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Gender-Inclusive HCI Research and Design: A Conceptual Review
... While gender-biased interfaces may prove beneficial in certain contexts, studies indicate that design can be "degendered". This implies that gender-neutral principles in the design of digital applications remain crucial for engaging a wider audience (Barth 2012;Stumpf et al. 2020). Neutral design strategies not only promote sex equality between men and women but also support inclusivity for individuals identifying with non-binary genders, thereby propelling gender inclusivity and equality forward (Stumpf et al. 2020;Szlavi and S. Guedes 2023). ...
... This implies that gender-neutral principles in the design of digital applications remain crucial for engaging a wider audience (Barth 2012;Stumpf et al. 2020). Neutral design strategies not only promote sex equality between men and women but also support inclusivity for individuals identifying with non-binary genders, thereby propelling gender inclusivity and equality forward (Stumpf et al. 2020;Szlavi and S. Guedes 2023). ...
... To promote sex-inclusive design, it is imperative to prioritize the utilization of technology and enhance user experience. Providing supportive features that cater to the operational patterns of females and males can be advantageous for users (Stumpf et al. 2020). Nevertheless, this approach does not mean emphasizing specific sex included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. ...
Communication technology plays a crucial role in facilitating remote collaborative work. This study investigated sex differences in Perceived Participation Equality and User Experience across different communication formats, i.e., face-to-face communication, conventional video conferences, and Virtual Reality (VR). An empirical study was conducted involving 15 groups, each comprising three participants, who engaged in a decision-making task. A research model was developed to evaluate the interplay between perceived participation equality, empathy, and immersion. This model was employed across three communication conditions and included both male and female participants. These findings on sex differences in user experience could help create a connected, cohesive, and productive remote collaborative work environment.
... As co-production initiatives rely on the participation of citizens, numerous scholars discuss how citizens can be motivated and incentivized to share input and collaborate with government. Whereas previous research has focused on different types of citizens' motivation to participate online (Abu-Tayeh, Neumann, & Stuermer, 2018;Hattke & Kalucza, 2019;Neumann & Schott, 2021;Wijnhoven, Ehrenhard, & Kuhn, 2015), several scholars emphasize the importance of taking a gender perspective in e-government research (Feeney & Fusi, 2021) and consciously designing human-computer interaction (Breslin & Wadhwa, 2014;Metaxa-Kakavouli, Wang, Landay, & Hancock, 2018;Stumpf et al., 2020;Tuch, Bargas-Avila, & Opwis, 2010). Accordingly, online platforms are often designed by men raising concerns about gender bias in technology design (Feeney & Fusi, 2021). ...
... A significant research gap persists in how digital platforms can be designed to improve women's participation behavior and, beyond that, be appealing for both women and men. Based on literature on gendered platform design that argues that gender-inclusive design can fix gender biases in technology use (Breslin & Wadhwa, 2014;Stumpf et al., 2020;Vorvoreanu et al., 2019), we test how individual experiences with different platform designs affect the intentions to use a co-production platform. ...
... However, a major problem in achieving inclusive and identity-safe web interfaces or programs is that the IT development profession is male-dominated (Breslin & Wadhwa, 2014;Feeney & Fusi, 2021;Kizilcec & Saltarelli, 2019;May, Wachs, & Hannák, 2019;Moss, Gunn, & Heller, 2006;Robinson et al., 2015;Simon, 2001;Stumpf et al., 2020) which results in unintended gender biased interfaces or programs designed with men in mind as the default (Feeney & Fusi, 2021;Robinson et al., 2015). Masculine designs can induce something in women that is called "social identity threat" which describes a decreased sense of belonging in a certain setting (Emerson & Murphy, 2014;Kizilcec & Saltarelli, 2019;Murphy et al., 2007). ...
... However, previous studies related to Fitts' law in VR neglected the role of sex. Empirical research has shown that sex is crucial in HCI because of differences in thinking styles, perceptions, behaviors, and attitudes (Stumpf et al., 2020). Several studies have also shown differences in spatial perception between men and women; for example, males outperform females in mental rotation tasks (Halpern, 2004). ...
... Despite increasing requests in recent years to consider sex when developing or evaluating software, websites, and other digital technologies (Stumpf et al., 2020), in this study, sex had no significant effect on the performance and workload of VR in the drop and drag tasks. This inconsistency may be owing to the simplicity of the task in terms of perception and cognition. ...
... However, the effort required by women to perform the task was significantly greater than that required by men, indicating that women must put in additional effort to maintain their performance (Park et al., 2020). This may be owing to the differences in physical strength (Lopes et al., 2015;Stumpf et al., 2020). This finding is consistent with that of Hsiao et al. (2018), who demonstrated that sex has no significant impact on reading speed or error rate under various lighting conditions, font sizes, and contrast ratio settings in a VR environment. ...
... The demographics of the IT sector, especially of positions responsible for decisionmaking and the design of tools, reflect a workforce that is not diverse enough. This homogeneity, characterized by a preponderance of Global Northern, educated, middle-class, white, heterosexual, young to middle-aged men and the tendency in Software Design to design for "self-as-user" [29] leads to inherent biases in the industry. This results in a potential for blind spots and exclusionary user experiences when it is assumed that all users are like the designers themselves. ...
... The concept of inclusive design is spreading more extensively; in fact, it is becoming a general expectation to create useful and usable software for more people [29]. Yet, inclusive design is more than just a guiding principle for creating products for a broader user base; it is also a deliberate method for addressing the needs of consumers who could encounter exclusionary situations on a regular basis [24]. ...
... Individuals are predisposed to believe that everyone is in some way similar to them [15], which also reflects the challenges of reflecting diversity in design when choosing images to represent consumers and people in the IT business. Images, texts, forms, and personas must be aligned for a non-binary and nonstereotypical gender portrayal [21,29]. It is crucial to avoid normalizing stereotypical gender roles and make room for gender as a spectrum, rather than as a binary choice, in portrayal as much as in analysis. ...
The importance of inclusivity as a value in our social contexts is increasing; thus, it is not unusual that the software industry has started to embrace it. The need for such a consideration stems from the fact that the composition of the IT sector, especially of positions responsible for decision-making and the design of tools, reflects a workforce that is not diverse enough. This can result in blind spots in the design process, leading to exclusionary user experiences. Therefore, the idea of inclusive design is gaining more prevalence; in fact, it is becoming a general expectation to create software that is useful for and used by more people. With a focus on intersectionality - the understanding that social and digital difficulties result from a complex web of overlapping factors - inclusive user experience seeks to actively and consciously integrate minority, vulnerable, and understudied user groups in the design. UX that is based on inclusive design aims to overcome social disadvantages in all of their intersectional complexities arising from gender, sexual orientation, age, education, dis/ability, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity, among others. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that gender-inclusive design has challenges and limitations: the idea of gender inclusion in design is not yet a reality. Our research investigates academic literature, as well as tech industry practices, like the websites of Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Meta. We aim to understand how inclusive design is theorized and implemented nowadays. Our analysis shows that intersectionality suffers even when inclusivity is intended to be taken into consideration. We also offer guidelines for factors that might be explored for a more inclusive design. Our paper’s analysis leaves an opportunity for additional study; the complexity of identities and how disregarding them in software design can exacerbate inequality call for even more investigation and awareness.Keywordsgender inclusive designinclusive designintersectionalityuser experiencetechnologyhuman-computer interaction
... The demographics of the IT sector, especially of positions responsible for decisionmaking and the design of tools, reflect a workforce that is not diverse enough. This homogeneity, characterized by a preponderance of Global Northern, educated, middle-class, white, heterosexual, young to middle-aged men and the tendency in Software Design to design for "self-as-user" [29] leads to inherent biases in the industry. This results in a potential for blind spots and exclusionary user experiences when it is assumed that all users are like the designers themselves. ...
... The concept of inclusive design is spreading more extensively; in fact, it is becoming a general expectation to create useful and usable software for more people [29]. Yet, inclusive design is more than just a guiding principle for creating products for a broader user base; it is also a deliberate method for addressing the needs of consumers who could encounter exclusionary situations on a regular basis [24]. ...
... Individuals are predisposed to believe that everyone is in some way similar to them [15], which also reflects the challenges of reflecting diversity in design when choosing images to represent consumers and people in the IT business. Images, texts, forms, and personas must be aligned for a non-binary and nonstereotypical gender portrayal [21,29]. It is crucial to avoid normalizing stereotypical gender roles and make room for gender as a spectrum, rather than as a binary choice, in portrayal as much as in analysis. ...
The importance of inclusivity as a value in our social contexts is increasing; thus, it is not unusual that the software industry has started to embrace it. The need for such a consideration stems from the fact that the composition of the IT sector, especially of positions responsible for decision-making and the design of tools, reflects a workforce that is not diverse enough. This can result in blind spots in the design process, leading to exclusionary user experiences. Therefore, the idea of inclusive design is gaining more prevalence; in fact, it is becoming a general expectation to create software that is useful for and used by more people. With a focus on intersectionality — the understanding that social and digital difficulties result from a complex web of overlapping factors — inclusive user experience seeks to actively and consciously integrate minority, vulnerable, and understudied user groups in the design. UX that is based on inclusive design aims to overcome social disadvantages in all of their intersectional complexities arising from gender, sexual orientation, age, education, dis/ability, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity, among others. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that gender-inclusive design has challenges and limitations: the idea of gender inclusion in design is not yet a reality. Our research investigates academic literature, as well as tech industry practices, like the websites of Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Meta. We aim to understand how inclusive design is theorized and implemented nowadays. Our analysis shows that intersectionality suffers even when inclusivity is intended to be taken into consideration. We also offer guidelines for factors that might be explored for a more inclusive design. Our paper's analysis leaves an opportunity for additional study; the complexity of identities and how disregarding them in software design can exacerbate inequality call for even more investigation and awareness.
