EDBT 2026 Demo / reviewers in the wild / expert
Madeline Balaam
dblp:69/7339
· DBLP profile ↗
83ranked-venue papers
7as first author
30since 2021 · last 2026
0000-0001-9472-3805ORCID · corroborated
Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several
Human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing · 82 · 7 first-author · 30 since 2021Applied, interdisciplinary, general and emerging computing · 3 · 1 first-authorArtificial intelligence and machine learning · 1 · 1 since 2021Databases, data management, data science and information retrieval · 1
| Year | Publication | Venue | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | On Designing Visceral Encounters with Synthetic Intimate ImageryabstractCONTENT WARNING: This paper discusses image-based sexual abuse. Technological advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have made it easy to generate and distribute Non-Consensual Synthetic Intimate Imagery (NCSII); images and videos that depict people’s voices, faces, or bodies in intimate or sexually explicit scenarios. The creation and distribution of NCSII is a form of image-based sexual abuse that primarily affects marginalized people. We present Photo BOO-th, an interactive installation that invites attendees to encounter NCSII of themselves, resulting in a creepy, visceral, and affective experience. We designed Photo BOO-th to critique, raise awareness, and foster societal discussions around consent, image-based sexual abuse, and the role of technology in enabling harm. Following a Research through Design approach, we unpack design events that reveal some of the tensions and considerations in designing Photo BOO-th. We conclude with a discussion around designing creepy interactions in sensitive contexts, designing with and against the uncertainties in generative AI, and a reflection on vulnerability when designing creepy interactions. Alejandra Gómez Ortega, Hüseyin Ugur Genç, Willem van der Maden, Rob Comber, Airi Lampinen, Madeline Balaam |
DIS | 6 |
| 2026 | AI Loves Boobies: Unpacking Harmful Imaginaries in Community-Based Generative AIabstractWe invite a visual exploration and critique of imagery that can be (re)produced through open-source models available in Civitai — a repository where creators share and monetize custom text-to-image models. The proliferation of these models contributes to the creation and distribution of Non-Consensual Synthetic Intimate Imagery (NCSII), a digitally-mediated form of image-based sexual abuse that primarily affects women and girls, commonly referred to as “deepfake porn.” We examine the practices surrounding the creation and sharing of custom open-source models designed to produce photorealistic content. Through a qualitative content analysis of 510 models and 3800 images, we illustrate the imaginaries about sex, bodies, and gender expressions that models embody and perpetuate, as well as how model creators understand their practices in relation to potential harms and misuse. We discuss pathways for feminist intervention and the care practices we embedded into our research process, and the design of this pictorial. Alejandra Gómez Ortega, Willem van der Maden, Airi Lampinen, Rob Comber, Madeline Balaam |
DIS | 5 |
| 2026 | Consentful Lights: Designing for Consent when Sharing Intimate Fertility Data
Alejandra Gómez Ortega, Joo Young Park, Anna Ståhl, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Shradha Shivaji Retharekar, Airi Lampinen, Madeline Balaam |
DIS | 8 |
| 2026 | Otherness as a Quality in Designing Expressive Robotic TouchabstractHaptic technologies have advanced rapidly, yet exploration of robotic touch remains dominated by replicating realistic environmental cues or hand gestures, which narrows the design space and risks social resistance. This paper argues for alternatives: grounded in the notion of “otherness” from human-robot interaction (HRI), we propose treating robotic touch’s inherent otherness as a design quality. Instead of being a limitation in pursuing realism, otherness can be embraced to elicit ambiguity and provoke alternative interpretations, fostering expressive and evocative robotic touch design. To develop this perspective, we analyze inspirational art and design precedents and four design research cases through a reflective Research through Design (RtD) approach. Through this analysis, we articulate a set of design languages structured around why otherness matters for touch meaning-making, how it can be shaped through design strategies, and where it can be embedded within robotic touch systems. We conclude by reflecting on the tensions and risks involved in designing robotic touch with otherness in mind. Ran Zhou 0003, Laurens Boer, Daniel Leithinger, Madeline Balaam |
DIS | 4 |
| 2026 | A Cabinet of Affective Touches: Building Design Repository Linking Somatic Experience with Soft Robotic SystemsabstractA Cabinet of Affective Touches (ACAT) represents an approach to generate tacit design knowledge and build a repository for creating, experiencing and reflecting on designing affective touch with soft robotic technology. Despite being increasingly recognised as a somaesthetic material for affective touch interactions, knowledge on technical parameters and the experiential quality of touch with soft robotic technology is investigated fragmentally in separate disciplines. Sixty four haptics design students used the ACAT platform and created a repository of seventeen designs intended for all primary affective dimensions, covering both positive and negative affective experience. We illustrate how this process cultivated tacit design knowledge and fostered critical reflection on novel design space, in particular, on how to facilitate the creation and sharing the designs of uncomfortable touch. Henrique Sambi, Caroline Yan Zheng, Paul Tennent, Yoav Luft, Steve Benford, Madeline Balaam |
Creativity & Cognition | 6 |
| 2026 | When Things Don't Go As Planned with Digital ContraceptionabstractWe present a qualitative interview study that examines what happens when things do not go as planned with digital contraception. Through an analysis of 27 interviews with ongoing users of digital contraception at the time of the study, we convey participants’ accounts of their experiences regarding unplanned pregnancies or use of emergency contraception to avoid an unplanned pregnancy. Our analysis considers participants’ sense-making processes, and notably how they attended to questions of risk and responsibility. Finally, we depict how these participants came to continue using digital contraception after these experiences. Our study connects to ongoing conversations on technological failures in personal informatics and safety-critical systems. We emphasise that failure and success should not be used as a binary classification of long-term users’ relationships with self-tracking technology, which are intimate and critical. Rather, the sustained relation with an intimate technology is composed by several ‘failures’ which are interpreted, acted upon, and, ultimately, overcome. Cristina Bosco, Anupriya Tuli, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Joo Young Park, Deepika Yadav, Rebeca Blanco Cardozo, Alejandra Gómez Ortega, Patrick C. Shih, Airi Lampinen, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 11 |
| 2026 | Ecological Systems Theory for Studying and Designing Menstrual TechnologiesabstractMenstrual experiences are shaped by many different stakeholders, entities, and the broader socio-cultural context, or in other words, the ecological systems surrounding a menstruator. We explore what it means to take an ecological approach in studying and designing menstrual technologies. We translated and adapted Ecological Systems Theory (EST) for menstrual wellbeing and packaged the outcome in the form of a socio-ecological Canvas, accompanied by written examples and a set of prompts to facilitate engagement. We invited ten experts to engage with the Canvas in reflective workshops, which informed its further refinement. These sessions highlighted the Canvas’ generative value, fostering critical reflection on how design choices are shaped by and ripple across layers of influence. With this translational research, we invite HCI researchers and practitioners to critically reflect on the ecologies they study and design for, envisioning both aspired versions of existing realities and realities that do not exist yet. Anupriya Tuli, Madeline Balaam, Pushpendra Singh 0001, Neha Kumar 0001, Airi Lampinen |
CHI | 2 |
| 2025 | Designing for Secondary Users of Intimate TechnologiesabstractDigital contraceptives are intimate technologies that support their users, and their partners, in preventing pregnancy. These technologies rely on basal body temperature data to predict ovulation and calculate a fertile window, where there is a risk of pregnancy if partners have unprotected sex. Although their use is shared and relational, these technologies are mainly designed for a primary user — the person who can become pregnant. We turn our attention to secondary users of digital contraception (i.e., sexual partners), specifically, Natural Cycles. We investigate how secondary users are designed for and how primary users imagine them to be. We contribute empirical insights on how secondary users are and are not involved in digital contraception and conclude with three design proposals describing how digital contraception tools could be designed to involve secondary users. We discuss how designing for secondary users of intimate technologies requires balancing their potential as co-users and adversaries. Alejandra Gómez Ortega, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Joo Young Park, Anupriya Tuli, Deepika Yadav, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Madeline Balaam, Airi Lampinen |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 7 |
| 2025 | Making Intimate Technologies TogetherabstractFeminist research highlights the urgent need to challenge the oppressive design of commercial intimate technologies, particularly how the FemTech industry restricts access to intimate bodily knowledge through paywalls and proprietary systems. Yet, for decades, women and marginalized communities have turned to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) or ‘hacking’ practices to reclaim control over their own gynecology and intimate health, addressing gaps often ignored by medical research and healthcare. Inspired by visual themes from these movements, this pictorial critically explores how designers and HCI researchers might advance DIY approaches to intimate technologies. We exemplify this with reflections from a series of workshops on handmade intimate sensors, and draw out the joyful potential of collaborative making—building alliances, destigmatizing intimate health, and using craft to subvert gender stereotypes. We discuss matters of safety when making together and contribute to ongoing work on building feminist makerspaces. Nadia Campo Woytuk, Mafalda Samuelsson-Gamboa, Alejandra Gómez Ortega, Joo Young Park, Anupriya Tuli, Deirdre Tobin, Fiona Bell, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Madeline Balaam |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 9 |
