Exploring the concept of group interaction through action in a mobile context

Abstract. This paper explores the concept of interaction through action. The exploration is done empirically in the setting of bird hunting. Using qualitative research methods, we studied how a hunting group secure awareness in order to coordinate their actions and to collaborate. We analyzed the data using a modified CSCW-model and found that the methods for securing awareness and coordination are rather complex and that environmental constraints play important roles. Dealing with coordination and collaboration in a setting such as the one we study is not easy. Based on the empirical findings, we derive design implications to consider in the design of artifacts for supporting group activity grounded on the concept of interaction through action. A Forgotten Field Today the usage of information technology have increased and the IT support for group activities is highly developed. In organisations, groupware makes it possible to coordinate work and the communication infrastructure is very advanced. But it seems as if some human group activities are isolated from this evolution, the group activity of hunting for example. The activity takes place in a setting with a low frequency of artefacts and with lots of outer constraints such as variation in vegetation and weather. Group activities in the wild seem to have been left behind in the technological evolution. How do groups manage to coordinate their activities and secure collaboration between participants? Reviewing the literature on the topic we found some research that had explored HCI issues in wild settings 1 . Authors are mostly concerned with technical demands on artefacts to support individual activities in such environments In order to investigate the question empirically, we conducted an empirical study of a hunting group in northern Sweden. Using qualitative research methods, we studied how the group coordinate, communicate and collaborate in order to make the hunting session as fruitful and safe as possible. We analysed the data using the "CSCW framework&quot

Congratulations! You are severely underweight—Exploring negative consequences of persuasive system design

Personal health and wellbeing have grown as an object of study within HCI research and many individuals undergoing weight loss journeys use persuasive systems, such as weight loss apps, to guide them. These systems rely on various principles to persuade users toward their health goal and have in much research been considered having positive effects. There are however also parallel findings indicating unwanted effects. To explore the effects of persuasive system design, we conduct a longitudinal exploratory expert evaluation of 10 free weight loss tracking apps by emulating drastic weight loss for an extended period of time. The objective of the exploration is to unravel potential negative effects of using such systems. Our findings highlight risks of negative effects as some apps take a passive stance toward drastic weight loss, while others actively encourage it through design. We contribute to a growing strand of health related HCI research by mapping out the relation between design and negative consequences of persuasive system use

Striking a balance : Managing collaborative multitasking in computer-supported cooperation

This thesis is a collection of six papers and a cover paper reporting an exploration of how to strike a balance between individual task execution and work articulation in Computer-supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). The interest in this theme is motivated by an increased reliance of IT-supported cooperative work arrangements in modern organizations, the fragmented layout of work for multitasking individuals and reports on various forms of overload, increased level of stress and anxiety experienced by workers active in these organizations. Modern organizations are increasingly reliant on IT-supported cooperative work arrangements for doing work. Cooperators are not only expected to execute assigned tasks, but also to engage in work articulation. This is a term used to describe the process of rich and frequent interaction needed for securing that the contributions of cooperators are executed in such a way that the overall goal is reached. As cooperators typically are involved in several work formations in parallel, they need to find a balance between individual work and work articulation in relation to several work formations. The challenge of finding a balance in cooperative work has only to a limited extent been addressed in CSCW and there are few successful designs available for this purpose. The scope of this thesis is to develop an understanding of the challenges faced and strategies deployed by cooperators and work formations for striking a balance in work. The purpose is therefore to explore how multitasking individuals manage to find a balance between task execution and articulation work in computer-supported cooperative work, what challenges they face in the process, and how IT should be designed to support them. To reach this purpose several instances of cooperative work in different contexts have been closely studied. The main conclusions of this thesis are that cooperators are constantly struggling for a balance in work through making frequent switches between work formations, individual task execution and work articulation, sometimes through making switches in the technology that is used. Strategies for finding this balance are developed in relation to the specific context of a cooperative activity as cooperators ‘design’ their use of IT, structures, procedures and norms. It is further concluded that for avoiding overloads of interaction, cooperators show and estimate availability through reliance on various sources of shared information, that social (e.g. interpersonal relation) and contextual factors (e.g. location) are considered when establishing interaction, that cooperators when searching for interaction with others are influenced by their estimated availability, competence and willingness to assist, but also by network maintenance efforts (i.e. an ambition to avoid overloading and underutilizing other cooperators). Finally, it is concluded that norms are important for finding a balance in work as they reduce the interaction needed for work articulation. The main contributions of this thesis are rich descriptions of four cooperative work formations, the challenges they face and the strategies they apply, redefined theoretical concepts (i.e. availability management, interruption, multitasking) and extended understanding of interaction search behavior and ways to achieve high levels of informal interaction across distance. This work also provides some practical contributions in the form of implications for designers of supportive IT and implications for cooperators active in modern organizations

