Human-Human-Computer Interaction: An Approach for Designing Hybrid Work Technologies for Organizing Collective Actions
Gustavo Umbelino, Morgan Wu, Kristine Lu, Matthew Easterday
TOCHI: in preparation
I help local communities design and use collaboration technologies to organize around issues that are meaningful to us, like climate change and democracy.
Academic explanation
Digital technologies like crowdsourcing and peer production tools have increased our potential to address social issues like climate change and inequality, but realizing this potential depends on our ability to organize around issues that are meaningful to us. While some of this organizing work might happen online (e.g., coordinating events, managing participant lists), most of it must happen face-to-face (e.g., deliberation, outreach).
I research and design equitable hybrid work collaboration technologies for organizing civic collective actions through deliberation, group formation, coaching, and outreach. To do so, I draw on my academic training in computer science, psychology, and design as well as theories from learning, political, and management sciences. I use both qualitative and quantitative research methods to understand the social processes I study to inform the design of and to evaluate the technologies I build.
Background
As a PhD student in the departments of Computer Science and Communication at Northwestern University, member of the interdisciplinary Delta Lab, Human-Computer Interaction + Design and Cognitive Science Fellow, I studied how to design, build, and evaluate technologies to increase participation and representation in open democracy initiatives, like participatory budgeting. I worked with the City of Evanston (population 78K) to implement their first participatory budgeting process, a year-long process where the community generated ideas, developed proposals, and voted on how to spend $3M. With the help of 100+ trained and committed volunteers, we achieved 8.4% participation (a lot more than the 1-2% national average) and overrepresented underrepresented communities in this historic civic engagement process. As part of this process, I studied how organized groups formed and grew, how effective outreach was conducted, and how collaboration technologies were used and how new technologies might be designed.
Publications
Check out my Google Scholars page for a full list.
Towards Designing Relation Work Technologies for Organizing Collective Actions
Gustavo Umbelino, Morgan Wu, Matthew Easterday
TOCHI: in preparation
Gustavo Umbelino, Morgan Wu, Matthew Easterday
TOCHI: in preparation
E-Scribing: Towards Supporting Hybrid Work in Collocated Deliberations
Gustavo Umbelino, Kristine Lu, Matthew Easterday
DGOV: in preparation
Gustavo Umbelino, Kristine Lu, Matthew Easterday
DGOV: in preparation
For Want of a Nail: The Importance of Efficacy in Motivating Participation in Deliberation
Gustavo Umbelino, Kristine Lu, Morgan Wu, Daniel Rees Lewis, Matthew Easterday
Journal of Deliberative Democracy: in preparation
Gustavo Umbelino, Kristine Lu, Morgan Wu, Daniel Rees Lewis, Matthew Easterday
Journal of Deliberative Democracy: in preparation
Increasing Inclusion and Time-Efficiency in Participatory Policy-Making Deliberations with E-Scribing Technology
Gustavo Umbelino, Kristine Lu, Matthew Easterday
ICEGOV 2023: International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance
Gustavo Umbelino, Kristine Lu, Matthew Easterday
ICEGOV 2023: International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance
An Emergent Understanding of Mentor Strategies for Career Development in Emerging Fields
Gustavo Umbelino, Daniel Rees Lewis, Elizabeth Gerber, Matthew Easterday
CHI EA 2021: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Gustavo Umbelino, Daniel Rees Lewis, Elizabeth Gerber, Matthew Easterday
CHI EA 2021: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
ProtoTeams: Supporting Team Dating in Co-Located Settings
Gustavo Umbelino, Matin Yarmand, Samuel Blake, Vivian Ta, Amy Luo, Steven Dow
CSCW 2020: Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
Gustavo Umbelino, Matin Yarmand, Samuel Blake, Vivian Ta, Amy Luo, Steven Dow
CSCW 2020: Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
The Persistent Effect of Pre-College Computing Experience on College CS Course Grades
Christine Alvarado, Gustavo Umbelino, and Mia Minnes
SIGCSE 2018: Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, ACM Inroads
Christine Alvarado, Gustavo Umbelino, and Mia Minnes
SIGCSE 2018: Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, ACM Inroads