oh man where was this article when i needed it https://www.experimental-history.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-peer-review
h/t @jzong

how can participatory science improve safety and accountability in our digital environments?

last week, i helped host @natematias at @bkc and attended his public talk at MIT's data + feminism lab.

check out my post about the talk below:

https://data-and-design.org/blog/2024/10/25/improving-our-digital-environments/

Scholars: what you trying in order to organize & support networks of community among emerging scholars?

Today across the extended CAT Lab network, we had a revealing conversation; gradstudents reported that microblogging platforms exposed them to risk/harassment with little reward, and that they were unsure how to find peers & community elsewhere, aside from becoming an "influencer," which only some found palatable.

Are you seeing the same? What can we do about this?

interested in accessibility, visualization, and data ethics? i'm recruiting phd students to join the Data & Design Group at CU Boulder.

we're building a collaborative and inclusive space for people to grow into interdisciplinary researchers of technology and society.

https://data-and-design.org/recruiting

person having degree

hi! i will be presenting this work at #chi2024 next week.

i'm also pleased to share that i will be joining the faculty at
CU Boulder Information Science in 2025, and intend to recruit students soon.

please get in touch if you'd like to chat at the conference. thanks!

https://hci.social/@jzong/112169067403893251

coming soon to #chi2024

https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.00106

Because its non-visual modalities do not depend on the visualization, Umwelt can express a broader set of non-visual representations. For example, here the sonification applies additional transformations (binning, averaging) that aren't present in the visualization.

Unlike many systems where a user must create non-visual representations by first specifying a visualization, Umwelt decouples the authoring process for each modality. For example, a user can explore the data using text and sound without needing to create a chart first (or at all).

For blind and low-vision (BLV) people to equally participate in data analysis, they must be able to not only consume data representations created by others, but also create their own.

Unfortunately, existing accessible tools assume the existence of a visualization that can then be converted into an accessible representation.

Introducing Umwelt, a tool for interactive data analysis that de-centers visualization by treating visuals, text, and sound as equal modalities:

https://news.mit.edu/2024/umwelt-enables-interactive-accessible-charts-creation-blind-low-vision-users-0327

Saying no to technology can be a powerful act of design, especially for people with the least power in society.

@jzong explains our research on refusal in a new interview on the MIT front page.

I'm so proud of Jonathan for accomplishing so much on this profoundly-generative line of research starting as an undergrad and continuing into the final year of his PhD.

https://news.mit.edu/2024/how-refusal-can-be-an-act-of-design-jonathan-zong-0325

i, and two of my masters student mentees, each had first-author papers accepted at chi. i will have more to say about the projects later but for now i am simply very proud of my student collaborators and happy to be finishing my PhD on a high note ☺️

a new interview about my work on data refusal as design:

https://design.mit.edu/news/refusal-is-an-act-of-design-rethinking-data-ethics

i recently presented this work at #AoIR2023 and i'm excited to be able to share it more fully now.

i started working on this paper in fall 2019, right before the pandemic hit. it means so much to me that i was able to see this through

i'm looking for faculty jobs!

understanding refusal as design also means that we can apply the methods of design to refusal. we propose a framework with four facets of refusal, akin to design dimensions. they include autonomy, time, power, and cost

together, these four facets describe a space of refusal that helps us describe existing cases of refusal in terms of each facet; evaluate cases of refusal by comparing their effectiveness along each facet; and imagine new forms of refusal in terms of their desired characteristics

but just as new technologies continue to be invented, so do new ways to refuse. how can we both understand current practices of refusal, and also think about the characteristics of refusals yet to be imagined?

in this paper, we argue that since refusal is a deliberate action aimed at reshaping a socio-technical system, it can be understood as an act of design. refusal, in the form of active non-participation in a system, is actually an important way to participate in a design process

when people object to the collection and misuse of data by powerful actors, they say no in many ways: anything from individual opt out, building cooperatives and institutions, or toppling cameras mounted on lampposts

feminist and indigenous scholars have advanced the idea of "refusal" as a practice of saying no to how data is collected or used, and of challenging the goals, processes, and authority of data collectors. refusal gives us language to conceptually unify these different practices

can saying "no" be a creative act?

new in acm journal on responsible computing, my article with @natematias

Data Refusal From Below: A Framework for Understanding, Evaluating, and Envisioning Refusal as Design

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3630107

Thrilled that CAT Lab folx are giving so many talks at #AOIR2023 this year!

Friday:
- Algorithms, Aesthetics, and the Changing Nature of Cultural Consumption w/ Aparajita Bhandari
- 10:30am: "High Reach Content Disclosures and Research Ethics" w/ @sarahgilbert
- 1:30pm "Experiences of scholars facing networked harassment" w/ Beatrys Rodrigues

Saturday:
- 8:30am "Data Refusal From Below" by @jzong & me
- 10:30am "Reflections on studying and storing crisis media" w/ Aparajita Bhandari

i will be attending #AoIR2023 and #ASSETS2023 this year. it's my first time at both conferences, and i would love to meet you!

i'm interested in designing multi-modal systems for making data analysis more accessible to blind/low-vision users, and in systems and frameworks for consent and refusal in socio-technical systems.

you can read more about my research here: https://jonathanzong.com/research