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Participatory Design of Affective Technology: Interfacing Biomusic and Autism

The benefits of user-centered and participatory design have been widely acknowledged for the development of technologies that are likely to be appropriated by the product’s stakeholders. While participatory design has been applied to some affective technologies, the technical and algorithmic complexity of those based on semi-intelligent information filters (SIIFs) pose distinct challenges. Coincidentally, these technologies raise important and distinct ethical issues that make stakeholder input critical during product design. We present a framework for fostering genuine engagement from stakeholders through the case example of biomusic - a SIIF-based affective technology that translates emotion-related physiological changes into sound. During a 3-day workshop, ethnographic methods were used to collect data about the interface between biomusic and individuals on the autism spectrum. From these data, emergent themes, such as such as privacy, data security, conceptions of assistive technology and representation of emotions were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. In order to illuminate distinct design decisions implicated by these complex and interwoven ethical issues, we propose a design framework consisting of a technological, a human-centered and an ecological lens. This framework and recommendations provide a concrete praxis for engaging stakeholders in the complex issues associated with the design of SIIF-based emotion-oriented systems.