VLDB 2026 Research / reviewers in the wild / expert
Audrey Desjardins
dblp:33/9599
· DBLP profile ↗
46ranked-venue papers
19as first author
20since 2021 · last 2025
0000-0002-1980-1292ORCID · verified
Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several
Human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing · 46 · 19 first-author · 20 since 2021
| Year | Publication | Venue | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Echoes of Care: Unveiling the Intertwined Tensions between Childcare Work and Voice Assistants
Meghna Gupta, Audrey Desjardins |
CHI | 2 |
| 2025 | Stills from the Inner Ear Shorts: Collecting and Living with Data
Wyatt Olson, Freesoul El Shabazz-Thompson, Melanie Wells, Chuanzhe Xiong, Janey Yee, Julia R. Saimo, Ocean Vu, Jonathan Narita, Brock R. Craft, Timea Tihanyi, Audrey Desjardins |
CHI | 11 |
| 2025 | Translating HCI Research to Broader Audiences: Motivation, Inspiration, and Critical Factors on Alternative Research OutcomesabstractAlternative Research Outcomes (AROs) go beyond traditional academic publications, taking diverse forms such as documentaries, DIY tutorials, or exhibitions. With growing recognition of the need for more inclusive and contextually appropriate research dissemination, AROs are particularly relevant in HCI and design research. Yet, little has been discussed on why it is important to work on AROs. What are key qualities of AROs? How can the HCI community benefit from learning more about creating AROs? By analyzing six case studies, we propose four qualities of AROs and demonstrate how they emerge in the timeline of a research project. We argue AROs can be adapted to diverse audience needs and share research insights that may extend beyond the original research goals. Our work contributes to a deeper understanding of how AROs can support inclusive research dissemination practices, enabling HCI researchers to engage broader audiences and extend the relevance of their work. Minyoung Yoo, Sophia Ppali, William Odom, Yumeng Zhuang, Kritika Kritika, Wyatt Olson, Catherine Wieczorek, Heidi R. Biggs, Arne Berger, Audrey Desjardins, Ron Wakkary, Kathryn E. Ringland |
CHI | 10 |
| 2024 | Care Layering: Complicating Design PatternsabstractOver the past two decades, discussions of design patterns have turned from encouragement (what to do) toward discouragement (what to avoid). Termed dark, deceptive, or otherwise harmful, user experience (UX) patterns that serve to monetize engagement while reproducing and sedimenting structural inequities are prevalent, which calls for a shifting conversation around UX development and learning. This pictorial uses a visual case study of a childcare worker platform to help critically contextualize largely abstracted or universalizing UX patterns. Developing a form of critical documentation we call Care Layering, we show how approaching UX patterns as embodied and culturally-situated resources sheds light on both limitations and opportunities around gig work platform engagement. We end with a discussion of how Care Layering helps designers work towards greater accountability in UX design. Maya A Kaneko, Caitlin Lustig, Daniela Karin Rosner, Audrey Desjardins |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 4 |
| 2024 | Porous by Design: How Childcare Platforms Impact Worker Personhood, Safety, and ConnectionabstractCare work is always already unequal. It involves looking after others’ physical, psychological, emotional, and developmental needs. Paid care work tends to be conducted in private spaces, lack regulation, and reproduce unequal dynamics between clients and workers. These conditions lead to porous boundaries, a permeability experienced by workers between care and work, professional and personal, and private and public (sectors and spheres). Drawing on interviews with 16 workers who find work using Care.com, we argue that the porous boundaries of care work are reified in new ways through the design and use of emerging digitally mediated matching platforms. This has particular impacts for ranking personhood, reducing worker safety, and increasing atomization. In contrast, we find benefits in the forum-like structure and visible, interactive conversations of other platforms used to access childcare work. We end with a discussion of porousness by design and the trouble of locating design within worker platforms. Caitlin Lustig, Maya A Kaneko, Meghna Gupta, Kavita Dattani, Audrey Desjardins, Daniela Karin Rosner |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 5 |
| 2024 | A temporal vocabulary of Design Events for Research through DesignabstractMuch reporting on research-through-design (RtD) is vague about markers of time and temporal qualities. This lack of temporal attunement risks obscuring important contextual knowledge, hidden labour, material agencies and potential knowledge contributions. We turn to the notion of the event to articulate the granularities and nuances of RtD processes with an expanded vocabulary. We draw on prior calls from RtD practitioners, the philosophical roots of events, and our previous work with the term in our own research. We describe seven terms to expand the temporal vocabulary of RtD, which can be used to build narratives that emphasize knowledge created along the way, and relieve pressure from the ‘final’ artifact. Our contributions are 1) design events as an ontological shift and analytical tool and 2) a vocabulary that scaffolds design events as a sensitizing tool. We end with a call for more experimentation of non-chronological narratives of RtD. Doenja Oogjes, Audrey Desjardins |
CHI | 2 |
| 2024 | Un/Making Data Imaginaries: The Data EpicsabstractWith the increase of Internet of Things devices in home environments, data will become an even more dominant part of people’s everyday lives. The invisibility of data leads us to rely on our imagination to make sense of them, yet this imagination is heavily shaped by a technocentric lens that views data as neutral and transparent. In response, in this article, we present the Data Epics project, where we commissioned seven fiction writers to write short stories based on smart home device data provided by seven households. We offer an analysis of the writers and households’ experiences with the project, presenting seven ways in which data imaginaries are made and unmade. We contribute a reflection around how making new data imaginaries unmakes common ones, the friction in unmaking certain imaginaries, and how we might further disseminate alternative data imaginaries. Audrey Desjardins, Gabrielle Benabdallah, Maya A Kaneko |
