Designing mobile experiences for collocated interaction

Many of our everyday social interactions involve mobile devices. Yet, these tend to only provide good support for distributed social interactions. Although much HCI and CSCW research has explored how we might support collocated, face-to-face situations using mobile devices, much of this work exists as isolated exemplars of technical systems and / or interaction designs. This paper draws on a range of such exemplars to develop a practical design framework intended for guiding the design of new mobile experiences for collocated interaction as well as analysing existing ones. Our framework provides four relational perspectives for designing the complex interplay between: the social situation in which it takes place; the technology used and the mechanics inscribed; the physical environment; and the temporal elements of design. Moreover, each perspective is features some core properties, which are highly relevant when designing these systems. As part of presenting the framework we also explain the process of its construction along with practical advice on how to read and apply it

Using mobile phones in pub talk

We present the findings from a study of how people interleave mobile phone use with conversation in pubs. Our findings, informed by ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, unpack the interactional methods through which groups of people in pubs occasioned, sustained, and disengaged from mobile device use during conversation with friends. Fundamentally, the work that is done consists of various methods of accounting for mobile device use, and displaying involvement in social interaction while the device is used. We highlight multiple examples of the nuanced ways in which interleaving is problematic in interaction, and relate our findings to the CSCW and HCI literature on collocated interaction. We conclude by considering avenues for future research, and discuss how we may support or disrupt interleaving practices through design to overcome the highlighted interactional troubles

Using mobile phones in pub talk

We present the findings from a study of how people interleave mobile phone use with conversation in pubs. Our findings, informed by ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, unpack the interactional methods through which groups of people in pubs occasioned, sustained, and disengaged from mobile device use during conversation with friends. Fundamentally, the work that is done consists of various methods of accounting for mobile device use, and displaying involvement in social interaction while the device is used. We highlight multiple examples of the nuanced ways in which interleaving is problematic in interaction, and relate our findings to the CSCW and HCI literature on collocated interaction. We conclude by considering avenues for future research, and discuss how we may support or disrupt interleaving practices through design to overcome the highlighted interactional troubles

ANGELAH: A Framework for Assisting Elders At Home

The ever growing percentage of elderly people within modern societies poses welfare systems under relevant stress. In fact, partial and progressive loss of motor, sensorial, and/or cognitive skills renders elders unable to live autonomously, eventually leading to their hospitalization. This results in both relevant emotional and economic costs. Ubiquitous computing technologies can offer interesting opportunities for in-house safety and autonomy. However, existing systems partially address in-house safety requirements and typically focus on only elder monitoring and emergency detection. The paper presents ANGELAH, a middleware-level solution integrating both ”elder monitoring and emergency detection” solutions and networking solutions. ANGELAH has two main features: i) it enables efficient integration between a variety of sensors and actuators deployed at home for emergency detection and ii) provides a solid framework for creating and managing rescue teams composed of individuals willing to promptly assist elders in case of emergency situations. A prototype of ANGELAH, designed for a case study for helping elders with vision impairments, is developed and interesting results are obtained from both computer simulations and a real-network testbed

Examining the role of smart TVs and VR HMDs in synchronous at-a-distance media consumption

This article examines synchronous at-a-distance media consumption from two perspectives: How it can be facilitated using existing consumer displays (through TVs combined with smartphones), and imminently available consumer displays (through virtual reality (VR) HMDs combined with RGBD sensing). First, we discuss results from an initial evaluation of a synchronous shared at-a-distance smart TV system, CastAway. Through week-long in-home deployments with five couples, we gain formative insights into the adoption and usage of at-a-distance media consumption and how couples communicated during said consumption. We then examine how the imminent availability and potential adoption of consumer VR HMDs could affect preferences toward how synchronous at-a-distance media consumption is conducted, in a laboratory study of 12 pairs, by enhancing media immersion and supporting embodied telepresence for communication. Finally, we discuss the implications these studies have for the near-future of consumer synchronous at-a-distance media consumption. When combined, these studies begin to explore a design space regarding the varying ways in which at-a-distance media consumption can be supported and experienced (through music, TV content, augmenting existing TV content for immersion, and immersive VR content), what factors might influence usage and adoption and the implications for supporting communication and telepresence during media consumption

Toward Visualization and Analysis of Traceability Relationships in Distributed and Offshore Software Development Projects

Offshore software development projects provoke new issues to the collaborative endeavor of software development due to their global distribution and involvement of various people, processes, and tools. These problems relate to the geographical distance and the associated time-zone differences; cultural, organizational, and process issues; as well as language problems. However, existing tool support is neither adequate nor grounded in empirical observations. This paper presents two empirical studies of global software development teams and their usage of tools. The results are then used to motivate and inform the construction of more useful software development tools. The focus is on issues that are tool-related but have not yet been solved by existing tools. The two software tools presented as solutions, Ariadne and TraVis, explicitly address yet unresolved issues in global software development and also integrate with prevalent other solutions

Hybrid Course Delivery: Impact on Learning and Assessment

Technology is influencing education, blurring the boundaries of delivery modes. A combination between online and traditional teaching style, the hybrid/blended course, may present a solution with many benefits. This paper provides definitions of the different delivery approaches, and then evaluates four years of data from a course that has been converted from traditional face-to-face delivery, to a hybrid system. It is determined that the revised course, in hybrid delivery mode, is at least as good, if not better, than it previously was

The Spatial Self: Location-Based Identity Performance on Social Media

This is the author's final manuscript. Copyright 2014 SAGE PublicationsAs a growing number of social media platforms now include location information from their users, researchers are confronted with new online representations of individuals, social networks, and the places they inhabit. To better understand these representations and their implications, we introduce the concept of the “spatial self”: a theoretical framework encapsulating the process of online self-presentation based on the display of offline physical activities. Building on previous studies in social science, humanities, and computer and information science, we analyze the ways offline experiences are harnessed and performed online. We first provide an encompassing interdisciplinary survey of research that investigates the relationships between location, information technology, and identity performance. Then, we identify and characterize the spatial self as well as examine its occurrences through three case studies of popular social media sites: Instagram, Facebook, and Foursquare. Finally, we offer possible research directions and methodological considerations for the analysis of geocoded social media data

Designing Mobile Experiences for Collocated Interaction

Many of our everyday social interactions involve mobile devices. Yet, these tend to only provide good support for distributed social interactions. Although much HCI and CSCW research has explored how we might support collocated, face-to-face situations using mobile devices, much of this work exists as isolated exemplars of technical systems or interaction designs. This paper draws on a range of such exemplars to develop a practical design framework intended for guiding the design of new mobile experiences for collocated interaction as well as analysing existing ones. Our framework provides four relational perspectives for designing the complex interplay between: the social situation in which it takes place; the technology used and the mechanics inscribed; the physical environment; and the temporal elements of design. Moreover, each perspective features some core properties, which are highly relevant when designing these systems. As part of presenting the framework we also explain the process of its construction along with practical advice on how to read and apply it