... However, the author does not deny that gender differences may play a role and affirms that it is not enough to focus on biological sex to uncover the reasons for the gender imbalance. The inconsistency in the results of empirical studies on gender and creativity could be related, among other things, to how researchers measure creativity (Baer and Kaufman, 2008;Bender et al., 2013;Stumpf et al., 2020). In addition, it must be emphasised that great caution must be exercised when generalising empirical results with regard to gender differences, as this can lead to misunderstandings (Fine, 2010;Rippon et al., 2014). ...
... Stereotypes serve as ground rules that allow us to process information more efficiently, but they are often inaccurate, and when we learn a person's gender, gender biases are automatically activated, leading to unintentional and implicit discrimination (Bohnet, 2016). Gender stereotypes in design decisions are consciously or unconsciously embedded in users' social worlds and help to shape their perceptions and identities (Stumpf, 2020). The fact that traits considered masculine, such as strength and articulation, are associated with the design of creative and innovative products and systems has many consequences, such as less confidence or interest in creating innovative products. ...
Gender is a crucial factor for creativity in design. Although the participation and recognition of successful and prominent women in the field of design seems to be increasing, many more men are still recognised and regarded as creative. This paper analyses the gender differences in design creativity. First, a summary of studies on gender differences in creativity in general is presented. It then discusses three critical aspects of gender differences in design creativity. Finally, some ways in which women's creativity can be encouraged and supported are outlined.
... Gender is on the frontlines of work aiming to raise attention to matters of inclusion, diversity, and social justice in human-computer interaction (HCI) [23,135,145,178,180,191]. Gender is a multifaceted aspect of human identity and social organization [60,69,95,96]. ...
... Gender can be a mode of expression, an internal self-identity, an external social category, and/or an abstract perception, even of objects [29,69,120,222]. Gender is often framed as femininity and masculinity, but a wealth of work across time and cultures has challenged this "binary" model [60,95,96,145,178,188,198], including in HCI [178,188,191]. Indeed, HCI has a history of developing, studying, and critiquing technologies for gender inclusion and anti-sexism [12,15,165]. ...
Gender is a hot topic in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). Work has run the gamut, from assessing how we embed gender in our computational creations to correcting systemic sexism, online and off. While gender is often framed around women and femininities, we must recognize the genderful nature of humanity, acknowledge the evasiveness of men and masculinities, and avoid burdening women and genderful folk as the central actors and targets of change. Indeed, critical voices have called for a shift in focus to masculinities, not only in terms of privilege, power, and patriarchal harms, but also participation, plurality, and transformation. To this end, I present a 30-year history of masculinities in HCI work through a scoping review of 126 papers published to the ACM Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) conference proceedings. I offer a primer and agenda grounded in the CHI and extant literatures to direct future work.
... Gender is on the frontlines of work aiming to raise attention to matters of inclusion, diversity, and social justice in human-computer interaction (HCI) [23,135,145,178,180,191]. Gender is a multifaceted aspect of human identity and social organization [60,69,95,96]. ...
... Gender can be a mode of expression, an internal self-identity, an external social category, and/or an abstract perception, even of objects [29,69,120,222]. Gender is often framed as femininity and masculinity, but a wealth of work across time and cultures has challenged this "binary" model [60,95,96,145,178,188,198], including in HCI [178,188,191]. Indeed, HCI has a history of developing, studying, and critiquing technologies for gender inclusion and anti-sexism [12,15,165]. ...
Gender is a hot topic in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). Work has run the gamut, from assessing how we embed gender in our computational creations to correcting systemic sexism, online and off. While gender is often framed around women and femininities, we must recognize the genderful nature of humanity, acknowledge the evasiveness of men and masculinities, and avoid burdening women and genderful folk as the central actors and targets of change. Indeed, critical voices have called for a shift in focus to masculinities, not only in terms of privilege, power, and patriarchal harms, but also participation, plurality, and transformation. To this end, I present a 30-year history of masculinities in HCI work through a scoping review of 126 papers published to the ACM Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) conference proceedings. I offer a primer and agenda grounded in the CHI and extant literatures to direct future work.
... Negligence of one or more of those human-centric aspects in any digital technologies, including apps, can lead to excluding some users and bringing difficulties to users and businesses (e.g., loss of reputation for businesses, reduced usage and acceptance of technology in society) [5], [6]. Hence, over the last few years, the goal of some governments, organisations, and practitioners has been to develop initiatives, policies, guidelines, and practices to design digital technologies working for all populations, which have been referred to by different names such as "inclusive design" and "universal usability" [7], [8]. ...
... Among these human-centric aspects that app developers and owners should consider while designing inclusive apps, gender is one of the most important ones [5], [8]- [10]. Women comprise 49.7% of the world population in 2022, while men are slightly more (50.3%) ...
Mobile software apps ("apps") are one of the prevailing digital technologies that our modern life heavily depends on. A key issue in the development of apps is how to design gender-inclusive apps. Apps that do not consider gender inclusion, diversity, and equality in their design can create barriers (e.g., excluding some of the users because of their gender) for their diverse users. While there have been some efforts to develop gender-inclusive apps, a lack of deep understanding regarding user perspectives on gender may prevent app developers and owners from identifying issues related to gender and proposing solutions for improvement. Users express many different opinions about apps in their reviews, from sharing their experiences, and reporting bugs, to requesting new features. In this study, we aim at unpacking gender discussions about apps from the user perspective by analysing app reviews. We first develop and evaluate several Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) classifiers that automatically detect gender reviews (i.e., reviews that contain discussions about gender). We apply our ML and DL classifiers on a manually constructed dataset of 1,440 app reviews from the Google App Store, composing 620 gender reviews and 820 non-gender reviews. Our best classifier achieves an F1-score of 90.77%. Second, our qualitative analysis of a randomly selected 388 out of 620 gender reviews shows that gender discussions in app reviews revolve around six topics: App Features, Appearance, Content, Company Policy and Censorship, Advertisement, and Community. Finally, we provide some practical implications and recommendations for developing gender-inclusive apps.
... Negligence of one or more of those human-centric aspects in any digital technologies, including apps, can lead to excluding some users and bringing difficulties to users and businesses (e.g., loss of reputation for businesses, reduced usage and acceptance of technology in society) [5], [6]. Hence, over the last few years, the goal of some governments, organisations, and practitioners has been to develop initiatives, policies, guidelines, and practices to design digital technologies working for all populations, which have been referred to by different names such as "inclusive design" and "universal usability" [7], [8]. ...
... Among these human-centric aspects that app developers and owners should consider while designing inclusive apps, gender is one of the most important ones [5], [8]- [10]. Women comprise 49.7% of the world population in 2022, while men are slightly more (50.3%) ...
Mobile software apps ("apps") are one of the prevailing digital technologies that our modern life heavily depends on. A key issue in the development of apps is how to design gender-inclusive apps. Apps that do not consider gender inclusion , diversity, and equality in their design can create barriers (e.g., excluding some of the users because of their gender) for their diverse users. While there have been some efforts to develop gender-inclusive apps, a lack of deep understanding regarding user perspectives on gender may prevent app developers and owners from identifying issues related to gender and proposing solutions for improvement. Users express many different opinions about apps in their reviews, from sharing their experiences, and reporting bugs, to requesting new features. In this study, we aim at unpacking gender discussions about apps from the user perspective by analysing app reviews. We first develop and evaluate several Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) classifiers that automatically detect gender reviews (i.e., reviews that contain discussions about gender). We apply our ML and DL classifiers on a manually constructed dataset of 1,440 app reviews from the Google App Store, composing 620 gender reviews and 820 non-gender reviews. Our best classifier achieves an F1-score of 90.77%. Second, our qualitative analysis of a randomly selected 388 out of 620 gender reviews shows that gender discussions in app reviews revolve around six topics: App Features, Appearance, Content, Company Policy and Censorship, Advertisement, and Community. Finally, we provide some practical implications and recommendations for developing gender-inclusive apps.
... Inclusive design, which should prioritise the end-user's perspective, is crucial for catering to women's unique financial needs. This concept aligns with Newell and Gregor's approach to user-centred design for universal usability, advocating for designs that consider the specific characteristics of users, including those with disabilities (Stumpf et al., 2020;Newell and Gregor, 2000). ...
Nigeria has a significant gender financial inclusion gap with women disproportionately represented among the financially excluded. Artificial intelligence (AI) powered financial technologies (fintech) present distinctive advantages for enhancing women’s inclusion. This includes efficiency gains, reduced transaction costs, and personalized services tailored to women’s needs. Nonetheless, AI harbours a paradox. While it promises to address financial inclusion, it can also inadvertently perpetuate and amplify gender bias. The critical question is thus, how can AI effectively address the challenges of women’s financial exclusion in Nigeria? Using publicly available data, this research undertakes a qualitative analysis of AI-powered Fintech services in Nigeria. Its objective is to understand how innovations in financial services correspond to the needs of potential users like unbanked or underserved women. The research finds that introducing innovative financial services and technology is insufficient to ensure inclusion. Financial inclusion requires the availability, accessibility, affordability, appropriateness, sustainability, and alignment of services with the needs of potential users, and policy-driven strategies that aid inclusion.
... Additionally, UCD, PD, and USID emphasize co-creation between designers and impaired individuals, integrating their voices, needs, and experiences directly into the design process, thereby challenging stereotypes and biases (Brereton et al., 2015;Newell et al., 2011;Sitbon & Farhin, 2017). Moreover, tools such as GenderMag help designers identify and address gender biases in their software (Stumpf et al., 2020). GenderMag has been shown to be effective in evaluating and improving software inclusivity, which can lead to higher user satisfaction and broader user adoption (Szlavi & S. Guedes, 2023). ...
