2,310 research outputs found
Future wireless applications for a networked city: services for visitors and residents
Future wireless networks will offer near-ubiquitous high-bandwidth communications to mobile users. In addition, the accurate position of users will be known, either through network services or via additional sensing devices such as GPS. These characteristics of future mobile environments will enable the development of location-aware and, more generally, context-sensitive applications. In an attempt to explore the system, application, and user issues associated with the development and deployment of such applications, we began to develop the Lancaster GUIDE system in early 1997, finishing the first phase of the project in 1999. In its entirety, GUIDE comprises a citywide wireless network based on 802.11, a context-sensitive tour guide application with, crucially, significant content, and a set of supporting distributed systems services. Uniquely in the field, GUIDE has been evaluated using members of the general public, and we have gained significant experience in the design of usable context-sensitive applications. We focus on the applications and supporting infrastructure that will form part of GUIDE II, the successor to the GUIDE system. These developments are designed to expand GUIDE outside the tour guide domain, and to provide applications and services for residents of the city of Lancaster, offering a vision of the future mobile environments that will emerge once ubiquitous high-bandwidth coverage is available in most cities
The F@ Framework of Designing Awareness Mechanisms in Instant Messaging
This paper presents our research on awareness support in Instant Messaging (IM). The paper starts with a brief overview of empirical study of IM, using an online survey and face-to-face interviews to identify user needs for awareness support. The study identified a need for supporting four aspects of awareness, awareness of multiple concurrent conversations, conversational awareness, presence awareness of a group conversation, and visibility of moment-to-moment listeners and viewers. Based on the empirical study and existing research on awareness, we have developed the F@ (read as fat) framework of awareness. F@ comprises of the abstract level and the concrete level. The former includes an in-depth description of various awareness aspects in IM, whilst the latter utilises temporal logic to formalise fundamental time-related awareness aspects. F@ helps developers gain a better understanding of awareness and thereby design usable mechanisms to support awareness. Applying F@, we have designed several mechanisms to support various aspect of awareness in IM
DocuDrama
This paper presents an approach combining concepts of virtual storytelling with cooperative processes. We will describe why storytelling is relevant in cooperation support applications. We will outline how storytelling concepts provide a new quality for groupware applications. Different prototypes illustrate a combination of a groupware application with various storytelling components in a Theatre of Work
Small Business - A Cyber Resilience Vulnerability
Small business in Australia comprise 95% of businesses. As a group this means that they contain increasing volumes of personal and business data. This creates escalating vulnerabilities as information is aggregated by various agencies. These vulnerabilities include identity theft and fraud. The threat environment of small business is extensive with both technical and human vulnerabilities. The problem is that the small business environment is being encouraged to adopt e-commerce by the government yet lacks resources in securing its cyber activity. This paper analysed the threats to this situation and found that questions of responsibility by individual businesses and the government are fundamental to the protection of small businesses information. Ultimately this raises the possibility of an undefined and unrecognised major vulnerability for Australia
Designing Attention-Centric Notification Systems: Five HCI Challenges
Through an examination of the emerging domain of cognitive systems, with a
focus on attention-centric cognitive systems used for notification, this document explores
the human-computer interaction challenges that must be addressed for successful
interface design. This document asserts that with compatible tools and methods, user
notification requirements and interface usability can be abstracted, expressed, and
compared with critical parameter ratings; that is, even novice designers can assess
attention cost factors to determine target parameter levels for new system development.
With a general understanding of the user tasks supported by the notification system, a
designer can access the repository of design knowledge for appropriate information and
interaction design techniques (e.g., use of color, audio features, animation, screen size,
transition of states, etc), which have analytically and empirically derived ratings.
Furthermore, usability evaluation methods, provided to designers as part of the integrated
system, are adaptable to specific combinations of targeted parameter levels. User testing
results can be conveniently added back into the design knowledge repository and
compared to target parameter levels to determine design success and build reusable HCI
knowledge.
This approach is discussed in greater detail as we describe five HCI challenges
relating to cognitive system development: (1) convenient access to basic research and
guidelines, (2) requirements engineering methods for notification interfaces, (3) better
and more usable predictive modeling for pre-attentive and dual-task interfaces, (4)
standard empirical evaluation procedures for notification systems, and (5) conceptual
frameworks for organizing reusable design and software components.