| 2025 | Shape-Kit: A Design Toolkit for Crafting On-Body Expressive HapticsabstractDriven by the vision of everyday haptics, the HCI community is advocating for "design touch first" and investigating "how to touch well." However, a gap remains between the exploratory nature of haptic design and technical reproducibility. We present Shape-Kit, a hybrid design toolkit embodying our "crafting haptics" metaphor, where hand touch is transduced into dynamic pin-based sensations that can be freely explored across the body. An ad-hoc tracking module captures and digitizes these patterns. Our study with 14 designers and artists demonstrates how Shape-Kit facilitates sensorial exploration for expressive haptic design. We analyze how designers collaboratively ideate, prototype, iterate, and compose touch experiences and show the subtlety and richness of touch that can be achieved through diverse crafting methods with Shape-Kit. Reflecting on the findings, our work contributes key insights into haptic toolkit design and touch design practices centered on the "crafting haptics" metaphor. We discuss in-depth how Shape-Kit's simplicity, though remaining constrained, enables focused crafting for deeper exploration, while its collaborative nature fosters shared sense-making of touch experiences. Ran Zhou 0003, Jianru Ding, Chenfeng Gao, Wanli Qian, Benjamin Erickson, Madeline Balaam, Daniel Leithinger, Ken Nakagaki |
CHI | 6 |
| 2025 | Becoming One with Kuddi: Touching Data through an Intimate Data Physicalisation
Guðrún Margrét Ívansdóttir, Joo Young Park, Anna Ståhl, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 4 |
| 2025 | Designing Touch Technologies for and with Bodies in Menstrual DiscomfortabstractMenstrual discomfort is a prevalent, diverse, and cyclical lived experience, impacting everyday lives. However, in HCI, it has been mostly approached as a data point, leaving much unknown on how technologies can care for these experiences. In response, we designed Touchware, a collection of on-body touch probes with pneumatic shape-change and weight components, which invite wearers to engage with and care for their menstrual discomfort. We report on the participatory soma design process of making Touchware and its two-week-long deployment study with 6 participants in a workplace setting. Our data analysis highlights diffuse and lingering qualities of menstrual discomfort, shedding light on how technologies may touch bodies in vulnerable states. We discuss the importance and challenges of designing touch technologies for and with bodies in the moments of menstrual discomfort. We conclude with a reflection on the agency of touch and its potential to support the self-care labour and nurturing the radical normalization of rest. Joo Young Park, Caroline Yan Zheng, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Xuni Huang, Madeline Balaam, Marianela Ciolfi Felice |
CHI | 5 |
| 2025 | Toward Feminist Ways of Sensing the Menstruating BodyabstractBodily fluids associated with the menstruating body are often disregarded in the design of menstrual-tracking technologies despite their potential to provide valuable knowledge about the menstrual cycle. We prototyped a finger-worn sensor that measures vaginal fluid conductivity, which fluctuates throughout the cycle, and brought it into conversation with people through two speculative workshops (18 people), four fabrication workshops (17 people), and a deployment study where participants brought the sensor into their daily lives (7 people). We unpack that taking a material and sensory approach to intimate tracking nurtures a feminist way of sensing while creating tensions around how we want to know our bodies-tensions around how, where, and when to touch the body, hygiene, data storage, interpretation practices, and labor. With epistemological commitments to feminist materialist and post-human theory, we invite designers to embrace these tensions. Nadia Campo Woytuk, Anupriya Tuli, Joo Young Park, Laia Turmo Vidal, Deirdre Tobin, Anuradha Venugopal Reddy, Beatrice Vincenzi, Jan Maslik, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 10 |
| 2025 | A Route to Somatic Literacy of the Pelvic Floor through Technology-Initiated Touch
Deepika Yadav, Caroline Yan Zheng, Anna Ståhl, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 4 |
| 2025 | Towards Caring Touch From Technologies: Knowledge From Healthcare PractitionersabstractWe present a qualitative study with five healthcare experts spe-cialised in different types of touch practice to gain insight in how caring touch can be enacted. Through our analysis we focus onhow to transfer this learning into design considerations towards enacting caring touch from technologies. Despite the rapidly growing expectation for and design interest in touch from technologies intending to enhance care and well-being, the knowledge on how to design caring touch is still fragmented. How caring touch is enacted in inter-personal touch is under-explored and such expertise from healthcare practitioners has not been engaged from the perspective of HCI design research. We propose designers to consider caring as an experiential quality instead of a division between instrumental types of touch and caring types. We recommend when designing for a caring quality in technology-initiated touch that designers create a progression of touch with dynamic sensitivity and adapt the materiality of actuating devices to the plural dimensions of the body’s textures. Caroline Yan Zheng, Adrian Benigno Latupeirissa, George Andrikopoulos, Anna Ståhl, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 6 |
| 2025 | Designing for and with Intimate (Sexual) Bodies - Towards Feminist and Queer Somatic Understandings of PleasureabstractThis studio explores methods for prototyping with and for intimate and sexual experiences, focusing on a diversity of bodies and understandings of pleasure. We aim to both explore how to communicate people's somatic (sexual) profiles while engaging in creative making processes. Participants will engage in a full day workshop consisting of three distinct phases: trying out methods for representing somatic experiences, tangible ideation and making, and group reflections. Through these activities, we not only aim to enhance individual awareness of erotic bodies but also share advice and experiences on how to design for sexual experiences from feminist and intersectional perspectives. This studio seeks to promote inclusivity and challenge normative beliefs about sexual bodies, designing for intimacy and contributing to a more equitable discourse on pleasure. Silvia Teisanu, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Joo Young Park, Anna Brynskov, Dianya Mia Hua, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Saúl Baeza Argüello, Oscar Tomico, Madeline Balaam |
TEI | 9 |
| 2025 | Shared Use of Intimate Technology: A Large-Scale Qualitative Study on the Use of Natural Cycles as a Digital ContraceptiveabstractWe present a large-scale, qualitative interview study that examines how an intimate technology within reproductive health comes to be chosen and trusted as a mode of contraception and how its use is shared between partners. We conducted 133 semi-structured interviews with primary users of Natural Cycles, focusing specifically on its use as a digital contraceptive. Our interpretive analysis, first, sheds light on perceptions of risks and benefits, along with how, and by whom, the decision to adopt Natural Cycles got made. Second, we discuss participants' and their partners' gradual development of trust in the system, and how this intertwines with interpersonal trust. Third, we consider the shared use of Natural Cycles, including partner involvement in temperature tracking, the sharing of intimate data, and navigating specific choices and risks regarding sex and contraception. We make a primarily empirical contribution to Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) research on shared uses of technology and the sharing of intimate data, and highlight avenues for future work to foster understanding of intimate technologies and their shared use in relational settings. Airi Lampinen, Madeline Balaam, Deepika Yadav, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Joo Young Park, Rebeca Blanco Cardozo |
Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact. | 2 |
| 2024 | Exploring the Somatic Possibilities of Shape Changing Car SeatsabstractThrough a soma design process, we explored how to design a shape-changing car seat as a point of interaction between the car and the driver. We developed a low-fidelity prototyping tool to support this design work and describe our experiences of using this tool in a workshop with a car manufacturer. We share the co-designed patterns that we developed: re-engaging in driving; dis-engaging from driving; saying farewell; and being held while turning. Our analysis contributes design knowledge on how we should design for a car seat to ‘touch’ larger, potentially heavier parts of the body including the back, shoulders, hips, and bottom. The non-habitual experience of shape-changing elements in the driver seat helped pinpoint the link between somatic experience and intelligent rational behaviour in driving tasks. Relevant meaning-making processes arose when the two were aligned, improving on the holistic coming together of driver, car, and the road travelled. Madeline Balaam, Anna Ståhl, Guðrún Margrét Ívansdóttir, Hallbjörg Embla Sigtryggsdóttir, Kristina Höök, Caroline Yan Zheng |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 1 |
| 2024 | Critiquing Menstrual Pain Technologies through the Lens of Feminist Disability StudiesabstractMenstrual pain or dysmenorrhea refers to abdominal cramping or pain before and during menstruation, causing a spectrum of discomfort among people who menstruate. Menstrual pain is often regarded as ‘female trouble’, as a nuisance that gets dismissed or as a symptom requiring medical intervention. While there are FemTech products that explicitly attend to menstrual pain, they predominantly seek to hide it without accounting for the lived experience of this pain. In this paper we use feminist disability studies (FDS) as a critical analytical lens to reframe the understanding of menstrual pain. Using this lens, we conduct an interaction critique of FemTech market exemplars for alleviating menstrual pain. We then offer three design provocations to better design menstrual pain technology and call for designers to attend to menstrual pain as a cyclical, chronic lived experience with the potential of spurring leaky contagious coalitions. Joo Young Park, Stacy Hsueh, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Xuni Huang, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 6 |
| 2023 | Ambivalences in Digital Contraception: Designing for Mixed Feelings and Oscillating RelationsabstractThe ‘intimate horizons’ of algorithmic, self-tracking technologies have become increasingly important. These applications are no longer perceived as distant, instrumental entities, but offer a more affective and intimate experience. In this paper, we address the long-term experience of living with a digital contraception technology that utilizes self-tracking. We draw upon four design workshops with a total of 14 users of the app Natural Cycles to illustrate moments of ambivalent affects and oscillating relations. Based on our analysis, we concretize four dimensions of ambivalence in different scales and temporalities. We propose three strategies of designing with these unavoidable disruptions, conflicting feelings, and shifting relations to acknowledge users’ agentic engagements, nuanced dynamics of intimate self-tracking experiences, and users as embodied and affective beings. We contend that by attending to these existential ambivalences, digital contraceptive can become better configured to plural modes of life and long-term intimate relations that they engender. Joo Young Park, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Deepika Yadav, Xuni Huang, Rebeca Blanco Cardozo, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Airi Lampinen, Madeline Balaam |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 8 |
