Skip to main content
Research

Beth Kolko's Research Group Archive

This page contains an archive of the past five years of Directed Research Groups led by Professor Kolko. View her currently offered DRGs »

Winter 2025

AEDs (Automated External Defibrillators) Comparative Usability Study Data Analysis

Instructors: This DRG is led by Ruican Zhong, advised by Gary Hsieh and Beth Kolko, and will be in collaboration with Philips.

Public-access automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are critical, life-saving medical devices that broadly guide users through the steps to provide an electrical shock to the heart (i.e., defibrillation) to restore normal rhythm following sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) in an emergency situation. They also provide varying levels of instruction for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Despite the usefulness of such devices, there has not been systematic in-situ usability testing of them, especially with people who have not been trained to use these devices. To address this, we conducted a comparative usability study of 4 on-market AED devices with around 60 people. In this DRG, students will closely engage with the study data and conduct mixed-method data analysis.

Students will:

  • Review interview video transcripts, identify trends in participants’ behavior, and perform thematic analysis of their interviews
  • Conduct quantitative analysis (e.g., task success/failure, time on task, measurements of pad placement, etc.) to understand how feature designs impacted participants’ engagement with the devices

Autumn 2024

Human Centered Entrepreneurship

Led by Professor Beth Kolko

This is a research group that will work on the launch of a new lab in HCDE, the Human Centered Entrepreneurship lab. This lab will build on the work of the HCDE MS class “Building a Human Centered Venture” (HCDE 534) and is open to students whether or not they have taken that course. The lab is part of a larger effort to explore “Capitalism for Humans” – how we can use the structure of the US economic system to shape future technologies. Many of these ideas have been explored by social venture/social entrepreneurship experts, but Capitalism for Humans is about using traditional systems like venture capital and private equity as levers for intentional change. 

This will be an ongoing group, and in the fall quarter we will build out the lab’s website and identity, read AdVenture Finance by Aunnie Patton Power and discuss together, work on public-facing resources for the larger community interested in these topics, and focus specifically on how an HCDE mindset can be used to inspire new approaches to entrepreneurial efforts. 

This group will be a good fit for you if:

  • You have thought about starting a company someday (any kind of company; doesn’t need to be venture scale)
  • You have started a company in the past
  • You have worked at a startup and are interested to learn more about the mechanics of young companies
  • You are curious about how capitalism works (and doesn’t work)
  • You are interested in both challenging and changing capitalism and the entrepreneurial ecosystems currently in place

Autumn 2023 - Winter 2024

Reimagining Global Health through Reflexivity

Led by PhD candidate Elizabeth (Beth) Dunbar, faculty advisor Dr. Beth Kolko
Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering @ UW

Project Goal

This is the last stage of dissertation research to build and test a tool called (re)imaginator that supports global health practitioners to engage in reflexivity and positionality work. Global health structures are steeped in power asymmetries, where much of the funding, leadership, and evidence-based interventions originate in the global north. Decolonizing the field of global health requires dismantling systems of oppression where our imaginations offer a path to interrogate and critique the dominant paradigms and uncover new approaches. The practice of reflection at individual, community and institutional levels offers pathways for reimagination. The (re)imaginator website was designed from best practices in HCI’s “design for reflection” literature and tailored for global health contexts. 

The goal of this proposed dissertation research is to design, build and test a tool that global health practitioners can use to engage with reflection in the interest of decolonizing and reimagining their work. The idea is the (re)imaginator can help stoke critical conversations around how our global health community reckons with history and reshapes approaches, assumptions, vantage points and contributions. 

DRG Focus

This will be a fast-paced and very hands-on Fall and Winter DRG where we will move from usability testing into workshops  with global health practitioners. During Fall quarter, we will finalize the design of the (re)imaginator, and conduct and iterate on the workshops. Winter quarter will focus on follow-up interviews, data analysis and write-ups. Students will be research assistants on this project with following focus areas:

  • Conducting usability testing and learn about how to test/research digital tools like websites
  • Supporting finalizing activities, agenda and tools for design workshops
  • Leading activities during design workshops
  • Preliminary analysis of qualitative and survey data
  • Collaborate on final manuscripts and write-ups

Eligibility

  • Seeking to work with two to three graduate-level HCDE and/or global health students
  • Students should enroll in 1-2 credits (3-6h of work each week)
  • We’ll meet in-person for ~1.5hrs weekly, and will select a day/time that works best for selected students. Note that with my work travel, some sessions will be virtual
  • Ideally you have:
    • Qualitative research training and experience
    • Experience in global health programming
    • Drive to think about how we create more equitable systems

A few links about Beth Dunbar and this research:

Winter 2022

Co-Designing Patient-Facing Digital Health Intervention for People Living with HIV in Jamaica

Project Overview
This will be a hands on DRG to co-design and co-create the monitoring plan for a digital health intervention for people living with HIV in Jamaica to be launched in Summer 2022. Over the last 6 months, our team has gathered requirements through co-design workshops with care organizations and by conducting a landscape scan. For this DRG, we’ll select 6 master’s level students to help with wireframing and prototyping, along with planning how we will monitor and evaluate the intervention pilot this summer. Students will likely plan and lead some co-design sessions with expert providers and advocacy organizations during this winter DRG. 

