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Research

Julie Kientz's Research Group Archive

The following research group descriptions are archived because they are no longer offered, the faculty member is on sabbatical, or the group is taking a break. Please contact the faculty member or an advisor to learn more about these groups.

Winter 2024

Assisting or Resisting Black Birth: Reproductive Technologies That Stick

Artificial wombs. Forced sterilization. Cloning. Low-cost surrogacy. Black infertility. The renewed fight for abortion rights is the tip of an iceberg. What can UW students contribute to debates about reproductive oppression and assisted reproductive technologies (ART)?

We will apply HCDE-related approaches to relevant academic literature and recent journalism that investigate how a wide range of insidious techniques have been used to resist black birthing people’s freedom. Rather than stopping there, we will also consider black public participation in successful examples of technologically-mediated childbirth against the odds.

Interactions between black women and ART can teach us lessons about how the current limits of design and engineering (that centers affluent, white humans) are already being surpassed beyond the walls of the university. Reading and discussing literature on these timely topics will provide a foundation for designing, printing, and sharing stickers that showcase our collective knowledge — spreading the word about lessons we have learned through creative communications that “stick.”

Facilitators: Nat Mengist and Leslie Coney

Summer 2023

Elevating Black Corpus and UX in Speech & Language Systems (ASR/NLP)

Led by HCDE PhD candidate Jay Cunningham, with Professors Julie Kientz and Daniela Rosner, this DRG serves as a working-group for a new research agenda to develop equitable, community-collaborative design methods to mitigate racial disparities and performance in automated speech and language technologies for Black language communities (AAVE/AAL).

Overview:
Automated speech recognition (ASR) systems that rely on natural language processing (NLP) techniques are becoming increasingly prevalent in people’s everyday lives. From virtual assistants integrated into mobile devices, smart home assistants, and vehicles; to software tasks such as automatic translation, automatic captioning, automatic subtitling, and even hands-free computing, ASR systems are core components of new devices and applications. However, recent research has shown that with this broadening access comes new fairness-related harms and racial disparities that negatively impact Black speakers of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), leaving AAVE users’ speech less accurately represented, recognized, and processed. 

HCDE PhD candidate Jay Cunningham, with Professors Julie Kientz and Daniela Rosner, seeks to address this challenge by developing and validating collaborative methods for developing more inclusive and equitable automated speech and language technologies for Black speakers of AAVE that are culturally competent. 

Through this project, we hope to further inform how academic researchers and industry practitioners can democratically collaborate with communities to create artificial intelligence and machine learning systems, practices, and policies that enable fair, equitable, and sustainable solutions that ultimately liberate and empower historically marginalized groups.

Student Researcher Involvement:
This DRG is seeking 3-5 dedicated students to collaborate and execute on the research studies outlined for this agenda. 

Participation in this research team will entail conducting and assisting with participant interviews and focus groups, thematic analysis of audio transcripts, analyzing co-design workshop artifacts, and conducting data science on AAVE speech data alongside the graduate student project lead. This also includes obtaining consent and assisting with performing all study procedures. Participants will have had coursework in research methods, complete an orientation to human subjects protections given by the UW, and will receive training from graduate student project lead on obtaining consent and debriefing subjects. 

This will be a 2-3 credit DRG. We will meet no more than 3 hours virtually or in-person each week (twice/week, 90-minute), and students should expect to spend no more than 2 hours working outside of that time per week.

Research will explore the following:

  • What are the strengths and pitfalls of existing ASR/NLP system design processes?
  • How might design decisions NLP/ML technologists make that shape experiences of fairness and bias among underrepresented language variety users?
  • How might researchers from academia and industry develop and employ collaborative-participatory approaches with African American community members — involving their voices and perspectives early and often in the product development process — to address many of the challenges African Americans (AAVE speakers) face when using voice technology?
  • How might community accountability boards serve as means for accountable action and transparency measures toward more culturally competent human centered technologies. 

Summer 2023

Inclusive Play and Making among Children with and without Disabilities

We are conducting a research study to understand whether and how computational toys (e.g., KIBO robots) can foster inclusive play in preschool classrooms that involve children with and without disabilities (age 3-5 years) and how to develop new accessible solutions to promote a maker mindset and inclusive play among this ability-diverse population.
We are seeking 2 students to work on this project for the Summer 2023 quarter. Depending on progress, students may have the option to continue on this project after the quarter ends.

Activities of this research group will include developing and running play-based study sessions with children and teachers in a preschool classroom and assisting with data analysis.

Ideal qualifications:

  • Experience with or interest in learning research or co-design activities with children.
  • Experience with or interest in learning qualitative analysis and/or video-based interaction analysis.

The sessions will take place on weekdays (between 9:00AM- 3:00PM) at a preschool classroom within UW during throughout the month of June. We will have 2-3 sessions per week. Each session may last for 60-90 minutes. Depending on your availability, we expect you to be present in-person during several sessions. For the rest of the Summer, we'll primarily work on video data analysis.

We expect students to spend approximately 6-9 hours per week (equivalent to 2-3 credit hours). Students will be expected to register for a course or independent study credits (e.g., HCDE 496/596, HCDE 499/599, REHAB 600, etc.).

This research group will be led by Dr. Maitraye Das (postdoc) with supervision from Prof. Heather Feldner (Rehabilitation Medicine) and Prof. Julie Kientz (HCDE) in collaboration with the Experimental Educational Unit at the UW Haring Center. For any questions, please reach out to Maitraye Das at maitraye@uw.edu.

Summer 2023

Participatory Design with Children and Researchers

We are looking for students for the Summer 2023 to help with running KidsTeam UW, an intergenerational co-design team of children (ages 6 – 12) and design researchers. There is rich work around how to interact with adults and children together in the co-design space, the role of design techniques in co-design, and the different stages and phases of co-design. You have the opportunity to help us understand this space.
 
Activities of this research group will include interacting as an adult design partner with children in co-design, working with researchers on multiple projects involving children and design, and running overall logistics to support the intergenerational design team. 
 
This DRG will require you to participate in KidsTeam UW in the summer 2023 for the following dates:

  • Tuesdays and Thursdays 60 minutes reading seminar: June 29, and July 6, 11, 13, 18, 20
  • Week of July 24 – 28, 2023: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. co-design sessions with children

Students who have completed HCDE 318/418/518 and/or HCDE 417/517 or have relevant experience will be given priority.  Alternatively, students who have experience with youth mentorship, learning sciences, education, and child development will also be considered. 
 
Prior experience working with children (ages 0 – 17) is a requirement (e.g., tutoring/teaching/coaching, child-care, summer camps, etc.)
 
This research group will be led by Associate Professor Jason Yip (iSchool), with support from Dr. Julie Kientz (Professor, HCDE), Dr. Jin Ha Lee (Professor, iSchool), and Dr. Alexis Hiniker (Associate Professor, iSchool).
 
For any questions, please email Dr. Jason Yip at jcyip@uw.edu.

Spring 2023

TB-TST HIV/PrEP Adaptation DRG

Oral antiretroviral therapy (ART) is highly effective for people living with HIV to suppress viral replication, and oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) reduces the risk of HIV acquisition; however, monitoring and improving drug adherence remains challenging. 
 
The TB-Treatment Support Tools (TB-TST) project, led by Dr. Sarah Iribarren of the UW’s School of Nursing, has been actively working to provide TB care providers in Argentina with a mobile web application that helps monitor and support individuals with active TB. The TB-TST has shown promising results for aiding in the treatment of patients. 
 
Prior DRGs conducted user research, created a high fidelity app prototype, and conducted a cycle of usability testing. This DRG will involve analyzing the first cycle’s usability tests, synthesizing and implementing design recommendations, and conducting a second round of usability testing. 
 
Requirements:

  • Passion for designing equitable and innovative healthcare solutions using HCDE principles in a fast-paced environment. 
  • UI/UX design experience, familiarity with Figma prototyping techniques is a plus.
  • Usability testing or qualitative research experience, with an emphasis on translating findings into data-supported UX design recommendations.
  • Registering for 2-3 credits (3 hour commitment per credit)
  • Ability to attend and present progress reports/deliverables in weekly 90 min. meetings over zoom.  
  • Willingness to meet outside of the regularly scheduled meeting time to work with fellow collaborators and be flexible for usability testing participants.

Spring 2023

Elevating Black Corpus and UX in Speech & Language Systems (ASR/NLP)

Led by HCDE PhD candidate Jay Cunningham, with Professors Julie Kientz and Daniela Rosner, this DRG serves as a working-group for a new research agenda to develop equitable, community-collaborative design methods to mitigate racial disparities and performance in automated speech and language technologies for Black language communities (AAVE/AAL).

Overview:
Automated speech recognition (ASR) systems that rely on natural language processing (NLP) techniques are becoming increasingly prevalent in people’s everyday lives. From virtual assistants integrated into mobile devices, smart home assistants, and vehicles; to software tasks such as automatic translation, automatic captioning, automatic subtitling, and even hands-free computing, ASR systems are core components of new devices and applications. However, recent research has shown that with this broadening access comes new fairness-related harms and racial disparities that negatively impact Black speakers of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), leaving AAVE users’ speech less accurately represented, recognized, and processed. 

HCDE PhD candidate Jay Cunningham, with Professors Julie Kientz and Daniela Rosner, seeks to address this challenge by developing and validating collaborative methods for developing more inclusive and equitable automated speech and language technologies for Black speakers of AAVE that are culturally competent. 

Through this project, we hope to further inform how academic researchers and industry practitioners can democratically collaborate with communities to create artificial intelligence and machine learning systems, practices, and policies that enable fair, equitable, and sustainable solutions that ultimately liberate and empower historically marginalized groups.

Student Researcher Involvement:
This DRG is seeking 3-5 dedicated students to collaborate and execute on the research studies outlined for this agenda. 

Participation in this research team will entail conducting and assisting with participant interviews and focus groups, thematic analysis of audio transcripts, analyzing co-design workshop artifacts, and conducting data science on AAVE speech data alongside the graduate student project lead. This also includes obtaining consent and assisting with performing all study procedures. Participants will have had coursework in research methods, complete an orientation to human subjects protections given by the UW, and will receive training from graduate student project lead on obtaining consent and debriefing subjects. 

This will be a 2-3 credit DRG. We will meet no more than 3 hours virtually or in-person each week (twice/week, 90-minute), and students should expect to spend no more than 2 hours working outside of that time per week.

