Please note: This PhD seminar will take place online.
Nabil Bin Hannan, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
Supervisor: Professor Edith Law
Newcomers transitioning to a new country face many challenges, and their well-being is impacted by many social determinants of health. In this work, we explored how the Capability Sensitive Design (CSD) approach can be used to design technology to support newcomers in navigating health and social services. We conducted interviews with 50 newcomers and 16 organization representatives to understand the struggles of newcomers, the capabilities that are most relevant or important in the settlement context, how capabilities influence each other, and the role that technology plays in addressing capabilities. Our findings suggest a fruitful avenue of identifying and designing technology features around fertile capabilities. We discuss the design implications for newcomer technology, as well as the benefits and challenges of applying CSD to technology design.