This will be a fun, fast-paced DRG and we are seeking students who are excited about designing and building real-world health intervention, with students emerging with portfolio worthy work. Here’s an overview of the project. To apply, please complete this short application by 1 Jan and we will notify all participants on 2 Jan. 

Directed Research Group format:

  • Meeting either Wednesdays 11-1pm or Thursdays 12pm-2pm (date to be decided by our Jamaican collaborators)
  • Format:
    • 1-2 credits
    • This DRG will be entirely remote given our collaborators in Jamaica.
  • Composition: we’ll split into two squads: a design squad and an evaluation squad who will collaborate with each other on a weekly basis. The idea with this squad model is to not only root our designs in best-practices, but to outline as we design how we will monitor success of the intervention.
    • 4 masters-level students for the Design squad who will be producing wire-frames and high-fidelity prototypes
      • We will split the squad into two pairs: one for patient-facing tool and the other for provider-facing tool, though there will be collaboration between designers
  • 2 masters-level students for Monitoring & Evaluation squad:
    • Conducting reflective evaluation of the co-design processes led by the design squad
    • Work with Project Manager to create a Monitoring and Evaluation Toolkit that includes operational plans and tools for how we will monitor and evaluate the pilot (i.e. refine study procedures, develop data collection tools, design monitoring dashboards, etc.).
  • We’d ideally like to engage with students students:
    • who have completed 517 and 518
    • Who have some design and/or usability study experience
    • Domain expertise (e.g. HIV care or global health) is not required but would be beneficial

Benefits to DRG Participants:

  • Portfolio-worthy projects working closely to co-design with Jamaican HIV care experts
  • Participating in co-design and planning of a digital health intervention that we plan to launch Summer 2022
  • Opportunity to move from wireframes to prototype in a short period of time
  • Opportunity to engage with Design and Evaluation long-term with possibility for Spring 2022 DRG

Collaborators:

  • University of Washington HCDE, Advisor Dr. Beth Kolko and 3rd year PhD student Beth Dunbar
  • University of Washington Digital Initiatives Group at ITECH, including software developers
  • Caribbean Training & Education Center for Health
  • Jamaican experts in HIV care 

Spring 2021

Human Centered Design for Space Missions 

The space technology industry is driven primarily by engineering innovations, but as the industry matures, there is a growing need for human-centered solutions to support long-term missions. This research group is a collaboration between HCDE and Blue Origin to ask questions such as, what is the human-centered design & research process/toolkit for human-space activity? How can this be integrated into the early-stage technology concepting processes used by NASA and industry partners?

During this Spring DRG, we will work on two research areas:

Understanding HCD and mission design activities. We will interview industry experts and map the complex human systems that define mission design activities.
How might we apply human-centered design to artifacts for human usage in deep space and extraterrestrial contexts? We will engage in research through design practices and ask how might we design objects, environments, systems, technology, & services for contexts that we don’t have high-fidelity analog access to?

Winter 2021

Understanding the digital health landscape for older adults

Led by Shengzhi Wang and Beth Kolko

For more information, contact Shengzhi or Beth at the email above.

In this 2 credit DRG, we will focus on understanding the potential for wearable technologies and digital health data for older adults, particularly in the context of their communities and social networks. 

There has been significant growth in the number and sophistication of wearable technology with health-focused features in recent years. An increasing amount of insight can be gained from data collected by these devices to support continued healthy living. However, the adoption rate among older adults has remained much lower than that of younger adults, despite potential benefits to personal health and daily lives.

We will explore different aspects of this topic through analyzing research papers, with a focus on seniors’ social networks, technology education for older adults, and patterns of technology use among older adults. Some potential questions for this DRG include: How do older adults view technology as a component of their lives? What are the roles of weak and strong social networks in older adults’ lives? What are older adults’ data sharing and privacy patterns? What barriers to health technology adoption may exist for older adults? By the end of the quarter, our goal will be to define promising research opportunities in this area, including potential design interventions.