Biography
Kiley Sobel, PhD, is a Senior User Experience Researcher at the language-learning edtech company Duolingo, where she does research with kids and parents on Duolingo ABC, Duolingo's free English literacy learning app for kids. Prior to Duolingo, Kiley worked at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, an independent research and innovation lab hosted at Sesame Workshop, the organization behind Sesame Street. Throughout her career, Kiley has conducted integrative research about kids, families, co-design, collaborative play, learning, disability, accessibility, and inclusion. She completed her PhD in Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. While earning her doctorate, Kiley also conducted research at Microsoft Research in both Redmond, Washington and Bangalore, India. She holds a BS in Human-Computer Interaction from Harvey Mudd College.
Education
- Ph D, Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington, 2018
- BS, Individual Program of Study in Human-Computer Interaction, Harvey Mudd College, 2013
Publications and Contributions
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Conference PaperCan Conversational Agents Change the Way Children Talk to People? (2021)Proceedings of the 20th Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference (IDC '21), pp. 338-349
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Conference PaperNo Touch Pig! Investigating Child-Parent Use of a System for Training Executive Function (2019)Proceedings of the 18th ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC '19), pp. 339-351
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Conference ProceedingExamining Adult-Child Interactions in Intergenerational Participatory Design (2017)Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 5742-5754
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Journal Article, Academic JournalHidden Symbols: How Informal Symbolism in Digital Interfaces Disrupts Usability for Preschoolers (2016)International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 90(Unknown Issue), pp. 53-67, ISBN/ISSN: 1071-5819
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Magazine/Trade PublicationHow to survive creating an intergenerational co-design group (2016)Interactions, 23(4), pp. 65-67, ISBN/ISSN: 1072-5520
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Conference PaperTouchscreen prompts for preschoolers: designing developmentally appropriate techniques for teaching young children to perform gestures (2015)Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC '15), pp. 109-118