ACM Trans. Comput. Hum. Interact. | 1 |
| 2023 | A Notebook of Data ImaginariesabstractThe processes of data collection and transformation are often opaque to users. This means they rely on their imagination to make sense of the data they produce. The images data conjure up, however, tend to be homogenous and flat: black screens, ones and zeros, big server farms in the desert. For designers and researchers who work with data as a material, this small repertoire can be stifling. For device users, it can lead to a removal of agency in how they make sense and engage with the data they produce. In this pictorial, we draw from a two-year data fictionalization project to start building an expanded repertoire of data imaginaries. We worked with seven households and seven writers to transform smart home data sets into fiction stories. Based on the interviews we conducted, we present the images participants shared with us as a step towards more expressive and varied imaginaries of data. Gabrielle Benabdallah, Maya A Kaneko, Audrey Desjardins |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 3 |
| 2023 | The Inner Ear: Capturing and Physicalizing Home vibrationsabstractWe present the Inner Ear: a porcelain device that both captures and represents data. In particular, we focus on sensing vibrations—for their hidden yet omnipresent qualities in domestic environments. We designed the Inner Ear in response and in contrast to a growing collection of ‘always on and recording’ smart home devices. With the Inner Ear, we purposefully let participants choose when to capture vibrations and which capture should be physicalized. In this pictorial, we describe the design and fabrication process of the capturing device as well as the data physicalization workflow. We contribute insights on (1) the design rationale and development of a double function artifact (to both capture and represent), as well as (2) design decisions involved in balancing legibility with leaving room for meaning making during the transcription of home vibration data. Audrey Desjardins, Timea Tihanyi, Freesoul El Shabazz-Thompson, Brock R. Craft, Julia R. Saimo |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 1 |
| 2023 | On the Making of Alternative Data Encounters: The Odd InterpretersabstractWhile data are the backbone for home Internet of Things’ (IoT) functional and economic model, data remain elusive and abstract for home dwellers. In response, we present the Odd Interpreters (OIs): a collection of three artifacts that materialize alternative ways of engaging with IoT data in home environments. The OIs recast home data as imaginative sounds (Broadcast), fading fabric (Soft Fading), and cookie recipes (Data Bakery) with the intent to reveal the hidden human labor and material infrastructures of data and to critique data's assumed objectivity. Following a Research-through-Design approach, we unpack design events that mark our process for making the Odd Interpreters. We conclude with a discussion around the need for pluralizing data encounters, the tactic of designing between illusion and precision, and a reflection on living with the prototypes while designing. Audrey Desjardins, Jena McWhirter, Justin Petelka, Simon Chandler, Yuna Shin, Ruby K. Peven, Philbert Widjaja |
CHI | 1 |
| 2023 | Autospeculation: Reflecting on the Intimate and Imaginative Capacities of Data AnalysisabstractGiven decades of Human computer interaction (HCI) research focused on scientific empiricism, it can be hard for the field to acknowledge that data analysis is both an emotional and speculative process. But what does it mean for this process of data analysis to embrace its situated and speculative nature? In this paper, we explore this possibility by building on decades of HCI mixed methods that root data analysis in design. Drawing on an autoethnographic design inquiry, we examine how data analysis can work as an implicating process, one that is not only critically grounded in a designer’s own situation but also offers modes of imagining the world otherwise. In this analysis, we find that autobiographical design can help HCI scholars to respond to current critiques of speculative design by grounding and rendering more personal certain kinds of speculation, opening a space for diverse voices to emerge. Brian Kinnee, Audrey Desjardins, Daniela Karin Rosner |
CHI | 2 |
| 2022 | Sonic Technologies of a Queer BreakupabstractOver the past decade, the growth of voice assistants has presented new challenges within domestic life. Prior research has shown that such technologies affect users unevenly or fail to account for some relationships and domesticities entirely. Our work investigates the under-examined topic of queerness at home. Drawing on the experience of queer breakup, we describe a design inquiry and a first-person research approach exploring two concurrent relationships in separate households both using Alexa. We explore issues of temporality, glitch, and shared accountability. We also ask critical questions with audio experiments, including: How do voice assistants differentiate between queer voices? How should we converse with voice assistants about queerness? And are voice assistants “queer enough”? We contribute a discussion of difference, inclusion, and queer cultures of adversarial use to highlight the limitations of both everyday and professional language for describing and analyzing the particulars of queerness and interaction design. Brian Kinnee, Daniela Karin Rosner, Audrey Desjardins |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 3 |
