Hanna Schneider

Sketch-a-TUI: low cost prototyping of tangible interactions using cardboard and conductive ink

Graspable tangibles are now being explored on the current generation of capacitive touch surfaces, such as the iPad and the Android tablet. Because the size and form factor is relatively new, early and low fidelity prototyping of these TUIs is crucial in getting the right design. The problem is that it is difficult for the average interaction designer to develop such physical prototypes. They require a substantial amount time and effort to physically model the tangibles, and expertise in electronics to instrument them. Thus prototyping is sometimes handed off to specialists, or is limited to only a few design iterations and alternative designs. Our solution contributes a low fidelity prototyping approach that is time and cost effective, and that requires no electronics knowledge. First, we supply non-specialists with cardboard forms to create tangibles. Second, we have them draw lines on it via conductive ink, which makes their objects recognizable by the capacitive touch screen. They can then apply routine programming to recognize these tangibles and thus iterate over various designs.

Understanding the Mechanics of Persuasive System Design: A Mixed-Method Theory-driven Analysis of Freeletics

While we know that persuasive system design matters, we barely understand when persuasive strategies work and why they only work in some cases. We propose an approach to systematically understand and design for motivation, by studying the fundamental building blocks of motivation, according to the theory of planned behavior (TPB): attitude, subjective norm, and perceived control. We quantitatively analyzed (N=643) the attitudes, beliefs, and values of mobile fitness coach users with TPB. Capacity (i.e., perceived ability to exercise) had the biggest effect on users motivation. Using individual differences theory, we identified three distinct user groups, namely followers, hedonists, and achievers. With insights from semi-structured interviews (N=5) we derive design implications finding that transformation videos that feature other users success stories as well as suggesting an appropriate workout can have positive effects on perceived capacity. Practitioners and researchers can use our theory-based mixed-method research design to better understand user behavior in persuasive applications.

CrowdUX: A Case for Using Widespread and Lightweight Tools in the Quest for UX

User studies and expert reviews are established methods for evaluating usability and user experience (UX) in user-centered design. However, practitioners often struggle to integrate these often time-consuming and costly methods in their design processes. As technological products and services are becoming increasingly mobile, their contexts of use are increasingly diverse and less predictable. While this changing context is hard to capture in lab studies, the same mobile technologies also provide possibilities for new study methods. In this paper we advocate lightweight mobile tools for crowdsourcing UX feedback. In cooperation with a design agency, we built two apps that allow users to express feedback with text, ratings and pictures whenever using a product. The second app assigns feedback to categories, while the first does not. In a case study we compared the quantity, relevance, and nature of the feedback collected with both UX evaluation apps to traditional evaluation methods. The feedback collected with the apps was considered highly useful by designers and provided more user stories and context than traditional evaluations.

Empowerment in HCI - A Survey and Framework

Empowering people through technology is of increasing concern in the HCI community. However, there are different interpretations of empowerment, which diverge substantially. The same term thus describes an entire spectrum of research endeavours and goals. This conceptual unclarity hinders the development of a meaningful discourse and exchange. To better understand what empowerment means in our community, we reviewed 54 CHI full papers using the terms empower and empowerment. Based on our analysis and informed by prior writings on power and empowerment, we construct a framework that serves as a lens to analyze notions of empowerment in current HCI research. Finally, we discuss the implications of these notions of empowerment on approaches to technology design and offer recommendations for future work. With this analysis, we hope to add structure and terminological clarity to this growing and important facet of HCI research.

Nurturing empathy between UX design teams and users in digitally-mediated user research.

Creating an empathic, holistic understanding of the user experience and communicating it within the design team is a constant challenge in UX design projects. This paper explores the potential of digital tools to support designers and researchers in this task. We explored the needs of different stakeholders in semi-structured interviews and hosted an ideation workshop to generate design ideas for suitable software tools. Based on the resulting insights and ideas, we implemented a first prototype that balances individual feedback visualizations with detailed user profiles, a user journey and a communication feature. The prototype was assessed in seven focus groups with a total of 26 participants and with the AttrakDiff questionnaire. We found out that the persona view, the user journey view and the flexible filters of our prototype allowed designers to gain a insightful picture of users experiences. Future work is needed to better understand how digitally-mediated empathic relationships evolve over the long term.

