Patterns and Opportunities for the Design of Human-Plant Interaction

Abstract

The emergence of living organisms as entities in HCI presents an opportunity to collaborate with other beings through technology, align interspecies motives, and nurture greater empathy for the non-human. Plants are particularly interesting because of their natural ability to sense and respond to environmental stimuli and potential to enable more sustainable interaction design. However, due to the cross-disciplinary and emerging nature of this space, there is a need to identify overarching patterns and discern opportunities for unifying future research. This paper aims to systematically analyze existing Human-Plant Interaction (HPI) works by presenting a survey of projects across HCI, art/design, architecture, and bioengineering. We identify core design paradigms along the dimensions of HPI System Architecture, Plant I/O Coupling, Plant Interfacing and Manipulation Techniques, Application Context, and Scale. From these themes, we assemble a framework for HCI practitioners to approach HPI, and discuss opportunities and open questions for future exploration.