As data becomes integral to civic processes and resource distribution, there is a need for methods in which communities generate, interpret, and act on data to address their priorities. We introduce ROOTED (Reclaiming and Organizing Our Truths for Equity through Data), a community-centered framework grounded in Black Feminist Thought. By cultivating community data practices, ROOTED helps residents leverage their local insights, lived experiences, and data to pursue equitable outcomes by using data as a tool for advocacy, organizing, and local transformation. Through two case studies, we demonstrate how researchers and communities can collaboratively implement ROOTED. Our findings suggest that residents use data to build power and relationships to collectively achieve their goals. This paper contributes a framework and case study examples that demonstrate how to design community data systems and practices that produce actionable outcomes aligned with residents’ visions for their futures.

Research on technology for older people focuses on older people's experiences-and understandably so. However, the phenomena of othering, or seeing this group as different and worse off, is a persistent problem. In this project, we turned inwards through an 8-month collaborative autoethnography to understand our own experiences with technology issues and supporting others in technology use. We found that each member of our mixed age group faced pervasive and burdensome technology issues and recognized that some of the burden is associated with the evolution of technology tools. Our work contributes an expanded understanding of aging as a sociotechnical process and identifies counternarratives to implicit assumptions we held as HCI researchers working with older people. Our research also shows how reflexive positional methods can surface often unexamined experiences with technology issues and aging among researchers.

There has been growing attention in HCI to the potential for community-based participatory research (CBPR) to cause harm to community partners. Extractive research is when researchers take ''data'' (i.e., stories, knowledge) and other resources (e.g., time, labor) from communities but provide little in return. Scholars have examined collaboration practices, but this work has yet to focus on data analysis. We (academic and community researchers) explore the benefits, challenges, and power dynamics involved in collaborative analysis. We reflected on our process to co-analyze workshop data from a community-led initiative through member-checking interviews and a duo ethnography. In this paper, we detail the co-analysis approach we used and examine how structural power can incentivize extractive research practices. We pose that co-analyzing data according to community-defined questions can mitigate harm and advance community partners' goals.

Community-based partnerships are essential to creating inclusive and equitable technologies and design practices. Though recent scholarship in HCI focuses on equitable design practices, there is less focus on understanding the experiences of community-based nonprofit organizations (CBOs) when partnering with technology companies. In this paper, we focus on understanding the perspectives of CBOs by answering the following research question: What are the experiences of CBOs that have collaborated with technology companies? Through a series of design workshops with 18 participants who work at community-based nonprofits that have collaborated with technology firms, we identified four elements of community-industry collaborations that collectively shape the overall experience: divergences in cultural and organizational norms, ''setting the table,'' project relationship dynamics, and affective qualities. We conclude by discussing the power structures that impact community-industry collaboration and suggest reflective practices to guide equitable collaborations between CBOs and tech companies.

Conversational voice assistants are often imbued with personality and human-like characteristics (e.g., gender). While researchers have begun to examine and design for the downstream societal impacts of voice assistants encoding characteristics such as gender, we know little about other human-like characteristics such as age that are encoded in an artificial, yet, anthropomorphic voice. As older adults continue to adopt voice assistants, we brought older adults into an activity to customize human-like characteristics for their voice assistant. Our findings reveal the different stereotypes and assumptions individuals associated with voice assistant characteristics (e.g., age, gender, race). We also describe individuals' motivations behind customizing or not customizing these characteristics. We discuss how biases get encoded through our design process, marginalizing older adults and other non-dominant user groups and call for a need to examine the systemic, yet unspoken, power structures encoded in anthropomorphic technologies.

Platforms like Nextdoor and Citizen can increase users’ fear of crime by broadcasting frequent, local, and personalized information about potential safety risks. These platforms can contribute to a dysfunctional fear of crime, which undermines a person’s quality of life and mental health without actually making them feel safer. In this work, we conducted a mixed-methods study to understand the potential for design to foster a functional fear of crime, which motivates precaution without negatively impacting quality of life. We first interview individuals with a dysfunctional fear of crime and then validate interview results with a survey. Through this process, we identified five strategies for designers to support users in developing a more functional fear of crime. These strategies surface overarching theoretical and design implications for designers and researchers of safety platform with the ultimate goal of supporting safety, quality of life, and mental health for users of these platforms.

