With widespread broadband adoption, more households report experiencing sub-optimal speeds. Not only are slow speeds frustrating, they may indicate consumers are not receiving the services they are paying for from their internet service providers. Yet, determining the speed and source of slow-downs is hard because few tools exist for broadband management. We report on results of a field trial with 10 households using a visual network tool designed to address these problems. We describe the results of the study and provide design implications for future tools. More importantly, we argue that tools like this can educate and empower consumers by making broadband speeds and sources of slow-downs more visible.  This paper was awarded a Best Paper award given to the top 1% of submissions at the top-tier Human Computer Interaction conference, CHI. It will be presented in May in Vancouver at the conference.

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