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ItemDesigning Collective Action Systems for User Privacy(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2024-04-27) Wu, YuxiPeople feel concerned, angry, and frustrated when subjected to data breaches, surveillance, and other privacy-violating experiences with large institutions. However, they also feel helpless to effect change. Collective action may empower groups of people affected by such experiences to jointly voice their stories of lived harm and demand redress. In this thesis, I show that considering users’ privacy concerns and lived harms on a collective level can empower users through allowing them to (1) understand they are not alone in their experiences; (2) recognize that their harms are significant and measurable; and (3) be equipped with the appropriate tools to regularly speak out about these harms. I do this through a series of work in which I create a unified collective voice of privacy concerns, interpret the unified voice in existing legal lenses of harm, and imagine formal ways to measure and respond to privacy harms. Reflecting upon my findings from this work, I discuss how the current lack of a collective action framing within the usable privacy and security field has led to the community not addressing multiple long-standing problems, and how my work can inform future directions of research in the field.
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ItemTowards novel sensing methodologies for the ubiquitous assessment of joint kinematics(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-12-13) Shahmiri, Seyedeh FereshtehOur body movements and postures are key indicators of our health and well-being. In many cases in our daily lives, those movements and postures need accurate, low-cost, long-term, and unobtrusive monitoring and quantitative assessments. From preventing a poor posture or a knee injury to restoring fine motor activities for rehabilitation purposes, assessing the particular poses and movements of our body joints is an indispensable requirement, and a focal point in the development of many motion tracking technologies including wearable and portable sensing devices. It is key to emphasize the fact that the notion of ‘motion tracking’, by itself, is inherently undefined and has to be scoped in a set of requirements that are imposed by each specific application and its accompanying context, restrictions and necessities. This thesis has taken steps towards novel sensing methodologies to ubiquitously assess body motions in various approaches and application domains. It aims to answer a key, yet unanswered question on how to set a common ground to maximize the usability factor as we tune the trade-off between (pose) motion tracking accuracy vs the excessiveness of on-body sensing instrumentation. That said, it asks if in the field of medical sensing, tuning the accuracy based on application and anatomical constraints can reduce the intrusiveness of the required sensing hardware. To answer this key question, I adopted a case-study research approach, and I propose 4 novel wearable and portable sensing systems to assess the joint kinematics. I have implemented effective data acquisition and processing pipelines, sensing algorithms, software platforms and hardware prototypes. I have leveraged two implementation approaches with respect to the nature of sensor data and requirements of our applications. The first approach consists of pattern recognition models that map motion related features to an activity set, and the second includes pose estimation models that recover the joint kinematic and pose trajectories. In some cases, our algorithms are further reinforced by multiple sensor fusion algorithms and anatomical kinematics constraints for higher accuracy. To sum, presented research projects in my dissertation highlight tangible interactive sensing technologies in the area of body motion sensing, and I envision their continuous development toward actual and real world products that could be available to a larger population in the near future. There are tremendous opportunities to expand such novel solutions to other application domains. Health and rehabilitation, sport medicine, entertainment, and input technologies have vast potentials for such extensions and innovations.
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ItemInformation sharing in a nonprofit network(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2012-08-08) Stoll, JenniferThe civil rights and other social justice movements, such as the fight against child sex trafficking are examples of an informal context where information and communications technologies (ICTs) have been actively applied in hopes of furthering social justice causes. But while we see that informally organized, grassroots groups have shown considerable interest in ICTs, the actual effectiveness of ICTs for these groups remains largely unknown. This is particularly so when combining both the complexity of the technology landscape and large grassroots interorganizational networks. Given the enormous challenge of social justice issues, there are pressing needs that go beyond connecting more just individuals to help nonprofits. A central need of nonprofit social justice organizations is the connection and coordination of many different groups into interorganizational networks (or groups of groups). In my research, I conducted an in-depth qualitative study of such a network engaged in fighting child sex trafficking. In doing so, I have identified some of the challenges of information sharing and coordination in this context. I gained insight into their information sharing needs and practices for connecting within an interorganizational network. I also conducted a design exploration by building a technology intervention to understand how ICTs can better accommodate the interorganizational needs of information sharing for connecting. My research findings point towards an initial framework in understanding information sharing technologies for informal interorganizational networks.
