Cross-Pollinating Ecological Perspectives in ADMI Design and Evaluation

Abstract

This paper explores ecological perspectives of human activity in the use of digital musical instruments and assistive technology. While such perspectives are relatively nascent in DMI design and evaluation, ecological frameworks have a long-standing foundation in occupational therapy and the design of assistive technology products and services. Informed by two case studies, the authors' critique, compare and marry concepts from each domain to guide future research into accessible music technology.The authors discover that ecological frameworks used by occupational therapists are helpful in describing the nature of individual impairment, disability and situated context. However, such frameworks seemingly flounder when attempting to describe the personal value of music-making.

Collaborative music-making: special educational needs school assistants as facilitators in performances with accessible digital musical instruments

“…Computational systems of musical expression always involve the establishment of a stratum that provides certain affordances to the musician, while simultaneously posing constraints (Magnusson, 2010). In this study focused on the Funki instruments, affordances have to do more with usability, whereas constraints define the limits of the musical expression; the mapping can be viewed as a compositional process that engenders a structure of constraints.…”

“…Although attempts have been made to introduce design principles and classification methods based on different use cases (Frid, 2019b;Davanzo and Avanzini, 2020;Harrison, 2020) and to investigate the potential of existing ecological frameworks in design and evaluation of ADMIs (e.g. the Human Activity Assistive Technology and the Matching Person and Technology frameworks deployed by Lucas et al 2021), there is still no commonly accepted or established evaluation methodology for ADMIs. The topic of evaluation has been widely debated in the fields of New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) and Digital Musical Instruments (DMI) over the years (see e.g.…”

“…DMIs as situated and ecologically valid artifacts which should be evaluated using qualitative and reflective processes focusing on sociocultural phenomena rather than first-wave HCI techniques. Similarly, Lucas et al (2021) explored ecological perspectives of human activity in the use of DMIs and assistive technology.…”

Customizing and Evaluating Accessible Multisensory Music Experiences with Pre-Verbal Children—A Case Study on the Perception of Musical Haptics Using Participatory Design with Proxies

“…DMI evaluation is a persistently debated topic in the field of research dedicated to New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) (see, e.g., [47]). Challenges in the evaluation of bespoke assistive music technology have been discussed in [48,49]. The latter work highlights the shortcomings of frameworks biased towards describing others, with researchers often viewing ADMIs from an external perspective.…”

“…The term ecosystem in this context refers to the fact that a musical activity exists in a system containing constitutional building blocks of affordances, i.e., how something is perceived directly in terms of its potential for actions [50], and constraints existing between the musician and the socio-cultural environment. For a detailed discussion of ecological perspectives in ADMI design and evaluation, please refer to [48].…”