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| All communities | Design (45) | Engineering (11) | Management (1) |
| User Experience (34) | Child-Computer Interaction (6) | Digital Arts (6) | Games and Entertainment (7) |
| Health (4) | Sustainability (4) | HCI for Development (0) |
Thursday – 9:00-10:20
GrandSpecial session: Special Joint Plenary with ACM ECRC 2013
- KSPKeynote Speaker: Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, Google, and ACM President
Conversation with a ComputerThere have been efforts to achieve dialog with computer-based systems since the origins of computing. From the 1960s, serious efforts have been mounted to engage in natural language dialog. There were false starts with simple dictionary-based efforts. Syntactic/Semantic efforts gave way to statistical methods with some successes. The Bayesian approach appears to be reaching an asymptote so it is likely that attention must refocus on syntactic/semantic approaches. Interestingly, efforts to achieve communication between humans and other species have also demonstrated the value of shared experiences. Holding something in common seems a critical element of establishing communication. One wonders to what extent such efforts might also inform any plan to deal with communication between humans and extra-terrestrials, should any ever show up in our vicinity!
Thursday – 11:00-12:20
BluePapers: Design for Developers
- PCZPaper: The Whats and Hows of Programmers’ Foraging Diets
Information Foraging Theory investigation into information diets of professional programmers during debugging, and how these diets interact with their foraging strategies. Helps unify Information Foraging Theory with debugging research.One of the least studied areas of Information Foraging Theory is diet: the information foragers choose to seek. For example, do foragers choose solely based on cost, or do they stubbornly pursue certain diets regardless of cost? Do their debugging strategies vary with their diets? To investigate “what” and “how” questions like these for the domain of software debugging, we qualitatively analyzed 9 professional developers’ foraging goals, goal patterns, and strategies. Participants spent 50% of their time foraging. Of their foraging, 58% fell into distinct dietary patterns–mostly in patterns not previously discussed in the literature. In general, programmers’ foraging strategies leaned more heavily toward enrichment than we expected, but different strategies aligned with different goal types. These and our other findings help fill the gap as to what programmers’ dietary goals are and how their strategies relate to those goals.
- PAUPaper: How Tools in IDEs Shape Developers’ Navigation Behavior
Introduces a model to describe the code navigation behavior of programmers; this model can be used to analyze the influence of different call graph navigation tools on navigation strategies.Understanding source code is crucial for successful software maintenance, and navigating the call graph is especially helpful to understand source code. We compared maintenance performance across four different development environments: an IDE without any call graph exploration tool, a Call Hierarchy tool as found in Eclipse, and the tools Stacksplorer and Blaze. Using any of the call graph exploration tools more developers could solve certain maintenance tasks correctly. Only Stacksplorer and Blaze, however, were also able to decrease task completion times, although the Call Hierarchy offers access to a larger part of the call graph. To investigate if this result was caused by a change in navigation behavior between the tools, we used a set of predictive models to create formally comparable descriptions of programmer navigation. The results suggest that the decrease in task completion times has been caused by Stacksplorer and Blaze promoting call graph navigation more than the Call Hierarchy tool.
- PLBPaper: Webzeitgeist: Design Mining the Web
This paper introduces design mining for the Web: using knowledge discovery techniques to understand design demographics, automate design curation, and support data-driven design tools.Advances in data mining and knowledge discovery have transformed the way Web sites are designed. However, while visual presentation is an intrinsic part of the Web, traditional data mining techniques ignore render-time page structures and their attributes. This paper introduces design mining for the Web: using knowledge discovery techniques to understand design demographics, automate design curation, and support data-driven design tools. This idea is manifest in Webzeitgeist, a platform for large-scale design mining comprising a repository of over 100,000 Web pages and 100 million design elements. This paper describes the principles driving design mining, the implementation of the Webzeitgeist architecture, and the new class of data-driven design applications it enables.
- NMZNote: Informal Cognitive Walkthroughs (ICW): Paring Down and Pairing Up for an Agile World
We present the Informal Cognitive Walkthrough (ICW): an agile user experience research methodology, developed and perfected over three years to meet the needs of a large agile software development team.Agile software teams’ frequent releases and fast iterations present a growing need for rigorous user experience research methods that are faster, lighter-weight, and more flexible. To this end, we developed the Informal Cognitive Walkthrough (ICW). This agile research methodology grew organically, over the course of three years, while working with a very large agile software development team. ICWs involve conducting one or more Simplified ‘Streamlined Cognitive Walkthroughs’ (SSCW), followed by one or more Simplified ‘Pluralistic Walkthroughs’ (SPW). In this paper, we present the ICW and provide a real-world example of its application. Preliminary experiences with the method revealed potential advantages over traditional lab studies, ranging from more quickly uncovering and fixing usability issues, to a stronger collaboration between the disciplines, and to acting as a forcing function in aligning diverse engineers to deliver on a common user goal.
- NTQNote: Picode: Inline Photos Representing Posture Data in Source Code
Picode is a text-based development environment augmented with inline photos of human and robots. They contain richer context information than mere posture data, and enhance the programming experience.Current programming environments use textual or symbolic representations. While these representations are appropriate for describing logical processes, they are not appropriate for representing raw values such as human and robot posture data, which are necessary for handling gesture input and controlling robots. To address this issue, we propose Picode, a text-based development environment integrated with visual representations: photos of human and robots. With Picode, the user first takes a photo to bind it to posture data. S/he then drag-and-drops the photo into the code editor, where it is displayed as an inline image. A preliminary in-house user study implied positive effects of taking photos on the programming experience.
241Panel
- LMTWe Need to Talk: HCI and the Delicate Topic of Spoken Language Interaction
Speech and natural language remain our most natural form of interaction; yet the HCI community have been very timid about focusing their attention on designing and developing spoken language interaction techniques. This may be due to a widespread perception that perfect domain-independent speech recognition is an unattainable goal. Progress is continuously being made in the engineering and science of speech and natural language processing, however, and there is also recent research that suggests that many applications of speech require far less than 100% accuracy to be useful in many contexts. Engaging the CHI community now is timely – many recent commercial applications, especially in the mobile space, are already tapping the increased interest in and need for natural user interfaces (NUIs) by enabling speech interaction in their products. As such, the goal of this panel is to bring together interaction designers, usability researchers, and general HCI practitioners to discuss the opportunities and directions to take in designing more natural interactions based on spoken language, and to look at how we can leverage recent advances in speech processing in order to gain widespread acceptance of speech and natural language interaction.
242APapers: Perception and Awareness
- PDCPaper: Modeling How People Extract Color Themes from Images
We present a method for extracting color themes from images, using a regression model trained on themes people extract. Model-extracted themes match the source image more closely than previous approaches.Color choice plays an important role in works of graphic art and design. However, it can be difficult to choose a compelling set of colors, or emph{color theme}, from scratch. In this work, we present a method for extracting color themes from images using a regression model trained on themes created by people. We collect 1600 themes from Mechanical Turk as well as from artists. We find that themes extracted by Turk participants were similar to ones extracted by artists. In addition, people tended to select diverse colors and focus on colors in salient image regions. We show that our model can match human-extracted themes more closely compared to previous work. Themes extracted by our model were also rated higher as representing the image than previous approaches in a Mechanical Turk study.
- PNUPaper: Reducing Disruption from Subtle Information Delivery during a Conversation: Mode and Bandwidth Investigation
We study how much information and via what mode people can receive and process information in the background while not disrupting a face-to-face conversation they are engaged in. With proliferation of mobile devices that provide ubiqui-tous access to information, the question arises of how dis-tracting processing information in social settings can be, especially during face-to-face conversations. However, relevant information presented at opportune moments may help enhance conversation quality. In this paper, we study how much information users can consume during a conversation and what information delivery mode, via audio or visual aids, helps them effectively conceal the fact that they are receiving information. We observe that users can internalize more information while still disguising this fact the best when information is delivered visually in batches (multiple pieces of information at a time) and perform better on both dimensions if information is delivered while they are not speaking. Interestingly, participants qualitatively did not prefer this mode as being the easiest to use, preferring modes that displayed one piece of information at a time.
- PMUPaper: Adaptive Automation and Cue Invocation: The Effect of Cue Timing on Operator Error
Hybrid adaptive automation, which uses critical-events and eye-movements, was compared with critical-event invocation. Both systems reduced errors, but cue timing affected the types of errors made in a supervisory-control task.Adaptive automation (AA) can improve performance while addressing the problems associated with a fully automated system. The best way to invoke AA is unclear, but two ways include critical events and the operator’s state. A hybrid model of AA invocation, the dynamic model of operator overload (DMOO), that takes into account critical events and the operator’s state was recently shown to improve performance. The DMOO initiates AA using critical events and attention allocation, informed by eye movements. We compared the DMOO with an inaccurate automation invocation system and a system that invoked AA based only on critical events. Fewer errors were made with DMOO than with the inaccurate system. In the critical event condition, where automation was invoked at an earlier point in time, there were more memory and planning errors, while for the DMOO condition, which invocated automation at a later point in time, there were more perceptual errors. These findings provide a framework for reducing specific types of errors through different automation invocation.
