Assignments

Table of contents

• Assignment 1: User Interviews
  • Disclaimer 1
  • Disclaimer 2
  • Step 1: Research the Problem Statement
  • Step 2: Conduct Interviews
  • Step 3: Summarize Findings
  • Grading Rubric

Assignment 1: User Interviews

Imagine that you are hired as a consultant by a non-profit app development company. They ask you to consider the following problem statement:

Participating in a protest or a social movement allows an individual to exercise their right to free speech, but carries risks with respect to their personal and legal safety. Online technologies enable both greater cooperation and communication between activists as well as elevated risks of surveillance by law enforcement and other malicious actors. We are considering developing a mobile application that would allow users to safely organize and participate in protests and social movements. However, we would like to evaluate the limitations of existing solutions, perceptions of relevant stakeholders, and considerations for implementing the requested features before going ahead with the application development.

As part of your assignment, you will research existing solutions and conduct at least two interviews to help you answer the following questions:

1. What technological solutions (e.g., apps, websites, services, social networks, etc.) are currently used to organize and participate in protests?
2. What issues exist with the current solutions?
3. What are the concerns and needs of the prospective users of the application?
4. What features should the proposed application support?
5. Which factors should the company consider when implementing those features?

You will be paired with a partner to complete this assignment. Please read the rest of this document carefully as it breaks down this assignment into concrete steps and describes the deliverables that you will need to submit by the due date.

Disclaimer 1

Note that although you would usually conduct interviews with the target users of an application or a service that you are developing, that is not a requirement in this assignment due to the sensitive nature of the topic. You are, however, still welcome to reach out and interview individuals who have experience in organizing or participating in protests if you wish to gain a greater understanding of their needs and concerns, as long as they are comfortable participating in such a discussion.

Disclaimer 2

Also note that this assignment does not assume any experience or knowledge of app development. However, you should still be able to reason about design and implementation factors at a higher level, such as the implications of processing user data on a server vs. processing it locally on a device, or the implications of using end-to-end encryption vs. using encryption-in-transit vs. not using any encryption.

Step 1: Research the Problem Statement

As a first step, you should familiarize yourself with existing ways in which individuals use their devices, social networks, services, and other online technologies to organize and participate in protests and social movements.

Consider the following questions to guide your research process:

1. How do activists currently organize and coordinate protests and social movements?
2. Which existing solutions do activists use to facilitate this process?
3. Are these solutions predominantly technical or non-technical in nature, or is it a combination of both?
4. What tasks do these solutions aim to achieve (e.g., communication with other activists, safety reports, real-time status updates, documentation of any unlawful activities, etc.)?
5. What technical, social, and legal issues exist with the current solutions?
6. Can those issues be mitigated using a different design approach or are they inherent to the problem at hand?

When researching the answers to these questions, you should focus specifically on the issues surrounding online surveillance and privacy. You may consult any resources that you find useful including news articles, blog posts, reports, white papers, and academic papers. You will include your sources and a summary of your findings in the final report, described towards the end of the document.

Step 2: Conduct Interviews

Once you have done your research around the topic, you are ready to start preparing for the interviews. Before you conduct the interviews, you should complete the following tasks:

Recruit interview participants

You are welcome, but not required, to recruit participants who have experience in organizing or participating in protests. Instead, you may also recruit participants with an interest in this topic or who might have experience with issues of privacy and surveillance in other contexts.

As part of this assignment, you need to interview at least two different individuals, who can be your friends, other students, or anyone else interested in discussing this topic.

Consider the ethics and the logistics of the interviews

Decide on a location for the interview that is comfortable both for you and the interviewee. You can conduct the interview either in-person or online using a video or an audio call.

After the interviews, you will need to summarize the attitudes, concerns, and suggestions of your participants for the final report. For this reason, decide in advance if you are going to take notes, make a recording of the interview, or both. Make sure to ask for consent before making any voice recordings.

If you decide to record the interviews, there are several free automated transcription tools and services that can save you time compared to manual transcription:

• Rev
• Descript
• Zoom audio transcription (for interviews performed on Zoom)
• Youtube (by uploading the recording privately and downloading the transcript file)

Prepare an interview guide

Before conducting the interviews, you will need to decide on the questions that you will ask the participants. These questions should be open to encourage conversation and non-leading so as not to bias the participants. Consider both the problem statement as well as the insights that you gained from researching the problem when developing the interview guide.

This document from the Department of Sociology at Harvard University includes useful strategies, tips, and guidelines on conducting a successful interview and selecting questions for your interview guide.

Once you have selected your participants, considered the logistics, and developed the guide, you are ready to conduct the interviews. Make sure that you practice going over the interview guide before speaking to the participants and have determined how you are going to take notes. Although there is no required minimum duration for the interviews, aim to spend at least 30 minutes discussing the proposed application.

Conducting the interviews and analyzing the notes and transcripts takes longer than you might expect, so don’t delay conducting the interviews. We recommend that you finish your interviews at least a week before the final report deadline.

Step 3: Summarize Findings

Once you have conducted your research and performed the interviews, you are ready to prepare a report describing your findings. Your report should include the following:

1. Names and a description of contributions for each team member.
2. A summary of findings from your independent research in Step 1.
3. Themes that emerged from at least two of your interviews in Step 2 and whether those themes support or contradict the findings from your independent research.
4. Recommendations to the company on the features that the app should include and any considerations when implementing those features.
5. Sources and references used when writing up your report.

The expected length of your report is about 1000 words. Please submit your report double-spaced as a PDF. When preparing your report, don’t forget to address the questions listed in the beginning of this document. Each group of students needs to submit only one report.

In addition to the report, please include the following with your submission:

1. The interview guide.
2. Any notes or recordings from the interviews (at least two) that you used in preparing your report.

Grading Rubric

Total number of points: 100.

1. Interviews. (25 points)
   • There is evidence that students conducted at least two interviews. (10 per interview | 20)
   • There is evidence that students considered the recruitment process, logistics, and ethics of the interviews. (5)
2. Report Content and Presentation. (65 points)
   • The report includes names and a description of contributions for each team member. (2)
   • The report includes a summary of findings from your independent research by considering, for instance, the following questions: (20)*
     1. How do activists currently organize and coordinate protests and social movements?
     2. Which existing solutions do activists use to facilitate this process?
     3. Are these solutions predominantly technical or non-technical in nature, or is it a combination of both?
     4. What tasks do these solutions aim to achieve (e.g., communication with other activists, safety reports, real-time status updates, documentation of any unlawful activities, etc.)?
     5. What technical, social, and legal issues exist with the current solutions?
     6. Can those issues be mitigated using a different design approach or are they inherent to the problem at hand?
   • The summary of findings considers issues of online surveillance and privacy. (5)
   • The report describes the findings from the interviews by including the following:
     1. Themes that emerged from at least two of your interviews; and (7.5 per interview | 15)
     2. Whether those themes support or contradict the findings from your independent research. (5)
   • The report addresses the provided problem statement by including the following:
     1. Recommendations to the company on the features that the app should include; and (5)
     2. Considerations when implementing those features. (5)
   • The report includes sources and references used when writing up your report. (3)
   • The report is well-written, coherent, presented well, and adheres to the word limit. (5)
3. Submission Appendices. (10 points)
   • The submission includes the interview guide. (5)
   • The submission includes notes or recordings from the interviews, as applicable, that were used in preparing the report. (5)

*These questions are just examples and other non-trivial considerations would also be awarded points, up to a maximum of 20 for this part of the assignment.

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