Designing information systems (IS) for impaired individuals is crucial yet challenging. Current inclusive design approaches often prioritize technical functionality in artifact design. However, they frequently overlook social and structural factors within design processes, such as promoting social inclusion or addressing stereotypes. This limits design processes’ inclusivity. To address this research problem, we conducted a systematic literature review of inclusive design approaches unveiling six inclusion principles. These principles, derived from examining inclusive design approaches against the functional, social and critical disability model, advocate social and structural dimensions, which existing inclusive design approaches often neglect. The proposed principles can thus guide designers to more effectively incorporate functional, social and structural dimensions of disability in design approaches and by this, can foster greater inclusivity.
... When technology and design result in gender-based marginalization, it can give rise to a range of outcomes. From a fairness perspective, when designers develop a product for everyone, they aspire for the technology to be of use to individuals of all genders, ensuring that everyone has an equitable chance of achieving their goals (Stumpf et al. 2020). Many times products are designed with an implicit belief that they are gender-neutral i.e., they are not deliberately tailored toward any particular gender. ...
ABSTRACT
Digital financial inclusion initiatives in developing countries have gained salience because of their potential to improve the socioeconomic condition of marginalized groups such as
low-income women. However, persistent challenges remain in overcoming the digital divide in developing countries and enhancing access and participation of women in digital financial
services. Despite the growing scholarly attention, little is known about how digital technologies might be designed to enable financial inclusion of women in developing countries. Using the
technology affordances approach, we extend previous theorizing on inclusive information system, and introduce a relational approach to designing for inclusion. Specifically, we conduct a case study of a digital finance initiative in Ghana involving the design of an interactive voice response system (IVR) for low-income women where systemic barriers to technology adoption and use are pervasive. We show the significance of user feedback,
environmental factors, and affordances for more inclusive information system design. We contribute a theoretically grounded framework that takes holistic account of the sociotechnical context of IS design for inclusion
... Designing online spaces has taken up an important place in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research because it goes far beyond simple aesthetics due to its accountability for acceptance, accessibility and inclusivity [27,67] . Frequent design updates on such online platforms are relatively common, as companies attempt to keep up with what the majority wants, and transform into an application for holistic entertainment [15] . ...
Instagram has been appropriated by communities for several contemporary social struggles, often translating into real world action. Likewise, women of color (WOC) have used it to protest, share information and support one another through its various affordances. However, Instagram is known to have frequent updates, and recently the updates have been more drastic. The newest update changed the recommendation algorithm such that it showed video-oriented content (reels) from unknown accounts over static media from a user's own network. Several marginalized communities, and especially WOC resisted this change and others that led to it. Due to the backlash, Instagram rolled back its changes. Drawing from past HCI work on digital platforms for marginalised communities, I propose a qualitative study informed by the open research strategy to understand why WOC are resisting these changes, and eventually provide implications for design that can help implement changes in a more inclusive manner.
... DiversIT, designed based on the results of the SLR, was further developed by involving our user group. Using the principles of inclusive design [13,15,16], we created a website after five rounds of user testing. ...
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is essential because it creates a more inclusive environment that benefits individuals, organisations and society as a whole. To gain a comprehensive understanding of DEI in computing, it is important to apply an intersectional lens to explore the complexities and nuances of the issues and possible solutions to these. This study aims to provide new knowledge about intersectionality in the computing field. In the preliminary phase, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was conducted to analyse literature related to intersection-ality in computing. Then, according to the design and creation research strategy, we have developed new technology in the form of a a prototype for a website called "DiversIT" , which aims to help increase inclusion by facilitating a supportive peer community and raising awareness. Then, 17 students and professionals in the field were involved in five rounds of usability tests and design iterations. Based on our investigation, the research concludes that the impact of intersectionality needs to be acknowledged in the computing field. DiversIT, designed to address inter-sectional perspectives in the computing community, led to a promising high-fidelity prototype in terms of increasing DEI in computing.
... There is a clear need for collaborative efforts that prioritize gender equality and adopt a gender perspective to foster the development of more inclusive technologies. Such efforts tend to yield superior outcomes when incorporating users into the design and development processes [34], [35], [36], [37]. This encompasses various domains, ranging from Web application design and implementation [38], [39] to robotics development [40], [41]. ...
italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Contribution:
Gender mainstreaming in university teaching should be covered in all the knowledge areas. This work successfully introduces the gender perspective as part of the methodological approach to teaching and learning in Computer Science.
Background: This study describes how gender mainstreaming has been introduced and matured during six academic years, from 2016–2017 to 2021–2022, in Software Engineering I course in the Degree of Computer Science at the University of Salamanca.
Intended Outcomes: The aim that has been pursued is to raise awareness among students of Computer Science about equality, equity, inclusion, and respect for diversity to build better professional ethics and advance in eliminating any gender-related gap in Computer Science.
Application Design: The introduction of gender mainstreaming in the Software Engineering I course has been done in six stages to advance in the gender-gap reduction improving in each academic year with the experience and voluntary feedback from the students of the previous year, using anonymized questionnaires.
Findings: Gender mainstreaming requires special attention in careers with a visible gender gap, such as Computer Science. Incorporating the gender perspective as part of the teaching–learning process does not have a measurable impact in a short period but instead aims to make software engineers reflect in such a way that they reason about the need to promote diversity in software development contexts.</p
... While our finding that girls prefer gender-inclusive design may seem obvious, this is not always true. As highlighted in the conceptual review by (Stumpf et al., 2020), historical research in Human-Computer Interaction has often focused on males, resulting in IT artifacts, such as learning platforms, that are predominantly and unintentionally tailored for male users. Consequently, contemporary Human-Computer Interaction research should strive to redress this imbalance and promote diverse design choices for gender-responsive IT artifacts. ...
In our study, we delve into gender disparities within online computer science courses, focusing on the impact of stereotypes on learners. Our focus is narrowed to gender disparities within online computer science courses, where we investigate the impact of gender stereotypes on learners' choices and performance. Drawing on Stereotype Threat Theory, we pinpoint psychological barriers hindering inclusivity and propose conversational agents as a design intervention to address these challenges. Our conversational agent prototype, developed and evaluated with a seventh-grade class, aims to dismantle gender stereotypes, to motivate girls to pursue computer science, and contribute to broader societal goals of gender equality in the IT field. Utilizing a design science approach, our findings provide actionable insights for platform providers to engage underrepresented users. In addition, our research contributes valuable design knowledge for conversational agents, specifically tailored to support girls in computer science education.
... O GenderMag é uma ferramenta eficaz para identificar vieses de gênero, fornecendo recomendações antes mesmo dos testes com as personas, agilizando o processo de desenvolvimento de software [Stumpf et al. 2020]. ...
No contexto do desenvolvimento de software, o viés de gênero pode se refletir em produtos que favorecem ou prejudicam um determinado gênero. O artigo aborda a integração do método GenderMag e das heurísticas de Nielsen na elicitação de requisitos para a experiência do usuário, com foco na inclusão de gênero no design de software, especialmente em sistemas de gestão de aprendizagem (LMSs). A metodologia empregada envolve a aplicação do método GenderMag na inspeção de duas plataformas LMSs, o Moodle e o Google Classroom, com a adaptação de personas baseadas nesse método. Os problemas identificados através do GenderMag foram analisados à luz das heurísticas de Nielsen. Como resultado, foram elicitados 6 recomendações derivados da identificação de viés de gênero nas interfaces, funcionalidades e interações oferecidas pelas plataformas LMSs. Os resultados evidenciam a importância de considerar a diversidade de usuários para garantir uma experiência de uso inclusiva.
... Such barriers are cognitive inclusivity bugs because they disproportionately impact people with that cognitive style. The barriers are also gender inclusivity bugs because the facets capture (statistical) gender differences in how people problem-solve [2,10,15,16,53,56]. ...
... Investigations utilizing survey methodologies have further explored gender differences in preferences for color and other design elements, such as aspect ratio. The findings hold relevance for fields including marketing, brand management, decision-making, human-computer interaction, and neurophysiology [10,3,18,9]. ...
Visual stimuli influence our affective state and reactions, subsequently shaping our preferences. These interactions fall within the domain of affective computing research. Furthermore, affective state and emotions could be influenced by the demographic differences in affective and aesthetic reactions to visual stimuli. This study aims to examine the extent to which demographic factors, such as gender and culture, moderate the associations between prevalent aesthetic features and a range of emotions, represented by valence, arousal, and dominance dimensions. Additionally, this research delves into the identification of latent demographic groups within our participant pool to gain a more nuanced understanding of the interplay among various demographic factors. To accomplish this, more than 40,000 images were collected from web albums and subsequently rated through crowdsourcing based on the emotional and aesthetic response they evoke. The findings of this study reveal that certain colors and aspect ratios elicited distinct valence and dominance reactions depending on the gender of the participant. Furthermore, disparities between Western and Eastern cultures emerged in the relationship between mean brightness and arousal. Latent group analyses identified four primary groups that exhibited differential responses to specific visual attributes. This investigation contributes to the growing body of literature on affective computing, offering valuable insights into the role of demographic factors in shaping emotional and aesthetic responses to visual stimuli.
... Understanding the role of gender is, however, important. Not only because gender is socially constructed through interaction, but also because perspectives connected to one's gender shape how we build, design, and integrate technology [17,258]. Hence, by taking a stance on system administration through the lens of gender allows us to better understand the underlying social structures and dynamics at play in the creation of the infrastructures our world depends upon. ...
Technological systems and infrastructures form the bedrock of modern society and it is system administrators (sysadmins) who configure, maintain and operate these infrastructures. More often than not, they do so behind the scenes. The work of system administration tends to be unseen and, consequently, not well known. After all, do you think of your IT help-desk when everything is working just fine? Usually, people reach out for help when something is not working as expected or when they need something. A lot of work and effort goes into ensuring that systems are working as expected most of the time and, paradoxically, this smooth functioning results in the invisibilization of the work and effort that went into it.
