Browsing by Subject "Human-Computer Interaction"
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Item Beyond Social Support: Spiritual Support as a Novel Design Dimension in Sociotechnical Systems(2020-12) Smith, C. EstelleFor people facing life-threatening physical and/or mental illness, matters of spirituality or religion often assume a role of elevated importance in their lives. However, spirituality is an understudied topic in Social Computing, and has largely been omitted or minimized in research narratives and trajectories related to online health. Taking a human-centered design approach that seeks to honor people's core values and beliefs, this dissertation contributes an empirically-derived theoretical perspective that views spirituality as a crucial underlying dimension in sociotechnical systems for online health and social support, such as Online Health Communities (OHCs). Because of their widespread adoption and ability to provide users with social support, OHCs are a topic of prominent interest in Human-Computer Interaction and Social Computing. OHCs have been studied across a variety of online spaces, ranging from disease-specific niches on larger social media platforms, to specialized platforms designed specifically for patients and caregivers--such as CaringBridge, a Minnesota-based nonprofit OHC that served over 300,000 people daily in 2019, including 40 million unique users from 237 countries. Two studies in this dissertation were completed in collaboration with CaringBridge, while the third presents Flip*Doubt, a novel prototypical system for crowd-powered cognitive reappraisal. Whereas prior work in OHCs has focused on conventional support categories, the first study provides a content analysis and survey of CaringBridge users that, together, quantitatively distinguish ``prayer support'' as an independent category of crucial importance to users. Because prayer indicates a deeper set of beliefs/values that cannot be captured quantitatively, the second study involves qualitative focus groups with CaringBridge stakeholders. This study contributes a definition of ``spiritual support,'' along with its design implications in OHCs. In particular, one implication is that designers should consider technical mechanisms to provide users with assistance with supportive communication. Thus, the final study of this dissertation, a field deployment of Flip*Doubt, can inform the development of future AI/ML-based systems in OHCs for mental health. All together, these contributions help to shift the lens through which we view social support online, and to guide future work towards creating systems that serve the deepest needs of users.Item Design and Evaluation of Dynamic Field-of-View Restriction Techniques to Mitigate Cybersickness in Virtual Reality(2022-09) Wu, FeiAlthough virtual reality has been gaining in popularity, users continue to report discomfort during and after the use of VR applications, and many experience symptoms associated with cybersickness. To mitigate this problem, dynamic field-of-view (FOV) restriction is a common technique that has been widely implemented in commercial VR games. FOV restriction artificially reduces the field of view during movement to limit optical flows and reduce discomfort caused by the mismatch between virtual motion and physical motion. FOV restriction has been shown in numerous studies to improve comfort and enhance user experience in virtual reality. The standard dynamic FOV restriction is created by adding a symmetrical black opaque mask at the periphery of the user’s filed-of-view and its size changes only with the user's virtual velocity. It does not take into account any differences in users, virtual environments, or other usage conditions. This simplistic implementation leads to some limitations. The first limitation is that the FOV restriction reduces users' visibility of the virtual environment and can negatively impact their subjective experience. The second limitation is that the unblocked imagery when applying restrictor is usually in the center of the field of view, which is incompatible with the users' eye movements during locomotion. The third limitation is that the classical restrictor is scaled by the velocity and angular velocity of users' virtual movements. This design assumes that users feel the same cybersickness when they experience the same velocity, which is unrealistic. Beyond these limitations, there is a lack of scientific understanding of how to effectively apply FOV restrictions for different types of virtual environments and virtual motions. This thesis presents four major contributions to the existing dynamic FOV restriction research. First, I present a novel technique known as passthrough FOV restriction, which combines the dynamic field of view modification with rest frames generated from 3D scans of the physical environment. The informal testing suggests that this approach is a promising method for reducing motion sickness and improving user safety at the same time. Secondly, I present a novel asymmetric field-of-view restrictor known as the ground-visible restrictor, which maintains the visibility of the ground plane during movement. User studies showed that ground-visible FOV restriction offers benefits for user comfort, postural stability, and a subjective sense of presence. Thirdly, I provide another variant of FOV restriction, referred to as the side restrictor, which expands side visibility and maintains restriction during rotation. A user study evaluated the new technology and demonstrated its benefits in reducing cybersickness and discomfort and improving visibility. Finally, I present an adaptive restrictor that uses the optical flow amount to determine the position and size of the restriction. A mixed design study investigated its performance and confirmed its superiority over traditional restrictors in providing a better subjective user experience.Item Expressive spatial Interfaces for scientific visualization and artistic 3D Modeling(2014-07) Jackson, Bret LowellThis dissertation explores spatial human-computer interaction techniques to improve the control and expressiveness of 3D interactions. It investigates the requirements necessary for users to work more effectively with next-generation spatial interfaces, specifically in the context of scientific visualization and artistic 3D modeling where users currently struggle to express complex spatial concepts.Examples of expressive spatial interfaces are presented and evaluated. In particular, we present new techniques for combining multi-touch