Crowdsourcing has become a popular method for collecting information from a large group of people at a low cost. This thesis looks at whether crowdsourcing is viable to collect data for Human Computer Interaction research and comparing collaborative crowdsourcing with individual crowdsourcing. It was hypothesized that collaborative crowdsourcing would provide higher quality results than individual crowdsourcing due to intrinsic motivation. The research draws upon the use of three things: top 10 usability problems, heuristic evaluation and WAMMI survey to measure the two groups. The two groups used these tools to analyze the website: Phoenix.Craigslist.com. The results were compared against each other and against a heuristic evaluation score given by an HCI researcher to determine their accuracy. The results of the experiment failed to confirm this hypothesis. In the end, both groups provided accurate results and were only marginally different from each other.

Technical interviews have become the standard for assessing candidates for software development roles. The purpose of this study is to determine whether time constraints impact the performance of individuals on HackerRank coding assessments. During the surveys and HackerRank assessment, subjects wore two physiological sensors: a galvanic skin response bracelet, Shimmer3+GSR that measures emotional intensity and an EEG headset, B-Alert X24 that measures cognitive workload, engagement, and distraction. Subjects were also monitored by external sensors, such as an eye tracker to measure visual attention and by a facial-based emotion recognition system through a webcam to measure their visual attention and emotions. Through these metrics, as well as a Big Five personality demographic survey and mental demand survey, the study examines the difference in performance between strictly timed assessments and timed assessments with time to revise.

Guitar Hero III and similar games potentially offer a vehicle for improvement of musical rhythmic accuracy with training delivered in both visual and auditory formats and by use of its novel guitar-shaped interface; however, some theories regarding multimedia learning suggest sound is a possible source of extraneous cognitive load while playing so players may score higher with sound turned off. Also, existing studies have shown that differences in the physical format of interfaces affect learning outcomes. This study sought to determine whether (a) the game’s audio content affects rhythmic accuracy, and (b) the type of game controller used affects learning of rhythmic accuracy. One hundred participants were randomly assigned in approximately equal numbers (ns = 25) to the four cells of a 2x2 between-subjects design. The first variable was the audio content of the game with two levels: on or off. The second variable was the type of game controller: the standard guitar-style controller or tablet interface. Participants across all conditions completed a pre- and post-test with a system that required them to tap along with repeated rhythmic patterns on an electronic drum pad. Statistical evidence showed better outcomes with a tablet controller with respect to input time error, reduction of extra notes played, and reduction of missed notes; however, the guitar-style controller produced superior outcomes in terms of avoiding missed notes and was associated with higher satisfaction by participants. When audio was present better outcomes were achieved at multiple factor-levels of reduction of missed responses, but superior outcomes in input time error were seen without audio. There was no evidence to suggest an interaction between controller type and the presence or absence of audio.

Hackathons are 24-36 hour events where participants are encouraged to learn, collaborate, and build technological inventions with leaders, companies, and peers in the tech community. Hackathons have been sweeping the nation in the recent years especially at the collegiate level; however, there is no substantial research or documentation of the actual effects of hackathons especially at the collegiate level. This makes justifying the usage of valuable time and resources to host hackathons difficult for tech companies and academic institutions. This thesis specifically examines the effects of collegiate hackathons through running a collegiate hackathon known as Desert Hacks at Arizona State University (ASU). The participants of Desert Hacks were surveyed at the start and at the end of the event to analyze the effects. The results of the survey implicate that participants have grown in base computer programming skills, inclusion in the tech community, overall confidence, and motivation for the technological field. Through these results, this study can be used to help justify the necessity of collegiate hackathons and events similar.

In today's world, technology plays a large role in everyone's life. However, there is a short supply of professionals to fill the roles in the computing field. When examining closer, it is clear that one group has a smaller representation: women. This can be contributed to many factors early in the women's lives and academic careers. In hopes of increasing the number of women computing professionals, this thesis aimed to understand the problem of a lack of women in technology and studied how hackathons could be a possible solution. The research followed Desert Hacks as it examines the typical participants as well as the hackathons effects on women's morale in technology. Two important questions during the investigation were what kind of women are attending hackathons and how do women feel about the technology industry after a hackathon? The results suggested that hackathon had an overall positive effect on women's motivation in the computing field. Additionally, most research participants believed that everyone has the potential to do well in the field and that gender inclusion is important for the industry. This ideology can foster a healthy environment for women to become more motivated in computing. Through these results, hackathons can be seen as another mean to help motivate women in the field and open up the possibility of future studies of women and hackathons.

