TY - CONF T1 - Collaborative help in chronic disease management: supporting individualized problems T2 - Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer–Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW’12) Y1 - 2012 A1 - Huh, Jina A1 - Mark S. Ackerman KW - diabetes KW - health informatics KW - health information KW - QA AB -

Coping with chronic illness disease is a long and lonely journey, because the burden of managing the illness on a daily basis is placed upon the patients themselves. In this paper, we present our findings for how diabetes patient support groups help one another find individualized strategies for managing diabetes. Through field observations of face-to-face diabetes support groups, content analysis of an online diabetes community, and interviews, we found several help interactions that are critical in helping patients in finding individualized solutions. Those are: (1) patients operationalize their experiences to easily contextualize and share executable strategies; (2) operationalization has to be done within the larger context of sharing illness trajectories; and (3) the support groups develop common understanding towards diabetes management. We further discuss how our findings translate into design implications for supporting chronic illness patients in online community settings.

JF - Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer–Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW’12) UR - Complete ER - TY - CONF T1 - Supporting Collaborative Help for Individualized Use T2 - Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’11) Y1 - 2011 A1 - Huh, Jina A1 - Mark W. Newman A1 - Mark S. Ackerman KW - appropriation KW - collaborative help KW - configuration KW - customization KW - e-communities KW - individualized use KW - MythTV KW - pervasive systems KW - Q&A KW - social Q&A KW - tailorability AB -

In this paper, we seek to advance the research around utilizing collaborative help for supporting individualized use of technologies. We do this by shedding light on the ways that users of MythTV, a highly flexible open-source software system for home entertainment enthusiasts, collaboratively help one another in maintaining their individualized MythTV systems. Through an analysis of the MythTV user community’s mailing list archive, documentation, and wiki, along with user interviews, we discuss how the community utilizes configuration artifacts as proxies to easily mobilize and exchange knowledge. While exchanging concrete artifacts such as scripts and configuration files was seen to sometimes increase the efficiency of knowledge transfer, it also presented several challenges. Negotiating the transparency of configuration artifacts, navigating the customization and appropriation gulfs, and aligning usage trajectories all emerged as problematic areas. We discuss design implications that center around addressing these challenges. Our findings provide a a useful new perspective on how to support users in their individualized use of systems.

JF - Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’11) UR - Complete ER - TY - CONF T1 - Supporting Re-Use in DIY Software Projects: A Gray-Box Approach T2 - Workshop on Hacking, Tinkering, Crafts & Inventive Leisure Practices, ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work Y1 - 2011 A1 - Tao Dong A1 - Huh, Jina A1 - Mark W. Newman A1 - Mark S. Ackerman KW - collaborative help KW - configuration KW - hacking communities KW - knowledge sharing KW - recommender systems KW - Software customization AB -

DIYers who work with software often attempt to reuse others’ work wherever they can as they seek to assemble, modify, and extend their systems. In this paper, we briefly discuss the challenges faced by software DIYers in the process of reusing others’ software configurations through our study of the MythTV community. We also discuss the benefits of enabling users to engage with others’ configurations as “gray-boxes,” allowing them to pay attention to just the parts that must be opened up and modified and ignore the rest. We propose a new technical facility called Tailor Wear to give users guidance and hints about where and how to modify configuration artifacts by visually presenting the tailoring traces left by similar or selected peers.

JF - Workshop on Hacking, Tinkering, Crafts & Inventive Leisure Practices, ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work UR - Complete ER - TY - CONF T1 - Progressive Scenarios: A Rapid Method for Understanding User Interpretations of Technology T2 - Proceedings of the 16th ACM Conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP ’10) Y1 - 2010 A1 - Huh, Jina A1 - Mark S. Ackerman A1 - Mark W. Newman A1 - Ayse G Büyüktür KW - ambiguity KW - multiple interpretations KW - pervasive KW - pervasive environments KW - scenario-based design KW - ubicomp KW - usercentered design AB -

For emerging group technologies that require evaluations on long-term use and social norms, assumptions, and implicit rules that develop around the technologies, standard usability testing may not be adequate. At the same time, field based research that allows for observing technology use over long-term is costly in terms of time. In this paper, we present a rapid method that we call progressive scenarios, which could help replicate the processes by which interpretations evolve over time in natural settings and how invisible assumptions and social norms dictate the technology use. Using a preliminary design concept of a publicly available ambient personal information and communication system, we demonstrate how the method helped to elicit design implications.

JF - Proceedings of the 16th ACM Conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP ’10) UR - Complete ER -