More Like this

1. Ability + Motivation: Understanding Factors that Influence People with Cognitive Disabilities in Regularly Practicing Daily Activities

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3587281.3587295  

   Koushik, Varsha; Kane, Shaun (April 2023, ACM)

   Not AvailablePeople with cognitive disabilities may experience challenges in consistently performing daily activities because they skip steps, struggle to track progress, or lack the motivation to complete them. These challenges are often along a range; people need assistive devices customized to their specific needs. However, existing assistive technologies, like prompting systems, lack the capabilities to customize support for diverse needs. With the advent of smart home devices, there are opportunities to design prompting systems that support diverse accessibility and motivational needs, thereby supporting the regular practice of daily activities. To understand design factors for such devices, we interviewed adults with cognitive disabilities, parents, and caregivers. Our participants described their needs for future prompting systems, including structuring tasks, supporting motivation, and introducing community support. This paper presents insights and design suggestions for context-aware assistive technologies that could help people with cognitive disabilities regularly perform everyday activities. 

   more » « less
2. Critical-Playful Speculations with Cameras in the Home

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3502109  

   H. Tan, Neilly; Kinnee, Brian; Langseth, Dana; A. Munson, Sean; Desjardins, Audrey (April 2022, Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)

   Smart home cameras present new challenges for understanding behaviors and relationships surrounding always-on, domestic recording systems. We designed a series of discursive activities involving 16 individuals from ten households for six weeks in their everyday settings. These activities functioned as speculative probes prompting participants to reflect on themes of privacy and power through filming with cameras in their households. Our research design foregrounded critical-playful enactments that allowed participants to speculate potentials for relationships with cameras in the home beyond everyday use. We present four key dynamics with participants and home cameras by examining their relationships to: the camera’s eye, filming, their data, and camera’s societal contexts. We contribute discussions about the mundane, information privacy, and post-hoc reflection with one’s camera footage. Overall, our findings reveal the camera as a strange, yet banal entity in the home—interrogating how participants compose and handle their own and others’ video data. 

   more » « less
3. User Study: Smart Speakers and Visual Disabilities

   Kim, Hyung Nam; Ugboya, I; Ogunmwonyi, V (May 2025, Journal on technology and persons with disabilities)

   This study investigates how individuals with visual disabilities and their sighted counterparts perceive user experiences with smart speakers. A sample of 79 participants, including 41 with visual disabilities and 38 sighted individuals, used Amazon Echo 4th Gen smart speakers. After participants used the smart speakers for one week in their daily lives, exit interviews were administered and analyzed, yielding themes of accessibility, effectiveness, enjoyment, efficiency, and privacy. Findings revealed that the voice user interfaces of smart speakers significantly enhanced accessibility and user satisfaction for those with visual disabilities, while the voice assistant Alexa contributed to fostering emotional connections. Sighted participants, while benefiting from the smart speaker's multifunctionality and efficiency, faced challenges with initial setup and advanced features. Individuals with visual disabilities raised privacy concerns. This study underscores the need for inclusive design improvements to address the diverse needs of all users. To improve user experience, future enhancements should focus on refining voice command accuracy, integrating predictive features, optimizing onboarding processes, and strengthening privacy controls. 

   more » « less
4. "What Does Your Robot Do?" A Tabletop Role-Playing Game to Support Robot Design

   https://doi.org/10.1109/RO-MAN50785.2021.9515554  

   Collins, Sawyer; Sabanovic, Selma (August 2021, 2021 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN))

   null (Ed.)

   Social robot co-design requires aiding users as they imagine these novel devices within their everyday lives and enabling designers to understand and address users’ experiences. This paper presents the exploratory development and evaluation of a role-playing game aimed at identifying the desired features and uses of a social robot that can assist people diagnosed with depression. Participants (n = 16) played the game as a character with depression, designed a companion robot for that character, and chose reactions to daily challenges. Though participants initially selected robot capabilities based on their own needs, after the game they identified alternative designs that would better address daily challenges faced by individuals with depression. We discuss aspects of the game that allowed participants to understand how various robot characteristics can address the experience of depression and suggest how role-playing games can support users and designers in identifying beneficial features and uses of emerging robotic technologies. 

   more » « less
5. Wearables can help me learn: A survey of user perception of wearable technologies for learning in everyday life

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10726-6  

   Rani, N.; Chu, S. L. (September 2021, Education and information technologies)

   Wearable devices are a popular class of portable ubiquitous technology. These devices are available in a variety of forms, ranging from smart glasses to smart rings. The fact that smart wearable devices are attached to the body makes them particularly suitable to be integrated into people’s daily lives. Thus, we propose that wearables can be particularly useful to help people make sense of different kinds of information and situations in the course of their everyday activities, in other words, to help support learning in everyday life. Further, different forms of wearables have different affordances leading to varying perceptions and preferences, depending on the purpose and context of use. While there is research on wearable use in the learning context, it is mostly limited to specific settings and usually only explores wearable use for a specific task. This paper presents an online survey with 70 participants conducted to understand users’ preferences and perceptions of how wearables may be used to support learning in their everyday life. Multiple ways of use of wearable for learning were proposed. Asking for information was the most common learning-oriented use. The smartwatch/wristband, followed by the smart glasses, was the most preferred wearable form factor to support learning. Our survey results also showed that the choice of wearable type to use for learning is associated with prior wearable experience and that perceived social influence of wearables decreases significantly with gain in the experience with a fitness tracker. Overall, our study indicates that wearable devices have untapped potential to be used for learning in daily life and different form factors are perceived to afford different functions and used for different purposes. 

   more » « less