- NRBNote: Distraction Beyond the Driver: Predicting the Effects of In-Vehicle Interaction on Surrounding Traffic
Describes a method for simulating the effects of driver distraction across multiple vehicles. Allows users to rapidly prototype and evaluate in-vehicle interfaces based on their potential for distraction. Recent studies of driver distraction have reported a number of detrimental effects of in-vehicle interaction on driver performance. This paper examines and predicts the potential effects of such interaction on other vehicles around the driver’s vehicle. Specifically, the paper describes how computational cognitive models can be used to predict the complex interactions among several vehicles driving in a line when one or more of the vehicles’ drivers are performing a secondary task (phone dialing). The results of simulating two distinct car-following scenarios illustrate that in-vehicle interaction by one driver can have significant downstream effects on other drivers, especially with respect to speed deviations relative to a lead vehicle. This work generalizes recent work developing computational evaluation tools for user interfaces in complex domains, and further serves as an example of how user interaction in some domains can have broader effects on the community at large.
- NDNNote: I Feel For My Avatar: Embodied Perception in VEs
Experimental evidence of the embodied perception in the virtual environments (VEs). Users felt burdened, when their customized avatars were burdened in the virtual environments.Visual perception is dependent upon one’s physical state. The apparent inclination of a hill is overestimated when the observer is carrying a heavy backpack. But, what if the hill is a virtual one and the user is about to navigate the virtual environment through an avatar? In a 2 (user with a backpack vs. user without the backpack) × 2 (avatar with a virtual backpack vs. avatar without a virtual backpack) × 2 (customized avatar vs. assigned avatar) between-subjects experiment (N = 121), participants estimated the hill as being steeper when using a customized avatar rather than an assigned one. When the avatar is encumbered by a heavy virtual backpack, those with a customized avatar perceived the virtual hill as being more difficult to climb. Avatar customization and the physical resources of the avatar (operationalized here in the form of a ‘virtual’ backpack) were found to be key predictors of embodied perception in virtual environments (VE). This has implications for the design of games and interventions that make use of VEs.
242BPapers: Spatial Interfaces
- PKXPaper: Testing the Robustness and Performance of Spatially Consistent Interfaces
Examines how view transformations such as scaling and rotation influence item selection time. Demonstrates that scaling, which maintains spatial consistency, allows faster performance than the commonly used ‘reflow’ layout scheme.Relative spatial consistency – that is, the stable arrangement of objects in a 2D presentation – provides several benefits for interactive interfaces. Spatial consistency allows users to develop memory of object locations, reducing the time needed for visual search, and because spatial memory is long lasting and has a large capacity these performance benefits are enduring and scalable. This suggests that spatial consistency could be used as a fundamental principle for the design of interfaces. However, there are many display situations where the standard presentation is altered in some way: e.g., a window is moved to a new location, scaled, or rotated on a mobile or tabletop display. It is not known whether the benefits of spatial organization are robust to these common kinds of view transformation. To assess these effects, we tested user performance with a spatial interface that had been transformed in several ways, including different degrees of translation, rotation, scaling, and perspective change. We found that performance was not strongly affected by the changes, except in the case of large rotations. To demonstrate the value of spatial consistency over existing mechanisms for dealing with view changes, we compared user performance with a spatially-stable presentation (using scaling) with that of a ‘reflowing’ presentation (widely used in current interfaces). This study showed that spatial stability with scaling dramatically outperforms reflowing. This research provides new evidence of spatial consistency’s value in interface design: it is robust to the view transformations that occur in typical environments, and it provides substantial performance advantages over traditional methods.
- PGJPaper: Canyon: Providing Location Awareness of Multiple Moving Objects in a Detail View on Large Displays
A novel interaction technique, Canyon, was implemented and evaluated addressing the problem of data exiting a person’s field of view on large displays. Results indicate higher accuracy and comparable speed.Overview+Detail interfaces can be used to examine the details of complex data while retaining the data’s overall context. Dynamic data introduce challenges for these interfaces, however, as moving objects may exit the detail view, as well as a person’s field of view if they are working at a large interactive surface. To address this “off-view” problem, we propose a new information visualization technique, called Canyon. This technique attaches a small view of an off-view object, including some surrounding context, to the external boundary of the detail view. The area between the detail view and the region containing the off-view object is virtually “folded” to conserve space. A comparison study was conducted contrasting the benefits and limitations of Canyon to an established technique, called Wedge. Canyon was more accurate across a number of tasks, especially more complex tasks, and was comparably efficient.
- PMDPaper: Designing Graphical Menus for Novices and Experts: Connecting Design Characteristics with Design Goals
This paper contributes a design space for graphical menus. It connects a set of design goals with a set of design characteristics. The design space helps create better menus.This paper presents a design space for graphical menus. We model the design space as a set of design goals, a set of design characteristics, and connections between the two. The design goals are based on novice and expert behaviors. The connections link the choices for design characteristics with the positive or negative effects that these choices have on the design goals. The paper further synthesizes the design space into a succinct form of structured design recommendations. A case study demonstrates how these recommendations can be used to assess and compare the strengths and weaknesses of two menu designs.
- NHHNote: Binocular Cursor: Enabling Selection on Transparent Displays Troubled by Binocular Parallax
Transparent displays are about to be commercialized, yet it is troubled by binocular parallax. We propose a measure to quantify the usability degradation caused by binocular parallax, and an interaction strategy.Binocular parallax is a problem for any interaction system that has a transparent display and objects behind it, as users will see duplicated and overlapped images. In this note, we propose a quantitative measure called Binocular Selectability Discriminant (BSD) to predict the ability of the user to perform selection task in such a setup. In addition, we propose a technique called Binocular Cursor (BC) which takes advantage of this duplicating and overlapping phenomenon, rather than being hampered by it, to resolve binocular selection ambiguity by visualizing the correct selection point. An experiment shows that selection with BC is not slower than monocular selection, and that it can be significantly more precise, depending on the design of BC.
- NTCNote: Studying Spatial Memory and Map Navigation Performance on Projector Phones with Peephole Interaction
Uses a map navigation task and compares users’ navigation performance with touch screen interaction to peephole interaction, users’ location recall performance, and observers’ location recall performance.Smartphones are useful personal assistants and omnipresent communication devices. However, collaboration is not among their strengths. With the advent of embedded projectors this might change. We conducted a study with 56 participants to find out if map navigation and spatial memory performance among users and observers can be improved by using a projector phone with a peephole interface instead of a smartphone with its touchscreen interface. Our results show that users performed map navigation equally well on both interfaces. Spatial memory performance, however, was 41% better for projector phone users. Moreover, observers of the map navigation on the projector phone were 25% more accurate when asked to recall locations of points of interest after they watched a user performing map navigation.
243Course C22, unit 1/2
- CBUC22: Designing What to Design: A Task-Focused Conceptual Model
Participants will learn: • the benefits of designing a conceptual model (CM) before designing a UI. • the components of a CM, • how to design a CM for an application.An important early step in designing a user interface for a software application is to design a coherent, task-focused conceptual model. Unfortunately, this step is often skipped in software development. Many designers jump right into sketching and prototyping the UI before they understand the application at a conceptual level. The result is incoherent, overly-complex applications that expose concepts that are irrelevant to users’ tasks. This course covers: • What conceptual models are, and how they can improve the UI design process, • Perils and pitfalls of not designing a conceptual model, • Object/actions analysis (part of designing a conceptual model), • An example conceptual model for a specific application, • Benefits of conceptual analysis: object taxonomy, lexicon, task scenarios, object-model, • A hands-on exercise in performing Object/Actions analysis for a simple application.
251Papers: Autism
- PKVPaper: Why Do They Still Use Paper? Understanding Data Collection and Use in Autism Education
We conducted fieldwork to understand data collection and use in the domain of autism education to explain why current technology had not met staff needs.Autism education programs for children collect and use large amounts of behavioral data on each student. Staff use paper almost exclusively to collect these data, despite significant problems they face in tracking student data in situ, filling out data sheets and graphs on a daily basis, and using the sheets in collaborative decision making. We conducted fieldwork to understand data collection and use in the domain of autism education to explain why current technology had not met staff needs. We found that data needs are complex and unstandardized, immediate demands of the job interfere with staff ability to collect in situ data, and existing technology for data collection is inadequate. We also identified opportunities for technology to improve sharing and use of data. We found that data sheets are idiosyncratic and not useful without human mediation; improved communication with parents could benefit children’s development; and staff are willing, and even eager, to incorporate technology. These factors explain the continued dependence on paper for data collection in this environment, and reveal opportunities for technology to support data collection and improve use of collected data.
