Luciana Cardoso de Castro Salgado

Conceptual Metaphors for Designing Multi-cultural Applications

This paper proposes a set of conceptual metaphors for the design of multi-cultural systems. The work is part of a long-term study to adapt the International Childrens Digital Library for use in a Brazilian context. Results from previous studies along with Semiotic Engineering concepts have led us to propose five multi-cultural design metaphors to guide different communicative strategies that affect both designer-to-user communication and user-system communication.

Combining cognitive, semiotic and discourse analysis to explore the power of notations in visual programming

Using game design and programming to foster computational thinking acquisition has proved to be a successful strategy in recent years. In previous research with AgentSheets, we concluded that the semiotic richness of this visual programming environment, specifically designed to support computational thinking acquisition, could be explored more extensively to the benefit of learners. In particular, we realized that there are some additional representations of AgentSheets games and simulations that are not presented as programming tools in the interface, and yet they communicate new relevant meanings to the users. This paper reports on research where we artificially introduced such representations in a small follow-up experiment with selected participants from our previous research experiment. Our goal was to investigate the impact of such additional representations on program comprehension and modification tasks. To this end we contrasted empirical evidence of their performance in the two tasks with their verbal account of experience with AgentSheets. We used a combination of discourse analysis and inspections using Semiotic Engineering methods and the Cognitive Dimensions of Notations framework. Our findings go in two directions. First, we observed that additional representations have allowed participants to expand and correct previous learning. Therefore such representations can support new teaching strategies in computational thinking acquisition programs with AgentSheets. Second, we learned that the combination of methods we used to analyze empirical data - discourse analysis with semiotic and cognitive inspection techniques - can be used systematically in other research contexts, holding the promise of insightful results.

Cultural appropriation of computational thinking acquisition research: seeding fields of diversity

In this paper, we report the developments of a Computational Thinking Acquisition project carried out in pilot Brazilian schools. The project is a branch of a successful, more than a decade old project in the USA. We present and discuss the factors that led to specific cultural appropriation and diversification of the North American experience. In particular, we explain the kind of technology that has been developed in South America compared to the one developed and used in the USA, and propose that the lessons we have learned in the projects short history in Brazil can already seed the reflection of IT and Education researchers.

Comparação entre os métodos de avaliação de base cognitiva e semiótica

In this article we present a comparative study of three methods: Cognitive Walkthrough, Heuristic Evaluation, and Communicability Evaluation. The aim of the study is to compare costs and benefits of the three, so as to inform decisions about which one to choose when time and feedback for (re)design are the most critical factors. The study was carried out as an academic exercise by graduate students in HCI. Results suggest that, of the three methods, Communicability Evaluation produces the most informative results, whereas Heuristic Evaluation is the most cost-effective.

Using metaphors to explore cultural perspectives in cross-cultural design

We have proposed five cultural viewpoint metaphors to help designers that wish to encourage and support cross-cultural HCI contacts. In this paper we present the main results of an experiment carried out to assess the potential of these metaphors in designing cross-cultural systems. Six HCI designers, with different cultural backgrounds, were then asked to create re-design alternatives for a real website guided by the metaphors. As a result, the experiment showed the epistemic effect of the metaphors on cross-cultural design, i. e. as a means to build new knowledge and understanding.

Semiotic Engineering and Culture

This chapter presents the gist of Semiotic Engineering theory and the necessary concepts in it to understand our cultural approach. We also examine some well-established semiotic and anthropological definitions of culture according to interpretive and non-predictive perspectives. By adopting an interpretive definition of culture, Semiotic Engineering research on this topic focuses on systems whose designers want to communicate cultural diversity to users. We use this theory’s ontology to map out and frame the portion of cultural interaction design space in which we are interested and to define relevant elements in the organization of culture-sensitive interactive discourse produced by systems’ designers.

Cultural Issues in HCI: Challenges and Opportunities

Culture strongly influences people’s values, expectations, behavior, and even perceptions and cognitive reasoning. Although HCI researchers recognize culture as an important factor, the research about cultural issues and HCI needs to go further. This paper discusses why culture should not be viewed as a threat or something that is better to relegated to minor importance in Human-Computer Interaction, but that has a key role in the investigations and development of new theories, methods and techniques. In the light of the grand challenges prospected in GranDIHC-BR by the Brazilian HCI community, we explore some of the opportunities and challenges culture brought to HCI as a research area.

Human Values in HCI: a challenge for the GrandIHC-BR

In 2012, the Brazilian HCI community identified Five Grand Research Challenges in Brazil, for the timespan between 2012 and 2022. In this paper, we discuss 3 issues: (a)what our community has done so far to advance with Challenge 4 - Human Values; (b) what results had effective impacts; and (c) what challenges remain and/or have come up. To do so, we present our perspectives on studies related to the three central axes of this challenge (ethics, privacy and post-mortem digital legacy), along with their potential impacts. Our observations point out that a compartmentalized, narrow mindset might be preventing us from advancing to greater reflections, which could challenge paradigms and articulate the aforementioned axes within the Grand Challenges.

Signifying software engineering to computational thinking learners with AgentSheets and PoliFacets

Nonprofessional end user programs have increased remarkably in volume and diversity. However, for such programs to be usable and reliable, their creators should be familiar with software engineering practices that are typically not part of their range of competence and source of enjoyment. While the expansion of computational thinking acquisition (CTA) initiatives at schools and the availability of improved programming environments have contributed to facilitate the learners’ coding tasks, much less has been done to facilitate the acquisition of software quality notions. This paper reports on a Brazilian CTA program guided by semiotic principles and describes a study of how the technology used in it prefigures elements of software engineering in the participants’ programs created with AgentSheets. Our research contributions touch on the semiotic potential of CTA infrastructures and on associated pedagogical considerations for expanding CTA programs with software engineering basics. We also propose items for an interdisciplinary research agenda.

Strategies for Communicating Reputation Mechanisms in Crowdsourcing-Based Applications

With the emergence of crowdsourcing-based applications – those systems that make intensive use of information provided voluntarily by a crowd of generally unknown users - the participation of end users in digital content generation has been increasing continuously. This scenario, thus, allow users to move from consumers to producers of information, and vice versa. Therefore, some criteria is needed and used (by the application and end-users) to decide and classify whether some content provided by any other user is realiable or not. In the real world, the current or historical people’s good reputation usually ensures a high degree of reliability of the information and data received from them. Our work, in turn, aimed at exploring reputation Mechanisms in two Crowdsourcing-Based Applications contexts. Firstly, we studied the strategies used by the applications to identify, ensure and communicate to end users, the degree of reliability of users-generated content. Second, we explored, empirically, how users interpret and understand those strategies. This paper presents the results of the studies and the potential influences to human-computer interaction.