For many students, attending college is a dramatic but necessary change. To gain a better understanding of experiences that are unique to autistic college students, we conducted a mixed-method study with 20 students (10 autistic and 10 neurotypical). We collected physiological, contextual, experience, and environmental data from their natural environment using Fitbit and smartphones. We found that stress patterns, emotional states, and physical states are similar for both groups. Our autistic participants prioritized academic success over everything else, often intentionally confining their movements among academic, resident, and work locations to engage themselves with academic work as much as possible. They had a small number of friends, always preferring quality over quantity and sometimes regarding friends as close as family members. To maintain a better social life, they extensively used social media. They slept more than neurotypical participants per day; however, they experienced lower sleep quality.

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience difficulty in social interaction resulting in a lack of close social connections. Online social networking sites show promise in enabling individuals with ASD to make connections as the media of communication is often void of complexities present in real-life situations (e.g., real-time interpretation of complex social and emotional cues). We conducted a systematic content analysis of the Autism and Asperger's subreddits to understand user types, interaction patterns and trends, and user's experience, expectations, and unmet needs pertaining to these online communities. Our analysis revealed several interesting findings including the presence of 15 different topic areas, the tone and preference of the community, the difference in communication style between individuals with ASD and other related members (e.g., parents, therapists). Our analysis signified a need for an accessible and inclusive social networking site design that will cater to the specific needs of this community.

Smart technologies (wearable and mobile devices) show tremendous potential in the detection, diagnosis, and management of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) by enabling continuous real-time data collection, identifying effective treatment strategies, and supporting intervention design and delivery. Though promising, effective utilization of smart technology in aiding ASD is still limited. We propose a set of implications to guide the design of ASD-support technology by analyzing 149 peer-reviewed articles focused on children with autism from ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, and PubMed. Our analysis reveals that technology should facilitate real-time detection and identification of points-of-interest, adapt its behavior driven by the real-time affective state of the user, utilize familiar and unfamiliar features depending on user-context, and aid in revealing even minuscule progress made by children with autism. Our findings indicate that such technology should strive to blend-in with everyday objects. Moreover, gradual exposure and desensitization may facilitate successful adaptation of novel technology.

We present the design, implementation, and evaluation of Bangladesh Emergency Services (BES), a mobile application that provides 911-like services in Bangladesh. The involvement of A2I, a government agency, helped in the nationwide deployment of BES. To date, 120,382 unique users downloaded BES and 27,117 users are actively using it. Analysis of user ratings (N=3,788) and reviews (N=1,231) from Google Play Store, an online survey (N=137), and face-to-face interviews (N=10) revealed that users considered BES effective. Currently, BES is used to report aggressive behavior, street fight, harassment, fire-related incidents, and for locating nearby hospitals for medical emergencies. Our findings highlight the importance of trustworthiness, scalability of service, and iterative and participatory design for successful deployment of such services. We believe our research will inspire the design of mobile-based emergency applications in other developing countries that lack 911-like services.

In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a location-aware mobile-based emergency service for Bangladesh, a developing country, which lacks any central 911-like emergency service. Our goal was to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of such services that do not require building any new infrastructure or changing the existing infrastructure available in Bangladesh. To achieve our goal, we iteratively designed and deployed two location-aware mobile-based emergency services in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. These deployments provided a deep insight about user experience, acceptance, and sustainability issues. We learned that users considered these services effective, felt comfortable using these during emergencies, and expressed a need for integration of additional services. Our findings indicate that it is feasible to design a location-aware mobile-based emergency service in Bangladesh. We believe that our proposed design will help to provide a low-cost alternative to the central 911-services, especially for the developing countries.