QUILT: Supporting Modular Design of Machine-Knitting ProgramsKnitting machines can manufacture complex layered, textured, and multi-material fabrics and garments. With new programming languages and interfaces there is greater access to the machine’s capabilities. Developers can now create machine instructions that produce a fabric sample or garment. Such files can be easily shared with others, but modifying and combining these samples requires extensive expertise in knitting-specific programming languages, substantial effort, and time. Knit programming offers little support for modular design. We take a step towards modular knitting-machine programming and present QUILT: Quality Unification Infrastructure for Loop-based Textiles. QUILT enables knit programmers to create swatches from knitting programs and lay these swatches out spatially on a 2-dimensional grid. We use three novel knit-program merging algorithms to merge the connected swatches into a quilt program. The knitted structures of each swatch remain unchanged, and our algorithms ensure that the swatches are joined by a seamless boundary that maintains the constraints of knitting-machine programming and knitted-structure construction.2025JHJack Hester et al.Aging-Friendly Technology DesignCircuit Making & Hardware PrototypingUIST
Dissecting users' needs for search result explanationsThere is a growing demand for transparency in search engines to understand how search results are curated and to enhance users' trust. Prior research has introduced search result explanations with a focus on "how" to explain, assuming explanations are beneficial. Our study takes a step back to examine "if" search explanations are needed and "when" they are likely to provide benefits. Additionally, we summarize key characteristics of helpful explanations and share users' perspectives on explanation features provided by Google and Bing. Interviews with non-technical individuals reveal that users do not always seek or understand search explanations and mostly desire them for complex and critical tasks. They find Google's search explanations too obvious but appreciate the ability to contest search results. Based on our findings, we offer design recommendations for search engines and explanations to help users better evaluate search results and enhance their search experience.2024PJPrerna Juneja et al.Seattle UniversityExplainable AI (XAI)Algorithmic Transparency & AuditabilityRecommender System UXCHI
Viblio: Introducing Credibility Signals and Citations to Video-Sharing PlatformsAs more users turn to video-sharing platforms like YouTube as an information source, they may consume misinformation despite their best efforts. In this work, we investigate ways that users can better assess the credibility of videos by first exploring how users currently determine credibility using existing signals on platforms and then by introducing and evaluating new credibility-based signals. We conducted 12 contextual inquiry interviews with YouTube users, determining that participants used a combination of existing signals, such as the channel name, the production quality, and prior knowledge, to evaluate credibility, yet sometimes stumbled in their efforts to do so. We then developed Viblio, a prototype system that enables YouTube users to view and add citations and related information while watching a video based on our participants' needs. From an evaluation with 12 people, all participants found Viblio to be intuitive and useful in the process of evaluating a video’s credibility and could see themselves using Viblio in the future.2024EHEmelia May Hughes et al.University of Notre DameSocial Platform Design & User BehaviorMisinformation & Fact-CheckingCreative Collaboration & Feedback SystemsCHI
How Should the Agent Communicate to the Group? Communication Strategies of a Conversational Agent in Group Chat DiscussionsIn online group discussions, balanced participation can improve the quality of discussion, members’ satisfaction, and positive group dynamics. One approach to achieve balanced participation is to deploy a conversational agent (CA) that encourages participation of under-contributing members, and it is important to design communication strategies of the CA in a way that is supportive to the group. We implemented five communication strategies that a CA can use during a decision-making task in a small group synchronous chat discussion. The five strategies include messages sent to two types of recipients (@username vs. @everyone) crossed by two separate channels (public vs. private), and a peer-mediated strategy where the CA asks a peer to address the under-contributing member. Through an online study with 42 groups, we measured the balance of participation and perceptions about the CA by analyzing chat logs and survey responses. We found that the CA sending messages specifying an individual through a private channel is the most effective and preferred way to increase participation of under-contributing members. Participants also expressed that the peer-mediated strategy is a less intrusive and less embarrassing way of receiving the CA's messages compared to the conventional approach where the CA directly sends a message to the under-contributing member. Based on our findings, we discuss trade-offs of various communication strategies and explain design considerations for building an effective CA that adapts to different group dynamics and situations.2022HDTue Do et al.Conversational Agents & Speech RecognitionCSCW