Research suggests that despite the growing number of Black women who intend to major in computer science, adverse experiences in hostile computing degree programs contribute to their leaving the field as an act of resistance. The Black women who choose to persist utilize various mechanisms to help them navigate hostile environments within computing. One such mechanism is social capital where Black women leverage their social connections with others in the field of computing. As a part of a larger study that explores the role that social capital plays for Black women in computing, we used the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS) to ask 14 Black women in three virtual focus groups about the social influences that impact their ability to persist in computing. Results reveal that spirituality is a large part of persistence in computing. However, SCCBS privileges certain religious denominations as part of the narrative of what constitutes acceptable religious practices in the United States. Black women criticize the SCCBS as being non-inclusive of the Black experience in the U.S. Furthermore, Black women indicate that spirituality more so than religious affiliations provides strong social connections that affirm their sense of self while providing a community of support.

Despite the emergence of intersectional computing and increased scholarship that utilizes the concept of intersectionality, there is a lack of consensus about the appropriation of intersectionality as a critical framework within the computing education community. Intersectionality provides a critical lens for understanding and analyzing the complexity in human experiences that are shaped by multiple social constructs (race, gender, class, etc.) in mutually influencing ways. What lies at the heart of the matter is acknowledging the humanity of intersectional populations to create safe spaces and a sense of belonging in the computing community. However, using Eurocentric research methods when working with intersectional populations tends to further marginalize them. Calling into question the validity of Eurocentric methods, we argue for alternative ways of knowing in CS education research that affirm intersectional populations. Applying critical autoethnography to our own body of computing education research, we leverage Black feminist epistemologies or Black women's ways of knowing to differentiate intersectional studies from studies of intersectional populations.

Deceptive design patterns (known as dark patterns) are interface characteristics which modify users’ choice architecture to gain users’ attention, data, and money. Deceptive design patterns have yet to be documented in safety technologies despite evidence that designers of safety technologies make decisions that can powerfully influence user behavior. To address this gap, we conduct a case study of the Citizen app, a commercially available technology which notifies users about local safety incidents. We bound our study to Atlanta and triangulate interview data with an analysis of the user interface. Our results indicate that Citizen heightens users’ anxiety about safety while encouraging the use of profit-generating features which offer security. These findings contribute to an emerging conversation about how deceptive design patterns interact with sociocultural factors to produce deceptive infrastructure. We propose the need to expand an existing taxonomy of harm to include emotional load and social injustice and offer recommendations for designers interested in dismantling the deceptive infrastructure of safety technologies.

With increased focus on historically excluded populations, there have been recent calls for HCI research methods to more adequately acknowledge and address the historical context of racism, sexism, gendered racism, epistemic violence, classism, and so on. In this article, we utilize Black feminist epistemologies to serve as critical frameworks for understanding the historical context that reveals the interconnected systems of power that mutually influence one another to create unequal outcomes or social inequalities for different populations. Leveraging Black feminist thought (BFT) and intersectionality as critical social theories of design praxis, we introduce intersectional analysis of power—a method that enables HCI researchers, designers, and practitioners to identify and situate saturated sites of violence in a historical context and to transform the ways in which they engage with populations that have been historically oppressed. Engaging in self-reflection as researchers, we apply an intersectional analysis of power to co-design technologies with community street outreach workers who address violence in their predominantly Black communities. We: (1) identify the saturated site of violence; (2) identify the intersecting systems of power and who holds power (past and present); (3) describe the “conceptual glue” that binds these intersecting systems together and the assumption(s) that those who hold power are employing to guide their interactions; (4) examine the ways in which Black people are subjugated, surveilled, and/or expected to assimilate to “normative” ways of being and behaving; and (5) identify acts of resistance. This article contributes an alternative to traditional HCI and design methods that falsely perpetuate a lens of neutrality and colorblindness that centers on whiteness, innovation, and capitalism and ignores the history of State-sanctioned violence and structural oppression.