- PSZPaper: TOBY: Early Intervention in Autism through Technology
We describe an innovative iPad application for early intervention in autism named TOBY (Therapy Outcome By You). Field trials results are also presented to validate the framework.We describe TOBY Playpad, an early intervention program for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). TOBY teaches the teacher — the parent — during the crucial period following diagnosis, which often coincides with no access to formal therapy. We reflect on TOBY’s evolution from table-top aid for flashcards to an iPad app covering a syllabus of 326 activities across 51 skills known to be deficient for ASD children, such imitation, joint attention and language. The design challenges unique to TOBY are the need to adapt to marked differences in each child’s skills and rate of development (a trait of ASD) and teach parents unfamiliar concepts core to behavioural therapy, such as reinforcement, prompting, and fading. We report on three trials that successively decrease oversight and increase parental autonomy, and demonstrate clear evidence of learning. TOBY’s uniquely intertwined Natural Environment Tasks are found to be effective for children and popular with parents.
- PSHPaper: Evaluation of Tablet Apps to Encourage Social Interaction in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Comparison of app-based and paper-based activities by children with autism spectrum disorders. Using the apps was associated with increased verbal communication, physical interaction, and supportive comments.The increasing rates of diagnosis for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) have brought unprecedented attention to these conditions. Interventions during childhood can increase the likelihood of independent living later in life, but most adults with ASDs who benefited from early intervention do not live independently. There is a need for novel therapies and interventions that can help children with ASDs develop the social skills necessary to live independently. Since the launch of the iPad, there has been a great deal of excitement in the autism community about multitouch tablets and their possible use in interventions. There are hundreds of apps listed as possibly helping children with ASDs, yet there is little empirical evidence that any of them have positive effects. In this paper we present a study on the use of a set of apps from Open Autism Software at an afterschool program for children with ASDs. The apps are designed to naturally encourage positive social interactions through creative, expressive, and collaborative activities. The study compared activities conducted with the apps to similar activities conducted without the apps. We video recorded the activities, and coded children’s behavior. We found that during the study children spoke more sentences, had more verbal interactions, and were more physically engaged with the activities when using the apps. We also found that children made more supportive comments during activities conducted with two of the apps. The results suggest the approach to using apps evaluated in this paper can increase positive social interactions in children with ASDs.
- PGLPaper: Investigating the Use of Circles in Social Networks to Support Independence of Individuals with Autism
Explores using communication circle on a social network site for young adults with autism. Provides implications for social intervention and technical design to support independence of the special needs population.Building social support networks is crucial both for less-independent individuals with autism and for their primary caregivers. In this paper, we describe a four-week exploratory study of a social network service (SNS) that allows young adults with autism to garner support from their family and friends. We explore the unique benefits and challenges of using SNSs to mediate requests for help or advice. In particular, we examine the extent to which specialized features of an SNS can engage users in communicating with their network members to get advice in varied situations. Our findings indicate that technology-supported communication particularly strengthened the relationship between the individual and extended network members, mitigating concerns about over-reliance on primary caregivers. Our work identifies implications for the design of social networking services tailored to meet the needs of this special needs population.
252ACourse C24, unit 1/2
- CQNC24: Storyboarding for Designers and Design Researchers
Storyboards allow expressing the context of interactions by showing users, experiences, situation, motivations, etc. In the course we practice a hands-on technique photoboarding, for creating photoboards in a team. Storyboards are becoming popular techniques for visualising human-product interaction. Not only in design education, but also in design practice. They can help the design team focus on the user’s actions, understanding, and experience instead of the appliance’s physical form; they can be used to highlight the context, e.g., place, situation, social setting, in which the appliance is used. Their appearance can range from very sketchy to very detailed, depending on whether they are used to explore new ideas, report existing situations, or present design concepts for criticism and discussion. In this workshop we will use examples of storyboards from product design, movies, and comics to demonstrate the possibilities of their visual language. In the hands-on exercises, we develop a storyboard from scratch using the photoboarding technique. We explore the relation between storyboards and other design techniques (role-playing, sketching, quick-and-dirty modelling, scenarios of use, video scenarios). Special attention will be given to the visualisation of suggestive situations, social interactions, emotions, causal relations, and how to set up a story line by integrating situations. The material that will be covered • The Linguistics of storyboards: syntax, semantics, and pragmatics • The origins of storyboards • Storyboards in related disciplines • Storyboards and related design tools (personas, video, infographics) • Uses of storyboards (conceptualization, concept testing) • Case examples showing how storyboards are used in practice • Tools and techniques to help create storyboards
252BAlt.chi: Spirit and Mind
- APJEmbodying Neuroplastic Change
Embodied engagement is gaining leverage in HCI. This paper poses the question whether enriched embodied engagement might stimulate neuroplastic change, relevant to broad cultural, design thinking and health contexts.Groundbreaking neuroplasticity research demonstrates how interactive technologies can be used to leverage and increase our brain’s capacity to learn. Importantly, unless specific physical pathologies are being addressed, this research remains screen-based, overlooking the rich multi-modal capacities of the human body. Embodied interaction affords multi-sensory experiences and heightened engagement. It allows for a broad palette of activities, as well as powerful leverage of the indelible intertwining of body and brain. This paper argues that embodied interaction, in particular poetic-kinaesthetic engagement in artistic activities, may powerfully compliment existing techniques for stimulating neuroplastic change.
- ACNPIXEE: Pictures, Interaction and Emotional Expression
This paper demonstrates new means of promoting emotional connectedness in social media. It also provides new research methods. An interactive system, PIXEE, was developed to promote greater emotional expression in image-based social media. Images shared on social media were projected onto a large interactive display at public events. A multimodal interface displayed the sentiment analysis of images and invited viewers to express their emotional responses. Viewers could adjust the emotional classification and thereby change the color and sound associated with a picture, and experiment with emotion-based composition. An interdisciplinary team deployed this system around the world to explore new ways for technology to catalyze emotional connectedness. This paper describes the system, design iterations, and observations about how people used it for self-expression and connection.
- ALEBeyond the Basic Emotions: What Should Affective Computing Compute?
We show that non-basic emotions (engagement, boredom, confusion, and frustration) occurred at five times the rate of basic emotions after generalizing across tasks, interfaces, and methodologies (in 5 studies). One of the primary goals of Affective Computing (AC) is to develop computer interfaces that automatically detect and respond to users’ emotions. Despite significant progress, “basic emotions” (e.g., anger, disgust, sadness) have been emphasized in AC at the expense of other non-basic emotions. The present paper questions this emphasis by analyzing data from five studies that systematically tracked both basic and non-basic emotions. The results indicate that engagement, boredom, confusion, and frustration (all non-basic emotions) occurred at five times the rate of basic emotions after generalizing across tasks, interfaces, and methodologies. Implications of these findings for AC are discussed
- ARXNeurodiversity & HCI
Neurodiversity is a self advocacy rights movement challenging our notion of the single cognitive model for users. How to we evolve HCI if we try to design for the gifted? The objective of this paper is to introduce neurodiversity movement. Like Feminist HCI[5] neurodiversity critiques the implicit notion of ‘user’ in the singular. Neurodiversity suggests that current approaches carry with them certain assumptions about the cognitive processing abilities of users which need to be challenged. This paper is concerned with the design and evaluation of interactive systems that are imbued with an awareness of the central commitments of neurodiversity. The paper seeks to identify and promote neurodiversity under the banner of neurodiversity HCI. This paper introduces neurodiversity and then critically evaluates aspects of HCI from the neurodiversity perspective.
- AQQMediated Meditation: Cultivating Mindfulness with Sonic Cradle
Qualitative investigation of “Sonic Cradle” – an artifact involving suspension, visual deprivation, and musical biofeedback – shows how persuasive media could promote mental health by introducing non-practitioners to mindfulness meditation.Sonic Cradle enables users to shape sound with their breath while suspended in a completely dark chamber. We conducted a qualitative investigation to understand 39 naïve participants’ subjective responses to this design artifact. Systematic analysis with 3 independent data coders produced 11 findings which richly describe the Sonic Cradle experience as clearly comparable to mindfulness meditation (e.g. clarity of mind, loss of intention). This paper shows how persuasive media have the potential to promote long-term psychological health by experientially introducing a stress-relieving, contemplative practice to non-practitioners.
- ADESpirituality: There’s an App for That! (But Not a Lot of Research)
Reviews HCI literature on techno-spirituality and provides preliminary analysis of relevant iPhone/iPad apps. Identifies gaps in research and explores some of the difficulties and challenges of researching techno-spirituality.The iTunes App Store contains over six thousand apps related to spirituality and religion. The ACM digital library, however, contains only 98 works that address this topic from an HCI perspective. Despite high-profile calls for research in the area, the HCI community has produced only 19 research papers focused on the topic, almost half of which are the work of one person and her colleagues. In this paper we provide an overview of the relevant HCI research in this area, a partial inventory of spiritually oriented apps in the iTunes US App Store, and a comparison of research and real-world developments. We discuss the gaps in the HCI literature on techno-spiritual practices and speculate about some of the difficulties and challenges that face the HCI community in conducting research in this area.
