Katie A. Siek Research

Paper: CHI 2006: Pride and Prejudice: Learning How Chronically Ill People Think about Food

2006-04-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

Pride and Prejudice: Learning How Chronically Ill People Think about Food. Katie A. Siek, Kay H. Connelly, and Yvonne Rogers. In Proceedings of CHI 2006 (To Appear).(Request Paper)

In this paper, we describe a formative study to learn how one chronically ill population thinks about food, mentally organizes food, and interprets consumption-level icons. We found that many participants let their pride influence their choices, resulting in preferred interfaces that they could not accurately interpret. The results indicate that participants organized food in similar ways, had difficulty reading from their preferred consumption-level icons, and wanted to combine multiple interface designs when searching for food.

Paper: CHI 2006 Workshop: Lessons Learned Conducting User Studies in a Dialysis Ward

2006-04-22T17:52:00.000-07:00

Lessons Learned Conducting User Studies in a Dialysis Ward. Katie A. Siek and Kay H. Connelly. In Extended Abstracts of CHI 2005: Workshops - Reality Testing (To Appear). (pdf)

In this paper, we describe lessons learned while conducting user studies in a dialysis ward. We learned that we must be more aware of environmental factors, participants’ abilities, and time management. We will continue conducting studies in a dialysis ward to help us develop an assistive system for dialysis patients to monitor their nutritional intake.

Workshop Proposal: CHI 2006: Reality Testing: HCI Challenges in Non-Traditional Environments

2006-04-22T17:10:00.000-07:00

Reality Testing: HCI Challenges in Non-Traditional Environments. Gisele Bennett (Georgia Tech), Kay H. Connelly, Gitte Lindgaard (Carleton University), Katie A. Siek, Bruce Tsuji (Carleton University). In the Adjunct Proceedings of CHI 2006. To Appear. (pdf)(Workshop Web Site)

Non-traditional environments often change rapidly without forewarning, are difficult or impossible to control, and have other environmental and operational constraints that cannot easily be modeled in a laboratory, partly because the necessary level of ecological validity is almost impossible to achieve in the artificial lab environment. Current in situ field study evaluation techniques are insufficient in these environments. Furthermore, it is often difficult or impossible to ascertain which behavioral data are needed to answer questions about user requirements, UI design, and user acceptance. In this workshop, we will use case studies to create and explore frameworks for future non-traditional field study evaluations.

Journal: e&i: Mobile Applications that Empower People to Monitor their Personal Health

2006-04-01T17:54:00.000-08:00

Mobile Applications that Empower People to Monitor their Personal Health. Kay H. Connelly, Anne M. Faber, Yvonne Rogers, Katie A. Siek, and Tammy Toscos. In Springer E&I (To Appear). (Request Pre-Print)

Researchers have an opportunity to develop assistive applications that empower people to change unhealthy habits through monitoring their behavior. Mobile applications can enhance self-monitoring by providing real-time feedback and employing persuasive technology. The projects presented demonstrate the potential of persuasive, assistive applications for both chronically ill and healthy individuals.

Paper: Leading and Learning: Just Be: Bridging the Gender Divide in CS

2006-04-01T17:45:00.000-08:00

Just Be: Bridging the Gender Divide in CS. Katie A. Siek, Kay H. Connelly, Amanada Stephano, Suzanne Menzel, Jacki Bauer, and Beth Plale. In Learning and Leading with Technology (To Appear - April Issue).

Request Pre-Print

Snippet

When the Women in Computing Group at Indiana University (WIC@IU) was looking for ideas on how to increase the number of women in computing majors at IU, we realized that women were turning away from technology careers before they arrived at college. How, then, could we convince women to join us when many had already decided against technology in high school? What could we do to address what we saw as a common misperception among young women that technology fields were asocial, uninteresting, and solitary?

Our solution is to reach out to regional middle and high school students, who are likely to attend IU, and persuade them to consider a career in technology. The goal is to dispel common stereotypes about people who work with technology, in essence, to break “The Geek Myth.” In this article, we describe our interactive presentation called Just Be and discuss our experiences in delivering it. While our primary goal is to increase the number of women, and as such we focus on issues that more often affect women, we believe that Just Be will help attract boys, as well as girls, to technology.

