages, where there may be limited opportunities for language exposure or use outside of the technology. In the next section, I consider issues that are particular to designing technologies for endangered and Indigenous languages.
2.4.4 HCI design for endangered and/or Indigenous languages A small number of HCI projects have been dedicated to the particular issue of designing for minority and endangered languages, so I have also considered some projects published in other computer science venues where the work has a focus on
HCI design issues. The languages addressed by this work include the whistled Silbo
Gomero language from the Canary islands (Matos, 2017), the Irish language (called
Gaeilge) (Lackaff et al., 2016), the Wichi language in Argentina (Ovide et al., 2016), the Finnic language Karelian, (Penttonen, 2011), and Gugu Badhun in Australia
(Hardy et al., 2016). Various projects with the Penans people of Malaysia have sought to promote engagement with the Oroo’ language and encourage active language use by children, including through the development of tangible technologies (Plimmer et al., 2015) and a computer game (Zaman et al., 2015a). These projects have not only yielded interesting designs, but provide methodological insights in terms of conducting collaborative design with Indigenous communities, including the use of sketching practices to support communication about the research (Zaman et al., 2016).
This body of work with endangered language communities conveys the “double- edged” sword that new technologies present to endangered and minority languages
Chapter 2: Literature Review 47
(Galla, 2018, p. 104). On the one hand, technology can help language speakers communicate with each other over a distance, provide wider recognition for languages with a web presence, and support the dissemination of materials in minority languages
(Penttonen, 2011, p. 96). Technology for endangered languages can bring broader community benefits such as facilitating economic development through the monetization of language resources by speech communities (Ovide et al., 2016), and enable language revitalisation activities such as language documentation (Ogie, 2010;
Ovide et al., 2016) and teaching and learning (Zaman et al., 2015b).
On the other hand new technology including social media can present
“technological and social pressures” for speakers of minority and endangered languages (Lackaff et al., 2016, p. 1). Lackaff and Moner’s survey of the Irish Gaeilge language speakers points to issues such as negative user experiences with generic interfaces not designed for that language, and a lack of confidence with and experience in producing audio-visual web content in the language (Lackaff et al., 2016). Novel technology forms may also be less accessible to speakers in some communities than standard platforms such as smartphones that are readily available and commonly owned (Matos, 2017). Other issues particular to this context include the need to work with written language materials when designing with small speech communities
(Penttonen, 2011), the limited availability of fluent speakers to assist with the project
(Hardy et al., 2016), and the challenge of growing language use when it may not be a strong part of everyday life for some speakers (Zaman et al., 2015b). This speaks to the wider list of contextual factors in designing computer-assisted language learning interventions with endangered language communities proposed by (Ward et al., 2003).
There are important parallels between efforts to maintain and preserve
Indigenous Knowledge and Indigenous languages, such as designing technology in
48 Chapter 2: Literature Review
ways that supports the situated and embodied aspects of Indigenous Knowledge performance (Awori et al., 2015; Bidwell et al., 2008; Winschiers-Theophilus et al.,
2010a). Awori and colleagues call for Indigenous knowledge projects to go beyond the paradigm of knowledge archiving to active knowledge performance and use, and illustrate the value of video technologies for showing cultural practices that facilitate the intergenerational transmission of Indigenous languages and Knowledges with the
Kenyan diaspora in Australia (Awori et al., 2015). In the Australian context, Bidwell and colleagues show the nature of Aboriginal language and knowledge practices as entwined with country through the production of grounding documentaries (Bidwell et al., 2008).
These Australian examples lead into the final area of the HCI literature review, prior HCI projects with Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
2.4.5 HCI projects with Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities A small number of HCI projects have involved technology design with
Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, though there are calls for a stronger Indigenous HCI agenda (Lawrence et al., 2019).
Prior work has included the following: Indigenous Knowledge management platforms in the Ieramugadu community (Turk et al., 1999) and with Yolngu people
(Verran et al., 2007); grounding documentaries with the Kuku-Thaypan people of
Cape York (Bidwell et al., 2008); a cross-cultural website for an educational institution
(George et al., 2010); a digital community noticeboard system with the Anindilyakwa people of Groote Eylandt (Soro et al., 2017); the national #ThisMyMob social networking platform (Leong et al., 2019), and a co-designed health and wellbeing app lead by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university students (Peters et al., 2018).
Chapter 2: Literature Review 49
Few projects apart from Hardy et al.’s Gugu Badhun app (Hardy et al., 2016) have targeted language revitalisation, though projects including the Digital Community
Noticeboard have addressed aspects of language use such as supporting written and oral communication in Anindilyakwa (Soro et al., 2017). Additionally, most of these systems are screen-based rather than exploring other tangible technology forms.
Many of these projects have taken a PD approach (described in Chapter 4), working in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities. Given the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in
Australia, design methods and products developed with one group may not necessarily reflect the ways of knowing, needs, and aspirations of others (Leong et al., 2019).
However, these projects illustrate possible design approaches and methods that can align with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being, and doing
(Martin, 2003) in order to privilege Indigenous agendas and values (Bidwell et al.,
2008; Soro et al., 2016; Verran et al., 2014). Some of these projects, such as the Digital
Noticeboard project, have explicitly taken a PD approach that foregrounds the importance of reciprocity and engagement in design research projects involving
Australian Aboriginal communities given the historical legacy of exploitation by some researchers (Brereton et al., 2014).
HCI and PD practitioners working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have put forward various approaches and perspectives on how to operate within a cross-cultural design space. Brereton and colleagues articulate a practice of
“growing existing designs” by taking local community practices and artefacts such as council newsletters, ranger posters, and videos and maps for growing the content and functionality of the cross-cultural digital community noticeboard system (Brereton et al., 2013). Nichols argues that a First Australian design paradigm as distinct from
50 Chapter 2: Literature Review
Western design traditions is a “process of experiential, reflective, respectful, relational discovery, rather than creation” that is deeply grounded in First Australian epistemologies and ontologies (Nichols, 2015, p. 133). Their approach to technology design at the “cultural interface” emphasizes developing partnerships, maintaining cultural integrity, and technology appropriation for the expression of cultural identity
(Nichols, 2015, p. iv).
The valuing of technology appropriation as design speaks to Verran and
Christie’s work with Aboriginal communities on local practices of “design-in-use”
(Redström, 2008), whereby Aboriginal users are finding common ground between
Western technologies and local practices through appropriations that develop “local solutions to local problems” (Verran et al., 2014). A further example of this is the
Kuku-Thaypan people’s situated integration of video production technologies to design ‘grounding documentaries’ to record traditional fire management practices, and transmit this knowledge through the intergenerational practices of designing the videos
(Bidwell et al., 2008). Bidwell and colleagues thus describe their involvement as being
“invited into” an existing system as opposed to “[…] contriving and co-authoring the agenda” (Bidwell et al., 2008, p. 90). A common thread running through these design approaches is a sensitivity to the agency of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in a design process, and attuning to local designs and practices of designing in their various manifestations.
2.5 Gaps in Knowledge and Opportunities
The literature review highlights several key gaps and opportunities for further research that are addressed by this thesis.
Chapter 2: Literature Review 51
2.5.1 Disconnect between the fields of language revitalisation and HCI This literature review highlights a disconnect between the fields of Language
Revitalisation and HCI. Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and researchers from fields such as linguistics and education research are looking to digital technologies to support endangered language revitalisation work. Yet, they are not approaching this work from an interaction and experience design perspective, or exploiting the full range of technologies that could help to foster intergenerational language transmission and active language use, particularly by young children and their families.
There are many threads of HCI and PD research that are relevant to language revitalisation, including HCI design for family communication, language teaching and learning, and tangible technologies for children. However, very few HCI projects are being undertaken for endangered and/or Indigenous language revitalisation, through partnerships between HCI designers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Each of these research fields therefore has something to offer in designing technologies for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language revitalisation. There is a need to establish opportunities for interdisciplinary research that spans the two areas.
2.5.2 Use of design methods for understanding and designing for children’s active language use Since much of the work on intergenerational language transmission and use has primarily been undertaken outside of HCI in areas such as linguistics, there is scope to consider what HCI design methods can bring to understanding and designing for children’s active language use. While the sociolinguistic studies provide a high-level overview of language transmission and use patterns across a broad population of speakers, these studies may not provide in-depth insights into concrete processes and
52 Chapter 2: Literature Review
practices of language use (Chrisp, 2005; Kircher, 2019). This gap is noted by Chrisp, who asserts that within the research area of intergenerational language transmission,
“there is surprisingly little detailed research about the mechanics of, and influences on, this process within families.” (Chrisp, 2005, p. 150).
PD, in particular, offers a collaborative, practice-based approach to understanding people’s experiences of current language activities and practices, and imagining future language use with new technology through interventionist “make” methods such as cultural probes and prototyping workshops (Brandt et al., 2012).
Undertaking immersive design fieldwork within the Wujal Wujal community also provides opportunities to examine people’s situated language use in context, and directly observe the effects of design interventions on language activities within community settings. HCI can also provide both qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods for assessing how technologies are taken up (or not), appropriated, and continuously designed through use, addressing the lack of in-depth evaluations of technologies for language revitalisation (Bow, 2017).
2.5.3 Need for PD approaches with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities The literature review highlights the lack of HCI design projects for language revitalisation, that have been undertaken in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander peoples. While there are several guidelines for conducting ethical research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (Australian Institute of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2012; National Health and Medical
Research Council, 2018a), there is a need to understand how these principles apply and can be taken up within design research, with calls to establish guidelines for
Indigenous HCI (Lawrence et al., 2019, p. 17). There is also value in engaging with a postcolonial computing sensibility (Irani et al., 2010), to examine how research
Chapter 2: Literature Review 53
practices such as publishing written accounts of design research projects (Light, 2018) can enact uneven power relations in ways that may potentially undermine efforts to privilege Indigenous voices and perspectives in the research process.
While PD projects are underpinned by commitments to empowerment, democracy, and capacity building (discussed further in Chapter 4), approaches to enacting these commitments needed to be locally negotiated within the design setting with the project partners, rather than being established in advance by the designer
(Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b). These approaches may differ between projects given the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, cultures, and communities (Leong et al., 2019). Even so, there are only a small number of example
HCI and PD projects that show what types of participatory approaches are possible, and few relating to tangible technologies for language revitalisation. Describing aspects of this work that are underemphasised in research outputs (Dearden et al.,
2008), such as processes of establishing a project partnership with Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander communities, would also provide resources from which others can learn.
2.5.4 Lack of tangible technology designs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages9 There are opportunities to explore new tangible and social technology designs that foster active language use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, particularly by young children and their families. This addresses the need for a wider range of technologies that target active language use rather than documentation articulated by Carew and colleagues, who argue that there is “a significant gap in the digital domain for Indigenous peoples who wish to interact with technology in other
9 Parts of this section have been published in (Taylor et al., 2020).
54 Chapter 2: Literature Review
ways—such as playing games, communicating via text, and using social media—in languages other than English” (Carew et al., 2015, p. 312). Since communities such as
Wujal Wujal have a range of printed language materials such as a printed dictionary, grammar, and story books, digital technologies could “grow existing designs”
(Brereton et al., 2013) and play a role in presenting these in accessible and engaging ways for children.
While a large body of work exists on tangible user interfaces for children, there are a number of opportunities in particular for further work with endangered language communities that addresses children’s active language use. Firstly, by exploring tangible forms that are co-created by children themselves so that they are “intrinsically valuable to them as a user”, as argued in (Spiel et al., 2016, p. 245). Secondly, by balancing the presence of screens that “typically require full visual and manual engagement” with other more social interaction modalities (e.g. with Voice User
Interfaces) (Pantoja et al., 2019, p. 314). Thirdly, by designing tangibles that children can carry around with them and assemble themselves, rather than being fixed in place.
Finally, by working with endangered language communities on their own terms to determine what role tangibles can play in supporting language maintenance and revitalisation efforts.
2.6 Conclusions
This chapter has provided a literature review that covers language revitalisation as a research field, the characteristics of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language revitalisation and past technology projects in this area, and relevant areas of HCI research that could inform technology design for language revitalisation. This helps to address research question 1a) What theoretical frameworks and lens can we draw on
Chapter 2: Literature Review 55
to understand and design for the ‘active language use’ of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander languages experiencing language shift?
The gaps and opportunities established in this chapter motivate the overall research question that this thesis has addressed, “How can the participatory design of tangible and social technologies support the intergenerational language transmission and active use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages?”. The sub-research questions and aims that were motivated by these gaps are presented in Chapter 1.
In the following chapter, I provide an empirical account of how this project with the Wujal Wujal was established, and the activities that contributed to relationship building between the research team, and the Council and community.
56 Chapter 2: Literature Review
Chapter 3. Process of Establishing a Relationship
with the Community
3.1 Introduction
This chapter presents an empirical account detailing how the relationship between the Queensland University of Technology and the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal
Shire Council was established, and how the project began. My motivations for describing this process in detail here are outlined in Section 3.2.
I start by providing a synthesis of best practice and advice from existing resources on relationship building with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities for collaborative projects in Section 3.3. I introduce the project partners and provide a statement of my own positionality in this work in Section 3.4.
Next, in Section 3.5 I provide an overview of the research phases and trips, and in Section 3.6 - Section 3.9 I describe key relationship building activities during the first four field trips of this project (October 2017 – June 2018). This chapter focuses on the activities in the lead up to formal agreements such as a Memorandum of
Understanding being instituted, and prior to ‘design’ activities taking place. This work relates to research question 2a) What values and activities can support HCI design researchers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to establish and build relationships in order for participatory design projects to take place?
Finally, in Section 3.10 I reflect on the role that tangibles played as design ‘non- proposals’, and highlight some insights about relationship building that are under- emphasised in the literature. This chapter ultimately argues that relationships cannot
Chapter 3: Process of Relationship Building 57
be ‘designed’, and that there is a need to resist instrumentalist approaches in order for genuine relationships to develop.
3.2 Motivations
My motivations for writing this chapter were to document and reflect on the activities that facilitated relationship building with the Wujal Wujal community, and articulate the early visions for the project that were established through this process.
The Council felt that this approach to forming a partnership with the University worked well, and expressed the view that similar steps should be taken by other organisations wishing to work with them in future10. This account therefore provides a record for the Wujal Wujal community, and may be insightful for other researchers and organisations who wish to partner with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities on collaborative projects.
I have chosen to present this as the first content chapter, prior to Chapter 4
Methodology. The reason for this ordering is that the methodological choices that were made, and the design practices and products that resulted from the project, were shaped by the nature of these relationships. The rationale for the PD approach taken, including an attentiveness to community capacity building and agency in both the project activities and design practices, stems from the values and priorities of the organisations involved, as well as my own personal positionality and convictions. These are presented in detail within this chapter.
Building respectful partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities takes time. This project with the Wujal Wujal community started ‘from scratch’ in October 2017, towards the end of my first year of PhD studies. Much time
10 As indicated through conversations with Council staff.
58 Chapter 3: Process of Relationship Building
was spent in this initial relationship building phase of the project before design activities could take place. As such, I have dedicated a full chapter to this stage of the project, and emphasised the importance of community relationships throughout the thesis.
3.3 Background
3.3.1 Establishing collaborative projects through relationship building Relationship building is the first stage to establishing collaborative partnerships with Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities. Developing relationship involves “researchers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities getting to know one another” at both a personal and an institutional level (National Health and Medical Research Council, 2018b, p. 22) and establishing a shared vision or goal for the collaboration (Hunt, 2013). In the community development model that previously informed a collaborative health project with the
Wujal Wujal community, activities such as “planning and negotiating entry”, “getting to know the community”, and “making contacts and bringing people together” all contributed to relationship building (Mccormack et al., 2001, p. 20).
There are a range of existing principles and guidelines for building relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. These have been produced by different levels of government (Department of Human Services, 2006; Hunt, 2013;
Muswellbrook Shire Council, 2019; NSW Department of Community Services, 2009), research bodies (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies,
2012; Jones et al., 2006; National Health and Medical Research Council, 2018b,
2018a), peak bodies and industry associations (National Association of Community
Legal Centres, 2017), health care services (Purdie et al., 2010; Ranzijn et al., 2010), and community support organisations (First Languages Australia, 2015b).
Chapter 3: Process of Relationship Building 59
In a research context, building and maintaining ethical relationships with
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is underpinned by adherence to principles and values of ethical conduct (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Studies, 2012; National Health and Medical Research Council, 2018a), which are “respect”, “equity”, “reciprocity”, “spirit and integrity”, “cultural continuity”, and “responsibility” in the NHMRC guidelines (National Health and
Medical Research Council, 2018a). These principles and values form the basis of many university human research ethics processes for working with Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander peoples. Yet, these general principles are not specific to any particular field, requiring their application to be contextualised to the nature of HCI research projects and knowledge generation.
For HCI and PD projects with any community, developing relationships of mutual trust and respect between project partners enables ‘genuine’ community participation and engagement in a design (Hansen, 2019; Robertson et al., 2012b). Yet, the details of how these relationships have been formed are often under-reported in
HCI and PD literature (Dearden et al., 2008), and participation may be described as beginning after strategic project planning has already been undertaken (Dearden et al.,
2008). Describing the process of establishing relationships with project partners can help to make visible the “intent” and positionality of parties entering the collaboration that motivate design interventions, but are often obscured or implicit (Kendall et al.,
2018, p. 3).
This case for collaborative ownership of the research and design program has previously been argued within participatory design literature, with Dearden and Rizvi asserting that “users are rarely invited to negotiate the structure of the design process itself” (Dearden et al., 2008, p. 85). Le Dantec and Fox point out the inherently
60 Chapter 3: Process of Relationship Building
“interventionist” nature of design when community participation takes place at the level of design activities, rather than a strategic project level (Le Dantec et al., 2015, p. 1353). Through their own community-based participatory design work, they indicate that “issues of scholarships, employment, and institutional relationships were far more pressing than this small project” (Le Dantec et al., 2015), and show the broader benefits for communities that can be derived through partnerships with universities.
Past HCI projects with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples provide some insights into how these collaborative project partnerships were established.
Brereton and colleagues’ Digital Community Noticeboards project was conceptualised while collaborating with the Anindilyakwa rangers on a different project (Brereton et al., 2012). Communities became involved in the #ThisMyMob project through the
Aboriginal lead researcher’s personal contacts (Leong et al., 2019). Indigenous researchers are leading the Indigenous Thriving App Project, and employing
Indigenous university students as project partners and co-design workshop facilitators
(Peters et al., 2018). Yet, these accounts do not provide a detailed description of the relationship building process prior to the project establishment, and its role in shaping subsequent project activities and design practices.
3.3.2 The “community” in language revitalisation and community-based participatory design projects This chapter addresses relationship building with Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander “communities”. It is important to note that there are many different types of community involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including those in urban areas as well as “remote” locations (Brand et al., 2016, p. 4), and ones that may not be geographically bound. Conceptualising the community in language revitalisation and participatory design projects is not straightforward.
Chapter 3: Process of Relationship Building 61
In language revitalisation, the term ‘language community’ refers to “speakers of the ‘same’ language” (Grinevald et al., 2011, p. 56), while the term ‘speech community’ emphasizes the relationship between language and identity as “one or more people who identify with a particular language, through heritage” (Hinton et al.,
2018a, p. xxvii). Identifying the speech community of an endangered language can be complex for several reasons. People may share identification with a heritage language that is not currently in use (Hinton, 2011, p. 292) or ‘speak’ the language themselves to varying degrees (Grinevald et al., 2011, p. 60). Both language and speech communities may be geographically dispersed, sometimes as a result of colonisation
(Hinton, 2011; Hinton et al., 2018a). Sometimes only a small number of people within a geographical community are part of a language’s speech community (Hinton et al.,
2018a, p. xxvii).
In PD, the term community is often “taken-for-granted” (Akama et al., 2010, p.
11). DiSalvo, Clement, and Pipek provide a general definition of community as “the social constructs and relations of groups” that exist outside of the workplace, being the historic domain of PD (DiSalvo et al., 2012, p. 183). Several types of communities represented in PD work include those of geography, identity, and practice (DiSalvo et al., 2012). However, these may not be mutually exclusive categories, and those living in the same geographical location may not consider themselves to be part of a connected community socially (Akama et al., 2010). Design may play a role in the formation of communities, such as among the users of a social technology (Hagen et al., 2010), or the publics that convene around design Things as “matters of concern”
(Disalvo, 2009; Ehn, 2008).
The community described in this relationship building account refers to the people living in the geographical area serviced by the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire
62 Chapter 3: Process of Relationship Building
Council, though the traditional Country of the three clan groups extends beyond these boundaries. Many of the people living in the Wujal Wujal township are Aboriginal people who are part of the speech community for Kuku Yalanji, and there are a small number of non-Aboriginal people who are also language speakers. The Councillors are elected representatives of the community, and the other Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal
Council staff live and work within the township. The Council and participants themselves described Wujal Wujal as a “community”, which is also why I have used this framing in the thesis. The notion of community for this project is unpacked further and problematised in Chapter 8 Discussion and Conclusions.
In the following sections, I summarise key advice about relationship building with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities from existing resources.
3.3.3 Initiating communications with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities The initial communications with a community set the stage for how relationships for a project develop (National and State Libraries Australasia, 2013, p. 4). Local
Aboriginal councils or Aboriginal corporations can be a good point of initial contact
(First Languages Australia, 2015b; National Association of Community Legal Centres,
2017; NSW Department of Community Services, 2009). These organisations are adept at working between Western governance systems and law, and Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Lore, values, and protocols (Hunt, 2013, p. 12). For this reason, our first point of contact with the Wujal Wujal community was the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal
Shire Council.
Many Councils and organisations have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that work with them in roles such as ‘Community Liaison Officer’ or ‘Cultural
Officer’. These people can help to serve as a point of introduction to individuals and
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groups within the community (Fitzpatrick et al., 2017), provide mentoring and advice on how to work in culturally sensitive ways (Muswellbrook Shire Council, 2019), and support communication and coordination of research activities (Jones et al., 2006, p.
32). Community Liaison Officers may be involved in the project through different types of arrangements such as in-kind assistance provided by a Council, or by being employed directly through the project. The assistance of Senior Cultural Officers working for the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council were integral to carrying out this work.
3.3.4 Establishing a starting point for the project through relationship building When undertaking collaborative projects with Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander communities, it is important to contribute to and advance the community’s own agenda and aspirations. This may influence a Council and community’s decision to enter into relationships for collaborative projects, as they may have had negative prior experiences of participating in research that did not deliver them with clear benefits (Brereton et al., 2014, p. 1183) and be experiencing “research fatigue” as an overresearched population (Leong et al., 2019, p. 420).
The community and/or the research team may propose a starting point for project discussions such as a problem or issue, area of work, or specific project ideas. What is not clear from existing resources is how to present and negotiate around this starting point in the early stages of relationship building, and balance the aspects that are fixed and open to negotiation. It can assist to be upfront about the agenda, interests, values, protocols, skills, and resources that each party brings to the table (National Health and
Medical Research Council, 2018b, pp. 26–27), which may later become codified in written agreements such as contracts and Memorandums of Understanding. Existing resources advocate for approaches that promote active participation rather than
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consultation, supported by mechanisms such as establishing a project Reference Group of Elders (ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body, 2015; NSW
Department of Community Services, 2009).
3.3.5 Qualities and activities that contribute to relationship building with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities The development of mutual trust is essential to establishing and sustaining relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Three qualities and activities that contribute to relationship building that have explicitly been taken up in HCI projects with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are ‘respect’,
‘reciprocity’, and ‘valuing time’.
Respect is key to building strong relationships for collaborative projects, and has a number of different meanings. This includes respecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples’ rights to their languages, Indigenous Knowledges, and cultural practices (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2012), respecting community’s values and protocols, and respecting individual community members’ needs, perspectives, feelings, and dignity (Jones et al., 2006, p. 28). The need to respect diversity among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples has been highlighted in both the #ThisMyMob project, as well as Akama and colleagues’ use of technology to foster heterogeneity in Indigenous nation building discussions (Akama et al., 2016). This also brings forth questions of managing “tradition” and
“transcendence” (Ehn, 1988) in technology design, by balancing the need to maintain existing language activities, with new technologies and practices to increase everyday language use, particularly by young people.
Reciprocity is a core value of the NHMRC Guidelines that can support relationship building, relating to the “inclusion” of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
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Islander peoples and perspectives in the research conduct, and “benefits” that they derive from it (National Health and Medical Research Council, 2018a, p. 7). Brereton and colleagues advocate for design approaches that privilege reciprocity and engagement through acts that deliver concrete and tangible benefits to the community, in contrast to extractive rapid ethnographic approaches (Brereton et al., 2014). The tangible nature of technologies renders visible acts of reciprocity and possible outputs of technology design projects, seen in the role of the Digital Community Noticeboard prototype as a ‘cross-cultural dialogical probe’ that enabled participation and relationship building by bringing people together around a shared goal (Soro et al.,
2016).
Valuing time in relationship building is a recurring theme in existing resources, including the benefits of establishing long-term relationships and maintaining contact beyond a project (Hunt, 2013; Jones et al., 2006; National and State Libraries
Australasia, 2013). Ranzijn and colleagues warn against approaching this work in ways that are “very goal-oriented and wanting results straight away” (Ranzijn et al.,
2010, p. 223) which can conflict with cultural protocols dictating that the ‘right’ set of circumstances should be in place to allow something to happen (Taylor et al.,
2017).Valuing time involves ‘making time’ for communities to consider and engage with the project at their own pace and through the proper processes (Jones et al., 2006;
National Health and Medical Research Council, 2018b), and ‘taking time’ to build rapport through informal yarning (Jones et al., 2006; NSW Department of Community
Services, 2009) and taking part in community events (National Association of
Community Legal Centres, 2017).
HCI researchers and practitioners who work with Indigenous communities have recognised both the value and challenge of spending a sufficient amount of time in
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community within the timeframes of a HCI project (Leong et al., 2019). Undertaking participatory design is a two-way process of fostering participation in a project and an openness to “being participated” into the community’s own practices and value systems (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b). Taking the time to help the community through activities such as fixing computers and iPads supported relationship building in the Digital Community Noticeboard project (Brereton et al., 2014). Yet, while these activities are essential to developing collaborative project partnerships even if they do not directly contribute to project outcomes, their value may be overlooked by the academic community (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b).
This background has summarised key lessons about relationship building with
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities from existing resources, including
HCI literature. In the following section, I introduce the project partners and reflect on my own positionality in this work.
3.4 Project Partners and Perspectives11
3.4.1 Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council and community Community context The primary project partners for this research were the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal
Shire Council and community. Wujal Wujal is located in Far North Queensland on
Bana Yirri (the Bloomfield River) approximately 50km south of Cooktown and
120kms north of Cairns12 (Figure 1) with a population of more than 650 people (Wujal
Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, 2017a). The township is nestled within a rainforest with large waterfalls and a river running through it, surrounded by beaches and coral
11 Parts of this section have been published in (Taylor et al., 2019b). 12 As the crow flies, estimated using Google maps (Google, 2019).
Chapter 3: Process of Relationship Building 67
including the aged care centre, Arts Centre, Indigenous Knowledge Centre,
Kindergarten, and local community radio. Within the township and surrounding area, there is also a health clinic, primary school, supermarkets, and tourist accommodation
(Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, 2020). Three dialect groups presently live within the township of Wujal Wujal and are the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the area: the Kuku Yalanji, Kuku Nyungul, and Jalunji peoples (Wujal Wujal
Aboriginal Shire Council, 2020).
Figure 2: Some views of the Wujal Wujal township and area.
Kuku Yalanji language The Kuku Yalanji language was identified as Level 3: “Definitely Endangered” in the 2005 National Indigenous Languages Survey Report (Australian Institute of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2005, p. 69), as “the language is used mostly by the parental generation and upwards” (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and
Chapter 3: Process of Relationship Building 69
Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2005, p. 31). A small number of publicly available resources such as Patz’s Grammar of Kuku Yalanji (developed in the 1980’s) convey information about the community’s language situation (Patz, 2002), though more recent information about community language use is not publicly available.
The community acknowledges the work of different people and organisations such as the school, Justice Group, IKC, health centre, and visiting linguists in the development of language materials such as dictionaries, grammars, hymn books, and children’s picture books (Taylor et al., 2019b). Some of the language materials that are available in the Indigenous Knowledge Centre are shown in Figure 3.
The community proudly speaks the Kuku Yalanji and Kuku Nyungul dialects of the language, particularly adults and people of the Elder’s generation. However, there are challenges in engaging young people with learning and using the language, and the community recognises that children’s enthusiasm for digital technologies can potentially be leveraged to foster language use. There are few digital technologies available for Wujal Wujal, though a Kuku Yalanji dictionary mobile app of words and phrases has recently been developed by the Mossman community (RBVEA Pty Ltd,
2020).
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Figure 3: A sample of Kuku Yalanji language materials available in the IKC.
Technology ownership and use in Wujal Wujal The Wujal Wujal community’s technology ownership and use are documented in a 2009 study of technology by Brady and Dyson (Brady et al., 2009). The authors reported widespread ownership and use of mobile phones by community members, though a lesser degree of computer and broadband Internet usage (Brady et al., 2009, p. 21). A primary use of mobile phones was for keeping in contact with colleagues, friends, and family such as children at boarding school (Brady et al., 2009, p. 29). They note that mobile phone use by their participants was primarily in English, though some switched between English and Kuku Yalanji when talking to certain contacts (Brady et al., 2009, p. 28). One of their conclusions was that there was a need and opportunity for mobile technologies to support Kuku Yalanji teaching and learning, and the transmission of cultural practices (Brady et al., 2009, pp. 39–40).
A follow-up study by the same authors in 2016 revealed the extent to which mobile phone ownership had become even more prolific, with community members making use of the broader functions of the phones, including multimedia creation and
Chapter 3: Process of Relationship Building 71
sharing (Brady et al., 2016). They examined uses of social media platforms such as
Facebook by community members for the self-expression of Aboriginal identity, and organisational use of social media for community engagement (Brady et al., 2016).
They describe a particular emphasis on sharing visual content such as photographs, for example of family or the local environment (Brady et al., 2016), but there is limited discussion of whether these Facebook posts incorporate the Kuku Yalanji language.
The Council is pursuing innovative projects with emerging technologies such as
Internet of Things, blockchain, and augmented reality, some of which have garnered national awards (Local Government Association of Queensland, 2019), and offer robotics for youth and IT classes for older adults in their Indigenous Knowledge Centre
(IKC). To address the lack of technologies for Kuku Yalanji, they invited researchers from the Queensland University of Technology Design Participation Lab to partner with them on this project to co-design technologies that foster intergenerational language transmission and active use of Kuku Yalanji.
3.4.2 Queensland University of Technology Design Participation Lab The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Design Participation Lab is part of the School of Computer Science, Science and Engineering Faculty. The Lab is led by Professor Margot Brereton, and undertakes design projects with diverse communities, including working with people with intellectual disability, makers, older adults, Indigenous communities, and through interdisciplinary collaborations in the area of ecoacoustics (Brereton et al., 2018). A common thread running through this work is a commitment to PD approaches and an emphasis on pluralism by “seeking to make technologies that reflect the rich diversity and idiosyncrasies of people and the ways in which they wish to interact” (Brereton et al., 2018, p. 15). As of March
2018 (around the time when this project was established), there were 12 Human-
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Computer Interaction researchers and 12 doctoral students affiliated with the lab
(Brereton et al., 2018). Some staff and students are undertaking projects with
Indigenous communities in Australia and overseas.
The Design Participation Lab has previously partnered with the Anindilyakwa
Land Council and Groote Eylandt community on ecoacoustics projects, and the co- design of a cross-cultural Digital Community Noticeboard platform to support communication and storytelling in English and Anindilyakwa (Brereton et al., 2012;
Soro et al., 2015b, 2017). Co-design methods and practices developed through this project included “growing existing designs” (Brereton et al., 2013), putting reciprocity and engagement first (Brereton et al., 2014), the “cross-cultural dialogical probes” method (Soro et al., 2016), and the “situational when” as an orientation to understanding technology appropriation and use within the community’s time practices (Taylor et al., 2017). The noticeboard system was developed and deployed in a number of sites such as Council offices, the ranger station, and schools, where it continues to support a number of different activities in the community (Taylor et al.,
2016).
While the partnership with the Anindilyakwa Land Council is ongoing, the research group wished to build on this work and strengthen connections with
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities closer to Brisbane. QUT more broadly has an institutional commitment to “Indigenous Australian Engagement,
Success and Empowerment” as articulated in QUT Blueprint 6 (Queensland
University of Technology, 2019b). The suggestion to contact the Wujal Wujal community came from a contact through the Groote Eylandt work.
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3.4.3 Primary researcher’s own positionality: Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor13 Reflecting on my own positionality in the project helps to makes visible the perspectives, experiences, values, assumptions, and biases that I bring to this work, and the ways in which my role as a “multicultural subject” and my “philosophical assumptions” have informed my approach to this project (Creswell et al., 2018, p. 17).
This is important given the notion of “researcher as instrument” in qualitative research in which the researcher’s background, personal and social perspectives, and experiences in the project shape the way that research is carried out (Given, 2008). In the field of Human Computer Interaction, some design researchers are incorporating reflexivity (Pihkala et al., 2016) into their practice by examining and reporting on how their involvement in a research setting frames the design outputs. This is important given the nature of design research in which design outputs are seen as “embodying designers’ judgments about valid ways to address the possibilities and problems implicit in such situations” (Gaver, 2012, p. 937).
I am a female, in my 20’s, of middle-class background, and a white person primarily of British descent, and with no religious affiliation. My ancestors were settlers to Australia, and as such, my presence in this country can be understood with respect to historical and ongoing processes of colonisation. I was born and grew up in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, and the Victorian High Country. My first language is
English, and I speak French as a second language. I studied a Bachelor of
Arts/Bachelor of Information Technology at the Australian National University, majoring in Anthropology and Information Systems respectively, and an Honours degree in Information Technology at Queensland University of Technology. I received
13 Note: Parts of this section have been published in (Taylor et al., 2018c).
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a Research Training Program stipend through QUT to carry out this doctoral work. I am not of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, and as such do not speak from
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander perspectives.
My previous experiences of working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are as follows. As a university student, I completed undergraduate courses in
Australia and Canada in anthropology, linguistics, and Indigenous studies. I gained some professional experience working on programs and projects involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. I was involved with the Digital Community
Noticeboards project (Soro et al., 2017) as an Honours student, and built on this experience for my doctoral work. I understand that I have a responsibility to educate myself in order to respectfully and ethically engage in research with Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peoples. I have completed the QUT Cultural Awareness Training and Anindilyakwa Land Council Cross-Cultural courses, attended the Puliima
Indigenous Languages and Technology Conference, and participated in Indigenous
HCI workshops at the OzCHI conference (Lawrence et al., 2019).
In relation to my personal motivations for being involved in this research (Heron,
2007), my interest in this topic stems from a personal conviction that Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander languages are important both to Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples and to broader society. As such, these languages deserve to be recognised, valued, and celebrated, at the invitation and on the terms of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities who are their rightful owners. I believe that technology design can play a role in strengthening and maintaining the use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages into the future, but that work needs to be led by and carried out in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
Chapter 3: Process of Relationship Building 75
3.4.4 Secondary field sites I worked with several secondary field sites during the scoping phase of this PhD project in 2017, before the partnership with Wujal Wujal was established. Some further work was undertaken with the Groote Eylandt community on the Digital Community
Noticeboards project, resulting in the publication of the Debrief O’Clock collaborative field note practice for HCI (Taylor et al., 2018c). However, due to logistical considerations, Wujal Wujal became the primary field site for this PhD project. The content of this thesis has been scoped to address the work with Wujal Wujal since it is a resource for the Wujal Wujal community.
‘Scoping interviews’ (Robertson et al., 2012a) were also carried out with nine
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university students at QUT, arranged through the assistance of the QUT Oodgeroo Unit. The topics covered in the scoping interviews were broad, and addressed areas such as the university experience, language learning and use, and technology use. The students represented diverse cultural backgrounds, and articulated the experience of young people living in an urban area for their studies.
Since the insights from these interviews fall outside of the scope and main theoretical constructs of this thesis, they have not been included here but may be addressed in future work.
Members of the research team also visited an additional Aboriginal community several times in 2017-2018 with the view to collaborate on a project, but a formal project partnership has not yet been established and no research was formally undertaken with them as part of this PhD project. I note this activity here to acknowledge the time of those involved in these efforts.
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3.5 Research Phases and Trips
The research phases of this project are detailed in Chapter 4. Each project phase was carried out through a number of field trips to Wujal Wujal. This chapter describes activities that took place during field trips 1-4 that contributed to establishing and building relationships with the Wujal Wujal Council and community (Figure 4). At the time of my first visit to Wujal Wujal (October 2017), I was approaching my one-year
Confirmation of Candidature PhD milestone. My project was loosely framed around technology design for Aboriginal languages, but I had not yet established a connection with a primary field site in Queensland for the project.
In the following sections, I describe the core relationship building activities that took place during each field trip. I then offer a reflection on the tangible and intangible aspects that supported relationship building, the issues that came to the fore, and their influence on evolving visions for the project and design practices. I have drawn on my insights from my personal field notes, formal documents such as the Memorandum of
Understanding, and transcripts of early interviews and focus groups. The “data” for this project and analysis approaches are described in further detail in Chapter 4.
Figure 4: Research phases and field trips.
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3.6 Trip 1 (October 2017, < 1 week) Initial Visit
3.6.1 Initial communications with the Council The QUT research team (Jennyfer, Margot, and Alessandro) first visited Wujal
Wujal for two days in October 2017 after attending the 2017 Puliima Indigenous
Languages and Technology Conference in Cairns. Prior to visiting the community, we made email and phone contact with the Council through the contact information on their website, to introduce ourselves and express an interest in meeting with them.
Our first activity on arriving in the community was to introduce ourselves at the
Council offices, and confirm whether there were any procedures for visitors that needed to be followed (such as signing in or purchasing a visitor’s permit as is the case in other communities). We left our schedule intentionally very open over the two days, as we knew that the Council staff were very busy but may have small windows to meet with us in between other commitments.
3.6.2 Informal yarning with Council staff in the Indigenous Knowledge Centre We visited the Indigenous Knowledge Centre (IKC), known in Kuku Yalanji as
Binal Mangka Bayan (House of Knowing Things) (Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire
Council, 2020). The Centre is a community facility operated by the Council that houses resources such as library books, historical photographs and recordings, and computers and other technology. The IKC is connected with the State Library of Queensland, and
Centre staff run technology programs such as robotics and IT classes for adults and children (Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, 2020).
Visiting the Indigenous Knowledge Centre enabled us to meet with Council staff in a venue that habitually welcomes visitors and tourists, experience the IKC space and language collections, and informally interact with the staff and visiting community members as a way of getting to know people, and being known. We were able to meet
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and informally yarn (Bessarab et al., 2010) with several Council staff and community members about the community and their language materials, and share information about our research group and our work with Indigenous communities.
While we were visiting the community with an interest in partnering on a collaborative project, we did not arrive with a pre-determined project or well-defined research program. Instead, we expressed our broad research interest in designing with
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to support communication and cultural practices. We brought along some existing technology prototypes to show and discuss such as the Digital Community Noticeboard (Soro et al., 2015b), MyWord personalised dictionary application (Wilson et al., 2017), and Ambient Birdhouse
(Soro et al., 2018).
Council staff members identified synergies between our skills and interests, and the Council’s programs to preserve and maintain the Kuku Yalanji language, and offered to arrange two subsequent meetings with Council management. The Council management brought a local government lens to the discussions, reflecting on how a technology project for Kuku Yalanji might fit with, and enrich, the community’s physical and cultural assets. The Council staff discussed their current technology projects and infrastructure such as the community Wi-Fi mesh, their interests in systems such as augmented and virtual reality, and an interest in designing a mobile application for Kuku Yalanji with voice recognition.
At this stage, the conversations centred upon communicating each party’s values and ways of working to determine whether there was common ground to establish relationships, rather than the specifics of the project. The Council staff expressed a desire to undertake projects with a “generational impact” for current as well as future community members down the track and to engage as “capacity partners” in
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supporting community members’ STEM skill development and sustainability of technology. They felt that technology for Kuku Yalanji should maintain cultural integrity and strengthen cultural security. The research team discussed the participatory design approaches and methods that we bring to our work, underpinned by a commitment to reciprocity and engagement (Brereton et al., 2014).
3.6.3 Submitting the Letter of Intent The Council management invited us to submit a Letter of Intent to partner on a project for consideration at the next Council meeting (Appendix A). Within the letter, we introduced ourselves, summarised our discussions with the community, reiterated our participatory approaches, and described the possible connections between community aspirations and our own work.
The letter reflects the shared vision for the project arising from these initial discussions with the Council staff (from the research team’s perspective): “co- designing technologies that help children to learn their community's Aboriginal language, Kuku Yalanji, by co-creating innovative playful technologies to engage them in language learning, which also connect them with community Elders” (p.1).
The Council then invited us back to community to discuss the project further with them as reflected in the Council minutes of 24 October 2017: “Action 11- Invite
QUT to meet Council delegation […] to present proposed application to full Council for resolution” (Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, 2017b).
3.7 Trip 2 (April 2018, 1 week)
Our next visit to the community was not until April 2018 after the wet season.
We (Jennyfer and Alessandro) spent one week in Wujal Wujal being socialised into the community and welcomed to country, as well as laying the groundwork for
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establishing a formal partnership with the Council. The discussion is grouped by activity; however, these episodes were interspersed with one another.
3.7.1 Welcome to Country We were welcomed to the community through a number of activities during the week, including a ‘Welcome to Country’ ceremony performed at the waterfall by
Yalanji Elders and Traditional Owners. From the perspective of the Wujal Wujal
Elders, the Welcome to Country is conducted for visitors as a way for them to be acknowledged by the Elders and to respect Lore, and it supports visitors to be safe in the community. The Welcome smoking ceremony is conducted by the different clan groups depending on whose country is being visited. The Welcome to Country is not just an act by the community, but also an act made by the researcher to “acknowledge and reflect about the particular community on whose ancestral lands they stand”
(Hornung, 2013, p. 142).
We sat by the river and listened, while the Elders gave us the welcome and shared some of their personal story with us. The discussion around the Welcome helped to familiarise the research team with aspects of cultural Lore and protocols to be respected, such as not visiting sacred sites or taking things away from country without permission. The situated activity on country helped to familiarise us with aspects of community life such as the presence of crocodiles in the waterways, with the Elders closely monitoring the water and river banks.
The Council arranged several other activities that supported us to meet people and build relationships with the broader community. This included a 4WD tour up to the look-out and around the township with a Council staff member. This elicited discussion of the Council’s current projects and aspirations with references to natural and built features, such as potential locations for future street signage in languages,
Chapter 3: Process of Relationship Building 81
and sites for further development of community housing and facilities. Other Council staff showed us community spaces such as the Arts Centre, took us fishing, and showed us equipment and language recordings housed in the Media Centre.
3.7.2 Language learning I started to learn the Kuku Yalanji language with the permission of the Elders to show respect to the community, learn words and phrases that would support prototyping activities, and ‘put myself in the shoes’ of a language learner with the materials and resources at hand. A number of Elders and adults who are speakers of the language taught me conversational words, questions, phrases, and expressions often reflecting the local environment. This happened through dedicated lessons or as part of other project activities. I would repeat these back verbally to the speaker who corrected my pronunciation, and wrote them down or audio recorded them for self- study at home. I gained some language immersion experiences when Elders around me spoke to each other in language, and could guess at the topic through my knowledge of some key words.
My own experience of learning Kuku Yalanji helped sensitise me to the learner’s perspective and needs. The words and phrases that I was able to retain the most easily were ones that were directly relevant to my activities (such as words and questions about food, tea, daily routines, places, and objects), that I could immediately practice through conversations with people. I had access to a written grammar of Kuku Yalanji, but my usual rote learning approach was not effective for learning aspects of the grammar such as the suffixing system. I was able to ask questions and say some sentences in Kuku Yalanji only, or through a mixture of Kuku Yalanji and English, reflecting the type of language use I would sometimes hear from children. I was not confident with the grammar and shy to speak to people I did not know which hampered
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my progress, but I noticed improvements to my pronunciation and spelling skills by comparing earlier and later recordings and written notes.
3.7.3 Establishing a presence in community We stayed in Council accommodation within the township, and a gentle way of establishing a presence in the community was to go on an evening walk down to the river and around the township for exercise. I often had small interactions with people as I was walking, waving to people on their verandas and in passing cars, and spoke to people fishing on the bridge about what they had caught. I frequently saw people who
I had met during that week, and could follow up on the connection.
Children would also walk up to me and ask me questions, and building rapport meant being prepared to share aspects about my own life in Brisbane and reciprocally answer any questions that I asked of others. Wearing QUT-branded clothing identified us and conveyed the reason for our presence in the community. We later displayed a
‘QUT Language Project’ sign in the window of the rental vehicle so that people would recognise our (different) rental cars each time that we visited.
3.7.4 Meetings with Council staff and evolving visions for the project We continued to discuss the project with the Council staff, often over a cup of tea on the back veranda of the Council building first thing in the morning or during a tea break. Sometimes we had particular questions to ask, but these discussions were mostly informal and not minuted.
Certain Council staff expressed an initial vision of designing a mobile application with some level of artificial intelligence that would enable people to converse with it in Kuku Yalanji and ask for translations. There was a perception that this type of system with synthesized speech could contribute to cultural security by helping to safeguard the language for future generations, if the community arrives at a
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situation in future where the number of language speakers is smaller than the present day. The Council started referring to the project as the “language app project” as a means of communicating this work to the community and mobilising media interest.
From a HCI perspective, this early vision gave rise to a number of questions about possible interactions and experiences with the technology, including what forms it could take, and how it would enter into the ‘network of relations’ (Suchman, 2002a) and children’s everyday language use. When working with other groups in the community such as the Language Reference Group, it became clear that the Elders’ desired technology for Kuku Yalanji that could play a supporting role and reinforce their existing practices, rather than being a primary device for language teaching and learning that takes Elders out of the picture. The initial Ambient Birdhouse demonstrations with adults and children in the wider community also suggested that tangible user interfaces could promote social and collaborative interactions, and ‘light touch’ approaches with technology as distinct from mobile applications on small screens (discussed further in Chapter 6).
The Council felt that developing a mobile app could leverage the community’s existing ownership and use of mobile phones, particularly by children. The Ambient
Birdhouse demonstrations may have given rise to the impression that tangible technologies need to operate as stand-alone systems, and as custom systems they may be difficult for the community to produce and maintain themselves. The research team’s perspective was that the Birdhouse represented an accessible tangible technology that could be built and programmed using cheap off-the-shelf components such as Raspberry Pis and local materials (Raspberry Pi Foundation, 2019).
As with both the Digital Community Noticeboard and Ambient Birdhouse designs, there was also a potential to couple tangibles with paired web applications
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that could be accessed through mobile devices (e.g. using WiFi or Bluetooth). This would allow people to connect their own mobile phones to the system to scale access and use on people’s own devices. This aspect was incorporated into the ‘final’
Crocodile Language Friend design (see Chapter 7).
The logistical and practical aspects of the project were also a focus of the discussions at this point, such as identifying grant funding opportunities and resources that each party could contribute to the project. This included staff time, physical assets, funding, accommodation, vehicles, work spaces, and in-kind mentoring and support from the Cultural Officers, as well as the possibility for community members to visit
QUT. The Council expressed an interest in integrating the app with community infrastructure such as the WiFi mesh, and exploring possible economic development opportunities through selling or licensing the app to tourists and external organisations.
3.8 Trip 3 (May 2018, 2 weeks)
I spent several weeks in Wujal Wujal, and Margot visited during one of the weeks for strategic meetings. The focus of this trip was to put formal agreements in place with the community such as a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), ethics protocol, and grant applications.
3.8.1 Developing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) The Council was eager to develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the University to formalise the partnership between the two parties. The focus of the
MoU was to outline mutually acceptable protocols for working together, rather than the specifics of the project objectives of technologies. It covered aspects of the project including confidentiality, intellectual property, project resourcing, cultural guidance, and procedures for media release and publication about the project.
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The MoU stated the common vision for the partnership with the University. The purpose of the relationship had broadened beyond the language technology project:
“to preserve and increase use of the community’s traditional language among youth through technologies, enhance connection to culture and country through technologies, and increase engagement in Science Technology Engineering Maths (STEM)”
(Queensland University of Technology et al., 2018, p. 6).
We held a face-to-face meeting with Council management to workshop the format and contents of the MoU. This document served as a mechanism for seeking endorsement and support for the project from Council, and ensured project continuity in case of personnel changes in both the Council and the research team. The contents of the draft MoU were checked back with the University and the Council, before being presented and adopted at the Council meeting on July 10, 2018. The MoU is attached in Appendix A with permission from the Council as a resource for future work.
3.8.2 Establishing the research ethics protocol A preliminary version to the project’s research ethics protocol was approved by the QUT Human Research Ethics Committee prior to the first trip, but was discussed with Council management to seek their feedback and determine whether any variations needed to be put in place. During a face-to-face meeting, I presented an overview of the main protocol document, and talked through the contents of the participant information sheets and consent forms.
The community had previously worked with researchers from other disciplines such as anthropology and linguistics, whose work involved taking audio and video recordings of language, stories and cultural practices. These previous experiences had given rise to expectations about how ‘researchers’ (of any academic discipline) carry out their work and engage with the community, and that my role in the project was
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primarily to record language. We offered our own perspective on the aims of the project: to design technologies that would help present existing materials in interesting ways for children, and provide a tool for the community to create their own recordings and continue to extend and grow these materials.
Communicating the work of HCI designers, and explaining the rationale for the research methods outlined in the ethics protocol, required sharing some background about the PhD program and HCI design research practices. In meetings with Council staff, I outlined the stages and requirements for PhD research in HCI, presented the format and contents of an HCI PhD thesis and reflected on how these differed from other disciplines, showed my interview guides and workshop plans, and demonstrated the types of research papers we produce and how these can be accessed online. Council staff provided their own suggestions and feedback on presenting the work, such as ideas about what kinds of acknowledgements and messages should be included in the thesis front matter.
We discussed community settings that would be appropriate to carry out design activities. The Council staff recommended working with people in Council-operated facilities such as the Home and Community Care Centre, Indigenous Knowledge
Centre, and Kindergarten, as the Council had already obtained image release for activities in these spaces. We submitted sample participant information sheets and consent forms for Council approval along with the MoU.
3.8.3 Community engagement through demonstrating existing designs We took one of our existing prototypes, the Ambient Birdhouse, around with us to show in the community. The Ambient Birdhouse is an Internet-of-Things device shaped as a wooden birdhouse with a screen and speaker, that plays videos of birds in the local area and displays the bird’s name as a subtitle. People can navigate through
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the videos using printed RFID cards with bird photos (Soro et al., 2018). We showed people the Birdhouse at community spaces such as the Kindergarten, Elder’s houses, school, and playgroup. We also left an Ambient Birdhouse and Digital Community
Noticeboard at the Indigenous Knowledge Centre for them to try out over a number of weeks.
The Ambient Birdhouse design resonated with Elders and adults as a tool to help teach children the Kuku Yalanji words for birds and other language related to country.
The prototype served as a focal point for talking about the names of local birds and their cultural significance, practices for community members to upload their own content to the Birdhouse, and practical considerations about deploying the Birdhouse in community (e.g. the number available, their cost, how to update the content etc.).
The Birdhouse also provided a way to introduce ourselves to children and bring them into the conversation. Children were curious about the stickers and cards with the Birdhouse and enjoyed the interaction of making particular bird videos appear by tapping the RFID card. They were quick to learn the interactions, and would teach other children where to tap the cards on the wooden frame. The children started to associate the research team with the Birdhouse, and would ask us to set it up for them when they encountered us walking in the community.
3.9 Trip 4 (June-July 2018, 4 weeks)
I spent four weeks in Wujal Wujal, during which time I was involved in strategic meetings with the Council, prototype demonstrations, NAIDOC week language activities, fishing and language lessons with community Elders, and establishing and convening meetings of the Language Reference Group. Formal data gathering activities (interviews with adult language speakers, focus group sessions with the
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Language Reference Group, and design activities) commenced during the last few weeks of this trip.
3.9.1 Convening the Language Reference Group (LRG) The Council re-established a Language Reference Group of Elders to oversee and guide the community’s language projects, including this PhD work. The LRG is comprised of Elders who are language speakers from across the three clan groups. The
Council staff put together a list of people to invite to be part of the LRG, and to join an initial information session that would take place in following weeks. I went with
Council staff members to meet the Elders who were invited to the information session, and took the Ambient Birdhouse to demonstrate. The order in which the invitations were issued was important, and I was advised that we should have visited the most senior Elders first as a sign of respect, which presented an opportunity for learning.
