Storytelling in Health Informatics

The next BostonCHI meeting is Storytelling in Health Informatics on Thu, Feb 22 at 7:00 PM.

Register here

BostonCHI presents a hybrid talk by Herman Saksono

Abstract

We live a storied life — people’s stories at present and in the past guide our future actions. Although this narrative mode of knowing complements the pragmatic mode, personal health informatics systems typically only support the pragmatic mode of knowing. In this talk, I will present my research on personal health informatics that uses storytelling to support health behavior in marginalized communities. These studies examined how storytelling technologies can amplify social connections and knowledge within the family and neighbors, thus supporting health behavior as a collective community effort.

About Herman Saksono

Herman Saksono is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University. Herman’s interdisciplinary research contributions include Personal Health Informatics, Human-Computer Interaction, and Digital Health Equity. His research investigates how digital tools can catalyze social interactions that encourage positive health behaviors, thus facilitating collective efforts toward health equity. He conducts the entire human-centered design process by designing, building, and evaluating innovative health technologies in collaboration with local community partners.

Location

This is a hybrid event, to be held at Northeastern University, 440 Huntington Ave, West Village H 110, Boston, MA and online using Zoom. The Zoom link will be provided to registered attendees ahead of the event.

Jared Spool: Outcome-Driven UX Metrics

The next BostonCHI meeting is Jared Spool: Outcome-Driven UX Metrics on Thu, Jan 18 at 6:00 PM.

Register here

A Radical Approach to Measuring Experience

This is a hybrid event to be held on Zoom and at Microsoft Burlington (5 Wayside Rd).

About the Talk

Outcome-driven UX Metrics connect improvements in the user experience to increased value for the organization.

With this radical new approach, UX teams measure how their work improves the lives of their customers, users, and employees. UX leaders like yourself can connect the dots of your team’s efforts to critical business objectives like customer acquisition, retention, and loyalty.

Organizations run on numbers. With meaningful metrics, your UX team can show its true value and contribution. Yet, it can be difficult to find measurements reflecting your best work, making mediocre work “good enough.”

In this earth-shaking session, Jared Spool explores how UX leaders use Outcome-driven UX Metrics to vividly demonstrate their design’s ROI to executives and senior stakeholders. You’ll discover how you can use insightful UX metrics to hold the entire organization accountable to deliver better user experiences.

Uncover how you’ll…

… Set your OKRs and KPIs with metrics that accurately reflect improvements to the user and customer experiences your organization delivers.

… Align Agile’s “definition of done” to how (and when) your product attains clear experience improvements in your users’ lives.

… Change how your organization views UX, moving from the “make it pretty” team to a strategic contributor of innovation and customer value.

About Jared Spool

Jared M. Spool is a Maker of Awesomeness at Center Centre.

If you’ve ever seen Jared speak about user experience (UX) design, you know he’s probably the most effective and knowledgeable communicator today. He started working in the field of user experience in 1978, before the term “UX” was ever associated with computers.

While he led UIE, the industry research firm he started in 1988, the field of UX design emerged, and Jared helped define what makes UX designers successful worldwide. UIE’s world-class research organization produces conferences and workshops worldwide and for companies in every industry.

In 2016, with Dr. Leslie Jensen-Inman, he opened Center Centre, a new school in Chattanooga, TN, to create the next generation of industry-ready UX Designers. They made a revolutionary approach to vocational training, infusing Jared’s decades of UX experience with Leslie’s mastery of experience-based learning methodologies. UIE joined forces with Center Centre and now delivers the best professional development programs in the UX Design industry.

Jared has been a highly celebrated keynote speaker and workshop presenter at conferences across the globe. For 23 years, he was the conference chair and keynote speaker at the now-retired annual UI Conferences and UX Immersion Conferences, and he manages to squeeze in a fair amount of writing time. He co-authored Web Usability: A Designer’s Guide and Web Anatomy: Interaction Design Frameworks that Work.

You’ll find his writing at centercentre.com.

Hosted by

The GBC/ACM, BostonCHI, and the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society.

Location

This is a hybrid event, to be held at Microsoft Burlinton 5 Wayside Rd, Burlington, MA and online using Zoom. The Zoom link will be provided to registered attendees ahead of the event.

The entrance to Microsoft is on the side of the building away from Wayside Road. The room will be Adams-Washington-Jefferson.

Note: if you sign up for in person but decide to join online instead, please let us know ahead of time if possible.

Finding novel HCI paradigms for ASL-centric Interfaces for Deaf Users

The next BostonCHI meeting is Finding novel HCI paradigms for ASL-centric Interfaces for Deaf Users on Tue, Nov 14 at 6:00 PM.

Register here

BostonCHI presents a hybrid talk by Shruti Mahajan

Note: This is a hybrid event.

Abstract

Creating high-quality resources that are easily accessible in American Sign Language (ASL) is important and valuable to the Deaf community because it allows access to resources in the community’s first language and empowers individuals by increasing representation. However, even with videos signed by ASL-fluent experts and high-quality cameras that produce clear and well-understood video content, embedding the videos into online resources becomes necessary for users to access them through their screens and devices. Simply adding videos to an English-centric layout leads to unsatisfactory results because language conventions, differences in intuition, and expectations create varying scanning patterns and differing expectations regarding the placement and presentation of information. Therefore, careful design choices regarding the videos and their surroundings must be made to overcome this challenge.

Our research focuses on designing interfaces that do not rely on English fluency. In one of our projects, we are developing an ASL-centric survey tool that enables users to create, distribute, and respond to surveys in ASL. Our objective is to study UI design elements that can help users intuitively navigate resources without relying on English. We have conducted several rounds of user studies with Deaf participants to gather feedback and iterate on our designs. Lastly, we aim to contribute to the advancement of collaborative, human-centered methods and research by carefully reflecting on our user study methods and working toward creating guidelines for conducting research for and with the ASL community.

We collaborate with the ASL Education Center in Framingham, MA for this research.

About Shruti Mahajan

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Human-Computer Interaction lab, Computer Science department at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). My research interests are accessibility and tangible user interfaces. My Ph.D. advisors are Prof. Erin Solovey and Prof. Gillian Smith. In my dissertation work, I focus on designing and studying user interfaces in American Signed Languages for the Deaf community. Additionally, I am also interested in working with tangible user interfaces. In this area, my research projects include working with touch-sensitive fabrics and Augmented Reality (AR) in collaboration with the Center for Functional Fabrics at Drexel University. My work has been accepted to CHI and ASSETS conferences. Across all my research projects, I care deeply about conducting user-centered and participatory research.

Apart from research, I am actively involved in several mentoring, outreach, and teaching activities at WPI. Outside work, I enjoy science fiction books/movies, and learning new languages!

Location

This is a hybrid event. The in-person component will be held at

Braker Hall, Room 001
Tufts University
8 Upper Campus Rd
Medford, MA, 02155

Link to campus map: https://campusmaps.tufts.edu/medford/#fid=m007

Paid parking is available at 419 Boston Avenue, Medford, 02155, and T access is via the Green Line, Medford / Tufts MBTA Station.

We’ll also be streaming via Zoom. The Zoom link will be provided to registered attendees ahead of the event. This event will be recorded.

The Human Side of Tech