Salma Elsayed-Ali

Ph.D. Student + UX Researcher
Human-Computer Interaction Lab | iSchool
University of Maryland, College Park
Email: sea [at] umd [dot] edu
Email Twitter account LinkedIn account Google Scholar account GitHub account Medium account Jsfiddle

Made with

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and ☕ by Salma Elsayed-Ali © 2020

➼ About:

Hi! My name is Salma (سلمى). I am a Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland studying Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Information. My research interests pertain to the augmentation and diversification of design and creativity through novel configurations, methods, and creativity support tools (CSTs). I am advised by Dr. Joel Chan and Dr. Beth Bonsignore and am a research assistant on the NSF-funded CareersInPlay project helping to develop a multiplayer Playable Case Study (PCS) for collaboration and STEM learning.

In summer 2020, I worked as a UX Research Intern on the Design Team for ArcGIS Hub at Esri R&D. I have also worked as a research intern at Carnegie Mellon's HCI Institute, Korea's first media arts museum Art Center Nabi, and the global think tank AidData. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from William & Mary as a W&M Scholar, where I double majored in Business Analytics Data Science and Global Studies (with a concentration in Asian & Middle Eastern Studies), having additionally taken coursework in Computer Science and Innovation & Design.



➼ Select Research:

UX Research Internship at Esri R&D

Worked with the Design Team on ArcGIS Hub at the Esri R&D Center in Washington DC. Utilized UX Research methods including heuristic evaluation, scenario and task creation, usability testing, clickstream analysis, tree tests, etc. as well as helping with UI design and debugging. Overview of internship deliverables

Children's Values in Technology

*Placeholder -- to be updated*
Please read our IDC 2020 publication available Open Access via the ACM DL here for more information.

Autopersonalization

For a Fall 2019 course, Fundamentals of Human-Computer Interaction I worked with a team to research the potential of autopersonalization technologies (specifically the Morphic OS extension) for people with mild to moderate dementia. We additionally assessed the discoverability of accessibility features, notification systems, and more generally usability testing with people with dementia.

We conducted in-person pilot usability tests and full remote usability tests using Zoom software. This was the first project where I got to run usability tests from the beginning to end, with semi-structured interviews interspersed throughout. I also got to work on task and scenario creation, research question definition, and paper writing.

Morphic Powerpoint cover slide

HCII Research Internship

poster
The culminating poster I presented at the HCII Symposium

While a research assistant at Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute for the 10-week Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program, I collaborated alongside members of the OH!Lab and was responsible for cleaning, coding, and analyzing user data drawn from an online peer feedback system (PeerPresents) and surveys taken by students and instructors of an educational game design course. It was an amazing opportunity where I got to put my advanced Excel , data visualization, user research methods, and writing skills to good use. I created and iterated on over 100 different data visualizations, a process that looked a little bit like this:

iteration
The process of iteration represented by CMU’s mascot, Scotty

What did I learn from the experience?
For the two studies I worked on concurrently, I learned and utilized different UX research techniques including open card sorting through random sampling (see below), qualitative coding, think aloud sessions, and checking for intercoder reliability. I also learned about statistical measures such as the standard error of the mean (as opposed to standard deviation), game design, Likert-type scales, formative (as opposed to summative) feedback, and the ICAP theory of cognitive engagement. Conducting research at the HCII was a wonderful opportunity where I got to bridge diverse methods and theories drawing from a multitude of disciplines, as well as contribute to research studies by my fellow colleagues working in AR/VR, social computing, and enabling technologies.

card sort
Using the open card-sorting UX method to create categories for questions and feedback

ACM CHI Paper:
In addition to working on the two research studies, I greatly contributed to the literature review, methods, and findings for a paper on the utilization of guiding questions in peer feedback exchanges, which was accepted to CHI (The ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems) 2019. You can find the paper here.

Poster Symposium
I also created a poster and presented it to HCII students, faculty, and CMU SCS community members at the culminating summer research symposium, seen above.




➼
Publications:

Conference Publications (Refereed):

[2] Salma Elsayed-Ali, Elizabeth Bonsignore, Hernisa Kacorri, and Mega Subramaniam. 2020. Designing for Children’s Values: Conceptualizing Value-Sensitive Technologies with Children. In Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC 2020), June 21–24, 2020. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 6 pages. [ACM].

[1] Amy Cook, Jessica Hammer, Salma Elsayed-Ali, and Steven P. Dow. 2019. How Guiding Questions Facilitate Feedback Exchange in Project-Based Learning. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings (CHI 2019), May 4–9, 2019, Glasgow, Scotland UK. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 12 pages. [ACM].

Poster Presentations (Non-Refereed):

[3] Salma Elsayed-Ali. “Designing and Localizing Arabic User Interfaces.” [Presented at the AMES-APIA Senior Capstone Conference, April 2019, The College of William & Mary]
[2] Salma Elsayed-Ali. “Assessing the Value of Guiding Questions in the Peer Feedback Exchange Process.” [Presented at the HCII REU 2018 Poster Session, August 2018, Carnegie Mellon University]
[1] Salma Elsayed-Ali. “Analyzing the Relationship Between Emoticon & Emoji Selection Behavior and Emotions of a Message Sender Across Cultures.” [Presented at the Cross-Cultural Psychology Poster Session, April 2018, The College of William & Mary]


 ➼
News:

Jun, 2020:Presented WiP (virtually) at IDC2020 and attended World's Most Inclusive PD Project Workshop
Jun, 2020:Working as a UX Research Intern with the ArcGIS Hub Design Team at Esri R&D
May, 2020:Presented and passed the Ph.D. Program First-Year Review
Apr, 2020:First-author Work-In-Progress was accepted to IDC2020
Dec, 2019:Designed & built this website using Bootstrap 4 and HTML5/CSS3. Have theme ideas or suggestions? Let me know
Aug, 2019:Began PhD program at UMD’s iSchool and HCIL
Jul, 2019:Served as an SV for various VR programs at SIGGRAPH 2019
Jun, 2019:Attended ISEA 2019 with Art Center Nabi in Gwangju
Jun, 2019:Researching the Future of Work at Art Center Nabi as a Global Research Fellow
May, 2019:Graduated summa cum laude from the College of William & Mary
Apr, 2019:Attended the HCIL Symposium at UMD
Mar, 2019:Reviewed submissions for the GHC19 Interactive Media track committee
Jan, 2019:Became involved with a voluntary SIGCHI Inclusion team for race & ethnicity
Dec, 2018:Co-authored paper was accepted to CHI 2019 (Acceptance rate: 23.8%)
Aug, 2018:Concluded a fulfilling summer at CMU's HCII as an NSF-sponsored REU participant


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Say, "If the sea were ink for [writing] the words of my Lord, the sea would be exhausted before the words of my Lord were exhausted, even if We brought the like of it as a supplement."
[Al-Kahf 18:109]

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