This document also describes our initial work toward building infrastructure to
overcome these five challenges, focused on notification system development. We
described LINK-UP, a design environment grounded on years of theory and method
development within HCI, providing a mechanism to integrate interdisciplinary expertise
from the cognitive systems research community. Claims allow convenient access to
basic research and guidelines, while modules parallel a lifecycle development iteration
and provide a process for requirements engineering guided by this basic research. The
activities carried out through LINK-UP provide access to and interaction with reusable
design components organized based on our framework. We think that this approach may
provide the scientific basis necessary for exciting interdisciplinary advancement through
many fields of design, with notification systems serving as an initial model.
A version of this document will appear as chapter 3 in the book Cognitive
Systems: Human Cognitive Models in Systems Design edited by Chris Forsythe, Michael
Bernard, and Timothy Goldsmith resulting from a workshop led by the editors in summer
2003. The authors are grateful for the input of the workshop organizers and conference
attendees in the preparation of this document
Discovering Boundaries for Mobile Awareness: An Analysis of Relevant Design Factors
Mobile awareness applications connect you with the activities of friends, colleagues, and communication partners. The development of awareness applications for mobile devices is a top priority for HCI researchers. In discovering boundaries for mobile awareness systems, it is important to consider how these devices will be used. Factors relevant to design include boundaries drawn by technical, functional, privacy and complexity issues. This paper presents a literature review and introduces a Mobile Awareness Conceptual Framework that defines relevant boundaries for mobile awareness applications. The Framework includes information awareness, people-centered awareness, and context awareness. The paper concludes with an application of the Framework to inform the design of mobile awareness systems
Contrasting Views of Complexity and Their Implications For Network-Centric Infrastructures
There exists a widely recognized need to better understand
and manage complex “systems of systems,” ranging from
biology, ecology, and medicine to network-centric technologies.
This is motivating the search for universal laws of highly evolved
systems and driving demand for new mathematics and methods
that are consistent, integrative, and predictive. However, the theoretical
frameworks available today are not merely fragmented
but sometimes contradictory and incompatible. We argue that
complexity arises in highly evolved biological and technological
systems primarily to provide mechanisms to create robustness.
However, this complexity itself can be a source of new fragility,
leading to “robust yet fragile” tradeoffs in system design. We
focus on the role of robustness and architecture in networked
infrastructures, and we highlight recent advances in the theory
of distributed control driven by network technologies. This view
of complexity in highly organized technological and biological systems
is fundamentally different from the dominant perspective in
the mainstream sciences, which downplays function, constraints,
and tradeoffs, and tends to minimize the role of organization and
design
DRONE AMERICA: THE END OF PRIVACY?
Cutting-edge technological innovations have enabled law enforcement agencies to collect data over a geographical area in relatively short amounts of time. Drones (also known as unmanned aerial vehicles) are becoming increasingly acceptable and employed by state and local law enforcement to become force multipliers. While the Federal Aviation Administration has addressed the integration and safety of flight requirements for law enforcement agencies to utilize drones, federal privacy and data collection regulations are unresolved.
This thesis argues that federal regulation is required and attempts to highlight the distinction between surveillance technology and delivery platforms to understand how to approach the regulation of data gathering.
In doing so, this thesis uses a political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological (PEST) analysis to examine Title III and relative jurisprudence dealing with both surveillance and aerial platforms. The PEST analysis aims to bring forward the salient points in crafting recommendations and expansion in current legislation that support an increase in citizens’ safety and security, but remain within the bounds of constitutional liberty and the Fourth Amendment.Lieutenant Commander, United States NavyApproved for public release. distribution is unlimite
They want to tell us: Attention-aware Design and Evaluation of Ambient Displays for Learning
This paper explores the interaction between users and ambient displays and the evaluation thereof in a learning context. A formative design study examined the user attention towards ambient displays as well as the influence of different display designs. Experimental prototypes were varied on two design dimensions, namely representational fidelity and notification level, and deployed on a university campus. For the evaluation a combined approach using quantitative attention data as well as qualitative assessment methods was used. The results show a high degree of user interest in the displays over time, but do not provide clear evidence that the design of the displays influences the user attention. Nevertheless, the combination of quantitative and qualitative measurement does provide a more holistic view on user attention. The gathered insights can inform future designs and developments of ambient displays also beyond the learning context
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