Modes of Uncertainty in HCI

This monograph examines how HCI conceptualizes, situates, and responds to uncertainty—particularly arguing that our ability to respond to such uncertainties is governed to a great extent by the concepts we use to enframe a single, encompassing, overburdened and slippery idea. We propose four distinct “modes of uncertainty” as a means to begin to draw together the varied strands of work in HCI that address uncertainty in its many forms. The first, and most common, mode is to treat uncertainty as something in need of taming or disciplining. The second mode is to treat uncertainty as generative, or as a resource that can assist in human practices. The third is to look to the politics that shape how we encounter uncertainties and the fourth mode attends to the lived experience of uncertainty through affective dimension. Rather than focus on uncertainty as a discrete phenomenon in the world to be studied, we look to how research goals, methods, and theoretical frames used in HCI research influence the various ways in which we encounter it. By switching from uncertainty (noun) to modes of engaging uncertainty (verb), we foreground uncertainty as a relational concept. We show that it is an active and ongoing condition that designers and researchers make present in different fashions depending upon their priorities and the context in which they are working. We will show that adding modes of uncertainty to our conceptual toolbox facilitates conversation between domains as diverse as disaster risk, maternal health, cybersecurity, and community organizing and lets us draw new connections between disparate areas of research including visualization studies, critical design, feminist epistemologies, and sustainability.