| 2022 | Critical-Playful Speculations with Cameras in the HomeabstractSmart home cameras present new challenges for understanding behaviors and relationships surrounding always-on, domestic recording systems. We designed a series of discursive activities involving 16 individuals from ten households for six weeks in their everyday settings. These activities functioned as speculative probes—prompting participants to reflect on themes of privacy and power through filming with cameras in their households. Our research design foregrounded critical-playful enactments that allowed participants to speculate potentials for relationships with cameras in the home beyond everyday use. We present four key dynamics with participants and home cameras by examining their relationships to: the camera's eye, filming, their data, and camera's societal contexts. We contribute discussions about the mundane, information privacy, and post-hoc reflection with one's camera footage. Overall, our findings reveal the camera as a strange, yet banal entity in the home—interrogating how participants compose and handle their own and others’ video data. Neilly H. Tan, Brian Kinnee, Dana Langseth, Sean A. Munson, Audrey Desjardins |
CHI | 5 |
| 2022 | Monitoring Pets, Deterring Intruders, and Casually Spying on Neighbors: Everyday Uses of Smart Home CamerasabstractThe increased adoption of smart home cameras (SHCs) foregrounds issues of surveillance, power, and privacy in homes and neighborhoods. However, questions remain about how people are currently using these devices to monitor and surveil, what the benefits and limitations are for users, and what privacy and security tensions arise between primary users and other stakeholders. We present an empirical study with 14 SHC users to understand how these devices are used and integrated within everyday life. Based on semi-structured qualitative interviews, we investigate users’ motivations, practices, privacy concerns, and social negotiations. Our findings highlight the SHC as a perceptually powerful and spatially sensitive device that enables a variety of surveillant uses outside of basic home security—from formally surveilling domestic workers, to casually spying on neighbors, to capturing memories. We categorize surveillant SHC uses, clarify distinctions between primary and non-primary users, and highlight under-considered design directions for addressing power imbalances among primary and non-primary users. Neilly H. Tan, Richmond Y. Wong, Audrey Desjardins, Sean A. Munson, James Pierce 0001 |
CHI | 3 |
| 2021 | Moving Design Research: GIFs as Research ToolsabstractAnimated GIFs are often viewed as a nod to early internet culture or as tools for digital communication, but in this pictorial, we highlight a new use of GIFs, as tools for design research. We walk through four case studies from our own research that exemplify GIFs used throughout the design process as empirical probes, prototypes, communication tools, and finalized artifacts. By conducting a collaborative, reflexive analysis of these cases, we present an annotated portfolio of the goals, crafting and aesthetic choices of our GIFs and how creating GIFs added to our research. We conclude by noting that both the aesthetics of movement and the rich, concise, and contextualized nature of gifs added to our depth of thinking and ability to communicate speculative and imaginative concepts. Finally, we also suggest that research dissemination, especially for design research, would be enriched by supporting more diverse knowledge-production artifacts such as GIFs. Heidi R. Biggs, Cayla Key, Audrey Desjardins, Afroditi Psarra |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 3 |
| 2021 | Examining Opaque Infrastructures with the Desktop OdometerabstractThe information we access on the Internet appears immediately but usually lives far away. The Desktop Odometer is a device that shows users the distance they travel when browsing the web by tracking the total miles between their current location and the server from which they are requesting information. In this work, we investigated internet infrastructures by designing and producing Desktop Odometers, selling them on Amazon.com, and receiving customer reviews. We present our analysis of customer reviews which reveal how customers describe their understandings of internet infrastructures after using the device. We also recount our RtD approach to making the device; we describe frictions we encountered when navigating other opaque infrastructures in our fabrication process, such as the Google Play store. Finally, we reflect on our use of Amazon.com and customer reviews as a method to engage participants in discussion about internet infrastructure through the sale and review process. Jeremy E. Viny, Lucy Copper, Audrey Desjardins |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 3 |
| 2021 | Voices and Voids: Subverting Voice Assistant Systems through Performative ExperimentsabstractResponding to concerns such as privacy, surveillance, and the commodification of personal data with regards to voice assistants, this artistic research focuses on creating performative artifacts and vignettes that challenge artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies. By allowing AI voice assistants to listen to our most private conversations, we become receptive to their mediated care, while forgetting or ignoring how much these automated interactions have been pre-scripted. With our project Voices and Voids, we reclaim, examine, and ultimately transcode these voice assistant data through interdisciplinary performance and Post-Internet Art. In this paper, we thematically describe 12 vignettes which represent embodied and sonic experiments using a combination of design, data-driven art, cyber crafts, found-object and traditional percussion instruments, spoken word, and movement. We conclude with a discussion of how the experiments worked as a multifaceted whole, and how we used interdisciplinary methods as a central approach. Audrey Desjardins, Afroditi Psarra, Bonnie A. Whiting |
Creativity & Cognition | 1 |
