A Visual Exploration of Bias in Covid-19 Coverage

During the Covid-19 pandemic, news outlets used information visualizations to convey noteworthy data about different facets of the crisis in a short period of time. Despite claims of neutrality, an information visualization also conveys bias. Exploring bias in visualizations allows us to understand the bias that some news outlets hold. I chose to explore how news outlets conveyed political bias in a visualization. In this study, using the AllSides scale, I first identified ten news outlets of varying political bias. I then collected five Covid-19 visualizations from each news outlet. I analyzed each visualization’s use of information visualization techniques and topics in order to explore the ways political bias manifests visually. It is unsurprising that I found that news outlets were concerned about Covid-19, discussing the spread and number of Covid-19 cases. News outlets were also similar in the types of colors and graphs they used. The news outlets explored the pandemic on both a national and international level. We see that the bias manifests into either accurately exploring the severity of the pandemic or downplaying the severity of the pandemic. No news outlet overstates the concern of Covid-19. By understanding how media bias manifests in information visualizations, we can further understand how to decrease these biases and truly understand what a visualization is trying to convey. Information literacy is one underused method that can help us understand bias in information visualizations. Specifically, visual literacy is essential to determining which visualizations to believe

Effects of Sensemaking Translucence on Distributed Collaborative Analysis

Collaborative sensemaking requires that analysts share their information and insights with each other, but this process of sharing runs the risks of prematurely focusing the investigation on specific suspects. To address this tension, we propose and test an interface for collaborative crime analysis that aims to make analysts more aware of their sensemaking processes. We compare our sensemaking translucence interface to a standard interface without special sensemaking features in a controlled laboratory study. We found that the sensemaking translucence interface significantly improved clue finding and crime solving performance, but that analysts rated the interface lower on subjective measures than the standard interface. We conclude that designing for distributed sensemaking requires balancing task performance vs. user experience and real-time information sharing vs. data accuracy.Comment: ACM SIGCHI CSCW 201

Investigating the Impact of Co-located and Distributed Collaboration Using Multi-touch Tables

With the intention to study the role of new interfaces in multi-user applications, multi-touch tabletops are investigated to examine if they effectively aid their users in working together synchronously. Multi-player games are selected as a case of collaborative work. Early studies of distributed multi-touch tabletops did not cover the HCI related aspects associated with multi-player games, especially in distributed configuration. The performance, collaboration, and usability aspects of HCI are studied in this research. A simple multi-player maze game has been designed and implemented over two connected and physically separated multi-touch tabletops. The aim of this work is to investigate the effects of distribution on players performance, collaboration, and usability of multi-player games over multi-touch tabletops, compared to playing in a co-located condition. Groups of participants have been randomly selected and assigned to play the game in pairs under two conditions: co-located where two players are playing the game on the same table, and distributed where they are playing the game but on separate tables. The collected data is statistically analysed to test for differences between the two conditions, as well as the differences of the strength of the correlation between the underlying factors. The results indicate that, in general, the differences are not significant for such type of applications if a simple and efficient communication mechanism is provided for the players in the distributed condition. Players expressed almost the same level of usability engagement and enjoyment for the two conditions. This may have a strong impact on the HCI aspects when designing such type of applications on the future

Designing multi-touch tabletop interaction techniques to support co-located Group Information Management

