Susan P. Wyche
Susan Wyche is a researcher in the fields of Human-Centered Computing (HCC) and Industrial Design with interests in: how technology supports religious practices, domestic technology, speculative design, and a variety of other things. Currently, she is a fourth year doctoral student in the GVU Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her adviser is Rebecca E. Grinter. In the past she worked as a professional glassware designer at Libbey Inc. in Toledo, Ohio. Prior to coming to GaTech, Susan received a self-defined MS from Cornell University. During my time there she worked with Phoebe Sengers and the Culturally Embedded Computing Group. Her undergraduate degree is in Industrial Design and History from Carnegie-Mellon University.
Publications by Susan P. Wyche (bibliography)
» 2009 «
Wyche, Susan P., Caine, Kelly E., Davison, Benjamin K., Patel, Shwetak N., Arteaga, Michael and Grinter, Rebecca E. (2009): Sacred imagery in techno-spiritual design. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2009 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2009. pp. 55-58. Available online
“Despite increased knowledge about how Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are used to support religious and spiritual practices, designers know little about how to design technologies for faith-related purposes. Our research suggests incorporating sacred imagery into techno-spiritual applications can be useful in guiding development. We illustrate this through the design and evaluation of a mobile phone application developed to support Islamic prayer practices. Our contribution is to show how religious imagery can be used in the design of applications that go beyond the provision of functionality to connect people to the experience of religion.”
Copyrights may apply
Wyche, Susan P. and Griner, Rebecca E. (2009): Extraordinary computing: religion as a lens for reconsidering the home. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2009 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2009. pp. 749-758. Available online
“We present results from a study examining how American Protestant Christians' faith affects their domestic life. There are two contributions of this work for the HCI community. First, we provide empirical evidence demonstrating how topics of interest to HCI researchers (e.g., material artifacts, routines, and ICT use) are used for religious purposes. Our findings show how Christians distinguish these aspects of domestic life from their secular counterparts. Second, we use our findings to reflect on current directions of future domestic ICT applications. Specifically, we critically evaluate the "problem solving approaches dominating the design of future technologies, and present extraordinary computing or systems that promote and honor the special value accorded to some aspects of domestic life.”
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Dantec, Christopher A. Le, Poole, Erika Shehan and Wyche, Susan P. (2009): Values as lived experience: evolving value sensitive design in support of value discovery. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2009 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2009. pp. 1141-1150. Available online
“The Value Sensitive Design (VSD) methodology provides a comprehensive framework for advancing a value-centered research and design agenda. Although VSD provides helpful ways of thinking about and designing value-centered computational systems, we argue that the specific mechanics of VSD create thorny tensions with respect to value sensitivity. In particular, we examine limitations due to value classifications, inadequate guidance on empirical tools for design, and the ways in which the design process is ordered. In this paper, we propose ways of maturing the VSD methodology to overcome these limitations and present three empirical case studies that illustrate a family of methods to effectively engage local expressions of values. The findings from our case studies provide evidence of how we can mature the VSD methodology to mitigate the pitfalls of classification and engender a commitment to reflect on and respond to local contexts of design.”
Copyrights may apply
» 2008 «
Wyche, Susan P., Aoki, Paul M. and Grinter, Rebecca E. (2008): Re-placing faith: reconsidering the secular-religious use divide in the United States and Kenya. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2008 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems April 5-10, 2008. pp. 11-20. Available online
“In this paper, we report on design-oriented fieldwork and design research conducted over a six-month period in urban centers in the United States and Kenya. The contributions of this work for the CHI/CSCW community are empirical and methodological. First, we describe how recent design discourse around "designing technology for religion" creates an artificial distinction between instrumental and religious ICT use, particularly in developing regions. As illustrative examples, we relate three themes developed in the course of our fieldwork, which we term mindfulness, watchfulness, and embeddedness, to both "secular" and "religious" aspects of life in the communities studied. Second, we make a methodological contribution by describing how we used design sketches of speculative design concepts to extend and complement our fieldwork. By producing these sketches and soliciting feedback, we elicited additional data about how participants viewed the relationship between religion and ICT and prompted self-reflection on our own ideas.”
Copyrights may apply
Wyche, Susan P., Caine, Kelly E., Davison, Benjamin, Arteaga, Micheal and Grinter, Rebecca E. (2008): Sun dial: exploring techno-spiritual design through a mobile Islamic call to prayer application. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2008 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems April 5-10, 2008. pp. 3411-3416. Available online
“We present the design and formative evaluation of Sun Dial, an application that supports Muslims' prayer practices. We report on a study that involved identifying prayer as an activity that can be supported with technology; the development of a prototype; and a short-term evaluation of Sun Dial conducted with our local Muslim community. In addition to presenting a novel design idea, our case study contributes to the growing corpus of research examining technology and religion.”
Copyrights may apply
Taylor, Alex S., Wyche, Susan P. and Kaye, Joseph 'Jofish' (2008): Pottering by design. In: Proceedings of the Fifth Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 2008. pp. 363-372. Available online
“The last decade of work in HCI has seen an increasing emphasis on the role of technology in the home, and a corresponding need for novel approaches for studying the needs, activities and relationships that constitute home life, so as to inform technology design. In this vein, we report on a particular aspect of home life in Britain: pottering. We investigate the ways in which pottering -- unplanned and serendipitous tidying, cleaning, gardening and minor home improvement -- can be used as a lens to understand the non-task-focused roles that technology may play in the home. We also describe the strategies we used to study this curious class of activities and hopefully illustrate how open, and sometimes opportunistic, approaches to research can have value.”
Copyrights may apply
» 2006 «
Wyche, Susan P., Hayes, Gillian R., Harvel, Lonnie D. and Grinter, Rebecca E. (2006): Technology in spiritual formation: an exploratory study of computer mediated religious communications. In: Proceedings of ACM CSCW06 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work 2006. pp. 199-208. Available online
“In this paper, we report findings from a study of American Christian ministers' uses of technologies in religious practices. We focus on the use of technologies for spiritual purposes as opposed to pragmatic and logistical, but report on all. We present results about the uses of technologies in three aspects of religious work: religious study and reflection, church services, and pastoral care. We end by examining how the collaborative religious uses of technologies cross and blend work and personal life.”
Copyrights may apply
» 2005 «
Wyche, Susan P. (2005): Designing speculative household cleaning products for older adults. In: Proceedings of the Conference on Designing for User Experiences DUX05 2005. p. 49. Available online
“Aging in place is a high priority for today's elderly population, but little is known about how age affects mundane domestic activities. To make older adult's desire a reality, design researchers must continue to understand elders' needs and design products that respond to them. Presented is a human-centered approach to designing cleaning products. The project resulted in: 1) an initial understanding how aging changes older adults' ability to clean their homes and 2) a collection of speculative cleaning products that demonstrate how greater empathy for elderly users can motivate innovative design.”
Copyrights may apply
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Mar 21st, 2010
Changes to this page (author)
22 Feb 2010: Enabled abstracts to be shown on Susan P. Wyche's author page.02 Jun 2009: Author was edited 09 May 2009: Author was edited
09 May 2009: Author was edited
09 May 2009: Author was edited
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22 Jun 2007: Author was added to the bibliography
