Philanthropic Informatics

poster abstractI conduct research in human-centered computing with a focus on the challenges faced by the nonprofit and voluntary sector in using information and communication technologies. I conduct research in partnership with organizations in my local community, using the world as a living laboratory for identifying fundamental principles about the use of technology for philanthropy and civic engagement and for designing new technology to meet the needs of those individuals and organizations working toward the public good. The emphases and impacts of my research are threefold: • First, I conduct empirical studies of technology use within nonprofit organizations and translate these findings into key challenges for core areas in computer science. Over the past three years, for example, I have been working with volunteer coordinators to understand their information management needs, yielding insights about fundamental flaws in database usability that impede adoption—from the interface all the way down into the infrastructure. My research has found that schema-based databases are simply too inflexible for the dynamic information needs of nonprofit organizations. In addition, my empirical studies have shown a need for information management tools that support “little data,” enabling small businesses to adopt these technologies early and learn how to use them as their information needs expand. I have built collaborations with database and semantic web researchers and we are preparing to deploy and evaluate alternate paradigms of information management systems within a select number of these nonprofit organizations. • Second, I conduct empirical studies of how individuals who work as volunteers, advocates and donors use technologies to form productive partnerships with nonprofit organizations and work toward the public good. There is a burgeoning ecology of technologies being deployed in this domain, including the Red Cross’ TXT2HELP, Google’s One Today, Facebook’s Causes, DonorsChoose.org, VolunteerMatch.com, etc… yet little research has been conducted to understand the impact of these new technologies on either nonprofit organizations or members of the public. In this research, my theoretical focus is in understanding the ways that various forms of context influence civic engagement, including social, physical and temporal context. My study of technologies used for nonprofit giving, for example, found that a stronger synthesis of social and temporal context were needed to create a feedback loop between organizations and donors, and we are working to design new technologies that reflect such novel fusions of context. • Third, in all of my empirical work, I surface (where relevant) the mismatches between the philosophies and values underlying technology that has frequently been designed in the private sector and the philosophies and values that motivate civic engagement and much work in the nonprofit sector. For example, my empirical studies of social media use in nonprofit organizations has identified fundamental mismatches between the design and infrastructural trajectory of social computing (trending towards crowdsourcing and micro-volunteering) and the philosophical belief of many volunteer coordinators that individuals need to have sustained interactions with a cause for the experience to be impactful for the organization and meaningful for the volunteer. This mismatch presents numerous challenges for the design of social computing technologies and we are currently engaged in design research exploring ways to bridge between differing value systems. The nonprofit sector represents a unique and under-considered focus for the design of computing and information systems. Not only do nonprofit organizations operate under significant resource and expertise constraints that fundamentally influence technology use, they also chronically underutilize technology when they don’t see a direct connection between their mission and the technology. Nonprofit organizations are additionally under extraordinary social pressure to become more technically sophisticated. Several prominent new media scholars have argued that technologies such as text messaging enable people to organize themselves without the formal structures of traditional organizations, rendering traditional organizations increasingly irrelevant. If, however, we value the social role played by the nonprofit sector, then we need to address some significant technical and design challenges in order to ensure the future of formal organizations in the changing technological landscape of public civic engagement. These are the challenges that I confront in my research

Creating Friction: Infrastructuring Civic Engagement in Everyday Life

This paper introduces the theoretical lens of the everyday to intersect and extend the emerging bodies of research on contestational design and infrastructures of civic engagement. Our analysis of social theories of everyday life suggests a design space that distinguishes ‘privileged moments’ of civic engagement from a more holistic understanding of the everyday as ‘product-residue.’ We analyze various efforts that researchers have undertaken to design infrastructures of civic engagement along two axes: the everyday-ness of the engagement fostered (from ‘privileged moments’ to ‘product-residue’) and the underlying paradigm of political participation (from consensus to contestation). Our analysis reveals the dearth and promise of infrastructures that create friction— provoking contestation through use that is embedded in the everyday life of citizens. Ultimately, this paper is a call to action for designers to create friction.

