Smart home technologies are often designed to meet the needs of adults, yet children and pets also live with these systems without being meaningfully considered in their design. Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) researchers have shown the value of studying children's experiences and ideation of technologies used in the domestic space. In this pictorial, we explore experiences at the intersection of children, pets, and smart home technologies by analyzing data from an in-home study with 6-to-11-year-olds. Our analysis identifies five themes in how children perceive smart home technologies in the context of pet care: convenience, presence, physical comfort, emotional wellbeing, and responsibility. Grounded in children's everyday routines of playing with and looking after their pets, this work offers design directions for domestic technologies that account for non-human household members.

Smart home technologies have become common in family homes, making even young children inevitable users of these technologies. However, these systems are typically designed for individual adults, creating family tensions and conflicts over children’s access, safety, and appropriate smart home use. To investigate children’s and parents’ individual and joint smart home needs and dynamics, we conducted an in-home study with nine families (children aged 6-11). We identify four key parent-child tensions with smart home technologies, including struggles over parental protection versus children’s autonomy, differing views on technology’s purpose, disagreements over technology-enforced routines, and children’s vulnerability to embedded commercialism. Our work reconceptualizes parental mediation as a process of “tension management” rather than the application of static rules. This research challenges the dominant individual-centric choice architecture in smart home design, calling for a family-centered approach that acknowledges and adapts to the fluid, complex, and negotiated reality of modern family life.

Peer Reviewed

ABSTRACT

Children struggle to understand hidden data processes (e.g., inferences) and related privacy implications (e.g., profiling). Children use visual cues to reason about technical processes in digital products, sometimes drawing inaccurate conclusions when interface cues are vague or absent. We conducted five consecutive participatory design sessions with children (ages 7–12), probing their perceptions of visual cues and data processes; and iteratively designed and reviewed new visual cues with them. We found that children conceptualized data collection concretely, lacked awareness of its pervasive nature, expressed limited understanding of data inferences, and recognized certain visual cues (e.g., loading, cloud) but unable to explain their meanings. We designed visual cues in “symbolic” and “concrete” styles using icons and metaphors, which helped children understand data flows. Our work contributes to developing comprehensible visual cues for children to support their data and privacy literacy. We discuss design and policy implications of our findings.

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has ignited discussions surrounding its potential to enhance creative pursuits. However, distinctions between children’s and adult’s creative needs exist, which is important when considering the possibility of GenAI for children’s creative usage. Building upon work in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), fostering children’s computational thinking skills, this study explores interactions between children (aged 7-13) and GenAI tools through methods of participatory design. We seek to answer two questions: (1) How do children in co-design workshops perceive GenAI tools and their usage for creative works? and (2) How do children navigate the creative process while using GenAI tools? How might these interactions support their confidence in their ability to create? Our findings contribute a model that describes the potential contexts underpinning child-GenAI creative interactions and explores implications of this model for theories of creativity, design, and use of GenAI as a constructionist tool for creative self-efficacy.

Smart home technologies are making their way into families. Parents' and children's shared use of smart home technologies has received growing attention in CSCW and related research communities. Families and children are also frequently featured as target audiences in smart home product marketing. However, there is limited knowledge of how exactly children and family interactions are portrayed in smart home product marketing, and to what extent those portrayals align with the actual consideration of children and families in product features and resources for child safety and privacy. We conducted a content analysis of product websites and online resources of 102 smart home products, as these materials constitute a main marketing channel and information source about products for consumers. We found that despite featuring children in smart home marketing, most analyzed product websites did not mention child safety features and lacked sufficient information on how children's data is collected and used. Specifically, our findings highlight misalignments in three aspects: (1) children are depicted as users of smart home products but there are insufficient child-friendly product features; (2) harmonious child-product co-presence is portrayed but potential child safety issues are neglected; and (3) children are shown as the subject of monitoring and datafication but there is limited information on child data collection and use. We discuss how parent-child relationships and parenting may be negatively impacted by such marketing depictions, and we provide design and policy recommendations for better incorporating child safety and privacy considerations into smart home products.

A growing body of research has examined the privacy concerns and behaviors of older adults, often within specific contexts. It remains unclear to what extent older adults' privacy concerns and behaviors vary across contexts and whether old age is the primary factor influencing privacy vulnerabilities. To address this gap, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 43 older adults (aged 65 to 89) in the United States. Our interviews were grounded in five scenarios: account and device sharing, healthcare, online advertising, social networking, and cybercrime. Our cross-contextual analysis showed that cybercrime was a recurring and pressing concern across scenarios; privacy concerns and protective behaviors were rarely mentioned in the healthcare scenario. Across all scenarios, participants' threat models and strategies revolved around data collection rather than other stages in which privacy harms may occur; they employed various active strategies to safeguard their privacy while trusting service providers to protect their information. Our findings underscore the need to revisit the discussion around privacy vulnerability and aging. Vulnerability levels among our participants varied widely and were often influenced by factors beyond age, such as tech savviness and income. We discuss opportunities for privacy interventions, technologies, and education that promote positive aging and recognize diversity among older adults.

Children’s online co-design has become prevalent since COVID-19. However, related research focuses on insights gained across several shorter-term projects, rather than longitudinal investigations. To explore longitudinal co-design online, we engaged in participatory design with children (ages 8 - 12) for 20 sessions in two years on a single project: an online collaboration platform with tabletop telepresence robots. We found that (1) the online technology space required children to play a role as technology managers and troubleshooters, (2) the home setting shaped online social dynamics, and (3) providing children the ability to choose their design techniques prevented gridlock from situational uncertainties. We discuss how each finding resulted from interplay between our long-term technology design and online co-design processes. We then present insights about the future of online co-design, a conceptual model for longitudinal co-design online, and describe opportunities for further longitudinal online co-design research to generate new methods, techniques, and theories.

