Frank Vetere

• University of Melbourne

Facial analysis applications are increasingly being applied to inform decision-making processes. However, as global reports of unfairness emerge, governments, academia and industry have recognized the ethical limitations and societal implications of this technology. Alongside initiatives that aim to formulate ethical frameworks, we believe that the...

In HCI, the honeypot effect describes a form of audience en- gagement in which a person’s interaction with a technology stimulates passers-by to observe, approach and engage in an interaction themselves. In this paper we explore the potential for honeypot effects to arise in the use of mobile augmented reality (AR) applications in urban spaces. We...

The human body in HCI is often seen as an actuator for issuing commands and providing input to digital systems. We present the concept of the body as a canvas, in which the body acts as both an actuator and a display for information. Body as a canvas creates an interaction loop where interaction with information causes changes in the body, which in...

Physiotherapy students often struggle to translate anatomical knowledge from textbooks into a dynamic understanding of the mechanics of body movements in real life patients. We present the Augmented Studio, an augmented reality system that uses body tracking to project anatomical structures and annotations over moving bodies for physiotherapy educa...

Physiotherapists are increasingly using video conferencing tools for their teleconsultations. Yet, the assessment of subtle differences in body movements remains a challenge. To support lower limb assessment in video consultations, we present SoPhy, a wearable technology consisting of a pair of socks with embedded sensors for patients to wear; and...

This article examines familial interactions, which are mediated through information and communication technologies, during domestic mealtimes. We seek to understand how technologies are used and negotiated among family members and the influence of technology on commensality. We conducted an observational study of six families. The findings showed h...

Indigenous knowledge is nurtured through social, physical and situated interactions among community members. This paper reports on a study with Kenyan indigenous communities on the use of video-based telecommunication to nurture and enact indigenous knowledge. The paper explores how video mediated communication technologies can be used and designed...

Eye tracking is a promising input modality for interactive tabletops. However, issues such as eyelid occlusion and the viewing angle at distant positions present significant challenges for remote gaze tracking in this setting. We present the results of two studies that explore the way gaze interaction can be enabled. Our first study contributes the...

During tabletop gameplay, players monitor each other's gaze throughout, providing a form of implicit nonverbal communication. A player can infer the intention and potential strategies by estimating the gaze of another, especially in co-located gameplay. This early work-in-progress paper details an exploratory study design that explores the effects...

Background: Stroke is a leading cause of disability worldwide, with upper limb deficits affecting an estimated 30% to 60% of survivors. The effectiveness of upper limb rehabilitation relies on numerous factors, particularly patient compliance to home programs and exercises set by therapists. However, therapists lack objective information about thei...

We present Onebody, a virtual reality system for remote posture guidance during sports or physical activity training, such as martial arts, yoga or dance, using first person perspective. The system uses skeletal tracking of the instructor and the students, rendered as virtual avatars. Using a virtual reality headset, the student can visualise the m...

This paper joins the ubiquitous computing scholarship that investigates the use of technologies in collocated shared settings like family mealtime. Family mealtimes are an important site for fostering togetherness, sharing everyday experiences, and nurturing familial ties. While technologies, especially television and personal devices are often cri...

In HCI, the honeypot effect describes how people interacting with a system passively stimulate passers-by to observe, approach and engage in an interaction. Previous research has revealed the successive engagement phases and zones of the honeypot effect. However, there is little insight into: 1) how people are stimulated to transition between phase...

This paper describes the design of "ArmSleeve", a patient monitoring system to support occupational therapists in their upper limb rehabilitation work with stroke patients. Occupational therapists can provide rehabilitation in clinics, but they have limited insights into how much their patients use their affected arm and hand in daily life, which i...

This paper investigates the challenges of bodily communication during video-based clinical consultations. While previous works describe the lack of eye contact and gestures over video, it is unclear how these limitations impact the course of a clinical consultation, particularly in a domain like physiotherapy where the focus is on improving body mo...

This document presents the one day insertable and implantable digital device workshop to be held at DIS 2016 on June 5th 2016. Insertables are a category of devices that go in, through or under the skin, such as implantable medical devices (IMDs) and emerging technologies such as magnets, RFID chips and NFC chips that are inserted under the skin. T...

In this paper, we present PathSync, a novel, distal and multi-user mid-air gestural technique based on the principle of rhythmic path mimicry; by replicating the movement of a screen-represented pattern with their hand, users can intuitively interact with digital objects quickly, and with a high level of accuracy. We present three studies that each...

