I am a user experience researcher and designer. My work lies at the intersection of technology,design and psychology and I aim to do my bit my part to make our world a better place.
Bhakti Bhikne, Anirudha Joshi, Manjiri Joshi, Shashank Ahire, and Nimish Maravi. 2018. How Much Faster Can You Type by Speaking in Hindi?: Comparing Keyboard-Only and Keyboard+Speech Text Entry. In Proceedings of the 9th Indian Conference on Human Computer Interaction (IndiaHCI'18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 20-28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3297121.3297123. How Much Faster Can You Type by Speaking in Hindi?: Comparing Keyboard-Only and Keyboard+Speech Text Entry.
Simon Robinson, Jennifer Pearson, Shashank Ahire, Rini Ahirwar, Bhakti Bhikne, Nimish Maravi, and Matt Jones. 2018. Revisiting Hole in the Wall; Computing: Private Smart Speakers and Public Slum Settings. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Paper 498, 11 pages. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174072 Revisiting Hole in the Wall; Computing: Private Smart Speakers and Public Slum Settings
Hey!
Curiosity fuels me and although you'd often find me buried deep in the abyss of the internet reading up on matter from all fields of life, I am most passionate about Human-Computer Interaction and behavioral psychology.
I wish to pursue a research based career along the intersection of Design, Technology and psychology; and aim to do my bit as a designer to make a difference in our world.
Writing is my form of self-expression but I am inclined to learn to draw as a more visual form of expression. I am also an avid traveler and a photography enthusiast. I love visiting new places, making new friends and capturing the world through my lens.
I joined Prof. Anirudha Joshi's IDIN Lab at IDC, IIT Bombay after completing my undergraduate degree from the University of Pune. I led the UX Research effort in designing and conducting a comprehensive usability study to understand the user performance of speech typing for Indian languages using the SwaraChakra keyboard on Android devices. This project set a benchmark for text entry speeds for Indian languages.
OVERVIEW
I led all phases of the project from designing the study to the deliverables. 24 participants were recruited for a longitudinal study that was completed over a period of approximately 6 weeks
My responsibilities included:
Creating a research plan and designing the study
Creating the phrase sets (350 phrases) for transcription that were representative of the language
Moderating and observing all task sessions
Developing the research paper and presenting it
Objective
To evaluate the usability of speech typing interface in SwaraChakra keyboard
To provide insights on user performance through a comprehensive comparison of speech typing and keyboard-only typing
Challenges
Technical issues encountered during usability studies
Time-consuming process to get required consents for conducting the usability studies in a local government school.
Conducting the study under time constraints withouting disruption of school schedule or the research plan.
Outcomes
Swarachakra Android App that integrates the speech typing input mode for Indian languages.
Research report that provides detailed information on the longitudinal study methods and analysis that can be re-used or modified for further analysis in other languages
All the groups came up with videos that gave me a great number of ideas to work upon in all the four dimensions mentioned above.
Testing Environment
Testing tool created that logged all users' actions
Al tasks conducted in "office-quiet" environment
At least two moderators overlooking the tasks at any given time
Process
All tasks were conducted in a local government school in Mumbai,India. The quantitative and qualitative data gathered was analysed further to get an extensive understanding of the technology
Reflection
What did I learn
It was helpful to have all the moderators on the same page in regards to the protocol to be followed.
Conducting a daily stand-up meeting before the sessions reinforced the necessary training and session protocols
For future studies, hosting the database server on third-party servers is a safer option than one on a local machine.
Since the study was incentivised & participants received prizes from their own performance in terms of speed and accuracy, we ran out of non-repetitive gifting options for the participants sooner than we expected. There aren't enough toys that children in the age group of 11-13 years can use!.
What would I have done differenly?
Set up a secure real-time database server
I would definitely make sure to take the detailed schedule of the school activities so as to keep some leeway for unexpected delays or disruptions