Laura Benton

dblp:07/9598 · DBLP profile ↗
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18ranked-venue papers
7as first author
6since 2021 · last 2025
0000-0002-7225-1779ORCID · corroborated

Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several

Human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing · 15 · 7 first-author · 5 since 2021Applied, interdisciplinary, general and emerging computing · 2Artificial intelligence and machine learning · 1Security and privacy · 1 · 1 since 2021Databases, data management, data science and information retrieval · 1
YearPublicationVenuePosition
2025 Doing cybersecurity at home: A human-centred approach for mitigating attacks in AI-enabled home devices
abstract
• To identify cyber-attacks on the AI, users must have some prior understanding of the AI parameters and their normativity. • Multimodal indicators embedded across the ecosystem of AI-enabled devices are an effective way in raising users’ attention to cyber-attacks. • Engaging users to actively diagnose and resolve cyber-attacks on AI-enabled devices in the home context must take into consideration the home routines, and be designed to avoid cognitive overload. • One way to minimise overload is to make use of users’ propensity to generalise their cybersecurity knowledge and skills where possible. AI-enabled devices are increasingly introduced in the home context and cyber-attacks targeting their AI component are becoming more frequent. Moving away from seeing the user as the problem to recognising the user as part of the solution, our research reports on a novel cybersecurity intervention (comprising Explainable AI features, assisted remediation) designed to support users to identify, diagnose and mitigate cyber-attacks on the AI component of their smart devices. We carried out a case study of a bespoke smart heating device inclusive of this intervention and conducted fieldwork with ten households who experienced simulated integrity cyber-attacks over a month. Our research contributes an understanding of how to design AI-enabled devices and their ecosystems to support users to perceive integrity cyber-attacks, offering new considerations for intervention design that exploits multimodal indicators and supports users to troubleshoot themselves the causes as well as actions of cyber-attacks. Contributing to the growing area of human-centred cybersecurity, we evidence the distinctive challenges users face when evaluating integrity attacks on the AI component in the home context.
Asimina Vasalou, Laura Benton, Ana Luisa Serta, Andrea Gauthier, Ceylan Besevli, Sarah Turner, Rea Gill, Rachael Payler, Etienne B. Roesch, Kevin McAreavey, Kim Bauters, Weiru Liu, Hsueh-Ju Chen, Dennis Ivory, Emmanouil A. Panaousis, George Loukas
Comput. Secur.2
2023 Location, Location, Security? Exploring Location-Based Smart Device Security Concerns and Mitigations within Low-Rent Homes
abstract
The increasing adoption of smart devices in the home introduce new security implications for tenants, with previous research showing the significance of where the devices are placed. This paper examines the relationship between device location and security: we ask how users’ security concerns shape where they place their smart devices and how they attempt to mitigate their concerns. The research focuses on an underrepresented group, those people living in social (low-rent) housing, motivated by the growing interest of housing providers to install smart devices within tenants’ homes. Using speculative design as a probe followed by interviews with eleven tenants, we find that security concerns are centred around ‘intimate places’, ‘social responsibility’ and ‘surveillance’ with users combining social practices and technical security features to mitigate these. Our research contributes new ethical implications for deploying and designing smart home devices addressed to social housing providers and smart device designers.
Laura Benton, Asimina Vasalou, Sarah Turner
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems1
2023 Designing AI Interfaces for Children with Special Needs in Educational Contexts
abstract
The IDC research community has a growing interest in designing AI interfaces for children with special educational needs. Nonetheless, little research has explored the research and design issues, rationale, challenges, and opportunities in this field. Therefore, we propose to host a half-day workshop to bring together researchers and practitioners from the Learning & Education, Accessibility, and Intelligent User Interfaces sub-fields to discuss and identify existing design issues, challenges, and collaboration barriers, to establish consensus on the design of a pragmatic framework, as well as explore future innovation and research opportunities. We aim to foster mutual understanding and in-depth collaboration among researchers in the IDC community.