253Course C23, unit 1/2
- CLXC23: HTML5 Game Development
This course will enable you to design and build basic games for HTML5/web deployment, and to proceed to next stages in game-like interface and game development.A computer game is a microcosm of the user experience domain. UX and game design share some common aims, praxis, and theory. Although there are differences in perspective between UX designers and game designers, these are not as great as most believe, and it is certain that game designers have knowledge and skills that would be a benefit to UX designers, and vice versa. This course is intended for those interested in exploring games, either for themselves or as a workbench for exploring new ideas in UX. It features a practical approach, moving from initial design to a ‘first playable’ implementation. HTML5 is used so as to permit rapid dissemination using the web, and high level tools (EG Processing.js) will speed up the implementation. The course will be lecture based, but there will be a practical example built during the class, and the audience can play along on their laptops if they choose. Attendees should have experience using Java or C++ and should possess basic design skills.
BordeauxPapers: Information Visualization
- PGSPaper: Interactive Horizon Graphs: Improving the Compact Visualization of Multiple Time Series
Interactive Horizon Graphs—Horizon Graphs with pan and zoom interactions— significantly increase the number of time series that can be analyzed in parallel for common comparison tasks.Many approaches have been proposed for the visualization of multiple time series. Two prominent approaches are reduced line charts (RLC), which display small multiples for time series, and the more recent horizon graphs (HG). We propose to unify RLC and HG using a new technique—interactive horizon graphs (IHG)—which uses pan and zoom interaction to increase the number of time series that can be analysed in parallel. In a user study we compared RLC, HG, and IHG across several tasks and numbers of time series, focusing on datasets with both large scale and small scale variations. Our results show that IHG outperform the other two techniques in complex comparison and matching tasks where the number of charts is large. In the hardest task PHG have a significantly higher number of good answers (correctness) than HG (+14%) and RLC (+51%) and a lower error magnitude than HG (-64%) and RLC (-86%).
- PDBPaper: Patina: Dynamic Heatmaps for Visualizing Application Usage
Patina is an application independent system which uses accessibility APIs to collect and visualize software application usage data. The primary visualization is a dynamic heatmap overlaid on the application.We present Patina, an application independent system for collecting and visualizing software application usage data. Patina requires no instrumentation of the target application, all data is collected through standard window metrics and accessibility APIs. The primary visualization is a dynamic heatmap overlay which adapts to match the content, location, and shape of the user interface controls visible in the active application. We discuss a set of design guidelines for the Patina system, describe our implementation of the system, and report on an initial evaluation based on a short-term deployment of the system.
- PSEPaper: Evaluation of Alternative Glyph Designs for Time Series Data in a Small Multiple Setting
1. Evaluation of alternative glyph designs for time series data. 2. Design considerations and guidelines for creating glyphs for time series data. We present the results of a controlled experiment to investigate the performance of different temporal glyph designs in a small multiple setting. Analyzing many time series at once is a common yet difficult task in many domains, for example in network monitoring. Several visualization techniques have, thus, been proposed in the literature. Among these, iconic displays or glyphs are an appropriate choice because of their expressiveness and effective use of screen space. Through a controlled experiment, we compare the performance of four glyphs that use different combinations of visual variables to encode two properties of temporal data: a) the position of a data point in time and b) the quantitative value of this data point. Our results show that depending on tasks and data density, the chosen glyphs performed differently. Line Glyphs are generally a good choice for peak and trend detection tasks but radial encodings are more effective for reading values at specific temporal locations. From our qualitative analysis we also contribute implications for designing temporal glyphs for small multiple settings.
- PQYPaper: Motif Simplification: Improving Network Visualization Readability with Fan, Connector, and Clique Glyphs
It is difficult to visualize large networks. Motif simplification reduces network complexity by replacing common, repeating patterns with representative glyphs. Our controlled study shows this is helpful for many tasks.Analyzing networks involves understanding the complex relationships between entities, as well as any attributes they may have. The widely used node-link diagrams excel at this task, but many are difficult to extract meaning from because of the inherent complexity of the relationships and limited screen space. To help address this problem we introduce a technique called motif simplification, in which common patterns of nodes and links are replaced with compact and meaningful glyphs. Well-designed glyphs have several benefits: they (1) require less screen space and layout effort, (2) are easier to understand in the context of the network, (3) can reveal otherwise hidden relationships, and (4) preserve as much underlying information as possible. We tackle three frequently occurring and high-payoff motifs: fans of nodes with a single neighbor, connectors that link a set of anchor nodes, and cliques of completely connected nodes. We contribute design guidelines for motif glyphs; example glyphs for the fan, connector, and clique motifs; algorithms for detecting these motifs; a free and open source reference implementation; and results from a controlled study of 36 participants that demonstrates the effectiveness of motif simplification.
361Course C25, unit 1/2
- CDQC25: Designing Search Usability
This course weaves together the theories of information seeking with the practice of user interface design to deliver a practical guide to making search better. Search is not just a box and ten blue links. Search is a journey: an exploration where what we encounter along the way changes what we seek. But in order to guide people along this journey, we must understand both the art and science of search usability. This course will provide an introduction to the basic principles of search usability with a focus on holistic solutions that integrate information seeking theory with the user interface design practice. Participants will: • Explore the fundamental concepts of human-centred design for information search and discovery • Learn how to differentiate between various types of search behaviour: known-item, exploratory, lookup, learning, investigation, etc. • Understand the dimensions of search user experience and how to apply them to different contexts • Explore design patterns and other key resources and their role in solving practical design problems The course will include both presentations and group work to enable delegates to analyse, evaluate and improve the effectiveness of search applications within their own organisation.
362/363Special Interest Group
- GKUScience vs. Science: the Complexities of Interdisciplinary Research
Human-Computer Interaction and Web Science are radically interdisciplinary fields, but what does this mean in practical terms? Undertaking research (and writing papers) that encompass multiple disciplinary perspectives and methods is a serious challenge and it is difficult to maintain conferences that fairly review and host contributions from multiple disciplines. The colocation of the ACM WebSci conference with CHI in Paris, offers an unusual opportunity to bring these two communities together. Previous discussions have considered how to conduct interdisciplinary work that bridges HCI/WebSci with specific areas. Our objective is to provide a space for interested researchers from both communities to share their views and approaches to tackling the tensions and complexities associated with interdisciplinary work, whatever fields are being bridged.
HavanePapers: Social Media Practices
- PJJPaper: Limiting, Leaving, and (re)Lapsing: An Exploration of Facebook Non-Use Practices and Experiences
This paper reports on a survey about non-use of Facebook. Results show the prevalence of non-use, the variety of types of non-use, and motivations and justifications given for non-use.Despite the abundance of research on social networking sites, relatively little research has studied those who choose not to use such sites. This paper presents results from a questionnaire of over 400 Internet users, focusing specifically on Facebook and those users who have left the service. Results show the lack of a clear, binary distinction between use and non-use, that various practices enable diverse ways and degrees of engagement with and disengagement from Facebook. Furthermore, qualitative analysis reveals numerous complex and interrelated motivations and justifications, both for leaving and for maintaining some type of connection. These motivations include: privacy, data misuse, productivity, banality, addiction, and external pressures. These results not only contribute to our understanding of online sociality by examining this under-explored area, but they also build on previous work to help advance how we conceptually account for the sociological processes of non-use.
- PENPaper: Predicting Postpartum Changes in Emotion and Behavior via Social Media
We consider social media as a tool for behavioral health. We focus on how Twitter posts maybe used to build predictive models about the behavior of new mothers following childbirth.We consider social media as a promising tool for public health, focusing on the use of Twitter posts to build predictive models about the forthcoming influence of childbirth on the behavior and mood of new mothers. Using Twitter posts, we quantify postpartum changes in 376 mothers along dimensions of social engagement, emotion, social network, and linguistic style. We then construct statistical models from a training set of observations of these measures before and after the reported childbirth, to forecast significant postpartum changes in mothers. The predictive models can classify mothers who will change significantly following childbirth with an accuracy of 71%, using observations about their prenatal behavior, and as accurately as 80-83% when additionally leveraging the initial 2-3 weeks of postnatal data. The study is motivated by the opportunity to use social media to identify mothers at risk of postpartum depression, an underreported health concern among large populations, and to inform the design of low-cost, privacy-sensitive early-warning systems and intervention programs aimed at promoting wellness postpartum.
- PHEPaper: “I read my Twitter the next morning and was astonished” A Conversational Perspective on Twitter Regrets
Presents the results of a large-scale online survey that compares regretted tweets and regrets from in-person conversations. Examines the context, timing, means of awareness, and repair strategies for the regrettable messages.We present the results of an online survey of 1,221 Twitter users, comparing messages individuals regretted either saying during in-person conversations or posting on Twitter. Participants generally reported similar types of regrets in person and on Twitter. In particular, they often regretted messages that were critical of others. However, regretted messages that were cathartic/expressive or revealed too much information were reported at a higher rate for Twitter. Regretted messages on Twitter also reached broader audiences. In addition, we found that participants who posted on Twitter became aware of, and tried to repair, regret more slowly than those reporting in-person regrets. From this comparison of Twitter and in-person regrets, we provide preliminary ideas for tools to help Twitter users avoid and cope with regret.
