Information Studies Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2780
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Item Change Detection: Theoretical and Applied Approaches for Providing Updates Related to a Topic of Interest(2024) Rogers, Kristine M.; Oard, Douglas; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The type of user studied in this dissertation has built up expertise on a topic of interest to them, and regularly invests time to find updates on that topic. This research area—referred to within this dissertation as "change detection"—includes the user's process of identifying what has changed as well as internalizing the changes into their mental model. For these users who follow a specific topic over time, how might a system organize information to enable them to update their mental model quickly? Current information retrieval systems are largely not optimized for addressing the long-term change detection needs of users. This dissertation focuses on approaches for enhancing the change detection process, including for short documents (e.g., social media) as well as longer documents (e.g., news articles). This mixed methods exploration of change detection consists of four sections. First, this dissertation introduces a new theory: the Group-Pile-Arrange (GPA) Change Detection Theory. This theory is about organizing documents relevant to a topic of interest in order to accelerate an individual's ability to identify changes and update their mental model. The three components of this theory include: 1. Group the documents by theme; 2. Pile the grouped documents into an order; and 3. Arrange the piles in a meaningful way for the user. These steps could be applied in a range of ways, including using approaches driven by people (e.g., a research librarian providing information), computers (e.g., an information retrieval system), or a hybrid of the two. The second section of this dissertation includes the results of a survey on users' sort order preferences in social media. For this study, change detection was compared with three other use cases: following an event while it happens (experiential), running a search within social media, and browsing social media posts. Respondents recognized the change detection use case, with 66% of the respondents indicating that they perform change detection tasks on social media sites. When engaged in change detection tasks, these respondents showed a strong preference for posts to be clustered and presented in reverse chronological order, in alignment with the "group" and "pile" components of the GPA Change Detection Theory. These organization preferences were distinct from the other studied use cases. To further understand users' goals and preferences related to change detection, the third section of this dissertation includes the design and prototype implementation of a change detection system called Daybreak. The Daybreak system presents news articles relevant to a user's topic of interest and allows them to tag articles and apply tag labels. Based on these tags and tag labels, the system retrieves new results, groups them into subtopic clusters based on the user's tags, enables generation of chronological or relevance-based piles of documents, and arranges the piles by subtopic importance; for this study, rarity was used as a proxy for subtopic importance. The Daybreak system was used for a qualitative user study, using the framework method for analyzing and interpreting results. In this study, fifteen participants engaged in a change detection scenario across five simulated "days." The participants heavily leveraged the Daybreak system's clustering function when viewing results; there was a weak preference for chronological sorting of documents, compared to relevance ranking. The participants did not view rarity as an effective proxy for subtopic importance; instead, they preferred approaches that enabled them to indicate which subtopics were of greatest interest, such as pinning certain subtopics. The fourth and final component of this dissertation research describes an evaluation approach for comparing arrangements of subtopic clusters (piles). This evaluation approach uses Spearman's rank correlation coefficient to compare a user's ideal subtopic ordering with a variety of system-generated orderings. This includes a sample evaluation using data from the Daybreak user study to demonstrate how a formal evaluation would work. Based on the results of these four dissertation research components, it appears that the GPA Change Detection Theory provides a useful framework for organizing information for individuals engaged in change detection tasks. This research provides insights into users' change detection needs and behaviors that could be helpful for building or extending systems attempting to address this use case.Item Show and Tell: Exploring how audio narratives can complement visualizations of stroke survivors’ personal health data(2023) Shettigar, Aishwarya; Choe, Eun Kyoung; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Wearable technology in healthcare could give individuals awareness and independence in rehabilitation. In this qualitative work, I investigate how using speech-based, audio narrative summaries alongside graphical visualizations affect users’ understanding of their personal data. I conducted this work in the context of stroke recovery, where stroke survivors experiencing hemiparesis can monitor their physical progress using a wearable ring sensor. Using a co-design approach, I engaged with stroke survivors and their caregivers to elicit recommendations for multimodal (speech/visual) feedback of the wearable ring data. Reflexive thematic analysis of the sessions showed that multimodal feedback can potentially lend therapeutic support for stroke survivors. Audio narratives helped to reinforce the visual feedback, and positively framed narrative content that was reflective, motivational, and suggestive was able to support stroke survivors as they navigate their independent recovery journeys.Item “I FEEL LIKE I’M TEACHING IN A GLADIATOR RING”: BARRIERS AND BENEFITS OF LIVE CODING(2023) Berger, Caroline Palma; Elmqvist, Niklas; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Live coding—synchronously writing software in front of students for the purpose of teaching—can be an effective method for engaging students and instilling practical programming skills. However, not all live coding sessions are effective and not all instructors are successful in this challenging task. We present results from an interview study involving university instructors,teaching assistants, and students identifying both barriers and benefits of live coding. We also designed and collected participant feedback on a prototype live coding tool to better facilitate learner engagement with the live coding pedagogical practice. Finally, we use this feedback to propose guidelines for how to design tools to support effective live coding in the classroom. This work advances our understanding of the benefits and challenges of live coding in university computer science instruction and