Rúben Gouveia

Engaging children in longitudinal behavioral studies through playful technologies

Measuring childrens behaviors and experiences has been one of the core interests of the field of Child-Computer Interaction. However, maintaining childrens engagement in the evaluation process is one of the challenges that researchers need to meet. In this paper we introduce Playful Booth, a system that aimed at engaging children in playful photo taking practices with the goal of capturing their social interactions over prolonged periods of time. We then present a 4-week-long deployment of Playful Booth with a total of seventy children that aimed at addressing three research questions. First, does playful booth create initial engagement on children and does it sustain this engagement over prolonged periods of time? Second, can the deployment be sustained for prolonged periods of time with minimal resources? Last, do behavioral data as captured from playful booth reflect childrens actual social participation in the school community?

New frontiers of quantified self 3: exploring understudied categories of users

Quantified Self (QS) field needs to start thinking of how situated needs may affect the use of self-tracking technologies. In this workshop we will focus on the idiosyncrasies of specific categories of users.

You have 5 seconds: designing glanceable feedback for physical activity trackers

People engage with activity trackers in short sessions: over 70% are defined by glances -- brief, 5-second sessions where individuals check ongoing activity levels with no further interaction. We explore how to best leverage such short sessions to maximize positive impact on behavior. To do so, we explore the design of Glanceable Behavioral Feedback Interfaces, focusing on three directions for design: increasing the frequency of glances, increasing the impact of glances on physical activity, and promoting moments of exploration and learning with activity trackers.

Beyond gamification: sociometric technologies that encourage reflection before behavior change

Gamification, the use of game design elements, such as points, levels, badges and achievements, in non-game contexts is a promising approach for encouraging desired behaviors. In this paper we describe our design process and early evaluation of a prototype that sensed childrens social interactions (i.e., physical proximity) in the playground, and attempted to encourage pro-social behaviors through motivational feedback on a public display. We illustrate how we came to realize the potentially detrimental effect of gamification on childrens intrinsic motivation and depth of reflection, and how we attempted to circumvent this through encouraging empathic understanding on children regarding the consequences of their behaviors on others.

Towards persuasive sociometric technologies for inclusive educational settings

With an increasing interest in the social inclusion of children in schools, HCI researchers have proposed technologies that support children at risk of social exclusion in their interactions with peers. However, much of this work has focused on the child at risk of social exclusion, disregarding the fact that social exclusion is a group-phenomenon that often originates in childrens negative stereotyping. In this paper we argue for persuasive sociometric technologies, ones that sense childrens social interactions in real-time, and provide persuasive, just-in-time recommendations to children with the goal of challenging their perceptions of diversity and motivating pro-social behaviors. We report on two studies that aimed at inquiring into childrens practices of social exclusion in school communities as well as whether and how persuasive technologies can stimulate pro-social behaviors and a sense of empathy among them.

Social toothbrush: fostering family nudging around tooth brushing habits

The earlier in life an individual adopts healthy practices the more impact those practices have on the long term. In this paper we present Social Toothbrush, a hardware plugin for electric toothbrushes that aims to induce proper tooth brushing behaviors on young children and adults. Social Toothbrush does so by taking advantage of family communication and coordination practices to encourage healthy practices. We first describe the theoretical grounding of our design process, Social Translucence, followed by the design and development of Social Toothbrush.

eGuided: Sharing Media in Academic and Social Networks Based on Peer-Assisted Learning e-Portfolios

Over the past years, different methodologies have been applied within classrooms in order to provide students with a successful learning process, leading thus to the proposal of different methodologies, paradigms and tools, such as blended learning, peer-assisted learning (PAL) and e-portfolios. In particular, teachers can use e-portfolios to understand students’ learning needs and provide them with an individualised learning approach. In this chapter, we introduce eGuided, a peer-assisted learning-based e-portfolio system that customises students’ learning experiences based on their academic and professional background. eGuided provides a dynamic environment, supported by an academic and social network, where individuals can share their academic and professional goals and respective multimedia content. In this chapter, we analyse the implementation of this dynamic environment, as well as how sharing media among different individuals can improve students’ learning experiences.