Sensitive Research, Practice, and Design in HCI

New research areas in HCI examine complex and sensitive research areas, such as crisis, life transitions, and mental health. Further, research in complex topics such as harassment and graphic content can leave researchers vulnerable to emotional and physical harm. There is a need to bring researchers together to discuss challenges across sensitive research spaces and environments. We propose a workshop to explore the methodological, ethical, and emotional challenges of sensitive research in HCI. We will actively recruit from diverse research environments (industry, academia, government, etc.) and methods areas (qualitative, quantitative, design practices, etc.) and identify commonalities in and encourage relationship-building between these areas. This one-day workshop will be led by academic and industry researchers with diverse methods, topical, and employment experiences

HCI and Sensitive Life Experiences

HCI research has identified a number of life events and life transitions which see individuals in a vulnerable state, such as gender transition, domestic abuse, romantic relationship dissolution, bereavement, and even genocide. Although these life events differ across the human lifespan, considering them as a group of ‘sensitive life experiences’, and exploring the similarities and differences in how we approach those experiences as researchers could be invaluable in generating a better understanding of them. In this workshop, we aim to identify current opportunities for, and barriers to, the design of social computing systems that support people during sensitive life events and transitions. Participants will take part in activities centred around exploring the similarities and differences between their own and others’ research methods and results, drawing on their own experiences in discussions around carrying out research in these sensitive contexts

Self-Disclosure and Response Behaviors in Socially Stigmatized Contexts on Social Media

Social computing platforms are often celebrated for their capacity to connect; yet expressing one's identity, and seeking as well as providing support on these platforms can be difficult when people experience distress and stigma. In this dissertation, I theorize social media behaviors such as sensitive disclosures and interactions around them. I address how we can design social computing systems that facilitate disclosures of difficult and stigmatized human experiences and enable supportive interactions to form around them. I focus on pregnancy loss, as a common reproductive health experience that is often traumatizing and not disclosed in spite of potential disclosure benefits such as access to social support. First, I contribute a framework to explain direct pregnancy loss disclosures and non-disclosures on social media. I conducted in-depth phenomenological interviews with women in the U.S. who are social media users and had experienced pregnancy loss within the past two years. This framework includes six types of decision factors related to the self, audience, network, society, affordances and platform, and time. I also introduce the novel concept of network-level reciprocal disclosure to describe broadcast disclosures that happen in response to and in anticipation of others' disclosures and a perceived reduction in stigma. Second, I contribute a typology of indirect disclosure strategies and an understanding of decision factors informing indirect disclosures of sensitive experiences across social media platforms. Indirect disclosure strategies include hinting about an experience or an identity facet in such a way that the audience must infer the full message, or explicitly sharing information through another person. Factors related to the self, audience and affordances, and time motivate individuals to disclose pregnancy loss in an indirect manner, although in distinct ways compared to direct disclosures. Finally, responses to sensitive disclosures are important to understand if we aim to design social computing systems that encourage supportive interactions. I used interviews and designed vignette instruments to provide a response decision making framework (RDM) that explains factors informing whether and how individuals respond to sensitive disclosures from their social media connections. This framework includes factors related to the self, poster, and disclosure context. I identify empirically grounded design and research implications to support potential disclosers and responders in sensitive or stigmatized contexts on social media.Ph.D., Information Studies -- Drexel University, 201

Not Alone: Designing for Self-Disclosure and Social Support Exchange After Pregnancy Loss

Pregnancy loss is the most common complication in pregnancy. Yet those who experience it can find it challenging to disclose this loss and feelings associated with it, and to seek support for psychological and physical recovery. We describe our process for interleaving interviews, theoretical development, speculative design, and prototyping Not Alone to explore the design space for online disclosures and support seeking in the pregnancy loss context. Interviews with 27 women who had experienced pregnancy loss resulted in theoretical concepts such as “network-level reciprocal disclosure” (NLRD). We discuss how interview findings informed the design of the Not Alone prototype, a mobile application aimed at enabling disclosure and social support exchange among those with pregnancy loss experience. The Not Alone prototype embodies concepts that facilitate NLRD: perceptions of homophily, anonymity levels, and selfdisclosure by talking about one’s experience and engaging with others’ disclosures. In future work, we will use Not Alone as a technology probe for exploring NLRD as a design principle

Not Alone: Designing for Self-Disclosure and Social Support Exchange After Pregnancy Loss

Pregnancy loss is the most common complication in pregnancy. Yet those who experience it can find it challenging to disclose this loss and feelings associated with it, and to seek support for psychological and physical recovery. We describe our process for interleaving interviews, theoretical development, speculative design, and prototyping Not Alone to explore the design space for online disclosures and support seeking in the pregnancy loss context. Interviews with 27 women who had experienced pregnancy loss resulted in theoretical concepts such as “network-level reciprocal disclosure” (NLRD). We discuss how interview findings informed the design of the Not Alone prototype, a mobile application aimed at enabling disclosure and social support exchange among those with pregnancy loss experience. The Not Alone prototype embodies concepts that facilitate NLRD: perceptions of homophily, anonymity levels, and selfdisclosure by talking about one’s experience and engaging with others’ disclosures. In future work, we will use Not Alone as a technology probe for exploring NLRD as a design principle

Separate Online Networks During Life Transitions: Support, Identity, and Challenges in Social Media and Online Communities

Some life transitions can be difficult to discuss on social media, especially with networks of known ties, due to challenges such as stigmatization. Separate online networks can provide alternative spaces to discuss life transitions. To understand why and how people turn to separate networks, we interviewed 28 participants who had recently experienced life transitions. While prior research tends to focus on one life transition in isolation, this work examines social media sharing behaviors across a wide variety of life transitions. We describe how people often turn to separate networks during life transitions due to challenges faced in networks of known ties, yet encounter new challenges such as difficulty locating these networks. We describe support from waiting contributors and virtual friends. Finally, we provide insight into how online separate networks can be better designed through enhancing search functionality, promoting contribution, and providing context-sensitive templates for sharing in online spaces.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/174120/1/ZhangLiuCorviteAndalibiHaimson_CSCW_2022.pdfDescription of ZhangLiuCorviteAndalibiHaimson_CSCW_2022.pdf : Main articleSEL

Exploring Ethics And Obligations For Studying Digital Communities

Many of the most prominent and unanswered ethical questions within HCI and social computing involve our ethical obligation to the communities that we study. Some of these questions fall under the purview of more traditional human subjects research ethics, but others hinge on when, for example, studies of public data trigger similar obligations. Basic rules to do no harm are complicated in digital communities by issues of consent and privacy, and ethics review boards are struggling to keep up even as research communities are similarly struggling to form appropriate norms. The goals of this workshop are to continue seeding conversations about research ethics within the SIGCHI community, to work towards norm setting, and in the meantime, to collectively help community members make good ethical decisions about research into sociotechnical systems and digital communities. Copyright is held by the owner/author(s)

Researcher wellbeing and best practices in emotionally demanding research

HCI researchers increasingly conduct emotionally demanding research in a variety of different contexts. Though scholarship has begun to address the experiences of HCI researchers conducting this work, there is a need to develop guidelines and best practices for researcher wellbeing. In this one-day CHI workshop, we will bring together a group of HCI researchers across sectors and career levels who conduct emotionally demanding research to discuss their experiences, self-care practices, and strategies for research. Based on these discussions, we will work with workshop attendees to develop best practices and guidelines for researcher wellbeing in the context of emotionally demanding HCI research; launch a repository of community-sourced resources for researcher wellbeing; document the experiences of HCI researchers conducting emotionally demanding research; and establish a community of HCI researchers conducting this type of work