I am a Computing Innovation Fellow and Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Informatics at Indiana University Bloomington, working with Selma Šabanović. I am a member of the R-House Laboratory for Human-Robot Interaction research.
My research lies in the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction and Computer-Mediated Communication. Much of my work utilizes a social science lens to study internet technologies, including communication and collaboration technologies. My research goals are: (1) to understand these technologies’ use in different social and cultural contexts; (2) to study how culture and gender influence such use and (3) to evaluate how the design of such technologies aligns with social values, such as privacy, and suggest design implications and guidelines. Some of the broad topics that I currently study are: Privacy Enhancing Technologies and Strategies, Mobile Robotic Telepresence in the classroom, and Wikipedia use.
I earned my PhD at Drexel University, where I was advised by Andrea Forte. I also I have a Master’s of Science in Library and Information Science from Pratt Institute in New York City, a BS degree from the Ecole des Science de l’Information in Morocco; together with a BA in Language and Pedagogy and a BA in Linguistics.
I am a CI Fellow (’21), a Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Awardee (’20), a Phoebe W. Haas Endowed Fellow (’17) and a Fulbright Fellow (’11).
Research areas: Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience (HCI/ UX), Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Social Computing, Privacy.
Recent News
Upcoming workshop. May, 2023
I am co-organizing a workshop at ACM MobileHCI about the “Mobility and Utility in Robot Mediated Interaction” w/ Eike Schneiders, Andriana Boudouraki, Gisela Reyes-Cruz, And Juan Martinez, Avila, Jens Emil Grønbæk, Sean Rintel, Swapna Joshi. Check our CfP.
Paper accepted. May, 2023
My paper was accepted to the ACM DIS conference. Title: Does Robotic Telepresence Make the Classroom Accessible? Co-authored with Jennifer Rode, Selma Šabanović, and my UROC student Cooper Young.
Invited talk. Apr, 2023
I am thrilled to announce that I have been invited to speak at the 2023 Symposium of Socio-Informatics at the University of Siegen about my robotic telepresence research. I will also be participating in a panel discussion about the challenges of recruiting research participants from war zones.
Invited talk. Apr, 2023
I am thrilled and honored to be invited to speak about my Wikipedia research at the University of Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid.
Invited panel. Apr, 2023
I am thrilled to announce my invitation to join the Data Science Junior Faculty/Postdoc Panel, where I will be sharing insights on my research into robotic telepresence in the classroom.
Invited talk. Apr, 2023
I am honored to be invited by the Center of Excellence for Women & Technology at IU to give a talk about the “Progression of research from Idea to Publishing” and my experience publishing with undergraduate students.
Report published. Feb, 2023
A report on a CHI workshop I co-organized at CHI ’22 conference is published at the ACM Interactions wesbite. Title: “Emerging Telepresence Technologies in Hybrid Learning Environments.” Co-authored with Pablo Pérez, Andriana Boudouraki, Fatma Guneri and Verónica Ahumada-Newhart.
Paper accepted. Jan, 2023
My paper was accepted to the IEEE HRI conference. Title: “Who’s that?” Identity Self-Perception and Projection in the Use of Telepresence Robots in Hybrid Classrooms. Co-authored with Selma Šabanović and my REU students: Amy Kinney, Elizabeth C. Brooks and Hannah Li.
Paper accepted. Dec, 2022
My paper was accepted to the iConference. Title: “What Makes a Technology Privacy Enhancing? Laypersons’ and Experts’ Descriptions, Uses, and Perceptions of Privacy Enhancing Technologies”. Co-authored with Erica Shusas, Patrick Skeba, Eric P. S. Baumer and Andrea Forte.
Distinguished Paper Award. Sep, 2022
My paper about Credibility-Assessment Strategies by Wikipedia Readers, co-authored with Andrea Forte and Jonathan Morgan, got a distinguished paper award at OpenSym.
Fellowship Award. Feb, 2021
I won the very competitive CRA & CCC ‘s NSF-funded Computing Innovation Fellowship.
Research
I endeavor to answer one core research question: “How can we design technologies that work well & respect human values and diversity?”