A Civil Action

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"It depends upon whether it’s true or not" : Entrepreneurs’ Perspective on Dark Design Patterns

This paper outlines the perspective of entrepreneurs on dark design patterns and their use. The phenomena of persuasive design and dark design patterns have up to this point primarily focused on categorization efforts, the occurrence of these patterns and to some extent on end-user perspectives. Limited focus has been placed on the actors making the actual decision to use them. This paper reports an initial analysis of the perspective of entrepreneurs on dark design patterns. Initial insights are provided regarding entrepreneurs’ perspective and the rationale behind it.

Dark Design Patterns : An End-user Perspective

The number of websites and mobile applications available is growing continually, as are the persuasive approaches to influence human behavior and decision making. Although designing for persuasion offers several potential benefits, recent developments expose various deceptive designs, that is, dark patterns, that utilize psychological factors to nudge people toward, from someone else’s perspective, desired directions. This paper contributes to an increased awareness of the phenomenon of dark patterns through our exploring how users perceive and experience these patterns. Hence, we chose a qualitative research approach, with focus groups and interviews, for our exploration. Our analysis shows that participants were moderately aware of these deceptive techniques, several of which were perceived as sneaky and dishonest. Respondents further expressed a resigned attitude toward such techniques and primarily blamed businesses for their occurrence. Users considered their dependency on services employing these practices, thus making it difficult to avoid fully dark patterns

A comparison of chat and audio in media rich environments

This paper presents two case studies of informal group communication using multimedia conferencing that supports various media including video, audio and chat. The studies provide a comparison of audio and chat as communication medium and present data on usage patterns, user preferences and attitudes. The quantitative and qualitative data collected suggest that chat does have advantages in some situations when used for informal communication along with video. The results provide evidence against the hypothesis that chat is a low bandwidth alternative only used when audio communication is unavailable. This suggests that video mediated chat deserves further attention from designers and the research community, since it is often ignored as a "useful" scenario.Godkänd; 2006; 20061228 (ysko)</p

Att utbilda framtida kollegor

Vår presentation kommer att behandla två nyligen framtagna projektkursmoment vid Institutionen för informatik, där vi skapar förutsättningar för lärande så lika som möjligt de som framtidens systemvetare och beteendevetare inom IT-området ställs inför. Kursmomenten (som vi valt att se som en helhet) baseras på tre huvudsakliga pedagogiska idéer: 1. Integrera teori och praktik inom ramen för samma kurs, med ett moment som handlar om att planera ett projekt och ett moment som handlar om själva genomförandet av detta. Vi anser det vara väldigt viktigt för en individs kunskapsutveckling att praktiskt få prova på något som man tidigare endast lärt sig på en teoretisk nivå. Genom att se kursmomenten som en helhet kunde studenterna först planera vad man skulle göra (teori), och sedan genomföra detta (praktik). Erfarenheten var att vissa saker fungerade precis som man tänkt, medan andra saker krävde förändring. Detta är en värdefull insikt inför ett kommande arbetsliv. 2. Skapa förutsättningar för lärande när det gäller gruppdynamik genom att samarbeta över programgränser och ställas inför föränderliga utmaningar. Projektgrupperna sattes samman av projektdeltagare från lika delar det Systemvetenskapliga programmet liksom det Beteendevetenskapliga programmet med inriktning mot IT-miljöer. Som yrkesverksam, med en utbildning från informatik, arbetar man med största sannolikhet ofta i projekt som relaterar till olika dimensioner av samhällets digitalisering. Något som utmärker projekt är att de består av deltagare med olika kompetenser, viljor och personligheter – omständigheter som ställer krav på förmågan att hantera gruppdynamik. Olika deltagare har olika egenskaper och karaktärer och det gäller för grupper att kunna hantera dessa på bästa möjliga sätt. Även för individen är detta en viktig process. Det handlar om att lära känns sig själv och sina egna styrkor och svagheter. 3. Skapa förutsättningar för lärande när det gäller att arbeta mot riktiga klienter som upplever verkliga behov och även ställer krav. På kursen arbetar vi med riktiga beställare och skarpa case, vilket ger ett flertal fördelar. Dels skapar det en spänning som ofta leder till ökat engagemang och lärande hos studenterna. Dels får studenterna lära sig att hantera en extern klient, en klient som de inte känner, som inte besitter deras kunskap och som kan ha väldigt annorlunda förväntningar på samarbetet. Som yrkesverksamma är detta vanligt förekommande och vi hade svårligen kunnat uppnå samma effekt med fiktiva case. Ett skarpt case har dessutom alltid en överlägsen nivå av komplexitet, och därmed även överraskningar, i jämförelse med ett påhittat case