| 2023 | Tactful Feminist Sensing: Designing for Touching Vaginal FluidsabstractObserving the texture, color, and conductivity of cervical mucus has the potential to support menstrual cycle and fertility tracking, generating a layer of rich bodily, tactile/haptic knowledge in addition to other collected data, such as cycle length or body temperature. This pictorial presents design explorations, four design concepts, and one prototype of a sensor for measuring the conductivity of cervical mucus in vaginal fluids. We present these as instances in the design space for sensing intimate bodily fluids and provide discussions on the proximities, visibilities, and temporalities of these sensing technologies. We offer the unfolding concept of “tactful feminist sensing”, opening up for further engagements with intimate care that attend to the multiplicity and fleshiness of bodies. Nadia Campo Woytuk, Joo Young Park, Jan Maslik, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Madeline Balaam |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 5 |
| 2023 | Invisibility or Visibility in Intimate Care at the Workplace? Examining the Use of Breast PumpsabstractAdvances in intimate care technologies and on-body wearables are disrupting how and where we think about and care for our bodies. The boundaries between private and public are increasingly porous. This offers new sites for studying intimate care as technology-use-in-practice. We present a qualitative study on the use of breast pumps in the workplace, based on semi-structured interviews with 19 individuals. Through this, we contribute an illustration of the complexities in carrying out intimate care work at the workplace and what it means to be pumping at the workplace. Our analysis unpacks (in)visibility as a crucial tension in the use of breast pumps in the workplace. We discuss how (in)visibility of personal medical devices plays a mediating role in how individuals exercise bodily rights, and the norms of who fits into professional settings. Deepika Yadav, Madeline Balaam, Airi Lampinen |
CHI | 2 |
| 2023 | Feminist Human-Robot Interaction: Disentangling Power, Principles and Practice for Better, More Ethical HRIabstractHuman-Robot Interaction (HRI) is inherently a human-centric field of technology. The role of feminist theories in related fields (e.g. Human-Computer Interaction, Data Science) are taken as a starting point to present a vision for Feminist HRI which can support better, more ethical HRI practice everyday, as well as a more activist research and design stance. We first define feminist design for an HRI audience and use a set of feminist principles from neighboring fields to examine existent HRI literature, showing the progress that has been made already alongside some additional potential ways forward. Following this we identify a set of reflexive questions to be posed throughout the HRI design, research and development pipeline, encouraging a sensitivity to power and to individuals' goals and values. Importantly, we do not look to present a definitive, fixed notion of Feminist HRI, but rather demonstrate the ways in which bringing feminist principles to our field can lead to better, more ethical HRI, and to discuss how we, the HRI community, might do this in practice. Katie Winkle, Donald McMillan, Maria Arnelid, Katherine Harrison 0001, Madeline Balaam, Ericka Johnson, Iolanda Leite |
HRI | 5 |
| 2022 | An Annotated Soma Design Process of the Pelvic ChairabstractThe Pelvic Chair uses soft robotics to gently touch the outer pelvic floor to create awareness of its anatomy and function. Our pelvic floor is an important muscle group that holds up our inner organs. A soma design approach makes out a novel route to know through our senses what an experience in this context feels like, which can provide alternative ways of being in the world. Through annotated imagery, we explore the affordances of soft latex pockets filled with air to convey touch that is appropriate for this intimate, sensitive area. Iteratively, we investigate how layers of materials, area, shape, volume and temporality, together with the specific placement on the body, convey the kinds of experiential qualities we seek. We highlight that somatic design judgements are crucial in guiding this process, going beyond traditional approaches to design that focus on visual assessments, models, or hand-based touch. Anna Ståhl, Madeline Balaam, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Irene Kaklopoulou |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 2 |
| 2022 | Making New Worlds - Transformative Becomings with Soma DesignabstractSoma design is intended to increase our ability to appreciate through all our senses and lead to more meaningful interactions with the world. We contribute a longer-term study of soma design that shows evidence of this promise. Using storytelling approaches we draw on qualitative data from a three-month study of the soma mat and breathing light in four households. We tell stories of people’s becomings in the world as they learn of new possibilities for their somas; and as their somas transform. We show how people drew on their somaesthetic experiences with the prototypes to find their way through troubled times; and how through continued engagement some felt compelled to make transformations in how they live their lives. We discuss the implications for the overarching soma design program, focusing on what is required to design for ways of leading a better life. Anna Ståhl, Madeline Balaam, Rob Comber, Pedro Sanches 0001, Kristina Höök |
CHI | 2 |
| 2022 | Body Maps: A Generative Tool for Soma-based DesignabstractBody maps are visual documents, where somatic experiences can be drawn onto a graphical representation of an outline of the human body. They hold the ability to capture complex and non-explicit emotions and somatic felt sensations, elaborating narratives that cannot be simply spoken. We present an illustrative example of “how-to” complete a body map, together with four case studies that provide examples of using body maps in design research. We identify five uses of body maps as generative tools for soma-based design, ranging from sampling bodily experience, heightening bodily self-awareness, understanding changing bodily experience over time, identifying patterns of bodily experience, and transferring somatic experiential qualities into physical designs. The different requirements for scaffolding the use of body maps in user-centred design versus first-person autobiographical design research are discussed. We provide this Pictorial as a resource for designers and researchers who wish to integrate body maps into their practice. Karen Anne Cochrane, Kristina Mah, Anna Ståhl, Claudia Núñez-Pacheco, Madeline Balaam, Naseem Ahmadpour, Lian Loke |
TEI | 5 |
| 2022 | Refugee Food Insecurity & Technology: Surfacing Experiences of Adaptation, Navigation, Negotiation and SharingabstractAbstract With the Syrian crisis still ongoing, 91% of Syrian refugee families in Lebanon do not have adequate access to safe and sufficient food. There has been a drive for technological innovation in humanitarian food assistance. To further inform such innovation, we used an Experience-Centred Design approach to gain a holistic understanding of the experiences of refugee food insecurity and how refugees envision technologies can support them. Design engagements with 13 women in an informal refugee settlement in Lebanon were conducted. The findings presented in this paper highlight that coping with food insecurity consists of experiences of adaptation, navigation, negotiation and sharing. We found that a multitude of technologies may be designed to enhance the aforementioned experiences and enable refugees to better cope with food insecurity. Through the lens of our findings, we discuss how technologies may support information sharing, the furthering of new practices and sharing of resources to support refugee food security. Reem Talhouk, Kyle Montague, Hala Ghattas, Vera Araújo-Soares, Balsam Ahmad, Madeline Balaam |
Comput. Support. Cooperative Work. | 6 |
| 2021 | Resisting the Medicalisation of Menopause: Reclaiming the Body through DesignabstractThe menopause transition involves bodily-rooted, socially-shaped changes, often in a context of medicalisation that marginalises people based on their age and gender. With the goal of addressing this social justice matter with a participatory design approach, we started to cultivate partnerships with people going through menopause. This paper reports on interviews with 12 women and a design workshop with three. Our data analysis highlights their experiences from a holistic perspective that reclaims the primacy of the body and acknowledges the entanglement of the physical and the psychosocial. Participants’ design concepts show how design can come close the body to make space for menopause experiences, recognising and transforming them. We discuss how HCI can actively engage with the body to promote appreciation for it during menopause, and call for design that accompanies people in resisting the medicalisation of menopause as an enactment of social justice in everyday life. Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 3 |
| 2021 | Designing Menstrual Technologies with AdolescentsabstractStarting to menstruate can restrict adolescents’ movements due to physiological changes and societal stigma. We present a participatory soma design project advocating for young adolescents to listen to and care for their newly-menstruating bodies, specifically focusing on participation in sport. We designed Menarche Bits, an open-ended prototyping toolkit consisting of shape-changing actuators and heat pads, and used it in two design workshops with seven participants aged 16-18, as part of collaboration and menstrual advocacy in their sports clubs and high school. The participants designed menstrual technologies that respond to menstrual cramps and depressive, anxious feelings before menstruating. We contribute findings on designing menstrual technologies with adolescents using participatory soma design. We found that a toolkit approach to the design of menstrual technologies can allow for pluralist experiences of menstrual cycles. In addition, we found that participatory design with adolescents benefits from drawing on qualities of embodiment and participants’ own body literacy. Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 3 |
| 2021 | Validity and Rigour in Soma Design-Sketching with the SomaabstractWe report on the design processes of two ongoing soma design projects: the Pelvic Chair and the Breathing Wings. These projects take a first-person, soma design approach, grounded in a holistic perspective of the mind and body (the soma). We contribute a reflective account of our soma design processes that deepens the field’s understanding of how soma design is achieved through first-person approaches. We show how we use our somas, our first-person experiences, to stimulate a design process, to prototype through and to use as a way of critiquing emerging designs. Grounding our analysis in new materialism, we show how our designs are in essence, “performative intra-actions”. Using our own somas, our designs open up for experiences within certain constraints, allowing for a material-discursive agency of sorts. Many different somas may be intra-acted through our designs, even if it was our somas who started them. Anna Ståhl, Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Madeline Balaam |
ACM Trans. Comput. Hum. Interact. | 3 |
