Praying Together, Staying Together

Gaver et al (2010) designed and deployed The Prayer Companion, a device that was developed in order to aid the spiritual activity of a group of cloistered nuns in a UK northern city. The design team adopted a research through design approach, attempting to balance the specificity and openness of design, and also the materiality and spirituality of the device. A lot of paradoxes! The authors denounce the assumption in HCI that practitioners are the ‘powerful champions of feeble users’ and value and appreciate the opinions and beliefs of the nuns at every stage in the design process. As a RTD process, they intended for the openness of the system to facilitate the nuanced ways in which the nuns would give meaning to the device.

The Prayer Companion displays a continuous stream of information sourced from RSS news feeds and social networking sites to act as a potential prompt for prayer topics. This device intersected with the notion of how the nuns were affected by the outside world and community (they were only able to leave the monastery to see the doctor) and also how their activities and prayers may affect others in the community. It was also felt that the device, drawing on international sources, may eliminate media bias and provide a rather balanced voice for the nuns to listen to.

The materiality and aesthetics of the design had to be in fitting with the ambience of the monastery and thus be subtle and unobtrusive. Initial sketchings of a large, rectangular screen were scrapped in favour of a small device which would fit on a table that was frequently passed by the nuns. The device (later named ‘Goldie’ by the nuns) embodied the spirituality of its owners as its shape was compared to the Tao Cross, an ancient symbol that is associated with Saint Francis. The aesthetic value of the device was important to the nuns and designers, as it portrayed a certain spiritual and religious significance, whilst being contemporary and in congruence with its surroundings.

A year after the Prayer Companion had been deployed, the nuns in the convent were still happy and impressed with ‘Goldie’. Though the participants did not feel that they could comment upon its longevity until years had passed, its presence was welcomed. Mother Abbess notably commented upon the immediacy granted by the PC. Two people had been killed in a stampede in Africa, and seeing this on the device on her way to mass, she was able to prayer for ‘their souls’ straight away.

The Prayer Companion and its design process was not just pertinent to this project, but could be a valuable experience for many areas of HCI research to draw upon. The designers had to be reflexive upon their own positions and inherent assumptions, and also work with a group of people with very specific spiritual and religious needs that they were not necessarily familiar with. I particularly enjoy the way that the designers see the nuns, not just as a group of elderly females, but also acknowledge their agency and the specificities and differences within that group. Although this group of participants were (or mostly) in their 80s, that is not the only way in which they were similar. Rather than designing for an ageing population, we should be designing for many different ageing populations.