Diego Garaialde

Dr Diego Garaialde is a postdoctoral research fellow in UCD. He completed his PhD in the area of digital interface design for behaviour change, which has built on his previous work on using technology to promote engagement. His background includes a Psychology Undergraduate degree from DCU and a Cognitive Science Masters degree from UCD. His research interests include behaviour change, habits, and dual-processing views of decision making.

Academic & Industry Research Experience

Postdoctoral Research Fellow (School of Computer Science) / University College Dublin
JUN 2022 – PRESENT, DUBLIN, IRELAND
Specialised in studying user agency while interacting with technology, providing insights on how software and design can be targeted to maintain user autonomy. Conducted various research projects of diverse range of methods from project design stage to implementation.

User Researcher & Analyst / Quiroz Design
SEPT 2022 – MAY 2023, DUBLIN, IRELAND
Analysed key behavioural and experience data of customers from a multinational restaurant chain, translating research into actionable insights for business improvement. Collaborated as part of a multidisciplinary team to provide analysis reports relevant to industry partners without a background in statistics and experiment design.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow (School of Information) / University College Dublin
NOV 2020 – JUN 2022, DUBLIN, IRELAND
Conducted research on key gaps and pain points in online teaching software from the perspective of core users (tutors and students), including interactive prototypes that test novel technological solutions. Lead a UX research project involving University College Dublin, Microsoft Ireland, Microsoft Research Cambridge, Trinity College, and the Adapt Centre, demonstrating excellent teamwork with diverse institutions. Gained extensive experience in designing and running both qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (behavioural experiments) studies.

Visiting Researcher / Cerego LLC
NOV 2019 – JAN 2021, SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA
Presented relevant research to the company staff with detailed discussion of applicable insights. Worked with the Science and Development teams to devise research-based plans for future platform features. Designed research experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of each new implemented feature.

Research Assistant / UCD
OCT 2015 – SEP 2016, DUBLIN, IRELAND
Aided in HCI research focused on human-computer speech interactions, partner modelling, and habit building interfaces. Involved experiment design, reviewing literature, running quantitative and qualitative analysis, conducting interviews, and running both online and in-person studies.

Assistant Psychologist / Imagine Health
FEB 2013 – MAY 2013, DUBLIN, IRELAND
Conducted analysis on how exercise affects mental health. Researched the positive effects of video games on cognitive functions. Shadowed psychologists on mental health screening and consultations.

Research Assistant / Dublin City University
JUL 2012 – AUG 2012, DUBLIN, IRELAND
Conducted a literature review on how technology can be used to improve the living conditions of the elderly, including how speech recognition can diagnose Alzheimer’s, and how Microsoft SenseCam can be used to log daily activities while maintaining privacy.

Publications

Reverdy, J., Russell, S. O. C., Duquenne, L., Garaialde, D., Cowan, B., & Harte, N. (2002) RoomReader: A Multimodal Corpus of Online Multiparty Conversational Interactions. In Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation – LREC 2022 (pp. 2517-2527). Marseille, France. ELRA. [PDF]

Garaialde, D. (2021) How early rewards influence choice: targeting model-free processing through reward timing. Doctoral Thesis under School of Information and Communication Studies, University College Dublin. [PDF]

Garaialde, D., Cox, A., & Cowan B. R. (2021). Designing Gamified Rewards to Encourage Repeated App Selection: Effect of Reward Placement. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 102661. doi: 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2021.102661

Garaialde, D., Bowers, C. P., Pinder, C., Shah, P., Parashar, S., Clark, L., & Cowan, B. R. (2020). Quantifying the impact of making and breaking interface habits. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 142, 102461. doi: 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2020.102461

Clark, L., Doyle, P., Garaialde, D., Gilmartin, E., Schlögl, S., Edlund, J., … R Cowan, B. (2019). The state of speech in HCI: trends, themes and challenges. Interacting with Computers, 31(4), 349-371. doi:10.1093/iwc/iwz016

Clark, L., Munteanu, C., Wade, V., Cowan, B. R., Pantidi, N., Cooney, O., … Murad, C. (2019). What makes a good conversation? challenges in designing truly conversational agents. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems  – CHI ’19 (pp. 1–12). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. doi:10.1145/3290605.3300705