| 2020 | Designing with Intimate Materials and Movements: Making "Menarche Bits"abstractMenarche is the first occurrence of menstrual bleeding and it usually begins between the ages of 9-15. This makes menarche a crucial transition among other social, physiological and behavioural changes during puberty. In this soma-based research-through-design project we design an open-ended prototyping kit: Menarche Bits. The aim of Menarche Bits is to open a design space for young adolescents to create body-worn technologies that support them in making space for their experiences of menarche and trusting their menstruating bodies. Menarche Bits consists of heat elements and shape-changing actuators that can be worn directly on the body by adhering to the skin or being inserted into pockets in a stretchable fabric as part of a garment. We describe the soma design process behind Menarche Bits as an example of how body-worn technologies can intimately interact with the body and its movement, temporality and material changes. Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, Ozgun Kilic Afsar, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Madeline Balaam |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 5 |
| 2020 | Touching and Being in Touch with the Menstruating BodyabstractWe describe a Research through Design project-Curious Cycles-a collection of objects and interactions which encourage people to be in close contact with their menstruating body. Throughout a full menstrual cycle, five participants used Curious Cycles to look at their bodies in unfamiliar ways and to touch their bodily fluids, specifically, menstrual blood, saliva, and cervical mucus. The act of touching and looking led to the construction of new knowledge about the self and to a nurturing appreciation for the changing body. Yet, participants encountered and reflected upon frictions within themselves, their home, and their social surroundings, which stem from societal stigma and preconceptions about menstruation and bodily fluids. We call for and show how interaction design can engage with technologies that mediate self-touch as a first step towards reconfiguring the way menstruating bodies are treated in society. Nadia Campo Woytuk, Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 4 |
| 2020 | Food Aid Technology: The Experience of a Syrian Refugee Community in Coping with Food InsecurityabstractOver half of Syrian refugee households in Lebanon are food insecure with some reliant on an electronic voucher (e-voucher) system for food aid. The interplay between the digitisation of food aid, within the socio-technical context of refugees, and community collaborative practices is yet to be investigated. Through design engagements and interviews with refugees and shop owners we explore the experiences of a Syrian refugee community in Lebanon using the e-voucher system. We provide insights into the socio-technical environment in which the e-voucher system is dispensing aid, the information and power asymmetries experienced, refugee collaborative coping practices and how they interplay with the e-voucher system. We highlight the need for: (1) expanding refugee digital capabilities to encompass understandings of aid technologies and identifying trusted intermediaries and (2) for technologies to support in upholding humanitarian principles and mitigating power and information asymmetries. Lastly, we call for CSCW researchers and humanitarian innovators to consider how humanitarian technologies can enable refugee collaborative practices and adopt everyday security as a lens for designing aid technologies. The paper contributes to CSCW knowledge regarding the interplay between aid technologies and refugees? socio-technical contexts and practices that provides a basis for future technological designs for collaborative technologies for refugee food security. Reem Talhouk, Lizzie Coles-Kemp, Rikke Bjerg Jensen, Madeline Balaam, Andrew Garbett, Hala Ghattas, Vera Araújo-Soares, Balsam Ahmad, Kyle Montague |
Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact. | 4 |
| 2020 | Introduction to the Special Issue on HCI and the Body: Reimagining Women's HealthabstractIn the fields of human-computer interaction (HCI) and interaction design, there has been an increasing exploration of technology in relation to the body and in particular around issues associated with "women's health."Much of the work so far has been about ways design and technology can play in supporting transitions to and experiences of motherhood and maternal health, menstruation, domestic violence, abortion, pregnancy loss, intimate anatomical awareness, fertility management, continence care, menopause, voice training for trans-women, gender stereotypes in voice assistants, and reimagining existing practices and technologies, among others.This Special Issue has been put together to bring together various voices and research strands from within this emerging community of researchers in order to discuss the core ideas, approaches, issues, and challenges that are currently pressing for this area of research.This ToCHI Special Issue is the product of two-and-a-half years of labour from the original proposal up to the final collection of articles you see before you now.It has involved multiple Teresa Almeida, Madeline Balaam, Shaowen Bardzell, Lone Koefoed Hansen |
ACM Trans. Comput. Hum. Interact. | 2 |
| 2020 | Woman-Centered Design through Humanity, Activism, and InclusionabstractWomen account for over half of the global population, however, continue to be subject to systematic and systemic disadvantage, particularly in terms of access to health and education. At every intersection, where systemic inequality accounts for greater loss of life or limitations on full and healthy living, women are more greatly impacted by those inequalities. The design of technologies is no different, the very definition of technology is historically cast in terms of male activities, and advancements in the field are critical to improve women's quality of life. This article views HCI, a relatively new field, as well positioned to act critically in the ways that technology serve, refigure, and redefine women's bodies. Indeed, the female body remains a contested topic, a restriction to the development of women's health. On one hand, the field of women's health has attended to the medicalization of the body and therefore is to be understood through medical language and knowledge. On the other hand, the framing of issues associated with women's health and people's experiences of and within such system(s) remain problematic for many. This is visible today in, e.g., socio-cultural practices in disparate geographies or medical devices within a clinic or the home. Moreover, the biological body is part of a great unmentionable, i.e., the perils of essentialism. We contend that it is necessary, pragmatically and ethically, for HCI to turn its attention toward a woman-centered design approach. While previous research has argued for the dangers of gender-demarcated design work, we advance that designing for and with women should not be regarded as ghettoizing, but instead as critical to improving women's experiences in bodily transactions, choices, rights, and access to and in health and care. In this article, we consider how and why designing with and for woman matters. We use our design-led research as a way to speak to and illustrate alternatives to designing for and with women within HCI. Teresa Almeida, Madeline Balaam, Rob Comber |
ACM Trans. Comput. Hum. Interact. | 2 |
| 2019 | Involving Syrian Refugees in Design Research: Lessons Learnt from the FieldabstractWith the Syrian crisis entering its 8th year, refugees have become the focus of research across multiple disciplines, including design and HCI research. While some researchers have reflected upon designing with refugees, these accounts have been limited to conducting design workshops in formal spaces. Through reflecting on our experiences of conducting design research in informal refugee settlements in Lebanon we unpack lessons learnt, design practices and research approaches that facilitate design engagements with refugees. We highlight the value in participants configuring the design space, using a dialogical approach as well as creating a safe space for both participants and the researcher. We also reflect on the roles that researchers may take on when conducting similar research. By doing so we contribute specific design practices that may be transferrable to other similar contexts. Reem Talhouk, Madeline Balaam, Austin Toombs, Andrew Garbett, Chaza Akik, Hala Ghattas, Vera Araújo-Soares, Balsam Ahmad, Kyle Montague |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 2 |
| 2019 | Teaching Soma DesignabstractWe devised a Soma Design curriculum with accompanying teaching approaches for a seven-week course at a technical university. In our analysis of students' design concepts and process accounts, we found that they had opened an unusually rich and aesthetically engaging design space. But we also noted how they sometimes struggled with processes such as: "staying in the undecided" long enough to engage deeply with somaesthetic design imaginings; finding, refining and repeatedly returning to an aesthetic quality through the different phases of their design work; liberating them-selves from pre-existing practices or objects in order to find entirely novel design possibilities; shifting from a more rationalistic design process, mainly based on argumenta-tion, into a felt engagement were imaginations are acted out - not talked about; and lacking a technical toolkit for somaesthetically experiencing interactive sociodigital materials. Based on these insights, we provide a set of recommendations for how to teach Soma Design, and we have created an accompanying Soma Design toolkit that will support exploration and design. Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Madeline Balaam, Anna Ståhl, Pedro Sanches 0001, Charles Windlin, Pavel Karpashevich, Kristina Höök |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 2 |
| 2019 | Emotion Work in Experience-Centered DesignabstractExperience Centered Design (ECD) implores us to develop empathic relationships and understanding of participants, to actively work with our senses and emotions within the design process. However, theories of experience-centered design do little to account for emotion work undertaken by design researchers when doing this. As a consequence, how a design researcher's emotions are experienced, navigated and used as part of an ECD process are rarely published. So, while emotion is clearly a tool that we use, we don't share with one another how, why and when it gets used. This has a limiting effect on how we understand design processes, and opportunities for training. Here, we share some of our experiences of working with ECD. We analyse these using Hochschild's framework of emotion work to show how and where this work occurs. We use our analysis to question current ECD practices and provoke debate. Madeline Balaam, Rob Comber, Rachel Clarke 0001, Charles Windlin, Anna Ståhl, Kristina Höök, Geraldine Fitzpatrick |
CHI | 1 |
| 2019 | Designing for Digital Playing OutabstractWe report on a design-led study in the UK that aimed to understand barriers to children (aged 5 to 14 years) 'playing out' in their neighbourhood and explore the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) for supporting children's free play that extends outdoors. The study forms a design ethnography, combining observational fieldwork with design prototyping and co-creative activities across four linked workshops, where we used BBC micro:bit devices to co-create new IoT designs with the participating children. Our collective account contributes new insights about the physical and interactive features of micro:bits that shaped play, gameplay, and social interaction in the workshops, illuminating an emerging design space for supporting 'digital playing out' that is grounded in empirical instances. We highlight opportunities for designing for digital playing out in ways that promote social negotiation, supports varying participation, allows for integrating cultural influences, and accounts for the weaving together of placemaking and play. Gavin Wood, Thomas Dylan, Abigail Durrant, Pablo E. Torres, Philip Ulrich, Amanda Carr, Mutlu Cukurova, Denise Downey, Phil McGrath, Madeline Balaam, Alice Ferguson, John Vines, Shaun W. Lawson |
