College of Information Studies
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1631
The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item Personal Objects as Design Materials(2024) Elsayed-Ali, Salma; Chan, Joel; Bonsignore, Elizabeth; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While Participatory Design focuses on inclusion of users, in practice, Participatory Design may often fall short of its inclusive ideals. This is problematic as it could lead to disempowerment, inactive participation, and alienation of users. An important avenue for inclusion is to enable users, particularly those who are marginalized, to enact aspects of their identities and lived experiences in design. Materials, both tangible and intangible, are an important way that this enactment may be accomplished; yet materials are often overlooked and imposed on users in design. This can be problematic as the materials selected may not be relevant or useful to users’ situated contexts or goals, or, at worst, could lead to exclusion. My dissertation seeks to understand how we might support users to enact core aspects of their identities and lived experiences in Participatory Design. To do this, I propose an approach that shifts control of design materials to users by inviting them to bring in personal objects from their lives. Using Research through Design, I developed a sociotechnical system called Talisman consisting of techniques to scaffold users’ selection and interaction with their personal objects in the design process. Over the course of a year, I collaborated with three distinct communities to embed Talisman in co-design workshops alongside young adults who are underrepresented in STEM education. These communities included: 1) A STEM education nonprofit based in Chicago focused on creating youth-led “Safe Spaces;” 2) A high school summer internship program based in Baltimore focused on Environmental Justice; and 3) a faculty-led research project at the College of Information Studies focused on redesigning undergraduate programming education to support diverse learners in light of Generative AI. I share direct observations and accounts from young adults into their experiences bringing in and engaging with their personal objects in the design of solutions for their communities. Afterwards, I present a cross-case analysis of the three case studies in which Talisman was deployed and discuss its implications for Participatory and Assets-based design practice within the fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).Item Exploring Challenges to Inclusion in Participatory Design From the Perspectives of Global North Practitioners(Association for Computer Machinery (ACM), 2023-04) Elsayed-Ali, Salma; Bonsignore, Elizabeth; Chan, JoelParticipatory Design (PD) aims to promote inclusivity by involving users throughout the design process. However, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and social computing research have pointed to instances where PD as practiced can, paradoxically, be exclusive. We aim to understand some of the challenges that could lead to exclusivity in order to design more inclusive PD practices. To investigate this, we conducted interviews with ten expert PD practitioners based in the Global North whose focus is on inclusion. Synthesizing practitioners’ accounts, we advance understandings of challenges surrounding: 1) instantiating shared spaces that empower partners; 2) developing common ground among stakeholders; and 3) balancing funding needs with open-ended PD. We contribute theoretical and empirical insights into these challenges and close by articulating potential implications for addressing these challenges to inclusion in PD.Item Responsible & Inclusive Cards(Association for Computer Machinery (ACM), 2023-04-23) Elsayed-Ali, Salma; Berger, Sara E.; Figueredo de Santana, Vagner; Sandoval, Juana Catalina BecerraSocietal implications of technology are often considered after public deployment. However, broader impacts ought to be considered during the onset and throughout development to reduce potential for harmful uses, biases, and exclusions. There is a need for tools and frameworks that help technologists become more aware of broader contexts of their work and engage in more responsible and inclusive practices. In this paper, we introduce an online card tool containing questions to scaffold critical reflection about projects’ impacts on society, business, and research. We present the iterative design of the Responsible & Inclusive Cards and findings from five workshops (n=21 participants) with teams distributed across a multinational technology corporation, as well as interviews with people with disabilities to assess gameplay and mental models. We found the tool promoted discussions about challenging topics, reduced power gaps through democratized turn-taking, and enabled participants to identify concrete areas to improve their practice.