How it all started

In Fall 2021, I started working with Dr. Katie Siek to develop a personal research project.

While reading up on abortion access in the United States, I discovered something called abortion storytelling-- where people of all gender identities and backgrounds are sharing their stories in digital spaces for a wide variety of reasons.

This interdisciplinary investigation into abortion storytelling represents the perfect intersection of my academic interests in technology, media, and gender studies.

Collaborators: Dr. Katie A. Siek, Ravi Jangir, Emily Rhoades, Anne Kavalerchik

RQs

What is the role of stories in people's abortion experiences?

How will an online community and semi-structured activities impact the way that people write their abortion stories?

How will abortion stories change according to sharing platforms and audiences?

Results from this study inform our understanding of engaging stigmatized populations, reproductive healthcare, and the ways that technology can support people in sharing their stories.

How it's going

Since starting this project, I have presented multiple posters, presented to internal and external audiences, participated in a workshop, co-organized a workshop, published a case study paper, and submitted a full paper (currently under review).

While we wait to hear back about the full paper, I am exploring these topics:

information work at nonprofit organizations doing reproductive care
how conversational agents engage people around their reproductive health + pregnancy options
how technology can support abortion storytelling across diverse motivations and highly conditional contexts

Abortion Storytelling Project

An infographic of little peg people saying that nearly 1 in 4 women will have an abortion in their lifetime.

Screenshots from abortion storytelling websites, including: We Testify, 1 in 3, and Abortion Out Loud. An infographic of little peg people saying that nearly 1 in 4 women will have an abortion in their lifetime.

Literature Review

I conducted a literature review on the following:

reproductive justice
abortion access campaign techniques
digital advocacy
organizations dedicated to abortion access
effective storytelling
designing for stigmatized populations

The following papers are just two studies of many that informed my decision to create an HCI design workshop to measure the impact of digital community on the ways that people write their stories:

Cockrill, K., & Biggs, A. (2018). Can stories reduce abortion stigma? Findings from a longitudinal cohort study. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 20(3), 335–350. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2017.1346202

Michie, L., Balaam, M., Mccarthy, J., Osadchiy, T., & Morrissey, K. (2018). From Her Story, to Our Story: Digital Storytelling as Public Engagement around Abortion Rights Advocacy in Ireland. 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173931

A banner-shaped infographic displaying the progression of survey cleaning from 981 survey responses to 369 responses on the follow-up survey to 15 responses that pass bot protections.

A cartoon graphic of 3 women that Michaela created (with her own blood, sweat, and tears) for use in recruitment materials. The women are standing back-to-back, writing on a piece of paper, holding up a piece of artwork, and speaking into a megaphone. The graphic is placed above the qualtrics logo.

Interest Survey

Before developing a design intervention, I created an online survey to gauge interest in abortion storytelling and collect information to inform the design of the workshop. I consolidated a variety of resources to build the survey, filed for IRB approval, and crafted all of the recruitment materials.

The survey received 981 responses in under 3 hours, prompting us to suspend data collection. During the data cleaning process, I learned much about bot prevention and data validation, leading us to create a systematic protocol to help people prevent and identify fraudulent responses on their surveys (See recruitment section for more details).

Picture of an activity card used in the study (Activity 2: Write Your Story)

Picture of an activity card used in the study (Activity 4: Identity Brainstorm)

Study Design: Asynchronous Remote Community (ARC)

I decided to design and implement an asynchronous remote community (ARC) for people with abortion experiences. The goal of an ARC study is to help researchers better understand the experiences and design needs of certain groups. It entails inviting people into an online remote space and then assigning semi-structured activities over multiple weeks to encourage participant engagement and community.

Activity Design

I started the ARC design process by curating a list of "effective storytelling" elements. I combined these with my literature review knowledge to design 14 activities which aim to spark conversation about abortion in the U.S. and assist participants in writing stories that are engaging and impactful-- namely, by including specific storytelling and advocacy elements.

These activities will be assigned to participants over a 5-week ARC study, hosted in Slack.

Michaela Krawczyk, Emily Rhoades, and Katie Siek standing next to their abortion storytelling poster during the ProHealth REU gallery.

REU Paper + Presentations

During the design stages of this project, I participated in the Summer 2022 IU ProHealth REU, funded by the National Science Foundation. This was an 8-week research program filled with workshops, professional development, and project collaboration.

I gained a research partner who pursued her own side of the study, looking at first-person abortion narratives on Twitter. Together, we wrote a full paper and designed a research poster, which we presented at a gallery for the broader community. We also recorded individual lightning talks describing our sides of the project.

Research Poster

Lightning Talk

Michaela stands in front of a digital screen displaying her research poster, hands raised in explanation. Three judges sit at a white folding table with their backs to the camera, watching Michaela present. You can't tell in the photo, but Michaela is shouting because the expo hall was very loud.

Winner of 2023 AAAS
E-Poster Competition

I attended the 2023 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Washington, D.C., where I presented my and Emily's REU poster to a panel of judges during a student e-poster competition. I won first place in the category for undergraduate Technology, Engineering & Math.

The video below shows a lightning presentation that I submitted for round 2 of the competition.

3-min Video Presentation

A screenshot of the beta Slack workspace in question, showing a collection of messages. Three of the nine group members share the same last name as Michaela (coincidence??).

Trial Study

After the REU program, I designed and ran a trial study, where I recruited participants to join a beta Slack workspace and assigned them activities with adjusted writing prompts (e.g., Write about a day at school that was hard). I used feedback from the trial study to adjust full-study logistics, and I exported the platform messages to act as sample data.

A very aesthetically-pleasing flyer that Michaela created for participant recruitment.

Recruitment

After receiving IRB-approval for the ARC study, we began recruiting participants with abortion experiences.

We recruited through postings on social media, the All-IN-4-Health database, physical flyers, and paid Facebook advertisements. I also reached out to people who had previously posted their stories on social media, by searching for related hashtags, such as: #ShoutYourAbortion, #YouKnowMe, #abortion, etc.

We started recruitment with 127 survey submissions and ended with 26 validated participant invitations. Read about our multi-step protocol for participant validation and triangulation in the below paper.

Case Study Paper

Michaela standing at a podium with a projected screen in the background, giving a hybrid presentation on her abortion storytelling research. The current slide reads "How can online spaces better support people in writing and sharing their abortion stories?"

Presented at CHI 2023 Workshop on HCI & Social Movements

In April 2023, I participated in a CHI23 workshop on Supporting Social Movements through HCI and Design Research. During the workshop, I presented on our findings and networked with other researchers passionate about HCI + Reproductive Health/Justice. After the workshop, we created a Slack workspace for researchers to continue collaborations. (Reach out if you're interested in joining!)

Workshop Paper Submission