This PhD research focuses on system administration work and what that entails in day-to-day tasks. Instead of proposing technical and social solutions, we try to better understand the “problem” that these proposed solutions are meant to solve. Drawing from safety science research and feminist research approaches, we perform a qualitative exploration of sysadmins’ work. We center their experiences via an in-depth interview investigation and a focus group study. We identify and describe the coordination mechanisms and gender considerations embedded in their work. We shed light on care work as part of sysadmin work and the phenomenon of double invisibility that is experienced by sysadmins who are not cis men. The thesis wraps up with a set of recommendations for moving toward safe and equitable work environments for sysadmins.
... Bardzell's work was seminal in explicitly focusing on feminist perspectives in HCI. Later work has also investigated gender and its implications for HCI (Stumpf et al., 2020). The article explores the state of feminism in HCI and suggests ways to incorporate feminist perspectives into design practices. ...
Feminist Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) integrates gender, diversity, equity, and social justice into technology research and design, fostering a more inclusive and socially aware technology landscape. This article explores the design semantics of ten Do-it-Yourself (DIY) musical instruments created by women builders. Design semantics refers to the associations conveyed by designed objects so as to identity, emotions, performance or the environment and their sensory qualities such as shape, size, touch or vision. Together these associations and qualities can establish design narratives that influence the way meaning is ascribed. We conduct an analysis of these instruments to answer the question of how fabulations of design semantics, through the lens of feminist HCI principles, can reshape our understanding of gender bias in object design within the realm of DIY musical instruments constructed by women builders. Our investigation uncovers a feminist narrative taking shape as we found out that DIY instruments design contributes to the fabulation of alternative futures that challenge prevalent current gender expectations associated with commercial music hardware. DIY instruments provide a platform for questioning established gender norms, enabling the development of technologies that embrace diverse perspectives and maintain a technical identity.
... There is a growing body of participatory, critical, and collaborative research that pushes human-centered toward its fullest potential by considering wider ranges of human identity and experience, beyond use-in-context. This scholarship has highlighted approaches for HCI and design to better respond to how people's experiences are influenced by race, gender, ability, or their intersections [1,15,27,34,35,44,49,85,92,96,112,113,114,120,122]. Dombrowski et al. describe how high-level strategies such as "transformation, recognition, reciprocity, enablement, distribution, and accountability" and a commitment to "conflict, reflexivity, and personal ethics" are essential for a more responsible, social-justice informed design practice [26]. ...
Digital games are a multi-billion-dollar industry whose production and consumption extend globally. Representation in games is an increasingly important topic. As those who create and consume the medium grow ever more diverse, it is essential that player or user-experience research, usability, and any consideration of how people interface with their technology is exercised through inclusive and intersectional lenses. Previous research has identified how character configuration interfaces preface white-male defaults [39, 40, 67]. This study relies on 1-on-1 play-interviews where diverse participants attempt to create “themselves” in a series of games and on group design activities to explore how participants may envision more inclusive character configuration interface design. Our interview findings describe specific points of tension in the process of creating characters in existing interfaces and the sketches participant-collaborators produced challenge the homogeneity of current interface designs. This project amplifies the perspective of diverse participant-collaborators to provide constructive implications and a series of principles for designing more inclusive character configuration interfaces, which support more diverse stories and gameworlds by reconfiguring the constraints that shape those stories and gameworlds.
... In recent years, gender-inclusive design approaches have been used more broadly, especially in the fields of HCI and game design (Kafai, Richard, and Tynes 2016;Oleson et al. 2018;Stumpf et al. 2020). Especially related to the inclusive design of wearable technology, there are few interesting studies that, for example, focus on the default expectations of non-disabled users (Elman 2018) or investigate the potential for gathering new kinds of data of particularly female body functions (Cifor and Garcia 2019). ...
Particularly since the 1990s, there has been an active discussion on inclusive design and on the possibility of designing products that would be suitable for every kind of user. Wearable technology products that need to be in close contact with the user's skin to function must be a good fit for the user's body. As wearable technology has transitioned from a specialty of the "quantify-yourself" movement to a widespread, everyday item, the Jenni Hokka works as a specialist in research methods at the Doctoral School at Tampere University. This research is part of a project undertaken while affiliated at Aalto University in which she scrutinized design
... Gender-inclusive design is a deep topic, of which trans inclusivity is a rich part and growing in prominence [133]. Previous works informed by queer theory have aimed to create safe gaming communities, avoid gender-essentialist and heteronormative oppression [109], and seek out queer modes of play [27,56]. ...
Many trans people experience gender dysphoria-distress caused by mismatches in internal and external experiences of gender. Video games engage intimately with the self, creating intense experiences involving identities, bodies, and social interaction. This combination of factors renders trans players vulnerable to gender dysphoria triggers: failures of interaction design that result in gender dysphoria. The present research undertakes a thematic analysis of four popular games, drawn from an initial corpus of 31. It contributes a definition of gender dysphoria triggers, case studies of triggering games, an initial gender dysphoria categorization to provide a useful design language, and examples of alternative designs for extant triggers. The analysis combines the authors' positionality as trans gamers; critical cultural studies methodologies, including textual analysis; a critical discourse analysis of production-side statements and interviews and player-side comments about diversity in those games; and close readings of the games themselves. The paper concludes with a call for trans inclusivity in game design, which we structure around the necropolitical concept of the relation of care.
... Computer Science is considered to be a homogeneous field, with professionals who are predominantly white, heterosexual, Global Northern, young, middle-class, cis-gendered men [14]. Although historically women and women of color had a great part in computing, as the profession grew more prestigious, it became more and more white and male-centered, pushing others out of the field through the means of discrimination [15] 1 https://www.diversityintech.co.uk/the-benefits-of-diversity-in-tech [16] [17]. ...
Gender equality, as well as Diversity, Equity, and
Inclusion (DEI), in computer science (CS) is primarily limited
to binary gender diversity. It is known that women are heavily
underrepresented in CS, but substantial parts of the DEI issues
are still unexplored. Intersectionality provides a more nuanced
perspective of equality as it acknowledges exclusion and discrim�ination coming from overlapping layers of people’s identities,
e.g. gender, ethnicity, dis/ability, nationality, socioeconomic status,
age, religion, and sexuality, in combination. It is important to
address systemic barriers, bias, and stereotypes in CS through
the lenses of intersectionality. There is a growing literature
on challenges of women and binary gender diversity in CS,
but a limitation to many of these investigations is that they
look at only one dimension of discrimination rather than the
complexity of intersectional challenges. That is why the research
objective of this study is to provide information on the relation of
intersectionality and CS, using the Systematic Literature Review
methodology. The results show that there is still scarce research
explicitly connected to the concept of intersectionality in CS, but
awareness is increasing. The SLR also reveals various challenges
and success factors related to intersectionality, which call for
further attention.
... Studies show that diversity also leads to greater creativity and success [4]. Despite this, computing is a homogeneous field: the workforce predominantly constitutes white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, Global Northern, young, middle-class men [5]. Women constitute only 19% of the computing job market within Europe [6]. ...
There is a constantly growing need for skilled professionals in the computing field, which poses challenges for finding the right people for the job. According to the 2022 Digital Economy and Society Index, 55% of companies have problems filling their tech positions. At the same time, the computing sector is going through a diversity crisis, as the majority of its players are Global Northern, heterosexual, white, able-bodied men. Technology permeates our lives, so a lack of diversity in the tech industry, especially when designing software, can lead to bias and exclusionary user experiences. As a consequence, we need to attract young people - for instance, Generation Z (GenZ), born between the mid-1990s and the 2010s - to computing majors. Moreover, there is a need for actions with a retention plan and a strategy to guide a more diverse group toward leadership roles both in academia and industry. Even though the awareness about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is continually being raised, interventions that focus on inclusiveness are still necessary. With the present paper, we aim to contribute to a better alignment of how to design interventions for including younger people in computing. According to research, GenZ cares about social values and a meaningful contribution to society, that is, DEI, as part of their work. In this paper we are presenting an intervention project, designed to increase DEI in computing, as part of which we collected testimonials by stakeholders working in computing. As a quality check, we performed content analysis after the completion of the project, to investigate to what extent the experiences listed by CS professionals and the interests of GenZ align with one another. Applying multiple methods of cross-checking, we confirmed the presence of social aspects in the lived experiences of CS professionals. Findings show that professionals in the field recognize computing’s social embeddedness, which aligns with younger students’ values and expectations and confirms that computing is a valid choice to achieve their goals of making a positive change in society. This study is part of a larger effort proposed and realized by EUGAIN, a Horizon Europe-sponsored COST Action, whose purpose is to create a European network that enhances gender balance and diversity in the field of computing.
Keywordsgender balanceDEIcomputinginterventiongeneration Z
... This is because technological innovation results either from the recombination of existing ideas from different fields (Ahuja et al., 2014;Baron, 2006) or the firm's superior ability to identify and capitalize on patterns in disparate areas such as political and regulatory changes, 4 market needs, socio-demographic trends, technological changes, and industry structure (Xie et al., 2020). Besides, genderdiverse owner-manager teams are also more likely to develop products and services that will apply to both genders (Stumpf et al., 2020), although researchers have yet to investigate this idea. 5 Gender diversity is also likely to enhance the probability of nontechnological innovation. ...
... Within the research community itself, recent work has begun to develop research methods and evaluation techniques to help researchers and developers to focus on gender issues (Burnett et al., 2016;Marsden et al., 2017;Stumpf et al., 2020), for example, to consider gender biases in software (Vorvoreanu et al., 2019). There is also a thread of projects creating technologies specifically for women (Balaam et al., 2015;D'Ignazio et al., 2016;Kumar & Anderson, 2015;Sultana et al., 2018). ...
