Gaurav Paruthi

A field study comparing approaches to collecting annotated activity data in real-world settings

Collecting ground-truth annotations for contextual data is vital to context-aware system development. However, current research lacks a systematic analysis of different approaches to collecting such data. We present a field experiment comparing three approaches: Participatory, Context-Triggered In Situ, and Context-Triggered Post Hoc, which involved users in recording and annotating activity data in real-world settings. We compared the quantity and quality of collected data using each approach, as well as the participant experience. We found Context-Triggered approaches produced more recordings, whereas the Participatory approach produced a greater amount of data with higher completeness and precision. Moreover, while participants appreciated automated recording and reminders for convenience, they highly valued having control over what and when to record and annotate. We conclude that user burden and user control are key aspects to consider when collecting and annotating contextual data with participants, and suggest features for a future tool focused on these two aspects.

An investigation of using mobile and situated crowdsourcing to collect annotated travel activity data in real-word settings

Collecting annotated activity data is vital to many forms of context-aware system development. Leveraging a crowd of smartphone users to collect annotated activity data in the wild is a promising direction because the data being collected are realistic and diverse. However, current research lacks a systematic analysis comparing different approaches for collecting such data and investigating how users use these approaches to collect activity data in real world settings. In this paper, we report results from a field study investigating the use of mobile crowdsourcing to collect annotated travel activity data through three approaches: Participatory, Context-Triggered In Situ, and Context-Triggered Post Hoc. In particular, we conducted two phases of analysis. In Phase One, we analyzed and compared the resulting data collected via the three approaches and user experience. In Phase Two, we analyzed users recording and annotation behavior as well as the annotation content in using each approach in the field. Our results suggested that although Context-Triggered approaches produced a larger number of recordings, they did not necessarily lead to a larger quantity of data than the Participatory approach. It was because many of the recordings were either not labeled, incomplete, and/or fragmented due to the imperfect context detection. In addition, recordings collected by the Participatory approach tended to be more complete and contain less noise. In terms of user experience, while users appreciated automated recording and reminders because of their convenience, they highly valued having the control over what and when to record and annotate that the Participatory approach provided. Finally, we showed that activity type (Driver, Riding as Passenger, Walking) influenced users behaviors in recording and annotating their activity data. It influenced the timing of recording and annotating using the Participatory approach, users receptivity using the Context-Triggered In Situ approach, and the characteristics of the content of annotations. Based on these findings, we provide design and methodological recommendations for future work that aims to leverage mobile crowdsourcing to collect annotated activity data. The Participatory approach produced high-quality annotated activity data.User burden and control are two crucial aspects for sustaining user compliance.Activity affects recording and annotation timing and characteristics of annotations.Activity affects users receptivity when using the Context-Triggered approach.We offer suggestions on the approaches, tools, and instructions to collect activity.

Social Overlays: Collectively Making Websites More Usable

Many small organizations lack the expertise and resources to conduct usability evaluations of their websites. Social Overlays, presented here, is a new system that allows a community of users to collectively improve their website.

HEED: situated and distributed interactive devices for self-reporting

In situ self-reporting is a widely used technique in HCI, ubiquitous computing, especially for assessment and intervention in health and wellness. Although, smartphones are widely used for self-reporting, there is an opportunity to design dedicated, unobtrusive and distributed self-reporting devices that improve the coverage of sampled experiences. We designed self-reporting devices for two scenarios of reporting-Activities and Stress/Sleepiness. The devices were placed by the users in their surroundings for ease of access. We show that the devices are useful especially in certain situations such as when the user is engaged in focus work. Moreover, we show that the preference of phone or devices to self-report varied between users based on multiple factors such as their engagement with phone and their preferences about being surrounded by multiple devices.

Mapping Large Educational Websites to Interactive DVDs

In areas lacking computers and Internet connectivity, one promising strategy for delivering electronic educational content is to utilize common household technologies such as TVs and DVD players. Recent work has demonstrated that it is possible to leverage the interactive features of DVD players to provide an (offline) Internet browsing experience, using the remote control for search and navigation. However, until now it has not been documented how to overcome the engineering challenges in mapping large numbers of interactive menus to a single DVD. This paper offers the first description of such a tool. We have applied this tool to burn over 257,000 screens of Wikipedia content to an interactive DVD, for use by low-income communities.

Finding the Sweet Spot(s): Understanding Context to Support Physical Activity Plans

Creating actionable plans has been shown to be helpful in promoting physical activity. However, little rèsearch has been done on how best to support the creation and execution of plans. In this paper, we interviewed 16 participants to study the role that context plays in the formulation and execution of plans for physical activity. Our findings highlight nuanced ways that contextual factors interact with each other and with individual differences to impact planning. We propose the notion of sweet spots to encapsulate how particular contextual factors converge to create optimal states for performing physical activities. The concept of sweet spots helped us to better understand the creation and execution of plans made by our participants. We present design guidelines to show how sweet spots can help support physical activity planning and guide the design of context-based tools for planning support.

Heed: Exploring the Design of Situated Self-Reporting Devices

In-situ self-reporting is a widely used data collection technique for understanding peoples behavior in context. Characteristics of smartphones such as their high proliferation, close proximity to their users, and heavy use have made them a popular choice for applications that require frequent self-reporting. Newer device categories such as wearables and voice assistants offer their own advantages, providing an opportunity to explore a wider range of self-reporting approaches. In this paper, we focus on exploring the design space of Situated Self-Reporting (SSR) devices. We present the Heed system, consisting of simple, low-cost, and low-power SSR devices that are distributed in the environment of the user and can be appropriated for reporting measures such as stress, sleepiness, and activities. In two real-world studies with 10 and 7 users, we compared and analyzed the use of smartphone and Heed devices to uncover differences in their use due to the influence of factors such as situational and social context, notification types, and physical design. Our findings show that Heed devices complemented smartphones in the coverage of activities, locations and interaction preferences. While the advantage of Heed was its single-purpose and dedicated location, smartphones provided mobility and flexibility of use.

Peer-to-peer microlending platforms: Characterization of online traits

Online peer-to-peer microlending sites have introduced a disruptive approach in the process of accessing credit, conveniently matching borrowers with investors. While traditional microfinance traits have been widely studied, there are still many open questions regarding lending behaviors when the activity is carried online and in a peer-to-peer fashion. Kiva, the first peer-to-peer microlending site, is an on-line platform for low income entrepreneurs in developing countries to fundraise for their business from other individuals. Focussing on Kiva, we study and characterize the main traits in the lending process going from the information that lenders can explore to the lending activity it generates. We fist study the role that ratings of microfinance institutions play in online platforms, and we show that, as it happens with off-line instituions, lenders appear to lend more to highly rated institutions. After that we focus on characterizing the role of loan characteristics and lending teams, showing that that smaller, homogeneous teams, drive more lending activity and achieve larger lending agreements.