By Emma J. McDonnell, HCDE PhD student
May 2023
Thanks to generous support from the Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) student travel assistance, I was able to attend CHI 2023 in Hamburg Germany and present my work. I presented findings from my paper “Easier or Harder, Depending on Who the Hearing Person Is”: “Codesigning Videoconferencing Tools For Small Groups With Mixed Hearing Status. This presentation was a culmination of over 18 months of work running a three-phase codesign study with groups with at least one hearing member and at least one d/Deaf or hard of hearing member. Our findings focus on how videoconferencing tools could help people make conversations more accessible together, and I got to have very generative conversations about this work with colleagues. This paper is now a key chapter of my dissertation.
On top of getting to share my work, I really enjoyed attending CHI and getting to expand my network. As someone who researches technologies that support d/Deaf and hard of hearing people, I have been learning American Sign Language (ASL) and had the opportunity to connect with many Deaf colleagues at CHI 2023. Unique to in-person conferences, we managed to have a 2 hour long entirely voice off (i.e., no one used speech to communicate) lunch in a German pizza restaurant using both American and Austrian sign languages. I also got to connect with other disabled scholars at a disability-related reception and meet many people who were invaluable to my job search this fall.
Give to support HCDE student travel
The Mary B. Coney Endowed Fund, named in honor of Emeritus Professor Mary Coney, supports HCDE students by funding costs associated with travel to conferences and international workshops. Your support of this fund enriches the HCDE student experience and enhances HCDE's influence in the field.