Designing Against the Status Quo

Community + Culture features practitioner perspectives on designing technologies for and with communities. We highlight compelling projects and provocative points of view that speak to both community technology practice and the interaction design field as a whole

Ictus: A User-Centered System of Score Study for Semi-Novice Conductors

Ictus supports the study and preparation of musical scores by semi-novice conductors. It does so by representing the complex analytical processes in which professional conductors routinely engage. Through iterative design and prototyping and with feedback from expert conductors, we have developed a prototyped system for use as a learning tool. This paper presents a brief overview of the complexities of the conductor's task, including the difficulties inherent in externalizing it; a description of the Ictus system; and a discussion of some of the feedback and forward-looking issues that have been raised

Exploring a Technological Hermeneutic: Understanding the Interpretation of Computer-Mediated Messaging Systems

Empirical evidence suggests that individuals can hold different interpretations of a technology. In this research, I explore the question of where these different interpretations come from. What influences an individual s interpretation of a technology? And what is the nature of these interpretations? I explore these questions through studies of computer-mediated messaging systems, including instant messaging, photo-enhanced instant messaging, multimedia messaging (cameraphones), and mobile messaging (BlackBerries). In this research, I draw from philosophical hermeneutics, a domain of study examining the nature of interpretation, and present a technological hermeneutic, a descriptive theory of how individuals interpret technology how they come to understand the meaning of the technology in their own lives. This theory offers insight into the myriad resources individuals draw from when constructing an interpretation of technology, including their own experiences with related technologies as well as their interactions with others use and understanding of the technology. This theory also offers insight into the nature of the interpretive process. Interpretations are dynamic and evolving; individuals continually draw from new experiences, reengaging and reinterpreting technology. Interpretations are also hybrid and synthesized; individuals draw from multiple resources in an active process of interpretive bricolage.Ph.D.Committee Chair: Elizabeth D. Mynatt; Committee Member: Jay D. Bolter; Committee Member: Rebecca E. Grinter; Committee Member: W. Keith Edwards; Committee Member: Wendy A. Kellog

Wii all play: the console game as a computational meeting place

In this paper, we present results from a qualitative study of collocated group console gaming. We focus on motivations for, perceptions of, and practices surrounding the shared use of console games by a variety of established groups of gamers. These groups include both intragenerational groups of youth, adults, and elders as well as intergenerational families. Our analysis highlights the numerous ways that console games serve as a computational meeting place for a diverse population of gamers.Ye

Wii All Play: The Console Game as a Computational Meeting Place

In this paper, we present results from a qualitative empirical study of collocated group console gaming. We focus on motivations for, perceptions of, and practices surrounding the shared use of console games by a variety of established groups of gamers. These groups include both intragenerational groups of youth, adults, and elders as well as intergenerational families. Our analysis highlights the numerous ways in which console games serve as a computational meeting place for a diverse population of gamers.N

Asymmetry in media spaces

In any collaborative system, there are both symmetries and asymmetries present in the design of the technology and in the ways that technology is appropriated. Yet media space research tends to focus more on supporting and fostering the symmetries than the asymmetries. Throughout more than 20 years of media space research, the pursuit of increased symmetry, whether achieved through technical or social means, has been a recurrent theme. The research literature on the use of contemporary awareness systems, in contrast, displays little if any of this emphasis on symmetrical use; indeed, this body of research occasionally highlights the perceived value of asymmetry. In this paper, we unpack the different forms of asymmetry present in both media spaces and contemporary awareness systems. We argue that just as asymmetry has been demonstrated to have value in contemporary awareness systems, so might asymmetry have value in media spaces and in other CSCW systems, more generally. To illustrate, we present a media space that emphasizes and embodies multiple forms of asymmetry and does so in response to the needs of a particular work context