Documentation can support design work and create opportunities for learning and reflection. We explore how a novel documentation tool for a remote interaction design course provides insight into design process and integrates strategies from expert practice to support studio-style collaboration and reflection. Using Research through Design, we develop and deploy Kaleidoscope, an online tool for documenting design process, in an upper-level HCI class during the COVID-19 pandemic, iteratively developing it in response to student feedback and needs. We discuss key themes from the real-world deployment of Kaleidoscope, including: tensions between documentation and creation; effects of centralizing discussion; privacy and visibility in shared spaces; balancing evidence of achievement with feelings of overwhelm; and the effects of initial perceptions and incentives on tool usage. These successes and challenges provide insights to guide future tools for design documentation and HCI education that scaffold learning process as an equal partner to execution.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581255
Complex texts like poetry are distinct from informative texts, requiring additional subprocesses to decode and interpret. Approaching a poem without knowledge of these cognitive strategies can result in confusion and frustration—rather than comprehension. In this work, we explore how interfaces can surface and demonstrate these cognitive processes to novice readers. We introduce Soliloquy, an interface that visualizes the thoughts of an expert as they read and interpret a poem by using animations of text and pop-up tooltips. We evaluate the interface in a five-condition Mechanical Turk study (n=254) by varying the detail of thoughts, including audio, and substituting a static text control. Our study detected a significant difference in comprehension between the detail of thoughts, but not between the Soliloquy interface and static text control. We further investigate this finding in a think-aloud study (n=13), revealing the impact individual differences, experience, and cognitive load could have on Soliloquy's effectiveness.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581374
Instructors facilitating online classes have a limited ability to see and hear interactions of student groups working in parallel, which prevents them from interacting with students effectively. In this work, we explore interface design for providing an overview of parallel group discussions in online classrooms. We derive design considerations through a participatory design process and instantiate them in our visualization interface, Groupnamics. Groupnamics visualizes recent vocal activities and discussion statuses of each group in a one-page view, facilitating identification of groups where intervention may be needed. Our user study with 16 instructors confirmed that Groupnamics can successfully provide cues for when instructors should join group discussions and improvements on the perceived usefulness and ease of use over the baseline interface representing existing videoconferencing tools. Our qualitative results suggest future research directions in interface design for online parallel group discussions.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581322
Professional writing is critical for job search and performance, but many -- especially those without work experience -- struggle to write well. We introduce an instructional approach called `scaffolded annotation' as a way to guide students in creating initial drafts of professional writing, like client emails and cover letters. We studied the implementation of scaffolded annotation in a digital platform called Lettersmith. First, we performed a quasi-experimental study and found that students applying scaffolded annotation in Lettersmith were more likely to include key components of professional writing. We also interviewed instructors and students who used Lettersmith and found that scaffolded annotation helped students in guiding structure, content, and tone. Instructors found the approach useful for articulating writing task expectations, pinpointing student gaps in understanding, and scaling instructional support for early-stage drafting. We provide implications for writing instruction and HCI researchers developing writing support tools.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581029
Herein, we present two studies on how students’ Psychological State of Decision difficulty (PSD) relates to two aspects of learning, i.e., guessing behavior and learning achievement. To measure PSD, we extracted geometric features from trajectories of drag-and-drop touch interactions collected while students aged 7–10 played a math game on a tablet device. In the first study, we explored whether eight geometric features extracted from 97,303 trial trajectories could be grouped to understand students’ PSD. In the second study, we examined whether the two aspects of learning could be predicted using the data collected from 187 students with geometric features indicating their PSD. This work provides empirical evidence that geometric features can be grouped into two types of PSD in the context of learning, including conflict and uncertainty. Moreover, our results demonstrate that data on students’ PSD collected from drag-and-drop trajectories can be used to predict learning.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581143
Videos are convenient resources for asynchronous learning, but they lack interpersonal interactions found in synchronous classrooms. Due to missed social connectedness, the isolated video-based learners experience low emotional, behavioral, and cognitive engagement. This work presents "Scripted Vicarious Dialogues" (SVD), a technique for engaging students in a pseudo-social experience of witnessing scripted dialogues between virtual characters (teaching assistants and students) around a video. We conducted a participatory design study to derive design guidelines for SVD. The findings indicate the need to distinguish the virtual components and to give students control of the dialogue’s pace. We then implemented an interactive prototype of SVD and evaluated it (N=40) against a non-social, direct-learning baseline. The results show that the preference for SVD versus the baseline is polarized (25 of 40 preferred SVD; no neutral preferences), and those who preferred SVD had significantly higher emotional and behavioral engagement with SVD compared to the baseline.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581153