My studies are interdisciplinary and belong to three overarching and partially overlapping themes: (1) Diversity, Culture, and Values, (2) Privacy and Security, and (3) Robotic Telepresence. The following are the topics I am working on (in varying degrees of completion)
Robotic Telepresence in the Classroom
Robotic telepresence offers intriguing possibilities of embodiment and presence for remote participants in a variety of learning contexts that may overcome some challenges associated with classroom attendance due to illnesses and disabilities. Nevertheless, they are not perfect. We examine the use of robotic telepresence in the classroom, learn about their potentials and limitations to inform the design of remote education technologies more broadly.
[CHI ‘18] [CHI ’19] [ICRA ’22] [CHI ’22] [HRI ’23] [DIS’23] [MobileHCI’23]
Privacy Enhancing Technologies and Strategies
What are Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) for privacy experts and laypersons? In this project we adopt a sociotechnical lens to characterize practices and technologies perceived as privacy-enhancing, or privacy reducing, by both privacy experts and laypersons based on their own articulation of PETs ‘ use. We suggest implications for technology design practices that can help decenter the experiences of privacy experts and accommodate privacy laypersons’ preferences and habits.
Developing a Wikipedia Trust Taxonomy
This project examines how a diverse global readership assigns trust to Wikipedia articles, and the strategies they use to assess Wikipedia ‘s credibility. Through surveys and interviews, we develop and refine a Wikipedia trust taxonomy that describes the mechanisms by which readers assess the credibility of Wikipedia articles.
Teaching Computing Through Computational Making
Computational thinking is considered the best practice for teaching computing and more broadly to solve problems and design systems, however as computing extends beyond the desktop so too must our educational methods. Computational making provides better ways to attract a diverse range of students to computing fields. We organize workshops for children from marginalized populations to teach computation through making projects to enable them and kindle their interest in the computing fields.
Race, Diversity and Social Values
Technology can be so empowering to some and for others it is the foundation for exclusion. Technologies ‘ designs are often western centric and less usable by BIPOC, minorities and people of non-Western cultures. I endeavor to understand technology use and values associated with technology, how our implicit biases and practices shape the artifacts we design, impact social justice in our society, and discuss how the HCI community can ameliorate the situation.
Haru, the Classrooms Pen Pal Mediator
Pen pal exchanges make learning fun and Haru can make pen pal exchanges more fun, instructive, and engaging. In this project we deploy Haru in different classrooms around the world and study how it can mediate the exchanges between them. Our objective is to bridge cultural differences and teach STEAM through project-based learning and sharing cultural perspectives.
[New Project]
Completed UX research projects
A/B Testing for EDS
EBSCO Discovery Service: a Research Study for NYU Libraries
Guerrilla testing was used to compare two interfaces, measure their usability and select the friendlier
Website Redesign
School of Information Science Website Redesign
Conducted a competitive analysis and a user study, created personas, sketches, wireframes and a prototype
Usability Testing
Books & More tab at at NYU Library website
Worked with a team on conducting a usability testing of the Books & More tab at New York University library website
Arabic Collections
A prototype for the Arabic Collections Online
Designed a prototype for ACO, a digital library of public domain Arabic language content
Teaching
Teaching is my passion. I enjoy taking part of the knowledge discovery process, inspire and be inspired by my students as they learn about their potential and make their own way forward.
I have 3+ years experience teaching HCI courses to graduate and undergrad students at Drexel’s College of Computing and Informatics and IU Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering.
These courses focus on the physiological, psychological and engineering basis of design and evaluation of human-computer interfaces covering such topics as; theoretical foundation of HCI; cognitive modeling of user interactions; task analysis techniques for gathering design information; iterative design cycles; formative and summative usability testing; and project planning and report writing.
Select Publications
For the list of all my publications please see my CV
2023
Houda Elmimouni, Cooper Young, Selma Sabanovic, Jennifer Rode. 2023. Does Robotic Telepresence Make the Classroom Accessible?. In ACM DIS Companion.