with free-hand gestures for navigating visualizations and performing 3D surface modeling operations. Techniques for selecting and filtering volumetric data using lightweight props as well as active force-feedback are also introduced. Additionally, we present a spatial modeling interface for artistic 3D modeling using contextual interpretation of the user's input. Several conclusions are drawn from these examples. Rich, parallel input and output streams enabled by recent advances in tracking hardware are particularly important for expressive interfaces. Additionally, there is a need for tighter integration of two and three-dimensional data and input. Contextual interpretation of user input enables users to specify more complex 3D concepts. Finally, many spatial tasks require immediate feedback to be expressive.The primary contribution of this dissertation is a new class of interaction techniques called Expressive Spatial Interfaces that advance beyond the limited pointing and rotating interactions common in current-generation spatial interfaces. The techniques presented here can have a powerful impact on shaping the future of expressive spatial human-computer interaction with 3D graphics.Item The impact of social design on user contributions to online communities.(2009-05) Harper, Franklin MaxwellThe World Wide Web has become increasingly participatory through the widespread adoption of interfaces that facilitate user-generated content. These interfaces can be made more social by allowing users to view and respond to the actions of others. For example, Flickr (http://flickr.com) encourages photo sharing by allowing users to view and comment on others' photos, and Amazon (http://amazon.com) encourages purchases through the use of book reviews, discussion forums, and recommendations. In this thesis, we explore the utility of social designs for improving the quality and quantity of user contributions to online communities. We investigate the use of social design at several levels. First, in a series of online field experiments in MovieLens (http://movielens.org), we examine the potential for increasing the quantity of user contributions through the display of personalized, social information. Second, in a comparative, controlled field study across a variety of popular question and answer (Q&A) sites, we compare different models of participation and their impact on the quality of user contributions. Finally, in a study of hand-coded questions from several Q&A sites, we use machine learning techniques to understand the characteristics of users' requests that are predictive of informational quality. We find evidence that appropriate use of social information can increase the quantity of user contributions: social comparisons led MovieLens members to rate more movies, and persuasive messages to visit the MovieLens discussion forum were most effective when they compared the user viewing the message to another member. We also find evidence that the unstructured participation models characteristic of Web 2.0 sites increase the quantity, diversity, and responsiveness of user contributions, with no apparent overall cost to information quality. However, we find that unstructured participation leads many users to treat these sites as purely social resources. Therefore, to better support the utility of Q&A sites as informational resources, we contribute a computational framework that can reliably characterize user interactions as informational or conversational.Item Oral History Interview with Ernest Alan Edmonds(Charles Babbage Institute, 2022) Edmonds, Ernest AlanThis interview is part of a series on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) conducted by the Charles Babbage Institute for ACM SIGCHI (Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction). In this interview, Professor Edmonds reflects on early interests in drawing and art, his development of interactive art and his research on computer-human interaction support for creativity. He describes himself as an “artist by inclination, a logician by training, and a computer scientist by accident.” The bulk of the interview explores these areas, his pioneering in work in computer based/algorithmic (from his influential Nineteen in the late 1960s forward) and interactive art (DataPack, in 1970 with Stroud Cornock, forward), as well as important contributions to computer science. This includes relating of influences of university mentors, the Constructivist school, and collaborations and friendships within the Systems Group of UK artists. He discusses his computer science contributions—at Leicester Polytechnic, Loughborough University, and University of Technology in Sydney—including his “adaptive approach” in 1970 software development challenging established “waterfall” techniques and anticipating and helping provide foundation to what later became termed as “agile.” He also relates his contributions to fostering intellectual community with computer scientists and artists, including and especially with his and Linda Candy’s impactful “Creativity and Cognition” an annual event launched 1993, becoming a SIGCHI Conference in 1997, and thriving to this day. In his career, thinking a step beyond current technology, and drawing on his concepts of “attractors, sustainers, and relators,” he has creatively advanced interaction between human and machine, and human interaction through machines.Item Oral History with Susanne Bødker(Charles Babbage Institute, 2021-12) Bødker, SusanneThis interview is part of a series on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) conducted by the Charles Babbage Institute for ACM SIGCHI (Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction). HCI Pioneer Susanne Bødker discusses early education and interests, and her undergraduate studies at University of Aarhus. She goes on to relate her experience for 10 months at Xerox PARC where she joined the Adele Goldberg’s Smalltalk Group, an opportunity made possible by Kristen Nygaard’s connections. The core of the interview focuses on her graduate education (studying under Morten Kyng, who she continued to collaborate with for many years) and long and impressive career. It especially emphasizes the combination of her theoretical and empirical work, and the importance of participatory design, and activity theory to her research and work. She discusses the NJMF, Utopia Project, and labor experience with technology as well as leadership she provided to the Center for Participatory Information Technology and CHMI.Item The Production and Consumption of Quality