{"55041":{"#nid":"55041","#data":{"type":"event","title":"GVU Brown Bag: CHI Preview Talks","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESusan P. Wyche: Deliberate Interactions: \nCharacterizing Technology Use in Nairobi, Kenya\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWe present results from a qualitative study examining how \nprofessionals  living and working in Nairobi, Kenya regularly use ICT in\n their everyday  lives. There are two contributions of this work for the\n HCI community.  First, we provide empirical evidence demonstrating \nconstraints our  participants encountered when using technology in an \ninfrastructure-poor  setting. These constraints are limited bandwidth, \nhigh costs, differing  perceptions of responsiveness, and threats to \nphysical and virtual  security. Second, we use our findings to \ncritically evaluate the  \u201caccess, anytime and anywhere\u201d construct \nshaping the design of future  technologies. We present an alternative \nvision called deliberate  interactions\u2014a planned and purposeful \ninteraction style that involves  offline preparation\u2014and discuss ways \nICT can support this online usage  behavior.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMarshini Chetty: Who\u0027s Hogging the Bandwidth: The Consequences of \nRevealing the Invisible  in the Home\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAs more technologies enter the home, householders are burdened with \nthe  task of digital housekeeping\u2014managing and sharing digital resources\n like  bandwidth. In response to this, we created and evaluated a \ndomestic  tool for bandwidth management called Home Watcher. Our field \ntrial  showed that when resource contention amongst different household \nmembers  is made visible, people\u201fs understanding of bandwidth changes \nand  household politics are revealed. In this paper, we describe the  \nconsequences of showing real time resource usage in a home, and how this\n  varies depending on the social make up of the household.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThomas N. Smyth: MOSES: Exploring New Ground in Media and \nPost-Conflict Reconciliation\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhile the history of traditional media in post-conflict peace \nbuilding  efforts is rich and well studied, the potential for \ninteractive new  media technologies in this area has gone unexplored. In\n cooperation with  the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, \nwe have constructed  a novel interactive kiosk system, called MOSES, for\n use in that  country\u2019s post-conflict reconciliation effort. The system \nallows the  sharing of video messages between Liberians throughout the \ncountry,  despite the presence of little or no communications \ninfrastructure. In  this paper, we describe the MOSES system, including \nseveral innovative  design elements. We also present a novel design \nmethodology we employed  to manage the various distances between our \ndesign team and the intended  user group in Liberia. Finally, we report \non a qualitative study of the  system with 27 participants from \nthroughout Liberia. The study found  that participants saw MOSES as \ngiving them a voice and connecting them  to other Liberians throughout \nthe country; that the system was broadly  usable by low-literate, novice\n users without human assistance; that the  embodied conversational agent\n used in our design shows considerable  promise; that users generally \nascribed foreign involvement to the  system; and that the system \nencouraged heavily group-oriented usage.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBen Medler: The Implications of Improvisational Acting and \nRole-Playing on Design  Methodologies\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFor decades designers have used theatre metaphors to describe design \n methodologies and have used performance techniques to enhance the \ndesign  process, two of which are improvisational acting and \nrole-playing.  Unfortunately, most design literature does not \ndifferentiate between  these two practices even while using them in \ncombination with various  design methods. This paper discusses how \nimprovisation and role-playing  have been employed during the design \nprocess and why they are distinct  from one another. The authors draw \nupon their current research involving  improvisational acting and \ncompare it with other role-playing research  which examines role-playing\n from both a serious and entertainment angle.  They conclude through \nthis comparison that both performance techniques  have their place in \nthe design process and that more informed  definitions of each technique\n can aid designers in deciding which  technique\u2019s properties will \nbenefit them the most.\u003C\/p\u003E\n        \n        \n\n\n    \n            \n                      \n              \u003Cstrong\u003EBios:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\n                    \u003Cp\u003ESusan Wyche is a Human-Centered Computing Ph.D. \nCandidate in the School  of Interactive Computing at the Georgia \nInstitute of Technology.\u0026nbsp;Her  research investigates how technology can \nsupport a more diverse range of  activities than it currently does and \nhow computing use varies among  different cultural groups.\u0026nbsp;In her \ndissertation, she uses religion as a  lens to investigate technology use\n in different cultures. To do this she  has conducted design-oriented \nfieldwork in the U.S., Kenya and Brazil.  Prior to returning to school, \nshe worked as a professional industrial  designer in the housewares \nindustry. She has also worked as a design  researcher for Intel\u2019s \nUser-Centered Design Group, Microsoft Research  and S.C. Johnson Inc. \nSusan has master\u2019s degree from Cornell University  and an undergraduate \ndegree in Industrial Design from Carnegie Mellon  University.\u0026nbsp;For more \ninformation about Susan\u0027s research  \nvisit:http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/~spwyche\/.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMarshini Chetty is a Human-Centered Computing PhD candidate, hailing \n from South Africa originally. She received her Computer Science masters\n  and bachelors degrees from the University of Cape Town in 2005, and  \n2002. Her research focuses on understanding how people deal with  \neveryday digital housekeeping in their homes. To this end, she has  \nstudied households in Atlanta, Seattle, and Cambridge UK. Currently, she\n  is conducting a field study of Kermit, a visual home network prototype\n  to open up design ideas for future domestic tools and technologies. \nHer  other interests include sustainability and human computer \ninteraction  for development.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThomas Smyth is a Ph.D student in the Technologies and International \n Development Lab at GVU.\u0026nbsp;His research focuses on new media technologies \n and public discourse in the developing world.\u0026nbsp;His recent projects  \ninclude developing novel media technologies for post-conflict  \nreconciliation in Liberia, and investigating media sharing practices in \n urban India.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBen Medler is a third year Ph.D. student in the Digital Media program\n  focusing on video game studies. He worked for two years with Dr. Brian\n  Magerko of LCC studying improvisational actors, exploring their  \nbehavioral habits and cognitive processes on stage. The focus of this  \nwork is to build virtual agents that can algorithmically improvise and  \nthink creatively, which has implications for a number of applications  \nincluding digital games. In addition to his work with improv actors,  \nBen\u0027s thesis revolves around game analytics, the practice of collecting \n and analyzing data collected from gameplay, and implications that arise\n  from disseminating gameplay information.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"Speakers: Susan Wyche, Marshini Chetty, Thomas Smythe, and Ben\n Medler","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Previews of Georgia Tech students\u0027 presentations for CHI 2010."}],"uid":"27197","created_gmt":"2010-03-22 14:52:56","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 01:51:05","author":"Renata Le Dantec","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2010-04-01T13:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2010-04-01T14:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2010-04-01T14:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2010-04-01 17:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2010-04-01 18:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2010-04-01 18:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"extras":["free_food"],"groups":[{"id":"1299","name":"GVU Center"},{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"4096","name":"brown bag"},{"id":"1946","name":"GVU"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1795","name":"Seminar\/Lecture\/Colloquium"}],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}