Xin Tong 0004, Zikai Wen, Özge Nilay Yalçin, Lawrence H. Kim, Zhuohao Wu, Laura Benton
IDC7
2022 Embedding digital technologies in the school practice: Schools as agents of technology integration
abstract
Whilst digital education is becoming a reality for schools there is a role for CCI research to move beyond researcher-led school engagements to other types of research that support schools and their staff to lead on the appropriation of digital technologies. One way to advance our understanding of this issue is to examine and consolidate reflections from cases of school technology appropriation. This half-day workshop seeks to capture the enabling practices as well as those that posed barriers within the school. The work will be oriented to further identify necessary changes at different levels: e.g., the organizational level (school), the level of the practitioners (teachers) the level the school community. The mind-set of all the involved actors will also be explored aiming to identify the structures and mechanisms that can support a culture of participation and of collective responsibility by including also students and their families in the process of technology integration and appropriation.
Nikoleta Yiannoutsou, Asimina Vasalou, Seray B. Ibrahim, Laura Benton, Caroline Pulfrey, Mutlu Cukurova
IDC4
2022 I Don't Usually Listen, I Read: How Different Learner Groups Process Game Feedback
abstract
Outcome and elaborative feedback in games can scaffold learners to recognise errors and apply corrective strategies. However, there is little evidence that indicates how children process such feedback. Using an active intervention approach, this study empirically evaluated how three groups of primary-aged children with different profiles-novice readers, children with reading difficulties, and children learning English as a foreign language-attended to, understood, and acted upon feedback within a digital literacy game. Children's gameplay and verbalisations across groups were compared through systematic video analysis. Our findings demonstrate that all readers benefited from visual, non-verbal outcome feedback, which supported accurate interpretations of their performance, but groups attended to it differentially. Older children noticed auditory, verbal elaborative feedback more than novice readers, but all children struggled to understand it, instead relying on implicit knowledge to correct future responses. We conclude by highlighting several contributions to games-based learning research, game design, and pedagogical practice.
Andrea Gauthier, Laura Benton, Leona Bunting, Elisabeth Herbert, Emma Sumner, Manolis Mavrikis, Andrea Révész, Asimina Vasalou
CHI2
2022 Understanding the Situated Practices of School Technology Leaders in the Early Stages of Educational Technology Adoption
abstract
School-driven technological innovation has the potential to positively impact on classroom practice, yet it can also be disrupted by incompatibilities between the existing school ecology and new educational technologies. To help mitigate this disruption a particular staff member often takes on a facilitative leadership role to champion new technology initiatives. However little is known about how this technology leader role impacts on the adoption of new technologies in the classroom. Taking a situated lens, we embarked on a multiple case study of four schools who were aiming to adopt a new literacy game in the classroom. Through interviews with technology leaders and fieldnotes from our site observations, we systematically analysed their actions and concerns over two academic terms. This highlighted an overwhelming concern with managing the material dimension of the technology, teacher agency and division of labour and mechanisms for communication and monitoring. Our findings raise important considerations for HCI researchers seeking to embed their technologies into practice alongside recommendations for supporting leaders tasked with coordinating this process.
Seray B. Ibrahim, Asimina Vasalou, Laura Benton
CHI3
2019 What's Missing: The Role of Instructional Design in Children's Games-Based Learning
abstract
Learning games that address targeted curriculum areas are widely used in schools. Within games, productive learning episodes can result from breakdowns when followed by a breakthrough, yet their role in children's learning has not been investigated. This paper examines the role of game and instructional design during and after breakdowns. We observed 26 young children playing several popular learning games and conducted a moment-by-moment analysis of breakdown episodes. Our findings show children achieve productive breakthroughs independently less than half of the time. In particular, breakdowns caused by game actions are difficult for children to overcome independently and prevent engagement with the domain skills. Importantly, we identify specific instructional game components and their role in fostering strategies that result in successful breakthroughs. We conclude with intrinsic and extrinsic instructional design implications for both game designers and primary teachers to better enable children's games-based learning.
