‘I Know I Can Do the Job, It’s Just Putting It Down’: Using Personas as a Mirror to Identify Strengths

2026-04-13 · 1 citations

Work is increasingly shifting away from traditional full-time jobs toward more fragmented ways of working, like gig work and part-time jobs. Yet, employment platforms like LinkedIn often privilege those with traditional credentials and work histories, presenting barriers to those who possess little experience translating informal experiences into a format that such tools expect. To address this gap, we propose a narrative-based approach that enables individuals to recognize transferable skills and practice articulating them verbally and in writing via a group discussion setting. Through a participatory design workshop held in a public housing community, we demonstrate how a cultural-probe and persona-inspired activity can elicit self-reflection, enabling individuals to communicate their strengths. While prior HCI research has highlighted the critical need for reflection in the job search process, little work has been done to facilitate this reflection and translation into employment profiles. Our work addresses this call and informs new design directions for employment technologies.

Replication package for "The spread of (mis)information: A social media experiment in Pakistan"

Mendeley Data · 2026-05-08

Replication package for "The spread of (mis)information: A social media experiment in Pakistan," Forthcoming, Journal of Development Economics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103784

Replication package for "The spread of (mis)information: A social media experiment in Pakistan"

Mendeley Data · 2026-05-08

Replication package for "The spread of (mis)information: A social media experiment in Pakistan," Forthcoming, Journal of Development Economics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103784

Algorithmic and Gender-Specific Challenges of Gig Work in the Indonesian Ride-Hailing Industry: Preliminary Findings

2026-04-13

Rethinking Productivity with GenAI: A Neurodivergent Students' Perspective

2025-10-22 · 2 citations

Designing for Meaningful Engagement with Accurate Health Information on Voice-Based Information Services

Open MIND · 2025-01-01

Voice-based Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems offer potential for delivering health information to low-literate populations without smartphone or Internet access. However, systematic evidence remains limited regarding which specific design features effectively promote engagement with health content versus general platform activity. This dissertation investigates this gap through three field studies that examine voice-based health communication systems in Pakistan. The research employed a design science approach with mixed methods across three studies conducted between 2020 and 2024. Study 1 deployed engagement interventions on Baang, an entertainment-focused voice platform, during COVID-19 (N = 12,000 users, 6-month deployment). Study 2 implemented a randomized controlled trial that tested content moderation strategies on the same platform (N = 3,698 users). Study 3 conducted a randomized trial that compared forced exposure versus curiosity-driven approaches for the delivery of maternal and child health information via Khpal Tabeeb, a dedicated health IVR service (N = 267 recruited, 45 completed endline assessments). This work introduces two measurement frameworks. The Health Information Engagement Stack distinguishes between platform access features and specific health engagement tactics, enabling feature-level rather than platform-level evaluation. Net Exposure to Accurate Health Content quantifies the balance between accurate and inaccurate consumption of health information. Study 1 found that users who engaged with official COVID-19 posts were 13 times more likely to create health content themselves compared to those who did not (2.23% vs 0.17%, $p < 0.00001), however, such users may be predisposed to engaging with health information. Tiered incentives tripled sharing rates and added 1,300 new users. However, these improvements occurred during a health crisis, when motivation was likely elevated. Study 2 revealed an unexpected finding: comprehensive ex-ante moderation, while reducing misinformation exposure by 97%, decreased net exposure to beneficial health information by 21-29% compared to control conditions. This occurred because reduced engagement on the platform outweighed the removal of misinformation. Qualitative analysis of 42 distinct types of COVID-19 misinformation suggested that most represented well-intentioned community care attempts rather than malicious deception, although this interpretation requires validation beyond our specific context. Study 3 demonstrated that curiosity-driven prompts produced a 9.1 percentage point improvement in immediate knowledge acquisition compared to the control (p = 0.039), while forced exposure showed nonsignificant effects (7.0 percentage points, p = 0.160). However, these findings must be interpreted with caution: The study suffered from 85.6% attrition, and all groups, including the control, showed unexpected knowledge improvements at endline that we could not explain despite extensive mechanism analysis. These puzzling results highlight the methodological challenges in measuring knowledge retention through brief IVR interventions and suggest unknown confounding factors in real world settings. The empirical findings reveal fundamental tensions between engagement and accuracy in health communication design. Although our studies provide initial evidence for layered engagement architectures and facilitative moderation approaches, several limitations constrain generalizability: pandemic-specific context for two studies, predominantly male users in Pakistan, short-term outcome measurement, and unexplained endline patterns in the knowledge retention study. This dissertation contributes theoretical frameworks for analyzing voice-based health systems and empirical evidence about specific design characteristics, although the effectiveness likely depends on the implementation context. The unexpected and sometimes contradictory findings, particularly in terms of content moderation trade-offs and knowledge retention patterns, underscore the complexity of health communication in low-resource settings and the need for continued systematic evaluation of design assumptions.