How Should the Agent Communicate to the Group? Communication Strategies of a Conversational Agent in Group Chat DiscussionsIn online group discussions, balanced participation can improve the quality of discussion, members’ satisfaction, and positive group dynamics. One approach to achieve balanced participation is to deploy a conversational agent (CA) that encourages participation of under-contributing members, and it is important to design communication strategies of the CA in a way that is supportive to the group. We implemented five communication strategies that a CA can use during a decision-making task in a small group synchronous chat discussion. The five strategies include messages sent to two types of recipients (@username vs. @everyone) crossed by two separate channels (public vs. private), and a peer-mediated strategy where the CA asks a peer to address the under-contributing member. Through an online study with 42 groups, we measured the balance of participation and perceptions about the CA by analyzing chat logs and survey responses. We found that the CA sending messages specifying an individual through a private channel is the most effective and preferred way to increase participation of under-contributing members. Participants also expressed that the peer-mediated strategy is a less intrusive and less embarrassing way of receiving the CA's messages compared to the conventional approach where the CA directly sends a message to the under-contributing member. Based on our findings, we discuss trade-offs of various communication strategies and explain design considerations for building an effective CA that adapts to different group dynamics and situations.2022HDTue Do et al.Conversational Agents & Speech RecognitionCSCW
“Good Enough!”: Flexible Goal Achievement with Margin-based Outcome EvaluationTraditional goal setting simply assumes a binary outcome for goal evaluation. This binary judgment does not consider a user's effort, which may demotivate the user. This work explores the possibility of mitigating this negative impact with a slight modification on the goal evaluation criterion, by introducing a `margin' that is widely used for quality control in the manufacturing fields. A margin represents a range near the goal where the user's outcome will be regarded as `good enough' even if the user fails to reach it. We explore users' perceptions and behaviors through a large-scale survey study and a small-scale field experiment using a coaching system to promote physical activity. Our results provide positive evidence on the margin, such as lowering the burden of goal achievement and increasing motivation to make attempts. We discuss practical design implications on margin-enabled goal setting and evaluation for behavioral change support systems.2021GJGyuwon Jung et al.KAISTGamification DesignFitness Tracking & Physical Activity MonitoringCHI
Enriched Social Translucence in Medical CrowdfundingSocial translucence theory argues that online collaboration systems should make contributors' activities visible to better achieve a common goal. Currently in medical crowdfunding sites, various non-monetary contributions integral to the success of a campaign, such as campaign promotions and offline support, are less visible than monetary contributions. Our work investigates ways to enrich social translucence in medical crowdfunding by aggregating and visualizing non-monetary contributions that reside outside of the current crowdfunding space. Three different styles of interactive visualizations were built and evaluated with medical crowdfunding beneficiaries and contributors. Our results reveal the perceived benefits and challenges of making the previously invisible non-monetary contributions visible using various design features in the visualizations. We discuss our findings based on the social translucence framework--visibility, awareness, and accountability--and suggest design guidelines for crowdfunding platform designers.2020JKJennifer G Kim et al.Interactive Data VisualizationVisualization Perception & CognitionContent Moderation & Platform GovernanceDIS
Crowdsourcing Exercise Plans Aligned with Expert Guidelines and Everyday ConstraintsExercise plans help people implement behavior change. Crowd workers can help create exercise plans for clients, but their work may result in lower quality plans than produced by experts. We built CrowdFit, a tool that provides feedback about compliance with exercise guidelines and leverages strengths of crowdsourcing to create plans made by non-experts. We evaluated CrowdFit in a comparative study with 46 clients using exercise plans for two weeks. Clients received plans from crowd planners using CrowdFit, crowd planners without CrowdFit, or from expert planners. Compared to crowd planners not using CrowdFit, crowd planners using CrowdFit created plans that are more actionable and more aligned with exercise guidelines. Compared to experts, crowd planners created more actionable plans, and plans that are not significantly different with respect to tailoring, strength and aerobic principles. They struggled, however, to satisfy exercise requirements of amount of exercise. We discuss opportunities for designing technology supporting physical activity planning by non-experts.2018EAElena Agapie et al.University of WashingtonMental Health Apps & Online Support CommunitiesFitness Tracking & Physical Activity MonitoringCHI