Photo by Sneha Cecil
Designing Playful Interactive Enrichment for Captive Elephants
This was the doctoral project of Dr Fiona French, from 2014 to 2021, supervised by Prof Clara Mancini and Prof Helen Sharp.
​
Overview
The project investigated the potential for using technology to support the development of sensory and cognitive enrichment activities for captive elephants. It explored the usefulness of applying conceptual frameworks from interaction design and game design to the problem of developing species-specific smart toys that promote natural behaviours and provide stimulation.
In particular, the research adopted a Research through Design approach to inform the scientific inquiry and design process, through the creation of artefacts that guide the exploration of possible future solutions. Along these lines, the fieldwork resulted in the development of an interactive prototype of an acoustic toy, and elephant 'jukebox', that elephants could control using interface elements constructed from a range of natural materials.
​
More information is available on the project’s blog.
​​
Key insight
In Fiona’s work, engaging directly with elephants over an extended period of time, first observing them in their environment and then offering them a wide range of prototypes over multiple iterations, highlighted the importance of considering the animals’ aesthetics experience, which was instrumental to inform the design of appealing interactions.
She developed many prototypes designed to enable elephants to control sound output, including wood and textile vibro-buttons, knitted buttons, and copper radio buttons.
Photos by Fiona French
Elephant 'jukebox'
This is Fiona's elephant jukebox, which used copper radio buttons to trigger different pre-recorded sounds and which was installed in the indoor habitat of two elephants residing at Noah’s Ark Zoo.
Photos by Fiona French
Further readings
French, F., Mancini, C., Sharp, H. (2020). Eine Elefantenperspektive (An Elephant Perspective). Ullrich, J., Rieger, S. (Eds). Special issue on Tiere und/als Medien. Tierestudien (Animal Studies), 18.
​
French, F., Mancini, C., Sharp, H. (2020). More than Human Aesthetics: Interactive Enrichment for Elephants. International Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, ACM DIS2020, ACM Press.
​
French, F., Mancini, C., Sharp, H. (2017). High tech cognitive and acoustic enrichment for captive elephants. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, in press.
​
French, F., Mancini, C., Sharp, H. (2017). Exploring Research through Design in Animal-Computer Interaction. Proc. Fourth International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction, ACI’17, ACM Digital Library.
​
French, F., Mancini, C., Sharp, H. (2016). Exploring methods for interaction design with animals: a case-study with Valli. Proc. Third International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction, ACI’16, article no. 3, ACM Digital Library.
​
French, F., Mancini, C., Sharp, H. (2016). Playful UX for Elephants. Symposium on Animal-Computer Interaction. Proc. Measuring Behaviour’16, Dublin University Press, pp. 445-448.
​
French, F., Mancini, C., Sharp, H. (2015). Designing Interactive Toys for Elephants. Proc. Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, CHI Play’15, ACM Press.
​
French, F., Mancini, C., Smith, N., Sharp, H. (2014). Designing smart toys for the cognitive enrichment of elephants. Symposium on Intelligent Systems for Animal Welfare, ISAWEL’14, Proc. 50th convention on Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, AISB’14.