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Agile with Animals: Towards a Development Method

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DOI: 10.1109/REW.2017.11

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 Agile with Animals:
Towards a Development Method
Dirk van der Linden, Anna Zamansky
Department of Information Systems, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Email: {djtlinden,annazam}@is.haifa.ac.il
Abstract—The advance of modern technologies opens new
exciting opportunities for computer-based systems for animals.
There is an explosion of products and gadgets for animals, such
as wellness monitoring applications (e.g., FitBark and PetPace),
automatic food dispensers, digital enrichment, and many more.
The emerging discipline of Animal-Computer Interaction marks
a new era in the development for non-human users, stressing a
user-centric approach.
As most available elicitation techniques in RE are verbal
and little reusable requirements data yet exists, this calls for
developing new approaches which can be adapted to non-human
users. This paper takes a step in this direction by proposing
a development model which incorporates iterative prototyping,
animal welfare as a central value, and a direct involvement of
animal experts at all stages of the development process.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Animals have been active users of technology for decades,
but with the advent of recent technologies, new exciting
possibilities for animals to interact with technology emerge.
Samsung has recently unveiled a futuristic smart kennel for
dogs, featuring an automatic snack dispenser, a treadmill and
a tablet [1]. At Microsoft Research Centre at the University
of Melbourne researchers are introducing digital enrichment to
improve the welfare of captive orangutans kept at Melbourne
Zoo [2]. Gadgets and software-enhanced products such as
wellness monitoring [3], smart toys [4] and automatic feeders
[5] are an emerging market with great potential.
The emergence of the field of Animal-Computer Interaction
(ACI) ([6], [7]) marks a new era in designing technologies
for animals and changes the rules of the game by taking
a user-centric approach, placing the animal in the center
of an interactive development process. Examples of animal-
centered technologies include various systems for supporting
the activities of working dogs and assistance dogs ([8], [9],
[10]), providing environmental and cognitive enrichment for
pets ([11], [12], [13], [14]) and zoo animals in captivity
([15], [16]); or technologies for conservation and other animal
research ([17], [18], [19].
The above poses new and exciting challenges in user-
computer interaction, requirement engineering and software
development for non-human users. These challenges have
recently been discussed [20] in the context of interaction, and
stresses the need for adapting research methods in HCI to the
context of non-human users. Additionally, we have discussed
[21] the unique challenges of requirement elicitation for non-
human users, which call for non-verbal elicitation techniques
and the need to involve animal experts, making reference to a
large body of knowledge of animal behavior.
In this paper we take a broader look at the development
cycle for non-human users, and discuss its unique, agile nature
and the need for adaptation of standard agile methodologies to
the context of non-human users. We review reports on devel-
opment processes for non-human users, and propose AWAX,
a development model incorporating Agile, Welfare, Animals
and Experts tailored for the unique needs of such development.
The model takes into account aspects of animal welfare as non-
functional requirements, as well as the necessity to explicitly
rely on animal experts throughout the development process.
II. D EVELOPING W ITH AND F OR A NIMALS
What is so unique about developing products for non-human
users, and why do we need to adapt existing methodologies?
The literature focusing on the development processes of ACI
technologies reveal several aspects which we discuss below.
Agility: Rapid iterative prototyping and getting quick
feedback from the user seem to be the prevalent techniques
in development of ACI products. Such methods were used,
e.g., in [22], [23], [24] for designing sensor-based canine
interfaces, and in [25], [26], [15] for designing enrichment
for elephants and apes kept in captivity. Working in iterations
is particularly important for being able to get feedback from
the animal. As pointed out by [26]: “As we did not know
what types of controls an elephant was capable of using, nor
what kinds of output held interest for her, it was vital to
obtain feedback from Valli during the design process. This
led us to prototype iteratively until a useful solution was
reached.” [22] also explains iterative development by getting
feedback from a dog behavior: “We also had to find a way of
stabilizing the stand to prevent it from being pushed back by
the dog and thus dispersing the pressure we wanted to record”.
Welfare Value: The ACI Manifesto [6] states improving
animals’ quality of life as one of the main aims of designing
ACI technologies. As proposed by North, [20] “We have a
moral commitment to build only what they want and need.”
Many ACI works take improving animal welfare as their
primary objective. For example, mobile technology to improve
the welfare of poultry,[27] digital game for stress reduction
in stay-at-home dogs,[11] and other works developing digital
enrichment for captive animals [25], [15], [2]. But even ACI
technologies which do not aim directly at improving welfare
(such as technologies for dogs with occupations), state
their commitment to maintaining the welfare of their users
([28], [24]). The ACI community identifies strengthening the
connections to animal welfare science as a primary objective
[20]. Therefore, we argue that ACI development should be
viewed as value-driven development (cf. [29], [30]) with
animal welfare as a main value.

