A longitudinal review of Mobile HCI research Methods

This paper revisits a research methods survey from 2003 and contrasts it with a survey from 2010. The motivation is to gain insight about how mobile HCI research has evolved over the last decade in terms of approaches and focus. The paper classifies 144 publications from 2009 published in 10 prominent outlets by their research methods and purpose. Comparing this to the survey for 2000-02 show that mobile HCI research has changed methodologically. From being almost exclusively driven by engineering and applied research, current mobile HCI is primarily empirically driven, involves a high number of field studies, and focus on evaluating and understanding, as well as engineering. It has also become increasingly multi-methodological, combining and diversifying methods from different disciplines. At the same time, new opportunities and challenges have emerged

Supporting collaborative work using interactive tabletop

PhD ThesisCollaborative working is a key of success for organisations. People work together around tables at work, home, school, and coffee shops. With the explosion of the internet and computer systems, there are a variety of tools to support collaboration in groups, such as groupware, and tools that support online meetings. However, in the case of co-located meetings and face-to-face situations, facial expressions, body language, and the verbal communications have significant influence on the group decision making process. Often people have a natural preference for traditional pen-and-paper-based decision support solutions in such situations. Thus, it is a challenge to implement tools that rely advanced technological interfaces, such as interactive multi-touch tabletops, to support collaborative work. This thesis proposes a novel tabletop application to support group work and investigates the effectiveness and usability of the proposed system. The requirements for the developed system are based on a review of previous literature and also on requirements elicited from potential users. The innovative aspect of our system is that it allows the use of personal devices that allow some level of privacy for the participants in the group work. We expect that the personal devices may contribute to the effectiveness of the use of tabletops to support collaborative work. We chose for the purpose of evaluation experiment the collaborative development of mind maps by groups, which has been investigated earlier as a representative form of collaborative work. Two controlled laboratory experiments were designed to examine the usability features and associated emotional attitudes for the tabletop mind map application in comparison with the conventional pen-and-paper approach in the context of collaborative work. The evaluation clearly indicates that the combination of the tabletop and personal devices support and encourage multiple people working collaboratively. The comparison of the associated emotional attitudes indicates that the interactive tabletop facilitates the active involvement of participants in the group decision making significantly more than the use of the pen-and-paper conditions. The work reported here contributes significantly to our understanding of the usability and effectiveness of interactive tabletop applications in the context of supporting of collaborative work.The Royal Thai governmen

Increasing Passersby Engagement with Public Large Interactive Surfaces

Despite the proliferation of Public Large Interactive Surfaces (PLISs), and their potential to provide a more engaging and interactive user experience, these surfaces often go unnoticed by passersby, or not immediately comprehensible in terms of usage. Current research in addressing this problem involves modeling the user-surface interaction through observational studies, and deriving recommendations for interface design to facilitate the interaction. This approach is often context-specific, requires elaborate setup, and lacks experimental control. To mitigate this problem, an interaction model, named DISCOVER, was developed by drawing ideas from classic usability research and focusing on the discoverability aspect of the interaction. This approach allows the model to serve as a lens for understanding and synthesizing existing work on PLISs, and to be used as an evaluation framework to assess effectiveness of potential designs. To accompany this evaluation capability, a laboratory-based evaluation methodology was developed to allow researchers to quickly implement and evaluate potential designs, particularly for the early stages of interaction that precede the more commonly studied explicit and direct interaction (e.g., touches, mid-air gestures). Using the model and the evaluation methodology, a proximity-based interaction mechanism using animated content and shadow visualizations was designed and evaluated as an effective technique in drawing attention from unknowing study participants. A follow-up, more conventional in-the-wild study also verified this finding, and further demonstrated the usefulness of shadow visualizations in drawing attention from passersby, retaining them, and enticing playful interaction. The goal of this thesis is to better equip researchers and practitioners of PLISs with tools that allow them to evaluate and improve existing interfaces, and to provide them with insights into designing future ones employing better and more engaging technologies