Cataloging Augmented, Ambivalent Transgender Futures: Designing Inclusive AR Technologies for Trans Communities Through Speculative, Participatory Zine-Making

Research Background and Issues

• What problems or challenges did the authors identify?

  1. Technological design often unintentionally harms marginalized groups, primarily due to a lack of deep understanding of their experiences, needs, and aspirations.
  2. Current human-computer interaction (HCI) research demonstrates an imbalance in attention between "needs" and "aspirations"; narratives about harmed groups often adopt a "deficiency" perspective, overlooking their positive aspects.
  3. Specifically for transgender communities, augmented reality (AR) technology has the potential to facilitate identity exploration but may also lead to misgendering, discomfort, or the reinforcement of binary gender norms.

• Why is this issue important?

  • Existing technological design methodologies fail to fully capture the challenges and aspirations of transgender communities, reflecting their unique needs and complex experiences. If technology continues to neglect the complexity of transgender experiences in its design, it risks perpetuating social exclusion and technological harm.

• Research Motivation and Related Work

  • Previous HCI research has explored transgender technological needs, such as voice training, social applications, and gender transition tracking tools. However, these studies often overlook the contradictory relationship between the multifaceted needs and aspirations of transgender individuals.
  • This study focuses on how to simultaneously accommodate and express the contradictions between "needs" (e.g., safety and well-being) and "aspirations" (e.g., identity exploration and joy) in design, promoting a more inclusive vision of technology for transgender communities.

Solutions

• What methods or solutions did the authors propose?

  • Collaborative zine-making workshops with transgender participants, employed as a visual ethnographic method, to explore the complex relationship between needs and aspirations for designing more inclusive AR technology.
  • Utilizing speculative design methods to enable participants to imagine future scenarios unrestricted by current technological limitations.

• What is innovative about this solution?

  1. Zine-making as a method: Zines have a deep historical connection to queer culture, emphasizing autonomy and resistance to mainstream norms, offering unique expressive potential.
  2. Speculative design: By encouraging participants to freely imagine, this approach allows technological design to transcend existing frameworks, fostering bold future visions for transgender technology.
  3. Embracing ambivalence: Focusing on showcasing the contradictions between needs and aspirations rather than resolving them, highlighting the authenticity of complex experiences.

• What are the implementation steps and key techniques used?

  1. Study Design:
     • Recruit 44 transgender participants and organize seven zine-making workshops conducted both offline and online.
     • Workshop activities include discussions on the relationship between AR and transgender identity, and exploring themes of needs and aspirations.
  2. Data Collection:
     • Collect participants' zine creations, interview transcripts, and researchers' observations and field notes.
  3. Data Analysis:
     • Use open coding and thematic analysis to focus on the design practices formed and the expressed sense of ambivalence.

Research Findings

• What specific outcomes were achieved?

  • The authors identified two common design practices in participants' zine creations:
    1. Using metaphors to convey complex narratives: Employing visual metaphors (e.g., elements from nature, magical motifs) to express tensions between gender and identity.
    2. Anti-assimilationist design: Breaking traditional design aesthetics and formats to critique normative and dominant values.
  • Defined "Actualizing Ambivalence": Using design to enable participants to confront the contradictions between needs and aspirations visually and creatively.

• What are the advantages compared to existing solutions?

  • Provides an exploration method entirely centered on the perspectives of transgender individuals, ensuring authentic representation of their complex experiences in design practices.
  • The combination of speculative and participatory design motivates participants to confront and express multilayered emotions and attitudes toward technological design, rather than offering singular feedback.

• What are the experimental or evaluation results?

  • Participants' zine creations reflected rich visions for the future of AR technology, such as instantaneous body modifications and hybrid gender expressions (realistic/fantastical).
  • Analysis revealed that ambivalence permeates transgender individuals' experiences with technology, which can be expressed through zines as a multimodal artistic form, aiding in deeper understanding of inclusive design.

• Limitations and Future Directions

  • Limitations:
    • The sample primarily consisted of English-speaking users from North America, failing to fully encompass global cultural and linguistic diversity.
    • Some provided zine materials (e.g., stickers) may have unintentionally leaned toward positive expressions, limiting the diversity of participant expression.
  • Future Directions:
    • Continue developing and testing AR technology prototypes, integrating participant input, such as designing a gender expression filter application.
    • Expand the sample group to include more transgender individuals across cultures and regions to explore broader needs and aspirations.
    • Deepen the concept and application of "actualizing ambivalence," incorporating it into larger technological design frameworks.

Conclusion

This study introduces speculative zine-making as a methodology, presenting a technology design approach centered on the perspectives of transgender communities and grounded in complexity. It offers valuable theoretical and practical guidance for technology designers and researchers to understand and incorporate diversity and ambivalence into their work. Through creative tools and practical design practices, this study provides significant contributions to the inclusive development of future technologies. This approach is not only applicable to transgender technology but can also be extended to design domains for other marginalized groups.