| 2021 | Data Epics: Embarking on Literary Journeys of Home Internet of Things DataabstractIn this paper, we use fiction as a method to complicate the commonplace narratives of data as intangible and objective, in the particular context of Internet of Things (IoT) in the home. We, a team of two design researchers, partnered with a fiction writer and a single IoT enthusiast, Susan, to create The Data Epics: four short stories based on Susan's monthly home IoT data logs. The Data Epics revealed new imaginaries for data, showing new world-views and lively data, but also surfaced data's entanglement in meshes and hierarchies, and concerns about control and power. Our work also examines the labor of tending to and interpreting data and a particular interest in anomalies. We conclude with discussions of how data imaginaries from fiction might be imperfect, but are uniquely generative, offering a path to get closer to IoT data by trying things on and zooming in and slowing down. Audrey Desjardins, Heidi R. Biggs |
CHI | 1 |
| 2021 | Introduction to the Special Issue on First-Person Methods in HCIabstractIn this introduction to the special issue on First-Person Methods in (Human-Computer Interaction) HCI, we present a brief overview of first-person methods, their origin, and their use in Human-Computer Interaction. We also detail the difference between first-person methods, second-person, and third-person methods, as a way to guide the reader when engaging the special issue articles. We articulate our motivation for putting together this special issue: we wanted a collection of works that would allow HCI researchers to develop further, define, and outline practices, techniques and implications of first-person methods. We trace links between the articles in this special issue and conclude with questions and directions for future work in this methodological space: working with boundaries, risk, and accountability. Audrey Desjardins, Oscar Tomico, Andrés Lucero, Marta E. Cecchinato, Carman Neustaedter |
ACM Trans. Comput. Hum. Interact. | 1 |
| 2021 | Cracks in the Success Narrative: Rethinking Failure in Design Research through a Retrospective TrioethnographyabstractWhat can design researchers learn from our own and each other's failures? We explore “failure” expansively—turning away from tidy success narratives toward messy unfoldings and reflexive discomfort—through retrospective trioethnography. Our findings reflect on failures we identified in six past design research projects: issues of relational labor of deployment, mismatched designer/participant imaginaries, burden of participation, and invisibility of researcher labor. Our discussion contributes to broader reflections on shifting design research practice: (a) methodological considerations inviting others to engage failures through retrospective trioethnography, (b) letting go as a mode of research care, (c) possibilities for more candid research reporting, and (d) how centering failure may contribute to design justice by providing a technique for attending to harm and healing in design research practices. Throughout, we call for challenging success narratives in design research, and underscore the need for systemic changes in design research practice. Noura Howell, Audrey Desjardins, Sarah E. Fox |
ACM Trans. Comput. Hum. Interact. | 2 |
| 2020 | Crafting an Embodied Speculation: An Account of Prototyping MethodsabstractIn this pictorial, we show and discuss the prototyping process we undertook to craft the High Water Pants, a mechatronic pair of pants that make climate change tangible for everyday cyclists. We position the pants as an example of embodied speculation and discuss how our prototyping methods helped us craft a speculative artifact that bridged the gap between the embodied experience of cycling and speculative futures with climate change. The pictorial contributes an accounting of our prototyping methods and how they strove to connect the dual contexts of (1) how the pants felt in the present, and (2) how that in-situ feeling reflected climate change data in order to create space for cyclists' embodied speculation about possible futures with climate change. Heidi R. Biggs, Audrey Desjardins |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 2 |
| 2020 | Parallels, Tangents, and Loops: Reflections on the 'Through' Part of RtDabstractWhile attention in Research Through Design (RtD) is often on the findings, in this pictorial, we choose to attend to the 'through' part of RtD in order to reveal the messy stories of how those insights were arrived at-stories that are often untold, truncated, or streamlined. We use a yearlong RtD project on human-data entanglements in the home as a case study to explore the contours of this process. We detail how our messy lines of inquiry crossed, dead ended, wove together, and looped. Grounded in illustrations of lines, we offer practical reflections on experiences we encountered while navigating these scribbly lines. Audrey Desjardins, Cayla Key |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 1 |
| 2020 | High Water Pants: Designing Embodied Environmental SpeculationabstractIn this paper, we present the High Water Pants: speculative wearable technology which makes climate change tangible for everyday cyclists. The pants work by mechanically shortening when a cyclist wearing the pants enters an area of Seattle, USA, which is projected to be impacted by sea-level rise in 30-80 years. This interaction 'bends time' by allowing cyclists to feel future climate change data in the present. First, we discuss the research through design process of creating the High Water Pants including foundational research, a description of the design concept and results of a preliminary study with the pants. Second, we discuss three implications of the pants for human-computer interaction (HCI): (1) they offer the concept of a 'present/future' paradigm for embodied speculation, (2) our research process demonstrates how to successfully involve more-than-human perspectives, and (3) we articulate how the High Water Pants respond to shifts in HCI's framing of sustainability. Heidi R. Biggs, Audrey Desjardins |
CHI | 2 |