The human body has emerged as more than a canvas for wearable electronic devices. Devices too go within the body, such as internal medical devices. Within the last decade, individual hobbyists have begun voluntarily inserting non-medical devices in, through and underneath their skin. This paper investigates the current use of insertable devices. Th...

This paper considers what we can learn from the experiences of people who choose not to participate in technology-based social interventions. We conducted ethnographically-informed field studies with socially isolated older adults, who used and evaluated a new iPad application designed to help build new social connections. In this paper we reflect...

In this paper we investigate social dimensions of technology use in human-animal interactions, through a study of interactive systems at the zoo.

Recent research about technology during mealtime has been mostly concerned with developing technology rather than creating a deeper understanding of the context of family mealtimes and associated practices. In this paper, we present a two-phase study discussing how the temporal, social, and food related features are intertwined with technology use...

This paper investigates the challenges of delivering parent training intervention for autism over video. We conducted a qualitative field study of an intervention, which is based on a well-established training program for parents of children with autism, called Hanen More Than Words. The study was conducted with a Hanen Certified speech pathologist...

In this paper we present the results of a user experience and preference study into the combination of gaze and gesture in a lounge-style remote-interaction, using a novel system that tracks gaze and gesture using only the Kinect device at a distance of 2m from the user. Our results indicate exciting opportunities for gaze-tracking interfaces that...

Social videogaming provides opportunities for individuals not only to engage directly in active gameplay but also to interact indirectly from the sidelines. We present a study of the differentiated nature of participation in gaming based on field observations of six families playing physical videogames in their homes. Building on existing theoretic...

Our paper investigates how current digital technologies are sufficient, or insufficient, in supporting Kenyan transnationals in practising indigenous knowledge. We first outline a view of indigenous knowledge, and then apply it to a study of diaspora Kenyans living in Australia. The findings are framed as nine techniques for sustaining displaced pr...

The purpose of this article is to consider how ethical principles can inform the effective design and implementation of technology-based interventions that aim to promote the well-being of socially isolated older adults. We evaluated a new iPad application with small groups of older adults. In this article, we reflect on the ethical issues encounte...

Large video screens situated in public spaces are characteristic of the highly mediated public environment of contemporary cities. While screens are now able to support a range of content, including interactive applications, urban planning policy still treats them largely as commercial display surfaces only. This locks planning into a regulatory mo...

HCI research and practice have moved into the kitchen, and alongside screen-based technologies, a number of tangible interaction designs are emerging to support home cooking. However, we note that the designs of tangible technologies for kitchens have, to date, emphasized the work of cooking rather than the social significance or context in which i...

The Internet of Things is a vision for a world of interconnected smart devices. We present an alternative vision based on a review of literature that emphasizes the importance and role of objects in social relations. We situate this work in relation to a conceptual understanding of objects and sociality, and note some methodological implications of...

In this paper we report the results of a study comparing implicit-only and explicit-only interactions in a collaborative, video-mediated task with shared content. Expanding on earlier work which has typically only evaluated how implicit interaction can augment primarily explicit systems, we report issues surrounding control, anxiousness and negotia...

This paper discusses findings from Australian research that used a qualitative and participatory methods approach to understand how children develop and negotiate their everyday mobility. Children's mobility negotiations are discussed in reference to interactions with parents, peers and places; journeys in relation to their multi-modality, composit...

We outline an approach for eliciting, understanding, and representing the cultural aspects of the domestic environment for the purpose of system design. We use agent models as shared artefacts to represent the everyday cultural life of the home. These representations build an understanding between the people that own this culture and the people res...

Reduced school attendance is a recognised risk factor for poorer outcomes both educationally and across a wide range of social, economic and personal indicators throughout life. Children and young people with chronic health conditions often have poor or disrupted records of school attendance due to periods of hospitalisation and time spent recupera...

Children undergoing long-term hospital care face problems of isolation from their familiar home and school environments. This isolation has an impact on the emotional wellbeing of the child. In this paper we report on research that explores the design of technologies that mitigate some of the negative aspects of separation, while respecting the sen...

Large video screens situated in public spaces are characteristic of the mediated public environment of contemporary cities. These screens are now able to support a range of new applications, including interactive gaming. However, urban planning policy frequently treats urban screens as if they were display surfaces only. This underestimates the pos...

Natural User Interfaces (NUI) offer rich ways for interacting with the digital world that make innovative use of existing human capabilities. They include and often combine different input modalities such as voice, gesture, eye gaze, body interactions, touch and touchless interactions. However much of the focus of NUI research and development has b...