Invited Talk: ICE 2006: Fabulous and Functional Technology Finds for Teachers

2006-01-27T18:05:00.000-08:00

Fabulous and Functional Technology Finds for Teachers. Indiana Computer Educators,
January 27, 2006. Indianapolis, Indiana. Presentation

Invited to present with Mindy Hart from Purdue University at her session.

Paper: FIE 2005: Just Be: An Interactive Experience for K-12 Students

2005-10-21T17:42:00.000-07:00

Just Be: An Interactive Experience for K-12 Students. Diane Cessna, Kay Connelly, Beth Plale, Katie Siek, and Amanda Stephano.In the Proceedings of ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education (FIE'05), 2005. F3H-15-F3H-16. (pdf)

This work in progress describes Just Be, an outreach presentation created by the Women in Computing group at Indiana University - Bloomington. The aim of Just Be is to expose students to interesting fields in computing and challenge their stereotypes about people in computing.

Ph.D. Forum: Tapia 2005: DIMA: Designing Assistive Technologies for Dialysis Patients.

2005-10-19T17:06:00.000-07:00

DIMA: Designing Assistive Technologies for Dialysis Patients. Katie A. Siek. Proceedings of Richard Tapia: Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference, 2005. Doctoral Consortium. (pdf)(ppt)

DIMA (Dietary Intake Monitoring Application) is a proof of-concept personal digital assistant application for dialysis
patients to monitor their fluid and sodium intake. Dialysis patients can only consume 1 liter of fluid and two grams of sodium each day. Patients who do not comply with their dietary restrictions run the risk of hypertension, pulmonary edema, and death. Currently, patients try to remember or write down in a food diary their fluid and sodium consumption. However, these
techniques are insufficient because 80% of patients are unable to restrict their fluid intake. My dissertation focuses on designing a framework for usability studies in non-traditional environments, integrating technology into chronically ill populations who do not ordinarily use technology, and designing an interface for people with low literacy skills.

Paper: Interact 2005: Fat Finger Worries: How Older and Younger Users Physically Interact with PDAs

2005-09-14T17:38:00.000-07:00

Fat Finger Worries: How Older and Younger Users Physically Interact with PDAs. Katie A. Siek, Yvonne Rogers, and Kay H. Connelly. In the Proceedings of Interact 2005, LNCS 3585, p.267-280. (Request Paper)(ppt)

There has been a steady growth in the global population of elderly people, challenging researchers in the HCI community to design technologies to help them remain independent and preserve their quality of life. One approach has been to create assistive technology solutions using Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). However, some have questioned whether older people can use PDAs because of age related problems with dexterity, coordination, and vision. This paper presents an initial usability study that shows there are no major differences in performance between older and younger users when physically interacting with PDAs and completing conventional (e.g. pressing buttons, viewing icons, recording messages) and non-conventional tasks (e.g. scanning bar codes).

SIG: Interact 2005: Planes, Pains, and Phosphorane: Usability Studies in Non-Traditional Environments

2005-09-13T16:57:00.000-07:00

Planes, Pains, and Phosphorane: Usability Studies in Non-Traditional Environments. Kay H. Connelly, Katie A. Siek (Indiana University), Valerie Lafond-Favieres, and Gisele Bennett (Georgia Institute of Technology). In the Adjunct Proceedings of Interact 2005. (pdf)

We present case studies and methodology for designing usability studies for non-traditional environments. Conducting classical usability studies in non-traditional environments is both impractical and insufficient. We present cases and approaches to the non-traditional usability environment, e.g. medical, aircraft maintenance, and emergency response.

