Connections Lab @ NJIT

The Connections Lab at New Jersey Institute of Technology is a design and research lab centering on the areas of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Human-Centered Computing (HCC), applying Design Thinking and UX methodologies to explore how emerging technologies can better support human needs, behaviors, and goals.

During my time in the lab, I contributed to the research and early design of a Collaborative Life-Logging (CLL) system, investigating how digital systems can support memory, reflection, and shared experiences across individuals. My research efforts directly supported the labs later publications with CSCW and CHI.

Collaborative Life-Logging System

A collaborative life—logging (CLL) system supports the capture, aggregation, and interpretation of personal data across multiple people and sources to enable richer representations of lived experiences.

“Data capture” in this context included:

• Photos and videos

• Audio recordings

• Biometric or fitness data

• Metadata (e.g., timestamps, geolocation, environmental data)

Unlike traditional life-logging systems that focus on individual data streams, this work explored how multi-perspective data can be combined to support both individual and shared memory processes.

Memory Processes Explored

The system was intended to support multiple types of memory:

• Episodic Memory: Enabling users to mentally relive past experiences through rich, contextualized data.

• Autobiographical Reminiscing: Supporting recall of facts, context, and meaning associated with events over time.

This required designing beyond simple data storage toward a system that helps users interpret and re-experience moments, individually and with others.

Key Contributions

• Conducted foundational research and literature review spanning academic work, historical perspectives, as well as speculative/fictional sources to identify opportunity spaces for CLL systems.

• Defined and investigated our central question: what is worth capturing and what is meaningful to revisit?

• Led exploratory research to understand how people capture, recall, and share experiences over time.
  Interviews, n=10; Ethnography, n=3, Diary Study, n=6.

• Synthesized findings into key themes and experience frameworks, identifying which moments, signals, and contexts are most meaningful for memory reconstruction.

• Conducted competitive analyses across adjacent tools (e.g. social platforms, fitness trackers, media storage) to identify gaps and opportunities.

• Translated research into journey maps, modeling how experiences unfold over time.

• Designed and tested interactive paper prototypes, exploring how users navigate and reconstruct experiences from multi-source data. Usability testing, n=10; Iterations =3.

Why this work matters…

It required thinking across….

• Multiple users and perspectives

• Diverse data types and contextual signals

• Temporal experiences— how interactions evolve over time

More broadly, this work reflects a general approach I continue to apply in practice:

• Structuring ambiguous problem spaces into actionable direction

• Designing for systems that integrate people, data, and context

• Focusing on experiences that are interpreted and revisited, not just used once

This research addressed a foundational question:

How might systems support not just capturing data but resurfacing meaningful experiences over time and across perspectives?

It helped establish a clear direction for the lab’s next phase of work:

• Provided a research-backed foundation for continued system design and engineering development.

• Informed the transition from early academic concepts to buildable systems and direction.

• Contributed to work that progressed toward publications with CHI and CSCW, supporting broader research impact