Cowan, B. R., Doyle, P., Edwards, J., Garaialde, D., Hayes-Brady, A., Branigan, H. P., … Clark, L. (2019). What’s in an accent? The impact of accented synthetic speech on lexical choice in human-machine dialogue. In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Conversational User Interfaces  – CUI ’19 (pp. 1–8). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. doi:10.1145/3342775.3342786

Education

PhD in Human-Computer Interaction / UCD
SEP 2016 – DEC 2020,  DUBLIN, IRELAND
Research on  how reward structures affect motivation, focusing on the role of behaviour change technologies. Conducted as part of the HCI department in the School of Information and Communication Studies. In collaboration with the University of Birmingham School of Computer Science, and University College London Interaction Centre. Funded by the National University of Ireland.

MSc in Cognitive Science / UCD
SEP 2015 – NOV 2016,  DUBLIN, IRELAND
First class honours degree which looked at how different types of rewards affect exercise activity. Included classes on machine learning, cognitive modelling, human-computer interaction and user-centred design.

BSc in Psychology / DCU
SEP 2010 – NOV 2014,  DUBLIN, IRELAND
Final year thesis examined the effect of gamification on study behaviours of college students, which was awarded the 2014 Psychology Undergraduate Award for Ireland and the DCU Psychology Innovation Award.

Funding

NUI Travelling Studentship Grant / PhD Education
NOV 2017 – NOV 2020, €72,000

UCD iSchool PhD Scholarship / PhD Education
SEP 2016 – SEP 2017, €28,500 (superseded after first year)

Awards

Honourable Mention / CHI 2019 Paper
What Makes a Good Conversation? Challenges in Designing Truly Conversational Agents.

Undergraduate Award for Psychology / 2014

DCU Innovation Award for Psychology / 2014

Seminars, Conference Presentations, & Talks

CHI 2021 / A Special Interest Group on Designed and Engineered Friction in Interaction
2021, YOKOHAMA, JAPAN (ONLINE CONFERENCE)

Cerego LLC / Industry Collaboration Session
2020, SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA

University College Dublin / Postgraduate Research Symposium
2018 & 2019, DUBLIN, IRELAND

Trinity College Dublin / PubHD
2018, DUBLIN, IRELAND

University College Dublin / Irish HCI Conference
2017 & 2018, DUBLIN, IRELAND

Dublin City University / Annual Congress of Psychology Students
2014, DUBLIN, IRELAND

Google Headquarters / Undergraduate Awards Conference
2014, DUBLIN, IRELAND

Teaching Experience

University College Dublin
SEP 2015 – PRESENT, DUBLIN, IRELAND

• Information Design (Undergraduate – Year 1)
  • Tutorials, occasional lecturing, & marking
• Digital Judgement (Undergraduate – Year 1)
  • Group project supervision & marking
• Organisation and Retrieval of Information (Undergraduate – Year 2)
  • Tutorials, teaching assistant, & marking
• Quantitative Data Analysis (Undergraduate – Year 3 & Postgraduate – MSc)
  • Lecturing, tutorials, & marking
• Computer Mediated Communication (Undergraduate – Year 2)
  • Guest lectures, marking
• ICS Masters (Postgraduate – MSc)
  • Thesis Group Project Supervision, Poster & Essay Marking

Positions of Responsibility

Committee Member
SIG on Designed and Engineered Friction in Interaction, CHI 2021
36th Annual Congress of Psychology Students, 2014
DCU Psychology Society, 2011 – 2014 (Founding member)

Conference and Journal Paper Reviews
Conversational User Interfaces (CUI) Conference, 2019, 2020,2021
International Journal of Human Computer Studies (IJHCS), 2019, 2020
Conference on Human Factors and Computing Systems (CHI), 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Representative
Class Representative for MSc Cognitive Science, 2016
Class Representative for BSc Psychology, 2011 – 2014

Student Volunteer
Mobile HCI Conference, 2018
Irish HCI Conference, 2017

Media

O’Reilly, Q. (2014). How this project took inspiration from Pacman to help students study better. The Journal. https://www.thejournal.ie/gaming-learning-university-1790224-Nov2014/

Kaplan, M. (2022). Understanding Rewards Effectiveness: Q&A with Dr. Diego Garaialde. InMOBI. https://t.co/rkk246asSM