Domain experts: guiding vs. informing Due to the specifics

of our users, ACI products cannot be developed without
relying on body of knowledge from animal behavior, ethology Animal  expert  team   Development  team  

and biology. As explained in [20]: “From the perspective of

behavioral science, it is important to take full account of the
ecological niche and innate behavioral tendencies, perceptual
abilities, and social needs of the species in question, and the
impact that past human interactions (and other experiences)
may have on an individual animal. In addition, the size and
shape (anatomy) of the species and the age of the individual
animal must be taken into account. ” According to [20], “pre-
senting an animal with a task that it cannot complete because
it does not have the physical and/or perceptual capability will
lead to inaccurate conclusions and will be detrimental from an
animal welfare perspective. ACI needs to consider apparatus
and experimental design from the animals point of view.”.
Some examples of active involvement of animal experts in
the development process of ACI artifacts are [24], [25], [28],
[11]. Therefore, animal experts take a much more pivotal
role in development processes than usual domain experts –
functioning as a sort of surrogate stakeholder for the animal.
While the latter inform the design process, the former rather
guide it, and any development model should make explicit the
points at which their expertise affects design decisions.
The unique combination of considerations identified above
provide the basis for our proposed development model, which
is described next.
III. AWAX: A D EVELOPMENT M ODEL FOR ACI
In this section we propose a development model called
AWAX1 for ACI technologies, which takes into account the
iterative nature of development, animal welfare as guiding
value, and an active involvement of animal experts team. Let us
further examine the way in which these components, identified
in the ACI literature and discussed above, are manifested in
the proposed model.
The agile nature of development is captured on Fig. 1, which
also shows the involvement of the different stakeholders in the
process. The envisioned collaboration between animal experts
and the development team is captured on Fig. 2: the animal
team guides the development process (as opposed to just
informing design as usual for domain experts) at the phases
of design, test and review, acting as a surrogate stakeholder
1 AWAX stands for Agility, Welfare as value and Animal eXpert involve-
ment.
Animals
Fig. 1. Diagram showing the typical cycle of an AWAX agile development
and the involvement of relevant stakeholder (teams) in each phase.
for the animal, representing their interests to the best of their
ability. Tasks placed on the dotted line are collaboratively
executed, as can be seen from the stakeholder involvement.
Fig. 2 focuses on detailing the tasks in the actual itera-
tions of design, develop, and test & review. When starting
a project, an initial specification is typically derived from
requirements imposed by business or research stakeholders.
This tends to involve little a priori requirements specific to the
animal yet, because very few re-usable existing requirements
fragments and patterns yet exist. This is further complicated
because requirements tend to differ between species (e.g.,
dogs, cats, elephants), and may be additionally fragmented
between breeds with distinct physiological characteristics and
intelligence levels (e.g., poodles vs. bulldogs).
Figure 2 also captures the explicit points at which welfare
considerations are reviewed by the animal expert team. Wel-
fare issues noted at this point, together with other issues of
usability (e.g., determining more effective ways for the animal
to interact, to make them want to use the product) yield just-
in-time requirements for the current iteration. When testing a
build of the product, interpretation of the animal’s interaction
with the build will likely lead to unforeseen issues in terms of
usability , or unforeseen issues impacting their welfare (e.g.,
unwittingly causing undue stress for the animal, or unforeseen
safety issues - see the discussion below). This yields ‘just-too-
late’ requirements, which can contribute to the next iterations.
The main difference between AWAX and other agile de-
velopment models, is in the extremely rigid limitations the
intended user places on all phases of the development process.
First of all, only indirect ways to elicit requirements can
be used, mainly but via animal experts hypothesizing on
possible ways an animal is likely to interact with the developed
artifact. This calls for rapid prototyping to check the proposed
hypotheses, which in its turn may compromise the value of
maintaining animal welfare – such situations may yield just-
too-late requirements, which raise new welfare and usability
 Development
 team
  Animal
 expert
 team
  On the one hand, these just-too-late requirements lead to
valuable and indeed needed revised specifications, while on the
Start
 
other hand they cause us to violate one of the core principles
of ACI: we are stuck in a catch-22 of having to violate the
Create
  welfare of animals in order to guarantee it.
Review
 
specifica-on
 
specifica-on
 
for
 build
  One illustrative example in this context is the report in [31]
must
 address
 all
 fore-­‐ on the trial of radio telemetry collars to track the movements
seeable
 welfare
 issues
 