The information session was co-chaired by the Council CEO and myself and operated as a corporate meeting with an agenda and minutes. I ordered catering so that attendees would not miss lunch by attending instead of their regular activities. The information session introduced the project and partnership between QUT and the
Council, included an Ambient Birdhouse demonstration, provided an overview of research methods and planned activities. Issues raised included providing remuneration for Elders involvement, which is under discussion by the project leaders.
This information session contrasted with later LRG meetings that were audio recorded as ‘data’ for the project, and took more of a yarning style than a formal meeting.
3.9.2 Reciprocity at a micro/personal level The project rental vehicle became an important resource for acts of reciprocity as some Elders involved in the project did not hold a driver’s license or have access to a vehicle. During these early trips, Elders offered to take me on country for fishing,
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yarning, language lessons, and other activities, in exchange for me driving them on country and providing them with fish that I had caught14. Spending time with people in the car deepened friendships, and provided an environment for informal yarning about the project and language lessons. We also responded to community requests for resources such as bringing back prints of photos that were taken during the fieldwork for them to keep, and obtaining copies of printed materials about the community to which they did not have access.
3.9.3 Shifting positionality within the community My positionality continued to shift through the project, and as such my place within the “network of relations” (Suchman, 2002a) was continuously renegotiated on an ongoing basis. By this stage, my cumulative understanding of context (Taylor et al.,
2018c) had progressed such that I was able to better interpret and respond to interactions with people, including reading the silences in conversations and spaces in- between.
During the subsequent trip (Trip 5), I was adopted by a particular family in recognition of the relationships built through the project and valuing of the project work by the community, a significant and touching gesture. This again shifted the terms of address used when interacting with community members, and entailed deeper commitments and obligations to Lore and social protocols. On a practical level, it also meant having a ‘home’ in community at which I could stop by for a cup of tea and scones. The Language Reference Group also gave me the Kuku Yalanji nickname
Dukunjulu (Golden Whistler Bird) as shown on the back cover of this thesis.
14 Of which there were very few as my fishing skills leave something to be desired.
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3.10 Discussion
3.10.1 Co-evolving early visions for the project prior to a formal agreement This account of relationship building shows how early visions for the project co- evolved through these activities with the Council and community, prior to establishing formal agreements such as the MoU and undertaking ‘design’ activities. During our initial field visit, our mutual interest in supporting the Kuku Yalanji language was the point of connection between our research interests and what we could offer the community, and the Council’s desire to strengthen language use and safeguard it for the future. It was this particular alignment of needs and interests that precipitated a
Council staff member arranging meetings for us with Council management during Trip
1, taking us beyond the initial contact made with the Council. This in turn lead to us submitting the Letter of Intent to the Council and seeded further relationship building in subsequent trips.
This narrative illustrates the aspects of the project that were relatively fixed for each party, and those that were open to negotiation. A key requirement from the
University perspective was that this work would initially be carried out as part of a
PhD research project but at no financial cost to the Council, reflecting the nature of
University business and resources that we had available for the project. This brought into play a number of institutional requirements, such as the conditions and expectations of the PhD program, university ethics committee procedures, and university policies and approval processes. The research team were open to the
Council directing the relationship building process, approaches to community engagement, setting the overall strategic direction for the work, and collaborating as partners in the research outputs.
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From the Council perspective, it was the ways of working that were ‘fixed’ and captured in the MoU. This included a strong desire to engage as capacity partners on the project rather than passive recipients of technology and support from outsiders, the need to respect cultural Lore and community protocols, and adherence to Council procedures, such as submitting reports and proposal for consideration and discussion at Council meetings. Arrangements around approvals for publications and media releases, and intellectual property rights were also important from a Council perspective. The Council were open to the research team directing the design approach and practices, and making decisions relating to the design and implementation of the technology. They also deferred to the Elders in the Language Reference Group to provide guidance and oversight to the project as experts in the language and respected figures in the community.
A further consideration was the resources and expertise available to carry out the work, particularly within the time period of a PhD project. In the case of developing an intelligent mobile application, traditional approaches to developing machine learning systems are resource intensive (Littell et al., 2018), even when fine-tuning existing models, and require large training data sets. Relevant constraints of our situation included the absence of our existing NLP systems to build upon, the small amount of written language materials available to us (the design team), limited time available to work directly with language speakers, and my own lack of technical expertise in this area. As such, we felt that it would be difficult to deliver on this initial vision within the project period, while at the same time doing justice to the HCI and
PD dimensions of the work. We were upfront about this with the Council, as it would have been damaging to relationships had we committed to developing a system that we could not, in practice, deliver.
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We thus established a mutual understanding that we would work with the
Language Reference Group to explore community motivations for the mobile application to better understand the role it could play in encouraging active language use by younger generations. The research team had also previously established the potential for ambient, tangible systems such as the Ambient Birdhouse to spark social interactions with and around the technology (Soro et al., 2018), and we had observed both the Elder’s and children’s interest in it as a potential language teaching tool. We felt that tangible technologies could also still be a useful avenue to explore, but placed an emphasis on tangible designs that could still connect with existing mobile devices through local WiFi networks and Bluetooth protocols.
3.10.2 Design ‘non-proposals’ and the role of tangible in relationship building Tangibles played an important role in these initial relationship building activities, referring here to the use of the tangible technology prototypes, tangible project artefacts such as the Letter of Intent, and other types of tangibles within the local environment of Wujal Wujal.
In our prior work with the Anindilyakwa people of Groote Eylandt, we observed that the digital noticeboard prototype served as a “cross-cultural dialogical probe” that supported relationship building as a tangible representation of the project outcomes, facilitated design participation and in-situ evaluation of prototypes, and fostered mutual learning about technology and the design context (Soro et al., 2016, p. 115).
The noticeboard prototype was a visible reminder of the reason for the research team’s presence in the community, and prototype demonstrations at different community sites enabled us to meet a broad range of community members, and for them to experience the design and learn about the project.
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In this case, the Ambient Birdhouse prototype functioned as a type of design
‘non-proposal’ for relationship building with the Wujal Wujal community. As with the noticeboard prototype, demonstrating the Birdhouse helped us to get to know the community members and to be known by them, and provided an entry point into possible design settings. The act of showing and discussing the prototypes to people helped to communicate the reason for our visit and start to build engagement at the very beginning of a collaborative technology design project. Working out which aspects of the existing designs (if any) resonated with the community also helped to seed the iterative participatory design process, as discussed in Chapter 6.
Yet, the design non-proposal was not the proposed outcome of the project, nor a representation of a final product for Wujal Wujal (though we were happy to deploy some for the community to try out if they wished). Rather, the existing prototypes illustrated some of the possibilities of tangible technologies, and were a tangible portfolio that embodied the interests and values of our research group to show what we had the capacity to achieve. They supported a form of “relationship Thinging” prior to a “project Thing”, by bringing people together around a potential “matter of concern” (Ehn, 2008, p. 92), with the non-proposal reifying aspects of the proposed project and design approach without prescribing them. However, the ‘finished’ form of the Birdhouse may have also given the appearance of being a ‘closed’ design ready for deployment, rather than a preliminary design that was ‘open’ to being changed or replaced entirely based on comments from community members.
Observing the Birdhouse being used in Wujal Wujal also highlighted some of the logics of designing for urban Brisbane residents that did not necessarily fit well with community’s own practices. An obvious issue was that many of the existing
‘common’ birds represented in the seed content found in Brisbane were not present in
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the Wujal Wujal area. Some of the Wujal Wujal birds suggested by Elders for the
Birdhouse were not easy to film or locate in existing content online, or there were several possible mappings between English and Kuku Yalanji bird names. The act of learning the bird names indoors also contrasted to my experience of learning Kuku
Yalanji in context, with Elders teaching me words relating to things that they could directly see around them.
The relationship building account also shows how non-technology tangibles fostered dialogue and relationship building. Placed tangibles in the Welcome to
Country at the waterfall, and the 4WD tour around the township helped us to get to know the community and develop our understanding of context. References to crocodiles and the waterfalls communicated safety considerations and social protocols governing community life. The Council staff members’ commentaries about community facilities, with reference to current and future physical sites of Council projects, helped us to understand their priorities and aspirations for the future. In both of these cases, the research team was “being participated” (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b) through activities involving tangible interactions with the local environment that were led by the community themselves.
This work addresses research question 1c) What role can tangible technologies play in establishing a shared understanding of current language use, and identifying design questions and opportunities?
3.10.3 Insights about relationship building for participatory design projects The relationship building activities prior to ‘project time’ also yielded several other insights for participatory design with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
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Firstly, it emphasised the value of working within the Council and community’s own processes towards building and formalising a project relationship. Providing the
Letter of Intent and draft MoU as requested by the Council ensured that we were working within their existing procedures, gave the Council the time and space to consider our proposals, and demonstrated our willingness to engage with the community on their own terms. Both documents presented a type of relationship building ‘threshold’ that needed to be crossed before further project activities could take place. The Welcome to Country ceremony at the waterfall, and initial meeting of the LRG were other examples of ‘thresholds’ to working further with the community, that needed to satisfy the ‘fixed’ requirements of both parties.
Secondly, it illustrated a need for relationship building to take place at a number of different levels in order for the project to proceed. Relationships were simultaneously built at a strategic organisational level between the Council and the community, at project level between the Language Reference Group and the research team, and at a personal level with community members. Working with key contacts in the community helped us to progress at each stage, from the Council staff member introducing us to Council management in Trip 1, to Council staff supporting Council efforts to reconvene the Language Reference Group during Trip 4, and the snowball effect of gradually meeting more people through these connections. Having multiple points of contact was useful for keeping project activities going even when certain people were unavailable.
Thirdly, it highlighted the fact that respect and reciprocity were often entwined.
Making the effort to learn and use Kuku Yalanji myself demonstrated respect to the
Elders, in keeping with similar observations by Bird (Bird, 2019, p. 4). Elders later reflected on this during our Puliima 2019 conference presentation: “It’s important
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when visitors enter our Aboriginal community that our cultural protocols are respected
[…] We are so proud of our mukay [niece, referring to Jennyfer], the time she worked with us and the Kuku words she knows already” (Taylor et al., 2019a). These acts of respect also ran both ways, with activities such as the Welcome to Country reciprocally signifying the community’s respect for the research team. Personal acts of reciprocity
(e.g. taking people out in the rental car) were also done out of respect to Elders. They were often unspoken agreements, part of the mutual understandings developed by spending time doing activities together.
3.10.4 Relationships as the ‘no design of co-design’ and a case for resisting instrumentalism Since this is a HCI thesis, it is tempting to frame this account of relationship building as ‘design work’, and to adopt the lens of “seeing every use situation as a potential design situation” as per design-in-use (Ehn, 2008). Indeed, phrasing such as
“relationship building” is inherently instrumentalist and purposefully undertaken for specific ends. Dindler and Iversen argue that the participatory design community should consider relationships to be “an object of design and […] a phenomenon that is malleable and within the professional agency of the designer” (Dindler et al., 2014, p.
43).
Undertaking immersive community-based research means living in the community and interacting with people ‘on and off the clock’. These interactions often connected with the project in one way or another, whether they were part of a formal design workshop or weekend social activity. Sometimes these connections were direct, such as meeting a new person while fishing that would later participate in a design activity. Sometimes they were more subtle, where a fishing trip may have deepened my cumulative understanding of the design context (Taylor et al., 2018c), and
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subconsciously guided my orientation to design in ways that are not specifically perceivable in the design outputs.
While the project was contingent on establishing and maintaining strong personal and organisational relationships with the community, I contend that activities intended to form genuine relationships with a community lose meaning when undertaken solely as an instrument for design. Not every yarn, fishing trip, or technology demonstration was intended to serve the project. Many times, a cup of tea was just that. Being open to forming enduring friendships with people, and sharing time together in place, generates a richness of experience that transcends a design endeavour.
Relationships cannot be designed, nor can engagement with and commitment to a design project. This is the ‘no design of co-design’. Finding a point of entry into the community, and even putting formal agreements in place, does not necessarily mean that relationships will follow to a sufficient extent that a design project will succeed.
What was established during these initial trips were ways of working together, and relating to each other, providing conditions for these relationships between the
University and the Council, and the research team and community, to form and grow from there.
3.11 Conclusions
There is no single ‘right’ approach to establishing a collaborative project with
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, as every community is different and every design endeavour is specific. This chapter shows one possible approach to contacting and developing relationships with an Aboriginal community for a participatory design project, where the research team is comprised of non-Indigenous people based outside of the community. This account has illustrated the types of
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activities that supported this process, and the potential for tangible technology prototypes such as the Ambient Birdhouse to function as design ‘non-proposals’. The existing prototypes provided a starting point to work from, and helped us to identify and work through the aspects of the prospective project that are fixed, and those that were open to negotiation, in order to find a path forward together.
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Chapter 4. Methodology
4.1 Introduction
This chapter presents the methodology and study design for this project. Firstly, in Section 4.2, I provide an overview of participatory design as the overall methodology, including the history of PD, and key themes in participatory design literature.
Next, in Section 4.3, I outline the study design, including the research phases, activities and outputs. This is followed by a description of the research methods for data collection (Section 4.4) and analysis (Section 4.5), in adherence to the research ethics protocol (Section 4.6).
Finally, in Section 4.7, I outline the analytical lens of decolonising methodologies and postcolonial computing, and draw on this to contribute a critical reflection on the issues, tensions, and challenges that both influenced and stemmed from my methodological choices.
4.2 Methodology: Participatory Design
4.2.1 Participatory design introduction and commitments The overall methodology for this project is ‘participatory design’ (PD)15, an approach taken in most recent HCI projects with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (Leong et al., 2019; Peters et al., 2018; Soro et al., 2017).
15 ‘Participatory design’ relates to other terms such as ‘co-design’, which refers to “collective creativity as it is applied across the whole span of a design process” (Sanders et al., 2008). The term has a different historical trajectory, so I primarily use ‘participatory design’ as the methodology relates back to the Scandinavian design tradition.
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Robertson and Simonsen define participatory design as:
a process of investigating, understanding, reflecting upon, establishing,
developing, and supporting mutual learning between multiple participants in
collective ‘reflection-in-action’. The participants typically undertake the two
principal roles of users and designers where the designers strive to learn the
realities of the users’ situation while the users strive to articulate their desired
aims and learn appropriate technological means to obtain them. (Robertson et
al., 2012b, p. 2).
Two key tenets that characterise the participatory design tradition are described in (Robertson et al., 2012b). Firstly, a recognition that “people have a basic right to make decisions about how they do work and indeed any other activities where they might use technology” (Robertson et al., 2012c, p. 65). Participation in design is not just about the act of designing technology but also about “people’s rights to participate in the shaping of the worlds in which they act” (Robertson et al., 2012b, p. 4). In early participatory design literature, Ehn and King assert that “design should be done with users, neither for nor by them” (Ehn et al., 1987, p. 54). This statement conveys the essence of participatory design as designers and technology users working together as partners in a design process on equal terms, but still implies that ‘designers’ are integral to the practices of ‘design’ (see Section 4.7 on postcolonial computing).
In the context of designing with Indigenous peoples, this recognition of people’s rights to having a voice in determining their lives and their futures is consistent with the right to ‘self-determination’, enshrined in instruments such as the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) (UN General Assembly,
2007). Self-determination is articulated as the rights of Indigenous peoples to “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural
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development” in Article 3 (UN General Assembly, 2007, p. 8), including “the right to revitalise, use, develop, and transmit [their languages] to future generations” in Article
13 (UN General Assembly, 2007, pp. 12–13). Participatory design approaches that supports Indigenous self-determination must therefore work to the agendas of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, rather than being determined in advance by the designer.
Secondly, the view that “workers themselves are in the best position to determine how to improve their work and their work life” (Schuler et al., 1993, p. xi). This is recontextualised outside of the work domain when designing with communities, to mean that people are “experts in their own lives” (Campbell, 2004, p. 72). In participatory design, ‘mutual learning’ occurs as designers learn about the lives, practices, and context of those participating in design, while participants learn about design practices and develop their skills in technology use (Robertson et al., 2012b, p.
6). This means approaching design from the perspective that the Elders who are Kuku
Yalanji speakers in Wujal Wujal are experts in their own language, and best placed to make decisions about technology to foster language use while maintaining cultural integrity. It also entails a recognition that children are experts in their own lives too, and their agency should be valued in designing language technologies for their use.
4.2.2 History and origins of participatory design Participatory design emerged during social movements in Europe during the early 1960’s and 1970’s, with origins in the movement for workplace democracy in
Scandinavia, during which time information technology was being introduced into the workplace at a large scale (Robertson et al., 2012b). The intention of introducing computers into the workplace was to enhance productivity and work performance with
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the goal of “enabling [workers] to extend their skills while automating the tedious and repetitive parts of work” (Robertson et al., 2012b, p. 2).
However, there was a recognition that technologies imposed by management without the involvement of workers could bring about negative consequences including “the reduction of workforce, de-skilling, and reduction of the quality of work life” (Hyysalo et al., 2002, p. 94). Participatory design approaches that were situated and grounded in people’s experiences and practices also countered dominant paradigms of computer science that treated ‘work’ as “disembodied, algorithmic procedures and [made] invisible the social, embodied and contingent nature of everyday work practices” (Robertson et al., 2012b, p. 4).
Thus, the “first generation” of participatory design projects in Scandinavia were established in conjunction with new workplace laws facilitating worker and union participation in decisions about workplace technologies (Bødker et al., 1993, p. 159).
The particularities of the Scandinavian workplace context included the strong presence and authority of trade unions, a highly skilled and “homogenous workforce”, and a socialist political influence (Ehn, 1993, p. 43). Projects such as UTOPIA with newspaper graphics workers in the 1980’s contributed participatory design methods and tools for envisioning and prototyping (Sundblad, 2010). A “second generation” of projects pushed for representing user perspectives in technology designs to counter
“dehumanization”, and sought to enrich worker skills (Bødker et al., 1993, p. 161).
Contemporary participatory design has evolved beyond its original context and commitments (Hyysalo et al., 2002; Racadio et al., 2014), to be taken up in a range of domains around the world. Participatory design projects are being undertaken in areas such as healthcare, civic engagement, and education (Halskov et al., 2015). “Spatial scaling” and “temporal scaling”, new design settings, and applications of participatory
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design in large commercial organisations represent challenges and agendas for the future of participatory design (Blomberg et al., 2012, pp. 104–108).
‘Community-based participatory design’ is a burgeoning area of participatory design to which this thesis speaks, involving groups of technology users outside of the workplace (DiSalvo et al., 2012). While participatory design has always entailed an understanding that “the use situation is the fundamental starting point for the design process” (Halskov et al., 2015, p. 89), the applications of participatory design in new social and cultural contexts, including working with Indigenous communities, requires the renegotiation of its methods and principles with respect to local values and worldviews (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b).
Participatory design has also grown as a research area with connections to HCI, and the PD community convenes through events such as the biennial Participatory
Design Conference. Participatory design constitutes a form of collaborative design research (Frayling, 1993), in which designers and participants generate knowledge through a “consistent and systematic engagement with practice” (Robertson et al.,
2012b). Knowledge and artefacts emerge through the specific relationship between designers and participants (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b), in joint actions to understand a design context and establish design opportunities, explore possible futures, and co-create and evaluate novel technologies.
4.2.3 Genuine participation “Genuine participation” is a key theme in participatory design literature and involves “the fundamental transcendence of the users’ role from being merely informants to being legitimate and acknowledged participants in the design process”
(Robertson et al., 2012b, p. 5). This resonates with Greenbaum and Kyng’s assertion that genuine participation “requires training and active cooperation, not just token
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representation in meetings or on committees” (Bødker et al., 1993, p. 158). Genuine participation supports effective mutual learning between designers and users (Bødker et al., 2009; Robertson et al., 2012b).
Design scholars have proposed a number of different criteria for assuring genuine participation in design. Kensing’s list of requirements includes that technology users have “access to information, resources (time, money, expert assistance), and the power to influence decisions” (in Kensing et al., 2012, p. 22), as well as contextual and organisation factors such as the use of “ appropriate participatory development methods” and “organisation and technical flexibility”
(Kensing et al., 2012, p. 23). Other PD scholarship argues for consideration of the
“depth” (Kensing et al., 1998), “degree” (Bergvall-Kåreborn et al., 2008), and “scale”
(Light, 2010) of participation, and people’s involvement in design may represent a
“plurality” of different but equally valid forms of participation (Pihkala et al., 2016, p.
28).
Yet, the fact that a project takes a participatory design approach does not in itself necessarily mean that the project enables genuine participation. In participatory development, so-called participatory processes without genuine participation or a consideration of the local context “turned out to be manipulative, or […] harmed those who were supposed to be empowered” (Cooke et al., 2001, p. 1). Likewise,
Winschiers-Theophilus et al. show that the meaning of “participation” can differ when design processes work from alternative epistemological and ontological positions to the Western design tradition (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b), further emphasizing a need for design practices that reflect local values and contexts.
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4.2.4 Mutual learning Mutual learning is one of main distinguishing features between participatory design and user-centred design (Robertson et al., 2014). In the traditional sense, mutual learning refers to the process by which “designers learn about the use context from the users, but also that the users learn about the technical possibilities from the designers”
(Bratteteig et al., 2012a, p. 132). Mogensen et al. challenge the notion that designers and users are “internally relatively homogenous” groups (Mogensen et al., 2014, p.
26). Some have proposed that the notion of mutual learning should be expanded to include learning between participants (Mogensen et al., 2014), and designers learning from participants’ innovative practices involving technology through “design in use”
(Ehn, 2008, p. 96).
Mutual learning involves a joint exploration and negotiation of ‘tradition’ in learning about and describing current practices, and ‘transcendence’ in exploring new possibilities for the future involving technology (Ehn, 1988). This dynamic is particularly salient in the context of designing technologies to support the intergenerational transmission and active use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. This involves balancing the Elder’s views about preserving the “right way” to teach and learn languages (Bell, 2013, p. 403), with the interests and practices of younger generations as torchbearers for their language.
4.2.5 Democracy and empowerment Democracy is a value that underpins both the political and pragmatic commitments of participatory design, expressed in the assertion that “every human should have the right to participate equally in decisions concerning his or her life”
(Ehn, 1993, p. 42). Democracy and empowerment are described as taking place at a micro-political level through attentiveness to dynamics of design participation, and at
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a macro-level in addressing social and economic inequalities (Huybrechts et al., 2020;
Kendall et al., 2018), though some argue that contemporary participatory design has focussed on the former rather than “bigger issues” (Huybrechts et al., 2020, p. 7).
According to Bratteteig and Wagner, a “participatory design result” is one that
“shows evidence of democratic ideals” in augmenting technology users’ voice and agency in design (Bratteteig et al., 2016, p. 141). Yet, democracy often operates as an
“assumed goal” in development projects that is entwined with Western design traditions (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b), and Hyysalo and Lehenkari warn that even “democratic participation” may not address the “wider, historically-formed power structures affecting a design project” (Hyysalo et al., 2002, p. 102).
Design is an inherently political activity, whether it is in the designer “taking sides” to amplify the voice of a marginalised group (Bratteteig et al., 2016, p. 142), the enactment of a designer’s “personal politics” and “institutional ethics” (Kendall et al., 2018, p. 1), the dynamics created through the use of particular design methods
(Racadio et al., 2014, p. 52), decision-making power in design (Bratteteig et al.,
2012b), and the diverse “enunciations” of power in participatory design work (Ertner et al., 2010). As Light and Akama point out, “All design work is action research – changing the contexts, the people and the design practitioner through designing” (Light et al., 2012, p. 69). The political dimensions of this project are discussed further in
Chapter 8.
4.2.6 Participatory design methods Hands-on participatory design methods such as collaborative prototyping activities are a key mechanism in PD for involving users in technology design (Brandt et al., 2012; Halskov et al., 2015), often used in participatory design ‘workshops’.
Prototyping and implementing technology designs represent “a type of decision-
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The activities described in this thesis are grouped to represent four phases of the project: Phase 1 (Scoping Study), Phase 2 (Contextual Research), Phase 3 (Co-
Design), and Phase 4 (Telling the Project Story). While the summary diagram depicts these as linear phases (Figure 5), in reality they were much more emergent in order to work this out with the community in-situ rather than contriving the agenda in advance, and there was a need for a high degree of flexibility. Activities across the different phases often took place concurrently, but became the main focus during a certain point in time as shown by the phases.
4.3.1 Phase 1: Scoping study, various sites, February 2017 – June 2018 The aims of Phase 1 were to identify gaps in knowledge relating to the design of technologies for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language revitalisation, and establish relationships with potential field sites. This was carried out through:
• A literature review on language revitalisation and literacy, presented in
Chapter 2, and the PDC 2018 conference paper New Literacy Theories for
Participatory Design: Lessons from Three Design Cases with Australian
Aboriginal Communities (Taylor et al., 2018a);
• Scoping interviews with nine Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
university students at Queensland University of Technology (see the note in
Chapter 3 Section 3.4.4);
• Site visits and technology demonstrations in Wujal Wujal, involving
activities such as developing the MoU and convening the Language
Reference Group, described in the relationship building account in Chapter
3.
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• Co-design activities with the Groote Eylandt community as part of the
Digital Community Noticeboards project, resulting in the articulation of the
‘Debrief O’Clock’ collaborative field note practice for HCI (Taylor et al.,
2018c); and
• Completing a full-committee ethics protocol application through the QUT
Human Research Ethics Committee (see Section 4.6).
4.3.2 Phase 2: Understanding Kuku Yalanji language and technology use, Wujal Wujal, June 2018 – November 2018 The aim of Phase 2 was to develop a contextual understanding of the social practices and activities that facilitate the intergenerational transmission and use of the
Kuku Yalanji language, including opportunities and barriers to fostering language use and the role that technology plays. The research activities involved in Phase 2 were:
• Conducting individual interviews with Kuku Yalanji speaking adults, LRG
meetings, technology demonstrations, and participating in community
events. This contributed to the development of the Field Theory of
Intergenerational Kuku Yalanji Language Use (Chapter 5), and articulation
of the ‘Relational Language Technologies’ orientation presented in the
OzCHI 2019 paper (Taylor et al., 2019b); and
• Language lessons and participatory design activities to develop local
content using the existing Ambient Birdhouse and Digital Community
Noticeboard prototypes. This provided valuable insights that guided the
iterative, participatory design process in Chapter 6.
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4.3.3 Phase 3: Iterative participatory design, Wujal Wujal, June 2018 – July 2019 The aim of Phase 3 was to work with the Wujal Wujal community to co-design novel tangible and social technologies to foster active use of Kuku Yalanji by young children and their families. This phase consisted of:
• The iterative co-design and implementation of the Crocodile Language
Friend, including evaluation activities and the creation of community-sewn
toys by the Women’s Centre (Chapter 7). The insights from these activities
informed the development of a revised field theory (Chapter 8);
• Articulation of a ‘participatory (re)design’ practice for co-creating tangible
technologies in the field (Chapter 6); and
• ‘Coding on Country’ workshops with high school-aged youth to facilitate
STEM skills development using the Micro:bit (Micro:bit Educational
Foundation, 2020). This was part of a separate but related project with the
Wujal Wujal community, teaching youth to program a microcontroller with
sensors similar to the Crocodile hardware (Soro et al., 2020).
4.3.4 Phase 4: Telling the project story, Wujal Wujal, Nov 2019 – June 2020 The aim of Phase 4 was to develop practices with the community to tell the story of the project, through written research outputs and oral presentations. Activities relating to this theme were:
• Co-presentation of the project with community Elders at the 2019 Puliima
Indigenous Languages and Technology Conference (Taylor et al., 2019a),
and a screening of the presentation video in the community with the LRG;
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• Exhibiting the Crocodile Language Friend during the Wujal Wujal
Community Showcase for the Queensland Parliament in April 2020;
• Co-authoring the OzCHI 2019 (Taylor et al., 2019b) and CHI 2020 (Taylor
et al., 2020) publications with the Council and community, and seeking
LRG input into the presentation of the thesis (see Chapter 4 Section 4.7.3);
• Proposing possible next steps and ongoing work for the project, as a
resource for the community and research team (Chapter 8);
• Presenting the contribution of ‘community alignment’ through participatory
design, and identifying opportunities for collaboration between language
revitalisation and HCI researchers (Chapter 8).
4.4 Research Methods
4.4.1 Design field research Field studies are undertaken in HCI in order to design and evaluate technologies
“in natural settings with either little or no control imposed on participants’ activities”
(Preece et al., 2015, p. 488). Field studies can comprise of both naturalistic activities such as observing technology in use, and interventionist activities such as design workshops in the users’ own environment (Kjeldskov et al., 2003, pp. 319–320). They are enlisted at different stages of the design process, including to facilitate mutual learning about the design setting and opportunities for design interventions early in a project, to evaluating new technologies in their intended use settings (Preece et al.,
2015, pp. 488–495).
Working together with participants ‘in the field’ is particularly important for community-based participatory design, given its focus on situated practices and designing from the use context (Halskov et al., 2015; Simonsen et al., 2012). To this
Chapter 4: Methodology 113
end, I spent approximately six months living in Wujal Wujal from 2017-2019, undertaken over a number of field trips (See Figure 4: Research phases and field trips.).
The field visits comprised of a mixture of design research activities (e.g. meetings, interviews, workshops), participation in community events such as NAIDOC week, and informal activities with community members (e.g. fishing, making scones and damper). Most of the research methods and activities described in the following sections were carried out during my fieldwork periods in Wujal Wujal.
4.4.2 Interviews16 Interviews are a method that involves a “conversation with a purpose” (Preece et al., 2015, p. 233). The interviews within this project were ‘semi-structured’, as they were guided by a loose set of themes and indicative questions, but were open to different conversational possibilities offered through interactions with particular participants (Preece et al., 2015). Since questioning methods do not always align well with the cultural values and social protocols of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (Martin in Nichols, 2015, p. 101), the interviews adopted more of a dialogical style of yarning (Bessarab et al., 2010) that allowed me to engage in the reciprocal exchange of information with participants.
Eight interviews were conducted with seven adults who were Aboriginal and/or
Torres Strait Islander, and one adult who was non-Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait
Islander, who live and work in the Wujal Wujal community. Some interviews were carried out early in the project to develop a contextual understanding of the intergenerational language transmission and use of Kuku Yalanji, and some were carried out later in the project to seek feedback on the technology design practices and
16 Parts of the text in this section were published in (Taylor et al., 2019b).
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prototypes. The interviews were carried out in English, ran for 30-60 minutes, and took place in private homes, council offices, or community spaces. The initial interview guide was informed by the study design of the National Indigenous Language Survey
(Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2014b, 2014a), but was refined through early project activities and language reference group meetings.
The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. The interview guide is included in Appendix B.
The interviewees (P1-P8) were in no particular order:
• an adult who has been involved in language activities with children across
different age groups;
• two adults who have been involved in community language activities over
a number of years;
• an adult who teaches the language to their young children;
• an adult who is involved with language and recreational activities with
children;
• an adult who works with other adults in the community and is interested in
strengthening their language skills;
• an adult from a different community residing in Wujal Wujal who has learnt
the language and is involved in community language activities; and
• an adult who has been involved with activities to teach language and cultural
knowledge on country.
4.4.3 Language reference group meetings (focus groups) Focus groups are similar to interviews, but involve more than one participant in a conversation together (Preece et al., 2015). Focus group sessions were held with the
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LRG of Elders and some adult language speakers involved in the project, comprising representation of different genders and across the three clan groups. Approximately 15 adults took part in the Reference Group meetings, though not everybody attended each meeting. While the meetings were open to all those with an interest in joining so as not to exclude anybody, only the data for those who signed consent forms is reported in the thesis. The Reference Group meetings took place in the Indigenous Knowledge
Centre and lasted from 1-2 hours. There was a total of six LRG meetings across the project, which were audio recorded and transcribed for analysis.
Figure 6: Language Reference Group meetings.
The LRG members were involved in a number of different activities that were conducted during the meetings. Firstly, providing contextual information about the community’s language situation and existing language activities, to identify challenges and opportunities for design interventions. Secondly, giving feedback and making decisions about the technology prototypes that were developed through the project and iteratively shown back to the LRG. Thirdly, assisting with providing translations and recordings of “seed content” (Hagen et al., 2010) in Kuku Yalanji to display on the prototypes. Finally, advising on the publication and presentation of the project in research outputs. Indicative agendas and discussion questions for each of the six
Reference Group meetings can be found in Appendix C.
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Previously, I have written about the notion of the “situational when” to characterise the time practices in a remote Aboriginal community, where things happen when the right set of circumstances is in place out of respect to community values and social protocols (Taylor et al., 2017). This was the case for the LRG meetings, where a meeting roughly scheduled to take place at 9am often would not happen until the catering was picked up and technology set up, people were picked up from their homes, a critical mass of Elders from across the three clan groups were at the table, and tea and coffee was served to everyone. Some participants arrived and left at different times to fulfil other commitments, and guests attended some meetings to observe but did not take an active role in the discussions.
The Elders’ perspective on the LRG was conveyed by them as part of the 2019
Puliima Indigenous Languages and Technology Conference Presentation:
Our Language Reference Group are representatives of the three dialect groups,
its gender specific because our Yalanji heritage and equal representation. We
collectively make informed decisions on our Yalanji aspiration of our cultural
rights, it empowers our bama to protect our materials, data, rights, storage of any
things concerning our culture. We are the body for anyone to come and do
business with us. (Taylor et al., 2019a).
4.4.4 Technology demonstrations Technology demonstrations involved setting up an existing design or Crocodile prototype in a community space, and observing people’s interactions and experiences with the technology in context while asking and answering their questions. Technology demonstrations took place in a number of community spaces including the Indigenous
Knowledge Centre, Home and Community Care Centre, Kindergarten, Women’s
Centre, and Council Offices, where Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people across a
Chapter 4: Methodology 117
variety of age groups could engage with them. The role of existing prototypes as
“design non-proposals” in the process of relationship building with the Wujal Wujal community is discussed in Chapter 3 Section 3.10.2.
Technology demonstrations facilitated broader community awareness of the project and use of the technology than what could be achieved through formal design activities. People could walk up, try out the prototype in their own time, interact with the research team, and leave of their own accord. The research team wore QUT apparel and introduced themselves in ways that clearly identified the project. The research team observed people’s interactions with the devices and noted down comments that reflected people’s experiences with the prototypes in ways there were consistent with an oral consent process. A ‘waiver of consent’ was granted to report on these activities in the research outputs, as it was not feasible to ask people to sign consent forms for such brief encounters, where the interactions yielded information about the nature of experiences with the prototypes rather than about the participants themselves.
The existing technology prototypes that were demonstrated in the community and used as part of interviews, LRG meetings, and design workshops were the
Ambient Birdhouse (Soro et al., 2018) and the Digital Community Noticeboard (Soro et al., 2017).
Figure 7: Ambient Birdhouse and Digital Community Noticeboard (Soro et al., 2018, 2017).
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4.4.5 Participatory design workshops Participatory design workshops are hands-on activities that involve working together with participants to create new technology designs and digital content.
Workshops were conducted in groups as this was more culturally appropriate for working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples due to the collective culture values and social dynamics (Soro et al., 2015a). I developed a kit of electronics and crafting materials to use in workshop activities and prototyping in the field
(Appendix D).
When designing the workshop activities, I was guided by a number of principles such as growing or incorporating existing language materials into the activity (where appropriate), involving Elders in producing and checking language material, scaffolding the design activities and accounting for skills development and learning opportunities for participants, and producing artefacts that can be housed and shown within the community, in places such as the Indigenous Knowledge Centre.
There were seven design workshops conducted with community members:
Yam Digging Noticeboard Story (NAIDOC Week): Part 1 (completed):
Adults and children dug and prepared yams for the community dinner as part of
NAIDOC week activities, and took photos and videos of the yam picking activities.
Part 2 (not completed): We planned to create a digital story for the Digital Community
Noticeboard in the Indigenous Knowledge Centre using these materials, however this activity was not run due to logistical issues.
Creating Digital Content for the Language Prototypes: Elders created videos and RFID cards in Kuku Yalanji for the Ambient Birdhouse and subsequent versions of the prototype that used the same software. Three co-design sessions were held with small groups of adults in the Indigenous Knowledge Centre and Home and Community
Chapter 4: Methodology 119
Care Centre. An example of content created was a ‘who am I’ guessing game for the sea turtle and the cassowary, videos about storms, captions in language for some photographs and video clips about children’s games, and audio recordings of conversational questions and answers.
Designing My Own Personal Language Crocodile: Participants drew and discussed their ideas for a personalised tangible language friend for their own family, based on the design of the Hard Wooden Crocodile (see Chapter 6 Section 6.6).
Variations of this workshop were run with the Elders from the Reference Group and young children (aged 3-5).
Crocodile Language Friend Family Co-Design Workshop Kit: A Co-design workshop kit was developed for families trying the Crocodile Language Friend soft toy in their homes with family members. While several families were provided with prototypes to trial, a formal design workshop and follow-up interview has only been conducted with one family to date. See Chapter 7 for a description of the activity, and
Appendix F for the kit contents.
Coding on Country Activities: I designed two workshop activities for teenagers as part of the Coding on Country program (Soro et al., 2020). The first was a ‘who am
I?’ guessing game, in which participants programmed their own ‘game show’ buzzer using the Micro:bit (Soro et al., 2020). The second was a workshop to design and play a Treasure Hunt Game with the Crocodile Language Friend, but this became an informal demonstration rather than a formal workshop.
4.5 Data Analysis
4.5.1 Data generated through the research methods The ‘data’ generated through these design methods consisted of:
120 Chapter 4: Methodology
• 8 Wujal Wujal interviews, 7 of which were audio recorded with full written
transcripts, and the researchers’ handwritten notes;
• 6 LRG meetings with audio recordings, full transcripts, and researchers’
handwritten notes;
• 10 different technology demonstrations across the project, during which
handwritten notes were taken
• 10 different hands-on co-design workshops or smaller activities, during
which handwritten notes were taken and some sessions were audio and
video recorded. For ethical and practical reasons, only the audio recordings
from the crocodile family co-design workshops were transcribed for
inclusion in the analysis;
• ~55080 words of daily written field notes from Wujal Wujal fieldwork, and
additional field notes from secondary field sites that were not reported on or
included in the analysis;
• Design artefacts produced through co-design activities such as tangible
prototypes, sketches, planning materials, prototype photographs, and digital
audio and video content;
• Presentation materials such as PowerPoint slides and speaker notes from the
Reference Group meetings and Puliima Conference; and
• Additional project planning artefacts such as the Memorandum of
Understanding and reports to Council.
It is also important to note here what is not data. The specific interactions with, and quotes from, participants reported here are those collected in accordance with the project HREC ethics protocol. Informal, off-the-record conversations, and Council and
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community activities that do not directly relate to the project or are sensitive in nature are not treated as ‘data’ and are not included in the thesis unless explicit permission has been obtained. This project has not involved the recording of sacred stories or knowledge. Respect for confidentiality was formally encoded in the Memorandum of
Understanding between QUT and the Council. The contents of the thesis have been checked back with both the Council and LRG.
4.5.2 Data analysis methods17 Two data analysis methods are associated with this project. Firstly, the ‘Debrief
O’Clock’ (Taylor et al., 2018c) collaborative field note practice, for producing fieldnotes when undertaking immersive design research field studies through structured discussions that take place at the end of each day in the field. With the aid of handwritten notes and design artefacts, the research team sits down together and methodically discusses each of the day’s activities in chronological order to produce detailed written fieldnotes. These written accounts include a description of our initial plans, what happened as the research unfolded, our own impressions and responses, and any open issues or actions items that need to be followed up on. The three functions of Debrief O’Clock are: 1) an early stage data recording and analysis process; 2) a tactical manoeuvre in responsive project planning; and 3) a process that facilitates personal debriefing and reflexivity (Taylor et al., 2018c).
The method was developed to address the specificities of the design work on
Groote Eylandt undertaken during the first year of the PhD project. This was characterised by short fieldwork periods several times per year (1-2 weeks each), almost always undertaken collaboratively, during which few audio and video
17 Parts of this section have appeared in (Taylor et al., 2018c).
122 Chapter 4: Methodology
recordings were taken, and there were a number of different community venues in which a Debrief O’Clock session could take place. On the other hand, the fieldwork in
Wujal Wujal was undertaken over longer periods of time (with the longest continuous fieldwork placement being two months), where I was often the only researcher in the field. I kept detailed field notes about the project which supported data analysis and the thesis writing, however, these were personal notes and less of a primary data source given that audio recordings could be taken. See (Taylor et al., 2018c) for further discussion.
Secondly, the ‘field theory’ method for analysing and summarising people’s interactions and experiences in a particular context, and identifying design questions and opportunities (Ploderer et al., 2019). This method was developed by Ploderer,
Brereton, and Taylor as an approach to teaching interaction and experience design to undergraduate students. This thesis is the first research project outside of the classroom to explicitly use this method, with particular implications as a participatory design method. The field theory method and outputs are presented in Chapter 5.
4.5.3 Participant codes The participant codes that refer to research activities and participants are named as follows:
• ‘RG6’ refers to a particular Language Reference Group Meeting (e.g.
meeting number 6);
• ‘P2’ refers to a participant in an individual interview (e.g. participant
number 2);
• ‘F1’ refers to a participant in the Language Reference Group (e.g. language
reference group participant number 1); and
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• ‘A’ and ‘C’ refer to adults and children in the family workshops
respectively.
There was some overlap in participants between the research activities. Given that it is a small community, in some cases the same person may be referred to with different codes in the different activities. In some cases, it was difficult to distinguish between particular speakers in an audio recording. In this case, the code P/F/A/C may appear without a number, or with a question mark (e.g. F5?).
4.6 Research Ethics Protocol
Initial scoping work was carried out through variations on the Digital
Community Noticeboard project ethics protocol. A new, full committee ethics protocol for this project received initial approval from the QUT University Human Research
Ethics Committee as Protocol number 1800000050 in 2018. An extensive protocol was submitted covering the participants and methods outlined above, and explaining how the research adheres to each of the principles of the NHMRC Guidelines for Ethical
Conduct in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research (National Health and Medical Research Council, 2018a).
Variations to the protocol were subsequently submitted to address changes of personnel, studies of new prototypes developed through the project, and the Coding on Country Activities. A Monitoring Review of the protocol was conducted in October
2019. Ethical considerations and issues are discussed further in Chapter 8 Section
8.7.2. An example of a Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form is included in
Appendix G.
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4.7 Analytical Lens: Postcolonial Computing and Decolonising Methodologies
4.7.1 Overview of decolonising methodologies and postcolonial computing Imperialism, colonisation, and Western research paradigms Since this project has been carried out in a context where colonisation has and is taking place, I have chosen to engage with decolonising methodologies and postcolonial computing as analytical lenses for this work. Influential work on decolonising and Indigenous methodologies by Smith (Smith, 2012, p. 22), Chilisa
(Chilisa, 2020) and others explicate the ways in which scientific research can function as instruments for Western imperialism and colonisation (Smith, 2012). Imperialism is defined as “the acquisition of an empire of overseas colonies and Europeanization of the globe” (Chilisa, 2020, p. 6) with economic, political, and philosophical dimensions (Smith, 2012, p. 22), while colonisation can be understood as “the subjugation of one group by another” with devastating impacts on colonized peoples
(Chilisa, 2020, p. 7) as exemplified by European invasion and colonisation of
Australia.
Western research paradigms are linked to the Enlightenment period and the
“modernist project” (Smith, 2012, pp. 61–62), though their imperial foundations stretch back earlier (Smith, 2012, pp. 45–46). Western scientific traditions developed alongside European exploration and expansion in the 1700-1800’s, through which knowledge was “discovered” and “collected” in service of the European empire as the
“centre” of power (Smith, 2012, pp. 62–64), perpetrated through acts of colonial violence. Not only was knowledge problematically extracted from Indigenous peoples as the “objects” of these activities, but it was reconfigured through foreign practices of analysis, classification, and representation that privilege Western epistemologies
(Smith, 2012, pp. 64–65). As Smith points out, “imperialism and colonialism are the
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specific formations through which the West came to ‘see’, to ‘name’, and to ‘know’ indigenous communities” (Smith, 2012, p. 63).
Contemporary Western scientific research continues to build on these traditions, within the context of economic and cultural globalization that continues to further imperial and colonial agendas (Chilisa, 2020; Smith, 2012). The connection between
Western research paradigms and colonialism and imperialism is illustrated by a number of core themes presented in this literature (though this is not an exhaustive list).
Firstly, in the privileging of epistemologies, ontologies, axiologies, and methodologies that reflect and value Western scientific traditions and worldviews over
Indigenous perspectives, realised through “the imposition of the positivist scientific paradigm approach to research on the colonies and other historical oppressed groups”
(Chilisa, 2020, p. 7). Many of what are considered to be distinctive academic disciplines share common foundations that are “either antagonistic to other belief systems of have no methodology for dealing with other knowledge systems” (Smith,
2012, p. 68). Alternative paradigms and methodologies reflecting the worldviews of the Other may not be valued or considered ‘legitimate’ from the perspective of
Western science (Chilisa, 2020, p. xvii).
Secondly, in the ongoing positioning of Indigenous peoples and communities as subjects and objects, rather than as collaborators or leaders of research (Lambert, 2014;
Smith, 2012), termed by Martin as “terra nullius research” (Martin in Lambert, 2014, p. 15). Knowledge is extracted away from communities, interpreted, and disseminated in academic publications, contributing to a “myriad of representations and ideological constructions of the Other” (Smith, 2012, p. 8). In many cases, community contributions to this work are not named or acknowledged, and the outputs are not
126 Chapter 4: Methodology
shared back with the community in ways that are useful to them (Chilisa, 2020;
Kovach, 2009; Lambert, 2014; Smith, 2012).
Thirdly, in conduct of research that may not create value and generate benefits for Indigenous communities (Smith, 2012). Smith argues that an underlying ideology motivating scientific research is “serving a greater good ‘for mankind’” (Smith, 2012, p. 2), but in doing so may not address the needs and priorities determined by the communities themselves or improve the lives of Indigenous peoples (Smith, 2012, p.
3). Lambert implores researchers to reflect on the following questions: “what does your research do for the community? How does the research empower the community?” (Lambert, 2014, p. 65).
Fourthly, in the ethical concerns when conducting research with Indigenous peoples, particularly when operating from Western ethical frameworks. A number of frameworks and standards for ethical research ethics have been developed by or in consultation with Indigenous peoples (Cram et al., 2013), including the NHMRC
Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health
Research (National Health and Medical Research Council, 2018a) and AIATSIS
Guidelines for Ethical Research in Australian Indigenous Studies (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2012). However, issues such as an emphasis on “liability concerns” (Kovach, 2009, p. 147), an insistence on confidentiality and anonymity in research reporting that may be contrary to participant wishes (Chilisa, 2020, p. 107), and the “commodification of knowledge as intellectual property” (Smith, 2012, p. 109) can place Western ethics protocols in tension with
Indigenous values and protocols.
A common thread running through these themes is the idea of “research as power” (Chilisa, 2020; Kovach, 2009; Smith, 2012). A researchers’ position of power
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is manifested at all stages of the research process, from building arguments with the literature, to designing and executing research programs, and analysing and writing the results (Chilisa, 2020).
Decolonising Methodologies and Indigenous Methodologies It is important to point out that decolonisation literature is not inherently anti- research, despite Smith’s argument that “‘research’, is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary” (Smith, 2012, p. 1). Indigenous peoples have been carrying out their own kinds of ‘research’ since time immemorial (Lambert,
2014, p. 19), and continue to do so both in universities and in community outside of the academic sphere. Academic researchers (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) can work as allies of efforts to further Indigenous self-determination (Smith, 2012, p. 224), and Smith identifies that research can benefit Indigenous peoples, particularly when carried out from an Indigenous research paradigm: “As indigenous peoples we have our own research needs and priorities. Our questions are important. Research helps us to answer them” (Smith, 2012, p. 232). What Indigenous peoples are taking issue with is not necessarily research itself but the problematic ways in which research has and is being carried out in order to advance Western scientific agendas (Cram et al., 2013, p.
11).
There is growing recognition and adoption of a decolonising lens within the academy. Central concerns to the decolonization of research are: centering Indigenous epistemologies as the foundation for research (Chilisa, 2020; Smith, 2012) and embracing them as valid forms of scientific enquiry; challenging and disrupting power differentials and structural inequalities within Western scientific paradigms and academic institutions (Chilisa, 2020; Smith, 2012); developing “a more critical understanding of the underlying assumptions, motivations and values which inform
128 Chapter 4: Methodology
research practices” (Smith, 2012, p. 21); advancing Indigenous self-determination and empowerment (Chilisa, 2020; Smith, 2012); attending to the “politics of representation” when reporting on research about Indigenous peoples (Kovach, 2009, p. 33); and developing research outputs that are “useful” and delivers practical benefit to Indigenous communities (Chilisa, 2020; Lambert, 2014; Smith, 2012).
Indigenous methodologies are distinguished from Western methodologies through their location in “tribal epistemologies” (Kovach, 2009, p. 25), and can work together with a decolonising lens in a number of different ways (Kovach, 2009, p. 80).
For example, Chilisa proposes a “postcolonial indigenous research paradigm” that works from “shared aspects of ontology, epistemology, axiology, and research methodologies of the colonized other” (Chilisa, 2020, p. 23). It takes researcher- community responsibilities and relations as the starting point for scholarly enquiry
(Chilisa, 2020, p. 23). Kovach (and others) have articulated Indigenous methodologies that are grounded in the worldviews of specific Indigenous groups, such as an
“Nêhiýaw Methodology” (Kovach, 2009). A number of conceptual frameworks have also been developed to guide research with and by Indigenous communities that promote community values and agendas, in Australia (e.g Hornung, 2013; Lambert,
2014) and elsewhere (e.g. Kovach, 2009; Lambert, 2014; Smith, 2012). Aspects of these conceptual frameworks have been taken up in the agreements between the
University and Council on ways of working together discussed in Chapter 3.
Postcolonial computing Within the HCI research community, postcolonial theory and decolonising literature has been considered in particular within the area of “postcolonial computing”
(Dourish et al., 2020; Irani et al., 2010, 2009; Philip et al., 2012). Postcolonial computing draws from work in HCI and Computer Supported Cooperative Work
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(CSCW), Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Postcolonial Studies (Irani et al.,
2009, p. 249). While there have been critiques of the term “postcolonial” from
Indigenous perspectives (Chilisa, 2020; Smith, 2012), authors of this work emphasize that postcolonial here does not imply that colonisation has finished, but is used in the sense that “colonial conditions persist, albeit in novel ways” (Dourish et al., 2020, p.
418:2).
Rather than representing a particular framework or methodology, Irani and colleagues position postcolonial computing as an “alternative sensibility to the process of design and analysis” (Irani et al., 2010, p. 1311). It acknowledges that “all design research and practice is culturally located and power laden” (Irani et al., 2010, p. 1312).
A key focus of this work is on the power dimensions of cultural and technological flows in a globalization context, critically analysing case studies from international
‘development’ projects among others. Postcolonial computing literature is critical of taxonomic cultural models and reductive views of “what counts as legitimate design practice” (Irani et al., 2010, p. 1317), advocating for generative perspectives that recognise and reflects the inherent “hybridity” and “heterogeneity” of design work
(Irani et al., 2010, 2009). Scholars such as Nichols have articulated a “First Australian design paradigm” that has its foundations in distinct intellectual traditions, values, and practices to Western design practices (Nichols, 2015).
Postcolonial computing work draws on some case studies from Aboriginal
Australia (Irani et al., 2010). More recent work by Dourish and colleagues has given particular consideration to implications of iterative design methods with respect to working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and from the perspective of participants themselves (Dourish et al., 2020). While this work raises a number of critical questions and issues, it has not included an in-depth consideration of
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researching and designing from Indigenous perspectives, nor the domain area of designing for Indigenous language revitalisation. There has also been some discussion of decolonising design within the participatory design community (Smith et al., 2020), though Smith and colleagues point to gaps between the two agendas, and argue that the grounding of participatory design in Western epistemologies could mean that
“well-intended PD practices still intrinsically promote[s] neocolonial design” despite its aims (Smith et al., 2020, p. 96).
4.7.2 Applying a decolonising lens to my own work A decolonising perspective helped to guide and think through the design and conduct of this research, as well as providing an analytical lens to reflect back on my work and assess the ways in which it both contributed to and countered decolonising efforts. I was confronted with a number of tensions and challenges in attempting to operate in ways that decolonised my research approach and design practices. These tensions arose in part from the nature of the system in which I was required to operate to undertake this doctoral research, presenting structural issues that were difficult to address and to challenge within the project. In other cases, these tensions related to my methodological choices, to which I am accountable.