Situations present themselves in which someone needs to navigate inside of a building, for example, to the exit or to retrieve and object. Sometimes, vision is not a reliable sense of spatial awareness, maybe because of a smoky environment, a dark environment, distractions, etc. I propose a wearable haptic device, a belt or vest, that provides haptic feedback to help people navigate inside of a building that does not rely on the user's vision. The first proposed device has an obstacle avoidance component and a navigation component. This paper discussed the challenges of designing and implementing this kind of technology in the context of indoor navigation, where GPS signal is poor. Analyzing accelerometer data for the purpose of indoor navigation and then using haptic cues from a wearable haptic device for the navigation were explored in this project, and the device is promising.

Smartphone privacy is a growing concern around the world; smartphone applications routinely take personal information from our phones and monetize it for their own profit. Worse, they're doing it legally. The Terms of Service allow companies to use this information to market, promote, and sell personal data. Most users seem to be either unaware of it, or unconcerned by it. This has negative implications for the future of privacy, particularly as the idea of smart home technology becomes a reality. If this is what privacy looks like now, with only one major type of smart device on the market, what will the future hold, when the smart home systems come into play. In order to examine this question, I investigated how much awareness/knowledge smartphone users of a specific demographic (millennials aged 18-25) knew about their smartphone's data and where it goes. I wanted three questions answered: - For what purposes do millennials use their smartphones? - What do they know about smartphone privacy and security? - How will this affect the future of privacy? To accomplish this, I gathered information using a distributed survey to millennials attending Arizona State University. Using statistical analysis, I exposed trends for this demographic, discovering that there isn't a lack of knowledge among millennials; most are aware that smartphone apps can collect and share data and many of the participants are not comfortable with the current state of smartphone privacy. However, more than half of the study participants indicated that they never read an app's Terms of Service. Due to the nature of the privacy vs. convenience argument, users will willingly agree to let apps take their personal in- formation, since they don't want to give up the convenience.

In this study, the implementation of educational technology and its effect on learning and user experience is measured. A demographic survey, pretest/posttest, and educational experience survey was used to collect data on the control and experimental groups. The experimental group was subjected to different learning material than the control group with the use of the Elements 4D mobile application by Daqri to learn basic chemical elements and compounds. The control group learning material provided all the exact information as the application, but in the 2D form of a printed packet. It was expected the experimental group would outperform the control group and have a more enjoyable experience and higher performance. After data analysis, it was concluded that the control group outperformed the experimental group on performance and both groups has similar experiences in contradiction to the hypothesis. Once the factors that contribute to the limitations of different study duration, learning the application beforehand, and only-memorization questions are addressed, the study can be conducted again. Application improvements may also alter the future results of the study and hopefully lead to full implementation into a curriculum.

As one of the first attempts to research multimedia platforms for older adults when learning an online photo-editing software, this study examined whether an audio only, a text only, or a combination of an audio and text tutorial would be the most effective teaching method. Elderly adults aged 65 and older (N-45) were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions. They first went through a training phase that utilized their assigned condition to teach five tasks within the photo-editing program, and they were then tested on how well they learned these tasks as well as a transfer task. It was predicted that the multimedia condition would increase learning efficiency, produce more successes in the transfer task, and decrease cognitive load compared to the two unimodal conditions. The multimedia condition (text and audio) had no significant effect on transfer task successes or decreases in cognitive load compared to the unimodal conditions (text only and audio only). The multimedia condition, however, did produce significantly less errors on Tasks 2, 4, and 5 than the unimodal conditions. This suggests that redundancy principles may play an important role when designing learning platforms for elderly users, and that age needs to be considered as an additional factor during the technological design process.

Cravingz is a web-based application that allows users to learn the maximum number of food items that they can purchase at a restaurant within a defined personal budget. We created two versions of this web-based application and asked 40 users to perform an A/B test to determine which version provides the best user experience in terms of efficiency and performance. Users who participated in this study completed a set of tasks to test these applications. Our findings demonstrate that users prefer a web application that does not require them to input data repeatedly to view combinations for multiple restaurants. Although the version which required reentry of data was more visually-pleasing, users preferred the version in which inputting data was a one-time task.