Hai Pham, Isma Hadji, Xinnuo Xu, Ziedune Degutyte, Jay Rainey, Evangelos Kazakos, Afsaneh Fazly, Georgios Tzimiropoulos, Brais Martinez. Proceedings of the 18th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers). 2024.

Typing on mobile devices is a common and complex task. The act of typing itself thereby encodes rich information, such as the typing method, the context it is performed in, and individual traits of the person typing. Researchers are increasingly using a selection or combination of experience sampling and passive sensing methods in real-world settings to examine typing behaviours. However, there is limited understanding of the effects these methods have on measures of input speed, typing behaviours, compliance, perceived trust and privacy. In this paper, we investigate the tradeoffs of everyday data collection methods. We contribute empirical results from a four-week field study (N=26). Here, participants contributed by transcribing, composing, passively having sentences analyzed and reflecting on their contributions. We present a tradeoff analysis of these data collection methods, discuss their impact on text-entry applications, and contribute a flexible research platform for in the wild text-entry studies.

Academics and community organisations are increasingly adopting co-research practices where participants contribute to qualitative data collection, analysis, and dissemination. These qualitative practices can often lack transparency that can present a problem for stakeholders (such as funding agencies) who seek evidence of the rigour and accountability in these decision-making processes. When qualitative research is done digitally, paradata is available as interaction logs that reveal the underlying processes, such as the time spent engaging with different segments of an interview. In practice, paradata is seldom used to examine the decisions associated with undertaking qualitative research. This paper explores the role of paradata arising from a four-month engagement with a community-led charity that used a digital platform to support their qualitative co-research project. Through observations of platform use and reflective post-deployment interviews, our findings highlight examples of paradata generated through digital tools in qualitative research, e.g., listening coverage, engagement rate, thematic maps and data discards. From this, we contribute a conceptualisation of paradata and discuss its role in qualitative research to improve process transparency, enhance data sharing, and to create feedback loops with research participants.

Community engagements are qualitative processes that make use of participants local knowledge for democratic decision-making, but often exclude participants from data analysis and dissemination. This can mean that they are left feeling that their voice is not properly represented in the final output. This paper presents a digital community engagement process, TalkFutures, that actively involves participants in the production, distributed analysis and summarization of qualitative data. The design of TalkFutures was explored through a five-week deployment with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) as part of a consultation designed to inform future strategy. Our analysis of deployment metrics and post-deployment interviews outline how TalkFutures: (i) increased modes of participation across the qualitative workflow; (ii) reduced barriers to participation; and (iii) improved representation in the engagement processes.

Delivering training to volunteers is a huge challenge for non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Traditional classroom-based approaches that dominate training are problematic due to the limited participation they offer to trainees. Peer-led approaches however, have shown promise in helping NGOs utilise trainee experiences within training. Although technologies are playing an increasing role in training, their benefits are not well understood. We describe our experience of designing peer-led training for community volunteers in rural India. Working alongside an NGO involved in community regeneration and social action, we collaboratively delivered a ten-day training workshop, deploying audio technologies to engage the participants in sharing lived experiences. We draw on reflections from trainers and trainees on how utilising participant voice can enhance training. We highlight opportunities around the usage of audio technologies for engaging with participant voice, including the ability to reclaim trainee agency within training and to work within cultural barriers.

We describe the iterative design, development and learning process we undertook to produce Gabber, a digital platform that aims to support distributed capture of spoken interviews and discussions, and their qualitative analysis. Our aim is to reduce both expertise and cost barriers associated with existing technologies, making the process more inclusive. Gabber structures distributed audio data capture, facilitates participatory sensemaking, and supports collaborative reuse of audio. We describe our design and development journey across three distinct field trials over a two-year period. Reflecting on the iterative design process, we offer insights into the challenges faced by non-experts throughout their qualitative practices, and provide guidance for researchers designing systems to support engagement in these practices.