| 2020 | IoT Data in the Home: Observing Entanglements and Drawing New EncountersabstractInternet of Things (IoT) technologies for the home are gaining in popularity, generating exponential data byproducts. Yet, everyday relationships between home dwellers and domestic IoT data often remain secondary interactions, preventing deeper understanding and awareness of data tracked in the home. Our paper offers a design ethnography and design inquiry which examine these human-data entanglements. Findings from working with 10 inhabitants who interact with their IoT data illustrate five characteristics of current data encounters: manifesting, inquiring, exposing, repositioning, and broadening. In response, we used speculative sketches to refine, refract and complicate these encounters. We argue that data do not have to be laborious, tidy or the byproduct of a service, but rather lively and affecting. We further suggest new modes of engagement with data which expand or step away from self-improvement and reflection: through diverse acts of noticing, by allowing data to remain invisible, and by embracing imaginative practices. Audrey Desjardins, Heidi R. Biggs, Cayla Key, Jeremy E. Viny |
CHI | 1 |
| 2019 | Bespoke Booklets: A Method for Situated Co-SpeculationabstractWe present Bespoke Booklets: a design research method utilizing booklets of situated, imaginary, and personalized conceptual sketches to co-speculatively envision alternative futures (in our case for domestic Internet of Things). The Bespoke Booklets create a space where designers and participants can co-imagine alternative futures while also engaging each other at the level of embodied experiences. After refining our method, we discovered it had many qualities previously championed by feminist HCI and STS theorists. To this end, we draw out, analyze, and critique our method using feminist concepts as a lens to emphasize four specific qualities: collaborative, post-functional, situated, and partial. We found that the booklets, as material artifacts, were a productive tool to generate a physical record of our co-speculation and a fruitful catalyst for research that reflects feminist theory, offering an example of how it can be used as a heuristic for design methodologies. Audrey Desjardins, Cayla Key, Heidi R. Biggs, Kelsey Aschenbeck |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 1 |
| 2019 | ListeningCups: A Case of Data Tactility and Data StoriesabstractIn this pictorial, we present the ListeningCups: a set of 3D printed porcelain cups embedded with datasets of everyday ambient sounds. During a one-week pilot project, a ceramic artist and an interaction design researcher collaborated to explore meaning making around everyday data (sound in our case). We developed a workflow to capture data, prepare datasets, transcribe data from decibels to G-code, and create a set of 3D printed porcelain cups which represent this data in a textural and tactile form. We discuss how our work also included aesthetic investigative practices as well as data accidents. We conclude by contributing two concepts-data tactility and data stories-that can serve as starting points for designers, artists, or researchers interested in the intersection of materiality, data, fabrication, and ceramics. Audrey Desjardins, Timea Tihanyi |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 1 |
| 2019 | Autoethnography of a Hard of Hearing TravelerabstractTravel experiences offer a diverse view into an individual's interactions with different cultures, societies, and places. In this paper, we present a 2.5-year autoethnographic travel account of a hard of hearing individual-Jain. Through retrospective journals and field notes, we reveal the tensions and nuances in his travel, including the magnified difficulty of social conversations, issues with navigating unfamiliar environments and cultural contexts, and changes in the relationship to personal assistive technologies. By exploring the longitudinal travel experiences of a single individual, we uncover evocative and personal insights rarely available through participant-based research methods. Based on these lived experiences and post hoc reflections, we present two design explorations of personalized technology the autoethnographer created for aiding his travel. Finally, we offer reflections for customized travel technologies for deaf and hard of hearing users, and methodological guidelines for performing first-person research in the context of disability. Dhruv Jain, Audrey Desjardins, Leah Findlater, Jon Froehlich |
ASSETS | 2 |
| 2019 | Alternative Avenues for IoT: Designing with Non-Stereotypical HomesabstractWe report on the findings of a co-speculative design inquiry that investigates alternative visions of the Internet of Things (IoT) for the home. We worked with 16 people living in non-stereotypical homes to develop situated and personal concepts attuned to their home. As a prompt for co-speculation and discussion, we created handmade booklets where we took turns overlaying sketched design concepts on top of photos taken with participants in their homes. Our findings reveal new avenues for the design of IoT systems such as: acknowledging porous boundaries of the home, exposing neighborly relations, exploring diverse timescales, revisiting agency, and embracing imaginary and potential uses. We invite human-computer interaction and design researchers to use these avenues as starting points to broaden current assumptions embedded in design and research practices for domestic technologies. We conclude by highlighting the value of examining divergent perspectives and surfacing the unseen. Audrey Desjardins, Jeremy E. Viny, Cayla Key, Nouela Johnston |
CHI | 1 |
| 2018 | Revealing Tensions in Autobiographical Design in HCIabstractWhile self-usage has long been regarded as a questionable approach in human-computer interaction (HCI) research, recent projects have shown the successful use of autobiographical design as a method to investigate long-term and intimate relations between people and technologies in everyday life. In an effort to continue the development of methodological best practices, we need to acknowledge with more nuance the tensions that arise in use. In this paper, we articulate such tensions by examining two first-hand accounts of using autobiographical design and four autobiographical design projects of other HCI researchers. Our findings address: genuine needs, design participation, intimacy, reflexivity, and authorial voice. Our contribution is constituted of critical insights into the complexities of using autobiographical design and recommendations for researchers interested in using this method. Audrey Desjardins, Aubree Ball |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 1 |