Research will explore the following:

  • What are the strengths and pitfalls of existing ASR/NLP system design processes?
  • How might design decisions NLP/ML technologists make that shape experiences of fairness and bias among underrepresented language variety users?
  • How might researchers from academia and industry develop and employ collaborative-participatory approaches with African American community members — involving their voices and perspectives early and often in the product development process — to address many of the challenges African Americans (AAVE speakers) face when using voice technology?
  • How might community accountability boards serve as means for accountable action and transparency measures toward more culturally competent human centered technologies. 

While we can’t accept all applicants, subsequent DRGs on this topic may be available for future quarters (summer, autumn). If you’re interested in a future instance, please contact Jay Cunningham (jaylcham@uw.edu). 

Spring 2023

CRIBS: Community-Clinician Relationship Impact on Black Birthing Success

Black women in the US are 3-4x more likely to die during childbirth, and over 60% of these deaths are preventable. The over medicalization of Black birth and obstetric racism have negatively impacted Black birthing people for centuries, thus causing a growing interest in non-hospital care and support during the pregnancy and postpartum period for Black birthing people. This creates the opportunity to investigate how, or if, community-based organizations (CBOs), initiatives, and resources are being shared as supplemental care and support options by clinicians. 

This 2-credit DRG will serve primarily as a reading group to understand CRIBS, community-clinician relationship impact on Black birthing success. We will also ideate ways to incorporate design and/or technology in creating, facilitating, and/or improving this relationship by developing a research study protocol. No previous knowledge of or background in Black maternal health is needed, only open-minded, eager scholars willing to read and engage in literature around this topic. Considering HCI scholars and literature to date don’t provide extensive research and writing on Black maternal health, we will draw from various other disciplines to better understand the historical and contemporary implications of the subject. 

Objectives
The objectives of this reading group are to:

  1. Gain a brief understanding of the Black maternal mortality crisis from a historical and contemporary lens
  2. Critique the roles medical institutions and CBOs play in Black maternal health as individual entities
  3. Investigate the relationship, or lack thereof, between medical institutions and CBOs and its impact on Black maternal health outcomes
  4. Develop a study protocol to use design and/or tech to create, facilitate, and/or improve relationship between community-based organizations, initiatives and resources and clinicians

Who’s a good fit?
Master's or PhD scholars from all disciplines and backgrounds with an interest in the topic are welcome to join! This DRG can accommodate 6-8 scholars. Registration for 2 credits is required to join.

This DRG will be run by HCDE PhD student Leslie Coney with guidance from Professor Julie Kientz.

Winter 2023

Adaption of Tuberculosis (TB) Treatment Support App for HIV/PrEP Treatment

Oral antiretroviral therapy (ART) is highly effective for people living with HIV to suppress viral replication, and oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) reduces the risk of HIV acquisition; however, monitoring and improving drug adherence remains challenging. 

The TB-Treatment Support Tools (TB-TST) project, led by Dr. Sarah Iribarren of the UW’s School of Nursing, has been actively working to provide TB care providers in Argentina with a mobile web application that helps monitor and support individuals with active TB. The TB-TST has shown promising results for aiding in the treatment of patients. 

A prior DRG conducted qualitative research into how the TB-TST could be adapted to support patients being treated with ART and/or PrEP. This DRG will build upon that work using an agile development methods to create a high fidelity app prototype. This project will involve at least 2 cycles that will include design planning, prototyping, and usability testing. 

Requirements:

  • Passion for designing equitable and innovative healthcare solutions using HCDE principles in a fast-paced environment. 
  • UI/UX design experience, familiarity with Figma prototyping techniques is a plus.
  • Usability testing or qualitative research experience, with an emphasis on translating findings into data-supported UX design recommendations.
  • Registering for 2-3 credits (3 hour commitment per credit)
  • Ability to attend and present progress reports/deliverables in weekly 60-90 min. meeting over zoom, tentatively on Mondays before 12pm. 
  • Willingness to meet outside of the regularly scheduled meeting time to work with fellow collaborators.

Please fill out this application survey by 12/27/22. We will notify applicants by 12/29/22 for tentative start date of January 3. We will select 2-3 students.

Winter 2023

Co-designing a Sex Education Tool For and With Trans and Queer Youth

Led by Calvin Liang, PhD Candidate with guidance from faculty advisor Dr. Julie Kientz

Overview:
Transgender (trans) and queer young people deserve effective, affirming, and accurate sex education resources that can support them to have healthy sexual and romantic relationships. In this DRG, we will partner with a community advisory board made up of 20 trans young people ages 16-25, known as the QTAB (Queer and Trans Advisory Board). This QTAB was intentionally designed to center the perspectives of Black, Latine, and Asian-American youth; transfeminine and non-binary people; young people living in rural areas and/or localities where legislation is actively attempting to remove their healthcare access; and people who are new to experiences with research. There are increasingly more social support groups for trans young people today, but this group is unique by positioning QTAB members as experts of their own lives and drivers of research that affects their own health related issues.

DRG students will engage in monthly co-design sessions with QTAB members to ultimately develop a medium to high fidelity prototype of a sex education tool for trans youth. In between these co-design sessions, students will prepare a style guide, mockups, wireframes, and additional design elements for feedback elicitation from QTAB members.

Autumn 2022

Co-designing Screen Use Guidelines with Teens

Overuse of screen-based media is a widespread problem, and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents limit and monitor their children's screen use. However, data suggests that when parents try to rigidly control teen behavior it backfires, and teens just hide their media use. The goal of this NIH-funded project is to improve how parents and teens make decisions about media use. Building on our focus group feedback from middle and high school students, you will help us come up with content, learning strategies, and conceptual designs for a novel web-based tool. You will seek feedback from middle and high school students throughout this process as we refine possible approaches so they meet the learning and communication needs of diverse families.

This directed research group will meet on Tuesdays from 10 to 11:30 a.m., starting October 4 (hybrid), and will be led by Seattle Children’s / UW Researcher Emily Kroshus with guidance and collaboration with Dr. Julie Kientz.

Autumn 2022

Breaking Down the Process of finding a UX Job

Directed by HCDE Outreach Manager Melissa Ewing with faculty oversight from Dr. Julie Kientz 

The Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering is offering a 10-week class that takes students through the journey of finding a UX/UI/HCI-focused job.

Workshop leaders and guest speakers include alumni, industry experts, and UW career counselors. In this class, we focus on the fundamentals of getting a job in the UX field, including decoding UX job titles, storytelling, best practices for job hunting in North American culture, resume-writing, networking in person and on LinkedIn, building portfolios, and whiteboarding.

The class will meet on Tuesdays in Autumn 2022 at the below times and locations. Session topics are:

  • In-person Storytelling workshop (10/4, 4-6 p.m.)
  • Virtual Decoding UX jobs and job titles (10/11, 4-5 p.m.)
  • Virtual Best practices for working in the US (10/18, 4-5 p.m.)
  • Virtual Resume writing (10/25, 4-5 p.m.)
  • Virtual LinkedIn tips & tricks, and networking with HCDE alumni (11/1, 4-5 p.m.)
  • In-person Portfolio workshop-creating and discussing portfolios (11/8, 4-6 p.m.)
  • In-person Whiteboarding workshop (11/15, 4-6 p.m.)
  • Virtual Interviewing best practices (11/22, 4-5 p.m.)

The in-person, two-hour sessions (10/4, 11/8, and 11/15) will take place in the 3rd floor Design Lab in Sieg Building. All other sessions are virtual.

All students (regardless of whether they are registered for the DRG) are welcome to attend the virtual events listed above. Students who register for 1 credit of HCDE 496/596 will be expected to complete assignments related to career planning. Priority will be given to HCDE MS students studying on an F-1 visa, but other HCDE students are welcome to express interest and will be admitted if space permits.  Any questions? Contact Melissa Ewing at mewing3@uw.edu.

Summer 2022

Co-Design with Parents of Young Children

We are looking for students for the Summer 2022 to help with running co-design sessions with design researchers and parents of young children under the age of 5 from a variety of backgrounds. The goal of this work will be to work toward the design of a culturally competent mobile application for helping parents understand and celebrate their child’s development and connect with early intervention resources if needed.

Activities of this research group will include developing co-design session activities, running sessions with a diverse group of parents, and assisting with data analysis. 

Ideal qualifications:

  • Experience with developing and facilitating participatory design techniques or an interest in learning
  • The majority of these workshops will take place on weekends at a site near the Othello light rail station in July and August due to parent availability, so availability on weekends is needed (though not every weekend)
  • A bonus would be if you can converse in Spanish, Vietnamese, or Somali

This research group will be led by Professor Julie Kientz, Dr. Kendra Liljenquist, and PhD Students Akeiylah DeWitt and Leslie Coney and collaboration with Seattle Children’s.

Summer 2022

Adaption of Tuberculosis (TB) Treatment Support App for HIV/PrEP Treatment

Background:

Oral antiretroviral therapy (ART) is highly effective for people living with HIV to suppress viral replication, and oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) reduces the risk of HIV acquisition; however, monitoring and improving drug adherence remains challenging. 

The TB-Treatment Support Tools (TB-TST) project, led by Dr. Sarah Iribarren of the UW’s School of Nursing, has been actively working to provide TB care providers in Argentina with a mobile web application that helps monitor and support individuals with active TB. The TB-TST has shown promising results for aiding in the treatment of patients. 

The purpose of this DRG is to conduct research into how the TB-TST can be adapted to support patients being treated with ART and/or PrEP.  We will conduct a qualitative study to understand features and user-interface desired by clients and providers. 

Requirements:

  • Experience in qualitative research including individual interviews or focus groups. Ideal candidates will have knowledge in fast paced iterative-cycle usability testing techniques with an emphasis on translating findings into data-supported UX design recommendations.
  • Completion of HCDE 412/417/517/519 is desirable but not required. 
  • UI/UX design experience. Familiarity with Figma prototyping is a plus.
  • Registering for 2-3 credits (3 hour commitment per credit)
  • Ability to attend and present progress reports/deliverables in weekly 90 min. meeting over zoom on tentatively Tuesdays at 2 pm  

Summer 2022

Participatory Design with Children and Researchers

We are looking for students for the Summer 2022 to help with running KidsTeam UW, an intergenerational co-design team of children (ages 6 – 12) and design researchers. There is rich work around how to interact with adults and children together in the co-design space, the role of design techniques in co-design, and the different stages and phases of co-design. You have the opportunity to help us understand this space.

Activities of this research group will include interacting as an adult design partner with children in co-design, working with researchers on multiple projects involving children and design, and running overall logistics to support the intergenerational design team.