Paper: HCII 2005: Designing a PDA Interface for Dialysis Patients to Monitor Diet in their Everyday Life

2005-07-31T17:36:00.000-07:00

Designing a PDA Interface for Dialysis Patients to Monitor Diet in their Everyday Life. Kay H. Connelly, Katie A. Siek, Yvonne Rogers, Josette Jones, Michael A. Kraus, Susan Perkins, Laurie L. Trevino, and Janet L. Welch. In the Proceedings of HCI International 2005. Paper. (pdf)

Dialysis patients can only consume one liter of fluid and two grams of sodium each day. If they go over these limits, they can have serious health complications. Since up to 80% of patients do not adhere to their fluid and sodium intake, we are developing a PDA application to assist dialysis patients in monitoring their nutritional allowances. In this paper, we give an overview of the interactive PDA application and describe our user-centered design process to create an interface for dialysis patients with varying visual acuity, literacy skills, and computer experience. Our preliminary studies suggest that dialysis patients can use PDAs, but the interface must not rely on stylus input, writing, or small icons for usability. We will use our results in designing low fidelity paper interface prototypes before implementing the interface on the PDA.

Poster: I.U. WISP Research Day: Fat Finger Worries: How Older and Younger Users Physically Interact with PDAs

2005-05-01T17:22:00.000-07:00

Fat Finger Worries: How Older and Younger Users Physically Interact with PDAs. Katie A. Siek, Kay Connelly, and Yvonne Rogers. Women in Science Program Research Day, 2005. Poster.

Extended Abstract (pdf)

Small Version of the Poster (pdf)

2nd Place Outstanding Research Award in Technology Category

The poster presents our initial work investigating whether elderly people (75-85 years old) can use PDAs without difficulty. Younger people (25-30 years old) were the control group. The control group consisted of ten participants 25-30 years old (two female, eight male). The older group had ten participants 75-85 years old (five female, five male). Participants were paired based on computer and PDA experience.

Invited Talk: ISTE Computer Science and Information Technology Symposium: Just Be

2005-02-26T16:44:00.000-08:00

Just Be is an interactive experience created by the Women in Computing group at Indiana University-Bloomington. The goal of the interactive experience is to help break common stereotypes about people in computing. The presentation begins with an introduction of the presenters to give audience members an idea of what the presenters did while they were in school. During the interactive component, audience members will use eInstruction voting modules to participate in fun polls challenging personal stereotypes. Just Be concludes by describing interesting fields of computing to spark people's interests in computing. Just Be is a free outreach program, there is no cost of presenting.

Just Be is presented at local area K-12 schools.

Presentation (ppt)(pdf)

Panel: JETT 2004: The Gender Divide and Minority Abyss

2004-11-06T16:53:00.000-08:00

In this session, we will have a panel discussion about the decreased enrollment of women and minorities in computer classes and discuss what we can do to recruit, retain, and make underrepresented groups feel more comfortable in computing. The following are some interesting articles about underrepresented groups in computing and resources.

Website
Presentation (ppt)(pdf)

Paper: WWW@10: A Comparative Study of Web Language Support for Mobile Web Browers

2004-10-31T17:34:00.000-08:00

A Comparative Study of Web Language Support for Mobile Web Browsers. Katie A. Siek, Ashraf Khalil, Yong Liu, Nick Edmonds, and Kay H. Connelly. In the Proceedings of www@10. Paper. (pdf).

The surg of ubiquitous devices and WiFi in the last few years have given the general public access to information via the world wide web from anywhere at anytime. Mobile web access challenges developers to create web pages that are usable and familiar to the user without unduly burdening the information appliance’s limited system resources. The best way to achieve these goals is to follow the readily available standards geared towards effective presentation of information in a wide variety of information appliances. This paper reports on a comprehensive comparison of six popular mobile web browsers and the language functionality they support.

Paper: WWW@10: The Internet Hunt Revisited: Personal Information Accessible via the Web

2004-10-31T17:32:00.000-08:00

The Internet Hunt Revisited: Personal Information Accessible via the Web. Kay H. Connelly, Tom Jagatic, Ashraf Khalil, Yong Liu, Katie A. Siek, and Sid Stamm. Proceedings of www@10. Paper. (pdf)

In June 1993, Rick Gates posted an unusual Internet Hunt[4] to his monthly contest in usenet (alt.internet.services): he presented a simple email address and asked his contest participants to find out what they could about the owner of the email address. We investigate the Internet in 2004 to see how readily available information is on the web, classify the types of information we find and the sources we use and discuss the implications

Ph.D. Forum: GHC 2004: Assistive Technologies for Dialysis Patients.

