The communication of non-speech information (NSI) in closed captioning is essential in providing full access and increased enjoyment of video content, particularly for d/Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) viewers. We identified the limitations and frustrations of current NSI captioning through needfinding interviews and then employed a critical design framework to develop a medium-fidelity audio-reactive animated overlay prototype to explore the opinions and values of DHH users regarding NSI communication through surveys and interviews. The results show that current NSI captioning strategies lack consistency across platforms, adequate temporal information, clarity in emotional conveyance, and lack customization options. The study suggests that novel sound communication technologies show promise in enhancing certain aspects NSI communication and that there is a strong desire to move beyond the current, inflexible format of single-track closed captions for NSI communication.

Collaborative writing is prevalent, yet is rife with issues of discomfort and miscommunication among others despite access to limitless text. Editing, one key activity in collaborative writing, is prone to such issues, and providing rationales could be a promising solution. To understand the efficacy of rationales in this context, we conducted an online experiment pairing 40 participants to co-write two essays on Google Docs—one without rationales (control) and another with rationales (treatment)—followed by post-experiment surveys (N=40) and interviews (N=11) with participants who received edits with and without rationales. Despite no significant differences between conditions in survey results, interviews revealed that most people preferred collaborating with those who provided rationales and perceived them more favorably. All interviewees deemed rationales important in collaborative writing and felt the pros outweighed the cons. We contribute design recommendations with illustrative examples for effective collaborative writing.

Through collaborative playlists (CPs), streaming platform users have co-curated music together for various purposes for over a decade. As the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed how people come together through technology and engage with music, CPs have also taken on new roles and value. To understand how CP usage and perception have evolved since the onset of COVID-19, we conducted a mixed-methods investigation of CPs in the United States. Survey results from primarily CP users (N=142) revealed that interest in and usage of CPs have mostly increased since the pandemic, and that the role of music in connecting with others is positively correlated with the perceived impact of COVID-19. Follow-up interviews (N=9) provided additional insights into changing perceptions and usage patterns of CPs during COVID-19; for instance, fewer collaborators per playlist reflects users’ greater focus on strengthening social connections and relationships. Taken together, findings and design implications on digitally mediated co-curation further elucidate the necessity for social and collaborative experiences with music supported by CPs during COVID-19.

Music sharing is a common social activity that people have long engaged in, from gifting mixtapes to sharing music links. Our practices around sharing music have shifted markedly with the advent of streaming music platforms and social media, and it has remained an important part of our social fabric. Yet there is a dearth of research on how people share music today, and our understanding of attitudes and practices of sharing music across cultures is even more lacking. To understand how people across cultures engage in music sharing, we have conducted interviews with 32 participants from two cultures: South Korea and United States. Through qualitative analysis, we found largely three reasons why people share music, types of music shared, strategy factors considered when sharing music, outcomes achieved, and challenges people experience when sharing music. We present a framework of music sharing that visualizes these components of the music sharing process. From these results, we identify similarities and differences that emerged. We derive design implications for music sharing platforms including providing varied avenues for feedback on shared music, motivating users to share more, and helping users to better manage shared music.

Modern vehicles are using AI and increasingly sophisticated sensor suites to improve Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS) and support automated driving capabilities. Heads-Up-Displays (HUDs) provide an opportunity to visually inform drivers about vehicle perception and interpretation of the driving environment. One approach to HUD design may be to reveal to drivers the vehicle’s full contextual understanding, though it is not clear if the benefits of additional information outweigh the drawbacks of added complexity, or if this balance holds across drivers. We designed and tested an Augmented Reality (AR) HUD in an online study (N = 298), focusing on the influence of HUD visualizations on drivers’ situation awareness and perceptions. Participants viewed two driving scenes with one of three HUD conditions. Results were nuanced: situation awareness declined with increasing driving context complexity, and contrary to expectation, also declined with the presence of a HUD compared to no HUD. Significant differences were found by varying HUD complexity, which led us to explore different characterizations of complexity, including counts of scene items, item categories, and illuminated pixels. Our analysis finds that driving style interacts with driving context and HUD complexity, warranting further study.

Music fans strategically support their artists. Their collective efforts can extend to social causes as well: In 2020 for example, ARMY—the fandom of the music group BTS—successfully organized the #MatchAMillion campaign to raise over one million USD to support Black Lives Matter. To better understand factors of fandoms’ collaborative success for arguably unrelated social goals, we conducted a survey focusing on ARMYs’ perceptions of their fandom and their social effort. Most ARMYs viewed the fandom as a community, loosely structured with pillar accounts. They reported trust in each other as well as high team composition, which mediated the relationship between their neutral psychological safety and high efficacy. Respondents attributed their success in #MatchAMillion to shared values, good teamwork, and established infrastructure. Our findings elucidate contextual factors that contribute to ARMY’s collaborative success and highlight themes that may be applied to studying other fandoms and their collaborative efforts.

