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Short abstract:

With the inclusion of people affected by smart home technologies in their development process, co-design aims to promote a responsible distribution of burdens and benefits. This paper evaluates the potential of a co-design to be responsible and just, while presenting the challenges for it to happen.

Long abstract:

The inclusion of people affected by emergent smart home technologies (SHT) in their development process is believed to result in a more responsible and just distribution of burdens and benefits coming with the technology. Co-design has gained attention as one of such participatory methodologies aimed at including people as co-authors of their own sociotechnical systems. To explore participation’s potential to bring responsibility and justice to SHT research, we have run a co-design study with smart technology professionals, early-adopters, and late/non-adopters of SHT. This paper reflects on the final evaluative phase of the co-design, understanding how, if at all, this methodology would be able to deliver its promises.

The evaluation methods include feedback questionnaire forms and online semi-structured interviews. 21 questionnaire forms were filled by participants during the referred co-design study, out of which 14 agreed to take part in the subsequent series of one-on-one interviews. Insights derived by the feedback forms were elucidated with the thematic analysis of the interviews’ audio transcription.

The study’s contributions include, but are not limited to, proposing that (i) responsibility and justice are not inherent to co-design, but rather positionalities to be openly debated, prioritized, and updated during a co-design process; the understanding that (ii) researchers are not able to guarantee empowerment through engagement, but they can provide participants the infrastructures for it; and finally, we reflect on (iii) good practices of responsible and just co-design by comparing participants’ evaluation on our co-design methods with previous participatory SHT studies.