Artificial intelligence (AI) applications have become ubiquitous in their impact on individuals and society, highlighting a crucial need for their responsible development. Recent research has called for participatory AI auditing, empowering individuals without AI expertise to audit AI applications throughout the entire AI development pipeline. Our work focuses on investigating how to support these kinds of auditors through participatory AI auditing tools and processes. We conducted a series of co-design workshops, using two health-related predictive AI applications as examples. Our results show that participants wanted to be part of AI audits, and were insightful in identifying the potential impacts of applications, but needed to be assisted in conducting audits, especially how to measure impacts. Importantly, participants provided examples of impacts not considered in current risk/harm taxonomies. Our findings provide implications for the design of tools and processes to empower everyone to contribute to responsible AI development in the future.

Mental health issues are a huge health concern for undergraduate students, a problem which worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a time when access to in-person support became scarce, we surveyed 156 undergraduate students from a UK university to understand their perceptions and use of online resources with regard to their mental health. Our findings show that, while search engines are primarily used to search for symptoms and diagnoses, video-based social media platforms are predominantly used to find support from people with lived experiences, while typically text-based platforms are used to find support from friends and family. Our findings inform recommendations that can support researchers and professionals in placing and tailoring mental health interventions and resources to the online locations which are most beneficial to students.

Electrotactile haptics is a novel form of skin stimulation. It is versatile and allows manipulation of many design parameters, broadening the range of haptic experiences. However, how parameter changes influence qualitative experiences is not well understood. We systematically investigated (n = 45) the influence of single parameter changes (e.g., pulse width, frequency), capturing the breadth of experiences elicited. We compared differences between calibration and ordering task performance, first between left and right hands, then between single and both hands simultaneously, all with an open hand and while holding an object, fully exploring the design space. Results showed the wide range of qualitative experience, from concrete to abstract. Calibration should be performed on both hands simultaneously to ensure perception, as participants preferred lower pulse width values for simulation on both hands as compared to each hand alone. The results present the first detailed exploration into the qualitative aspects of electrotactile stimulation across the hands.

Haptic feedback can improve safety and driving behaviour. While vibration has been widely studied, other haptic modalities have been neglected. To address this, we present two studies investigating the use of uni- and bimodal vibrotactile and thermal cues on the steering wheel. First, notifications with three levels of urgency were subjectively rated and then identified during simulated driving. Bimodal feedback showed an increased identification time over unimodal vibrotactile cues. Thermal feedback was consistently rated less urgent, showing its suitability for less time critical notifications, where vibration would be unnecessarily attention-grabbing. The second study investigated more complex thermal and bimodal haptic notifications comprised of two different types of information (Nature and Importance of incoming message). Results showed that both modalities could be identified with high recognition rates of up to 92% for both and up to 99% for a single type, opening up a novel design space for haptic in-car feedback.

Haptic feedback is used in cars to reduce visual inattention. While tactile feedback like vibration can be influenced by the car's movement, thermal and cutaneous push feedback should be independent of such interference. This paper presents two driving simulator studies investigating novel tactile feedback on the steering wheel for navigation. First, devices on one side of the steering wheel were warmed, indicating the turning direction, while those on the other side were cooled. This thermal feedback was compared to audio. The thermal navigation lead to 94.2% correct recognitions of warnings 200m before the turn and to 91.7% correct turns. Speech had perfect recognition for both. In the second experiment, only the destination side was indicated thermally, and this design was compared to cutaneous push feedback. The simplified thermal feedback design did not increase recognition, but cutaneous push feedback had high recognition rates (100% for 200 m warnings, 98% for turns).

Haptic feedback has been widely studied for in-car interactions. However, most of this research has used vibrotactile cues. This paper presents two studies that examine novel thermal feedback for navigation during simulated driving for a lane change task. In the first, we compare the distraction and time differences of audio and thermal feedback. The results show that the presentation of thermal stimuli does not increase lane deviation, but the time needed to complete a lane change increased by 1.82 seconds. In the second study, the influence of variable changes of thermal stimuli on the lane change task performance was tested. We found that the same stimulus design for warm and cold temperatures does not always elicit the same results. Furthermore, variable alterations can have different effects on specified tasks. This suggests that the design of thermal stimuli is highly dependent on what task result should be maximized.

Deaf individuals often experience communication difficulties in face-to-face interactions with hearing people. In order to support deaf individuals in such situations, an active stream of assistive technology (AT) research focuses on real-time translation of sign language. We investigate the impact of real-time translation-based ATs on communication quality between deaf and hearing individuals. We conducted a focus group and aWizard of Oz study in which deaf and hearing participants jointly interacted with different assistive technologies. We find that while ATs facilitate communication, communication quality is degraded by to breaks in the conversation. Using Co-Cultural Theory, we identify deaf people as a subordinate group inside a hearing society. Our results indicate that current ATs reinforce this subordination by emphasizing deficiency of mastering the dominant form of communication. Based on our findings, we propose a change in design perspective by enabling the hearing to sign rather than the deaf to "hear". We argue that ATs should not be seen as "just" a tool for the Deaf but rather as a collaborative technology.

In this demonstration we show a thermal interaction design on the steering wheel for navigational cues in a car. Participants will be able to use a thermally enhanced steering wheel to follow instructions given in a turn-to-turn based navigation task in a virtual city. The thermal cues will be provided on both sides of the steering wheel and will indicate the turning direction by warming the corresponding side, while the opposite side is being cooled.