2019 IA Conference
“People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.” –Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO
As information architects and designers, privacy is part of the legacy we will pass down to future generations through the systems we build today. We influence social norms on what personal information can be (or should be) shared by whom, when, how, and for what purpose. Therefore, we have an ethical responsibility to make these privacy design decisions purposefully and based on evidence. In our talk, we will build the case for why we need a gateway that deliberately bridges the gap between academic research and design practice as it relates to end user privacy in social technologies. Dr. Jen Romano Bergstrom, President of UXPA and Director of User Experience at Bridgewater Associates, will give an industry-based perspective of the importance of privacy to the fields of information architecture and design based on her own experience and on recent news media events (e.g., Cambridge Analytica, 23andMe, GDPR). Drs. Xinru Page and Pamela Wisniewski, two privacy researchers from the Human-Computer Interaction academic community, will present an overview of relevant research from their field that connect to these recent events. They will engage with the audience on how we might work together to create this gateway in a collective effort to respect end users’ privacy and promote a sense of joint social responsibility across industry and academia.
Xinru Page is an Assistant Professor in Computer Information Systems at Bentley University. Her work explores psychological and social factors that influence attitudes towards and use (or non use) of various technologies including social media, internet of things, and algorithmic-driven technologies in the workplace. Much of her research focuses on Privacy, Individual Traits, Life Phases, Ethical Privacy Research Practices, and Human-Algorithm Interaction. Xinru’s work has been funded by Disney Research, Samsung, Yahoo! and the National Science Foundation. She has also worked in the information risk industry, leading interaction design and as a product manager. Utah’s Women Tech Council chose her as a Rising Star Tech Award finalist, recognizing “women driving innovation, leading technology companies, and [who] are key contributors to the community.”
Xinru holds a Ph.D. in Information and Computer Science, concentration Informatics, from University of California, Irvine, and B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science, specialization Human-Computer Interaction, from Stanford University. She holds various leadership and editorial roles and her work has received awards and been recognized in top academic journals and conferences.
Jen Romano Bergstrom is Director of User Experience Research at Bridgewater Associates. She specializes in efficient applications of research methods to ensure scientific rigor is not compromised while working fast to gain actionable results. Jen’s research specialties include usability, eye tracking, survey design, experimental design, and cognitive aging. Jen is an established expert in eye tracking – she teaches eye-tracking theory, trains UX professionals, and designs eye-tracking labs. She is co-author of Usability Testing for Survey Research (2017) and co-author/editor of Eye Tracking in User Experience Design (2014). She has held UX positions in both industry (Facebook, Instagram, Fors Marsh Group) and government (US Census Bureau), and has also worked as an independent consultant.
She is currently the President of the User Experience Professional Association (UXPA) and past President of the DC chapter of the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) and the DC chapter of UXPA. Jen received a Ph.D. in Applied/Experimental Psychology from Catholic University of America.
Dr. Wisniewski is a Human-Computer Interaction researcher whose work lies at the intersection of Social Computing and Privacy. Her goal is to frame privacy as a means to not only protect end users, but more importantly, to enrich online social interactions that individuals share with others. She is particularly interested in the interplay between social media, privacy, and online safety for adolescents. She has authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications and has won multiple best papers (top 1%) and best paper honorable mentions (top 5%) at ACM SIGCHI conferences. She has been awarded over $1.96 million in external grant funding as a primary investigator or Co-PI, and her research has been featured by popular news media outlets, including ABC News, NPR, Psychology Today, and U.S. News and World Report. She is an inaugural member of the ACM Future Computing Academy and the first computer scientist to ever be selected as a William T. Grant Scholar.