Katie BessiereI am currently working on my Ph.D in Human Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. My interests lie broadly in the ways that people use the Internet and how their experiences impact their adoption of a technology, their short and long term mood or affect, their personal and work lives, and relationships with others. In addition, I like to ponder the question of the broader impact that adoption of new technologies has both upon people and the communities that they exist in all the way up to the societal level. I firmly believe that there is an interplay between what the user brings to the table (prior experience, motivation/goals, efficacy, personality, etc...), the social environment in or around a technology (who is there, how to find people, prior relationships), and the experience of the technology itself (ease of use, familiarity, mapping to existing metaphors, etc...) that all works together to create an impact upon the person. This impact, of course, will subsequently color everything else that comes after. I am particularly interested in social technologies, going all the way back to text based chat formats to the currently popular web 2.0 and virtual world applications.
My work at IBM examines how to create an experience for individuals and teams within virtual environments that will allow groups of coworkers to develop stronger team bonds and relationships. To do this, we are creating experiences through the use of games with the hope of impacting the way a group interacts and communicates with each other in future interactions. We found that introducing new users to Second Life was not as easy as expected, and so have also developed a set of training games and activities to increase the likelihood of a fun enjoyable experience.
Another avenue of interest for me is the effects of various types of Internet use and how this use interacts with individual characteristics to impact people's lives, particularly psychological and general well-being. My work on the HomeNet project has examined the effects of communication, escape and entertainment, and health uses of the Internet on individuals' well being. Other work has focused on the differing motivations of individuals playing online games, and how these affect their experience of play. My Master's thesis focused on developing a model of social psychological antecedents of user frustration.
I have a Masters degree in Sociology from the University of Maryland, where I wrote my thesis under Ben Shneiderman on the topic of user frustration. White papers on this can be found here. I also worked with John Robinson on his work on IT and society while at the University of Maryland. I hold a M.S. in Human Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University, where I am currently ABD. Prior to my stint in academia, I was a technical project manager and web application developer for a variety of dot.com companies as well as government contractors. The rest of my checkered past includes stints in customer service, lifeguarding, and teaching French and English to children and adults.
I can be found in Second Life as Sorrelle Poutine, around the Internet as americanfrog, on all the usual and unusual suspects, and even a couple text based bbs's dating back to 1993.
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