User Research Portfolio
Collaboration Tools for Earth & Climate Modeling Communities
Visualized output from the Community Climate System Model (CCSM). (Photo credit: NCAR)
Motivation
Earth and climate modelers want to better leverage their collective efforts. How might open-source collaboration tools and social norms be reconfigured to support code sharing in the earth sciences?
Methods
Ethnographic observation of collaboration activities within research teams, at scientific conferences, on software development conference calls, and in virtual spaces such as project wikis, code repositories, and data portals.
Design Directions
Because of the complexity of earth system models, sharing code is a painstaking process that requires a lot of back and forth between scientists. There are significant trade-offs to making this coordination public via collaborative software. Scientists need flexible control over what they share and when they share it. The design challenge for the collaboration platform is to support private backchannels while offering a sensible trajectory toward public documentation.
Web Search Strategies of Hackers & Crafters
The physical context for web searches about craft information. (Photo credit: Barbara Vredenburg)
Motivation
There is no shortage of information on the internet about how to make things. But can people find it when they need it? And can they make sense of it?
Methods
Recruited participants with custom postcards left at hacker/crafter spots around the Bay Area. Conducted semi-structured interviews in home/work studio spaces, where we could easily reference both online and offline activities.
Design Directions
Participants used creative strategies to expand the keyword space, rather than progressively narrowing their searches. A vertical search engine tailored to craft knowledge would make information like skills, timeframe, and materials searchable. The "fuzziness" of the search results would be adjustable, allowing users to see results just beyond their vocabulary.
Multimedia Documentation of Electronics Hacking Projects
A one-handed Xbox controller, from schematic to built artifact. (Photo credit: Ben Heck)
Motivation
Telling someone else how to build something can be really hard. What strategies do successful How-To authors use?
Methods
Identified a couple dozen How-To authors linked from popular hacking blogs. Performed a content analysis of text and multimedia from the How-To pages. Conducted semi-structured interviews with the authors by phone or instant messenger about the steps in their process and the challenges they faced.
Design Directions
Immense efforts are required to create good How-To pages, so authors are reluctant to give up control of their content to a third-party site. At the same time, electronics hackers create How-To pages because they want to connect with others like themselves. The tension between individual control and the desire for community opens up design possibilities ... thinking about how to link a loose, informal network of autonomous sites together rather than how to motivate them to consolidate.
Socially Sensitive Help Giving from Robots
A robotic helper programmed to provide verbal assistance in the kitchen.
Motivation
Robots are often conceptualized as ideal assistants, smart and steadfast. But can help from robots (like help from some people) become overbearing and disruptive? What makes a robot a good helper?
Methods
Brought baking supplies to a university dorm and recorded people’s conversations (with permission) as they tried to make cupcakes. Coded these “helpful” tips by their linguistic features and programmed a robot with different helping styles based on the observed conversations. Ran a controlled laboratory experiment to measure perceptions of these different helping styles.
Design Directions
Robots using an indirect style ("so actually you might just want to ...”) were perceived to be less controlling, but there was a drawback. Indirect styles were also perceived to be less intelligent. An intriguing design direction: A not-quite-sure robot whose help will never be confused with a command.
Donation Coordination by Volunteer Networks after Katrina
A collection point for donated supplies headed to New Orleans. (Photo credit: Barret Anspach)
Motivation
After Katrina, people used the communication tools with which they were familiar, like blogger or craigslist, to coordinate the delivery of material donations. How did they self-organize? What challenges did they encounter?
Methods
Log analysis of multiple sites of coordination. Hand-coded linguistic features in a subset of messages. Designed and administered a survey to get basic demographic information about volunteers.
Design Directions
Exposed a trade-off in community organization. Sites with an authoritarian approach to coordination had less conflict, but decentralized communities, such as craigslist, had greater longevity. This finding focused our design attention on identifying frequent sources of conflict, such as identity and fraud, and mitigating them by strengthening reputation systems.