Julian Hanna

You're the Voice: Evaluating User Interfaces for Encouraging Underserved Youths to express themselves through Creative Writing

Minority groups are the fastest growing demographic in the U.S. In addition, the poverty level in the U.S. is the highest it has been in the last 50 years. We argue that the community needs more research addressing this user segment, and we present a novel study about how underserved youths react when presented with different UI designs aimed at promoting creative writing. The act of creative writing per se can become the driver of change among underserved teenagers, and researchers should strive to discover novel UI designs that can effectively increase this target groups productivity, creativity and mental well-being. Using MS Word as baseline, our contribution analyzes the influence of a Zen-like tool (designed by the authors and called Haven), a nostalgic but realistic typewriting tool (Hanx Writer), and a stress-based tool that eliminates writers block by providing consequences for procrastination (Write or Die). Our results suggest that the Zen characteristics of our tool Haven were capable of conveying a sense of calm and concentration to the users, making them feel better and also write more. The nostalgic Hanx typewriter also fared very well with regard to mental well-being and productivity, as measured by average number of words written. Contrary to our initial expectations, the stress-based UI (Write or Die) had the lowest productivity levels.

Madeira Story Generator: Prospecting Serendipitous Storytelling in Public Spaces

Abstract In the light of the increasing adoption of participatory culture means by general consumers, this paper describes the design process, evaluations and discussion on four studies on public interactive storytelling system addressing findings and limitations in regards of its participatory nature. Previous bodies of work within interactive artworks and public displays cite difficulty in attracting passersby attention. Through an iterative design process and refinements to the storytelling concept, we advanced our experience of the mechanics of digital storytelling’ and passersby engagement within each space studied. This paper aims to share our research highlights, encountered difficulties and how the applied evaluation methods stood up to the task within public spaces that aren’t as easily accessible for research, such as airport terminals. Our findings further seek to go beyond a traditional technology-centered approach while examining the relationship between individual, object, and public spaces.

Evaluation of Yasmine’s Adventures: Exploring the Socio-Cultural Potential of Location Aware Multimedia Stories

This paper describes Yasmine’s Adventures, a location aware multimedia story designed as a location based service for a museum. Yasmine’s Adventures follows a young local girl (Yasmine) through a series of short animated adventures, tailored specifically to engage visitors in exploring the relatively neglected streets of the area in which the museum is situated. Yasmine’s perceptions of the landmarks, identified by community members themselves, reflect the real concerns of the community. Results from the evaluation of the user’s experience suggest location connection and perception changes when locative media narratives include learning, understanding and discovery elements.

Storytelling and the Use of Social Media in Digital Art Installations

In recent times new story formats have appeared along with new media channels that allow more reach and target a broader pool of authors and audiences. This paper investigates the repurposing of a Solari Udine airport split-flap display as a new public channel/medium for storytelling. We explored the potential of this repurposed display through a high fidelity prototype positioned in a high density and flow area at the main entrance to a regional university. The content displayed consisted of stories by published authors as well as passersby. Stories could be sent to the display via Twitter, SMS and Facebook. We observed and reported the reactions of the invited authors as well as of the public. Through the analysis of the data collected with this study, we aim at advancing and supporting the design of interactive storytelling installations in public spaces.

Fostering ambiguity: decontextualizing and repurposing a familiar public display

Innovations in HCI tend to rely on exploring new technologies and novel forms of interaction. For decades artists such as Jenny Holzer have sought to provoke the public with art installations by repurposing public displays and exploring ambiguous messaging. Gaver argues that ambiguity can be intriguing, mysterious, and delightful, something that engages users and allows them to explore, discover, and interpret situations for themselves. In this paper we describe MStoryG, a public digital art installation that employs a decontextualized and repurposed airport split-flap display to support collaborative storytelling. In order to explore whether ambiguity attracts the glances of passersby and through curiosity invites interaction we devised a high fidelity software prototype that facilitated rapid deployment of experiments at two different locations. In addition to evaluating user engagement with the installation we define guidelines for others seeking to repurpose familiar objects in order to attract and engage passersby.

