Hi,
I am Elmira Deldari!
I am a Ph.D. student at the Human-Centered Computing at University of Maryland Baltimore County, supervised by Dr. Helena Mentis. My research is centered on exploring the privacy perceptions and behaviors of diverse user groups. I am especially passionate about studying the intersection of privacy and emerging technologies, such as smart home and virtual reality.
I completed an exclusive MCIT program at the University of Pennsylvania in 2021. Prior to that, I obtained a degree in Product and Industrial Design from the University of the Arts Philadelphia and the Art University of Tabriz. During that time, I also worked as a UX designer and researcher in the industry.
HCI Research Publicatons
Well-intended but half-hearted: Hosts’ consideration of guests’ privacy using smart devices on rental properties | Twentieth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2024) [PDF] [DOI]
Sunyup Park, Weijia He, Elmira Deldari, Pardis Emami-Naeini, Danny Yuxing Huang, Jessica Vitak, Yaxing Yao, Michael Zimmer
The increased use of smart home devices (SHDs) on short-term rental (STR) properties raises privacy concerns for guests. While previous literature identifies guests’ privacy concerns and the need to negotiate guests’ privacy preferences with hosts, there is a lack of research from the hosts’ perspectives. This paper investigates if and how hosts consider guests’ privacy when using their SHDs on their STRs, to understand hosts’ willingness to accommodate guests’ privacy concerns, a starting point for negotiation. We conducted online interviews with 15 STR hosts (eg, Airbnb/Vrbo), finding that they generally use, manage, and disclose their SHDs in ways that protect guests’ privacy. However, hosts’ practices fell short of their intentions because of competing needs and goals (ie, protecting their property versus protecting guests’ privacy). Findings also highlight that hosts do not have proper support from the platforms on how to navigate these competing goals. Therefore, we discuss how to improve platforms’ guidelines/policies to prevent and resolve conflicts with guests and measures to increase engagement from both sides to set ground for negotiation.
Users’ Perceptions of Online Child Abuse Detection Practices | Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW2024) [PDF] [DOI]
Elmira Deldari, Parth Takkar Karankumar, Yaxing Yao
Child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) online has become a major safety issue for children to access the Internet. To combat CSEA, electronics services providers (ESP) have implemented various mechanisms to detect child sexual abuse materials (CSAM). However, these mechanisms, despite their capability to prevent the mass distribution of CSAM online, may raise significant privacy concerns among general users. In this paper, we conducted a semi-structured interview study with 23 participants to understand their privacy perceptions of two types of online CSAM detection mechanisms. Our results suggested that users were concerned about the transparency of the detection process, inappropriate access to users’ data, and unclear boundaries of such mechanisms. Our results also highlight that, even though the majority of participants choose to sacrifice their privacy for societal benefits, they still have privacy concerns that need to be addressed. We discuss the design and policy implications for ESP to improve users’ awareness of the data practices of these mechanisms, alleviate users’ privacy concerns, and increase societal benefits.
A Diary Study in Social Virtual Reality: Impact of Avatars with Disability Signifiers on the Social Experiences of PWD |In Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS’23) [PDF] [DOI]
Kexin Zhang, Elmira Deldari, Zhicong Lu, Yaxing Yao, Yuhang Zhao
People with disabilities (PWD) have shown a growing presence in the emerging social virtual reality (VR). To support disability representation, some social VR platforms start to involve disability features in avatar design. However, it is unclear how disability disclosure via avatars (and the way to present it) would affect PWD’s social experiences and interaction dynamics with others. To fill this gap, we conducted a diary study with 10 PWD who freely explored VRChat—a popular commercial social VR platform—for two weeks, comparing their experiences between using regular avatars and avatars with disability signifiers (i.e., avatar features that indicate the user’s disability in real life). We found that PWD preferred using avatars with disability signifiers and wanted to further enhance their aesthetics and interactivity. However, such avatars also caused embodied, explicit harassment targeting PWD. We revealed the unique factors that led to such harassment and derived design implications and protection mechanisms to inspire more safe and inclusive social VR.
An Investigation of Teenager Experiences in Social Virtual Reality from Teenagers’, Parents’, and Bystanders’ Perspectives | Nineteenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2023 [PDF] [DOI]
Elmira Deldari, Diana Freed, Julio Poveda, Yaxing Yao
The recent rise of social virtual reality (VR) platforms has introduced new technology characteristics and user experiences, which may lead to new forms of online harassment, particularly among teenagers (individuals aged 13-17). In this paper, we took a multi-stakeholder approach and investigate teenagers’ experiences and safety threats in social VR from three perspectives (teenagers, parents, and bystanders) to cover complementary perspectives. Through an interview study with 24 participants (8 teenagers, 7 parents, and 9 bystanders), we found several safety threats that teenagers may face, such as virtual grooming, ability-based discrimination, unforeseeable threats in privacy rooms, etc. We highlight new forms of harassment in the social VR context, such as erotic role-play and abuse through phantom sense, as well as the discrepancies among teenagers, parents, and bystanders regarding their perceptions of such threats. We draw design implications to better support safer social VR environments for teenagers.
“It’s Just Part of Me:” Understanding Avatar Diversity and Self-presentation of People with Disabilities in Social Virtual Reality | Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’22) [PDF] [DOI]
Kexin Zhang, Elmira Deldari, Zhicong Lu, Yaxing Yao, Yuhang Zhao
In social Virtual Reality (VR), users are embodied in avatars and interact with other users in a face-to-face manner using avatars as the medium. With the advent of social VR, people with disabilities (PWD) have shown an increasing presence on this new social media. With their unique disability identity, it is not clear how PWD perceive their avatars and whether and how they prefer to disclose their disability when presenting themselves in social VR. We fill this gap by exploring PWD’s avatar perception and disability disclosure preferences in social VR. Our study involved two steps. We first conducted a systematic review of fifteen popular social VR applications to evaluate their avatar diversity and accessibility support. We then conducted an in-depth interview study with 19 participants who had different disabilities to understand their avatar experiences. Our research revealed a number of disability disclosure preferences and strategies adopted by PWD (e.g., reflect selective disabilities, present a capable self). We also identified several challenges faced by PWD during their avatar customization process. We discuss the design implications to promote avatar accessibility and diversity for future social VR platforms.
Supporting A Safe and Healthy Immersive Environment for Teenagers | Proceedings of Workshop on safety and privacy in Extended Reality CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI’22 [PDF] [DOI]
Elmira Deldari, Diana Freed, Yaxing Yao
Immersive technologies, such as social virtual reality (VR), can revolutionize how people interact with each other, blurring the boundary between the online world and the physical world. However, the dynamics of potential online child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA), the norms of a safe immersive environment, and how teenagers navigate themselves through these situations are still understudied. We aim to investigate teenagers’ experiences and offenders’ digital pathways that lead to online CSEA through immersive technologies to inform their future design. This research goal is to enrich the understanding of CSEA in the evolving immersive technologies context and to provide insights and guidance for creating safe and healthy immersive environments for teenagers.