Designing for Cross-Device Interactions

Driven by technological advancements, we now own and operate an ever-growing number of digital devices, leading to an increased amount of digital data we produce, use, and maintain. However, while there is a substantial increase in computing power and availability of devices and data, many tasks we conduct with our devices are not well connected across multiple devices. We conduct our tasks sequentially instead of in parallel, while collaborative work across multiple devices is cumbersome to set up or simply not possible. To address these limitations, this thesis is concerned with cross-device computing. In particular it aims to conceptualise, prototype, and study interactions in cross-device computing. This thesis contributes to the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)—and more specifically to the area of cross-device computing—in three ways: first, this work conceptualises previous work through a taxonomy of cross-device computing resulting in an in-depth understanding of the field, that identifies underexplored research areas, enabling the transfer of key insights into the design of interaction techniques. Second, three case studies were conducted that show how cross-device interactions can support curation work as well as augment users’ existing devices for individual and collaborative work. These case studies incorporate novel interaction techniques for supporting cross-device work. Third, through studying cross-device interactions and group collaboration, this thesis provides insights into how researchers can understand and evaluate multi- and cross-device interactions for individual and collaborative work. We provide a visualization and querying tool that facilitates interaction analysis of spatial measures and video recordings to facilitate such evaluations of cross-device work. Overall, the work in this thesis advances the field of cross-device computing with its taxonomy guiding research directions, novel interaction techniques and case studies demonstrating cross-device interactions for curation, and insights into and tools for effective evaluation of cross-device systems

Incorporating Human Values in Technological Innovation: A Value Sensitive Design Approach for Smartwatches

This study uses Value-Sensitive Design (VSD) to explore user values related to smart-watches. As the popularity of smartwatches increases, and to build responsible and ethi-cal solutions, it is critical to reflect on what values are most important to people and how those values can be reflected in the design of the technology. Overall, the study includes three interrelated parts: a conceptual, an empirical, and a technical investigation. The three-part approach followed is the typical VSD approach. The conceptual investigation consists of identifying key values for users, the empirical investigation consists of inter-views and analysis based on the identified values, and the technical investigation con-sists of creating prototypes and testing those prototypes in collaboration with users. The findings of this study provide insight for research and practice. First, we identi-fied in the literature values that are commonly listed as important (security, privacy, transparency, sustainability, performance and reliability, control, trust, and human wel-fare) and investigated their significance for smartwatch users identifying the ones that are perceived as most important for them. Secondly, we integrated the values identified within prototypes and assessed these designs with users. We refined the prototype de-signs using user feedback ending up with a proof of concept that can be adopted by the industry. Overall, the study shows a lack of knowledge about risks amongst users and how adding layers of transparency within technology can help users make more in-formed choices about their privacy and security. Overall, the thesis takes a human-centered approach to explore the ethical issues and user experience concerns that emerge with smartwatch technologies. By focusing on the needs, perspectives, and priorities of smartwatch users themselves, this research provides design recommendations that are sensitive to values and consider user preferences. The findings from this study contribute to a growing area of research on smartwatches and wearable technologies. They offer researchers and industry practitioners key insights into the complex challenges posed by these increasingly ubiquitous devices. The recom-mendations provided can help guide future work that takes a human-centered view to-ward building smartwatch devices and related smartwatch management applications designed for both usefulness and human well-being

Incorporating Human Values in Technological Innovation: A Value Sensitive Design Approach for Smartwatches

This study uses Value-Sensitive Design (VSD) to explore user values related to smart-watches. As the popularity of smartwatches increases, and to build responsible and ethical solutions, it is critical to reflect on what values are most important to people and how those values can be reflected in the design of the technology. Overall, the study includes three interrelated parts: a conceptual, an empirical, and a technical investigation. The three-part approach followed is the typical VSD approach. The conceptual investigation con-sists of identifying key values for users, the empirical investigation consists of interviews and analysis based on the identified values, and the technical investigation consists of cre-ating prototypes and testing those prototypes in collaboration with users. The findings of this study provide insight for research and practice. First, we identified in the literature values that are commonly listed as important (security, privacy, transpar-ency, sustainability, performance and reliability, control, trust, and human welfare) and investigated their significance for smartwatch users identifying the ones that are perceived as most important for them. Secondly, we integrated the values identified within proto-types and assessed these designs with users. We refined the prototype designs using user feedback ending up with a proof of concept that can be adopted by the industry. Overall, the study shows a lack of knowledge about risks amongst users and how adding layers of transparency within technology can help users make more informed choices about their privacy and security. Overall, the thesis takes a human-centered approach to explore the ethical issues and user experience concerns that emerge with smartwatch technologies. By focusing on the needs, perspectives, and priorities of smartwatch users themselves, this research provides design recommendations that are sensitive to values and consider user preferences. The findings from this study contribute to a growing area of research on smartwatches and wearable technologies. They offer researchers and industry practitioners key insights into the complex challenges posed by these increasingly ubiquitous devices. The recommenda-tions provided can help guide future work that takes a human-centered view toward build-ing smartwatch devices and related smartwatch management applications designed for both usefulness and human well-being

Emotional self-regulation of individuals with autism spectrum disorders: smartwatches for monitoring and interaction