This DRG will require you to participate in KidsTeam UW in the summer 2022 for the following dates:

  • Tuesdays and Thursdays: 60 minutes reading seminar: July 5, 7, 12, 14, 19, 21, and August 2, 2022.
  • Week of July 25 – 29, 2022, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm co-design sessions with children.

Students who have completed HCDE 318/418/518 and/or HCDE 417/517 or have relevant experience will be given priority.  Alternatively, students who have experience with youth mentorship, learning sciences, education, and child development will also be considered. 

Prior experience working with children (ages 0 – 17) is a requirement (e.g., tutoring, teaching, coaching, child-care, summer camps, etc.)

This research group will be led by Associate Professor Jason Yip (iSchool), with support from Dr. Julie Kientz (Professor, HCDE), Dr. Jin Ha Lee (Professor, iSchool), and Dr. Alexis Hiniker (Associate Professor, iSchool).

Spring 2022

Developing a Heuristic Evaluation Method for Child Health Apps

Mobile apps for parenting and child health guidance have recently increased in popularity. While there is potential for these apps to support parent knowledge and monitoring a child’s health, evaluating these technologies is challenging in the early stages of design processes or non-medical contexts. In this Directed Research Group (DRG), we are interested in understanding how extending the heuristic evaluation method in this space might support the identification of issues earlier in design processes.

Planned activities: In this DRG, we will spend the first weeks reading papers about heuristic evaluation methods and how to develop them. We will explore existing heuristic evaluation methods (e.g., Nielsen’s heuristics) and identify key features that heuristic evaluations for mobile health apps should address. During the next weeks of the DRG, we will engage with parents and pediatricians to develop and test a set of heuristics for evaluating child health and parenting mobile apps. We look forward to working with students interested in mobile health apps, child development, health equity, cultural relevance in design, and heuristic evaluation methods. Students will have an opportunity to collaborate on future projects in this area.

Required availability:

  • Attend our meeting twice a week (in-person) Mondays and Wednesdays from 5:00pm-5:50pm.
  • Dedicate at least 3 hours to work each week outside of meetings
  • Register for 2 to 3 credits of HCDE 496/596

This DRG will be led by HCDE Ph.D. student Akeiylah DeWitt, with guidance from Professor Julie Kientz. This DRG is open to both undergraduate and graduate students.

Spring 2022

Child Care Access in Seattle: Mapping and Visualization 

Led by: Rebecca Michelson, PhD Candidate, HCDE 
With guidance from faculty advisors Professor Julie Kientz and Professor Daniela Rosner
Wednesdays, 3 - 4:40 p.m. on Zoom

Project Overview
This DRG is a hands-on opportunity to deliver on information and advocacy needs expressed by the Greater Seattle Child Care Business Coalition. The goal of the DRG is to co-create with GSCCB an interactive map that features childcare and daycare centers as well as providers in each neighborhood. Activities include: collecting and reviewing data, learning about mapping platforms, and iteratively developing a beta map with opportunities for feedback from the community partnership. Students will get the chance to learn from guest speakers on topics of data viz, mapping for social change, and childcare policy. 

The project is driven by a partnership with the Greater Seattle Child Care Business Coalition who serves as a learning and workforce development arm among childcare providers, policymakers, and regulatory agencies. (Read more about some of their recent work here).

We are looking for:

  • 4-6 undergraduate or graduate students
  • Folks with experience or strong interest in data visualization, mapping, and usability studies
  • Nice to have:
    • Passion or domain expertise for childcare or caregiving access
  • You do not have to be a method or subject expert to participate!

DRG Format:

  • Meeting once a week for 1.5 hours on Zoom, with 2 hours of asynchronous design research in between sessions: Wednesdays 3-4:30pm PST. *There may be some flexibility in this course timing, if this time absolutely does not work for you!
  • 1-2 credits
  • This DRG will be entirely remote via Zoom
  • Composition: we will have 1-2 project working groups, based on the number of students who apply

Students Participating in the DRG will:

  • Participate in co-design and planning of a resource to launch by the end of Spring quarter with a local community partner
  • Brainstorm and research best approaches to share information about childcare access in Seattle
  • Conduct user research activities for audiences of this prototype
  • Move from concepts to prototype in a short period of time
  • Engage with design research long-term with possibility for a Fall 2022 DRG

Summer 2021

Participatory Design with Children and Researchers

We are looking for students for the Summer 2021 to help with running KidsTeam UW, an intergenerational co-design team of children (ages 6 – 12) and design researchers. There is rich work around how to interact with adults and children together in the co-design space, the role of design techniques in co-design, and the different stages and phases of co-design. You have the opportunity to help us understand this space.

Activities of this research group will include interacting as an adult design partner with children in co-design, working with researchers on multiple projects involving children and design, and running overall logistics to support the intergenerational design team. 

This DRG will require you to participate in KidsTeam UW in the summer 2021 for the following dates:

Tuesday / Thursdays: July 6, 8, 13, 15, 20, 22, 27, 29 and August 3 and 5 (90 minute co-design sessions)
Wednesdays: June 30, July 7, 14, 21, 28, and August 4 and 11  (60 minute reading sessions)

Students who have completed HCDE 318/418/518 and/or HCDE 417/517 or have relevant experience will be given priority.  Alternatively, students who have experience with youth mentorship, learning sciences, education, and child development will also be considered. 

Prior experience working with children is a requirement (e.g., tutoring/teaching/coaching, child-care, summer camps, etc.)

This research group will be led by Assistant Professor Jason Yip (iSchool), with support from Dr. Julie Kientz (Professor, HCDE), Dr. Jin Ha Lee (Associate Professor, iSchool), and Dr. Alexis Hiniker (Assistant Professor, iSchool).

Spring 2021

Designing for an Asynchronous Remote Communities (ARC) tool to support adolescent depression treatment

This DRG was offered by Julie Kientz, PhD and Jessica Jenness with guidance from Sean Munson, PhD and Elin Björling, PhD

Over 60% of adolescents diagnosed with depression do not receive mental health care and treatment engagement is low among those who do access care. Asynchronous Remote Communities (ARC) are a promising technology-based approach for engaging adolescents in mental health care that capitalizes on the reach and scalability of technology while also providing support, social interactions, and motivation to engage. ARCs use private online platforms (e.g., Slack, Microsoft Teams) to deliver and gather information from adolescents in a format that is lightweight, accessible, usable, and low burden. Our team of researchers including HCDE faculty Juile Kientz, PhD, Sean Munson, PhD, and Elin Björling, PhD and Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine faculty Jessica Jenness, PhD have conducted pilot work to develop a functional Asynchronous Remote Communities (ARC) platform to supplement behavioral activation (BA+ARC) therapy for depressed adolescents using Slack. Our BA+ARC platform included peer and therapist coaching through direct messaging and chat channels, chatbot supported therapy tools, and real-time mood and behavior tracking and visualizations. Mental health clinician and adolescent target users provided critical feedback on design requirements including ARC supplementing versus replacing synchronous therapy sessions and tested preliminary prototypes that adapted core BA elements to a technology platform (BA+ARC). 

We are seeking to adapt our Slack prototype to Microsoft Teams in order to meet certain design criteria including HIPAA compliance and meeting the needs of the clinician’s workflow. We are partnering with Microsoft and Seattle Children’s Hospital engineers to begin the development work and are seeking students to assist in the creation of a design specification document related to this shift from Slack to Teams as well as the addition of automated data collection and visualization tools identified as important by target users.

Activities:

Understand the design of our current Slack-based prototype that has been developed and feasibility tested with teens and clinicians
Adapt the design of a Slack Prototype for delivering treatment for depression for teens to the Microsoft Teams platform
Create a set of annotated wireframes or an interactive prototype for the new design
Conduct informal usability testing on new ported design
Write a design spec document for communicating that design to a team of developers working at Seattle Children’s and Microsoft by the end of the quarter

Spring 2021

The Cost of Culture: Diverse and Multicultural Community Interaction with Financial Technology Applications

Led by: Jay Cunningham, PhD Student | Faculty Sponsors:  Julie Kientz, Daniela Rosner 
2 credits | Virtual via Zoom |  Meeting Day/Time: TBD

Overview:
This DRG is seeking 3-4  dedicated and enthusiastic students to join in supporting this proposed study. Students from all levels (BS - PhD) are invited to apply and participate in this project. The group will conduct applied research outlined by the study agenda to investigate the relational engagement among low-resourced ethnic minority and multicultural communities and their interaction with financial technology (fintech) applications. This study is concerned with the cultural and communal relativity embodied by financial technology, specifically with diverse underserved populations. 

Involvement:
Participation in assisting with this study will entail surveying, interviewing, collaborating and collecting oral and written histories with participant experts on experiences and circumstances that influence their use of fintech applications. This also includes obtaining consent and assisting with performing all study procedures. Participants will have had coursework in research methods, complete an orientation to human subjects protections given by the UW, and will receive training from graduate student project lead on obtaining consent and debriefing subjects.

Impact & Affordances:
This project will provide researchers with data and stories provided by participants that grant perspective into their choice of personal finance and banking technology services and the impacts of its use in their lives. Findings of this project will guide further research to triangulate the affordances of culturally relative/sensitive technical systems design and highlight consequences of biased financial technology and the impact on low-resourced ethnic minority and multicultural communities. 

Additional Background & Motivation:
This project serves as a preliminary analysis toward examining the role that big tech plays in the position of power, ethics, equity, and sociality in the design, development, and deployment of AI systems. With specific reference to financial technology firms (fin-tech), AI systems are based on statistical and probability models along with predictive analytics to forecast consumer performance. Extensive research has shown that bias in AI systems reflect historical patterns of discrimination and oppression long influenced by a dominant culture; which in the U.S defaults to white, heterosexual, middle-to-upper class men. Thus, when AI tools make decisions based on predominant consumers’ data, fin-tech must urgently consider the effects of low-resourced ethnic minority and multicultural communities and whether the decisions are transparent and explainable. Across the U.S.,these communities are less likely to possess adequate financial literacy, generational and community wealth, and access to financial resources and education. Though previous work in community cultural wealth has examined the relationship between people, equity, and finances, the role of computation in this process remains unclear. We contribute to this work by exploring how a study of fintech practices among diverse underserved populations may foster equity-centered sociotechnical change.

