UMIACS Faculty Have 12 Papers Accepted to ACM’s CHI 2017
Designing interactive wearables that spark kids’ interest in science and technology. Improving access to mobile devices for people with upper-body motor impairments. Examining socioeconomic issues that offer insight into online security.
Faculty in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) will discuss these topics—and more—at an upcoming conference on computer-human interaction sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Allison Druin, Niklas Elmqvist, Leah Findlater, Jeff Foster, Jon Froehlich, Michelle Mazurek, Ben Shneiderman and Neil Spring—joined by UMIACS senior research scientist Catherine Plaisant—had 12 papers accepted to this year’s ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, better known as CHI 2017.
The annual conference will be held from May 6–11 in Denver, Colorado. It is considered the premier international forum where people from multiple disciplines can come together to improve methods and systems involving computer-human interaction.
“It’s significant that the work of our faculty is recognized by their peers in having a dozen papers accepted to this prestigious conference,” says Mihai Pop, professor of computer science and interim director of UMIACS. “More important is the research itself—these are all projects focused on new technologies, protocols and interfaces that can positively impact people’s lives.”
Pop points out that UMD graduate students involved in the research played a major role, with several of the papers having students as the lead author. “The hard work from our students, coupled with their innovative ideas, is invaluable,” he says.
Jon Froehlich, an assistant professor of computer science and member of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL), is involved with five of the papers being presented this year.
One of them, “MakerWear: A Tangible Approach to Interactive Wearable Creation for Children,” won a Best Paper award. The paper highlights research by Froehlich and students in his Makeability Lab who are developing new interfaces, techniques and tools that encourage children ages 5–10 to build and program their own interactive wearables.
For example, children can create “headlight hats” that turn on automatically in the dark, “magical” garments that support sociodramatic play—recreating events or scenes a child has experienced—or motion-reactive “light-up shoes” that track physical activity and exercise.
“We discovered that the input from the kids themselves was very important—it wasn’t all technology-related,” says the paper’s lead author Majeed Kazemitabaar, who graduates this May with a master’s degree in computer science.
Another paper, “Comparing Touchscreen and Mouse Input Performance by People With and Without Upper-Body Motor Impairments,” examines how even basic taps and swipes on a mobile phone’s touchscreen can be challenging for people with motor impairments.
Leah Findlater, an assistant professor in the iSchool and the paper’s lead author, says that participants in her group’s study made three times as many errors when doing simple taps on a touchscreen as compared to using a traditional computer mouse.
“To ensure equitable access to widespread devices like smartphones and tablets, we need solutions that reduce these errors and make touchscreen interaction easier for everyone,” Findlater says.
“Where is the Digital Divide? A Survey of Security, Privacy and Socioeconomics” explores how the behavior of the least-secure users on a network—particularly as it relates to users with differing socioeconomic status—can influence security and privacy outcomes for everyone.
Led by Michelle Mazurek, an assistant professor of computer science with appointments in the Maryland Cybersecurity Center and HCIL, researchers analyzed 3,000 census-representative telephone surveys. They discovered that contrary to prior assumptions, people with lower educational attainment reported equal or fewer online security-related incidents as people with a higher level of education.
“We were able to find an important gap in where less and more educated Americans learn about digital security, which points toward the importance of future work aimed at ensuring everyone has opportunities to learn about security and protect themselves,” Mazurek says.
Other papers by UMIACS faculty to be presented at ACM CHI 2017 are:
“Finding Similar People to Guide Life Choices: Challenge, Design, and Evaluation”—which received a Best Paper Honorable Mention—examines how individuals wanting to search for people with similar life choices can use PeerFinder, an interface that lets users interactively find and review database records of people with similar interests.
“Exploring Novice Approaches to Smartphone-based Thermographic Energy Auditing: A Field Study” looks at the recent integration of thermal cameras with commodity smartphones.
“Differences in Crowdsourced vs. Lab-based Mobile and Desktop Input Performance Data” looks at the viability of using crowdsourcing for human-computer interaction performance experiments.
“Live Physiological Sensing & Visualization Ecosystems: An Activity Theory Analysis” investigates how wearable sensing poses new opportunities to enhance personal connections to learning.
“User Interactions and Permission Use on Android” proposes how app authorization systems on Android and other mobile operating systems could be improved by becoming more integrated with the app’s user interface.
“TopoGroups: Context-Preserving Visual Illustration of Multi-Scale Spatial Aggregates,” discusses TopoGroups, a novel context-preserving technique that aggregates spatial data into hierarchical clusters to improve exploration and navigation at multiple spatial scales.
“Co-3Deator: A Team-First Collaborative 3-D Design Ideation Tool,” introduces Co-3Deator, a sketch-based collaborative 3-D modeling system based on the notion of “team-first” ideation.
“Internet Search Roles of Adults in their Homes,” investigates adults’ online information seeking processes within the home.
“Gains from Participatory Design Team Membership as Perceived by Child Alumni and their Parents,” looks at the benefits that children perceive from their membership on Participatory Design teams.
—Story by Melissa Brachfeld