highlights potential future work on the design of tools to better support this productive instructional practice.Item Building Virtual Friendships through Mirrored Gestures(2022) Oshiro, Miya Sanura; Leitch, Alex; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)During the COVID-19 pandemic isolation period, social gaming was an effective way for people to find connections and alleviate feelings of loneliness. However, the communication systems built within these games have limitations. In-game communication systems usually consist of emotes, predetermined avatar gestures, and simple chat features. Due to these limitations, critical social cues, such as nonverbal synchrony, are lost during these online interactions. This study evaluates the integration of nonverbal gesture synchrony in social games as a potential addition to existing communication systems to foster genuine social connections between players during online play. The game environment for this research study is an emote-based and a gesture-based version of the social game KANDI.io. When comparing the two versions in structured game sessions, this study found an enjoyment preference for the gesture-based experience. However, after further discussion, it was determined that there was no overall preference for this experience over the emote-based design. These results revealed that when engaging with open-play games like the gesture-based system, some players felt vulnerable, experienced player distrust, and became more conscious of the interaction context.Item A MORE-THAN-HUMAN PERSPECTIVE ON OLDER ADULTS’ USE OF AND PARTICIPATION IN DESIGN OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES(2022) Pradhan, Alisha; Lazar, Amanda; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Till date, research on aging in HCI has largely adopted human-centered approaches, such as user-centered and participatory design. However, recent research is beginning to question this “humanistic” focus in aging. Through this dissertation, I provide a case of adopting posthumanist entanglement perspective to understand the ‘more-than-human’ aspects of aging. Posthumanist entanglement perspectives [71]—previously adopted by HCI researchers in different contexts varying from creative design to technical areas such as machine learning and neural networks—attunes to the agency of nonhuman world in addition to the human world to account for how humans and their socio-material worlds are entangled. In Study 1, I investigate older adults’ ontological perceptions with respect to a popular emerging technology to examine the phenomena of “ontological uncertainty” (here, ontologies refer to how things exist and what categories they belong to). Although some researchers adopting entanglement perspectives in HCI argue that ontological uncertainty is posed by emerging technologies such as AI, IoT [71], we lack an understanding of when this uncertainty emerges, and why this matters. Here, the first study of my dissertation focuses on older adults’ use of emerging AI-based voice assistants, and contributes by providing an empirical understanding of the different factors that contribute to ontological uncertainty (e.g., location in house, time, user’s desire for companionship), and provides recommendations for designing voice technologies with ontological categorization in mind. In the next two threads of my work, I attune to the agency of nonhuman entities and how they shape reality associated with older adults’ use of emerging technology (Study 2), and when older individuals engage in designing emerging technology (Study 3). My analysis from Study 2 reveals how nonhuman actors such as materials and norms play a role in shaping older adults’ preference and use of voice technologies. My findings also reveal the salient ways in which voice assistants play an active role in mediating relations between older adults and their larger social world. These mediations are shaping our social practices around what it means to live alone, to give company, or to give and receive care. Finally, my analysis from Study 3— which adopts a posthumanist perspective to understand older adults’ engagement in design workshops— reveals the nuanced ways in which designs materials (both expected and unexpected) act in relation to older adults: from facilitating creative brainstorming, to limiting creative brainstorming, to leading to clashing of ideas, and contributing to non-participation in the design activity. My findings also reveal how older adults went beyond focusing on just the technology idea to account for the physical objects or the environment associated with both technology use and non-use, thus bringing to attention that technology cannot be seen, used, or designed in isolation, and exists within specific configurations of actor-networks. Overall, my thesis contributes by providing insights on the new directions that HCI researchers working on aging can take in terms of: a) taking into account the ways in which the nonhuman entities act and hold them accountable for undesired realities, b) designing emerging technologies that support meaningful relationships between older adults and their world, and c) move beyond designing technology in isolation to instead purposefully situate older adults in designing meaningful configurations of human and nonhuman entities (including technology).Item Ludic Borders(2022) Smith, Andrew W; Kraus, Kari; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Game design techniques are used to motivate participation in professional, educational, political, and social environments. This research study introduces the theory of ludic borders to examine how the boundary of gamespace is a design product that influences players beyond increasing motivation. Framing the crossing of the ludic border as a negotiation between the design choices of the game designer and the identity of the player, this research considers how game design elements such as visual aesthetics and collaborative mechanics influence the construction of the border. In addition, this research considers how particular characteristics of a player’s identity, such as the frequency with which they play games, influences their crossing of the ludic border. Based on gameplay observation, this research finds that visual aesthetics, gaming frequency, and other factors can influence the extent to which a player expresses their beliefs through their in-game decisions.Item EXPLORING AMBIENT TO DISRUPTIVE HEALTH NOTIFICATIONS VIA SHAPE-CHANGING INTERFACES(2022) Lee, Jarrett G.W.; Choe, Eun Kyoung; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Ambient Information Systems have shown some success when used as a notification towards users’ health-related activities. But in the actual busy lives of users, ambient notifications might be forgotten or even missed altogether, nullifying the original notification. When do people accept escalated levels of disruption for health notifications? In parallel,how could varying levels of health notifications be portrayed in shape-changing interfaces? To investigate these questions, I took a Research