Upon displacement, it becomes challenging for refugees to build a sense of home in a new environment due to the traumatic experiences they have endured. To unpack factors that are important in developing a sense of home and belonging in refugee communities, we lean on the theoretical concept of 'place-belongingness' - we did this by conducting 6 co-design workshops involving 15 refugee participants, via the 'Magic Machine' workshop approach. From the workshops, we uncovered how cultural identity and memory, life stability and normalcy, security and privacy, resilience and ingenuity, and social connections are central to their sense of home. This research contributes to HCI by building on the theoretical concept of place-belongingness in the context of forced displacement, proposing design implications that address refugees’ needs for home from cultural and social dimensions, and design considerations for refugees’ domestic settings.
Understanding the motivations of volunteer developers is crucial for the HCI community as it seeks to design sustainable, community-driven digital platforms. This study explores the dynamics of motivation among volunteer developers in the Foodsharing.de platform, a grassroots movement focused on reducing food waste through community engagement. By investigating the evolving motivations and challenges faced by these developers, our research highlights the unique blend of personal passion, technical skill, and social commitment that sustains their long-term involvement. Through interviews, observations, and participatory research, we uncover how developers balance their commitment to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) with the platform’s socio-ecological mission. Our findings emphasize the importance of fostering a supportive community, clear governance, and effective infrastructuring to manage motivation, frustration, and expectations. We discuss strategies to enhance volunteer retention, such as improving feedback mechanisms and recognizing contributions, which are critical for the sustainability of volunteer-driven platforms.
Location-based media applications such as Google Maps, Strava and Pokémon GO together have more than a billion monthly active users, and popular social media such as Snapchat and Instagram now also feature map-based content. All these media products rely on user-generated content as a core element of their service, but there is a lack of synthesis on the users' motivations to contribute this data to the platform providers. In this study, we performed a literature review to uncover users' motivations to participate in location-based crowdsourcing and contribute shared content on these platforms. Among our findings, we show that spatial and temporal aspects, social effects, technical elements, motivational mechanisms, practical value offered to the contributors and individual differences need to be considered in motivating users to contribute shared content. We present recommendations for designers, suggest which terminology to use around this topic and propose an agenda for future research.
Neighborhood safety technologies, such as Nextdoor and Citizen, aim to enhance user safety through features like real-time alerts, interactive maps, and personalized feeds. While these platforms can support users' sense of safety, they can also fuel a local culture of policing and lateral surveillance, which disproportionately impacts racialized and unhoused members of the community. In contrast, the theory and practice of Transformative Justice was developed to ensure the safety of those populations who are constructed to be dangerous by society. We conducted a case study of a neighborhood social work program in Jackson Grove, Atlanta to understand the design implications of a Transformative Justice-oriented approach to neighborhood safety. Our findings highlight an opportunity for designers to reconceptualize safety from merely protecting users towards: 1) meeting the basic needs of a community, and 2) building relationships to support accountability. These shifts create an opportunity for designers to reimagine neighborhood safety technologies and the associated practices for users. We surface a new wave of safety research in HCI that aims to support both safety \textit{and} justice and contribute key design priorities towards this work.
Giving citizens a voice in urban development processes is crucial for enabling socially sustainable cities and communities. However, citizens' opportunities to express ideas are often limited to communication channels that offer poor incentives for participation. In this paper, we conducted an in-the-wild technology probe study (N=16) using a generative AI (GenAI) tool to allow citizens to visualise and submit urban development ideas by taking pictures and manipulating them with GenAI. The results highlight the potential of GenAI to empower, engage, and inspire citizens‘ creativity. We then conducted additional expert interviews (N=6) with city representatives and community associates. They voiced GenAI's value in early-stage citizen participation but raised concerns about excluding senior citizens. Building on these insights, we present the design and evaluation (N=10) of UrbAI, a co-creative system tailored to urban development participation and conclude with lessons learned to inform how GenAI could be embedded in future citizen participation processes.
Recent research within the HCI community has illuminated the challenges faced by marginalized groups on algorithm-driven livestreaming platforms. However, there is a notable gap in understanding how elderly livestreamers interact with the platform content moderation and algorithmic (in)visibility. This study investigates the perceptions of the algorithm-moderated (in)visibility and the coping strategies of 16 elderly streamers on Douyin. We find that, contrary to stereotypes of elderly users as digitally uninformed, these streamers actively engage with the platform to facilitate their understanding about platform algorithm. This engagement involves official guidance, peer learning, and personal experimentation. The streamers adopt various strategies to align with the perceived algorithmic preferences. Despite their rich knowledge about the platform's visibility moderation, many elderly streamers face significant challenges, such as physical and psychological strain and low viewer traffic. We conclude with design implications for livestreaming platforms to foster fairness and promote engagement among elderly streamers.
It is common for digital platforms to issue consequences for behaviors that violate Community Standards policies. However, there is limited evidence about the relative effectiveness of consequences, particularly lengths of temporary suspensions. This paper analyzes two massive field experiments (N1 = 511,304; N2 = 262,745) on Roblox that measure the impact of suspension duration on safety- and engagement-related outcomes. The experiments show that longer suspensions are more effective than shorter ones at reducing reoffense rate, the number of consequences, and the number of user reports. Further, they suggest that the effect of longer suspensions on reoffense rate wanes over time, but persists for at least 3 weeks. Finally, they demonstrate that longer suspensions are more effective for first-time violating users. These results have significant implications for theory around digitally-enforced punishments, understanding recidivism online, and the practical implementation of product changes and policy development around consequences.