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            Self-tracking technologies empower people to build self-knowledge and insights across many domains and individual user contexts. However, individuals with severe motor disabilities are largely excluded from personal informatics systems. To bridge this gap, we designed and developed a first-of-a-kind power wheelchair (PWC) based multi-modal self-tracking system to support individuals with a recent spinal cord injury to track their pressure reliefs---a very frequent self-care activity to prevent pressure ulcers. We deployed this system with nine inpatient participants of a rehabilitation hospital and qualitatively evaluated the feasibility through their interactions with audio, visual, and haptic reminder modalities through observations and interviews. Our deployment and evaluation demonstrate the feasibility of creating chairable self-tracking systems to help facilitate independence and self-awareness of their self-care activity and the potential for personal informatics systems to be effectively designed so that they are useful for this population.more » « lessFree, publicly-accessible full text available March 3, 2026
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            A spinal cord injury (SCI) typically results in a sudden change to an individual's motor function. People's adoption of technology soon after a severe SCI is crucial, since they must relearn most technology interactions to adjust to their new physical abilities and regain independence. This study examines how individuals adopt technologies soon after sustaining a severe SCI. By qualitatively analyzing the perspectives of ten rehabilitation clinicians, three individuals who recently sustained an SCI, and two of those participants' family members, we surfaced a spectrum of individuals' motivations to adopt technology post-injury and highlight the challenges they face to adopt technology. Our findings highlight the need to incorporate the holistic experience---including technology literacy, perception of support, and acceptance of the new-normal---in technology design for individuals who have a sudden change to motor functions. Our findings show that technology adoption is a critical component for the overall adjustment of post-SCI life. Finally, we use the extended version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to make recommendations for more inclusive assistive design.more » « less
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            Personal informatics (PI) has become an area of significant research over the past decade, maturing into a sub-field that seeks to support people from many backgrounds and life contexts in collecting and finding value in their personal data. PI research includes a focus on people with chronic conditions as a monolithic group, but currently fails to distinguish the needs of people with motor disabilities (MD). To understand how current PI literature addresses those needs, we conducted a mapping review on PI publications engaged with people with MD. We report results from 50 publications identified in the ACM DL, Pubmed, JMIR, SCOPUS, and IEEE Xplore. Our analysis shows significant incompatibilities between the needs of individuals with MD and the ways that PI literature supports them. We also found inconsistencies in the ways that disability levels are reported, that PI literature for MD excludes non-health-related data domains, and an insufficient focus on PI tools' accessibility and usability for some MD users. In contrast with Epstein et al.'s [36] recent PI review, behavior change and habit awareness were the most common motivation in these publications. Finally, many of the reviewed articles reported involvement by caregivers, trainers, healthcare providers, and researchers across the PI stages. In addition to these insights, we provide recommendations for designing PI technology through a user-centric lens that will broaden the scope of PI and include people regardless of their motor abilities.more » « less
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            User research for scientific software can inform design and account for the unique concerns of academic researchers. In this study, we explored the user experience on a testbed for cloud computing research, CloudLab. Through 15 semi-structured interviews and observation, we observed the importance of time as a resource to system users. We observed CloudLab users strategically coordinating their time on the platform with other users, navigating the constraints of publication and other academic deadlines. Surprisingly, we found that this coordination may involve altruistic behaviors where users share time on CloudLab that had been allocated for personal use. In light of prior CSCW literature on how actors seek to harness time, we propose concrete opportunities for design interventions. Our strategy across all possible interventions is to increase users' awareness of the rhythms affecting their peers' platform use, allowing coordination based not just on knowledge of CloudLab reservations but also users' progress toward deadlines. The implications of this work inform the design of other similar cyberinfrastructure systems in science where users independently coordinate use of resources.more » « less
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