Content in Peer Production Communities(2016-12) Warncke-Wang, MortenOver the past 25 years, commons-based peer production [Ben02] has become a vital part of the information technology landscape. There are successful projects in different areas such as open source software (e.g. Apache and Firefox), encyclopedias (e.g. Wikipedia), and map data (e.g. OpenStreetMap). A common theme in all these communities is that they are mainly volunteer-driven and that contributors are able to self-select what they want to work on. Studies on contributor motivation in peer production have found “fun” and “appropriate challenges” to be strong factors [Nov07; LW05], both associated with the sensation of vital engagement often referred to as “flow” [NC03]. Peer production contributors also often refer to altruism, the desire to be helpful to others, as a motivating factor [BH13]. To what extent does this bottom-up, interest-driven, volunteer-based content production paradigm meet the needs of consumers of this content? This thesis presents our work on improving our understanding of how peer production communities produce quality content and whether said quality content is produced in areas where there is demand for it. We study this from three perspectives and make contributions as follows: we investigate what textual features describe content quality in Wikipedia and develop a high-performance prediction model solely based on features contributors can easily improve (so called “actionable features”); we apply a coherent framework for describing and evaluating quality improvement projects in order to discover factors associated with the success and failure of these types of projects; we introduce an analytical framework that allows is to identify the misalignment between supply of and demand for quality content in peer production communities and measure the impact this has on a community’s audience. The research presented in this thesis provides us with a deeper understanding of quality content in peer production communities. These communities have created software, encyclopedic content, and maps that in many ways improve our everyday lives as well as those of millions of others. At the same time we have identified areas where there is a shortage of quality content and discussed future work that can help reduce this problem. This thesis thus lays the foundation upon which we can build improved communities and positively impact a large part of the world’s population.Item Scalable natural user interfaces for data-intensive exploratory visualization: designing in the context of big data(2014-07) Coffey, Dane M.This dissertation investigates new exploratory visualization tools in data-intensive domains that are built upon natural user interface technology, including multi-touch surfaces and virtual reality. Scalable interactions are developed and evaluated in several software systems that are targeted toward supporting design workflows that make use of big data. A new immersive and highly-interactive multi-touch workbench is presented, along with a theoretical framework and evaluation of how visualizations may be developed on it. Building upon this foundation, two different exploratory visualization software systems are presented that address distinct challenges faced by designers working in data-intensive domains. The first of these systems is called Slice World-In-Miniature (WIM), which is designed to overcome the difficulty associated with exploring large-volume data, where the complexity of the data often leads to the designers becoming disoriented. Using Overview+Detail techniques to provide context, the designer navigates inside of complex volumes using multi-touch gestures. This Slice WIM system is applied to a number of medical device design applications and evaluated by domain experts in this field. The second system is called Design by Dragging, which addresses the information overload associated with comparing and navigating many sets of interelated simulations. Design by Dragging gives the designer the power to explore high-dimensional simulation design spaces by using natural direct manipulation interactions. This system is applied to several problems in medical device design and in visual effects simulation, and a domain expert evaluation is presented. The big data paradigm is integrally tied to the future of computing. The major contribution of this dissertation is its investigation into the effectiveness of natural user interfaces as a means of working in this paradigm. Although natural user interfaces have become ubiquitous in our daily lives, they are typically used only for simple interactions. This dissertation demonstrates that these technologies can also be effective in aiding design work in the context of big data, a result that could shape the future of computing and change the way designers work with computers.Item Support Social Connectedness through Technology-Mediated Shared Activities(2022-08) Yuan, YeShared activities such as reading or gaming together play an important part in people’s practices, both online and offline, in various social contexts, including connecting with distributed family members, socializing with colleagues after work, or catching up with friends. Especially during technology-mediated communication, shared activities can help improve the quality of connection outcomes and overcome barriers people often face with traditional communication technology. Prior research has explored new technology designs to support shared activities and context in remote communication and connection. Only a few studies have investigated the long-term impact of novel technology design on people’s social connectedness. This dissertation work explores technology design that supports in-person social practices in remote context during shared activities, and studies the long-term effect of the proposed system design on people’s social connections. The three different studies are designed to understand current in-person and online practices with shared activities in building and maintaining social connections, iteratively design communication technology to nurture meaningful relationships during remote intergenerational activities, and evaluate the impact of proposed technology design on people’s social connectedness with a long-term field deployment study. Overall, this dissertation contributes an in-depth understanding of how technology can better support people’s social practices during shared activities and helps inform opportunities for technology to better connect people socially.