- PHPPaper: Understanding Motivations for Facebook Use: Usage Metrics, Network Structure, and Privacy
A study on motivations for Facebook use that couples social science methods with information captured by the Facebook API in the form of detailed usage data and personal network metrics.This study explores the links between motives for using a social network service and numerical measures of that activity. Specifically, it identified motives for Facebook use by employing a Uses and Gratifications (U&G) approach and then investigated the extent to which these motives can be predicted through usage and network metrics collected automatically via the Facebook API. In total, 11 Facebook usage metrics and eight personal network metrics served as predictors. Results showed that all three variable types in this expanded U&G frame of analysis (covering social antecedents, usage metrics, and personal network metrics) effectively predicted motives and highlighted interesting behaviors. To further illustrate the power of this framework, the intricate nature of privacy in social media was explored and relationships drawn between privacy attitudes (and acts) and measures of use and network structure.
221/221MLast-minute SIGs: Session 12
Thursday – 14:00-15:20
BluePapers: Different Perspectives
- PHQPaper: What is “Critical” About Critical Design?
We provide a critique of Critical Design and propose a broader, more practical reframing, based on humanistic scholarship on critical theory and criticism.Critical design is a research through design methodology that foregrounds the ethics of design practice, reveals potentially hidden agendas and values, and explores alternative design values. While it seems to be a timely fit for today’s socially, aesthetically, and ethically oriented approaches to HCI, its adoption seems surprisingly limited. We argue that its central concepts and methods are unclear and difficult to adopt. Rather than merely attempting to decode the intentions of its originators, Dunne and Raby, we instead turn to traditions of critical thought in the past 150 years to explore a range of critical ideas and their practical uses. We then suggest ways that these ideas and uses can be leveraged as practical resources for HCI researchers interested in critical design. We also offer readings of two designs, which are not billed as critical designs, but which we argue are critical using a broader formulation of the concept than the one found in the current literature.
- PGXPaper: Mind the Theoretical Gap: Interpreting, Using, and Developing Behavioral Theory in HCI Research
Are you trying to use behavioral theory in your work? Our paper will help by providing a context and organizing framework for interpreting, using, and developing behavioral theory. Researchers in HCI and behavioral science are increasingly exploring the use of technology to support behavior change in domains such as health and sustainability. This work, however, remain largely siloed within the two communities. We begin to address this silo problem by attempting to build a bridge between the two disciplines at the level of behavioral theory. Specifically, we define core theoretical terms to create shared understanding about what theory is, discuss ways in which behavioral theory can be used to inform research on behavior change technologies, identify shortcomings in current behavioral theories, and outline ways in which HCI researchers can not only interpret and utilize behavioral science theories but also contribute to improving them.
- PMJPaper: Beyond Digital and Physical Objects: The Intellectual Work as a Concept of Interest for HCI
Demonstrates how the concept of the work can extend research on the perceived value of digital objects. Shows how a flexible definition of the work can reveal new aspects of a design situation. To understand activities of personal collecting and preservation, HCI researchers have investigated why people become attached to particular objects. These studies have examined ways that people relate to physical and digital objects, observing, for example, that people tend to cherish physical objects more than digital ones. This paper proposes that the value of digital objects may inhere less in an object’s identity as a particular item and more in the object’s ability to provide access to an intellectual work. The work, a familiar concept in information studies and textual studies, designates a general product of intellectual creation that may be instantiated in many versions. (For example, Shakespeare’s Hamlet exists in many editions and forms, which may differ in both content and carrier and yet still are all Hamlet.) The paper demonstrates how the concept of the work can extend research on the perceived value of digital objects. It also shows how a flexible definition of the work can reveal new aspects of a design situation.
- NRXNote: Critical Perspective on Persuasive Technology Reconsidered
This paper reflects on the critical perspective on persuasive technology and offers an alternative perspective. It contributes to the HCI field by calling attention to alternative reflective concepts and emerging relevant works. Critical researchers in HCI have recently faulted Persuasive Technology (PT) for taking a modernist approach and suggested ways for redirecting research. This paper reflects on this critical perspective and compares it with Habermas’s critical perspective. I claim that the recent critiques of PT are grounded on a narrow and pessimistic concept of modernism, and that Habermas’s works, rarely taken into account in the HCI community, can serve as an alternative lens for reflective analysis and design and can provide a foundation for justifying design decisions while realizing the unfulfilled potentials of PT. Beyond offering critical analysis and reflections, this paper contributes to the HCI field by calling attention to alternative reflective concepts and emerging relevant works.
- NFMNote: How Categories Come to Matter
We present and discuss interviews with Siri users as a means to understand the role categories play in the design of user studies and of technologies. In a study of users’ interactions with Siri, the iPhone personal assistant application, we noticed the emergence of overlaps and blurrings between explanatory categories such as “human” and “machine.” We found that users work to purify these categories, thus resolving the tensions related to the overlaps. This “purification work” demonstrates how such categories are always in flux and are redrawn even as they are kept separate. Drawing on STS analytic techniques, we demonstrate the mechanisms of such “purification work.” We also describe how such category work remained invisible to us during initial data analysis, due to our own forms of latent purification, and outline the particular analytic techniques that helped lead to this discovery. We thus provide an illustrative case of how categories come to matter in HCI research and design.
241Panel
- LUMThe Future of HCI Publishing in Journals and Books
With the ongoing growth of digital media, academic presses and journals have had to answer some hard questions about the role of publishing in a world of blogs, social media, on-demand video and social networking. In this panel we bring together some of the top editors and publishers in HCI to explore and address these questions in a public forum.
242APapers: Multi-Device Interaction
- TEXTOCHI: Designing a Multi-Slate Reading Environment to Support Active Reading Activities
Researchers have identified numerous requirements for systems aiming to support active reading. We survey these requirements and present interactions for a multi-slate reading environment that address them in a comprehensive manner.Despite predictions of the paperless office, most knowledge workers and students still rely heavily on paper in most of their document practices. Research has shown that paper’s dominance can be attributed to the fact that it supports a broad range of these users’ diverse reading requirements. Our analysis of the literature suggests that a new class of reading device consisting of an interconnected environment of thin and lightweight electronic slates could potentially unify the distinct advantages of e-books, PCs, and tabletop computers to offer an electronic reading solution providing functionality comparable to, or even exceeding, that of paper. This article presents the design and construction of such a system. In it, we explain how data can be mapped to slates, detail interactions for linking the slates, and describe tools that leverage the connectivity between slates. A preliminary study of the system indicates that such a system has the potential of being an electronic alternative to paper.
- PBBPaper: Personal Clipboards for Individual Copy-and-Paste on Shared Multi-User Surfaces
Introduces personal clipboards for individual copy-and-paste to multi-user surfaces by implementing three clipboard systems. Provides better understanding of user-identification strategies and can guide the design of personalized surface applications.Clipboards are omnipresent on today’s personal computing platforms. They provide copy-and-paste functionalities that let users easily reorganize information and quickly transfer data across applications. In this work, we introduce personal clipboards to multi-user surfaces. Personal clipboards enable individual and independent copy-and-paste operations, in the presence of multiple users concurrently sharing the same direct-touch interface. As common surface computing platforms do not distinguish touch input of different users, we have developed clipboards that leverage complementary personalization strategies. Specifically, we have built a context menu clipboard based on implicit user identification of every touch, a clipboard based on personal subareas dynamically placed on the surface, and a handheld clipboard based on integration of personal devices for surface interaction. In a user study, we demonstrate the effectiveness of personal clipboards for shared surfaces, and show that different personalization strategies enable clipboards, albeit with different impacts on interaction characteristics.
- PANPaper: Collaborative Sensemaking on a Digital Tabletop and Personal Tablets: Prioritization, Comparisons, and Tableaux
We describe an investigation of the support that three different display configurations provided for a collaborative sensemaking task: a digital table; personal tablets; and both the tabletop and personal tablets.We describe an investigation of the support that three different display configurations provided for a collaborative sensemaking task: a digital table; personal tablets; and both the tabletop and personal tablets. Mixed-methods analyses revealed that the presence of a digital tabletop display led to improved sensemaking performance, and identified activities that were supported by the shared workspace. The digital tabletop supported a group’s ability to prioritize information, to make comparisons between task data, and to form and critique the group’s working hypothesis. Analyses of group performance revealed a positive correlation with equity of member participation using the shared digital table, and a negative correlation of equity of member participation using personal tablets. Implications for the support of sensemaking groups, and the use of equity of member participation as a predictive measure of their performance are discussed.
- PPFPaper: A Comparative Evaluation of Touch-Based Methods to Bind Mobile Devices for Collaborative Interactions
Reports a comparative evaluation of three different methods that allow collocated users to bind their mobile devices together. Crucial for enabling collaborative experiences such as sharing photos or playing games.We present a comparative evaluation of two touch-based group-binding methods, a leader-driven method and a peer-based method, against a more conventional group-binding method based on scanning and passwords. The results indicate that the participants strongly preferred the touch-based methods in both pragmatic and hedonic qualities as well as in the overall attractiveness. While the leader-driven method allowed better control over the group and required only one participant to be able to form a group, the peer-based method helped to create a greater sense of community and scaled better for larger group sizes and distances. As the optimal group-binding method depends on the social situation and physical environment, the binding methods should be flexible, allowing the users to adapt them to different contexts of use. For determining the order of the devices, manual arrangement was preferred over defining the order by touching.