Undertaking this project as a non-Indigenous PhD student There is a need to account for the authorial voice in research outputs about participatory design projects, and write in ways that uphold PD’s political commitments (Light, 2018). An inherent paradox in undertaking this project is that being a non-Indigenous PhD student, who is not a Kuku Yalanji speaker or member of the three clan groups, made it difficult to centre Indigenous perspectives in the research conduct or the thesis writing. A key challenge was finding ways of working that acknowledged and aligned with “ways of knowing, being, and doing” (Martin, 2003)
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of the Aboriginal peoples involved in this project. I engaged in collaborative approaches to different facets of the design and research activities, including determining the project pillars and vision, engaging with people in the design activities, and sharing and checking back the designs and research outputs with the
Council and Language Reference Group.
Yet, as a doctoral student, the expectation is that the majority of the work is to be completed by the student, and the thesis authored in the student’s name is examined for their research skills and ability to satisfy the requirements of their program of study.
This made it difficult to decentre the perspective of the researcher in the thesis, and to avoid engaging in a type of “Othering” (Said in Smith, 2012, p. 1) when describing the community and the project, when there are boundaries to collaboration in producing the thesis document. This is a pertinent issue in a technology design project, as Leclair and Warren comment on the potential for technology to “feed embedded histories and misunderstanding of indigenous peoples”, as well as breaching social protocols and undermining rights to language and traditional knowledges (Leclair et al., 2007, p. 4).
Working with the Kuku Yalanji speakers to develop their own conceptual models for collaborative research (Hornung, 2013) and that represent their language practices, and using these as a foundation for designing the research program rather than being an output of the process, could have helped to strengthen Indigenous perspectives in this work.
Conceptualising the research “problem” and choosing theoretical constructs The choice of research questions and theoretical constructs is a significant activity in terms of “framing” the research project in ways that address the issues that matter to the community rather than being student “researcher-centric” (Chilisa, 2020,
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p. 322). Smith highlights that a shortcoming in the conceptualisation of many research projects involving Indigenous peoples is “assum[ing] that the locus of a particular research problem lies with the indigenous individual or community rather than with other social or structural issues” (Smith, 2012, p. 95). Lambert also argues that “the research must move the community forward by asking a positive and strengthening research question” (Lambert, 2014, p. 67), linking to a push for “strengths-based approaches” to projects and programs involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (e.g. Fogarty et al., 2018).
A proposed framing for this work at the time of the Stage 2 (three month) milestone was to “Design with Australian Aboriginal Peoples to Enrich the Current and Future Experience of Living in ‘Two Worlds’”, a notion articulated by a number of scholars and public figures such as Noel Pearson (Pearson, 2006) and reflected in areas of work such as “both ways pedagogy” (Bat et al., 2014). ‘Experiences’ are a common unit of study and analysis in HCI (Preece et al., 2015), and this orientation guided my conduct of interviews with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students during the scoping study. However, focussing the research on the lived experiences of a population of which I was not a part, and interpreting these insights from my own non-Indigenous standpoint felt untenable from a decolonising perspective.
After the initial visit with the Wujal Wujal community in 2017, I shifted the framing to the “Participatory Design of Technology to Support the Intergenerational
Transmission of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages”, given the community’s interest in partnering on a technology design project for Kuku Yalanji, and Smith’s discussion of language revitalisation as an “Indigenous project” (Smith,
2012, pp. 147–148). I had reasoned that re-orienting the project towards the construct of “language” rather than “culture” would move away from a cross-cultural framing
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as critiqued in postcoloning computing literature (Dourish et al., 2020; Irani et al.,
2010). Project materials with this revised framing and theoretical constructs were submitted for consideration by the Council in documents such as the ethics protocol documents, MoU, and draft publications.
Yet, one of the ongoing issues arising from this new project title was the generalisability of findings to speech communities of other Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander languages. This was compounded by the original inclusion of a number of ‘secondary field sites’ in the project. The choice of language such as the
“Aboriginal” as a theoretical construct was also not uncontentious, given that there are three different dialect groups residing in the community, and that individual people may identify with other terms.
Towards the conclusion of the PhD project, the final thesis title was changed again to narrow the theoretical constructs to specifically address the Kuku Yalanji
Aboriginal language, reflecting the terminology used in the Council name, and to incorporate the idea of “talking strong”. While identifying the Kuku Yalanji language as Aboriginal in the title helps readers connect this work to the body of literature on language revitalisation, the title does not specify that the participants in the study identified as being Aboriginal, or specifically Aboriginal people from Wujal Wujal, as there were a number of non-Aboriginal people involved in the project as well.
Clarification is provided in the research outputs that every community is different, and the approaches taken in this thesis many not necessarily be applicable everywhere.
Use of Western research methods An underlying logic of research ethics protocols is that projects with people will involve data collection and analysis, with the focus of the ethics documentation being on governing approaches to these activities. Research methods used in this project such
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as interviews and focus groups can be understood with respect to the interpretive paradigm of Western qualitative research (Chilisa, 2020, p. 38). These are common methods in HCI and PD research, with the academic community expecting publications to report on empirically-grounded design work to demonstrate the foundation of the author’s arguments and claims in the data, and provide a description of the data analysis approach.
However, my adoption of these methods inevitably entailed the collection of data about people, and putting this in the hands of the researcher, particularly when carried out as part of a PhD project. I chose to use these methods as a starting point since they reflected my experience and training. As such, my research methodology cannot be described as an “Indigenous methodology” given its basis in Western scientific traditions. In taking these approaches however, I sought to adjust these methods to better align with community values and protocols. This included attempting to conduct interviews and focus groups in the dialogical style of yarning (Bessarab et al., 2010) where participants took a more active role in shaping the direction of the conversation, particularly for the LRG meetings that often moved away from the pre-prepared guide.
The fact that only a small number of community members were willing to take part in individual interviews, and the reluctance of people to participate as co- investigators in this activity, suggests that alternative approaches may have been needed. I rationalised the use of this method in several ways. As a number of people were willing to be interviewed, I reflected that it is commonplace in any project for some people to be willing to participate in some activities while others are not. Feeling the time pressure of having limited opportunities to interact with Elders during the fieldwork periods, I fell back on familiar research methods without the training or experience to determine how things could be done differently. I recognise now that
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this would have been a key moment to reconsider my methods, engage more deeply with the tricky questions, and work with people to develop methods in situ that resonated more broadly with the community members.
The ‘field theory’ as a data analysis method Since a key mechanism for sharing research findings back with the community was to discuss them with the Council and the LRG, I sought an alternative analysis approach to lengthy written accounts that would support the communication of research findings through this process. For this reason, the field theory (Ploderer et al.,
2019) analysis method was chosen, which presents a summary of the ‘field’ in a diagrammatic form with an accompanying written description of the main elements.
Yet, the selection of a ‘theorising’ method has certain ramifications when viewed through a decolonising lens. Smith relates that:
Indigenous peoples have been, in many ways, oppressed by theory. Any
consideration of the ways our origins have been examined, our histories,
recounted, our arts analysed our cultures dissected, measured, torn apart and
distorted back on us will suggest that theories have not looked sympathetically
or ethically at us. (Smith, 2012, p. 39).
I made the decision to incorporate the field theory as a method for analysing and presenting the field insights late in the project, at ‘thesis time’ while writing up the work from Brisbane, rather than during ‘design time;’ in Wujal Wujal. As a result, I had a strong interpretative presence in the work that was difficult to explicitly address and account for in the field theory itself, even though it was developed based on discussions with the Elders in the LRG. Greater analytical richness and depth would come from better connecting this with the worldview of Kuku Yalanji speakers, and more actively engaging with community members in co-designing the field theory.
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The metaphors and visual design of the field theory are not connected with Kuku
Yalanji artistic practices, as I felt that I would be problematically appropriating them in doing so.
Community ownership of the research data and outputs Interview notes and audio recordings of their own interviews were provided to those participants who were interested in keeping their own copy. Key findings from the LRG group meetings and design activities have been summarised in the written thesis, which will be printed as a book for the participants and Indigenous Knowledge
Centre library to keep. Pre-publication versions of the papers relating to Wujal Wujal have been included in the appendices of the printed thesis, and are also freely available online through QUT E-Prints. Co-authoring practices involving these research papers are discussed in the following section.
The audio recordings taken during the project (particularly of the LRG) are often difficult to interpret without visually seeing the interactions certain prototypes recorded therein. The content of these sessions in their original form does not necessarily have intrinsic value to the community, unlike recordings of personal histories and stories that the community holds dear. Few language recordings or linguistic transcriptions were produced through the research activities, apart from a small number of short seed recordings to display on the prototypes. This suggests the need for further consideration in selecting research methods that produce materials which are of value to both the research team and community.
4.7.3 Community involvement in writing the research outputs Issues regarding the writing of research involving Indigenous people are addressed at length in literature on decolonising methodologies (Chilisa, 2020;
Kovach, 2009; Smith, 2012), but are under-addressed in HCI and PD literature (Light,
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2018; Light et al., 2016). Considerations about writing through a decolonising lens include the ways in which Indigenous peoples are “represented or excluded from various accounts” (Smith, 2012, p. 29), the nature of academic systems in which research publications are highly valued for career development (Smith, 2012, p. 206), in some cases over the real-world impact of research within communities, and academic writing conventions that position English language publications as ‘the norm’ (Chilisa, 2020, p. 15).
Numerous scholars highlight the importance of “sharing knowledge back” with communities (Kovach, 2009; Lambert, 2014; Smith, 2012), but note that “it is not common practice.” (Lambert, 2014, p. 78). Since the practices involving the writing and dissemination of the research outputs were one aspect of the research conduct that we were able to rework for Wujal Wujal as an alternative to standard academic conventions, they are given particular consideration here. Much of this project was unpublished until a process was put in place to check back and seek approval from the
Council and Reference Group. The Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council are also co- authors on the research papers to reflect their wishes, and as such, are joint intellectual property holders of the written research outputs. Individual community members did not necessarily wish to stand out above others by being named as individual authors on the work.
Presenting at the 2019 Puliima Indigenous Languages and Technology Conference I co-presented the project at the 2019 Puliima Indigenous Languages and
Technology Conference in Darwin during August 2019 with two community Elders.
One Elder was funded by Council, and the other Elder was funded by the QUT
Computer-Human Interaction Discipline. Participating in the conference provided the community representatives with the opportunity to hear from others, present our own
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project, and network with representatives from local Councils, Aboriginal corporations, technology companies, researchers, government, and not-for-profit agencies.
We co-designed the presentation content based on the information that the community wished to share about the project. The Elders provided an introduction to the community and the LRG, including an acknowledgement of Traditional Owners, information about Wujal Wujal, what their languages means to them, and their hopes for the future. My own section of the presentation covered the iterative design process, including what was learnt from each version of the prototype, and the ‘final’ design.
We showed a video recording of the presentation to the LRG during Meeting 6. A copy of our accepted abstract for the talk is provided in Appendix I.
Community involvement in the thesis and publication During LRG Meeting 6 (RG6), I presented a plan of my final thesis with summaries of each chapter and a draft of the Foreword for comment. The LRG gave feedback and made decisions about several aspects of the thesis presentation. This included the acknowledgement of community involvement in the project, the use of the Kuku Yalanji language in the thesis title (though they felt that it would not be useful for the chapter titles given the English-speaking audience), and the use of photographs and imagery such as the cover artwork. While the LRG felt that quotes should remain anonymous, they were eager for the names and photographs of the LRG to be included in the acknowledgements as a record of the project for the community:
“We’ve got to think ahead, our future generation. It’s their history” (F3).
A draft of the full thesis and the final seminar content were sent to the Council and community to review prior to examination. Given the COVID-19 travel restrictions, I held two teleconference meetings with some community members via
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Zoom. We discussed the main thesis content chapter-by-chapter, and I used a
PowerPoint presentation to highlight key figures and findings, show the community how the data was written up and presented, and ask for their feedback on particular parts such as checking the Kuku Yalanji language content. The Elders made valuable contributions, such as elaborating on glossary definitions and practices mentioned in the thesis from their own perspective. Two participants involved in the work also reviewed the thesis in full prior to external examination, and were recognised with an examiner’s honorarium for their contributions.
Community involvement in research publications The Council as an organisation requested to be co-authors of research papers and articles resulting from the project, and to review and approve content prior to publication beyond approvals given by participants in the consent forms. The OzCHI
2019 paper received formal endorsement by the Council, and subsequent CHI 2020
Late Breaking Work Paper was reviewed and approved by Council management.
We have also taken up the call to pursue “more novel and tailored approaches”
(Light, 2018, p. 1) to writing up this project in ways that align with the community’s values and protocols. Each of our papers also includes an acknowledgement of community’s Traditional Owners in the paper opening and acknowledgements section.
The OzCHI 2019 paper also comes with the following footnote at the request of the
Council: “Quotes from participants included in this publication should not be reproduced without permission from Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council” (Taylor et al., 2019b).
These practices address research question 2c) What collaborative methods can support the documentation, analysis, and presentation of insights from immersive design field research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities?
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4.7.4 Conclusions This chapter has provided an overview of the methodology, study design, and research methods informing the conduct of this research project. Bringing a decolonising perspective to bear on these methods highlights the tensions and paradoxes that I encountered in carrying out this work. Through this nuanced account of the research practices, I have reflected on the potential for various aspects of my methodological choices to help or hinder decolonization efforts, and identified limitations that could be addressed by making different choices in future. The participatory practices of communicating and validating the research findings with the community also suggests possibilities for alternative ways of designing, researching, and writing with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
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Chapter 5. A Field Theory of Kuku Yalanji
Language Use
5.1 Introduction
This chapter contributes an intergenerational ‘field theory’ of Kuku Yalanji language use, based on the contextual work undertaken in Phase 2 of the project.
I begin by introducing the field theory method in Section 5.2, developed through teaching an undergraduate interaction and experience design course, and used here for the first time in a community-based participatory design project. I outline the process undertaken for developing my own field theory in Section 5.3.
Next, I present the field theory diagram in Section 5.4, and a description in
Section 5.5 that highlights three themes: 1) Language use ABOUT, THROUGH,
WITH, and FROM family relations; 2) Language use through time and bridging generational positions; and 3) Taking a whole-of-community lens on language use.
This work responds to research question 1b) How is the Kuku Yalanji language currently used by Elders and children in the Wujal Wujal community, and what role does technology currently play?
The discussion in Section 5.6.1 articulates the resulting project name and pillars, and details three design questions and considerations emerging from the field theory, as well as reflecting on the field theory as a method for participatory design outside of the classroom.
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5.2 Field Theory Method
5.2.1 Definition of a field theory A field theory is an approach to analysing and summarising people’s interactions and experiences with technology within a particular context or setting. It is “a useful simplification of what, how, why and where interaction occurs in the way that it does for your chosen user group or groups and the design questions that it presents”
(Brereton, 2016, p. 1). A field theory does not aim to provide a complete description of the field, but is rather a ‘pragmatic pruning’ of the data to present those aspects most relevant to supporting design practice.
A field theory is descriptive, conceptual, and generative since it describes people’s activities in the field, proposes key insights about the domain being examined, and identifies opportunities and questions for possible design interventions (Ploderer et al., 2019). The field theory both supports the practices of technology design, and is an end in itself as a method of analysing and presenting the findings of empirical work, which can be further tested and refined in light of insights gained through the design process.
The field theory consists of two key elements. Firstly, a ‘field theory diagram’ that depicts the elements of the field (people, context, and technology), presents a synthesis of empirical work illustrated by specific quotes and examples, and identifies design questions and touchpoints (Ploderer et al., 2019). The field theory diagram should provide a “standalone representation” of knowledge about the field (Ploderer et al., 2019, p. 4) that is purposefully communicated through the diagram elements, structure, and composition. Secondly, a ‘field theory description’ that elaborates on the key elements in the diagram.
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The field theory was originally developed by Brereton, Ploderer, and Taylor as a method for teaching HCI research skills to undergraduate students through the QUT course CAB310 Interaction and Experience Design. As this thesis is the first project that has explicitly engaged with this method outside of the classroom, the method has been extended for use with a larger and more diverse data set, to support a participatory design process, and to frame the field theory as an HCI knowledge contribution beyond the scope of undergraduate assessment.
Field theories are initially developed through an empirical investigation of people’s technology use within a particular setting, and then tested and refined through the process of designing technologies that address its design opportunities and issues.
Insights gained through the design process can help to clarify, verify, and elaborate aspects of the field theory in further detail (Ploderer et al., 2019). For this project, the initial field theory was developed based on the work undertaken during Phase 2:
Understanding Kuku Yalanji language and technology use, Wujal Wujal, June 2018 –
November 2018, and revised through the design and evaluation of the Crocodile
Language Friend (Chapter 7).
5.2.2 Relationship to existing data gathering and analysis methods The field theory method has been influenced by, and bears some resemblance to existing qualitative and design research such as grounded theory, phenomenology, thematic analysis, strong concepts, and annotated portfolios (see Appendix H for a detailed comparison table). Some resonances with existing methods are described in the following section.
Relationship to established theory Established theories and prior work can inform the development and presentation of the field theory. This can be likened to the ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’
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grounding of a ‘strong concept’ with respect to foundational theories and other existing concepts (Höök et al., 2012). Field theories can explicitly reference and build on existing theories, unlike grounded theories that are inductively generated from the data and less commonly reference prior work in their conceptual models (Creswell et al.,
2018).
Generation of new theory Field theories involve the generation of new theory from empirical data about people’s experiences, going further than ‘thematic analysis’ (Braun et al., 2006) to examine the interrelationships between the themes, and visually present these in the form of a diagram. Although grounded theory may be presented as a diagram, the field theory diagram is grounded in the specifics of the data by featuring quotes from participants and low-level concepts. It does not need to be scoped around one central category (Corbin et al., 2008) in the same way as a grounded theory.
Relationship to design practice Field theories are “generative” in the sense that they inspire and inform new technology designs in the same way as ‘strong concepts’ (Höök et al., 2012), and the field theory and emerging designs mutually shape each other as with ‘annotated portfolios’ (Bowers, 2012). However, both of these methods start from the designs first to derive the concept, or create the annotation on a collection of designs (Bowers,
2012), rather than on the contextual research about the field. Additionally, while the field theory is a summary, it cannot be easily distilled down to a single concept, as in the strong concept of “seamfulness” (Höök et al., 2012).
Scope of field theory as intermediate knowledge The field theory functions as “intermediate-level knowledge” in having salience beyond individual designs, but is strongly grounded in the specifics of the field
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(Ploderer et al., 2019, p. 2). Field theory diagrams have a direct relationship to the field
(i.e. with the inclusion of specific quotes and examples from participants in the diagram), and seek to identify features and design questions particular to those people involved in the study, rather than seeking to distil the “universal essence” of an experience for everyone as with phenomenology (Creswell et al., 2018, p. 75).
Analysis method The analysis process presented for the field theory follows similar stages to the generic “Data Analysis Spiral” of preparing data for analysis, coding for concepts and themes, and presenting an interpretation in written and visual forms (Creswell et al.,
2018, p. 186). The field theory shares with phenomenology the dual aim of both describing the nature of a process or activity itself, as well as how it is experienced by participants (Creswell et al., 2018, p. 76) . However, the field theory does not follow the rigid open, axial, and selective coding and memoing processes in grounded theory
(Corbin et al., 2008) due to its integrative and provisional nature (see Section 5.6.5 for further discussion).
5.3 Process of Developing the Field Theory
5.3.1 Step 1: Defining the field Defining the ‘field’ involves working at the intersection of: 1) a particular group of people, 2) a specific context in which practices and activities occur; and 3) the technologies that are already used within the field, and those developed through the project (Ploderer et al., 2019).
The people represented in this field theory are members of the Wujal Wujal community, with a particular focus on young Aboriginal children, and Elders who are language speakers and were part of the LRG. Other community groups and service
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providers such as the Council are referenced due to their role in community language activities.
The context of the field theory is the Wujal Wujal community, and the settings in which language activities and use take place such as the home, the Indigenous
Knowledge Centre, and the Kindergarten.
The technologies under consideration for this field theory development were existing devices and platforms owned and used by the community (e.g. mobile phones, computers, laptops), and our existing tangible technology prototypes, in particular the
Ambient Birdhouse (Soro et al., 2018).
5.3.2 Step 2: Identifying existing theories to inspire and inform the field theory There are a number of existing theories and prior work that informed the development of the field theory outlined in Chapter 2 Literature Review. This includes the concept of active language use (Oxford et al., 1995), insights from language revitalisation scholarship (Hinton et al., 2018b) and language shift, and prior HCI work on tangible user interfaces such as Hornecker and Buur’s Tangible Interactions
Framework (Hornecker et al., 2006).
5.3.3 Step 3: Gathering empirical data through field research The field theory was developed through contextual research in Wujal Wujal to understand the community’s language situation and technology use. The data considered ‘in scope’ for this initial field theory was gathered during project Phase 1 and Phase 2, prior to the iterative participatory design of the Crocodile Language
Friend in Phase 3 (see Chapter 4 Section 4.3 for an overview of the research phases).
The following data formed the basis of this initial field theory:
• The first 5 interviews with adult language speakers (P1-P5);
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• The first 2 meetings of the Language Reference Group meetings (RG1-
RG2);
• Notes from demonstrations of the Ambient Birdhouse at the Kindergarten
and Indigenous Knowledge Centre;
• Fieldnotes from my own participation in community language activities
(such as NAIDOC week) and efforts to learn Kuku Yalanji; and
• Project documents and meeting notes with Council staff.
Subsequent data collected during the design process informed the development of the revised field theory in Chapter 7.
5.3.4 Step 4: Data analysis The analysis process to develop the field theory consisted of the following activities using the NVivo qualitative analysis software (QSR International, 1997):
Conducting an initial thematic analysis of the interview data I conducted an initial thematic analysis (Braun et al., 2006) of the five interview transcripts to develop an empirically-grounded account of the community’s intergenerational language transmission and use (Taylor et al., 2019b). The codes that were generated pointed to the importance of the home context and family relations to language use. The data was then re-reviewed through the lens of family relations, guided by the question of what role family relations played in language teaching, learning, and use, particularly involving young children.
This initial analysis facilitated the identification of four key intersections between language and family relations: 1) Language use ABOUT family relations; 2)
Language use THROUGH family relations; 3) Language use while DOING family
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activities; and 4) Focusing design on family language use and working outwards
FROM the home. These are discussed further in Section 5.5.1.
However, the analysis needed to integrate insights from the larger data set listed in the previous section, and incorporate findings from across these sources in the field theory. A second process of data analysis was carried out as follows.
Coding the broader data set for ‘concepts’ and ‘themes’ I transcribed and coded the broader data set to continue building on the previous analysis. Coding involved reading through a document line-by-line, and developing codes which “stand for groups of classes of objects, events, and actions that share some major common property(ies)” (Corbin et al., 2008, p. 45).
The codes represented different aspects of research such as recurring ideas from participants (e.g. “standing strong”, going “on Country”); different types of interactions with and around the existing prototypes (e.g. “asking questions about the content”); and contextual information about the community language situation, such as existing community strengths and environmental barriers to language use.
Since the Elder’s interactions with the Ambient Birdhouse were captured in the audio recordings of the Language Reference Group meetings, this facilitated a form of
‘audio interaction analysis’ by coding the interactions in the meeting audio recordings, bearing some resemblance to the established video interaction analysis method (Jordan et al., 1995).
Given the Council and LRG’s desire to focus on young children and Elders, the perspectives of three groups (Elders, children, and Council) became important to represent in the field theory. While the code list was initially structured around
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activities with the existing technology prototypes, this meant that the analysis was undertaken from a techno-centric viewpoint.
The code list was restructured to emphasise the different perspectives of these three groups, and consider the interplay of these positions in understanding language use (Figure 8). Developing ‘in vivo’ codes in the participants own words (e.g. “set it up properly”, “keep it strong”) helped ground the codes in the specifics of the data and retain the voice of participants in the analysis.
Figure 8: Structure of code list by prototype, and then by perspective.
The concepts were sorted and grouped to identify higher level themes that were representative of each group’s perspective (Braun et al., 2006). Running word frequency queries on the data coded for each group, and displaying the top 100 terms as ‘word clouds’ helped to identify interests and values representative of each group with some interpretation of the results (Figure 9). These show that word ‘know’ and its various meanings was the most frequently mentioned term across the groups.
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Figure 9: Word clouds from the coded data. (clockwise from top left): Children, Council, environmental factors affecting language use, and Elders/adult language speakers.
I developed a list of themes using the word frequency clouds and sorting the codes (Figure 10). Some themes are labelled with the names of codes to preserve the participant’s voices in the themes, while other themes were labelled with new terms.
These themes became elements of the field theory diagram and description.
Theme Related concepts or terms Group(s) represented Know Don’t know, know language, know role and importance of All groups language and what children miss out on, forgetting and remembering language, young people don’t understand, taking language for granted. Engage Engaging people in design, engaging interactions, engaging All groups with language, making fun, learning language from people, participate, non-engagement, interests, motivations, multisensory tech. Talking, Speaking language, speaking in full sentences, Elders/adults speaking understanding and producing language (know it and can fluently pass it on), active language use, keeping language alive. Generational Investment impact, support, invest, skills, tools, security of Council impact physical and cultural assets, recording, preservation, revitalisation.
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Capacity Technology as connector, opportunities, skills, projects, Council partners own terms, reciprocity, both ways/two ways, maintaining ownership/control. Doing things Maintaining cultural integrity, terms, speaking language Elders/adults right correctly, right way, tradition and transformation. Strong Keeping language strong, standing strong, talking strong, Elders/adults, immersion, language as therapeutic, relationship between Council language and country, Lore, identity. Elders We have to wake up our people, respecting Elders, listening Elders/adults to Elders, telling, showing, country, that’s my language, ngana (we). Encourage Shy, peer pressure, attitudes to language, ask questions, Children shame, show, teach. Cultural Learning journey, language at different stages, learner led Children, journey education. youth Figure 10: List of themes representative of each participant group’s perspective.
Developing a structure for the field theory diagram A structure for the field theory was developed by reducing the code list to identify the main aspects of language use represented in the data (Figure 11) and categories representing each perspective.
Attitudes to language Aspirations for the future Activities Attitudes to technology Motivations for engaging (in language, Engagement in design project) Key Phrases/Concepts Examples of language use, language Values practices Visions for the project Relevant topics for teaching/learning Skills Types of social interactions Resources Interactions with prototypes Figure 11: Aspects relating to language use applicable to each perspective.
5.4 Field Theory Diagram
This section presents the field theory diagram (Figure 12). This field theory diagram indicates the three primary themes addressed in the field theory description using different colours (grey, green, and blue respectively) and numbering. The teenagers and adults/parents appear in grey to indicate that they are key parties in language use, but are not the focus of the field theory and the project, which is on young children and Elders.
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The diagram summarises key insights from those involved in the study. This is not to say that the field theory applies to everyone in the community, nor does it suggest that the values and interests of Elders are not held by children and vice versa.
Rather, it provides an indication of the positions of the people involved in the study, and serves as a summary of the data for the purposes of technology design.
Figure 12: Kuku Yalanji field theory diagram.
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5.5 Field Theory Description
5.5.1 Theme 1: Language use ABOUT, THROUGH, WITH, and FROM family relations18 The first consideration highlighted in the field theory is the role that language plays as a connector between younger and older generations of language speakers.
Four key intersections were between language and family relations.
Language use ABOUT family relations The first intersection between language and family relations is language use
ABOUT family relations. The topic of family often serves as a starting point for teaching Kuku Yalanji both at home and in educational settings. Talking about family connects to the new Australian Curriculum for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2019). Social life, including the family tree and kinship terms, was one of the language teaching topics for which a previous Reference Group created lesson plans and materials (other topics were animals, directions, land and sea, and body parts).
These resources are still used in children’s language lessons today, with family members being a topic that is applicable to every learner. According to P2, the family forms a resource for supporting multimodal language teaching by visualizing the family tree, written family terms, and the sounds of these words “you know you got
Mum in English and then ngamu, and the kids are seeing the word, how to spell it, and how to say it” (P2). Starting from the family, children can learn associated language such as how to introduce family members in terms of their life history, personality, and interests.
18 Parts of this section have appeared in (Taylor et al., 2019b).
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The relationship between understanding language and cultural knowledge about family relations was also linked to the idea of strengthening “respect” between older and young people and maintaining a sense of identity. According to P2, this existing respect is strengthened through awareness of the family tree “And that’s where […] respect is coming for each other and the community. If you know your family tree, your relations, the respect will come back more” (P2). P5 stated that respect was also associated with the idea of “never losing respect for our old people and what they have to offer” (P5) as custodians of the language.
“Knowing language” is not only about skills and knowledge in the language, but also knowing one’s history, culture, and place in the network of community relations.
Participants expressed concern about the potential for this respect to be eroded through the process of intergenerational language shift: “When I’m put six-foot underground, what’s going to happen? Are you going to lose the culture, or are you going to lose your language and that respect?” (P1). This suggests that knowing language about family relations has social benefits in strengthening the intergenerational bonds connecting older and younger language speakers.
It is important to note that Western conceptualization of the ‘nuclear family’ can differ from Aboriginal kinship systems, which “reflect a complex and dynamic system that is not captured by existing non-Indigenous definitions of family” (Lohoar et al.,
2014, p. 1). This includes views as to who is considered to be a family member, and the network of people involved in childrearing which can be “fluid in their composition, with kinship networks overlapping, and adults and children often moving between households” (Lohoar et al., 2014, p. 4). Specific cultural knowledge about kinship structures and family dynamics is expressed through the Kuku Yalanji kinship
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terms (e.g. there are distinct words for ‘mother’s father’ and ‘father’s father’). These kinship terms in Kuku Yalanji were part of P3’s own language learning journey:
when we’re out hunting and gathering and stuff like that, a lot of the things we
were looking for were always, said in the language name, so that made it very
easy for us as we spoke. As we grew older we knew different names of animals,
different names for uncles and aunties and cousins you know, and all those
common things that we speak of. So yeah, that’s how I learnt how to speak my
local language (P3).
This reminds us that there is not necessarily a direct mapping between English terms for family relations and those in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages but instead a complex interplay between languages and knowledge systems.
Language use THROUGH family relations The second intersection between language and family relations is language use
THROUGH family relations, which is embedded in relationships between particular people and shaped by their qualities. For example, some participants recounted learning by sitting on their grandparent’s knee: “I learnt the language from my grandparents. […] When I used to go home from school in the afternoon and my grandparents used to sit and speak to us in language and say, this is what, you need to speak your language and keep it alive” (P2).
Some adults also used humour as a way of engaging with children. For P5, it was their older family member who “laughed a lot” and created songs about whatever activity they were doing which helped them to remember language: “it was just those little constant tunes that stuck in your memory” (P5). P2 deliberately brought humour into their language activities to help children who are shy about speaking language feel more at ease and encourage them to “give it a go” (P2).
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Elders expressed a strong sense of gratitude to their older family members for taking on that teaching role, with one participant describing it as “an honour to learn a lot from my grandmother’s side” (P5). These examples highlight the personal touch in language learning, and suggest the need for playful designs in order to appeal to young learners.
Part of this family connectedness through language comes from Elders sharing their life stories and family histories and teaching language through this process, with both the language and stories functioning as “a legacy of the old people” (P1). For example, one Elder tells their children stories about their own lives, with P5 talking about “my childhood growing up, and how we learnt different ways, and stories that were told to me by my Grandfather and my Mum and my Aunty” (P5). Life in community today is different from Elders’ own experiences of growing up there. P1 also related stories of how they used to gather food as children and feels that young people may not have shared these experiences “I think it’s hard for them to understand what we went through a long time ago” (P1).
Given the importance of spending time with family members for language learning, participants identified the need to support language teaching and learning with both adult and child family members who are living away. P4 explained the effects on language learning when children are away from their grandparents: “those children who live with their grandparents are more fluent than those ones that don’t”
(P4).
Participants identified several different types of family relations that could benefit from technology to support family communication and language learning over a distance. These include: youth at boarding school; people who are in hospital elsewhere; people who were displaced from community as children and are
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reconnecting with language and culture for the first time; and families that have moved away from community for other reasons. This suggests the potential to couple language learning with family communication both within the same home, between the home and other community settings, and with people from the community who are living elsewhere.
Language use WITH relations while doing family activities The third intersection between language and family is the process of teaching and learning language in context while doing activities WITH family, particularly when these happen ‘on Country’. Most interview participants (P1, P2, P3, P5) described language teaching and learning as tightly coupled with social activities on country such as hunting, gathering oysters, fishing, digging for yams, and talking around the camp fire. Participants described their family members “taking the kids on walks and showing them firsthand the different plants, animals, the area itself, different significant sites” (P2).
Older family members would use questions and answers as a way of eliciting responses in language about what children are doing and seeing on country: “you say what’s this or what’s that, or for going this way, which way do we go? Or you know,
I’ll ask a question in language and [the children] could answer” (P5). P3 also recounted teaching their own children the language by pointing out things while out on country:
“Whenever we’re out and about, you know, if we see different animals, I call them by, you know, the language name. […] that helps them understand what I’m saying, you know, that helps them speak the language” (P3). This illustrates the situated and experiential nature of language learning through the community’s language practices, as opposed to mobile apps where learning is taught independently from user contexts.
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Participants (P1-P5) discussed a number of different types of family activities that facilitate language teaching and learning. Firstly, singing and songwriting in language, including adults singing songs to their children, a community choir that performs Christmas carols in Kuku Yalanji, and a rap song in language created as a collaboration between the school and an NGO. Secondly, dance and movement for expressing language such as ceremony and corroborees e.g. “I take them [children] to
[festival] every year, every activity that we do here with the language and that, when we had the corroborees here and stuff like that” (P3). Thirdly, religious practices, such as people saying nightly prayers in Kuku Yalanji or using a Bible translated into language as a reference for the written form. Fourthly, storytelling orally or with the use of printed storybooks, with P4 characterising language learning as a “story-based process” (P4). Finally, P5 described the role of art and artwork for teaching language
“use artwork, use cultural activities, put language name against [them]” (P3), with the value of these activities being the ways that they can bring older and younger generations together socially, i.e. “have the local Elders to go down here to go down and work with the kids, create that environment where you can have that interaction”
(P3).
Focusing design on family language use and working outwards FROM the home The fourth intersection between language and family relations is the idea of focusing on family language use as a starting point for design, and working FROM family relations and the home outwards to other contexts where language is used.
Participants emphasized the need to start with language in the home where young children start acquiring language, echoed by the Reference Group. P3 felt that the family setting and family relations in the home is a productive focal point for language technology as “home is very important, that’s where I learnt a lot of my speaking, to
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learn the language is very important” (P3). One reason for this is that parents and other older family members can engage in developing ‘family language policy’ (King et al.,
2008) by setting parameters as to how language is taught and used at home. This was reflected in P1’s comment “talk kuku, you know, when you go to high school you can speak English, but when you home, ngana talk kuku. […] don’t forget about our language” (P1).
Participants expressed the idea of starting by learning language from the self and family relations and then building outwards to other community language activities.
For P3, this was also reflected in the idea of starting within the family and then engaging with the language of other dialect groups: “I try and get them [children] to interact with their grandmother, she’s very good at speaking language. A lot of my relatives, they speak language as well, so I try and create that interaction, with those different family groups” (P3).
Existing programs run at the IKC such as First Five Forever focus on adults and children singing songs in language together. However, less resources are available to assist older family members to teach children language at home, but technology offers an avenue for supporting family language activities as it is something that children are surrounded by and interested in. This can be seen in the following quote from P2 “we can use technology now, because of all our younger people these days, because they so much into technology now and so, [we can] use the technology as a tool to teach our children” (P2).
5.5.2 Theme 2: Language use through time and bridging generational positions The second consideration in the field theory is the temporal dimension of language use, with barriers to language use arising from the fact that children and
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Elders represent different generational positions along a language journey. The field theory indicates that technology could help to act as a bridge between these generational positions.
Supporting personal learning journeys and turning points Elders and adults described individual community members as being “at different stages of language acquisition” (P4). Community members described different turning points in a personal learning journey that can change a person’s relationship with the language and motivations to learn. These stages included learning at home as young children, going to kindergarten and school, and using language in further education and the workforce (RG, P4).
Becoming a parent or a guardian to young children and teaching Kuku Yalanji to them represents a personal shift from language student to teacher. Some adults suggested that this motivated their own children to want to learn Kuku Yalanji to
“make sure […] they’ve got something to teach their children” (P5). Among Elders and adults, there was a fear that children would “miss out” on this experience if they didn’t learn the language when they were young: “If they not learn it they’re going to miss out on the language, and further down the track when they’re having, when they have their little family, and they won’t be able to pass it down to their children” (P2).
Losing a family member who is a language speaker also represents a potential turning point in a person’s attitudes towards their language. Elders implored younger generations to listen to and learn from Elders, expressing that it is difficult to “dig them
[stories] up from the grave” (P1). Adults credited their own language skills to having taken up the opportunity to ‘listen’, and advocated for young people to “catch that moment while your parents are telling you” (P1). However, Elders were concerned
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that young people are taking language for granted, indicated in the assertion that “our children think that it is going to be around forever” (P2).
In the literature, Donovan puts forward the notion of assisting Aboriginal students’ “ongoing lifelong education” through technology (Donovan, 2007) in their discussion of Aboriginal pedagogies. Viewing language learning as a journey through- out life raises the question of the role that technology can play with respect to these turning points, given that people’s connection to the language inevitably changes as they progress through life. Can design bring these turning points forward in the development journey, and should it, or is it a case of meeting people at the stage that they are at? Can technology help create new turning points that enrich younger people’s connection to the language?
Changing lifestyles and learning experiences Participants noted that changes in lifestyle, such as private property and the establishment of shops have changed people’s level of involvement in gathering food on country, and in doing so eroded opportunities for language teaching and learning:
“down below where the Council, that was all banana, sweet potato, taro, cassava, everything. And you look now, today we got shop, we go three shops. We got one here, one here, another one down here, everyone’s going there” (P1). This begs the question of whether and how to take technology on country, but also how technologies for language learning can bring country into the home.
There was a general sense from the Elders that families and children were not going out on country as frequently as in previous times. Going on country was seen to enforce language teaching and learning as it was free from other ‘distractions’: “in my days we sat around the circle and even round the camp fire and we had, you know, there were limited things we could do so, I think that was our entertainment and that
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was our learnings” (P3). Children were observed at present doing activities such as fishing, swimming, drawing, playing computer games, watching videos, playing with toys, and drawing.
Environmental changes have presented barriers to teaching language on country.
For example, the number of crocodiles in the waterways has increased in recent times due to natural reproduction and changing environmental practices, making it more difficult for families to do language activities at the river or beach as stated by P1: “I like to see them come with us old ladies, and we can show them what we was doing like a long time ago with our parents and going out, but we can’t go down the beach, ocean, lot of crocodiles” (P1).
This raises questions as to whether the existing vocabulary covers the range of words children need to express their everyday lives in Kuku Yalanji, or whether
‘language enrichment’ is needed to “establish new words or phrases to facilitate interaction with English-speaking society” (First Languages Australia, 2015a).
Technology could play a role in eliciting community members’ suggestions for additions to the language, as well as raising awareness of new terms.
Differing levels of immersion in the language Immersion in language supported the adults’ learning not only of vocabulary, but knowledge of the grammar and the skills involved in constructing sentences. This is reflected in the Elders’ and adults’ accounts such as P3’s own recollections of learning the language:
“it was in everyday conversation, whether they were giving you directions, if
they were telling you a story around a campfire, um it was always, all those
directives were given in language. And also, in the community, a lot of the Elders
spoke it, and you know, they would always speak to you in language and, that’s
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how I got to know how to speak my language because of the old people teaching
us at home.” (P3).
However, since the language is not as widely spoken within the community as in previous times, children are not growing up with the same level of exposure to, and immersion in language as when the Elders were young, with a continuity of language use between settings. Some of the community’s own ideas to promote immersion included having street signs in Kuku Yalanji (P3, P4), or printing clothing in Kuku
Yalanji with phrases such as “yundu yalada [hello]” (F5).
The availability of language materials also helps to facilitate language activities that support immersion. There are several existing language resources to support this such as a grammar (Patz, 2002), children’s dictionary (Oates, 1992), and a range of children’s storybooks with full sentences in Kuku Yalanji. However, issues with printed language resources such as limited availability of copies, and inability to correct and update them, can hamper children’s use of these materials. Technology could therefore play a role in making resources available to people online, and extendable beyond the print format.
Differing styles of language use by children and adults The data indicated different styles of Kuku Yalanji language use between adults and young children, given the young children’s stage of language acquisition and cognitive development, and the Elders’ fluency in the language.
A key difference in language use between older and younger speakers was the ability for language learners to speak in full sentences, rather than code-switching by mixing single Kuku Yalanji words into English sentences. Helping children to use the language in full sentences was a need identified across the participant groups (P2, P4,
F2, RG), and was perceived to be a limitation in terms of children’s existing language
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skills: “they don’t know how to sentence it off, […] carry it on, they just only say one word you know?” (F2). This relates to the community’s aspiration for people of all generations to speak the language ‘fluently’ (F7, P5), with the ability to understand the language and “having their own ability to pass it on as well” (P5) by speaking in full sentences.
Through observations and technology demonstrations with young children, we noticed the types of sentences that children of this age group typically use in English about their everyday lives. These included making requests or giving directions, commenting on things that they could see around them, stated what they were doing, making comparisons, expressing their feelings and emotional state, asking questions, and using conversational terms. Additionally, adults suggested topics for language use that are relevant to teaching young children Kuku Yalanji (Figure 13).
General topics for young children Specific topics to Kuku Yalanji/Aboriginal languages • Animals • Seasonal calendar and climate • Body parts, health, fitness change • Colours • Food sharing protocols • Environment • Bushfoods and bush medicine • Family, family tree • Gathering and preparing yams • Foods • Cultural knowledge about • Daily routines birds • Introducing themselves • Totems • Places • Care for country • Directions Figure 13: Topics for digital content for children in Kuku Yalanji.
5.5.3 Theme 3: A whole-of-community lens on language use The third consideration addressed in the field theory is the need to take a whole- of-community lens in designing for language use, that considers the role of personal, community, and environmental factors in shaping language use.
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Balancing individual goals and interests with community aspirations Designing for language use with an Indigenous community entails the need to balance individual children’s and family’s learning goals and journeys, with community goals and aspirations for the future. The participants expressed several visions for technology that would enrich language use at a whole-of-community level and support community development, beyond the needs and interests of individual learners.
The community proposed that a new technology for Kuku Yalanji could enhance community connectedness by providing a platform to help coordinate the diverse language use and language activities of families, community groups, and service providers (P3, P4). They also felt that technology could help to connect people with opportunities for language use over a distance, such as those in hospital (F3), boarding school (F5), those who have been historically displayed from the community (P3), and families who are living away for work or study (P4).
This connection was envisaged both in terms of equipping the prototypes with functionality for communication as with the Messaging Kettle (Brereton et al., 2015), and a sense of connection felt when listening to language content and environmental sounds on the Ambient Birdhouse: “[the Ambient Birdhouse] makes him think about home, you know? Cos you know when people are in hospital and they’re down and out, you gotta have something from home. Not just thinking about bayan, you know?
Birds and things” (F2).
There was a sense that developing technologies for Kuku Yalanji could support language recognition within the community and broader society. The desire for language recognition was expressed in ideas such as screening content in every
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language on free-to-air television including Kuku
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Yalanji (F3), strengthening the presence of Kuku Yalanji in the education system (P4,
P5, F3, F5), broadcasting language content on the community radio (P3, P4), and developing a bilingual policy for the community (P3). They indicated that technologies for language use could also serve as a resource for non-Aboriginal people visiting or working in the community: “if they’re non Yalanji people, you know, you’ve got people who’s not from this community working here […] they should learn some words to just communicate and make our people welcome” (F3). There was also an interest in applications of virtual reality to support people to access country who have mobility restrictions and are no longer able to go there (P4).
The Council anticipated that community participation in technology design could support people’s STEAM skills development and ability to fix, maintain, and extend the technologies developed through the project. In doing so, this could build the “adaptive capacity of community” to respond to and make best use of new technologies, and serve as a ‘connector’ to further projects (P4). They also imagined that designing technologies for the language could provide economic development opportunities through selling and licensing access to the platform, access to grant funding for their language program, and upskilling the local workforce.
Designing engaging language technologies for children… and everyone While the children’s language learning and use was a focus of project discussions, participants conveyed that older family members such as parents and adult relatives who are not confident with the language use may also benefit from the technology. Participants suggested strategies for making language learning and use engaging for children that could be reflected in technology designs. These same strategies could also promote the engagement of parents and other family members who are direct and peripheral users of the technology for their children.
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Elders’ and adults talked about the importance of keeping teaching and learning interactions short and light to suit children’s attention span and keep them from feeling overwhelmed. Community members described the value of having “short and simple” picture books in the library in language for children to read (P3), and reflected on this in their own teaching strategies: “Just teaching them at home and the same thing when we are out, just doing little songs about stuff and, just making things light so it’s easier to absorb” (P5).
Incorporating language use into game play was also considered a key strategy for supporting children’s learning. Children were also observed in the community playing popular games such as ‘I Spy’ and ‘Simon says’, and inventing their own games. Children in the community are already using technology for playing popular mobile games (P2), playing educational games on the iPads at home (P3), and using
Indigenous Knowledge Centre computers and tablets to play social games such as
Minecraft. Older people enjoyed playing games such as bingo, suggesting the potential for game play to bring together older and younger generations of language speakers.
Shyness and shame were identified as barriers to language use, that could be addressed by technology design. Participants suggested that a reluctance to use the language could arise from peer pressure (P5) such that people seek to “save themselves the embarrassment […] in not speaking it properly” (P3). Bringing humour, gentle feedback, and encouragement to language use interactions, as well as teaching language on country relate to the idea of reducing shyness (P2). There was also an interest in technologies that support ‘self-paced learning’ for people to learn and practice in their own time to build their confidence to speak with others (P2, P4, P5)
The Elders and adults were eager to cultivate children’s sense that the language is their own, and not a foreign language or one that is exclusive to the Elders (P2, RG).
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They felt that it was important to nurture children’s willingness to learn, and give language use a try: “we’ve got to teach them, you know, it’s your language and there’s no right or wrong way about it or, but it’s the willingness to learn” (P3). The LRG suggested hearing other Aboriginal children or children from other countries speaking their respective languages, might give children from the community the idea that using their language is something that they could be doing themselves (RG, various).
Managing the effects of digital technologies on language use The Elders’ and adults felt that it was important to “maintain cultural integrity” in light of new technology (P4), and expressed a complex relationship to digital technologies in terms of the opportunities and challenges they pose for Kuku Yalanji language use.
On the one hand, Elders and adults discussed the negative effects of technology on the community. This included: social media platforms generating conflict and social problems (F2, F3); mobile phones and television “distracting” children from participating in language activities (P1, P3) the desire for children to “leave phones at home” while going on country (RG); and the need for parents to “get away from their mobile phones” and take part in community language activities with their children
(P5). A community member also noted barriers to using Kuku Yalanji online posed by spellcheckers and autocorrect tools that are not designed for their language (P5).
On the other hand, technology was seen to present opportunities for keeping the language strong. For example, the Elders and adults remarked that children had strong digital literacy skills and an enthusiasm for technology that could be harnessed for language use: “the kids are more savvy with technology, you know?” (F3). They perceived that digitising the community’s written language materials can help to preserve them and enhance community access to them (P5). Social media platforms
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also offered opportunities to share videos and content in language with Kuku Yalanji language speakers across a broad geographical area (P3).
The Elders and adults had particular views and concerns about the use of technology for creating language recordings. Technology was seen as important for recording language speakers while they are still alive and preserve family members and stories (RG, P5). The Reference Group members expressed a desire to record content for the existing prototypes, such as narrations about the cultural significance of birds on the Ambient Birdhouse videos, and photos and videos of the NAIDOC week yam picking activities to display on noticeboard (F7, RG). However, there were also sensitivities around people’s willingness to be recorded, and a lack of access to recording devices.
The Elders and adults acknowledged the inevitability of technology changing people’s lives (P3) and their significance in their children’s lives and futures, with a desire by the LRG to “use these devices to our advantage if only we can enforce it”
(F3). This points to the need to balance “tradition” and “transcendence” in designing technologies for language use. (Ehn, 1988).
5.6 Discussion
This discussion addresses design opportunities and questions identified through the field theory development, and reflects on the field theory as a method for community-based participatory design.
5.6.1 Project name and pillars The LRG and research team established a project name and pillars based on the mutual understanding of Kuku Yalanji language and technology use that was developed through this phase of the project.
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The name chosen for the project was Ngana Wubulku Junkurr-Jiku Balkaway-
Ka (Let’s talk strong in our language): The ‘Let’s Use Our Language Together’
Technology Project for Kuku Yalanji.
The four pillars of the project developed with the LRG were to:
1. Reuse and build on existing language resources;
2. Use language in social activities with technology;
3. Enrich social connections between older and younger generations of language speakers; and
4. Target language use at all ages but start by focusing on young children (Taylor et al., 2019b).
This project builds on the community’s existing strengths, such as the presence of fluent speakers and availability of language materials and resources, while also addressing challenges such as engaging children with the language, and supporting language use in the home.
5.6.2 A relational approach to designing technologies for Kuku Yalanji language use19 These four intersections between language and family relations articulated in the field theory suggest that the process of teaching and learning Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander languages such as Kuku Yalanji is deeply enmeshed in both particular relationships between family members of different generations, and the broader backdrop of the community’s collective culture and kinship network. Learning and understanding Kuku Yalanji is not only about learning vocabulary and grammar, or oral and written literacy skills, but it is also about knowing family history and stories,
19 Parts of this section have been published in (Taylor et al., 2019b).
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understanding country and people’s relationship to the land, and spending time doing things together for language immersion.
Thus, I propose a relational approach to designing technologies to foster active language use that takes family communication and activities as the starting point for design. This orientation underscores the need to design in ways that bring older and younger speakers in shared language activities, and speaks to the call for ‘relational technologies’ that enrich people’s participation in “interdependent network of social relations” (Soro et al., 2019, p. 149). The foregrounding of the home and family relations as a key setting for growing everyday Kuku Yalanji language use contrasts with the view put forward by Patz that “even in the 1980s it was felt in the community that it was more important for children to speak English at home than Kuku” (Patz,
2002, p. xix).
I propose the following guiding principles for developing relational language technologies:
Principle 1: Designing for family relations with, around, and through technology for language learning In core Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) work, Egbert and Petrie propose a definition of CALL as “learners learning language in any context with, through, and around computer technologies” (Egbert et al., 2006, p. 4). Adapting this perspective to designing RLTs suggests that these interactions could include family members: 1) interacting directly with the technology together in language, 2) interacting with each other in language around the technology, where the designs could prompt co-located discussions or activities such as inventing or playing games with the technology; and 3) interacting in language through the technology, such as family
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members leaving each other messages that are played when the technology is taken to different places.
We anticipate that RLTs could be used in the home and social settings in which interactions between the child and device may be overheard by others in the room.
Elders who are language speakers, and who are directly interacting with children and the Crocodile Language Friend, may be newcomers to tangible technologies. Parents and older siblings, who may be more confident with the technology, may also wish to strengthen their own language skills and language use if they are non-fluent speakers.
The Crocodile Language Friend has the potential to therefore invite “legitimate peripheral participation” in practices involving the technology in ways that are analogous to Lave and Wenger’s ‘Communities of Practice’ theory (Lave et al., 1991), as people’s familiarity and engagement with the technology and/or the language develops through exposure to the device.
Social technologies could also support both active learning through direct interactions, as well as language immersion by ambiently playing a recording at random at regular intervals as with the Ambient Birdhouse (Soro et al., 2018). This could encourage incidental use and serve as a playful reminder that the local language speakers are present and the language is alive today.
Principle 2: Facilitating community-generated content creation around family relations The intent of RLTs is to provide a platform for users themselves, such as the members of a particular family, to create their own language recordings. On one end of the spectrum, RLT interfaces could be more open to support unstructured communication (e.g. common CMCs and social networking sites) but incorporate language tools. On the other end of the spectrum, interactions with social technologies
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could consist of structured language lessons where community can still preload their own language materials but the format is more tightly prescribed, or somewhere between the two.
Principle 3: Personalising designs for particular children and family members By virtue of soliciting user-generated content, RLTs that embody a relational design approach can allow families to personalise the designs and customise the content. This can allow them to target specific learning needs of family members (e.g. an emphasis on certain language areas such as memorizing vocabulary, pronunciation skills, or learning words, sentences, and questions about a particular topic), reflect family stories and knowledge, and capture user interests and aspirations.
Principle 4: Supporting family relations where everyone is a language teacher and learner RLTs could challenge fixed roles of Elders as teachers and children as students.
Participants expressed the fact that everyone regardless of their age is at a different stage of their learning journey, and even Elders who were fluent speakers have an interest in building on their reading and writing skills. Thus, RLTs can support and scaffold learning at different levels where the language content could evolve as the child grows and family members around the child can be part of the learning journey.
