Expanding Information Access: Conceptualizing Conversational Dialogues with Black Older Adults

Christina Harrington is a designer and qualitative researcher who focuses on understanding and conceptualizing technology experiences that support health and wellness among older adults and individuals with disabilities. Her research employs design as a catalyst for health equity and socially responsible technology experiences. She explores concepts of health through community-based participatory design and co-creation, considering health management as a sociotechnical experience. S believes that constructs of identity and social positioning impact our interactions with technology, including individual access to online information, the relevance of certain systems in our everyday lives, and the ways we accept certain interventions. Through participatory research methods she explores constructs of empowerment and access among communities marginalized along multiple dimensions of identity (age, race, ethnicity, income, class).

She is an Assistant Professor in the HCI Institute at Carnegie Mellon University where she also has a courtesy appointment in the School of Design. She is also the Director of the Equity and Health Innovations Design Research Lab.