| 2018 | Deployments of the table-non-table: A Reflection on the Relation Between Theory and Things in the Practice of Design ResearchabstractDesign-oriented research in HCI has increasingly migrated towards theoretical perspectives to understand the implications of newly crafted technology in everyday life. However, in this context, the relations between theory and understanding the things we make are not always clear, especially the degree to which the nature of research artifacts is revealed through or determined by theory. We examine a series of field deployment studies we conducted with our research artifact table-non-table over the course of four and a half years that we came to see as a postphenomenological inquiry. Importantly, our interpretations of this artifact, methodological concerns, and theoretical groundings evolved over time. We account for and critically reflect on these shifts in the relationship between theory and our design artifact. We detail how theory was enacted and embodied in our design research practice and offer insights into the complex relations between theory and things in design-oriented HCI research. Sabrina Hauser, Ron Wakkary, William Odom, Peter-Paul Verbeek, Audrey Desjardins, Henry W. J. Lin, Matthew A. Dalton, Markus Lorenz Schilling, Gijs de Boer |
CHI | 5 |
| 2016 | Behind the Lens: A Visual Exploration of Epistemological Commitments in HCI Research on the HomeabstractIn this pictorial, we propose an alternative approach to investigating human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers' epistemological commitments in research on the home. While researchers' commitments can be discussed through textual aspects of their research, in this pictorial we conduct a pattern analysis of visual elements as a productive way to further inquire into such kinds of commitments. By analyzing visual elements from 121 works in HCI research on the home, we identify seven types of observers, which can be associated with epistemological commitments in research. We also propose two new complementary observers: the absent observer and the protagonist observer. Audrey Desjardins, Ron Wakkary, William Odom |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 1 |
| 2016 | Productive Frictions: Moving from Digital to Material Prototyping and Low-Volume Production for Design ResearchabstractIn this paper we discuss the low-volume production of an interaction design research product known as the tilting bowl. The form of the tilting bowl was designed with 3D modeling tools and utilized digital fabrication for rapid prototyping. The final form was produced in a small number of glazed ceramic forms with embedded electronics and actuators. We focus on the lessons we learned from the challenges and design opportunities that arose in moving from digital processes to ceramic processes. We reflected on these lessons and developed thematic notions we refer to as frictions. These include shifting constraints, naïve expertise, manual automation, and dynamic materiality. The contributions of this paper are new design insights into the combination of digital and material processes for studio based prototyping and low-volume production and adds to the emerging relevance of digital fabrication, physical fabrication, and physical materials to interaction design and HCI research. Ron Wakkary, Henry W. J. Lin, Shannon Mortimer, Lauren Low, Audrey Desjardins, Keith Doyle, Philip Robbins |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 5 |
| 2016 | Living In A Prototype: A Reconfigured SpaceabstractIn this paper, we present a twenty-three months autobiographical design project of converting a Mercedes Sprinter van into a camper van. This project allows us to investigate the complexities and nuances of a case where people engage in a process of making, transforming and adapting a space they live in. This example opens a radically different and productive context for revisiting concepts that are currently at the center of human-computer interaction (HCI) research: ubiquitous computing, home automation, smart homes, and the Internet of Things. We offer six qualities characterizing the evolving relationship between the makers and the lived-in environment: the van. We conclude with a discussion on the two themes of living in a reconfigured home and prototype qualities in a reconfigured space, and a critical reflection around the theme of the invariably unfinished home. Audrey Desjardins, Ron Wakkary |
CHI | 1 |
| 2016 | From Research Prototype to Research ProductabstractPrototypes and prototyping have had a long and important history in the HCI community and have played a highly significant role in creating technology that is easier and more fulfilling to use. Yet, as focus in HCI is expanding to investigate complex matters of human relationships with technology over time in the intimate and contested contexts of everyday life, the notion of a 'prototype' may not be fully sufficient to support these kinds of inquiries. We propose the research product as an extension and evolution of the research prototype to support generative inquiries in this emerging research area. We articulate four interrelated qualities of research products inquiry-driven, finish, fit, and independent and draw on these qualities to describe and analyze five different yet related design research cases we have collectively conducted over the past six years. We conclude with a discussion of challenges and opportunities for crafting research products and the implications they suggest for future design-oriented HCI research. William Odom, Ron Wakkary, Youn-Kyung Lim, Audrey Desjardins, Bart Hengeveld, Richard Banks |
CHI | 4 |
