Informatics Influence at CSCW Is 23 Papers Strong

From “teaching tech to grandma” to “crowdsourcing mental health messages,” researchers from UC Irvine’s Department of Informatics have explored a wide range of topics this year. This is evident from 23 of the papers being presented at the 25th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2022), one of the premier venues for research into the design and use of technologies that support collaborative work and life activities. The virtual conference started this week with an impressive showing from UCI’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS).

“UCI often has a strong presence at CSCW, but what’s particularly exciting this year is the breadth and depth of Informatics representation across the program,” says Informatics Professor Daniel Epstein, who co-authored four papers and is presenting a demo at the conference. “ICS undergrads, grad students, postdocs and faculty are all represented in our 23 papers, which span topics like gaming, health, social media, accessibility and work.”

Diversity Award
One of the papers — by Phoebe K. Chua, a recent informatics Ph.D. graduate, and Melissa Mazmanian, professor and chair of the Department of Informatics — was singled out for its contribution to diversity and inclusion. “The Substance of Style: How Social Class-Based Styles of Interpersonal Interaction Shape Hiring Assessments at Large Technology Companies” received a Diversity Recognition for its exploration of ties between social class background and preferred interpersonal interactional styles in the context of job interviews.

“Hiring decision-makers are choosing people based on shared ideas of how candidates with ‘innovation potential’ communicate,” explains Mazmanian. “However, communication styles are learned and tied to cultural and class background. It is critical that we understand how invisible bias can operate as a gatekeeper for elite jobs in tech.” The paper also offer ideas for evaluators to develop more equitable hiring practices — much needed advice for the 68% of business leaders saying there is a lack of diversity in their tech workforce.

International Collaboration
Many of UCI’s papers are cross-disciplinary, multi-institutional collaborations. For example, “‘I Never Imagined Grandma Could Do So Well with Technology’: Evolving Roles of Younger Family Members in Older Adults’ Technology Learning and Use” is co-authored by informatics master’s student Xinru Tang in partnership with researchers from Ericsson and from East China Normal University, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, City University of Hong Kong and Duke Kunshan University.

In another international collaboration, “Involving Crowdworkers with Lived Experience in Content-Development for Push-Based Digital Mental Health Tools: Lessons Learned from Crowdsourcing Mental Health Messages,” Informatics Professor Madhu Reddy worked with researchers from Northwestern University, the University of Illinois-Chicago and the University of Toronto.

Demo & Poster Presentations
In addition to the 23 papers, UCI researchers also presented a demo and a poster. Like many of the papers, the demo and poster spotlight highly collaborative work. The demo is a partnership between Epstein; Fannie Liu and Andrés Monroy-Hernández of Snap Inc.; and informatics graduate students Lika Liu, Xi Lu and Richard Martinez, and Dennis Wang. Their project, Mindful Garden: Supporting Reflection on Biosignals in a Co-Located Augmented Reality Mindfulness Experience, provides a system for reflection on biosignals in a mindfulness experience between two people in a shared augmented reality environment. The Mindful Garden leverages ready-to-use-consumer technologies (Snap Spectacles and a Muse 2 headband) and a novel pipeline for real-time biomarker data streaming.

The poster tackles the issue of privacy when it comes to health information, with Informatics Professor Yunan Chen working with researchers from Brigham Young University, the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and Bentley University. Their poster, “A Privacy Paradox? Impact of Privacy Concerns on Willingness to Disclose COVID-19 Health Status in the United States,” outlines a survey of 304 U.S. adults regarding attitudes toward sharing two types of COVID-19 health status (diagnosis and exposure) with three different audiences (anyone, frequent contacts and occasional contacts). The survey found that a desire for “control” and for “awareness of data practices” increased people’s willingness to share health information with certain audiences.

The 23 ICS Papers
The conference is being held virtually from Nov. 8–22, 2022, and here are links to abstracts for the 23 paper with UCI co-authors:

1. “I Never Imagined Grandma Could Do So Well with Technology”: Evolving Roles of Younger Family Members in Older Adults’ Technology Learning and Use by Xinru Tang (UCI); Yuling Sun (East China Normal University); Bowen Zhang (Ericsson); Zimi Liu (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne); Ray LC (City University of Hong Kong); Zhicong Lu (City University of Hong Kong); Xin Tong (Duke Kunshan University)
2. A Longitudinal Goal Setting Model for Addressing Complex Personal Problems in Mental Health by Elena Agapie (UCI); Patricia Anne Arean (University of Washington); Gary Hsieh (University of Washington); Sean A. Munson (University of Washington)
3. Collaboration Challenges and Technology Opportunities at the Intersection of Perinatal and Mental Health Journeys by Shefali Haldar (Merck & Co., Inc.); Hannah Studd (Northwestern University); Novia Wong (UCI); David C. Mohr (Northwestern University); Madhu Reddy (UCI); Emily S. Miller (Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine)
4. GeniAuti: Toward Data-Driven Interventions to Challenging Behaviors of Autistic Children through Caregivers’ Tracking by Eunkyung Jo (UCI); Seora Park (Seoul National University); Hyeonseok Bang (Yonsei University); Youngeun Hong (National Center for Mental Health); Yeni Kim (Dongguk International Hospital); Jungwon Choi (National Center for Mental Health); Bung Nyun Kim (Seoul National University Hospital); Daniel A. Epstein (UCI); Hwajung Hong (Seoul National University)
5. Help Me #DebunkThis: Unpacking Individual and Community’s Collaborative Work in Information Credibility Assessment by Lu He (UCI); Changyang He (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
6. Home-Life and Work Rhythm Diversity in Distributed Teamwork: A Study with Information Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic by Thomas Breideband (UCI); Poorna Talkad Sukumar (University of Notre Dame); Gloria Mark (UCI); Megan Caruso (University of Colorado Boulder); Sidney D’Mello (University of Colorado Boulder); Aaron D. Striegel (University of Notre Dame)
7. “I Just Can’t Help But Smile Sometimes”: Collaborative Self-Management of Depression by Eleanor R. Burgess (Northwestern University); Madhu Reddy (UCI); David C. Mohr (Northwestern University)
8. Involving Crowdworkers with Lived Experience in Content-Development for Push-Based Digital Mental Health Tools: Lessons Learned from Crowdsourcing Mental Health Messages by Rachel Kornfield (Northwestern University); David C. Mohr (Northwestern University); Rachel Ranney (University of Illinois-Chicago); Emily G Lattie (Northwestern University); Jonah Meyerhoff (Northwestern University); Joseph Jay Williams (University of Toronto); Madhu Reddy (UCI)
9. “It’s a lonely disease”:  Cultivating Online Spaces for Social Support among People Living with Dementia and Dementia Caregivers by Jazette Johnson (UCI); Vitica Arnold (UCI); Anne Marie Piper (UCI); Gillian R. Hayes (UCI)
10. Joint Media Engagement in Families Playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the COVID-19 Pandemic by Jesse J Martinez (University of Washington); Travis W Windleharth (University of Washington); Qisheng Li (University of Washington); Arpita Bhattacharya (University of Washington, UCI); Katy E Pearce (University of Washington); Jason Yip (University of Washington); Jin Ha Lee (University of Washington)
11. Meeting Young Adults’ Social Support Needs across the Health Behavior Change Journey: Implications for Digital Mental Health Tools by Jonah Meyerhoff (Northwestern University); Rachel Kornfield (Northwestern University); David C. Mohr (Northwestern University); Madhu Reddy (UCI)
12. Motivated to Work or Working to Stay Motivated: A Diary and Interview Study on Working From Home by Judith Willemijn Borghouts (UCI); Gloria Mark (UCI); Alex C Williams (University of Tennessee, Knoxville); Thomas Breideband (UCI)
13. Practicing Moderation: Community Moderation as Reflective Practice by Amanda L. L. Cullen (UCI); Sanjay Ram Kairam (Twitch/Amazon)
14. Revisiting Piggyback Prototyping: Examining Benefits and Tradeoffs in Extending Existing Social Computing Systems by Daniel A Epstein (UCI); Fannie Liu (Snap Inc.); Andrés Monroy-Hernández (Snap, Princeton University); Dennis Wang (UCI)
15. Sleep Patterns and Sleep Alignment in Remote Teams during COVID-19 by Thomas Breideband (UCI); Gonzalo J. Martinez (University of Notre Dame); Poorna Talkad Sukumar (University of Notre Dame); Megan Caruso (University of Colorado Boulder); Sidney D’Mello (University of Colorado Boulder); Aaron D. Striegel (University of Notre Dame); Gloria Mark (UCI)
16. SnapPI: Understanding Everyday Use of Personal Informatics Data Stickers on Ephemeral Social Media by Dennis Wang (UCI); Marawin Chheang (Informatics); Siyun Ji (UCI); Ryan Mohta (UCI); Daniel A Epstein (UCI)
17. Stewarding the Documental Afterlives of Refugee Tech Initiatives by Benedict Salazar Olgado (UCI, University of the Philippines, Diliman); Lucy Pei (UCI)
18. The Invisible Labor of Access in Academic Writing Practices: A Case Analysis with Dyslexic Adults by Emily Q. Wang (Northwestern University); Anne Marie Piper (UCI)
19. The Substance of Style: How Social Class-Based Styles of Interpersonal Interaction Shape Hiring Assessments at Large Technology Companies by Phoebe K. Chua (UCI); Melissa Mazmanian (UCI)
20. Trial by File Formats:  Exploring public defenders’ challenges working with novel surveillance data by Rachel B. Warren (UCI); Niloufar Salehi (UC, Berkeley)
21. Understanding Cultural Influence on Perspectives Around Contact Tracing Strategies by Xi Lu (UCI); Eunkyung Jo (UCI); Seora Park (Seoul National University); Hwajung Hong (KAIST); Yunan Chen (UCI); Daniel A. Epstein (UCI)
22. Using HCI in Cross-Disciplinary Teams: A Case Study of Academic Collaboration in HCI-Health Teams in the US Using a Team Science Perspective by Elena Agapie (UCI); Shefali Haldar (Merck & Co., Inc.); Sharmaine Poblete (UCI)
23. “What is Your Envisioned Future?” Towards Human-AI Enrichment in Data Work of Asthma Care by Zhaoyuan Su (UCI); Lu He (UCI); Sunit P. Jariwala (Albert Einstein College of Medicine); Kai Zheng (UCI); Yunan Chen (UCI)

You can view the full CSCW 2022 program online.