Winter 2021

Design Considerations for tools Supporting Individuals to Cope with Shame

This DRG will be offered by HCDE Affiliate Professor Mania Orand with guidance from Professor Julie Kientz

Shame is a common emotion that negatively impacts individuals’ mental health. One effective strategy to cope with shame, as psychologists suggest, is to share shame experiences with others and build mutual empathy. Research shows that online communities can facilitate the exchange of sensitive issues for social support. However, few platforms have been specifically designed to facilitate sharing of users’ shame experiences in order to build mutually empathetic connections. In this DRG, we will work together to explore the literature to gain a better understanding of different dimensions of shame experience, such as the importance of anonymity or the desire to be heard without being judged. The literature review will inform the design of platforms that might support individual to cope with shame.

Activities:

Find, read, and discuss literature about shame and other relevant topics
Discuss design considerations for tools that might facilitate sharing shame experiences
Explore mechanisms that might encourage mutual empathy, while balancing the need for anonymity and the desire to connect with other individuals
Design ideas to support individuals to freely express their feelings

Participation Requirements:

Attend our virtual 2-hour class and working session each week, starting the second week of January
Search for and review the literature 4 hours each week outside of class meeting.
Register for 2 HCDE 496/596 in Winter. Email orand@uw.edu for registration code
This DRG will be offered as Credit/No Credit.

Winter 2021

Participatory Design for Family-Centered Innovation

Led by Rebecca Michelson, Akeiylah DeWitt, and Professor Julie Kientz

2 credits

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt work and preschool-12th grade education in the United States, families are finding new ways to adapt their home lives accordingly. This DRG topic is motivated by questions about remote learning and childcare needs that were uncovered from a recent study on families using technology in the home. In this DRG, we will work together to define the scope of future design by engaging in activities like reflection, design-thinking, and usability evaluation. We will meet remotely on Zoom once a week and connect via Slack as well. Outputs of this DRG may include low-fidelity prototypes, technology probes, data visualizations, or other creative outputs such as a manifesto for family-centered design. There may be opportunities to carry our outputs forward through a Spring quarter DRG as well.

Goals:

Based on recent research and stories that DRG participants generate, we will explore the greatest challenges that families with young ones ages 18 and under are experiencing during COVID-19.
Design for family-centered support by leveraging our knowledge, community, and diverse skill sets as DUB students.
Conduct family-centered advocacy in our communities and beyond.

The team is led by Rebecca Michelson and Akeiylah DeWitt, (Human Centered Design & Engineering). For more information about Families and Technology research, see our blog at medium.com/families-and-tech. 

Participation: We encourage all UW students who are parents or caregivers for kids and young adults ages 18 to apply! Beginner knowledge of design-thinking is recommended as well. Please reach out with any accessibility needs so that we can meet them.

Autumn 2020

Interactive mobile app to support individuals with tuberculosis (TB)

This research group will be led by Assistant Professor Sarah Iribarren (Nursing), with guidance from Professor Julie Kientz (HCDE).

TB is an urgent global health threat and the world’s deadliest infectious disease despite it being largely curable. Treatment success rates remain below the targets set by the World Health Organization and there is need for improved individual support and monitoring to ensure treatment success and cure. 

In this DRG, we will build on our prior work to conduct usability testing and refine a mobile web app for TB patients and a dashboard to enable TB teams to monitor, interact and support the patients. The app will be used in an upcoming trial in Argentina. Activities will include usability testing of the dashboard and design refinement based on end-user feedback and issues identified while testing. Usability testing will be with predominantly Spanish speakers. We will select 2-3 students to join the team that includes a software engineer, human-centered design lead, and the PI on the NIH funded research project.

Requirements 

  • Usability testing experience
  • User research / UI experience / design
  • Spanish language level to interact with Spanish speaking collaborators/colleagues highly desired or ability to analyze transcripts or audio in Spanish.
  • We will have weekly team meetings for 1.5 hours and other meetings may be established in smaller groups for specific tasks. The meeting day/time per week will be determined by the group (tentatively Tuesdays 2-3:30). 

Autumn 2020

Race, Culture, Gender & Ethics in Technology

(2) Units | Virtual via Zoom | Thursdays 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Led by: Jay Cunningham, PhD Student | Julie Kientz, Faculty Sponsor

This Directed Research Group (DRG) offers students an opportunity to explore and analyze the historical and contemporary relationships of race, culture, gender, and ethics in digital media within the United States. Utilizing feminist and critical race theory approaches from the fields of gender and ethnic studies, this course examines the role of cultural, ethical, and social factors in determining the norms, values and meanings of scientific and technological practices, with an emphasis on the ways in which the research, development, and implementations of technological applications are shaped.

We examine cultural and social boundaries in the embodiment of digital technologies; engaging in humanistic investigation into the theoretical and practical applications of systems with specific analysis and reference to methods of inclusive design thinking, product inclusion pedagogy, deconstructing systems of bias, and the social effects of equity centered technological development. 

The group will engage in deep literary analysis of existing work, examine product/system designs in the wild, and apply various disciplinary tools to further advance knowledge in fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics (F.A.T.E.) in technology research. Finally, proposing scholarly exploratory projects to express, reflect and analyze our own perception on the intersectionality of race, culture, gender and ethics in digital innovation. 

Participation Requirements:

  • Attend our virtual 2-hour class and working session each week, starting the second week of October. 
  • Review the required readings and materials 4 hours each week outside of meetings. 
  • Register for 2 of HCDE 496/596 in Autumn. 
  • This DRG will be offered as Credit/No Credit.

 

Autumn 2020

Human-Centered Gaming

Led by Prof. Julie Kientz, Prof. Beth Kolko
2 credits

Games and gaming drive technological innovation, new social formations, and comprise a solid chunk of the economy. We spend quite a bit of time in HCDE talking about collaboration in work contexts, and we also do work around social software. But in recent years the department hasn’t had a lot of research or teaching focused on gaming. This research group is an effort to jump-start the conversation of what a research agenda on human-centered gaming might look like. We will play some games, we’ll talk about gaming communities and challenges and opportunities within them, we’ll discuss translational work between academic and industry in the gaming space. Students will also have the opportunity to interview practitioners in the gaming industry.

We’ll work together as a research group to further define the scope of our work together this quarter. The outcome of this DRG will be a shareable definition of a research / teaching agenda for Human-Centered Gaming.

Spring 2020

Interactive mobile app to support individuals with tuberculosis (TB)

TB is an urgent global health threat and the world’s deadliest infectious disease despite it being largely curable. Treatment success rates remain below the standards set by the World Health Organization and there is need for improved individual support and monitoring to ensure treatment success and cure. 

In this DRG, we will build on our prior work to refine/reenvision the design specifications for the mobile web app that links a paper-based drug metabolite urine test strip modified for home use. The redesigns may be used for next stage incorporation of current functioning app being piloted in Argentina. Activities will include redesigning based on pilot study feedback, co-design with new collaborators, and designing for low literacy, limited data plans, and low resource settings. 

Requirements 

Able to participate in study sessions in Spring 2020
At least one team member must have an advanced Spanish language level to interact with Spanish speaking collaborators/colleagues and for translation of the text within the app
User research / UI experience / design and project management 
The meeting day/time per week will be determined by the group. Meetings will be 1.5 hours in Spring quarter. 

This research group will be led by Assistant Professor Sarah Iribarren (Nursing), with guidance from Professor Julie Kientz (HCDE).

Spring 2020

Children's Digital Media and Technologies Design Toolkit

Led by Ph.D. student Saba Kawas and Professor Julie Kientz

Research Group Overview

We are looking for a few students to join our Design Toolkit DRG to help inform the UX design process of interactive technologies for children in the Spring. Students who are interested in applied research or have strong back end development or illustration and graphic design skills are encouraged to apply.  In this DRG, we continue to prototype and design the children's design toolkit that translates academic research findings into actionable insights that can be easily used by UX designers in the industry.

Activities

Include translating Interaction Design & Children's research findings with practical relevance into actionable design tips and guidelines; create the visual designs of the toolkit prototype, and deploy and evaluating the toolkit with UX design professionals.

This research group will be led by Ph.D. student Saba Kawas, with guidance from Professor Julie Kientz. If you have any questions or would like additional information, please email us at skawas@uw.edu.

Winter 2020

Family Informatics Solution for Parent-Child Asthma Management

Asthma is the most common chronic condition of childhood, affecting nearly 10% of US children.  During the school years (7-11 years), parents and children struggle to share asthma management responsibility.  Over the past year we have used HCD to co-design a family informatics solution for parents and kids that includes a wearable for kids (MVPs fabricated) and companion mobile web app.  This DRG will focus on refinement of our web app prototype by conducting usability sessions with parent-child dyads while concurrently working with a developer to build and refine the full-scale app.  We will also review relevant family informatics literature (technology and health-related). 

This research group will be led by Assistant Professor Jennifer Sonney (Nursing), with guidance from Professor Julie Kientz (HCDE).

Winter 2020

Children's Digital Media and Technologies Design Toolkit

Led by Ph.D. student Saba Kawas and Professor Julie Kientz

Research Group Overview

We are looking for a few students who are interested in applied research to help inform the UX design process of interactive technologies for children. In this DRG, we will prototype and evaluate design toolkits that translate academic research findings into actionable insights that can be easily used by UX designers in the industry. Our goal is to come up with toolkit designs with content presented in an easily-digestible format such as a set of cards or an online resource library. We are also planning to run co-design sessions with professional UX designers to design, create, and evaluate several Children’s Digital Design Toolkit examples.

Activities

Include translating Interaction Design & Children's research findings with practical relevance into actionable design tips and guidelines; prototyping the designs of the toolkit features; evaluating the toolkit with UX design professionals; and revising the toolkit based on feedback.

This research group will be led by Ph.D. student Saba Kawas, with guidance from Professor Julie Kientz. If you have any questions or would like additional information, please email us at skawas@uw.edu.

Winter 2020

Mobile Health as an Avenue to Reduce Health Disparities – Systematic Literature Review

mHealth (mobile health) tools are proliferating as a means for parents to track their child’s development from the comfort of their phone. These tracking apps can support parents assessing their child’s progress on their own, or alongside their child’s doctor. mHealth technologies have the capacity to reduce health disparities between affluent and at-risk populations. Historically, these applications are utilized by both populations, increasing the disparity or not improving it at all. Researchers have encouraged designers to address socioeconomic barriers within the design of these tools. Currently, there exists no clear documentation of trends among these design processes, and thus no clear frameworks for designers to work with when using mHealth as an intervention. Through a systematic literature review, we will understand the state of health equity in mHealth technologies, creating a foundation for design opportunities.

In this DRG, we will explore emergent themes from the literature that assess functional mobile applications, while considering health interventions from a health equity perspective. This project serves to assess development tracking apps and support the future work of researchers and designers in this domain.