| 2016 | Avalanche Beacon Parks: Skill Development and Team Coordination in a Technological Training GroundabstractHigh-risk outdoor recreation allows its enthusiasts to reach unprecedented levels of adrenaline; it also contains risks and requires specific training (in part technological). In particular, its participants must be ready to react efficiently during an emergency or in response to an accident. Technological training grounds can simulate particular contexts and emergency situations as a place for recreationists to train and practice. In this paper, we use the practice of avalanche companion rescue as a case study to explore how technological training grounds support recreationist training. Our results offer insights into how avalanche beacon training parks support skill development and team coordination training. We also present strategies to orient the design of technological training grounds beyond avalanche companion rescue. Audrey Desjardins, Saul Greenberg, Ron Wakkary, Jeff Hambelton |
CSCW | 1 |
| 2016 | Unselfconscious Interaction: A Conceptual ConstructabstractIn this article, we present unselfconscious interaction, a conceptual construct that describes a form of interaction with computational artifacts animated by incremental intersections that lead to improvements in the relationships among artifacts, environments and people. We draw on Christopher Alexander's notion of goodness of fit and unselfconscious culture, and utilize Erik Stolterman and Mikael Wiberg's concept-driven interaction research to analyze three interaction design concept artifacts to develop the construct of unselfconscious interaction for human–computer interaction. The resulting construct is comprised of the motivation of goodness of fit that is supported by two design qualities we name open-endedness and lived-with. We describe tensions within the construct, the notion of purposeful purposelessness in design and discuss the features that derive from Alexander's unselfconscious culture and are to be considered when designing for goodness of fit: resources, adaptation, ensembles, time and anonymity. Our main contribution in this article lies in the articulation of the construct of unselfconscious interaction. Ron Wakkary, Audrey Desjardins, Sabrina Hauser |
Interact. Comput. | 2 |
| 2015 | Investigating Genres and Perspectives in HCI Research on the HomeabstractThe home and domestic experiences have been studied from multiple points of view and disciplines, with an array of methodologies in the past twenty-five years in HCI. Given the attention to the home and the volume of research, what further areas of research might there be? Based on a critical analysis of 121 works on the topic, we present seven genres of domestic technology research in HCI: social routines in the home, ongoing domestic practices, the home as a testing ground, smart homes, contested values of a home, the home as a site for interpretation, and speculative visions of the home. We articulate dominant research perspectives in HCI, and we offer two complementary perspectives about how to investigate the domestic experience in future research: the material perspective and the first person perspective. Audrey Desjardins, Ron Wakkary, William Odom |
CHI | 1 |
| 2015 | Tutorial Authorship and Hybrid Designers: The Joy (and Frustration) of DIY TutorialsabstractTutorials are critical to the success and vitality of DIY practices. In this paper, we elevate the importance of tutorial authorship as one way to maintain and improve the quality of tutorials in DIY. We discuss the role interaction designers can play as hybrid designers, mediating between author and audience to contribute to the improvement of practices of tutorial authorship in DIY. We examine the quality of tutorials through the building and analysis of ten DIY projects and tutorials. We analyze key issues across three categories: 1) competences, components and tools, 2) sequencing, 3) and communication. We offer findings that are both practical guidelines for detailed improvements of tutorials and structural themes for improving tutorial authorship including the themes of accurate information, competences and tools, and tutorial format. In conclusion, we discuss the potential for interaction designers to simultaneously mediate and shape tutorials and tools in a form of hybrid design. Ron Wakkary, Markus Lorenz Schilling, Matthew A. Dalton, Sabrina Hauser, Audrey Desjardins, Henry W. J. Lin |
CHI | 5 |
| 2014 | Eclipse: eliciting the subjective qualities of public placesabstractIn this Pictorial we explain and describe Eclipse, a method aimed at eliciting subjective qualities of people's experiences of and relationships with public places. Our method guides participants to sequentially explore their memories, sensations, sense of place, and stories related to a public place. Our goal is to present this method in a pictorial form to make it more concise and more easily usable by other interaction designers; in this, we want to depict the richness and qualities of the elicitations, and ultimately the subjective qualities of a public place. Ron Wakkary, Audrey Desjardins, William Odom, Sabrina Hauser, Leila Aflatoony |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 2 |
| 2014 | Collaboration surrounding beacon use during companion avalanche rescueabstractWhen facing an avalanche, backcountry skiers need to work effectively both individually and as a group to rescue buried victims. If they don't, death is likely. One of the tools used by each person is a digital beacon that transmits an electromagnetic signal. If buried, others use their beacons to locate victims by searching for their signals, and then dig them out. This study focuses on the collaborative practices of avalanche rescue and the interactions with beacons while backcountry skiing. We conducted interviews with backcountry recreationists and experts, and we observed avalanche rescue practice scenarios. Our results highlight aspects and challenges of mental representation, trust, distributed cognition, and practice. Implications include three considerations for the redesign of beacons: simplicity, visibility and practice. Audrey Desjardins, Carman Neustaedter, Saul Greenberg, Ron Wakkary |
CSCW | 1 |
| 2014 | Loupe: a handheld near-eye displayabstractLoupe is a novel interactive device with a near-eye virtual display similar to head-up display glasses that retains a handheld form factor. We present our hardware implementation and discuss our user interface that leverages Loupe's unique combination of properties. In particular, we present our input capabilities, spatial metaphor, opportunities for using the round aspect of Loupe, and our use of focal depth. We demonstrate how those capabilities come together in an example application designed to allow quick access to information feeds. Kent Lyons, Seung Wook Kim 0004, Shigeyuki Seko, David H. Nguyen, Audrey Desjardins, Mélodie Vidal, David Dobbelstein, Jeremy Rubin |