Principle 5: Fostering intergenerational engagement with language through playful and humorous interactions Since humour was identified as useful for sparking and maintaining children’s engagement with language activities, RLTs could appeal to different generations within a set of family relations through playful and humorous interactions. This can also help to make recording and using the language feel less intimidating for people who are less confident with speaking the language.
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Principle 6: Bridging language activities conducted through family relations with broader community language goals and activities RLTs that people can easily take with them to different places such as phone apps or talking soft toys means that the social technologies could travel and bridge between diverse sets of relations in contexts such as the home, kindergarten, school, workplace, youth group activities etc., mediating between different literacy ideologies and practices (Mills, 2016; Taylor et al., 2018a).
Principle 7: Connecting technology design with language teaching contexts such as learning on Country RLTs could support language activities on country but also address barriers to access by seeking to bring country into the family home through audio recordings of nature, and words and stories about aspects of country such as plants, animals, seasons, and hunting practices.
5.6.3 Designing to foster ‘active language use’ Active language use as a lens for technology design While promoting ‘active language use” is important for language revitalisation, few HCI projects have explicitly used this concept as a lens for technology design
(Taylor et al., 2020). The field theory extends the definition of ‘active language use’ in Chapter 2 Section 2.2.4 by suggesting a number of design considerations.
Firstly, growing the frequency of Kuku Yalanji language use by designing to increase the amount that people hear and actively use the language in their daily activities. This seeks to address the changing lifestyles and differing levels of immersion that are reducing opportunities of people to hear and speak the language, with a particular focus on increasing language use. Technologies such as the Ambient
Birdhouse offer modes for bird sounds to be heard through both direct interactions and ambient playback that could be explored further in tangible technology designs.
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Secondly, expanding the variety of children’s language use, in particular by supporting children to speak in full sentences. Technology could play a role in increasing children’s vocabulary, so that they are learning and using new words and phrases beyond those that they already know and commonly use (e.g. ‘mayi’ for food,
‘mara’ for hand). The field theory suggests different types of language use such as singing songs, telling jokes, telling stories, and asking and answering questions that could be reflected in digital language content.
Thirdly, building on people’s own interests and motivations to use language by cultivating that “willingness to learn” (P3). This could involve designing interactions that grow people’s curiosity to know more about the language, equip them with words and sentences that are relevant to their everyday lives, or framing the language as a
‘secret code’ that is exclusive to children in the community (e.g. Zaman et al., 2015b).
There is a need to design in ways that grow people’s confidence in using the language to attend to the ‘shyness’ or ‘shame’ factor described by participants.
Fourthly, increasing the settings and activities in which language is used, by designing flexible systems that can be appropriated into the language activities of different families and community groups. Designing social technologies with language recordings that are created by the community members themselves, and providing flexible tangible forms that can be adapted to different settings, could support their broader uptake within the community. There is also the potential for “micro-learning” to support language use that deliver short lessons to users during “fragments of free time throughout the day” (Edge et al., 2012, p. 431).
Finally, establishing new spaces for language use using technology that are not exclusive to the realm of Elders or children, but can help to bridge the two positions.
Designing for language use involves finding a third space that involves preserving the
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aspects of the language and culture that Elders hold dear, while also connecting with the children’s interests and activities, and giving them a voice in design.
Language use, non-use, and the ‘language user’ The term ‘active language use’ suggests a valuing of any type or amount of language use, in opposition to ‘passive’ interactions involving the language, or no language use at all. Yet, endangered language use is a more complex phenomenon than can be described in these terms. There are different types of language speakers within a speech community (Grinevald et al., 2011), representing categories that are not necessarily age-related. This includes people who understand but do not speak Kuku
Yalanji, those who speak single words but not in full sentences, and those who are fluent speakers of the language, with people moving between these categories across their lifetime (Grinevald et al., 2011, p. 53).
Being a “language speaker” and engaging in “active language use” are not necessarily synonymous either. Speaking Kuku Yalanji or “knowing language” were more than attaining a certain level of proficiency, but were also about identity and belonging, a connection to country and culture, and the network of family and community relations. From my own position, being able to use Kuku Yalanji does not necessarily make me a language speaker, particularly as a non-Aboriginal person.
There are a range of reasons that people might not want to use or be associated with a language, including for reasons relating to the legacy of colonisation and missionisation described in Chapter 2 Section 2.3.2 (Grinevald et al., 2011). People may be motivated to use the language but lack access to conversational partners and learning opportunities as the reasons for non-use (Grinevald et al., 2011). In some contexts and activities, non-use of Kuku Yalanji may also be acceptable, such as when speaking with non-Aboriginal people who do not know the language (F3).
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Work on technology non-use (Satchell et al., 2009) highlights the variety of reasons for which people may not use a technology including “active resistance”,
“disenchantment”, “disenfranchisement”, “displacement”, and “disinterest”, and cautions against viewing everyone as a potential user. This argument also holds true in the context of designing for language use, underscoring the need to acknowledge the diversity of people’s language journeys, understand and respect people’s decisions to use or not to use their language, and not to assume that language use and fluency are aspirations of all members of the same speech community.
5.6.4 Designing for language use on longer time-scales Taking an intergenerational perspective on designing for language use heeds the call for a greater “temporal interest” in design participation over longer timescales
(Saad-Sulonen et al., 2018, p. 5), and raises questions about the relationship between language use and technology use practices.
This project seeks to encourage active language use by young children and their families through interactions with technology, initially coupling language use with technology use. Yet, increasing technology use in this case is not the end goal for design. Rather, the intent of design is to foster language use beyond technology use, where people continue to use their language in their broader lives and everyday activities independently and outside of the technology use. This view suggests an implicit “engagement-efficacy” logic (Smith et al., 2017, p. 3045) that engagement with the technology will equate to engagement with the language, and would require evaluating language use both with and outside of the co-designed technology.
Designing for language use therefore represents a type of ‘intermediate design’.
Taking a longer-term view of language use across a person’s lifetime or multiple generations means that technologies for Kuku Yalanji may intervene at certain stages
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of this language journey (e.g. at kindergarten, at school etc.), and may take on new meanings at different points, such as people wanting to use technology with their own children. The designs presented in this project are also intermediate in the sense that design during ‘project time’, and design-in-use (Ehn, 2008) of the current prototypes are both ongoing processes, through which the designs will continue to take on new meanings and material forms.
Within the life-cycle of a system, children will grow up, devices may break down, and technology may lose its footing in people’s language use, or fail to find one in the first place. As Righi and colleagues point out in their 10 year co-design project with an older learner community, the main impact and legacy of such a project may not be the technology itself, but the language use practices that remain (Righi et al.,
2018), and future language projects and activities that the technology helps to initiate.
5.6.5 Using field theories for participatory design The use of the field theory in this project suggests that this method can support community-based participatory design in a number of ways.
The field theory as a communication tool for participatory design Field theories serve as a communication tool to “make connections between concepts, empirical insights, and technology design accessible” and foster discussion within a design team (Ploderer et al., 2019, pp. 1–2). In this project, the field theory provided a mechanism to summarise and visually communicate the analysis from this phase of the project, so that it could be discussed and checked back with the Council and LRG. The diagram also helped to surface my underlying conceptual model of the design space, so that I could explicitly seek feedback and clarification on my understanding of the context from participants. The field theory diagram adds to a collection of visual techniques to communicate the research practices and findings to
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participants in prior work such as polyphonic picture books (Durrant et al., 2018) and sketchbooks (Zaman et al., 2016). Additional criteria may be needed for evaluating the quality of field theories when used in this way, such as the field theory being ‘reflexive and transparent’, ‘actionable and useful’, and ‘conceptually clear and validated with participants’.
The field theory as an integrative analysis method The field theory is an integrative analysis method that incorporates insights from existing theories as well as empirical data (Ploderer et al., 2019). This project involved drawing together disparate data sources such as transcripts, written observations from prototype demonstrations, incidents from the field notes, design artefacts, and project documents. The diversity of the data in terms of format, depth, and points-of-view represented meant that it was not suited to methods such as grounded theory that draw heavily on interviews transcripts as a key data source (Creswell et al., 2018). However, in this case the structure of the field theory diagram and discussion co-evolved and mutually informed each other, rather than working from the diagram first.
The field theory as provisional Field theories are therefore provisional in the sense that they represent a
‘snapshot’ in time, and concrete proposals for discussion and negotiation. The changing nature of language use and activities over time, shifting socio-political landscape, and the impact of new technology means that the “field” for Kuku Yalanji language use is dynamic and constantly evolving. Unlike other materials relating to the language such as dictionaries and grammars, the specifics of the field theory may become outdated but certain design issues or considerations may continue to be relevant for future work. The revised field theory presented in Chapter 8 illustrates
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how the field theory has changed during the course of this project, and in light of the
Crocodile Language Friend design.
The field theory as supporting an emergent and non-linear research process The field theory can support emergent and non-linear design processes, providing a flexible approach that can be appropriated into a research process in different ways rather than presenting a methodological ‘recipe’ to follow (Ploderer et al., 2019, p. 8). While this project is presented as four ‘phases’ (see Chapter 4 Section
4.3), a flexible approach was needed to work with the community and activities from each phase were undertaken in parallel. While this field theory was developed during
Phase 4 while retrospectively looking back on the project, initial versions could also have been developed with the LRG at other points, such as during the contextual work in Phase 2, or iterative participatory design activities in Phase 3.
Limitations of the field theory The initial field theory presented in this chapter has several limitations. Firstly,
I was not able to gain an in-depth understanding on children’s own perspective of language use. The children involved in the study were young and only involved in a small number of activities, and older children were at boarding school or difficult to convene through after-school activities. This means that my understanding of children’s views and interests came in part from discussions with Elders and adults who have children of their own, or work with children. Additionally, I was also not able to interview or work closely with people of the parental generation, and people who do not speak the language, to understand their experiences and views on language use.
The field theory was initially developed by me as a non-Indigenous researcher, based on my own analysis of the data. I am not able to provide an insider perspective
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on the social practices involving language use, or fully understand and articulate the relationship between the language and other aspects of Lore, Knowledge and identity.
The field theory shows a linear view of time for the purposes of the diagram, but this may not capture non-linear perspectives from the viewpoint of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander epistemologies (Taylor et al., 2017). However, I have sought feedback and input from the community on whether the field theory represents the key needs and issues pertinent to technology design.
5.7 Conclusions
This chapter presents an initial field theory of intergenerational Kuku Yalanji language use in Wujal Wujal, that has subsequently been refined and revised through the design process as discussed in the following chapters. In any context, it is inevitable that there are differences between the interests, motivations, and aspirations of older and younger people as this reflects their respective stages of life and their language learning journey. However, the field theory suggests that language functions as a connector within family and community relations, and technology can play a role in facilitating and enriching interactions between older and younger speakers. Since there is diversity in people’s language use and journeys over time, the question for design is whether technologies can meaningfully intersect with these journeys and help to carry them forward, even if only for a certain moment in time.
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Chapter 6. An Iterative Participatory (Re)Design
Practice
6.1 Introduction
This chapter contributes an iterative, ‘participatory (re)design’ practice in co- designing interim versions of the technology that led us to the Crocodile Language
Friend design. I start in Section 6.2 with some background about iteration and the material practices of participatory design.
In Section 6.3, I discuss the use of three existing designs to “seed” an iterative process (the Ambient Birdhouse, Digital Community Noticeboard, and Sentence Quiz
Game), and issues that emerged through demonstrating and trialling them within the community setting.
This is followed by a presentation of the first three design iterations and what was learnt from activities with each of them: the Talking Language Box (Section 6.4), the Language ‘Robot’ (Section 6.5), and the Wooden Crocodile (Section 6.6).
Finally, in Section 6.7, I discuss participatory (re)design as a practice for designing tangible technologies, that responded to the circumstances when designing in partnership with the Wujal Wujal Elders and broader community.
This chapter speaks to research question 2b) What methods and practices can facilitate an iterative participatory design process, and how do they shape participation and engagement in design?
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6.2 Background
This project has taken an iterative, participatory design approach to co-creating the Crocodile Language Friend. In core design work such as The Reflective
Practitioner, Schön characterises design as “a conversation with the materials of a situation” (Schön, 1994, p. 78), with iterations taking place through a pattern of
“seeing-moving-seeing” that alters the design space at each step (Schön et al., 1992, p. 137). Iterative design is a foundational method to HCI and PD (Dourish et al., 2020), characterised by cycles of activity to progress from an open design space to a ‘final’ product through designing, testing, and refining a number of interim versions. An iterative design approach has been undertaken in a number of design projects with
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (examples include Dourish et al., 2020;
Hughes et al., 2007; Soro et al., 2017).
One stage of this process is the movement from establishing the initial design space and identifying design alternatives, to developing the first version of one or more designs that is stable and acceptable enough to be iterated on. Subsequent versions are then developed and evaluated to determine which attributes of the interim design will be carried forward, and which will be cast aside. Participatory design involves collaboratively exploring design spaces with technology users, and a postcolonial computing sensibility means acknowledging the power dimensions of these
“encounters”, and the plurality of design spaces and understandings developed through them (Irani et al., 2010, p. 1317).
This chapter focusses in particular on the material practices involved in ‘seeding’ an iterative participatory design process towards a tangible technology. The metaphors of ‘seeding’ and ‘growing’ are not new to design. Hagen and colleagues describe seeding social technologies as “initiating or facilitating a generative connection with
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potential stakeholders and communities at an early stage of a project” as a basis for further design activities (Hagen et al., 2008, p. 279). In meta-design, open systems are seeds that are further evolved by users themselves (Fischer et al., 2002). I use seeding here to refer to the tools and activities involved in moving from relationship building in Phase 1 and contextual work in Phase 2, to the hands-on work of designing a technology for Wujal Wujal in Phase 3.
Materials and material practices have played a key role in facilitating participation with the PD tradition, and involving technology users in iterative design cycles. Prototyping kits, probes, generative tools, and props can facilitate hands-on engagement in design in conjunction with methods such as participatory design workshops (Brandt et al., 2012). For example, materials in the form of both kits
(Rogers et al., 2014) and “un-kits” (Ambe et al., 2019) have been used to engage older adults in designing new technologies and experiences. The former engaged participants in designing their own circuits using the Makey Makey electronics kit
(Rogers et al., 2014), while the latter involved experience design through a more abstract suite of “sensors, actuators and media elements that have a decontextualized appearance” (Ambe et al., 2019, p. 322:1).
In the context of designing with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, cultural and technology ‘probes’ (Gaver et al., 1999; Hutchinson et al., 2003) have been used in a number of projects. For example, Madden and colleagues developed a technology probe of a communication platform in a design project with Gugu Badhun women (Madden et al., 2014). While originally envisaged as a research tool, the participants’ response to and uptake of the platform meant that it played a greater role than anticipated in informing the final design (Madden et al., 2014, p. 41). Soro and colleagues also present the use of the Digital Community Noticeboard prototype as a
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‘cross-cultural dialogical probe’ that supported dialogue, relationship building, and collaborative design with the Groote Eylandt community (Soro et al., 2016).
These examples illustrate the differing trajectories of these design materials depending on the method, and the ability of these material co-design practices to feed into iterative design at different stages. The outputs of both the kit and un-kit were
‘unfinished’ low-fidelity prototypes, with the electronics in each providing a basic level of functionality, but not necessarily representing a design “iteration”. Madden and colleagues’ technology probe was intended to inform design, but later became the object of iterative design in eliciting suggestions for subsequent versions from participants (Madden et al., 2014). The Digital Community Noticeboard design started as sketches on paper developed with participants, but the iteration that served as a cross-cultural dialogical probe was a fully function system much closer to an end product (Soro et al., 2016).
The nature of the materials themselves, the methods in which they are used, and how they were chosen, influences the dynamics of design participation and shapes the iterative design process. In this next section, I reflect on three material “seeds” and their role in establishing and sustaining an iterative design process with the Wujal
Wujal community.
6.3 Use of Three Existing Designs to Seed an Iterative Design Process
This section describes the use of three existing designs to seed an iterative design process: 1) the Ambient Birdhouse (Soro et al., 2018); 2) the Digital Community
Noticeboard (Soro et al., 2017); and 3) a Sentence Quiz Game. I summarise the activities and issues with each of these existing designs.
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6.3.1 Design Seed 1: Ambient Birdhouse Starting Point The Ambient Birdhouse served as a design non-proposal for relationship building (Chapter 3), as well as playing a pivotal role in moving towards a new design for Wujal Wujal.
Activities with the Ambient Birdhouse We (the research team) demonstrated the Ambient Birdhouse at different places in the community such as the Kindergarten, playgroup, women’s centre, Indigenous
Knowledge Centre, and at people’s houses. The Ambient Birdhouse was the focus of conversations during the first two Language Reference Group meetings (RG1, RG2)
(Figure 14), and was set up in the Indigenous Knowledge Centre for several weeks.
Figure 14: Elders in the Language Reference Group interacting with the Ambient Birdhouse.
The LRG were excited about the potential for the Ambient Birdhouse to help teach children the names of birds in Kuku Yalanji and associated knowledge about country. The Elders identified a list of local birds to feature on the Birdhouse, which we used to caption the existing Birdhouse videos with their Kuku Yalanji names, and created videos and cards for the local birds (Figure 14). We co-designed a video for the “crocodile bird” that calls when there is a crocodile in the area, using an audio
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recording that an Elder had taken on their phone and a creative commons photo. This was demonstrated to the LRG for their feedback and to a visiting tour group.
• Yindili – Kingfishers (blue) • Bujil-yiran – Straw-necked ibis • Kuyir – Curlew • Yinjul – Fig parrot • Jiwurrmal – Pheasant • Birmba – White cockatoo • Juku-juku – Dove (brown) • Ngurrku – Owl • Wandi – Sea hawk • Jarruka – Scrub Hen • Biru-bird – Rainbow bird • Dukunjulu – Golden whistler • Bakamu- Green/wampu pigeon • Dabway – Messenger bird • Wabul- Torres Strait Islander pigeon • Kadanji, kuinurbin – Black cockatoo • Birrbirr – Rainbow lorikeet • Kurranji – Cassowary • Jaka – Leatherneck Figure 15: List of suggested local birds for the Ambient Birdhouse.20
The Language Reference Group made suggestions about how to socially construct the Ambient Birdhouse as a language teaching tool. They suggested recording narrations over the bird sounds of senior Elders discussing the cultural significance of the birds in Kuku Yalanji, captioned in English so that people could experience the content in both languages (RG1). While they wished to display the image of the bird rather than a video of the Elder talking, they felt that it was important for the Elder’s voice to be recognisable “so people know [that it is the senior Elder speaking]” (F3).
The Elders proposed community settings in which to deploy the Ambient
Birdhouse (with permission). This included educational facilities, the home and community care centre, healthcare providers, the Indigenous Knowledge Centre, the
Arts Centre, and Council offices. The LRG members expressed a desire for communal technologies that could be accessed in a number of places: “I think that kind of stuff is good on them public places. I don’t think you should just centralise one entity as the go to place” (F3).
20 Spellings and translations are checked with (Hershberger et al., 1982).
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The Elders also gave thought to how to decorate the Ambient Birdhouse for
Wujal Wujal, such as painting on a name in Kuku Yalanji (“Dikalana Bayan” – House of Birds), cutting out photographs of the kookaburra, cockatoo, and messenger bird to appear on each side, and asking the artists at the Arts Centre to paint it. (RG2) There was a sense that the Ambient Birdhouse needed to be visually appealing as something that the community could show to local people and visitors: “’cause we want to take it, so people can see, this bird bayan [house]” (F3).
Issues with the Ambient Birdhouse These activities with the Ambient Birdhouse helped us (the research team and
LRG) to identify a number of issues affecting its suitability as a tool for fostering children’s active language use.
Firstly, there were issues involving the Ambient Birdhouse deployment. While the Indigenous Knowledge Centre provided a Council-run setting in which to trial the technology, intermittent closures and personnel changes during that time made it difficult to establish routines and practices involving the Birdhouse. It became clear that the Ambient Birdhouse did not fit well with existing practices. While the web application enables users to connect to the Ambient Birdhouse and upload videos using their mobile devices, the LRG were reliant on the research team to compile the audio, images, and narrations into videos: “yeah, we need someone who can come in and put it together for us” (F3).
Secondly, issues with recording new content to display on the Birdhouse. It was tricky to capture high quality recordings of local birds on available devices such as mobile phones and iPads given that they were high up in trees or hard to locate. It was difficult to find photos and videos of some local birds online, even after contacting local birdwatching groups. It was also tricky to coordinate Elders’ availability to
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record the audio narrations, and there may have been some reluctance about being recognisable in the narrations. The fact that the content was not regularly being updated during the trial period meant that children were less interested in sustaining use of the Ambient Birdhouse over time.
Thirdly, issues with the interaction style for encouraging children’s active language use, observed by comparing Elders’ and children’s interactions with and around the prototype (Figure 16). On the one hand, the Elders strongly connected with the topic of birds, and the prototype fostered rich discussion amongst the LRG about birds and country. Diverse interactions that took place in Kuku Yalanji around the technology included: searching for and translating words; asking questions; correcting language use; spelling words; repeating each other; and talking about the cultural significance of birds. The Elders’ attention was focussed on the social interactions with each other around the technology, and the prototype served as a conversational prompt in the background.
Figure 16: Children's and Elders’ interactions with and around the Ambient Birdhouse.
On the other hand, children were really excited by the card tapping interaction but it did not stimulate much discussion between them about birds. The children were
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too young to read the cards or subtitles on the videos, and their use of Kuku Yalanji names required scaffolding by the adults who provided verbal prompts such as “what bird is this?”. The children were enthusiastic about being able to tap their own card to make a video appear, but were less interested in listening to the video itself and would often interrupt with the next card. Additionally, the children’s attention was focussed on the screen, rather than on the language use happening around the technology. This highlighted the possibility of differing interests between Elders and adults, and the role that language proficiency played in shaping the interactions.
Finally, issues with the openness of the Ambient Birdhouse form as a design seed. The appearance of the Ambient Birdhouse with its laser-cut wooden frame, that had been developed by our research group over a number of years, in some cases gave the impression of being a ‘finished’ design. This was reflected in comments from the
LRG as to when the design would be “set up properly” (F2), possibly reflecting a desire and expectation from participants for us to deliver working technology in a short time frame, rather than an interim “not-quite-ready” version (Dourish et al., 2020, p. 418:3).
The LRG’s suggestions communicated possible appropriations of the Birdhouse rather than substantive changes to the form or function, though the Elders did comment about the Birdhouse “giving us ideas” about what could be achieved with tangible technologies (P2, F3).
6.3.2 Design Seed 2: The Digital Community Noticeboard Activities with the Digital Community Noticeboard We deployed the Digital Community Noticeboard at the IKC for a number of weeks at the same time as the Ambient Birdhouse, by connecting it to the television screen. I created some content for an introductory story about the project to raise awareness of the project and communicate the informed consent process. An Elder
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helped me to write and record my own introduction in Kuku Yalanji, which was displayed at an LRG meeting as a way of building rapport and show of respect to the
Elders. I also worked with some Elders to put together a short story on bushfoods, but it was not clear whether either of these stories were viewed by others while the
Noticeboard was deployed in the IKC.
We organised a workshop with community members to create a noticeboard story about yam picking for NAIDOC week (see Chapter 4 Section 4.4.5). We went with Councillors, environmental rangers, Elders and children to dig for yams to cook for the community feast. The Elders and children used phones and iPads to interview each other about the process of digging, asking questions such as “What are we digging for?” and “What are we going to do with it?” (Figure 17). While I observed single words in Kuku Yalanji were used in interactions between children and with adults, I noticed less use of the language in full sentences. The second part of the workshop was to co-design a noticeboard story using the photos and videos, with Elders proposing that it be shown during the NAIDOC week movie night. However, this did not go ahead due to logistical issues.
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Figure 17: Myself digging for yams and being interviewed by an adult about the experience for the noticeboard story.
Issues with the Digital Community Noticeboard I had hoped to include clips of Elders talking about the project in language in the introductory story, and one LRG member suggested making noticeboard pages about the Elders to display on the noticeboard. Again, this did not eventuate, hinting at sensitivities around recording. The Elders also expressed the importance of using the existing moderation mechanisms on the Noticeboard such as the report button to restrict access to content about people who are unwell or have passed away:
I think you need to have some blockage, some kind of control, just say, [person]
here was sick in hospital, it wouldn’t be nice if we had his totem displayed there,
we could block it for such period of time until we feel the families are
comfortable of displaying it again at any given time. And you know that’s for all
the language, ah all the dialect group here (F3).
There were also issues in integrating the Noticeboard with the community’s existing systems. The same television in the IKC was frequently used for other activities such as screening films for children after school. As a result, it was displayed only during intermittent periods rather than on a dedicated screen as on Groote
Eylandt. A lack of community awareness about the system meant people did not know that they could still access the content by connecting their mobile device to its local
WiFi network. There was a desire by the LRG group for the IKC to be the knowledge hub in the community, but the Elders also wanted to be able to access the content from anywhere by integrating it with the community WiFi mesh: “For me, if I wanna check what’s on this noticeboard, I don’t wanna come here. I want to be able to click on my phone. Oh, what does QUT and the IKC has on their noticeboard today?” (F3).
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6.3.3 Design Seed 3: Sentence Quiz Game During the early field trips, I designed a click-through sentence quiz game in
PowerPoint based on initial ideas for the LRG meetings in consultation with some language speakers (Figure 18). The topics for the questions reflected those already used by the Elders for teaching language such as animals, place names, and social protocols. There was a sense that this type of game could help to teach and enforce
Lore about topics such as food sharing protocols: “that can be a little game you play?
Yeah… and that’s um, enforcing that culture, Lore” (F3).
The sentence quiz game promoted open-ended discussion about different ideas for language games that were not specific to a topic, unlike the Ambient Birdhouse.
The Elders put forward variations to the questions such as teaching Kuku Yalanji words for numbers in the questions (RG2), and adapting television game show formats such as ‘Minute to Win It’ Or ‘Millionaire Hotseat’ for quiz games (RG1). There was a willingness to involve youth in co-designing language games for children to play
(RG2).
Figure 18: Mock-up of a Kuku Yalanji sentence quiz game.
Unlike the Ambient Birdhouse, the LRG themselves viewed the Quiz as an intermediate design rather than a final product, reflected in the following exchange:
Jen: Ah, there’s lots of mistakes in it. Just pretend you don’t see the mistakes.
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F3: Don’t look at the mistakes, this is the idea of setting up a little game.
The limitations of Quiz design, such as my own mistakes in writing and recording myself saying sentences in the language, were readily apparent. As language experts, this meant that the Elders were eager to correct the language, and this interaction served as a stepping stone for eliciting other ideas and suggestions for the
Quiz. However, a key limitation of this design was its implementation on a computer using PowerPoint, rather than something that could easily be accessed using mobile devices, requiring computer use to create and edit new quiz questions. While this quiz was suitable for use in settings such as the School, its existing format was less useful for young children who became the target users.
6.3.4 Moving from existing designs to iterating new designs Demonstrating and trialling these existing technologies gave us insights into the types of interactions with technology that were engaging for different age groups and could encourage language use, as well as highlighting issues and limitations of the existing designs. This helped to orient us by providing some initial direction towards designing a technology for Kuku Yalanji in Wujal Wujal. Given the community’s affinity for the Ambient Birdhouse, I used it as the basis for creating the first design iteration: the Talking Language Box.
6.4 Iteration 1: Talking Language Box
6.4.1 Talking Language Box Prototype Design The Talking Language Box (Figure 19) prototype was constructed using the same base components and software as the Ambient Birdhouse, but extended and rehoused in a new form. Observing the issues about the openness of the Ambient
Birdhouse design, I moved the components from the laser-cut wooden frame to a cardboard box to give the prototype a form that was ‘unfinished’ and open to
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negotiation, using locally-sourced materials. The Talking Language Box bore visual similarities to ‘boom box’ radio that could play content on a variety of topics rather than being restricted to birds, but the existing videos were retained in the new content.
Given the children’s enthusiasm for games, and the Elders’ feedback on the
Quiz, we21 modified the Birdhouse software so that the Talking Language Box had two modes: 1) the normal playback mode, in which users tap a card to make a video play; and 2) a game script mode with a sequence of question videos, that could be
‘answered’ by tapping ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ cards to make a corresponding message appear in Kuku Yalanji. This enabled us to prototype ‘true or false’, multiple choice, and more open-ended question formats.
I recorded myself speaking some seed questions in English and Kuku Yalanji, using topics previously identified such as place names and family relations. The types of games prototyped on the box were not necessarily aligned with pedagogical approaches involving young kindergarten-aged children. This group was not yet the core focus at this stage of the iterative process, as the prototyping overlapped with the contextual work in the previous phase. The intention at this stage was to demonstrate the Talking Language Box design in different community spaces, including seeking feedback from Elders and exploring possible engagement from older children. The prototype become more specifically targeted to young children at iteration 3 (hard wooden crocodile).
21 The research team and our software developer Michael Esteban.
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Figure 19: Talking language box prototype with example question. 6.4.2 Talking Language Box Design Activities Small group co-design workshop with Elders I worked with a small group of Elders to co-design initial content for the Talking
Language Box in the voice of actual Kuku Yalanji speakers, to demonstrate at the
Kindergarten. While the field theory highlighted the importance of family relations for design, the Elders preferred to make a ‘Who Am I?’ guessing game about animals such as the sea turtle, and bushfoods, rather than about people.
The general process for co-designing the content involved brainstorming and writing down the clues in English (e.g. ‘I live in the salt water’, ‘I eat grass and seaweed’, ‘I lay eggs on the beach’, ‘I am dark green’), the Elders translating the clues into Kuku Yalanji, choosing a photo for the question, and recording the audio versions in the video editing software. Due to time constraints, I finished the assembly afterwards and showed it back to the Elders again for their feedback.
The co-design session highlighted some of the issues and sensitivities around recording. The activity illustrated some Elders’ willingness to record content for
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children in language, but they also emphasised the importance of the right Elders and families making recordings about particular plants, animals and places. Their preference for recording in a group rather than individually was consistent with our experience of conducting design workshops on Groote Eylandt (Soro et al., 2015a).
The workshop also showed that the process of compiling the videos was too long and complex, and not accessible enough for community members to do themselves.
Demonstration at the Kindergarten We set up the Talking Language Box in the Kindergarten story area, where children were gathered around it, and put it into game mode. The guessing game interactions were too complex to make sense and appeal to children of this age, and required a high level of guidance by the adults. The question content quickly lost the group’s attention even when I introduced a verbal scoring system for correct points, which has been an approach taken in other HCI projects for language learning to support learner engagement (e.g. Zhang et al., 2018).
I changed the Box into playback mode, and came up with a new game in situ where the Box was turned around so that the screen was not visible, and asked the children to guess the names of the birds based on their sounds in the video. The children were curious about the videos and peaked around to the screen, rather than more readily giving a verbal answer themselves. They were still excited by the card tapping interaction as with the Birdhouse.
We asked the children what things they thought should be displayed on the
Language Box. They brought over their favourite toys such as dress-up clothing, trains, animal dolls, soft toys, and a magazine with animal pictures in it. We took photos and videos of the children’s favourite toys for them to see on the box, and put RFID stickers on some toys that could be directly read by the Box. We noticed children of this age
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learning through repeating each other’s language use (e.g. “I can hop on one leg!”), a type of interaction that could be incorporated into the technology.
One key interaction that we observed was children’s disengagement with the
Language Box when the voice that they heard speaking on the video was recognisably that of an Elder or adult (even when the Elder themselves could not be seen on the
Box). We observed a child walk away from the Language Box when the Elder’s voice started speaking in the turtle video. Playing the Elder’s voice may have had the effect of positioning the prototype as something from, or belonging to, the Elders rather than to the children. This indicated that it could be useful to give the prototype a different voice (e.g. a child’s voice or a funny computer voice) rather than of an Elder.
Demonstrations with Elders We demonstrated the Talking Language Box to Elders in the LRG and the Home and Community Care Centre (HACC). At the HACC, people watched the videos and questions and guessed the Kuku Yalanji answers. The Elders deferred to the most senior Elders and fluent speakers of the language when they were searching for words in language. Through these interactions between the Elders, the feedback on language use primarily took place in the discussions between people, even though the Box would display whether the ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ card had been tapped.
The LRG valued both the direct interactions and ambient playback of content at regular intervals as a way of supporting language immersion in different settings. One proposed use of the Box was to help school teachers and new prep students to learn and use conversational phrases relevant to the classroom (e.g. “I’m hungry”, “I need to go to the toilet”). The family tree was reiterated as an important topic for language content to promote respect:
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“And that’s where that respect come in then, you know? If you don’t know who
your family, your bloodline, your family, your extended family, and um, the kids
say oh, that’s another person, you know? You’re connected through your
ancestors” (F1).
The Elders also spoke about trying to bring about a home environment where
Kuku Yalanji is the main language spoken “I like to sit around with the family and talk language instead of English all the time […] Trying to encourage all them other young people. Stop talking English now, we talk our kuku, our language” (F2). They talked about objects that are part of people’s everyday lives that could remind people about the language. They gave the example of a locally-produced calendar to raise awareness of health and wellbeing issues: “And that’s another thing, people look at a calendar every day” (F1).
6.5 Iteration 2: Language ‘Robot’
6.5.1 Language Robot Prototype Design The second iteration of the prototype took the form of a ‘Language Robot’
(Figure 20), to try to reposition it as a peer to children, and help to prompt listening and speaking interactions. The components were reconfigured into a cardboard head and body decorated with metallic cooler-bag fabric, with a blinking eye video running on a spare phone to help give it a sense of life22. The RFID reader was moved to the side of the robot where it was no longer visible from the front, but could be used by the researcher to navigate between the videos to ‘Wizard of Oz’ (simulate) a listening and speaking interaction.
22 The view of the original video has been replaced with a still image approximation of the eyes in the thesis for copyright reasons.
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Figure 20: Language 'robot' design.
I designed and recorded a conversation script in English and Kuku Yalanji using my own voice, but applied a filter to increase the pitch and speed so that my own voice was not recognisable:
• Robot: Hello, good morning, yundu yalada. How are you today? [‘Yundu
yalada’ is written on the screen]. Robot pauses as it ‘waits’ for the user to
answer (e.g. yalada, I’m well today). Skips to the next video in the sequence.
• Robot: Yuwu (yes), yalada (I’m good), thanks for sharing! [Image of a smile
is displayed on the lower screen as positive feedback]
• Robot: My name is Kindybot. Ngayu burri Kindybot. Yundu burri wanya?
What’s your name? [‘Yundu burri wanya’? is written on the screen]. Robot
pauses as it ‘waits’ for an answer (e.g. me saying ‘Ngayu burri Jennyfer’).
• Robot: That’s a deadly name! Yundu yalada! [Image of a smile is displayed
on the screen]
• Robot: Can you repeat after me? Ngayu Kuku-Yalanji balkaway (I speak
Kuku Yalanji). [The same phrase is written on the screen]. Robot pauses as
it ‘waits’ for the user to repeat.
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• Robot: Yay! You got it right (in Kuku Yalanji) [A video of fireworks plays
on screen].
This script was later extended to incorporate the sea turtle guessing game and some bird videos from the previous iteration.
6.5.2 Language Robot Design Activities General feedback and demonstrations with Elders and adults I demonstrated and yarned about the Language Robot with some Elders and adults in the community. This took the form of individual or small group conversations, to gain a general sense of the community’s receptiveness to the robot form and voice filter before discussing it in detail with the LRG.
The Elders' and adults’ response to the ‘funny voice’ was generally positive.
People laughed in response to hearing the voice say common phrases in Kuku Yalanji and Aboriginal English, such as “That’s deadly!”. My imperfect pronunciation may have also made the recordings more humorous to fluent speakers. The Elders laughed in particular in response to the Language Robot’s smiling face expression, and spoke directly to the Robot as if it were alive even though they could see me tapping the
RFID cards and mistakes with the timing of the video playback. The prototype did elicit feedback that the voice needed to speak more slowly so that it could be more easily understood (P5, P8).
There were Elders and adults who felt that robot form might make it more accessible to children, who might refer to it as “our little friend” or “my mate” to their family members and friends (P8). Rather than giving the Language Robot a name, adults felt that children should be the ones to give it a name and decorate it themselves:
“They will relate to it then, they will know what they are talking about” (P8). They proposed that interactions with the robot might also support the language learning and
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use for older family members: “Me having a seat next to my little one, it will be teaching my little one as well as teaching me” (P8). Adults proposed topics for content, but advised that the content should focus on one topic at a time to help focus learning
(P5).
Consistent feedback from Elders and adults was that the Language Robot should take the form of a crocodile to be better grounded in the local context, given that crocodiles are present in the local waterways. The Elders and adults shared that children love crocodiles, and the adults wish to teach them about crocodile safety around waterways, such as not to swim in particular places. Adults also thought that giving the Language Robot arms and legs, and labelling the body parts in Kuku
Yalanji, would support children’s learning of body part vocabulary (P5).
While some Elders had previously not been receptive to the idea of a robot talking their language in a previous project, the response from the Elders and adults to the Language Robot was positive. This might have been a result of the Language Robot design iterating from the Ambient Birdhouse as familiar and accepted. During the demonstrations, I visually showed how I had reconfigured the Ambient Birdhouse components into the robot form, and the use of phones and tablets, and everyday materials such as cardboard and shopping bags to construct the Robot. Having elements of humour and ‘silliness’ were valuable in terms of engaging people with the design. However, I did not have the chance to show this iteration of this design directly to children and gauge their response due to scheduling issues.
Recording seed content with Elders I worked with small groups of Elders from the LRG and HACC to translate and record seed content for the Language Robot. With the Elders from the LRG, we used photos of children’s toys as prompts for the recording. The Elders chose the photos of
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a soft toy turtle, and of a pile of soft toy animals, and thought of sentences related to the toys (e.g. “I eat fish”, “some of us live in the sky”). We used this to identify full sentence questions and answers involving the animal names in English and Kuku
Yalanji (e.g. “What do you eat? Do you eat fish?”). The final videos were about the jarruka (scrub hen), jarramali (storm), diwan (scrub turkey), ngawiya (sea turtle), and some conversational phrases. An example dialogue for the jarruka video (English version) was: “What’s that bird called? It’s a Jarruka. What colour are the scrub hen’s eggs? The scrub hen’s eggs are brown”.
The recording process was similar to the previous session. The Elders would brainstorm sentences and decide on a translation together. I would transcribe it as handwritten notes and we would check the spellings in the dictionary, as the Elders reiterated the importance of the spelling being correct. Each of the Elders would then do a final reading and recording of the content. I compiled the videos and brought them back for the Elders to review. They liked hearing their own voice but agreed that children might respond better to the version with the voice filter, which was used in the demonstrations.
With the Elders in the HACC, we started translating from a list of sentences that
I had prepared about the daily activities of young children based on our earlier observations (e.g. ‘wash your hands’, ‘blow your nose’). The Elders translated the sentences and recorded themselves saying them, and they also prompted me to say them back as part of my own learning. However, the background noise meant that the recordings were not clear, and they could not be easily understood when processed using the voice filter. Additionally, in a recent HCI project on family communication, parents expressed the view that technology should not “tell a child or an adult what to do or direct a user’s behaviour” (Chen et al., 2019, p. 5:11), suggesting that these types
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of phrases warrant further consideration in designing for the home context. The translations are listed below for reference if the community wishes to re-record them in future (Figure 21).
Yundu dungayda bada-bada ngalkalba – Yundu wanjabu bundanday? Where do you you go down the bottom or outside live? Yundu wandu didal – put on your hat Ngayu Brisbane bundanday. I live in Wujal Yundu wunay da – go to sleep Wujal. Yundu kaday – you come here Yundu bujil kidal – Blow your nose Yanyu nyaka – look here Yundu mayi nukanda, Yundu bana nukanda Yalada – thank you – Eat your food, drink some water Yundu mukul da? Ngayu [age]. How old Ngayu dakuy – I’m hungry you are? I’m [age]. Figure 21: List of phrases for the Robot dialogue translated into Kuku Yalanji.
Through the process of co-designing digital content for the prototype, we developed a more dialogical approach to recording where the voice recorder ran continuously rather than starting and stopping after each segment. This meant that the recording process was more relaxed, and the Elders took more time to discuss possible sentences and variations of translations amongst themselves. The downside of this approach was that it took more time to listen through and finalise versions of the audio to incorporate into the design. The recording process itself was also iterative. After reviewing the audio, the Elders decided whether they wanted to change and re-record the sentences, or add new sentences.
6.6 Iteration 3: Wooden Talking Crocodile
6.6.1 Wooden Crocodile Prototype Design The third iteration of the design involved turning the Language Robot into a
Wooden Crocodile due to the feedback on the previous version (Figure 22). I loaded the Elders’ recordings with the voice filter onto the Wooden Crocodile, as well as additional dialogue and a ‘Simon says’ game with body part words.
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Figure 22: Wooden crocodile prototype.
The wooden Ambient Birdhouse frame was rebuilt into a crocodile shape using balsawood, salvaged cardboard boxes and egg cartons that were painted and decorated with coloured paper. The legs and arms were created with a pool noodle purchased from the local supermarket. The visual design was inspired by images chosen by an adult from the community23, and the body parts were labelled with corresponding terms from the Kuku Yalanji dictionary as per a previous suggestion. We had intended for the Kindergarten children to paint the Wooden Crocodile themselves, but this became tricky due to the layering of the materials and electronics.
In terms of the electronics, a sound sensor was placed on the Crocodile’s hand and programmed to light up the LED lights in the Crocodile’s nose when it detected a sound level to give the impression that the crocodile was ‘listening’. The RFID reader was removed entirely, and the dialogue videos were played on a timer so that I could observe people’s interactions with the prototype from the back as the only research team member present at that time. I also mocked up possible interactions for Elders to
23 The image of the children’s crafting project that inspired the visual design was found online through Google image search, but the original source is unclear. Some sources reference the image as coming from https://www.highlightskids.com. A version of the image can be seen on this blog post: http://recycling.sablika.com/31-upcycling-home-decor-ideen-fur-ihr-zuhause-upcycling-ideen/
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record their own content, such as pressing a button to audio record directly onto the
Crocodile, or speaking a recording into a connected mobile phone (Figure 23).
Figure 23: Prototyping possible interactions to record language on the Crocodile with a record button or a mobile phone. 6.6.2 Wooden Crocodile Design Activities Demonstration with the Language Reference Group I demonstrated the Wooden Crocodile design to the LRG at meeting 4 (RG4).
The LRG made a number of decisions and suggestions about the Crocodile dialogue and voice. While the LRG saw the benefits of using the voice filter, Elders wanted to retain a human quality to the voice: “It sounds more like a robot […] Slower voice, but not creepy voice. Welcome and friendly voice” (F3). They expressed their desire for the Crocodile to say both Kuku Yalanji and Kuku Nyungul versions of the questions and answers (e.g. “Yundu burri wanya?” (KY) and “Yundu burri wanju?”
(KN)) so that children could learn both dialects.
To make the content suitable for young children, they proposed changing the word forms (e.g. “bundanday” to “bunday”) to “make it short so the kids can repeat that” (F3). They also talked about presenting the syllables of words so that children could learn the pronunciation of each part, “Ma-ra or ji-na you know, especially when you are teaching those little ones up there that you break it down” (F3).
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The LRG also made decisions about the size and form that represented a bigger departure from the Ambient Birdhouse. The Elders considered the 60cm wooden
Crocodile as too big for young children, “If you look at making it a bit smaller, half the size of that there” (F12). They pictured the Crocodiles as being small enough to take to places such as the hospital and boarding school: “If you are going away somewhere, visiting someone in hospital, you can take it with you. […] So it can fit in your luggage bag” (F3).
They proposed shifting the Crocodile from the balsawood frame to a soft toy form, in part so that it would be robust through young children’s rough play, and flagged a possible need to waterproof the toys: “I don't think you wanna spend too much stuff if you are going to have a hard one it will crack, damage. It needs to be waterproof because if they have a tantrum they chuck it in the water” (F3).
Some Elders thought that making the Crocodile a soft toy like the ones that young children already have would make it more appealing to them: “Karrkay
[children] want soft [toys]!” (F5). They proposed making one for each child in the community for Christmas so that they could each have their own device. However, they also questioned whether children would be interested in playing with the soft toy over a sustained period of time as opposed to the screen-based devices that they already use: “With our ones, I know what our grandkids saying, trying to get the little ones doll when they were that little age, they didn't play with them things, they prefer mobile phones and what do you call that other one... flat ones. iPads eh?” (F3).
The Elders put forward ideas about how different interaction modalities for uploading content might fit with their existing practices. Using mobile devices and tablets to update the Crocodile content also worked in with existing devices and recording practices in Council-run settings (P6).
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In the home context, one Elder proposed being able to send content through the
Crocodiles to their children at boarding school so that they could keep in touch with community activities:
Can you put them things on a, I don't know how it would be possible... if we
were going out and we took a photo of a day's trip, and you put it on your SMS?
[…] And you send it, just say we have a little device down where my
granddaughter is, at [School]? And she can insert what we send down to her, and
she can see what the family's done on the weekend. (F3).
The Wooden Crocodile design was seen to address some limitations of existing technologies for language use. While the Elders and children can use language on the phone, a device that can store content in language means that it is not forgotten as people can listen to it again and practice in their own time. The LRG also highlighted that connecting the tangible with the community’s existing mobile phones means the design could be accessible at a low cost (F3, F5).
Demonstration at the Kindergarten I took the Wooden Crocodile to demonstrate to children at the Kindergarten. The design was met with enthusiasm and excitement from the children, who laughed at the funny voice and screamed with excitement in response to interactions such as the
Simon says game asking “Can you touch your jina [feet]?”.
The children were curious about the prototype and were curious to see the components inside, tapping the sound sensor and asking questions such as “how did you build it?”, and “what’s that noise?”. The children were also confused about where the voice was coming from given that the mouth was not moving, suggesting that the prototype was not interacting as expected. To involve children in the decision making,
I asked them what they thought the crocodile should be called. The children suggested
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names associated with the water in both English and Kuku Yalanji such as
“Barramundi”, “Swim”, and “Bilngkumu”, but there was no single consensus on a name.
I observed that the children were using language with much less or no prompting at all from the adult. For example, children were saying words relating to things that they saw in the videos (e.g. “fish”), repeating things that the Crocodile said (e.g.
“Wujal Wujal”), or talking to the crocodile (e.g. children leaning in and saying “my name is…” one after the other) though not necessarily in direct response to what the crocodile was saying.
Children prompted others to use language. When the Crocodile asked the children their names, a child was telling the other what to say in response (in English):
“Say my name is…”. However, rather than answering in a full sentence, the children tended to respond with a single word in Kuku Yalanji or a full sentence in English.
The children’s attention was still fixed on the big screen. Children would lay on the floor next to each other with their faces and eyes close to the screen, and were shouting “yayyy!” or “hello!” at the screen. This also blocked other children’s view of the device, and needed prompting from adults to sit around it in a circle so that everyone could see it. This indicated that the inclusion of a screen in the Crocodile design needed to be thought through, as something that children found really engaging but also potentially diminished their attentiveness to the social interactions happening around the technology.
Drawing workshop activity with Elders and young children I facilitated the Designing My Own Personal Language Crocodile workshop
(Appendix E) with the LRG and Kindergarten children. The participants were each given a worksheet with an outline of the Wooden Crocodile prototype, and asked to
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design it for themselves or their family by choosing what the Wooden Crocodile would look like, say, and show on its screen (Figure 24).
Figure 24: Drawing outline for the 'Designing My Own Personal Language Crocodile’ workshop activity.
I yarned about the drawings with the LRG. My own perspective on the Wooden
Crocodile as a social technology that decoupled the form and content, contrasted with the Elders’ perspective of the prototype. I had anticipated that the familial framing of the Wooden Crocodile would prompt people to incorporate family photos and songs into the device.
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Yet, the design ideas from the Elders were much more closely linked to the
Crocodile form with ideas for phrases such as “snap snap” or “I’m hungry”, and the song “never smile at a Crocodile”. The Elders wished to keep the activity simple by keeping the Crocodile form rather than exploring other animals or shapes for their family crocodile: “Just stick to bilngkumu [crocodile]. Give us an idea” (F3).
When I asked the Elders to imagine what a ‘magic button’ on their own
Crocodile would do, this prompted a range of multisensory possibilities that were again closely related to the Crocodile form, such as opening the mouth, opening the eyes wide, and generating a crocodile’s smell.
It is also possible that the LRG meeting setting was not conducive to designing for the home, and it may have been easier to talk through designs within a home and with a smaller family group. The Elders did share places in their homes where they could imagine the Wooden Crocodile being used, “near the front or back door […] reachable for the kids, not too high” (F3), in the loungeroom, or near the fridge or television area as places that children frequent. There was still an interest for the technology to also be present in community spaces such as the Health Clinic or Arts
Centre.
The young children were also given simplified sheets to decorate their own
Crocodile. Most gave their crocodiles some bright colours and a name, but were too young to think about the Crocodile drawing as an abstract representation of a design for their home. I made their drawing readable by the Crocodile with an RFID sticker, and linked this to a short video clip of them narrating their drawing to show back to them on the prototype.
The children were excited when they recognised their own drawing and heard their voice on the crocodile (“It’s me!” “it’s you”, “that’s the kindy”, “that’s our
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mayi!”). They wanted to make their own video for their drawing, after seeing other children’s drawings displayed on the screen (“want to take a photo!” “where’s my card?”). They did not exhibit the same shyness about seeing themselves on the screen as older children in previous activities with the Noticeboard.
This final iteration of the design to Crocodile Language Friend soft toy is presented in Chapter 7.
6.7 Discussion
6.7.1 Seeding the design process through participatory (re)design This chapter illustrates an approach to iterative participatory design that I term
‘participatory (re) design’. Rather than starting from disaggregated materials or components, the iterative process was instead seeded by functioning designs, in particular the Ambient Birdhouse.
Postcolonial computing scholarship is rightly critical of ‘development’ enterprises that seek to impose technologies from elsewhere (often from the global
‘North’ to ‘South’) and supplant local design practices (Irani et al., 2010). The
Ambient Birdhouse was not a design “from nowhere” (Suchman, 2002a), but the product of a university-based research project, led by non-Indigenous researchers, reflecting decisions and logics pertaining to its original design context: as a tool to help urban Brisbane residents engage with nature by learning about local birds (Soro et al.,
2018). To have imposed the Ambient Birdhouse technology on the community with the intent of furthering our own agenda rather than that of the community would have been problematic.
As a design “non-proposal”, the Ambient Birdhouse was taken to Wujal Wujal without any expectation of being taken up or used by the community, and without a preconfigured role in the design process. This existing design in particular resonated
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with the Elders, as a possible tool for helping to teach children Kuku Yalanji. At their invitation, we demonstrated the Ambient Birdhouse at different community sites, and it became the focus of the first two LRG meetings. The Elders’ desire to deploy the
Birdhouse was reflected in comments such as when it would be “set up properly”, perhaps also communicating expectations of the project to deliver a working system within a short timeframe.
Participatory (re)design therefore offered a place from which to initiate an iterative participatory design process, from already “working” designs that the community themselves were interested in appropriating and using. This was important given that iterative design “demands hope and a commitment to investment now for benefit down the line” (Dourish et al., 2020), and has particular implications when working in design contexts where colonisation has, and is still, taking place. Providing the community with Ambient Birdhouses to try out and populate with local birds early in the project became an act of reciprocity between the research team and community.
Additionally, demonstrating and trialling the initial Ambient Birdhouse within the community setting facilitated a type of ‘design for implications’24, that helped the research team and LRG to collectively observe and think through the implications of tangible technologies for language use in their community. We were able to reflect on what worked well with the Ambient Birdhouse, as well as the frictions and incongruities it posed, with the prototype again functioning as a type of “breaching experiment” at the intersection of digital technologies and the community’s existing practices (Crabtree, 2004; Taylor et al., 2017). Moving away from the Birdhouse
24 An ode to (Dourish, 2006).
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completely may have diminished our ability to incorporate these insights and valuable contributions from the LRG into new designs.
The ‘finished’ Ambient Birdhouse was iteratively devolved and redesigned towards a novel technology specific to Kuku Yalanji in Wujal Wujal. The prototype took an inverse material trajectory in transitioning from a high degree of resolution
(the wooden Birdhouse), to a lower degree of resolution (the cardboard Language
Box), rebuilt towards the hi-fi Wooden Crocodile, that later became a soft toy (Chapter
7). Since tangible technology design involves a number of design elements (i.e. software, hardware, form, interaction design), the use of Birdhouse prototype components at hand as a “kit” potentially helped to shorten the lead time to the community having their own functioning technology.
