Collaboration and interference: Awareness with mice or touch input

Multi-touch surfaces are becoming increasingly popular. An assumed benefit is that they can facilitate collaborative interactions in co-located groups. In particular, being able to see another's physical actions can enhance awareness, which in turn can support fluid interaction and coordination. However, there is a paucity of empirical evidence or measures to support these claims. We present an analysis of different aspects of awareness in an empirical study that compared two kinds of input: multi-touch and multiple mice. For our analysis, a set of awareness indices was derived from the CSCW and HCI literatures, which measures both the presence and absence of awareness in co-located settings. Our findings indicate higher levels of awareness for the multi-touch condition accompanied by significantly more actions that interfere with each other. A subsequent qualitative analysis shows that the interactions in this condition were more fluid and that interference was quickly resolved. We suggest that it is more important that resources are available to negotiate interference rather than necessarily to attempt to prevent it

Modeling interactive memex-like applications based on self-modifiable petri nets

This paper introduces an interactive Memex-like application using a self-modifiable Petri Net model – Self-modifiable Color Petri Net (SCPN). The Memex (“memory extender”) device proposed by Vannevar Bush in 1945 focused on the problems of “locating relevant information in the published records and recording how that information is intellectually connected.” The important features of Memex include associative indexing and retrieval. In this paper, the self-modifiable functions of SCPN are used to achieve trail recording and retrieval. A place in SCPN represents a website and an arc indicates the trail direction. Each time when a new website is visited, a place corresponding to this website will be added. After a trail is built, users can use it to retrieve the websites they have visited. Besides, useful user interactions are supported by SCPN to achieve Memex functions. The types of user interactions include: forward, backward, history, search, etc. A simulator has been built to demonstrate that the SCPN model can realize Memex functions. Petri net instances can be designed to model trail record, back, and forward operations using this simulator. Furthermore, a client-server based application system has been built. Using this system, a user can surf online and record his surfing history on the server according to different topics and share them with other users

Evaluating Cross-Device Transitioning Experience in Seated and Moving Contexts

Cross-platform services allow access to information across different devices in different locations and situational contexts. We observed forty-five participants completing tasks while transitioning between a laptop and a mobile phone across different contexts (seated–moving and seated–seated). Findings showed that in each test setting, users were sensitive to the same cross-platform user experience (UX) elements. However, the seated–moving settings generated more issues, for example, more consistency problems. Two moving-related factors (attentiveness and manageability) also affected cross-platform UX. In addition, we found design issues associated with using mobile user interfaces (UIs) while walking. We analyzed the issues and proposed a set of UX design principles for mobile UIs in moving situations, such as reduction and aesthetic simplicity. This suggests designing context-aware cross-platform services that take transitioning into account for enhanced mobility

Mirrors of the World - Supporting Situational Awareness with Computer Screens

In this paper we develop a notion of support for social and situational awareness. Our initial ideas are based on the metaphor of using a mirror to see what you are not looking at. We provide two studies that, for different contexts, apply the metaphor to develop design ideas that fit the context of use

Securing By Design

This article investigates how modern neo-liberal states are 'securing by design' harnessing design to new technologies in order to produce security, safety, and protection. We take a critical view toward 'securing by design' and the policy agendas it produces of 'designing out insecurity' and 'designing in protection' because securing by design strategies rely upon inadequate conceptualisations of security, technology, and design and inadequate understandings of their relationships to produce inadequate 'security solutions' to readymade 'security problems'. This critique leads us to propose a new research agenda we call Redesigning Security. A Redesigning Security Approach begins from a recognition that the achievement of security is more often than not illusive, which means that the desire for security is itself problematic. Rather than encouraging the design of 'security solutions' a securing by design a Redesigning Security Approach explores how we might insecure securing by design. By acknowledging and then moving beyond the new security studies insight that security often produces insecurity, our approach uses design as a vehicle through which to raise questions about security problems and security solutions by collaborating with political and critical design practitioners to design concrete material objects that themselves embody questions about traditional security and about traditional design practices that use technology to depoliticise how technology is deployed by states and corporations to make us 'safe'

Peripheral Notifications: Effects of Feature Combination and Task Interference

Visual notifications are integral to interactive computing systems. The design of visual notifications entails two main considerations: first, visual notifications should be noticeable, as they usually aim to attract a user`s attention to a location away from their main task; second, their noticeability has to be moderated to prevent user distraction and annoyance. Although notifications have been around for a long time on standard desktop environments, new computing environments such as large screens add new factors that have to be taken into account when designing notifications. With large displays, much of the content is in the user's visual periphery, where human capacity to notice visual effects is diminished. One design strategy for enhancing noticeability is to combine visual features, such as motion and colour. Yet little is known about how feature combinations affect noticeability across the visual field, or about how peripheral noticeability changes when a user is working on an attention-demanding task. We addressed these questions by conducting two studies. We conducted a laboratory study that tested people's ability to detect popout targets that used combinations of three visual variables. After determining that the noticeability of feature combinations were approximately equal to the better of the individual features, we designed an experiment to investigate peripheral noticeability and distraction when a user is focusing on a primary task. Our results suggest that there can be interference between the demands of primary tasks and the visual features in the notifications. Furthermore, primary task performance is adversely affected by motion effects in the peripheral notifications. Our studies contribute to a better understanding of how visual features operate when used as peripheral notifications. We provide new insights, both in terms of combining features, and interactions with primary tasks

Vibrations in place: sound and language in early childhood literacy practices

This article explores how close attention to sound can help one to rethink literacy in early childhood education. Through an analysis of text, audio, video, and photographic data from a sound walk undertaken with a parent and a child, we make two arguments. First, contrary to skills-based approaches that abstract literacy from context, we show how literacy emerges from vibrational entanglements between bodies and places. We provide examples of how listening and sound-making unfold together in place, as sound moves between different material bodies, including children, animals, objects, buildings, and landscapes. Our analysis suggests that a wide range of sound-making and listening practices, not just those focused on words, should be valued in early childhood literacy. Second, we demonstrate how sound also transcends bodies and places through its multiplicity, ephemerality, and fluidity. We draw on the more-than-human semiotics of Eduardo Kohn to analyze how sounds operate as relational signs between human and nonhuman entities, using his ideas to move beyond human-centered, symbol-centered practices of literacy

Experiences with AR plots: A travel time augmented reality game

Digital games have the potential for changing attitudes towards social issues such as climate change and sustainability. These games don’t have to be based on fixed computing and with the rise of smart phone, they can make use of a range of sensor and augmented reality technologies. This paper presents the experience of developing AR Plots, a prototype locative game with an augmented reality interface. It is a game designed to fit in with the fractured nature of travel time on public transport. This paper discusses technical challenges, usability issues and game design approaches used to work within these constraints

User interface issues in supporting human-computer integrated scheduling

Explored here is the user interface problems encountered with the Operations Missions Planner (OMP) project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). OMP uses a unique iterative approach to planning that places additional requirements on the user interface, particularly to support system development and maintenance. These requirements are necessary to support the concepts of heuristically controlled search, in-progress assessment, and iterative refinement of the schedule. The techniques used to address the OMP interface needs are given