Ashley Boone

Gennie Mansi, Ashley Boone, Sue Reon Kim et al.

Art education plays a significant role in K-2 learners' physical and cognitive development. However, teachers struggle to translate in-person activities to remote settings and to give necessary feedback to help learners develop fine motor skills. Previous research shows the benefits of tangible technology and real-time system feedback for supporting teachers and students in digital environments, but little research explores their affordances for remote art education. We developed Chameleon Clippers: interactive scissors that give real-time feedback to learners as they cut along a line. In preliminary tests, learners felt engaged and responded to feedback, enjoying their experience. Our low-cost design augments existing classroom artifacts and practices, supporting classroom integration. Testing also revealed directions for future study, including the frequency of feedback and assimilation into a broader, art education platform. Through our study, we demonstrate the potential for tangible technology to create more interactive, engaging, and supportive remote K-2 learning experiences.

Mingrui Ray Zhang, Ashley Boone, Sara M Behbakht et al.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people sought information through digital news platforms. To investigate how to design these platforms to support users' needs in a crisis, we conducted a two-week diary study with 22 participants across the United States. Participants' news-consumption experience followed two stages: in the \textbf{seeking} stage, participants increased their general consumption, motivated by three common informational needs -- specifically, to find, understand and verify relevant news pieces. Participants then moved to the \textbf{sustaining} stage, and coping with the news emotionally became as important as their informational needs. We elicited design ideas from participants and used these to distill six themes for creating digital news platforms that provide better informational and emotional support during a crisis. Thus, we contribute, first, a model of users' needs over time with respect to engaging with crisis news, and second, example design concepts for supporting users' needs in each of these stages.