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Nicole Riley

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Nicole Riley

I am a computer science major from Bellevue, Washington. I am a post-baccalaureate student in CSE (I already have a degree in neurobiology and psychology from UW so I am happy to talk about brains as well as tech). In the Allen School I am the treasurer of ACM-W, a CSE Student Advisory Council at large representative, and a Society of Women Engineers Girls Who Code lead. I have tutored within the CSE department and TAed a variety of course (14x and 311).  In the lab, I am working on the UW Experience project working on a dashboard that measures participant compliance.

Hypertension recognition through overnight Heart Rate Variability sensing

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Ni, H., Cho, S., Mankoff, J., & Yang, J. (2017). Automated recognition of hypertension through overnight continuous HRV monitoring. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing, 1-13.

Hypertension is a common and chronic disease, caused by high blood pressure. Since hypertension often has no warning signs or symptoms, many cases remain undiagnosed. Untreated or sub-optimally controlled hypertension may lead to cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and renal morbidity and mortality, along with dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. Therefore, it could be quite valuable to predict or provide early warnings about hypertension. Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis has emerged as the most valuable non-invasive test to assess autonomic nervous system function, and has great potential for detecting hypertension. However, HRV indicators may be subtle and present at random, resulting in two challenges: how to support continuous monitoring for hours at a time while being unobtrusive, and how to efficiently analyze the collected data to minimize data collection and user burden. In this paper, we present a machine learning-based approach for detecting hypertension, using a waist belt continuous sensing system that is worn overnight. Using 24 hypertension patients and 24 healthy controls, we demonstrate that our approach can differentiate hypertension patients from healthy controls with 93.33% accuracy. This represents a promising approach for performing hypertension classification in the field, and also we would improve its performance based on a large number of hypertensive subjects monitored by the proposed pervasive sensors.

The Tangible Desktop

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Mark S. Baldwin, Gillian R. Hayes, Oliver L. Haimson, Jennifer Mankoff, Scott E. Hudson: The Tangible Desktop: A Multimodal Approach to Nonvisual Computing. TACCESS 10(3): 9:1-9:28 (2017)

Audio-only interfaces, facilitated through text-to-speech screen reading software, have been the primary mode of computer interaction for blind and low-vision computer users for more than four decades. During this time, the advances that have made visual interfaces faster and easier to use, from direct manipulation to skeuomorphic design, have not been paralleled in nonvisual computing environments. The screen reader–dependent community is left with no alternatives to engage with our rapidly advancing technological infrastructure. In this article, we describe our efforts to understand the problems that exist with audio-only interfaces. Based on observing screen reader use for 4 months at a computer training school for blind and low-vision adults, we identify three problem areas within audio-only interfaces: ephemerality, linear interaction, and unidirectional communication. We then evaluated a multimodal approach to computer interaction called the Tangible Desktop that addresses these problems by moving semantic information from the auditory to the tactile channel. Our evaluation demonstrated that among novice screen reader users, Tangible Desktop improved task completion times by an average of 6 minutes when compared to traditional audio-only computer systems.

Also see: Mark S. Baldwin, Jennifer Mankoff, Bonnie A. Nardi, Gillian R. Hayes: An Activity Centered Approach to Nonvisual Computer Interaction. ACM Trans. Comput. Hum. Interact. 27(2): 12:1-12:27 (2020)

Average task completion time comparison between the participant system and experimental system grouped by technology
Task completion time comparison between the participant system and experimental system for screen reader users. Study system is faster in all cases. Completion times are total elapsed time, so we have not included error bars.
The physical icons used in the Tangible Desktop. Each icon is a small cube that has an RFID tag embedded inside and a tactilely distinct rubber crown.
A picture of the Tangible Desktop in its standard arrangement. The Tangible Taskbar sits to the left of the laptop while a user engages with the thumb of the Tangible Scrollbar.
Examples of the different hand positions used by study participants.

Uncertainty in Measurement

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Kim, J., Guo, A., Yeh, T., Hudson, S. E., & Mankoff, J. (2017, June). Understanding Uncertainty in Measurement and Accommodating its Impact in 3D Modeling and Printing. In Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (pp. 1067-1078). ACM.

3D printing enables everyday users to augment objects around them with personalized adaptations. There has been a proliferation of 3D models available on sharing platforms supporting this. If a model is parametric, a novice modeler can obtain a custom model simply by entering a few parameters (e.g., in the Customizer tool on Thingiverse.com). In theory, such custom models could fit any real world object one intends to augment. But in practice, a printed model seldom fits on the first try; multiple iterations are often necessary, wasting a considerable amount of time and material. We argue that parameterization or scaling alone is not sufficient for customizability, because users must correctly measure an object to specify parameters.

In a study of attempts to measure length, angle, and diameter, we demonstrate measurement errors as a significant (yet often overlooked) factor that adversely impacts the adaptation of 3D models to existing objects, requiring increased iteration. Images taken from our study are shown below.

Bulb is not correctly lined up with ruler
Ruler is bent, introducing error
Edge of phone is curved, and length difficult to measure

We argue for a new design principle—accommodating measurement uncertainty—that designers as well as novices should begin to consider. We offer two strategies—modular joint and, buffer insertion—to help designers to build models that are robust to measurement uncertainty. Examples shown below.

 

 

Making the field of computing more inclusive for people with disabilities

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Lazar, J., Churchill, E. F., Grossman, T., Van der Veer, G., Palanque, P., Morris, J. S., & Mankoff, J. (2017). Making the field of computing more inclusive. Communications of the ACM, 60(3), 50-59.

