Luddy Indianapolis faculty, Khairi Reda, Aqueasha Martin-Hammond, and Hee-Tae Jung, along with several Luddy students had papers accepted at the 2024 ACM-CHI Conference held in Hawaii recently. The Association of Computing Machinery is the largest conference of its kind covering Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Jung, assistant professor of Health Informatics in the Biomedical Engineering and Informatics Department at Luddy Indianapolis, was co-author on a publication that received the Best Paper Award.
Martin-Hammond noted that, “As one of the top-ranked and largest HCI conferences, attending and presenting at the CHI conference provides an excellent opportunity to share research findings with the broader HCI community. It also provides our students with an opportunity to learn about the diverse range of topics being studied in the HCI community, a way for them to get involved, share their work and network with other HCI researchers and practitioners from across the globe.”
Khairi Reda
Khairi Reda
Reda is associate professor of Data Science and Human-Computer Interaction and director of the Data Science graduate program in the Department of Human-Centered Computing. He co-authored the paper, Color Maker: a Mixed-Initiative Approach to Creating Accessible Color Maps in collaboration with researchers from Renmin University and Argonne National Laboratory.
“This tool that we developed (ColorMaker) enhances the effectiveness of quantitative data representation by streamlining the creation of perceptually accurate visualizations. This ensures that visualized data is more accessible, particularly for individuals with color-vision deficiencies, potentially improving data interpretation and communication across various scientific disciplines,” Reda said.
Quantitative data is frequently represented using color, yet designing effective color mappings is a challenging task, requiring one to balance perceptual standards with personal color preference. Current design tools either overwhelm novices with complexity or offer limited customization options. We present ColorMaker, a mixed-initiative approach for creating colormaps.”
ColorMaker combines fluid user interaction with real-time optimization to generate smooth, continuous color ramps. Users specify their loose color preferences while leaving the algorithm to generate precise color sequences, meeting both designer needs and established guidelines. ColorMaker can create new colormaps, including designs accessible for people with color-vision deficiencies, starting from scratch or with only partial input, thus supporting ideation and iterative refinement. Reda and his co-authors showed that their approach can generate designs with similar or superior perceptual characteristics to standard colormaps. A user study demonstrated how designers of varying skill levels can use this tool to create custom, high-quality colormaps. ColorMaker is available at colormaker.org
Aqueasha Martin-Hammond
Aqueasha Martin-Hammond
Martin-Hammond was co-author on three papers that were presented by her graduate students or alumni, Pranali Shinde, Sowmya Chandra, and Pegah Karimi. She is an associate professor of Human-Computer Interaction in the Human-Centered Computing Department.
Designing to Support Blind and Visually Impaired Older Adults in Managing the Invisible Labor of Social Participation: Opportunities and Challenges was a full-paper co-authored with a recent alumnus of the MS in HCI program, Pranali Shinde, who is now a Senior UX Researcher at Motorola. She also served as a session chair at the conference.
“Continued social participation is a key determinant of healthy aging and lowers the risks of isolation and loneliness. While online technologies can provide a convenient way for older adults to connect socially, some prefer connecting offline with others in their community, which can pose different challenges, especially for those with disabilities,” Martin-Hammond said. “Yet, we still know little about how older adults with visual disabilities might leverage technology to address their needs for engaging in social events in their communities.”
Martin-Hammond and Shinde interviewed 16 blind or visually impaired (BVI) adults 60 years or older to understand their experiences engaging in community social activities and the role of technology in the process. They describe the challenges participants faced connecting with others in their community and their use of technology to overcome them. Based on their findings, they discuss design opportunities for technology to help BVI older adults manage the hidden labor social participation.
Co-Designing Emotion: Supporting Positive Affect in a Culturally Sensitive Application for African-American Heart Health was a late-breaking (poster paper) work in collaboration with Johns Hopkins. One alumnus of the MS in HCI program, Sowmya Chandra, was a co-author. She is now a UI/UX Designer at Johnson Controls.Heart disease is a leading cause of injury and death among African Americans in the United States. According to the authors, culturally sensitive design of health technologies can be useful for motivating health behavior change, especially in underserved communities. Yet, designing culturally sensitive technologies requires careful consideration to identify appropriate approaches for tailoring applications to the needs of the target population. “In the paper, we explored the relationship between user values and emotions for informing the design of a culturally sensitive heart health application for African Americans. We partnered with members and local community advocates involved in an existing evidenced-based community heart health intervention to understand their values and explore implications for designing for positive emotional experiences in a future digital application. We contributed a discussion of emotional intentions important to the design of a future application and suggestions for designers of similar applications,” Martin-Hammond said.