Laura Benton, Asimina Vasalou, Wolmet Barendregt, Leona Bunting, Andrea Révész
CHI1
2019 Leading by example: Exploring the influence of design examples on children's creative ideation
Laura Benton, George Varotsis, Asimina Vasalou
Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud.1
2018 A Critical Examination of Feedback in Early Reading Games
abstract
Learning games now play a role in both formal and informal learning, including foundational skills such as literacy. While feedback is recognised as a key pedagogical dimension of these games, particularly in early learning, there has been no research on how commercial games available to schools and parents reify learning theory into feedback. Using a systematic content analysis, we examine how evidence-based feedback principles manifest in five widely-used learning games designed to foster young children's reading skills. Our findings highlight strengths in how games deliver feedback when players succeed. Many of the games, however, were inconsistent and not proactive when providing error feedback, often promoting trial and error strategies. Furthermore, there was a lack of support for learning the game mechanics and a preference for task-oriented rewards less deeply embedded in the gameplay. Our research provides a design and research agenda for the inclusion of feedback in early learning games.
Laura Benton, Asimina Vasalou, Kay M. Berkling, Wolmet Barendregt, Manolis Mavrikis
CHI1
2017 Impact in interdisciplinary and cross-sector research: Opportunities and challenges
abstract
Impact is embedded in today's research culture, with increasing importance being placed on the value of research to society. In interdisciplinary and cross‐sector projects, team members may hold distinct views on the types of impact they want to create. Set in the context of an interdisciplinary, cross‐sector project comprised of partners from academia, industry, and the nonprofit sector, our paper unpacks how these diverse project members understand impact. Our analysis shows that interdisciplinary projects offer a unique opportunity to create impact on a number of different levels. Moreover, it demonstrates that a lack of accountable design and collaboration practices can potentially hinder pathways to impact. Finally, we find that the interdisciplinary perspectives that such projects introduce encourage a rich gamut of sustainable outcomes that go beyond commercialization. Our findings support researchers working in these complex contexts to appreciate the opportunities and challenges involved in interdisciplinary cross‐sector research contexts while imparting them with strategies for overcoming these challenges.
Daniel Gooch, Asimina Vasalou, Laura Benton
J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol.3
2016 Using Gamification to Motivate Students with Dyslexia
abstract
The concept of gamification is receiving increasing attention, particularly for its potential to motivate students. However, to date the majority of studies in the context of education have predominantly focused on University students. This paper explores how gamification could potentially benefit a specific student population, children with dyslexia who are transitioning from primary to secondary school. Two teachers from specialist dyslexia teaching centres used classDojo, a gamification platform, during their teaching sessions for one term. We detail how the teachers appropriated the platform in different ways and how the students discussed classDojo in terms of motivation. These findings have subsequently informed a set of provisional implications for gamification distilling opportunities for future pedagogical uses, gamification design for special education and methodological approaches to how gamification is studied.
Daniel Gooch, Asimina Vasalou, Laura Benton, Rilla Khaled
CHI3
2016 Creating Bridges: The Role of Exploratory Design Research in an Intelligent Tutoring System Project
abstract
Designers of intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) have long been interested in delivering personalized teaching to individual students, typically by ensuring that the student receives content appropriate to their skills and knowledge. Nonetheless, a more holistic view on what constitutes good teaching practice has challenged whether this approach to user modelling is sufficient. Teaching is not only defined by what is taught, but also by how it is taught. In this paper, we demonstrate that exploratory design research can support this view by generating a more inclusive set of user attributes for purposes of user modelling. Through a case study, we show that design research for user modelling can function as a boundary object serving three important roles that underpin more specifically the design of user modelling and more broadly ITS design. First, design research can establish common ground by encapsulating domain knowledge in an accessible form. This can support diverse project stakeholders to make decisions on what is to be modelled. Secondly, design research can reveal a wide range of teaching and learning perspectives that in turn introduce transparency to the decision-making process of user modelling and provoke a sense of criticality and accountability amongst project stakeholders. Thirdly, design research can build new bridges between the design of the technology and the user model that underpins it. To this end, user attributes deemed important, yet too complex or cumbersome to develop, can become design principles in the context of the overall ITS design. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS We highlight how the creation of user models rarely incorporates assistance from the HCI community. We present a series of design activities intended to assist in the creation of a User Model. We examine how this design-oriented methodology creates a boundary object. We discuss the three benefits this boundary object brings to constructing user models, namely establishing common ground, creating transparency when considering possible alternatives and creating a springboard for new activities.
