Professor Dr. Katie Siek will be giving a talk at University of New Mexico on Wednesday Oct. 20th, 2021 at 4pm ET. She will be talking about collaborative work with PhD student Ben Jelen, Prof. Dr. Amanda Lazar (UMd), and PhD student Alisha Pradhan (UMd). as well as work with rural adult check-ins with PhD students Pallabi Bhowmick, Novia Nurain and Professor Dr. Kay Connelly.
Date: Wednesday, October 20th at 2pm Mountain Time/4pm Eastern
Speaker: Dr. Katie Siek
Talk Title: Checking In With All Stakeholders: Reflecting on Research Methods While Designing an Electronic Toolkit with Older Adult Crafters
Location: https://unm.zoom.us/j/95844274177 (for passcode please contact Dr. Katie Siek at ksiek – at – indiana.edu directly).
Abstract:
Computing researchers develop technology for older adults – from innovating how to make commodity technology more accessible to designing aging in place systems for various stakeholders. Older adults are often consulted by research teams, but not integrally involved in the design process. The research teams themselves are often small with internal epistemologies that impact how research is conducted and analyzed. In this talk, I reflect on how we iteratively developed an electronic toolkit with older adult crafters while collaborating with outside research teams. During our in-person and remote design workshops, we had to check in with older adult advisors to better understand how we could organize mutually beneficial design workshops that would also help us understand how to scaffold activities to build up their electronics knowledge. Likewise, we checked in with other research teams who integrated their own research approaches into our design process. These collaborations made us aware of new empirical understandings about our methods and how we studied older adults. I conclude with considerations researchers should take when designing for older adults and how to check-in on their own research practices.