CHI | 10 |
| 2018 | Video coursework: opportunity and challenge for HCI educationabstractHuman-Computer Interaction (HCI) is a challenging subject to study due to its highly multidisciplinary nature and the fast change of advancing technology. Keeping pace with these changes requires innovation in pedagogical approach, such as student-authored video, which is presented here. In case studies from two UK universities, students were assessed on video making. The results suggest increased student engagement and satisfaction, as well as acquisition of design skills taught in HCI, not typically taught elsewhere in computer science. Here we share our experiences of using this practice along with key challenges and some preliminary findings from analysis of the student artefact-creation process. We also outline future research directions in this space. Anna Vasilchenko, Adriana Wilde, Stephen Snow, Madeline Balaam, Marie Devlin |
AVI | 4 |
| 2018 | Understanding the Family Perspective on the Storage, Sharing and Handling of Family Civic DataabstractAcross social care, healthcare and public policy, enabled by the "big data" revolution (which has normalized large-scale data-based decision-making), there are moves to "join up" citizen databases to provide care workers with holistic views of families they support. In this context, questions of personal data privacy, security, access, control and (dis-)empowerment are critical considerations for system designers and policy makers alike. To explore the family perspective on this landscape of what we call Family Civic Data, we carried out ethnographic interviews with four North-East families. Our design-game-based interviews were effective for engaging both adults and children to talk about the impact of this dry, technical topic on their lives. Our findings, delivered in the form of design guidelines, show support for dynamic consent: families would feel most empowered if involved in an ongoing co-operative relationship with state welfare and civic authorities through shared interaction with their data. Alex Bowyer, Kyle Montague, Stuart Wheater, Ruth McGovern, Raghu Lingam, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 6 |
| 2018 | Applying Computational Analysis to Textual Data from the Wild: A Feminist PerspectiveabstractWith technologies that afford much larger-scale data collection than previously imagined, new ways of processing and interpreting qualitative textual data are required. HCI researchers use a range of methods for interpreting the 'full range of human experience' from qualitative data, however, such approaches are not always scalable. Feminist geography seeks to explore how diverse and varied accounts of place can be understood and represented, whilst avoiding reductive classification systems. In this paper, we assess the extent to which unsupervised topic models can support such a research agenda. Drawing on literature from Feminist and Critical GIS, we present a case study analysis of a Volunteered Geographic Information dataset of reviews about breastfeeding in public spaces. We demonstrate that topic modelling can offer novel insights and nuanced interpretations of complex concepts such as privacy and be integrated into a critically reflexive feminist data analysis approach that captures and represents diverse experiences of place. Shauna Concannon, Madeline Balaam, Emma Simpson, Rob Comber |
CHI | 2 |
| 2018 | Exploring the Design of Tailored Virtual Reality Experiences for People with DementiaabstractDespite indications that recreational virtual reality (VR) experiences could be beneficial for people with dementia, this area remains unexplored in contrast to the body of work on neurological rehabilitation through VR in dementia. With recreational VR applications coming to the market for dementia, we must consider how VR experiences for people with dementia can be sensitively designed to provide comfortable and enriching experiences. Working with seven participants from a local dementia care charity, we outline some of the opportunities and challenges inherent to the design and use of VR experiences with people with dementia and their carers through an inductive thematic analysis. We also provide a series of future directions for work in VR and dementia: 1) careful physical design, 2) making room for sharing, 3) utilizing all senses, 4) personalization, and 5) ensuring the active inclusion of the person with dementia. James Hodge, Madeline Balaam, Sandra Coulter, Kellie Morrissey |
CHI | 2 |
| 2018 | From Her Story, to Our Story: Digital Storytelling as Public Engagement around Abortion Rights Advocacy in IrelandabstractDespite the divisive nature of abortion within the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, where access to safe, legal abortion is severely restricted, effecting legislative reform demands widespread public support. In light of a building pro-choice counter-voice, this work contributes to a growing body of HCI research that takes an activist approach to design. We report findings from four design workshops with 31 pro-choice stakeholders across Ireland in which we positioned an exploratory protosite, HerStoryTold, to engender critical conversations around the use of sensitive abortion narratives as a tool for engagement. Our analysis shows how digital storytelling can help reject false narratives and raise awareness of the realities of abortion laws. It suggests design directions to curate narratives that provoke empathy, foster polyvocality, and ultimately expand the engaged community. Furthermore, this research calls for designers to actively support community mobilization through providing 'stepping stones' to activism. Lydia Michie, Madeline Balaam, John C. McCarthy 0002, Timur Osadchiy, Kellie Morrissey |
CHI | 2 |
| 2018 | Supporting the Complex Social Lives of New ParentsabstractOne of the many challenges of becoming a parent is the shift in one's social life. As HCI researchers have begun to investigate the intersection of sociotechnical system design and parenthood, they have also sought to understand how parents' social lives can be best supported. We build on these strands of research through a qualitative study with new parents regarding the role of digital technologies in their social lives as they transition to parenthood. We demonstrate how sociotechnical systems are entangled in the ways new parents manage their relationships, build (or resist building) new friendships and ad hoc support systems, and navigate the vulnerabilities of parenthood. We discuss how systems designed for new parents can better support the vulnerabilities they internalize, the diverse friendships they desire, and the logistical challenges they experience. We conclude with recommendations for future design and research in this area. Austin Toombs, Kellie Morrissey, Emma Simpson, Colin M. Gray, John Vines, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 6 |
| 2018 | "Protection on that Erection?": Discourses of Accountability & Compromising Participation in Digital Sexual HealthabstractThis paper analyses sexual health workers' 'talk' around their introduction of a digital platform to enhance a regionally managed condom distribution scheme for young people. In examining the discursive resources workers used in framing the sexual health service, their service users and digital technology, we argue that problematic ideologies around young people and sexuality were exercised and reproduced. Workers positioned themselves as the gatekeepers of young people's sexual health, who were in turn constructed as 'mischievous' and 'misguided', with technology having a corruptive role over what was considered to be 'healthy' and 'normal' sexual relationships. We suggest our findings indicate severe challenges in developing community-commissioned platforms alongside service providers, and questions how plausible user participation can be in attempting to conduct collaborative, participatory and engaged work in this context. Matthew Wood, Andrew Garbett, Kellie Morrissey, Peter Hopkins, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 5 |
| 2018 | The Self-Flipped Classroom Concept: Underlying Ideas and ExperiencesabstractIn the modern fast changing world no formal education is able to provide learners with a complete set of knowledge, skills and competences that they would need to successfully compete on tomorrow's job market. Therefore, the role of universities is increasingly shifting towards provision of an environment where students have a chance to acquire lifelong learning skills. This paper presents underlying ideas of, and practical experiences with, an innovative pedagogy that addresses the lifelong learning skills acquisition along with additional benefits for science and technology students. The proposed approach, called self-flipped classroom (SFC), is built on a synergy of two pedagogies: learning through making and flipped classroom. To unveil the construct of the SFC, we discuss each of its components individually presenting appropriate theoretical grounding. We also report on our experiences from self-flipped classroom implementations in two countries, UK and Sweden, and in three different educational settings. From our work with the SFC concept we have identified four different roles the students can assume in a SFC scenario: creators, collaborators, communicators, and learners. We present our observations regarding the identified roles that have been found in the studied settings. We also outline some implications for teaching using the SFC concept and future research directions in this space. Anna Vasilchenko, Åsa Cajander, Mats Daniels, Madeline Balaam |
FIE | 4 |
| 2017 | Sex Talk: Designing for Sexual Health with AdolescentsabstractIn this paper, we describe a user-centred design process, where we engaged with 58 adolescents over an 18-month period to design and evaluate a multiplayer mobile game which prompts peer-led interactions around sex and sexuality. Engagement with our design process, and response to our game, has been enthusiastic, highlighting the rich opportunities for HCI to contribute constructively to how HCI may contribute to sexual health in adolescents. Based on our experiences we discuss three lessons learnt: lightweight digital approaches can be extremely successful at facilitating talk among young people about sex; sharing control of the conversation between all stakeholders is a fair and achievable approach; even problematic interactions can be opportunities to talk about sex. Matthew Wood, Gavin Wood, Madeline Balaam |
IDC | 3 |
| 2017 | Supporting Self-Care of Adolescents with Nut Allergy Through Video and Mobile Educational ToolsabstractAnaphylaxis is a life-threatening allergic reaction which is rapid in onset. Adolescents living with anaphylaxis risk often lack the knowledge and skills required to safely manage their condition or talk to friends about it. We designed an educational intervention comprising group discussion around videos of simulated anaphylaxis scenarios and a mobile application containing video-based branching anaphylaxis narratives. We trialed the intervention with 36 nut allergic adolescents. At 1-year follow-up participants had improved adrenaline auto-injector skills and carriage, disease- and age-specific Quality of Life and confidence in anaphylaxis management. At 3-year follow-up adrenaline carriage improved further and confidence remained higher. Participants expressed how the education session was a turning point in taking control of their allergy and how the app facilitated sharing about anaphylaxis with others. We contribute insights regarding design of mobile self-care and peer-support applications for health in adolescence, and discuss strengths and limitations of video-based mobile health interventions. Neil Davidson, John Vines, Tom Bartindale, Selina Jeanne Sutton, David Philip Green, Rob Comber, Madeline Balaam, Patrick Olivier, Gillian Vance |