242BPapers: On the Move
- PJHPaper: The Design Space of Body Games: Technological, Physical, and Social Design.
Movement-based games are in the limelight today. We argue that for these games, the physical and social settings become just as important design resources as the technology.The past decade has seen an increased focus on body movement in computer games. We take a step further to look at body games: games in which the main source of enjoyment comes from bodily engagement. We argue that for these games, the physical and social settings become just as important design resources as the technology. Although all body games benefit from an integrated design approach, the social and physical setting become particularly useful as design resources when the technology has limited sensing capabilities. We develop our understanding of body games through a literature study and a concrete design experiment with designing multiplayer games for the BodyBug, a mobile device with limited sensing capabilities. Although the device was designed for free and natural movements, previous games fell short in realizing this design ideal. By designing the technology function together with its physical and social context, we were able to overcome device limitations. One of the games was subsequently incorporated in its commercial release.
- PTTPaper: Seeing Movement Qualities
Presents fieldwork on mechanisms of user perceptions of movement qualities. Lends to implications for further efforts in designing interactive movement-based systems that strive to capitalize on movement qualities.With the increased availability of movement based interactive devices there is a growing interest in exploring the potential design space for engaging movement-based interactions. This has led to the exploration of different ways to sense and model movement such as Laban Movement Analysis’ Effort qualities. However, little is understood in how movement qualities are perceived and experienced by users. We explored this in an interactive improvisational dance performance setting. From video analysis with a Laban Movement expert and post-performance interviews with audience members, we discuss the differences in how a movement quality was perceived. From these findings, we discuss implications for further efforts in designing interactive movement-based systems that strive to capitalize on movement qualities.
- TKUTOCHI: ExoBuilding: Physiologically Driven Adaptive Architecture
The study of ExoBuilding demonstrates how this prototypical building, exposing respiration and heart beat, changes respiratory behaviour of its inhabitants and how it effects their state of relaxation.Our surroundings are becoming infused with sensors measuring a variety of data streams about the environment, people and objects. Such data can be used to make the spaces that we inhabit responsive and interactive. Personal data in its different forms are one important data stream that such spaces are designed to respond to. In turn, one stream of personal data currently attracting high levels of interest in the HCI community is physiological data (e.g., heart rate, electrodermal activity), but this has seen little consideration in building architecture or the design of responsive environments. In this context, we developed a prototype mapping a single occupant’s respiration to its size and form, while it also sonifies their heartbeat. The result is a breathing building prototype, formative trials of which suggested that it triggers behavioral and physiological adaptations in inhabitants without giving them instructions and it is perceived as a relaxing experience. In this paper, we present and discuss the results of a controlled study of this prototype, comparing three conditions: the static prototype, regular movement and sonification and a biofeedback condition, where the occupant’s physiological data directly drives the prototype and presents this data back to them. The study confirmed that the biofeedback condition does indeed trigger behavioral changes and changes in participants’ physiology, resulting in lower respiration rates as well as higher respiration amplitudes, respiration to heart rate coherence and lower frequency heart rate variability. Self-reported state of relaxation is more dependent on inhabitant preferences, their knowledge of physiological data and whether they found space to ‘let go’. We conclude with a discussion of ExoBuilding as an immersive but also sharable biofeedback training interface and the wider potential of this approach to making buildings adapt to their inhabitants.
- NCUNote: CrashAlert: Enhancing Peripheral Alertness for Eyes-Busy Mobile Interaction while Walking
CrashAlert improves safety when walking and texting with smartphones. CrashAlert uses a depth camera to create ambient visualizations of the obstacles ahead of the user. Results show safer walking behaviors without compromising performance.Mobile device use while walking, or eyes-busy mobile in-teraction, is a leading cause of life-threatening pedestrian collisions. We introduce CrashAlert, a system that aug-ments mobile devices with a depth camera, to provide dis-tance and location visual cues of obstacles on the user’s path. In a realistic environment outside the lab, CrashAlert users improve their handling of potential collisions, dodg-ing and slowing down for simple ones while lifting their head in more complex situations. Qualitative results outline the value of extending users’ peripheral alertness in eyes-busy mobile interaction through non-intrusive depth cues, as used in CrashAlert. We present the design features of our system and lessons learned from our evaluation.
- NCKNote: Three Perspectives on Behavior Change for Serious Games
We introduce a model of behavior change and persuasion from Environmental Studies and consider its application for serious games for sustainability alongside two other commonly used models.Research into the effects of serious games often engages with interdisciplinary models of how human behaviors are shaped and changed over time. To better understand these different perspectives we articulate three cognitive models of behavior change and consider the potential of these models to support a deeper understanding of behavior change in serious games. Two of these models – Information Deficit and Procedural Rhetoric – have already been employed in the design of serious games, while the third – Emergent Dialogue – is introduced from the field of Environmental Studies. We situate this discussion within a context of designing games for public engagement with issues of environmental sustainability.
243Course C22, unit 2/2
- CBUC22: Designing What to Design: A Task-Focused Conceptual Model
Participants will learn: • the benefits of designing a conceptual model (CM) before designing a UI. • the components of a CM, • how to design a CM for an application.An important early step in designing a user interface for a software application is to design a coherent, task-focused conceptual model. Unfortunately, this step is often skipped in software development. Many designers jump right into sketching and prototyping the UI before they understand the application at a conceptual level. The result is incoherent, overly-complex applications that expose concepts that are irrelevant to users’ tasks. This course covers: • What conceptual models are, and how they can improve the UI design process, • Perils and pitfalls of not designing a conceptual model, • Object/actions analysis (part of designing a conceptual model), • An example conceptual model for a specific application, • Benefits of conceptual analysis: object taxonomy, lexicon, task scenarios, object-model, • A hands-on exercise in performing Object/Actions analysis for a simple application.
251Papers: Understanding Privacy
- PMKPaper: Privacy as Part of the App Decision-Making Process
We found that presenting privacy information to users more clearly and at the time they were making decisions made them more likely to choose Android applications that requested fewer permissions.Smartphones have unprecedented access to sensitive personal information. While users report having privacy concerns, they may not actively consider privacy while downloading apps from smartphone application marketplaces. Currently, Android users have only the Android permissions display, which appears after they have selected an app to download, to help them understand how applications access their information. We investigate how permissions and privacy could play a more active role in app-selection decisions. We designed a short “Privacy Facts” display, which we tested in a 20-participant lab study and a 366-participant online experiment. We found that by bringing privacy information to the user when they were making the decision and by presenting it in a clearer fashion, we could assist users in choosing applications that request fewer permissions.
- PQGPaper: “Everybody Knows What You’re Doing”: A Critical Design Approach to Personal Informatics
The paper introduces critical design strategies to the area of personal informatics in order to encourage users to reflect on the data that is gathered about their online activity.We present an alternative approach to the design of personal informatics systems: instead of motivating people to examine their own behaviors, this approach promotes awareness of and reflection on the infrastructures behind personal informatics and the modes of engagement that they promote. Specifically, this paper presents an interface that displays personal web browsing data. The interface aims to reveal underlying infrastructure using several methods: drawing attention to the scope of mined data by displaying deliberately selected sensitive data, using purposeful malfunction as a way to encourage reverse engineering, and challenging normative expectations around data mining by displaying information in unconventional ways. Qualitative results from a two-week deployment show that these strategies can raise people’s awareness about data mining, promote efficacy and control over personal data, and inspire reflection on the goals and assumptions embedded in infrastructures for personal data analytics.
- PDRPaper: Shifting Dynamics or Breaking Sacred Traditions? The Role of Technology in Twelve-Step Fellowships
Presents in-depth interviews with member of twelve-step recovery groups to understand the role of technology in these communities. Relates these findings to wider questions of design in social computing.Twelve-step fellowships are the most common long-term maintenance program for recovery from alcoholism and addiction. Informed by six months of participatory observation of twelve-step fellowship meetings and service structure, I conducted in-depth interviews with twelve members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) about the role of technology in recovery. I found that there are a number of tensions in how technology is perceived and adopted. As technology and twelve-step fellowships interact, issues of anonymity, identity, consensus, access, unity, autonomy, and physical presence are foregrounded. I relate these findings to the broader research landscape and provide implications for future design in this space.
- NNYNote: Taking Data Exposure into Account: How Does It Affect the Choice of Sign-in Accounts?
We surveyed 575 people to investigate awareness of data exposure when using federated accounts, and willingness to switch accounts given clearer information on data exposure and benefits provided by each.Online services collect personal data from their users, sometimes with no clear need. We studied how users sign-in to web sites using federated IDs, and found that most survey respondents were not aware of the data they expose. However, when presented with the tradeoffs behind each sign-in option, respondents reported a willingness to change how they sign-in to reduce their data exposure or, in fewer cases, to increase it to receive more benefits from the service. Our findings suggest that data exposure is a concern for users, and that there is a need for finding clearer ways for communicating it for each sign-in option.