In this paper, we analyze the needs of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) to have a pervasive, feasible and non-stigmatizing form of assistance in their emotional self-regulation, in order to ease certain behavioral issues that undermine their mental health throughout their life. We argue the potential of recent widespread wearables, and more specifically smartwatches, to achieve this goal. Then, a smartwatch system that implements a wide range of self-regulation strategies and infers outburst patterns from physiological signals and movement is presented, along with an authoring tool for smartphones that is to be used by caregivers or family members to create and edit these strategies, in an adaptive way. We conducted an intensive experiment with two individuals with ASD who showed varied, representative behavioral responses to their emotional dysregulation. Both users were able to employ effective, customized emotional self-regulation strategies by means of the system, recovering from the majority of mild stress episodes and temper tantrums experienced in the nine days of experiment in their classroomThis work has been partially funded by the projects “e-Training y e-Coaching para la integración socio—laboral” (TIN2013-44586-R) and “eMadrid-CM: Investigación y Desarrollo de Tecnologías Educativas en la Comunidad de Madrid” (S2013/ICE-2715). It has been also funded by Fundación Orange during the early stages of the project “Tic-Tac-TEA: Sistema de asistencia para la autorregulación emocional en momentos de crisis para personas con TEA mediante smartwatches

High School Teachers' Experiences of Consumer Technologies for Stress Management During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Qualitative Study

BACKGROUND: Stress in education is an adverse reaction that teachers have to excessive pressures or other types of demands placed on them. Consumer digital technologies are already being used by teachers for stress management, albeit not in a systematic way. Understanding teachers' experiences and the long-term use of technologies to support stress self-management in the educational context is essential for meaningful insight into the value, opportunity, and benefits of use. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was first to understand teachers' experiences of consumer technologies for stress management. They were chosen by teachers from a taxonomy tailored to their stress management. The second aim was to explore whether their experiences of use evolved over time as teachers transitioned from working at home during lockdown to working full time on school premises. METHODS: A longitudinal study intended for 6 weeks in the summer term (2020) was extended because of COVID-19 into the autumn term, lasting up to 27 weeks. Teachers chose to use a Withings smartwatch or the Wysa, Daylio, or Teacher Tapp apps. In total, 2 semistructured interviews and web-based surveys were conducted with 8 teachers in South London in the summer term, and 6 (75%) of them took part in a third interview in the autumn term. The interviews were analyzed by creating case studies and conducting cross-case analysis. RESULTS: The teachers described that the data captured or shared by the technology powerfully illustrated the physical and psychosocial toll of their work. This insight gave teachers permission to destress and self-care. The social-emotional confidence generated also led to empathy toward colleagues, and a virtuous cycle of knowledge, self-compassion, permission, and stress management action was demonstrated. Although the COVID-19 pandemic added a new source of stress, it also meant that teachers' stress management experiences could be contrasted between working from home and then back in school. More intentional self-care was demonstrated when back in school, sometimes without the need to refer to the data or technology. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study demonstrate that taking a situated approach to understand the real-world, existential significance and value of data generates contextually informed insights. Where a strategic personal choice of consumer technology is enabled for high school heads of year, the data generated are perceived as holistic, with personal and professional salience, and are motivational in the educational context. Technology adoption was aided by the pandemic conditions of home working, and this flexibility would otherwise need workplace facilitation. These findings add to the value proposition of technologies for individual stress management and workforce health outcomes pertinent to educators, policy makers, and designers

Using pleasurability to compare wristwatches and IoT smartwatches: Providing novel insights into UX design

The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) has brought more challenges for designers to fully understand networked objects and develop pleasurable user experiences (UXs). Due to the radical change of products when they are connected, traditional experience design theories may not be applicable in this new context. Based on two well-established UX design theories, this paper presents a survey study that investigated the pleasurability of IoT devices by comparing a representative IoT device (i.e., the smartwatch) and its conventional form (i.e., the wristwatch). An online questionnaire was deployed to gather feedback from parallel wristwatch and smartwatch users. Their experiences using both types of watches were quantitatively and qualitatively compared by data analysis. The results highlighted the differences in UXs between smartwatches and wristwatches in three types of pleasure and five psychological needs. The study revealed design opportunities to improve the pleasurability of smartwatches and provides novel design insights informing the development of pleasurable UXs for future IoT devices

Lesson Learned from Collecting Quantified Self Information via Mobile and Wearable Devices

The ubiquity and affordability of mobile and wearable devices has enabled us to continually and digitally record our daily life activities. Consequently, we are seeing the growth of data collection experiments in several scientific disciplines. Although these have yielded promising results, mobile and wearable data collection experiments are often restricted to a specific configuration that has been designed for a unique study goal. These approaches do not address all the real-world challenges of “continuous data collection” systems. As a result, there have been few discussions or reports about such issues that are faced when “implementing these platforms” in a practical situation. To address this, we have summarized our technical and user-centric findings from three lifelogging and Quantified Self data collection studies, which we have conducted in real-world settings, for both smartphones and smartwatches. In addition to (i) privacy and (ii) battery related issues; based on our findings we recommend further works to consider (iii) implementing multivariate reflection of the data; (iv) resolving the uncertainty and data loss; and (v) consider to minimize the manual intervention required by users. These findings have provided insights that can be used as a guideline for further Quantified Self or lifelogging studies

Supporting Self-Regulation of Children with ADHD Using Wearables: Tensions and Design Challenges

The design of wearable applications supporting children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD) requires a deep understanding not only of what is possible from a clinical standpoint but also how the children might understand and orient towards wearable technologies, such as a smartwatch. Through a series of participatory design workshops with children with ADHD and their caregivers, we identified tensions and challenges in designing wearable applications supporting the self-regulation of children with ADHD. In this paper, we describe the specific challenges of smartwatches for this population, the balance between self-regulation and co-regulation, and tensions when receiving notifications on a smartwatch in various contexts. These results indicate key considerations—from both the child and caregiver viewpoints—for designing technological interventions supporting children with ADHD