CHI | 7 |
| 2017 | Experiences of Delivering a Public Health Data ServiceabstractThe turn to in-the-wild within HCI has given rise to an increasing concern around designing technologies which are available at large scale. Uniquely, at the intersection of public health and HCI, our work has supported the deployment of a mobile application, FeedFinder, over the last three years. We delineate the ground-work that was required to sustain this mobile application over the long-term. Focussing in particular on efforts made to engage institutions in taking ownership over FeedFinder and the data it provides, we reflect on the tensions that arose between users and civic institutions, particularly around "what matters". We provide a reflection on key requirements when designing a health data service and provide three lessons learnt which can guide researchers toward their own successful and productive long-term research deployments. Emma Simpson, Rob Comber, Andrew Garbett, Edward Jenkins, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 5 |
| 2017 | "They're Just Tixel Pits, Man": Disputing the 'Reality' of Virtual Reality Pornography through the Story Completion MethodabstractPornography is a substantial part of humans' everyday interaction with computers, yet to date the topic has been underconsidered by HCI. Here, we examine some of the common cultural ideals non-experts constructed of a "new" pornographic experience - Virtual Reality (VR) Porn - through use of the "Story Completion Method". Forty five participants completed a story stem about a male character who was about to have his "very first virtual reality porn experience". Through our analysis, we demonstrate a narrative of a "perfect", idealised sexual experience, as well as one which emphasised the imagined "precarious" and dangerous consequences around this technology use. We indicate how the stories reproduced ideals around heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity, suggesting an agenda of "Designing for Eroticism" as a tactic which could avoid such problematic discourses. We also suggest the opportunities and challenges presented through use of the "Story Completion Method". Matthew Wood, Gavin Wood, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 3 |
| 2017 | Citizen Tagger: Exploring Social Tagging of Conversational Audio
Delvin Varghese, Patrick Olivier, Madeline Balaam |
INTERACT (4) | 3 |
| 2017 | Media Literacy as a By-Product of Collaborative Video Production by CS StudentsabstractUnderstanding, promoting, and teaching media literacy is an important societal challenge. STEM educators are increasingly looking to incorporate 21st century skills such as media literacy into core subject education. In this paper we investigate how undergraduate Computer Science (CS) students can learn media literacy as a by-product of collaborative video tutorial production. The paper presents a study of 34 third-year CS undergraduates who, as part of their learning, were each asked to produce three video tutorials on Raspberry Pi programming, using a collaborative video production tool for mobile phones (Bootlegger). We provide results of both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the production process and resulting video tutorials, and conclude that the student cohort demonstrated a clear development of media literacy skills. The paper's contribution is twofold. First, we add to the understanding of how the use of mobile collaborative video production technology by non-professionals can help them learn to create meaningful media messages with little scaffolding. Second, we present an alternative pedagogical approach that can help CS students acquire 21st century skills such as media literacy. Anna Vasilchenko, David Philip Green, Haneen Qarabash, Anne Preston, Tom Bartindale, Madeline Balaam |
ITiCSE | 6 |
| 2017 | Sangoshthi: Empowering Community Health Workers through Peer Learning in Rural IndiaabstractThe Healthcare system of India provides outreach services to the rural population with a key focus on the maternal and child health through its flagship program of Community Health Workers (CHWs). The program since its launch has reached a scale of over 900000 health workers across the country and observed significant benefits on the health indicators. However, traditional face to face training mechanisms face persistent challenge in providing adequate training and capacity building opportunities to CHWs which leads to their sub-optimal knowledge and skill sets. In this paper, we propose Sangoshthi, a low-cost mobile based training and learning platform that fits well into the environment of low-Internet access. Sangoshthi leverages the architecture that combines Internet and IVR technology to host real time training sessions with the CHWs having access to basic phones only. We present our findings of a four week long field deployment with 40 CHWs using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Sangoshthi offers a lively environment of peer learning that was well received by the CHW community and resulted into their knowledge gains (16%) and increased confidence levels to handle the cases. Our study highlights the potential of complementary training platforms that can empower CHWs in-situ without the need of additional infrastructure. Deepika Yadav, Pushpendra Singh 0001, Kyle Montague, Deepak Sood, Madeline Balaam, Drishti Sharma, Mona Duggal, Tom Bartindale, Delvin Varghese, Patrick Olivier |
WWW | 6 |
| 2016 | HCI and Intimate Care as an Agenda for Change in Women's HealthabstractDesigning for women's healthcare remains an underexplored area of HCI, particularly outside informational systems for maternal health. Drawing on a case study of a body disruption - urinary incontinence in women - we illustrate the experience of women's health both from the perspective of the patient and the therapist. We show how knowledge, esteem and agency play crucial roles in remedial women's care practices, as well as preventative. In describing these challenges we deliberate on possible futures of women's health that take advantage of the many advances in design and technology from across the spectrum of HCI research. We show how with some care and courage HCI has the potential to transform women's experience within this setting. Teresa Almeida, Rob Comber, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 3 |
| 2016 | On Looking at the Vagina through LabellaabstractWomen's understandings of their own intimate anatomy has been identified as critical to women's reproductive health and sexual wellbeing. However, talking about it, seeking medical help when necessary as well as examining oneself in order to 'know' oneself is complicated by social-cultural constructions of the vagina, i.e. it is something private, shameful and not to be talked about. In response to this, we designed Labella, an augmented system that supports intimate bodily knowledge and pelvic fitness in women. It combines a pair of underwear and a mobile phone as a tool for embodied intimate self-discovery. In this paper, we describe Labella, and its evaluation with fourteen women, aged 25-63. We show how through situated embodied perception Labella empowers 'looking'. We highlight how the simple act of augmented looking enables the construction of knowledge which ranges from establishing the 'very basics' through to a nuanced understanding of pelvic muscle structure. Finally, we highlight the role of awkwardness and humour in the design of interactions to overcome taboo. Teresa Almeida, Rob Comber, Gavin Wood, Dean Saraf, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 5 |
| 2016 | A Real-Time IVR Platform for Community RadioabstractInteractive Voice Response (IVR) platforms have been widely deployed in resource-limited settings. These systems tend to afford asynchronous push interactions, and within the context of health, provide medication reminders, descriptions of symptoms and tips on self-management. Here, we present the development of an IVR system for resource-limited settings that enables real-time, synchronous interaction. Inspired by community radio, and calls for health systems that are truly local, we developed "Sehat ki Vaani". Sehat ki Vaani is a real-time IVR platform that enables hosting and participation in radio chat shows on community-led topics. We deployed Sehat ki Vaani with two communities in North India on topics related to the management of Type 2 diabetes and maternal health. Our deployments highlight the potential for synchronous IVR systems to offer community connection and localised sharing of experience, while also highlighting the complexity of producing, hosting and participating in radio shows in real time through IVR. We discuss the relative strengths and weaknesses of synchronous IVR systems, and highlight lessons learnt for interaction design in this area. Konstantinos Kazakos, Siddhartha Asthana, Madeline Balaam, Mona Duggal, Amey Holden, Limalemla Jamir, Nanda Kishore Kannuri, Saurabh Kumar 0002, Amarendar Reddy Manindla, Subhashini Arcot Manikam, G. V. S. Murthy, Papreen Nahar, Peter Phillimore, Shreyaswi Sathyanath, Pushpendra Singh 0001, Meenu Singh, Peter C. Wright, Deepika Yadav, Patrick Olivier |
CHI | 3 |
| 2016 | Syrian Refugees and Digital Health in Lebanon: Opportunities for Improving Antenatal HealthabstractThere are currently over 1.1 million Syrian refugees in need of healthcare services from an already overstretched Lebanese healthcare system. Access to antenatal care (ANC) services presents a particular challenge. We conducted focus groups with 59 refugees in rural Lebanon to identify contextual and cultural factors that can inform the design of digital technologies to support refugee ANC. Previously identified high utilization of smartphones by the refugee population offers a particular opportunity for using digital technology to support access to ANC as well as health advocacy. Our findings revealed a number of considerations that should be taken into account in the design of refugee ANC technologies, including: refugee health beliefs and experiences, literacy levels, refugee perceptions of negative attitudes of healthcare providers, and hierarchal and familial structures. Reem Talhouk, Sandra Mesmar, Anja Thieme, Madeline Balaam, Patrick Olivier, Chaza Akik, Hala Ghattas |
CHI | 4 |
| 2016 | Virtual.Cultural.Collaboration: mobile phones, video technology, and cross-cultural learningabstractCross-cultural learning has gained increased interest and importance within school curricula in recent years. Schools are using technology to accumulate resources for cross-cultural learning, which has predominantly been pre-prepared videos, documentaries, photos and textual information available online. In this paper we describe the engagement with video technology on mobile smartphones by three migrant families who were tasked with developing cross-cultural resources over the course of six weeks. The resources developed were then used as a learning resource in a classroom and feedback was taken from the teacher. Our study has established that mobile phones particularly smartphones are an accessible, evocative and affordable avenue to aid in the development of cross-cultural resources alongside building stronger parental engagement in schools. The study contributes an expansion of knowledge in research areas that seek to use video technology on mobile phones to build cross-cultural resources for learning and strengthen home-school and school-home communication. Vidya Sarangapani, Ahmed Kharrufa, Madeline Balaam, David Leat, Peter C. Wright |
