An explorative study of mobile buildings' impact on resilience: A case study of outdoor and indoor thermal comfort simulation for an underserved community

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12-18) Doersam, Max

As temperatures are predicted to soar by 2.5°C by 2050 due to the advance of climate change, the provision of shaded spaces becomes increasingly vital for the well-being of communities and the environment. This thesis aims to investigate the potential impact of optimizing shaded and covered outdoor spaces on indoor thermal comfort, while also quantifying the benefits of creating movable building spaces that promote outdoor social interactions in underperforming communities. This research is focusing on a mobile learning lab which is part of a design build research project at Georgia Tech. The study will explore how this intervention can contribute to urban sustainability and improved social well-being, with a focus on communities and resilience. A simulation-based approach is employed to investigate direct sunlight, beneath the canopy, and inside the mobile structure to evaluate varying environmental conditions and the effectiveness of each in shelter provision and daylight exposure reduction. This methodology aims to enhance resilience by comprehensively understanding and assessing thermal comfort conditions. Critical metrics of outdoor and indoor thermal comfort are examined such as, Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis, to investigate airspeed, and natural ventilation alongside adaptive thermal comfort iterations to provide guidelines when it comes to mobile structures and its shading performance in the near future. It undertakes an investigation using TMY and "morphed" weather files to assess current and future thermal conditions.
Empowering breast self-awareness: integrating augmented reality for comprehensive breast self-examination

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12-13) Wang, Yijing

In recent years, Augmented Reality (AR) has seen a growing application in the healthcare industry, revolutionizing patient care, medical training, and diagnostics. In alignment with this technological trend, this thesis explores the development and evaluation of an innovative mobile application that harnesses the power of AR to enhance breast self-examinations. This application offers real-time, step-by-step instructions projected onto the user's body to ensure precise self-examinations, supplemented by personalized feedback and guidance for follow-up actions. Through this research, we have gained valuable insights into the fundamental pain points users encounter in breast self-examination, user attitudes toward the application of AR technology in this domain, and their reactions to the newly designed experience. These findings provide a wealth of information and assistance in shaping the future of breast self-examination, offering a more informed and enhanced user experience.
Designing an Interactive Experience for Local Elections Information to Increase Civic Participation Amongst Young Adults

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12-13) Park, Chaeeun

Americans are uniquely situated in that they have more opportunities than people in other countries to vote due to the combination of municipal, state, and national elections. However out of these elections, local elections suffer from the lowest voter turnout despite the fact that these elections hold major influence in the daily lives of local residents. Paired with this, young, voting-aged adults (aged 18-29) have different frameworks for understanding and engaging with politics from previous generations. This divergence is rooted in their reliance on trusted personal networks in a vast sea of political information as well as their interest in specific social causes as opposed to the mechanisms of traditional political institutions. This study examines how young, voting-aged adults (ages 18-29) are both motivated and demoralized from civic engagement. Through design intervention, it explores how interactive games can help motivate young adults to become more civically engaged in their local elections through demystifying the perceived complex hostility of politics by utilizing roleplaying and gamification, helping young adults learn more about what is happening in their local environment, and fostering a cooperative model of civic engagement based on guided discussion. Finally, a tabletop game, Denizen, was developed in order to help facilitate political discussions amongst young adults and also help them learn more about local issues. The outcomes of this study underscore the importance of utilizing new engagement methods for young adults, especially for re-engaging young adults into traditional electoral duties. It also highlights the importance of knowledge-building and political expertise in improving overall civic motivation.
UX guide to microinteractions : Establishing a classification system to enable microinteraction design literacy among novice UX designers

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12-11) Shankar, Abhishek

This study explores how identifying and classifying various animated microinteractions can help improve design literacy among UX/UI designers by integrating motion design elements. Microinteractions are small, task-specific actions that a user can trigger or experience within a user interface, such as liking a post, setting a status, or receiving a notification. They play a crucial role in providing feedback, guiding users, and adding an element of delight to the user experience. In this thesis, the focus is on the importance of microinteractions in enhancing the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design. To better understand how designers work with microinteractions and motion in product design, subject matter experts (SMEs) were interviewed who revealed that non-motion designers often need help understanding microinteraction design language. To address this, a classification system was developed and hosted online, which permits UX/UI designers to access microinteraction design language. Microinteractions are classified into a visual design system based on triggers, functions, and principles of motion. This classification system was validated by UX/UI designers using interviews and questionnaires. The results showed that the system promotes cross-disciplinary communication and collaboration among design team members by introducing motion design language and terminologies through an organized classification system.
Rhythm Recreation Study To Inform Intelligent Pedagogy Systems

