Ellen Do - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Ellen Do

Designing Interactive Systems Conference

Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference: Extended Abstracts, 2020

Breadboards are a common tool for designing, prototyping, and testing electronics; however, their... more Breadboards are a common tool for designing, prototyping, and testing electronics; however, their black-box design and fine-motor-skill requirements make them difficult for children to use. While there are a variety of breadboard alternatives, we see the need for a platform that prepares children to use a traditional breadboard. In this paper, we discuss the design of EdBoard, a platform with a transparent design and magnetic connections that not only teaches circuitry principles but also works as glass-box scaffolding to prepare children to create circuitry with traditional breadboards. We then discuss our comparative study, which evaluates EdBoards and breadboards as learning tools for children. This is assessed through activity-completion time, the fine-motor-skill difficulties, and the confusion about the tools' functionalities.

Proceedings of the ASEAN CHI Symposium'15, 2015

We discuss the ideas of creating experience media and interactive computing projects towards smar... more We discuss the ideas of creating experience media and interactive computing projects towards smart living environments. Specifically, we explore the idea of "Creating Unique Technology for Everyone" through the use of connective, ubiquitous technology for embodiments, in three key areas of (1) tangible interaction, (2) augmented learning, and (3) embodied experience.

Advances in neonatal care : official journal of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses, 2014

To best answer the clinical question, “Which tool is superior to guide identification, assessment... more To best answer the clinical question, “Which tool is superior to guide identification, assessment, and treatment of NAS,” a search of the literature was completed. Research articles were searched using databases, including CINAHL, Cochrane, Google Scholar, and PubMed. Specific search terms included Neonatal Abstinence Scoring, NAS, the Finnegan tool, neonatal drug withdrawal, and narcotic withdrawal in infants. To ensure inclusion of seminal works completed by Lipsitz 4 in New York City and Finnegan 5 in Philadelphia, which were individually published in 1975, the search criteria included the last 38 years. The search was restricted to full-text works translated into English. On the basis of this described search criteria, more than 100 research articles were reviewed for relevance with 14 primary works considered imperative to respond to the clinical question. The selected research articles focused on the definition of NAS, the pathophysiology of withdrawal secondary to preor postnatal drug exposure, tool development for identification and assessment of NAS, rationale for use, and validity/reliability testing in the neonatal and pediatric settings.

Artificial Intelligence in Design ’02, 2002

Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Creativity and Cognition

This demonstration presents ``Tainted', a first-person 3D adventure game that enables players... more This demonstration presents ``Tainted', a first-person 3D adventure game that enables players to experience a traditional horror folklore using visual-auditory-olfactory interactions. The system consists of a computer to play the game and a smell-emitting module that contains jasmine, pineapple, mango, and banana scents. The information provided by the additional smell stimuli delivers an immersive gaming experience by providing game narrative and signaling predefined game conditions (e.g. imminent threat). Smell stimuli may also help to enhance player's cognition and memory, as well as to invoke emotional responses such as fear and curiosity.

Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2017

Cadaveric dissection has been the gold standard in the teaching of anatomy in medical schools aro... more Cadaveric dissection has been the gold standard in the teaching of anatomy in medical schools around the world. Cadaveric dissection allows a medical student to understand the spatial relationships of different parts in the body in ways that a typical 2D representation cannot, due to its ability to provide an authentic learning experience which engages all the senses. However, in the modern times that we live in, the availability of suitable cadavers for medical education is low, and there is an urgent need to supplement the practice of cadaveric dissection with more sustainable and economical methods of teaching. Virtual Reality (VR) may serve as a suitable supplement owing to its ability to simulate an immersive 3D environment. However, the authentic learning experience is difficult to recreate in VR, due to the lack of design guidelines. This project is an early exploration into designing active learning interactions for learning anatomy.

Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018

This demonstration presents Season Traveller, a multisensory virtual reality (VR) narration of a ... more This demonstration presents Season Traveller, a multisensory virtual reality (VR) narration of a journey through four seasons within a mystical realm. By adding olfactory and haptic (thermal and wind) stimuli, we extend traditional audio-visual VR technologies to achieve enhanced sensory engagement within interactive experiences. Using subjective measures of presence, we evaluated the impact of different modalities on the virtual experience. Our results indicate that 1) the addition of any singular modality improves sense of presence with respect to traditional audio-visual experiences and 2) providing a combination of these modalities produces a further significant enhancement over the aforementioned improvements.

Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, 2017

This paper presents a novel methodology to digitally share the flavor experience of a glass of le... more This paper presents a novel methodology to digitally share the flavor experience of a glass of lemonade (or other similar beverages) remotely. The proposed method utilizes a sensor to capture valuable information (primarily, the color and the corresponding pH value) of the lemonade and a customized tumbler to virtually simulate these properties using plain water. Thus, the system consists of three main components: 1) the lemonade sensor, 2) the communication protocol, and 3) a customized tumbler, acting as the lemonade simulator. Initially, the sensor captures the color and the pH value of the lemonade and encodes this information based on an established communication protocol for wireless transmission. On receiving the information from the sensor, the lemonade simulator overlays the color of the drink on plain water using an RGB Light Emitting Diode (LED) and simulates sour taste sensations on the user's tongue via electrical stimulation. An experimental study was conducted to evaluate this novel approach of digitally teleporting a glass of lemonade: 1) to assess the pre-taste perceptions based on the user's visual perceptions of the colors (real vs. virtual lemonade) and 2) to assess the taste sensations (real vs. virtual lemonade). By simulating the experience of drinking a glass of lemonade through the digital reconstruction of the beverage's main visual and taste factors, the results from these experiments will be able to justify the feasibility of teleporting a glass of lemonade using this novel methodology.

ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications, 2017

Among the five primary senses, the sense of taste is the least explored as a form of digital medi... more Among the five primary senses, the sense of taste is the least explored as a form of digital media applied in Human--Computer Interface. This article presents an experimental instrument, the Digital Lollipop, for digitally simulating the sensation of taste (gustation) by utilizing electrical stimulation on the human tongue. The system is capable of manipulating the properties of electric currents (magnitude, frequency, and polarity) to formulate different stimuli. To evaluate the effectiveness of this method, the system was experimentally tested in two studies. The first experiment was conducted using separate regions of the human tongue to record occurrences of basic taste sensations and their respective intensity levels. The results indicate occurrences of sour, salty, bitter, and sweet sensations from different regions of the tongue. One of the major discoveries of this experiment was that the sweet taste emerges via an inverse-current mechanism, which deserves further research i...

Proceedings of the 29th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, 2016

Being a pleasurable sensation, sweetness is recognized as the most preferred sensation among the ... more Being a pleasurable sensation, sweetness is recognized as the most preferred sensation among the five primary taste sensations. In this paper, we present a novel method to virtually simulate the sensation of sweetness by applying thermal stimulation to the tip of the human tongue. To digitally simulate the sensation of sweetness, the system delivers rapid heating and cooling stimuli to the tongue via a 2x2 grid of Peltier elements. To achieve distinct, controlled, and synchronized temperature variations in the stimuli, a control module is used to regulate each of the Peltier elements. Results from our preliminary experiments suggest that the participants were able to perceive mild sweetness on the tip of their tongue while using the proposed system.

Multimedia Tools and Applications, 2016

This paper presents a new technology that overlays virtual taste sensations on food and beverages... more This paper presents a new technology that overlays virtual taste sensations on food and beverages while eating and drinking. This additional layer of taste sensation enables modifying the existing taste sensations (flavors) of food and beverages virtually. To achieve this technology, we primarily use weak and controlled electrical pulses on the tip of the tongue (while eating and drinking). The ability of this technology to simulate primary taste sensations such as salty, sour, and bitter has made us able to merge it into everyday eating and drinking utensils such as the spoon and beverage bottle, thus to augment the taste sensations of food and beverages. In addition to electrical pulses, we change the color of the beverage using an RGB Light Emitting Diode (LED). Two prototype systems produced with this technology, Spoon+ and Bottle+ are explained in this paper. First, we present a comprehensive technical description of these utensils. Then, we detailed a user experiment conducted to study the effectiveness of our approach. Through these two prototype systems, we discuss the impact of this technology to create immersive taste experiences when consuming food and beverages. With focus on new features and improvements of several limitations of the existing systems, we present our future vision that enables merging of this technology into more appliances thus making a platform for creating virtual food and beverage ingredients.