In this paper we contribute to the growing body of research into the use and design of technology in the kitchen. This research aims to identify opportunities for designing technologies that may augment existing cooking traditions and in particular familial recipe sharing practices. Using ethnographic techniques, we identify the homemade cookbook a...

We explore relationships between habits and technology interaction by reporting on older people's experience of the Kinect for Xbox. We contribute to theoretical and empirical understandings of habits in the use of technology to inform understanding of the habitual qualities of our interactions with computing technologies, particularly systems expl...

In this paper we examine the use of a novel social technology to support the provision of formal aged care services to clients who live in their own homes. Social technologies offer enormous potential for enhancing aged care, but research on their use in aged care has largely focused on institutional or informal care settings, rather than formal ca...

The advent of the Internet of Things creates an interest in how people might interrelate through and with networks of internet enabled objects. With an emphasis on fostering social connection and physical activity among older people, this preliminary study investigated objects that people over the age of 65 years viewed as significant to them. We c...

Videogames are often played socially with both co-players and audiences. Audience members' experiences are not well understood, nor are the factors of videogaming sessions that influence their experience. We conducted a study to examine the effects of game physicality and turn anticipation on audience members' experiences in social videogaming sess...

Within HCI, aging is often viewed in terms of designing assistive technologies to improve the lives of older people, such as those who are suffering from frailty or memory loss. Our research adopts a very different approach, reframing the relationship in terms of wisdom, creativity and invention. We ran a series of workshops where groups of retiree...

Advances in sensing technologies have led to research into exertion games that support physically effortful experiences. Despite the existence of theoretical frameworks that can be used to analyze such exertion experiences, there are few tools to support the hands-on practice of exertion game design. To address this, we present a set of design card...

The advent of the Internet of Things creates an interest in how people might interrelate through and with networks of internet enabled objects. With an emphasis on fostering social connection and physical activity among older people, this preliminary study investigated objects that people over the age of 65 years viewed as significant to them. We c...

In this paper we propose an interwoven set of shared artefacts for stakeholder participation in designing domestic technologies. Our toolkit includes technology probes, associated fieldwork and conceptual goal models. Three technology probes facilitated playful communication between grandparents and their grandchildren. This communication was media...

Exertion games lend themselves to facilitating social and physical interactions, in particular when compared to button-press games. However, there is little understanding of how specific aspects of an exertion game’s design can facilitate these social and physical interactions. In response, we present a set of design themes based on our analysis of...

Supporting physical exertion is a growing trend in digital technology design. However, most experiences focus on bodily actions in which participants act independently of each other. In contrast, we focus on virtual body-to-body interactions between multiple participants, inspired by combat-oriented sports such as boxing that highlight the need to...

We are exploring "mobile ambient presence" (MAP) as an approach to sustaining unobtrusive social connection. Prior research has shown that ambient technology can support connectedness by conveying social presence. Since mobile devices are typically always-on and often in peripheral vision, they are candidate ambient displays that might convey prese...

Social videogaming sessions present a variety of opportunities for interaction and engagement. While active play is the most obvious way that participants can interact during the gaming session, these sessions can also have audience members who are not actively playing. However, there is little understanding about the experience of audience members...

We present a review of literature from the fields of gerontology, gerontechnology, HCI and government policy that deals with social and technical solutions for the ageing population. We highlight common assumptions about ageing people, which we argue are still embedded in much of the research related to the domain of ageing. This paper challenges s...

Research in human-computer interaction has begun to acknowledge the benefits of physicality in the way people interact with computers. However, the role of physicality is often understood in terms of the characteristics of physical smart objects and their digital augmentation. We are stressing that the physicality lies within the interaction, not t...

We present the concept of paraplay: playful activities that take place within the context of an interactive game or other play activity, but outside the activity itself. By critically examining work related to gaming and play goals and motivations we argue that the concept of playfulness should have a stronger role in our understanding of gaming se...

Based on a series of interviews of Australians between the ages of 55 and 75 this paper explores the relations between our participants’ attitudes towards and use of communication, social and tangible technologies and three relevant themes from our data: staying active, friends and families, and cultural selves. While common across our participants...

Older adults are normally characterized as consumers, rather than producers, of digital content. Current research concerning the design of technologies for older adults typically focuses on providing access to digital resources. Access is important, but is often insufficient, especially when establishing new social relationships. This paper investi...

