Audrey Bennett is a graphic design scholar who studies cross-cultural and trans-disciplinary design that make use of images that permeate global culture and impact the way we think and behave. In her book, Engendering Interaction with Images, she argues that engendering user interaction with images improves their communicative effectiveness by enabling them to convey meanings effectively across cultures. Bennett writes:

“No longer passive spectators of images, these days we are more likely to be active participants in their production, distribution, and consumption. This phenomenon raises important questions about the consequences widespread user interaction may have on meaning, communicative effectiveness, and society at large.”

Her research contributes a hypothesis called interactive aesthetics that aims to democratize control of images in society. Interactive aesthetics explains the use of technology to place designers in virtual collaboration with lay users, where technology makes it easier for remote participants in various stages of the design process to work together. Bennett currently conducts fieldwork globally to investigate the use of interactive aesthetics to affect social change. Her interactive aesthetics research agenda includes two primary strands of inquiry. First, Bennett studies the use of IA in the prevention of new HIV infections in Kenya and Ghana (funded by the National Science Foundation). Second, she investigates the use of interactive aesthetics towards ethnically and intellectually diversifying STEM education, particularly computer science, with indigenous art curricula (funded by the National Science Foundation and Google).