The ubiquitous yet opaque logic of machine learning complicates both the design process and end-use. Because of this, much of Interaction Design and HCI now focus on making this logic transparent through human-like explanations and tight control while disregarding other, non-normative human-AI interactions as technical failures. In this thesis I re-frame such interactions as generative for both material exploration and user experience in non-purpose-driven applications. By expanding on the notion of machine learning uncertainty with play, queering, and more-than human design, I try to understand them in a designerly way. This re-framing is followed by a material-centred Research through Design process that concludes with Object Detection Radio: a ludic device that sonifies Tensorflow.js Object Detection API’s prediction probabilities. The design process suggests ways of making machine learning uncertainty explicit in human-AI interaction. In addition, I propose play as an alternative way of relating to and understanding the agency of machine learning technology.

Denna kvalitativa undersökning har haft som mål att ta reda på vilka möjligheter chattbotten som teknik kan bidra med inom kundtjänst och om mänskliga designsignaler i chattbottar kan bidra till bättre kundupplevelse och kundnöjdhet. Syftet är att skapa en förståelse kring vilken inverkan mänskliga designsignaler har på kundupplevelsen och kundnöjdhet och om dessa mänskliga designsignaler har en större påverkan i jämförelse med en chattbott utan mänskliga designsignaler. I den här studien så har författaren skapat två chattbottar, en med mänskliga designsignaler och en maskinlik chattbott. I undersökningen har 8 respondenter medverkat i semistrukturerade intervjuer och interaktion med en av de två chattbottarna. Den semi- strukturerade intervjun var indelad i 4 olika kategorier (inledning, användarupplevelser, kundnöjdhet och mänskliga designsignaler). Studien har påvisat att företag som planerar att använda sig av en chattbott inom kundtjänst bör ta hänsyn till att chattbotten är anpassad efter ett specifikt ändamål, eftersom irrelevans och bristen i chattbottens förmåga att hantera ärenden kan resultera i sämre kundupplevelse och kundnöjdhet. Studien visade dessutom att mänskliga designsignaler i en chattbott inte har en stor påverkan på kundupplevelsen och kundnöjdhet i jämförelse med en maskinlik chattbott. Respondenterna i den här studien prioriterade chattbottens förmåga att kunna hantera och reda ut ett problem, då den generella upplevelsen av en interaktion prioriteras mindre.

More-than-human design represents a paradigm shift that decentralises the human in relation to the rest of the living world. As part of this movement, scholars call for a new worldview that recognizes the interconnectedness between human and non-human beings. Prior studies have focused on the experience of human-human connections, leaving the more- than-human largely unexplored. Addressing this gap, this study explores design strategies for fostering feelings and reflections of interconnectedness towards the more-than-human world and associated emotions. With a research-through-design methodology, two workshops were conducted, resulting in six key design strategies and an "interconnectedness experience framework". The strategies were evaluated through a prototype in partnership with AquaPrint, a Swedish company that up-cycles fishing nets into designer furniture. Future research should evaluate the strategies individually and in combinations as well as in a field setting. The presented framework and strategies are intended for practitioners as inspiration in design projects to promote noticing the more-than-human world, and encouraging a posthuman perspective.

The promise of smart cities to deliver new urban efficiencies and optimizations for sustainability is increasingly being questioned for its anthropocentric, universal, and top-down perspectives. Framingcities as computers has been critiqued for its limiting understanding of cities, as well as its lack of dealing with the complexities of real messy cities, with diverse knowledge and lived experiences. However, smart technologies have also been highlighted as having the potential to help us better understand more-than-human perspectives and to reconnect us to the world around us. Situated in thefield of design for social innovation, this thesis contributes to the emerging body of work that is exploring how digital urban environments can include local knowledge and more-than-human perspectives. In a co-design process with the urban agriculture community of Sjöbergen in the city of Gothenburg in Sweden, this thesis explores how local knowledge and values about- and in urban nature can help us think differently about the future of sustainable smart city concepts. With a design process guided by research through design and co-design, this thesis is imagining other smart city narratives that go away from the current top-down and universal perspectives and instead are inspired by values of Sjöbergen of reuse, maintenance, collectivity, and knowledge sharing. The design contribution of this work is a design proposal of a smart city service that reuses old smartphones of citizens into smart city technologies for individual and situated purposes. The design proposal aims to show an alternative view of smart cities grounded in local values and more-than-human perspectives.

Everyday we come up with new solutions for our existing problems. But the solutions of today are tomorrow’s problem. The products we create as designers are often bringing more complexity in our society than it is initially intended for. This thesis aims to give a new perspective on the design practice community. Instead of starting with a problem-solving scope, this thesis intent is to find what is truly meaningful for human life, meaning finding, and to propose how we can envision new ways of meaning making within interaction design. The two processes together of meaning finding and meaning making is how we can aim for concrete results that are relevant for our society. To better understand what truly matters for human life, I collected 14 stories through ethnographic research. These ethnographic stories reveal the nature of human characteristics when people face and overcome big challenges in life. Some of these ethnographic stories highlights the life of a WWII survivor, war refugee, leukaemia child-patient and a widow. Parallel, to the ethnographic work, I explored how I can evoke a deeper connection between people, by making them listen to each-other’s heartbeat.  Inevitably, by exploring the fundamental elements of human life and observing the emotions and behaviour of my interviewees and participants, the thesis find itself often on the playground between philosophy and human life. But by taking a strong interaction design perspective, these insights were manifested in the human design manifesto booklet. This booklet proposes six expressions for designers, with the intention to embrace the fundamental elements of human life when we design:  1. Design attitudes, not solutions. 2. Design the medicine of the mind. 3. Design for relationships. 4. Design for our direct senses. 5. Design for the deep human connection. 6. Design the act of kindness  Later on, for the meaning making part: one statement from the Human Design Manifesto was selected to explore in depth: Design the act of kindness. For this expression project Hidden Figures was created. Hidden Figures is a design proposal which demonstrates that a design creation can be driven by the fundamental elements of human life. In this case proposing the act of kindness as a vision on how our society could be.  In overall, this master’s thesis demonstrates how our design proposals can embody and resonate well between the three levels of design philosophy, a designer’s vision and interaction design practice: How we, as designers, can use meaning-making and meaning-finding to create more relevant impact for our society. Last, I hope this work encourages other designers to think deeply about their own creations and its impact. And help designers reflect on why they create and how they could also alternatively practice design.

Mitt mål är att göra stadsrummet inbjudande för fler än bara människor och stärka ekosystemet där fjärilar är en viktig del, både som pollinerare och föda för andra arter. Jag har valt att hjälpa just fjärilar då deras antal under de senaste åren har halverats och är i starkt behov av stöttning.  Med design som verktyg kommer jag att introducera de värdväxter som fjärilen är beroende av för att överleva. För att skapa en så stor förändring som möjligt använder jag mig av ett objekt som redan har en stark närvaro i stadslandskapet nämligen lyktstolpen.   Jag har designat en växtbädd som är anpassad efter lyktstolpen och i den finns det möjlighet att plantera upp till 24 st växter. Tack vare lyktstolparnas strategisk placering kan man med hjälp av min design koppla ihop stadens grönområden och introducera växtlighet där det i dagsläget inte finns någon. Hade inte du velat bo i en stad med massa växter och vackra fjärilar?