about me

I completed Sonic the Hedgehog on my auntie's Sega Mega Drive before I started primary school, and my entire childhood and adolescent life I knew with absolute certainty that I wanted to be a games programmer. Until I attended a games programming course at university and realised with absolute certainty that I did not want to be a games programmer.

Two years into a four year degree, it dawned on me that I didn't really know what I wanted; yes, I wanted to work with technology, but there was something I was missing. It was at that point that I moved to the University of Dundee, where I began an undergraduate degree in Applied Computing.

During the final year of my degree I worked on my dissertation as a part of a research group within the computing department. I explored how technology could support children with severe disabilities to engage in personal narratives with their families, observing the children during their day and interviewing the people around them. It was then that I realised what I had been missing all this time. I wanted more than to just work with technology; I wanted to work with people.

About My research

My research interests lie in how technology can positively impact life experiences, with a particular focus on sensitive life processes. These are times of transition in a person's lifespan, such as a relationship break up, gender transition, or being diagnosed with an illness. Taking a primarily qualitative approach to exploring sensitive life processes, I aim to support people experiencing these through the use of digital technologies.

My PhD research specifically explores romantic relationship break up; for more information, click here. I am currently a Joint-PhD student at the University of Dundee, and at the University of Technology Sydney; I expect to graduate from both universities with a PhD in HCI and Design in 2018.

I am incredibly grateful to the EPSRC for funding my postgraduate studies, and to both the University of Dundee and the Graduate Research School at UTS for supporting my travel as part of my Joint-PhD. I am jointly supervised by Professor Wendy Moncur as part of the Living Digital Research Group in Dundee, and by Professor Elise van den Hoven as part of the Materialising Memories Research Group at UTS.

Publications

Herron D., Moncur W., van den Hoven E. (2017 in press). Digital Decoupling and Disentangling: Towards Design for Romantic Break Up. In Proceedings of Designing Interactive Systems. Edinburgh, Scotland. DIS ’17.

Gorkovenko K., Tigwell G., Norrie C., Waite M., Herron D. (2017 in press). ShopComm: Community-Supported Online Shopping for Older Adults. In Proceedings of Association for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe. Sheffield, UK. AAATE '17.

to see a full list of publications, click below:

To publications

Stuff I Like

Hill Walking, fitness, and obstacle course races

One of the best things about living in Scotland is the incredible countryside. There are massive hills and mountains everywhere you look, all waiting to be explored! Myself and my partner Shauna have a very adorable Cocker Spaniel named Rupert, so the three of us frequently go off together and explore til our hearts' content. Apart from scaling large hills and being generally frozen by the Scottish outdoors, I enjoying training and running - especially obstacle course races. Running head first through forests, into mud pits, and out of rivers, and generally climbing up, leaping over, or falling down any number of obstacles constitutes a great day.

Reading

"Surprising what you can dig out of books if you read long enough, isn't it?"

-- Robert Jordan

I am a huge fan of fantasy (and sci-fi) novels. So much so that it has become
difficult for me to read any fiction that doesn't include some sort of
magic, magical creature, or hero's journey.

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss
Harry Potter by J K Rowling
The Farseer Trilogy --> The Fitz and the Fool by Robin Hobb
The Empire Trilogy by Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts
The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Epic by Conor Kostick

Baking

My mum taught me to bake when I was young, and it's something I've
always loved doing. Scones. Cakes. Brownies. Bread. Cookies. Pies.
Literally anything, you name it and I'll bake it.

Contact Me

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EMAIL & PHONE
dherron@dundee.ac.uk
(01382) 386539

ADDRESS
Research Studio, Matthew Building
DJCAD, University of Dundee
Dundee, Scotland
DD1 3DH