{"title":"Guest editors' introduction wearable technologies and communication design","authors":"J. Jones, Catherine C. Gouge","doi":"10.1145/3188387.3188388","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3188387.3188388","url":null,"abstract":"Using the data generated by both consumer- and medically-oriented wearable devices to assess and improve fitness, wellbeing, and specific health outcomes demands attention to the user experiences of such devices as well as to the kinds of claims being made about their promise (cf. Gouge & Jones, 2016). This special issue participates in such work by presenting case studies situated at the intersections of wearables, communication design, and rhetorical analysis that explore the health, justice, and wellness-oriented promises of specific wearables. In this introduction, we briefly survey the research on wearables in the fields of rhetoric and technical communication, preview the essays in the collection, and propose some areas for future work that might be of interest to technical communication, communication design, and rhetoric scholars.","PeriodicalId":193901,"journal":{"name":"Communication Design Quarterly Review","volume":"80 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131436109","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Engaging with online design: undergraduate user-participants and the practice-level struggles of usability learning","authors":"J. Bartolotta, Julianne Newmark, Tiffany Bourelle","doi":"10.1145/3188173.3188180","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3188173.3188180","url":null,"abstract":"As usability research and user-centered design become more prevalent areas of study within technical and professional communication (TPC), it has become important to examine the best practices in designing courses and programs that help students better understand these concepts. This article reports on a case study about how usability research and user-centered design were introduced to TPC students. The article examines how students responded to and articulated new concepts and looks forward to ways TPC programs can develop comprehensive curricula that introduces students to these topics.","PeriodicalId":193901,"journal":{"name":"Communication Design Quarterly Review","volume":"150 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120872122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Designing for global mobile: considering user experience mapping with infrastructure, global openness, local user contexts and local cultural beliefs of technology use","authors":"Gustav Verhulsdonck","doi":"10.1145/3188173.3188179","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3188173.3188179","url":null,"abstract":"An important element for global design is an approach that can be used for international (e.g., non-US) users. Such a design approach has to factor in how the user's culture influences how they perceive a design while using their mobile devices across a different culture. As mobile use is expected to grow globally, more mobile interactions will require increasingly robust tools for measuring user experiences across different online and physical channels. This article focuses on how experience mapping, a common user experience (UX) design technique that tells stories about how a user experiences a design as a seamless whole across such channels, can help address global mobile design contexts. To further address such global contexts, this article proposes extending experience mapping by considering the factors of existing infrastructures, global openness to innovation, local user contexts, and local beliefs on the function of technology so that designers of communication can better conceptualize sequences of events of interactions across cultures.","PeriodicalId":193901,"journal":{"name":"Communication Design Quarterly Review","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121207235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Impatient patients: a DIY usability approach in diabetes wearable technologies","authors":"Lora Arduser","doi":"10.1145/3188387.3188390","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3188387.3188390","url":null,"abstract":"As wearable medical technologies take on an increasingly prominent role in how health care is delivered, pressure to make the development process for such devices shorter increases. This case study will recount one attempt at a do-it-yourself (DIY) development process and collaborative usability testing. I argue that these efforts can complement traditional usability methods used in the development process of a wearable diabetes technology and provide more immediate access to technologies that can meet the diverse needs of end users. The case involves an open source DIY project developed by parents of children with type 1 diabetes in order to remotely monitor the blood sugar levels of their children.","PeriodicalId":193901,"journal":{"name":"Communication Design Quarterly Review","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114626277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Designing for human-machine collaboration: smart hearing aids as wearable technologies","authors":"Krista Kennedy","doi":"10.1145/3188387.3188391","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3188387.3188391","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines design aspects that shape human/machine collaboration between wearers of smart hearing aids and their networked aids. The Starkey Halo hearing aid and the TruLink iPhone app that facilitates real-time adjustments by the wearer offer a case study in designing for this sort of collaboration and for the wearer's rhetorical management of disability disclosure in social contexts. Through close textual analysis of the company's promotional materials for patient and professional audiences as well as interface analysis and autoethnography, I examine the ways that close integration between the wearer, onboard algorithms and hardware, and geolocative telemetry shape everyday interactions in multiple hearing situations. Reliance on ubiquitous, familiar hardware such as smart phones and intuitive interface design can drive patient comfort and adoption rates of these complex technologies that influence cognitive health, social connectedness, and crucial information access.","PeriodicalId":193901,"journal":{"name":"Communication Design Quarterly Review","volume":"135 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125808363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Digital humanities, middleware, and user experience design for public health