Bringing Transparency Design into Practice

Intelligent systems, which are on their way to becoming mainstream in everyday products, make recommendations and decisions for users based on complex computations. Researchers and policy makers increasingly raise concerns regarding the lack of transparency and comprehensibility of these computations from the user perspective. Our aim is to advance existing UI guidelines for more transparency in complex real-world design scenarios involving multiple stakeholders. To this end, we contribute a stage-based participatory process for designing transparent interfaces incorporating perspectives of users, designers, and providers, which we developed and validated with a commercial intelligent fitness coach. With our work, we hope to provide guidance to practitioners and to pave the way for a pragmatic approach to transparency in intelligent systems.

Privacy and personalization: the story of a cross-cultural field study

I N T E R A C T I O N S . A C M .O R G I HOW IT ALL STARTED December 2016, 10 months before the field trip Our identities are complemented by a virtual counterpart, consisting of diverse social network profiles and a data footprint most of us leave when we are online. This accumulation of personal information is used to tailor the content or functionality of Web pages to our preferences, interests, knowledge, and other personal traits. The concept behind this adaptation, or personalization, is simple: Messages, objects, and experiences that we attribute to our self affirm our identity and differentiate us from others. As a In September 2017, we had the chance to conduct a two-day field trip in Mumbai, India. This field trip provided us with a fresh perspective, inspiration, and great human encounters. With this article, we aim to provide insights and motivation, as well as details on planning and conducting an intercultural field trip for researchers considering a similar endeavor. We recount our experiences from the perspectives of both German and Indian participants, from the initial idea to planning and conducting the field trip in collaboration with locals. We also share our lessons and recommendations. Insights → In collaborative field research, very different perspectives might meet and challenge each other. → It takes close listening, open-mindedness, good preparation, and improvisation to set up a field trip in an unfamiliar context. Close collaboration with locals is invaluable. → Despite all preparation, be ready for surprises— and welcome them. PRIVACY AND PERSONALIZATION: THE STORY OF A CROSS-CULTURAL FIELD STUDY

Investigating Perceptions of Personalization and Privacy in India

Technological products are increasingly equipped with data collection and personalization mechanisms that allow them to adapt to an individual user’s needs [4]. However, the value and perception of these practices for users is still unclear. This field trip proposal investigates users’ mental models of personalization as well as perceived benefits and drawbacks using semi-structured interviews. The interviews make use of the critical incident technique and drawing tasks. We expect that findings from the field trip will result in rich understanding of the prospective of a collectivist society on personalization and privacy. Results of the field trip can, hence, be contrasted to the results of an equivalent study conducted in Germany, an individualistic society. The overall goal of our studies is to highlight differences in user needs of collectivist and individualistic societies for researchers and practitioners who develop highly personalized systems.

Your Data, Your Vis: Personalizing Personal Data Visualizations

Personal Visualizations (PV) provide visual feedback on personal data, e.g., regarding physical activity or energy consumption. They are a vital part of many behavior change technologies (BCT) and Personal Informatics tools. Feedback can be presented in various ways, for example using counts and graphs, stylized displays, metaphoric displays, narrative information, data physicalisations, or even living plants. The properties of a PV are likely to influence its effectiveness towards reaching a goal. However, users’ perceptions and preferences regarding different PVs seem to vary strongly, rendering a one-size-fits-all approach unsuitable. To investigate whether preferences for certain PVs coincide with personality or gender, we conducted a lab study with three example PVs: Donut, Glass, and Creature. Indeed, the results of our lab study are a first indicator that there is a relationship between personality traits and preferences for different PVs. High scores on extraversion and openness, for example, positively correlated with a preference for Creature. In contrast, high scores in conscientiousness negatively correlated with a preference for Creature. Further research is necessary to better understand how truly personalized PVs can be realized, which, in turn, might fit better into people’s lives and thereby be more effective.

Adapting at Run-time: Exploring the Design Space of Personalized Fitness Coaches

Personal health and fitness technologies, such as activity trackers, bear the potential to impact health behaviors globally. However, most users abandon these technology quickly. Possible reasons are that provided feedback (often consisting of raw data) is not actionable, not relevant, or the provided advice is not easy to integrate into peoples lives. One approach to tackle this problem, is to develop personalized or adaptive digital coaches that take users individual differences and situation into account. Even though the first prototypes of personalized coaches have been presented and evaluated, this research is still in its infancy. In my thesis, I want to extend this research by (a) investigating the influences of individual differences on behaviors and motivations to use a digital fitness coach, (2) mapping and conceptually exploring the design space of personalized digital fitness coaches, (3) and iteratively prototyping and testing adaptations of personalized fitness coaches in a user-centered design process.