- NKFNote: Understanding the Privacy-Personalization Dilemma for Web Search: A User Perspective
This paper aims to understand users’ perceptions of privacy in web search and how these perceptions interact with their desire for personalized search results.Contemporary search engines use a variety of techniques to personalize search results based on users’ past queries. While studies have found that users generally prefer personalized search results to non-personalized ones, recent surveys also indicate growing reservations with respect to personalization because of its privacy implications. In this paper, we take a deeper look at privacy considerations of users during web search and explore how users’ preferences for privacy and personalization interact when undertaking this activity. We conduct an empirical study over Google search, involving 25 participants in India and their respective web search histories. Our finding is that users exhibit a slight preference for personalization in their search results but are usually willing to “give up” personalization when searching for topics they deem sensitive. We discuss implications of these results for the design of privacy-preserving tools for web search.
252ACourse C24, unit 2/2
- CQNC24: Storyboarding for Designers and Design Researchers
Storyboards allow expressing the context of interactions by showing users, experiences, situation, motivations, etc. In the course we practice a hands-on technique photoboarding, for creating photoboards in a team. Storyboards are becoming popular techniques for visualising human-product interaction. Not only in design education, but also in design practice. They can help the design team focus on the user’s actions, understanding, and experience instead of the appliance’s physical form; they can be used to highlight the context, e.g., place, situation, social setting, in which the appliance is used. Their appearance can range from very sketchy to very detailed, depending on whether they are used to explore new ideas, report existing situations, or present design concepts for criticism and discussion. In this workshop we will use examples of storyboards from product design, movies, and comics to demonstrate the possibilities of their visual language. In the hands-on exercises, we develop a storyboard from scratch using the photoboarding technique. We explore the relation between storyboards and other design techniques (role-playing, sketching, quick-and-dirty modelling, scenarios of use, video scenarios). Special attention will be given to the visualisation of suggestive situations, social interactions, emotions, causal relations, and how to set up a story line by integrating situations. The material that will be covered • The Linguistics of storyboards: syntax, semantics, and pragmatics • The origins of storyboards • Storyboards in related disciplines • Storyboards and related design tools (personas, video, infographics) • Uses of storyboards (conceptualization, concept testing) • Case examples showing how storyboards are used in practice • Tools and techniques to help create storyboards
252BCase studies: In the Wild
- YLFAutomotive HMI Test Package: An Exploitable Approach to Study In-Car HMIs
This case study describes our approach on how to holistically evaluate multifunctional in-car HMIs of modern cars and how we addressed related challenges.This case study describes the development of a method package for evaluating in-car HMIs holistically. The goal is to provide a toolbox that is easy to replicate and allows evaluators to identify the effects of the system usage on the drivers’ state. Additionally it aims at finding interface flaws that cause distraction and negative experiences. We applied the toolbox in two example studies, which informed the further application of the HMI study approach. We learned that the combination of established expert and end user methods with a real test track leads to useful results that are easy to communicate to both scientific and public audiences.
- YPQThe Democratization of Mission Control
This work is a real world example of putting together participatory design methods with agile development to develop new user interface technology.In 2002, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, during observations of space operations teams preparing for the 2003 Mars Exploration Rover Missions, the User Centered Technology Group from NASA Ames Research Center observed users coping with software interoperability issues. The packaging of software in multiple applications, each with its own pre-determined set of compartmentalized functions, forced users into the role of software integrators. In 2008 the Mission Control Technologies (MCT) project sought to address these issues by replacing multiple NASA Mission Control applications with composable user-objects. The primary stakeholders were NASA flight controllers and mission operations management. The feature that sold mission management on the project was that user objects modeled their real world counterparts. Once a user object was created, say for Space Station telemetry, that object could be reused. This meant that the association between a user object and it’s data needed to happen once, as opposed to previous software systems, which required data to be associated with on screen displays each time a new display was built. While we sought to design and develop a new system, it was important to realize that the existing software was working, that users were familiar with that software from years of use, and the introduction of change was potentially disruptive to users. At the request of our customer, the initial MCT user objects would be for telemetry and monitoring of the Space Station. To design the software, we used participatory design (PD), in which the users are the domain experts and the designers facilitate the sessions. In addition to creating the artifacts that the team needed to build design specifications, the PD sessions forged bonds between the teams. For the users, the PD sessions were often the first time that they created explicit representations of their work. The team used agile development methods. Deliveries to the customer were made every three weeks, with a release every twelve weeks. A nightly build was available for download. A strategic road map guided priorities for design and development. The agile development cycle resulted in a multi-front set of engagements for the user experience team. The nightly build allowed the customer to provide daily feedback on features. The strategic road map guided priorities for the PD sessions. PD sessions typically lasted for several days and were planned. Daily feedback from nightly builds was often spontaneous. While participatory design was the core enabler for the developers and the customers to come together to create designs for which all felt a sense of ownership, agile development was the enabler that pushed the design specs into the world of real code and a working product. The constant availability of our product made our progress visible to all. This pushed everyone on the team to constantly improve it.
- YYPWe’ll Take It From Here: Letting the Users Take Charge of the Evaluation and Why That Turned Out Well
A case study describing the challenges and approaches taken in conducting a qualitative evaluation of a mixed-reality training system with subject-matter experts under multiple stakeholder constraints.The operational challenges faced by law enforcement and public safety personnel are constantly evolving, while the training and certification process has stayed the same. New technologies such as virtual reality, mixed reality, or game-based simulators are being researched as promising enhancements to traditional training methods. However, their widespread adoption, particularly by smaller units, faces barriers such as cost – due in no small part to the difficulties of developing and especially evaluating such large-scale interactive systems. In this case study, we present MINT – a low-cost mixed-reality Multimodal INteractive Training system, aimed at supporting the training of small- and medium-sized law enforcement and infantry units. We discuss the challenges and approaches taken in the participatory design of the training system, its agile-based development and implementation, and its qualitative evaluation with users and subject-matter experts.
- YFRMulti-modal Location-Aware System for Paratrooper Team Coordination
Lessons learned through an ethnographic analysis of Paratroopers facilitated the development of a location-aware navigation system and helped to effectively address common battlefield constraints while capitalizing on users’ expectations.Navigation and assembly are critical tasks for Soldiers in battlefield situations. Paratroopers, in particular, must be able to parachute into a battlefield and locate and assemble their equipment as quickly and quietly as possible. Current assembly methods rely on bulky and antiquated equipment that inhibit the speed and effectiveness of such operations. To address this we have created a multi-modal mobile navigation system that uses ruggedized to mark assembly points and smartphones to assist in navigating to these points while minimizing cognitive load and maximizing situational awareness. To achieve this task, we implemented a novel beacon receiver protocol that allows an infinite number of receivers to listen to the encrypted beaconing message using only ad-hoc Wi-Fi technologies. The system was evaluated by U.S. Army Paratroopers and proved quick to learn and efficient at moving Soldiers to navigation waypoints. Beyond military operations, this system could be applied to any task that requires the assembly and coordination of many individuals or teams, such as emergency evacuations, fighting wildfires or locating airdropped humanitarian aid.
253Course C23, unit 2/2
- CLXC23: HTML5 Game Development
This course will enable you to design and build basic games for HTML5/web deployment, and to proceed to next stages in game-like interface and game development.A computer game is a microcosm of the user experience domain. UX and game design share some common aims, praxis, and theory. Although there are differences in perspective between UX designers and game designers, these are not as great as most believe, and it is certain that game designers have knowledge and skills that would be a benefit to UX designers, and vice versa. This course is intended for those interested in exploring games, either for themselves or as a workbench for exploring new ideas in UX. It features a practical approach, moving from initial design to a ‘first playable’ implementation. HTML5 is used so as to permit rapid dissemination using the web, and high level tools (EG Processing.js) will speed up the implementation. The course will be lecture based, but there will be a practical example built during the class, and the audience can play along on their laptops if they choose. Attendees should have experience using Java or C++ and should possess basic design skills.
BordeauxPapers: Design Strategies
- PCYPaper: Slow Design for Meaningful Interactions
In this paper we report on an exploration of how to apply the theory of Slow Design to mass produced products to establish more mindful usage of products.In this paper we report on an exploration of how to apply the theory of Slow Design to mass produced products to establish more mindful usage of products; the intention behind this is to promote product attachment and the associated sustainable benefits of long term use. Slow Design is a design philosophy that focuses on promoting well-being for individuals, society, and the natural environment. It encourages people to do things at the right time and at the right speed which helps them to understand and reflect on their actions. Several authors have proposed Slow Design principles and cases have been reported in which these principles were applied in cultural design projects. These applications indicated that Slow Design can indeed have a positive impact on wellbeing. Although promising, this philosophy has not yet been used in the design of mass consumer products. In this paper we present a design case study in which we explored how the Slow Design principles can be applied in the design of an electric fruit juicer. Two studies are reported on where the conditions for implementing Slow Design are explored. The results led to a revision of the principles for use by product designers. The main finding from the case study is that the Slow Design principles can be used to create more ‘mindful’ interactions that stimulate positive user involvement. This is not from designing interactions that require more time per se, but by stimulating the user to use more time for those parts of the interaction that are meaningful and less for those that are not meaningful.
