Overview
The interdisciplinary four-year project VA PEPR (Voice Assistants: People, Experiences, Practices & Routines) tried to understand the human experience of living with voice assistants as a new technology in the privacy of the home. It was funded by the SNSF Sinergia Program with 2.23 Mio. Coordinating Principal Investigator Dr. Sabine Junginger (HSLU Art, Film & Design) and the three Principal Investigators: Dr. Ulrich Reimer (OST), Dr. Jens Meissner (HSLU Business) and Dr. Jon Rogers (Northumbria University), led a project team of more than 15 researchers with expertise in human-centred design, human-computer interaction, home automation, digital services, ambient assisted living, computer science, behavioral economics, socio-informatics, Open IoT, and health.
Initially, the project sought to produce insights into the emerging issues associated with the use of voice assistants in Swiss homes. The research involved remote studies with members of 31 Swiss households who shared their experiences with their devices using an online journal and answering semi-structured interviews during a four-week period. An optional Network Traffic Data Analysis (also conducted remotely) and a series of speculative design workshops building on these initial findings were part of the mixed methods approach. The project produced a series of provotypes and prototypes to provide new access points for everyday people to engage with issues of privacy and security and to reveal the inner workings of virtual, voice-based technologies and Large Language Model Systems like ChatGPT. These interactive installations were shown at re:publica and the Digital Design Week at the London Victoria & Albert Museum. They were also central to workshops and public engagement events that revealed their value to civil servants and policy makers. By making the invisible visible and with that accessible and by embracing an interdisciplinary and design driven approach, the project informed the foundation of a new WHO Working Group on Policy, Design & AI and supported a local municipality in its efforts to prepare its own staff, citizen council and city council for e meaningful digital transformation. The project benefitted from a partnership with the Mozilla Foundation and the gracious support from the ITC Digital Transformation of the Working World.
For more information, please visit our project website: https://sites.hslu.ch/va-pepr/en/