Citizen X:: Designing for Holistic Community Engagement

Crowdsourcing in urban environments, geospatial annotation, social curation, and engaging citizens through social media applications and community-aware, place-based computing systems are at the forefront of pervasive urban technologies aimed at improving satisfaction, strengthening communities, and empowering citizens as stakeholders. This paper reports on the user-centered design of a holistic community engagement platform that combines the above aims and uncovers insights from both sides of the citizen-government divide for a peoples GIS for enhancing urban livability.

Yasmine’s Adventures: An Interactive Urban Experience Exploring the Sociocultural Potential of Digital Entertainment

Urban computing systems impact quality of life in densely populated areas. With the widespread availability of wireless networks and portable devices, urban areas are fast becoming a hybrid of the physical environment and the digital datasphere. This paper describes Yasmine’s Adventures, a location aware storytelling platform that leverages on urban computing strategies to create an interactive walk through the Mehringplatz area, surrounding the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Yasmine’s Adventures (YA) is a mobile application that delivers a sequence of animations clips tailored specifically to the Mehringplatz neighbourhood. The story follows an adventurous local girl as she walks home alone, visiting local landmarks. Yasmine’s perceptions of the landmarks, identified by community members in an earlier workshop, reflect the real concerns of the community. This interactive experience was created to engage visitors of the Jewish Museum to explore the relatively neglected streets of the area in which the museum is situated.

Reconstrained Design: A Manifesto

This manifesto marks the first anniversary of a project, Reconstrained Design, launched explicitly to challenge the state of design: its narrowing pathways, prevailing assumptions, and corporate agendas. Taking Our manifesto takes the form of a preamble which outlines the history of the manifesto genre and its origins in the historical avant-garde of a century ago, followed by a list of 12 tenets that put forward specific design challenges (each based on or challenging a thought-provoking quotation)., our manifestoWith this text we aims to pry open new discursive and imaginative spaces, to force new ideas into the public view, to promote engagement with politics, technology and other facets of everyday life, and to upset the status quo of design thinking. With this manifesto,It is written in an appropriately polemical style in order to, we take at its word the call to provocation. We hope this manifesto will establish our projects aims while encouraging important discussions between conference participants.

Words in Freedom: A Manifesto Machine as Critical Design

Words in Freedom is a design project aimed at artists, activists, and others that draws from research on the manifesto to create a studio environment or ‘Manifesto Machine’. Drawing primarily on the sub-disciplines of Design for Good and Critical Design, this project seeks to enhance conscious self-expression and empowerment while questioning design’s inbuilt optimism and the effects of automation on human agency. When we automate for improved performance, what do we lose in the process? Do the benefits outweigh the loss of agency? How can technology aid expression without over determining it? Ultimately, Words in Freedom seeks to create a collaborative writing environment that strikes the right balance between freedom and constraint, agency and inspiration. We trace the manifesto’s return to prominence in digital form, arguing for its usefulness as a potent discursive artifact. We then describe the Manifesto Machine as a set of tools to help write and disseminate persuasive manifestos, introducing our initial prototype (or probe, as in Reflective Design) as a means of conducting our primary research, engaging with groups and understanding social practices around declaring principles and beliefs.

Balancing Tradeoffs in the Design of an Interactive Art Installation on Surveillance and Big Data

North Circular is an interactive public art installation that invites participants to navigate a fictional urban environment built from data fragments. This paper asks how best to design for ambiguity and critique while balancing aesthetic considerations against complex ideas about big data and surveillance. We describe the results of a cultural probe aimed at understanding user thresholds for minimal specification and ambiguity in design in interactive installations, as well as our efforts to model interactions and design two prototypes. We conclude by presenting five insights and design recommendations for balancing complex themes with minimal specification in the design of interactive installations and displays.