Eike Schneiders, Andriana Boudouraki, Gisela Reyes-Cruz, And Juan Martinez, Avila, Houda Elmimouni, Jens Emil Grønbæk, Sean Rintel, Swapna Joshi. 2023. Mobility and Utility in Robot Mediated Interaction: An Interactive Workshop for the Identification of Use Cases and Affordances of Telepresence Robots. ACM MobileHCI.
Houda Elmimouni, Amy Kinney, Elizabeth C. Brooks, Hannah Li, and Selma Sabanovic. 2023. “Who’s that?”: Identity Self-Perception and Projection in the Use of Telepresence Robots in Hybrid Classrooms. In Companion of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI ’23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 287–291.
Houda Elmimouni, Erica Shusas, Patrick Skeba, Eric P. S. Baumer and Andrea Forte. 2023. What Makes a Technology Privacy Enhancing? Laypersons’ and Experts’ Descriptions, Uses, and Perceptions of Privacy Enhancing Technologies. iConference.
2022
Houda Elmimouni, Andrea Forte, and Jonathan Morgan. 2022. Why People Trust Wikipedia Articles: Credibility Assessment Strategies Used by Readers. In Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Open Collaboration (OpenSym ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 9, 1–10. Best Paper Award (Top 1%)
Houda Elmimouni, Houda Elmimouni, John Paulin Paulin Hansen, Susan Herring, James Marcin, Marta Orduna, Pablo Perez, Irene Rae, Janet Read, Jennifer Rode, Selma Sabanovic, and Verónica Ahumada. 2022. Emerging Telepresence Technologies in Hybrid Learning Environments. In Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 85, 1–5.
Houda Elmimouni, Selma Sabanovic. 2022. Robotic Telepresence to Support Remote Classroom Attendance and Interactions. Exploring the Roles of Robots for Embodied Mediation. ICRA2022
2020
Houda Elmimouni, Erica Racine, Patrick Skeba, Eric PS Baumer, and Andrea Forte. 2020. What are PETs for Privacy Experts and Non-experts. In Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security.
Kapllani, Levi, and Houda Elmimouni. 2020. Gestalt principles in web design: A study of the usage of similarity, symmetry and closure in today’s websites. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology 57, no. 1 (2020): e340.
Jung Ran Park, and Houda Elmimouni. 2020. Emoticons and non-verbal communications across Arabic, English, and Korean Tweets. Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication.
2019
Ana Luísa Sertã, Houda Elmimouni, Louise Barkhuus, Rosie Cox, and Jennifer Rode. 2019. Digital Housekeeping, Gender and Domestic Work. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper SIG03, 1–4.
2018
Houda Elmimouni, Susan R. Fussell, Susan Herring, Carman Neustaedter, and Jennifer Rode. 2018. SIG on Telepresence Robots. In Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper SIG05, 1–4.
2017
Adel Al-Dawood, Norah Abokhodair, Houda Elmimouni, and Svetlana Yarosh. 2017. Against Marrying a Stranger”: Marital Matchmaking Technologies in Saudi Arabia. In Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS ’17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1013–1024 . Best Paper Award (Top 1%)
Houda Elmimouni, Jennifer Anderson, Nadaleen F. Tempelman-Kluit, and Alexandra Dolan-Mescal. 2018. UX Work in Libraries: How (and Why) to Do It. In Developing In-House Digital Tools in Library Spaces, pp. 1-36. IGI Global.
2016
David Hankerson, Andrea R. Marshall, Jennifer Booker, Houda Elmimouni, Imani Walker, and Jennifer A. Rode. 2016. Does Technology Have Race? In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 473–486.
Jennifer A. Rode, Andrea Marshall, Houda Elmimouni, and Jennifer Booker. 2016. Computational Making” (Abstract Only). In Proceedings of the 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science Education (SIGCSE ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 494.
2015
Houda Elmimouni and Craig M. MacDonald. 2015. Culture and information architecture: a study of American and Arab academic websites. In Proceedings of the 78th ASIS&T Annual Meeting: Information Science with Impact: Research in and for the Community (ASIST ’15). American Society for Information Science, USA, Article 91, 1–4.