- TFSTOCHI: All you Need is Love: Current Strategies of Mediating Intimate Relationships through Technology
There is a growing interest in creating a “relatedness” experience through technology. Our review of 143 artifacts revealed six strategies designer/researcher use: Awareness, expressivity, physicalness, gift giving, joint action, memories.A wealth of evidence suggests that love, closeness, and intimacy — in short relatedness—are important for people’s psychological well-being. Nowadays, however, couples are often forced to live apart. Accordingly, there has been a growing and flourishing interest in designing technologies that mediate (and create) a feeling of relatedness when being separated, beyond the explicit verbal communication and simple emoticons available technologies offer. This article provides a review of 143 published artifacts (i.e., design concepts, technologies). Based on this, we present six strategies used by designers/researchers to create a relatedness experience: Awareness, expressivity, physicalness, gift giving, joint action, and memories. We understand those strategies as starting points for the experience-oriented design of technology.
- PABPaper: Making Design Probes Work
We present a synthetic account of Probe design and use over a decade conceptualizing the relationship between the properties of probes and their use in design projects.Probes have been adopted with great enthusiasm in both Design and HCI. The heterogeneity with which they have been used in practice reflects how the method has proved elusive for many. Originators and commentators of probes have discussed misinterpretations of the method, highlighting the lack of accounts that describe in detail the design of probes and their use with participants. This paper discusses our particular use of Design Probes as directed craft objects that are both tools for design and tools for exploration across a number of projects, spanning a decade, centered on self-identity and personal significance. In offering an example of what a framework for probe design and use might look like, we attempt to address the identified lacuna, providing a synthetic account of probe design and use over an extended period and conceptualizing the relationship between the properties of probes and their use in design projects.
- PLGPaper: Indoor Weather Stations: Investigating a Ludic Approach to Environmental HCI Through Batch Prototyping
Three ‘weatherstations’, designed to take a ludic approach to environmental issues, were deployed to twenty households. The result is a distinctive example of environmental HCI, batch production, and ludic design.In this project, we investigated how a ludic approach might open new possibilities for environmental HCI by designing three related devices that encourage environmental awareness while eschewing utilitarian or persuasive agendas. In addition, we extended our methodological approach by batch-producing multiple copies of each device and deploying them to 20 households for several months, gathering a range of accounts about how people engaged and used them. The devices, collectively called the ‘Indoor Weather Stations’, reveal the home’s microclimate by highlighting small gusts of wind, the colour of ambient light, and temperature differentials within the home. We found that participants initially tended to relate to the devices in line with two ‘orienting narratives’ of environmental tools or ludic designs, finding the devices disappointing from either perspective. Most of our participants showed lingering affection for the devices, however, for a variety of reasons. We discuss the implications of this ‘sporadic interaction’, and the more general lessons from the project, both for environmental HCI and ludic design.
361Course C25, unit 2/2
- CDQC25: Designing Search Usability
This course weaves together the theories of information seeking with the practice of user interface design to deliver a practical guide to making search better. Search is not just a box and ten blue links. Search is a journey: an exploration where what we encounter along the way changes what we seek. But in order to guide people along this journey, we must understand both the art and science of search usability. This course will provide an introduction to the basic principles of search usability with a focus on holistic solutions that integrate information seeking theory with the user interface design practice. Participants will: • Explore the fundamental concepts of human-centred design for information search and discovery • Learn how to differentiate between various types of search behaviour: known-item, exploratory, lookup, learning, investigation, etc. • Understand the dimensions of search user experience and how to apply them to different contexts • Explore design patterns and other key resources and their role in solving practical design problems The course will include both presentations and group work to enable delegates to analyse, evaluate and improve the effectiveness of search applications within their own organisation.
362/363Special Interest Group
- GGNVisions and Visioning in CHI: CHI 2013 Special Interest Group Meeting
There are many visions that touch on the future of human computer interaction from a trans-human future to a post-technological UI. However visions related to the progress of technology are not new. Creative and insightful visionaries from Denis Diderot to Vannevar Bush have been postulating visions of possible futures or technology for centuries. Some idealised views end up discredited with advances in knowledge, while others now appear remarkably prescient. The question is, do visions and the process of creating them have a place in CHI, or are they simply flights of fancy? This SIG meeting provides a forum for visionaries; researchers and practitioners looking to consider the place and importance of visions within CHI. Can visions, the process of visioning and forming new visions help us refine, advance or develop new research or forms of interaction. And if visions are important to us, then are they part of the regular academic process? If so, should CHI provide venues for publishing new visions?
HavanePapers: Tensions in Social Media
- PTRPaper: Reveal-it!: The Impact of a Social Visualization Projection on Public Awareness and Discourse
This paper investigates the challenges for a public visualization of a socially-relevant dataset, for the goal of changing the civic awareness of onlookers, through the evaluation of three real-world case studies.Public displays and projections are becoming increasingly available in various informal urban settings. However, their potential impact on informing and engaging citizens on relevant issues has still been largely unexplored. In this paper, we show that visualizations displayed in public settings are able to increase social awareness and discourse by exposing underlying patterns in data that is submitted by citizens. We thus introduce the design and evaluation of Reveal-it!, a public, interactive projection that facilitates the comparison of the energy consumptions of individuals and communities. Our in-the-wild deployment in three distinct physical locations provided insights into: 1) how people responded to this form of display in different contexts; 2) how it influenced people’s perception and discussion of individual and communal data; and 3) the implications for a public visualization as a tool for increasing awareness and discourse. We conclude by discussing emerging participant behaviors, as well as some challenges involved in facilitating a socially motivated crowd-sourced visualization in the public context.
- PFNPaper: Social Media and the Police—Tweeting Practices of British Police Forces during the August 2011 Riots
Analyzes the Twitter use by the London Metropolitan and the Greater Manchester Police during the riots in August 2011. Shows that the forces developed very different practices to appropriate Twitter.With this paper we take a first step to understand the appropriation of social media by the police. For this purpose we analyzed the Twitter communication by the London Metropolitan Police (MET) and the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) during the riots in August 2011. The systematic comparison of tweets demonstrates that the two forces developed very different practices for using Twitter. While MET followed an instrumental approach in their communication, in which the police aimed to remain in a controlled position and keep a distance to the general public, GMP developed an expressive approach, in which the police actively decreased the distance to the citizens. In workshops and interviews, we asked the police officers about their perspectives, which confirmed the identified practices. Our study discusses benefits and risks of the two approaches and the potential impact of social media on the evolution of the role of police in society.
- PEMPaper: Whoo.ly: Facilitating Information Seeking For Hyperlocal Communities Using Social Media
We present Whoo.ly, an extraction service for hyperlocal information: events, topics, people and places; from neighborhood-specific tweets. We demonstrate that users prefer its use for neighborhood exploration over competing approaches. Social media systems promise powerful opportunities for people to connect to timely, relevant information at the hyper local level. Yet, finding the meaningful signal in noisy social media streams can be quite daunting to users. In this paper, we present and evaluate Whoo.ly, a web service that provides neighborhood-specific information based on Twitter posts that were automatically inferred to be hyperlocal. Whoo.ly automatically extracts and summarizes hyperlocal information about events, topics, people, and places from these Twitter posts. We provide an overview of our design goals with Whoo.ly and describe the system including the user interface and our unique event detection and summarization algorithms. We tested the usefulness of the system as a tool for finding neighborhood information through a comprehensive user study. The outcome demonstrated that most participants found Whoo.ly easier to use than Twitter and they would prefer it as a tool for exploring their neighborhoods.
- TJZTOCHI: Co-Narrating a Conflict: An Interactive Tabletop to Facilitate Attitudinal Shifts
A tabletop designed to support reconciliation of a conflict allows escalation and de-escalation during shared narration. An experiment with Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian-Arab demonstrated a shift of attitude toward the other. A multi-user tabletop interface was designed to support reconciliation of a conflict aimed at shifting hostile attitudes and achieving a greater understanding of another viewpoint. The interface provided a setting for face-to-face shared narration and support for the management of disagreements. The interface allows escalation and de-escalation of the conflict emerging in the shared narration and requires that participants perform joint actions when a contribution to the story is to be removed from the overall narration. A between-subjects experiment compared the tabletop interface and a desktop multimedia interface with mixed pairs (male Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian-Arab youth). The results demonstrated that the experience with the tabletop interface appears to be motivating and, most important, produce at least a short term shift of attitude toward the other.
221/221MLast-minute SIGs: Session 13
Thursday – 16:00-17:20
GrandSpecial session: Closing Keynote Plenary
- KCLKeynote Speaker: Bruno Latour, Sciences Po Paris, France
From aggregation to navigation: a few challenges for social theory.The vast amount of data available on singularizing networks (what could be called ‘monads’) raise a new problem for social theorists, statisticians, designers, computer scientists and end users: how to vizualize their various components without resorting to the aggregation in which too many details are necessarily lost. The flood of digital traces and the new ways to handle them show that many of the basic epistemological assumptions about what it is to know something in the social science are actually dependent upon data structures and visualizing tools. This presentation will draw a few possible paths in this new situation and propose a few challenges to the audience.