Research
I have a PhD from the Media Art and Technology Programme at Queen Mary University of London and I was part of the Sonic Interaction Design Lab associated with the Centre for Digital Music. In my research, I explored how sonic e-textile (electronic textile) tangible user interfaces could support non-verbal autistic children's social play and self-regulation.
The overarching aim of the research was to investigate the potential of inclusive and novel tangible interactions to stimulate spontaneous socially engaged play, hence child-led and open-ended, while also providing self-regulation opportunities. I collaborated with three groups of minimally verbal to non-verbal autistic children aged between 5 to 10, within a semi-structured scholastic environment based in North-East London, UK, by conducting three field studies underpinned by ethnographically informed research, the literature, and evidence-based practices. This included various approaches such as research through design, the SCERTS, Attention Autism, user experience design, ludic design, co-design, and the concepts of shareability and openness. The research followed an empirical inquiry conducted using a mix of both qualitative and quantitative methods.
In my work, I propose a shift in the interaction paradigm and challenge the notion that autistic people should aspire to simulate neurotypical behaviours to adhere to societal norms. I do this to disrupt the normalization agenda that subtly pervades the field of HCI and to direct the designer’s attention toward supporting autistic ways of being in the world.
Throughout the years I started to prefer using the identity-first language (e.g. autistic people instead of people with autism) because a large UK survey conducted by Kenny et al. [1] suggested that autistic people prefer to use this terminology. Also, I sympathise with Spiel’s view [2] on using identity-first language as a political act that “acknowledges” autistic people’s preferences.
[1] Kenny, L., Hattersley, C., Molins, B., Buckley, C., Povey, C., & Pellicano, E. (2016). Which terms should be used to describe autism? Perspectives from the UK autism community. Autism, 20(4), 442-462.
[2] https://katta.mere.st/person-first-or-identity-first.
Google Scholar Profile Link
You can download my research papers bypassing any paywalls, hence for free, from the links below.
Conference Papers:
CHI'19: Antonella Nonnis and Nick Bryan-Kinns. 2019. Mazi: Tangible Technologies as a Channel for Collaborative Play. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '19). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Paper 440, 13 pages. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300670 (Top 10%)
Journal Papers:
TOCHI: A. Nonnis and N. Bryan-Kinns. 2024. Unmasking the Power of Play Through TUI Designs. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. Just Accepted (February 2024). https://doi.org/10.1145/3648619 Just Accepted
AUTISMO: Antonella Nonnis. 2022. Olly Mazi: Un Nuovo Approccio al Design di Interfacce Tangibili per il Gioco Sociale. Autismo 20 (3), 233-268. Edizioni Erickson. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14605/aut2032202.
IJHCS: Antonella Nonnis and Nick Bryan-Kinns. 2021. Olly: A tangible for togetherness, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2021, 102647, ISSN 1071-5819. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2021.102647
Conference Demos:
NIME '20: Antonella Nonnis and Nick Bryan-Kinns. 2020. Όλοι: music making to scaffold social playful activities and self-regulation. Proc. New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME '20), Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham, UK.
IDC'19: Antonella Nonnis and Nick Bryan-Kinns. 2019. Mazi: a Tangible Toy for Collaborative Play between Children with Autism. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC '19). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 672-675. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3311927.3325340 (Best Demo Award)
Conference Workshops:
NIME '20: Giacomo Lepri, Andrew McPherson, Antonella Nonnis, Paul Stapleton, Kristina Andersen, Tom Mudd, John Bowers, Pete Bennett, Sam Topley. 2020. Play Make Believe: Exploring Design Fiction and Absurd Making for Critical NIME Design. New Interfaces for Musical Expression Workshop (NIME '20), Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham, UK. (Best Workshop Prize)