"It's come around way too quickly!" Can technology help parents provide support during menarche?

Menarche is an important milestone and time of transition, where children and adolescents need information and support. Parents provide significant support, but barriers such as parents’ own lack of confidence and information interfere. Existing technology for menstrual health is not always appropriate or accessible to younger adolescents and children. We ran two studies: Study1, an interview and design study explored how parents support children for menarche, their use of technology for this, and to understand the gaps. Study2 evaluated a design concept based on Study1, to gain further insights. Our findings show that menarche is an emotional time for parents and children; parents provide support and shared sensemaking but there is space for technology in providing scaffolding for parents to provide further support. However, there is a balance between sharing or support and privacy or control that needs to be negotiated between parents and children. We conclude with some reflections

"Like a candy shop with forbidden fruits": Exploring Sexual Desire of Cohabiting Millennial Couples with Technology

Many cohabiting millennials report dissatisfaction about declining levels of sexual desire. Barriers such as desire discrepancy, lack of communication, changing needs, and habituality interfere with sexual desire and relationship satisfaction. This paper explores whether technology has a role in supporting and increasing sexual desire or developing an understanding of different individual needs towards sexual desire within couples’ relationships and how it can do so. To explore this, we conducted a survey (n=77) and interview study (n=12). Results show that participants wanted a shared, dedicated, and protected space to playfully explore their individual desire with each other. They felt technology could facilitate a better understanding of their evolving needs as a couple, motivate open sexual communication, bring spontaneity, and hands-on exploration; however, technology should not inflict judgement or obligations on desire levels; it should help to understand and situate differing needs in a relationship meaningfully. We share our reflections on the role of technology and raise important considerations in such technology design

Developing Empathy towards Experiences of Invisible Disabilities Through Games

Hidden or invisible disabilities are invisible to the onlooker and can be physical, mental, or neurological conditions that limit a person's movements, senses or activities. As a result, they can lead to misunderstandings, false perceptions, and judgments. Developing an understanding of the conditions and the limitations they impose on people who have these conditions might help to develop empathy and reduce stigma and misunderstanding. We investigate the use of games for this purpose. This paper reports a first qualitative survey study with 56 participants about their experiences of interacting with a paper prototype of a game about living with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and then answering questions regarding their perceptions of the game with respect to their own experiences. The study aimed to understand if we can unify the design of games for barriers faced by people with invisible disabilities. The prototype was redesigned based on the findings of the first study. Study 2 involved a playtesting session with 8 participants who did not have invisible disabilities engaging with the digital prototype. Their empathy quotient was measured before and after playing. While the study's results did not yield any statistically significant findings, they do offer some evidence that playing computer games can be a useful way to increase empathy towards people with invisible disabilities and provide design considerations for such games

A Taxonomy of Noise in Voice Self-reports while Running

Smart earables offer great opportunities for conducting ubiquitous computing research. This paper shares its reflection on collecting self-reports from runners using the microphone on the smart eSense earbud device. Despite the advantages of the eSense in allowing researchers to collect continuous voice self-reports anytime anywhere, it also captured noise signals from various sources and created challenges in data processing and analysis. The paper presents an initial taxonomy of noise in runners’ voice self-reports data via eSense. This is based on a qualitative analysis of voice recordings based on eSense’s microphone with 11 runners across 14 in-the-wild running sessions. The paper discusses the details and characteristics of the observed noise, the challenges in achieving good-quality self-reports, and opportunities for extracting useful contextual information. The paper further suggests a noise-categorization API for the eSense or other similar platforms, not only for the purpose of noise-cancellation but also incorporating the mining of contextual information

HCI and Health: Learning from Interdisciplinary Interactions

HCI has multidisciplinary roots and has drawn from and contributed to different disciplines, including computer science, psychology, sociology, and medicine. There is a natural overlap between health and HCI researchers, given their joint focus on utilising technologies to better support people’s health and wellbeing. However, the best digital health interventions are not simply the result of the ‘application’ of HCI to the domain of healthcare, but emerge when researchers from both camps seek to overcome differences in disciplinary practices, traditions, and values in order to collaborate more effectively and productively. We propose a special interest group (SIG) to include interdisciplinary researchers (i.e., participants active in both communities) as well as researchers from either discipline, but with interests in the other field

Effects of pitch and musical sounds on body-representations when moving with sound

The effects of music on bodily movement and feelings, such as when people are dancing or engaged in physical activity, are well-documented¿people may move in response to the sound cues, feel powerful, less tired. How sounds and bodily movements relate to create such effects? Here we deconstruct the problem and investigate how different auditory features affect people's body-representation and feelings even when paired with the same movement. In three experiments, participants executed a simple arm raise synchronised with changing pitch in simple tones (Experiment 1), rich musical sounds (Experiment 2) and within different frequency ranges (Experiment 3), while we recorded indirect and direct measures on their movement, body-representations and feelings. Changes in pitch influenced people's general emotional state as well as the various bodily dimensions investigated¿movement, proprioceptive awareness and feelings about one's body and movement. Adding harmonic content amplified the differences between ascending and descending sounds, while shifting the absolute frequency range had a general effect on movement amplitude, bodily feelings and emotional state. These results provide new insights in the role of auditory and musical features in dance and exercise, and have implications for the design of sound-based applications supporting movement expression, physical activity, or rehabilitation.We acknowledge funding by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (PID2019-105579RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) and the European Research Council Grant (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 101002711). JL is funded by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitivity of Spain (doctoral training Grant BES-2017-080471). OD is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation (Co-Sense grant). FB is partially funded by the ELEMENT project (ANR-18-CE33-0002)

Information-Seeking, Finding Identity: Exploring the Role of Online Health Information in Illness Experience

The identities we hold have a relationship with how we come to express and understand our experiences of illness. Language forms a means for us to express this understanding and experience to others, and receive information to clarify our own experiences. Having access to new information when undergoing an illness experience can be integral in supporting decision-making for one’s health and well-being and change how we understand ourselves and our experience. Individuals are exposed to information about experiences of illness via search engines, social media, and other platforms online. This online health information may thus significantly influence the decision-making process. Research is needed to understand how the affordances of diverse online hubs for health information influence how people understand illness experiences and seek care. How people use the internet for information-seeking is often researched in individual health conditions. This workshop aims to explore the different methods researchers have used to understand online information-seeking journeys and to identify how the internet is, or can be, used to help users make sense of, and give meaning to, their experiences. Through convening a methodologically diverse set of researchers, we hope to generate a foundation and cohesive field of inquiry and community within HCI

Seeking information about assistive technology: Exploring current practices, challenges, and the need for smarter systems

Ninety percent of the 1.2 billion people who need assistive technology (AT) do not have access. Information seeking practices directly impact the ability of AT producers, procurers, and providers (AT professionals) to match a user's needs with appropriate AT, yet the AT marketplace is interdisciplinary and fragmented, complicating information seeking. We explored common limitations experienced by AT professionals when searching information to develop solutions for a diversity of users with multi-faceted needs. Through Template Analysis of 22 expert interviews, we find current search engines do not yield the necessary information, or appropriately tailor search results, impacting individuals’ awareness of products and subsequently their availability and the overall effectiveness of AT provision. We present value-based design implications to improve functionality of future AT-information seeking platforms, through incorporating smarter systems to support decision-making and need-matching whilst ensuring ethical standards for disability fairness remain