arXiv subjects

Alarith Uhde

Publications and source records attributed to Alarith Uhde.

14 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

How Problematic are Suspenseful Interactions?

Current "social acceptability" guidelines for interactive technologies advise against certain, seemingly problematic forms of interaction. Specifically, "suspenseful" interactions, characterized by visible manipulations and invisible effects, are generally considered be problematic. However, the empirical grounding for this claim is surprisingly weak. To test its validity, this paper presents a controlled replication study (n = 281) of the "suspensefulness effect". Although it could be statistically replicated with two out of three social acceptability measures, effect sizes were small (r =< .2), and all compared forms of interaction, including the suspenseful one, had high absolute social acceptability scores. Thus, despite the slight negative effect, suspenseful interactions seem less problematic in the overall scheme of things. We discuss alternative approaches to improve the social acceptability of interactive technology, and recommend to more closely engage with their specific social situatedness.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

Understanding and Supporting Peer Review Using AI-reframed Positive Summary

While peer review enhances writing and research quality, harsh feedback can frustrate and demotivate authors. Hence, it is essential to explore how critiques should be delivered to motivate authors and enable them to keep iterating their work. In this study, we explored the impact of appending an automatically generated positive summary to the peer reviews of a writing task, alongside varying levels of overall evaluations (high vs. low), on authors' feedback reception, revision outcomes, and motivation to revise. Through a 2x2 online experiment with 137 participants, we found that adding an AI-reframed positive summary to otherwise harsh feedback increased authors' critique acceptance, whereas low overall evaluations of their work led to increased revision efforts. We discuss the implications of using AI in peer feedback, focusing on how AI-driven critiques can influence critique acceptance and support research communities in fostering productive and friendly peer feedback practices.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

Beyond Hiding and Revealing: Exploring Effects of Visibility and Form of Interaction on the Witness Experience

Our interactions with technology do not just shape our individual experiences. They also affect people around us. Although previous research has addressed such "witness" experiences, the actual effect of interaction design on the witness experience remains largely unknown. In an online study (n = 407), we explored how witnesses perceive mid-air gesture-based interactions with a hearing aid, using four video vignettes. We studied witnesses' subjective visibility of manipulations and effects (following Reeves and colleagues' taxonomy), perceived form of interaction, subjective experience, and relationships between these measures. Although visibility patterns matched the intended form, they did not lead to the supposed experience (i.e., "suspenseful" gestures did not lead to suspenseful experiences). The paper illustrates gaps in current research about witness experiences, demonstrates the need to overcome basic hiding/revealing profiles, and indicates a path forward by focusing on aesthetic forms and experiences.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

LoopBoxes -- Evaluation of a Collaborative Accessible Digital Musical Instrument

LoopBoxes is an accessible digital musical instrument designed to create an intuitive access to loop based music making for children with special educational needs (SEN). This paper describes the evaluation of the instrument in the form of a pilot study during a music festival in Berlin, Germany, as well as a case study with children and music teachers in a SEN school setting. We created a modular system composed of three modules that afford single user as well as collaborative music making. The pilot study was evaluated using informal observation and questionnaires (n = 39), and indicated that the instrument affords music making for people with and without prior musical knowledge across all age groups and fosters collaborative musical processes. The case study was based on observation and a qualitative interview. It confirmed that the instrument meets the needs of the school settings and indicated how future versions could expand access to all students, especially those experiencing complex disabilities. In addition, out-of-the-box functionality seems to be crucial for the long-term implementation of the instrument in a school setting.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2022

Obtrusive Subtleness and Why We Should Focus on Meaning, not Form, in Social Acceptability Studies

Nowadays, interactive technologies are used almost everywhere. As a result, designers need to increasingly make them "socially acceptable". Previous work recommends "subtle" forms of interaction to increase social acceptability and avoid negative experiences. Although often appropriate, such uniform recommendations neglect the variety of social situations. We demonstrate this limitation in an experiment (N=35), by comparing the observer experience of different forms of interaction in "face-to-face conversations", a social situation rarely studied. Here, the typically recommended form of interaction ("subtle") led to a more negative observer experience than the usually deprecated form ("suspenseful"), in terms of affective experience and product perception. It also made the user appear less extraverted. We conclude by positioning interactions with technology not as separate from the social situation in which they are performed, but as a constitutive part of it that meaningfully relates to other situated activities.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2022

Experiential Benefits of Interactive Conflict Negotiation Practices in Computer-Supported Shift Planning

Shift planning plays a key role for the health and well-being of healthcare workers. It determines when they work and when they can take time off to recover or engage in social activities. Current computer-support in shift planning is typically designed from a managerial perspective and focuses on process efficiency, with the long-term goal of full automation. This implies automatic resolutions of emotionally charged scheduling conflicts. In the present study, we measured the effects of such a fully automated process on workers' well-being, fairness, and team spirit, and compared them with a more interactive process that directly involves workers in the decision-making. In our experimental online study (n = 94), we found positive effects of the more interactive process on all measures. Our findings indicate that full automation may not be desirable from the worker perspective. We close with concrete suggestions to design more worker-centered, hybrid shift planning systems by optimizing worker control, considering the worker experience, and embedding shift planning in the broader work context.

