Cultivating Feedback Loops: Factors and Contradictions Impacting Groups Developing Emerging Technologies

Abstract

Feedback loops bring together participants from multiple contributing groups in purposeful, multi-directional, iterative, and transformative interactions to design or develop an innovation. We present the idea of three-way feedback loops between researchers, educators, and product teams. Using cultural-historical activity theory, we examine the cultural, historical, and contextual factors impacting each group’s participation in a feedback loop and the contradictions that arise within and between the systems. As research increasingly aims to center the voices of individuals who are most impacted by its outcomes and ensure innovations best serve the communities for whom they are created, feedback loops are a promising collaboration strategy. However, cultivating a productive feedback loop requires careful navigation of the different contexts and the contradictions between the groups.