Planned Activities: In the DRG, we develop a coding scheme for themes across relevant papers. Each week, students will be assigned papers to review and to extract information from and come prepared to discuss. We look forward to working with students interested in mobile health interventions, systematic literatures reviews as a method, and cultural relevance/equitable approaches to designing for at-risk populations in health. If warranted, students will have an opportunity to collaborate on future projects in this domain.

Winter 2020

Location-Based Gaming and Mental Health

Co-led by: Julie Kientz, Jin Ha Lee (iSchool), Travis Windleharth (iSchool), Jason Yip (iSchool), Cecilia Aragon, Arpita Bhattacharya

Design of games influence mental wellbeing of players both positively and negatively. With location based games — such as Pokemon GO, Harry Potter Wizards Unite (HPWU), and Ingress — boundaries between online and offline gaming worlds have been merging. While for some players, gaming might be a way to experience a virtual world different from their current identity or circumstances, for others, game design can scaffold players to initiate and practice behaviors in real world contexts. For example, some players described experiencing higher positive mood and sense of belonging after being motivated by Pokemon GO to take walks in parks. Additionally, data obtained from prior work on location based games revealed cases where these games helped players face agoraphobia, overcome social anxiety, re-engage with public spaces after sexual assault, and facilitate socialization of children with autism. Game design focussed on collaboration (e.g., HPUW) and competition (e.g., Ingress) also have implications on emotional states and social relationships of players. In-built features in the game which are designed for continuous and high engagement can lead to binge-playing, injuries, sleep deprivation, and reduction of self-care practices.

In this project, we will be working on designing and conducting a research study to understand the mental health experiences of players of location based games and work towards building design implications and meta-data to balance tensions in supporting mental wellbeing in gaming. 

Activities: In the DRG, we expect to read and discuss relevant literature in the area of gaming and health, sketch and brainstorm design ideas, design study protocols,and collect data through surveys and interviews. Readings and discussions will be based on what will help the team learn related work and relevant skills. We look forward to working with 2-3 students who have an interest in the topic, have prior experience in research methods such as HCDE 313/418/518, and/or have worked on projects on gaming and/or mental health. Depending on progress, students may have the option to continue on this project after the quarter ends.

Winter 2020

Co-design with older adults and designers

Co-led by PhD student Dawn Sakaguchi-Tang and Professor Julie Kientz

HCI researchers have investigated the ways aging has been discussed and framed in the field. They found that aging has been described as a problem to be solved. Studies often described older adults as a homogenous group, and designs mainly focused on the decline and deficits of aging. Researchers have called for ways to counter these perceptions by advocating a reframing of aging in HCI and by engaging older adults in the design process. This DRG is aiming to contribute to this work by developing and executing research on how to conduct co-design sessions with designers and older adults to understand ways to facilitate equal collaboration.

We are looking for students interested in participating in this study on co-designing with older adults. Co-design sessions would include student designers and older adults working together in groups to share experiences with technologies, design ideas for new technologies and evaluate existing ones. In the study, you will also be asked to reflect upon your experiences.  We are looking for students who can participate throughout the winter quarter in a weekly meeting and in one co-design session per week. 

Autumn 2019

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Application Writing Support Group

This research group is for graduate and undergraduate students who will be applying for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in Fall 2019. In this group, we will discuss how to write personal statements and research proposals, review successful application examples, discuss tips for making applications stronger and who to ask for letters of recommendation, and conduct peer review of each other’s writing.

To learn more about who is eligible to apply for the NSF graduate fellowship (undergrads, first and second year grad students who want to pursue a PhD, US citizens or permanent residents), please see the NSF website.

Because of the NSF deadline being in mid-October, this DRG will be front-loaded in the quarter and be more work for the first 4 weeks and will not meet after the deadline (except for 1 brief meeting after submitting to debrief about the process). Likewise, depending on people’s availability, we may start meeting a few weeks before the quarter begins to get a head start on things. If you’re not around in person this summer, we could allow people to join via Google Hangouts for the first few meetings. 

Participatory Design with Children and Researchers

Summer 2019

We are looking for students for the Summer 2019 to help with running KidsTeam UW, an intergenerational co-design team of children (ages 6 – 12) and design researchers. There is rich work around how to interact with adults and children together in the co-design space, the role of design techniques in co-design, and the different stages and phases of co-design. You have the opportunity to help us understand this space.

Activities of this research group will include interacting as an adult design partner with children in co-design, working with researchers on multiple projects involving children and design, and running overall logistics to support the intergenerational design team. 

This DRG will require you to participate in KidsTeam UW in the summer for the following dates:

  • Wednesdays, July 3, 10, 17, 24, and Monday, August 5th (1 hour meetings)
  • July 29 to August 2nd, 2019 (9:00 am to 5:00 pm, or multiple days with mornings / afternoons)

Students who have completed HCDE 318/418/518 and/or HCDE 417/517 or have relevant experience will be given priority. 

Alternatively, students who have experience with learning sciences, education, and child development will also be considered. 

Prior experience working with children is a requirement (e.g., tutoring/teaching/coaching, child-care, summer camps, etc.)

This research group will be led by Assistant Professor Jason Yip (iSchool), with support from Dr. Julie Kientz (Associate Professor, HCDE), Dr. Jin Ha Lee (Associate Professor, iSchool), and Dr. Alexis Hiniker (Assistant Professor, iSchool).

Design Opportunities for Adaptive Fitness

Spring 2019

The healthy lifestyle practices promoted by fitness technologies such as wearables and smartphone exercise apps are important for all people, yet may look different for those with physical disabilities, especially with respect to physical activity. In this DRG, we will investigate the design space of technologies for adaptive fitness.  Specifically, we will conduct a literature review, examine existing technologies, and design a study protocol to answer questions such as: What facilitators and barriers exist for motivating and accessing adaptive fitness? How do users seeking adaptive fitness use current technologies such as wearables, fitness apps, and social media, and what are the strengths and limitations of these technologies? What design opportunities can we identify for adaptive fitness, including using technology to motivate physical activity as well as adapting physical activity to users abilities and limitations?

Requirements

This DRG is open to undergraduate, Masters, and PhD students in all fields. Priority will be given to those with previous research experience and training in research methods.
Students will be expected to register for 2 credits of HCDE 496/596


Children’s Digital Media Design Toolkit

Spring 2019

There are a number of findings from research on child development, media studies, and interactive technology design that could help inform the design of better interactive technologies for children. However, professional content producers and designers often do not have the time to keep up on these findings or the expertise to make sense of them. In this DRG, we will translate research into actionable design advice by designing, creating, and evaluating a Children’s Digital Media Toolkit, similar to other relevant efforts such as the IDEO Method Cards, Microsoft’s Inclusive Design Toolkit, or Artefact’s Tarot Cards of Design. Activities include reviewing the literature on child development, interaction design and children, and media studies for evidence-based findings with practical relevance; prototyping a toolkit that translates research results into design guidelines presented in an easily-digestible format such as a set of cards; evaluating the toolkit with design professionals; and revising the toolkit based on feedback.

Requirements

This DRG is open to undergraduate and graduate students in all fields.
Students will be expected to register for 2 credits of HCDE 496/596.
We will meet late Tuesday afternoons (between around 3-5 pm) in Spring 2019.


Everyday personal tracking: an exploration through practice

Winter 2019

This DRG focuses on understanding the motivations and challenges around self-tracking and personal informatics. With the introduction of self-tracking tools, people have the possibility to learn about their own behavior and health more than ever before. However, individuals often struggle with how to interpret their data and transform it into behavior change. By experiencing self-tracking over the course of the quarter and engaging with current literature on personal informatics, we seek to understand these challenges and explore ways in which a human centered design and research approach can offer solutions.

To inform our brainstorming and design efforts, students will track one or more aspects of their daily lives and discuss their experiences with self-tracking in class. From this, students will identify potential research questions and/or project ideas related to personal tracking for the future.

Requirements

We are looking for 10 students who have an interest in learning about personal tracking and will be committed to tracking one or more aspects about their daily lives for 10 weeks. We encourage both novice and experienced personal trackers to apply.
This group is open to undergraduate and graduate students from any department and will be meeting every Thursday from 3:30 - 5:00 p.m. in Winter 2019.
We expect students to register for 2 credits of HCDE 496/596.

This research group will be led by PhD students Calvin Liang and Susanne Kirchner-Adelhardt with guidance of Associate Professors Julie Kientz (HCDE) and Sean Munson (HCDE).

Gender in HCI

Winter 2019

From “Gender HCI” to “Feminist HCI”, Human-Computer Interaction often discusses gender’s role in computing systems and wider society. But what does “gender” mean, exactly, and how does HCI use it?

In this DRG we will read a mix of HCI and Gender Studies papers, seeking to understand the various lenses through which gender is understood within wider academia, ask how HCI has operationalised the term, and explore the ways in which the field could directly use gender theorists’ work in understanding the way our designs fit into the world.

 

Evaluating connected personas for health information practices of older adults and stakeholders

Autumn 2018

We are looking for 3-4 students interested in helping with a study to evaluate personas and scenarios developed for the SOARING (Studying Older Adults & Researching Information Needs and Goals) project.  This project is focused on understanding ways older adults manage their personal health information and the role that stakeholders such as caregivers, providers, and family members play in those activities. We have developed older adult persona as well as, personas representing family and friends and healthcare providers, that are connected to each older adult persona. These connections demonstrate the complexity of personal health information management (PHIM) for older adults.

We would like to learn how designers would use connected personas and get their perceptions and insights about these types of personas. We have worked on a study design and so the goal for this quarter will be to carry out the study. The quarter will include recruiting participants, conducting the study and planning for analysis.

We are looking for students who have an interested in older adults and/or personal health information. We are also looking for students who have some experience in note-taking and facilitating focus groups.  The DRG will require you to participate in at least one study session that will potentially be conducted on a weekday evening or during the day on a weekend.

If you are interested, please apply for the group by using the following survey: https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/dawnsaka/360454.

We expect students to register for 2-3 credits of HCDE 496/596.

This research group will be led by PhD student Dawn Sakaguchi-Tang, with guidance from Associate Professor Julie Kientz (HCDE).

Time management strategies for PhD students

Autumn 2018

In this 1-credit DRG, we will work to learn about, share, and practice time management strategies for making good research and writing progress as doctoral students while also making time for self-care and personal goals. Specific strategies will be those used by the National Center for Faculty Diversity and Development and include developing a quarter-long strategic plan for writing and research goals, weekly planning meetings, and developing a daily writing habit. We’ll also do some skill shares in terms of tools and strategies for managing to do lists, email, calendaring, etc. The DRG will meet on Friday afternoons from 3–4 p.m. in Autumn 2018, and 30 minutes of that time will be spent individually working on our weekly plans for the following week and keeping each other accountable. This group is only for PhD students, as the concepts will be specific to the skills and strategies needed for balancing research, teaching, and service in completing a PhD.