through Design approach and created artifacts in the form of plant-mimicking Shape-Changing Interfaces (S-CIs), conducting interviews with ten participants who currently used a system to remind themselves to perform a health-related activity, to learn how they would react to the varying of motion types to achieve disruption. I report findings on scenarios where disrupting users for health-related activity purposes could be acceptable, how participants interpreted various aspects of the S-CIs and reasonings behind them, and how people envisioned using S-CIs within their physical environments. I also discuss avenues for future work in ambient-to-disruptive technology, and design suggestions for those working in health-related notification systems and shape-changing interfaces.Item Designing Technology to Increase Adoption of Healthy Behaviors in Men in the Context of Light Food Consumption(2019) Smriti, Diva; Choe, Eun Kyoung; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Women are more likely than men to engage in healthy eating behaviors. However, men do strongly believe eating healthy, but this does not translate into their eating behaviors. Thus, there is a discrepancy in the health beliefs and behaviors of men, especially in the context of light food consumption. In this study, I aim to understand this discrepancy among young men in depth. I conducted a week-long diary study of the food items consumed by the participants (N = 17) who were all male, followed by semi-structured interviews. Findings indicate the lack of a verified and automated source of nutritional knowledge, misinformation about light food consumption among other themes, and design implications to the current nutrition-tracking mobile applications. This work contributes to the understudied existing literature on men’s food behaviors, the challenges faced by them in adopting healthy eating behaviors in the context of light food consumption, and the role mobile applications play in helping them do so.Item Alumni Perspectives on their Membership in an Intergenerational Participatory Design Team(2018) McNally, Brenna; Druin, Allison; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Participatory Design (PD) gives technology users an active role in the design of the technologies they are meant to use. PD methods have been adapted for research with children to facilitate the creation of technologies that better meet children’s desires and expectations. While the benefits HCI practitioners receive from working with children in PD can include developing more child-centric interfaces and finding surprising new innovations, research is less clear on the participants’ perceptions of their experience—such as how they perceive matters that affect them or what personal gains intergenerational PD team participants may receive from their participation. Investigating the retrospective perspectives of adult and child members of intergenerational PD teams may enable researchers to improve or develop practices that are better aligned with participant expectations. Recent work has begun to look into the gains adults perceive from their participation on traditional PD projects, and has begun to observe gains to children during their participation on PD teams. However, the retrospective perspectives of adult and child alumni who were members of intergenerational PD teams have yet to be investigated. To understand how alumni of intergenerational PD teams perceive matters that affected their membership, I conducted anonymous, online surveys and follow-up interviews with three distinct participant groups from an intergenerational PD team: child design partner alumni, parents of child alumni, and adult design partner alumni. Outcomes include new understandings of 1) the perspectives of child design partner alumni with regard to the ethics of their previous participation, 2) the gains child design partners experience and attribute to their PD team participation from the perspectives of both child alumni and their parents, and 3) the gains that adult design partners experience and attribute to their PD team participation and their perspectives on membership. Throughout these findings participants describe how participation in intergenerational PD impacted their desire and perceived ability to pursue new goals and activities throughout their lives through the development of new skills, competencies, and mindsets. From these findings, I then synthesize ten recommendations toward the goal of making intergenerational PD better support the people who are involved in it.Item Playing for Real: Designing Alternate Reality Games in Learning Contexts(2016) Bonsignore, Elizabeth Marie; Druin, Allison; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Alternate Reality Game (ARG) represent a new genre of transmedia practice where players hunt for scattered clues, make sense of disparate information, and solve puzzles to advance an ever-evolving storyline. Players participate in ARGs using multiple communications technologies, ranging from print materials to mobile devices. However, many interaction design challenges must be addressed to weave these everyday communication tools together into an immersive, participatory experience. Transmedia design is not an everyday process. Designers must create and connect story bits across multiple media (video, audio, text) and multiple platforms (phones, computers, physical spaces). Furthermore, they must engage with players of varying skill levels. Few studies to-date have explored the design process of ARGs in learning contexts. Fewer still have focused on challenges involved in designing for youth (13-17 years old). In this study, I explore the process of designing ARGs as vehicles for promoting information literacy and participatory culture for adolescents (13-17 years old). Two ARG design scenarios, distinguished by target learning environment (formal and informal context) and target audience (adolescents), comprise the two cases that I examine. Through my analysis of these two design cases, I articulate several unique challenges faced by designers who create interactive, transmedia stories for – and with – youth. Drawing from these design challenges, I derive a repertoire of design strategies that future designers and researchers may use to create and implement ARGs for teens in learning contexts. In particular, I propose a narrative design framework that allows for the categorization of ARGs as storytelling constructs that lie along a continuum of participation and interaction. The framework can serve as an analytic tool for researchers and a guide for designers. In addition, I establish a framework of social roles that designers may employ to craft transmedia narratives before live launch and to promote and scaffold player participation after play begins. Overall, the contributions of my study include theoretical insights that may advance our understanding of narrative design and analysis as well as more practical design implications for designers and practitioners seeking to incorporate transmedia features into learning experiences that target youth.