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arXiv2022

Social Practice Cards: Research material to study social contexts as interwoven practice constellations

Studying how social contexts shape technology interactions and how we experience them is hard. One challenge is that social contexts are very dynamic and shaped by the situated practices of everyone involved. As a result, the same human-technology interaction can be experienced quite differently depending on what other people around us do. As a first step to study interpersonal and interpractice dynamics, we collected a broad range of visual representations of practices, such as "riding a bike" or "skipping the rope". This material can be used to further explore how different, co-located practices relate to each other.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2021

Simulating Social Acceptability With Agent-based Modeling

Social acceptability is an important consideration for HCI designers who develop technologies for social contexts. However, the current theoretical foundations of social acceptability research do not account for the complex interactions among the actors in social situations and the specific role of technology. In order to improve the understanding of how context shapes and is shaped by situated technology interactions, we suggest to reframe the social space as a dynamic bundle of social practices and explore it with simulation studies using agent-based modeling. We outline possible research directions that focus on specific interactions among practices as well as regularities in emerging patterns.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2021

Towards a Better Understanding of Social Acceptability

Social contexts play an important role in understanding acceptance and use of technology. However, current approaches used in HCI to describe contextual influence do not capture it appropriately. On the one hand, the often used Technology Acceptance Model and related frameworks are too rigid to account for the nuanced variations of social situations. On the other hand, Goffman's dramaturgical model of social interactions emphasizes interpersonal relations but mostly overlooks the material (e.g., technology) that is central to HCI. As an alternative, we suggest an approach based on Social Practice Theory. We conceptualize social context as interactions between co-located social practices and acceptability as a matter of their (in)compatibilities. Finally, we outline how this approach provides designers with a better understanding of different types of social acceptability problems and helps finding appropriate solutions.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2021

Design and Appropriation of Computer-supported Self-scheduling Practices in Healthcare Shift Work

Shift scheduling impacts healthcare workers' well-being because it sets the frame for their social life and recreational activities. Since it is complex and time-consuming, it has become a target for automation. However, existing systems mostly focus on improving efficiency. The workers' needs and their active participation do not play a pronounced role. Contrasting this trend, we designed a social practice-based, worker-centered, and well-being-oriented self-scheduling system which gives healthcare workers more control during shift planning. In a following nine month appropriation study, we found that workers who were cautious about their social standing in the group or who had a more spontaneous personal lifestyle used our system less often than others. Moreover, we revealed several conflict prevention practices and suggest to shift the focus away from a competitive shift distribution paradigm towards supporting these pro-social practices. We conclude with guidelines to support individual planning practices, self-leadership, and for dealing with conflicts.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2020

Designing everyday automation with well-being in mind

Nowadays, automation not only permeates industry but also becomes a substantial part of our private, everyday lives. Driven by the idea of increased convenience and more time for the "important things in life," automation relieves us from many daily chores - robots vacuum floors and automated coffee makers produce supposedly barista-quality coffee on the press of a button. In many cases, these offers are embraced by people without further questioning. However, while we save time by delegating more and more everyday activities to automation, we also may lose chances for enjoyable and meaningful experiences. In two field studies, we demonstrate that a manual process has experiential benefits over more automated processes by using the example of coffee-making. We present a way to account for potential experiential costs of everyday automation and strategies of how to design interaction with automation to reconcile experience with the advantages of a more and more powerful automation.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2020

Understanding and Designing Automation with Peoples' Wellbeing in Mind

Nowadays, automation not only dominates industry but becomes more and more a part of our private, everyday lives. Following the notion of increased convenience and more time for the "important things in life", automation relieves us from many daily household chores - robots vacuum floors and automated coffeemakers produce supposedly barista-quality coffee on the press of a button. In many cases these offers are embraced by people without further questioning. Of course, automation frees us from many unloved activities, but we may also lose something by delegating more and more everyday activities to automation. In a series of four studies, we explored the experiential costs of everyday automation and strategies of how to design technology to reconcile experience with the advantages of ever more powerful automation.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2020

Positive Work Practices. Opportunities and Challenges in Designing Meaningful Work-related Technology

Work is a rich source of meaning. However, beyond organizational changes, most approaches in the research field of Meaningful Work neglected the power of work-related technology to increase meaning. Using two cases as examples, this paper proposes a wellbeing-driven approach to the design of work-related technology. Despite the positive results of our cases, we argue that the use of technology as a means of increasing meaning in the workplace is still in its infancy.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2020

Fairness and Decision-making in Collaborative Shift Scheduling Systems

The strains associated with shift work decrease healthcare workers' well-being. However, shift schedules adapted to their individual needs can partially mitigate these problems. From a computing perspective, shift scheduling was so far mainly treated as an optimization problem with little attention given to the preferences, thoughts, and feelings of the healthcare workers involved. In the present study, we explore fairness as a central, human-oriented attribute of shift schedules as well as the scheduling process. Three in-depth qualitative interviews and a validating vignette study revealed that while on an abstract level healthcare workers agree on equality as the guiding norm for a fair schedule, specific scheduling conflicts should foremost be resolved by negotiating the importance of individual needs. We discuss elements of organizational fairness, including transparency and team spirit. Finally, we present a sketch for fair scheduling systems, summarizing key findings for designers in a readily usable way.

cs.CY↗