MobileHCI | 3 |
| 2015 | Understanding the lived experience of adolescents with type 1 diabetes: opportunities for designabstractType 1 diabetes affects approximately 1 in every 500 children in the UK. Although it is a lifelong condition, there are few if any overt manifestations, which can make it more difficult to meet people with the same condition. To avoid the risk of health complications, an emphasis is placed on a routine of self-management behaviours. However, factors such as the desire to 'fit in' with the peer group may impede adherence and thus increase the probability of diminished health later in life. Creating appropriate peer support networks may be valuable in aiding a young person with diabetes to attend to their condition through interactions with otherwise unseen peers. Through a series of design workshops the context of living with type 1 diabetes and the value of peer support are explored from the perspective of an adolescent. Four types of support are reported: informational; emotional; tangible; and belonging/companionship, and design opportunities explored. Mary Webster, Emma Foster, Rob Comber, Simon J. Bowen, Tim Cheetham, Madeline Balaam |
IDC | 6 |
| 2015 | FeedFinder: A Location-Mapping Mobile Application for Breastfeeding WomenabstractBreastfeeding is positively encouraged across many countries as a public health endeavour. The World Health Organisation recommends breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months of an infant's life. However, women can struggle to breastfeed, and to persist with breastfeeding, for a number of reasons from technique to social acceptance. This paper reports on four phases of a design and research project, from sensitising user-engagement and user-centred design, to the development and in-the-wild deployment of a mobile phone application called FeedFinder. FeedFinder has been developed with breastfeeding women to support them in finding, reviewing and sharing public breastfeeding places with other breastfeeding women. We discuss how mobile technologies can be designed to support public health endeavours, and suggest that public health technologies are better aimed at communities and societies rather than individual. Madeline Balaam, Rob Comber, Edward Jenkins, Selina Jeanne Sutton, Andrew Garbett |
CHI | 1 |
| 2015 | Designing for and with People with Parkinson's: A Focus on ExergamingabstractParkinson's is a complex and multifaceted condition with a myriad of symptoms, thus, designing for and with this user group requires careful consideration. We reflect upon two studies, employing different design methodologies, relating to the design of rehabilitative exergames in Parkinson's. The first explored the concept of designing 'for' People with Parkinson's (PwP) and focused on specifications outlined by clinical stakeholders. The second used a designing 'with' approach and modified a pre-established participatory design method for use with PwP. We call attention to the importance of carrying out design work with PwP and contribute; an empathic understanding of living with Parkinson's, a set of recommendations for how to design with PwP and a set of wider considerations for developing rehabilitative exergames for PwP. Roisin McNaney, Madeline Balaam, Amey Holden, Guy Schofield, Daniel Jackson 0002, Mary Webster, Brook Galna, Gill Barry, Lynn Rochester, Patrick Olivier |
CHI | 2 |
| 2015 | LApp: A Speech Loudness Application for People with Parkinson's on Google GlassabstractReduced vocal volume in Parkinson's is extremely common and can have significant social and emotional impact. We describe the development and evaluation of LApp--an application for Google Glass to help people with Parkinson's (PwP) monitor their speech volume and cue themselves to speak louder when necessary. Our findings highlight enthusiasm for using the application both at home as a volume training tool and in public social settings as a situated cueing device. We contribute insights to the literature on how eyewear technologies can provide assistance to people with health conditions and offer insights for the design of future self-monitoring and management applications on Google Glass. Roisin McNaney, Ivan Poliakov, John Vines, Madeline Balaam, Patrick Olivier |
CHI | 4 |
| 2015 | Exploring Learning Ecologies among People Experiencing HomelessnessabstractNon-homeless youths outperform their homeless peers in school even if they live in extreme poverty. This disadvantage can have long-term consequences for engagement with and navigation of wider society. In this paper we examine how differences in achievement could be tackled outside of school through the re-envisioning of ecologies of digital education. Through interviews, design workshops, and a street visit with a total of 20 homeless young adults during a three-week engagement with a centre for people of low social stability in Bucharest, Romania, we examine the perceptions of education among street involved youth or adults. We identify the core values, aspirations, opportunities and barriers for education among these people, including survival, friendship, learning networks, and curiosity. These findings resulted in five implications for design: learning "happens", learning "works", designing for distanced learning, designing for the social politics of learning, and designing artefacts of everyday learning. These show the importance and necessity of educational reform in the field of HCI. Angelika Strohmayer, Rob Comber, Madeline Balaam |
CHI | 3 |
| 2015 | Evaluating Digital Tabletop Collaborative Writing in the Classroom
Phil Heslop, Anne Preston, Ahmed Kharrufa, Madeline Balaam, David Leat, Patrick Olivier |
INTERACT (2) | 4 |
| 2014 | Making wellbeing: a process of user-centered designabstractWe consider the role of making in current HCI design practices and how it may affect the wellbeing of those who participate in these processes. Through an exploration of psychological concepts of wellbeing and their connection to making experiences, we suggest that making can facilitate and support both hedonic and eudemonic facets of wellbeing. We illustrate this in the context of three case studies that engaged people in creative making activities as part of user-centered design processes. Based on our experiences, we argue that researchers ought to be mindful of the potential impact our design processes have on our participants and provide considerations for those designing for and with participants where wellbeing is a concern. Kevin Marshall, Anja Thieme, Jayne Wallace, John Vines, Gavin Wood, Madeline Balaam |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 6 |
| 2014 | Exploring the acceptability of google glass as an everyday assistive device for people with parkinson'sabstractWe describe a qualitative study investigating the acceptability of the Google Glass eyewear computer to people with Parkinson's disease (PD). We held a workshop with 5 PD patients and 2 carers exploring perceptions of Glass. This was followed by 5-day field trials of Glass with 4 PD patients, where participants wore the device during everyday activities at home and in public. We report generally positive responses to Glass as a device to instil confidence and safety for this potentially vulnerable group. We also raise concerns related to the potential for Glass to reaffirm dependency on others and stigmatise wearers. Roisin McNaney, John Vines, Daniel Roggen, Madeline Balaam, Ivan Poliakov, Patrick Olivier |
CHI | 4 |
| 2014 | The dept. of hidden stories: playful digital storytelling for children in a public libraryabstractWe detail the design of the Department of Hidden Stories (DoHS), a mobile-based game to support playful digital storytelling among primary school children in public libraries. Through a process of iterative design in collaboration with library staff and children's writers we designed DoHS to support the potential for playful storytelling through interactions with books. A deployment of DoHS with two classes of 8 to 10 years olds as part of their regular library visits revealed insights related to how to balance the expectations of a child-at-play and the requirement to further develop their creative reading and writing skills. Based on our experiences we recommend that designers create playful digitally based activities that encourage children to explore libraries and experience new interactions with physical books. Gavin Wood, John Vines, Madeline Balaam, Nick Taylor 0002, Thomas Smith 0001, Clara Crivellaro, Juliana Mensah, Helen Limon, John Challis, Linda Anderson 0001, Adam Clarke, Peter C. Wright |
CHI | 3 |
| 2014 | Emotional Wellbeing
David Coyle, Anja Thieme, Conor Linehan, Madeline Balaam, Jayne Wallace, Siân E. Lindley |
Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud. | 4 |
| 2013 | Learning extended writing: designing for children's collaborationabstractWe describe the learner-centered design of an application for collocated collaborative writing on digital tabletops. Learning writing is an activity that is traditionally undertaken as a non-collaborative, non-visuospatial activity. We demonstrate how framing writing as a visuospatial manipulation of elements of writing sub-tasks can promote collaboration. While collaborative visuospatial activities lend themselves to digital tabletops in particular, not all activities naturally translate into such tasks. Our application allows for (or supports) writing as a collaborative task, as well as providing a platform for students to learn extended writing. We describe the mapping between the design principles used, and the pedagogical and thinking theories that are incorporated into the design. The design is described at each iteration, including the associated user studies, and we conclude with a discussion of more widely applicable design implications. This research shows how traditional non-collaborative learning activities can, using visuospatial representations, be reconfigured as collocated collaborative learning activities. Phil Heslop, Ahmed Kharrufa, Madeline Balaam, David Leat, Paul Dolan, Patrick Olivier |
IDC | 3 |
| 2013 | Designing for and with children with special needs in multiple settingsabstractInteraction design methodologies have become increasingly popular in the design and development of technologies for children with special needs. However, designing within this area remains fraught with difficulties. This workshop aims to explore the issues that occur when working with children with special needs and seeks to establish a set of guidelines for interaction design researchers who are working with such a diverse group. This will be achieved through the discussion of a number of themes that have highlighted as important when designing within this complicated area. Roisin McNaney, Madeline Balaam, Kevin Marshall, Abigail Durrant, Janet C. Read, Judith Good, Judy Robertson, Gregory D. Abowd |
IDC | 2 |
| 2013 | Designing for the needs of child patients in hospital settingsabstractThis position paper reflects on a series of user centred design methods used with 8--14 year old patients in a children's hospital, with the aim of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of these methods within this unusual context. We conclude that there are significant challenges inherent in this type of work and question the appropriateness of participatory design and its methods for this user group. Judy Robertson, Madeline Balaam |
IDC | 2 |