2004-10-07T17:03:00.000-07:00

Assistive Technologies for Dialysis Patients. Katie A. Siek and Kay H. Connelly. Proceedings of Grace Hopper 2004 (GHC '04), 2004. PhD Forum. (pdf)

Dialysis patients can only consume 1 liter of fluid and two grams of sodium each day. Currently, patients try to remember
or write down in a food diary their fluid and sodium consumption. However, these techniques are insufficient because 80% of patients are unable to restrict their fluid intake. If patients miscalculate their fluid intake they run the risk of hypertension, pulmonary edema, and death. Our research focuses on creating a personal digital assistant application to assist dialysis patients accurately monitor their fluid and sodium intake. Our application will allow patients with reduced cognitive skills to easily record dietary information, allow all patients to get immediate feedback on their fluid and sodium intake, and assist researchers gain information about patient fluid and sodium compliance for future studies. We will present what steps we are taking to create a personal digital assistant application for dialysis patients.

Poster: GHC 2004: Assistive Technologies for Dialysis Patients

2004-10-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

Assistive Technologies for Dialysis Patients. Katie A. Siek and Kay H. Connelly. Proceedings of Grace Hopper 2004 (GHC '04), 2004. Poster.

Extended Abstract (pdf)

Small Version of the Poster (pdf)

New Investigator for Best Technical Poster Award

Dialysis patients can only consume 1 liter of fluid and a few milligrams of sodium each day. Currently, patients try to remember or write down in a food diary their fluid and sodium consumption. However, these techniques are insufficient because 80% of patients are unable to restrict their fluid intake. If patients miscalculate their fluid intake they run the risk of
hypertension, pulmonary edema, and death. Our research focuses on creating a personal digital assistant application to assist dialysis patients accurately monitor their fluid and sodium intake. Our application will allow patients with reduced
cognitive skills to easily record dietary information, allow all patients to get immediate feedback on their fluid and sodium intake, reduce the stigma of disease as a medium for recording dietary information, and assist researchers gain information about patient fluid and sodium compliance for future studies. We will present what steps we are taking to create a personal digital assistant application for dialysis patients.

Technical Report: A Comparative Study of Elderly, Younger, and Chronically Ill Novice PDA Users

2004-06-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

A Comparative Study of Elderly, Younger, and Chronically Ill Novice PDA Users. Katie A. Moor [Siek], Kay H. Connelly, and Yvonne Rogers. Technical Report 595, Computer Science Department, Indiana University, June 2004. (pdf)

Abstract The baby-boomers are creating a sudden growth in the global population of elderly people, challenging researchers in the UbiComp community to investigate new ways of helping older people remain independent and preserve their quality of life. Some of these assistive solutions require elderly people to use Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). Critics question whether elderly can use PDAs given their difficulties with computers. This paper presents a usability study showing there are no major differences in performance between elderly and younger people performing traditional (pressing buttons, viewing icons, recording messages) and non-traditional (scanning barcodes) PDA tasks.

Paper: FIE 2004: Java Engagement for Teacher Training: An Experience Report

2004-03-31T17:28:00.000-08:00

Java Engagement for Teacher Training: An Experience Report. Raja Sooriamurtthi, Arijit Sengupta, Suzanne Menzel, Katie Moor, Sid Stamm, and Katy Boerner. Proceedings of Frontiers in Education(FIE'04), 2004. (pdf)

Starting with the 2003 academic year, the advanced placement (AP) exams in computer science conducted by the college board moved from a C++ to a Java based curriculum. In order to assist high school computer science teachers with the transition from C++ to Java, the ACM together with the college board conceived of Java Engagement for Teacher Training (JETT) workshops. In the Fall of 2003, Indiana University organized such a workshop. The outreach workshop was held over two days and was attended by 35 high school computer science teachers from Indiana and several nearby states. The workshop was conducted as an inter-disciplinary effort with faculty and support from Computer Science, Information Systems, Informatics, and the School of Library and Information Science. Sessions spanned the gamut of foundational concepts of object-oriented programming in Java to network games. A theme of the workshop was to address the problem of the evershrinking pipeline of women in the IT field. With this in mind, we also conducted a separate session titled “Where have all the women gone?” Judging by participant feedback, the workshop was a resounding success. This paper describes our experience in organizing the JETT workshop, the lessons learned, and outlines our plans for the future to build upon this K-16 relationship building exercise.