Social robots are often created with gender in mind, for example by giving them a designed gender identity or including elements of gender in their behaviors. However, even if unintentional, such social robot designs may have strong gender biases, stereotypes or even sexist ideas embedded into them. Between people, we know that exposure to even mild or veiled sexism can have negative impacts on women. However, we do not yet know how such behaviors will be received when they come from a robot. If a robot only offers to help women (and not men) lift objects for example, thus suggesting that women are weaker than men, will women see it as sexist, or just dismiss it as a machine error? In this paper we engage with this question by studying how women respond to a robot that demonstrates a range of sexist behaviors. Our results indicate that not only do women have negative reactions to sexist behaviors from a robot, but that the male-typical work tasks common to robots (i.e., factory work, using machinery, and lifting) are enough for stereotype activation and for women to exhibit signs of stress. Particularly given the male dominated demographic of computer science and engineering and the emerging understanding of algorithmic bias in machine learning and AI, our work highlights the potential for negative impacts on women who interact with social robots.
... Understanding the role of gender is, however, important. Not only because gender is socially constructed through interaction, but also because perspectives connected to one's gender shape how we build, design, and integrate technology [6,80]. Hence, by taking a stance on system administration through the lens of gender allows us to better understand the underlying social structures and dynamics at play in creating the infrastructures our world depends upon. ...
In the system and network administration domain, gender diversity remains a distant target. The experiences and perspectives of sysadmins who belong to marginalized genders (non cis-men) are not well understood beyond the fact that sysadmin work environments are generally not equitable. We address this knowledge gap in our study by focusing on the ways in which sysadmins from marginalized genders manage their work in men-dominated sysadmin work spaces and by understanding what an inclusive workplace would look like. Using a feminist research approach, we engaged with a group of 16 sysadmins who are not cis-men via six online focus groups. We found that managing the impact of gender identity in the sysadmin workplace means demonstrating excellence and going above and beyond in system administration tasks, and also requires performing additional care work not expected from cis men. Furthermore, our participants handle additional layers of work due to gender considerations and to actively find community in the workplace. We found that sysadmins manage by going above and beyond in their tasks, performing care work and doing extra layers of work because of gender considerations, and finding community in the workplace. To mitigate this additional workload, we recommend more care for care work. For future research, we recommend the use of feminist lenses when studying sysadmin work in order to provide more equitable solutions that ultimately contribute to improving system security by fostering a just workplace.
... Historically, work in the field of human computing interaction (HCI) surrounding gender has focused on traditional binary differences [17,20,90] such as how gender differences impact people's use of problem solving software [11]. In line with the expanding definitions of gender accepted both in academia and public life, there is now an increasing body of research in HCI which looks specifically at the experiences of transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people with technology. ...
Categorization via gender is omnipresent throughout society, and thus also computing; gender identity is often requested of users before they use software or web services. Despite this fact, no research has explored how software developers approach requesting gender disclosure from users. To understand how developers think about gender in software, we present an interview study with 15 software developers recruited from the freelancing platform Upwork as well as Twitter. We also collected and categorized 917 threads that contained keywords relevant to gender from programming-related sub-forums on the social media service Reddit. 16 posts that discussed approaches to gender disclosure were further analyzed. We found that while some developers have an understanding of inclusive gender options, programmers rarely consider when gender data is necessary or the way in which they request gender disclosure from users. Our findings have implications for programmers, software engineering educators, and the broader community concerned with inclusivity.
... Most of the conversation in the field has focused on the tactics and tools used by firms to innovate and create a natural effect for businesses and customers [15][16][17]. User-and human-centered design, systematic creativity, and blue ocean methods are popular [18,19]. In incremental innovation, existing product concepts or technologies are modified [20][21][22]. ...
In business, innovation thinking is expanding beyond product innovation, and it is being marketed as a catalyst for unique user experiences, businesses, and organizational and cultural change. Product design and design-driven business operations require an innovative mindset. In this study, we examined how progressive innovation thinking can be applied to three aspects using a combination of case studies: idea genesis, process, and decision making. We also examined thinking studies from relevant companies to investigate how to create user-pleasing experiences and details in products and to develop a framework for progressive innovation thinking strategies and implementation methods for designers. Our findings will help designers and corporate design teams find a steady flow direction in the execution of their design business, capture the first moments of brilliance and replicate ideas, generate a constant stream of creative ideas, maintain a constant flow of innovation in their design business, and enhance the overall business capability of the design team. This framework has academic and business ramifications: it can provide guidance and ideas to other design teams looking to execute their design business and act as a reference for adopting progressive, original thinking work and creative businesses.
... Moreover, the model is currently trained with a limited range of samples and could be developed further through integrating the terms collected during the evaluation, as well as through additional samples from a wider and more diverse userbase (e.g. female developers, non-English speakers, etc.) [37]. ...
... The focus of this work is an examination of gender(sex) in end-user uncanniness perceptions of avatar faces. Similar to the work of Stumpf et al. (2020), we use the social construct perspective of gender, here referred to as gender(sex), whereby gender identification, gender expression and performance might not necessarily align with sex. ...
The creation of avatars is a two-sided coin; on one side we see developers creating avatars with the skills, time, and resources available to them. However, these resources (or lack thereof) may lead to avatars falling into the uncanny valley. On the other side are the end-users who engage with the avatar, who ultimately are the focus for these designers and developers. However, many factors can influence the perception of any avatar created beyond the level of realism, including the physical appearance of the avatar or something more fundamental like its gender(sex). Currently, there is a gap in understanding of the influence of gender(sex) in avatar uncanniness perceptions, and this is mostly missing in design decisions for avatar systems. Bridging this gap has been a source of research focus spanning the development of new technologies for avatar development to measuring end-user perceptions of those avatars. Here we add to this discussion through an experiment involving a set of avatars presented to participants (n = 2065) who were asked to rank them from least to most uncanny based on their perceptions. This representative set of avatars were sourced from publicly available methods and have different levels of realism. Our findings indicate that perceptions of avatar uncanniness based on gender(sex) affects the overall perception of the avatar.
... Nevertheless, we believe that the proposed design can provide a concept for vehicle information supporting selected NDRAs such as watching movies, listening to music, or reading, in addition to working. We are also aware that the gender ratio in our study was not equally distributed and the mean age of the participants was rather low (also due to Covid-19-related restrictions with regard to participant recruitment), and as men are more likely to rate new features of technology positively compared to women [59], which could have impacted the positive ratings for both the concepts. Nevertheless, we see values in this first evaluation but acknowledge that future studies in situations closer to real-world driving should also validate the effect in a more diverse sample. ...
Automated vehicles (AVs) are expected to enable users to engage in non-driving-related activities (NDRAs). However, users do not easily trust an automated vehicle which poses new challenges for automotive human-machine interfaces (HMIs). Over-presenting vehicle information can distract users from NDRAs, and under-presentation can impact trust and user experience (UX) negatively. To investigate how to best present vehicle information to foster users' trust and UX while performing NDRAs, we designed two in-vehicle HMI concepts: 1) A colored and animated light bar display around the windshield and 2) a windshield display interface presenting pictograms and numbers. Results from a simulator study (N=18) indicate that both concepts contribute to a high trust level and UX while not affecting the NDRA performance compared to the baseline of not showing vehicle information. In addition, the light bar provides better UX than the windshield display and is also preferred by users. With our findings, we contribute to the effective design of presenting vehicle information in automated vehicles.
Este artigo apresenta o projeto de interação de uma plataforma de dados abertos para equidade de gênero em STEM na América Latina. O projeto seguiu o design sensível ao gênero, fundamentado na IHC feminista destacando a importância da inclusão destes aspectos desde a concepção destas plataformas para promoção da diversidade na web social.
Md Montaser Hamid, Amreeta Chatterjee, Mariam Guizani, Andrew Anderson, Fatima Moussaoui, Sarah Yang, Isaac Tijerina Escobar, Anita Sarma, and Margaret Burnett
Motivations: Recent research has emerged on generally how to improve AI products’ Human-AI Interaction (HAI) User Experience (UX), but relatively little is known about HAI-UX inclusivity. For example, what kinds of users are supported, and who are left out? What product changes would make it more inclusive?
Objectives: To help fill this gap, we present an approach to measuring what kinds of diverse users an AI product leaves out and how to act upon that knowledge. To bring actionability to the results, the approach focuses on users’ problem-solving diversity. Thus, our specific objectives were: (1) to show how the measure can reveal which participants with diverse problem-solving styles were left behind in a set of AI products; and (2) to relate participants’ problem-solving diversity to their demographic diversity, specifically gender and age.
Methods: We performed 18 experiments, discarding two that failed manipulation checks. Each experiment was a 2x2 factorial experiment with online participants, comparing two AI products: one deliberately violating one of 18 HAI guideline and the other applying the same guideline. For our first objective, we used our measure to analyze how much each AI product gained/lost HAI-UX inclusivity compared to its counterpart, where inclusivity meant supportiveness to participants with particular problem-solving styles. For our second objective, we analyzed how participants’ problem-solving styles aligned with their gender identities and ages.
Results & Implications: Participants’ diverse problem-solving styles revealed six types of inclusivity results: (1) the AI products that followed an HAI guideline were almost always more inclusive across diversity of problem-solving styles than the products that did not follow that guideline—but “who” got most of the inclusivity varied widely by guideline and by problem-solving style; (2) when an AI product had risk implications, four variables’ values varied in tandem: participants’ feelings of control, their (lack of) suspicion, their trust in the product, and their certainty while using the product; (3) the more control an AI product offered users, the more inclusive it was; (4) whether an AI product was learning from “my” data or other people’s affected how inclusive that product was; (5) participants’ problem-solving styles skewed differently by gender and age group; and (6) almost all of the results suggested actions that HAI practitioners could take to improve their products’ inclusivity further. Together, these results suggest that a key to improving the demographic inclusivity of an AI product (e.g., across a wide range of genders, ages, etc.) can often be obtained by improving the product’s support of diverse problem-solving styles.
