Since the Covid-19 pandemic, video calling (VC) has become a staple means of daily communication. Beyond socializing, VC in the United States (U.S.) now supports remote work, healthcare and education. The sudden ubiquity of VC could have presented both advantages and challenges for chronically ill people. However, our understanding of chronically ill people's experiences with VC remains limited. To address this gap, we conducted the largest online survey study (N=55) on chronically ill people's VC experiences in the U.S.--investigating their routines, facilitators and barriers. Our quantitative and qualitative findings established that chronically ill people heavily depend on VC to cope with everyday life. At the same time, VC can also detrimentally exacerbate cognitive (e.g., brain fog), emotional (e.g., self-consciousness) and physical challenges (e.g., migraines) for chronically ill people. In response, we offer actionable design opportunities to improve the accessibility and experience of VC for chronically ill people.
Digital technologies in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) have the potential to support the development and well-being of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) children. Yet, there has yet to be a systematic review of the field. A shared understanding of current research is needed to develop a future vision. In this review, we analyzed 42 papers from the ACM Digital Library and the top 20 HCI Conferences and Journals, spanning the past 24 years, to investigate the trends, methods, and the level of inclusion of DHH children. Our review reveals that sign language learning platforms dominate the current technological effort. Moreover, children are not yet fully involved in the design process of these technologies and are mostly considered users and testers. We also capture a gap in integrating Deaf culture and child development in prior research. We conclude by critically examining literature gaps and offering guidance for future research.
Financial technology (fintech), including online banking and digital payments, can facilitate or hinder participation in financial activities. Current fintech support for older adults, notably delegation to close others, inadequately accommodates their cognitive strengths and life transitions. To envision fintech support for age-related cognitive diversity in a rapidly changing fintech landscape, we engaged 17 older adults, five family members, and five professionals in co-creating and critiquing personas, scenarios, and design concepts through interviews and group discussions. Our thematic analysis uncovers interrelated social factors and financial management collaborations across inner and outer circles, highlighting the importance of preparedness for transitions, long-term safeguarding, and short-term fail-safes. From these insights, we propose design avenues for layered fintech support networks across close and distant others, situated meta-design for mutual fintech support, and personalized fintech "first aid." We urge HCI communities to collectively design holistic approaches to a fintech support ecosystem for aging and accessibility.
The investigation of technologies facilitating sexual interactions and sexuality-related explorations is becoming more established in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), albeit with little systematic attention to the sexual lives of disabled people. In this space, we undertook a literature review utilising feminist content analysis to take stock and critically analyse the domains of sexuality, technology and disability when they intersect. Our approach aligns with the broader goals of promoting inclusivity, diversity, and equity in technology design and application. We present a descriptive and analytical outline of existing research on sexuality, technology and disability through which we identified unmarked norms governing research. These include a focus on individualised technologies oriented on heteronormative assumptions on sexual desires. In addition, we focus on common methods employed and describe the involvement, or lack thereof, of disabled people in research practice. This highlights gaps in our collective knowledge from which we can derive areas for future work
Older adults often struggle to meet their psychological needs due to retirement and living alone. Recent studies suggest that games featuring emotional challenge (EC) can help fulfill basic psychological needs such as autonomy, competence, and relatedness by facilitating emotional exploration. However, it remains unclear whether older adults can benefit from EC games, whether they find this genre enjoyable, and how these games should be designed to better meet their needs. This work explores older adults’ experiences and perceptions of playing EC games through two studies. The first study involved playing Detroit: Become Human, revealing that older adults derived multifaceted psychological experiences from playing the game. The second study involved a custom-designed game scenario tailored to older adults, demonstrating that meaningful choices significantly influenced autonomy need satisfaction. Based on these findings, we offer five design guidelines for developing EC games that satisfy psychological needs of older adults.
This submission is an edited translation of an article previously published in German.
Participatory methods open up research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) that aim at involving populations that are not traditionally represented. However, they do not require researchers to actively reflect on power relationships as would be required when aiming for transformative impact. In our case study of MACH’S AUF!, we show how research on accessibility of makerspaces for deaf people allowed us to develop a methodological concept of solidarity driven research that extends classical concepts of participation.
We show how access to makerspaces has to be understood first and foremost as structured in a socio-technical manner, where communicative access for deaf people has to be provided through sign language.
Our work provides a nuanced understanding of what access to makerspaces might entail from a marginalised perspective, as well as a methodological positionality that may support transformative research endeavours in the future.