Reunion is one of the most important facets in the lives of periodically transitioning families - families who experience repeated transitions between being together and apart due to work-related or personal reasons. Even though the role of technology in mediating essential family interactions has been a longstanding focus within HCI and CSCW, the...

Despite the inter-relationship between physical, cognitive and social factors for older people, the frequency of physical activity typically decreases with age. In this paper, we focus on two specific issues related to physical activity and older people - overcoming the knowledge barrier and promoting social motivation. We develop a tablet-based pr...

This paper reports the findings from a series of scoping interviews designed to evaluate, ground and refine the initial understandings, assumptions and concepts of a research team in a larger project about the role of social and tangible technologies in maintaining good habits into old age. Participants' understandings of some basic terms used in t...

In this paper, we investigate the use of ambient technology to create a classroom presence for hospitalised children. We present results from four case studies, each of which included data from hospitalised children, their parents, classmates and teachers (at both school and hospital). Primary school-aged children from both metropolitan and rural a...

This article reports on a case study of the web-based educational maths application, Mathletics. The findings are drawn from an ethnographic study of children’s technology use in Melbourne, Australia. We explore the experience, governance and commerce of children’s Mathletics use, and offer insights into the developing possibilities and challenges...

In this paper we describe a multi-faceted approach for engaging older adults in the design and evaluation of a tablet application. Our approach consisted of five key elements: 1) involving care providers in the research, 2) conducting social events, 3) supporting use of the technology through scaffolding, 4) providing multiple channels of communica...

Technology has the potential to transform our home life, but only if it addresses the needs of its users. Understanding and modelling social needs is a challenge. For example, how do we understand, model, and then evaluate a system that must support needs such as "being fun"? In this paper, we define a systematic and repeatable process and method f...

Exercising with others, such as jogging in pairs, can be socially engaging. However, if exercise partners have different fitness levels then the activity can be too strenuous for one and not challenging enough for the other, compromising engagement and health benefits. Our system, Jogging over a Distance, uses heart rate data and spatialized sound...

This article contributes to the study of children and the internet by reporting on findings from an ethnographic study of children's online use, experience and regulation in Melbourne, Australia. As part of a social inclusion study of technology use, we worked with children and their families in the contexts of everyday and home internet use. This...

Despite research showing that interaction between the elderly and young people is beneficial to the health and well-being of both, little is known about the grandparent–grandchild relationship. Consequently, it is difficult to make informed design decisions about technologies to support their intergenerational interactions. This paper investigates...

Technology can improve the quality of life for elderly persons by supporting and facilitating the unique leadership roles that elderly play in groups, communities, and other organizations. Elderly people are often organizational firekeepers. They ...

People have reported encountering coincidences when using particular technologies to interact with personal digital content. However, to date, there is a paucity of research to understand these experiences. This article applies McCarthy and Wright's [2004; 2005] experiential framework to analyze these kinds of technology-mediated coincidences. By f...

Significant barriers exist for hospitalised children in terms of continuity of education and connection to school and peer groups. In our proof-of-concept, we built and trialled the use of an ‘ambient orb’ to create a classroom presence for four hospitalised children (9-11 years). The children controlled classroom orbs via a web-based application a...

The Making Design and Analysing Interaction track at the Participatory Innovation Conference calls for submissions from 'Makers' who will contribute examples of participatory innovation activities documented in video and 'Analysts' who will analyse those examples of participatory innovation activity. The aim of this paper is to open up for a discus...

This project examined the use of communication technologies to help ameliorate social isolation for older people who live independently in their own homes. We provided a group of older people and their care managers with touch tablet devices (iPads), and a new iPad application (‘Enmesh’ – Engagement through Media Sharing), which was purpose-built f...

Regular contact between children and their adult relatives can be a problem if they live in different time zones. In this situation, finding an agreed time to contact each other can be both confusing and complicated. This paper presents a study of the effect of time zone differences on communication between grandparents and grandchildren living in...

This paper examines the benefit of ambiguity in describing goals in requirements modelling for the design of socio-technical systems using concepts from Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) and ethnographic and cultural probe methods from Human Computer Interaction (HCI). The authors’ aim of their research is to create technologies that suppo...

Exertion games require investing physical effort. The fact that such games can support physical health is tempered by our limited understanding of how to design for engaging exertion experiences. This paper introduces the Exertion Framework as a way to think and talk about Exertion Games, both for their formative design and summative analysis. Our...

In this paper we propose a method for using ethnographic field data to substantiate agent-based models for socially-oriented systems. We use the agent paradigm because the ability to represent organisations, individuals, and interactions is ideal for modelling socio-technical systems. We present the results of in-situ use of a domestic application...