UIST | 5 |
| 2013 | Manifestations of everyday design: guiding goals and motivationsabstractThis paper explores the relationship between goals, materials and competences in the practice of everyday design. Appropriations and creative uses of design artifacts are often reported in terms of outcomes and goals; however, we observe a gap in understanding how materials, tools, and competences are also involved in these processes. We conduct a multiple case study of three groups of everyday designers: families, hobbyist jewelers, and steampunk enthusiasts. We provide a description of the aspects of meaning, materials, and competences, as well as how they are interrelated, for each case. Our findings show that amongst these three aspects of the practice of everyday designers, it is the meaning of the practice that acts as the strongest motivator for practitioners. Materials, tools, and competences are hence largely determined accordingly. The implications of this study propose ways to design for practices with different types of meaning: foundational, aesthetic, and aspirational goals. Audrey Desjardins, Ron Wakkary |
Creativity & Cognition | 1 |
| 2013 | Democratizing technology: pleasure, utility and expressiveness in DIY and maker practiceabstractDIY, hacking, and craft have recently drawn attention in HCI and CSCW, largely as a collaborative and creative hobbyist practice. We shift the focus from the recreational elements of this practice to the ways in which it democratizes design and manufacturing. This democratized technological practice, we argue, unifies playfulness, utility, and expressiveness, relying on some industrial infrastructures while creating demand for new types of tools and literacies. Thriving on top of collaborative digital systems, the Maker movement both implicates and impacts professional designers. As users move more towards personalization and reappropriation, new design opportunities are created for HCI. Tess Tanenbaum, Amanda M. Williams, Audrey Desjardins, Karen Tanenbaum |
CHI | 3 |
| 2013 | A sustainable design fiction: Green practicesabstractIn this article, we argue that an approach informed by practice theory coupled with design fiction provides useful insights into the role of interaction design with respect to environmental sustainability. We argue that a practice-oriented approach can help interaction designers step away from models of individual behavior and studies of artifacts towards seeing sustainable behaviors as part of multidimensional and interrelated practices and practice elements. We analyze two previously conducted studies. The first study of everyday repair focuses on how people repair their broken objects. The second study of green-DIY examines how green enthusiasts facilitate their practices of making sustainable DIY (do-it-yourself) projects. We describe the practices of everyday repairers and green enthusiasts in terms of materials, competences, and meanings, and the interrelations among those elements, using the framework of Shove et al. [2012]. We argue that understanding the dynamics of practice and their unique configurations is a starting point to redefine the roles of sustainable interaction design (SID). We propose that designers design towards resources and tools in ways that reflect on the challenges of intelligibility of their design interventions in practices. In addition to considering SID in the light of practice theories, we reveal how design fictions are readily incorporated into green practices in ways that transform those practices and hold implications for transformations of design as well. We bring forward opportunities for designers to co-design with DIY enthusiasts, targeted as practitioners in their own right, designing toward or within a design fiction. As a result, we conclude with the possibility for sustainable interaction designers to become practice-oriented designers who design with transparent open strategies and accessible materials and competences. Ron Wakkary, Audrey Desjardins, Sabrina Hauser, Leah Maestri |
ACM Trans. Comput. Hum. Interact. | 2 |
| 2012 | Memory-storming: externalizing and sharing designers' personal experiencesabstractIn this paper, we describe memory-storming, a design technique that combines oral storytelling with sketching to externalize designers' personal experiences. The proposition behind developing this method is that designers' personal experiences are a potential design resource that can trigger new design insights and ideas. This paper provides a description of our use of this method, shows how it helped us in our design research, and presents lessons learned. We claim that memory-storming is a design technique that focuses on designers' personal experiences yet complements the user focus of user-centered design. Ron Wakkary, Leah Maestri, Audrey Desjardins |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 4 |
| 2011 | How children represent sustainability in the homeabstractThis paper describes an exploratory study about children's perspective on sustainability in the house through a drawing-telling method. Here, we describe the methodological framework used for interviewing children about issues related to sustainability using the drawing-telling technique as described by Susan Wright [26]. The participants (children from age 9 to 13) were asked to draw two houses and then describe their drawings in terms of sustainable actions and features. The results show how the participants understand sustainability and how they represent it in the context of a house. This pilot study is an initial step to investigate if there are opportunities to develop eco-visualizations (EVs) for children. The goal of this study is to inform the design of eco-visualizations for children based on their understanding of sustainability and their own visualization of their homes. Audrey Desjardins, Ron Wakkary |
IDC | 1 |