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Main Authors: Tseng, Emily, Ristenpart, Thomas, Dell, Nicola
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.16866
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author Tseng, Emily
Ristenpart, Thomas
Dell, Nicola
author_facet Tseng, Emily
Ristenpart, Thomas
Dell, Nicola
contents Researchers increasingly look to understand experiences of pain, harm, and marginalization via qualitative analysis. Such work is needed to understand and address social ills, but poses risks to researchers' well-being: sifting through volumes of data on painful human experiences risks incurring traumatic exposure in the researcher. In this paper, we explore how the principles of trauma-informed computing (TIC) can be applied to reimagine healthier tools and workflows for qualitative analysis. We apply TIC to create a design provocation called TIQA, a system for qualitative coding that leverages language modeling, semantic search, and recommendation systems to measure and mitigate an analyst's exposure to concepts they find traumatic. Through a formative study of TIQA with 15 participants, we illuminate the complexities of enacting TIC in qualitative knowledge infrastructure, and potential roles for machine assistance in mitigating researchers' trauma. To assist scholars in translating the high-level principles of TIC into sociotechnical system design, we argue for: (a) a conceptual shift from safety as exposure reduction towards safety as enablement; and (b) renewed attention to evaluating the trauma-informedness of design processes, in tandem with the outcomes of designed objects on users' well-being.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_16866
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Mitigating Trauma in Qualitative Research Infrastructure: Roles for Machine Assistance and Trauma-Informed Design
Tseng, Emily
Ristenpart, Thomas
Dell, Nicola
Human-Computer Interaction
Researchers increasingly look to understand experiences of pain, harm, and marginalization via qualitative analysis. Such work is needed to understand and address social ills, but poses risks to researchers' well-being: sifting through volumes of data on painful human experiences risks incurring traumatic exposure in the researcher. In this paper, we explore how the principles of trauma-informed computing (TIC) can be applied to reimagine healthier tools and workflows for qualitative analysis. We apply TIC to create a design provocation called TIQA, a system for qualitative coding that leverages language modeling, semantic search, and recommendation systems to measure and mitigate an analyst's exposure to concepts they find traumatic. Through a formative study of TIQA with 15 participants, we illuminate the complexities of enacting TIC in qualitative knowledge infrastructure, and potential roles for machine assistance in mitigating researchers' trauma. To assist scholars in translating the high-level principles of TIC into sociotechnical system design, we argue for: (a) a conceptual shift from safety as exposure reduction towards safety as enablement; and (b) renewed attention to evaluating the trauma-informedness of design processes, in tandem with the outcomes of designed objects on users' well-being.
title Mitigating Trauma in Qualitative Research Infrastructure: Roles for Machine Assistance and Trauma-Informed Design
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.16866