Self Harmony: Rethinking Hackathons to Design and Critique Digital Technologies for Those Affected by Self-Harm

Birbeck, Nataly, Lawson, Shaun, Morrissey, Kellie, Rapley, Tim and Olivier, Patrick (2017) Self Harmony: Rethinking Hackathons to Design and Critique Digital Technologies for Those Affected by Self-Harm. In: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '17. Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 146-157. ISBN 978-1-4503-4655-9

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Abstract

In this paper we explore the opportunities, challenges and best practices around designing technologies for those affected by self-harm. Our work contributes to a growing HCI literature on mental health and wellbeing, as well as understandings of how to imbue appropriate value-sensitivity within the digital design process in these contexts. The first phase of our study was centred upon a hackathon during which teams of designers were asked to conceptualise and prototype digital products or services for those affected by self-harm. We discuss how value-sensitive actions and activities, including engagements with those with lived experiences of self-harm, were used to scaffold the conventional hackathon format in such a challenging context. Our approach was then extended through a series of critical engagements with clinicians and charity workers who provided appraisal of the prototypes and designs. Through analysis of these engagements we expose a number of design challenges for future HCI work that considers self-harm; moreover we offer insight into the role of stakeholder critiques in extending and rethinking hackathons as a design method in sensitive contexts.

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