If you’re interested in signing up, please email Julie Kientz (jkientz@uw.edu) for an add code.

Child-computer interaction and participatory design

Summer 2018

We are looking for students for the Summer 2018 to help with running KidsTeam UW, an intergenerational co-design team of children (ages 6 – 12) and design researchers. There is rich work around how to interact with adults and children together in the co-design space, the role of design techniques in co-design, and the different stages and phases of co-design. You have the opportunity to help us understand this space.

Activities of this research group will include interacting as an adult design partner with children in co-design, working with researchers on multiple projects involving children and design, and running overall logistics to support the intergenerational design team. As well, there will opportunities to join multiple research projects on inclusion and children’s technologies, voice assistants and families, and how do we define what creepy technologies are.

This DRG will require you to participate at least once in KidsTeam UW in the summer from July 30 to August 3rd (9:00 am to 4:30 pm, or multiple days with mornings / afternoons). Students who have completed HCDE 318/418/518 and/or HCDE 417/517 or have relevant experience will be given priority.

Alternatively, students who have experience with learning sciences, education, and child development will also be considered.

If you are interested in participating, please apply to the group using the following form by May 1st:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe8gkxneJ4glRAYdN_h8tjkXJw5d4-8VhJdVFXoEnb4Bg8QiQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

We expect students to register for 3 credits of HCDE 496/596.

This research group will be led by Assistant Professor Jason Yip (iSchool), with support Assistant Professor Alexis Hiniker (iSchool) and Associate Professor Julie Kientz (HCDE).

Time Management Strategies for Ph.D. Students

Spring 2018

In this 1-credit DRG, we will work to learn about, share, and practice time management strategies for making good research and writing progress as doctoral students while also making time for self-care and personal goals. Specific strategies will be those used by the National Center for Faculty Diversity and Development and include developing a quarter-long strategic plan for writing and research goals, weekly planning meetings, and developing a daily writing habit. We’ll also do some skill shares in terms of tools and strategies for managing to do lists, email, calendaring, etc.

The DRG will meet on Friday afternoons from 3–4 p.m. in Spring 2018, and 30 minutes of that time will be spent individually working on our weekly plans for the following week and keeping each other accountable. This group is only for Ph.D. students, as the concepts will be specific to the skills and strategies needed for balancing research, teaching, and service in completing a Ph.D.

Ideation of Design Ideas for Health Information Practices of Older Adults and Stakeholders

Winter 2018

We are looking for students interested in brainstorming design ideas for the SOARING (Studying Older Adults & Researching Information Needs and Goals) project. This project is focused on understanding ways older adults manage their personal health information and the role that stakeholders such as caregivers, providers, and family members play in those activities. We have developed personas and scenarios over the past few quarters. The goal of this project will be to generate many ideas for ways that health information technology could be designed to better support older adults through both divergent and convergent thinking. Co-design sessions with older adults are also a possibility depending on availability.
                                                  
We are looking for students who have an interest in older adults and/or personal health information and are excited about engaging in brainstorming design sessions. Students with good visual design skills are a plus, as we will be preparing a professional “idea book” that will be shared with the design community.
 
This research group will be led by PhD student Dawn Sakaguchi-Tang, with guidance from Associate Professor Julie Kientz (HCDE).

Study on How User Feedback Changes Over Time

Summer 2017

Have you ever wondered how long to run a user deployment study? And how feedback changes over time the longer someone uses your application?

We are interested in running a study to understand how user feedback changes the longer someone uses a system.

We are looking for 2 students to help with getting a 1 year study up and running for evaluating two different systems: a tool for parents to help track their children’s progress and a smartphone application for helping minimize use of “time wasting” apps. We will have participants submit feedback surveys through the study and attempt to understand when they drop off and how feedback changes over time and at what point data saturation is reached.

Experience with managing remote study participants and using Mechanical Turk is a plus, but is not required. We expect students to register for 2 credit hours.

Weekly meetings will be either on Tuesday or Wednesday afternoons sometime between 3-5 starting the week of June 19th and will go through August 18th – you can indicate your availability in the survey.

This DRG will be run jointly by Hyewon Suh (Ph.D. student) and Julie Kientz (Associate Professor).

Participatory Design with Children and Researchers

Summer 2017

We are looking for 4 students for the Summer 2017 to help with running KidsTeam UW, an intergenerational co-design team of children (ages 6 – 12) and design researchers. There is rich work around how to interact with adults and children together in the co-design space, the role of design techniques in co-design, and the different stages and phases of co-design. You have the opportunity to help us understand this space.

Activities of this research group will include interacting as an adult design partner with children in co-design, working with researchers on multiple projects involving children and design, and running overall logistics to support the intergenerational design team. 

This DRG will require you to participate at least once in KidsTeam UW in the summer from July 31 to August 4th (9:00 am to 4:30 pm, or multiple days with mornings / afternoons). Students who have completed HCDE 318/418/518 and/or HCDE 417/517 or have relevant experience will be given priority. 

Alternatively, students who have experience with learning sciences, education, and child development will also be considered. 

We expect students to register for 3 credits of HCDE 496/596.

This research group will be led by Assistant Professor Jason Yip (iSchool), with support from Laura Pina and  Associate Professor Julie Kientz (HCDE).

Persona development: Health information practices of older adults and stakeholders

Summer 2017

This Directed Research Group is looking for up to 2 students for the summer quarter to help with a project called, SOARING (Studying Older Adults & Researching Information Needs and Goals) which is aimed at understanding the ways older adults manage their personal health information and the role that stakeholders such as, caregivers, providers and family members play in those activities. The project team has been doing qualitative fieldwork with older adults to understand their health information practices and needs. They have also done interviews with stakeholders. During the summer quarter, we will dive into the research that has been collected to create personas and scenarios. We will also validate these personas and scenarios by conducting a focus group with older adults and interviews with stakeholders. The focus group and interviews are likely to be conducted off campus.
                                                  
We are looking for students who have experience with developing personas and scenarios, has familiarity with conducting focus groups and is able to help with analyzing qualitative data.
 
DRG meeting times will be Wednesdays from 1p-2p and you are also welcomed to join in the SOARING team meetings from 2p-3p. We expect students to register for 2-3 credits of HCDE 496 or HCDE 596.

This research group will be led by PhD student Dawn Sakaguchi-Tang, with guidance from Associate Professor Julie Kientz (HCDE).

Developing a Validated Measure of User Value

Summer 2017

Previously, we have investigated what constitutes user burdens in computing technologies (https://www.hcde.washington.edu/files/news/Suh-UserBurdenScale-CHI2016.pdf) and that led us to think what constitutes user values. Because some technologies expose high user burden but if a user finds greater value in using, they’d sacrifice/endure existing burden and sustain use. So we are interested in finding what exactly constitutes user values associated with computing systems and how they affect people’s willingness to accept and reject/refrain their use and ways to measure them.

We are looking for two students this Summer Quarter to help with developing and validating a scale for assessing user value. We expect students to register for 3 credits of HCDE 496/596. We will begin the quarter by reading papers about other similar scales and how they have been validated and used. We will then brainstorm questions, refine them, and validate them using quantitative statistical approaches. A previous class in statistics or quantitative methods would be helpful, but a willingness to learn would also work. As we are planning to submit this work to relevant HCI conferences or journals, students seeking for publication opportunities are welcome.

This research group will be led by PhD Candidate Hyewon Suh, with guidance from Associate Professor Julie Kientz.

Amazon Alexa: Understanding the role of Voice Assisted Technology in the Home

Spring 2017

Led by PhD student Taryn Bipat

Voice activated assistants are becoming increasingly more prominent in homes across the globe. This is a new computing interface that is beginning to impact our behaviors and interactions similar to mobile phones but with voice rather than a visual screen.  The goal of this project is to understand the the impact this developing technology has on human behavior and to understand the stakeholders perceptions of voice assisted technology. 

We are looking for up to 4 students for the Spring quarter to help with a study understanding the use and impact of Amazon Alexa in the home. As part of this research, you will be using a grounded theory method to analyze data from Amazon.com, online forums, interviews and surveys. At the end of the quarter, students will have a better understanding of how to find emerging patterns in the data and how to translate those findings. In the future, we hope to use these preliminary findings in partnership with KidsTeam UW to create and conduct studies focusing on children and families' uses and perceptions of Alexa.

We are looking for students, who have experience with or a willingness to learn (1) qualitative coding and (2) user testing and interviewing methods. It is not necessary but experience with web scraping will be helpful. 

This is a 3-credit research group offered to undergraduate (HCDE 496) and graduate (HCDE 596) students. Students will meet for 1.5 hours every week and should commit around 4 hours outside of class time. 

This research group will be led by PhD student Taryn Bipat, with guidance from Associate Professor Julie Kientz (HCDE).

Children's Technology Self-Regulation Research

Spring 2017

Led by PhD student Alexis Hiniker

We are looking for up to 3 students for Spring quarter to help with a study on teaching self-regulation pre-school aged children (ages 3-5). The project, sponsored by Sesame Workshop, will evaluate whether a commercially available iPad app, Cookie Monster’s Challenge, can teach children self-regulation skills. As part of this research, you will help with running a study with children at Head Start and other local schools to work with children to collect data and aid with video analysis of the findings. If you’re interested, you can also help with writing the results up for publication. Participants will need to be able to get to on-site study venues at Head Start locations around the Seattle area, either by car or public transit.

Specifically, we are looking for motivated students who have (1) experience conducting user tests of interactive technologies; (2) experience working with children or a desire to learn; (3) the ability to learn to help with coding videos for data analysis. If you have experience working with children who are English Language Learners, that is also a plus.

This research group will be led by PhD student Alexis Hiniker, with guidance from Associate Professor Julie Kientz (HCDE).

Game Accessibility Metadata

Spring 2017

Led by HCDE PhD candidate John Porter

This DRG is being offered as a collaboration between HCDE's CHiLL Lab and the iSchool's GAMER Lab. We are looking for up to 4 students this quarter to help with designing and conducting a survey and series of interviews exploring issues surrounding game accessibility to players with motor impairments. This project seeks to better understand and catalog which mechanics and interactions factor into determining a game's accessibility or inaccessibility to a diverse range of motor impaired users. This information will be used to expand the Video Game Metadata Schema (developed by the iSchool's GAMER Lab) to capture a broad set of descriptive qualities, enabling one to make informed predictions about a given game's accessibility based on individual needs.

