Liza Potts

Experience Design

In this paper, we trace and historicize two of the most common contextual research methods: Participant Observation and Contextual Inquiry. In doing so, we describe how these methods have evolved, describe the need for these methods to support Experience Design research, and make the case for interdisciplinary collaboration through clarifying these practices.In this paper, we trace and historicize two of the most common contextual research methods: Participant Observation and Contextual Inquiry. In doing so, we describe how these methods have evolved, describe the need for these methods to support Experience Design research, and make the case for interdisciplinary collaboration through clarifying these practices.

Social media in disaster response : how experience architects can build for participation

1: Experience, Disaster, and the Social Web Architecting Mediated Systems The Social Web Disaster, Communication, and the Social Web Disaster Cases Overview of Chapters Who this Book is for 2: Methods for Researching and Architecting the Social Web Users and Participants Content and Exchange Networks and Agency Identifying and Mapping Conclusion 3: Locating Data in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina Ecosystems and Data Locating Data and Sources in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina Practical Solutions Conclusion 4: Validating Information during the London Bombings Ecosystems and Information Tracing the Translation from Data to Information in the London Bombings Practical Solutions Conclusion 5: Transferring Knowledge During the Mumbai Attacks Ecosystems and Knowledge Distributing Knowledge Across Systems Practical Solutions Conclusion 6: Architecting Systems for Participation New Disasters: Participant Innovations and Continued Struggles Frameworks for Participant-Centered Architectures Participatory Futures

Tweeting disaster: hashtag constructions and collisions

In this paper, we describe the issues surrounding the use of various hashtags by Twitter users who are attempting to exchange information about recent natural disasters. During these disasters, hashtag usage was somewhat mired by inconsistent formats, spellings, and word ordering. This paper argues for systems that can help bridge this issue by creating participant-centered data streams that can collect and re-route these conversations.

Contextualizing Experiences: Tracing the Relationships Between People and Technologies in the Social Web

This article uses both actor network theory (ANT) and activity theory to trace and analyze the ways in which both Twitter and third-party applications support the development and maintenance of meaningful contexts for Twitter participants. After situating context within the notion of a ‘‘fire space’’, the authors use ANT to trace the actors that support finding and moving information. Then they analyze the ‘‘prescriptions’’ of each application using the activity-theory distinction between actions and operations. Finally, they combine an activity-theory analysis with heuristics derived from the concept of ‘‘findability’’ in order to explore design implications for Social Web applications.

Interfaces as rhetorical constructions: reddit and 4chan during the boston marathon bombings

In this paper, we describe the rhetorical construction of two community sites and analyze how these sites support the information sharing practices of these communities. By examining activity on web-based discussion boards reddit and 4chan, we show how these spaces are developed and shaped over time by participants making rhetorical moves in order to share content within these ecologies. During the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, we show how these spaces can be altered, disregarding the more typical practices on these sites. When community members embrace or reject these uses, it is as much a reaction to the content as it is to the cultural misuse of the community. In the case of reddit and 4hcan, this acceptance and rejection is especially true when the makers and maintainers of the system are participants themselves. Through this examination, we conclude that it is important to understand the rhetorical construction of these systems as reflections of the cultures they support.

Teaching UX: designing programs to train the next generation of UX experts

This experience report describes core values and approaches to teaching and developing programs in User Experience (UX). What binds these values and approaches together is a deep engagement with ongoing trends and best practices in the field of UX over the past several decades. Examples offered are contextually embedded, yet each expression is consistent with underlying core competencies gleaned from a ten-plus year history of teaching and practicing UX design, information architecture and information design, visual rhetoric, ethics, and usability in the technical communication classroom. The best practices we articulate below are applicable in the context of corporate training, team building and preparation, and consulting, in addition to academic contexts.

Best practices for designing third party applications for contextually-aware tools

This experience report examines the user interface designs of Twitter and selected third party Twitter applications: Tweetdeck and Brizzly. Since participants are using different tools to communicate across the same system, Twitter users have different communication expectations. Evaluating Twitter and these tools based on usability heuristics found in activity theory and Morvilles notion of findability, we argue for the normalization of these tools based on a set of mental models and affordances for Twitter. From this basis, we will report on how third-party clients more effectively exploit Twitters affordances by making the streams, and thus the users experiences, modular, emergent, and contextual. By comparing the UIs of Tweetdeck and Brizzly, along with that of Twitters own web-based UI, we will assess how these clients allow participants to adapt Twitter streams to their own communication needs. The flexibility given to users via such clients serves as a tremendous signpost to the nature of and need for modular, context-aware experiences in communication channels as information content evolves. Not only do the social networks themselves need to be articulated and modular, but so do the UIs through which users engage with these networks. We argue that these features are critical for social media participants. Based on our analysis of Tweetdeck and Brizzly, we develop a set of best practices that should guide the research and design of participant experiences in social media and the third-party applications that many of them often use.

Peering into disaster: social software use from the indian ocean earthquake to the mumbai bombings

By examining the use of social software across multiple disasters of the 21st century, we can better understand social software use, user-centered design, and trends in communication. Looking across these disasters, we can trace from the early connections made by participants through the channels of the mainstream media up to more recent disasters in which participants were able to use numerous systems to locate data, validate it as information, and distribute it as knowledge. As participation across these systems reaches tipping points in terms of participation and media awareness, people will find more population to communicate and share information. The solutions will be in how we provide ways for them to be active participants, how well the mainstream media cooperates with these participants to further distribute information about key sites of activity, and how empowered moderators feel to create their own spaces for communities to meet and exchange details. Keywords: social software, user-centered design, disaster, sociotechnical systems.

Designing for Disaster: Social Software Use in Times of Crisis

Using the London Bombings of 7 July 2005 as a case study, this paper illustrates the need for sociotechnical interventions in systems design. By employing Actor Network Theory the author makes visible the active participants and technologies within the ecosystems of social software. Such visibility provides insight to the designer seeking to optimize communication systems in the wake of disaster. Guidelines for improving systems and user interfaces based on disaster scenarios are described.

Diagramming with Actor Network Theory: A method for modeling holistic experience

Traditional software design methodologies focus on diagramming the process flows and system states for specific tasks and technologies. Because the design of social software tools must take into consideration the many technologies, people, and organizations involved in these ecologies, this paper illustrates a new method for diagramming these participants based on actor network theory (ANT). Such diagramming can aid in the development of these mediated systems. Examples from the events occurring online during the aftermath of the London bombings of 7 July 2005 illustrate the application of these diagrams.