Understanding Interaction Search Behavior in Professional Social Networks

We present an empirical study of social interaction in a professional social network. As the point of departure, we take previous research into distributed work and information foraging theory to explore interaction search behavior of individuals active in professional networks, examining how social factors govern their behavior. For this exploration, we focused on the process through which relevant collaborators are chosen to execute shared work tasks in the area of logistics, and identified six characteristics of the explored processes. We recognized the “survival of the social” as a cornerstone for efficient and long-term professional networks and outlined design implications arising from our findings. More specifically, we found that participants are oriented to solutions that involve active social agents and social relations, rather than optimizing based on task characteristics, efficiency, and cost. These behaviors motivate the need for the concept of social interaction foragingpeerReviewe

Att utbilda framtida kollegor

Vår presentation kommer att behandla två nyligen framtagna projektkursmoment vid Institutionen för informatik, där vi skapar förutsättningar för lärande så lika som möjligt de som framtidens systemvetare och beteendevetare inom IT-området ställs inför. Kursmomenten (som vi valt att se som en helhet) baseras på tre huvudsakliga pedagogiska idéer: 1. Integrera teori och praktik inom ramen för samma kurs, med ett moment som handlar om att planera ett projekt och ett moment som handlar om själva genomförandet av detta. Vi anser det vara väldigt viktigt för en individs kunskapsutveckling att praktiskt få prova på något som man tidigare endast lärt sig på en teoretisk nivå. Genom att se kursmomenten som en helhet kunde studenterna först planera vad man skulle göra (teori), och sedan genomföra detta (praktik). Erfarenheten var att vissa saker fungerade precis som man tänkt, medan andra saker krävde förändring. Detta är en värdefull insikt inför ett kommande arbetsliv. 2. Skapa förutsättningar för lärande när det gäller gruppdynamik genom att samarbeta över programgränser och ställas inför föränderliga utmaningar. Projektgrupperna sattes samman av projektdeltagare från lika delar det Systemvetenskapliga programmet liksom det Beteendevetenskapliga programmet med inriktning mot IT-miljöer. Som yrkesverksam, med en utbildning från informatik, arbetar man med största sannolikhet ofta i projekt som relaterar till olika dimensioner av samhällets digitalisering. Något som utmärker projekt är att de består av deltagare med olika kompetenser, viljor och personligheter – omständigheter som ställer krav på förmågan att hantera gruppdynamik. Olika deltagare har olika egenskaper och karaktärer och det gäller för grupper att kunna hantera dessa på bästa möjliga sätt. Även för individen är detta en viktig process. Det handlar om att lära känns sig själv och sina egna styrkor och svagheter. 3. Skapa förutsättningar för lärande när det gäller att arbeta mot riktiga klienter som upplever verkliga behov och även ställer krav. På kursen arbetar vi med riktiga beställare och skarpa case, vilket ger ett flertal fördelar. Dels skapar det en spänning som ofta leder till ökat engagemang och lärande hos studenterna. Dels får studenterna lära sig att hantera en extern klient, en klient som de inte känner, som inte besitter deras kunskap och som kan ha väldigt annorlunda förväntningar på samarbetet. Som yrkesverksamma är detta vanligt förekommande och vi hade svårligen kunnat uppnå samma effekt med fiktiva case. Ett skarpt case har dessutom alltid en överlägsen nivå av komplexitet, och därmed även överraskningar, i jämförelse med ett påhittat case