Abstract Computational thinking is an ability that has been considered essential for people living in a society mediated by technology. This ability can also be helpful to people with little or no experience with technology, for practicing basic Computational Thinking skills may help understanding how a technological device works and can be used. However, to the best of our knowledge, little research has addressed Computational Thinking and its relation with Digital Culture, especially for reducing the digital divide. In this article, we draw on the notion of Mental Models to relate Computational Thinking and Digital Culture. We claim that practicing basic Computational Thinking skills when exploring simple prototypes favors building Mental Models that are useful to understand and progress in the usage of technologies, contributing to developing a Digital Culture. To situate our discussion, we present a case study that engaged adults, in their initial stages of literacy, in activities that grew from basic ones, with a low-fidelity ATM prototype, to more complex ones with a functional ATM prototype. Evaluation methods used were voting, feedback, structured observation and unstructured interviews. Results suggested our approach is promising as participants gained confidence and increased autonomy as the activities progressed, using the experience and knowledge they obtained from previous activities to perform the next ones.

Abstract Death has become increasingly visible on social networks, especially after COVID-19, and Facebook addresses that with double standards: while some profiles remain active, others turn into memorials. This article investigates how Facebook’s system deals with dead users’ profiles either to support or restrict interactions concerning users’ deaths. Our qualitative analysis of data from 54 public profiles of people who died between June 2020 and March 2021 showed that (i) Facebook fails to communicate the criteria for transforming profiles into memorials; (ii) no information about their contacts of deceased users’ profiles is given; (iii) the frequency of interaction with memorials and with active profiles is different; (iv) profiles’ privacy settings shape interaction. Our results exemplify how a sociotechnical system influences people’s interactions with dead users’ profiles. We herein highlight implications for interaction design and evaluation, besides the need to consider interaction as existence, which raises big challenges to the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) community.

Increases in forced migration crises and the digitalization of humanitarian response require ongoing innovation in information management tools and processes. Our research-in-progress examines emergent data aggregation and data quality management methods enabled by a humanitarian data sharing platform from the Global North. Through an international and inter-regional comparison of this platform's use, our team of international faculty will generate insights for humanitarian informatics theory as well as practice. Specifically, our research examines the role of power and control in collaborative humanitarian operations. Given the neocolonial dimensions of the humanitarian system, we also explore potential North/South divides and their effects. Preliminary results provide insight into power exercised in national response, diversity in aggregation procedures related to technology and staff preferences, and the loss of data's meaning due to the centralization processes supported by data aggregation.

The vision of the ubiquity of computing, present since the ideas of Mark Weiser, takes concrete form today with the Internet of Things (IoT). The concept of a system in which digital and physical entities are linked through adequate information and communication technologies demands new ways of thinking its construction. At the same time, as new demands appear for engineering of such systems, our teaching practices also need to be revised. This paper presents a proposal for the discipline of Software Engineering inspired by the Active Learning approach. Our proposal is illustrated with the development of Internet of Things scenarios by groups of students.

Abstract Software start-ups develop innovative software products working with disruptive technologies in time pressure and market-driven environment. Recently, User eXperience (UX) has become a hot topic that interests software teams of start-ups. However, software and UX professionals have struggled to match UX practices into the development activities, partially because of the lack of resources in the start-ups. This paper investigates how software start-ups handle UX activities during software development and how relevant UX is to these companies’ professionals. To achieve our aim, we surveyed 88 professionals who take part in software teams in star-ups, analyzing the responses using descriptive and statistical methods. Our results reveal that regardless of having or not a UX position in the start-up, UX practices are spread in different software development phases and not fitting into them. Results also show although professionals consider UX relevant and recognize important skills to perform UX activities, some obstacles hinder the effective use of UX in software start-ups. From the survey results, we identified a set of challenges to be overcome in consolidating the UX work in software start-ups. By diagnosing the UX state-of-practice in start-up scenarios and identifying such challenges, our work contributes to provides relevant insights to further academic and practical studies in this field.

Technology can support people with disabilities to participate in social and economic life. Using relevant Human-Computer Interaction, as obtained through Intelligent User Interfaces, people with motor and speech impairments may be able to communicate in different ways. Augmentative and Alternative Communication supported by Computer Vision systems can benefit from the recognition of users' remaining functional motions as an alternative interaction design approach. Based on a methodology in which gestures and their meanings are created and configured by users and their caregivers, we developed a Computer Vision system, named PGCA, that employs machine learning techniques to create personalized gestural interaction as an Assistive Technology resource for communication purposes. Using a low-cost approach, PGCA has been experienced with students with motor and speech impairments to create personalized gesture datasets and to identify improvements for the system. This paper presents an experiment carried with the target audience using a game-based approach where three students used PGCA to interact with communication boards and to play a game. The system was evaluated by special education professionals using the System Usability Scale and was considered suitable for its purpose. Results from the experiment suggest the technical feasibility for the methodology and for the system, also adding knowledge about the interaction process of disabled people with a game.

This research intends to analyze how users that are also HCI designers relate to the interaction with digital memorials linked to graves through QRcodes.To do so, we have carried out an immersive practice in the Consolação Cemetery (São Paulo, Brazil), where that technology is used to tag the graves of famous deceased people and to guide the visitors in the site.Those QR code tags link the graves to an online application for digital memorials called MemoriAll.To address the problem, this paper analyzes the data collected from the surveys answered by the research subjects before and after the immersive practice, along with data from a semiotic inspection of MemoriAll.

Cultural aspects such as values, beliefs, and behavioral patterns influence the way technology is understood and used, and the impact it may cause on the environment and on people. Although there is influential literature devoted to the subject of values and culture in Human–Computer Interaction, there is still a lack of principled and practical artifacts and methods to support researchers and practitioners in their activities. In this paper, we present a Value-oriented and Culturally Informed Approach (VCIA) to sensitize and support Computer Science and Engineering professionals in taking values and culture into consideration throughout the design of interactive systems. The approach is grounded on theoretical and methodological bases of Organizational Semiotics, Building Blocks of Culture, and Socially Aware Computing. VCIA offers a set of artifacts and methods articulated to support the design process in its different stages and activities: from the identification of stakeholders and their values, to the organization of requirements and the evaluation of the designed solution. In this paper, we present VCIA’s principles, artifacts, and illustrate its usefulness in bringing values into consideration, supporting a socially aware system design.

Folksonomy-based systems represent an important initiative to the information organization on the Web. It provides a way for its users to attribute meaning to the content of the information available. However, with the quick increase in the amount of information being published and the number of users categorizing it, an information overload is generated, whose quality cannot be assured. Aiming at reducing this problem, we propose the ascription of cognitive authority to recognize the information quality by qualifying its sources, i.e. its author. We applied this qualification in the information retrieval process in folksonomy-based system and through a simulation process we obtain results that demonstrate the viability of our proposal.