A design approach for building a digital platform to augment human abilities based on a more-than-human perspective

Abstract

AbstractTo acquire information from the real world and respond appropriately to life's circumstances, vision is indispensable for humans. However, due to its ubiquitous nature, we often perceive the world unconsciously, thereby overlooking the opportunity to contemplate the significance of sight. Seeing goes beyond being a mere method of gathering information; it is an act of uncovering new perspectives and engaging in profound exploration. Theories on creative problem-solving strongly advocate for the advantages of adopting multiple viewpoints. By generating a multitude of alternatives through information gleaned from diverse perspectives, we enhance our ability to expand the range of choices available to us, thus facilitating more effective problem-solving. In this paper, we present Posthuman CollectiveEyes, a digital platform that enriches the human act of visual perception by integrating diverse viewpoints such as collective human, augmented human, and nonhuman viewpoints, and constructs posthuman viewpoints from the diverse viewpoints. In the design of Posthuman CollectiveEyes, we adopt the more-than-human perspective, widely employed in the social sciences to analyze the impact of technology on human actions and decision-making in organizations and societies. This perspective enables us to uncover knowledge that conventional human-centered approaches cannot capture, as the objective of Posthuman CollectiveEyes is to expand human cognitive capabilities through enhanced visual perception. The novel contribution of our approach lies in demonstrating that the design of innovative digital platforms aimed at enhancing human abilities necessitates a fresh design approach that incorporates the more-than-human perspective.