Small Surfaces » resources

When users “do” the ubicomp

Gabriel White — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:51:03 +0000

Continuing with the idea that ubiquitous computing is messy, Antti Oulasvirta writes about his research in Interactions, which includes the following recommendations:

Minimizing overheads that create temporal seams between activities;
Making remote but important resources, such as connectivity or cables, better transparent locally and digitally;
Propagating metadata on migration of data from device to device;
Supporting ad hoc uses of proximate devices’ resources like projectors, keyboards, and displays;
Triggering digital events like synchronization of predetermined documents with physical gestures; and

Supporting appropriation of material properties for support surfaces
Link: When users ‘do’ the ubicomp (acm.org, also interactions.acm.org)

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Ubicomp worth reading

Gabriel White — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:17:05 +0000

Nicholas Nova lists out some of his recommended ubicomp reads.

“A reader of this blog recently asked me if I had tips about relevant paper to read concerning Ubiquitous Computing that has been released in the last 2 years…”

Link: Good reads on Ubiquitous Computing (liftlab.com)

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Designing medical devices

Gabriel White — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 17:27:37 +0000

This collection of presentations and papers on medical devices helps shed some light on the only dimly illuminated world of medical device design (why is there so little written on this topic?!). Some interesting pieces about topics including diabetes, asthma and remote telemedicine.

“The proliferation of inexpensive mobile devices, in-home medical appliances, and personal health record keeping is rapidly increasing the role of people in their healthcare and wellness monitoring. This workshop will promote improvement to the usability aspects of existing interfaces, help identify best practices, and promote consistency across devices. The goals are to encourage awareness of lifestyle changes, improve treatment compliance, facilitate data transfer to healthcare team members, and demonstrate appropriate information visualizations. Researchers and developers are invited to present their work.”

Link: Personal Medical Devices Workshop: Increasing Patient Healthcare Participation (cs.umd.edu)

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Research on mobile use in developing countries

Gabriel White — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:13:48 +0000

Jonathon Donner has published a survey of research approaches to mobile use in developing countries. An interesting survey with loads of references. See Jonathon’s site for more of his publications.

“In particular, a few kinds of studies seem most popular: those which focus on the mobile as a tool for new forms of instrumental communication and information processing; those which examine mobile’s diffusion ‘by proxy’, comparing cross-national or crosscultural attributes; those which look at the success or failure of particular initiatives to deploy and encourage mobiles adoption, either at the level of an individual project or at the national/policy level, and; those which examine the mobile as new a mediator and enabler of older complex social interactions, mixing global and local, individual and collective in new ways.”

Link: Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature (168k PDF, jonathandonner.com)

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Women in pervasive computing

Gabriel White — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 00:34:52 +0000

“Women in technology & culture : An in-progress list of women researchers, designers & artists working in pervasive computing-related fields.”

Link: Women researchers, designers & artists working in pervasive computing-related fields (purselipsquarejaw.org)

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Series 60 experience blog

Gabriel White — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 01:55:15 +0000

A blog about the Nokia Series 60.

Link: S60 User Experience (s60.com)

UPDATED – My mistake: this blog is not published by Nokia.

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Mobile usage behaviours data collection project

Gabriel White — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:51:06 +0000

“We have captured communication, proximity, location, and activity information from 100 subjects at MIT over the course of the 2004-2005 academic year. This data represents over 350,000 hours (~40 years) of continuous data on human behavior. Such rich data on complex social systems have implications for a variety of fields. The research questions we are addressing include: How do social networks evolve over time? How entropic (predictable) are most people’s lives? How does information flow? Can the topology of a social network be inferred from only proximity data? How can we change a group’s interactions to promote better functioning?”

(Are you at CHI in Montreal? Want to meet up? Send me an email)

Link: MIT Media Lab: Reality Mining (media.mit.edu)

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Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools

Gabriel White — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 06:00:51 +0000

Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools provides regular doses of inspiration. This world time clock, for example. Roll it around for different time zones.

(image from Cool Tools)

Link: Cool Tools (kk.org)

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Observing the every day

Gabriel White — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 11:00:35 +0000

Jan Chipchase’s blog is a wonderful source of visual and written inspiration. Working for User Exerperience research group at Nokia, Jan posts pithy and interesting stuff (such as this photograph of a trishaw driver in Lhasa using a RAZR).

(photograph from janchipchase.com – Unexpecting the Expected)

Link: future perfect (janchipchase.com)

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Extract of “Designing for Small Screens”

Gabriel White — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 08:47:58 +0000

A short extract from the book “Designing for Small Screens”.

“Physical interaction Interaction with small-screen devices reveals the conflict of interests between creating the smallest physical size that will give the user unrestricted mobility and flexibility, whilst maintaining dimensions that are defined by the size and the motor functions of the human hand. The balance is not always achieved and some devices are already smaller than the minimum size that can be comfortably operated by an adult hand. There are two fundamental types of physical interaction that can be distinguished: one-handed and two-handed interaction. Some devices can only be operated with two hands, for example, the Game Boy, whilst other devices offer different modes that can be selected alternately. Smart phones, for example allow the user to dial numbers with one hand, but interaction for more complex applications such as using the calendar or accessing the internet is done with two hands.”

Link: Feature: Designing for Small Screens (usabilitynews.com)

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Mobile social science research bibliography

Gabriel White — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 08:44:15 +0000

An omnibus research bibliography (most sources are not accessible online).

“Several people asked me (Nalini P. Kotamraju) to share my bibliography-in-progress on social science research about mobile devices, mobile phone uses, SMS/texting, and instant messaging, so here it is.”

Link: Mobile Phone/SMS/Instant Messaging Social Science Research (berkeley.edu)

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Nokia Usability Forum

Gabriel White — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 08:55:38 +0000

Resources from Nokia about design. Some interesting stuff in there, a lot of it pitched to developers.

“Usability articles. Usability articles illustrate concrete perspectives on usability in mobile application creation. They describe in brief the most interesting issues in wireless development with end user in mind. There are success cases as well as general guidance on how to handle usability issues in a cost-efficient manner in product development.

“UI & User Experience Guidelines. Our UI & Usability Guidelines provide a treasure trove for mobile application developers and enthusiasts worldwide. From general guidance and detailed enterprise application and game usability guidelines to tips and tricks for optimizing content for Nokia mobile phones, the user-friendliness of your mobile applications is ensured by putting these documents in full use.”

Link: Nokia Usability Forum

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Design for mobile communitites

Gabriel White — Tue, 03 May 2005 14:15:38 +0000

Mobile Community Design is ”...a frequently updated source of research and design information concerning mobile communities… [It publishes] Academic research papers, mobile design methods, conference announcements, announcements of technology that enables mobile communities, book references.”

The site has a nice chart showing the applicability of different research methods.

Link: Mobile Community Design

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