Activities for this research group will include the opportunity to participate in the design of a survey instrument and of a semistructured interview protocol, working with the research team to conduct interviews of gamers with motor impairments to learn about their experiences, and data analysis. Priority will be given to HCDE and iSchool students who have completed HCDE 417/517, or who have comparable coursework or other experience with user research methods.

Participating students will register for 3 credits of HCDE 496/596, and should expect to commit up to 9 hours per week (depending on project needs in a given week) on this DRG between meetings, group collaboration, and independent work.

This research group will be led by HCDE PhD candidate John Porter, with guidance from Associate Professor Julie Kientz (HCDE) and Associate Professor Jinha Lee (iSchool).

Youth mental health: a family-oriented approach

Spring 2017

DRG led by Professors Julie Kientz and Sean Munson, and PhD student Arpita Bhattacharya

Teenage years and young adulthood are significant stages of transitioning through rapidly changing social dynamics, career pathways, and exposure to unfamiliar circumstances. Reduction in stress has many benefits in social and mental well-being for thriving, as well as in improving treatment outcomes for physical and mental health challenges. What strategies can help youth to cope with stressful situations and start leveraging skills and resources for developing resilience towards stressful events?  

Family members and caregivers can be supportive social resources accessible to most (but not all) youth and may also be a source of interesting social tensions for youth seeking to become less dependent. Risk taking and learning are important aspects of development, and not all events are predictable, avoidable, or can be under control of a parent.  How can stress and mental health be approached from a family perspective?

In this project, we will involve youth and their families in design activities to understand what they think should be the role of technology in helping them manage and mediate support under stressful circumstances.

Activities: We expect to sketch and brainstorm design ideas, design and conduct focus group workshops and interviews with participants, and analyze qualitative data. Readings and discussions will be based on what will help the team learn related work and relevant skills. We look forward to working with 2-3 students who have interest in the topic, have prior experience in conducting focus groups and analyzing qualitative data such as HCDE 313/418/518, and/or have worked on projects in mental health. Depending on progress, students may have the option to continue on this project after the quarter ends.

Caution: We expect study participants to describe situations and emotions that they find stressful. Students in the team will be exposed to data which may also involve narratives on adverse events or trauma. We will work together to be supportive of one another, however, if you are negatively triggered by such content, we encourage you to take necessary measures for self-care while engaging in the project.

Time: We will decide a time based on the team’s availability. All students participating in the DRG, must attend weekly meetings for 90 minutes. Work outside of the meetings will include reading, contributing to design of study materials, conducting focus groups, interviews, analyzing survey and interview results, and writing results to share. You can register for 1–3 credit hours in HCDE 496/596; for each credit you should expect to spend about three hours of work per week outside of meeting times.

Directed Research Group on Technology for Inclusive Play

Winter 2017

Led by PhD student Kiley Sobel

We are looking for two students this Winter Quarter to help with the design and development of an interactive cooperative iPad application for inclusive play (or play among children with and without disabilities). This application will be used in a two-month design intervention in an inclusive kindergarten classroom during Spring Quarter. (To learn more about this application and research project, see the following paper: https://www.hcde.washington.edu/files/news/Incloodle.pdf.)

Specifically, we are looking for motivated students who have either (1) visual / graphic design skills, and/or (2) programming skills and experience with (or a willingness to quickly learn) Swift / iOS development.

We expect students to register for 3 credits of HCDE 496/596.

This research group will be led by PhD student Kiley Sobel, with guidance from Associate Professor Julie Kientz (HCDE).

Designing for Family Health Informatics

Winter 2017

Led by Research Associate Laura Pina

We are looking for 4 students for Winter Quarter to help with us with building, testing, deploying, and evaluating technologies for family health. Our work focuses on family health. There is rich work around how to design for personal health but less on how to design in the family context — where the health of every family member depends on one another.  You have the opportunity to help us understand this space.

Activities of this research group will include working with the research team to prototype and build health data tracking tools to enable family members to think about their health together. This DRG will require you to have design skills, technical programming skills, and deploy and interview in family homes. We are looking for students with web development: such as python, javascript and visualization libraries, such as D3, C3, and others. Alternatively, students who have completed HCDE 318/418/518 and/or HCDE 417/517 or have relevant experience will be given priority.

We expect students to register for 3 credits of HCDE 496/596.

This research group will be led by Research Associate Laura Pina, with guidance from Associate Professor Julie Kientz.

 

Epiphany moments: Understanding catalysts for health behavior change

Autumn 2016

What can we learn from people who are working towards or have achieved changes in their health behavior? Are there specific moments of “epiphanies” that motivated them to take steps towards positive health outcomes? Theories of behavior change and prior work suggest that many factors come into play to catalyze an individual’s process of behavior change, such as social pressure, increased self-awareness or self-knowledge, and lifestyle changes. In this DRG, we will aim to gain in-depth empirical understanding of these factors and explore if we can design technology to catalyze such motivators of behavior change for those who are not yet motivated to change.

Activities: We expect to work together on to design and conduct interviews, surveys, qualitative analysis, and brainstorming design ideas. Readings and discussions will be based on what will help the team learn related work and relevant skills. We look forward to work with 3-4 students who have interest in the topic and/or have prior experience in conducting interviews and analyzing qualitative data such as HCDE 313/418/518. Depending on progress, students may have the option to continue on this project after the quarter ends.

Research Group on User Testing of SmartQuit smoking cessation app

We are looking for 3 motivated students for Winter Quarter to help with designing and conducting user studies and usability testing for a new smartphone application for assisting with smoking cessation, called SmartQuit. 

Activities in this research group will include working with the research team to construct low-fidelity prototypes suitable for testing with focus groups, usability testing, and possibly expert evaluation such as heuristic evaluation. Completion of HCDE 318/518 and/or HCDE 417/517 is preferred, but not required.

This research group, led by HCDE Associate Professor Julie Kientz, is in collaboration with Fred Hutch Cancer Research Institute and 2Morrow Mobile. 

Participatory Design with Children and Researchers

Summer 2016

We are looking for 4 students to help with running KidsTeam UW, an intergenerational co-design team of children (ages 6 – 12) and design researchers. There is rich work around how to interact with adults and children together in the co-design space, the role of design techniques in co-design, and the different stages and phases of co-design. You have the opportunity to help us understand this space.

Activities of this research group will include interacting as an adult design partner with children in co-design, working with researchers on multiple projects involving children and design, and running overall logistics to support the intergenerational design team. 

This DRG will require you to participate at least once in KidsTeam UW in the summer from August 8 – 12 (9:00 am to 4:30 pm, or multiple days with mornings / afternoons). Students who have completed HCDE 318/418/518 and/or HCDE 417/517 or have relevant experience will be given priority. Alternatively, students who have experience with learning sciences, education, and child development will also be considered. 

We expect students to register for 3 credits of HCDE 496/596.

This research group will be led by Research Associate Laura Pina, with guidance from Assistant Professor Jason Yip (iSchool) and Associate Professor Julie Kientz (HCDE)

Understanding and Designing for a Family Perspective on Health Informatics

We are looking for 4 students for Spring Quarter to help with conducting interviews and design sessions that focus on family health. There is rich work around how to design for personal health but less on how to design in the family context — where the health of every family member depends on one another.  You have the opportunity to help us understand this space.

Activities of this research group will include working with the research team to conduct interviews with families, analyze data, and potentially build and prototype health data tracking tools to enable family members to think about their health together. This DRG will require you to interview families at their home. Students who have completed HCDE 318/418/518 and/or HCDE 417/517 or have relevant experience will be given priority. Alternatively, students who have experience with Android prototyping and development will also be considered. 

Technology Use and Family Life

Join us this winter to explore the ways that families integrate technology into daily life, and the ways in which they resist technology in favor of spending time together. Prior work shows that children and parents alike feel frustration with other family members' use of technology but few supports exist to help address this challenge. We will be designing, implementing, and assessing a tool for enabling families to establish and enforce "technology contracts." These contracts are intended to help family members of all ages define and stick to the screen-time behaviors that they feel work best for them and their family.
 
This group will be co-led by PhD student Alexis Hiniker (alexisr@uw.edu) and Associate Professor Julie Kientz (jkientz@uw.edu).

Evaluating a Game to Promote Inclusion of Young Children

This DRG will focus on running an experimental study to determine how effective a tablet application is at supporting play between children ages 4-7 who are typically developing and who experience social, emotional, communication, or other similar disabilities.

In July, we will carry out the study with multiple dyads of children. In August, we will code the collected video data. Participants in the DRG will be expected to facilitate the study by doing tasks such as recording video, taking notes, greeting and debriefing participants, etc. and then help with coding.

The DRG is co-led by HCDE PhD student Kiley Sobel and Associate Professor Julie Kientz. If you are interested in registering, please contact Kiley Sobel at ksobel@uw.edu.

Reading Group: Game Design and Theory

This reading group will bring together students and faculty to read and discuss research papers relevant to the design, evaluation, and theory of games and video games. Each week, there will be two students assigned to choose and lead the group a discussion on a single paper they select. This will be a 1-credit hour course for HCDE 596, with 2 hours per week of reading and 1 hour per week of group discussion. The group will meet on Mondays from 12–1 p.m. in 420 Sieg Hall. This group will be co-led by Ph.D student John Porter and Associate Professor Julie Kientz. If you are interested in registering, please contact John Porter at jrporter@uw.edu.

 
Can Smartphone Usage Predict Sleep Status?
 
Sleep is an important component of health. With long-term, behavioral sleep issues such as insomnia, monitoring the amount of sleep you get can be an important part of helping to find the causes of the problems and work on a solution. Current sleep sensors often require on-the-body sensors and that the user must remember to put it on or turn it on every night, which can lead to high user burden and unreliable data. These issues make it difficult for users to learn about their sleep behaviors over the long term.
 
In this directed research group, we will be working on a new way of identifying sleep behaviors by looking at how people use their smart phones. For example, many people have the habit of charging their phone while they sleep, or the phone may not move for several consecutive hours. The work involved will be collecting data via phone usage logs as well as “ground truth” data via commercial sleep sensors and manual sleep diaries, and then applying machine learning techniques (using the Weka toolkit) to determine whether we can build a model that predicts a user’s sleep status. We already have access to an Android-based logging tool and commercial sleep sensors, so part of the work for this group will be to recruit participants, set up the logging tool on their phone, give them the sleep sensors, and collect information from them and analyze it.
 
