Michael Harding

HCI, Civic Engagement & Trust

There is a widespread belief that pervasive technologies will encourage and facilitate partnerships between citizens and civic authorities, enabling individuals to play a greater role in civic planning, service delivery and infrastructure management. However, at present sustained use and perceived value of civic engagement technologies remains low because the design space is poorly understood by system developers who focus almost exclusively on empowering citizens rather than adopting an informed, inclusive approach that addresses the needs of both citizens and civic authorities, and helps establish trusted relationships between these different stakeholders. We report on an extensive study of civic engagement in the domain of public infrastructure maintenance and provide insights into the civic management processes to support future design of trusted civic engagement interactions.

Shaping how advertisers see me: user views on implicit and explicit profile capture

Public electronic displays are increasingly used for advertising. In a drive to improve the effectiveness of such displays, advertisers and researchers are exploring the creation of systems that show adverts tailored to the context of the display or to the profile of the audience in close proximity to the display. In this paper we explore, through structured interviews with potential users in two European countries, reactions to the ideas of implicit and explicit generation of such profiles and relate these to more general user views on privacy and targeted advertising. The initial results suggest that users are prepared to trade off ease of use against increased levels of control over their data and are therefore more comfortable with an explicit system.

Repurposing Web Analytics to Support the IoT

Internet of Things analytics engines are complex to use and often optimized for a single domain or limited to proprietary data. A prototype system shows that existing Web analytics technologies can successfully be repurposed for IoT applications including sensor monitoring and user engagement tracking.

Self-Defining Memory Cues: Creative Expression and Emotional Meaning

This paper explores how people generate cues for capturing personal meaningful daily events, which can be used for later recall. Such understanding can be explored to inform the design and development of personal informatics systems, aimed to support reflection and increased self-awareness. We describe a diary study with six participants and discuss initial findings showing the qualities of daily meaningful events, the value of different types of cues and their distinct contents for supporting episodic recall.

Experiences with a social travel information system

This paper documents a programme of research to explore the development of mobile social travel information systems, where dynamic travel information is produced by travellers themselves and distributed within communities united by similar travel patterns and everyday activities. The resulting system, called OurTravel, was the subject of a series of real-world trials involving three diverse physical communities: a rural village, a group of urban office workers and the attendees of a contemporary arts festival. We describe the design and implementation of the OurTravel system, our experiences of running these trials and the insights gained.

Making Sense of Blockchain Applications: A Typology for HCI

Blockchain is an emerging infrastructural technology that is proposed to fundamentally transform the ways in which people transact, trust, collaborate, organize and identify themselves. In this paper, we construct a typology of emerging blockchain applications, consider the domains in which they are applied, and identify distinguishing features of this new technology. We argue that there is a unique role for the HCI community in linking the design and application of blockchain technology towards lived experience and the articulation of human values. In particular, we note how the accounting of transactions, a trust in immutable code and algorithms, and the leveraging of distributed crowds and publics around vast interoperable databases all relate to longstanding issues of importance for the field. We conclude by highlighting core conceptual and methodological challenges for HCI researchers beginning to work with blockchain and distributed ledger technologies.

Models and Patterns of Trust

As in all collaborative work, trust is a vital ingredient of successful computer supported cooperative work, yet there is little in the way of design principles to help practitioners develop systems that foster trust. To address this gap, we present a set of design patterns, based on our experience designing systems with the explicit intention of increasing trust between stakeholders. We contextualize these patterns by describing our own learning process, from the development, testing and refinement of a trust model, to our realization that the insights we gained along the way were most usefully expressed through design patterns. In addition to a set of patterns for trust, this paper seeks to demonstrate of the value of patterns as a means of communicating the nuances revealed through ethnographic investigation.

Trustworthy by design

Driven by changes in working practices and technology trends, organizations are increasingly reliant on mobile workers and the data they capture. However, while significant work has been carried out on increasing the usability of mobile devices and applications, little attention has been paid to the quality of data captured by mobile workers. If this data is inaccurate or untrustworthy, serious consequences can ensue. In this paper we study a system targeted at mobile workers in the highways sector that is deliberately designed to increase the accuracy and trustworthiness of the data collected. The resulting Inspections application has been very positively received by workers and we present lessons that we believe can be applied to other applications of this type.

Formative studies for dynamic wayfinding support with in-building situated displays and mobile devices

There is a significant disparity between wayfinding support services available in outdoor and in-building locations. Services such as Google Maps and in-car GPS allow users to examine unknown outdoor locations in advance as well as receive guidance en-route. In contrast, there is relatively little digital technology to support users in complex building architectures, e.g. institution buildings where users are generally limited to using traditional signage or asking for directions at the reception. However, recent advances in pervasive digital display technology are enabling a new range of possibilities and are making this topic increasingly subject to study. In this paper, we describe five formative studies involving 39 participants using situated digital displays, a Person Locator Kiosk, and personal mobile devices. We report our findings by gaining insights and feedback from users in order to develop wayfinding assistance for visitors in an in-building environment.

Exploring Personal Mobile Phones and Digital Display Systems to Support Indoor Navigation by Formative Study Methods

A significant difference exists between wayfinding support services available in outdoor and indoor locations. Users in outdoor locations can access services like Google Maps via a mobile phone and in-car GPS, which allows them to examine unknown locations before arrival as well as receive assistance en-route. In contrast, there is relatively little digital wayfinding support for users in indoor locations, where users are limited to using in-building signage or asking for directions. However, advances in pervasive digital technology allow new possibilities and make this topic increasingly subject to research study. This paper describes three separate formative studies involving 24 participants using personal mobile phones, a situated display deployment and a Person Locator Kiosk. The authors present their findings by gaining feedback and insights from users to develop useful and usable wayfinding support for visitors in an in-building environment.