Jennifer A. Rode, Anne Weibert, Andrea Marshall, Konstantin Aal, Thomas von Rekowski, Houda Elmimouni, and Jennifer Booker. 2015. From computational thinking to computational making. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp ’15). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 239–250. Best Paper Award (Top 1%)
2014
Irene Lopatovska, Aimee Slater, Caitlin Bronner, Houda Elmimouni, Leanora Lange, and Victoria Ludas Orlofsky. 2014. In transition: academic e-book reading in an institution without e-books. Library Review.
News
Upcoming workshop. May, 2023
I am co-organizing a workshop at ACM MobileHCI about the “Mobility and Utility in Robot Mediated Interaction” w/ Eike Schneiders, Andriana Boudouraki, Gisela Reyes-Cruz, And Juan Martinez, Avila, Jens Emil Grønbæk, Sean Rintel, Swapna Joshi. Check our CfP.
Paper accepted. May, 2023
My paper was accepted to the ACM DIS conference. Title: Does Robotic Telepresence Make the Classroom Accessible? Co-authored with Jennifer Rode, Selma Šabanović, and my UROC student Cooper Young.
Invited talk. Apr, 2023
I am thrilled to announce that I have been invited to speak at the 2023 Symposium of Socio-Informatics at the University of Siegen about my robotic telepresence research. I will also be participating in a panel discussion about the challenges of recruiting research participants from war zones.
Invited talk. Apr, 2023
I am thrilled and honored to be invited to speak about my Wikipedia research at the University of Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid.
Invited panel. Apr, 2023
I am thrilled to announce my invitation to join the Data Science Junior Faculty/Postdoc Panel, where I will be sharing insights on my research into robotic telepresence in the classroom.
Invited talk. Apr, 2023
I am honored to be invited by the Center of Excellence for Women & Technology at IU to give a talk about the “Progression of research from Idea to Publishing” and my experience publishing with undergraduate students.
Report published. Feb, 2023
A report on a CHI workshop I co-organized at CHI ’22 conference is published at the ACM Interactions wesbite. Title: “Emerging Telepresence Technologies in Hybrid Learning Environments.” Co-authored with Pablo Pérez, Andriana Boudouraki, Fatma Guneri and Verónica Ahumada-Newhart.
Paper accepted. Jan, 2023
My paper was accepted to the HRI conference. Title: “Who’s that?” Identity Self-Perception and Projection in the Use of Telepresence Robots in Hybrid Classrooms. Co-authored with Selma Šabanović and my REU students Amy Kinney, Elizabeth C. Brooks, Hannah Li.
Paper accepted. Dec, 2022
My paper was accepted to the iConference. Titled: “What Makes a Technology Privacy Enhancing? Laypersons’ and Experts’ Descriptions, Uses, and Perceptions of Privacy Enhancing Technologies”. Co-authored with Erica Shusas, Patrick Skeba, Eric P. S. Baumer and Andrea Forte.
Distinguished Paper Award. Sep, 2022
My paper about Credibility-Assessment Strategies Used by Wikipedia Readers, co-authored with Andrea Forte and Jonathan Morgan, got a distinguished paper award at OpenSym.
Defended dissertation. Mar, 2021
I defended my dissertation and will be joining the R-House Lab to work with Selma Sabanovic. I am excited for the new journey!
Fellowship Award. Feb, 2021
I won the very competitive CRA & CCC ‘s NSF-funded Computing Innovation Fellowship.
Dissertation Award. Dec, 2020
I am so thrilled that my dissertation won the Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Award by Beta Phi Mu.
Teaching Award. May, 2018
I am honored to receive the Highly Commended Teaching Assistant award from the Graduate College at Drexel University.
Best paper award. Jun, 2017
My paper with Adel Al Dawood, Norah Abokhodair and Lana Yarosh, titled “Against Marrying a Stranger: Marital Matchmaking Technologies in Saudi Arabia”, won the Best Paper Award at DIS.
Fellowship Award. May, 2017
Phoebe W. Haas Endowed Fellowship for Academic Achievement.
Best paper award. Sep, 2015
My paper with Jennifer Rode et al., titled “From Computational Thinking to Computational Making” received the Ubicomp 2015 Best Paper Award.
Travel Award from Google. Sep, 2019
I am so excited to attend the GHC with support from Google