Students participating would benefit from having some familiarity with Android phones, basic programming skills (in case we need to do any modifications to the logging tool), and quantitative data analysis skills (or a willingness to learn).
 
Mobile App Design for Preschoolers
 
More iTunes apps are designed for toddlers and preschoolers than for any other age group, yet these apps routinely draw on interaction design paradigms created for adults. These UI decisions don’t always translate well, and we will be exploring new design solutions to make children’s games more developmentally appropriate.
 
Join us this fall to shift the way children’s games are created. We are looking for students to work on reviewing relevant design literature, brainstorming design solutions, creating both paper and high-fi mock ups, implementing tablet prototypes, and (most importantly!) testing apps with kids. If you are interested in designing for HCI’s youngest and most playful users, we’d love to hear from you. Send mail to jkientz@uw.edu and alexisr@uw.edu describing your interest in the group, your level in the program (e.g., BS, MS, PhD), relevant skills and experience, and the number of credits you are seeking. Space will be limited to approximately 5 students based on fit. We will confirm ability to register by September 1.
  • This DRG will be co-led by Professor Julie Kientz and PhD student Alexis Hiniker.
  • We meet weekly on Thursdays from 2:30 – 4:00 p.m. (tentative).
  • You can register for 2-3 credits.
Designing Information Technology for Healthy Living (2008)
 
Information technologies have a vast potential to enable individuals and families improve the health of their lifestyles. Mobile technologies, persuasive technologies, and collaborative technologies can all support people in setting and achieving goals, such as a healthier diet, better record keeping for their health, and supporting a sustainable lifestyle.
This research group will focus on these topics using a standard Human-Computer Interaction design process by determining design requirements through qualitative evaluations, coming up with design concepts based on those requirements, developing prototypes of different concepts, and evaluating the prototypes with real users. Particular focus for the Winter 2008 quarter will be given to designing and prototyping technologies for aiding individuals with improving their sleep habits.
 
This research group will meet once per week during the Winter 2008 quarter on Wednesdays from 4:30 to 5:30 for brainstorming sessions, updates on progress, and sharing results. Students interested in this research group should email Julie Kientz (jkientz@u.washington.edu) with a brief description of their interest in the projects and a description of their various skills. Students with technical prototyping skills or a desire to learn them are especially encouraged to apply.
Persuasive Technologies (Autumn 2009–Spring 2010)
 
Persuasive technologies are being increasingly used to encourage users to lead healthier lifestyles.  Web-based, mobile technologies, video games, and social networking tools have all been used to encourage people to exercise more, eat healthier, stop smoking, drink more water, or get more sleep.
 
This research group will bring together people who are interested in evaluating technologies that encourage users to make better choices that can lead to healthier outcomes. Over the 2009–2010 academic year, we will explore the space for persuasive technologies for health and determine open research questions. In the Spring 2010 quarter, we will continue our study of developing and validating heuristics for evaluating persuasive technologies by applying them to existing persuasive systems.
 
If you are interested in participating in this group, please send an email to Julie Kientz (jkientz@uw.edu) with a short statement of your interests in the group and your skills. Weekly meetings will be held on Wednesdays from 4:00–5:00 P.M. Space is limited, and preference will be given to returning students from previous quarters.
Recommended background reading:
 
Fogg, B. J. 2002. Persuasive technology: using computers to change what we think and do. Link to book.
Designing Interfaces that Make us Think (Autumn 2010–Spring 2011)
 
The advent of computers has made many things much easier in our lives. With mobile phone contact lists, we no longer have to memorize phone numbers, and with Google, we never have to remember anything because we can always just look it up again. Calculators and now advanced systems like Wolfram Alpha have reduced the need for being able to solve complex math problems. While these conveniences have been fantastic for our productivity, there is still some cognitive value to being encouraged to think and learn. Researchers have been exploring the ways that different activities can slow cognitive decline and onset of age-related memory disorders such as dementia or Alzheimer's. Games such as Nintendo's Brain Age are a start to putting these types of activities within reach of users.
 
In this research group, we will be researching and designing ways that computing interfaces can actually make us think more rather than less. The research will include determining opportune times to make tasks cognitively harder, the ways that are acceptable to make users think more without being frustrating or annoying, and the ways the tasks can be seamlessly integrated into people's everyday tasks. Examples may include a Firefox extension that requires you to solve 10 simple arithmetic problems before you load Facebook or switching the order of items on a person's iGoogle home page every visit.
 
The research tasks involved will be to review related literature in human-computer interaction and cognitive psychology, brainstorm ideas for new technologies, prototype high-fidelity prototypes, and determine ways for evaluating the prototypes.
 
The research group is limited to 8 students, and if there is a high demand, preference will be given to students who are willing to commit for more than one quarter. If you are interested in being in the research group, please send an email to Julie Kientz (jkientz@uw.edu) with a paragraph describing your interest in the group and a bit of information about your background, skill set, and career goals. You can sign up for 2 or 3 credit hours. The ability to prototype interactive, high-fidelity interfaces, such as using Flash, Python, Axure, or Balsamiq, or any programming language, is a plus.
Designing Computing Technology for Tracking Children's Developmental Progress (2011-2012)
 
This year, my directed research group will focus on designing and developing technology for promoting healthy development in families with young children. This work will contribute toward a project funded by the National Science Foundation. The goal of this project is to design and evaluate novel technologies that will help to track developmental progress in children under the age of 5 to aid in the early detection of developmental delays. For the past several years, I have been working on this problem through a project called Baby Steps. One of the primary strategies has been to use sentimental record-keeping, such as photos, videos, and stories, as a motivator for also tracking developmental progress. We will continue along these lines, as well as come up with new approaches to encourage parents to track their child's progress.
 
Motivation: The State of Washington has a goal to screen all children under the age of 5 for developmental milestones on a regular basis, and store that information into a centralized database that is accessible from any medical institution, health clinic, or daycare provider. Screening usually consists of parents completing 30 item questionnaires on their child's developmental progress every 2–3 months for their first 5 years of life. Example questions include items such as whether they can stack blocks, make eye contact, play with toys in an imaginative way, respond to their name, or climb up stairs. One of the challenges of this project is to find a way to reach everyone in the state, regardless of their background, culture, income level, literacy, education level, or access to technology.
 
What You'll Do: Our task is to brainstorm creative ways of using different types of technologies to populate this database that can reach anyone in the State of Washington. We will conduct a user-centered process to understand the problem more fully, design brainstorm to uncover new ideas, prototype those ideas, and then evaluate the effectiveness of those technologies for meeting the needs of the stakeholders.
 
Meeting Time: The group will meet from 3:00–4:30 on Tuesdays in Sieg Hall to discuss progress and plan for the quarter. Meetings are mandatory for all registered students.
Timeframe
  • Autumn 2011 quarter will focus on formative studies, including interviews, surveys, etc. to see develop design requirements, personas, and more for technologies that can reach mu
  • Winter 2012 will focus on design brainstorming. Students will pair up in teams and will choose a persona and design and prototype a technology that will meet the needs of that persona group.
  • Spring 2012 will focus on evaluating the prototypes with families and other stakeholders.
Registration: Students will be able to register for up to 3 credit hours of credit/no credit grade of either HCDE 496 or HCDE 596. Because space may be limited, if you are interested in registering, please complete the survey below. The deadline for completing this survey is March 1st, after which you will either be given an add code to register or placed on the wait list. Survey submissions received after March 1st will be placed on the wait list.
Gameplay Design and Theory Reading Group (2011)
 
Selected readings on the fundamentals of gameplay design and usability which are distinguishable from typical usability and design research (IE, Rules of Play, Ludology, Gaming Theory, Flow) and their application to domains within HCI. Workload expectations: At UW, 1 credit = 3 hours of activity. For our seminar, I expect that this will translate to 2 hours of reading and 1 hour of discussion.
Designing Computing Technology for Tracking Children's Developmental Progress (Winter & Spring 2013)
 
For Winter and Spring 2013 quarters, my directed research group will be working on prototyping and running a study of a system that uses social media to encourage developmental milestone tracking by parents of young children. This work will build upon user research already conducted by the Baby Steps project, funded by the National Science Foundation. We will use Twitter and/or Facebook to proactively prompt parents to track and respond to their young child's milestones such as taking their first steps, responding to verbal communication, and making eye contact. After designing a system for supporting prompting and data collection, we will the conduct a research study evaluating its effectiveness.
 
Research activities for each quarter will include:
Spring 2013—Meetings on Thursdays from 2:30–4:00
  • Design a mechanism for using Twitter and/or Facebook to prompt on developmental milestones and collect and store parent responses
  • Develop a functional prototype of social media application
  • Debug and do usability testing on a functional prototype
  • Design a field study for evaluating the prototype
Spring 2013—Meetings on Wednesdays from 2:00–3:30
  • Execute on the study designed during Winter 2013 quarter
  • Recruit participants and conduct interviews/study procedures
  • Collect and analyze data
  • Write up study results and submit for publication
If you are interested in participating, please complete the Catalyst survey by December 3. I will notify participants and provide add codes by December 7. If there are more people interested in participating than we have room to accommodate, I will prioritize based on relevant skill sets (or a willingness to learn) and the ability to commit for both quarters. Students with Python, web programming, and/or database skills are especially needed for Winter 2013 quarter. Students with experience working with user populations, conducting user testing, and doing data analysis are especially needed for Spring 2013 quarter.
Developing a Validated Measure of User Burden (Autumn 2013)
 
In any interactive technology, there is often some amount of burden placed on the user that can prevent its use and adoption. Burdens can include mental, physical, emotional, financial, time, privacy, or access. For example, a food journaling application may induce too significant of a mental, time, and emotional burden on the user that may prevent adoption. If we have a better way of assessing these different burdens, we can hopefully design better systems.
 
Currently, other than just asking participants, there is no way of assessing user burden in a systematic or comparable way. Researchers have adopted scales such as the NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX), the System Usability Scale (SUS), or the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to assess technologies, but there is not yet a scale that assesses user burden.
The goal of this research group will be to develop and validate a scale for assessing user burden. We will begin the quarter by reading papers about other similar scales and how they have been validated and used. We will then brainstorm questions, refine them, and validate them using quantitative statistical approaches. A previous class in statistics or quantitative methods would be helpful, but a willingness to learn would also work.
 
Weekly meetings will take place on Mondays from 3:00 to 4:00 P.M. in Sieg 420.
If you are interested in participating, please email Julie Kientz (jkientz@uw.edu) with a copy of your resume/C.V. and a short statement expressing your interests in the group.