Dogosophy Button: towards Dog-Smart Homes
This project started in 2013 as a collaboration between the ACI Lab and UK Charity Dogs for Good, to address challenges faced by mobility assistance dogs and to afford all dogs a easier interaction with and greater control over their living environment, with sponsorship by Petplan Charitable Trust. The project is ongoing, led by Prof Clara Mancini. Sha Li was an intern not he project in 2016. Luisa Ruge conducted her doctoral research on the project from 2018 to 2021, supervised by Prof Mancini and Dr Rachael Luck. Elizabeth Cox joined the team as a visiting fellow from 2018 to 2020, and Dr Patrizia Paci joined as a research associate and lead coordinator on the project’s impact activities in 2020 and 2025.
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Photo by Dogs for Good
Overview
Mobility assistance dogs are trained to undertake daily activities that people with disabilities find difficult or impossible (e.g. opening or closing doors, operating light switches, traffic lights or elevators). They also help their assisted humans cope with stigma, discrimination, disability hate-crime, psycho-emotional disablism, poverty and powerlessness that often accompany disability.
In spite of their fundamental social role, mobility assistance dogs have to operate in environments that are inconsistent with their evolutionary characteristics, facing challenges that for human workers would be deemed unacceptable, delaying their training, impairing their performance and affecting their welfare.
To improve the welfare, training and performance of mobility assistance dogs, we collaborated with Dogs for Good to develop wireless controls, whose design is consistent with the sensory, cognitive and physical characteristics of dogs, and that can be purchased and retrofitted to make domestic and public environments more accessible to mobility assistance dogs and their assisted humans. Our findings suggested that our controls can significantly improve the dogs’ working conditions, training times and performance.
The first generation
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As a first form of in-the-wild evaluation, in 2015 we installed a first generation of our prototype controls in one of the buildings on The Open University campus, to enable a PhD student and her mobility assistance dog to easily access and use the building. We installed controls to open the building’s security doors and to operate office lights. We subsequently installed the controls to operate the door of the accessible toilet another one of The Open University's buildings. The controls are still in operation.
Photo by Sha Li
The second generation
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During her doctorate, Luisa has developed a new design for a wireless version of the controls, which have been tested by people who live with mobility assistance dogs and by Dogs for Good’s trainers. We also developed new methods to elicit requirements for and evaluate the usability of canine interfaces and the canine users’ experience, as well as new multispecies interaction design concepts and frameworks.
Luisa found that a control with a diameter of 120mm and convex push pad performs best for dogs of different sizes.
In particular, although the concave pads guided the dogs’ snout towards the centre of the control, inviting a more precise interaction, the convex pads enabled the dogs to activate the control from any angle. This provided more flexibility regarding their placement in the physical environment, which is critical for usability in small spaces.
Third generation: the product!
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Following further design improvements, here the Dogosophy Button, which can be used to activate a range of domestic appliances, has become a product and is available on the market for all dogs!
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The Dogosophy Button reflects dogs' sensory, cognitive, physical and behavioural characteristics. ​Its dimensions are optimised to work best for dogs of different sizes. Its blue push-pad is highly visible for dogs and the contrasting white casing allows it to stand out against any background. Its lightly textured surface provides a comfortable grip, whilst making it easy to keep the pad clean. Its convex profile makes it possible to approach and press it comfortably from different angles. The button responds to gentle nudges, for dogs who prefer to use their nose, and withstands energetic pushes, for dogs who prefer to use their paws. A soft light inside the button’s chamber flashes the moment the control is activated, showing that the interaction has been successful without dazzling dogs’ eyes. Since it is wireless, the button can be placed or fixed where it is most accessible for the dogs who need to use it, regardless of where the appliance is located, within its 40 metres range. 
More info on the Dogosophy Button website!
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You can purchase the Dogosophy Button from Ravencourt's sales website Story & Sons.
Video by Dogs for Good
Further readings
For more information about the research underpinning the project, please refer to the related publications below:
Ruge, L., Mancini, C. (2019). A Method for Evaluating Animal Usability (MEAU). International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction, ACI2019, in co-operation with ACM, ACM Digital Library.
Ruge, L., Cox, E., Mancini, C., Luck, R. (2018). User Centered Design Approaches to Measuring Canine Behavior: Tail Wagging as a Measure of User Experience. Proc. Fifth International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction, ACI’18, ACM Digital Library.
Mancini, C., Lehtonen, J. (2018). The Emerging Nature of Participation in Multispecies Interaction Design. Proc. of ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, ACM DIS2018, ACM Press, pp. 907-918.
Mancini, C., Li, S., O’Connor, G., Valencia, J., Edwards, D., 
McCain, H. (2016). Towards Multispecies Interaction Environments: Extending Accessibility to Canine Users. Proc. Third International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction, ACI’16, article no. 8, ACM Digital Library.