CM Seminar: Dr. Elena Agapie – “Centering Users in Health Technologies: Balancing People’s Practices with Health Interventions in Design”
CMPM 26-27 Seminar
Welcome to the fourth Computational Media seminar of the fall quarter. Open to all, class enrollment is not required. Food will be provided.
Please join us in-person at E2-280 or via Zoom to learn more about the works of Dr. Elena Agapie:
Title: Centering Users in Health Technologies: Balancing People’s Practices with Health Interventions in Design
Presenter: Dr. Elena Agapie, Assistant Professor of Informatics, University of California, Irvine
Description: Over a third of American adults suffer from conditions that are preventable with healthy lifestyle behaviors like exercise, diet, and mental well-being behaviors. Although health apps promise to support sustaining these behaviors, they fall short: most people abandon mental health and lifestyle change apps within the first three weeks or months. In this talk, I argue that this failure stems from tensions that emerge between technology design, user practices, and clinical requirements. I will share insights from interview-based projects with end users, clinicians and researchers designing health technology. First, I will show how mental health app interactions conflict with people’s practices of managing mental health in daily life. Second, I will describe how technology needs to support adaptation to the evolving and disrupted nature of people’s lives. Third, I will highlight how interdisciplinary teams that innovate health technology interventions prioritize health outcomes over user experiences due to methodological and infrastructural misalignments. I will close with recommendations for centering user practices in the interactions, features, and design process itself.
Bio: Elena Agapie is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She studies, designs, and builds technology to support people in pursuing positive health behaviors by drawing on people’s everyday experiences and evidence-based interventions. Agapie’s work has been published and received awards in top HCI venues, including CHI, CSCW, and HCOMP. She received her Ph.D. in Human Centered Design and Engineering from the University of Washington, and Master degree in Computer Science from Harvard University. Agapie worked on research projects in industry research labs including Microsoft Research, Fuji Xerox Palo Alto Research Lab, Intel, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. Her work is supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
Hosted by: Associate Professor of Computational Media, Christina Chung
Zoom Link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/94103955103?pwd=od4ueavRt06ECpwAwqvgofwn5Suyal.1
Meeting ID: 941 0395 5103
Passcode: 124806