Two core factors influence the perception of avatars. On one side are the developers who are concerned with building avatars and in some cases pushing the boundaries of the realism. These developers are constrained by the resources available to them that allow them to produce the optimal avatar with the equipment, time, and skills available to them. On the other side are users who engage with avatars who are directly affected by the choices the developers have made. Inside the interaction between these sides is the avatar itself, whose appearance, level of realism and fundamental characteristics like a perceived gender(sex) can influence the user’s perception of that avatar. Despite the large amount of research dedicated to understanding the perception of avatars, many gaps in our understanding remain. In this work, we aim to contribute to further understanding one of these gaps by investigating the potential role of gender(sex) in the perception of avatar realism and uncanniness. We add to this discussion by presenting the results of an experiment where we evaluated realism and uncanniness perceptions by presenting a set of avatars to participants (n = 2065). These avatars are representative of those used in simulation and training contexts, from publicly available sources, and have varying levels of realism. Participants were asked to rank these avatars in terms of their realism and uncanniness perceptions to determine whether the gender(sex) of the participant influences in these perceptions. Our findings show that the gender(sex) of a participant does affect the perception of an avatar’s realism and uncanniness levels.KeywordsUncanny valleyUncanninessAvatarHuman computer interactionGender(sex)
In Germany, people with intellectual disabilities often live in total institutions. These are institutions where living places, employment, care, and pedagogical actions are combined and significantly impact residents’ quality of life and participation opportunities. This paper aims to analyze the influence of the residential living context on the digital participation opportunities of this group of people. Thus, two studies were conducted between 2018–2019. First is an interview study with 24 caregivers having management responsibility in their institution; second is a focus group study with 50 people with intellectual disabilities. Both studies contain essential findings about the current state of digital participation in the German welfare context. One crucial finding points out communication deficits in the institutions and existing knowledge gaps towards used devices and applications by people with intellectual disabilities. For example, the needs and wishes of people with intellectual disabilities were not recognized by caregivers, and the topic was not considered relevant to the institutions.Furthermore, people with intellectual disabilities complain about a lack of support from caregivers and the social environment. Caregivers, in turn, need more time and opportunities to address residents’ questions and problems. These tensions lead to different coping strategies described in more detail below. Furthermore, this paper presents strategies to combine the contrasting perspectives of involved people and makes suggestions for creating more digital participation opportunities in such institutions.KeywordsDigital InclusionIntellectual DisabilitiesTotal Institutions
What if “regular” CS faculty each taught elements of inclusive design in “regular” CS courses across an undergraduate curriculum? Would it affect the CS program's climate and inclusiveness to diverse students? Would it improve retention? Would students learn less CS? Would they actually learn any inclusive design? To answer these questions, we conducted a year-long Action Research investigation, in which 13 CS faculty integrated elements of inclusive design into 44 CS/IT offerings across a 4-year curriculum. The 613 affected students’ educational work products, grades, and/or climate questionnaire responses revealed significant improvements in students’ course outcomes (higher course grades and fewer course fails/incompletes/withdrawals), especially for marginalized groups; revealed that most students did learn and apply inclusive design concepts to their CS activities; and revealed that inclusion and teamwork in the courses significantly improved. These results suggest a new pathway for significantly improving students’ retention, their knowledge and usage of inclusive design, and their experiences across CS education—for marginalized groups and for all students.
Home energy technologies, such as smart home energy management systems (SHEMS), are important in reducing energy-related emissions and empowering energy users. However, there are concerns on gender inclusiveness of the adoption and use of SHEMS. So far, information systems research has failed to address this significant challenge. This study examines factors shaping gendered adoption and use of smart home technologies, particularly SHEMS, and the implications this has for sustainability and energy equality. Applying a critical lens, we examine findings from a sensory ethnographic study on the adoption of SHEMS in households. The findings underline the need for more inclusive energy technology design, more understanding of diversity of households and more variety in the approaches for increasing awareness on and facilitating the adoption of energy technologies. We contribute to research on gender and home energy technologies, and to the larger discussion of gender and energy.
Categorization via gender is omnipresent throughout society, and thus also computing; gender identity is often requested of users before they use software or web services. Despite this fact, no research has explored how software developers approach requesting gender disclosure from users. To understand how developers think about gender in software, we present an interview study with 15 software developers recruited from the freelancing platform Upwork as well as Twitter. We also collected and categorized 917 threads that contained keywords relevant to gender from programming-related sub-forums on the social media service Reddit. 16 posts that discussed approaches to gender disclosure were further analyzed. We found that while some developers have an understanding of inclusive gender options, programmers rarely consider when gender data is necessary or the way in which they request gender disclosure from users. Our findings have implications for programmers, software engineering educators, and the broader community concerned with inclusivity.
Este artigo traz uma análise das relações de gênero e de trabalho na área de Tecnologia da Informação (TI) na cidade de Santa Maria, no Rio Grande do Sul. A partir das questões analisadas, atenta-se para a importância de um recorte de gênero em um campo majoritariamente dominado por homens e caracterizado por exigências tidas como masculinas — liderança, determinação, autonomia —, apresentando-se, assim, um perfil de profissional que reforça a divisão sexual do trabalho, fato expresso pelo baixo número de mulheres no mundo do trabalho da TI. A pesquisa foi realizada ao longo dos anos de 2017 e de 2018, desenvolvida junto a estudantes, a trabalhadores e a empreendedores do setor, bem como entre representantes das principais instituições que fomentam o empreendedorismo na cidade de Santa Maria.
Community + Culture features practitioner perspectives on designing technologies for and with communities. We highlight compelling projects and provocative points of view that speak to both community technology practice and the interaction design field as a whole. --- Sheena Erete, Editor
Artificial intelligence is increasingly influencing the opinions and behavior of people in everyday life. However, the over-representation of men in the design of these technologies could quietly undo decades of advances in gender equality. Over centuries, humans developed critical theory to inform decisions and avoid basing them solely on personal experience. However, machine intelligence learns primarily from observing data that it is presented with. While a machine's ability to process large volumes of data may address this in part, if that data is laden with stereotypical concepts of gender, the resulting application of the technology will perpetuate this bias. While some recent studies sought to remove bias from learned algorithms they largely ignore decades of research on how gender ideology is embedded in language. Awareness of this research and incorporating it into approaches to machine learning from text would help prevent the generation of biased algorithms. Leading thinkers in the emerging field addressing bias in artificial intelligence are also primarily female, suggesting that those who are potentially affected by bias are more likely to see, understand and attempt to resolve it. Gender balance in machine learning is therefore crucial to prevent algorithms from perpetuating gender ideologies that disadvantage women.
The GenderMag cognitive walkthrough with gendered personas has been developed as an inspection method to improve the usability of software artefacts for diverse user groups. It can be used by design teams to evaluate their software and find usability issues. We studied the effectiveness of this method in 49 sessions with IT professionals and software engineering students. They used the method to find usability issues with a learning management system - some of them working with the persona displaying characteristics that are more commonly found in females ("Sarah"), the others with the persona that had attributes more typical for males ("Tim"). Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted and showed the effectiveness of the method when using the persona Sarah, with participants finding more usability issues and invoking the persona more often.
Gender stereotypes are strong influences on human behavior. Given our tendency to anthropomorphize, incorporating gender cues into a robot's design can influence acceptance by humans. However, little is known about the interaction between human and robot gender. We focus on the role of gender in eliciting negative, ``uncanny" reactions from observers. We create a corpus of YouTube videos featuring robots with female, male and no gender cues. Our experiment is grounded in Gray and Wegner's (2012) model, which holds that uncanny reactions are driven by the perception of robot agency (i.e., ability to plan and control) and experience (i.e., ability to feel), which in turn, is driven by robot appearance and behavior. Participants watched videos and completed questionnaires to gauge perceptions of robots as well as affective reactions. We used Structural Equation Modeling to test whether the model explains reactions of both men and women. For gender-neutral robots, it does. However, we find a salient human-robot gender interaction. Men's uncanny reactions to robots with female cues are best predicted by the perception of experience, while women's negativity toward masculine robots is driven by perceived agency. The result is interpreted in light of the ``Big Two" dimensions of person perception, which underlie expectations for women to be warm and men to be agentic. When a robot meets these expectations, it increases the chances of an uncanny reaction in the other-gender observer.
Recent research has reported numerous studies bringing into question the gender inclusiveness of many kinds of software. Inclusiveness of software (gender or otherwise) matters because supporting diversity matters — it is well-known that the more diverse a group of problem-solvers, the higher the quality of the solution. To help software creators identify features within their software that are not gender-inclusive, we recently created a method known as GenderMag. In this paper, we investigate the experience of teams of software professionals using GenderMag to find problems with software they are building. Our results show a high engagement with GenderMag personas — more than twice that of other personas research — and a very high degree of accuracy (93%) most of the time. Finally, our results pinpointed situations that we term “detours” that were especially prone to errors, with teams 6 times more likely to make errors in detours than they did otherwise.
Despite an explicit commitment to epistemic diversity, making and makerspaces have struggled to serve a diverse population of creators and have become heavily dominated by men. Drawing on the construct of "ways of knowing" from the feminist tradition the Bots for Tots project explores the affordances of activity framings and structures that tap into alternate mental dispositions to broaden participation and interest in maker activities. In this paper I present data from a workshop with 9-10 year olds explicitly framed to be about making toys for children in the community. I show that when making is framed as being a set of practices, skills, and technologies to give back to and support members of one's community, young girls were highly motivated to engage in the maker activity, persisted through construction challenges, and showed interest in further exploring making and technology to help others.
An ongoing stream of news reports heralds the dearth of women and minorities in technology; these stories are supported by numerous studies from industry and government sources. Now companies are investing resources to "fill the pipeline." While this is needed, it alone won't solve the diversity or gender challenge. Once they're in the workplace, research shows that women leave tech careers at a much higher rate than their male counterparts. While there are many reasons for this phenomenon, research indicates that daily workplace factors, along with the realities of what women want for their lives, contribute most significantly to women leaving tech careers. HCI is also affected by this phenomenon and the CHI community has been tackling the issue in several different ways. A panel of HCI professionals from different backgrounds will share personal insights, react to the research on challenges, suggest solutions, and solicit perspectives from the audience.
