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1. How Transgender People and Communities Were Involved in Trans Technology Design Processes

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580972  

   Haimson, Oliver L.; Nham, Kai; Thach, Hibby; DeGuia, Aloe (April 2023, Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)

   Trans technology – technology created to help address challenges that trans people face – is an important area for innovation that can help improve marginalized people’s lives. We conducted 104 interviews with 115 creators of trans technology to understand how they involved trans people and communities in design processes. We describe projects that used human-centered design processes, as well as design processes that involved trans people in smaller ways, including gathering feedback from users, conducting user testing, or the creators being trans themselves. We show how involving trans people and communities in design is vital for trans technologies to realize their potential for addressing trans needs. Yet we highlight a frequent gap between trans technology design and deployment, and discuss ways to bridge this gap. We argue for the importance of involving community in trans technology design to ensure that trans technology achieves its promise of helping address trans needs and challenges. 

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2. Trans-centered moderation: Trans technology creators and centering transness in platform and community governance

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3630106.3658909  

   Thach, Hibby; Mayworm, Samuel; Thomas, Michaelanne; Haimson, Oliver L (June 2024, ACM)

   Mainstream platforms’ content moderation systems typically employ generalized “one-size-fits-all” approaches, intended to serve both general and marginalized users. Thus, transgender people must often create their own technologies and moderation systems to meet their specific needs. In our interview study of transgender technology creators (n=115), we found that creators face issues of transphobic abuse and disproportionate content moderation. Trans tech creators address these issues by carefully moderating and vetting their userbases, centering trans contexts in content moderation systems, and employing collective governance and community models. Based on these findings, we argue that trans tech creators’ approaches to moderation offer important insights into how to better design for trans users, and ultimately, marginalized users in the larger platform ecology. We introduce the concept of trans-centered moderation – content moderation that reviews and successfully vets transphobic users, appoints trans moderators to effectively moderate trans contexts, considers the limitations and constraints of technology for addressing social challenges, and employs collective governance and community models. Trans-centered moderation can help to improve platform design for trans users while reducing the harm faced by trans people and marginalized users more broadly. 

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3. Barriers Toward the Implementation of Extended Reality (XR) Technologies to Support Education and Training in Workforce Development Programs

   https://doi.org/10.1177/10711813241275080  

   Upadhyay, Bhargav; Chalil_Madathil, Kapil; Hegde, Sudeep; Anderson, David; Wooldridge, Eric; Presley, David; Perez, Luis; Reid, Ben (August 2024, Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting)

   Advancements in computer technology have revolutionized extended reality (XR) experiences, including augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), and 360° photography and videography. These technologies have found widespread adoption in various educational contexts, from K-12 schools to universities. However, community and technical colleges in the United States have been slower to adopt these innovative instructional modalities. This study aims to investigate the factors influencing the adoption of XR technologies at 2-year institutions, guided by the consolidated framework for implementation research (CFIR). A qualitative research approach was applied by interviewing 13 educators from 2-year colleges to identify their perception and the challenges faced while implementing XR-enabled instruction. Limited availability of XR educational content, restricted development opportunities of XR content, limited integration of these technologies with existing learning management systems, resource constraints and training needs of educators are some of the factors that hinder implementation of these technologies at 2-year colleges. 

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4. Framework for the Use of Extended Reality Modalities in AEC Education

   https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12122169  

   Spitzer, Barbara Oliveira; Ma, Jae Hoon; Erdogmus, Ece; Kreimer, Ben; Ryherd, Erica; Diefes-Dux, Heidi (December 2022, Buildings)

   The educational applications of extended reality (XR) modalities, including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR), have increased significantly over the last ten years. Many educators within the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) related degree programs see student benefits that could be derived from bringing these modalities into classrooms, which include but are not limited to: a better understanding of each of the subdisciplines and the coordination necessary between them, visualizing oneself as a professional in AEC, and visualization of difficult concepts to increase engagement, self-efficacy, and learning. These benefits, in turn, help recruitment and retention efforts for these degree programs. However, given the number of technologies available and the fact that they quickly become outdated, there is confusion about the definitions of the different XR modalities and their unique capabilities. This lack of knowledge, combined with limited faculty time and lack of financial resources, can make it overwhelming for educators to choose the right XR modality to accomplish particular educational objectives. There is a lack of guidance in the literature for AEC educators to consider various factors that affect the success of an XR intervention. Grounded in a comprehensive literature review and the educational framework of the Model of Domain Learning, this paper proposes a decision-making framework to help AEC educators select the appropriate technologies, platforms, and devices to use for various educational outcomes (e.g., learning, interest generation, engagement) considering factors such as budget, scalability, space/equipment needs, and the potential benefits and limitations of each XR modality. To this end, a comprehensive review of the literature was performed to decipher various definitions of XR modalities and how they have been previously utilized in AEC Education. The framework was then successfully validated at a summer camp in the School of Building Construction at Georgia Institute of Technology, highlighting the importance of using appropriate XR technologies depending on the educational context. 

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5. Survey of Annotations in Extended Reality Systems

   https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2023.3288869  

   Borhani, Zahra; Sharma, Prashast; Ortega, Francisco R. (June 2023, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics)

   Annotation in 3D user interfaces such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) is a challenging and promising area; however, there are not currently surveys reviewing these contributions. In order to provide a survey of annotations for Extended Reality (XR) environments, we conducted a structured literature review of papers that used annotation in their AR/VR systems from the period between 2001 and 2021. Our literature review process consists of several filtering steps which resulted in 103 XR publications with a focus on annotation. We classified these papers based on the display technologies, input devices, annotation types, target object under annotation, collaboration type, modalities, and collaborative technologies. A survey of annotation in XR is an invaluable resource for researchers and newcomers. Finally, we provide a database of the collected information for each reviewed paper. This information includes applications, the display technologies and its annotator, input devices, modalities, annotation types, interaction techniques, collaboration types, and tasks for each paper. This database provides a rapid access to collected data and gives users the ability to search or filter the required information. This survey provides a starting point for anyone interested in researching annotation in XR environments. 

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