Dirk Wenig

Daniel J. Liebling, Michal Lahav, Abigail Evans et al.

Translation apps and devices are often presented in the context of providing assistance while traveling abroad. However, the spectrum of needs for cross-language communication is much wider. To investigate these needs, we conducted three studies with populations spanning socioeconomic status and geographic regions: (1) United States-based travelers, (2) migrant workers in India, and (3) immigrant populations in the United States. We compare frequent travelers' perception and actual translation needs with those of the two migrant communities. The latter two, with low language proficiency, have the greatest translation needs to navigate their daily lives. However, current mobile translation apps do not meet these needs. Our findings provide new insights on the usage practices and limitations of mobile translation tools. Finally, we propose design implications to help apps better serve these unmet needs.

Ashley Colley, Jacob Thebault-Spieker, Allen Yilun Lin et al.

The widespread popularity of Pokémon GO presents the first opportunity to observe the geographic effects of location-based gaming at scale. This paper reports the results of a mixed methods study of the geography of Pokémon GO that includes a five-country field survey of 375 Pokémon GO players and a large scale geostatistical analysis of game elements. Focusing on the key geographic themes of places and movement, we find that the design of Pokémon GO reinforces existing geographically-linked biases (e.g. the game advantages urban areas and neighborhoods with smaller minority populations), that Pokémon GO may have instigated a relatively rare large-scale shift in global human mobility patterns, and that Pokémon GO has geographically-linked safety risks, but not those typically emphasized by the media. Our results point to geographic design implications for future systems in this space such as a means through which the geographic biases present in Pokémon GO may be counteracted.