Exploring Interactivity and Co-Creation in Rural China

Co-creation across cultures is a fertile area for the study of design and human computer interaction. Many studies have examined what can be learnt from cultures across the world and how cultures respond to interactive technology, and yet open questions remain on how to engage people in co-creation across cultures. In this article, we reflect on a study of cross-cultural co-creation with the Kam ethnic minority group of China. We report on the kinds of collaboration and value that emerged through the co-creation of an interactive drama, and how a traditional Chinese literature composition method was used to structure the design process. We present a notation for describing cross-cultural co-creation and reflect on the careful balance that we found needed to be struck between the depth of co-creation, immersion in local culture, cultural exchange and interactivity. We report on the use of our approach to elicit serendipitous design opportunities in-situ and how our non-utilitarian approach allowed us to explore different meanings of ‘interactivity’ across cultures.