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Concept of the Human

In Informatics research and technology development, various roles are assigned to humans: In the field of IT-Security, humans are seen as needing protection, but also as potential threats. In Artificial Intelligence, the human serves as a reference model. For Human Computer Interaction (HCI) design, human activity in the world and its support by digital media is the focus. This assignment of roles must be consciously reflected. What attributions come with them and what humans do researchers have in mind? The concept of “the human” has close relations to gender. An idea of (hu)man always entails gender concepts including social categories like physical and mental abilities and leaves its marks in research and development.

Questions relating to Evaluation

  • Whom do we consider appropriate as a tester/evaluator of our draft or prototype?
  • Let us try to evaluate our system under other conditions (e.g., diverse users not from the primary target group)
  • Situations and places feel different for different persons. How do we take that into account in our evaluation procedure?