The Development of a New Measure of Collective Digital Literacy

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2025-05-02 · 2 citations

This article theorizes and proposes a novel construct, community digital capacity , to measure collective digital capacity at a community level. Community digital capacity is the extent to which the culture, infrastructure, and digital competence of family and community enable and support digital practices. We address a critical gap in individual digital literacy assessments and address limitations with existing theories that do not show digital inequities in the context of underlying systemic and structural challenges posed by one's social position. Building on insights from Computer Supportive Cooperative Work and Social Computing and Human-Computer Interaction for Development communities, we recognize that digital training initiatives must shift toward critical cultural and social practices that encourage full participation in community affairs. Accordingly, we created 28 items covering three domains---individual, social, and infrastructure. We conducted cognitive interviews with a public housing community to refine the items and capture the construct fully. We assessed their factor structure in two Southeastern Michigan cohorts. After dropping eight items based on contribution to Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR), the public housing residents exhibit a two-factor structure (SRMR=0.09) consisting of nearly independent factors for the individual and social domains, with all items loading positively on their respective domain. We contribute an initial measure for researchers and practitioners to assess community members' access to shared digital resources and support, offering a tool to assess broader social and structural factors contributing to the digital divide.

The Spread of (Mis)Information: A Social Media Experiment in Pakistan

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

Gendered, Collectivist Journeys: Exploring Sociotechnical Adaptation Among Afghan Refugees in the USA

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2024-11-07 · 5 citations

This paper presents findings from an empirical study that uncovers the economic, psychological, and socio-cultural adaptation strategies used by recent Afghan refugees in a midwestern U.S. state. Through 14 semi-structured interviews conducted between February and April 2023, this study investigates how Afghan refugees utilize technology, tools, and skills in their resettlement process, and builds upon Hsiao et al.'s conceptualization of sociotechnical adaptation. The findings reveal (i) gender and collectivist cultural values play a big role in determining the types of adaptation strategies used by men versus women, (ii) strategic choices in terms of the type of support sought depending on shared versus non-shared identity of host community members, (iii) a notable tension between economic adaptation and preserving socio-cultural values is observed, and (iv) creative, collective solutions by women participants to address economic challenges, contributing to the discourse on solidarity economies in HCI. Key contributions include (a) design implications for technological products that can aid in psychological adaptation, fostering solidarity economies, and creating digital safe spaces for refugees to connect with shared-identity host populations, and (b) policy and program recommendations for refugee resettlement agencies to enhance digital literacy among refugees.

Trends in childhood vaccination in Pakistan and associated factors; 2006–2018

Vaccine · 2024-01-11 · 4 citations

INTRODUCTION: Pakistan still has ongoing transmission of wild type polio virus. This study aims to determine changes in full vaccination with recommended Expanded Program on Immunization vaccines, including polio, by several socio-economic and demographic factors. METHODS: We used three waves of Pakistan's Demographic and Health Survey, a population-based cross-sectional study from 2006-07 (N = 1471), 2012-13 (N = 1706), and 2017-18 (N = 1549), analyzed by residence, wealth, and sociodemographic factors. Analysis was limited to children aged 12-23 months in Punjab, Sindh, Northwest Frontier Province/Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Full vaccination was measured as receipt of one Bacillus Calmette-Guérin dose, one measles dose, 3 polio doses, and 3 Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis doses. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) from logistic regression were used to determine associations between undervaccination and demographic variables. RESULTS: Full vaccination coverage was 50.6 % in 2006-07, 54.7 % in 2012-13, and 68.3 % in 2017-18. In 2006-07, the odds of undervaccination were significantly higher in Sindh (OR: 1.74, 95 % CI: 1.30, 2.31) than Punjab, and disparities across province changed over time (P < 0.0001); notably, undervaccination was significantly higher in Sindh, KPK, and Balochistan than Punjab in 2017. Compared to the middle wealth quintile, the poorest had significantly higher odds of undervaccination in 2006-07 (OR: 2.58, 95 % CI: 1.76, 3.78), and this did not significantly change over time (P = 0.2168). The proportion of those with a polio birth dose increased across waves from 56.3 % in 2006-07 to 83.7 % in 2017-18; receiving three or more polio vaccine doses remained unchanged. CONCLUSION: This study showed that the proportion of fully vaccinated children in Pakistan increased across three waves. Full vaccination and administration of polio vaccine birth doses have increased recently in Pakistan. The association between undervaccination with province differed significantly across the waves, with vaccination disparities between provinces increasing. Those in the poorest wealth quintile had the greatest odds of undervaccination.