2015 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality - Media, Art, Social Science, Humanities and Design, 2015

In this paper, we describe the creation, deployment and validation study of WildAR, a networked A... more In this paper, we describe the creation, deployment and validation study of WildAR, a networked AR system that can be used to conduct user studies over long periods of time “in-the-wild”, such as in museum settings. By combining four components: an AR game platform for implicit scaffolding of interactions, a web-based platform editor for real-time control of experiment variables, an automated participatory sensing system through smartphone sensors feeding back to an online database, and virtual experiment scene re-creation in VR using the data from the sensors, WildAR enables researchers to conduct user studies in museums efficiently and effectively.

Proceedings of the 23th Annual Conference of the Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA)

In this paper, we present LiQuID, a tool for seeing lighting quality in design. Photographs are u... more In this paper, we present LiQuID, a tool for seeing lighting quality in design. Photographs are useful vehicles for both describing and making assessments of architectural lighting systems. A significant barrier to using photographs during the design process relates to the sheer volume of renderings that needs to be analyzed. Although there have been efforts to produce novel visualization systems to manage large sets of photographs, this research aims to reduce the complexity by classifying data into representative prototypes. A hypothetical case study is discussed.

Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA)

During the design process, architects have traditionally used a range of media and tools, includi... more During the design process, architects have traditionally used a range of media and tools, including sketches and physical models, to create external representations that communicate design concepts. These representations are rapid, support quick testing and advancement of ideas, and allow new patterns and ideas to emerge. However, building these models in computer-aided architectural design (CAAD) programs is cumbersome and disembodied. In this paper, we take a cognitive perspective to explore how designers distribute part of their spatial reasoning onto the materials and tools with which they work. From this cognitive theory, we have created a unique gesture-based modeling system, Dancing on the Desktop. In this prototype, two interactive displays are projected on a desktop and the adjacent wall to show the plan and perspective views of an architectural model, respectively. Visual images and text are projected on the user's hands to provide different types of feedback for the gestural interactions. A depth camera detects gestural interactions between these two displays to create an immersive gestural interaction space for model manipulation. We argue that Dancing on the Desktop helps users develop an embodied understanding of the spatial and volumetric properties of virtual objects that the current CAAD systems cannot afford. The details of the low cost, yet effective, gesture recognition technique are also described in this paper.

eCAADe proceedings

We describe a constraint-based three-dimensional design environment called Smart Objects. In Smar... more We describe a constraint-based three-dimensional design environment called Smart Objects. In Smart Objects, design collaborators (designers, clients and consultants) would engage an architectural design in an interactive three-dimensional environment where they may alter objects in the model and compose formal solutions. Design intentions embedded into objects as constraints are expressed as behaviors when the user moves objects in ways that either violate or meet specified constraints.

Proceedings of the 2019 on Creativity and Cognition, 2019

Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, 2021

The Jam Station is a collaborative musical experience (CME), with embedded sensors to detect, eva... more The Jam Station is a collaborative musical experience (CME), with embedded sensors to detect, evaluate, and reinforce collaboration among players of all skill levels. The system is also gamified, consisting of four instruments that face a centrally located, vertically oriented, display that visualizes various game states. Playing any of the instruments affect the game as musical collaboration is assessed and visualized on the display. The display also includes a “progress bar’’ which fills up the more players collaborate musically, and to “win’’ the game, the progress bar must be full, initiating a multi-color light show for the players. By creating an environment focused primarily on collaboration, we aim to support collaborative music-making for musicians of all skill levels.