Isabel Micheel

HistoGraph -- A Visualization Tool for Collaborative Analysis of Networks from Historical Social Multimedia Collections

This paper describes the design and development of histoGraph, an interactive tool for explorative visualization and collaborative investigation of historical social networks from multimedia collections. Developed in an interdisciplinary collaboration of computer scientists, historians, HCI researchers and interface designers, the tool aims at supporting historians in the discovery and historical analysis of relationships between people, places and events. A special focus is on the identification and interactive visualization of social relations from historical photo collections through a combination of automatic analysis and expert-based crowd sourcing. The tool design bridges the gap between established network analysis and visualization techniques and traditional hermeneutic research methods in historical research. It integrates visual exploration with hybrid social graph construction, hypothesis formulation and the consultation of digitized primary sources. A formative evaluation of the current prototype, developed as a domain-specific application for historians in the field of European integration points to opportunities and critical factors in applying this approach to support and further current research practices in digital humanities.

Integrating real and digital games with data analytics for water consumption behavioral change: a demo

The demo showcases the SmartH2O platform1, a system for water demand management based on an original mix of data analytics and behavioral science. SmartH2O collects consumption data from the automatic meter infrastructure of a (water) utility and allows customers access them in a Web portal, where they can see information about their actual and forecasted consumption, compare with the neighborhood, and obtain personalized water saving tips and leak alerts. Engagement is reinforced through a unique mix of in-app gamification techniques, digital educational games and real board games, which provide a rich set of behavior change stimuli to all household members. Lab tests show good acceptance and engagement by pilot users, deployment to a large set of consumers is scheduled shortly.

Bridging the Utilitarian-Hedonic Divide in Crowdsourcing Applications

This paper introduces a novel perspective on the gamification of crowdsourcing tasks by conceptualizing it as the introduction of hedonic quality into the solution of utilitarian tasks and into the design of corresponding systems. We demonstrate how such a conceptualization can enable crowdsourcing applications to involve new kinds of crowds in everyday contexts that cannot be reached with existing models. We illustrate its application with the design of TrendRack, a gamified crowdsourcing application in the domain of fashion. We then discuss the results from a first evaluation, suggesting successful engagement of fashion customers in everyday contexts.

Integrating behavioural change and gamified incentive modelling for stimulating water saving

Stimulating consumers to save water is a challenge and an opportunity for water demand management. Existing ICT systems for behavioural change often do not consider the underlying behavioural determinants in a systematic way. This paper discusses the design of the behavioural change and incentive model combining smart meter data with consumption visualisation and gamified incentive mechanisms to stimulate water saving. We show how the design of such a system can be related to a holistic behavioural change model and how this systematic mapping can inform the design of an integrated incentive model combining different incentive types (virtual, physical, social). The model is implemented in the SmartH2O system and deployed in two pilots. We present the preliminary results for the Swiss pilot, which indicate reduced water consumption, positive user feedback and overall suitability of the designed incentive model. Holistic behavioural change and incentive model for water saving applications.Systematic mapping of incentive mechanisms to phases of behavioural change.User-centred visualisations of smart metered consumption data and saving tips target attitudes towards water saving.Integrated gamified incentive model offers social, virtual and physical rewards.Results of a real-world pilot indicate reduced water consumption and suitability of the designed incentive model.

A Crowd-Powered System for Fashion Similarity Search

Driven by the needs of customers and industry, online fashion search and analytics are recently gaining much attention. As fashion is mostly expressed by visual content, the analysis of fashion images in online social networks is a rich source of possible insights on evolving trends and customer preferences. Although a plethora of visual content is available, the modeling of clothes’ physics and movement, the implicit semantics in fashion designs, and the subjectivity of their interpretation pose difficulties to fully automated solutions for fashion search and analysis. In this article, we present the design and evaluation of a crowd-powered system for fashion similarity search from Twitter, supporting trend analysis for fashion professionals. The system enables fashion similarity search based on specific human-based similarity criteria. This is achieved by implementing a novel machine--crowd workflow that supports complex tasks requiring highly subjective judgments where multiple true solutions may coexist. We discuss how this leads to a novel class of crowd-powered systems for which the output of the crowd is not used to verify the automatic analysis but is the desired outcome. Finally, we show how this kind of crowd involvement enables a novel kind of similarity search and represents a crucial factor for the acceptance of system results by the end user.