With increased public scrutiny of policing and growing calls for community-based violence prevention, street outreach programs that hire residents to mediate conflicts in their neighborhoods are gaining support. To understand how street outreach workers (SOWs) use information and communication technologies (ICTs) and how they envision future ICTs that better support their work, we interviewed 25 SOWs across three organizations. Results suggest that SOWs leverage ICTs to: 1) identify and mediate conflict; 2) support collaboration and teamwork; and 3) invoke community connections and trust. SOWs posit that new ICTs could provide a seamless infrastructure for communication among SOWs and between community members, assist with training to sharpen conflict negotiation skills, and provide insight on effective conflict mediation strategies.

This study focuses on the effectiveness of parent communication and engagement in an out-of-school (OST) STEM program for Black and Latina middle school girls. Through analysis of email open rates, a post-program survey, and attendance records, we found that our communication was successful in reaching parents, despite a drop in parent participation in online events during the pandemic. Our results suggest that communication efforts should be consistent, personalized, and inclusive. For CS educators interested in engaging families, we propose that a multi-layered communication approach is required to maintain connection with parents, especially during unpredictable circumstances.

Despite numerous CS education pedagogical interventions, the pipeline of Black women in Computing has not increased, which illustrates the need to address structural issues (such as racism, sexism, power, and privilege) that impact Black women's intersectional identities. Without honest conversations about power relations within the field of Computing, one cannot expect to engender social change that equates to equity for all CS students. Leveraging intersectionality as a critical framework, we interview 18 Black women about their experiences navigating the computing education ecosystem. Intersectional analysis of Black women's experiences reveals that CS education consists of saturated sites of violence in which interconnected systems of power converge to enact oppression. Findings reveal three saturated sites of violence within CS education: 1. traditional K-12 classrooms; 2. predominantly White institutions; and 3. internships as supplementary learning experiences.

Global protests and civil unrest in 2020 has renewed the world’s interest in addressing injustice due to structural racism and oppression toward Black and Latinx people in all aspects of society, including computing. In this article, we argue that to address and repair the harm created by institutions, policies, and practices that have systematically excluded Black and Latina girls from computer science, an intersectional, transformative justice approach must be taken. Leveraging testimonial authority, we share our past 8 years of experience designing, implementing, and studying Digital Youth Divas, a programmatic and systemic approach to encouraging middle school Black and Latina girls to participate in STEM. Specifically, we propose three principles to counter structural racism and oppression embedded in society and computing education: computing education must (1) address local histories of injustice by engaging community members; (2) counter negative stereotypes perpetuated in computer science by creating inclusive safe spaces and counter-narratives; and (3) build sustainable, computational capacity in communities. To illustrate each principle, we provide specific examples of the harm created by racist policies and systems and their effect on a specific community. We then describe our attempt to create counter structures and the subsequent outcomes for the girls, their families, and the community. This work contributes a framework for STEM and computing educators to integrate transformative justice as a method of repairing the harm that both society and the field of computing has and continues to cause Black and Latinx communities. We charge policy makers, educators, researchers, and community leaders to examine histories of oppression in their communities and to adopt holistic, transformative approaches that counter structural oppression at the individual and system level.