6.7.2 Roles and agencies in participatory (re)design Examining decision-making helps to understand the people’s roles and agencies in design and the dynamics of participation (Bratteteig et al., 2012b), as well as helping to making visible the “conditions” of an iterative design process (Dourish et al., 2020).
As the HCI designer, I was present across all community activities involving the
Birdhouse, including demonstrations with both adults and children. Early in the project, I led the iterations from the Ambient Birdhouse, to the Talking Language Box, and to the Language Robot, based on the feedback from the LRG and my own observations and ideas. I made many decisions about how to construct the prototypes, and compiled the seed digital content that was co-designed with the Elders to display on them.
The decisions that I had made about the design seeds and early prototypes were not intended to be ‘final’, but were made to convey possible designs that could be brought back to the Elders to elicit feedback and their own decision-making. By the
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time we had reached the third iteration, the dynamics had shifted, and the LRG made many of the design decisions about the Wooden Crocodile and the soft toy design.
This included turning the design into a crocodile, changing its size and material form, labelling the body parts, recording seed content themselves about topics they had chosen, and identifying possible uses of the design in locations such as the home and the Kindergarten (Figure 25). The increased engagement in decision making with the later prototypes may link to Rankin and colleagues’ observations that the insightfulness of user feedback increases as the prototype quality improves (Rankin et al., 2017, p. 913). With each iteration, the prototypes “inscribed” the feedback and designs of the Elders as a tangible indicator of our progress with the project (Brandt,
2007) such that the community could increasingly ‘see themselves’ in the design.
Figure 25: Key feedback and decisions made with each prototype iteration.
The Elders in the LRG were the key participants and stakeholders as fluent speakers and custodians of their languages, and the ones who had been involved in
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teaching the language within their own families and in producing existing language materials. The Elders saw it as their responsibility to help their community by being involved with, and championing, language projects: “we gotta be a person that can stand strong” (F5). There was also a hope that the project could reach out to Elders beyond those who are typically involved with language initiatives within the community: “I think if we capture those other people other than those core ones that we use all the time, um, that will encourage some of those Elders to come in and start working with us” (P3).
Yet, the LRG did not necessarily wish to participate in the hands-on work of constructing the prototypes, and making certain types of design decisions. They felt that their strength was in their language skill as a “wealth of knowledge for Kuku”
(F3), and saw it as the role of the designer to work with young people on “how it
[technology] can be interesting to communicate with the young ones…” (F3). Their own vision of participation was for the HCI designer to develop design ideas, that would be continuously brought back to the LRG to consider:
That’s our strategy. The Reference Group. Like you, between you and [Elder]
do the fun things […], like you’ve done it before, that little game, bring it back
here just to correct spelling, it’s just to correct grammar, the correct
pronunciation. You know that’s what our job is, we’re not good at designing
games and stuff. (P3).
The participatory (re)design practice therefore reflected an iterative design process as envisaged by the Elders themselves. From the Elders’ perspective, the iterations were not so much characterised by the technical changes to the prototypes, but by the LRG meetings where the latest versions of the design were shown and discussed. The iterations did make certain demands of participants, as the Talking
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Language Box and Language Robot were not stable enough for long-term deployment and were stepping stones towards something more ‘finished’. The process also made certain demands of the designer in terms of working across the different groups with the community, taking on responsibility for particular types of design decisions and judgements, and coming back to the next meeting with ‘something new to show’.
While involving technology users in ‘hands on’ prototyping and crafting activities is considered a key method for facilitating participation in design, this account shows ‘design’ as happening in a variety of ways, across different locations, involving a number of people. The LRG’s material interactions with the prototypes and acts of ‘designing’ included creating language recordings, physically handling and giving their input into the prototypes, and taking part in activities such as the
‘designing my own personal crocodile’ workshop. At the same time, programmers at
QUT were designing software used in the Birdhouse prototypes and subsequent iterations, and engineers were designing the circuitry for the Crocodile Language
Friend and its housing within a soft toy.
In terms of capacity building, the changing nature of the decision-making in design potentially reflected the LRG’s growing familiarity with the technology through repeated interactions with the same components in different configurations.
The affordances of the Ambient Birdhouse as design kit imposed some limitations in terms of what could be achieved with the prototypes, but also constrained the design space in productive ways that facilitated the conversation with and decision-making by the Elders.
While the Elders did not wish to take a hands-on role in terms of building the prototypes, the Coding on Country activities undertaken through a parallel project did provide STEM skills training to youth in the community who were at boarding school
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during the term time (Soro et al., 2020). The Kindergarten children were too young to take part in the structured workshop activities, though a facilitator with more experience in working with young children may have found ways to more actively engage them as design partners within the iterative process. Within this process, the co-design activities were conducted separately with Elders and young children to understand their language use and positions respectively. The next steps for future work would be to bring these two groups together more directly in co-design activities to incorporate their different perspectives and promote intergenerational learning
(Hobson et al., 2010).
6.8 Conclusions
In this chapter, I have presented an iterative, participatory (re)design practice, through which existing technologies such as the Ambient Birdhouse helped to seed an iterative process. As Botero and colleagues note, “an open agenda is no good if nothing ever comes out of it” (Botero et al., 2013, p. 44). While the Ambient Birdhouse both opened and constrained the design space in certain ways, it also offered a place to start, and supported a (possible) design practice that responded to the social and material contingencies of the situation.
Certain aspects of the design practice, such as particular types of decision- making about the prototypes, were in the hands of the HCI designer. Yet, those roles in the design process, and the nature of the iterative show-and-response cycles with the LRG, were also a product of the community’s own expectations about how design should take place, and desire to see the project deliver tangible benefits for the community within a reasonable time-frame. I argue that working technology need not only represent the final output of iterative design, but can also serve as a starting point for new types of engagement, addressed further in Chapter 7.
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222 Chapter 6: An Iterative, Participatory (Re)Design Practice
Chapter 7. The Crocodile Language Friend Design
and Evaluation
7.1 Introduction
This chapter contributes the ‘final’ design and preliminary evaluation of the
‘Crocodile Language Friend’.
I start with a background on evaluating technology for children’s language use in Section 7.2, drawing on tangible user interfaces work in HCI, and other relevant areas such as computer-assisted language learning for endangered languages. In
Section 7.3, I describe the design of the Crocodile Language Friend in detailing its physical form, interaction design, software design, and hardware kit design.
Section 7.4 introduces my own evaluation activities with the Crocodile
Language Friend, including a demonstration and interview at the Women’s Centre, co- design workshop and technology trial with a family, LRG meetings, and a session with young children. The results from these activities are provided in Section 7.5, organised using measures such as language use, user experience of the tangible design, usability issues and further design considerations, and indications of community acceptance and the potential for ongoing use of the design.
Finally, in Section 7.6, I consider the Crocodile Language Friend with respect to
Hornecker and Buur’s Tangible Interaction Framework (Hornecker et al., 2006), and reflect on the claims that can be made from my own evaluation activities, as well as implications for further evaluation studies with the Crocodile.
Chapter 7: Crocodile Language Friend Design and Evaluation 223
This work links to research question 3a) What types of tangible social and technology designs can help to foster language use by children and their families, and how do their affordances differ from screen-based interventions?
7.2 Background
7.2.1 Evaluation in HCI and PD Evaluating new technologies is standard practice in HCI research, often with respect to usability and the user experience (Preece et al., 2015). Yet, despite the proliferation of tangible user interfaces for young children’s communication and language learning, there are few ‘formal’ evaluations of such systems (Sylla et al.,
2012, p. 422). Sylla and colleagues suggest that many existing evaluation methods are not suitable for pre-school age children as they are still learning the skills for verbal self-expression (Sylla et al., 2012, p. 422). This is illustrated in the iSign bear project, that involved informal evaluation of the design as the kindergarten-aged children
“were too young for more structured usability testing” (Huang et al., 2008, p. 214).
While continuous reflection and evaluation is a characteristic of PD, the evaluation of community-based PD projects is also complex. The reasons for this include: a lack of explicit evaluation methods and discussion of project outcomes in design literature (Bossen et al., 2016); the diversity of design contexts and local values, rendering it difficult to conduct meaningful comparative analysis across projects
(Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b); and the brevity of the participatory design cycle that can render it difficult to evaluate technology beyond a formal project period
(Bratteteig et al., 2016). Additionally, taking a broader perspective of design to include design-in-use and ongoing technology appropriations (Ehn, 2008) blurs the boundaries between “design time” and “use time” as discrete periods for evaluation.
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Within the area of language revitalisation and computer-assisted language learning, Ward has argued that the “social impact of CALL in the EL [endangered language] context is probably more important than the immediate language learning gains” (Ward, 2004, p. 356). Galla also highlights the range of considerations that can influence the suitability and shape the uptake of technologies for Indigenous languages such as “linguistic, cultural, social, economic, environmental, and technological factors” (Galla, 2016, p. 1148), and proffers that technology may not be the answer to achieving certain language goals (Galla, 2016). Chilisa also notes that in many cases standard Western evaluation overlooks outcomes that are important to Indigenous peoples such as self-determination, sovereignty, and decolonization (Chilisa, 2020, p.
120).
Since the intersection between Indigenous language revitalisation, tangible use interfaces, and participatory design is under-addressed in HCI work (Taylor et al.,
2020), I consider four aspects of the Crocodile Language Friend that could be evaluated: 1) children’s active language use with the design; 2) children’s user experience with technology as a tangible user interface 3) usability studies; and 4) community ownership and ongoing use of the design.
7.2.2 Evaluating children’s active language use Prior work has indicated several approaches to evaluating children’s active language use with technology. Firstly, by conducting observational studies to record and analyse children’s language use while interacting with the prototypes. Researchers have remarked on social language use, such as children’s “narration”, “multivocality”, and “metacommunication” strategies when playing with others using augmented dollhouses (Freed, 2010, p. 316). Other studies have analysed children’s individual language use, such as children’s “self talk” when interacting with the iSign bear
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(Huang et al., 2008, p. 215). In the Linguabytes project, language use was also evaluated in terms of the “opportunities for social interaction” and “opportunities for learning” afforded through the use of the technology by speech therapists with children
(Hengeveld et al., 2013, p. 242).
Secondly, by conducting formal testing to compare children’s language skills and learning gains before and after using the technology. For example, Asselborn and colleagues noted improvements to children’s handwriting speed and quality through use of haptic-enabled educational robots, consistent with results obtained with standard teaching practices (Asselborn et al., 2018, p. 228). In one of the few tangible projects for an Indigenous language with the Penans people of Malaysia, Plimmer and colleagues cite children’s increased recognition of Oroo’ language signs after using a tangible teaching aid (Plimmer et al., 2015, p. 3499). While the comparative study of a subsequent computer game project for the same language do not report “significant” learning gains, an alternative outcome reported from playing the game was “draw[ing] the children’s attention to their own cultural heritage in digital forms” (Zaman et al.,
2015b, p. 18).
Evaluating the role of tangibles in language use has particular implications in the context of Indigenous languages. Language use may not just involve learning the language for the first time, but also increasing opportunities for people to use language that they already know in everyday settings (Henry et al., 2018), as well as “re- learning” language that they previously knew but may have forgotten
(Katushemererwe et al., 2015). The use of surveys and tests to assess children’s language skills “may neither be feasible nor comfortable” for Indigenous language speakers and presents additional challenges when working with geographically- dispersed communities (Ward, 2018, p. 214). Taking this approach may also be
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infeasible when working with very young children, or may have the potential to invoke feelings of “shame” about language (see Chapter 2 Section 2.3.2).
7.2.3 Evaluating children’s user experience through their interest in, and engagement with, tangible user interfaces Past TUI projects have sought to evaluate children’s level of engagement with tangible user interfaces, and motivations to interact with the technology. HCI researchers have assessed children’s emotional responses to tangible prototypes, such as the “enormous enthusiasm” of young children to use the iSign bear (Huang et al.,
2008, p. 215). The range of children’s tangible interactions is also an indicator of engagement, with Ryokai and colleagues’ remarking that “physicality of the [Tangible
Message Bubbles] toys invited sharing and co-creation among the children” and gave rise to different types of verbal and non-verbal expressions (Ryokai et al., 2009, p.
4601). Written surveys completed after periods of interaction have sought to measure engagement, for example through indicators such as “satisfaction” and “enjoyment” of a tangible alphabet system (Maldonado et al., 2019). However, Robinson and colleagues argue that short term studies of tangibles such as robots can also “capture a period biased by novelty” (Robinson et al., 2019, p. 30), requiring evaluation studies over longer time-scales.
There are aspects of engagement with technology that are specific to the endangered language context, with relevant lessons from Computer-Assisted
Language Learning (CALL). Ward and colleagues argue that understanding learner motivation is important for evaluating CALL systems, noting motivations particular to endangered language learning such as “language revitalisation goals, language learning materials development, or language documentation before last remaining speakers die” (Ward, 2018, p. 118). Henry and colleagues have also illustrated the ability for “authentic” and “social” language learning experiences to serve as a “magic
Chapter 7: Crocodile Language Friend Design and Evaluation 227
hook of motivation” when learning minority languages such as Welsh online (Henry et al., 2018, p. 340). However, it is not clear whether these insights would apply when designing for young children’s language use, with HCI taking less of a pedagogical focus than CALL.
7.2.4 Evaluating usability Evaluating usability issues is a core aspect of HCI evaluations of tangible technologies (Preece et al., 2015, p. 19), particularly because these factors are easily externally observable. Past work on tangible technologies designs for children has considered usability issues in their evaluation activities, and identified possible improvements for future versions of the designs. Examples of usability issues identified have included problems with the interface size and shape for the target age group (Dekel et al., 2007; Papadopoulos et al., 2013), the need for additional functionality (Huang et al., 2008; Ryokai et al., 2009), or issues such as the systems robustness (Huang et al., 2008).
While considering usability issues is an important factor when designing any technology, this is particularly important when designing for language revitalisation as usability problems may result in discouragement and abandonment of technology interventions. Bow has put forward the idea that greater evaluation of technologies for
Indigenous languages is needed, with assessing usability factors along with other considerations such as usefulness, impact, and value (Bow, 2017). However,
Winschiers-Theophilus and colleagues also assert that common usability measures may not have the same implications across different cultural contexts and values systems, and usability evaluations need to reflect the local context to be meaningful
(Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b, p. 9).
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7.2.5 Evaluating community ownership, acceptance, and ongoing use of designs Evaluating technology use is a further characteristic of HCI studies and evaluations of tangible technologies. Within specific evaluation studies, the level of technology use has been quantified in terms of the number of interactions and letters constructed with an alphabet kit (Maldonado et al., 2019), amount of “physical interactions measured per minute” with the iSign bear (Huang et al., 2008, p. 215), number of messages sent using the StoryBox (Wallbaum et al., 2018), and levels of
“sustained play” using the Video Play system (Follmer et al., 2010). Longer term use has also been evaluated in terms of the appropriation of tangible technologies into family routines, such as communicating with the Messaging Kettle while making a cup of tea (Brereton et al., 2015), or people’s “individuation” of tangibles over time by making them their own (Ambe et al., 2017).
An Indigenous community’s acceptance of the technology is key to its ongoing use and sustainability going forward. Plimmer and colleagues’ sought to ascertain the
Penans people’s willingness to embrace new technologies for their Oroo’ rainforest sign language, concluding that their study indicated “a high level of acceptance and enthusiasm for the system” (Plimmer et al., 2015, p. 3051). In the Indigenous
Australian context, Keane and colleagues have studied the use of a social robot for teaching school children computer coding as well as their traditional language (Keane et al., 2019), concluding that “the success of the project was dependent upon the support of the local Aboriginal community, in particular the Narungga people” (Keane et al., 2019, p. 533). This emphasizes the importance of evaluating factors beyond individual users’ interactions with a technology.
In the next section, I introduce the technology co-designed through this project, the Crocodile Language Friend, before discussing evaluating activities and findings.
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7.3 Crocodile Language Friend Design25
The Crocodile Language Friend is a tangible soft-toy embedded with an electronics kit, and a web application that can be accessed by connecting to the device’s local Wi-Fi network. As a social technology (Hagen et al., 2012), the crocodile is prepopulated with only a small number of seed recordings, providing a flexible tool for families to create and experience their own language recordings.
People can create pairs of recordings in any combination of English, Kuku Yalanji, and Kuku Nyungul that are played through the Crocodile’s interaction modes.
7.3.1 Physical form The Wooden Crocodile design was converted to a soft toy form as per the feedback on the iteration (see Chapter 6 Section 6.6). For the early version prototype, we modified an off-the-shelf soft toy crocodile with an open mouth that was small enough to be picked up and carried easily by young children. We sewed zippers, pouches, and additional padding into the Crocodile to house the electronics (Figure
26), and attached icons onto each of the feet to label the buttons.
Figure 26: (from left to right): Off-the-shelf crocodile used for the initial prototype, fitting hardware into the soft toy, and view of the zip and pouches.
25 Parts of these section have been published in the OzCHI2019 paper (Taylor et al., 2019b) and CHI2020 Late Breaking Work (Taylor et al., 2020).
230 Chapter 7: Crocodile Language Friend Design and Evaluation
Following activities with the off-the-shelf toy, the Wujal Wujal Women’s Centre decided to sew their own crocodile into which the hardware kit could be fitted (Figure
27). The women adapted a free soft toy pattern, and sewed their own Crocodile with spare materials that they had dyed themselves specifically for the Crocodile.
Figure 27: Community-sewn Crocodile Language Friend.
7.3.2 Interaction design The Crocodile Language Friend has several different interaction modes:
Mode 1: Greeting mode The Crocodile plays a custom greeting message when it starts up with the name of the child or family. The web application has an interface to record an audio message such as the name of the child, name of the crocodile, greeting, or expression relating to that particular family (Figure 28). The audio message is played whenever the crocodile systems starts up for the first time as: “[Recorded name]. Hello there!”
Figure 28: Web interface for recording a custom greeting message.
Chapter 7: Crocodile Language Friend Design and Evaluation 231
Mode 2: Playback mode Playback mode is the default mode for the Crocodile after the greeting has played. People can press the ‘playback’ button and hear a recording at random from the Crocodile’s audio collection. The Crocodile will only play the recordings that are toggled ‘on’ in the web application (Figure 29).
Figure 29: Collection of recordings in the 'Manage My Recordings' list.
Mode 3: Repeat or translate game mode People can play a repeating or word matching game when there is a pair of recordings in English, Kuku Yalanji, or Kuku Nyungul. The Crocodile either plays a recording in Kuku Yalanji and prompts the user with “repeat after me”, or plays a recording in English and asks “what’s this word in Kuku?”. The microphone captures a small sound recording of the user repeating or translating the word or phrase, and plays back the original and the user’s recording one after the other so that users can compare them. At the end of the interaction, victory music plays and flashing coloured lights display on the LED strip as a reward.
Users can choose which recordings are used in the repeating or translating game interaction by checking an ‘ADD TO GAME’ box in the create/edit recordings interface. Some words and short phrases are suitable for this type of game, while longer sentences or stories may be too complex for children to meaningfully repeat and translate within the duration of the interaction.
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Mode 4: Treasure hunt game mode People can create and play their own treasure hunt game by recording a sequence of audio clues that are associated with RFID stickers and tags through the web application (Figure 30).
Figure 30: Web application pages for editing the Treasure Hunt, and creating and editing clues.
RFID tags can be hidden in physical space, to be found by users in response to the audio clues, and read using the Crocodile’s in-built RFID reader (Figure 31). The
Crocodile indicates whether the correct clue has been found, or whether players need to search for another tag. Users then record ‘End Hunt Audio’ as a longer message or story that plays on once the Treasure Hunt has concluded.
Figure 31: Audio demonstrating play of the treasure hunt (listening to a clue, finding and tapping the card on the chair, 'reward' lights and audio playing).
Examples of audio clues for the Indigenous Knowledge Centre (in English and/or Kuku Yalanji or Kuku Nyungul) might be “it’s a place near the supermarket”,
Chapter 7: Crocodile Language Friend Design and Evaluation 233
“you find books here”, “it’s called Binal Mangka Bayan in Kuku Yalanji”. People may also choose to incorporate knowledge about Country and the seasonal calendar into the clues (e.g. go to this tree called ‘X’ in Kuku Yalanji that flowers during ‘Y’ season).
Mode 5: Ambient mode The Crocodile plays a random recording from its collection after 10 minutes of inactivity when switched on, so that Indigenous languages will be heard even when children are not actively playing with the toy.
7.3.3 Software design The Crocodile Language Friend runs a custom web application26 on the
Raspberry Pi that can be accessed by connecting mobile devices to each crocodile’s local, password-protected WiFi network. The WiFi network is turned on automatically when the Crocodile starts up, and times out after 10 minutes. It can also manually be turned on and off by swiping an RFID tag.
The web application architecture was chosen to be platform-independent so that community members could access it through their existing mobile devices, it would be kept local to the device and community rather than available on an online store, and it did not require any installation or configuration to access.
The web application has modes for setting up the crocodile, managing language recordings, a dictionary look-up, bonus drum-kit game, resources such as how-to videos, and contact details for assistance. This functionality is displayed in the screenshots from the web application included below (Figure 32).
26 The web application was designed by Jennyfer Taylor in partnership with Wujal Wujal community and implemented by Michael Esteban.
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The core functionality of the web application is to create and manage a collection of audio recordings in language. Each entry has a name, at least one audio recording in either of the three languages, and optional text fields. While the text is not currently displayed on the Crocodile, future versions may reintroduce a small screen to show written forms of the language on the toy.
Figure 32: Screenshots from the web application that show its functionality.
The Crocodile Language Friend leverages existing resources such as the Kuku
Yalanji dictionary. The web application provides a dedicated ‘dictionary look-up’ page, as well as a dictionary look-up field in the recording interface. The ‘Manage My
Recordings’ page (Figure 29) also provides a list of ‘suggested recordings’ based on the categories of words and phrases that were previously recorded (e.g. places, body part words). It would also be possible to incorporate other existing resources into the web application such as digital versions of the printed storybooks.
There is an option of applying a voice filter to a recording which raises the pitch, giving the audio the quality of a ‘funny croc voice’ while preserving the speaker’s cadence. The voice filter also provides a way for users to anonymise their recording if they choose to do so. The voice filter is automatically applied to the custom greeting
Chapter 7: Crocodile Language Friend Design and Evaluation 235
message and the treasure hunt game, but can also be applied to any recording on the
‘Manage My Recordings’ list.
7.3.4 Hardware kit design The hardware has been designed as a kit (Figure 33)27 that can be fitted into tangibles with a variety of hard and soft physical forms. The Hardware Kit was initially modelled on the components and software used in the Tangiball (Wilson et al., 2019).
Figure 33: Hardware kit for the Crocodile Language Friend.
The system runs from a Raspberry Pi computer (Raspberry Pi Foundation, 2019).
It was initially powered using an off-the-shelf mobile power bank that needed to be removed to recharge. This was later replaced with a smaller PiJuice battery shield (Pi
Supply, 2020) and in-built charging port so that the battery is fixed in place (Figure
34). The internal components are mounted within a vented, 3D-printed box.
The Crocodile Language Friend Kit contains both a plug and play USB speaker and microphone. While a PiHat speaker was initially used due to its compact size, it
27 The hardware kit was designed by Jennyfer Taylor in partnership with Wujal Wujal community and implemented by Andrew Vallino, who contributed to the development of the kit components and designed and printed the case.
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was replaced with a USB speaker for louder playback and easier maintenance. The microphone is used in the Repeat and Translate Game mode to record and play back short segments of audio, which are not stored.
Figure 34: Photographs of Crocodile Language Friend hardware components showing battery shield. The bottom images show the initial plastic container, later replaced with the 3D printed case.
An LED Strip is sewn down the back of the crocodile. The first light in the strip always displays as a power indicator when the Crocodile is in use. Each time the
Repeat/Translate Game and Treasure Hunt is completed, the LED strip flashes coloured lights. A new light is added to the strip for users to ‘collect’ as an incentive to interact, and resets when the Crocodile is powered off. The lights also turn red to show when the microphone is recording during the repeating game (Figure 35).
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Figure 35: Use of the LED strip for recording in the Repeat or Translate Game (left), and lights incrementing in the strip after each interaction (right).
An RFID reader is fitted inside the crocodile’s mouth that can read RFID cards, tags, and stickers. The crocodile has its own unique RFID tag fitted in the tail so that it can be identified by other toys (Figure 36). The RFID tags are currently used to toggle the WiFi on and off, and for the Treasure Hunt Game.
Tactile buttons in each foot allow users to navigate between the different interaction modes. We completely removed the screen in this version to see how this would direct children’s attention during the interaction.
Figure 36: Reading the red RFID tag in the Crocodile's mouth.
7.3.5 Safety inspections and testing The Crocodile Language Friend was internally tested by the research team, and was inspected by both Workplace Health and Safety staff and Faculty Technicians, who tagged and tested the wall chargers. A risk assessment plan for trialling the prototypes was implemented. Safety information was also included with a written
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manual provided with the family co-design kits, and safety reminders were emailed to participants during deployment activities. An updated version of the hardware and software was deployed following initial trials to further enhance user privacy and safety.
7.4 Design Activities with The Crocodile Language Friend
We carried out several activities to further design and evaluate the Crocodile
Language Friend.
7.4.1 Demonstrations and interview at the Women’s Centre The Women’s Centre is a community facility that provides a safe space for women to undertake skills development activities in conjunction with a government program. The women create their own tee-shirts, dresses, bags, wall hangings, and other textiles and handicrafts that can be purchased by the local community and visitors at the Women’s Centre shop.
We demonstrated the off-the-shelf soft toy at the Women’s Centre, and later returned to find that the women had been inspired to design their own soft toy. With the permission of the program managers, the Women’s Centre produced a community- sewn Crocodile for the 2019 Puliima presentation, and provided the Centre with materials to sew further toys. We later interviewed one person at the Women’s Centre about their motivations to design their own toys, the process of sewing the Crocodile, and their own perspective and visions for the project.
7.4.2 Co-design workshops with families We held a design workshop with a family that was interested in trialling the
Crocodile Language Friend in their home, with a particular focus on observing children’s interactions with the design and gaining their feedback. We conducted an initial workshop with two adults and four school-aged children (A1-A2, C1-C4). We
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report on insights from one of the adults and two of the children here. A follow-up interview was carried out with one of the adults several months later. Several other families were provided with the kits, but we have not yet been able to conduct follow- up activities with them.
7.4.3 Discussion with the Language Reference Group We sought the feedback of the LRG on the Crocodile Language Friend during
LRG Meeting 5, and showed them the video of the Puliima presentation with the community-sewn crocodile during LRG Meeting 6.
7.4.4 Community demonstrations We discussed the Crocodile design with a number of adults, and showed it to young children when they visited the Indigenous Knowledge Centre to observe their interactions and experiences with the prototype. The LRG also suggested organising a community-demonstration of the Crocodile under the mango tree (a community gathering place).
While we put up flyers about the event, only one Elder attended due to the short notice and conflicting timing with an event in Cairns (Figure 37). Leveraging an existing event may have been more effective in terms of reaching a greater number of people. Community engagement was sometimes challenging, and it was difficult to arrange the logistics of activities ahead of time from Brisbane.
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Figure 37: The challenges of community engagement.
7.5 Evaluation of the Crocodile Language Friend
The design and evaluation activities with the soft toy prototype yielded preliminary insights relating to the four evaluation areas outlined in Section 7.2.
7.5.1 Language use with the Crocodile Language Friend Through these preliminary activities, we made a number of observations about people’s language use with and around the prototypes.
Elders and children recording themselves with the voice filter We witnessed both Elders’ and children’s willingness to record in Kuku Yalanji onto the Crocodile Language Friend, and the researchers could observe them recording themselves directly onto the device unlike with previous iterations.
This version of the prototype was the first one onto which the Elders wanted to record themselves directly during an LRG meeting, so that it would have seed content from the LRG when it was demonstrated in the community: “We can get them to record something, you know. Some of us. All of us do something” (F3). The voice filter played a big role in making the Elders feel more comfortable to record as they had the option of anonymising their voice. The Elders reacted with laughter when hearing themselves back with the voice filter applied, with responses such as “Yeah, that’s alright!” (F12).
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The recording process with the Elders was a group-based activity. The Elders discussed ideas for phrases amongst themselves, and recorded straight onto the
Crocodile verbatim without writing it down as they had in previous workshops. We listened back to their recordings, and some people decided to redo their recording after hearing it back, though we pointed out that hearing quirks with their recordings might encourage people to ‘have a go’ even if their language use is not perfect.
Some examples of the types of sentences that Elders recorded in English and
Kuku Yalanji onto the Crocodile included “We’ve got to stand strong, and don’t forget our language”, “Parents learn language or teach the language” and “My name is
Charlie the Crocodile and I’m hungry”. Elders also expressed an interest in recording songs in language such as nursery rhymes, church hymns, a crocodile song, and other songs written by the community (F3, F5).
The children in the family workshop were also enthusiastic to record themselves onto the Crocodile. Children’s own ideas for content included body part words (e.g. mara [hand]), animals (e.g. kuyu [fish]), and greetings at certain times of the day such as “good morning” on waking up (C?). The children recorded both the English and
Kuku Yalanji versions of a phrase and listened back to them, with the adults making suggestions such as “You have to say it slower” (A2), and providing encouragement e.g. “Sounds great!” (A2). The children were keen to hear themselves back, and they responded with laughter to the voice filter, which supported their engagement with the technology as it had done with the Elders.
Role of the Crocodile in teaching and using the language in full sentences The LRG indicated possible uses of the Crocodile Language Friend in helping children to learn and use full sentences. The Elders perceived the Crocodile as providing a “back-up” for language teaching activities, by increasing children’s
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language immersion and providing consistency in language use across settings: “Yes, like the kindy sends something home, this is the phrase that we learn, keep so the next day the kids go to school or maybe a month of that thing, it doesn’t take that long for kids to pick up. So it’s repeated at home and at school” (F3). They talked about children taking their own crocodiles to school or kindergarten to support communication and learning between them.
Elders saw repetition with the Crocodile as an approach to teaching children sentences, by using the same sentence structure but substituting in different words such as people’s names:
You’d be saying ngayu burri bilngkumu Wilma [my name is crocodile Wilma],
ngayu burri bilngkumu Alex [my name is crocodile Alex], and then you repeat
it repeat it until the kids get it, and then the bilngkumu [crocodile] can talk back
and say ngayu burri wanya, what’s your name?28 (F3).
Additionally, the Elders discussed Crocodile in relation to their existing practices of scaffolding children’s learning towards full sentences. They showed us a tool that they had made for teaching visiting students Kuku Yalanji with singe letters, words, and sentences in Kuku Yalanji. They spoke about recording single letter sounds in Kuku Yalanji as a way to start language teaching: “if we know […] what the bilngkumu can do with our recording, you can put something for them ones to start the kuku, you know? Pronouncing it A and I and U, it’s not the same sound like in English, it’s A I U” (F3).
28 Names have been changed in this quote for participant anonymity.
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The Elders then described their practice of teaching these sounds through words that are familiar and relevant to the students, and combining these into full sentences:
And our teaching that we do at the fireplace, I just use the words that’s familiar
like waybal, me, ngayu, something simple. To teach someone you gotta use the
words, stick to the basic words that you can use […], then I’ve made it into
sentences by using these words that we’ve taught them (F3).
This example highlighted possible appropriations of the Crocodile Language
Friend into the Elder’s existing language teaching practices, and the advantage of the flexible recording interface for people to create recordings of any type and length from single letter sounds to more complex phrases.
Using the Crocodile for learning and using sentences was also a goal identified in the family workshop. We observed children using a mixture of single words (e.g.
“mara”), full phrases (e.g. “yundu burri wanya?”), and full sentences with a mixture of Kuku Yalanji and English (e.g. “I have two jina, I have two miyil”). Children reflected themselves that forming full sentences could be “hard”, and an adult talked about helping children develop skills to use Kuku Yalanji in sentences:
Ah, mainly just putting, they know the basic stuff on hand and hair and all that,
but the next step is trying to join those sentences. […] So the whole idea is trying
to, this would be a useful little tool to encourage them to speak and put a sentence
together. (A2).
Children’s agency in language use with the Crocodile During the weeks in which the family trialled the Crocodile at home, the adults remarked on the children’s own initiatives to use language with the Crocodile.
Children also used the Crocodile in unanticipated ways to teach language to other
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children. During the initial workshop, the adults indicated to the children that they could show the Crocodile to visitors to help impart the language to them: A2: “So you can teach [visitor] while she’s here”. In the post-use interview, the adult recollected that children had shown the Crocodile to visiting family members: “while Mum was watching tv they were talking with the crocodile. And using that and, they were explaining that to their [older] cousin” (A2).
The adults observed the children using the repeating and translating modes to correct their own pronunciation:
During that week I observed them and, what you had installed in the crocodile
itself, they were repeating what was said, which was great. And um, then they
were correcting themselves in terms of how to, the pronunciation of it, of
different words. So they sort of interacted with it in that way. (A2).
Some Elders expressed a desire for the Crocodile to detect whether children were using the language correctly or not, and to give feedback to the learner in playful ways:
“If the kids say bilngkumu then nothing happens. If they say ngawiya [turtle] nothing happens, or something shakes, make it red” (F3). However, children’s actual language use with the Crocodile indicated that they were already using it to check and correct their pronunciation themselves against the Crocodile’s recording. Prior HCI work such as Robertson et al.’s automated pronunciation learning system has also shown the importance of human interactions around technology for learning (Robertson et al.,
2018, p. 356:2), and suggests that complex systems for giving feedback may not be needed where simpler tools can support teachers to provide this (Robertson et al., 2018, p. 356:10).
These uses illustrate that the Crocodile has the potential not only to support the
Elders’ language practices, but it can also promote children’s agency to learn and use
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the language in their own ways. The family workshop gave us a direct insight into children’s own motivations for language use, with one reason being to pass the language on to their own children in future (C3). While Elders had the general impression that young people were disengaged with the language as discussed in the initial field theory, this exchange emphasizes that some children do have an existing willingness to learn and use the language that could be grown and enriched through design.
7.5.2 User experiences with the Crocodile Language Friend as a tangible user interface Tangible crocodile form as embedded in the local environment The tangible crocodile form had the effect of embedding the design in the local environment and the everyday life of the community. The real crocodile’s enduring presence in and around the community has made it a feature of daily conversation in ways that could be leveraged for language learning and use:
The crocodile is really awareness, because we say things like never talk to the
crocodile, or the crocodile said, it’s in our, its already in our lives to go, be careful
or I’ll feed you to the crocodiles. It’s just a part of everyday talk in Bloomfield,
[…] kids you go past on the bus on the way to school, and every day you look
out the river, what do you think of when you think of the river? Crocodiles. You
keep your eye out for crocodiles. (P7).
There was an interesting relationship between the crocodile form and content, as mentioned in Chapter 6 Section 6.6.2. Some suggestions of what to record on the toy were specific to the crocodile animal (e.g. cultural knowledge about the crocodile, and language about its habitat). The Elders also had the view that the Crocodile could help instil messages about safety around the waterways in young children. However, the
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LRG also recommended that the crocodile and other animal toys have distinct voices and animal sounds.
While there was a relationship between the crocodile bird and the Crocodile, the
Elders felt that it was better to keep the crocodile bird sound “on that bird box” rather than on the Crocodile Language Friend “because it’s not the bilngkumu that’s making that noise, the calling is from a bird” (F3). Other suggestions for words, songs, and stories were not specific to the crocodile, reflecting broader potential uses as a social technology decoupled from its crocodile form.
Language use through tactile appeal The material form of the Crocodile Language Friend as a soft toy created tactile appeal that prompted engagement with the design across a range of age groups.
While the crocodile soft toy was designed to target preschool-aged children, older school-aged children responded positively to the crocodile due to its soft toy form as indicated in the post-use interview: “I think the voice of it and I think the cuddly toy itself. I think that was the main attraction. And probably, you know, the cuddly toy talking in language. That was probably the most coolest thing for them”
(A2). Children’s bonding with the toy motivated them to take good care of it as “they were pretty gentle with it” (A2).
The soft materials on the toy prompted interactions that are not possible with a mobile app such as stroking or cuddling the crocodile, lying on top of it, using it as a pillow, passing it to other children, and chasing children with it (Figure 38). This suggests its potential to both support structured activities and young children’s unstructured play, even when the crocodile is turned off. Children were also able to personalise the toy by dressing it up with items from their favourite football team:
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“[Child] put the hat on there… I think [they] put one of his bronco shirts on there”
(A2).
• Sleeping on the Crocodile • Shouting at the Crocodile • Jumping up and down near croc • Stroking the Crocodile • Walking astride croc • Dancing with the Crocodile • Picking up the Crocodile to eat it • Running with Crocodile (like a chicken) • Grabbing the Crocodile by the • Holding the Crocodile neck • Cuddling the Crocodile • Sitting the Crocodile on bean bag • Passing the Crocodile: “your • Chasing other children with the turn” Crocodile • Holding the Crocodile by tail • Flying jumps onto crocodile • Crocodile ‘sleeping’ on Child’s • Pushing the Crocodile’s button shoulder again and again Figure 38: List of children’s tangible interactions observed with the Crocodile.
Some participants also considered the existing crocodile soft toy design as suitable for adult learners: “I think you’ve got it. That’s as good as you’re going to get.
I don’t think a tree or a rock or, you know, anything’s really going to… it’s got to be an animal or it’s got to be a human” (P7). The playful nature of the Crocodile as a soft toy fabricated by the community helped to make it familiar and put people at ease: “I think the more times that Jennyfer comes, and we become familiar with you, and everybody knows what you’re coming to do, yeah we do. And just the laughter that we’ve had too in talking about it” (P7).
Ambient mode as facilitating social language learning and use in social The Crocodile’s physical presence in place and ambient mode supported social language learning amongst family members and other people present outside of direct interactions with the technology. When used in a social setting such as the loungeroom or dining room, the presence of the Crocodile and its ambient mode (playing a random recording after ten minutes of inactivity) drew attention back to the toy and the language and prompted family discussions: “The locations I mainly used was in the bedroom and in the lounge. It was a focal point in some of their little discussions
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amongst their cousins and family, they spoke to [an extended family member] about it, that’s when they took it to [Place]. So that was a very positive thing” (A2).
In the Women’s Centre, the Crocodile Language Friend was seen as an
“important tool” to help adults to learn and use the language by supporting language immersion as “you need to hear this language spoken” (P7). The participant spoke about using the Crocodile in the presence of the other women, to help their language use as peripheral participants in the interaction: “so if we get rid of the shame, I’ll take the shame […] can you say it again, everybody hears so we all learn together. Yeah I don’t mind taking it because I know that it benefits everybody else in the meantime”
(P7). This points to the ability for the tangible and ambient design, as distinct from an app or screen-based device, to increase language exposure and maintain awareness of
Kuku Yalanji in “reinforcing the importance of language” (A2).
7.5.3 Usability issues and additional design considerations for the Crocodile Language Friend Usability issues These evaluation activities brought to light several usability issues that have, and will be addressed in future iterations of the design.
Elders and adults across the demonstrations gave feedback that the audio playback volume on the Crocodile was too soft: “And just the thing on the speaker, the volume on that” (F7). The softness of the audio helped to focus young children’s attention when using it individually and in small groups as they needed to be quiet and listen intently to hear it, sometimes holding it up to their ear. However, there is also a concern that this may present barriers to use for people with hearing difficulties. As a result of this feedback, we changed from the speaker shield on the Raspberry Pi to a larger USB speaker to increase the volume of the audio playback. The speaker is gradually being replaced in the existing units that are deployed in the community.
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A language use-related issue was the fact that the language form changes depending on who is being spoken to. The LRG demonstrated this with an example of the greeting form changing when using language with an individual or a group of people:
F3: But if you are in a group, eh, like the kids be in a class, you’d say, yura
yalada. Yura, more, you know, if it’s just one, yundu yalada.
F2: Yura means more than one, the whole lot.
This points to a need for context-awareness in the Crocodile form in order to adjust the word forms and terms of address to reflect the use situation. This could be addressed by incorporating components such as motion sensor or GPS module into the hardware, which could also help to locate the toys if they become misplaced: “I’d certainly put a chip in them so that I knew where they were all the time” (P7).
While the evaluation highlighted the value of the voice filter for encouraging language use, it also underscored a need for users to be able to choose whether to apply the filter or not to their own recording.
On the one hand, the Elders themselves reflected on the use of the voice filter to make the design appealing to children:
they’ll be talking in the kids talk, they’ll be more interested. They don’t want to
listen to us big people talking. They’ll say, ‘oh they’re grown up, I don’t wanna
listen to them’. But the kids among kids, you know, that’s how it should be. (F2).
There is also a precedent for the use of humorous, computerised voices in HCI design to make technology more attractive to children, such as the “cartoon-style voice” used in the WAKEY soft-toy rabbit, that helps children and parents to build positive morning routines (Chan et al., 2017, p. 2292).
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On the other hand, Elders felt that speaking in their own voice would enhance the use of the Crocodile as a relational technology: “And if this thing up there it says my name, ngayu burri [name], then the kids will say yeah, that’s daughter [name]”
(F5). This connects with the argument established in some HCI work that audio recordings about stories and memories with recognisable voices “capture the sentimental value of a moment and stimulate people’s imaginations to mentally rebuild past moments” (Heshmat et al., 2020, p. 359:1). Robot-Assisted Language Learning also advocates for robots having voices that are “as naturalistic as possible, having prosody cues and an accent similar to that of a speaker of the target language” (Randall,
2020, p. 7:21).
For this reason, the Crocodile Language Friend interface gives users the option to apply the voice filter if they wish, or leave a recording to play back in their own voice. It is important to note that there was not always consensus among the LRG, as individuals had their own views on the project, and this diversity of opinions and uses should be respected.
Crocodile demonstrations and trials also suggested that the interaction of connecting mobile devices to the Crocodile and accessing the web application to create new recordings added a degree of complexity that may be discouraging for language speakers. The interactions could be re-designed to be simpler by recording directly onto the microphone embedded in the Crocodile, but there is a need to ensure that the audio is still captured clearly through the soft toy materials.
The reintroduction of a small display screen on the Crocodile could also open up the use of the Crocodile in a wider range of language activities, particularly ones with young children that seek to establish the relationship between oral and written forms of the language, and between language and objects. This could involve exploring uses
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of the screen that do not draw too much of the user’s attention (such as displaying basic letters and words rather than more immersive video content).
Further design considerations The community identified a range of further design considerations for the next iterations of the prototype.
The Women’s Centre pointed to changes that they wish to make to the Crocodile soft toy form within their own community-led, iterative design process. The proposed changes were as follows: Adding an open mouth to the toy, as with the off-the-shelf toy “so it’s a bit more puppeteering” (P7); changing the shape of the tail “so that it’s more proportioned” (P7); using a shiny, textured material to “make overlapping scales on it. He’s soft and he’s shiny, he’s gonna look cool!” (P7); and adding texture to the materials, “for the eyes you’d probably use the felt, for the shape of it itself you’d probably use the tight knit, and then we’ll glue on the furry bits” (P7). The children in the family workshop expressed their own wish for a toy that was capable of walking around itself, that could be achieved through the integration of servo motors.
The Crocodile soft toy elicited ideas for other animal toys, such as having different animals to represent the three clan groups. Some Elders felt that it could be useful for the soft toys to represent particular totems to support teaching about cultural
Lore: “They should be the totems because that’s where the kids will take more open to us telling them, you know, if we can talk to them at home” (F2). Animals that are ordinarily noisy such as birds were also suggested for the toys: “The cockatoo would be because the cockatoo talks” (F7).
There was also consideration of how the Crocodile could be adapted to the specificities of particular use settings. For example, the adults considered whether the
Crocodile could be customised by different groups in the community, such as a
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‘Ranger’ Crocodile that tourists can take driving with them to tell them information about the area (P7) with language use specific to that activity. They suggested that there was scope to make or sell different variations of the toy to suit the needs and interests of particular families, including toys with different voices and ones without the full electronics kit: “I think there may be an opportunity, because if a family has a connection to it, though they don’t need the voice activation we might be able to sell them the same crocodile but without the voice, they might get a bit sick of the voice too.” (P7). As such the Crocodile presents an economic development community for the community to make and sell the toys if they wish to do so.
7.5.4 Community ownership, acceptance, and ongoing use of the Crocodile Language Friend Community involvement and ownership in Crocodile production The act of the community sewing the soft toys themselves fostered both an individual sense of ownership of the toys, and a communal sense of ownership of the design and production by the community.
Many women chose to contribute to different aspects of the visual design and sewing of the crocodile such as finding and printing free patterns as a starting point, to dyeing and cutting the fabric, and sewing the Crocodile together (Figure 39). This collaborative production of toys enabled everyone to ‘have a hand’, even those who may not be engaged with the language or prospective users of the toy:
To keep everybody involved in it, it was the utilisation, for the people who don’t
sew I asked them to tie dye the material first. So […] everyone’s had a small
hand in it, whether they know it or not, everybody’s touched it somewhere along,
even if I said, OK can you please cut those pieces out for me today? I’ll use them
tomorrow. Everyone has touched it somewhere or somehow (P7).
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Figure 39: Creation of the community-sewn Crocodile Language Friend.
The community felt that sewing the toys themselves could give the toys value as something that they take pride in: “I think that that’s what will happen with the crocodile too, it will become a possession in a sense that they will have pride, everyone will have pride in having a go at it and knowing it down the track” (P7). The community-sewn toy resulted in some Elders considering the Crocodile Language
Friend to be “Born in Wujal. [...] Wujal creation” (F3). It was the production of the soft toy form that the community made their own which fostered a sense of ownership of the design, rather than the specifics of the software or hardware kit or even the language content contained within the prototypes.
A proposed whole-of-community use model Sustaining regular use of the Crocodile could be challenging, as reflected by adults in the family technology trial who fell out of a regular use routine: “Look, first week was good, they were right into it, but I think that it sort of fell off the perch a bit because I was travelling a lot and that […] it sort of lost track a little bit” (A2). The need to remove and recharge the battery on a regular basis also disrupted Crocodile use resulted in the change to the PiSupply battery shield: “It’s probably gone flat, yeah” (A2).
The Elders and adults articulated a possible whole-of-community use model for the Crocodile Language Friend that would support ongoing use of the design (Figure
40).
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Figure 40: A whole-of-community use model for the Crocodile Language Friend.
Step 1: Organisation decides what words or sentences to record. They send these to the Language Reference Group in written or spoken form. The LRG felt that community organisations (e.g. the Indigenous Knowledge
Centre, kindergarten, school) should decide which words or sentences to record on the
Crocodile in line with their own activities and curriculums (RG5 and RG6). The Elders stated that this would help to coordinate and bring “unity” to community language activities if families focussed their language use around a common set of phrases: “So what they do there, then they come and have a day here at the library. Then when they go from kindy and they go to school, what does [Person] teach down there so that’s consistent then” (F3).
Step 2: Language Reference Group does translation and/or recording (where applicable). If the organisation does not already have a Kuku Yalanji speaker who can translate the sentence and record the pronunciation, the Language Reference Group suggested that they could help provide translations into the different dialects: “Just introducing the kids, ngayu burri, yundu burri, ngayu burri, you know? Change it or add more phrases, […] come back to the Reference Group, we should put another phrase” (F3).
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Step 3: Council staff member (‘Crocodile champion’) helps to compile and upload this to the Crocodile. A Council staff member proposed that the Council could become the “Crocodile champion” and assist the LRG with uploading the recordings, rather than the research team: “I would say that you would have someone in charge of uploading that information onto the bilngkumu, and I think that would be one of our staff, team member. And they would go out and check it and make sure that it’s been charged and that sort of stuff”.
Step 4: Kuku Yalanji word/phrase is sent home. Family members record themselves saying it for playback in the home. The Language Reference Group envisaged that different family members would then record themselves at home saying the phrase onto the Crocodile: “it should be done by the families, but the teacher there should know what they’re teaching there”
(F3). The Elders demonstrated what this would look like if multiple family members were gathered around the Crocodile during the recording interaction: “Ngayu burri
[name], Ngayu burri [name], Ngayu burri [names of people sitting around the table].
Then you know, everyone in the house should say it, so the little kid can say it…” (F3).
This would enable children to listen to the phrase in multiple voices and in the language of that particular clan group, but provide some consistency across families:
“maybe one family will say it differently, whatever, but the concept is the same” (F3).
Encouraging families to make their own recordings on the Crocodile was seen to support “grassroots” language activities and use within families as Elders felt that “it's got to come from the parents, really, […] The parents or grandparents within that household?” (F2). Yet, they also perceived a reluctance amongst some families to record their language use: “it’s really hard to find one household […] that actually has an Elder living in the house who speaks the language and is not embarrassed to be on tape” (P7).
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Step 5: Family sends feedback and requests for next word/phrase. The family experiences the recording at home and may give feedback about their language use to the coordinating organisation. They anticipated that having the
Crocodile playing in the ambient mode would be akin to hearing something play on the radio or on television: “They put it on their app, phone, there, they’ll be talking in between phones or something, and it just comes on like an ad on tv” (F2).
Networking the Crocodiles Language Friends together The use model suggests the idea of having a network of Crocodiles within the community, some that are owned by children and their families, and others that are owned by community organisations. The sending of requests, translations and recordings between different parties, and view to populating the Crocodiles with some seed content so that they don’t start ‘empty’, indicates the need for an underlying system architecture to network the Crocodiles together. This could be achieved by installing SIM cards into the Crocodiles to use the cellular data network or connecting them into the community WiFi mesh.
We talked with Elders and adults about connecting the Crocodiles within families or with neighbouring families to share language content between them. Some
Elders considered the idea of Crocodiles that could connect with their children at boarding school over a distance as with the Messaging Kettle (Brereton et al., 2015) so that they would not have to use their own phone credit: “I think that would be good, save me putting my credit into that one. It would be no cost to me” (F3). An adult in the family workshop imagined that it might work better for the children to share content through play rather than sending recordings between households: “Probably in friend setting it would work with the kids in the street there. I mean, we’re all families but probably in a friend setting it might work better” (A2).
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Another idea that we put forward to the LRG was the ability for the Crocodile to help create a shared repository of language recordings within the community, with people choosing whether to send their recordings to the repository. The potential role of language learning tools in building up collections of material for others to use has been proposed in some past HCI work (e.g. Culbertson et al., 2017b, p. 1431) .
However, there was a perception that this might perpetuate some of the negative social effects of existing social media platforms: “No you just sort of want to keep it, limit the access because that could just turn sour on us too. Like people that could sabotage it or use it for the wrong things” (F7). Rather than allowing anyone to record and upload recordings, the Elders considered it more acceptable if there were controls on the shared content made available:
Jen: OK. Yeah. Or if it were, if it wasn’t people recording online or if it were
games that were already there for people to play?
F7: Yeah that’s alright, yeah.
Building community awareness of the Crocodile The LRG saw a need to build broader community awareness of the project beyond the direct participants involved. They proposed promoting the project on the local community radio, and convening families together for a community demonstration of the Crocodile under the mango tree with benches outside of the
Council offices: “We talk, we have a meeting. As a group, we go to the radio [in KY].
Yeah and then when we finish, we have another big meeting with all the families and then we tell this one, this what we’ve been talking about in the radio” (F5).
The Elders proposed that we host an initial small demonstration while we were in community, before returning later in the year to conduct a larger community meeting which “gives people time to think about it” (F3). They suggested wording for a flyer
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(“Yura Kaday Milka Janay Ngana Kukuku For Our Language Revival”- Everybody come and listen for our language revival). While we organised a small community demonstration, it was not well attended due to conflicting events (see Section 7.4.4).
The Elders also indicated that we should host a Crocodile stall during NAIDOC week
(F3) as a consideration for field visits.
7.6 Discussion
7.6.1 Tangible interactions with the Crocodile Language Friend29 Tangible interactions with the prototype address and speak back to aspects of
Hornecker and Buur’s Tangible Interaction Framework (Hornecker et al., 2006). The material qualities of the soft toy facilitate young children’s “haptic direct manipulation” by inviting language use through embodied play. The crocodile is an
“expressive representation” that spatially inhabits different settings. As such, it can be appropriated into existing language-related social practices, and generate new ones.
The nature of the crocodile as a domesticated, “individuated” tangible (Ambe et al., 2017) that becomes personal to each child presents embodied constraints in the tension between personal agency over its form and content, and its social uses. While
Ambe and colleagues’ concept of technology individuation addresses personal relationship with, and identity expression using tangibles over time (Ambe et al.,
2017), there is scope to consider how this may apply to physical forms that are created by users from the outset rather than customising a given form.
