Spring 2025
Designing Healthy Eating Futures for Latinx Adolescents
Instructors: Carla Castillo, PhD Student & HCDE Sean Munson, Professor, HCDE
This DRG will help conduct a research study to understand the current behavior of Latinx families—parents and adolescents—and their goals/needs around eating, and to develop intervention concepts where design might support desired eating behaviors. The study consists of a food diary, interviews, co-design workshops, and a survey to gather feedback on intervention concepts.
This research will be conducted with the Latinx population in the Lower Yakima Valley. Students are not expected to travel to the site but will assist in planning study activities by:
- Qualitative coding transcripts
- Refining co-design workshop activities
- Reviewing literature and existing interventions or programs to develop intervention cards on current approaches for teens to review and assess
Enrollment information
- Meeting time: 2-hour sessions scheduled between:
- Tuesdays, 1-5 p.m.
- Thursdays, 1-5 p.m.
- Credits: 2-3 credits (e.g., 6-9 hours total of meeting and outside work)
- Who should apply:
- We will prioritize students enrolled in HCDE degree programs, but students outside of HCDE are also welcome to apply.
- Interest in this topic, human-centered design, public health, nutrition, or related fields
- Highly Desirable (You do not need to meet all of these, but experience in at least one area is preferred):
- Experience with analyzing qualitative data (e.g., interview transcripts)
- Experience with developing cards or storyboards
- Proficiency in Spanish is helpful but not required
- This DRG counts toward the directed research requirement for PhD students.
- To apply: Please complete this Google Form
- Anticipated notification date: Rolling deadline, aiming to notify everyone by April 8.
- Questions? Contact Carla at carla23@uw.edu
Winter – Spring 2025
Co-speculating Care-ful Data Infrastructures with Home Child Care Workers
Instructors: Neilly Tan, Sean Munson, Audrey Desjardins (on leave)
Smart home cameras' varied promises–to increase security, care, and convenience–belie critical tensions about social configurations of power, surveillance, and privacy in home settings.
This DRG addresses the impacts of data-driven monitoring with labor conditions in domestic spaces. With a specific focus around the experiences of nannies and other in-home child care workers, this research group explores the following questions:
- What are alternative structures for collective accountability around critical technology use?
- How can values of care and interdependence inform privacy in domestic labor contexts?
Across two quarters (Winter and Spring 2025), students will develop and co-facilitate a participatory, speculative design research workshop with in-home child care workers. Ultimately, this hands-on DRG will result in the co-creation of design resource materials (e.g., zines, manifestos, booklets) that engage specific applications of consent, negotiation, and disclosure around varied social settings and audiences. Through this process, students will contribute to both practical and theoretical implications of privacy.
This research group will cover the following broad agenda:
- Winter quarter: Students will closely read across design research methods and theory, creating and crafting workshop protocols alongside this foundational knowledge. During this time, students will also assist in participant recruitment, running pilot workshops, and developing community relationships.
Depending on study progress, students can expect to co-facilitate the design workshop by the end of Winter quarter or beginning of Spring quarter.
- Spring quarter: Following the design workshop's completion, students will collaborate on data analysis and creating design materials.
Students should apply with the expectation of a two-quarter commitment. However, we understand that other priorities–such as spring quarter course conflicts–could prevent some individuals from returning in spring.
Enrollment information
- Meeting time: Weekly meeting times will be jointly determined based on student availability via a scheduling poll sent out with DRG acceptance notifications.
- Credits: 2-3 credits (e.g., 6-9 hours total of meeting and outside work)
- Who should apply: We encourage applicants from HCDE, Design, Information Science, and fields related to policy and community-based engagement (e.g., Social Work, Labor Studies). Our research group will comprise 3-5 students who may have varied design or research abilities, but who are all committed to learning from one another.
The following relevant experience is highly preferred (though we do not expect you to meet all such criteria):- Background or interest in Participatory design, Speculative design, Community-based research
- Graphic design, Interaction design/making expertise
- Qualitative research experience/aptitude
This DRG counts toward the directed research requirement for PhD students.
- To apply: Please complete this Google Form by December 18.
- Anticipated notification date: We expect to notify students by December 27 or earlier.
- Questions? Students should email Neilly Tan (nhtan@uw.edu) with questions.