What Do We Do? Lessons Learned from Conducting Systematic Reviews to Improve HCI Dissemination is a collaboration with students and faculty and IU Bloomington and Carnegie Mellon. It was a case study paper led by a Bloomington Ph.D. student. Pegah Karimi, a Luddy Indianapolis student who is finishing up her Ph.D. in Human-Centered Computingwas involved as a co-author as well.Systematic reviews are essential in helping researchers address pre-defined research questions through explicit, methodical, and reproducible techniques for identifying studies and comprehensively synthesizing their findings. “We highlighted our experiences conducting two systematic review studies in HCI: (1) women’s reproductive health research in HCI and (2) the intersection of identity and older adults in health research. We identified patterns and lessons that can be applied to enhance the reporting and communication of our research. While these lessons may not be universally applicable, they provide HCI researchers with the opportunity for introspection regarding how we convey our findings to the broader research community. Additionally, these lessons contribute to upholding transparency and integrity in our work, rendering it more long-lasting and beneficial for secondary purposes, like literature reviews and study replication. We provided recommendations and, where feasible, good examples of how to effectively report participants’ demographics and study methodology in our HCI work,” Martin-Hammond said.
Hee-Tae Jung
Hee-Tae Jung
Jung was co-author with colleagues at UMass Amherst, on a publication entitled “Towards Robotic Companions: Understanding Handler-Guide Dog Interactions for Informed Guide Dog Robot Design,” which received the Best Paper Award at ACM CHI 2024.
Jung’s role on the research team was to keep the team informed of and the project aligned with the principles of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), which is his area of expertise.
Dog guides are favored by blind and low-vision (BLV) individuals for their ability to enhance independence and confidence by reducing safety concerns and increasing navigation efficiency compared to traditional mobility aids. However, only a relatively small proportion of BLV individuals work with dog guides due to their limited availability and associated maintenance responsibilities. There is considerable recent interest in addressing this challenge by developing legged guide dog robots.
“This study was designed to determine critical aspects of the handler-guide dog interaction and better understand handler needs to inform guide dog robot development. We conducted semi-structured interviews and observation sessions with 23 dog guide handlers and 5 trainers. Thematic analysis revealed critical limitations in guide dog work, desired personalization in handler-guide dog interaction, and important perspectives on future guide dog robots. Grounded on these findings, we discuss pivotal design insights for guide dog robots aimed for adoption within the BLV community,” Jung said.
“In general, my research is to help improve the quality of life among people with chronic conditions. There are many straightforward ways to achieve this goal. For instance, I have developed diverse digital assessment and rehabilitation therapy technology, such as serious games and virtual reality programs. However, often, there are occasions that these technologies cannot address or mitigate these chronic conditions. Then, you need to find ways to help them live more independently and improve their perceived quality of life. This project around developing guided robot dogs is one approach.
A lot of times, researchers and engineers develop something without the collaboration with the intended users of technologies, believing that these technologies can be translated to the real-world use once they finish the development. Often times, that’s not the case. Unless you keep these intended users in the design and development process, the final research outcome ends up not being used at all. This is where my expertise comes in. In this project, I helped the research team to collaborate with guide dog users and trainers, qualitatively analyze their shared experiences and thoughts, so that they can be reflected in the design and development process that will follow.
In this project, there exist significant interaction components between guide dogs and guide dog users, and these interaction patterns evolve over time and are highly tailored for individual pairs of a guide dog and a guide dog user. These findings lay out a steppingstone for future research endeavors that will follow as it is imperative to develop robot guide dogs that are capable of personalizing interact strategies to accommodate the evolving needs of guide dog users.
The implication of the study’s findings does not stop there and offer significant insights into the field of health informatics. Most state-of-the-art health technologies, if not all, offer static and non-evolving user interfaces and the improved performance mostly is due to the competency that users develop not due to the tailored interactions supported by technologies. Truly translational impact can be possible if we depart from conventional approaches and develop technologies that can accommodate the evolving needs of intended users.”
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