applications","authors":"J. D. Applen, S. Stephens","doi":"10.1145/3188173.3188176","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3188173.3188176","url":null,"abstract":"Technical communicators should be conscious of how the algorithms that govern \"middleware\" (software that structures the presentation of data) constrain their ability to represent information. We use critical theory from the digital humanities to discuss how critical visual literacy allows designers to better present contextual information to enhance the user experience. We illustrate this approach with an example of medical communication by using social network analysis software to demonstrate the spread of Ebola in Africa.","PeriodicalId":193901,"journal":{"name":"Communication Design Quarterly Review","volume":"97 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121308908","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Timothy R. Amidon, Elizabeth A. Williams, Tiffany Lipsey, Randy Callahan, Gary Nuckols, S. Rice
{"title":"Sensors and gizmos and data, oh my: informating firefighters' personal protective equipment","authors":"Timothy R. Amidon, Elizabeth A. Williams, Tiffany Lipsey, Randy Callahan, Gary Nuckols, S. Rice","doi":"10.1145/3188387.3188389","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3188387.3188389","url":null,"abstract":"This study identifies communication design challenges associated with firefighters' personal protective equipment (PPE), an assemblage of wearable technologies that shield these workers from occupational hazards. Considering two components of modern firefighting PPE through Zuboff's (1998) theorization of information technology, we offer an extended case study that illustrates how these wearables, as interfaces, automate or informate firefighters' practice of safety. Often lauded for their abilities to augment firefighters' work capacities and increase safety outcomes, our analysis revealed that these wearables engender practices that expose firefighters to unforeseen hazards and displace the \"tacit craft skills and knowledge\" that these workers mobilize to mitigate workplace risk (Spinuzzi, 2005, p. 164). Drawing from these insights, we sketch four points of tension that communication designers, system architects, and practitioners may utilize to consider the informating potential of smart-firefighting PPE equipped with physiological sensors.","PeriodicalId":193901,"journal":{"name":"Communication Design Quarterly Review","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115848870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Quantifiable me: fitness and health trackers and the trope of holisticism","authors":"Candice A. Welhausen","doi":"10.1145/3188387.3188393","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3188387.3188393","url":null,"abstract":"As fitness trackers have proliferated, many now collect information about both physical and mental health indicators. Arguably, such capabilities promote the notion that achieving and maintaining health is holistic, pushing back against the mind/body divide that has long characterized how we tend to perceive health and disease in Western cultures (see Segal, 2005). In this article, the author argues that the visual (photographs and data visualizations) and language-based communication strategies used on Bellabeat Leaf's website, a smart jewelry device for women, employ a narrative of holisticism. Further, this narrative functions as a rhetorical trope that reinforces power relationships that align with a dominant underlying ideology of Western medicine---the notion that disease and illness can be controlled. The author proposes that future designs of the Leaf's smartphone application might allow users to visualize quantitative and select user-contributed qualitative, sensorial-based feedback to potentially provide a more balanced perspective of health.","PeriodicalId":193901,"journal":{"name":"Communication Design Quarterly Review","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115858180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of \"Exploratory Programming for the Arts and Humanities,\" by Montfort, N. (2016). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.","authors":"R. Rowan","doi":"10.1145/3188173.3188182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3188173.3188182","url":null,"abstract":"Coding, like other forms of written communication, is both science and art. This is not a new or revolutionary idea. In 1974, Donald Knuth published \"Computer Programming as an Art\" and declared that \"[a] programmer who subconsciously views himself as an artist will enjoy what he does and will do it better\" (p. 673). In 1984, Steven Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution introduced us to the Hacker Ethic, one tenet of which is that we can create art and beauty on the computer (p. 31). Many other authors and coders have argued similar cases about the socially situated nature of programming since.","PeriodicalId":193901,"journal":{"name":"Communication Design Quarterly Review","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130148059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The past, present, and future of UX empirical research","authors":"Joy Robinson, Candice L. Lanius, Ryan P. Weber","doi":"10.1145/3188173.3188175","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3188173.3188175","url":null,"abstract":"Rethinking UX requires mapping trends in empirical research to find out how the field has developed. This study addresses that need by analyzing over 400 academic empirical studies published between 2000--2016. Our research questions are, \"How have the artifacts, analysis, and methods of UX research changed since the year 2000?\" and \"Do scholars use research questions and hypotheses to ground their research in UX?\" Our research found that services, websites, and imagined objects/prototypes were among the most frequently studied artifacts, while usability studies, surveys, and interviews were the most commonly used methods. We found a significant increase in quantitative and mixed methods studies since 2010. This study showed that only 1 out of every 5 publications employed research questions to guide inquiry. We hope that these findings help UX as a field more accurately and broadly conceive of its identity with clear standards for evaluating existing research and rethinking future research opportunities as a discipline.","PeriodicalId":193901,"journal":{"name":"Communication Design Quarterly Review","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126741575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}