June 2014 – dieso.de

Simon Fraser University, SIAT, Everyday Design Studio, Summer 2013 – Summer 2014

Aiming to examine the quality of DIY tutorials, we put ourselves in the position of DIY enthusiasts, attempting to build ten DIY projects by following their tutorials. We documented this process and analyzed our experiences and observations. In the context of our study, we believe that the process of following the tutorials ourselves is a straightforward way to investigate the challenges and opportunities of DIY instructions.

We will be presenting a paper using findings from this study at CHI 2015:

Wakkary, R., Schlling, M., Dalton, M., Hauser, S., Desjardins, A., Zhang, X., & Lin, H. (2015). Tutorial Authorship and Hybrid Designers: The Joy (and Frustration) of DIY Tutorials. In Proceedings of the conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, (forthcoming, April 2015). (10pgs).

Here is the abstract:

Tutorials are critical to the success and vitality of DIY practices. In this paper, we elevate the importance of tutorial authorship as one way to maintain and improve the quality of tutorials in DIY. We discuss the role interaction designers can play as hybrid designers, mediating between author and audience to contribute to the improvement of practices of tutorial authorship in DIY. We examine the quality of tutorials through the building and analysis of ten DIY projects and tutorials. We analyze key issues across three categories: 1) competences, components and tools, 2) sequencing, 3) and communication. We offer findings that are both practical guidelines for detailed improvements of tutorials and structural themes for improving tutorial authorship including the themes of accurate information, competences and tools, and tutorial format. In conclusion, we discuss the potential for interaction designers to simultaneously mediate and shape tutorials and tools in a form of hybrid design

Simon Fraser University, SIAT, PhD Studies, Spring 2012 – Fall 2013

The visually impaired have been a longstanding well recognized user group addressed in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Recently, the study of sighted dog owners and their pets has gained interest in HCI. Despite this, there is a noticeable gap in the field of HCI with regards to research on and for visually impaired owners and their dogs (guide dog teams).

This research specifically focuses on guide dog teams, presenting an ethnographic study that explores the interactions of guide dog teams revealing differences between their work and off-work relationship. Some of our findings promote design interventions that address issues of awareness, pride, confidence, and trust present in guide dog teams at work but absent in off-work scenarios. We uncover potential for the design of new computer-mediated technologies that can better support the needs of guide dog owners; specifically, enhanced play-interaction through accessible dog toys utilizing smart sensor technologies and mobile apps.

The study has been an incredible experience and taught me a lot about Guide Dogs and their handlers and ethnographic fieldwork. BC Guide Dogs has been a very helpful partner in this work.

We published several works on this project:

Hauser, S., Wakkary, R., & Neustaedter, C., (2014). Understanding guide dog team interactions: design opportunities to support work and play. In Proc. of the 2014 conference on Designing interactive systems (DIS 14). ACM, NY, USA, pp. 295-304.

Hauser, S., Wakkary, R., & Neustaedter, C. (2014). Improving guide dog team play with accessible dog toys. In Proc. of CHI EA‘14. ACM, NY, USA, pp. 1537-1542.

Hauser, S., Wakkary, R., and Neustaedter, C., (2013) Work vs. Play: A Study of Guide Dog Team Interactions, GRAND NCE Conference, Research Notes, Grand’13.

I have picked up this work in my doctoral dissertation work and taken it a step further by using the lens of postphenomenology to complement human-centered ways of studying these human-non-human teams.