Much has been said regarding the automatic identification of roadway obstacles by analyzing data collected from inertial sensors either fixed to the vehicle or embedded into the drivers' smartphones. Literature is vast in models to, given a record of sensor readings, determine if the sample corresponds to a pothole or speed bump, even with scores beyond 90% in performance. Acknowledging this advance, this article considers the next-generation version of this problem. Specifically, we investigate questions such as: what physical properties of roadway obstacles could be inferred from the same sensor readings? or, what are the best schemes to model this profile problem? To approach these questions we built the first obstacle-detailed data set that is composed of accelerometer and gyroscope readings of 163 potholes and 101 speed bumps. This data set is the first of its kind, since it specifies ground truth labels that correspond to potholes' depths and also, functional status (OK - Not OK) for speed bumps. We approach this fine-grained characterization using three different learning schemes, as a Regression, Classification and Learning to Rank tasks. Results are encouraging, reporting a RMSE for pothole's depth prediction of up to 1.68 cm and classification performance of 0.89 in AUC score. In summary, after more than 10 years of analysis, struggles and achievements, it is time for the community to become smarter and start profiling roads with real detail.

Cognitive impairment is sometimes viewed as a deficit limiting an individual's ability to participate fully in society. Art therapy, in contrast, is a context in which older adults with cognitive impairments (e.g., dementia, aphasia) are positioned as capable, competent, and engaged through the act of creating and sharing artwork. We draw on the concept of the "Third Hand," a practice in art therapy in which the therapist attunes to and enables the desires of the client during interaction. We use this concept to understand how to empower creative work and sharing among older adults with cognitive impairments. We introduce an interactive frame prototype to explore new opportunities for sharing and supporting interaction between these older adults and their therapist. We conclude with a discussion of what designing for the Third Hand means to HCI, including how this metaphor provides a model of empathy and empowerment in design for this population.

With much of the population now online, the field of HCI faces new and pressing issues of how to help people sustain online activity throughout their lives, including through periods of disability. The onset of cognitive impairment later in life affects whether and how individuals are able to stay connected online and manage their digital information. While caregivers play a critical role in the offline lives of adults with cognitive impairments, less is known about how they support and enable online interaction. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, data from focus groups with caregivers of adults with cognitive impairments reveal four forms of cooperative work caregivers perform in the context of supporting online activity. We find that staying active online is a way of empowering and engaging adults with cognitive impairments, yet this introduces new forms of risk, surrogacy, and cooperative technology use to the already demanding work of caregiving.

Eye contact is crucial to shared encounters in public spaces. However, most urban technologies that aim to foster social interaction' attention towards the device rather than to those with whom the encounter is shared. We present the design and evaluation of the Jokebox, a lightweight technology that requires two passers-by to coordinate actions to hear a joke. In three in the wild studies at different locations we found that our design supported micro-level coordination in a consistent manner: by encouraging people to make eye contact and by using audible jokes, users engaged in interactions that often led to further conversation and laughter. We describe how opportunities for macro-level coordination were key to the success of the installation, but varied by context. Finally, we present design implications for considering both the micro and macro levels of social coordination.

Older adults are most often considered consumers of online information, but recent work highlights the importance of engaging older adults in content generation and online sharing. One context in which older adults generate and share content is art therapy for individuals with dementia. Our analysis draws on Altman's notion of privacy and territorial regions to understand what sharing means for this vulnerable population. This theoretical framing reveals the ways in which privacy is cooperatively negotiated, which is in contrast to the individualistic view of existing sharing systems; how older adults derive benefits from sharing depending on interaction with their audience; and how sharing fluctuates between a focus on the process of therapy versus the product depending on privacy needs. Our analysis contributes an understanding of the complex nature of sharing for vulnerable populations and offers design considerations for systems that support this practice.

As SNS become ubiquitous, users are exploiting SNS content to enrich in-person gatherings. In this paper we present the results of a 26-weeks deployment study of an interactive display involving a lightweight Facebook client, and a movement-based social exergame, to explore how this technology impact in-person interactions with one extended family. Our results indicate that the use of the display is semi-public, and catalyzed opportunistic gatherings. We close discussing how the social implications of our results contribute to the use of public social displays, and its social implications for encouraging people to be socially engaged.

Social Networking sites (SNS) use helps teenagers and younger adults to increase their social network and maintain those offline connections made in their daily activities. However older adults are often left aside from SNS, missing interaction opportunities with the members of their social network. The lack of participation and access to these social capital sources might be relevant because several studies indicate the impact that causes the quality of the social network in the physical and mental health of the older adult. Therefore the goal of my dissertation is to investigate the impact and issues raised by the use of ambient information systems to help older adults to socialize through SNSs in natural ways creating an ambient social network site.