Invited Talk: JETT 2003: Where have all the women gone?

2003-11-01T16:40:00.000-08:00

In this session, we will examine the decreased enrollment of women in computer classes and discuss what we can do to recruit, retain, and make women feel more comfortable in computing. The following are some interesting articles about women in computing and resources.

Website

Presentation (pdf)

Poster: SC 2001: A General Framework for Wireless Smart Distributed Sensors

2001-12-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

A General Framework for Wireless Smart Distributed Sensors. Rob Armstrong, Nina Berry, Ron Kyker, Carmen Pancerella, Christine Yang, Katie Moor [Siek], Alicia (Pippin) Wolfe, Eric Burns, Brian Lambert, Stephen Elliott, Tony Fan, Chris Kershhaw, and Hillary Davis. Super Computing 2001, November 2001.

Extended Abstract (pdf)

Small Version of the Poster (pdf)

When tragedy strikes an environment, group of people, or even an individual, many will stand around saying, "If we only knew earlier." What if one could be alerted of a chemical spill in an environment before it was too large to contain? What if one could identify in real time if a person's health was in distress? These are just some situations that could bene t from sensors monitoring physiological and environmental data, intelligent agents analyzing the data, and a distributed wireless network to communicate this information to others.

The Embedded Reasoning Institute (ERI) at Sandia National Laboratories/CA is designing and developing a hardware/software framework for deploying sensors in a distributed wireless environment. Designing a useful sensor-based distributed wireless environment comes along with a myriad of challenges. One such issue is where the sensor data should be processed - either on a processor near the sensor or on a centralized processor. In order to avoid bottlenecks and to a ect local decisions, the ERI processes data on a personal processor, near the sensors. This information is then forwarded to a centralized processor for more complex reasoning. One of the most important considerations when creating the sensor environment was to develop a reusable platform that would be generic enough to support a variety of applications and allow for new software and/or hardware components to be incorporated easily.

Poster: ACM International Student Research Competition: Evaluation of Gigabit Ethernet for Cluster Computing

2001-02-22T17:13:00.000-08:00

Evaluation of Gigabit Ethernet for Cluster Computing.Katie Moor [Siek]. SIGCSE 2001/ACM International Graduate Student Research Contest, February 2001.

Extended Abstract (pdf)

Placed in top 5

Some may intuitively think the more compute nodes interconnected on a high-speed network, the quicker a problem could be solved. However, this is not true because at some point calculation completion times get worse due to communication overhead. My research aims to de ne the optimal amount of nodes for Gigabit Ethernet clusters given today's technology. Knowing the optimal sizes of compute clusters for Gigabit Ethernet will assist researchers when creating their own cost efficient, computational networks and programmers when they have to determine what size of network will be needed for a new parallel application.

Paper: OPNETWORK 2000: Evaluation of Gigabit Ethernet and Myrinet as Cluster Interconnect

2000-10-01T17:26:00.000-07:00

Evaluation of Gigabit Ethernet and Myrinet as Cluster Interconnect.OPNETWORK 2000, September 2000. Distinguished Paper Award: Cost/Performance (pdf)

The idea of cluster computing is to aggregate machine room full of relatively cheap hardware, connected with some sort of network, and apply the combined power of the individual machines on a single calculation. Because this architecture consists of distributed memory, parallel processes communicate using a message-passing paradigm. High-end cluster users typically rely on special purpose hardware such as Myrinet [1], HiPPI [2], or ServerNet [3] for their message passing infrastructures, thereby losing the cost benefit offered by the commodity market. Riding on the wave of Ethernet popularity, Gigabit Ethernet [4] is fast becoming a commodity item. We evaluated its performance by simulating core algorithms from real parallel applications. We compared raw performance figures such as bandwidth and latency, as well as more complex parameters such as jitter, routing, and points of congestion in the fabric against similar studies conducted on Avici and Myrinet technology.