Engaging recently incarcerated and gang affiliated Black and Latino/a young adults in designing social collocated applications for mixed reality smart glasses through community-based participatory design workshops.

Title of the Paper

Exploring Social Collaboration Scenarios for Designing Mixed Reality Smart Glasses Applications with Recently Incarcerated Black and Latinx Youth through Community-Based Participatory Design Workshops

Paper Information

• Research Areas: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Community-Based Participatory Design, Mixed Reality Technology, Innovation Design for Marginalized Groups
• Keywords: Black, Latinx, Community-Based Participatory Design, Mixed Reality, Youth, Social Collaboration, Educational Equity, Technological Innovation

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Problems or Challenges:

  1. Current technology design and innovation processes are predominantly led by privileged groups (primarily white, highly educated, and often male), resulting in a lack of diversity in design processes and neglecting the needs of marginalized groups.
  2. Bias embedded in the design and implementation of technology may pose potential harm and perpetuate inequities for historically excluded groups such as Black and Latinx communities.
  3. Adolescents, particularly those recently incarcerated or with gang affiliations, are rarely included as advocates or professionals in technology design, despite their lived experiences and perspectives shedding light on overlooked social issues.

• Significance:

  1. The advancement of technology, especially mixed reality (MR), increasingly emphasizes its social interaction capabilities. However, ignoring the voices of marginalized groups may exacerbate social inequities.
  2. Including marginalized groups in the technology design process not only enhances the equity of technology but also inspires new design ideas rooted in cultural backgrounds and lived experiences.

• Research Motivation and Related Work: This study builds on Community-Based Participatory Design (CBPD) and Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) methodologies, aiming to design socially interactive mixed reality applications from the perspective of youth. The goal is to address systemic inequities in technology design and promote the democratization of technology.

Solutions

• Methods or Solutions:

  1. Employ CBPD and DBIR methodologies in collaboration with community stakeholders (e.g., Homeboy Art Academy) to design participatory workshops for recently incarcerated or gang-affiliated immigrant and youth groups.
  2. Encourage participants to define and explore mixed reality social application concepts through scenario building, storyboard creation, low-fidelity prototyping, and bodystorming.

• Innovative Aspects:

  1. Centering the unique lived experiences and backgrounds of Black and Latinx youth, treating them as experts in the design process.
  2. Integrating emerging immersive technologies, such as mixed reality (MR), to directly explore how adolescents define social applications relevant to their daily lives.
  3. Combining "design and critique" to address social issues raised by participants (e.g., equitable distribution of educational resources, questioning police and institutional authority) through technological design.

• Implementation Steps:

  1. Select Homeboy Art Academy in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, as the primary site for conducting the study.
  2. Gather feedback through design workshops, emphasizing foundational technology education (e.g., AI, mixed reality), technology prototyping, and expressing participants' individuality and emotional needs.
  3. Adjust design plans based on real-time participant feedback while documenting the outcomes of low-fidelity prototypes, storyboards, and bodystorming activities.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Outcomes:

  1. Application Prototypes: Participants designed several mixed reality-based prototype applications, including "Paint Academy" (an educational space focused on artistic creation), "My Tattoos" (an interactive tool for sharing tattoo stories), and "Dead Homies" (an emotional support platform for revisiting deceased loved ones through virtual avatars).
  2. Participant Feedback: Adolescents demonstrated profound understanding of emotional expression, identity formation, and critique of social institutions, while showing willingness to use such technologies to enhance emotional connections with others.
  3. Expanded Understanding: The study revealed that participants' implicit design motivations were to reclaim agency and participation through technology, reflecting their emotional appeals for identity recognition in a society that often marginalizes them.

• Advantages:

  1. Enhanced the technological acceptance and skill development potential for socially marginalized youth groups.
  2. Approached design not solely from narrow user needs but from a critical perspective that examines social structural issues and reflects them in the design process.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  1. Limitations: Workshop attendance was inconsistent, mixed reality technology remains costly, and the workshop outputs were conceptual prototypes (low-fidelity).
  2. Future Directions: Future research should adopt a more structured participation model, incorporate additional technical training courses, and evaluate the long-term impact of participation. Efforts should also focus on advancing participant prototypes toward high-fidelity technical implementations.

In summary, this study not only aims to empower and amplify the voices of marginalized groups but also deepens our understanding of the rich possibilities of mixed reality applications, particularly in enhancing social collaboration and cross-cultural communication.