Self-disclosure, the sharing of personal and professional information about yourself, can help foster and maintain working relationships. But how do computers mediate the way we self-disclose at work? We look "beyond the watercooler" to investigate computer-mediated self-disclosure (CMSD) at work. We conducted two studies: (1) a survey (n=455 knowledge workers) to understand perceptions towards disclosing various information types among colleagues, and (2) an interview study (n=12 knowledge workers) with five speculative design concepts to characterize attitudes and needs around CMSD. Study 1 indicated sharing about well-being was valuable, but that it was less familiar among remote workers compared to those in-person or hybrid. Study 1 informed the design concepts for Study 2, whose findings revealed that CMSD is a key part of workers’ socialization and should evolve alongside relationship stages. We discuss design opportunities for adaptive, intentional, and personal CMSD, along with policy implications for organizations.
AI expansion has accelerated workplace adoption of new technologies. Yet, it is unclear whether and how knowledge workers are supported and trained to safely use AI. Inadequate training may lead to unrealized benefits if workers abandon tools, or perpetuate biases if workers misinterpret AI-based outcomes. In a workshop with 39 workers from 26 countries specializing in human resources, labor law, standards creation, and worker training, we explored questions and ideas they had about safely adopting AI. We held 17 follow-up interviews to further investigate what skills and training knowledge workers need to achieve safe and effective AI in practice. We synthesize nine training topics participants surfaced for knowledge workers related to challenges around understanding what AI is, misinterpreting outcomes, exacerbating biases, and worker rights. We reflect how these training topics might be addressed under different contexts, imagine HCI research prototypes as potential training tools, and consider ways to ensure training does not perpetuate harmful values.
Bossware, software that monitors worker activity, is a common feature of workplaces. What do workers know about these tools and how they relate to their rights at work? We explored this question through two studies. Study 1 surveyed 100 workers to assess their understanding of work monitoring terminology. Participants were confident in their knowledge of key terms but struggled to accurately define them. Study 2 explored awareness of legal protection in relation to work monitoring through 19 semi-structured online interviews. We found that awareness varied with industry and work role, but was generally low and lacked certainty. Participants were largely skeptical of the use of bossware, questioning its necessity. Limited knowledge of monitoring terminology and legal protection at work further weakens workers' ability to notice and challenge the use of monitoring tools in their workplaces. We finish by speculating on whether educating workers about bossware and workplace rights would help.
It is important to motivate healthy behaviors, especially in office environments. However, there are few systems which integrate physical engagement mechanisms in such environments. This paper presents the design and evaluation of DistKey, a set of hotkeys allocated in different spatial interfaces of the workspace, enabling users to engage in some office tasks through intentional body movements. Through a within-subject experiment with 20 office workers, we compared DistKey with a traditional keyboard to assess the health benefits and effectiveness of integrating exercise into the workflow. Our results confirmed the benefits of DistKey-led healthful interactions in enhancing physical health and reducing mental stress during different tasks at work. Based on our follow-up qualitative research, a range of design insights are discussed to enlighten the design and development of future healthful spatial interfaces for increased office vitality.
Automation is reshaping the gig economy, raising urgent concerns about worker displacement. With the global rise in gig workers, there is an increasing urgency for HCI and design research to focus on the impact of designing automation technologies on labor dynamics. This study introduces speculative job design research to probe alternative opportunities for gig workers in an automated future, engaging 20 workers in the process. Guided by Feminist HCI, we performed reflexive thematic analysis to uncover gig workers' views on automation technology, human labor, speculative jobs, and their concerns about the future of work. We highlighted how workers see labor exploitation as a competitive asset over machines, urging that future platform designs must not perpetuate this. Notably, through speculative job design and conversation with workers, we proposed labor design, suggesting labor as a designable material to help address unfair labor dynamics in technology design. Our research offers potential insights and directions for addressing labor tensions in the evolving sociotechnical landscape.
Playing games has been shown to be an effective method of post-work recovery. Previous research has shown that gameplay with high cognitive involvement is effective for recovery. This finding conflicts with models of mental workload (MWL), which suggest that people feel best when cycling between high and low MWL. To unpack the relationship between recovery and mental workload, we designed a lab experiment where 40 participants experienced different combinations of high and low MWL while undertaking both work tasks and recovery gameplay, and we collected both self-report and physiological (fNIRS) data. Results showed that high and low MWL games created different impacts on recovery, depending on the MWL of the prior work task. While fNIRS measurements of MWL varied as expected during work tasks, experience of MWL when playing games was not evident in the prefrontal cortex. We conclude by discussing the relationship between mental workload and theories of recovery.