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ItemLiquidText: supporting active reading through flexible document representations(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2012-04-03) Tashman, Craig StuartKnowledge workers are frequently called upon to perform deep, critical reading involving a heightened level of interaction with the reading media and other tools. This process, known as active reading, entails highlighting, commenting upon, and flipping through a text, in addition to other actions. While paper is traditionally seen as the ideal medium for active reading, computers have recently become comparable to paper through replicating the latter’s affordances. But even paper is not a panacea; it offers an inflexible document representation that supports some things well, such as embellishment, but supports others very poorly, like comparison and large scale annotation. In response to this, I developed a prototype system, called LiquidText, to embody a flexible, high degree-of-freedom visual representation that seeks to alleviate some of the problems in paper and paper-like representations. To provide efficient control of this representation, LiquidText runs on a multi-finger touch and gesture based platform. To guide the development of this system, I conducted a formative study of current active reading practice. I investigated knowledge workers’ active reading habits, perceptions, and the problems they face with current reading media. I also inquired into what they would like in a future active reading environment. I used these results in conjunction with multiple design iterations and formative system evaluations to refine LiquidText for use in a summative study. The summative study assessed, through a controlled, laboratory evaluation, LiquidText’s impact on 1) the subjective experience of active reading, 2) the process of active reading, and 3) the outputs resulting from active reading. Generally, the study found a strong participant preference for LiquidText, and a focus on the creation of a summary of the original document as part of the reading process. On average, reading outputs were not significantly better or worse with LiquidText, but some conditions were observed that may help identify the subset of people for whom LiquidText will result in an improvement.
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ItemCommunity resource messenger: a mobile system and design exploration in support of the urban homeless(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011-06-09) Le Dantec, Christopher A.Access to computers, to mobile phones, and to data connectivity has opened new avenues of interaction and created expectations about the flattening of society brought about by these new modes of production. These technologies have enabled us to recognize many forms of community---from close knit social groups to individuals who merely co-habit public spaces---and to support interaction with each other in novel ways. The notion that modern digital technology holds promises of democratization by expanding access to information and broadening modes of knowledge production often fails to acknowledge that these benefits rely upon devices and infrastructure whose availability reflect socioeconomic contours; that the technologies that enable information access can also reinforce rather than obviate marginality due to barriers to access and suitability. This assessment points to opportunities for better understanding and better designing technologies for the marginalized or dispossessed. The research presented in this dissertation discusses the findings from empirical, theoretical, and design based investigations of technology use with the urban homeless. The empirical work provides a foundation for understanding current technology practices among the homeless and their care providers. The theoretical investigation develops Deweyan publics as a novel frame for participatory design. The design-based investigation presents findings from the design and deployment of the Community Resource Messenger at a shelter for homeless mothers. The results of this research shed light on impact of social computing platforms on social service provision and on the ways the staff and residents used the Community Resource Messenger as a resource for identifying common issues and taking action to contend with those issues.
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ItemEden: an interactive home network management system(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-11-13) Yang, JeonghwaNetworks have expanded from the workplace and scientific labs into the home. Consequently, managing networks is no longer only a job for skilled network administrators, but has also become one for general home users, who have to deal with various home network management tasks such as network/device configuration, security management, and troubleshooting to name but a few. However, many home network users have difficulty managing these tasks due to the inherent complexity of the home network and the lack of management tools designed for non-skilled network users. This dissertation addresses the problem of network management for non-skilled network users by investigating a home network management tool with a new interaction model called Eden. Eden is an interactive home network management tool based on direct manipulation. It eliminates the need for users to see all the technical minutia of the network while still allowing users to perform management tasks with a simple drag-and-drop of visually represented networking devices and network settings. The user interface evaluation showed that Eden is intuitive and easy enough for general home users to use. The usability evaluation showed that Eden performed better overall than existing tools and that the majority of the study participants preferred Eden over the existing tools for future use. My contributions are twofold. First, I present what is to my knowledge the first fully direct manipulation system designed specifically for home network management. Secondly, my evaluation highlights a number of properties in my design--particularly in my conceptual model--that improve users' understandings of the network, and their ease with managing it.