Hi! I'm Chanda.

I'm a PhD candidate in human-computer interaction at the University of Michigan School of Information, working with Dr. Paul Resnick. I study how to design technology for rural and low-income users to improve physical and mental health. I also spend a lot of time in a bright blue camper called the Techmobile, traveling around the country helping people learn about technology.

I received my Master's of Science in Information at the School of Information in 2014 with a specialization information economics, and a B.A. in English from Pomona College in Claremont, California in 2009.

For more about me, check out this profile: Faces of UMSI

Chanda Phelan
Email: cdphelan@umich.edu
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The Techmobile

A mobile tech education clinic in rural libraries

The Techmobile is a mobile tech education clinic and maker lab showcase held at community libraries in resource-constrained rural areas in Wyoming and Montana, launched in summer 2017.

The Techmobile is the product of dozens of interviews with rural community members, who told me that their communities needed 1) an extra pair of technologically adept hands to provide basic nonjudgmental IT support (e.g. setting up an email account) and 2) someone who could get kids excited to learn about technology. So I bought an old camper trailer and painted it to look like a circuit board, loaded it up with a 3D printer, Google Cardboard virtual reality glasses, Raspberry Pi equipment, and some Snap Circuits, and headed west.

The Techmobile is currently in hibernation in Michigan for winter 2017. To schedule a Techmobile stop in your community this winter (Michigan) or next spring/summer (nationally), please contact cdphelan@umich.edu.

Research

Here are some projects I've done!

It's creepy, but it doesn't bother me [VIDEO]

In January 2017, I spoke at the FTC about why consumers' privacy preferences sometimes appear irrational: some apparent contradictions can be resolved if privacy concern is divided into two components we named intuitive concern, a gut feeling, and considered concern, a deliberate weighing of risks and benefits.

Echo chambers are destroying democracy — or are they?

People who were well-informed about the 2016 presidental election got their news from different sources than uninformed people, but not in the way you'd expect. Data on browsing behavior gathered using the My Social Media Report extension.

No such thing as too much chocolate

Choice overload research has demonstrated the surprising finding that more choice is not necessarily better: people become overwhelmed with too many choices and leave less satisfied than if they had only a few options. In this study, we used Bayesian analysis to demonstrate that it's unlikely that choice overload occurs in an e-commerce setting.

Publications