Additionally, while the Tangible Interaction Framework addresses the use of the prototype, these dimensions could also be considered with respects to collaborative practices of designing, producing, using, modifying, and maintaining tangible
29 Parts of this section have been published in (Taylor et al., 2019b).
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technologies. For example, the “spatial interaction” theme considers the properties of tangible interactions as they are embedded and situated in place (Hornecker et al.,
2006). Reflecting on the implications of the existing designs when brought into the community setting helped to generate dialogue and “seed” the design process (see
Chapter 6). Indirect use, through peripheral participation in the Crocodile interactions that support language exposure, is also not well captured within the framework
7.6.2 Findings from the evaluation activities Given the limited evaluation activities that were able to conduct with the soft toy prototypes, and small number of participants involved, we are only able to make preliminary observations about the Crocodile Language Friend based on the data.
Findings about children’s language use We observed some positive effects of the Crocodile Language Friend on both adults’ and children’s language use. Examples presented in this chapter show a willingness from both children and adults to record with the support of the voice filter, and children’s agency in using the Crocodile to support their learning. We noticed that the recording process involving the children still required some scaffolding from the adults, and it would have been useful to know whether the children were able to independently create and manage their own recordings without assistance from the parents.
However, the follow-up interview consisted of a brief conversation with one of the adults, rather than a follow-up workshop with the full family present. This makes it difficult to make specific claims about the crocodile increasing the frequency, variety, and contexts of language use. The relatively short trial period in the home
(~one week of intensive use before the battery went flat) also meant that we were not
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able to study language and technology use over time. While the prototype logs some basic use statistics in the software, we are not able to retrieve this data remotely.
Findings about the community’s interest in, and engagement with the system We were able to make observations about children’s engagement with the system based on their responses to, and interactions with, the prototype during the demonstrations. Children’s excitement about the prototypes was reflected in their responses to the soft toy and earlier iterations such as squealing with delight, repeated tapping of the RFID cards, spontaneous play with the toy. Children repeatedly requested to see the prototypes such as the Ambient Birdhouse and Wooden Crocodile when they saw me around the community, indicating their interest in the designs.
The range of different interactions that we observed with the small, screenless soft toy (Figure 39) were richer and less fixed in place than those with the Wooden
Crocodile. This suggests the potential for shared tangible interactions with the
Crocodile to support social learning experiences, through rich interactions between children and adults involving technology (Robert Blake, 2017), addressing social learning theories including Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
(Vygotsky, 1962). Attributes of the Crocodile Language Friend design also address the principles of Relational Language Technologies, but this discussion is covered already within the chapter (Taylor et al., 2019b).
A limitation of our approach was the ability to evaluate children’s experiences with the system from their own perspective. We make these findings based on our own observations of young children’s interactions with the prototype, who were potentially too young to verbalise their experience with the technology. While the family workshop yielded some feedback from children themselves, these comments were made in response to the technology demonstration at the initial workshop, rather than
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following the period of Crocodile use in their own home. The novelty of the system in the one-off demonstrations and week-long trial may have also affected children’s engagement with it. Novelty bias is an issue affecting short term robotics studies as identified by Robinson and colleagues (Robinson et al., 2019), and has been reported in other HCI projects for children (Jones et al., 2017; Wallbaum et al., 2018).
Findings about the ongoing use and sustainability of the technology The deployment of the soft toy Crocodile Language Friend within the community has been limited to three units so far. The demonstrations with the LRG sought to prospectively elicit the Elders suggestions about how to establish ongoing use and sustainability of the system, rather than evaluating actual use. The Women’s
Centre’s initiative to fabricate the Crocodiles themselves is a positive indicator of community acceptance of the technology, and presents opportunities for community ownership and sustainability of the initiative into the future. The implications of the community’s proposed use model, and next steps in term of growing the design and use activities with the Crocodile, are discussed further in the next chapter (Chapter 8
Section 8.2).
7.6.3 Considerations for further evaluation activities The study raises a number of considerations for future evaluation activities. The design would benefit from trials with a greater number of families. Involving a larger number of families in the design workshops and at-home trials would also require producing a larger number of prototypes. We have provided the Women’s Centre with crafting materials to produce more toys, but we would need to scale the production of the electronics kits with the latest version of the hardware and software.
We would need to recruit and support a larger number of families to participate in the study. Some Elders from the LRG nominated to take them home: “we could take
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one each if you show us how to use it” (F3). However, some of the existing prototypes were not used during the study period for a range of reasons, and the reasons for non- use warrant further investigation. Holding regular group-based activities in the
Indigenous Knowledge Centre during which families bring in and use the prototypes together, as well as having a dedicated technical support person in the community, could support a greater uptake of the designs.
Additionally, follow-up activities with the family workshop kit would help to provide a more detailed picture of family language activities, and language use with the design. Comparing the completed workbooks between different families may help to identify the various appropriations of the Crocodile into family language practices, and factors that influence language and technology use in different settings. In future, it may help to re-design the kit with activities that can be undertaken with families over a distance at regular intervals in the trial period, and maintain regular communication with the families by phone or email.
Alternative approaches to evaluating young children’s language use with the technology are also needed. Interestingly, the Elders’ own perspective on evaluation involved listening to children’s language use before and after trialling the prototype to observe how many words they use, their sentence construction, and whether “there is more Kuku than English” (F3, F5). While older children trialled the technology at home, the kindergarten-aged children were too young for formal testing, particular in written form. Working more closely with parents and educators as co-investigators could help to provide a more comprehensive picture of young children’s oral language use with the technology over time.
Finally, the Elders’ and adults’ aspirations for the technology included
“reinforcing the importance of language” (A2) and using the Crocodile to help children
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see the language as their own: “And for our kids to hear themselves talking, not the bilngkumu, the crocodile, so they recognise that the bilngkumu is speaking their language and it should be them speaking the language” (Taylor et al., 2019a). The instilling of these values and attitudes may be difficult to capture in evaluations of one- off interactions and experiences with technology.
7.7 Conclusions
In this chapter I have presented the design of the Crocodile Language Friend and our activities to ‘evaluate’ the design. In doing so, I have addressed common evaluation methods and criteria for children’s tangibles for language use, and what could be learnt about the Crocodile language Friend using these measures. While our limited evaluation activities with the Crocodile yielded only preliminary insights, they do provide positive indications about the potential for this type of soft toy design embedded with electronics to foster language use both by children and adults.
However, it is also clear that evaluating certain aspects of the design in isolation cannot tell the whole story of whether a design can work for an Indigenous community. The next steps in terms of growing the community design and use of the Crocodiles are unpacked in the following final chapter.
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Chapter 8. Discussion and Conclusions
8.1 Introduction
This chapter provides a discussion of the knowledge contributions made by this thesis and conclusions for this project. In Section 8.2, I consider what still needs to be done in order to grow the ongoing use, production, and maintenance of the technology by the community, and underscore the importance of the human touch to system sustainability.
Next, in Section 8.3, I advance the key argument of this thesis: that participatory design practices involving tangible user interfaces can foster community alignment in ways that reach beyond direct use of the end system, presenting new opportunities to grow active language use. I outline what is meant by both “community” and
“alignment”, show how this perspective is grounded in the Crocodile Language Friend design work, and provide a revised field theory of intergenerational Kuku Yalanji language use. This responds in particular to research question 3c) How can participatory practices of designing and using tangible technologies foster whole-of- community engagement in a technology project for language revitalisation?
Section 8.4 contributes further implications for community-based participatory design: the political dimensions of participatory design for language revitalisation; researcher skills; the empirical account as a knowledge contribution for design in ‘new domains’; working with values in participatory design in relation to the field theory; and diversity of design for Indigenous language revitalisation.
Finally, Section 8.5 connects this work with the research questions, Section 8.7 highlights limitations and opportunities for future work, and Section 8.8 ends the thesis with some concluding thoughts.
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8.2 Supporting Ongoing Design and Use Practices Within the Community
Community-based participatory design entails a commitment to “local accountability” in terms of prioritising “local needs, and not simply to the production of knowledge for [the PD community’s] research peers”, leaving the community with a system that works for them (Bannon et al., 2012, p. 44). Capacity building is also essential for community ownership and ongoing sustainability of co-designed technologies (Dearden et al., 2008; Merkel et al., 2004; Poderi et al., 2018), and was an outcome valued by the Council as “capacity partners” in the project.
I reflect on what has been achieved during the project period, and what work still needs to be undertaken by the research team and community together in relation to three areas: 1) growing community use of the Crocodile, 2) growing community production and ongoing design of the Crocodile, and 3) growing community capacity to maintain and sustain the Crocodile into the future. This aligns with research question
3b) What factors can contribute to community members’ uptake and rejection of co- designed language technologies and influence their sustained use over time?
8.2.1 Growing community use of Crocodile Language Friend Growing the community use of the Crocodile Language Friend involves working with them to establish what types of use models are acceptable and fit with people’s existing practices. The Language Reference Group articulated a possible organisation- centric use model for the Crocodile Language Friend in Chapter 7 Section 7.5.4, reproduced below (Figure 41). However, a number of further activities would need to be carried out in order to effectively operationalise this model.
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Figure 41: A model of possible use practices for the Crocodile Language Friend.
Assumptions in the use model There are a number of assumptions embedded in this use model, such as the willingness of organisations such as the Indigenous Knowledge Centre or the
Kindergarten to be the coordinators of the Crocodile, and the ability for the Crocodile to fit with and add value to their language activities. Responsibility for decision- making about the content is with the organisations, for the translations is with the LRG, and for supervision and moderation of children’s toy use is with the families.
We would need to determine whether these parties would be willing to take on these respective roles within the project. The model requires all of the groups represented to carry out their activities on an ongoing basis for use to be sustained, as there is a dependency between the steps in the use process. A discontinuation of use by any of the groups would result in a breakdown or need for significant reconfiguration of this use model. The resourcing and continuity issues with the LRG present barriers to putting this existing model into effect.
The Crocodile is intended to serve as a back-up and reminder to support language use, rather than serving as a primary learning tool, and we assume that the community will approach its use in this way. The effectiveness of the Crocodile design for
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supporting children’s retention of words and sentences, and increasing children’s language use is yet to be established through in-depth evaluation (see Chapter 7 for further discussion). The model also implies that every family will have access to a language speaker who can help them make recordings. This makes sense within the current language situation but may become more challenging in future if the number of fluent speakers declines.
This model proposes that every child will have their own Crocodile individually owned by them. This would require getting the design to a point where it can be produced and distributed to families en masse, robust enough to withstand children’s play. The model also suggests that organisations will have communal Crocodiles that they own and use, but the form and function of the organisational Crocodiles may differ to reflect the specificities of the setting and enable larger group activities with the device.
Further work to operationalise the use model Further work is needed in order to put the proposed use model into practice, such as community language planning activities. This organisation-centric model requires working with the organisation(s) leading the use of the Crocodile to determine how the Crocodiles could fit with their in-class and at-home activities, and plan the words and phrases that they wish to teach with the Crocodile over a certain period of time.
Given the differing programs and curriculums of these organisations, it may be possible to find some common ground in the Crocodile use between different settings, as well as for the Crocodile to be appropriated into a variety of distinctive use practices specific to those organisations.
In order for this model to work, the community would also need to establish an ongoing role, responsibilities, and resourcing for the LRG to continue to convene
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without the involvement of the research team. The LRG suggested that they could serve as a contact point for groups that are working on language projects within the community (Taylor et al., 2019a). Council staff members would also need to be appointed as the Crocodile ‘champions’ and local owners of the project as part of their responsibilities, as per their own suggestion. There are a number of resources available to support community language planning and program development, such as Junyirri
(First Languages Australia, 2015a) and Warra (First Languages Australia, 2015b).
Ongoing use of the Crocodile Language Friend also requires the “artful integration” of the design into established ecologies of devices and practices
(Suchman, 2002a, p. 99). This may involve integrating the Crocodile into existing practices in which the Kuku Yalanji language is already used, leveraging existing non- use practices to incorporate language use with the Crocodile, establishing new practices, or reinvigorating ones that may have fallen by the wayside. The technology should support language practices that are “appropriate to the Indigenous community’s cultural and linguistic realities” (Galla, 2018, p. 109), with examples of Aboriginal pedagogies such as the 8 Ways of Learning (Yunkaporta, 2010).
The use model suggests new practices would need to be developed to handle the sending and receiving of language requests and materials between the organisation,
Language Reference Group, and family homes. Sending requests for translations could be managed through a modified version of the Crocodile interface and networking of the Crocodiles together (see Chapter 7 Section 7.5.4). Alternatively, the practice could occur outside of the technology, such as by manually providing the Language
Reference Group a printed list of translation requests, and creating and sending the recordings using their existing devices such as their mobile phones.
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Growing the deployment and use of the Crocodile Language Friend also requires equipping families with access to ongoing training, resources and support. There is a need to grow community awareness of the project, and provide training to families about what they can do with the Crocodile, privacy and safety considerations regarding its use, and where they can go for further assistance. This could be delivered as workshops with individual families as per the Family Workshop Kit, or involving several families in a session. Additional tools and practices may be needed to help families assess their language progress, give feedback to organisations about what they wish to learn, and revisit previous topics to maintain and reinforce existing language use.
Other types of non-organisational use models The community could consider other types of non-organisational use models.
One approach is a child or family-centre model, in which families each have their own
Crocodile and are the ones to decide what language to record and use with the device.
Families could request translations from Elders that they know, the Language
Reference Group, or crowdsource translations through the web application with appropriate moderation mechanisms in place. Children could still take their own
Crocodiles to communal places such as school, kindergarten, and the Indigenous
Knowledge Centre to show educators and other children their language use at home.
This model is contingent on the participation of motivated families to carry out their own home activities with the Crocodile. A dedicated home-based program could be developed to support family use of the Crocodile, through access to language educators and planning materials as per the home program developed for speakers of the Māori language and its dialects (O’Regan, 2018). At-home use of the Crocodiles could also intersect with existing programs for young children and their parents such
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as First Five Forever program (State Library of Queensland, 2018), some of which are run in the community’s Indigenous Knowledge Centre.
People living away from the community, such as children at boarding school, could use the Crocodile to use language with their families over a distance. Additional functionality could enable the two Crocodiles to directly connect with each other over a distance as with the Messaging Kettle (Brereton et al., 2015). Design interventions that enhance community communication are a common application of technology in community-based participatory design (DiSalvo et al., 2012). The Crocodile has the potential to extend its reach beyond geographic communities maintaining connections with community members who are living away.
The adults (e.g. P7) did not conceive of the need for a different tangible form specifically for adults of the parent generation, who would be likely to use the existing soft-toy design in family settings with their children or grandchildren. Primary school aged children also found the soft toy form engaging, even though it was initially targeted towards younger children. However, this form might not be appealing to older high-school aged children at boarding school. Further co-design work could be undertaken with teenagers in supporting them to develop personalised tangible forms for their own devices, into which the existing hardware and software kit could still be fitted.
Families and children could use their Crocodile for communicating and sending messages in Kuku Yalanji that are more asynchronous in nature, and could be played back by the child later unlike a telephone call. The use of the Crocodile in this way would depend on the family and children’s attitudes towards the language and willingness to couple language use with family communication. Children could request language relating to particular things, and the family in community could send
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words, sentences, and stories etc. for their child to listen to and learn. However, encouragement would be needed to maintain Kuku Yalanji use with the technology rather than English-only communication.
8.2.2 Growing community production of the Crocodiles Establishing community ownership and control of co-designed technologies is a key goal of community-based participatory design projects (DiSalvo et al., 2012, p.
190) . A model for further production and distribution of the Crocodile Language
Friends is needed, including the ongoing resourcing of materials, components, and labour. The electronic components (e.g. Raspberry Pis, speakers, microphones etc.) can be sourced online at low-cost. While the custom 3D printed case was created at
QUT, the community has expressed an interest in purchasing their own 3D printer.
Sewing and crafting materials are sourced from nearby townships, but the flexible form presents opportunities to use locally available materials such as wood and shells.
One option for recuperating the costs is to sell the toy to families and visitors, with a need to ensure that the toys remain accessible and affordable to local families.
It may be possible to reduce the per unit costs of the electronics kits by engaging a commercial toy manufacturer to produce the electronics at scale on the community’s behalf. However, this would also diminish their capacity to assemble, maintain, and extend the electronics themselves. The plug-and-play nature of the kit means that community members can easily replace and upgrade some components such as the speaker and microphone on their own. Bringing in industry sponsorship or grant funding could also fund further production but may not be sustainable in the long-term.
8.2.3 Growing community capacity to maintain and sustain the Crocodile Language Friend platform The concept of ‘maintenance’ is broader than keeping the technology working, and can also include redesigning the system for local needs (Karasti et al., 2008) or
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more subtle practices of “adapting, preserving, interpreting and tinkering with the system instead of modifying it” (Marcolin et al., 2012, p. 57). I consider the four types of sustainability activities identified by Iversen and Dindler (Iversen et al., 2014, p.
153) – “maintaining, scaling, replicating and evolving” – with respect to the Crocodile
Language Friend.
Maintaining the Crocodile Language Friend Maintaining the Crocodile would involve sustaining use practices, as well as keeping the technology within the Crocodiles working. Breakdowns could occur at the level of individual sensors and components and their connections, or broader failures across a number of components if the toy became damaged. The software running on each device including the local python scripts and web application also need to be maintained and updated with new versions.
Different approaches to fixing and maintaining the systems could involve the community doing this themselves in situ, QUT visiting the community to repair and replace devices, or devices being sent off-site (e.g. to QUT or a third party). As the devices are not internet connected, updating the software involves physically swapping the memory cards in the units. The repairs and upgrades to date have been coupled with the research team’s physical presence in the community, as the in-built battery component renders shipping difficult.
Scaling the Crocodile Language Friend Scaling in participatory design can take various forms including “spreading out”,
“extending out”, “extending up”, and “connecting” (Dearden et al., 2014). The suggested use models described (Figure 41) requires both scaling up the number of devices being used by individuals and organisations within the community, as well as scaling up the number of people involved in producing and using the Crocodile within
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families and organisations. Introducing additional functionality to network the
Crocodiles together could enable the community of users to extend out to the diaspora who are living away from Wujal Wujal.
Evolving the Crocodile Language Friend The community’s language use is constantly shifting through shorter term changes to language activities, and longer-term processes that are shaping the community language situation. Technologies for language revitalisation therefore need to be “continually revisited and updated as standards and platforms evolve” (Holton,
2011, p. 397). The community may wish to evolve the form, functionality, and use practices involving the Crocodile Language Friend in response to changing use situations. The community are already leading some evolutions to the design, such as a turtle version of the soft toy. Evolving the hardware and software would involve further community capacity building and possible inter-organisational arrangements.
Replicating the Crocodile Language Friend The Crocodile Language Friend could be replicated by other Indigenous language communities. This would involve creating and making available a generic version of the hardware and software, such as by open sourcing these aspects of the system. This would allow other communities to benefit from the system, and responds to calls for endangered language technology not to “reinvent the wheel” (Ward, 2002, p. 285).
Standardising the platform would include removing embedded content such as the Kuku Yalanji dictionary, seed recordings made by the community, and Kuku
Yalanji specific references. Other communities could create their own physical forms to house the hardware and software that reflect their own local environment and interests. Some practices on which the Crocodile was modelled, such as having fluent
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speakers record themselves onto the Crocodile, may not be reflective of the language situation in other communities, and require further modifications to the system functionality.
Supporting the community’s STEM skills development We have undertaken a number of activities to help build community members
STEM skills to take on design and maintenance activities themselves such that the research team could eventually “fade away” into the background (Merkel et al., 2004, p. 2). The Coding on Country program (Soro et al., 2020) has included activities that taught high school student participants how to connect different sensors and modules to a Micro:bit (Micro:bit Educational Foundation, 2020) and program it with basic scripts. These skills would be transferrable to repairing and maintaining the
Crocodile’s hardware and local python scripts.
Further training would be needed in electrical engineering, computer programming, and interaction design to equip community members with the full set of skills needed to take on design and maintenance (e.g. basics of building electrical circuits, soldering, 3D printing, programming different sensors and modules).
Maintaining the web application requires more advanced software development skills and would require delivering in-depth training over a longer time period. Connecting community members with pathways into computer science degrees could help to increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in STEM higher education programs (e.g. Robertson et al., 2002).
8.2.4 The importance of enduring partnerships in sustaining the Crocodile Language Friend The discussion in this section highlights various social, cultural, technical, and economic factors that will shape the uptake and ongoing use of the system, echoing the concepts in Galla’s “technacy framework” (Galla, 2016). However, central to each
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of these possible approaches to using, producing, and maintaining the Crocodile
Language Friend, is the importance of the human touch to sustaining the technology.
Commitment to a participatory design project is key to the sustainability of resulting technologies (Goagoses et al., 2018; Iversen et al., 2014; Poderi et al., 2018), in this case the commitment of both the community and the University to continue with the project to ensure that the design works well for Wujal Wujal.
The research team from QUT will continue to partner with the Wujal Wujal
Aboriginal Shire Council and community on a number of projects, including the
Crocodile Language Friend and Coding on Country program. Further masters and doctoral students may be recruited to continue the design work involving the Crocodile
Language Friend, as well as working with the community to create other types of design for the Kuku Yalanji language.
As for my own continuing involvement in the project, further arrangements would be needed to be made given that my institutional affiliation will change at the completion of this doctoral work. Regardless, the personal relationship formed in this project are enduring beyond the project and I intend to keep in touch and return to
Wujal Wujal in a personal capacity in the years to come.
8.3 Community Alignment through the Co-Design of a Tangible Technology
The key contribution of this thesis has been to illustrate the ability for the co- design of tangible technologies, including ongoing practices of appropriation, use, and redesign, to foster community alignment of resources and efforts through a language project and present new opportunities for growing the active use of an Indigenous language.
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The emphasis on technology design and use as practice is a key orientation in
HCI and PD work (Robertson et al., 2012b), building on perspectives such as
Suchman’s influential work on “situated actions” (Suchman, 1987). Within education research and language revitalisation work, scholars such as Auld have also engaged in participatory methods with Aboriginal language speakers, and argued for “viewing technology as practice rather than a set of artefacts” (Auld, 2007b, p. 48). However, more than 10 years after Auld’s study, the ‘technology-as-resource’ view continues to be present in recent accounts of language revitalisation projects (see Chapter 2 Section
2.2.6). This project builds on Auld’s argument to show the role that participatory design practices involving a tangible technology can play in supporting language community alignment within language revitalisation efforts by engaging people in roles such as designers, coordinators, and language experts beyond the direct use of the ‘end’ system.
As a HCI design contribution, this project illustrates the potential for the participatory design of tangible technologies to encourage active language use by a range of different groups within a community. It brings to bear the contextual issues relevant to co-designing for Aboriginal language revitalisation, which presents a relatively new domain of enquiry for community-based participatory design. Different aspects of this argument, and the implications for community-based participatory design, are addressed in the following sections.
8.3.1 Who is the “community” in community alignment30? The use of the term community in community alignment offers up the question who and what constitutes the community for the purposes of participatory design? The
30 Parts of this section have been published in (Taylor et al., 2018a).
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involvement of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in the design, production, and use of the Crocodile Language Friend suggests that the user community for the
Crocodile is broader than the “speech community” for Kuku Yalanji. People who were not direct users of the technology were also stakeholders in the project and part of the
Crocodile community, by virtue of having a hand in its production or being peripheral participants in the other people’s interactions with it. I initially used the “community” as a term to differentiate from the university-based research team, as it is sometimes used in language revitalisation scholarship (Hinton et al., 2018a, p. xxvii). However, the increasing depth of my own involvement in the network of community relations began to challenge these distinctions.
The participants’ own conceptualisation of “community” is the one that matters.
While both the Council and the LRG themselves referred to the community in general terms, there was not one single community but multiple and overlapping communities that intersected with the Crocodile project (including different families, organisations, clan groups, townships etc). Hence, attempting to define the scope and boundaries of the community would be problematic, and I instead point to the individuals and groups of people who have been involved in the project as an indication of what community might mean. The Yalanji nation is much broader than the Wujal Shire, and extends to other nearby townships that share the same language (Hill, 2004). What can be clearly stated is that this project is specific to Kuku Yalanji speakers in Wujal Wujal, and does not claim to represent the views of speakers of the language in other areas.
The ‘community’ involved in this project is also partial, as there are people’s perspectives who may have been privileged in the project, while others may have been precluded from participation. The formal partnership for this project was established with the Council, giving the Council joint ownership over project outputs and
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influence over decision-making. The Elders in the LRG as fluent speakers of the language were the ones who gave input and feedback into the Crocodile Language
Friend design. Some people participated in some meetings but choose not to take part in others, and some were present during the discussion but did not speak or spoke very little, so their views are not captured in the transcripts. We had less involvement with people of the ‘middle generation’ such as teenagers and parents, so we were not able hear their perspectives directly.
We also acknowledge that communities do not speak with one cohesive voice; rather there are partial knowledges (Haraway, 1988) and power relations at play within all communities, for example in relation to one’s social circle, which may be influenced by one’s seniority, gender and so on. Each of the three clan groups has their own way with language that the LRG felt were important to recognise and value in technology designs for Kuku Yalanji. The LRG also highlighted the importance of having different gender perspectives represented within the LRG in line with their social protocols. This is in keeping with the emphasis on plurality and heterogeneity of voices within participatory design (Agid et al., 2019; Akama et al., 2016; DiSalvo et al., 2012). As HCI designers, we too bring our own partial perspectives to the project, which I have attempted to make explicit and account for this in places such as my statement of positionality (Chapter 3 Section 3.4.3).
In this current version of the design, people living away from the community cannot be users of the Crocodile until a networked version of the design is made.
Additionally, the LRG’s decision to focus on young children means that other age groups and organisations such as the local schools have not been involved in the design and use of the prototypes to date, but there is the potential to bring these groups into the project in future. Yet, while community involvement in this project has been
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partial, it relies on having enough involvement, interest, engagement, and commitment from the existing participants for the design to be taken up by the broader community.
This leads into the notion of alignment in community alignment.
8.3.2 What is meant by community “alignment”? I argue that the continual process of design and use of the Crocodile strengthens the alignment of the people and resources in Wujal Wujal towards efforts to revitalise the Kuku Yalanji language. The notion of alignment is used in infrastructuring work in participatory design to mean “the process of aligning of social, technical, cultural elements for a given purpose” (Poderi et al., 2018, p. 4), with “artful integrations”
(Suchman, 2002a) of technology and practice arising through “the ongoing alignment of disparate actors” (Karasti, 2014, p. 142). Language revitalisation is contingent on having a thriving community that actively uses the language. The effectiveness of the
Crocodile Language Friend as a design intervention for language use lies in helping to align community activities by building existing strengths and resources.
I use the term community alignment rather than community building, as I contend that the Crocodile helps to mobilise and coordinate existing people, resources, and activities towards language revitalisation efforts. Various overlapping communities are connected to the Crocodile Language Friend project, and groups such as the Elders already constitute a ‘public’ (DiSalvo et al., 2012) who are connected to the issue of keeping the language strong. For others, participatory design may assist them in “regaining a relationship to the language in what-ever ways they can” (Hinton et al., 2018a, p. xxii). As Winschiers-Theophilus and colleagues have found, the role of PD and the designers was not to create a community, but to draw together people, resources, and practices for technology design (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b, p. 2). The long term legacy of the project may not be in the technology, but in the
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relations that are created and sustained into the future (Baumann et al., 2016; Hillgren et al., 2011; Light et al., 2014), and practices that remain (Righi et al., 2018).
8.3.3 The role of the Crocodile Language Friend in facilitating community alignment I illustrate three ways that the Crocodile Language Friend supports community alignment: 1) by creating an intergenerational “third space” for language use; 2) by fostering community alignment through the production, use, and maintenance of the
Crocodile as a tangible user interface; and 3) by aligning community language activities across and between programs, to enrich language use in the everyday.
Creating an intergenerational “third space” for language use The design and use of the Crocodile Language Friend can help to connect and bring the language use across generations into alignment, in ways that both respect the values of Elders while also promoting the voice and agency of children. The neutral
‘Crocodile voice’ is not recognisably that of an Elder, child, or actual Crocodile, but somewhere in between. This means that Crocodile speaks “the right way” with the pronunciation and cadence of the speakers that record onto it, but also takes on a separate life for children by not recognisably speaking in their voice (even when users are aware of how the recordings are made with the filter).
The presence of the voice filter also provides people with the option of concealing their voice, and the space to try language recording, without necessarily being recognisable to others. As Galla points out, “the assistance of technology is empowering in that the tool never judges” (Galla, 2016, p. 1146 emphasis added).
Providing this functionality to support self-learning also links with Donovan’s work on technology and Aboriginal pedagogies, who asserts that “the development of a space for experimentation or self-investigation will increase [students’] confidence towards that task” (Donovan, 2007, p. 97).
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Children and adults can share control and agency over the design and use of the
Crocodile as a personalised and portable soft toy. We witnessed both adults and children creating language recordings on the Crocodile, rather than the Elders and adults exclusively being the ones to create recordings for the children. Children and families have the choice to contribute their own recordings of words, sentences, and stories etc, reflecting language use that is relevant to their everyday lives. The portable nature of the crocodile toy meant that it could be freely incorporated into their own play, as well as used in activities prescribed by adults.
While adults from the Women’s Centre created the community-sewn Crocodile, children still customised its appearance, and it is conceivable that children could design and decorate their own toy in future. Although the value of personalisation is discussed in literature on robot-assisted language learning such as Randall’s recent literature survey in this area, their analysis focuses on personalisation of the content and interaction style rather than the physical form (Randall, 2020, p. 7:11). Prior work on mobile technologies, such as Ferreria and Höök’s ethnographic account of mobile phone use in Vanuatu, addresses mobile device personalisation in terms of people configuring their phone settings and decorating the physical casing, though the ability to personalise the physical form is more constrained than what was possible with the
TUIs in this project (Ferreira et al., 2016).
There is also a shared sense of ownership of the Crocodile that cross-cuts different domains of language use and groups. The Language Reference Group and
Elders felt a sense of ownership of the project and Crocodile through their involvement in its design and production. Children can also be individual owners of the toy, or the
Crocodile could be shared by children and adults so that it becomes a toy belonging to the whole family rather than an individual person, that can be used in both personal
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and community spaces. The fact that the Crocodile could be owned by children and families even as a social technology, meant that the design clearly belongs to someone.
This contrasts with the Digital Community Noticeboard, that was deployed exclusively in community spaces (Taylor et al., 2016), and as such belonged to the ‘community’ as a whole but to no-one in particular.
For these reasons, the Crocodile Language Friend created a type of “third space”
(Bhabha, 1994) for language use between older and younger language speakers.
Participatory design has itself been described as a “the third space of HCI” by Muller
(Muller, 2007), that can give rise to “hybrid experiences” in-between the domains and practices of designers and technology users (Muller, 2007, p. 1076). The Crocodile
Language Friend neither belongs exclusively in the realm of Elders or children, but can help to bridge their language use in ways that are interesting and acceptable to both. While the notion of “third spaces” has been used in work with Indigenous people
(e.g. Dudgeon et al., 2006; Wiltse, 2015), it has not been used to describe the role of technology in connecting different generations of language speakers within a community.
Fostering community alignment through the production, use, and maintenance of the Crocodile as a tangible user interface The Crocodile Language Friend as a tangible user interface (Ishii et al., 1997) presents opportunities to bring additional language stakeholders into the picture beyond Elders and children through its design and use (Figure 42). Direct users of the technology are people who directly interact with the Crocodile soft toy and web application in its ‘end state’ for language activities. Yet, the empirical work draws attention to a number of additional spheres of use beyond direct users such as peripheral uses, producers and coordinators, and broader community awareness.
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Peripheral users of the Crocodile may include anyone who is in the presence of the technology when its being used, and are exposed to its language content without directly interacting with it themselves. For example, family members of various ages such as siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles may be in the same room when a child is playing with the Crocodile, and are immersed in the language use as a form of
“legitimate peripheral participation” (Lave et al., 1991).
Figure 42: Sphere of use for the Crocodile Language Friend.
Producers and coordinators of the Crocodile are people within organisations such as the Women’s Centre, Language Reference Group, Indigenous Knowledge
Centre, and educational institutions that are helping to locally produce the Crocodiles and use them in collective activities. While they are not the “primary user group” for the Crocodile, they may interact with the Crocodile themselves in order to work with it and test it. The production of the toy by the Women’s Centre means that a broad range of people may be connected to the Crocodile fabrication, including non-language speakers, and people who are not using the technology themselves.
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Broader community awareness of the Crocodile can grow as people become familiar with the project (e.g. by hearing about it from others, reading about it in publications) and may be talking about it even if they do not have direct access to a
Crocodile. The Crocodile still supports alignment by drawing people’s attention to a common initiative for language revitalisation.
The Crocodile’s spheres of use, that increase in size as the model extends outwards from direct users, is also reminiscent of the “hourglass approach” to community infrastructuring of the iFame app (De Angeli et al., 2014, p. 17). In this project however, the design and use phases are closely entwined and ongoing, rather than representing discrete design phases before and after the “point of infrastructure”
(De Angeli et al., 2014).
The success of language use with the Crocodile stems from the actions of motivated Elders and children who interact with it regularly and contribute recordings to it. Their enthusiasm may encourage others in the community to become connected with the project through one or more spheres of use, with the hope of increasing broader community language use as a result. As Wurm notes, revitalisation efforts may be driven at the outset by an individual or small number of people, whose activities encourage a greater number of people to join them (Wurm, 2013, p. 19).
Aligning community language activities across and between programs Language Revitalisation initiatives are often described and developed as language “programs” that are carried out in different settings such as school, the home, and within the community (Hinton, 2001a, p. 7). Participatory practices of designing and using the Crocodile Language Friend can support these efforts, as the platform is flexible and open-ended enough to potentially be incorporated into a range of programs. By incorporating additional functionality to crowdsource translations or
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contribute some recordings to a community repository, the Crocodile could also bring practices of language preservation and presentation into alignment, which are sometimes treated as two discrete enterprises (Holton, 2011, p. 372).
However, the Crocodile Language Friend design can also foster every day, ad- hoc moments of language use that support a connection to language between and outside of formal programs. “Community-based programs”, as distinct from those within the school, are based on “local learning styles” and language use “domains” rather than modes of instruction (Grenoble et al., 2005, p. 59). Unlike many CALL systems that are underpinned by a specific pedagogical approach (Holton, 2011), the
Crocodile Language Friend may be taken up within the existing curriculums and pedagogical approaches of community organisations but also support family-led activities at home. The current interaction design does privilege oral forms of the language over written ones in the absence of a screen.
8.3.4 A revised field theory of intergenerational Kuku Yalanji language use The process of designing and evaluating the Crocodile Language Friend provided additional insights to re-evaluate the original field theory from Chapter 5, presented here as a revised field theory diagram (Figure 43).
Some core aspects of the original field theory were either unchanged or required minor revisions in light of what was learnt through the design process. The empirical work provided additional examples of Elders’ and children’s values, interests, and patterns of language use. In particular, we were able to observe children’s interactions with the designs and learn about their language use with the prototype in the home setting. While the environmental opportunities and challenges from the initial field theory also continue to shape the Crocodile design and use, new technology projects
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for Kuku Yalanji are being undertaken since the project commenced, as well as initiatives such as the Coding on Country program (Soro et al., 2020).
Less evident in the initial field theory were what kinds of design interventions the Elders would find acceptable for their language, such as the use of the voice filter, which became apparent through discussions and activities with concrete prototypes.
The Crocodile Language Friend has been incorporated into the field theory diagram, which has been reframed around the idea facilitating community alignment, and incorporates the spheres of use discussed in the previous section.
The Crocodile Language Friend has been incorporated into the field theory diagram, which has been reframed around the idea facilitating community alignment, and incorporates the spheres of use discussed in the previous section. The revised field theory diagram (Figure 43) captures the possible direct and peripheral user groups and actors in the project discussed in the spheres of use diagram (Figure 42). These are represented in a simplified way to better integrate these new insights into the visual structure of the original field theory diagram, and for the purposes of clarity.
The alternative ‘sun’ depiction also visually conveys the idea of ‘alignment’ in connecting the actors to common threads, such as the temporal dimensions of language and technology use over time as people’s own relationship with their language evolves
(Chapter 5). The new field theory diagram does not capture the positioning of these actors on the spectrum from direct to peripheral use or involvement, hence the two diagrams work together in tandem to convey these ideas.
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Figure 43: Revised field theory diagram
8.4 Further Implications for Community-Based Participatory Design
8.4.1 Addressing the political dimensions of participatory design for language revitalisation Indigenous peoples have recognised rights to their languages enshrined in instruments such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples (UN General Assembly, 2007). Language revitalisation is therefore connected to a broader human rights movement (Tsunoda, 2013, p. 215), that recognises
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s cultural sovereignty (Hobson et al.,
2010, p. xxviii) and self-determination in deciding the future of their languages
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(Hinton, 2001a, p. 5). There are calls for people involved in Indigenous language work to help bring about structural change in light of social and politics forces that can undermine and discriminate against Indigenous languages (Truscott et al., 2010, p. 21).
Working with communities such as Wujal Wujal gives them a voice in technology design, when their language is overlooked in mainstream software and social media platforms. The existence of technologies for Kuku Yalanji can support awareness of the language within the community, as well as visibility and recognition of the language within wider society (Galla, 2018). The project works to advance the
Council and community’s own goals and aspirations for the future as expressed in corporate documents and articulated in project meetings. The Crocodile can help to resource and enrich language activities in the home and in the community, that are taking place outside of the education system and formal programs.
While different lenses on empowerment in participatory design have been articulated (Ertner et al., 2010), considering users’ “power to” in terms of their “agency or capacity to shape action” helps to articulate whether project outcomes have empowered participants (Bratteteig et al., 2016, p. 143). One implication of the project for community power structures (Sabiescu et al., 2014) is that the field theory and
Crocodile design respect and reinforce the authority of Elders as custodians of their language. The Elders themselves voiced that the Language Reference Group made them feel “empowered” to make decisions about their language (Taylor et al., 2019a).
Yet, the Crocodile also helps to highlight the perspective of children and gives them
“power to” make decisions about its personalisation and use, and values language use that reflects their interests and everyday lives.
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8.4.2 Researcher skills for participatory design with Indigenous communities This project also sheds light on the skills needed to undertake work at the intersection of participatory design and language revitalisation with Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander communities. Participatory design work highlights the need for researcher skills in areas such as facilitation (Dearden et al., 2008; Light et al., 2012;
Robertson et al., 2006), communication (Dearden et al., 2008), co-design methods
(Brandt et al., 2012; Robertson et al., 2006), and ‘relational expertise’ (Dindler et al.,
2014). Participatory development resources also illustrate interpersonal skills and qualities that are important for community-based projects such as “flexibility” and “an understanding of social and gender dimensions of research” (Dearden et al., 2008, p.
86). Important skills for linguists undertaking language revitalisation work include technical skills required for language documentation, fieldwork skills, and project management skills (Jukes, 2011, pp. 427–428).
Several aspects relating to the researcher’s skills emerged through the project that are not well-articulated within participatory design literature. Developing a working knowledge of the language was beneficial for prototyping, understanding the experience of language learning, and showing respect for community members.
Stronger linguistic transcription skills would have helped me to more accurately translate spoken Kuku Yalanji into written forms for the prototypes and research outputs. Technical skills that were required to construct the prototypes included crafting, working with electronics and building circuits, and python programming.
While a general grounding in co-design methods was useful, I had limited experience in designing with young children, which constrained my ability to better involve them in the design process.
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Working with an Aboriginal community required a deep understanding of social, cultural, political, and historical aspects of the Indigenous Australian context, gained through my prior education and experience on the Groote Eylandt project. While I am not an Aboriginal personal myself, having some knowledge in this area helped me to better understand the dynamics of community participation in the project and ‘read the room’. This project required a willingness to learn from the community, and to undertake additional training throughout the entire project. Additional personal commitments and characteristics that were needed to maintain positive relationships with the community included flexibility, reflexivity, and taking responsibility for the mistakes that I made, even when I was not always aware of what they were.
8.4.3 The empirical account as a design knowledge contribution Much of this thesis, including the relationship build process in Chapter 3, is presented as a detailed empirical account of practice. “Rich accounts of practice” that highlight the specificities of PD in particular settings, in opposition to “formal diagrams and abstracted work practices”, have long been a valued aspect of the participatory design tradition (Robertson et al., 2012b, p. 7). For this reason, I articulate a number of the contributions of this thesis as empirical accounts, and relay the pragmatics of design activities in detail for both the research community, and for the Wujal Wujal community as a resource and record of the project.
Given that so little work in the participatory design community has taken place in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, this thesis serves as an example of participatory design in a ‘new domain’ (Halskov et al., 2015, p. 83), contributing design efforts to the underserved area of language revitalisation.
To clarify, the domain in itself may be relatively ‘new’ to the participatory design community, but is not new in and of itself. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
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languages and cultures are some of the oldest in the world, and Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islanders are our first designers working from First Australian design paradigms
(Nichols, 2015). Increasing the range of accounts in this area can help to establish best practice, as well as showing the diversity of approaches that may be needed in collaborative design projects with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
8.4.4 Working with values in participatory design in relation to the field theory The field theory of intergenerational Kuku Yalanji language use contributes to the conversation about working with values in participatory design. Participatory design has always sought to privilege user values and voices in the design process
(Iversen et al., 2010, p. 91), and there have been calls for participatory design methods to more explicitly account for and work with values (Grönvall et al., 2016; Iversen et al., 2010). The field theory diagram and description not only describe the Elders’ values about language use, but also provide some context as to why and how these came to be values. For example, ideas about how language teaching and learning should happen reflect the Elders’ lifestyles growing up, and also relate to social protocols such as respecting Elders and speaking the language correctly.
While participatory design has placed an emphasis on values, in the context of language revitalisation, there is also the interplay between collective values and individual’s attitudes towards a language (Hinton, 2001a). This strengthens the case for design approaches that recognise a plurality of perspectives, and approach values as dynamic and emergent rather than fixed (Grönvall et al., 2016, p. 49). Since the field theory diagram provides a broad summary of aspects of the context that are meaningful to technology design, it is difficult to account for this in the diagram, but this plurality can be shown in the field theory description and discussion. The researcher’s design judgements are also driven by their values (Iversen et al., 2010),
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and as such, the designer’s analytical choices in presenting the field theory means that it also reflects their own values as well as those of the community.
Working with young children (e.g. children aged 3-5) also renders approaches that explicitly foreground values difficult. While Iversen and colleagues’ projects involved working with children using design methods that emphasised values (Iversen et al., 2010), the participants were older than those involved in this project. Theories of child development such as Piaget’s “four stages of cognitive development” suggest that young, kindergarten-aged children at the “preoperational stage” are learning symbolic language use in associating words with particular objects, people, and places, and are also egocentric in their perspective of the world (in Gould et al., 2018, p. 314).
Children may still be developing and learning to articulate values at this age, and the field theory instead takes children’s needs, interests, and interactions with their surroundings as proxies for values.
8.4.5 Recognising diversity in technology designs for Indigenous language revitalisation The field theory and interdisciplinary literature review highlights the fact that a diversity of design approaches and interventions are needed when designing for
Indigenous languages, but there are some lessons from this project that may be useful to other communities. Hinton affirms that every community is different, and language revitalisation activities must respond to the community’s specific language situation
(Hinton, 2001a), and Leong et al. also argue that HCI projects must account for the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia (Leong et al.,
2019). The fact that Indigenous languages are closely associated with a particular geographical location (Hinton, 2001a) further suggests the need for designs that connect to country, seen in the Crocodile’s design that reflects the local environment of Wujal Wujal (Taylor et al., 2020).
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The Crocodile Language Friend design practices and product may resonate with communities with a similar situation and challenges. This includes those with a small number of fluent speakers that are Elders, who may be finding it challenging to engage young people with the language, are lacking other technologies for their language, and are seeking to develop digital technologies in partnership with designers and universities. Fostering language use in the home context is also vital for endangered languages in general (Hinton, 2001a; Tsunoda, 2013), and a relational approach was particularly relevant for the Wujal Wujal community (Taylor et al., 2019b) as expressed in the field theory.
The Crocodile may not be suitable in situations where there are no or few speakers available to record content on the Crocodile. In places where children’s first language is an Indigenous language, there may be less of a need for technologies to support language immersion and that focus on learning vocabulary and simple sentences. Some communities may not desire for tangible technologies to speak their language, and use a voice filter rather than the Elders own voices. Additionally, strategies for revitalising a national heritage language (e.g. Maori, Welsh, Hawaiian) differ to those of smaller communities (Hinton, 2001a) and may require design interventions that are geared towards community alignment.
8.5 Responding to the Research Questions
This research seeks to answer the main research question: “How can the participatory design of tangible and social technologies support the intergenerational language transmission and active use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages?”
This thesis responds to different aspects of the research question by addressing the following sub-research questions:
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8.5.1 RQ1. What types of interactions, activities, and practices facilitate the intergenerational transmission and use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages that are experiencing language shift, and what role does technology play? 1a) What theoretical frameworks and lens can we draw on to understand and design for the ‘active language use’ of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages experiencing language shift? Since only a small number of prior participatory design projects have addressed the revitalisation of Indigenous languages, this thesis draws on insights from across a number of different academic disciplines and fields of research.
Insights about contextual factors and issues relating to designing with speakers of Indigenous languages were drawn from sociolinguistics work on intergenerational language transmission and language shift (Fishman, 1991), language revitalisation research (Hinton et al., 2018b), and computer-assisted language learning (Levy, 1997), in particular for endangered and Indigenous languages (Galla, 2016, 2018; Ward et al.,
2003). Conceptualisations of ‘active language use’ (Oxford et al., 1995) and new literacy theories (Mills, 2016) provided theoretical lenses for understanding intergenerational language transmission and language use practices. These insights are addressed in particular within Chapter 2, and our 2018 Participatory Design
Conference paper (Taylor et al., 2018a).
Within the Human-Computer Interaction discipline, relevant areas of work included design projects for family communication, language teaching and learning, and tangible user interfaces (Hornecker et al., 2006; Ishii et al., 1997) for children.
Community-based participatory design projects (DiSalvo et al., 2012), in particular those with Indigenous communities in Australia (Soro et al., 2017) and internationally
(Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010b) provided a methodological orientation to this work. Engaging with decolonising perspectives (Smith, 2012) including postcolonial
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computing (Irani et al., 2010) has helped me to think through the dimensions of politics and power in this work, discussed in particular in Chapter 4.
1b) How is the Kuku Yalanji language currently used by Elders and children in the Wujal Wujal community, and what role does technology currently play? The field theory of intergenerational Kuku Yalanji language use in Chapter 5 addresses practices of intergenerational language transmission and use, particularly by
Elders and young children. The field theory describes some of the Elder’s values about what the language means and how it should be used, their own interactions in language around the prototypes, and their visions for the project and aspirations for the future.
It also discusses the types of language young children use, and children’s needs and interests. Challenges to language use are identified such as changing lifestyles, encouraging children to speak in full sentences, the need to bridge different stages of the learning journey across generations, and helping people to grow their confidence in speaking the language. Chapter 5 and the OzCHI 2019 paper (Taylor et al., 2019b) illustrates the ways in which language learning and use is enmeshed with family relations, and argue for a relational approach to technology design.
1c) What role can tangible technologies play in establishing a shared understanding of current language use, and identifying design questions and opportunities? Tangible technologies played an important role in all stages of the project.
Bringing existing prototypes such as the Ambient Birdhouse and Digital Community
Noticeboard to the community as design ‘non-proposals’ supported relationship building between the Council, the University, and community (Chapter 3). Observing
Elders’ and children’s interactions with the Ambient Birdhouse in particular helped me to understand the current language situation, and establish the design questions and opportunities in field theory (Chapter 5).
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The Ambient Birdhouse seeded an iterative, participatory design process towards a tangible technology specific to the Wujal Wujal community through a process of participatory (re)design (Chapter 6), and insights from design activities helped me to create a revised field theory (Section 8.3.4). Finally, the Crocodile
Language Friend tangible was developed as detailed in Chapter 7, which gave rise to further questions and issues relating to growing ongoing use and sustainability of the tangible design interventions (Chapter 8).
8.5.2 RQ2. What design methods and approaches can foster relationship building, participation, and engagement, in participatory projects with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities? 2a) What values and activities can support HCI design researchers and Aboriginal communities to establish and build relationships in order for co-design projects to take place? An account of the process of establishing and building a partnership between the
Wujal Wujal community, Council, and the University, and the role of design ‘non- proposals’ is provided in Chapter 3. Values underpinning the research team’s approach included an emphasis on reciprocity and engagement (Brereton et al., 2014), and the
Council’s values included working with the University as ‘capacity partners’ on a project with ‘generational impact’. Important aspects that are discussed in detail included working with the Council’s own process, building relationships at different levels, and non-instrumentalist approaches to relationship building.
2b) What methods and practices can facilitate an iterative, participatory design process, and how do they shape participation and engagement in design? The project engaged with design research methods such as interviews, focus groups, design workshops, and technology demonstrations as described in Chapter 4.
I have also drawn on Indigenous methodologies such as yarning (Bessarab et al., 2010) that align with the values and social protocols of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. To facilitate an iterative co-design process, I worked with the LRG to
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established the novel practice of participatory (re)design (Chapter 6), taking the
Ambient Birdhouse as a starting point to work towards a new design specific to the
Wujal Wujal community, the Crocodile Language Friend (Chapter 7).
2c) What collaborative methods can support the documentation, analysis, and presentation of insights from immersive design field research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities? The Debrief O’Clock collaborative fieldnote practice for design field work was developed through early work during the first year of the project with the Groote
Eylandt community, presented in the CHI 2018 paper (Taylor et al., 2018c). With the
Wujal Wujal community, I have described the community’s involvement in developing the research papers, thesis, and co-presenting this work at the Puliima 2019 conference in Chapter 4. This also includes a reflection on how these activities have challenged conventions of academic publication, to make this process work better for the community.
8.5.3 RQ3. How can the design and use of tangible user interfaces help to grow active language use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages by children and families? 3a) What types of tangible social and technology designs can help to foster language use by children and their families, and how do their affordances differ from screen-based interventions? This thesis presents a novel Crocodile Language Friend design and a preliminary evaluation in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7.
3b) What factors can contribute to community members’ uptake and rejection of co-designed language technologies and influence their sustained use over time? Chapter 8 discusses the next steps in terms of facilitating the ongoing design and use of the Crocodile Language Friend. It addresses considerations for growing community use, production, and capacity to maintain the technology, and sustain the project into the future. Opportunities and barriers to use are discussed by reflecting on
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the proposed use model, and presenting other possible use models for consideration by the community.
3c) How can participatory practices of designing and using tangible technologies foster whole-of-community engagement in a technology project for language revitalisation? The key knowledge contribution that this thesis makes, at the intersection of the fields of community-based participatory design and language revitalisation, is that participatory design practices can foster community alignment and present new opportunities to grow active language use beyond end use of the ‘final product’. This chapter discusses the role of the Crocodile Language Friend in supporting alignment of older and younger generations of language speakers, families and community organisations, and women and youth as producers of the Crocodile, through a technology project for language revitalisation.
8.6 Addressing the Project Objectives
This thesis addresses the following project objectives:
8.6.1 Objective 1: Undertake an empirical study of Kuku Yalanji language use within the Wujal Wujal community and identify opportunities for design interventions This thesis has presented both an initial and revised field theory of intergenerational Kuku Yalanji language use (Chapter 5) that expresses key findings from the empirical work. This field theory is provisional and was ‘current’ at the time of publication; new technologies, programs, and contextual issues may continue to reshape Kuku Yalanji language use into the future. The field theory discussion highlights the relational, temporal, and engagement dimensions of designing for language learning and use, as specific to designing for the revitalisation of Indigenous and/or endangered languages.
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8.6.2 Objective 2: Articulate the tangible and intangible aspects of establishing and building a relationship with the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council and community Chapter 3 presents activities that contributed to relationship building with the
Wujal Wujal community. This chapter considers the role of the Ambient Birdhouse as a ‘design non-proposal’ and other placed tangibles in the welcome activities that supported the research team and community in getting to know each other. The intangible aspects of relationship building are expressed in the argument for non- instrumentalist approaches to working with Aboriginal communities, partnerships that transcend the design activities or specific projects, and the idea that relationships themselves cannot be designed or necessarily follow from carrying out these activities.
Some of the relationship building activities described (e.g. Welcome to Country, the Letter of Intent and Memorandum of Understanding, language learning, reconvening a Reference Group) are not specific to HCI projects, and could be adopted by other researchers and organisations that wish to build collaborative partnerships with Aboriginal communities. Other activities, such as demonstrating the existing technology prototypes, were specific to relationship building for participatory design, though the idea of tangible objects as vehicles for participation and engagement could translate to other types of artefact.
8.6.3 Objective 3: Develop new co-design methods and approaches for working in partnership with Aboriginal communities on design research projects This thesis presents several new practices for co-designing with Aboriginal communities.
