Sohyeon Park

Autistic people often have an interest in and spend a substantial amount of time engaged with video games. Games can be supportive of their mental health and social needs and have been widely used for behavioral interventions among autistic people. However, the gaming experiences and preferences of autistic people themselves have not been thoroughly studied. To explore these experiences, we used a multi-method approach, analyzing game-related posts from a large autism-related subreddit and conducting a survey with 145 autistic people. The survey allowed us to further understand preferences around accessibility and sensory experiences, representation, and social experiences in communities that emerged in the Reddit posts. We found that games offering a sense of freedom, control, and creativity might be particularly appealing to autistic gamers. Discussions also emerged around what types of audio and visual sensory input were considered soothing and appropriate. Moreover, both the Reddit posts and survey responses highlighted the importance of accommodating diverse social preferences and providing accurate autistic representation. Overall, our findings offer insights into the gaming experiences and preferences of autistic gamers, emphasizing the need for greater inclusion, accessibility, and supportive gaming communities.

Schoolchildren in the United States are increasingly exposed to Educational Technologies (EdTech) , many of which are or will be infused with AI. Despite this growing integration, there is limited understanding of the current perceptions and attitudes toward EdTech with AI among parents, teachers, and teens. To address this gap, we conducted a mixed-method study involving an A/B experiment through an online survey with 3,051 participants and complemented by focus group discussions with 80 participants. Providing a comprehensive snapshot of AI perception in education in 2024, our findings indicate that participants, particularly teachers, may hold more negative perceptions of our AI-powered EdTech mock-up compared to the one powered by human tutors. Based on these insights, we discuss the future of EdTech regarding the current perceptions. This research contributes to an empirical understanding of the perceptions and attitudes toward AI in K-12 education, providing valuable insights through a comprehensive national survey and in-depth focus group sessions.

Research on understanding and supporting the experiences of people with noise sensitivity (PWNS) and their challenges is limited within HCI. Therefore, we build on prior work to understand the challenges they consider and what technological solutions they create to support them. Through eight participatory design workshops involving PWNS and their carers, we considered their needs and challenges and how technology can be designed to support their well-being. Results indicate that wearable and mobile technology can facilitate awareness of sensory triggers and impacts on their well-being. Further, enabling both self and collaborative regulation is also necessary, especially as end users seek independence or interdependence with those around them to manage their experiences. We identified three tensions for designing technology to support PWNS and their sensory experiences.

Like many parents, visually impaired parents (VIPs) read books with their children. However, research on accessible reading technologies predominantly focuses on blind adults reading alone or sighted adults reading with blind children, such that the motivations, strategies, and needs of blind parents reading with their sighted children are still largely undocumented. To address this gap, we interviewed 13 VIPs with young children. We found that VIPs (1) sought familial intimacy through reading with their child, often prioritizing intimacy over their own access needs, (2) took on many types of access labor to read with their children, and (3) desired novel assistive technologies (ATs) for reading that prioritize intimacy while reducing access labor. We contribute the notion of Intimate AT, along with a demonstrative design space, which together constitute a new design paradigm that draws attention to intimacy as a facet of both independently and collaboratively accessible ATs.