Current Researchers: David Nguyen, Alex Bretana, and Gillian Hayes

Past Collaborators: Gabriela Marcu, Brian Sone, Aurora Bedford, Gillian Hayes, Khai Truong (University of Toronto), James Scott (Microsoft Research), and Marc Langheinrich (ETH Zurich)

Project: Tools for electronic recording have become easier to use, less expensive, and more pervasive in recent years. As a result, just when people think they understand a technology enough to react to it – avoiding or embracing it – new technologies are invented and deployed, making it nearly impossible for even the most technologically savvy to keep up.

During design and initial product introduction, many different stakeholders make important choices that affect the ways in which these technologies might be perceived, used, and sometimes rejected. However, no matter what choices these stakeholders make, those people destined to encounter these technologies still choose to reject, live with, or appropriate these technologies based on their own understanding of them. Knowledge of how people make decisions about recording technologies based in both technical and social influences is critically missing today. This project contributes to ongoing research in privacy and security, ubiquitous computing, and technology and policy studies.

This work is supported in part by the collaboration with Microsoft Research Cambridge.

A recent paper from this work will be presented at Ubicomp 2008:
An Empirical Investigation of Concerns of Everyday Tracking and Recording Technologies
David H. Nguyen
Alfred Kobsa
Gillian R. Hayes

Researchers: Lilly Irani, Gillian Hayes, and Paul Dourish

Project: Online communities like second life can be a great place for people to develop relationships, and explore who they are and who they want to be, even when faced with labels, diagnoses, and other challenges in the offline world.  This project focuses on the ways identity, privacy, self-presentation, and interaction all interplay in online communities.

A recent paper from this work was presented at CSCW 2008:

Irani, L., Hayes, G.R., Dourish, P., Situated Practices of Looking: Visual Practice in an Online World. To appear in the Proceedings of CSCW 2008. San Diego, CA. November 2008.

On the 42nd episode of The Silver Bullet Security Podcast, Gary chats with Gillian Hayes, Assistant Professor in Informatics at the Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at UC Irvine. Gary and Gillian discuss how much people really need to know about security going on behind the scenes, how usability affects the health records security, whether or not surveillance changes how 20-somethings act in public (including on the net), and how having more women technologists positively impacts the humanization of technology.

Privacy Piracy is a radio show dedicated to issues of privacy and digital identity.  Host Mari Frank interviewed Gillian on Sept. 16 2009.  You can listen to the interview here.

INTERVIEW

Gillian Hayes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She received her PhD from the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. Her research is in Human Computer Interaction, with emphases on ubiquitous computing and computer supported cooperative work. She focuses on recording technologies for education and healthcare, investigating issues of usability, usefulness and social impact of technology on feelings about surveillance, privacy, and control of data.

Situated Practices of Looking:  Visual Practice in an Online World
Lilly Irani, Gillian R. Hayes, and Paul Dourish

Abstract: Graphical virtual worlds are increasingly significant sites of collaborative interaction. Many argue that the simulation of the everyday environment makes them particularly effective for collaboration. Based on a study of visual practice in Second Life, we argue: first, that the practice of looking is more varied than it might at first seem; second, that we need to look beyond the virtual in understanding virtual worlds; and third, that implementations blend interactional practice. We suggest that the value of virtual worlds as sites of collaboration might lie more in their richness and openness to appropriation than in their simulation of everyday interaction.

David Nguyen, Gabi Marcu, and Gillian Hayes have been spending some time “across the pond” this summer studying reactions to Microsoft SenseCam by secondary stakeholders. This work is in collaboration with Khai Truong at the University of Toronto, James Scott at Microsoft Research, and Marc Langheinrich at ETH Zurich. The results have been fascinating, and we are digging into why people might react differently to these ubicomp recording technologies in different countries, and how those differences might be taken into account by policy makers and technology designers in the future.

An Empirical Investigation of Concerns of Everyday Tracking and Recording Technologies
David H. Nguyen, Alfred Kobsa, Gillian R. Hayes

Abstract: “This paper presents an exploration and analysis of attitudes towards everyday tracking and recording technologies (e.g., credit cards, store loyalty cards, store video cameras). Interview participants reported being highly concerned with information privacy. At the same time, however, they also reported being significantly less concerned regarding the use of everyday technologies that have the capabilities to collect, process, and disseminate personal information. We present results from this study that both identify and begin to explain this discrepancy.”