More accessible conferences, digital resources, and ACM SIGs will lead to greater participation by more people with disabilities. Improving conference and online material accessibility has been an ongoing project that I’ve been lucky enough to help with. This effort, led by a wide set of people, is spearheaded currently by the SIGCHI Accessibility Community (also on facebook, summarized in a recent Interactions blog post.

 

A Beam Robot Jen is using to attend a conference

Volunteer AT Fabricators

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Perry-Hill, J., Shi, P., Mankoff, J. & Ashbrook, D. Understanding Volunteer AT Fabricators: Opportunities and Challenges in DIY-AT for Others in e-NABLE. Accepted to CHI 2017

We present the results of a study of e-NABLE, a distributed, collaborative volunteer effort to design and fabricate upper-limb assistive technology devices for limb-different users. Informed by interviews with 14 stakeholders in e-NABLE, including volunteers and clinicians, we discuss differences and synergies among each group with respect to motivations, skills, and perceptions of risks inherent in the project. We found that both groups are motivated to be involved in e-NABLE by the ability to use their skills to help others, and that their skill sets are complementary, but that their different perceptions of risk may result in uneven outcomes or missed expectations for end users. We offer four opportunities for design and technology to enhance the stakeholders’ abilities to work together.

Screen Shot 2017-03-14 at 1.09.13 PMA variety of 3D-printed upper-limb assistive technology devices designed and produced by volunteers in the e-NABLE community. Photos were taken by the fourth author in the e-NABLE lab on RIT’s campus.

Tactile Interfaces to Appliances

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Anhong Guo, Jeeeun Kim, Xiang ‘Anthony’ Chen, Tom Yeh, Scott E. Hudson, Jennifer Mankoff, & Jeffrey P. Bigham, Facade: Auto-generating Tactile Interfaces to Appliances, In Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’17), Denver, CO (To appear)

Common appliances have shifted toward flat interface panels, making them inaccessible to blind people. Although blind people can label appliances with Braille stickers, doing so generally requires sighted assistance to identify the original functions and apply the labels. We introduce Facade – a crowdsourced fabrication pipeline to help blind people independently make physical interfaces accessible by adding a 3D printed augmentation of tactile buttons overlaying the original panel. Facade users capture a photo of the appliance with a readily available fiducial marker (a dollar bill) for recovering size information. This image is sent to multiple crowd workers, who work in parallel to quickly label and describe elements of the interface. Facade then generates a 3D model for a layer of tactile and pressable buttons that fits over the original controls. Finally, a home 3D printer or commercial service fabricates the layer, which is then aligned and attached to the interface by the blind person. We demonstrate the viability of Facade in a study with 11 blind participants.

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Aversion to Typing Errors

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Quantifying Aversion to Costly Typing Errors in Expert Mobile Text Entry

Text entry is an increasingly important activity for mobile device users. As a result, increasing text entry speed of expert typists is an important design goal for physical and soft keyboards. Mathematical models that predict text entry speed can help with keyboard design and optimization. Making typing errors when entering text is inevitable. However, current models do not consider how typists themselves reduce the risk of making typing errors (and lower error frequency) by typing more slowly. We demonstrate that users respond to costly typing errors by reducing their typing speed to minimize typing errors. We present a model that estimates the effects of risk aversion to errors on typing speed. We estimate the magnitude of this speed change, and show that disregarding the adjustments to typing speed that expert typists use to reduce typing errors leads to overly optimistic estimates of maximum errorless expert typing speeds.

promoNikola Banovic, Varun Rao, Abinaya Saravanan, Anind K. Dey, and Jennifer Mankoff. 2017. Quantifying Aversion to Costly Typing Errors in Expert Mobile Text Entry. (To appear) In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’17). ACM, New York, NY, USA.

Modeling & Generating Routines

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Leveraging Human Routine Models to Detect and Generate Human Behaviors

An ability to detect behaviors that negatively impact people’s wellbeing and show people how they can correct those behaviors could enable technology that improves people’s lives. Existing supervised machine learning approaches to detect and generate such behaviors require lengthy and expensive data labeling by domain experts. In this work, we focus on the domain of routine behaviors, where we model routines as a series of frequent actions that people perform in specific situations. We present an approach that bypasses labeling each behavior instance that a person exhibits. Instead, we weakly label instances using people’s demonstrated routine. We classify and generate new instances based on the probability that they belong to the routine model. We illustrate our approach on an example system that helps drivers become aware of and understand their aggressive driving behaviors. Our work enables technology that can trigger interventions and help people reflect on their behaviors when those behaviors are likely to negatively impact them.

drivingsimulator_no_labelNikola Banovic, Anqi Wang, Yanfeng Jin, Christie Chang, Julian Ramos, Anind K. Dey, and Jennifer Mankoff. 2017. Leveraging Human Routine Models to Detect and Generate Human Behaviors. (To appear) In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’17). ACM, New York, NY, USA.

3D Printing with Embedded Textiles

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screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-9-03-14-pm

Stretching the Bounds of 3D Printing with Embedded Textiles

Textiles are an old and well developed technology that have many desirable characteristics. They can be easily folded, twisted, deformed, or cut; some can be stretched; many are soft. Textiles can maintain their shape when placed under tension and can even be engineered with variable stretching ability.

When combined, textiles and 3D printing open up new opportunities for rapidly creating rigid objects with embedded flexibility as well as soft materials imbued with additional functionality. We introduce a suite of techniques for integrating the two and demonstrate how the malleability, stretchability and aesthetic qualities of textiles can enhance rigid printed objects, and how textiles can be augmented with functional properties enabled by 3D printing.

Click images below to see more detail:

Citation

Rivera, M.L., Moukperian, M., Ashbrook, D., Mankoff, J., Hudson, S.E. 2017. Stretching the Bounds of 3D Printing with Embedded Textiles. To appear in to the annual ACM conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI ‘17. [Paper]