Respectful Things: Adding Social Intelligence to 'Smart' Devices
This work provides a conceptual framework for human-centered smart device design, but it is primarily theoretical and lacks empirical validation.
The paper proposes using the concept of respect as a design goal for smart devices, distilling four types of respectful behavior from philosophy and discussing their implications for device design.
In this paper, we propose that the idea of devices respecting their end-users may serve as a strong design goal for highly personal and intimate smart devices. We ask what respect is, how it shapes interaction, and how good-faith simulation of respect might inform user-friendly smart device design. Respect is a natural and integral part of natural human relationships that is seen to shape work and personal relations. In a basic sense, this is the core purpose of smart things: we expect them to be ready and willing to help us. In this vein, we distil the characteristics of more complex respectful behaviours into 4 main types relevant to smart devices, drawing from philosophical analyses of the conceptual dimensions of respect: directive respect, obstacle respect, recognition respect, and care respect. We discuss the implications of each of these kinds of respect for the future of smart personal devices.