Navigating the Paradox: Challenges of Designing Technology for Nonhumans

Given the disproportionate impact of human activity on the Earth's ecosystem, the planet is undergoing alarming changes. In this paper, we present seven technology concepts created by Master's students that address this imbalance by advocating for nonhuman interests, such as tree representatives in parliaments, or a technological bat fighting for biodiversity with seed bombs. We analyzed the concepts and found three main categories: (1) allowing interspecies relations, (2) allowing intraspecies relations, or (3) allowing no relations. Moreover, we identified one main paradox for each concept, such as “preserving interdependent beings by separating them” and “conserving ‘the wild’ by taming it.” These seven paradoxes represent two underlying challenges: (1) to overcome the human perspective, and (2) to practice relational thinking. By discussing the limits, ambiguities, and tensions of designing for nonhumans, the paper contributes to a growing body of research in HCI that designs for more-than-human in the context of sustainability.