Families adopt smart home products for convenience and entertainment; however, these products are not designed to support children’s use cases and needs, which leads to child safety issues and family tensions. My previous work has identified the juxtaposition of (1) marketing depictions of children’s harmonious smart home experiences, (2) vendors’ limited product features and resources for families, and (3) parents’ concerns for child safety and demands for child-centered smart home features. These findings indicate the need for smart home mechanisms that support parent-child engagement and negotiation regarding children’s access and use of smart home technologies, balancing safety and agency. This proposed dissertation work aims to understand how to support parents and children collaboratively co-participate in the smart home through two steps: (1) investigating parents’ and children’s separate and joint smart home needs and (2) ideating with families on the principles and affordances of parent-child engagement mechanisms.

Smart home technologies offer many benefits to users. Yet, they also carry complex security and privacy implications that users often struggle to assess and account for during adoption. To better understand users’ considerations and attitudes regarding smart home security and privacy, in particular how users develop them progressively, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of 4,957 Reddit comments in 180 security- and privacy-related discussion threads from /r/homeautomation, a major Reddit smart home forum. Our analysis reveals that users’ security and privacy attitudes, manifested in the levels of concern and degree to which they incorporate protective strategies, are shaped by multi-dimensional considerations. Users’ attitudes evolve according to changing contextual factors, such as adoption phases, and how they become aware of these factors. Further, we describe how online discourse about security and privacy risks and protections contributes to individual and collective attitude development. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations to improve smart home designs, support users’ attitude development, facilitate information exchange, and guide future research regarding smart home security and privacy.

As children become frequent digital technology users, concerns about their digital privacy are increasing. To better understand how young children conceptualize data processing and digital privacy risks, we interviewed 26 children, 4 to 10 years old, from families with higher educational attainment recruited in a college town. Our child participants construed apps’ and services’ data collection and storage practices in terms of their benefits, both to themselves and for user safety, and characterized both data tracking and privacy violations as interpersonal rather than considering automated processes or companies as privacy threats. We identify four factors shaping these mental models and privacy risk perceptions: (1) surface-level visual cues, (2) past digital interactions involving data collection, (3) age and cognitive development, and (4) privacy-related experiences in non-digital contexts. We discuss our findings’ design, educational, and public policy implications toward better supporting children in identifying and reasoning about digital privacy risks.

Concerns about child physical and digital safety are emerging with families' adoption of smart home technologies such as robot vacuums and smart speakers. To better understand parents' definitions and perceptions of child safety regarding smart home technologies, we interviewed 23 parents who are smart home adopters. We contribute insights into parents' perceptions of the physical and digital safety risks smart home technologies pose to children, and how such perceptions formed and changed across three phases. In acquiring smart home devices, parents already considered whether the device could cause physical harm to their children or pose privacy and security risks. Once children become active users of smart home technologies, parents however reported encountering unanticipated physical safety risks and digital safety issues (e.g., exposure to unsuitable content) that required their mitigation strategies. As their children grow up, parents further expressed the need to shift attention from physical safety to digital safety. Parents' safety perceptions influence how they involve children in smart home interactions and implement mitigation strategies, such as restricting access to certain devices and using parental controls. We identify six factors that shape parents' perception and evaluation of smart home safety risks to children, including parenting style, parents' tech-savviness, parents' trust in tech companies, children's age and developmental differences, news media, and device characteristics. We provide design and policy recommendations to better protect children's safety in the smart home environment.

Early warning dashboards in higher education analyze student data to enable early identification of underperforming students, allowing timely interventions by faculty and staff. To understand perceptions regarding the ethics and impact of such learning analytics applications, we conducted a multi-stakeholder analysis of an early-warning dashboard deployed at the University of Michigan through semi-structured interviews with the system's developers, academic advisors (the primary users), and students. We identify multiple tensions among and within the stakeholder groups, especially with regard to awareness, understanding, access and use of the system. Furthermore, ambiguity in data provenance and data quality result in differing levels of reliance and concerns about the system among academic advisors and students. While students see the system's benefits, they argue for more involvement, control, and informed consent regarding the use of student data. We discuss our findings' implications for the ethical design and deployment of learning analytics applications in higher education. Early warning dashboards in higher education analyze student data to enable early identification of underperforming students, allowing timely interventions by faculty and staff. To understand perceptions regarding the ethics and impact of such learning analytics applications, we conducted a multi-stakeholder analysis of an early-warning dashboard deployed at the University of Michigan through semi-structured interviews with the system's developers, academic advisors (the primary users), and students. We identify multiple tensions among and within the stakeholder groups, especially with regard to awareness, understanding, access, and use of the system. Furthermore, ambiguity in data provenance and data quality result in differing levels of reliance and concerns about the system among academic advisors and students. While students see the system's benefits, they argue for more involvement, control, and informed consent regarding the use of student data. We discuss our findings' implications for the ethical design and deployment of learning analytics applications in higher education.

Data breaches place affected individuals at significant risk of identity theft. Yet, prior studies have shown that many consumers do not take protective actions after receiving a data breach notification from a company. We analyzed 161 data breach notifications sent to consumers with respect to their readability, structure, risk communication, and presentation of potential actions. We find that notifications are long and require advanced reading skills. Many companies downplay or obscure the likelihood of the receiver being affected by the breach and associated risks. Moreover, potential actions and offered compensations are frequently described in lengthy paragraphs instead of clearly listed. Little information is provided regarding an action's urgency and effectiveness; little guidance is provided on which actions to prioritize. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations for designing more usable and informative data breach notifications that could help consumers better mitigate the consequences of being affected by a data breach.