Designing for diversity in Aboriginal Australia: Insights from a national technology project

Aboriginal Australians have been colonized for over 230 years. As a result, many have been disconnected from their communities and identity. This paper reports on a national-scale HCI project that aims to design technology that allows Aboriginal Australians to reconnect with their communities and to reaffirm their Aboriginal identity. Our project faces significant challenges, some due to the effects of colonization and some due to the great (and under-recognized) diversity of Aboriginal Australia. In this paper, we report the design phase of our project, and discuss some of these challenges we faced. Through this, we offer insights for HCI designers and researchers undertaking similar work.