Chapter 7 articulates an iterative participatory (re)design practice that facilitated the design and development of the Crocodile Language Friend. Iterative design is already a foundational approach to technology design (Dourish et al., 2020) and
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participatory prototyping methods are established in participatory design literature
(e.g. Sanders et al., 2014). Yet, participatory (re)design is a novel practice in terms of seeding the design process with an existing tangible technology design, in this case the
Ambient Birdhouse, that were deconstructed and iteratively re-designed into something new for Wujal Wujal. Considerations of doing so with respect to postcolonial computing literature include the potential for this approach to shorten the lead time for the community to have a working technology to use, an issue discussed by Dourish and colleagues (Dourish et al., 2020).
The participatory practices involved in writing and reporting on this work are presented in Chapter 4 Section 4.7, addressing the call by Light and others for greater consideration of the participatory dimensions in reporting on participatory design projects (Light, 2018). While practices such as including community members as co- authors on the research outputs is not new in and of themselves, the implications of doing so in the particular context of working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are under addressed in HCI research. This area of the work will be elaborated on in future publications.
Further methodological contributions, including the use of the field theory method in co-design, and the Debrief O’Clock fieldnote practice (Taylor et al., 2018c) developed through the scoping work, are listed in response to the research questions
(see Section 8.5.2).
8.6.4 Objective 4: Co-design a novel tangible and social technology for the Kuku Yalanji language The primary design output arising from this project is the Crocodile Language
Friend as described in Chapter 7. The Crocodile Language Friend design is tangible in the sense that the toy can be picked up, manipulated, and carried around by users
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through embodied and multisensory interactions, though the recordings still need to be created and managed through the paired mobile application. The design is a social technology in the sense that the language recordings on the Crocodile are created and grown by the community members themselves, and the design facilitates social interactions involving language use with and around the device.
8.6.5 Objective 5: Map the research space for intergenerational language transmission and active language use within the HCI research community This thesis establishes a gap in knowledge between the research areas of language revitalisation and human-computer interaction, specifically with respect to the participatory design of tangible user interfaces for language use. The literature review in Chapter 2 points to gaps in knowledge at the intersection of these areas, and other publications developed through this project that map the research space are listed in response to the research questions (see Section 8.5.1). The field theory of intergenerational Kuku Yalanji language use also establishes design questions and opportunities for further consideration within the HCI research community.
A key outcome and contribution of this work is the whole-of-community lens on designing technologies to support Indigenous language revitalisation, as expressed in particular through the field theories and Elders’ conceptual models of technology use.
This lens draws together different threads of the work such as the relational language technologies perspective, the Elders’ own community-centric ideas on growing use of the Crocodile Language Friend, and the active engagement of different groups in the design and research practices.
A strength of this work was the ability for this project to both mobilise the
Elders’ passion and expertise for their language, while also offering alternative entry points through design (such as sewing the toys, coding the Microbits etc.) to the
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‘language first’ engagement. This facilitated community alignment through the design process for people (adults and children) who may have been at different stages of their own personal language journey and related to the designs in different ways because of this.
8.6.6 Objective 6: Provide resources that are both practically useful to the Wujal Wujal community, and make a knowledge contribution to HCI and PD This research project has generated outputs that both make a knowledge contribution to the HCI community, and are of practical benefit to the Wujal Wujal community. The relationship building process and activities in Chapter 3, along with the Letter of Intent and Memorandum of Understanding in Appendix A, provide templates and resources that Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council can use in future work, and that other communities could adapt for their own language projects. There is also potential for Wujal Wujal to sustain the Language Reference Group that was reconvened around this project to oversee and guide other language projects and initiatives.
In relation to the participatory publication practices in Chapter 4, the Council co- authored the research publications arising from this project, and the Elders co- presented this work at a national conference. This thesis provides the community with a record of the project, including the field theory of intergenerational Kuku Yalanji language use in Chapter 5, that they can build on in their future language activities.
The thesis will be made available as a printed book in the Wujal Wujal Indigenous
Knowledge Centre, and freely available online for other communities to access.
The Crocodile Language Friend prototypes are functioning technologies that
Wujal Wujal can use in their language activities, with some families presently trialling the existing designs. Further work is needed to grow the design and use of the
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technology (Section 8.2), including enhancing the durability and robustness of the devices before they are more broadly deployed. However, the current prototypes are at a sufficient level of resolution to continue trialling in Wujal Wujal and evidence the potential for the project to deliver the community with a working technology in the near future. Youth in the community have also benefited from STEM skills development activities through the related Coding on Country program developed alongside this project (Soro et al., 2020).
This doctoral project has also made intangible contributions to the community.
In section 8.3.2, I have discussed the practices and relations established or enriched through this work as outcomes in and of themselves alongside the technology. The project may help to build momentum towards future language work and new initiatives beyond the usable life of the technology. The thesis and resulting publications serve as a snapshot in time of this work and of life in the community, and may take on a life of their own online and amongst the rich collection of materials in the Indigenous
Knowledge Centre.
The personal dimensions of my own relationships with the Elders, who generously received me into their community, both facilitated and constrained the work in different ways. I too have changed as a person through this project. I better understand the complicity of the hegemonic ‘Australian dream’ in colonial processes, and cannot unsee this. My ongoing work will seek to ally with efforts to change things for the better. These outcomes of the project are difficult to quantify.
8.7 Limitations and Opportunities for Future Work
8.7.1 Emergent nature of the research The research process was highly emergent rather than structured as linear
‘studies’, and there was a need for flexibility (Taylor et al., 2017) to work within the
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Council’s processes and fit with the community’s other activities and commitments.
Unanticipated events such as COVID-19, and research delays involving the prototype implementation also impacted on travel arrangements and project timelines, and arranging activities with the community ahead of time from Brisbane was sometimes challenging.
Changes to the research questions, activities, and prototypes resulted in several key reframings of the research. The need to connect with the body of work on tangibles for children (rather than social technologies) was not apparent until the Crocodile soft toy form was established. Additionally, it became clear after the initial contextual research and language recording activities that important insights could be drawn from the area of language revitalisation. While the project initially involved four field sites,
Wujal Wujal became the primary focus of the project and the thesis.
This resulted in several limitations and missed opportunities. Time and effort invested in prototype development and activities with the other sites ended up falling outside of the primary scope and narrative of the thesis (e.g. the Oodgeroo Unit scoping interviews, PDC 2018 paper (Taylor et al., 2018a), and CHI 2018 paper (Taylor et al.,
2018c)). The literature review in Chapter 2 was substantively rewritten a number of times as the project framing changed, particularly when the key contribution became apparent.
Designing the research with a more explicit focus on theories and frameworks for tangible user interfaces from the outset may have enabled this work to make a stronger contribution to knowledge in this area. Working to a tighter schedule for prototyping and implementation activities may have given me more time to conduct an in-depth evaluation of the Crocodile Language Friend. Future work could involve deploying the prototypes with a larger number of families, keeping in regular contact
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with the community over a distance during technology trials, and conducting further follow-up activities with families, including reviewing use log data on the devices.
The decision to incorporate the field theory as a method for analysing and presenting the field insights was made late in the project, at the time of writing up the work from Brisbane rather than during the co-design process in Wujal Wujal. The
LRG could have played a greater role in co-designing the field theory diagram during an earlier stage of the project, rather than reviewing at ‘thesis time’. This being said, the key project concerns and design issues depicted in the field theory diagram and description were the subject of LRG meetings and other conversations with community members. There is a potential to explore future uses of the field theory as a dialogical method for participatory design, and to consider how it can better incorporate existing Indigenous methodologies.
8.7.2 Breakdowns in community engagement While Chapter 3 discusses what worked well in terms of the process of relationship building and community engagement, there were also some breakdowns in community engagement as well. We do not discuss the specifics of these out of respect to the community.
There are many ethical considerations when working with Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander communities. Utilitarian ethics framework (Flinders, 2016) can sometimes work at odds with community protocols, and standard approaches can be problematic unless they are adapted to the specific research setting in collaboration with those involved (Taylor et al., 2018c). Many communities have experienced a legacy of exploitative past engagements with governments and researchers (Brereton et al., 2014), and are understandably wary in their engagements with University researchers. Our experience of working across a number of projects has suggested that
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sometimes the act of signing a written consent form can be more confronting for participants than any of the subsequent research activities themselves. This suggests the need to consider alternative approaches such as oral consent practices, in consultation with communities themselves and university research ethics committees.
These complexities are compounded when working from the position of a
Human-Computer Interaction researcher, as there is limited public awareness of the field, and communities may have had little past experience in working with design researchers. Despite the existence of participant information sheets, project artefacts, and verbal discussions with participants, it can be difficult to convey how and why we go about these ways of working as a designer. For new participants who have not experienced technology design activities before, asking people to sign the form upfront sometimes gives the impression of presenting people with a ‘blank cheque’. This underscores the importance of taking time for relationship building so that the researchers and community can ‘get to know’ each other ahead of ‘designing’, and continually seek and check participant consent through-out the project
It is important to note that every community is different, and within communities, individual people have different preferences when it comes to participation. When projects involve the design of social technologies (e.g. for communication and language recording) with public-facing content made by community members themselves, this gives rise to additional issues and sensitivities within small communities. In some cases, I made assumptions about how people would wish to work based on my experiences on the Digital Community Noticeboard project in Groote Eylandt that did not hold true in Wujal Wujal. Additionally, sometimes content may have been displayed (intentionally or inadvertently) that was suitable for certain settings and audiences, but not for others. This sometimes gave rise to some
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awkward interactions, tensions, and difficult conversations. The real-world consequences of mistakes are also painfully visible when working with a small community. Care is needed. We have taken responsibility for these and tried to address them to the best of our ability with the community.
The remuneration of participants was a key issue in the project, particularly with respect to the involvement of the Language Reference Group. Many of the project costs were funded internally by the University, and Council staff time has been provided as in-kind support as per the Memorandum of Understanding. We are currently discussing ways to appropriately recognise the Elders’ involvement in such projects with the Council. There was also only limited funding for travel to the Puliima
2019 Conference, and to QUT for the Coding on Country program. We were not able to involve as many community members in these activities as we would have liked, but the research team is working towards a collaborative grant with the community to facilitate further opportunities such as these in future.
8.7.3 Need for interdisciplinary collaboration This project highlights the benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration in technology design projects for language revitalisation. Participatory design scholars argue for projects that “cultivate inter- and transdisciplinary dialogues beyond conventional boundaries, to help address complex societal problems” (Sabiescu et al.,
2014, p. 2). We did not have the involvement of an education researcher or linguist in the project, though we reached out to some in the hope to establishing collaborations.
While I have undertaken some undergraduate linguistics courses, and additional linguistics field methods training at a summer school during my PhD, I primarily worked with the existing language materials such as the dictionary and the grammar.
The project illustrates the value that can be generated by combining language materials
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and technology together, such as by incorporating the Kuku Yalanji dictionary into the
Crocodile’s local web application. The project could benefit from further involvement of educational research to develop educational programs around the Crocodile, and further consider the relationship between the design and existing pedagogical frameworks, or the development of new ones based on this work.
There is the potential for fruitful collaboration between Human-Computer
Interaction and Language Revitalisation researchers in future. HCI researchers can offer skills in designing, implementing, and evaluating a range of different technologies including tangibles, bring an interaction design and user experience design perspective, and contribute methods that emphasize participation in design and technology use. Language revitalisation scholars can bring methods for assessing language vitality and language planning, provide an expertise in language documentation and language program design, as well as a contextual understanding of working with speakers of Indigenous languages31. Both disciplines are underpinned by a common commitment to Indigenous self-determination and capacity building.
8.7.4 Further technology design and development There are many opportunities for further technology design and development of the Crocodile Language Friend with the Wujal Wujal community. It could be interesting to explore further uses of the RFID tags and stickers, by tagging different objects that can interact with the Crocodile, and creating interactive environments for children’s language learning that could tie in with “language nest” programs (Hinton et al., 2018b). The electronics kit inside the Crocodile also lends itself to being adapted into a wide range of different tangible forms other than soft toys (e.g. the Wooden
31 This is of course not an exhaustive list but paints a broad picture of the key concerns and approaches of each area.
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Crocodile in the previous iteration). Incorporating additional sensors and modules such as accelerometers, motion sensors, and GPS chips could provide it with additional functionality when taken on country.
There is scope to incorporate some intelligence and machine learning into the design, to equip the Crocodile with additional functionality suggested by the Elders, such as providing automated feedback to learners using a natural language processing system. While artificial intelligence is of growing interest within the participatory design community, it presents a range of methodological challenges for participatory design (Loi et al., 2018). There are also challenges for designing these systems with
Indigenous language communities, who may only have a small amount of written language materials and recordings on which to train machine learning systems (Littell et al., 2018, p. 2621). Further work research is needed into both the technical aspects and design practices for these systems.
8.8 Concluding Thoughts
“Our language is very important. It has been here since the Dreaming and we should take it to the future.” – Wujal Wujal Kuku Yalanji Language Reference Group
The completion of this thesis marks the end of my time with the Wujal Wujal community as a PhD student. The project does not end here, for there is still work to be done, and the relationship between the University and the Wujal Wujal community will continue until the outcomes desired for the community are reached.
Yet, even the timescale of a “long term” organisational partnership is insignificant when considered within the community’s overall language journey, that stretches back to a time only Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, as the First
Australians, can remember. This journey will continue well into the future as a result
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of the dedication and commitment of the community to their language, including a willingness to embrace the possibilities that digital technologies can offer.
This area of work is important, and deserves to be addressed to a greater extent within the HCI discipline, but at the invitation and on the terms of communities themselves. Given the complexities of this work, finding a perfect approach is not possible, but this thesis shows what could be achieved within the timeframe of a PhD project. Here are some comments from different members of the Language Reference
Group, looking back on the project during our final meeting:
“I think it’s a pleasure what you demonstrated to us over the last six months and from the Reference Group crew here, I’d like to thank you, thank you both very, from the bottom of our hearts. And for our future here, I think it’s a shining light for us now.
We can tap into all these sort of things with your professional help and through all the members here”.
“I just want to thank you, just going back to [day 1] when you guys turned up
[…] I want to put it on the table, because no one comes here to help us, I was very humbled by you guys coming, […] and that were the first step where I thought, this is going to be a different journey for us. Thank you for that follow through”.
“She [Jen] came here and people welcomed her with a warm heart and, it’s just been wonderful. When she walks about round the community, people know and respect her. I just want you to take that back to your QUT, so when there’s other people come from there do similar work with us, just follow what Jen done and that will give recognition to QUT for further working with us”.
I hope that my relationship with the Wujal Wujal community will continue beyond this project, in the years to come. When the Elders hear the dukunjulu bird
Chapter 8: Discussion and Conclusions 311
calling, they will know that I am not far away. I will be thinking of them and miss them still.
Damper wunay? [got any damper for me?]
312 Chapter 8: Discussion and Conclusions
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Appendices
Appendix A. Letter of Intent and Memorandum of Understanding
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350 Appendices
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352 Appendices
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354 Appendices
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356 Appendices
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Appendix B. Wujal Wujal Interview Guide (Elders and Adults)
This interview guide was used when interviewing adults from different families and community groups across the project. Some themes were added for interviews later in the project after initial prototyping had taken place. The questions were inspired by the Second National Indigenous Language Survey (Marmion et al., 2014), and the questions that were the most closely informed by the questions and themes in the survey instruments (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2014a, 2014b) are marked with an *. Since the interviews were semi- structured, not every question was asked to every participant, and many additional follow-up questions were asked in-situ which may not be captured in this starting guide.
Introductory questions: About you • Could you introduce yourself? • Where is your Country? Which clan are you from? • What is your role in the Wujal Wujal community?*
Your own language journey: How you learnt Kuku Yalanji • When and how did you start to learn Kuku Yalanji? How did it happen?* • Did you learn English first, or Kuku first, or both together? • What role did the local school play in your own language learning?* • Who was important in your language learning?* • How did older family members teach you Kuku Yalanji? What did they do? • Why do grandparents play such an important role in teaching Kuku Yalanji? • Were there differences between the ways in which your parents and grandparents spoke and taught Kuku Yalanji? • Were there particular songs or stories that you remember as something that really helped with the language learning? • What language materials did you use to support your own language learning (e.g. the Kuku Yalanji dictionaries)? • Do you read and write in Kuku Yalanji as well as speaking the language? • How did your family use Kuku Yalanji at home when you were growing up? • What activities did you do with your family when you were younger that involved language and learning the language? • What types of things did family members showed you when teaching language on Country, and how did they do it? • What motivated you to learn Kuku Yalanji as a child? • As a child, did you have a sense that you might lose or miss out on Kuku Yalanji if you did not learn it?
You as a language teacher: How you teach Kuku Yalanji to children and younger family members • Do you have any children or grandchildren? Have you been involved with raising children yourself, or with language activities involving children?*
Appendices 359
• How have you gone about teaching your children or younger family members Kuku Yalanji? What activities have you done? • What do the interactions in language between your family members look like? (e.g. between grandparents and grandchildren) If I were observing this, what would I be seeing? • Are you able to give some examples of how you use Kuku Yalanji at home? • Have you taken children out on Country for language learning? What kinds of places have you taken them? • Are there any other kind of barriers or challenges to do with taking kids out on Country for language teaching and learning? • How does your approach to teaching Kuku Yalanji to your children differ between when they are younger vs when they are older? • How is the way that your kids are learning the language similar or different to the way that you learnt the language? • Do you have any games that you play with your kids or you family that involve the language? Could you think of any, like, games that Elders and the kids would both enjoy in Kuku Yalanji? • How do you go about teaching and learning aspects of the language such as the suffixing system? • Do you do any creative activities such as music, or dance, or art, or do you have any way that you like expressing yourself creatively? What creative activities do your children really love doing? • How do you present Kuku Yalanji as something that’s really cool to learn and fun to learn for children?
Intergenerational perspectives: Your perception of younger peoples’ attitudes and experiences of language learning and use • What do young people like doing (if they are not going out on Country or taking children out on Country)? • Do you think the kids understand that if they don’t learn the language, it might disappear? Do you think that the message is reaching the younger generations? • From your perspective, what might people miss out on if they don’t learn and use Kuku Yalanji? • What are younger people’s attitudes towards Kuku Yalanji?* • Do you think kids might feel reluctant to speak it because they’re worried about saying it, saying it the wrong way, is that an issue?
Community context: Language activities in Wujal Wujal • What are the topics that the Elders use and feel are important when teaching Kuku Yalanji to children? • When you teach Kuku Yalanji to your children, younger family members, what do you do? What would I observe you doing if I were looking on? • How do young people use language in the community? • What language projects or programs are you currently working on (at home or in your organisations)?* • Do you have any ideas for Kuku Yalanji projects that we could try using digital technology?*
360 Appendices
• What Kuku Yalanji language materials do you use at home and/or within your organisation? • What types of community activities or events involve Kuku Yalanji language use?* • Why have some language activities that were previously running in community stopped? • What are some of the community’s strengths and challenges regarding the intergenerational transmission and use of Kuku Yalanji?* • What goals or targets do you/your organisation/the community have for Kuku Yalanji?* • Are there any activities or places in the community where language isn’t used but it could be used in future?
Digital technology: Your current technology use and ideas for new technology designs for Kuku Yalanji • What do young people use on the mobile phones for? Do they play games on the phones? • Why do you think young people find technology so engaging/exciting? • What types of technology do you have and use at home? Do you have a laptop, desktop computer? • What types of technology do you children use? • Do you use Kuku Yalanji much in your emails/Facebook/phone calls/SMS? • Do you think that many of the people who speak Kuku Yalanji are on Facebook? Is the Kuku Yalanji language used on social media platforms? • What types of technical skills do you think would be good for the community to develop through this project? • What existing tools or projects have inspired you or you think would work well for Kuku Yalanji in Wujal Wujal? • (For people who have a specific idea for a new technology for Kuku Yalanji) o What is your vision for this technology? o What features do you have in mind for this technology? o What could people do with this technology? How would people use it in their everyday lives? o What types of content would be displayed in it? How would this differ for different user groups? o What types of songs or stories could be used with technology?
Design feedback: Using the tangible technology prototypes in Wujal Wujal Would you be interested in using any of the existing prototypes in your language activities (noticeboard, birdhouse, language quiz game)? • Where should be set up these prototypes if we were going to try them in Wujal Wujal? Do you think these existing prototypes would make sense to use in people’s homes? • What types of seed content do you think would be good to put on there for Wujal Wujal? • (Specific questions about the crocodile later in the process) o What do you think of the crocodile prototype? Do you have any general feedback and suggestions (what it looks like, what it does etc.)?
Appendices 361
o What could the crocodile prototype could say to the kids or show the kids? o Where could we place the crocodile prototype if children were using it in this setting? o How should the crocodile prototype look and feel like? o What would be an easy way for you to put your own content on the crocodile prototype? (How do you record/share information with families and community?)
Community production of the toys: Sewing the Crocodile Language Friend toys (later in the project for those involved in crafting the toys) • What animals do you think would be good for these toys? • Do you think any different sorts of forms would be good for adults learning language? • What is the benefit of sewing your own toys VS using off the shelf toys? • How did you make your own Crocodile? How did you choose the fabrics and the colours to use on this one? • Did the women involved in making the Crocodile feel a sense of ownership towards it? • For the next ones that you are making, what will you change about it from the first one that was made? • Which of the materials that we brought down do you think will be the most useful for the crocodile and the turtle? Which are the ones that you saw and resonated with you the most? • Ae you going to keep it the same size or make it bigger or smaller? • What could be done to the toys to customise them to particular children or families? • Do you think other communities or centres might light to start sewing their own toys? • For the toys that are being sewn here, do you think that the women here would be interested in taking those home, or what should we do with the ones that are sewn here?
362 Appendices
Appendix C. Language Reference Group Materials
RG0 Information Session Agenda/Discussion Guide
Tuesday 3 July 2018, WWASC Training Room
Welcome and Meeting Open
Overview of The Project
• Introduction to the Project • Partnership between QUT and WWASC • Demonstration of prototypes • Ideas and feedback on prototypes from Reference Group
Discussion of Research Activities
• Overview of the research activities and methods • Planning list of people for yarning/interviews • Discuss ideas for school holiday technology workshops at IKC (Week of July 8) • Discuss ideas for activities to do on country with the Rangers (July 12)
Other business
Date of next meeting
Thank you!
Appendices 363
RG1 Language Reference Group Discussion Guide
Tuesday 10 July 2018, WWASC 9am Indigenous Knowledge Centre
Welcome and meeting open
Confirmation of minutes from last meeting
Project overview
• Brief recap of project introduction • Demonstration and feedback on noticeboard project intro story • General discussion of community language aspirations
Discussion of current prototypes (noticeboard, birdhouse, quiz)
• What should we display on them in community? • What activities should we use them for? • Where should we put them and use them? • How should we decorate them? • Who would like to help create some content? • Other ideas for language technology?
NAIDOC week activities
• Language games and technology day in IKC (Tuesday 9 July) • Technology demonstrations booth (Tuesday 10 July) • On country excursion (Tuesday 11 July) • Project interviews (starting Week Monday 8 July)
Other business
Date of next meeting
Meeting close
364 Appendices
RG2 Language Reference Group Discussion Guide
Tuesday 17 July 2018, Indigenous Knowledge Centre
Welcome and meeting open
Recap of project progress to date
Aim of the project
Discussion questions and activities
• Future aspirations for our language • Teaching language and culture • Making digital language recordings • Presenting language material in engaging ways • Sharing and using language materials • Growing language materials and user community • Birdhouse content Other business
Date of next meeting
--
RG3 Language Reference Group Discussion Guide
Tuesday 9 October 2018, Indigenous Knowledge Centre
Recap of project aims
What was achieved last visit
How these learnings will help the app design
Progress since last visit
Objectives of this visit (Oct-Nov 2018)
Card kit design tool
Appendices 365
Proposed design activities
Community and research outcomes
Next step for Language Reference Group
Other business
Date of next meeting
--
RG4 Language Reference Group RG4 Discussion Guide
Wednesday 7 November 2018, WWASC 9am Indigenous Knowledge Centre
Recap of last meeting
Demonstration of the KindyCroc friend for your feedback and input
• Overview of the design iteration since previous prototype • What should it look like? What should it be made of? • Where should we put them? What should we put on them? • What should it sound like? What voice should it have? • How can we keep building and growing the resources on there?
Upcoming activities
RG5 Language Reference Group Discussion Guide
Monday 15 July 2019, WWASC 9am Indigenous Knowledge Centre
Use of the crocodile in homes
• Which members of your family would benefit from the crocodile? Tell us about them about us? Where would you put this in your home? • If you could give this to a family member who was living away, what would you like to say to them through the crocodile? • What words/sentences/stories do you teach these family members? • What types of recordings do you already make for you family members? Which of these would you use on the crocodile? Why/why not? • What places and activities could the crocodile be used for in community to help with language teaching/learning?
366 Appendices
• What do kids in your family enjoy watching or listening to? What would they be excited to hear on the crocodile? • What recordings should be owned by families? Shared? What would you be interested to hear from another family? • Which families might like to try one out in their home? Is there anyone who would like to trial one for one month? • What words, sentences, and longer recordings would you put on there if you had the crocodile in your own home?] • How can we help families to set their own language goals? How do we measure whether these goals are being met?
Language goals in community
• What are the basic words/phrases that the Reference Group wants everyone in community to know? What are the topic areas that they want to focus on for the next 6-12 months? • What other places in community (IKC) would it be useful to try out the crocodile? • If you were to break language learning down, what is something in language that you could teach that you would like all the children in community to learn? A particular story? Song? Set of words? How can the crocodile help with this?
Feedback on design
• What do they think of the soft crocodile design? • Size/shape/colour/appearance of this one? • Other animals for the crocodile (particular to clan groups? Particular people)? • What if we could get community (Women’s Centre and Arts Centre) to make one? How would you decorate/paint it? • Interactions: what other games would you like to play with the crocodile? • What do they think of the voice filter? How should the voice filter be used (for what recordings)? • What was easy or difficult about using the crocodile? • What else do you wish the crocodile could do? How could we change the crocodile to make it work better for you? • What should the crocodile say in Kuku Yalanji when it starts up? How can we record this? • What recordings does community want to do for the crocodile? Who will do this? What is the process for doing this? Bridging dialogue, Language recordings, Audio for the dictionary
Appendices 367
• Do you feel like this is your crocodile? Your project? Why/why not?
Recordings
• What recordings to community already have that would be appealing for young children/their families and good to put on there? What could be displayed in the app? • What types of things have you already recorded? (e.g. Baja baja book? Fire documentary? Fire management book?) What made you want to appear in these and share your stories? • How would you use the voice filter? Would you rather record with or without the voice filter? -- RG6 Language Reference Group Discussion Guide
Thursday 3 November 2019, WWASC 9am Indigenous Knowledge Centre Puliima Presentation
• Context about conference • Show the video • Is there anything you (presenters) want to share about the trip? What are the most useful things you learnt that might help here in Wujal Wujal? • Do they want the slides on the Puliima website?
OzCHI Paper Presentation
• What do you think about the message of the paper? • What is your feedback on the presentation? • What acknowledgement statements should we include at the start and end of the paper? • Would you like any text in Kuku Yalanji in the paper? • What is important to say about the community in the background? • What images should we include on the slides? • Individual participants à if want copies of audio and transcripts
Thesis
• Show through à questions on each of the chapters
368 Appendices
Croc Demo
• What do you think of the treasure hunt? What are places/objects/words that you would include in a RG treasure hunt? • What do you think of the clues as being audio only? • What should the Bridging Dialogue/Sound Effects be? How will be record these? • What should be the first words to send out?
Community Perspective on Engagement
• If not a researcher here, what are language activities that need to happen for crocodiles to be used? • How do we encourage families to record? Does it need to be a structure in terms of planning for meetings? How can it happen without external provocation? • What are the barriers/challenges? Does the crocodile change anything? • Are there reasons why it might be easier to get the crocodile used rather than other things? • Should the crocs only be for families, or should there be a community repository? • Could there be a site where things like this could be available? How do you make sure this resource doesn’t die? • What’s the trade off in terms of outsiders learning the language with the crocodile? • Looking back on the project, what is important for people to know when they want to work with communities on a project like this? • What are the next steps for the project?
Appendices 369
Appendix D. Kit of Crafting Materials and Electronics for workshops
The following props and components are available in community for prototyping Prototypes Computers • Ambient Birdhouse • Arduino • Digital Community Noticeboard • Raspberry Pi v2 (Jen personal) • MyWord app (iPad) • Raspberry Pi V3’s (several) • Treasure Hunt PPT prototype • Raspberry Pi 1(?) with LED • Language quiz game PPT matrix prototype • Macbook • Mini speaker Equipment • Mini buzzer • HP Sprocket 2 in 1 camera/photo printer and paper Language materials and resources • iPad • Samsung Tablet • Blue Tongue Lizard Story • Firefly Story Card Kit • Fire Management Book • RFID cards • SIL Dictionary • RFID stickers • Lynette Oates Dictionary • Sticky paper • Platypus Book – Wambiji • Software that plays video, audio, • Wujal Wujal Council website images • Wujal Wujal • Screen • RIBS Centre • Speaker • Arts Centre paintings • Portable RFID reader prototype Electronics at IKC Plug and Play • Motion Sensor • Ozobots • USB Microphone • Makey Makeys • Makey Makey • Google Cardboard • Bluetooth speaker • WeSay Database • White buttons
Electronics components • SenseHat • LED matrix • LED ribbon • LED circle • Buzzers and small speakers • Sound Sensor • Light Dependent Resistor • Accelerometer etc.
370 Appendices
Appendix E. Participatory Design Workshops Undertaken
Workshop 1: Yam Digging Noticeboard Story (NAIDOC Week)
Description
Part 1: Elders and children participate in a yam digging excursion during NAIDOC week to gather yams for the community dinner. Participants will document the process of digging up the yams and preparing them to eat through video clips and photographs. Part 2: Community members will work together to create a digital story for the yam picking day using the Digital Community Noticeboard with the photos and videos taken on country. The story will be displayed on the noticeboard during NAIDOC week in the IKC and shown during the community film night.
Facilitation Guide
Part 1 (On Country): • Help arrange the logistics for transporting Elders and children on country. • Once on country, introduce the activity by explaining the purpose of both parts of the activity (picking yams and creating the noticeboard story). • Give participants the iPads and tablets and show them how to use them. Discuss their ideas of what types of photos and film clips could be useful for the story (e.g. process involved with finding the yams, determining if they are ripe) digging the yams. • After the activity, gather together the collected media onto the Digital Community Noticeboard.
Part 2 (Indigenous Knowledge Centre): • Introductions • Demonstrate the Digital Community Noticeboard by showing examples of existing stories. • Explain the purpose of the activity (to create a yam digging story as a resource for the community to show during NAIDOC week). • Show the photos and video clips created through the yam picking activity on the big screen. • Get participants to work in small groups to plan and assemble their story. Provide butchers paper and printed thumbnails of the photos and videos if participants wish to plan on paper. Provide each group with a laptop or tablet to connect to the noticeboard. • Help each to create their story by giving it a title, choosing a photo or video for each page, and creating written text and/or audio recordings in English and/or Kuku Yalanji.
Appendices 371
• Participants present their stories to the other group at the end.
Materials Needed
• Digital community noticeboard • Tablets and laptops • Digital community noticeboard with at least one seed story • Butchers paper • Prints of the photo and video thumbnails • Pencils and markers • Kuku Yalanji dictionary.
Language Use
Participants learn language associated with yam digging and country from Elders while digging the yams and creating the story.
Social Connectedness
Elders and children working together to dig yams and create digital story.
Skills Development and Capacity Building:
Participants learn skills in using and maintaining the noticeboard, creating digital content, photography and film making with the iPads.
Notes on Actual Workshop Facilitation:
We did the yam picking and film for Part 1, however we were not able to organise a follow up workshop to create the noticeboard story due to the busy NAIDOC week schedule and other logistical difficulties. The organisations involved in facilitating the activity were provided the photos and videos and content owned by the community.
372 Appendices
Workshop 2: Creating Digital Content for the Language Prototypes (Adults)
Description
Elders work with the research team to co-design digital content for the language prototypes such as videos in language and RFID cards for the Ambient Birdhouse and follow-on designs that used the same software and RFID cards.
Facilitation Guide
• Introductions. • Demonstrate the prototype and existing content. • Discuss with Elders their ideas for new digital content in language for the prototype. • Plan the visuals, subtitles, and spoken content on the videos through writing and diagramming. • Record the language content onto the prototype and assemble the video together. • Play back the video for participants to review and adjust based on their feedback.
Materials Needed
• Technology prototype (e.g. birdhouse, language box, hard wooden crocodile) • Audio and video recording devices • Laptop and video editing software for assembly • Paper • Sticky notes • Pens and markers • Photo printer • Blank RFID cards
Language Use
Language speaking and learning through the process of creating the video, and language use for people using the prototypes in subsequent activities and demonstrations.
Social Connectedness
Appendices 373
Elders creating content for children in community.
Skills Development and Capacity Building Outcomes
Skills in using the technology prototype, video creation (e.g. planning and assembling the video using recording devices and the laptop).
Notes on Actual Workshop Facilitation
Several digital content creation sessions took place with Elders. However, given the time required to assemble the videos and upload to the prototype, the assembly was often done by the researcher after the workshop and participants reviewed the videos at a later time.
374 Appendices
Workshop 3: Designing My Own Personal Language Crocodile (Langauge
Reference Group)
Description
The aim of this workshop is to work with Elders to explore ideas for their own personalised language device for their home through drawing and discussion. Participants are given a drawing with an outline of the hard wooden crocodile, and asked to design the appearance, content, and functionality of their own crocodile for their home. The aim of this workshop was to move from a community device to developing ideas for relational language technologies (Taylor et al., 2019b), taking the hard wooden crocodile as a starting point and evolving ideas for the design based on family needs and preferences.
Facilitation Guide
• Introductions • Demonstrate the hard wooden crocodile prototype and existing content. • Recap the idea of ‘relational language technologies’ (Taylor et al., 2019b) and how this came out of work with the community. • Give each of the participants (or groups of participants from the same family) a crocodile template and explain the different parts of it. Ask participants to fill in the sections and decorate it. • Discuss the different aspects of the drawings with the group: • What is the name of your crocodile? • What is one thing that your crocodile says? • What is a photo or video you could put on your crocodile? • What does this button do? • What is a song your crocodile could play? • What colours are your crocodile? • Where would you put this crocodile in your home? • What other animal or object could this be for your family? • What would your family language object be made from? • How would you use it in your home? • What else do you wish this crocodile could do?
Materials Needed
• Hard wooden crocodile prototype • Crocodile activity sheets
Appendices 375
• Pencils and markers
Language Use
Language use through the drawing and discussion process.
Social Connectedness
Designing a prototype for family members to use.
Skills Development and Capacity Building Outcomes
Design ideation
Notes on Actual Workshop Facilitation
This activity was conducted with the Reference Group as part of Reference Group Meeting 4.
376 Appendices
Workshop 4: Designing My Own Personal Language Crocodile (Children)
Description
The aim of this workshop is to work with young children (3-5) to discuss their ideas for their own talking language friend and perspectives on language. Children are given a crocodile colouring sheet and are asking questions as they are drawing it. Children create a video of themselves talking about their crocodile drawing to display on the crocodile in the kindergarten. This is an adapted version of the previous workshop with adults.
Facilitation Guide
• Introductions • Demonstrate the hard wooden crocodile prototype and existing content. • Give each child a colouring sheet and tell them about the different things they can put on their crocodile (crocodile name and drawing for their video). • Ask the children questions as they are drawing: • What would you name your friend? • What colour would you friend be? • What video would your friend show on the screen? • Where would you put your friend in your house? • What other animals could your friend be? • Put an RFID sticker on the drawing and assign it to the hard wooden crocodile software. • Work with the child to create a video of themselves talking about their crocodile friend. • Show the child their video on the crocodile, and show them how to tap their drawing against the RFID reader to play their video. Watch their interactions with the hard wooden crocodile and reaction to the video.
Materials Needed
• Hard wooden crocodile prototype • Crocodile activity sheets • Pencils and markers
Language Use
Language use through the drawing and discussion process, seeing what words young children know and suggesting translations for English words that they use.
Appendices 377
Social Connectedness
Children developing a design for their own home and family. Adult facilitators working together with children to create their drawings.
Skills Development and Capacity Building Outcomes
Skills in using the hard wooden crocodile prototype.
Notes on Actual Workshop Facilitation
This activity was challenging to run with children of this age group. Most children gave their crocodile a name and did a small amount of colouring in, but it was difficult to engage children in creating a more detailed drawing for the crocodile screen. Adult facilitators helped to scaffold the activity and involve the children. The children were eager to make their own video and play it using their tagged drawing once they had seen other people do it.
378 Appendices
Appendix F. Crocodile Language Friend Family Co-Design Kit
Part A: Initial Design Workshop
Note: The questions in this section were inspired by the Second National Indigenous Languages Survey instruments (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2014a, 2014b) and by online resources for language planning in families such as (Bosq, 2016).
Showing you the crocodile language friend (brief demo)
We will show you the crocodile language friend and what it can do. You can ask us questions about the crocodile.
Interactions with the Crocodile
• Greeting • Listen to a recording • Play a game • Language reminder
Talking about your family activities and language use
We will talk with you about language activities in your family. You can make notes here:
This is why Kuku Yalanji is important to us:
This is how we use Kuku Yalanji at home:
(particular activities, places, games, routines involving Kuku Yalanji) These are the Kuku Yalanji language resources that we can access:
(e.g. books at home, people who speak Kuku Yalanji, language lessons at kindergarten or school, places with Kuku Yalanji resources, community events involving Kuku Yalanji)
These are family activities that we like doing together that can involve Kuku
Yalanji:
This is what a typical day looks like in our family:
Appendices 379
This is what technology we use at home:
This is what my child likes (e.g. games, stories, songs, places, toys, TV shows):
Setting language goals for your family
Note: The “say, make, do” structure of this section is informed by (Brandt et al., 2012) and the CAB310 course materials.
We will help you set some language goals for your family while using the crocodile.
Say Goal
Here are ten words we would like our family to know and use that connect with our family activities and child’s interests. You can fill in the English words today and note down the Kuku Yalanji as you use the crocodile. Word in Word in Kuku A Sentence With This Word in Kuku English Yalanji Yalanji 1.
Make Goal
Here are five longer recordings that our family would like to make on the crocodile (e.g. stories about family members’ lives and childhood, knowledge about our country, a particular song or recipe that is important to our family etc.):
Do Goal
Here are some language habits or routines that we would like our family to do over the next month. Examples: go to the IKC to read their storybooks once per week, play a language game three times per week, read one page of the Baja Baja storybook together each day. HABIT/ROUTINE WHO WILL DO THIS HOW OFTEN
1.
380 Appendices
Part B: One Month Trial in Your Home
Kit contents
• Crocodile • Tablet • User manual/help guide • Diary • Contact details
Crocodile activities
Note: I brainstormed these questions based on my experiences in Wujal Wujal, and with the help of resources on activities and conversation topics with children (Daniels, n.d.; Ehlinger, 2013; Games4esl, 2019).
Record a message Here are some ideas of messages to record in Kuku Yalanji/ and/or English on the crocodile for your child to listen to: • Tell a joke • Sing a song • Tell a story about your childhood • Talk about a bush medicine • Talk about hunting for an animal • Talk about a bushfood and when it grows • Talk about the biggest fish you have ever caught • Talk about a season of the year • Talk about your favourite food • Talk about your favourite place • Talk about your favourite rugby team • Talk about your favourite television show, movie • Talk about a recipe for making something (e.g. damper, fish stew) • Talk about your favourite things to do • Talk about your country • Talk about a memory of doing something with your parents, grandparents, Aunties or Uncles • Talk about one way that Wujal Wujal is different today to when it was when you were growing up
Appendices 381
• Talk about the warming ceremony and what it means • Talk about food sharing rules • Talk about your what different animals mean (e.g. what it means when a magpie calls) • Talk about crocodiles and how you can be crocodile safe around the water • Talk about something that made yourself • Talk about the last thing that made you laugh • Talk about a dream that you have for the future • Talk about why Kuku Yalanji is a special language • Leave your child a message wishing them well at school/kindy • Talk about what you did this week or what you are going to do next weekend • Record a sound from Country • Record a word or sentence from your SAY list (1.3.1) • Record a longer recording from your MAKE list (1.3.2)
Play a game with the crocodile Note: These games are based on ones I am familiar with or are commonly played by children, and resources on ESL games for children (Muclahy, 2020). Here are some ideas of games to play with your child using the crocodile. Family members could make games for each other.
1. Fastest person first
Use any recordings on the crocodile. See who can be the fastest person to play the repeat or word matching game. Press the game button . See who is the fastest person to respond to the crocodile.
2. Who am I (person)?
Record a “who am I” quiz onto the crocodile with clues about you (e.g. I am 45, I was born in Cooktown, my favourite team is the Cowboys) using the app and set it to ON. Press the play button and listen to the clues. Discuss the clues with our child and let them guess. Tell them the answer.
3. Guess the animal
Record some bird or animal sounds onto the crocodile using the app and set to ON. Press the play button and listen to the sound. Let your child guess the animal and tell them the name of it in Kuku Yalanji and whether they are correct.
382 Appendices
4. Pass the crocodile
Use any recordings on the crocodile. Set the “you’re it” recording to ON in the app. Stand in a circle. The first person presses the play button. If it is not the “you’re it” message, pass it to the next person. If the “you’re it” message plays, then press the game button. If you correctly answer the crocodile, stay standing and pass it to the next person. If you incorrectly answer, sit down. The last person standing wins.
5. Crocodile says
Record some body part words and actions (e.g. rub your tummy) using the app and set these to ON. Press the play button and listen. The quickest person to touch that body part or do the action is the winner.
6. Storytelling
Use any recordings on the crocodile. Press the play button. Tell a story with your child using anything that the crocodile says.
7. Win the strip
Use any recordings on the crocodile. Press the game button and take turns playing the repeat and word matching game. Watch the lights get added to the crocodiles back and keep going until all the lights are on. This game might be fun to play in a room with low lighting.
Crocodile postcards • Take your crocodile to different places in your home community that you like going. • Take a photo of your crocodile in this place using the table. • Think of words, sentences, sounds, stories to record on your crocodile that relate to that place. • What is the most interesting place that you have used the crocodile?
My own language friend • Imagine that you could design your own language friend for your house that is like the crocodile. What animal would it be? What colour would it be? What would it say or do? Where would you put it?
Draw your ideas for your own language friend for your home:
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Part D: Follow Up Design Workshop
We will visit you in one month and discuss your experience of using the crocodile. We will ask the following questions. You can take notes here.
• Were you able to achieve your SAY, MAKE, and DO goals during these four weeks? Why/why not? • How did you make the language recordings? What role did each person in the family play? • What was your child’s favourite activity to do with the crocodile? • How did you use the voice filter? • What did you and your family members find funny, scary, exciting, boring about using the crocodile? • What did you learn about Kuku Yalanji, technology, or each other while using the crocodile? • Did the crocodile help you and your child to remember new words? What words did you remember that you did not know four weeks ago? • How did your language activities and routines change while using the crocodile? What language activities and routines will you keep on doing after the study? • What recordings would you share with other families and who would you share these with? What types of recordings would you like to hear from other families? • What was easy or difficult about using the crocodile? • What else do you wish the crocodile could do? How could we change the crocodile to make it work better for you? • Any other thoughts or feedback on the Crocodile that you would like to share?
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Appendix G. Sample Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form
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Appendices 387
388 Appendices
Appendices 389
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“integrative”, usefulness of analysis (Braun et (Höök et al., inspirational and (Ploderer et al., findings, 3) al., 2006, p. 96). 2012, p. 23:11). aspirational 2019), reflective concepts, 4) qualities Gaver and transparent, conceptualisation looks for in applicable and of concepts, 5) design theory” useful, logic, 6) depth, 7) (Bowers, 2012, p. conceptually clear variation, 8) 76). and sound. creativity, 9) sensitivity, 10) evidence of memos (Corbin et al., 2008, pp. 305–307). Relationship to Theory is Theory is Does not present Particular concept Intermediate theory generated through generated through theory but rather than system knowledge is less analysis of analysis of analytical account of ideas, a degree general than a empirical data and empirical data of themes from more concrete theory but ‘does tested through (Corbin et al., data (Creswell et than a theory as the work’ of a design and 2008). al., 2018). intermediate theory (Bowers, trialling of a knowledge (Höök 2012). prototype. et al., 2012). Relationship to Emerges from and Theory can be Commonly used Strong concepts Annotations design informs designs used to inform HCI method that are derived from emerge from both and use practices. design, and inform design by instances of also inform technology use deriving themes design, and are designs, with the can be feature of that reflect generative in two influencing a grounded theory insights and inspiring future each other but is not opportunities for design practices (Bowers, 2012). necessarily the design. (Höök et al., focus. 2012).
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Appendix I. Publications Relating to Wujal Wujal
Puliima 2019 Presentation Abstract
Presentation Title: The ‘Let’s Use Our Language Together’ Social Technology Project for Kuku Yalanji
Names of Presenters: Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor (QUT), Marie Shipton (WWASC), Francis Walker (WWASC), Margot Brereton (QUT).
Summary Information: We present social language technology designs for encouraging the learning and active use of the Kuku Yalanji language by young children, co-designed through a partnership between the Wujal Wujal community and Queensland University of Technology.
Detailed abstract: This project is a partnership between Queensland University of Technology and Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council to co-design social technologies that encourage the learning and active use of Kuku-Yalanji. The project is guided by a Reference Group of Elders from the Kuku Yalanji, Kuku Nyungul and Jalunji clans who are the traditional owners and custodians of the Wujal Wujal area.
This project explores ways that digital and tangible technologies can 1) leverage existing language materials and community resources, 2) foster language use amongst young children through activities and games, and 3) grow language use by enriching social connections between Elders and young people. We take a co-design approach where HCI researchers and community members work together to create, build, and use language technology as capacity partners.
We present some social language technology designs such as talking language toys for both public spaces and within the family home setting, and reflect on their use. These have been designed and developed through a series of yarns, design workshops, and demos with Elders and young people in Wujal Wujal. We have taken language use, community values, and literacy practices in particular settings as starting points for situated design. We will discuss considerations for seeding and growing community ownership and use of language technology into the future.
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A Relational Approach to Designing Social Technologies that Foster Use of the
Kuku Yalanji Language (OzCHI2019 Paper)
AUTHORS
Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor Paul Roe Queensland University of Technology Queensland University of Technology (QUT) (QUT) Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Brisbane, Queensland, Australia [email protected] [email protected]
Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council† Margot Brereton Wujal Wujal, Queensland, Australia Queensland University of Technology [email protected] (QUT) Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
[email protected] Alessandro Soro Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Brisbane, Queensland, Australia [email protected]
ABSTRACT
Australia has an array of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, but they face decline along with many valued aspects of culture unless they are passed down to, and used by, younger generations. Prior work on designing technologies for language learning has often taken particular language skills, learning theories, and technologies as their starting point. Our empirical work with a remote Aboriginal community illustrates four ways in which this community’s language practices intersect with family relations and are deeply enmeshed with family histories and stories, Indigenous Knowledges, and activities on and about country. Thus, we argue for a relational approach that instead takes family communication and social activities as the basis for designing technologies that foster everyday language use. We outline the guiding principles of this design orientation, and illustrate how they have been taken up in the co-design of a talking soft toy called the ‘Crocodile Language Friend.’ Finally, we identify opportunities and open issues in taking a relational approach to designing technologies for language communities with similar needs and aspirations.
CCS CONCEPTS
† Note: Quotes from participants included in this publication should not be reproduced without permission from Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council.
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• Human-centered computing~Empirical studies in HCI • Human-centered computing~Field studies
KEYWORDS
Language teaching and learning, intergenerational language transmission, language use, Indigenous languages, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, social technologies, family communication, co-design.
ACM Reference format:
J. L. Taylor, Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, A. Soro, P. Roe, and M. Brereton. 2019. A Relational Approach to Designing Social Technologies that Foster Use of the Kuku Yalanji Language. In 31ST AUSTRALIAN CONFERENCE ON HUMAN- COMPUTER-INTERACTION (OZCHI’19), December 2–5, 2019, Fremantle, WA, Australia. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 12 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3369457.3369471
1 Introduction
We acknowledge the Kuku Yalanji, Kuku Nyungul and Jalunji peoples who are the traditional owners and custodians of the Wujal Wujal area. 2019 is the UNESCO International Year of Indigenous Languages, seeking to “[...] promote and protect Indigenous languages and improve the lives of those who speak them” (UNESCO, 2019). Indigenous languages worldwide are becoming endangered at an alarming rate, with a 2016 UN Forum predicting that 40% of the world’s total languages may disappear unless rapid action is taken (UNESCO, 2019). While a rich array of more than 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages existed prior to European contact, 120 languages are actively used today (Marmion et al., 2014). The benefits of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages for their speakers include strengthening a sense of cultural identity (Verdon et al., 2015), health and wellbeing (Lohoar et al., 2014; Marmion et al., 2014), and child development and educational outcomes (Fogarty et al., 2011), with social, economic, and environmental benefits for the broader Australian society (Australian Government, 2019). The Second National Indigenous Languages Survey concluded that the “active use and transmission of languages is the key to strengthening or maintaining traditional languages” (Marmion et al., 2014). The survey highlights the importance of the home and family setting for growing language use, supported by language revitalization scholarship (Marmion et al., 2014). Technology has long been identified as an important tool for supporting language teaching, including the documentation, maintenance, and revitalization of endangered languages (Ward et al., 2003). HCI efforts to design for language learning have focussed on aspects such as particular skills (e.g. vocabulary learning (Grace, 2009; Verma, 2012), or reading (Coleman et al., 2012; Kovacs et al., 2013)), teaching approaches (e.g. task-based learning (Hooper et al., 2012), collaborative learning experiences (Culbertson et al., 2016; Paluka et al., 2013)), and emerging technologies
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(e.g. Internet of Things (Jeong et al., 2015), augmented reality (Verma, 2012), mixed reality (Vazquez et al., 2017) and, gesture-based systems (Cheng et al., 2017; Edge et al., 2012)). Past work on intergenerational communication (e.g. (Ballagas et al., 2009; Bentley et al., 2011; Brereton et al., 2015; Durrant et al., 2009; Follmer et al., 2010; Kow et al., 2012; Muñoz et al., 2013; Vutborg et al., 2011)) has also brought to light its emotional dimensions (Bentley et al., 2011; Mayasari et al., 2016) and experiential qualities, including fostering social engagement around family routines (Brereton et al., 2015) and a sense of closeness (Ballagas et al., 2009; Castro, 2007) over a distance, as well as identifying challenges and barriers (Muñoz et al., 2013; Vutborg et al., 2011). Yet, this work has largely not considered Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language transmission and use, though some projects with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities (Akama et al., 2016; Bidwell et al., 2008; de Souza et al., 2016; Turk et al., 1999; Verran, 2007) incorporate language elements such as cross-cultural communication platforms (e.g. (Soro et al., 2017)). We contribute a relational approach to designing technologies for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages that takes family communication and activities as the basis for technology design. This approach is grounded in empirical work conducted in partnership with the Aboriginal community of Wujal Wujal to co-design social technologies to support Kuku Yalanji language learning and use. In this type of language situation, there are Elders who are fluent language speakers but there are challenges in engaging young children in language activities. We present the findings from interviews and with adult language speakers about their language practices and technology use, that represent four key intersections between family relations and language learning. This work demonstrates the nature of language learning and use as deeply enmeshed with family histories and stories, Indigenous Knowledges, and activities on and about country. We propose characteristics of, and design considerations for, relational language technologies (RLTs), and illustrate how these are reflected in the design of the ‘Crocodile Language Friend’. We conclude by identifying opportunities and open issues for designing relational technologies that reflect language community members’ needs, interests, and aspirations for the future.
