Sarita Yardi: Portfolio

Splat!

Series of Facebook contests in which projects are created, rated, and shared among users. Goal is to motivate youth to create, script, and program in media-based environments by encouraging viral learning in a peer-led, audience-motivated environment.

HCI for Teens

Taught 6-week HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) design-based class to teenagers. Developed and implemented curriculum to design and build touch-screen digital desktops.

Computing Perceptions and the Web

Interviewed and observed teens use of computers and technology, and interviewed 22 graduate students. Goal of understanding the gap between perceptions of computing and social nature of the web.

ClassChat

Built web-based visualization tool to enable professors and teachers to view trends and student participation in online in-class backchannel discussions.

Study of backchannel in an academic community. Visual analyses of relationships between classroom and non-classroom chat usage, trends over time, user behavior, and social network dynamics using InfoVis software tools.

Media Literacy Education

Study of teens media literacy and social learning.

Assessment of Oakland's Public School Lunch Vouchers

Design of nutrition and lunch voucher based on field studies of Oakland's public school lunch system. Part of New Product Development class jointly by the Berkeley's iSchool, Haas Business School, and Mechanical Engineering department.

Photo Elicitation

Ethnographic photo elicitation study in which middle school children are given digital cameras and instructed to take photographs documenting their everyday use of technology.

VERN

Democratic meeting scheduling system with a web-based tool to automate the scheduling process. Goal is to reduce the effort and time required by each group member while enabling group leaders to visualize the general availability of members within the group.

Backyard Transformations

Backyard Transformations is a digital multimedia storytelling environment that exposes children to principles of narrative construction through games and play.

Pillbox

Pill reminder system in which images are sent to a Nokia 7610 camera phone as reminders to take medications. We studied how people create, share, and reuse mobile media and metadata in Information Organization and Retrieval. Our application idea was submitted to the Berkeley Business Plan Competition.

Student Housing

Designed web-based student and faculty housing application and integrated with existing accounting system for client, Harvard Real Estate Services.

› Splat!
› HCI for Teens
› Perceptions of Computing and the Web
› ClassChat
› Noise or Knowledge? The Role of the Backchannel in an Academic Community
› Media Literacy Education
› Assessment of Oakland's Public School Lunch Program
› Photo Elicitation
› VERN
› Backyard Transformations
› Pillbox
› Student Housing

@yardi