Research Statement
I am a human-computer interaction (HCI) and design researcher who uses design as a tool for understanding and addressing challenging social issues through the production of empirical evidence, critical insights and forward-looking alternatives. My research combines methods of designing and making, qualitative empirical studies, and theoretical and critical analyses. My current funded research focuses on addressing trust, control, privacy, security, and ethical challenges related to interactive technologies—particularly sensing, Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. More generally, I am concerned with timely trends and complex issues that cut across the social, cultural, experiential, and political dimensions of design, engineering, and technology.

I am an interdisciplinary research with a diverse background and training in computer science, mathematics, mechanical engineering, fabrication, interaction design, industrial design, graphic design, human-centered design, art, social sciences, and areas of the humanities—particularly philosophy of technology and cultural, technology, and design studies.

My research has been generously funded by the National Science Foundation, the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, and the UW Meany Center for the Performing Arts and Mellon Foundation.

I am currently focused on three research areas:
(1) Trust, Control, and Privacy for Smart Technologies
(2) Speculative Design of Internet of Things and AI Technologies
(3) Design Theory, Methods, and Criticism

Trust, Control, and Privacy for Smart Technologies
My primary research program aims to understand and improve the design of Internet of Things (IoT) and artificially intelligent (AI) technologies from a social, cultural, and experiential perspective. Issues of trust, control, privacy, security, and fairness feature prominently in this work. I am especially interested in consumer smart home technologies, although I have recently begun expanding into more specialized contexts such as offices and industrial workplaces. A major insight of this work is that we must also consider the experiences of non-primary users or adjacent interactors (e.g., neighbors, guests, domestic workers) who are affected by networked and sensing technologies yet have limited access, control, power, and benefit.

Designing for Non-Primary Users and IoT Trust, Control, and Privacy
New and emerging smart home devices such as smart speakers, doorbells, cameras, and locks offer many benefits. They also introduce and exacerbate issues of user trust, control, and privacy. These technologies pose several fundamental problems: (1) they are perceptually powerful: smart technology systems can predict and infer many intimate details about us, including face identification, attention, and emotion recognition, the tracking of location and movement activities, and predicting interests that guide targeted ads and notifications. (2) they involve spatial sensors: devices with mics, cameras, and location sensing collect spatial data; they operate across physical space and cannot be contained within a display screen or a single user’s click-stream, and (3) they connect different users: your networked and sensing devices affect and interact others, and vice versa. To understand and address these issues, my research group has been developing design prototypes that better address multi-actor situations for smart devices. Based on our multiple user studies and field interviews, we have created a variety of design features that improve privacy for non-primary users such as family members, neighbors, guests, tenants, and domestic workers.

Fieldwork with Primary and Non-Primary Smart Device Users
To better understand issues of IoT trust, control, and privacy, we have conducted several qualitative interview and observational studies of smart home technologies within the home and neighborhood. To date, we have conducted 3 main studies. First we conducted a study with smart home camera users and bystanders, and learned that many are using these devices to casually surveill family, neighbors, and domestic workers (Tan et al, 2022). Next we conducted exploratory design concept evaluation studies with pet sitters, Airbnb guests, and other non-primary users and learned about specific areas where trust and privacy can be improved (Pierce et al, 2022). Currently, we are writing up results of a study of how people share, disclose, and resist smart sensing devices including speakers, locks, cameras, and item trackers.

Participatory Sensing and Data Studies
Another strand of my research on control, trust, and privacy involves broadening participation by engaging diverse users and stakeholders, including experts and non-experts. While at UC Berkeley, I used participatory design workbooks and activities (Figure 2, prior page) to elicit reflections on privacy, security, and emerging technologies (Wong et al, 2017; Pierce et al, 2018b). At the University of Washington, I led a team of design and information science students to create speculative use case scenarios exploring imbalanced power relations with smart home technologies (Figure 2, prior page). We then conducted a participatory empirical study using these materials to elicit reflections on privacy and data ethics with diverse stakeholders. This study revealed concepts and strategies participants employed to assess uses of technologies social tensions and power imbalances.

Speculative Design for AI and IoT
I am also engaged in exploratory and speculative research that seeks to more broadly understand emerging design opportunities, limitations, and concerns connected to networked, intelligent, and sensing technologies. This work extends my prior research program developing a perspective I called counterfunctionality where everyday products are redesigned in thought-provoking ways to generate insights about design and technology.

Probing Boundaries of Social Acceptability
One strand of this research explores boundaries of trust, privacy, and creepiness with emerging technologies. One of my goals has been to create technology probes that amplify and exacerbate privacy in order to better understand future issues. For example, we published a study where my co-authors and I lived with intrusive smart camera devices to better understand the privacy concerns and capabilities of these new technologies (Pierce et al, 2020). I have also written critically about how technology design helps shapes social norms with smart technologies (Pierce, 2019a).

Designing with Uncertainty and Distributed Control
A second strand of this research investigates the inherent uncertainty associated with networked and artificially intelligent technologies (Yang et al). From the user perspective, smart technologies can be much harder to predict, and consequently may be less transparent, trustworthy, and controllable. Using speculative and conceptual design approaches, I have co-authored work articulating how machine learning may be grasped as a design material (Benjamin et al). I have also explored this ideas through individual art exhibitions (e.g, Pierce 2019b) and speculative design projects (e.g., Pierce, 2021b)



Design Theory, Methods, and Criticism
Periodically I step back from my research on specific topics such as IoT and privacy to reflect more generally on design practice, design research, and HCI. Design theory, methodology, and criticism are perennial research topic in my work. I have published theoretical and scholarly treatments of speculative design (Pierce, 2020, Best Paper Honorable Mention Award), critical design (Pierce et al, 2015a), of the role of artifacts and their formal presentation in HCI design research (Pierce, 2014a), of elimination as a form and effect of design (Pierce, 2014b; Pierce, 2012e), of critiques of persuasive design (Brynjarsdotti et al, 2012), and of the significance of design tools within design practice (Stolterman and Pierce, 2012). I also frequently lecture and organize workshops on design theory and research through design. For example, I co-organized a series of Research through Design workshops at the SIGCHI conference in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

I often use things I have designed, engineered, and crafted in order to generate and illustrate theoretical concepts. For example, my research designing new ways of interacting with and relating to electrical energy led me to extend theory from philosophy of technology (e.g., Verbeek, 2005) by articulating ways that humans can phenomenologically experience electrical power and energy (Pierce & Paulos, 2011; Pierce and Paulos, 2013). My design work was used to illustrate these concepts, but also, crucially, was a means of generating theory.