2 Related Work
2.1 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Language Context
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are the Indigenous peoples of Australia and currently represent around 3.3% of the Australian population (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018). Australia is home to more than 250 different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages that were spoken prior to European contact, and approximately 120 are still in use today (Marmion et al., 2014). To coincide with the UNESCO International Year of Indigenous Languages, the Australian Government developed an Action Plan (Australian Government, 2019) that argues for the importance of preserving, maintaining, and celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages as they “[…] enrich Australia's cultural life, make a valuable contribution to our national economy and are seen as a cultural asset internationally” (Australian Government, 2019). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages represent a range of language situations; some languages are considered “stable” where they are spoken by people of all generations, some are losing speakers, and
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some are growing speaker numbers through revitalization activities (Marmion et al., 2014). However, the National Survey concluded that “regardless of their situation all traditional languages are at risk of declining” (Marmion et al., 2014). Disruptions to intergenerational language transmission are a key proponent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language shift and loss (Forrest, 2018). Intergenerational transmission of language is “the process involved in […] passing [a] language down to the next generation, either through informal learning or formal teaching, or a combination of both” (Borland, 2006). A range of factors influence intergenerational language transmission including parental attitudes (Chrisp, 2005; Velázquez, 2009), government policy (Borland, 2006; Chrisp, 2005; Velázquez, 2009), parents skills in the language (Chrisp, 2005; Velázquez, 2009), use of the language at home (Norris, 2007; Velázquez, 2009), access to language resources (Velázquez, 2009), and the role of the language in formal schooling (Chumak-Horbatsch, 1999). Additional considerations in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language context include the emergence of hybrid and creole languages (Forrest, 2018; Marmion et al., 2014), and government policies promoting English literacy in the schooling system (Leitner, 2004; Mckay, 2017), though Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are now an explicit focus of the new Australian curriculum (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2015). Historical and ongoing forces of assimilation, missionisation and colonisation have impacted on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language transmission, including the ongoing legacy of the “stolen generation” (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997). In some cases, the transmission of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in families is associated with ongoing intergenerational trauma, and interventions in this context need to be approached with care and sensitivity. The ongoing vitality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in spite of these forces is a testament to the strength and resilience of their speakers (Harold Ludwick, 2017). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are undertaking a range of activities for language maintenance and revitalization, and technology has been identified as playing a key role in supporting these efforts (Australian Government, 2019). Technology is enriching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language activities in a number of areas. One of these areas is language documentation and recording, such as the Aikuma app for creating oral language recordings and annotations (Bird et al., 2014), the Living Archive of Australian Languages repository (Mamtora et al., 2017), and the Miromaa language and knowledge management platform [41]. There are tangible and digital designs for language teaching and learning, such as the Opie robot which allows communities to create their own digital games and stories in language (ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, 2017), the Anindilyakwa Flashcard app [7], and the Western Arranta skin names [26] and plant name games [28]. For computer-mediated communication (CMC) in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, platforms designed for this purpose include the cross-cultural Digital Community Noticeboard system (Soro et al., 2017), with these projects taking a community rather than a family lens. Many existing applications developed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages such as mobile dictionary apps are valuable reference materials, yet further work is needed to understand what role they can play in fostering everyday language use in language activities of children and their families.
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2.2 HCI Design for Language Learning
HCI design for language learning has targeted different aspects of the language learning process. This has included learning vocabulary in a new language (Verma, 2012), sometimes in preparation for an immersive experience such as travel (Grace, 2009), translating from one language to another (Hooper et al., 2012), and reading texts such as social media content (Coleman et al., 2012) and comic books (Kovacs et al., 2013) in another language. While there are a range of commercial technologies dedicated to foreign language learning, some HCI designers are instead approaching language learning as social and situated. The intent of these designs is to create experiences that immerse users in the socio-cultural world of the language speakers rather than teaching grammar and vocabulary out of context (Cheng et al., 2017; Culbertson et al., 2016; Hooper et al., 2012). This is achieved for example through a virtual reality game that situates learners in a Japanese teahouse (Cheng et al., 2017), or augmented kitchen utensils that support people to develop French speaking skills while collaboratively cooking a French recipe (Hooper et al., 2012). These design interventions focus on social rather than individualistic learning experiences both in- situ (e.g. (Hooper et al., 2012; Paluka et al., 2013)) and over a distance (e.g. (Verma, 2012)). Collaborative learning through devices such as the TandemTable enable both language learning, and the chance to “learn about each other’s culture and personal life, which in turn facilitates intercultural learning” (Paluka et al., 2013). Byamugisha and colleagues specifically targeted language transmission and the role of family game play for informal teaching and learning of Ugandan languages (Byamugisha et al., 2014), yet few of these HCI projects have focussed on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. Additionally, evaluations of many language learning systems focus on measuring language gains rather than social aspects of the language learning experience. Designing for minority and endangered languages, including many Indigenous languages, presents its own opportunities and challenges. HCI work in this area has spanned a range of languages and geographical locations (e.g. (Lackaff et al., 2016; Matos, 2017; Ovide et al., 2016; Penttonen, 2011; Zaman et al., 2015b)), including Australian Aboriginal languages (e.g. (Hardy et al., 2016)). These projects convey the double-edged sword that new technologies present to endangered and minority languages. On the one hand, technology can enable communication between speakers over a distance (Lin et al., 2014), the dissemination of language materials, wider recognition of endangered languages (Penttonen, 2011), monetization of language resources by speaker communities (Ovide et al., 2016), and language revitalization activities. On the other hand, new technologies including social media can present “technological and social pressures” for minority language speakers such as negative user experiences with generic interfaces, and difficulties in producing new web content for languages that are not widely represented online (Lackaff et al., 2016). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and Knowledges are closely entwined and their performance can be deeply situated in place (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2010a) and encompass sensory and embodied aspects (Awori et al., 2015). Design interventions in this space need to account for a language community’s specific socio-historical context, social, financial, practical, and technical opportunities, and constraints (Ward et al., 2003). 2.3 HCI Design for Family Communication
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A number of projects have considered technology design to support intergenerational communication (e.g. (Bentley et al., 2011; Brereton et al., 2015; Durrant et al., 2009; Kow et al., 2012; Muñoz et al., 2013; Vutborg et al., 2011), particularly between grandparents and grandchildren, and adult children and their elderly parents. This work has addressed both synchronous (Follmer et al., 2010) and asynchronous communication (Follmer et al., 2010), especially through video technology and online collaborative games and storytelling activities (Vutborg et al., 2011). This work emphasizes the importance of doing shared activities together to stimulate and sustain intergenerational communication (Follmer et al., 2010; Vutborg et al., 2011) particularly when children relate better to play than conversation (Follmer et al., 2010). These activities can include augmenting existing routines to create new possibilities for social interactions, such as Brereton and colleagues Messaging Kettle that supports direct and ambient communication around the ritual of boiling the kettle and making tea (Brereton et al., 2015). Intergenerational communication has experiential qualities with emotional dimensions (Bentley et al., 2011; Mayasari et al., 2016) such as fostering a sense of social engagement and presence (Ballagas et al., 2009), closeness (Castro, 2007), and togetherness (Ballagas et al., 2009) over a distance. While challenges to intergenerational communication include cognitive (Ballagas et al., 2009; Vutborg et al., 2011) and social barriers (Muñoz et al., 2013), recent work by Munoz and colleagues advocates for fostering empathy through designing in ways that help family members understand each other’s positions and differences (Muñoz et al., 2019). We suggest that this emphasis on the qualities of family relations and doing shared activities in shaping family communication practices can yield important insights for designing to support intergenerational language transmission and use. To address these gaps and opportunities, we introduce a participatory design project to create social technologies to support language learning and use by young children.
3 Community, Language, and Project Context
This empirical work was carried out as part of the ‘Let’s Use Our Language Together’ Social Technology Project for Kuku Yalanji, conducted by researchers from Queensland University of Technology in partnership with the remote Aboriginal community of Wujal Wujal. Wujal Wujal is located in Far North Queensland, with a population of more than 650 people (Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, 2017a). The township is nestled within a rainforest with large waterfalls and a river running through it, surrounded by beaches and coral reefs. The traditional owners and custodians of the land since time immemorial are the Kuku Nyungul, Kuku Yalanji, and Jalunji peoples (Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, 2020). There are various sources of information about the community and its history, such as the Council website (Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, 2020) and accounts from Government websites (e.g. (The State of Queensland, 2019)). The community has access to a range of services and facilities including an Art’s Centre, Indigenous Knowledge Centre, health centre, and community media. In the vicinity there are also primary schools, supermarkets, and tourist accommodation (Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, 2020). The community is pursuing innovative projects with emerging technologies such as Internet of Things, augmented and virtual reality, and novel communications infrastructure, some of which have garnered national awards (Local Government Association of Queensland, 2019), and offer technology classes for youth and older adults in their Indigenous Knowledge Centre
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(IKC). The community proudly speaks their language, Kuku Yalanji and its dialects, and acknowledges the past and ongoing work of different people and organisations such as the Elders, schools, Justice Group, IKC, and visiting linguists to design and record language materials such as dictionaries, grammars, hymn books, and children’s picture books. However, there is a lack of digital technologies to support the intergenerational transmission and use of Kuku Yalanji, particularly for young children. This is a pressing issue as many fluent speakers of the language are Elders, with challenges in engaging young children with learning and using Kuku Yalanji. The Council invited researchers from Queensland University of Technology to partner with the community on a co-design project to develop social technologies to support young children to learn and use Kuku Yalanji. A Memorandum of Understanding and ethics protocols were put in place. A Reference Group of approximately 12 Elders representing men and women from all three dialect groups was established to oversee and guide the project, including articulating the community’s language needs and aspirations, and co-creating and correcting digital content in language. The project was named the “‘Let’s Use Our Language Together’ Social Technology Project for Kuku Yalanji” - Ngana wubulku junkurr-jiku balkaway-ka. Four pillars underpinning the project that emerged through dialogue with the Reference Group are: 1) Reuse and build on existing language resources; 2) Use language in social activities with technology; 3) Grow use of the language through social connections; and 4) Target language use at all ages but start by focusing on young children.
4 Methodology
The work presented here has been developed through the first author’s PhD project. The aims of this project are to 1) understand existing community language practices and activities and how they are experienced across the different generations; 2) co- design social technologies that focus on language use and are appealing and engaging for young children (aged 3-5); and 3) establish methods for community engagement and design for long term sustainability of the system. The project has taken an iterative, participatory design approach (Heyer et al., 2008; Simonsen et al., 2012), with reciprocity and respect serving as core values underpinning the collaboration (Brereton et al., 2014). The first author, a non-Indigenous computer science student, spent several months of 2018 living in community to take part in project meetings, conduct design activities, and participate in community life such as fishing, damper making, and language lessons. This paper presents the findings of semi-structured interviews with five adults, some of whom are Elders in the community, about their language practices and technology use. The participants (P1-P5) are, in no particular order: an adult who has been involved in language activities with children across different age groups; an adult who has been involved in community language activities over a number of years; an adult who teaches the language to their young children; an adult from a different community residing in Wujal Wujal who has learnt the language and is involved in community language activities; and an adult who has been involved with activities to teach language and cultural knowledge on country. The interviews were in English, ran for 30-60 minutes, and took place in private homes, council offices, or community spaces. Participants were asked about how they learnt Kuku Yalanji themselves and now teach it to their children, how they engage
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with existing language materials, and their use of Kuku Yalanji online. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. The primary author conducted an initial thematic analysis (Braun et al., 2006) of the transcripts. The codes generated reflected the importance of family relations and the home context strongly emerged as something that crosscut most of the interview themes. The data was then re-reviewed through the lens of family relations, guided by the question of what role family relations played in language teaching, learning, and use. This analysis was also guided by a cumulative understanding of context (Taylor et al., 2018c) that emerged through Reference Group meetings, co-design workshops, and observations of community activities. Four key intersections emerged between language and family relations. These were then discussed with the Council and Reference Group. We have not yet been able to talk to youth to gain their direct perspective but this is planned for upcoming work.
5 Findings
5.1 Language Use ABOUT Family Relations
The first intersection between language and family relations is language use ABOUT family relations. The topic of family often serves as a starting point for teaching Kuku Yalanji both at home and in educational settings. Talking about family connects to the new Australian Curriculum for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2019). Social life, including the family tree and kinship terms, was one of the language teaching topics for which a previous Reference Group created lesson plans and materials (other topics were animals, directions, land and sea, and body parts). P2 commented that these resources are still used in children’s language lessons today, with family members being a topic that is applicable to every learner. According to P2, the family forms a resource for supporting multimodal language teaching by visualizing the family tree, written family terms, and the sounds of these words: “[…] you know you got Mum in English and then ngamu, and the kids are seeing the word, how to spell it, and how to say it.” (P2). Starting from the family, children can learn associated language such as how to introduce family members in terms of their life history, personality, and interests. The relationship between understanding language and cultural knowledge about family relations was also linked to the idea of strengthening “respect” between older and young people and maintaining a sense of identity. According to P2, this existing respect is strengthened through awareness of the family tree “And that’s where […] respect is coming for each other and the community. If you know your family tree, your relations, the respect will come back more.” (P2). P5 stated that respect was also associated with the idea of “never losing respect for our old people and what they have to offer” (P5) as custodians of the language. Participants expressed concern about the potential for this respect to be eroded through the process of intergenerational language shift: “When I’m put six-foot underground, what’s going to happen? Are you going to lose the culture, or are you going to lose your language and that respect?” (P1). This suggests that knowing language about family relations has social benefits in strengthening the intergenerational bonds connecting older and younger language speakers.
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It is important to note that Western conceptualization of the ‘nuclear family’ can differ from Aboriginal kinship systems, which “reflect a complex and dynamic system that is not captured by existing non-Indigenous definitions of family” (Lohoar et al., 2014). This includes views as to who is considered to be a family member, and the network of people involved in childrearing which can be “fluid in their composition, with kinship networks overlapping, and adults and children often moving between households” (Lohoar et al., 2014). Specific cultural knowledge about kinship structures and family dynamics is expressed through the Kuku Yalanji kinship terms (e.g. there are distinct words for ‘mother’s father’ and ‘father’s father’). These kinship terms in Kuku Yalanji were part of P3’s own language learning journey […]“when we’re out hunting and gathering and stuff like that, a lot of the things we were looking for were always, said in the language name, so that made it very easy for us as we spoke. As we grew older we knew different names of animals, different names for uncles and aunties and cousins you know, and all those common things that we speak of. So yeah, that’s how I learnt how to speak my local language.” (P3). This reminds us that there is not necessarily a direct mapping between English terms for family relations terms and those in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages but instead a complex interplay between languages and knowledge systems.
5.2 Language Use THROUGH Family Relations
The second intersection between language and family relations is language use with family members, which is embedded in relationships between particular people and shaped by their qualities. For example, some participants recounted learning by sitting on their grandparent’s knee: “[…] I learnt the language from my grandparents. […] When I used to go home from school in the afternoon and my grandparents used to sit and speak to us in language and say, this is what, you need to speak your language and keep it alive.” (P2). Some adults also used humour as a way of engaging with children. For P5, it was their older family member who “laughed a lot” and created songs about whatever activity they were doing which helped them to remember language: “[…] it was just those little constant tunes that stuck in your memory” (P5). P2 deliberately brought humour into their language activities to help children who are shy about speaking language feel more at ease and encourage them to “give it a go” (P2). Elders expressed a strong sense of gratitude to their older family members for taking on that teaching role, with one participant describing it as “[…] an honour to learn a lot from my grandmother’s side.” (P5). These examples highlight the personal touch in language learning, and suggest the need for playful designs in order to appeal to young learners. Just as these strong intergenerational bonds can seek to facilitate language transmission, mismatching attitudes can also serve as a barrier. For example, participants emphasized the importance of listening to and respecting Elders and making sure to take up opportunities to be involved in language activities: “But we have been listening and if I wasn't listening you know, I wouldn't be here telling my grandchildren and my daughter and my son to catch that moment while your parents are telling you” (P1). However, Elders were concerned that young people are not listening and are taking language for granted: “[…] our children think that it is going to be around forever” (P2). Elders were also considering the consequences of these mismatches for generations further down the track, as expressed in the following: “[…] they will miss out, if they not learn it they’re going to miss out on the language, and
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further down the track when they’re having, when they have their little family, you know, and they won’t be able to pass it down to their children” (P2). These examples highlight the nature of language transmission and use as a relational problem beyond the mechanics of the language such as spelling and grammar. Part of building this empathy and understanding comes from Elders sharing their life stories and family histories and teaching language through this process, with both the language and stories functioning as“[…] a legacy of the old people” (P1). For example, one Elder tells their children stories “[…] of my childhood growing up, and how we learnt different ways, and stories that were told to me by my Grandfather and my Mum and my Aunty” (P5). Life in community today is different from Elders’ own experiences of growing up there. P1 also related stories of how they used to gather food as children and feels that young people may not have shared these experiences “[…] I think it’s hard for them to understand what we went through a long time ago”. (P1). This suggests the potential for social technology designs to assist with learning about and understanding each other’s perspectives. Given the importance of spending time with family members for language learning, participants identified the need to support language teaching and learning with both adult and child family members who are living away. P4 explained the effects on language learning when children are away from their grandparents: “[…] those children who live with their grandparents are more fluent than those ones that don’t” (P4). Participants identified several different types of family relations that could benefit from technology to support family communication and language learning over a distance. These include: youth at boarding school; people who are in hospital elsewhere; people who were displaced from community as children and are reconnecting with language and culture for the first time; and families that have moved away from community for other reasons. This suggests the potential to couple language learning with family communication both within the same home, between the home and other community settings, and with people from the community who are living elsewhere.
5.3 Language Use While DOING Family Activities
The third intersection between language and family is the process of teaching and learning language in context while doing family activities, particularly when these happen ‘on country’. Most interview participants (P1,P2,P3,P5) described language teaching and learning as tightly coupled with social activities on country such as hunting, gathering oysters, fishing, digging for yams, and talking around the camp fire. Participants described their family members “[…] taking the kids on walks and showing them firsthand the different plants, animals, the area itself, different significant sites” (P2). Older family members would use questions and answers as a way of eliciting responses in language about what children are doing and seeing on country: “[…] you say what’s this or what’s that, or for going this way, which way do we go? Or you know, I’ll ask a question in language and [the children] could answer” (P5). P3 also recounted teaching their own children the language by pointing out things while out on country: “Whenever we’re out and about, you know, if we see different animals, I call them by, you know, the language name. […] that helps them understand what I’m saying, you know, that helps them speak the language” (P3). This illustrates the situated and experiential nature of language learning through the community’s
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language practices, as opposed to mobile apps where learning is taught independently from user contexts. There are a number of perceived barriers to teaching language on country. Due to environmental changes, a significant population of crocodiles have moved into the area, making it more difficult for families to do language activities at the river or beach as stated by P1 in the following: “I like to see them come with us old ladies, and we can show them what we was doing like a long time ago with our parents and going out, but we can’t go down the beach, ocean, lot of crocodiles” (P1) Participants noted that changes in lifestyle such as the establishment of shops in the town and private property has shaped food gathering and preparation activities through which language teaching and learning happens. Elders acknowledged that children’s lives are different now as they are immersed in modern technology and there is a need to fit language in with this in ways that are relevant to them. For some, technology holds promise in terms of facilitating and enriching language activities: “[…] And you can look at creative ideas, what’s out there and what’s available, and using modern technology, I think it will help move along, and maintain, and encourage that language to be strong” (P3). Yet, Elders also expressed concerns about taking technology out on country and the need for kids to “leave phones at home” (P5) when doing activities outdoors with Elders. This begs the question of whether and how to take technology on country, but also how technologies for language learning can bring country into the home. Participants (P1-P5) discussed a number of different types of family activities that facilitate language teaching and learning. Firstly, singing and songwriting in language, including adults singing songs to their children, a community choir that performs Christmas carols in Kuku Yalanji, and a rap song in language created as a collaboration between the school and an NGO. Secondly, dance and movement for expressing language such as ceremony and corroborees e.g. “I take them [children] to [festival] every year, every activity that we do here with the language and that, when we had the corroborees here and stuff like that” (P3). P2 discussed the idea that dance also enables people to pass language onto others when they see their peers telling stories through dance and replicating them. Thirdly, religious practices, such as people saying nightly prayers in Kuku Yalanji or using a Bible translated into language as a reference for the written form. Fourthly, storytelling orally or with the use of printed storybooks, with P4 characterising language learning as a “story-based process” (P4). Finally, P5 described the role of art and artwork for teaching language “[…] use artwork, use cultural activities, put language name against [them]” (P3), with the value of these activities being the ways that they can bring older and younger generations together socially, i.e. “[…] have the local Elders to go down here to go down and work with the kids, create that environment where you can have that interaction” (P3).
5.4 Focusing Design on Family Language Use and Working Outwards FROM the Home
The fourth intersection between language and family relations is the idea of focusing on family language use as a starting point for design, and working from the home outwards to other contexts where language is used. As previously mentioned, the Reference Group decided that the language project should start by focusing particularly on young children at the preschool age, and that the type of language
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reflected in technology designs should be short and grammatically simple. Existing programs run at the IKC such as First Five Forever focus on adults and children singing songs in language together. However, less resources are available to assist older family members to teach children language at home, but technology offers an avenue for supporting family language activities as it is something that children are surrounded by and interested in. This can be seen in the following quote from P2 “[…] we can use technology now, because of all our younger people these days, because they so much into technology now and so, [we can] use the technology as a tool to teach our children.” (P2) Participants emphasized the need to start with language in the home where young children start acquiring language, echoed by the Reference Group. P3 felt that the family setting and family relations in the home is a productive focal point for language technology as “[…] home is very important, that’s where I learnt a lot of my speaking, to learn the language is very important” (P3). One reason for this is that parents and other older family members can engage in developing ‘family language policy’ (King et al., 2008) by setting parameters as to how language is taught and used at home. This was reflected in P1’s comment “[…] talk kuku, you know, when you go to high school you can speak English, but when you home, ngana talk kuku. […] don’t forget about our language”. (P1) Participants expressed the idea of starting by learning language from the self and family relations and then building outwards to other community language activities. For P4, this was about learning from the body outwards: “So they start off using one or two words, Yalanji language words, by the end of it, they’re speaking whole sentences, they’re having whole conversations, they’re troubleshooting in language, you know? And we were always taught back home, like, you learn a language from the body out (P4). For P3, this was also reflected in the idea of starting within the family and then engaging with the language of other dialect groups. “I try and get them [children] to interact with their grandmother, she’s very good at speaking language. A lot of my relatives, they speak language as well, so I try and create that interaction, with those different family groups (P3).
6 A Relational Approach to Designing Technologies for Indigenous Languages and ‘Relational Language Technologies’
Based on this empirical work, we propose a relational approach for designing technologies with language communities where older speakers are still alive but engaging youth in language learning and use can be challenging. These four intersections between language and family relations suggest that the process of teaching and learning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages such as Kuku Yalanji is deeply enmeshed in both particular relationships between family members of different generations, and the broader backdrop of the community’s collective culture and kinship network. Learning and understanding Kuku Yalanji is not only about learning vocabulary and grammar, or oral and written literacy skills, but it is also about knowing family history and stories, understanding country and people’s relationship to the land, and spending time doing things together for language immersion. Thus, we propose a relational approach to designing technologies to support language teaching, learning, and use that takes family communication and activities as the
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starting point for design. This orientation can help us design in ways that engage older and younger speakers together in language activities, and enrich these relationships by fostering dialogue and understanding. Additionally, we suggest that leveraging existing family routines and interactions in playful ways can help to grow everyday language use to complement and expand on language documentation and preservation activities. While this approach may not be applicable to every language community, we hope that other communities who relate to this language situation may find this approach useful even if not every principle applies in their context. We refer to technologies developed through this relational approach as Relational Language Technologies (RLTs). Tangible and digital social technologies that “enable and seek out participation and contributions by users" (Hagen et al., 2009) are well-positioned to take up this orientation by entering into a language community’s ‘network of relations’ (Suchman, 2002b) through which language activities and practices emerge. The form and content of social technologies are shaped by their use and can thus be personalised to reflect the needs and interests of particular families and family members. They can facilitate communication within families through and around the technology, and as “containers or scaffolds” (Hagen et al., 2009) they can reflect the diverse ways in which language is actively used within a family. We discuss aspects of this relational approach in the context of social technology designs.
6.1 Guiding Principles for a Relational Approach to Designing for Language
We propose the following guiding principles for a relational approach to designing languages teaching, learning, and use: 6.1.1 Principle 1: Designing for family relations with, around, and through technology for language learning: In seminal Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) work, Egbert and Petrie propose a definition of CALL as “learners learning language in any context with, through, and around computer technologies” (Egbert et al., 2006). Adapting this perspective to designing RLTs suggests that these interactions could include family members: 1) interacting directly with the technology together in language, 2) interacting with each other in language around the technology, where the designs could prompt co-located discussions or activities such as inventing or playing games with the technology; and 3) interacting in language through the technology, such as family members leaving each other messages that are played when the technology is taken to different places. We anticipate that RLTs could be used in the home and social settings in which interactions between the child and device may be overheard by others in the room such as parents or grandparents. This could initially invite legitimate peripheral participation in the Lave and Wengerian sense (Lave et al., 1991) from older family members, with mutual engagement with the language and the technology growing over time and through use. Social technologies could also support both active learning through direct interactions, as well as language immersion by ambiently playing a recording at random at regular intervals as with the Ambient Birdhouse (Soro et al., 2018). This could solicit incidental use and serve as a playful reminder that the local language speakers are present and the language is alive today. 6.1.2 Principle 2: Facilitating community-generated content creation around family relations: The intent of RLTs is to provide a platform for users themselves, such as the members of a particular family, to create their own language recordings. On one end
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of the spectrum, RLT interfaces could be more open to support unstructured communication (e.g. common CMCs and social networking sites) but incorporate language tools. On the other end of the spectrum, interactions with social technologies could consist of structured language lessons where community can still preload their own language materials but the format is more tightly prescribed, or somewhere between the two. 6.1.3 Principle 3: Personalising designs for particular children and family members: By virtue of soliciting user-generated content, RLTs that embody a relational design approach can allow families to personalise the designs and customise the content. This can allow them to target specific learning needs of family members (e.g. an emphasis on certain language areas such as memorizing vocabulary, pronunciation skills, or learning words, sentences, and questions about a particular topic), reflect family stories and knowledge, and capture user interests and aspirations. 6.1.4 Principle 4: Supporting family relations where everyone is a language teacher and learner: RLTs could challenge fixed roles of Elders as teachers and children as students. Participants expressed the fact that everyone regardless of their age is at a different stage of their learning journey, and even Elders who were fluent speakers have an interest in building on their reading and writing skills. Thus, RLTs can support and scaffold learning at different levels where the language content could evolve as the child grows and family members around the child can be part of the learning journey. 6.1.5 Principle 5: Fostering intergenerational engagement with language through playful and humorous interactions: Since humour was identified as useful for sparking and maintaining children’s engagement with language activities, RLTs could appeal to different generations within a set of family relations through playful and humorous interactions. This can also help to make recording and using the language feel less intimidating for people who are less confident with speaking the language. 6.1.6 Principle 6: Bridging language activities conducted through family relations with broader community language goals and activities: RLTs that people can easily take with them to different places such as phone apps or talking soft toys means that the social technologies could travel and bridge between diverse sets of relations in contexts such as the home, kindergarten, school, workplace, youth group activities etc., mediating between different literacy ideologies and practices (Taylor et al., 2018a). 6.1.7 Principle 7: Connecting technology design with language teaching contexts such as learning on country: RLTs could support language activities on country but also address barriers to access by seeking to bring country into the family home through audio recordings of nature, and words and stories about aspects of country such as plants, animals, seasons, and hunting practices.
6.2 A Relational Language Technology: ‘The Crocodile Language Friend’
6.2.1 Co-Design of the Crocodile Language Friend Design We have worked with the community over a period of two years to co-design a talking soft toy crocodile called the ‘Crocodile Language Friend’ to assist young children (particularly in the 3-6 years age range) to actively learn and use Kuku Yalanji. The Crocodile Language Friend is a soft toy that is embedded with a Raspberry Pi and a speaker, microphone, LED strip, RFID reader and tag, battery, and buttons in the feet
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that allow users to change between the different modes. For these early stages of the prototype we have used an off-the-shelf soft toy, with the view to work with the community to create their own toys in future. There is no screen on the Crocodile Language Friend so interactions are based around audio and voice interactions, to tie in with oral language traditions, and emphasize social interactions and embodied play over screen-based interactions. The crocodile runs a web application that users can connect to with their own devices using a private WiFi network. The app allows users to create pairs of language recordings in English and Kuku Yalanji comprising single words, sentences, or longer stories, with both languages played back on the crocodile, and users can set different combinations of recordings to play by enabling or disabling them. The current functionality of the software has four interaction modes: 1) a greeting mode when it is first turned on with a customised greeting message using the child’s name; 2) a playback mode in which users can press a button to play a language recording on the crocodile at random; and 3) a repeat mode, in which the crocodile asks users to record themselves repeating one of the language recordings and immediately plays their own voice followed by the original recording; and 4) An Ambient Mode in which the crocodile plays a recording at 15 minute intervals when it is not being actively used. The crocodile rewards people for having a go by playing funny roaring sounds and flashing the LED strip with coloured lights that increment through the strip with each recording interaction. We imagine that family members of different ages will use the crocodile together to record and play back content. The basic functionality enables users to create their own social games using the crocodile such as guessing games, ‘pass the crocodile’, ‘crocodile says’, and storytelling games. The crocodile language friend was developed through a long-term, iterative co-design approach. This process has involved starting with the Ambient Birdhouse [78] to seed the design process, and creating 5 iterations of the design before reaching the current version. Design workshops and focus groups took place with the Reference Group to make decisions and give feedback on the designs, with each version being demonstrated in different places in the community so that people could experience it and give feedback, including with young children at a community centre. We are yet to trial prototype with children and families in their home, and a full discussion of the design process and evaluation is beyond the scope of this conceptual paper, but will be the subject of future work. This example represents one manifestation of a relational language technology, though we anticipate that there may be many other types of systems that reflect these attributes and address different aspects of a child’s language learning needs. We offer this as a playful intervention into the language in the home setting that may open the space to other ways of engaging with language and design possibilities.
6.2.2 The Crocodile as a ‘Relational Language Technology’ The Crocodile Language Friend serves as an example of a ‘Relational Language Technology’ and embodies the principles of a relational design approach in a number of different ways. In terms of facilitating social interactions, we envisage groups of children interacting with the same crocodile together or playing together with their own crocodiles (Principle 1). Elders and children could record content together for the crocodile through the app, or family members could leave a message on the Crocodile Language
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Friend for children to take with them when they go away for the day (e.g. to kindergarten) or for longer periods (e.g. to boarding school). The intent of the Crocodile Language Friend is not to replace Elders as language teachers, but to serve as an engaging tool to support and reinforce language teaching and learning activities. The Crocodile Language Friend web app invites users to create their own content (Principle 2) by adding entries consisting of a title and text and audio in any combination of English and Kuku Yalanji or its dialects. When users access the web app through their mobile devices, there is a dictionary lookup to check spellings, and a “suggested recordings” feature that proposes ideas for words and sentences to record next based on the previous topics (e.g. if a body part word is recorded, the system may suggest other body part words). This could invite personal contributions from family members in the form of single words or sentences, or a longer message such as a reminder, a joke, or a longer story or anecdote. Adults and children may record things together, or for each other through the app. To enable further customization (Principle 3), the web application allows people to set up the device with a custom crocodile name and a personalised greeting. While the initial prototype has been made with an off-the-shelf soft toy, women have been designing community-made crocodiles and other animals to create their own forms, with the hardware serving as a kit that could be fitted within different objects. We have also designed the system in such a way that family members are the teachers rather than the technology (Principle 4). The crocodile asks children to answer a question or repeat a phrase in one language, leaves a pause for the person to respond, and then plays the corresponding recording in the other language. This invites the person to see for themselves if they have got the answer correct, or invites the feedback of other family members who overhear this interaction. This suggests that simple systems can facilitate social learning interactions in an interesting way without the need to equip the crocodile with complex artificial intelligence, by drawing in other language speakers around the technology who can provide the child with feedback and support. The current prototype has the option of applying voice effects to the audio so that it plays things back in a high or low-pitched humorous voice rather than a human one. Community members found the crocodile voice humorous (Principle 5), and were more willing to record themselves on there, even for immediate family members, if their voices were not identifiable. We also observed that some children disengaged from the interaction when they heard an Elder’s voice rather than the crocodile voice, perhaps because this gave it the quality of being an Elder rather than a peer. For each recording, the user can choose whether to use their own voice or apply the filter depending on the content. Following the advice of Reference Group members, the Crocodile Language Friend prototype is small enough for young children to pick up and carry around with them (Principle 6). We imagine that if their children took their own Crocodile Language Friends to school or kindergarten, this could be used as a tool to communicate to educators what children have been doing at home, and adults could even record a message on the Crocodile Language Friend for educators. In the inverse case, the language teacher at school may encourage children to record particular words and phrases that they are learning at school on the Crocodile Language Friend through the web app, and then take them home to practice and show family members what they are doing in class.
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The Wujal Wujal community chose the crocodile form for the Crocodile Language Friend as it is grounded in their local environment and thus connected to country (Principle 7), exciting for children, and Elders are keen to teach children to be safe around waterways. The Crocodile Language Friend could be loaded with sound effects from nature, and words and phrases that reflect the country that belongs to that particular family or dialect group. Fixing RFID tags around the community that can be read by the Crocodile Language Friends’ could also encourage children to locate and interact with different places around the community. The latest version of the crocodile software allows people to record and play their own RFID treasure hunt game.
7 Discussion
We have identified a number of opportunities and issues relating to the design and use of relational language technologies, particularly in the context of Indigenous languages. Firstly, there is potential for RLTs to build on existing materials and resources. The Reference Group identified the need to leverage past efforts so that they are not duplicated and the language activities keep moving forward. RLTs such as the Crocodile Language Friend soft toy and paired mobile app can help present existing materials such as the printed dictionary in a digital form in ways that are engaging to children, and create digital platforms for community members to keep adding to and maintaining the materials themselves. We imagine that in future the Crocodile Language Friends could be networked with each other and have the ability to share content between them. In this way, users could have the choice of creating recordings for their own child only, or sharing them with others via a broader community repository of recordings that continues to grow. However, in the current prototype, the use of local offline networks, and providing password protection on the Crocodile Language Friends, means that content is stored locally and owned and controlled by community. Secondly, there is potential for RLTs to make language materials and practices accessible by leveraging existing devices and activities in the home. By designing technology to enhance existing interactions and routines within families, this does not burden Elders with coordinating additional community activities to use the technology. Additionally, the Crocodile Language Friend could help to make existing language materials freely accessible to community members through their own devices as a platform-independent web app. However, sustainable funding models would need to be explored for community to sew their own crocodiles and assemble new hardware kits. The Council expressed a desire to grow the digital skills and ‘adaptive capacity’ of community members to design, modify, and maintain language technologies into the future. A first step in this process has been organising computer coding workshops with youth to enrich their STEM skills and support pathways to higher education. Thirdly, there is a need to foster ownership of RLTs by particular children and families to grow their use and consider ways to evaluate their impact. While community technologies such as noticeboards (Taylor et al., 2016) rely on community champions at each site to upload and maintain their content, shifting the lens from community technologies to family technologies then repositions children and their families as more obvious ‘owners’ of the technology. It also taps into motivations of Elders to share their language with their own children or grandchildren, which may encourage regular ongoing content creation and use. This framing of RLTs as social technologies
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also refocuses questions of evaluation away from solely measuring language competency, to also considering people’s engagement with the technology and in particular social interactions that foster language use. This also creates the space for family members to be actively engaged in evaluating the social impact of RLTs in their own homes and their own children’s language learning outcomes. Social learning theories could be drawn on to support evaluation, in which language learning happens “[…] as a collaborative performance between fluent speakers and learners” (Henry et al., 2018). Underpinning much CALL work (Robert Blake, 2017) is sociocultural theory, including Vygotsky´s notion of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1962). This advances the notion that “language, first or second, is always learned and used in a social setting” and language learning outcomes are richer when learners interact with each other in language rather than by themselves (Robert Blake, 2017). The RLT perspective builds on this collaborative approach by foregrounding the importance of language interactions between different generations of language speakers.
8 Conclusions
The loss of a language constitutes the loss of a way of experiencing and understanding the world and our place within it. There is an urgent need to act to preserve, maintain, and revitalise Indigenous languages worldwide in response to diminishing speaker numbers, and technology design has the potential to positively intervene in this space. However, technology alone will not keep a language strong; people keep languages and Knowledges strong, and young people are the torchbearers for passing them down to future generations. The community involved in this project is proud of their language and culture, and it is a testimony to their resilience and courage that they are still bringing this knowledge to their children and grandchildren. This paper provides an empirical account of language teaching and learning as it currently happens in a particular community, and identifies possible design approaches to help communities with this type of language situation. Ultimately, it is through relations within communities, between communities, and with strategic partners that design efforts help carry these languages forward into the future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank and acknowledge the Wujal Wujal community, Wujal Wujal Kuku Yalanji Language Reference Group, Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, and Queensland University of Technology Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) Discipline.
REFERENCES
See Biblography.
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Crocodile Language Friend: Tangibles to Foster Children’s Language Use
AUTHORS
Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor Andrew Vallino Queensland University of Queensland University of Technology Technology Brisbane, QLD, Australia Brisbane, QLD, Australia [email protected] [email protected]
Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Paul Roe Council Queensland University of Wujal Wujal, QLD, Australia Technology [email protected] Brisbane, QLD, Australia [email protected] Alessandro Soro Michael Esteban Margot Brereton Queensland University of Queensland University of Technology Technology Brisbane, QLD, Australia Brisbane, QLD, Australia [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
Author Keywords
Tangible interfaces; children; active language use; language learning; Indigenous languages.
CCS Concepts
•Human-centered computing à Human computer interaction (HCI); Interaction devices; Field studies;
INTRODUCTION
We acknowledge the Kuku Yalanji, Kuku Nyungul and Jalunji peoples who are the traditional owners and custodians of the Wujal Wujal area (Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, 2020).
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Active language use refers to people’s production of language, in spoken and written forms, in their everyday lives and activities (Katinskaia et al., 2017; Oxford et al., 1995; Saks et al., 2019). Engaging in active language use is necessary for learning a second language, or maintaining knowledge of a mother tongue in a location where it is not widely spoken. In Australia, there are more than 120 different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in use today (Marmion et al., 2014). Many of these languages are experiencing ‘language shift’ (McConvell, 2008), denoting a transition from speaking one language to another across generations (Crystal, 2008), though there are also many language maintenance and revitalisation activities taking place (Marmion et al., 2014). Maintaining intergenerational transmission and active language use by children is key to ensuring the vitality of these languages into the future (Marmion et al., 2014). Technology has the potential to help increase the frequency, variety, and contexts in which people of all generations actively use a language in their everyday practices. Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) can help foster children’s language use given the role that interactions with physical tools and objects plays in supporting children’s learning (Papert, 1962; Piaget, 1962; Shaer et al., 2010). Related work on tangible designs for children addresses language activities such as learning characters and spelling (Asselborn et al., 2018; Dekel et al., 2007; Maldonado et al., 2019), communication, e.g. (Follmer et al., 2010; Sun et al., 2016; Wallbaum et al., 2018), and storytelling (Budd et al., 2007; Huang et al., 2015; Krzywinski et al., 2015). Tangible interactions can facilitate social interactions with and around technology (Hornecker et al., 2006), enable hands-on learning and longer-term engagement than with graphical user interfaces (GUIs) (Sylla et al., 2012), provide motivation and prompts to help to initiate and sustain conversations (Wallbaum et al., 2018), and can support verbal expression through play (Glos et al., 1997; Pantoja et al., 2019). However, little prior HCI work on TUIs has engaged with the perspective of active language use, in particular for preserving and maintaining Indigenous languages. Additionally, while there is a proliferation of screen-based applications for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages (Carew et al., 2015; Mamtora et al., 2017), only a small number of projects (Keane et al., 2019; Mounter, 2017) have exploited the potential of tangible forms to encourage children’s language learning. We report on our ongoing work in partnership with the Wujal Wujal community in Far North Queensland, Australia (Taylor et al., 2019b). We present the Crocodile Language Friend, a co-designed talking soft toy crocodile to help foster use of the Kuku Yalanji language by young children and their families. We contribute a discussion of how the crocodile’s physical form (e.g. size, shape, materials, and components) supports language use across settings, through tactile appeal and embodied interactions, in relation to country and Indigenous Knowledges, and through design participation.We argue that TUIs that are appealing to children present new opportunities to foster social language use beyond the affordances of screen-based systems.
RELATED WORK
Tangibles for learning language and concepts
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Tangibles for learning language and concepts. Tangibles for children’s language learning have addressed particular skills such as learning letters of the alphabet and spelling (Asselborn et al., 2018; Dekel et al., 2007; Maldonado et al., 2019), vocabulary (Huang et al., 2008), and sentence construction (Fan et al., 2018; Hengeveld et al., 2013), or learning particular concepts such as time (Hayashi et al., 2012), nature (Soro et al., 2018), money (Mittal et al., 2015), and colours (Shen et al., 2013). Designs that target children’s second language learning (Jeong et al., 2015; Kadomura et al., 2012) can support language immersion (Jeong et al., 2015). Opie the Robot is an example of a tangible system for Aboriginal languages, with games for children and a flat-pack, transportable form (Mounter, 2017). The physical qualities of these systems afford different types of tangible interactions, such as arranging toy blocks (Almukadi et al., 2015; Dekel et al., 2007; Fan et al., 2018), tiles (Hengeveld et al., 2013), and letter pieces (Maldonado et al., 2019; Pandey et al., 2011) into words, sentences and stories, and receiving feedback. Children can explore associations between language and objects through TUIs that can read RFID or NFC tagged objects, such as a tabletop surface (Papadopoulos et al., 2013), smart box (Kadomura et al., 2012), robot (Garcia-Sanjuan et al., 2015), or soft toy (Huang et al., 2008; Jeong et al., 2015). Tangibles can facilitate informal language learning through play for pre-school aged children (Jeong et al., 2015), can be carried around with children for language use across different settings (e.g. the iSign bear (Huang et al., 2008)), and can be flexibly incorporated into children’s games and stories (Wallbaum et al., 2017).
Tangibles for communication and social play
TUI projects have addressed children’s communication and social play with family members (Follmer et al., 2010; Li et al., 2019; Sun et al., 2016; Wallbaum et al., 2018; Zhao et al., 2016), and peers (Bonanni et al., 2006; Cheok et al., 2009; Gennari et al., 2018; Ryokai et al., 2009) collocated or over a distance. These systems can help to maintain family relationships and connectedness (Wallbaum et al., 2018), support social skills development such as turn-taking (Gennari et al., 2018), provide a platform for self-expression (Ryokai et al., 2009), and facilitate “high-quality social play” (Pantoja et al., 2019). TUIs for children can enable naturalistic language use as they are targeted to their communication styles and motor skills (Pantoja et al., 2019). For some systems, language use is a means to an end through play, while for others, creating and sharing language recordings is an end in itself. Children use language through diverse activities with tangibles. Examples from prior work include the following: producing recordings of themselves by manipulating the Tangible Message Bubbles accordion and balloon devices (Ryokai et al., 2009); sharing and talking about physical items and drawings with grandparents over a distance using StoryBox (Wallbaum et al., 2018); and engaging in naturalistic play using paired dolls (Bonanni et al., 2006) and dollhouses (Freed, 2010) with voice communication. The physical forms can enrich language use by providing conversational prompts and props (Wallbaum et al., 2018). They can also facilitate social practices around the technology, such as users of the Sprock-It trading their RFID tags (Burleson et al., 2007).
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Tangibles for storytelling and creative expression
Tangibles for storytelling address literacy skills development through structured and unstructured activities. Some storytelling interfaces spark engagement with existing stories through lighting effects (Downey et al., 2016), audio-visual displays (Schafer et al., 2013), or novel delivery forms (Zhou et al., 2004). Other tools and kits support language use through children’s embodied creation and performance of their own stories (Budd et al., 2007; Huang et al., 2015; Krzywinski et al., 2015; Williams, 2010). Examples of these focus on individual senses such as sound (Huang et al., 2015) or specific toys such as puppets (Ahearn et al., 2013; Williams, 2010), or provide a broader kit with characters, scenes, props etc. (Budd et al., 2007). Interactions with TUIs can support oral uses of language (Glos et al., 1997), and thus the performance of oral cultural traditions (Taylor et al., 2018b). Additionally, objects develop their own histories and stories that can be retold across generations (Glos et al., 1997).
Gaps and opportunities
Although a large body of work exists, there are a number of gaps and opportunities for TUIs to foster children’s language use. Firstly, by exploring tangible forms that are cocreated by children themselves so that they are “intrinsically valuable to them as a user”, as argued in (Spiel et al., 2016). Secondly, by balancing the presence of screens that “typically require full visual and manual engagement” with other more social interaction modalities (e.g. with Voice User Interfaces) (Pantoja et al., 2019). Thirdly, by designing tangibles that children can carry around with them and assemble themselves, rather than being fixed in place. Finally, by working with endangered language communities on their own terms to determine what role tangibles can play in supporting language maintenance and revitalisation efforts. This work contributes to a growing number of recent co-design projects in HCI with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (Leong et al., 2019; Madden et al., 2014; Peters et al., 2018; Soro et al., 2017). While there are efforts to develop tangible interfaces and robotics for language teaching and learning (Keane et al., 2019; Mounter, 2017), the potential benefits of soft toy forms remains under-examined.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The Ngana wubulku junkurr-jiku balkaway-ka: Let’s Use Our Language Together Social Technology Project for Kuku Yalanji is a partnership between Queensland University of Technology and the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council (Taylor et al., 2019b). Wujal Wujal is a small community located in remote Far North Queensland, Australia. The Kuku Yalanji, Kuku Nyungul, and Jalunji peoples are the traditional owners and custodians of the area, who proudly speak the Kuku Yalanji and Kuku Nyungul languages (Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, 2020). The Council invited QUT to work with them to design social technologies that enrich children’s engagement with, and use of Kuku Yalanji. We worked with a Reference Group of Elders from the three dialect groups to establish project pillars: build on existing resources, grow language use through social activities and games, and start by focusing on young children (e.g. 3-5 years old) (Taylor et al., 2019b).
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Interviews with adult language speakers highlighted the ways in which language use is deeply entwined with family relations (Taylor et al., 2019b). In light of this, we worked with the Reference Group to iteratively co-design a soft toy that could be used by young children and their families at home and in community spaces. Given the Elders’ interest in the existing Ambient Birdhouse design (Soro et al., 2018) as a tool to teach children bird names and nature-related words, we used its hardware and functionality to seed the design process (Taylor et al., 2019b). Over a two-year period, we iterated from the Birdhouse’s wooden form with video and RFID-based interactions, to something more portable, personal to each child, and grounded in the local environment. The form shifted from being the Birdhouse to a radio-like language box, a cardboard ’robot’, a large wooden crocodile, an off-the-shelf soft toy, and finally, a community-sewn toy. At each stage we demonstrated the prototypes to children at community centres, and worked with the Reference Group to modify the designs to increase their appeal to children, and explore interactions that would stimulate children’s language use. A number of soft toy prototypes are currently being trialled by several families in their homes.
CROCODILE LANGUAGE FRIEND DESIGN
The resulting Crocodile Language Friend is a flexible tool for families to create and experience their own language recordings of any nature (e.g. words, sentences, stories, songs, or family messages). Physical form and hardware The Crocodile Language Friend is a soft toy embedded with electronics. While initial prototypes for the Crocodile Language Friend were made using off-the-shelf soft toys, the community has started to sew their own crocodiles and other animals into which our hardware kit can be fitted. The device runs from a Raspberry Pi computer (Raspberry Pi Foundation, 2019) powered by a PiJuice battery shield (Pi Supply, 2020). These are mounted inside a vented 3D-printed box. The crocodile has an LED strip that lights up as a reward for listening and speaking interactions, an RFID reader in the mouth, a microphone, and tactile buttons in each foot to switch between interactions. Interaction design and software The crocodile runs a web application accessible through its local WiFi network. It provides an interface to create audio recordings in any combination of English, Kuku Yalanji, and Kuku Nyungul. People can add a funny voice filter to their recordings (which also serves as a way of anonymising or defamiliarising their own voice), and select recordings to play on the toy. The app embeds the Kuku Yalanji dictionary to support the recording process. The Crocodile Language Friend has several interaction modes (Taylor et al., 2019b) using the soft toy: 1) A Greeting Mode to play a custom greeting on startup; 2) A Playback Mode to listen to recordings by pressing the playback button; 3) A Repeat Mode to play a repeating or word matching game with the microphone; 4) A Treasure Hunt Mode to create and play oral treasure hunt games using the RFID tags; and 5) an Ambient Mode to listen to arecording every 10 minutes of activity when switched on, so that Indigenous languages will be heard.
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PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND TANGIBLE INTERACTIONS FOR
ACTIVE LANGUAGE USE
We reflect on the ways in which the physical characteristics of the crocodile TUI, and the tangible interactions that it affords, can encourage active language use by children and their families.
Portable size: Language use across settings The Crocodile Language Friend is small enough for children to carry around with them and have their own personal crocodile. This was identified by the Reference Group as important for supporting language immersion. The prototype also elicited suggestions of different community spaces that could house a crocodile (e.g. the library, shop, aged care centre), playing words and sentences specific to that setting. Elders also suggested that children could take their own crocodiles to school or kindergarten to support communication and learning between them (Taylor et al., 2019b), helping to bridge and coordinate community language activities. At home, children used the crocodile for language both individually in their rooms, and in social spaces such as the lounge- room where visitors could play with it. They are also took it to visit family members and friends, and could record things on it to bring back home and play back later. When placed a social area, the ambient mode drew attention back to the toy and the language in a non-disruptive way that prompted family discussions.
Materials: Language use through tactile appeal The soft materials on the toy prompted interactions that are not possible with a mobile app such as stroking or cuddling the crocodile, lying on top of it, using it as a pillow, passing it to other children, and chasing children with it. This suggests its potential to both support structured activities and unstructured play that involves active language use, even when the crocodile is turned off. While the crocodile soft toy was designed to target preschool-aged children, older school-aged children responded positively to the crocodile due to its soft toy form. Adults felt that the toy did not need to be adjusted for particular age groups, as the soft toy made it suitable across a range of learners. Children’s bonding with the toy motivated them to take good care of it and be gentle with the prototype. The material form can thus heighten children’s motivations to use language through long term use of the toy.
Crocodile shape: Language use about country The crocodile form was chosen by the Reference Group to reflect the local environment, with the dual purpose of teaching children the language and crocodile safety (Taylor et al., 2019b). There was an interesting relationship between the crocodile form and content. Some suggestions of what to record on the toy were specific to the crocodile animal (e.g. cultural knowledge about the crocodile, and language about its habitat), and it was felt that the toy should have a ‘crocodile voice’ and make crocodile noises but not those of other animals. Other suggestions for words, songs, and stories were not specific to the crocodile, reflecting broader potential uses as a social technology decoupled from its form. Elders felt that a living animal form
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would make children inclined to name it as a peer, and looking at it might remind them of people whose voices it contains. The crocodile’s RFID reader in its open mouth can read tagged objects in the treasure hunt mode. We are yet to evaluate what types of treasure hunt narratives people build with the crocodile and collections of things from the local environment.
Personalised form: Language use through design participation The Women’s Centre decided to try sewing their own soft toys, encouraging language use in both the design process and use of the toy. Many people contributed to the fabrication such as dying and cutting the materials, choosing the eyes, and sewing on decorations, creating a sense of pride and valuing of the toy. Making the soft toy themselves gave a greater sense that the crocodile emerged from, and belonged to, the Wujal Wujal community. Once an initial toy had been sewn, people made suggestions and requests for other animals that are significant to each dialect group. Children also dressed the off-the-shelf crocodile in their clothing, such as items from their favourite football team. The fact that the tangible form opens up different opportunities for design participation shows potential to yield ongoing interest in, and use of the toys by different parties.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Tangible interactions with the prototype address aspects of Hornecker and Buur’s Tangible Interaction framework (Hornecker et al., 2006). The material qualities of the soft toy facilitate young children’s “haptic direct manipulation” by inviting language use through embodied play. The crocodile is an “expressive representation” that spatially inhabits different settings. As such, it can be appropriated into existing language-related social practices, and generate new ones. The nature of the crocodile as a domesticated, “individuated” tangible (Ambe et al., 2017) that becomes personal to each child presents embodied constraints in the tension between personal agency over its form and content, and its social uses. The crocodile has representational significance to the community on a range of levels. However, the crocodile presents additional considerations as a device that can facilitate both collaborative and individual interactions. While Ambe and colleagues’ concept of technology individuation addresses personal relationship with, and identity expression using tangibles over time (Ambe et al., 2017), there is scope to consider how this may apply to physical forms that are created by users from the outset rather than customizing a given form. In conclusion, we present the Crocodile Language Friend, a TUI to foster children’s everyday use of an Aboriginal language. We posit that the material qualities of TUIs, and the social interactions that they afford, can promote children’s active language use in interesting ways beyond what is possible with screen-based devices. Further evaluation of the device is needed to understand the extent to which it fosters language engagement and ongoing language use, with a consideration of its the broader implications for community-based participatory design with Indigenous communities. We are considering possible design changes such as reintroducing a small screen to display written language, further uses of the RFID reader, and different physical forms.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank and acknowledge the Wujal Wujal community and Reference Group, Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, and QUT Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) Discipline. This study has received QUT Ethics Approval (Protocol 1800000050).
REFERENCES
See Bibliography.
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