Interaction Disclosed: Unpacking Student Computer Supported Collaborative Learning

The digitalization of higher education has been on the political agenda for decades. Many universities have invested in Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs) which is a technology intense environment designed for collaborative teaching and learning. The aim of this paper is to explore students\u27 interaction with each during computer supported collaborative learning in an Active Learning Classroom. An action-oriented approach was applied within the context of a university in Sweden. The framework of interaction order and the concept of ‘involvement’ and ‘mutual monitoring’ is used as an analytic lens to examine student collaboration. The results show that the classroom arrangement including the technology set-up played an important role in students’ collaboration, causing transparency in activities and makes it more difficult for students to become passive. Contributions includes unpacking the role of collaborative technology and suggesting the concept “involvement disclosure” to shed light on the mechanisms that conditioning students’ engagement in this setting

Two Faces of Radical Digitalization in Education: An institutional logics Perspective

The outbreak of the global pandemic COVID-19 meant an extreme intensification of digitalization in education. Around the world, technology became a prerequisite for continuing education, as schools were to switch to distance education. Drawing on an institutional logics perspective, this paper aims to explore school leaders\u27 experiences and insights from running a virtual school overnight. Data includes a survey of 105 school leaders in Swedish high schools. The results show clear challenges for schools as institutions, yet most of the school leaders perceived that the shift to virtual classrooms went well and can lead to lasting value for the school. Still, when facing a new situation, organizational problems are uncovered, and the importance of brick-and-mortar schools becomes visible. Contributions include analyzing an extreme case of digitization in schools and conceptualizing two faces of digitalization, that constitute both a preservative and disruptive force in institutional logic

Making Sense of Organizational Social Media – An International Longitudinal Case Study of Hotel Employees

When new Information Technologies (IT) are implemented in an organization, this creates new situations that need to be understood and made sense of. Sensemaking processes are vital when trying to identify the meaning users give when interacting with the new IT. The purpose of this study is to identify how hotel employees make sense of organizational social media over time. The empirical data was gathered over four years in seven European countries and 14 hotels within an international hotel chain. In total, 37 interviews with 28 hotel employees were conducted. The findings explain how the hotel employees’ daily work routines are disrupted due to the social media implementation, but also what meanings the employees ascribe to social media in an organizational context. The study contributes to existing literature by providing illustrations about how users’ sensemaking process concerning organizational social media influences their use over time

Polite Interaction Design: Capturing the Users Attention Without Compromising their Experienced Trust

Pop-ups have been widely used to control users’ attention, causing a high degree of irritation and dissatisfaction. We explore so-called ‘polite’ pop-ups, i.e., pop-ups implemented into the interface eliminating the intrusive and surprising factors. We hypothesize that: H1) Users pay less attention to, and interact less with, polite pop-ups than traditional pop-ups, and; H2) Users perceive a higher degree of trust in applications with polite pop-ups compared to traditional pop-ups. The research approach includes: i) comparative user tests with 88 participants; ii) observations of user tests; iii) assessment questionnaire, and; iv) data-driven analysis of interaction patterns. We analyze the data through the theoretical lens of trust and show that users pay less attention to, yet perceive a higher degree of trust. Our contributions include conceptualizing ‘polite’ design elements and the research agenda of Polite Interaction Design that aims to capture users’ attention without causing unpleasant experiences or decreased trust

Among Followers and Rebels: Professional Identity and Digitalization of Work

The digitalization of work practices has changed the conditions for many professions. In this study, we explore the relation between professional identity and digitalization in the workplace. We join the research stream within professional identity research that views identity as a narrative construction, a story that individuals tell themselves and others to tell who they are, in this case in relation to digitalization. The empirical data derive from two different contexts: Nordic primary school teachers and European hoteliers at an international hotel chain. In total, 72 interviews were conducted. The study contributes to existing literature by providing increased knowledge on digitalization of work practices by illustrating different approaches to digitalization of work that extend over a specific profession. Theoretical contributions involve suggesting four ideal types of categorization to explain the approach to digitalization in professional life

The Polite Pop-Up: An Experimental Study of Pop-Up Design Characteristics and User Experience

Pop-up boxes have been widely used to catch users’ attention and highlight specific information. Yet, according to previous research, there is a high degree of perceived irritation and dissatisfaction related to pop-ups. In this study, we explore the user experience of what is referred to as “polite pop-up,” i.e., a modal pop-up, created based on click events. The intention was to eliminate negative perceptions that pop-ups usually generate. The research method involves a constructed user test of a prototype of a website where polite pop-ups were placed in the interface. Thirteen users participated, where most of the users noticed the polite pop-up and voluntarily chose to access the information within the pop-up. The contribution includes increased insight into the relation between polite pop-up and user satisfaction, as well as design implications for user-centered design.  

Becoming a Designer: The value of sensitive design situations for teaching and learning ethical design and design theory

Teaching and learning design theory are challenging tasks. To solely teach design theory through rules or codes of conduct, could be seen as a static way of approaching a complex phenomenon. In this paper, we argue for the importance of engagement in sensitive design situations, an approach that entails a process of de-emphasizing objectivity and promoting subjectivity through real-life sensitive cases to learn from, to foster reflectiveness for the future designers. This study aims to explore how sensitive design situations can be used when teaching and learning design theory. The research approach consists of a case study in a Nordic university, and a course in interaction design in a software engineering program. The sensitive design situation involves designing a digital artifact that can help children that have been diagnosed with cancer, cope with their cancer treatment. The main contribution is a teaching method for cultivating ethical design, which includes the application of sensitive design situations when teaching ethics to students. We illustrate that by forwarding three characteristics that can be used when teaching and learning ethical design through sensitive design situations

CHOICE ARCHITECTURE, FRIEND, OR FOE? FUTURE DESIGNERS’ PERSPECTIVE ON THE ETHICS OF DIGITAL NUDGES

We make an abundance of choices daily and an increasing proportion of those choices are in an online context. Digital nudges refer to the use of design elements that guide the decision-making process towards a predefined goal. An important consideration when designing digital nudges is the ethical implications. In this study, we examine how future designers perceive ethics and the use of digital nudges as design elements in interaction design. We conducted a case study with 72 design students at two Nordic universities with a focus on the future designers’ perception of ethics and the use of digital nudges as design elements. We show that ethics and reflection on responsibility are highly important aspects of choice architecture design and future designers understand ethics as crucial for design work, yet few reflect on whether a specific design or a nudge is ethical or not. Moreover, when it comes to nudging as a design element, both positive and ambivalent attitudes are common. Our main contribution consists of an in-depth understanding of future designers’ perspectives on nudging, and we forward four fundamental questions which have implications for teaching the ethics of choice architecture to future designers