Krista Kennedy

Examining usability in the communication design of health wearables

This panel consists of six case studies that investigate how emerging contexts for use created by health wearables present UX designers with challenges related to agency, surveillance, and health outcomes, as wearables assess the body in new, potentially unforeseen ways.

Designing for human-machine collaboration: smart hearing aids as wearable technologies

This study examines design aspects that shape human/machine collaboration between wearers of smart hearing aids and their networked aids. The Starkey Halo hearing aid and the TruLink iPhone app that facilitates real-time adjustments by the wearer offer a case study in designing for this sort of collaboration and for the wearers rhetorical management of disability disclosure in social contexts. Through close textual analysis of the companys promotional materials for patient and professional audiences as well as interface analysis and autoethnography, I examine the ways that close integration between the wearer, onboard algorithms and hardware, and geolocative telemetry shape everyday interactions in multiple hearing situations. Reliance on ubiquitous, familiar hardware such as smart phones and intuitive interface design can drive patient comfort and adoption rates of these complex technologies that influence cognitive health, social connectedness, and crucial information access.

Extended abstract: The roles of networked learning, collaboration, and connectedness in the classroom

Contemporary technical communication pedagogies often place intense focus on networked and collaborative learning. These forms of learning can include the formation of networks, activity within networks, or understanding the unspoken rules of collaboration within a networked community. Over the past ten years, the emergence of social media platforms, such as Google Docs, Twitter, wikis, etc., have expanded the tools and skills that industry professionals use to collaborate in both local and global teams. Effective digital collaboration has become an essential skill for students who will likely engage in symbolic-analytical work after graduation [1]. Simply adding technologies that enable networked collaboration to the classroom is insufficient [2]; rather, social media must be included in strategic ways that foster a critical mindset for evaluating adoption, deployment, and effective use for connectivity and collaboration.