E-commerce sites have an incentive to encourage impulse buying, even when not in the consumer's best interest. This study investigates what features e-commerce sites use to encourage impulse buying and what tools consumers desire to curb their online spending. We present two studies: (1) a systematic content analysis of 200 top e-commerce websites in the U.S. and (2) a survey of online impulse buyers (N=151). From Study 1, we find that e-commerce sites contain multiple features that encourage impulsive buying, including those that lower perceived risks, leverage social influence, and enhance perceived proximity to the product. Conversely, from Study 2 we find that online impulse buyers want tools that (a) encourage deliberation and avoidance, (b) enforce spending limits and postponement, (c) increase checkout effort, (d) make costs more salient, and (e) reduce product desire. These findings inform the design of "friction'' technologies that help users make more deliberative consumer choices.

The digital sharing economy has introduced opportunities for economic growth, productivity, and technological innovation. However, the adoption of sharing economy applications may be inaccessible to certain demographics, including older adults, low-income adults, and individuals who are not college educated. This research investigates how the demographic factors: trust, computer self-efficacy, and perceived ease of use, impact participation in the sharing economy. Drawing on survey data with 508 participants, we found that trust in institutions, computer self-efficacy, and perceived ease of use positively correlate to individuals' past use of and willingness to pay for future sharing economy services, but age is negatively correlated. Surprisingly, we do not find that sharing economy users are more likely to have higher trust in strangers, higher incomes, or more education. We compare our findings to existing research, discuss why institutional trust might negate other concerns about sharing economy use, and explore opportunities to support broader participation in the sharing economy.

Father involvement is important for child well-being. However, fathers still do significantly less childcare than mothers, due in part to traditional gender norms. This research investigates whether incorporating do-it-yourself (DIY) language and imagery into parenting blogs is an effective mechanism for boosting fathers' willingness to perform childcare activities. We conducted a between-subjects experiment with 374 participants in the U.S. who responded to ten parenting blog posts. Subjects were randomized to view posts with either DIY or neutral language and either routine childcare activities (e.g., changing diapers) or interactive ones (e.g., finger painting). Results show that DIY language actually decreases a father's willingness to do a childcare activity. Further, fathers underestimate how socially appropriate it is for them to perform childcare activities and this misperception relates to their willingness to get involved. We draw on social norms literature to recommend next steps for designing interfaces to support father involvement in childrearing.

Prior research shows that parents receive a number of benefits through sharing about their children online, but little is known about children?s perspectives about parent sharing. We conducted a survey with 331 parent-child pairs to examine parents? and children?s preferences about what parents share about their children on social media. We find that parents and children are in agreement in their perception of how often and how much information parents share about their children on social media. However, there is disagreement about the permission-seeking process: children believe their parents should ask permission more than parents think they should, and parents believe they should ask for permission more often than they actually do, especially younger parents. We describe two categories of content that children are okay, or not okay, with their parents sharing about them. We offer design directions for managing parent sharing.

E-commerce designers must decide how many products to display at one time. Choice overload research has demonstrated the surprising finding that more choice is not necessarily better?selecting from larger choice sets can be more cognitively demanding and can result in lower levels of choice satisfaction. This research tests the choice overload effect in an e-commerce context and explores how the choice overload effect is influenced by an individual's tendency to maximize or satisfice decisions. We conducted an online experiment with 611 participants randomly assigned to select a gourmet chocolate bar from either 12, 24, 40, 50, 60, or 72 different options. Consistent with prior work, we find that maximizers are less satisfied with their product choice than satisficers. However, using Bayesian analysis, we find that it's unlikely that choice set size affects choice satisfaction by much, if at all. We discuss why the decision-making process may be different in e-commerce contexts than the physical settings used in previous choice overload experiments.

Consumers are turning to Facebook Groups to buy and sell with strangers in their local communities. This trend is counter-intuitive given Facebook's lack of conventional e-commerce features, such as sophisticated search engines and reputation systems. We interviewed 18 members of two Mom-to-Mom Facebook sale groups. Despite a lack of commerce tools, members perceived sale groups as an easy-to-use way to quickly and conveniently buy and sell. Most important to members was that the groups felt safe and trustworthy. Drawing on these insights, we contribute a novel framing, community commerce, which explains the trust mechanisms that enable transactions between strangers in some groups. Community commerce fosters trust through (a) exclusive membership to a closed group, (b) regulation and sanctioning of behavior at the admin, member, and group level, and (c) a shared group identity or perceived similarity (though, surprisingly, not through social bonding). We discuss how community commerce affords unique and sometimes superior trust assurances and propose design implications for platforms hoping to foster trust between members who buy, sell, or share amongst themselves.

Mealtimes are a cherished part of everyday life around the world. Often centered on family, friends, or special occasions, sharing meals is a practice embedded with traditions and values. However, as mobile phone adoption becomes increasingly pervasive, tensions emerge about how appropriate it is to use personal devices while sharing a meal with others. Furthermore, while personal devices have been designed to support awareness for the individual user (e.g., notifications), little is known about how to support shared awareness in acceptability in social settings such as meals. In order to understand attitudes about mobile phone use during shared mealtimes, we conducted an online survey with 1,163 English-speaking participants. We find that attitudes about mobile phone use at meals differ depending on the particular phone activity and on who at the meal is engaged in that activity, children versus adults. We also show that three major factors impact participants' attitudes: 1) their own mobile phone use; 2) their age; and 3) whether a child is present at the meal. We discuss the potential for incorporating social awareness features into mobile phone systems to ease tensions around conflicting mealtime behaviors and attitudes.