Daniel Gooch, Laura Benton, Rilla Khaled, Dominik Lukes, Asimina Vasalou
Interact. Comput.2
2014 Situated design for creative, reflective, collaborative, technology-mediated learning
abstract
STEM subjects are typically seen as boring, geeky, difficult to learn and with low relevance to real life. To counter this opinion, we aim to foster engagement with and curiosity about STEM subjects, through an approach to learning that facilitates the construction of understanding of key, threshold concepts (TCs). To achieve this, we engender creativity by using performance as a means of expression. We demonstrate how the process of collaboratively crafting a video to explain a TC students have been introduced to helps them to break down the concept, and through reflection on each piece of knowledge about it, build understanding about its different aspects, and further develop their knowledge. We aim through this approach to encourage students to work together to discover, explore, engage in lateral, visual thinking, and therefore develop deep, shared understanding of TCs in STEM subjects.
Aba-Sah Dadzie, Laura Benton, Asimina Vasalou, Russell Beale
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems2
2014 Understanding and fostering children's storytelling during game narrative design
abstract
Children typically have extensive expertise and experiences of computer games, which can enable them to make valuable contributions when involved in the design of games. Within this paper we discuss our approach to the involvement of children in the game design process, specifically to inform a game narrative. We describe two design workshops with children, which focused on the design of the narrative within a literacy game based on the Day of the Dead festival. We describe how the knowledge that resulted from these workshops furthered our understanding of children's storytelling schema and preferences for games as well as their approach to story creation and expression during the game design process. We also discuss how our findings informed an initial set of design principles for guiding narrative design within children's games as well as recommendations for including storytelling design activities within the technology design process.
Laura Benton, Asimina Vasalou, Daniel Gooch, Rilla Khaled
IDC1
2014 Diversity for design: a framework for involving neurodiverse children in the technology design process
abstract
The neurodiversity movement seeks to positively reframe certain neurological conditions, such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and dyslexia, by concentrating on their strengths. In recent years, neurodiverse children have increasingly been involved in the technology design process, but the design approaches adopted have focused mostly on overcoming difficulties of working with these children, leaving their strengths untapped. We present a new participatory design (PD) framework, Diversity for Design (D4D), which provides guidance for technology designers working with neurodiverse children in establishing PD methods that capitalize on children's strengths and also support potential difficulties. We present two case studies of use of the D4D framework, involving children with ASD and dyslexia, showing how it informed the development and refinement of PD methods tailored to these populations. In addition, we show how to apply the D4D framework to other neurodiverse populations.
Laura Benton, Asimina Vasalou, Rilla Khaled, Hilary Johnson, Daniel Gooch
CHI1
2012 Developing IDEAS: supporting children with autism within a participatory design team
abstract
IDEAS (Interface Design Experience for the Autistic Spectrum) is a method for involving children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in the technology design process. This paper extends the IDEAS method to enable use with a design team, providing specific added support for communication and collaboration difficulties that may arise. A study to trial this extended method was conducted with two design teams, each involving three children with ASD, in a series of six, weekly design sessions focused on designing a math game. The findings from this study reveal that the children were able to successfully participate in the sessions and collaborate with other children. The findings also highlight the positive experience that involvement in such a process can offer this population.
Laura Benton, Hilary Johnson, Emma Ashwin, Mark J. Brosnan, Beate Grawemeyer
CHI1
2012 Developing an Embodied Pedagogical Agent with and for Young People with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Beate Grawemeyer, Hilary Johnson, Mark J. Brosnan, Emma Ashwin, Laura Benton
ITS5
2011 The Impact of Autism Spectrum Disorder on the Categorisation of External Representations
Beate Grawemeyer, Hilary Johnson, Mark J. Brosnan, Emma Ashwin, Laura Benton
CogSci5