Anicia Peters

Virtual Training: Learning Transfer of Assembly Tasks

In training assembly workers in a factory, there are often barriers such as cost and lost productivity due to shutdown. The use of virtual reality (VR) training has the potential to reduce these costs. This research compares virtual bimanual haptic training versus traditional physical training and the effectiveness for learning transfer. In a mixed experimental design, participants were assigned to either virtual or physical training and trained by assembling a wooden burr puzzle as many times as possible during a twenty minute time period. After training, participants were tested using the physical puzzle and were retested again after two weeks. All participants were trained using brightly colored puzzle pieces. To examine the effect of color, testing involved the assembly of colored physical parts and natural wood colored physical pieces. Spatial ability as measured using a mental rotation test, was shown to correlate with the number of assemblies they were able to complete in the training. While physical training outperformed virtual training, after two weeks the virtually trained participants actually improved their test assembly times. The results suggest that the color of the puzzle pieces helped the virtually trained participants in remembering the assembly process.

A principled evaluation for a principled idea garden

Many systems are designed to help novices who want to learn programming, but few support those who are not interested in learning (more) programming. This paper targets the subset of end-user programmers (EUPs) in this category. We present a set of principles on how to help EUPs like this learn just a little when they need to overcome a barrier. We then instantiate the principles in a prototype and empirically investigate the principles in two studies: a formative think-aloud study and a pair of summer camps attended by 42 teens. Among the surprising results were the complementary roles of implicitly actionable hints versus explicitly actionable hints, and the importance of both context-free and context-sensitive availability. Under these principles, the camp participants required significantly less in-person help than in a previous camp to learn the same amount of material in the same amount of time.

Namibian and american cultural orientations toward facebook

Nadkarni and Hofmans [8] meta-review of literature on Facebook usage recommends examining differences in Facebook use between collectivistic and individualistic cultures. We discuss early findings of an exploratory study to compare use between participants in America, Namibia, and expatriate Namibians. From this, we identified five key areas of difference: 1) Motivations for joining Facebook; 2) Attitude toward Facebook connections; 3) Self presentation and photo sharing; 4) Communication about death, religion, and politics; 5) General privacy definitions. However, our findings showed no statistical difference in the Collectivism Scale [10] administered among the three groups, despite Namibia being considered a highly collectivistic county [12] and the US being a highly individualistic country [6].

Leveraging the progress of women in the HCI field to address the diversity chasm

Worldwide there is a gender gap in technology with only a small part of all computer science related positions being held by women. Among different initiatives to encourage women to join STEM fields, we started a video interview initiative last year at CHI to encourage more women to enter and remain in the field of HCI as well as strengthening existing womens voices. In addition to strengthening womens progress, many interviewees also identified a diversity chasm within the HCI field that needs to be addressed. This panel aims at continuing and deepening the conversation that was started at CHI 2011 addressing the experience of women in the HCI field in both industry and academia and extending the conversation to include diversity. It will serve as a platform to discuss important issues such as mentoring, leadership, and career development and for creating networks for including and encouraging diversity in HCI.

SIG: Work life balance in HCI

With the pervasiveness of technology, it has not only permeated our workspaces but it has also become invasive in our private personal spaces. Whether on the sports field, in the home, in health or spiritual spaces, technology is ever present. With this persistent presence, it keeps us constantly connected to our work, extending work beyond the normal working hours that used to be sharply demarcated by physical distance between work and play. This SIG will discuss the challenges and possible interventions to maintain work life balance for HCI researchers and practitioners.

General principles for a Generalized Idea Garden

Many systems are designed to help novices who want to learn programming, but few support those who are not necessarily interested in learning programming. This paper targets the subset of end-user programmers (EUPs) in this category. We present a set of principles on how to help EUPs like this learn just a little when they need to overcome a barrier. We then instantiate the principles in a prototype and empirically investigate them in three studies: a formative think-aloud study, a pair of summer camps attended by 42 teens, and a third summer camp study featuring a different environment attended by 48 teens. Finally, we present a generalized architecture to facilitate the inclusion of Idea Gardens into other systems, illustrating with examples from Idea Garden prototypes. Results have been very encouraging. For example, under our principles, Study #2s camp participants required significantly less in-person help than in a previous camp to learn the same amount of material in the same amount of time. The Idea Garden, based on 7 principles, supports several dimensions of diversity.The Idea Garden helps stuck EUPs by providing just-in-time problem-solving support.Three separate environments have hosted versions of the Idea Garden.Each version was empirically evaluated for effectiveness.The Idea Garden can be ported to other environments via a generalized architecture.

Gender-based Violence Campaign in Namibia: Traditional meets Technology for Societal Change

Reports of gender-based violence (GBV) in Namibia have increased dramatically over the last years. The First Lady of the Republic of Namibia has initiated a national campaign to fight GBV recognizing the seriousness of the matter. However, with the phenomena being researched but with no successful interventions and not having explored the power of technology and interactive installations, the campaign risks to be yet just another awareness campaign not addressing the root causes of the matter. Thus we are presenting an explorative interactive technology installation as part of the campaign, to provoke and trigger transformation while at the same time collecting essential data to inform the next steps of the campaign. While mixing research and intervention in the real life ensures high impact, yet it is open for criticism on a methodological and ethical level.

A Living HCI Curriculum

This panel seeks to further explore among multiple diverse HCI educators and researchers on how to proceed with the establishment of an HCI living curriculum that integrates different cultural contexts and requirements from the bottom up, in an emic way. The panelists will focus particularly on their own perspectives in relation to the indigenous appropriation of the HCI curriculum not only in Africa but in the Global South. The main goal of the panel is to generate a discussion around opportunities and challenges in the co-design and innovation of a locally meaningful HCI curricula.

Social Media Usage in Africa and its Ethical Implications

African users are continuously signing onto Social Media and it has become a game changer within the communication system. Most importantly the research on Social Media has become a topic of tremendous interest within the Human Computer interaction (HCI) field. Despite the benefits of Social Media, there have been concerns among users, communities, academics, researchers and governments on the ethical implications of Social Media use. We plan to have a workshop on understanding the ethical implications and perspectives of Social Media use from various stakeholders. Researchers in the Social Media space can share their work and methods in order to gain a broader understanding of Social Media issues arising on the continent and specifically ethical implications. Finally the workshop aims to encourage collaboration and cross-cultural research among researcher in the space.

Digital menu boards as influencer for healthy eating

This paper reports on research designed to examine the role of embedded videos in digital menu boards and its influence on consumer decision-making. The studys results showed that the embedded videos caught the attention of decision makers and healthy food images have an effect on choice; however, these variables do not interact. The results for the main effects show that technology can aid decision-making during the information search and purchase/choice stages.