Thomas D. Grace

dblp:267/6596 · DBLP profile ↗
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4ranked-venue papers
3as first author
3since 2021 · last 2025
0000-0002-7433-7875ORCID · reported

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

Human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing · 4 · 3 first-author · 3 since 2021
YearPublicationVenuePosition
2025 Learning Curiosity through Play: Exploring the Role of Games and Interactive Design in Museums
abstract
This paper investigates museum educators' perceptions of play, games, and learning, as well as their approaches to designing and implementing interactive experiences. Through a thematic analysis, we found that museum educators tend to favor games and hands-on learning due to the strong association between learning, play, and curiosity. This connection often drives educators to integrate games and interactive elements into museum experiences. Key challenges in the design process included limited resources, time, and skills, as well as more contextual tensions. These included balancing 'fun' versus serious learning objectives and addressing discomfort that may arise from certain learning experiences, with the recognition that not all games need to be designed solely for fun. Our paper contributes to a deeper understanding of how educators incorporate game-like and playful learning in museums. We also offer a design considerations in the form of a checklist to guide other museum educators in developing effective play-based learning experiences.
Thomas D. Grace, Christie Abel, Katie Salen Tekinbas
CHI1
2023 Child-Centered Design in the Digital World: Investigating the Implications of the Age-Appropriate Design Code for Interactive Digital Media
abstract
In this paper, we conduct a content analysis to investigate the implications of the "Age-Appropriate Design Code" for the design of interactive digital media children are likely to use. The "Age-Appropriate Design Code" policy framework, implemented in the United Kingdom in 2021 with a modified version later signed into law in California in 2022, shifts the focus beyond just the protection of children's data to a broader focus on how the interaction with digital technologies might affect or even harm children. Our content analysis of both the UK and California codes identifies a number of design considerations framed around four main categories namely design values, communication of information, interactions with technology, and data management. While recognizing the robustness of the Age-Appropriate Design Codes, we also identify certain uncertainties and challenges in implementing guidelines in the context of interactive digital media. Our findings contribute to the ongoing conversation about designing safe and age-appropriate online spaces for children.
Thomas D. Grace, Christie Abel, Katie Salen Tekinbas
IDC1
2022 Policies of Misconduct: A Content Analysis of Codes of Conduct for Online Multiplayer Games
abstract
In this paper we searched the websites of 60 popular online multiplayer games to locate their codes of conduct and then performed a content analysis on 32 unique codes of conduct. Our analysis consisted of a two-cycle coding process including initial coding, and then pattern coding for clustering categories and themes together. Our aim was to better understand how game companies include codes of conduct on their websites and what content they include in the codes of conduct. The two-cycle coding process identified five main themes: (1) game company values, (2) expectations of players, (3) bad behaviors and rules, (4) moderation practices, and finally (5) document structure. Our findings suggest that codes of conduct are routinely inaccessible, if present at all, and that codes of conduct are often framed around punitive legal language that reflect policies of misconduct rather than expressing communal values and expectations. Our findings can help contribute towards community management in online games and make codes of conduct more accessible for all stakeholders in online gaming communities. We have also provided design recommendations and a design process that should help guide game companies looking to create value focused codes of conduct.
Thomas D. Grace, Ian Larson, Katie Salen Tekinbas
Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact.1
2020 Designing dyadic caregiver-child personas for interactive digital media use
abstract
This paper provides a framework that adapts a design tool known as personas to better capture the ways that caregivers mediate their children's use of interactive media. Interactive digital media has become a more pervasive part of families' lives and tensions have increased around children's engagement with digital media. Historically, caregivers have enacted various tactics to mediate their children's practices around digital media. However, the design of technologies for children fails to account for different approaches to caregiving and the relationships between caregivers and children, instead focusing on the caregiver and the child as separate entities. The goal of our framework is to enable designers to consider the caregiver-child relationship by adapting the persona design tool to account for the relationship between caregivers and children. Drawing from prior research from user experience on persona development and communication on parental mediation theory, the framework outlines five phases to be used as a guide to develop caregiver-child dyadic personas. A dyadic approach to persona design explicitly highlights the relationship between two individuals (in this case, caregiver and child). We suggest that designing with dyadic personas enables designers to be more aware of nuances in caregiver-child relationships and can surface opportunities to facilitate collaboration between caregivers and children around interactive media.
Christie Abel, Thomas D. Grace
IDC2