Despite the increasing number of women receiving bachelor’s degrees in computing (i.e., Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, etc.), a closer look reveals that the percentage of Black women in computing has significantly dropped in recent years, highlighting the underrepresentation of Black women and its negative impact on broadening participation in the field of computing. The literature reveals that several K-16 interventions have been designed to increase the representation of Black women and girls in computing. Despite these best efforts, the needle seems to have barely moved in increasing the representation or the retention of Black women in computing. Instead, the primary goals have been to recruit and retain women in the CS pipeline using gender-focused efforts intended to increase the number of women who also identify as members of racialized groups. However, these gender-focused efforts have fallen short of increasing the number of Black women in computing because they fail to acknowledge or appreciate how intersectionality (the overlapping social constructs of gender, race, ethnicity, class, etc.) has shaped the lived experiences of Black women navigating the computing pipeline. Without honest dialogue about how power operates in the field of computing, the push for racial equality and social justice in CS education remains an elusive goal. Leveraging intersectionality as a critical framework to address systemic oppression (i.e., racism, gender discrimination, power, and privilege), we interview 24 Black women in different phases of the computing pipeline about their experiences navigating the field of computing. An intersectional analysis of Black women’s experiences reveals that CS education consists of saturated sites of violence in which interconnected systems of power converge to enact oppression. Findings reveal three primary saturated sites of violence within CS education: (1) traditional K-12 classrooms; (2) predominantly White institutions; and (3) internships as supplementary learning experiences. We conclude the article with implications for how the field of CS education can begin to address racial inequality that negatively impacts Black girls and women, thus contributing to a more equitable and socially just field of study that benefits all students.

Street outreach is a violence prevention model in which organizations hire residents with strong relationships and local expertise to mediate violent conflicts in their communities. We present the results of a two-year co-design engagement between a street outreach organization and academic researchers in which we collaboratively designed, built, and deployed a mobile application (the Street Peace app) to support street outreach workers (SOWs). Three different street outreach organizations in Chicago adopted the app for two months. Results suggest that the app supported SOWs' transformative justice practices to build a counter-structure to traditional policing, which is historically oppressive to Black communities. The SOWs used the app to mediate potentially violent conflicts without police involvement, build community through in-person events, and extend their communities of care through positive stories and narratives that countered harmful stereotypes about Black criminality. By affording SOWs more agency over their communication with each other, the app enabled SOWs to connect their strengths and scale their existing practices that combat structural oppression and prefigure liberatory futures.

Computer Science outreach programs for Black and Latinx communities are often led by those who are not of the community for which they are building. While there are programs that exist that are being ran by Black and Latinx men and women, they are often conducted in siloes and are not given the resources that other programs are given. This session will serve as a gathering for Black and Latinx BPC program leaders to share resources that could help with operations, funding, and collaboration amongst themselves and other external stakeholders.

To address participation inequities among youth in computer science programs, this study examined how parents evaluate out- of-school time (OST) STEM programs for their children. We facilitated a workshop and conducted interviews with parents in Digital Youth Divas (DYD), an OST STEM program for middle-school girls who are underrepresented in computing. We found that parents prefer programs that are free, at accessible locations, and run by reputable educational institutions. Parents also identified barriers such as the lack of a parent network and conflicting schedules. These challenges must be addressed in order to encourage participation in OST computing science programs.

In this paper, three Black women in HCI and CSCW share their experiences of being Black women academics enduring a global pandemic that is disportionately impacting the Black community while simultaneously experiencing the civil unrest due to racial injustice and police brutality. Using Black feminist epistemologies as a theoretical framework and auto-ethnography and testimonial authority as both methodology and epistemic resistance, the authors exercise epistemic agency to testify to their lived intersectional experiences and the various fronts on which they fight to be seen, to be heard, and to live. Additionally, they advocate for more inclusionary policies of Black women and other marginalized populations within the CSCW and HCI communities. We conclude with a call to action for both communities to: 1) stand in solidarity with Blacks in computing; and 2) acknowledge, disavow, and dismantle Whiteness and oppressive power structures in the field of computing, specifically HCI and CSCW.

Cities are increasingly integrating sensing and information and communication technologies to improve municipal services, civic engagement, and quality of life for residents. Although these civic technologies have the potential to affect economic, social, and environmental factors, there has been less focus on residents of lower income communities' involvement in civic technology design. Based on two public forums held in underserved communities, we describe residents' perceptions of civic technologies in their communities and challenges that limit the technologies' viability. We found that residents viewed civic technology as a tool that should strengthen existing community assets by providing an avenue to connect assets and build upon them. We describe how an asset-based approach can move us toward designing civic technology that develops stronger relationships among community-led initiatives, and between the community and local government--- rather than a data-driven approach to civic tech that focuses on transactions between residents and city services.