Co-located group information management (GIM) is a form of groupware with the aim of enabling users to collaboratively find, store, maintain, organise and share personal and/or group information in support of a group activity. Existing systems aimed at partially supporting GIM activities have been implemented on single user devices. These systems make use of asynchronous communication that may hinder collaboration by misinterpretation, information leaks, etc. Few systems exist, with limited functionality, that support co-located GIM. Multi-touch tabletop interaction has given rise to a new approach for supporting Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). Multi-touch tabletops allow multiple users to naturally interact with a computer device using a shared display and gesture interaction. The tabletop environment also enables users to sit in a natural environment and synchronously communicate without bulky desktops or laptops. Multi-touch tabletops provide the hardware necessary to support co-located GIM. Existing multi-touch interaction techniques were analysed and proved insufficient to support the advanced functional requirements of GIM. The goal of this research was therefore to support co-located GIM by designing new multi-touch tabletop interaction techniques. An architecture was proposed to support co-located GIM with new multi-touch interaction techniques. A software prototype was developed based on the proposed architecture to facilitate the main activities of GIM and to collaboratively compile documents. The prototype was named CollaGIM (Colla – collaborative, GIM – group information management). CollaGIM supports the main activities of GIM using natural gesture interaction on a multi-touch tabletop. An evaluation of the software was conducted by means of a user study where 15 teams of two people participated. High task success rates and user satisfaction results were achieved, which showed that CollaGIM was capable of supporting co-located GIM using the new multi-touch tabletop interaction techniques. CollaGIM also positively supported collaboration between users

An activity theory based investigation of communication and connection between family, students, and school

Communication and connection between families, students, and school is a topic that receives wide attention in the research literature. This is justified because close alignment between home and school can have numerous benefits for students, such as providing them with support for their academic progress, motivation for learning, behaviour, and readiness for school. Although the extent and quality of research on this topic has helped improve attitudes and approaches towards initiatives that aim to enhance opportunities for communication and connection between home and school, issues continue to limit the effectiveness of many programmes. Examples of issues reported in the literature include that resource capacities impacted on the sustainability of a programme; a school organised event attracted only a small number of families; or that family members felt disempowered during their interactions with teachers. It is of concern that research aimed at addressing these issues often isolates elements of context and at times places blame on groups of stakeholders, usually either family members or teachers. Rather, family-school programmes should be researched from the perspective that they are holistic activities involving a multitude of elements that include not only family members and teachers, but also students, rules, divisions of labour, and tools of mediation. Studies must aim to take account of the diversity that exists within and between each of these elements; particularly in the experiences, cultural beliefs, and aspirations of the stakeholders involved. Fundamentally, all stakeholders want to see students gain the emotional, social, and academic skills that will inspire them towards success in later years. Family members have strengths that can contribute towards inspiring student success. Research investigating how to incorporate these strengths into school based programmes must attend to both specific detail and wider contextual factors in order to take account of diversity in the elements involved. These requirements underpin the choice of activity theory as the theoretical foundation of this thesis. Activity systems analysis is used to illuminate where tensions and alignments exist in the family-school programmes being implemented at three low socio-economic primary schools in New Zealand. Particular attention is given to the affordances and limitations of the tools chosen to mediate acts of communication and connection at each school. Analysis draws attention to the benefits of a carefully chosen tool that is aligned with a shared purpose designed to guide the thoughts and actions of stakeholders towards the understanding that the contributions they make to their family-school programme are respected and valued. One of the medium investigated for guiding the thoughts and actions of stakeholders is the culture of a school. It is discussed that a school culture embedded with certain symbolic tools can act as both a tool and a context for communication. Other tools of communication investigated include mobile phones and student portfolios. The affordances and limitations of these tools are considered where it is highlighted that mobile phones offer many possibilities for meaningful communication, while student portfolios can be the source of a multitude of concerns. These findings contribute to the implications for educational practice and theory that form the conclusion to this thesis

Pitfalls of information access with visualizations in remote collaborative analysis

In a world of widespread information access, information can overwhelm collaborators, even with visualizations to help. We extend prior work to study the effect of shared information on collaboration. We analyzed the success and discussion process of remote pairs trying to identify a serial killer in multiple crime cases. Each partner had half of the evidence, or each partner had all the available evidence. Pairs also used one of three tools: spreadsheet only (control condition), unshared visualizations, or shared visualization. Visualizations improved analysis over the control condition but this improvement depended on how much evidence each partner had. When each partner possessed all the evidence with visualizations, discussion flagged and pairs showed evidence of more confirmation bias. They discussed fewer hypotheses and persisted on the wrong hypothesis. We discuss the possible reasons for this phenomenon and implications for design of remote collaboration systems to incorporate awareness of intermediate processes important to collaborative success