Social interactions, such as sharing songs and listening together, are fundamental to the experience of music. Yet our understanding of these interactions and how they influence social dynamics with today's streaming platforms is lacking. To better understand successful instances of social music practice, we conducted a two-part study to investigate real-world usage of collaborative playlists (CPs). Using an exploratory survey, we queried CP users on characteristics---Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How---and practices around favorite CPs, which serve as concrete examples of successful social music curation on streaming platforms. We found these playlists to vary in group sizes, purposes, listening contexts, engagement behaviors, and content attributes. We also observed significant cross-category interactions; for one, group size led to differences in perceived roles and frequency of actions within users' favorite CPs. Subsequent interviews confirmed favorite CPs as being exemplary of success, and users further elucidated factors that engender and hinder CP success. Together, our results underscore the importance of social motivations for engaging in CPs and of building greater understanding around these experiences. To these point we derived six design implications to inform development of CP platforms and online music platforms at large.

Online tools enable users to co-create artifacts remotely. However, creative collaborations can also occur for the social process of collaboration itself, for which measures of success and engagement expectations can be more ambiguous, and individuals' dedication and social dynamics more important. Co-curating music in collaborative playlists (CPs) is one example of creative collaboration that encompasses both roles, and can therefore have more subtleties within its interactions. We conducted two studies using online surveys to understand perceived comfort with and hesitation toward the social dynamics embedded in CPs. Differences in collaborators' ownership perceptions toward CPs and their comfort in interacting with these CPs emerged. We also found a varying desire for situated communication, dependent upon the action taken and perceived ownership (of both a CP and the songs contained), with more users expecting greater comfort when a communication channel exists. From these results, we present four design considerations for more positive and engaging experiences in creative online co-curation.

Autonomous ride-sharing services have the potential to disrupt future transportation ecosystems. It is critical to understand factors that influence user experience in autonomous vehicles (AVs) to design for widespread adoption. We conducted an on-road driving study in a mock AV to examine how the amount of information provided by an in-vehicle digital assistant, and the manner in which information is delivered, can impact one's overall AV experience. Passengers were divided into two cohorts, based on their assigned in-vehicle digital assistant (Lilly vs. Julie). Through a mixed-methods analysis, the data showed that quantity and quality of information presented via the digital assistant had a significant impact on one's confidence in an AV's driving capability and willingness to ride again. These findings highlight that although the two cohorts were identical with respect to the actual vehicle driven, differences in in-vehicle digital assistant design can alter passengers’ perceptions of their overall AV experience.

Autonomous vehicle (AV) systems are developing at a rapid pace, not only in technological capabilities, but also in human-centered directions. Despite this development, we lack a nuanced understanding of driver preference in decision scenarios that semi-AVs will face, and of possible misalignment between semi-AV decisions and user preference. Using an online survey, we explore how participants would like semi-AVs to act and alert them of the vehicles' decisions in various scenarios. Participants reported varying levels of comfort with autonomy, desire to takeover control, and desire for AV informing. Individual differences, including level of experience with autonomy and situation awareness, affected perceptions of the vehicle. Our results highlight the importance of considering driver preference in AV decision-making, and we present an influence diagram that situates this factor among others. We also derive five design principles, including that a previous positive AV experience can lead to more harmful consequences for AVs when not aligned with driver preference.

Researchers and service providers have focused on leveraging social information acquired from interactions between users to improve the accuracy of system recommendations. However, few have explained the characteristics of music recommendations through interpersonal relationships. To investigate how interpersonal relationships affect users’ evaluation of music recommendation, we conducted a survey-based study that compared two types of recommendation channels—interpersonal (i.e., from friends) and non-interpersonal (i.e., from systems). We found that relevance was evaluated higher in music recommended from non-interpersonal channels on average, while diversity, novelty, and serendipity were higher in interpersonal channels. Non-interpersonal channels surpassed interpersonal channels in terms of convenience, frequency, and adoption rate. These results illustrate that interpersonal and non-interpersonal channels have different strengths and that digital streaming platforms, which have mainly provided system recommendations thus far, need to better support interpersonal channels for richer user experience.

How will pedestrians from different regions interact with an approaching autonomous vehicle? Understanding differences in pedestrian culture and responses can help inform autonomous cars how to behave appropriately in different regional contexts. We conducted a field study comparing the behavioral response of pedestrians between metropolitan Mexico City (N=113) and Colima, a smaller coastal city (N=81). We hid a driver in a car seat costume as a Wizard-of-Oz prototype to evoke pedestrian interaction behavior at a crosswalk or street. Pedestrian interactions were coded for crossing decision, crossing pathway, pacing, and observational behavior. Most distinctly, pedestrians in Mexico City kept their pace and more often crossed in front of the vehicle, while those in Colima stopped in front of the car more often.