Nick LaLone

Nick LaLone

My work focuses on how people and objects get to know each other. I work in crisis response, human-computer interaction, and simulation, all through the lens of play.

Publications

Paper to Pixels: A Chronicle of Map Interfaces in Games

Published in Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 2020

Game map interfaces provide an alternative perspective on the worlds players inhabit. Compared to navigation applications popular in day-to-day life, game maps have different affordances to match players' situated goals. To contextualize and understand these differences and how they developed, we present a historical chronicle of game map interfaces. Read more

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The Structure of Citizen Bystander Offering Behaviors Immediately After the Boston Marathon Bombing

Published in Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences., 2020

In April of 2013, two pressure cooker bombs detonated near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The resulting crowdsourced criminal investigation has been subject to intense scrutiny. What has not been discussed are the offering behaviors of Twitter users immediately following the detonations. The hashtag #BostonHelp offers a case study of what emergent, computer-mediated groups offer victims of a crisis event. Through creative appropriation of at-hand technologies (CAAT), this emergent group organized online offering and information about tangible resources on the ground. Read more

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A Vision of Augmented Reality for Urban Search and Rescue

Published in Halfway to the Future, 2019

Search and rescue (SAR) operations are often nearly computer-technology-free due to the fragility and connectivity needs of current information communication technology (ICT). In this design fiction, we envision a world where SAR uses augmented reality (AR) and the surplus labor of volunteers during crisis response efforts. Read more

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A Tale of Dungeons and Dragons and the Origins of the Game Platform

Published in Analog Game Studies, 2019

This essay narrows the gap between analog1 and digital games by connecting Dungeons and Dragons (1974) or D&D to the origins of the video game industry. Despite its analog status, D&D is a video gaming platform much like a Nintendo Switch, Mattel Intellivision, or the Atari Lynx. In fact, it is the first platform, or environment that programming can be performed on2. D&D was formed of the same military logic as programming languages and shared a release date with the first computers available for public use.3 Read more

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Scaling 911 Texting for Large-Scale Disasters: Developing Practical Technical Innovations for Emergency Management at Public Universities

Published in Emergency and Disaster Management: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, 2019

In this paper the authors present a system that aims to provide real-time data to emergency managers during a crisis event in such an environment – a college town during a football game or similarly attended event. The system is designed to accept, sort, triage and deliver hundreds of direct text messages from populations engaged in a crisis to emergency management staff who can respond. They posit that when a municipal or county-level EOC is cross-housed with a University EOC, multiple opportunities for development and funding occur. Read more

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Making Maps Available for Play: Analyzing the Design of Game Cartography Interfaces

Published in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 2019

We trace the history of game map interfaces from their paper-based inspiration to their current smart phone-like appearance. Read-only map interfaces enable players to consume maps, which is sufficient for wayfinding. Game cartography interfaces enable players to persistently modify maps, expanding the range of activity to support planning and coordination. Read more

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Association Mapping: Social Network Analysis with Humans and Non-Humans

Published in Dissertation, 2018

It is possible to use Social-Network Analysis to reify Actor-Network Theory. By including non-human actors in the analysis of software use, all of the disparate applications, devices, tasks, and contexts can be made explicit, numerically represented, and tested against or with similar networks. I demonstrate AM by creating Association Maps for 6 games of the board game Catan (1995) – a dice-based game of resource distribution and management. Catan (1995) was chosen for this pilot study due to its popularity, affordances, and expected behaviors. Read more

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Practical Insights into the Design of Future Disaster Response Training Simulations

Published in Conference Proceedings, 2018

A primary component of disaster response is training. These educational exercises provide responders with the knowledge and skills needed to be prepared when disasters happen. However, traditional training methods, such as high-fidelity simulations (e.g., real-life drills) and classroom courses, may fall short of providing effective and cost-efficient training that is needed for today’s challenges. Read more

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Crowdsourcing Investigations: Crowd Participation in Identifying the Bomb and Bomber from the Boston Marathon Bombing

Published in International Journal of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, 2014

In this paper we illustrate the ethical dilemmas that arise when large public investigations in a crisis are crowdsourced. We focus the variations in public opinion concerning the actions of two online groups during the immediate aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombing. Read more

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