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-08-28) Alben, Noel

Web-based intelligent pedagogy systems have great potential to provide interactive music lessons to those unable to access conventional, face-to-face music instruction from human experts. A key component of any effective pedagogy system is the expert domain knowledge used to generate, present, and evaluate the teachable content that makes up the ''syllabus'' of the system (Brusilovskiy, 1994). In this work, we investigate the application of computational musicology algorithms to devise the ''syllabus'' of intelligent rhythm pedagogy software. Many computational metrics that quantify and characterize rhythmic patterns have been proposed (Toussaint). We employ Cao et al.'s (2012) family theory of rhythms as a metric of rhythmic similarity and an entropy-based coded-element metric of rhythmic complexity (Thul, 2008). Both metrics have been shown to correlate with human judgments of rhythmic similarity and complexity. A rhythmic syllabus that uses these metrics to determine the order in which rhythmic patterns are learned will be easier for musicians to progress through. We test this hypothesis in a rhythm reproduction study hosted on a custom-designed web-based experimental interface. Our experiment consists of six individual blocks: In each block, a participant listens to five unique rhythmic patterns, which they must then reproduce by clapping into their computer's microphone. Each rhythmic pattern is two measures long on an eighth-note grid, presented at 105 BPM, and looped four times. The order and content of rhythmic patterns within each block are determined using our chosen complexity and similarity metrics. A participant completes a block when they reproduce all the rhythmic patterns of the block within the performance constraints defined by automatic performance assessment built into the experimental interface. Each of our six blocks represents key interactions: the order of the stimuli determined by our prescribed metrics, melodic information added to the rhythmic stimuli, and the presence of a visual representation of the rhythmic pattern. We also have control blocks where the patterns of each block are selected randomly without any theoretically informed metrics. Dependent variables to measure the effectiveness of the syllabus are the number of trials taken to reproduce a given rhythmic stimuli accurately. Participant reproductions are stored to afford future analyses, and the designed interface helps efficiently automate the data collection, making it more accessible for future rhythm reproduction studies. We conducted the rhythm recreation study with 28 participants across the United States, who accessed the experiment through a web-based portal. The data gathered from our experiment implies that computational music theory algorithms can contribute to creating syllabi that align with human perception. However, these results deviate from my initial predictions. Furthermore, It appears that while incorporating visual stimuli aided in learning rhythmic patterns, the introduction of pitched onsets negatively affected reproduction performance.
A Comparative Study: Influence on Real-World Consumer Perception of Products Presented in Augmented Reality

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-08-18) Chen, Kaiyuan

With the development of the mobile device, augmented reality (AR) is moving from the laboratory into the consumer market. Product presentation in the augmented environment has become a compelling function that helps consumers have a better perception of the product. In this article, we proposed a comparative study to figure out how users perceive the product model in the AR environment and the difference compared with the real-world product. Through this research, we will further understand which attributes of the product can be better perceived in AR. The product semantic differential method was used here to build the product evaluation metrics and compare the user perception of 3 types of product presentation based on product semantic.
Participatory Science for Data Feminism: Application of an original feminist framework for assessing participatory datasets in urban planning decision-making

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-07-31) Khorashahi, Yasamin

The purpose of this study is to characterize participatory data science as an effective feminist framework for urban planning decision-making and assess its efficacy in achieving planning outcomes through a climate-oriented case study (UrbanHeatATL) in the Atlanta context. Cities are trending towards rapid digitization, and scholarship on Big and small data suggests that emerging methods of data collection and implementation are inherently biased because they disassemble individual identities into single-dimensional data points. Feminist epistemology suggests that meeting communities where they are when making policy decisions through practices such as participatory data collection and governance is an effective way to reduce bias against marginalized individuals and their communities. The UrbanHeatATL case is assessed against an original feminist framework for assessment of participatory science, the Participatory Science for Data Feminism (PSDF) framework. The PSDF framework has three dimensions: 1) participatory metadata, which addresses question of who is participating in data collection, how data are being collected, and who these data will represent; 2) data for power/data for liberation seeks to characterize why data are being collected and what stories are being told by the data; and 3) efficacy in planning outcomes is to assess whether these data are being collected as a means for implementation of plans and policy to lead to more equitable outcomes for marginalized communities. The project followed data feminism principles of data collection and told a compelling narrative about heat-vulnerable communities, but gaps remain in translating datasets into equitable planning and policy outcomes. Steps need to be taken by planning decision-makers and researchers to better integrate community participation into data collection by making technology more accessible. Researchers must also work directly with planning decision-makers before, during, and after the data collection process to determine a path forward for policy and planning outcomes.
Design Opportunities Tracking Related Cues to Support Remote Psychotherapy

