Speaker: Madeline Balaam - Newcastle University

Madeline is a lecturer in Interaction Design at Newcastle University. Much of her work focuses on the design of digital interactions within healthcare and wellbeing, and has included for example the participatory design of bespoke technologies to motivate rehabilitation post-stroke through to the design of interactive tabletop "toys" for use within play therapy. Madeline is currently working on a diverse range of projects, including consultancy work at the Edinburgh Royal Hospital for Sick Children exploring future technologies of play through to the design of an augmented kitchen which provides a task-based second language learning experience. Madeline completed her PhD at the University of Sussex where she developed a tangible technology to support the secret communication of emotion between school children and their teacher. 

Title: Motherhood and HCI

Motherhood and mothering are fundamental aspects of life, and as a consequence, every culture has knowledge, values, practices and expectations related to the role. Technologies now have an increasing role in motherhood, altering many women’s experiences of pregnancy, birth, and mothering. For interaction design, such a transition opens a whole host of questions relating to areas of participatory design, social connection, identity, memory-making, emotion work, as well as offering a new lens through which to understand notions of care and wellbeing. This seminar will begin to unpick experiences and theories of motherhood and how they relate to interaction design. In doing so, we will pull from existing projects, such as the user-centred design and development of a public breastfeeding map application and the construction of a shared decision making tool for birthing choices.