Interactions

The Covid-19 pandemic has spread across the globe at unprecedented speed, with massive consequences. Our lives and societies have been suddenly transformed, and many have a sense that when the first wave of the pandemic has passed, many things will be different.

As my country was going into lockdown in an effort to limit the spread of the virus, I initiated a shared document, inviting researchers and practitioners in the HCI and interaction design community to propose how we might use our resources and competences to contribute, both in the immediate crisis and in the phases that follow. Within a matter of hours, peers from all parts of the globe were contributing with constructive and critical proposals and perspectives. I was asked to reflect on how these proposals offer perspectives on what we can do and make right now, and how the crisis may prompt or force us to break with how we have done things in the past. Broadly speaking, the proposals fall into three categories:

• What can we do right now to help? The immediate question that pops to mind for many people is whether we can do something right now to push the needle in the right direction. The most-discussed topic in the document is fabrication, for example, 3D printing protective gear, medical components, and even makeshift ventilators in a time when these supplies are in massive demand. Moreover, contributors offer ways in which current and novel initiatives can ensure crisis coordination, support communication and combat misinformation, mitigate the social isolation and psychological isolation that result from countrywide quarantines, and help create interfaces and infrastructures for tracing and limiting the spread of virus.


• How can we contribute to shaping the "new normal" in the wake of the pandemic? While the situation is dire in many countries, this, too, shall pass, and societies will reopen. But what will the new normal look like, and how can we help shape it? Contributors to the document point to a range of ways. Some deal with the particular toolsets and mindsets we have for imagining and designing for the near future, exemplified in methods such as scenarios, design fictions, and participatory design involving the people with whom we will share this future world. Other proposals are more concrete, such as supporting and developing new forms of remote work and remote social communication, reshaping our cities through urban infrastructures and smart city initiatives, and, in a more direct response to the threat of epidemics, increasing our efforts to develop better systems for science labs and sharing scientific findings.


• How are our lives changing as a result of the crisis? A third set of contributions revolve around understanding and reflecting on how the crisis impacts our lives and societies. These span from studying how existing technologies are employed, hacked, and reappropriated to cope with the suddenly different circumstances under which we live and work, to developing art and culture for the crisis, both in terms of rethinking how art can be shared without physical co-presence and how it can help us reflect upon the crisis. This set also includes broader studies of what appears to be a radical shift in our world, such as ethnographic studies of the shift from the pre-pandemic to the post-pandemic world, and inquiries into the wider politics of technoscience in the pandemic and its aftermath. These prompt us to consider, among other things, how technology is intertwined with politics and power relations. We are quick to jump to technological solutions, but ought to also consider if and when technology is the answer, or if it might even exacerbate crises.

Reflecting on the discussions that unfold in and around the multitude of proposals, it is evident that there is in our community an urgent desire to help change things for the better. It is also clear that we should uphold our traditions and fora for balancing constructive efforts with critical considerations of what "better" means, to whom and in which context.

Peter Dalsgaard