We propose a method for using ethnographic field data to substantiate agent-based models for socially-oriented systems. We investigate in-situ use of domestic technologies created to encourage fun between grandparents and grandchildren separated by distance. The field data added an understanding of what intergenerational fun means when imbued with...

Abstract: When children are in hospital for a period of time and are absent from the classroom, there is a risk that ‘out of sight, out of mind’ may contribute to the disconnection with school. There is, therefore, a need for a more effective approach to the provision of education support that utilises available technologies. This proof-of-concept...

Humans experience their physical and social environment through their bodies and their associated movement actions. However, most mixed reality systems approach the integration of the real with a virtual world from a computational perspective, often neglecting the body’s capabilities by offering only limited interaction possibilities with a few aug...

"Exertion games" are gaming interactions with technology in which users invest significant physical effort. They form part of an emerging phenomenon with many physical and social health benefits, and we believe that the social and exertion interactions are intertwined. Recent technological developments, particularly in the sports and game domain, h...

Players invest significant physical effort when playing exertion games. In addition to improving physical health, exertion games are also believed to facilitate social play amongst players. Despite these advantages, our understanding of how to design these games to successfully support social play is limited. In this paper, we present a qualitative...

Exertion activities, such as jogging, require users to invest intense physical effort and are associated with physical and social health benefits. Despite the benefits, our understanding of exertion activities is limited, especially when it comes to social experiences. In order to begin understanding how to design for technologically augmented soci...

Grandparents may feel revitalized when a grandchild joins the family, but the physical separation that often exists between grandparents and grandchildren can make it difficult to develop a close relationship. Current communication technologies, such as the phone, are inadequate for developing close relationships with children. This paper presents...

Informal interactions underpin basic social processes. Mobile, email and web-based communications increasingly play a role in informal interactions, but these technologies often lack the facilitating conditions typically found in face-to-face (F2F) settings. In this paper we investigate informal interactions by exploring how students 'get together'...

McCarthy and Wright's (2004) approach to understanding user experience provides a rich conceptual framework. In this paper, we report how this framework was used to guide the development of an approach to researching the richness of a particular experience - serendipity. Three themes were identified; life as lived and felt, the whole person, and di...

This paper explores the role of domestic technologies for addressing social isolation of older people. Despite the increasing use of information and communication technologies, social isolation remains an issue amongst older people. Assistive technologies address important health needs, but there is a lack of social technologies that adequately dea...

We propose an interwoven set of shared artefacts for stakeholder participation for designing domestic technology for intergenerational fun. Our toolkit includes technology probes, associated fieldwork, and conceptual goal models. We used the high-level goal models, derived from Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE), as a template to analyse ri...

This paper presents the results of a study of the way in which university students use technologies for out-of-class interactions. The study investigated the usefulness and usage frequency of technologies such as mobile phones, social networking and email for informal interaction, compared to face-to-face interactions occurring in physical settings...

Research in human computer interaction has begun to acknowledge the benefits of physicality in the way people interact with computers. Mostly, the role of physicality is often understood in terms of the characteristics of tangible computationally augmented objects, but here we are stressing that the physicality lies also within the interaction, not...

Development literature emphasizes the importance of parental involvement in both care and play activities, to build secure relationships. The chapter presents five case studies of novel designs that employ diverse mobile technologies to provide provide parents and children with new opportunities to share experiences and have fun together while bein...

Exertion games are an emerging form of computer games that aim to leverage the advantages of sports and exercise in order to support physical, social and mental health benefits. Despite the increased attention these games received recently, there is a lack of understanding of what role the game's design plays in encouraging people to invest physica...

Studies in awareness systems tend to focus on the informational aspects of interactions. This emphasis is warranted in systems that aim to support instrumental activities, such as collaboration and coordination (e.g. Begole and Tang, 2007) or messaging (e.g. Cheverst et al., 2007). Such activities usually involve the use of information, sometimes c...

This paper presents a multidisciplinary approach to engineering socio-technical design. The paper addresses technological design for social interactions that are non-instrumental, and thereby sometimes contradictory or surprising and difficult to model. Through cooperative analysis of cultural probe data and development of agent-oriented software e...

Exertion games are an emerging form of interactive games that require players to invest significant physical effort as part of the gameplay, rather than just pressing buttons. These exertion games have potential health benefits by promoting exercise. It is also believed that they can facilitate social play between players and that social play can i...