DESIGN  
any  
of agouti birds. The weight of the collars turned out to be
no  
Revise   foreseeable   too heavy and has caused injuries and even death to some of
specifica-on    issues?  
the birds. Another example, provided in [32], is a study on
the wearability of commercial tracking systems for cats. This
Document   yes  
issues   study reveals major issues of itchiness and irritation, measured
creates  just-­‐in-­‐ by the cat scratching due to the presence of the collars. The
,me  requirement  

DEVELOP  
authors note, e.g., that “while attempting to remove the device,
Build  
(implement)   the cat compromised his balance and risked falling off the tree
perch (160 cm high).”
To further illustrate the just-in-time vs. just-too-late re-
Test   Review  test  
quirements, we consider our own experience in a project

TEST  &  REVIEW  

for developing autonomous drones for interactions with dogs
creates  just-­‐too-­‐ ([33]). In this project we were following the AWAX model in
late  requirement   any  
yes   unforeseen   the following sense: we involved a ethologist for providing first
 issues?   requirements, reviewing the design and identifying possible
 must  address  all    
welfare  issues   no  
welfare concerns. One such concern, e.g., was that to avoid
stress to the animal the drone needs to maintain a distance
of at least 60 cm from the animal. We then applied rapid
LAUNCH  

Release
 
prototyping to deliver a first working version of an autonomous
drone which was flying in a fixed itinerary 60 cm above
Finish
  the dog. We then moved to the testing phase to allow the
animal expert to analyze the dog behavior, in order to make
recommendations on how to modify the behavior of the drone.
Fig. 2. The AWAX (Agile, Welfare, Animal Experts) iterative development
method for development of interactive animal technology.
Out of safety considerations, in our experiments we used only
small dogs and let the drone fly on a safe distance from them.
In the testing phase five small dogs were videotaped in a room,
issues which can only be taken care of at the next iteration. The interacting with the drone. One participant, however, exhibited
way to maximize just-in-time requirements (while minimizing behavior which was not anticipated by the animal expert: while
just-too-late ones) is by the explicit involvement of animal reaching out to the drone, it tried jumping towards it; combined
expert team, as shown in Figure 2. with the locomotion of the drone, and its acceleration, the
dog tripped and fell backwards. This just-too-late requirement
IV. T HE W ELFARE PARADOX : J UST- IN - TIME VS . was taken care of at the next iteration, as the drone was
J UST- TOO - LATE R EQUIREMENTS reprogrammed to fly 20cm higher, so that the dogs are not
The distinction between just-in-time and just-too-late re- tempted to jump towards it.
quirements deserves some further attention in the context of One possibility to minimize just-too-late requirements is
animal welfare, which is a driving value behind most ACI via synthetic requirements techniques, such creating a species-
products. The lack of explicit techniques for requirement specific knowledge base of expert knowledge on how particular
elicitation leads to rapid iterative prototyping and getting kinds of animals interact with particular classes of technology.
feedback from the user in a trial-and-error method, which in This knowledge base could have reusable fragments and
its turn may place the animal on which the artifact is tested patterns to guide ACI developers so as to avoid just-too-late
in unsafe environment, or induce unnecessary stress, thereby requirements.
negatively affecting its welfare. The difference between just-
in-time and just-too-late requirements in the context of ACI V. C ONCLUSION
is thus that just-in-time requirements are discovered in time The rapid advance of new technologies for animals, together
to guarantee the welfare of the animals involved in the devel- with ACI maturing as a scientific discipline make this a
opment process. Just-too-late requirements – while preventing timely moment to reflect on the methodological foundations
more animals from having their welfare impacted – are learned of designing for non-human users. This creates exciting op-
after we have unwittingly violated the welfare of the animal(s) portunities for extending, refining and adapting RE techniques
involved in the development process. to new types of users.
 In this paper we took a step in this direction by proposing
AWAX, a development model for non-human users, which
incorporates iterative prototyping, is driven by the value of
animal welfare and is guided by active involvement of animal
experts. It is our hope this can be a starting point for a cross-
fertilization between the ACI and RE communities, where
RE can provide structured ways of improving the develop-
ment processes in ACI and contribute to the systematic and
verifiable generation of reusable species-specific knowledge,
thereby opening up re-usable requirements patterns, fragments,
and methods for further development.
Extending RE techniques and development models to in-
clude new types of users can also push the boundaries of
the RE discipline and shed new light on existing methods by
lifting the assumption our user can freely speak his mind. This
can also serve to include other special types of users, such as
people with disabilities, non-verbal children, etc.
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