While extensive research has investigated the risks of children sharing their personal information online, little work has investigated the implications of parents sharing personal information about their children online. Drawing on 102 interviews with parents in the U.S., we investigate how parents decide what to disclose about their children on social network sites (SNSs). We find that mothers take on the responsibility of sharing content about their children more than fathers do. Fathers are more restrictive about sharing to broad and professional audiences and are concerned about sharing content that could be perceived as sexually suggestive. Both mothers and fathers work to leverage affordances of SNSs to limit oversharing. Building on prior work, we explore parental disclosure management, which describes how parents decide what to share about their children online. We also describe an emerging third shift of work that highlights the additional work parents take on to manage children's identities online. We conclude with theoretical and practical implications for designing SNSs to better support family life online.
Gender inclusiveness in computing settings is receiving a lot of attention, but one potentially critical factor has mostly been overlooked -- software itself. To help close this gap, we recently created GenderMag, a systematic inspection method to enable software practitioners to evaluate their software for issues of gender-inclusiveness. In this paper, we present the first real-world investigation of software practitioners' ability to identify gender-inclusiveness issues in software they create/maintain using this method. Our investigation was a multiple-case field study of software teams at three major U.S. technology organizations. The results were that, using GenderMag to evaluate software, these software practitioners identified a surprisingly high number of gender-inclusiveness issues: 25% of the software features they evaluated had gender-inclusiveness issues.
This article argues that because the home is so familiar, it is necessary to make it strange, or defamiliarize it, in order to open its design space. Critical approaches to technology design are of both practical and social importance in the home. Home appliances are loaded with cultural associations such as the gendered division of domestic labor that are easy to overlook. Further, homes are not the same everywhere---even within a country. Peoples' aspirations and desires differ greatly across and between cultures. The target of western domestic technology design is often not the user, but the consumer. Web refrigerators that create shopping lists, garbage cans that let advertisers know what is thrown away, cabinets that monitor their contents and order more when supplies are low are central to current images of the wireless, digital home of the future. Drawing from our research in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Asia, we provide three different narratives of defamiliarization. A historical reading of American kitchens provides a lens with which to scrutinize new technologies of domesticity, an ethnographic account of an extended social unit in England problematizes taken-for-granted domestic technologies, and a comparative ethnography of the role of information and communication technologies in the daily lives of urban Asia's middle classes reveals the ways in which new technologies can be captured and domesticated in unexpected ways. In the final section of the article, we build on these moments of defamiliarization to suggest a broad set of challenges and strategies for design in the home.
In training assembly workers in a factory, there are often barriers such as cost and lost productivity due to shutdown. The use of virtual reality (VR) training has the potential to reduce these costs. This research compares virtual bimanual haptic training versus traditional physical training and the effectiveness for learning transfer. In a mixed experimental design, participants were assigned to either virtual or physical training and trained by assembling a wooden burr puzzle as many times as possible during a twenty minute time period. After training, participants were tested using the physical puzzle and were retested again after two weeks. All participants were trained using brightly colored puzzle pieces. To examine the effect of color, testing involved the assembly of colored physical parts and natural wood colored physical pieces. Spatial ability as measured using a mental rotation test, was shown to correlate with the number of assemblies they were able to complete in the training. While physical training outperformed virtual training, after two weeks the virtually trained participants actually improved their test assembly times. The results suggest that the color of the puzzle pieces helped the virtually trained participants in remembering the assembly process.
As personal computers have become more available, there has been a great deal of optimism for educational reform through wide computer use, both at school and in the home. Beyond Technology's Promise, first published in 1994, takes a hard look at the home computer scene. The research reported in the book focuses on whether families are using computers to help children learn academic skills and, if so, how well they are doing it. The three year, qualitative investigation provides contextual information crucial to our understanding of how computers are really being used. The authors draw the not so surprising conclusion that most children use computers to play games. They therefore propose directions that must be taken in order to facilitate the educational use of home computers or any other promising educational technology. In so doing, they examine such topics as parental leadership, the home-school computer connection, and the role of gender in home computing use.
Non-binary people are rarely considered by technologies or technologists, and often subsumed under binary trans experiences on the rare occasions when we are discussed. In this paper we share our own experiences and explore potential alternatives - utopias, impossible places, as our lived experience of technologies' obsessive gender binarism seems near-insurmountable. Our suggestions on how to patch these gender bugs appear trivial while at the same time revealing seemingly insurmountable barriers. We illustrate the casual violence technologies present to non-binary people, as well as the on-going marginalisations we experience as HCI researchers. We write this paper primarily as an expression of self-empowerment that can function as a first step towards raising awareness towards the complexities at stake.
The increasing corpus on queer research within HCI, which started by focusing on sites such as location-based dating apps, has begun to expand to other topics such as identity formation, mental health and physical well-being. This Special Interest Group (SIG) aims to create a space for discussion, connection and camaraderie for researchers working with queer populations, queer people in research, and those using queer theory to inform their work. We aim to facilitate a broad-ranging, inclusive discussion of where queer HCI research goes next.
In recent years, research has revealed gender biases in numerous software products. But although some researchers have found ways to improve gender participation in specific software projects, general methods focus mainly on detecting gender biases -- not fixing them. To help fill this gap, we investigated whether the GenderMag bias detection method can lead directly to designs with fewer gender biases. In our 3-step investigation, two HCI researchers analyzed an industrial software product using GenderMag; we derived design changes to the product using the biases they found; and ran an empirical study of participants using the original product versus the new version. The results showed that using the method in this way did improve the software's inclusiveness: women succeeded more often in the new version than in the original; men's success rates improved too; and the gender gap entirely disappeared.
Automatic Gender Recognition (AGR) is a subfield of facial recognition that aims to algorithmically identify the gender of individuals from photographs or videos. In wider society the technology has proposed applications in physical access control, data analytics and advertising. Within academia, it is already used in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) to analyse social media usage. Given the long-running critiques of HCI for failing to consider and include transgender (trans) perspectives in research, and the potential implications of AGR for trans people if deployed, I sought to understand how AGR and HCI understand the term "gender", and how HCI describes and deploys gender recognition technology. Using a content analysis of papers from both fields, I show that AGR consistently operationalises gender in a trans-exclusive way, and consequently carries disproportionate risk for trans people subject to it. In addition, I use the dearth of discussion of this in HCI papers that apply AGR to discuss how HCI operationalises gender, and the implications that this has for the field's research. I conclude with recommendations for alternatives to AGR, and some ideas for how HCI can work towards a more effective and trans-inclusive treatment of gender.
Although there is a large number of studies in the literature designed to analyze the low representation of women in technology and, especially, in information technology, studies to analyze how these technologies have been designed and constructed are scarce. In the area of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) there is an emerging and promising field of research that focuses on the study of gender differences in the use of computers and the Internet, as well as providing recommendations for the design of technology with gender perspective. In this article, we will present different methodological approaches that allow for the inclusion of a gender perspective in technology design, and, recommendations for the design and development of software focused on gender.
Research has revealed that significant barriers exist when entering Open-Source Software (OSS) communities and that women disproportionately experience such barriers. However, this research has focused mainly on social/cultural factors, ignoring the environment itself --- the tools and infrastructure. To shed some light onto how tools and infrastructure might somehow factor into OSS barriers to entry, we conducted a field study with five teams of software professionals, who worked through five use-cases to analyze the tools and infrastructure used in their OSS projects. These software professionals found tool/infrastructure barriers in 7% to 71% of the use-case steps that they analyzed, most of which are tied to newcomer barriers that have been established in the literature. Further, over 80% of the barrier types they found include attributes that are biased against women.
This paper presents an analytical case study using the "Computational Making" framework to critique three LEGO sets. These sets were marketed towards girls and focus on making. Our contribution is showing computational making can be used to investigate domains outside e-textiles. Further, we show these LEGO sets have the potential to teach computational making skills despite their feminine gender identity construction.
Menstrual apps are digital versions of period calendars that support observation, analysis and interpretation of a variety of physical and mental states as well as behavioral patterns associated with menstrual cycles. The present paper discusses the preliminary results of a qualitative study addressing users' experiences of and responses to gendered design during app-supported menstrual tracking. The study demonstrates that some users are aware of and react to the gendered assumptions built into menstrual apps' graphic designs and technological features. Moreover, I show that users engage in alternative uses of menstrual apps thus broadening the forms of use intended by app designers and developers.
Prior work examining technology usage and maintenance practices in homes describes division of labor in terms of technical expertise. In this paper, we offer a counter-narrative to this explanation for engagement with Ubiquitous Computing. Using feminist theory as an analytic lens, we examine how gender identity work is a determining factor of whether and how people engage with digital technologies in their homes. We present a model of gender & technical identity co-construction.
To become effective in the field of computing, gender research must explain its concepts to non-gender studies scholars and to convince them of their relevance. Our title "Making IT Work" claims that both can be done: interlinking gender research and computing, and by that improving IT systems.
We present the "Gender-Extended Research and Development" (GERD) model, a process model which combines gender and diversity aspects with all phases of computing research and development. The model with seven phases is a generalization of common process models in computing. Gender/diversity expertise has been condensed into a number of aspects that characterize the social context of computing research. They can be related to and reflected during every phase. This reflection is somewhat operationalized by providing a list of questions for each combination of phase and aspect. Case studies as part of the model illustrate either in what way such reflections may help in research and development or what may happen if no such aspects have been included.
This panel aims to create a space for participants at CHI 2018 to see how far we have come as a community in raising and addressing issues of gender, and how far we have yet to go. Our intent is for open discussion to support the community's intentions to move towards greater equity, inclusivity, and diversity.
