Winter 2025
Evaluating Live Streams
Instructors:
- Keri Mallari, PhD Student
- Mark Zachry, Faculty Advisor
There are two parts to the DRG.
The first 3 weeks will focus on evaluating live streams. We have recruited live streamers, and are working on evaluating our prototype with non-members of their community to evaluate their streams. We will be working on evaluating these streams, and generating a summary of these evaluations for our live streamers.
The second part will focus on collecting sets of videos and blog posts of content creators about their experience as a live streamer. We will then conduct an analysis of these text and video content to help inform design of another prototype for live streamers. Since this second part is open-ended, there is a possibility that this DRG might extend towards Spring 2025 to continue the development and evaluation of the prototype.
Enrollment information
- Meeting time: Thursdays 4:30pm - 5:30pm
Sieg 429 (pending approval) - Credits: 2
- Who should apply: Familiarity with live stream platforms (Twitch), video games (Minecraft), and content creators
- This DRG counts toward the directed research requirement for PhD students.
- Application: Please fill out this Google Form
- Anticipated notification date: We anticipate notifying students by Dec 17.
- Questions? Email Keri at kmallari@uw.edu
Winter 2025
Temporality in Crisis Communication on TikTok
Directed by PhD candidate Julie Vera with support from Dr. David McDonald and Dr. Mark Zachry
In this DRG, we will investigate how users make sense of crisis events using TikTok comments by focusing on the temporal aspects of information seeking and sharing. Our research will explore how users navigate and understand emergent events in situations where information may not appear chronologically and/or lacks context. We also aim to understand how users employ temporal anchors and other references to make sense of evolving situations. Results from this study will contribute to research at the intersection of crisis informatics, social media studies, and collective sensemaking.
Students participating can expect to:
- Analyze collected TikTok comments and videos related to crisis events using both qualitative and quantitative methods
- Help develop and refine a framework for categorizing the temporal dimensions of TikTok comments
- Participate in reliability testing and manual validation of framework
*Note that due to the nature of this research, some media may contain distressing or sensitive material.
Enrollment information
- Meeting time: This DRG will meet for 1 - 1.5 hours a week. We are targeting Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday afternoons as our recurring meeting time. A when2meet link is provided in the application form and we will settle on a time based on student availability.
- Credits: 2 credits, HCDE 496 or HCDE 596
- Who should apply: We are looking for approximately 5-7 students (advanced undergraduates or graduate students) who have:
- Interest in social media analysis, crisis informatics, sensemaking, or information-seeking behaviors
- Experience with or strong interest in qualitative coding, content analysis, and development of analytical frameworks
- Potential interest in developing a full paper for CSCW, CHI, or ISCRAM submission
- Non-HCDE students are welcome and encouraged to apply!
- This DRG counts toward the directed research requirement for PhD students.
- Application: Please fill out this Google Form to apply for this DRG.
- Application deadline: December 13, 2024
- Anticipated notification date: We will make every effort to release decisions and official meeting time by January 3, 2025 or earlier.
- Questions? Email jvera@uw.edu or via HCDE Slack with any questions.
Winter 2025
Design Principles for AI Companions
Co-Directed by PhD student Soobin Cho and Dr. Mark Zachry
This continuation is focused on collaboratively building design principles for AI companions—AI chatbots designed to provide meaningful interaction, connection, and emotional support. Since AI companions form close relationships with users and can have significant emotional impacts, they require sensitive and thoughtful design. We use a research-based approach to systematically develop design principles to guide the design and evaluation of AI companions. Students participating in this DRG are developing design principles through internal and external evaluations to validate findings from the previous quarter.
This DRG is at capacity and no longer accepting applications.
Autumn 2024
Design Principles for AI Companions
Co-Directed by PhD student Soobin Cho and Dr. Mark Zachry
This DRG aims to collaboratively build design principles for AI companions. AI companions are AI-based chatbots that are focused on social and interpersonal interaction with people, rather than on practical or assistive roles. With advancements in Generative AI, the potential functions for these AI companions are rapidly developing. Such bots, unlike other AI chatbots, must be designed to emphasize companion-specific values, including use of natural and human-centered conversational styles to meet emotional and social needs. Design principles are needed to understand and assess this new interactive technology.
In this DRG, participants will iteratively evaluate and refine ideas to arrive at a final recommended set of design principles. This process will involve exploring, evaluating, and applying diverse design principles from related fields, researching and analyzing AI companion chatbots that are currently available, planning and conducting user studies to build user journeys/scenarios, and participating in focus-group interviews and workshops to conduct heuristic evaluations of existing companion bots.
This DRG is at capacity and no longer accepting applications.