Participatory Design (PD) is envisioned as an approach to democratizing innovation in the design process by shifting the power dynamics between researcher and participant. Recent scholarship in HCI and design has analyzed the ways collaborative design engagements, such as PD situated in the design workshop can amplify voices and empower underserved populations. Yet, we argue that PD as instantiated in the design workshop is very much an affluent and privileged activity that often neglects the challenges associated with envisioning equitable design solutions among underserved populations. Based on two series of community-based PD workshops with underserved populations in the U.S., we highlight key areas of tension and considerations for a more equitable PD approach: historical context of the research environment, community access, perceptions of materials and activities, and unintentional harm in collecting full accounts of personal narratives. By reflecting on these tensions as a call-to-action, we hope to deconstruct the privilege of the PD workshop within HCI and re-center the focus of design on individuals who are historically underserved.

The partnership between local residents and city officials to inform policy and decision-making about government resources, or participatory governance, has been extensively studied. In addition to numerous ethnographic studies about how citizens engage in-person, there has been increased focus in HCI to understand the impact of technology on citizen participation in local governance. Building upon those studies, this paper provides unique insight from a 3-year longitudinal study on the use of online tools that were organically adapted by citizens to engage in local governance in three diverse Chicago neighborhoods. Though the responsiveness of government officials varied across communities, our results suggest that citizens use technology to heighten the visibility of their concerns, to support mechanisms of government accountability, and to provide various options for resident participation in local governance. We argue that while communities may be effective in their use of ICTs, technology may not increase their political power.

In this paper, we describe how people perceive the use of social media to support crime prevention in their communities. Based on survey and interview data from residents in high- and low-crime neighborhoods in Chicago, we found that African Americans, people from high-crime neighborhoods, and people with low levels of trust in local police are less likely to view social media as an appropriate tool to support citizens or the police in local crime prevention efforts. Residents' concerns include information getting into the wrong hands, trolls, and being perceived as a snitch. Despite concerns with usage, citizens also viewed social media as a tool that can supplement in-person crime prevention efforts and facilitate relationship-building and information sharing. We discuss the complexities of hyper-local usage of social media to combat crime by describing the social and historical contexts in which these tools exist.

Despite the growing promotion of the “open data” movement, the collection, cleaning, management, interpretation, and dissemination of open data is laborious and cost intensive, particularly for non-profits with limited resources. In this paper, we describe how non-profit organizations (NPOs) use open data, building on prior literature that focuses on understanding challenges that NPOs face. Based on 15 interviews of staff from 10 NPOs, our results suggest that NPOs use data to develop narratives to build a case for support from grantors and other stakeholders. We then present empirical results based on the usage of a data portal we created, which suggests that technologies should be designed to not only make data accessible, but also to facilitate communication and support relationships between expert data analysts and NPOs.

This paper describes how online conversations about crime amongst local residents impact offline behavior. We conducted a three-year study in five middle to low-income geographically-bound communities (defined as police beats), where we observed community meetings for two years, interviewed 45 residents, and performed qualitative content analysis on over 7,000 online messages on community-based email lists and web forums. Interviewees reported that community-based online communication influenced how they 1) protect themselves and their property to avoid victimization and 2) participate and engage in local in-person civic engagement initiatives. This paper provides insights into the relationship between online and offline behavior and implications for designing community-based ICTs that effectively address local issues.

For decades, HCI scholars have designed technology for the domestic space. Many of these systems aim to protect the home and its residents by requesting help from local authorities during emergency situations. While the use of these systems have been examined, few studies attempt to understand the behavior of potential offenders who can create such emergency situations (e.g., by attempting a burglary). This paper analyzes three panel sessions with 15 people who have been convicted of burglarizing homes, cars, and/or businesses. Participants describe in detail what they looked for when deciding to burglarize a home and what deterred them. Technologies such as security systems, alarms, and cameras do not dissuade burglars. Instead, evidence of neighborhood cohesion was named the strongest deterrent. This paper presents implications for designing technologies that will effectively discourage burglary and support citizen activism.