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School of Applied Professional Studies

CRUX Lab

About the lab

The CRUX Lab is an interdisciplinary inquiry environment specializing in UX and communication design insight and strategy. We have a number of competencies to help you better understand and serve your users. The lab specializes in communication and user experience research and is positioned to serve as a community resource. We strengthen ASU’s ability to conduct UX research, tackle community problems, and help local economies capture economic opportunities.

The team is made up of interdisciplinary scholars in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts who develop and lead projects that provide meaningful experience to students in the Technical Communication programs in CISA and benefits to the communities we live in.

In the news

Water sustainability at center of new mixed-reality game

ASU team led by technical communication, UX expert Claire Lauer awarded $2M from NSF

Read the ASU News article

 

Upcoming events

Past events

Preksha Mysore discussing her eye tracking research at a CRUX Lab event

Eye tracking in TWC 501: Infographics, heat and memorability

Date:
February 28, 2024

Topic:
Preksha Mysore and Kat Lambrecht discuss eye tracking research using heat infographics created by students as a part of TWC 501: Project Cities course.

A visiting scholar student testing eye tracking equipment in the CRUX Lab

Visit from El Puente Scholars students from Albuquerque

Date:
March 12-13, 2024

Topic:
CRUX Lab welcomed 25 students from the University of New Mexico affiliated with the El Puente Research Fellowship, a program for underrepresented students interested in competitive graduate programs.

Current CRUX Lab projects

Arizona Department of Environmental Quality communications

Lab leaders:
Kat Lambrecht and Claire Lauer

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Arizona Water Chatbot

Lab leaders:
Stephen Carradini & Claire Lauer

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Computer visioning methods for communication researchers

Lab leaders:
Stephen Carradini and Claire Lauer

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Cross-species interfaces and conservation

Lab leader:
Andy Mara

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Employing rhetoric to improve probabilistic forecast communication

Lab leader:
Kat Lambrecht

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Eye tracking and multimodal writing projects

Lab leaders:
Andy Mara and Kat Lambrecht

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Impact Water AZ/AWII

Lab leader:
Claire Lauer

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WaterSIMmersive NSF AISL grant

Lab leader:
Claire Lauer

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WIFA and Impact Water dashboard

Lab leader:
Claire Lauer

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Completed projects

Eye tracking generational differences in visual literacy

Lab leader:
Eva Brumberger

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Eye tracking visual literacy expertise

Lab leader:
Eva Brumberger

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How people are deceived by deceptive tactics used in data visualizations

Lab leader:
Claire Lauer

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MassMine

Lab leader:
Claire Lauer 

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Visualizing extreme heat: Infographics, eye tracking, and memorability

Lab leader:
Kat Lambrecht

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WaterSIM Tablet Game UX

Lab leader:
Claire Lauer

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CRUX Lab leadership

Co-directors

Kat Lambrecht smiling

Kat Lambrecht

kathryn.lambrecht@asu.edu

Kat Lambrecht is an Assistant Professor of Technical Communication researching extreme weather and heat messaging, risk communication, and data visualization.

Andrew Mara smiling

Andrew Mara

andrew.f.mara@asu.edu

Dr. Andrew Mara is an Associate Professor in Technical Writing and Communication in Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication. He studies writing practices in digital and new media ecologies, innovation behaviors in institutions, posthumanist philosophy, and user experience methods.

Affiliated faculty

Claire Lauer smiling

Claire Lauer

Claire Lauer is professor of technical communication and co-director of the user experience master’s program. Her most recent publications investigate how people read data visualizations and are susceptible to deceptive tactics used in graphs.

Stephen Carradini smiling

Stephen Carradini

Stephen Carradini teaches courses on online professional communication and digital ethics in the Technical Communication program. He uses qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate how people who work outside large organizations use online professional communication to do their work.