We present a case study of persona development, foregrounding gender as a primary axis of design. In a participatory design process, we developed personas to represent users of a learning and networking platform for female IT professionals. These personas are a means of ensuring that the female perspective is represented in the design process. We consider the phases of persona development in the light of existing concepts to confront the gendered status quo. We then show how these considerations regarding gender were implemented in our project IT&me.
Recent scholarship about technical communication on Instructables.com has focused on the genre features of the website, as well as how different groups use the space as a site for non-organizational technical communication. This paper takes a quantitative approach to analyzing narrative features on the website, and maps where women participate on the website across different categories of technology. This paper suggests that narrative elements are common features of technical communication on the website with the exception of several genres. Furthermore, this paper affirms prior research that situates Instructables.com as representative of larger DIY "maker" communities, in which technical experts from academia, industry, and hobbyists engage in technical communication. It provides additional evidence that women are being excluded from such communities, and are most represented by their use of traditionally feminine-gendered technologies and techniques such as sewing, jewelry, and fashion.
This paper defines software fairness and discrimination and develops a testing-based method for measuring if and how much software discriminates, focusing on causality in discriminatory behavior. Evidence of software discrimination has been found in modern software systems that recommend criminal sentences, grant access to financial products, and determine who is allowed to participate in promotions. Our approach, Themis, generates efficient test suites to measure discrimination. Given a schema describing valid system inputs, Themis generates discrimination tests automatically and does not require an oracle. We evaluate Themis on 20 software systems, 12 of which come from prior work with explicit focus on avoiding discrimination. We find that (1) Themis is effective at discovering software discrimination, (2) state-of-the-art techniques for removing discrimination from algorithms fail in many situations, at times discriminating against as much as 98% of an input subdomain, (3) Themis optimizations are effective at producing efficient test suites for measuring discrimination, and (4) Themis is more efficient on systems that exhibit more discrimination. We thus demonstrate that fairness testing is a critical aspect of the software development cycle in domains with possible discrimination and provide initial tools for measuring software discrimination.
Understanding users becomes increasingly complicated when we grapple with various overlapping attributes of an individual's identity. In this paper we introduce intersectionality as a framework for engaging with the complexity of users' "and authors" "identities", and situating these identities in relation to their contextual surroundings. We conducted a meta-review of identity representation in the CHI proceedings, collecting a corpus of 140 manuscripts on gender, ethnicity, race, class, and sexuality published between 1982-2016. Drawing on this corpus, we analyze how identity is constructed and represented in CHI research to examine intersectionality in a human-computer interaction (HCI) context. We find that previous identity-focused research tends to analyze one facet of identity at a time. Further, research on ethnicity and race lags behind research on gender and socio-economic class. We conclude this paper with recommendations for incorporating intersectionality in HCI research broadly, encouraging clear reporting of context and demographic information, inclusion of author disclosures, and deeper engagement with identity complexities.
Education research has documented a trend that reflects gender based differences in the choice of fields of study. This, in turn, contributes to an imbalance in the representation of men and women in particular professions: In educational contexts, female teachers predominantly teach stereotypically female areas of study like social sciences and humanities, whereas male teachers are mainly represented in stereotypically male domains like . Research further provides evidence for the fact that this gender-stereotyped division of labor in education significantly impacts students’ learning and motivation. Would gender-related stereotypes also bias learning processes with robots? This is plausible in light of the fact that social robots become more and more popular in learning settings. Thus, should the next generation of educational robots be ‘gendered’ and what impact would robot gender have on task performance, particularly in the context of a gender-stereotypical human-robot interaction (HRI) task?
To investigate these issues, we examined the influence of robot gender on learning when completing either stereotypically female or stereotypically male learning tasks. 120 university students (60 females and 60 males) completed either stereotypically female or stereotypically male tasks with the support of a male vs. female instructor robot. The manipulation check indicated that participants recognized the robot’s alleged gender correctly. Importantly, our results suggest that prevailing gender stereotypes associated with learning do not apply to robots that perform gender-stereotypical tasks. Interestingly, our findings indicated that a mismatch of robot gender and gender typicality of the respective task led to increased willingness to engage in prospective learning processes with the robot. We discuss these results with respect to future research on HRI and learning, and with regard to practical implications associated with the introduction of robots into higher education.
The absence of women in IT has been a vexing issue for over two decades. Most attempts to broaden participation in computing have focused on " unlocking the clubhouse " to a more diverse group of participants. One popular approach has been to ask girls to program games, which developed into the Game Design Movement, a series of studies and tools to help develop and empower females as designers of interactive digital media. This paper examines the rationales and successes behind the Game Design Movement in order to outline new strategies for broadening participation in computing. Rather than simply " unlocking the clubhouses " through expanded game-making activities, we argue here that educators and researchers should devote themselves to " building new clubhouses " altogether by focusing on using new programmable materials, interactive activities, and both in-person and online communities that leverage the traditions of girls' play worlds and the cultural practices of women's crafting communities.
This is the second title examining the benefits to be derived from organisational diversity, with the first one, Profiting from Diversity, having been published in 2010. The first book focused on the advantages diversity can offer organisations as well as the considerable obstacles to progress, while this volume continues the discussion, focusing on how organisations can best capture these benefits. The latter continues with a discussion of the advantages that diversity can provide organisations. Understanding difference is very much at the heart of this.
A lack of diversity in the computing field has existed for several decades, and although female participation in computing remains low, outreach programs attempting to address the situation are now quite numerous. To begin to understand whether or not these past activities have had long-term impact, we conducted a systematic literature review. Upon discovering that longitudinal studies were lacking, we investigated whether undergraduate students believed that their participation in computing activities prior to college contributed to their decision to major in a computing field. From the 770 participants in the study, we discovered that approximately 20% of males and 24% of females who were required to participate in computing activities chose a computing or related major, but that males perceived that the activity had a greater affect on their decision (20%) than females (6.9%). Females who participated in an outreach activity were more likely to major in computing. Compared with females who chose to major in computing, females who did not were less likely to indicate that the majority of students participating in activities were boys and that they were a welcome part of the groups. Results also showed that female participants who do not ultimately major in computing have a much stronger negative perception of the outreach activities than male participants who also chose a non-computing major. Although many computing outreach activities are designed to diversify computing, it may be the case that, overall, boys receive these activities more favorably than girls, although requiring participation yields approximately the same net positive impact.
With the increasing spread and pervasiveness of technologies, the role of gender in the design of these technologies is a topic of growing importance. Several conference panels and journal issues have focused on the contributions feminism, gender theory, and queer theory can make to HCI. This paper discusses the key developments in the sub-field of Gender HCI over the past five years. We discuss, in particular, how recent approaches to gender in HCI move past questions of how men and women interact differently with technologies. Scholars are focusing on activist, intersectional, and reflexive approaches to gender and identity in design that focus on inclusion and accountability in terms of who technologies are designed for and in what ways. This scholarship draws on a wide variety of theoretical approaches to gender not integrated or well-known in the general literature or education in HCI or computing. We recommend the implementation of a Gender 101 general education module for all computing students to provide fluency in gender theory as a way to promote discussion, inclusivity, and accountability in interaction design and computing practices and organizations.
Pinterest is a popular social networking site that lets people discover, collect, and share pictures of items from the Web. Among popular social media sites, Pinterest has by far the most skewed gender distribution: women are four times more likely than men to use it. To better understand this, we examined two factors that generally affect whether people try a social site and whether they continue using it: the external perception of a site (e.g., as conveyed in popular media) and the site's initial user experience. For the latter, we focused on the role of social bootstrapping, importing contacts from one social site to another. We conducted a survey study, finding that: perceptions of Pinterest among users and non-users of the site differed significantly; trying Pinterest led to substantial changes in user perceptions of the site; social bootstrapping affected users' initial impression of Pinterest, generally improving it for women and harming it for men. We present implications of our findings for design and research.
An encouraging aspect of the results from this study is that they are actionable. Ideally, more schools will work to reduce class sizes, particularly in large introductory computer science and STEM courses. If that's not an option, labs and discussion sections should be small to create an environment where students feel comfortable engaging. Harvey Mudd, which measured little gender-based confidence gap in our initial study, offers different introductory computer sciences classes based on experience. Students new to computer science do not take the same introductory classes as (mostly male) students with years of coding experience. Technology can also help by enabling anonymity. Research by Jong et al. found that anonymity increased classroom participation rates and improved learning performance. They wrote that “by using a system that helps group members conceal their identities, students are less affected by interpersonal relationships and peer pressure and are therefore more willing to participate fully in discussions, learning more from the process as a result”. There are numerous issues contributing to the gender gap in technology fields: women graduate in fewer numbers with computer science and engineering degrees, are hired in fewer numbers into technical roles by leading technology firms, and are less likely to stay in their fields. Research like this lends a window into specific actions school instructors and administrators can take to begin minimizing that gap. Reducing class sizes is a start, but should not be the end.
In recent years, research into gender differences has established that individual differences in how people problem-solve
often cluster by gender. Research also shows that these differences have direct implications for software that aims to support
users' problem-solving activities, and that much of this software is more supportive of problem-solving processes favored
(statistically) more by males than by females. However, there is almost no work considering how software practitioners—such
as User Experience (UX) professionals or software developers—can find gender-inclusiveness issues like these in their software. To address this gap, we devised the GenderMag method for evaluating
problem-solving software from a gender-inclusiveness perspective. The method includes a set of faceted personas that bring
five facets of gender difference research to life, and embeds use of the personas into a concrete process through a gender-specialized
Cognitive Walkthrough. Our empirical results show that a variety of practitioners who design software—without needing any
background in gender research—were able to use the GenderMag method to find gender-inclusiveness issues in problem-solving
software. Our results also show that the issues the practitioners found were real and fixable. This work is the first systematic
method to find gender-inclusiveness issues in software, so that practitioners can design and produce problem-solving software
that is more usable by everyone.