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-07-26) Gao, Lan

Remote psychotherapy has been growing rapidly. Despite its increasing prevalence, it presents challenges such as privacy concerns, technological familiarity, and interaction blockers. Most significantly, it often compromises the therapeutic alliance—a key factor in effective psychotherapy—due to a lack of non-verbal cues and a perceived distance between client and therapist. This research aims to address these challenges through the integration of sensor tracking systems, which offer the potential to improve online interactions and support a stronger therapeutic alliance. We begin by exploring the opportunities and challenges of deploying sensor-tracking systems in remote psychotherapy, through qualitative analysis of interviews, card-sorting activities, and co-design sessions with 9 clients and 10 therapists. We subsequently propose a sensor-based remote psychotherapy platform, informed by the findings from these activities. Finally, we ran a user testing session conducted with 7 clients and 3 therapists to evaluate the feasibility of our proposal. This work offers insights into the deployment of sensor-tracking systems in remote psychotherapy, presenting valuable directions for enhancing the therapeutic alliance and overall experience for both clients and therapists.
Curiosity, Memory, and the Place

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-05-30) Nasiri, Simin

SUMMARY Abstract The study presented here is an empirical exploration of the effects of building layouts on affect and motivation of their visitors. It does so by investigating the issue in three parts: first, the association between a spatial environment’s organization and curiosity, second the effect of curiosity on spatial memory, and third the effect of spatial layout on memory. The investigation utilizes an experimental method in which participants are placed in immersive virtual environments with head-mounted devices (HMD) and set an exploration task. The virtual environments are designed as homes, similar in area and program, that exhibit three distinct design strategies—a traditional compartmentalized plan, a fully open plan with minimum visual and physical barriers, and a Miesian open-plan with a mixed strategy of open but private space. The general hypothesis is that the open-plan strategy will generate greater curiosity, trigger increased exploration and lead to better cognitive mapping of the environment. An additional hypothesis is that the open plan will be associated with positive affect, in line with what is described in architectural literature as a sense of flow and connection. To test our hypothesis accuracy, participants’ data are collected during their exploration to capture their paths of movement, time taken to explore, and their attentional foci as variables of curiosity and later recalling the environment by programming the Unity environment in C# and the Vive Pro Eye headset’s Tobii eye-tracking feature. Participants’ neural data is also recorded by fNIRS to compare to the behavioral data and find any potential patterns especially in brain’s dopaminergic area and hippocampus which is related to curiosity and memory. Additional data come from post-exploration questionnaire by asking participants to tag environments they have experienced and attribute adjectives to them. The study reported here is a preliminary study using four participants quantitative measures that compare behavioral data and morphological properties of layout like visual information and Isovist, as well as qualitative data from the interviews that is aimed to further sharpen the hypotheses. Results indicate that the Miesian mix strategy open plan, as called semi-open plan in this research, causes more “distributed curiosity”, is more memorable, and as people described more livable. On the other hand, the compartmentalized plan that provides the lowest visual information with the lowest isovist, was the most confusing for participants, least interesting, and least memorable. In general, we can expect that different levels and layers of openness, effects different types of curiosity, which I have called them “compacted” and “distributed” curiosity, as well as different levels of memorability depending on the amount of visual information they have received and been able to map the environment cognitively. This research will contribute to understanding the way humans relate to environment in order to help a healthier, more interesting, and memorable environments design.
Development of a priming package to aid in overcoming the experiential gap between student designers in a capstone course and users to improve quality of generated concepts

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-05-23) Drawdy, Morgan Sophia

The primary objective of this thesis is to evaluate the extent to which priming packages overcome the experiential gap between student designers and pre-determined end users, with the ultimate outcome of improving the quality of concepts generated by the students to address the needs of the end users. This thesis was divided into two parts: 1) development of the general priming package structure/content and evaluation tools to grade the concepts on their adherence to the needs of stakeholders, and 2) an assessment of concepts generated by teams with and without access to the second-iteration priming package, with refinement based on feedback collected during the preliminary trials.