Demo Hour

DEMO HOUR: A Smartphone in the Nursery

How can experiments in design explore the role of smartphones for mothers and young children? How can these designs be used to prompt conversations and explore potentials for change? This research used experimental and suggestive artifacts as conversational probes, inviting participants to interpret them and thus to tell of their own experiences using smartphones during childcare—practices that are often private and ridden with complexity. Informed by critical design, feminist, and psychoanalytic perspectives, the research engages with ambivalences toward the presence of smartphones in the world of mother and infant, portraying mothers as complex users of technology.

Yurman, P. A smartphone in the nursery. Proc. of the 4th Biennial Research Through Design Conference. 2019; https://figshare.com/articles/A_smartphone_in_the_nursery/7855757

Yurman, P. Designing for ambivalence: Mothers, transitional objects and smartphones. Proc. of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, New York, 2017.

www.yurman.co.uk

Paulina Yurman, Goldsmiths, University of London

[email protected]

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