Critical design is gaining momentum in interaction design, yet little CSCW research has focused o... more Critical design is gaining momentum in interaction design, yet little CSCW research has focused on articulating the cooperative potentials of critical design artefacts. We address this gap by reflecting upon a design project aimed at overturning the prevailing narrative regarding dyslexia in Italy. The adversarial propositions embedded in our critical design artefacts challenged the description of dyslexia as a learning disorder putting forward the view of a learning difference. These artefacts demonstrated their capacity to bridge heterogeneous social worlds (those of teachers, children, and parents) into one cooperative entity and mobilise cooperative activism. The contribution to CSCW is two-fold. Firstly, we introduce the cooperative potentials of critical design artefacts; secondly, we propose critical design as a strategy for researchers engaging with cooperative activism.
The tenth edition of CHItaly articulated around the theme of "Building Social Innovation&quo... more The tenth edition of CHItaly articulated around the theme of "Building Social Innovation". This theme emphasizes the role of HCI as a fundamental means to the establishment and consolidation of new societies where people and technology work together towards inclusive solutions to important social problems. The call for paper solicited socio-technical contributions that meet needs of all kinds - from working contexts and health, to community development and creativity.
In modern societies, training reading skills is fundamental since poor-reading children are at hi... more In modern societies, training reading skills is fundamental since poor-reading children are at high risk of struggling both at school and in life. Reading relies not only on oral language abilities but also on several executive functions. Considering their importance for literacy, training executive functions—particularly, attentional control has been suggested as a promising way of improving reading skills. For this reason, we developed a video game-based cognitive intervention aimed at improving several facets of executive functions. This game is composed of mini-games that apply gamified versions of standard clinical exercises linked through a game environment with action video game dynamics. Here, in a study involving 151 typically reading children, we demonstrated that after this general-domain behavioural intervention reading abilities, as well as attentional and planning skills, were significantly improved. Our results showed that training attentional control can translate into better reading efficiency, maintained at a follow-up test 6 months later. Skies of Manawak, a video game designed to train attentional control and executive processes, is associated with better reading skills in 8- to 12-year-old children that are maintained 6 months later and higher school grades 12–18 months later.
COOP 2016: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems, 23-27 May 2016, Trento, Italy, 2016
Public design can be understood as a perspective that follows democratic approaches to design, ad... more Public design can be understood as a perspective that follows democratic approaches to design, addresses collective conditions, and supports the formation of publics. In this paper, we present our efforts to engage with a public design perspective in a case study addressing the topic of dyslexia. The paper contributes to the understanding of the process of articulation of matters of concern in public design. In addition, the results can be considered as opportunities for design that can serve as inspiration for other projects addressing the topic of dyslexia.
Webpages vary drastically in their look and feel: the presence of images is a major discriminatin... more Webpages vary drastically in their look and feel: the presence of images is a major discriminating factor. Some webpages contain mainly text; others exploit flashy ads and a variety of eye-catching pictures. In this paper, we investigate the impact of graphics on webpage aesthetics perception and computation. We split webpages in three categories -- small, moderate and high amount of graphics -- and analyzed how different visual features predicted aesthetics for the different categories. Significant between-category differences were found, e.g., the amount of white space decreased aesthetics for the high-graphic webpages, but not for other webpages; more on-page main colors increased aesthetics for the low-graphic webpages, but decreased for the high-graphic webpages. We suggest future research investigates separately webpages with low and high graphic amount. No single improvement recipe may exist for all webpages; a more fruitful strategy would be suggesting different improvements for different types of webpages.
Critical design is gaining momentum in interaction design, yet little CSCW research has focused o... more Critical design is gaining momentum in interaction design, yet little CSCW research has focused on articulating the cooperative potentials of critical design artefacts. We address this gap by reflecting upon a design project aimed at overturning the prevailing narrative regarding dyslexia in Italy. The adversarial propositions embedded in our critical design artefacts challenged the description of dyslexia as a learning disorder putting forward the view of a learning difference. These artefacts demonstrated their capacity to bridge heterogeneous social worlds (those of teachers, children, and parents) into one cooperative entity and mobilise cooperative activism. The contribution to CSCW is two-fold. Firstly, we introduce the cooperative potentials of critical design artefacts; secondly, we propose critical design as a strategy for researchers engaging with cooperative activism.
The tenth edition of CHItaly articulated around the theme of "Building Social Innovation&quo... more The tenth edition of CHItaly articulated around the theme of "Building Social Innovation". This theme emphasizes the role of HCI as a fundamental means to the establishment and consolidation of new societies where people and technology work together towards inclusive solutions to important social problems. The call for paper solicited socio-technical contributions that meet needs of all kinds - from working contexts and health, to community development and creativity.
In modern societies, training reading skills is fundamental since poor-reading children are at hi... more In modern societies, training reading skills is fundamental since poor-reading children are at high risk of struggling both at school and in life. Reading relies not only on oral language abilities but also on several executive functions. Considering their importance for literacy, training executive functions—particularly, attentional control has been suggested as a promising way of improving reading skills. For this reason, we developed a video game-based cognitive intervention aimed at improving several facets of executive functions. This game is composed of mini-games that apply gamified versions of standard clinical exercises linked through a game environment with action video game dynamics. Here, in a study involving 151 typically reading children, we demonstrated that after this general-domain behavioural intervention reading abilities, as well as attentional and planning skills, were significantly improved. Our results showed that training attentional control can translate into better reading efficiency, maintained at a follow-up test 6 months later. Skies of Manawak, a video game designed to train attentional control and executive processes, is associated with better reading skills in 8- to 12-year-old children that are maintained 6 months later and higher school grades 12–18 months later.
COOP 2016: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems, 23-27 May 2016, Trento, Italy, 2016
Public design can be understood as a perspective that follows democratic approaches to design, ad... more Public design can be understood as a perspective that follows democratic approaches to design, addresses collective conditions, and supports the formation of publics. In this paper, we present our efforts to engage with a public design perspective in a case study addressing the topic of dyslexia. The paper contributes to the understanding of the process of articulation of matters of concern in public design. In addition, the results can be considered as opportunities for design that can serve as inspiration for other projects addressing the topic of dyslexia.
Webpages vary drastically in their look and feel: the presence of images is a major discriminatin... more Webpages vary drastically in their look and feel: the presence of images is a major discriminating factor. Some webpages contain mainly text; others exploit flashy ads and a variety of eye-catching pictures. In this paper, we investigate the impact of graphics on webpage aesthetics perception and computation. We split webpages in three categories -- small, moderate and high amount of graphics -- and analyzed how different visual features predicted aesthetics for the different categories. Significant between-category differences were found, e.g., the amount of white space decreased aesthetics for the high-graphic webpages, but not for other webpages; more on-page main colors increased aesthetics for the low-graphic webpages, but decreased for the high-graphic webpages. We suggest future research investigates separately webpages with low and high graphic amount. No single improvement recipe may exist for all webpages; a more fruitful strategy would be suggesting different improvements for different types of webpages.
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