| 2013 | Digital portraits: photo-sharing after domestic violenceabstractThis paper explores how technology could support the re-building of lives after domestic violence. We worked in the context of a women's centre where women are accessing support after leaving abusive relationships. The paper contributes a feminist participatory arts action research approach to studying photo-sharing practices and helps to frame an understanding of the ongoing tensions in the construction of self with others that the women experience. We argue that the affirmation of new bonds, control in sharing the process of 'moving on', and supporting discursive negotiations of privacy are important considerations for design focused on interpersonal social processes around the use of digital technology. Rachel Clarke 0001, Peter C. Wright, Madeline Balaam, John C. McCarthy 0002 |
CHI | 3 |
| 2013 | Tables in the wild: lessons learned from a large-scale multi-tabletop deploymentabstractThis paper presents the results and experiences of a six-week deployment of multiple digital tabletops in a school. Dillenbourg's orchestration framework was used both to guide the design and analysis of the study. Four themes, which directly relate to the design of the technology for the classroom, out of the 15 orchestration factors are considered. For each theme, we present our design choices, the relevant observations, feedback from teachers and students, and we conclude with a number of lessons learned in the form of design recommendations. The distinguishing factors of our study are its scale (in terms of duration, number of classes, subjects, and teachers), and its 'in-the-wild' character, with the entire study being conducted in a school, led by the teachers, and using teacher-prepared, curriculum-based tasks. Our primary contributions are the analysis of our observations and design recommendations for future multi-tabletop applications designed for and deployed within the classroom. Our analyses and recommendations meaningfully extend HCI's current design understandings of such settings. Ahmed Kharrufa, Madeline Balaam, Phil Heslop, David Leat, Paul Dolan, Patrick Olivier |
CHI | 2 |
| 2012 | Magic land: the design and evaluation of an interactive tabletop supporting therapeutic play with childrenabstractWe consider the role and design of digital technologies in play therapy settings with young children. Through an aggregation of the researcher and practitioner literature, and results of discussions with therapists and counselors, we propose a set of design requirements for digital technologies that support non-directive play within a play therapy context. We explore how to design for these complex requirements through the development and evaluation of Magic Land, a set of four play therapy applications for an interactive tabletop. Based on our experiences we recommend that designers create digital interactive toys, which create opportunities for play that would not normally be possible within the traditional play therapy environment. Olga Pykhtina, Madeline Balaam, Gavin Wood, Sue Pattison, Ahmed Kharrufa, Patrick Olivier |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 2 |
| 2012 | Designing wellbeingabstractThis two-day workshop will bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers, designers and practitioners who are interested in the topic of wellbeing in the field of interaction design. Wellbeing is defined as positive mental health, and not only the absence of mental illness, but also the presence of positive psychological functioning. The workshop will provide a platform to share resources, create new ideas for design and build valuable future collaborations. During the first day participants will present their work and exchange their knowledge and experiences in the field. The workshop will utilize a series of interactive activities to support participants in collaboratively constructing a shared understanding of the concept of wellbeing and its challenges in terms of design. On the second day participants will be invited to create low-fidelity prototypes that support an aspect of wellbeing using Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer and other prototyping materials. These practical activities will stimulate discussion so as to contribute to a better understanding of how wellbeing can be facilitated through design, how to address evaluation challenges as well as illustrate related ethical questions. Anja Thieme, Madeline Balaam, Jayne Wallace, David Coyle, Siân E. Lindley |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 2 |
| 2012 | The french kitchen: task-based learning in an instrumented kitchenabstractUbiquitous computing technologies have traditionally striven to augment objects and the environment with sensing capabilities to enable them to respond appropriately to the needs of the individuals in the environment. This paper considers how such technologies might be harnessed to support language learning, and specifically Task-Based Learning (TBL). Task-Based Learning (TBL) involves doing meaningful tasks in a foreign language, emphasising the language's use in practice. TBL is seen as a highly engaging and motivating approach to learning a language, but is difficult to do in the classroom. Here, learners typically engage in activities that only simulate 'real-world' tasks, and as such only rehearse language use, rather than applying the language in practice. In this paper, we explore how an instrumented, context-aware environment whose design is grounded in pedagogical principles can support TBL. We present the French Kitchen, an instrumented kitchen for English speakers who are learning French, and describe a 46-participant evaluation of the kitchen. Based on the evaluation, we provide a set of design recommendations for those building instrumented systems for TBL. Clare J. Hooper, Anne Preston, Madeline Balaam, Paul Seedhouse, Daniel Jackson 0002, Cuong Pham 0001, Cassim Ladha, Karim Ladha, Thomas Plötz, Patrick Olivier |
UbiComp | 3 |
| 2012 | ChronoTape: tangible timelines for family historyabstractAn explosion in the availability of online records has led to surging interest in genealogy. In this paper we explore the present state of genealogical practice, with a particular focus on how the process of research is recorded and later accessed by other researchers. We then present our response, ChronoTape, a novel tangible interface for supporting family history research. The ChronoTape is an example of a temporal tangible interface, an interface designed to enable the tangible representation and control of time. We use the ChronoTape to interrogate the value relationships between physical and digital materials, personal and professional practices, and the ways that records are produced, maintained and ultimately inherited. In contrast to designs that support existing genealogical practice, ChronoTape captures and embeds traces of the researcher within the document of their own research, in three ways: (i) it ensures physical traces of digital research; (ii) it generates personal material around the use of impersonal genealogical data; (iii) it allows for graceful degradation of both its physical and digital components in order to deliberately accommodate the passage of information into the future. Peter Bennett 0001, Mike Fraser 0001, Madeline Balaam |
TEI | 3 |
| 2011 | Motivating mobility: designing for lived motivation in stroke rehabilitationabstractHow to motivate and support behaviour change through design is becoming of increasing interest to the CHI community. In this paper, we present our experiences of building systems that motivate people to engage in upper limb rehabilitation exercise after stroke. We report on participatory design work with four stroke survivors to develop a holistic understanding of their motivation and rehabilitation needs, and to construct and deploy engaging interactive systems that satisfy these. We reflect on the limits of motivational theories in trying to design for the lived experience of motivation and highlight lessons learnt around: helping people articulate what motivates them; balancing work, duty, fun; supporting motivation over time; and understanding the wider social context. From these we identify design guidelines that can inform a toolkit approach to support both scalability and personalisability. Madeline Balaam, Stefan Rennick Egglestone, Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Tom Rodden, Ann-Marie Hughes, Anna Wilkinson, Thomas Nind, Lesley Axelrod, Eric Charles Harris, Ian W. Ricketts, Sue J. Mawson, Jane H. Burridge |
CHI | 1 |
| 2011 | Enhancing interactional synchrony with an ambient displayabstractNonverbal communication is an essential part of face-to-face social interaction, conveying information about emotion and interpersonal relationships. The rigorous sensing capabilities of pervasive technologies and the subtle nature of ambient technologies make them ideal to support the production of nonverbal communication in social interactions. In this paper we present a study using an ambient technology that supports nonverbal communication, and specifically nonverbal behaviours associated with rapport. We show that an ambient display can influence a participant's nonverbal behaviour, and that participants are not aware of this change in their behaviour. We discuss these findings in terms of the design and ethical issues that it raises, and define an agenda for future work. Madeline Balaam, Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Judith Good, Eric Charles Harris |
CHI | 1 |
| 2011 | Monitoring Affective and Motivational Aspects of Learning Experience with the Subtle StoneabstractProviding students with timely and meaningful feedback is an important part of the learning process. In providing formative feedback, it is important that the teacher take the full complexity of the student into account, examining not only what the student learned or failed to learn but also why. There are numerous factors that are associated with why students did learn or fail to learn, and affective and motivational factors are considered especially important. However, these factors are often difficult for teachers to assess in the classroom, and as such can be overlooked in efforts to promote student success. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the need for formative assessments that take affective and motivational factors into consideration. In doing so we introduce a non-commercial tool, the Subtle Stone, that can be integrated into the classroom to make the affective and motivational experience of students more readily available to teachers. We seek to explore whether the addition of such a tool to the classroom can enable teachers to take account of the holistic experience of students in their formative assessment activities. ChanMin Kim, Madeline Balaam |
ICALT | 2 |
| 2010 | Exploring affective technologies for the classroom with the subtle stoneabstractConstructive emotional experiences are strongly related to effective learning. Yet, it is challenging for teachers, researchers and students alike to understand the emotions experienced in the classroom setting. Advances in wireless and sensor technologies open up possibilities for better supporting emotions. However, little work has explored how affective technologies in the classroom might operate. This paper describes a study where 15 high school students used the Subtle Stone: a tangible technology designed to support students' active emotional communication in the classroom. We report on how the students used and experienced this technology, and the values they demonstrated through this use: flexibility, privacy, agency, voice and reflection. We conclude by examining future possibilities for affective technologies in the classroom. Madeline Balaam, Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Judith Good, Rosemary Luckin |
CHI | 1 |
| 2009 | Encouraging Classrooms that Care
Madeline Balaam, Eric Charles Harris, Geraldine Fitzpatrick |
AIED | 1 |